The world of threats to the US is an illusion - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2015/04/11/have-seen-enemies-and-they-weak/Cho9J5Bf9jxIkHKIZvnVTJ/story.html <comment><USER2> I wish that everyone in my country (the USA) would read this article.

War is big business and throughout history war has been the means for the rich to get richer.

Even if we have some economic malaise when the dollar becomes less relevant as the world's reserve currency, we have a lot going for us: geographic isolation and natural resources.

</comment><comment><USER3> This article makes a small case about the military profit complex, but it's also ironic that according to the AP the "Chinese" have hacked their way into all federal employee's information: [http://news.yahoo.com/union-hackers- personnel-data-every-us-...](http://news.yahoo.com/union-hackers-personnel- data-every-us-govt-employee-195701976.html).

So there are some real threats.

<comment><USER4> How is someone in China reading about some Americans a "real" threat? When I think of a real threat, I think of a person with an intent to harm a U.S. resident or citizen, a plan to do it, and the means to launch a plausibly realistic attempt.

<comment><USER5> ...so your personal data being compromised by persons unknown is not something you would deem a problem?

<comment><USER6> It is a problem, but the United States NSA is currently the biggest offender in that department. Let's start out by not doing it to ourselves.

<comment><USER5> The US passively spying on 300,000,000 > China actively spying on [and suppressing] 1,300,000,000. What a wacky world.

<comment><USER6> I was referring to China's efforts to compromise systems in the US, not their (dismal) domestic human-rights record. The point: we shouldn't be collecting and concentrating the private communications of American citizens in a giant data center – it's provided no proven protective value, and is a huge glowing target for foreign espionage (corporate and/or governmental).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Future peace requires taking [Russia's] security concerns seriously rather > than treating the country as an enemy that is always seeking to best us.

The problem with this is that Russia's security 'concerns' cannot be separated from their nefarious geopolitical ambitions. We can't win with Russia, give them an inch and they take a Crimea.

<comment><USER8> But this article is straightforward isolationism, a very old current in American political thought. The implied answer to your question is, 'So what? America is safe, that's all that matters'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think that this reasoning is completely flawed.

Reading this article, I understand that the author's definition of threat is quite extreme. A threat is not something that "has the potential to annihilate" but is rather "a thing that has the potential to inflict damages".

Dismissing any threats that has not a fully destructive potential as "not important" is sloppy, dangerous thinking.

There is two extremes to this spectrum, you will notice that both have a characteristic in common, they fail to differentiate and nuance threats.

From this fallacy, we can classify the two end of the spectrum as:

\- The "paranoid", who genuinely end-up thinking that "the end justify the means" and propagate their hysteria to the rest of the group, effectively becoming the biggest threat to what they were trying protect.

\- The "naive", who dismiss anything that has no fully destructive power as "trivial", effectively allowing threats to turn into actual damages, grow to become "fully destructive" (at which point it is too late) or cause a chain of events leading to destruction of what they were effectively trying to protect as well.

Let's not be fooled for a second by the "alliances" and "historical relationships" between the US and its allies.

Nation-States are engaged in a game for survival which is directly linked to growth and domination. A game-theoretic analogy would be the "non-cooperative" game, defined as "a game where players play independently and where any cooperation must be self-reinforcing".

There is exceptions to that rule but they are such of limited scope and impact that we can safely consider them negligible.

Since "Nation-States" lack a system of belief, they are free from the constraints that Humans self-impose onto themselves. A Nation-State will do anything to further its own interest, they are in essence, cold-blooded machines.

The author of this article is forgetting about the 195 other countries in the world who are also playing this game.

Obviously not all of them have credible chances to become big players but you can bet on the fact that all of them will fight tooth and nail for their part of the pie, no matter what it takes.

<comment><USER10> "Saying that the US has no threats is forgetting about the 195 other countries in the world who are aspiring to be as much powerful as possible."

I believe that this is exactly the way of thinking that is being criticized in the article. Very few of those 195 nations dream of removing the US from the position of world power, and even fewer are capable of it.

<comment><USER5> So are you of the opinion that if the US made an exit from the world stage today, there would be no power struggle?

<comment><USER10> It is hard to tell what you mean by "making an exit", but if it means that the US were to reduce its military spending to a tenth of its current amount for the foreseeable future - yes, I don't think it would hurt the US very much at all.

In fact, the money gained from such an action could be used to strengthen the nation against economic threats which currently are far greater than any military ones.

<comment><USER5> The point i was making is that the US, for all of its abundant faults, is not exceptional. Sitting on top of the pile does not make the pile disappear.

<comment><USER11> If the US withdrew as global police, I would hope the UN would step up the peacekeepers to fill that role. Thats what they are supposed to do at least.

Yes, I know they suck and are incompetent. They only get away with it because they have big brother US to back them up. If they actually had to do their job they might get their act together. Or maybe not?

I still don't see, in the absence of grotesque military spending, anyone going batshit insane with conquest. We still have the nuclear threat to keep people in line. Russia, for example, almost certainly does not fear a ground incursion from any European power or the US for aggressively annexing Ukraine / Georgia. Why would you waste money on that? You can economically cripple them. If they went insane and attacked a first world power they would see the immediate return of the nuclear threat.

And really, total annihilation and mutually assured destruction _should_ be deterrents enough to stop anything radical, while our globalized economic system has bound everyone so much together that you do not need the threat of soldiers to wreck a country. Consider how China is being kept out of all these secret trade agreements because they have "overstepped their bounds" of those with the money and power to influence these negotiations.

That doesn't mean you don't have any military, but you don't need to spend the GDP of Turkey or Saudi Arabia every year on it, or try spreading ideology through imperialism, or have military bases in almost every country on Earth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't the same kind of thinking not just dominant in the US foreign policy, but also the same thing that explains much of it's internal issues?

From militarized police, the massive prison population to the proliferation of fire arms, doesn't it all lead back to seeing the world in terms of "threats"?

</comment><comment><USER13> This is basically correct, but it's shaped by a few historic factors (note I don't necessarily agree with all of these, just putting them out there):

1 - The U.S. was almost constantly engaged in a domestic or near-territorial war of some kind from its founding until quite a few years into the 20th century. [1] During the time period the U.S. massively expanded, strengthened itself by defining borders and internally squashing various kinds of rebellions. Since then, the U.S. has basically been at war continuously. America is, believe it or not, a kind of warrior culture.

2 - The U.S. usually is able to claim some kind of victory out of most of its military endeavors. Thus military engagement is seen as a tempting, low risk, policy tool. The historic level of military success the U.S. enjoys is almost unprecedented in history. By selectively choosing engagements it knows it can win, the U.S. can continue the development of this legend.

3 - Domestically, Americans tend to think of our military actions as generally being benevolent in nature (e.g. stopping communism, fighting nazis, freeing subjugated peoples). The outstanding economic success of many countries who's soil we fought on and then built strong alliances with (Germany, Korea, Japan, France, etc.) feeds into this mythos. The post-war alliances we've formed help to "encourage us" to get involved.

4 - The modern state of the world's powers, an outcome of WWII, is one in which the U.S. is militarily uncontested by any power on the planet. The relatively few conflict deaths post-WW2 [2] seems to imply that U.S. military dominance brings peace, stability and prosperity and helps drive the notion of the _Pax Americana_ [3]

5 - The failures and generally poor outcomes in countries under other major power's influences and policies feeds into this as well. For example, at one point a majority of the land-mass on the planet was engaged in Communism, under Russian control (as the U.S.S.R.) or influence. Despite access to tremendous natural resources (and short lived modernization programs), the Communist countries failed to produce economic successes and were often engaged in tremendously damaging internal conflicts.

6 - Pax Americana is viewed by Americans as a "good thing". Even though Americans don't view themselves as expansionist colonial powers, they view the expansion of the Pax via the export of American culture and influence as a good thing. This implies then that the current state of American dominance is a good thing, and that anything that even looks like it might be vectoring towards threatening that status quo (e.g. belligerent Russia, rising China, trouble on Allied borders etc.) needs to be aggressively halted or stopped.

American policy is generally framed as #6, with 1-5 as a supporting framework. If thought of on purely military terms, American military expenditures and actions can't really be rationalized. If thought of on terms of #6 they make all the sense in the world. There's a lot of self-filtering involved too. Americans ignore the failures and negatives surrounding military action, and the various excesses that come with pouring something like half of the government's discretionary funding into the DoD.

But the illusion of continued threats is one that we've created in order to continue on justifying with what we generally believe is a better world under our influence than the one that existed before.

You can hear most of this echoed when fairly sensible ideas like "maybe Americans should pull out of Europe and let the Europeans, who are economically and technologically able, to deal with defense needs for themselves" are floated. Responses (even from Europeans) are often along the lines of "no, European countries can't be trusted to cooperate well enough" or "remember the last time Europe was left to sort things out?" and so on.

This also ignores entire continents like Africa, where Americans just simply can't figure out what to do at all. Our national notion towards Africa is basically to just ignore the continent and work on Middle-East containment instead. These days when Africa comes up at all, it's usually in terms of growing Chinese influence.

1 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_States)

2 - [https://vimeo.com/128373915](https://vimeo.com/128373915)

3 - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana)

<comment><USER7> > This also ignores entire continents like Africa, where Americans just simply > can't figure out what to do at all. Our national notion towards Africa is > basically to just ignore the continent and work on Middle-East containment > instead.

Squeaky wheel gets the kick. Africa doesn't have a history of ramming planes into buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The largest threat to America is America itself.

For the past decades, America appears to be moving away from principles , objectiveness and liberty.

More and more, we see a 'democracy' ran by delusional ideologies and even blind nationalism.

<comment><USER5> The history of the US is not that rosy. We have always been a nation of criminals, robber barons, and capitalist mercenaries. It was only after WWII that the idea of being a benevolent super power came into being. After that war, the US stopped seizing territory and began to go about forming the structures of cooperative peace.

The question, as i see it, is which is better: small, consistent conflicts lacing the developing sections of the world, or large, sporadic conflicts wrecking the developed sections of the world?

<comment><USER15> In the nuclear age, full-out shooting wars between developed countries are a non-starter. Hence the 45 years of small-scale proxy wars between the U.S. and Soviet Union throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia.

<comment><USER5> The idea that a large scale conflict will inevitably lead to nuclear exchange is so silly. Most nuclear weapons are not strategic, they are tactical. Regardless, no one would nuke the property they are trying to occupy.

The reason their have been almost no real wars since the 1940s is because business interest has taken over control of every western government.

I know people think there is a ton of profit to be made in war, but the damages so heavily outweigh the benefits that i have a hard time believing that is the sole motivation for hawkish policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Germany and Japan were able to become powerful again, post WW2 because they were not even allowed to spend money on any sort of army.

<comment><USER5> ...which they could do because their territorial integrity was guaranteed by a country that spared no expense militarily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The last time the U.S was invaded was when Pancho Villa came from Mexico to the U.S to steal some horses from Texas. In, March 9, of 1916,Pancho Villa entered the U.S to kill some soldier in the city of Columbus and steal some horses, then in the next day Pancho Villa returned to Mexico to brag about it. That was the only time the U.S was actually invaded. Since 1947 the U.S "ministry of war" was renamed to "ministry of defense" and its "budget of war" was renamed to "budget of defense"... the name, is still a mistery to this day. What an irony, those countries that fear to be invaded, are actually the only ones that invade other countries. Regards

<comment><USER5> >War of 1812 was fabricated

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is poorly written. It provides no background or supporting references to bolster its claim. I find it frustrating in the extreme. Threats do not have to be overtly threatening. A person in the room that dislikes you and has a lot of money and time can be just as threatening as a person in the room claiming to have a gun at home and an aversion towards your faith/gender/culture.

I come from a place where people blindly believe the US is the best[sic] nation in the world. Anyone that disagrees is obviously some "egghead/pinko/etc" who can't appreciate the sacrifice of others. This, the opposite extreme, is a s frustrating as the words of the dullard who penned this piece. I confront it constantly in an attempt to represent the middle path. In my years of argument, discussion, and reassessment, i have come to realize that nothing is quite what it seems. To make absolute statements, for or against anything, is to place oneself in an inherently weak position intellectually.

The author shrugs at Russia's expansionist aggression, pointing out their economic weakness as a reason they are no threat to the US. The approach to China and Venezuela is similarly misguided. Threats != weapons. Europe's relative peace since world war 2 is largely because of the US being extremely security minded.

...but who knows. Maybe Russia bullying its neighbors is just as symptom of it being misunderstood. Maybe China steals technology and data because they are just in that adolescent "acting out" phase. Maybe the world is really a nice place and the US is ruining the party for everyone.

:|

<comment><USER18> It is an editorial in the opinion section. agreed references help but ive always assumed words in the opinions section of papers can be regarded as just that

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've come to the conclusion that multiple world governments --working together and against each other-- are attempting and in some cases are able to manipulate the narrative of conversations on the internet to further certain political agendas.

I don't believe most of the crap I hear about teenagers leaving in droves to join ISIS all over the world, this is the red scare all over again. I'm also pretty sure twitter is one of the main social platforms used to manipulate the political/social narrative of the internet. More than half the accounts are probably fake, who knows how many fake "ISIS" accounts there are or even what countries government is making them. I also suspect twitter is being used as some kind of data hub for surveillance because of how fast it caught on in Arab countries and a lot of countries that aren't quite "western", then the western media started to push it in every news broadcast for a while as if anyone in America actually used it.

Surprise surprise! all the terrorists always have twitter accounts. I wouldn't be surprised if the next "home-grown" terrorist has a twitter account.</comment>


The Typography of Code - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hamstu.com/2008/02/03/the-typography-of-code/

<comment><USER2> Despite it being a MSFT product, my favorite fixed-width type is Consolas when coding on a PC.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using some of the proggy fonts[1] for some time now. Nowadays I use the Proggy Square font with bold punctuation, which looks great.

[1] <http://www.proggyfonts.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> I've started using Inconsolata, which is both free and pretty nice. (It has particularly nice parentheses, which I appreciate as a Lisp programmer.)

</comment><comment><USER5> I use DejaVu Sans Mono, which is more or less the same as Bitstream Vera Sans Mono.

</comment><comment><USER6> The code samples identify themselves as PHP, but they appear to be Python.

<comment><USER7> The samples are Python, but they come from a product called PHPRunner. I assume that they interact with PHP rather than consist of PHP.</comment></comment>


RubyMotion Apps Styled with CSS - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixate/beautiful-native-mobile-apps/posts/298226

<comment><USER2> That's odd the first pixate campaign on Kickstarter was for $250k. Did they realize they weren't going to meet it and drop the price?

Didn't think Kickstarter allowed that.

<comment><AUTHOR> See [http://www.thedominoproject.com/2012/07/voting-for-a- winner....](http://www.thedominoproject.com/2012/07/voting-for-a-winner.html)

<comment><USER2> Hey Paul, I'm not opposed to anything you've done but just replying with what I believe the general sentiment is that I'm referring to.

I understand the reasoning. I think the question was more around the idea that KS campaigns are typically viewed as a one shot deal. It's important to pick your rewards and funding goals accordingly. If you pick them incorrectly you blow your shot.

If that's _not_ the case then KS becomes a much less interesting place where people abuse it to raise funds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know anything about RubyMotion or Pixate, but can we also size and position the buttons in the view with CSS?

For example, instead of writing all the UI code in Ruby, could we just add the buttons and labels without specifying a position, size, alignment and so forth and do it all with CSS instead?

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice, not familiar with Pixate, but I wonder if the author has considered making this work with SCSS too :) That'd be pretty bad ass if it could be done fairly easily and would be nice for styling nested layouts.

<comment><USER5> In a different conversation about Pixate (a few days back) I mentioned LESS and SCSS/SASS and I suspect as long as you write your CSS parts to conform with Pixate's standards, your SCSS code should work fine since the pre- processor will compile it down to CSS anyways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So what's the pricing for Pixate?

<comment><USER7> According to their Kickstarter page, MSRP for the Pixate engine is $299. It is included as part of the $69 Kickstarter tier.

[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixate/beautiful- native-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixate/beautiful-native- mobile-apps)</comment></comment>


Blame Silicon Valley for the NSA's data slurp. - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/31/blame_silicon_valley_for_the_nsas_data_slurp_and_what_to_do_about_it/

<comment><AUTHOR> 'Thirty years after the Khmer Rouge declared war on "the Garden of the individual", Silicon Valley was lauding the collective "hive mind" while stealthily dismantling the rights that protect the individual.' A statement at once both ridiculous and true. This article is a pretty good way to provoke discussion about using intellectual property regimes to protect privacy.</comment>


Is Most Life in the Universe Lithophilic? - <AUTHOR> https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/01/11/is-most-life-in-the-universe-lithophilic/ <comment><USER2> From Wikipedia:

"Early data suggest some only engage in cell division once every hundred years. In August 2013 researchers reported evidence of endoliths in the ocean floor, perhaps millions of years old and reproducing only once every 10,000 years.[13] Most of their energy is spent repairing cell damage caused by cosmic rays or racemization, and very little is available for reproduction or growth. It is thought that they weather long ice ages in this fashion, emerging when the temperature in the area warms."

Incredible!

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endolith](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endolith)

<comment><USER3> then some arse-hat species pops up and in the space of an eye blink for these things start destroying their liveable world...

I hope it means we just as rapidly develop the tech to undo/repair that damage.

<comment><USER4> > start destroying their liveable world...

This seems largely unlikely. From what I've gleaned extremophiles are, probably by their very nature, the least likely for us to extinct.

Having said that, we do seem to be having a decent go at messing things up for more complex life, and it's hard to know the downstream / long term consequences.</comment></comment></comment>


In ad-blocking wars, publishers propose a détente - <AUTHOR> http://www.poynter.org/2016/in-ad-blocking-wars-publishers-propose-a-detente/411660/ <comment><USER2> Actually a decent article, but it doesn't take into account things like malvertising, and users' control over their own hardware. Sure, adblocking is done far more often on desktops rather than on mobile: we have more control over the almost-open PC platform than we do over iPhones or other phone hardware. No company is going to make the mistakes IBM made over hardware again.</comment>


John Carmack teaches Physics and Rendering - <AUTHOR> http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2013/10/17/the-guy-who-created-doom-and-quake-teaches-you-physics/

<comment><USER2> I watched this video a few days ago.

I don't have a background in games/graphics at all, but have a background with multivariate calculus and linear algebra.

I thought he went on a little too long at the beginning about physics/history of stuff, but overall I thought that it was a really good introduction to some of the ideas in computer graphics. If you already work with computer graphics regularly you probably won't learn much, but the guy is interesting and one of those obviously immense intellects which are just good to listen to. So yeah. If you already know computer graphics it might be worth a skim just to hear this guy talk - otherwise this seems like a pretty good introduction to the topic (at a conceptual level).</comment>


U.S. Punishes Russia for Election Hacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/us/politics/russia-election-hacking-sanctions.html <comment><USER2> Trump's cavalier response to this is shocking. These are serious allegations. His statement is mind melting on so many levels:

Asked on Wednesday night at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., about reports of the impending sanctions, Mr. Trump said: "I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. We have speed, we have a lot of other things, but I'm not sure we have the kind, the security we need."

<comment><USER3> He is not winning any friends with the non-investor, blue-collar coder crowd with his arrogance that's for sure. I don't think he realizes we and those who follow are the future of manufacturing, the people who actually breath soul into the "automation" Joe J. Miner so desperately fears and lusts after.

<comment><USER4> Whether or not US manufacturing continues upward per prediction, that Joe the Miner isn't going to get those new manufacturing jobs -- his children maybe can, but not him. That Joe the Miner may realise that as Americans, we are truly not in the same boat, and neither are our children. While one American sinks, another sails to millionairedom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whether this is the right course of action or not (which I don't think anyone outside of the government is informed enough to have a valid opinion on), I don't like the idea of an outgoing President making major foreign policy maneuvers in their last month of office, especially with the incoming President not being in agreement.

It's like if George W. Bush had started invading Iran in December of 2008.

<comment><USER6> George H.W. Bush did enter Somalia in December 1992[1].

In this case, Obama's in a tough situation. On paper, he's the President till January 19th. He has to act on the results of the investigation. He can't just sit back and say "well, my days are almost over, so I'll just let the next guy handle it".

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

<comment><USER7> I'm no fan of Obama, but I agree completely. And think your inclusion of Bush 41's actions are on-target.

After January 19th, if Trump feels that any of Obama's actions are inappropriate, he can take steps to undo them. But if time is of the essence, then it is better for the sitting President to take action rather than let a bad situation get worse.

I don't know if this case in particular fits the bill, but if you start hamstringing the incumbent, then you might as well swear in the new President the day after the election.

<comment><USER5> > _But if time is of the essence_ , then it is better for the sitting > President to take action rather than let a bad situation get worse.

Agreed. But is time of the essence?

<comment><USER7> Well, that's why I said that I didn't know if this case fits the bill. That's certainly debatable, at least outside of access to any classified material that supports the assertion that Russia was directly involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am really worried. Worried about the Russian propaganda that is being spread in Norway. Comments sections are filled with anti-US rhetorics by facebook users whom profile looks empty (0 friends, few posts made this year).

Some of the comments are obviously written in other language and translated to Norwegian.

I may have to contact the chief editors to discuss strategies against it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _Mr. Obama decided to expand an executive order that he issued in April 2015, after the Sony hacking. He signed it in Hawaii on Thursday morning, specifically giving himself and his successor the authority to issue travel bans and asset freezes on those who "tamper with, alter, or cause a misappropriation of information, with a purpose or effect of interfering with or undermining election processes or institutions."_

Are there any lawyers here who might explain whether this kind of executive order is unusual? The "giving himself and his successor the authority" part seems, well, undemocratic. Isn't it the Congress (as constrained by the Constitution) that typically gives the executive branch authority to do new things?

<comment><USER5> Without reading the order, my guess is that it lays out an administrative process to issue those travel bans and asset freezes, as opposed to requiring a fresh executive order for each.

The President has wide authority to conduct foreign policy flowing from both the Constitution and various Acts of Congress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's the full statement from the White House, via NPR: [https://twitter.com/NPR/status/814551976935559168](https://twitter.com/NPR/status/814551976935559168)

</comment><comment><USER10> > "...the "Autonomous Non-commercial Organization Professional Association of > Designers of Data Processing Systems," whose lengthy name, American > officials said, was cover for a group that provided specialized training for > the hacking."

Holy cow, now that's a company name, although it appears they go by ANO PO KSI. And their website looks like a website for a shell company in a 1997 Hollywood movie:

[http://www.poksi.ru/homeeng.html](http://www.poksi.ru/homeeng.html)

<comment><USER11> I see nothing unusual about their website. It looks like the sites for 5,000,000 other companies that don't sell things online.

<comment><USER10> There's millions of tech companies that do $20 million a year in revenue (per Hoover's) with a website like that?

<comment><USER11> There are many companies that do much more in revenue with sites like that, yes.

<comment><USER12> Can you link a couple? This seems hard to believe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > a group that provided special training

Didn't Podesta get "hacked" through a simple spear phishing email?

Edit: Found the Homeland Security document outlining the payload it came with. [https://www.us- cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR...](https://www.us- cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> Zerohedge has the actual list of individuals and organizations being sanctioned: [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-29/us-announces- sancti...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-29/us-announces-sanctions- against-russia-expels-35-diplomats-retaliation-election-hacki)

<comment><USER8> there is something sketchy with the list.

BOGACHEV, Evgeniy Mikhaylovich (a.k.a. BOGACHEV, Evgeniy Mikhailovich; a.k.a. "Lastik"; a.k.a. "lucky12345";

this is no other than the infamous Zeus/p2p-zeus malware writer. He was FBI wanted in 2014 I think. So he is still active and US has identified him??

<comment><USER8> if anyone else is interested, I can tell you that back in the p2p-zeus days Slavik/lucky12345/pollingsoon implemented a secret spy functionality in the malware that only he knew of. It scanned files and mails for text related to georgia (during russia-georgia conflict). It also scanned for specific words on ukraine, turkey bots.

So one can assume he was already partly working for russian intelligence back then.

Given he hasnt been caught yet its probable that Russian government is protecting him in exchange for more "work"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> You would expect more. There's no chance at more happening when for the last 8 years the republicans have allowed nothing and they benefitted from the hacks.

<comment><USER16> Edit: not going to get into politics :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't help but wonder: if 35 were identified as intelligence operatives, why did the US gov't wait until now to eject them?

I can appreciate the need to perhaps keep a few known entities around to feed bogus information, but allowing that many to just hang out seems like a recipe for trouble. Unless this happens routinely, in which case it likely has nothing to do with this "punishment".

</comment><comment><USER8> more technical details emerge: [https://www.us- cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR...](https://www.us- cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER17> I find it interesting they keep pushing "election hacking" which is not the case. The DNC was hacked, which is vastly different from the "election" being hacked.

Also the hack happened a long time before the election.

Edit: If you downvoted please correct me and show evidence of the election being hacked.

<comment><USER15> We don't know the full specs yet as they have not been declassified and divulged. If one part of a two party election benefits from something the other part loses and vice versa. That's tampering and foreign entities shouldn't be doing it.

<comment><USER18> > That's tampering and foreign entities shouldn't be doing it.

Surely you mean "That's tampering and foreign entities shouldn't be doing it _to us_". Because the US does that all the time.

<comment><USER15> We shouldn't be doing that either but I left it out. Two wrongs don't make a right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How about a focus on the content of emails revealed? More to explore there.

<comment><USER7> We will have to wait for historians to provide a more detailed and (hopefully) objective review of their contents in the decades to come.

Look how long it took for Deep Throat of the Watergate scandal to be identified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's funny how the US is getting its panties in a bunch over the hacking, when they (i.e., we, as I'm a USC) themselves have been doing this all over the world for many decades.</comment>


Adobe surrenders to Jobs, builds Flash alternative - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/08/adobe-quietly-surrenders-steve-jobs-builds-flash-alternative/40669/

<comment><USER2> While Apple's decision to not include Flash in IOS devices arguably accelerated its demise, Flash is going to be obsoleted by HTML5 at some time in the future anyway. So I wouldn't put it this way.

Flash going away is beneficial for Adobe as well, as they'll have one less cross-platform virtual machine to maintain that they distribute for free anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> Adobe is in the business of making money from developer tools. Flash gave them an advantage as it was proprietary and had a large installed base, and there really was very little by the way of competition if you wanted a simple way to implement media in a webpage.

HTML5 and specifically canvas, video and to a lesser extent audio means that Flash is no longer the only solution.

However, is anybody else making tools for generating canvas animation and interaction tools? that is where Adobe makes it's money, so as long as they've got the best tool for the job, this won't be any financial change for them.</comment>


Indoor carbon dioxide levels could be a health hazard - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/08/indoor-carbon-dioxide-levels-could-be-a-health-hazard-scientists-warn <comment><USER2> The nature article is a fascinating read [1]. Not only is there a health risk, but there seems to be strong evidence that it effects our cognitive abilities. This should be top priority for office workers, and managers to maintain high productivity. Start monitoring CO2 level such that they do not go beyond 700 for too long. Currently, I'm working on in an office with 13 people in little over 20m2. Yeah, we are scrappy, but I think this might the reason that we are all so tired at the end of the day. CO2 levels might be out of control.

[1] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0323-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-019-0323-1)

</comment><comment><USER3> Conveniently not mentioned is this article is the fact that normal CO2 concentrations in human lungs are about 40,000ppm - or about 100x higher than current background levels, and many times higher than the elevated levels mentioned in this article. And I don't know about you, but when I'm in a crowded room what eventually makes me tired and uncomfortable is the heat and humidity from all those bodies. Turn on the AC (which reduces both heat and humidity) and I will be feeling much better in short order.

<comment><USER4> Is the AC not also helping to circulate the air, removing some of the CO2?

<comment><USER3> It would depend on the situation. For a single room system, generally no; for a multi-room system, generally yes if the other rooms are empty or at least relatively less crowded than the one you're in. That is, I wouldn't expect the AC to really remove any CO2; it might redistribute it, though.

<comment><USER5> The exhaust for ACs are generally outside the room, so there is an airflow..

<comment><USER3> Heat dumping is done outside the room, of course, but that's a separate airflow, one that's generally disconnected from the room. The cool AC flow itself is usually a closed cycle of some sort. You would be kind of defeating the whole purpose of trying to cool and dehumidify the air if you did otherwise, plus your AC system might have to run continuously in order to get anything done. There will always be some leakage, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When constructing a home office, I tried to calculate the ventilation-airflow requirements to keep the office CO2 below problematic levels. IIRC, I assumed two persons occupying a 1200 ft^3 space, with replacement air coming from the rest of my house.

I'm not sure my math was correct, but the required airflow rate was surprisingly high, _maybe_ in the ballpark of 100 cfm? Well above the ASHRAE 62-89 recommendation of >= 20 cfm/person.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone know if there is a decent and affordable test kit for bedroom or small office?

<comment><USER8> [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FYWU2IS/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FYWU2IS/)

It works well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> With enough climate change, everyone will breathe 800 ppm, and then everyone's cognition will be impaired.

</comment><comment><USER8> Buy and use a CO2 meter from Amazon or elsewhere.</comment>


NASA's ten coding commandments - <AUTHOR> https://jaxenter.com/power-ten-nasas-coding-commandments-114124.html

<comment><USER2> No function pointers? Then how are tasks/threads going to get spawned?

I also think that ellepsis in preprocessor statements can be valuable for debug log messages that can be turned on or off at compile time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have to say I like these rules... I may have to adopt many of them for my coding habits.</comment>


I was looking up Facebook on Alexa, and I came across this... - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/IWTaA.png

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the text in case anyone wants to search for it online. I've had no success. I'm thinking it's from a movie.

      About I am the person Ramiro dis on the air (facebook.com):
      Everyone it's time for me to come out and let you know I am
      the one who Ramiro dis on the air. Not Crazy Ace. He tell
      people that Crazy Ace and I am one person. As Ramiro has
      anyone been calling in and playing the dis. To me I wanted
      him to see how I felt. All you had to say I don't have slam
      jam by Crazy Ace but you took it to far. Crazy Ace was
      trying to make has life a litter better and you just made a
      fool out out of your radio station. I will not good to your
      level. I am a better man then that. The only way I will
      Stop is you bring me to the station and put me on the air
      and you can tell everyone what a big fool you and your
      staff was. And then you can say how sorry you are and you
      will not hurt any one else. That's what real men do. Not
      the kid game you played.</comment>


Mark Cuban:  What Business is Wall Street in? - <AUTHOR> http://blogmaverick.com/2011/08/08/what-business-is-wall-street-in-2/ <comment><USER3> Simple solution. Penny a share transfer tax for all trades. Corresponding amounts on bonds and other instruments. Watch the amazing reduction in volume and volatility. Then watch the return to focus on value trading.

Like that idea? Next, open up public companies books. Not in the formal but phony SEC/GAAP way. No, I mean realtime journal entries. I will do the accounting myself. You can too. Link the trading tax to how often the company updates its numbers. Want more liquidity for your stock? Give more information.

Still on board? Ok, now if a company releases forecasts, they must release the model they used to generate the forecast. Yes, the code. Doesn't matter how simple or complex. Bullshit forecasts will be self-evident. Data for better ones will be more available.

Now all those things would make finance productive again by putting the focus back on capital allocation and moving it away from trading, speculation and lies. Make regulators focus on enforcing real transparency, since they don't know how to regulate behavior. This takes away the upside from the regulator/industry revolving door. It would be a great world for analysts and investors.

In olden days (1980) all this would have been technically infeasible. Now we have the computing power to handle it.

<comment><USER4> _Penny a share transfer tax for all trades._

What's a "share"? Equities are one of many financial markets, but not the only one and not necessarily the most important. People trade bonds, treasuries, foreign currencies, commodities, interest rates and various derivatives on top of these securities: equity options, FX options, interest rate swap options, FX forwards, etc., etc. How would you tax options contracts? Tax when exercised? But you wanted it to be a trade tax, so should it be a dollar per standard contract?

Your model is too simple and does not reflect the reality of the financial markets. And anyway, if there's one thing banks are great about, it's passing on the fees to their clients. A one cent per-share transfer tax doesn't mean Wall Street is out of business. It means you won't have enough money in your 401k to retire.

 _Still on board? Ok, now if a company releases forecasts, they must release the model they used to generate the forecast. Yes, the code. Doesn't matter how simple or complex. Bullshit forecasts will be self-evident. Data for better ones will be more available._

Why do companies have to have "a model"? You wouldn't ask da Vinci for the "code" behind the Mona Lisa; why should accounting be automatically less creative than painting? All regulations will do is force companies to get money from source other than a public offering -- private investment, bond issues, etc.

Anyway, I'm not saying that taxing trades is a bad idea, I'm saying that your idea doesn't make much sense in the real world. Communism is a good idea. On paper.

<comment><USER5> I'm with you aside from this: "why should accounting be automatically less creative than painting?"

I'm sure you don't mean what it looks like, but I can't imagine what that could mean.

<comment><USER4> Why can't your "gut" be involved in forecasting the success of your company? People often come up with the right answer without knowing how; making them write down every assumption they made while coming up with an answer would make coming up with an answer impossible.

The real world is not 9th grade math.

<comment><USER5> People often come up with the wrong answer without knowing how, too. They just forget about those times.

It's been well documented— your perception of the "real world" is heavily distorted. That's why we _have math_ — to figure out the right answer despite human biases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _It is getting increasingly difficult to just invest in companies you believe in._

This is a key point, and he doesn't justify it at all. Are value investors negatively affected by someone making a penny when the value investor makes a $1000 trade? Or are they positively affected by liquidity? He is either unaware that it's a controversy with plenty of history, or he prefers to gloss over it. He seems bothered by the fact that there's a lot going on besides simple value investing, as if any other activity _must_ be detrimental to the operation of the market. He seems to be implying that the other activities on Wall Street are preventing stock values from reflecting investors' rational estimates of the value of the underlying businesses. _Seems_ to be, I can't be entirely sure. If that's his point, he needs to muster some evidence, because plenty of people claim the opposite.

 _Individual investors and the funds that just invest in stocks and bonds are not going to crash the market._

Individual investors are very much among those who panic and sell when the market goes down, or who establish stop-loss orders with their brokers that cause market losses to irrationally cascade. Plenty of individual investors are eager to turn into gold bugs at the faintest whiff of a downturn. If amateur investors or stock analysts are better at value investing than "traders", they should eat the traders' lunch when the market panics. If it's the other way around, then the traders aren't the ones crashing the market.

<comment><USER7> He also seems to miss the point that if it is more difficult to invest in value companies, it's because the market is doing a better job of value investing.

I.e., once upon a time, Promising Tech, Inc. might have been a great value play. This means that the stock price of PT was too low. In today's market, the stock price of PT is set at a level where you don't know whether to buy or short - that is to say, the stock price of PT is just right. PT is getting exactly as much money as they deserve.

Sounds like Cuban is just annoyed that Wall St. is doing a better job than he is.

<comment><USER8> Are you saying that the Efficient Market Theory (EMT) is correct?

The market is mostly efficient, but there are still many efficiencies that can be exploited by people who do their homework and are ready to stick around through volatility and/or wait for catalysts.

<comment><USER7> I'm saying that if Cuban is correct, the market is closer to efficient than it was before and Wall St. is doing a better job than it used to.

<comment><USER8> I kind of doubt it. Just in the past decade we've had the tech bubble, the housing bubble, and now this massive correction based mostly on panic.

The market is mostly controlled by greed and fear, as always, and that makes it overshoot in both directions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's my response from the HN discussion a year ago [0]:

\-----

If Mark Cuban thinks the market is now all about exotic derivatives rather than buying stock in companies you believe in, he's listening to the wrong people. Commission-based brokers talk about exotic derivatives; Warren Buffet still talks about buy-and-hold.

The biggest wins and losses in day trading will come from exotic derivatives simply by their nature: they're highly leveraged bets. Those firms that create the vehicles to make those bets aren't "hackers", they're "Vegas". You ask for a bet against the housing market or for cattle, they set up a structure to let you make that bet, and you play the odds -- and you might beat the other betters in the market over the short term, but it's the house (taking its percentage off the top) that always wins long term. Mark Cuban is right to be uncomfortable playing that game.

Meanwhile, people like Warren Buffet continue to look for healthy companies that are underpriced and buy into them for the long term. Day-to-day the market might be driven by short-term bets, but over the course of 3 decades it's still driven by the fundamental health of companies. If anything, those who care about _"the performance of specific companies and their returns"_ benefit from the fact that occasionally, as a result of day traders' bets, healthy companies' stocks get sold at bargain prices.

If you try to play Vegas' game, you'll probably get burned. But if you stand back, watch the game, and buy when their game creates a bargain price on good long-term stocks, you stand to get very solid returns. \-----

[0] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1332422>

<comment><USER10> What I don't understand is: why doesn't evolution weed out the Vegas types? Where does the steady new influx of money come from? Or was it just the housing bubble that provided the money (in the end even tapping into retirement funds of iceland)?

Maybe now we have reached a point where most Vegas types will be eliminated. Perhaps not a bad thing? Except they are probably just poor individuals who were too lazy to think about finances for themselves. The first thing I learned about investing is "don't invest in anything you don't understand", which pretty much excludes complicated investments constructs, and is not that hard to digest.

But what would be the solution? Forbidding "gambling" to individuals would possibly result in communism, as it would imply the state would have to dictate the investments.

<comment><USER11> > What I don't understand is: why doesn't evolution weed out the Vegas types?

People have short memories.

Seriously, that's the answer.

<comment><USER12> Because USG bails them out when it blows up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Being a private investor, I agree a lot with what Cuban is saying.

Strangely enough Australia, which Cuban suggests he's been investing in, has a few investor friendly (or trader unfriendly) regulations built in.

1\. Hold a stock for over a year and capital gains tax is halved.

2\. Tax (franking) credits are given out when dividends are paid. This stops double-taxing and encourages companies to pay dividends and investors to demand them.

3\. You must hold a stock for 45 days to take advantage of the franking credits if you accumulate more than $5k worth.

<comment><USER14> That's a rose-tinted view. All of the things you list as investor-friendly involve exceptions whereby the government fails to swipe money from you.

The effect of policies that tax most investment scenarios is to discourage investment because it reduces your options. Consider this situation: you think that the drop in the ASX is unjustified and want to speculate on this. You're discouraged from doing it: even if you pick it right and provide liquidity when the market is dropping, they'll tax your upside when you to exit. That is, unless they sit on it for those periods, which discourages the first interaction because on that kind of trade you're not necessarily going to want liquidity tied up for a long period.

You get all the risk, but in addition the government eats into your upside.

A quirk of the Australian arrangement - non-residents aren't subject to capital gains tax. This puts them in a better position to supply liquidity in opportunity times, which some people consider the current market to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "...no capital gains tax on any shares of stock (private or public company) held for 5 years or more, and no tax on dividends paid to shareholders who have held stock in the company for more than 5 years."

Wow. That would change Wall Street in a hurry. I don't know the full macro economic effect this would have on our system but I know the effect it would have on my personal investment.

"And solutions won't come from bureaucrats trying to prevent the traders from hacking the system."

This is obvious to anyone... except lawmakers unfortunately.

Damn. I think of Mark Cuban as a one hit wonder from the golden ages who freaks out at basketball games but this article was pretty damn intriguing.

<comment><USER16> I really wish this wasn't considered ground breaking. The same has been spoken of CEO compensation vesting rather than guaranteed compensation packages.

The idea of separating measured performance from compensation is a joke.

<comment><USER17> What metric could you come up with that wouldn't be gamed? Other than say, overachieving profit targets. The CEO has a lot of latitude to screw the company for their benefit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Be-The-Water I think he is right but the biggest issue is that Wall Street has become solely a place for 'transfer of wealth'. They do not care about value or know what it is, i.e. people like Warren Buffet stepping in recognizing value and investing when the price does not match the value.

But I think the biggest problem is the market is so huge and the more money you feed it the more irrational it gets, doesn't matter wether algorithms or humans are doing the trading.

Irrational trading creates bubbles and they gamble value away until the bubble burst. And even after the bubble burst its just a reset to the market.

I do not know where it is headed but I think one day countries will realize that they were better off with out mr.market because when the value companies build are traded away and in turn the middle class/country suffers, wall street walks away with the money, i.e. the house always wins in the end.

</comment><comment><USER18> _It is getting increasingly difficult to just invest in companies you believe in._

Uh, I think it goes:

Buy stocks when it's cheap in comparison to your valuation metric and hold. Collect dividends, or if the stock becomes too overvalued, sell for profit. Start from beginning.

What did I miss?

<comment><USER19> You missed the part where creating that valuation metric is becoming harder and harder due to an increasingly chaotic and fast-moving market.

<comment><USER6> If you're just trying to predict how a stock's price will change in the next couple of weeks or months under whatever market conditions happen to prevail over that time period, that's speculation. That's what the vast majority of individual investors engage in -- "I think the price of this stock will go up, so I'm going to buy it." Arguing that speculation is hard in a chaotic market gets no sympathy. Actual value investing means you think you have an idea of what shares in a particular company are worth, plus faith that the market price of a stock will reflect that underlying value over the long term. Arguing that value investing is affected requires arguing that market chaos has the power to prevent market prices from reflecting underlying value over the long haul. That's a pretty big claim and requires some justification.

<comment><USER20> Doesn't gold behave that way? Market forces prevent gold from reflecting the value of using gold for jewelry or industry or whatever else other than playing the market. It seems like an unexceptional claim that there are other financial instruments that are similar.

<comment><USER6> Gold isn't a good example of any market principle because of its historical and symbolic significance. There's a reason the term "gold bug" exists but not "wheat bug", and there's a reason it was a perfect match for Glenn Beck's theatrics. Who hasn't had a conversation in a bar about the price of gold? Who _has_ had a conversation in a bar about the price of sugar or aluminum? Gold is a magnet for all kinds of emotion, from paranoia to get-rich-quick mania.

<comment><USER20> Gold is the longest term example I can think of, but it's hard to believe that the stock market game is not a significant percentage of the price of AAPL and that it's solely fundamentals. Stocks in general get that same goldbug enthusiasm when people plan for retirement - buying stocks is partly based on fundamentals, but partly an act of faith in the game.

Are you asserting that almost everything is priced according to fundamentals over the long term, with the single exception of gold?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> At a very basic level, I don't understand the stock market. A private company can raise capital through an IPO. But what are the investors _really_ buying? The company might pay a dividend, but many don't. Investors can purportedly elect the board of directors, but in reality, few investors have any influence. So what (liquid) investment have the shareholders bought that is actually appreciating in value?

<comment><USER22> The fact that most companies don't pay a dividend is really a tax hack. Before 1980, most companies did pay dividends.

When the tax rate on capital gains (now 20%) dropped far below that for dividends (30%+), companies realized they could spend the same amount of money buying back shares. This should drive up the share price by the same amount as an issued dividend (do the math). The difference is that investors can sell shares and only pay 20% instead of 30%+.

<comment><USER23> "Qualified dividends" are taxed as long-term capital gains, or not taxed at all if you're in the 15% or 10% bracket: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_dividend>. Although apparently the reduced rates will expire in 2012 unless they're extended again.

<comment><USER24> Not to mentioned that this only started in 2003, which was of course too late.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > To traders, whether day traders or high frequency or somewhere in between, > Wall Street has nothing to do with creating capital for businesses, its > original goal. Wall Street is a platform. It's a platform to be exploited by > every technological and intellectual means possible.

Just because the day to day work of traders on Wall Street has been abstracted away from it's original intention doesn't mean that it doesn't continue to serve that function. When working in any large system, your focus can be absorbed by whatever smaller task you are working on, and you can loose sight of what your piece of the puzzle does. When working on a software team of many hundreds of developers, it's easily possible that the code you are working on is not at all specific to the problem you're solving. That doesn't mean that your work isn't helping to solve the problem.

The financial system is very complex, and I won't pretend to have the expertise or knowledge to explicitly explain the service that high frequency traders, for example, are providing. The way Wall Street currently operates might not be the most efficient system for allocating capital. But I don't think that you can immediately write off modern trading on the basis that it doesn't directly deal with the original purpose of Wall Street.

</comment><comment><USER26> Remember your roots, Cuban!

[http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/05/magazine/the-idled- workaho...](http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/05/magazine/the-idled- workaholic.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't believe that Wall Street is well-intentioned in 99.5% of its actions, but still Wall Street creates capital for business: when a company goes through its motions to file and launch an IPO, the banks are the ones who commit to finding X investor dollars. It's easy to ignore the difficulties of that process, given the glut of VC firms champing at the bit to flood the next startup with cash, but it still plays a role.

<comment><USER28> The difference between Wall Street today and a century ago is the availability of capital. A century ago capital was much more scarce and was mostly held by wealthy private (mostly European) individuals. The stock market was one of the few ways for American companies connect with those people and fund expansion.

Capital is anything but scarce today. Where a century ago the vast majority of people bought savings bonds, if they were wealthy enough to save anything, today the majority of adults need to own stock to fund their retirement. (Itself a novel concept) In addition, vast amounts of capital are held by private equity groups, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, etc - <USER2> chasing the few opportunities for outsized returns.

At some point we reached an inflection point where the need of capital to obtain a return exceeded the demand for capital. Since then the overriding goal of the financial industry has been to obtain those returns by taking them from another player. The original function of providing capital for corporate expansion is almost irrelevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The exchanges operate for the benefit of the listed companies. NASDAQ and NYSE can compete on features and trading rules. Leaving aside the problem of company officers trying to screw the stockholders (I'm not a fan of stock classes that give different voting rights), companies will list wherever the rules give the highest value to their current shareholders. And the highest value to the shareholders is provided by the market with the parasitic HFTs.

I don't understand. I though Mark Cuban was a fairly sophisticated investor, but he seems to be marveling that Australia taxes short term capital as ordinary income and LTCG at a lower rate, which is of course exactly what the US does.

<comment><USER30> What you describe applies to investors. He's "marvelling" over the parallel tax system for traders where capital income is treated as revenue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's odd to me that he thinks Wall Street was ever in the business of "creating capital for business". The only thing that can create capital is producing more than you consume and saving the difference. Now I have nothing against trading, speculating, or whatever else most people on Wall Street do. However, I think fractional reserve banking, which creates new money, is an extremely destructive practice equivalent to counterfeiting. Presumably it's fractional reserve banking that he thinks "creates capital". I recently gave a highly upvoted description of why fractional reserve banks are a scam here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2844528>

It's a myth that banks create capital by employing fractional reserves. All they do is take purchasing power from some people, give it to themselves, and then charge a toll (interest) to the people they loan it to. It's unethical and it should be illegal. Unfortunately this isn't going to change until people stop believing the myth that printing new money is the same as creating capital.

<comment><USER32> > _The only thing that can create capital is producing more than you consume > and saving the difference_

Here are a few ways to create capital without producing anything:

1) Buy wholesale, sell retail

2) Buy in area A, sell for more in area B.

3) Buy all of product X, create a monopoly, sell at whatever price you want

4) Buy product X, hold until price goes up (or manipulate the price), sell

5) Steal

<comment><USER31> Stealing doesn't create capital. It moves it. Your points 3 and 4 also indicate you don't seem to understand the difference between creating capital and moving it.

As for buying and selling stuff for a profit, you may not be producing stuff with your own hands, but you are enabling more production to occur.

<comment><USER32> By that "logic" the only way to produce capital is to print money. Everything else is moving it.

<comment><USER33> Or to borrow it from a bank. See "The Mystery of Banking".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> HFTs and hedge funds are very different entities. If you want to blame someone for man-made crashes, blame the people with large capital outlays, who are forced to unwind their positions when the equity goes down (or up) enough, thus further exacerbating the movement.

</comment><comment><USER35> Cuban's tl;dr point is that Wall Street has become a simulacrum. Now go read Baudrillard.

</comment><comment><USER36> Govt will not impose new taxes. HNIs and Corporations are bullying Govt that they'll _permanently_ move their businesses to low cost countries.

</comment><comment><USER37> Wall street just followed a general theme among banks. Once upon a time they were institutions built to control capital flow, from where it was available to where it was needed, to provide some social value by allowing enterprises to thrive. But apparently the credit interest was not a big enough margin, so they decided to do all kinds of other shit, investment banking was born. Which mostly makes rich people richer, without any kind of social benefit.

Wall Street just followed that model.

</comment><comment><USER38> Arguably, they're in the business of making money (and nothing else).

</comment><comment><USER39> I don't mean to praise wall street but Mark Cuban made his initial cash from stock options the same things the people on wall street trade. So he knows very well what businesses they are in.. They made him rich!

</comment><comment><USER40> They aren't "hackers", they're engineers

<comment><USER28> Speaking as an engineer, no one in the financial industry remotely qualifies as an engineer. A real engineer applies physical laws to create a product with some certainty of functioning properly. Wall street 'engineers' create products that don't obey physical laws - and on a theoretical level, probably _can't_ , since their very existence changes the rules of the market. The financial crisis also demonstrated that even the people creating these instruments don't understand them, much less the customers... and none of them particularly care if spectacular failures results, as long as they aren't the ones left holding the bag.

<comment><USER41> That would also apply to software engineers. What physical laws do they apply?

<comment><USER28> Most/all people who call themselves software engineers are not engineers. I'm not convinced that software engineering itself is actually a field of engineering, for that very reason. At most universities, software engineering is just a weak-sauce mashup of basic engineering classes, computer engineering, and compsci. I don't believe there is any agreement about the basic principles of software construction.

Just because people call themselves software engineers and schools teach it as a discrete program, doesn't make them true engineers. There are plenty of schools that offer 'financial engineering' programs. IMO, programmers have a lot more in common with traditional artisan trades than engineering. They call themselves 'software engineers' because skilled technical workers prefer to associate with their cultural equals in an established white-collar profession than blue-collar craftsmen.

<comment><USER42> I disagree, by definition in most jurisdictions, being an Engineer is being accredited by the local Engineering body. In Canada the Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board [1] accredits undergraduate programs that teach the field of Software Engineering. I attend such a program at the University of Waterloo [2][3]. After I graduate I can write the exams offered by Professional Engineers Ontario [4]. I think this makes Software Engineering a field of Engineering.

In regards to what is taught at universities, my program involves courses on Engineering Design, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, but it also has classes on what constitutes Object-Oriented design, HCI, etc. I think those courses are more than enough to teach students on the basic principles of software construction.

Also, what do you define the "basic principles of software construction" to be?

[1] <http://www.engineerscanada.ca/e/index.cfm> [2] <http://uwaterloo.ca/> [3] <http://www.softeng.uwaterloo.ca/> [4] <http://www.peo.on.ca/>

<comment><USER28> I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't see accreditation of engineering programs as proof that software engineering is a legitimate field of engineering.

The problem for me is that there don't seem to be any basic principles of software construction. Most programs just teach a selection of software development fad methodologies. A decade ago, most programs taught some variation of waterfall development. Now they tend to teach some variation of agile development. As far as I can tell, there's no scholarship to support one method over the other - it's pure fashion and industry demand. (The decline of academic research on software construction methods since the 80s is another problem) Look at software engineering programs in another ten years and I'm sure you'll see a different mix of classes emphasizing the business trends of the day.

In comparison, you could look at the curriculum for almost any electrical engineering program from thirty years ago and you would see almost the same classes as a modern program: circuit theory, E&M, electric machines, control, communication systems, etc. The only significant difference would be the addition of courses on software and digital electronics.

<comment><USER43> Interestingly enough, the wiki for Engineering uses the following:

 _Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of people._ (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering>)

By using art, it would indicate that process is not necessarily needed for something to be classified as engineering. The fact that software engineers do use mathematical concepts (similar to how a civil, mechanical, or chemical engineer does) to build systems would make it an engineering discipline.

Disclaimer: I am a software engineer and I don't look at myself as any more or less of an engineer as any others.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hydrocephalus and Intelligence: The Hollow Men - <AUTHOR> https://www.gwern.net/Hydrocephalus <comment><USER2> Two mental engagements with hydrocephalus in one week for me (an indirect contact suffers, has a shunt venting surplus fluids out of the brain)

This article reminded me of Luria "the man with a shattered world" because of the influence of brain trauma on thinking about consciousness, identity, theory of mind.</comment>


A comprehensive survey of Sparse Representations [pdf] - alok-g http://www.escience.cn/system/file?fileId=89981 <comment> alok-g Information Source: [http://www.escience.cn/people/guijie/Publication.html](http://www.escience.cn/people/guijie/Publication.html)

Includes Matlab code.</comment>


Don't Move to Denver - <AUTHOR> https://growthcompound.com/2020/07/16/dont-move-to-denver/ <comment><USER2> I live in Denver, I chose to live here, and I have much better opportunities than if I had stayed where I was before. I considered SF, and like the article suggests, that might have been a better career move.

If people want the best opportunity for their careers, they should move wherever that is. But not everyone is focused solely on making the most money, impact, or anything else that comes with a career. I moved here partially for my career, but also because I wanted to explore the outdoors, spend time outside in nature, take photos, and challenge myself physically while doing so. I don't think a big city would have provided that for me.

I lived in NYC for a short period while I worked in the banking industry. It was great for my career, but I wasn't happy. I figured the same thing would happen if I moved to SF. I don't like big cities, I like tech, and I like doing things outdoors for fun. Denver allowed me to do that. SLC and Montana also would have fit the bill, but my SO did not approve.

My point is that people should go where they think they will find happiness. What happiness means to each of us is different. But I can say that I am truly happy living where I do, and I don't ever plan on leaving the metro where I live now.

Edit: The author only took into account cost of living and career opportunities, but not the individual that was making the decision and what matters to them. Which seems a bit narrow minded to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem is that the article tries to mix two very different concepts: working remote and working outside of the Bay Area. And makes it look that you can either work onsite in the bay or remote outside the bay.

And most of the point the author gives are about how onsite work is better than remote work.

If you agree with his views, there still is an elephant in the room : hundreds of companies will hire you for onsite work outside of the Bay Area. And you can get a great career there.

So by all means: move to Denver if you want to go there. The bay is not the only place on earth you can get a great career, interesting jobs and meet great people.

</comment><comment><USER4> I moved to Denver in 1986. I've had good career advancement in 2 industries (defence and computer programming) over the years. Denver has it's oddities, but the weather is actually far better than people say, and there's very few biting insects.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The permanent shift to Remote Work is overhyped. The Bay Area is not losing its crown because of COVID.</comment>


Facebook suggests I "reconnect" with a dead friend - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2010/07/11/iThinkGuyWouldHaveEnjoyedT.html <comment><USER2> You know, software developers know EXACTLY why facebook is recommending dead friends. Yes, almost all of us KNOW that the algorithm has absolutely no way of knowing that dude is dead. We also understand exactly why the trigger "he is not posting much" works.

But for whatever reason, when someone mentions something like this, we pretend we don't know the algorithms behind it. Dudes, you know it's no facebook conspiracy - they are just using some standard algorithms you understand pretty well, so let's not pretend like it's some special thing.

If their algorithms somehow parsed the RIP on his wall and stopped suggesting him, then THAT would be special.

<comment><USER3> Yes, we know how it works. Someone was looking at what happens in the common case and didn't think of this edge case. It's a reminder that social situations are complex and though we try, it's impossible to think of every edge case.

That's why you need a way for people to report bugs to you, a way to quickly disable features that aren't working, and a process to fix them.

<comment><USER4> >It's a reminder that social situations are complex and though we try, it's impossible to think of every edge case.

If they implement a tag to show someone has died what are they going to do about the zombie apocalypse/second coming?

Edge cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Imagine if there was a method of notifying facebook that members are dead. Now imagine the sheer insanity that would result from random people 'deadifying' their friends as a practical joke. Even if it was 'verified' by humans at some point, there would still be error and it would be a nightmare.

Getting told to 'reconnect' with a dead friend can be mildly traumatic. Finding out that your friend is dead when they're really not doesn't sound like a better scenario.

<comment><USER6> That's exactly what you can do - I had to last year for a friend,

see:

[http://www.facebook.com/#!/help/contact.php?show_form=deceas...](http://www.facebook.com/#!/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased)

<comment><USER7> Does it notify their friends? eg "XXXXX has regrettably died" :/

<comment><USER6> Not that I was aware of, it just closes most of their information off, but leaves photos and their wall up so people can leave condolence messages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You can't really blame facebook for sending messages like these when they have no idea what's happened to him.

The simple solution is to let them know: [http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=842#!/help/contact.php?sh...](http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=842#!/help/contact.php?show_form=deceased)

<comment><USER9> But you can blame them for sending out "reconnect" messages in the first place.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, it's horrible verbiage, plus it's really rather self-serving on Facebook's part.

Really this is "we noticed this user has stopped using Facebook, please trigger an action so we can spam their email to remind them that we exist." It's not about helping the user, they don't send these types of things for users who are active on Facebook otherwise, but not directly interacting with you.

"Reconnect" to a dead friend is pretty worst case, but it's also insulting to be told to "reconnect with Bob" when you go drinking with Bob every week. Facebook has incredible hubris to think that if two people aren't interacting on Facebook, it means they aren't interacting at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had a glorious day last year where linked in recommended a friend who had committed suicide a few days earlier AND the person who many years earlier had shot and killed a couple of my friends. I wonder what the odds on not 1 but 2 at the same time are...

</comment><comment><USER12> It really is a growing problem for companies like facebook. We've estimated that over 285k US facebook users will pass away this year and closer to 1.25m worldwide.

Here's another good link about how to delete and memorialize facebook accounts: [http://blog.entrustet.com/2010/03/29/how-to-permanently- dele...](http://blog.entrustet.com/2010/03/29/how-to-permanently-dele..).

I don't think its something that Facebook can fix with code. The social security administration has a good database of US deaths, but they only update the feed 4x per year and Facebook would have to correlate it using info they currently don't ask for. A few companies are developing good death data, but I think it's really far off.

Other countries like Sweden have national registries that update daily, so Facebook could try to implement a code based solution, but I don't think it's likely to happen.

In reality, a survivor needs to notify facebook. You currently can, but you can only memorialize your account, not delete it. To do that, you'd need to give someone access to your account.

I'm the cofounder of Entrustet, one of the companies that helps people store their last wishes for all of their online accounts. It's important to make your wishes known so that your survivors know what to do.

Facebook is really the tip of the iceberg. Think about your blog, servers, family pictures and all of your other valuable digital assets. If you'd like more info, check us out.

Nathan Lustig cofounder, <http://www.Entrustet.com>

</comment><comment><USER13> Death is an awkward subject for facebook. I don't think they know how they should be handling it.

This is why I think 1000memories has so much potential.

</comment><comment><USER14> Quite the dilemma. When this happened to me, a former coworker who succumbed to cancer. I thought about unfriending him just to make the suggestion go away but that gesture is just too cold. I'd rather FB provide a mechanism to mute their "reconnect" suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER15> That happens to me as well with my cousin. Apart from the deceased facebook page that they already have, they could avoid sending messages if they see that a user hasn't logged in in the past 2 months for example. Either that person is no longer with us or he or she has decided to give up facebook. Either way it's annoying for everyone involved.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Think they're trying to tell me something? :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Facebook has had a mechanism in place to deal with deceased members for a while now. [http://www.ehow.com/how_5177993_memorialize-deceased- faceboo...](http://www.ehow.com/how_5177993_memorialize-deceased-facebook- users-account.html) .

I somewhat hate to link to eHow but all of the other links were insensitive and given that there's a specific instance here I thought it'd be better to use something that doesn't unabashedly address the deceased.</comment>


An Uber Impact - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uber.com/uberimpact <comment><USER2> Politically speaking, it is very, very smart that Uber is doing these sorts of studies. As a policy wonk, I wish they were a bit more open about their datasets, analyses, and methodology, but I can see how that would just hand their opponents chances to twist it.

Re: jobs created, note that Uber (very specifically, is my guess) allows us to assume FTE when they say "jobs," but is probably more likely referring to the total number of driver profiles created and used at least once. A Daily/Monthly Driver metric would be more meaningful here.

I'd also be interested to see the impact on parking (especially at peak times) if people are using Uber over driving somewhere and leaving their car parked (idle/slack resource) there.

PS - the lack of a footnote attached to (what seems to be a copy/paste) 1 in the subheading is grating haha

<comment><USER3> _> but I can see how that would just hand their opponents chances to twist it._

if opponents can twist it why shouldn't i believe uber is twisting it to begin with?

<comment><USER2> I find this GoT quote to be fitting here—

Eddard Stark: Lord Baelish, perhaps I was wrong to distrust you. Petyr Baelish: Distrusting me was the wisest thing you've done since you climbed off your horse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> $90K in (gross) _revenue_ (in NYC), before taking into account operating costs (fuel, lease expenses), depreciation, healthcare, self-employment taxes, etc.

It's off the cuff and I'm sure I'm missing a number of categories, while realizing that you can deduct a certain number as business expenses, but I'm fairly certain you're really (edit) not (/edit) seeing anything close to $90K in the end.

<comment><USER5> I have no horse in this particular race, but taxi drivers also pay for fuel, their own health care, and I think generally self-employment taxes as well. So the actual difference is just the cost of operating the vehicle in wear and tear and depreciation. The latter of which is mostly relevant only if they purchase the car exclusively for this purpose.

So the $90k might be deceptive because it's not net, but it's a sensible way to compare to what traditional taxi drivers make given uncontrollable variability in car ownership expense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 20k jobs created? Is hired car use really going up that much? If I had to guess, I'd say a handful of new jobs are created while the rest are just taken from existing taxi companies.

Not that I think there's anything wrong with that. I just think the stat is pretty misleading.

<comment><USER7> I personally use Uber at least 20-50x as often as I would use taxis. That is, for each Uber trip I take, I would take only 1/20 to 1/50 of the same trips via taxi given the choice.

<comment><USER5> I think this accounts for the increased use. I would go out of my way to avoid taking a Taxi because they're so inconvenient and opaque.

I still don't plan to start using Uber extensively because I'm used to walking at this point, but the combination of transparent upfront pricing, accountability, ease of use, speed of pickup, and seemingly typically lower pricing is a compelling case versus zip car. Definitely an actual competitor with walking and public transit, whereas I see Taxis as only really a competitor with driving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These stats are mindblowing. Uber is available to a little less than half of all Americans and with an average pickup time of < 10 mins. I'm amazed they were able to accomplish this in 4 years. Travis Kalanick is an insane entrepreneur.

<comment><USER9> I would give it up to their data science and machine learning team. They turned an idea into an executional reality and optimized it like no other.

I just heard Kevin Novak (@novakkm) speak @ Geekdom SF and he shared the approach he took along their journey.

<comment><USER10> Is this talk available online anywhere? I'd love to hear it, or at least a broad-strokes summary.

<comment><USER9> Here was the event page. [http://www.meetup.com/SF-Data- Science/events/183290442/](http://www.meetup.com/SF-Data- Science/events/183290442/)

No video up yet. I think it should be up soon. If I see it come up I will link it as a new post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Uber is pretty great, and I enjoy using it, but many of these statistics are pretty weak and out of context. As others have mentioned, using "income" to describe "revenue" is inaccurate. You can't compare making $90k driving an Uber to $90k at a desk job with a completely different set of expenses.

While the statistics used to determine the DUI rate in SF and Taxi crime in Chicago are beyond the levels of my knowledge and I can't verify their correctness, the calculations certainly seem a bit suspect. For example, as a pair city when doing a discontinuity test, they chose San Francisco, a city which notably, has Uber. The post doesn't mention a confidence interval or P value in a clear explicit way (outside of the table, with unexplained column headers).[1]

In the infographic, they claim these statistics as facts without mention of any underlying confidence intervals. I'm pro Uber, but this post seems to contain a lot of fuzzy math. It'd be interesting if someone with a statistics background could confirm or deny these suspicions...

[1] [http://blog.uber.com/DUIratesdecline](http://blog.uber.com/DUIratesdecline)

<comment><USER12> For taxis, medallions are usually leased to drivers (few could afford one). This takes much of their revenue -- perhaps half or more surrendered to a medallion holding company just for the privilege of driving a taxi.

New York City presentation suggests a driver with $90k revenue has $41k expenses. [1]

[1] [http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/presentation.pdf](http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/presentation.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> In this thread everyone discusses the actual numbers.

The numbers are not the interesting thing here - Uber seems to get battle- ready for lobby-work.

These numbers - correct or not - will be the ammunition their PR and lobby teams will use in the next months.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely correct, which is why it looks like an infographic, not a research paper.

But those of us here can parse the language quite closely and get some actual information out of it, as well as noting the use of shadows to hide and reveal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I doubt the automotive pun was intended, but if it was, it's in poor taste, and if it wasn't, it's a nasty oversight - considering the last time people read a headline about an "Uber impact," it was because a little girl was killed. It's extremely important to consider such things in this kind of language.

<comment><USER15> When I first read the headline I thought it was a press release about an accident.

<comment><USER14> Me too. In fact, there was an accident last night in my neighborhood involving a black car and a drunk driver and I thought it was about that, despite Uber (kindly) chiming in on a local blog to say it wasn't one of their drivers. Thought this was some kind of horrible reversal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > For example, the median income on uberX is more than $90,000/year/driver in > New York and more than $74,000/year/driver in San Francisco.

That is impressive. Even if you detect fuel and maintenance and health care, it comes to around 50k a year or so. That's quite a bit given that I assume drivers can choose to work flexible hours and possibly not as stressed out (compared to software engineer with 70k salary).

</comment><comment><USER9> I really wish they could give more data on how they reached their median income stats. I realize they have no incentive to release that. Curious how Lyft and Sidecar measure up as well.

<comment><USER17> I've conversed with numerous Sidecar drivers and they earn no more than $30/hr-- and that's before deducting expenses (gas, wear & tear, etc.). And most of them work part-time

Also, if an über driver makes $70k++ and a software engineer makes $100k++ base... that's kind of sad.

<comment><USER18> The Uber driver pays for his car's maintenance and fuel.

<comment><USER19> And the financing costs for the car to begin with, and in addition doesn't receive the health and fringe benefits of salaried employment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What's really significant is that the tech industry is slowly creating new job markets via 'app-driven services'. Doordash, grubhub, amazon, and google's instant delivery services are other examples that can contribute to this new trend.

The technology infrastructure for instant/convenient buying, selling, and delivery of goods and services has been built out. Now it can truly scale by staffing massive amounts of people to actually carry out the tasks surrounding it.

<comment><USER21> What's also really significant is that the majority of these jobs are minimum- wage, minimum-training, completely-replaceable jobs. What these people are doing is essentially an interface between software and reality - they are human robots.

<comment><USER22> Just a temporary hold over until we have proper automated delivery machinery. And we did just get that self driving car article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Uber truly is quite a leap forward in transportation.

But I am currently perfectly fine with them running into all the regulatory roadblocks. They have so far shown zero interest in working with the various constituents to figure out what the right structure is for their services. It's easy to say that taxis suck and regulation squashes innovation. But some of this stuff exists for good reason and until Uber acknowledges that, I'm OK with hurdles they are facing.

</comment><comment><USER24> 43% of Americans are now covered by Uber. Seems like they've hit most of the densely populated areas. I'm sure it will take much longer than that to hit the less populated areas, if ever. For most cities (read: not large and dense), Uber will probably not work.

<comment><USER15> Uber just came to my college town (San Luis Obispo) and their rates are absurdly high compared to anything else. Even if Uber drivers were less than 10 minutes away, I would wait the extra 10 for a cab and save myself the ~$20.

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady It's interesting to look at these figures while keeping in mind Google's self- driving car project and their large investment in Uber. In 10 years Uber will be able to replace all those jobs they've created with self-driving cars.

</comment><comment><USER25> 90k is not much in NYC when you take into account how much a driver will need to spend to maintain a car that does livery all day long in NYC.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does this mean more people are taking Taxis?

<comment><USER27> My guess is yes. Uber makes it so easy to quickly and painlessly get a ride that I find myself using the service much more often than I would a normal Taxi in the past. From casual observation I find this to be true for the majority of my friends and even family members as well.

Normal Taxi services are a pain in the ass to book, not connected to my credit card (so you have to go through the whole guilt trip for not having cash, takes longer, etc), and for whatever reason I always had bad experiences with them at least half the time. None of these things are issues with Uber, leading to much more usage on my part. It's just so damn easy, and even satisfying, to tap a few times and have a car magically show up.

<comment><USER28> In most cities can't you just walk out on the street, stick out your arm and have a taxi at least as quickly as it takes to book and wait for one through the Uber app? I guess it's much more useful when the streets aren't filled with cabs like in the suburbs or at night.

<comment><USER10> I'm in Ireland, and while I don't use Uber (too expensive) I keep telling this story to explain why I use Hailo a lot: Around 3am one Saturday after a family party my parents were worried about getting a taxi, because they had heard lots of horror stories of driver stealing things etc, but were prepared to catch one from the taxi rank across the road. I pulled up Hailo, was able to book (and know the driver's name a face), and have the taxi arrive before they could cross the road (in a suburban town). And since I was paying for it by card they just got in and went home and I didn't have to worry about a thing. These things sold me completely on the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> i still dont get how it has 'created' jobs? i get how uber is convenient/practical for a customer; how is it thaat beneficial for the taxi driver?

</comment><comment><USER30> I guess this is actual disruption - lots of people are already complaining about loosing jobs :).

<comment><USER28> The taxi drivers in Brussels, Berlin and Paris are complaining the most!</comment></comment>