Are Google, Amazon and others getting too big? - happy-go-lucky http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39875417 <comment><AUTHOR> I agree they should be regulated. The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies.

These big companies turn regular people into corporate livestock to serve the wealthy.

If you were to analyze Facebook as if it were a country, the wealth gap among employees would be atrocious - The top 1% would own maybe 99% of the wealth of the country and everyone else would earn a minuscule fraction of the total value that they produced.

If we let monopolies take over, then the economy of the world will start to mirror the economies within these large corporations.

What's worse is that the social aspects will also be mirrored. We will gradually lose freedom of speech, in the same way that employees of large corporations don't have the freedom to say what they really think to their bosses.

Many who have worked for a big corporation will know how suppressing the environment can be. I'm really glad that I live in a time when there are still alternatives.

<comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work at Google

> The world is a better place with lots of smaller companies.

[citation needed]

A lot of things Google does -- a lot of the things people actually like about Google -- are possible only because it's a huge monolith. Divorce the ad- making money machine, and say goodbye to all the services consumers like that are nowhere near as profitable: gmail, maps, photos, chrome, android, translate, youtube, drive, waze, where do you think the money for this stuff all comes from?

Of course, if you're one of the uber technerds that thinks that Google is unabashedly evil and Linux is going to take over the desktop any day now, that probably sounds great to you. I just think the average consumer would have a different take on it.

<comment><USER3> Suppose there was an organization, "Creation", that did mass surveillance on everyone on the planet. They don't disclose what they do with this data.

Let's say as a result of Creation's sharing of this data with local governments, crime is nonexistent.

Based on only what we've said is that a good or bad deal? Also, all of your examples were either purchased or have alternatives, so, yeah.

<comment><USER4> How do you know that Creation has the right definition of "crime" or that such a definition even exists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Feels like it's getting worse too. For example, things like Google Home and Alexa discourage choice. "Order me a pizza" means they are now either kingmakers in the space, or incented to open their own pizza business.

I'm not a fan of big government, but at some point depending solely on their goodwill seems dangerous.

<comment><USER6> In general, I agree with your warning that Alexa and co. could limit choice. But is really anyone ordering just "a pizza" or "a lightning cable" by voice without further specification? Isn't customer satisfaction key for using the assistant in the future again?

If using a virtual assistant for ordering, I'd instruct Alexa (or Google or Siri) to order a specific pizza in a specific size from a specific pizza delivery. And if not satisfied with the result of a request, I'd want to be able to specify: "Never order again from the delivery you used last." \- or I'd never use the assistant for this task again.

But most likely, I'd just order by hand or phone (instead of voice assistant) as long as I can't tell the voice assistant to just order "my standard pizza" based on my order history.

<comment><USER7> But Alexa extracting a 5-10% (or even 30%) fee on all pizza places through that access definitely hurts all pizza businesses, anywhere. And those that opt out will miss that business.

<comment><USER8> How is it _definitely_? It may hurt or may not. Credit card systems also charge a commission and yet every pizza place prefers to pay it rather than accept only cash, because of the benefits credit cards provide.

<comment><USER9> Justeat is an online pizza ordering service from Denmark which also requires pizza shops to sign up for it and pay a fairly large fee. This started out very well, but when it gained massive traction they ramped up the fees and pizza joints started complaining that it was killing them. Of course it was too late to opt out since all the consumers had gotten used to going to the website.

The fee started out at 10% and went up in steps up to 20%. At several points pizza shops tried banding together and staging mass "walkouts", but it never worked.

<comment><USER8> They should increase prices then. If customers like ordering through a voice assistant then make them pay for it. Any supplier for a pizza place can raise prices at any moment -- ingredients, rent, utilities. It's just business, nothing new. As long as it's not a monopoly it won't hurt businesses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am ultimately skeptical of companies that get all of their revenue from advertising and who fail to make money from sales of products. The value of online advertising is massively inflated.

Of the tech giants, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft seem to be in the best shape at the moment. They make their money from selling real products and services to real end users.

Amazon is strong but not unbeatable. Walmart in particular, as well as a hypothetical alliance/merger of supermarket chains, are well positioned to break Amazon's dominance of e-commerce. But they will need the ambition and ruthlessness that has served Bezos so well. Few large American corporations still have the vigor and virility of Bezos's Amazon.

Microsoft (full disclosure: my former employer) too is strong but not unbeatable. All of their products are facing tough competition from Apple (in OS and hardware sales), Google (in online services), and multiple others (in business software). Microsoft's wins are hard fought and fair, and the competition never lags too much.

<comment><USER11> > Microsoft's wins are hard fought and fair

Was giving Internet Explorer away for free along with Windows and bankrupting Netscape fair ?

<comment><USER12> Yes.

<comment><USER13> Why? Also, that's not the view of the court within the EU antitrust case against MS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> RE Amazon: I think it is problematic that they are now one of the biggest marketplaces, as well as being a trader. Put simply this allows them to watch other peoples sales, and if they look pretty good on a certain product, undercut them. This could be solved by divesting, hiding the transactions nature from Amazon, or more radically, having the data in the open so everyone can use it

Re Apple: Technology comes and goes, but the iphone was a good one. The troubling thing for me is the amount of cash they are hording. If this is intended to underwrite Applepay as a new bank, then firstly they must allow open access to all technology platforms to use Applepay. You can't have a new dollar that works better at Walmart than Tesco.

Re Google and Facebook: These companies are advertisers. I have no problem with their size or structure at present. I do have a problem with using their easy cross border presence to avoid taxation. You cannot have the biggest revenue generators for advertising paying no tax, when everyone else has to. In the UK Google is headquartered in Ireland so the UK receives no tax from the billions of revenue. This is unsustainable for the country.

My real problems with Google and Facebook is they regard everything about us as their to do what they want with.

</comment><comment><USER15> It does concern me when people say that the internet should be unregulated, especially given the recent vote in the US and the likely upcoming votes in the UK.

Monopolies are very easy to form on the internet, and in the interest of improving everyone's use, we need to try to avoid them. Walled gardens currently trap people into one service and limit the ability to swap between them, similar to "forcing" you to use just one company for your construction work, no matter the price.

I haven't heard a great answer to this problem yet, if one even exists. Is there a way to attempt to prevent these from forming which can be practically implemented?

<comment><USER16> China, Turkey, Russia, etc control the way the internet is seen by their populaces.

Would you enjoy your internet being controlled the same way?

<comment><USER15> I'm talking about regulation, not control.

Companies are regulated already to stop monopolies and we're not living in North Korea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Regulation only makes the largest companies that much more untouchable. Why not invest what would have been spent on regulation instead on education? That way the next pioneer could be fostered. Or invest in subsidies for health and wellness and food programs so the next Zuckerberg doesn't go hungry and can have the luxury to innovate (terrible analogy since he came from a middle class family but still). Or if you don't want to do that what about allowing foreign nationals with an idea but without capital and a safe and business friendly government to come to the States to create their businesses?

</comment><comment><USER18> Regulating them ultimately doesn't work very well because a.) it's reactive rather than proactive, so there's regulatory lag b.) it injects politics, and political wind c.) because of a and b we get inconsistency, changes in policy, this isn't good for either consumers or employees or investors.

I'm not sure what the work around is, but for sure we (Americans) do not apply anti-trust / competition law as aggressively as we should. It just seems wrong to me to allow these big companies to buy up smaller companies and then just obliterate them into nothing, not use their technologies, just destroy them by putting the patents into a vault and sue anyone who infringes but not letting anyone benefit either. They all do this to varying degrees.

It's like at a certain market value as a percentage of either global or maybe national wealth, companies should be disallowed from mergers of any kind. And at another level of size, they are required to break themselves up into pieces.

Edit: Maybe disallow hoarding patents. If after X years you're not using a patent, it either auto-expires and is relegated to public domain, or it's compulsory to sell it. Use it or lose it!

<comment><USER19> Why would you want force companies to use their patents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you don't like their services, you have plenty of other options, one of them being that you don't need to use them at all.

On the other hand, you're locked in with your broadband ISP. If I'm going to decry some internet business, I will first point the finger at Comcast and their ilk.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm surprised the EU hasn't acted against Google already. Remember when they (rightfully) went after Microsoft and forced them to offer a browser choice? And that wasn't even the peak of the Internet Explorer monopoly.

And yet it's allowed that like 80% smartphones sold in Europe come with Android versions that basically lock the user into the Google ecosystem, else you can't use the default store.

<comment><USER22> It looks like a multibilion fine for Google is coming [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/google-eu- fi...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/google-eu-fine- search-9-billion-search-results-rigging-alphabet-shopping- service-a7768621.html)

<comment><USER23> As usual it will be pocket change for the company, and essentially part of the cost of doing business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If I didn't know better, I would say this is a reaction to "nouveau riche" companies. When was the last time that the BBC proposed reining-in banks or oil companies despite clear consumer antipathy? Even after LIBOR, the 2008 crisis, Deepwater Horizon and HSBC cartel laundering, no one suggested these companies were to big, outside of the phrase "too big to fail". They were punished by being bailed out or given a nominal fine, but these uppity tech companies ought to be broken up.

Perhaps they are "too big", but only because they isn't a revolving door between tech companies and the corridors of power (yet?)

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm not usually very pro corporate taxes. I think (with some caveats) that it is generally better to tax the owners of businesses than the businesses themselves. However, in order to counter the unfair advantages of overly large companies and promote competition (in tech, in finance or elsewhere) wouldn't it make sense to make corporate taxes slightly progressive where the larger a business is (by revenues), the higher the tax rate?

Is there an obvious flaw to this approach? Why don't I see anyone ever suggesting it?

<comment><USER26> It's not really obvious that we should prefer small companies to large companies.

<comment><USER2> Notably, it's potentially easier to hold large companies to account compared to a bunch of small ones equivalent in total size.

For example, bad news about Uber discourages people using Uber all over the world. Bad news about some taxi's behavior only discourages using taxis (or a particular taxi provider) for that one city, usually.

In other words, large companies are more susceptible to reputational threat, which is is why, for example, they tend to be more careful about what their employees say online. If an employee of a random 10-man startup says something racist online, that's nowhere near as big of a deal as if an identified Googler says something really racist online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If some gov dosn't like the power of those companies then the should feel free to support free software. The same goes for competitors and consumers. Regulation only in rare cases please.

</comment><comment><USER28> Things like Mastodon[0] and IPFS[1] are always worth checking out, if you want to get a sense of control over your data. With regards to the argument that these companies are so entrenched in our society that they are very difficult to remove, almost like barnacles, then I agree that something has to be done. The real problem exists when there is no other choice for people. For example, the default search engine on Android phones is most certainly Google and not DuckDuckGo. Another example of terrible monopolistic practice is that Android phones are so fragmented. It seems kind of odd that in order to have the most secure Android installation, that I also have to have the latest hardware. I find it very unfair that legacy devices are locked to a single Android install and can't upgrade properly. These things should be future proof and be able to respond to threat landscapes. I feel very uneasy communicating on legacy devices because there is the uneasy feeling that the device has been infected by either low-level attackers, or nation states.

[0] [https://mastodon.social/about](https://mastodon.social/about)

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

</comment><comment><USER29> What is interesting to me is that according to the article, the five largest companies in the world (by market cap) are all now companies headquartered on the west coast of the US. What a remarkable shift in the world from the way it was just a few decades ago. We are in the midst, of a massive power shift, a revolution. I think it's hard to predict what the results of any regulation would actually be -- everything is changing too quickly.

</comment><comment><USER30> From the perspective of a software engineer, I would also say "yes." It's frustrating that 80% of the available positions, even in a tech center like Seattle, are at the huge mega-corporations.

<comment><USER2> IIRC Seattle actually has an unusually lopsided ratio in terms of megacorp openings vs startup openings, I think it's substantially better in SF/SV, NYC, and Boston.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Apple & Amazon and the others, probably not. They have their own markets and they're just doing well in them. Google might be a little different in that what they've done in some areas affects so many others, especially in small business communications and now into education. I'm just thinking about how kids are unaware that there is even another email provider out there because all they know is Gmail. To me, that's where things have tipped over into "kind of a problem." The Googleverse is massive, and we don't even know how much data they've collected.

</comment><comment><USER32> Well, that was pretty clear more than a decade ago.

Proprietary technology has a monopolizing effect in capitalism.

Since technology by definition has an exponential growth rate of efficiency, the monopolizing effect grows with it.

<comment><USER33> Yeah like IBM in the 80's and Microsoft in the 90's, no, wait...

<comment><USER34> Microsoft and IBM never had the penetration Google has as far as individuals depending on it for individual ideas and decisions, minute by minute. Nor were the network effects of Microsoft's products, however strong for interop/compat, anything close to what Facebook has.

Many companies now only publish their information on Facebook. It's becoming harder and harder to even find a phone number for a business without hitting Facebook. Sometimes FB even requires a login before letting me see details (perhaps the business misconfigured their page?) If FB ever bans me (the person) for using a fake account, it'd be very difficult to do many "normal" things.

If we get anti-net-neutrality markets going, like FB is already doing in some countries (I see "free WhatsApp/FB with any SIM card" offers all the time), this lockin will become even more powerful

Also, MS still has a ton of power. But imagine how much worse it'd be if MS was sevrice-only. What if they decide to ban your company? It might be very difficult to remain in business if they could revoke all your Windows licenses (say, if you're in medical, or need MS compat for another reason). IBM perhaps less-so, since it's more real back-end systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Anything "big" causes me to pause and count the concerns. The bigger any entity is the more damage they can cause. I tend to support "small" things as best I can.

</comment><comment><USER36> When I look at these monoliths, I can't help but think about the fabled Sci-Fi Mega Corporations of the future that seem to be anything other than positive. [1] [2] [3]

There are of course real life examples from the past.. [4][5][6]

[1] [http://residentevil.wikia.com/wiki/Umbrella_Corporation](http://residentevil.wikia.com/wiki/Umbrella_Corporation)

[2] [http://alienfilmspedia.wikia.com/wiki/Weyland- Yutani](http://alienfilmspedia.wikia.com/wiki/Weyland-Yutani)

[3] [http://bladerunner.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrell_Corporation](http://bladerunner.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrell_Corporation)

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

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

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

</comment><comment><USER37> The problem here is that only one or two of their business lines actually make money. Everything else simply strengthens network effects and gives them optionality for new businesses. It would be hard to break up Google and say: you get to provide search for the US and another company has to do it for Europe. While that may be in the interest of Europe, it's of less interest to the US.

</comment><comment><USER38> On one hand I absolutely love Google's ecosystem and have an Android phone, use Gmail, have an nVidia Shield TV, use Android Pay, travel using Google Maps for transit every day, use Docs for work, Drive for all cloud storage needs and YouTube is YouTube.

On the other, being so reliant on one company for so much is bound to cause problems at some point.

<comment><USER39> How about switching to reasonable alternatives when you can (and use the Google product as a fallback)? For example, OSM is fine for daily navigation, there are plenty of cloud storage solutions and email providers. Obviously there's going to be some cost to pay for not being in Google's walled garden, but using the alternatives (and donating to them) stimulates their development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Two words: too late.

<comment><USER41> One word: yes.

<comment><USER42> The avalanche has already begun, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> What's to stop the most powerful companies from using regulation to squash business competitors? Almost every industry has abused this to a certain extent. Regulatory capture is a thing, at least here in the US.

Regulations are a double edged sword and it's often used to stifle new business and crush possible competition.

</comment><comment><USER44> I highly recommend the book "Master Switch" by Tim Wu on this topic. ([https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information- Empire...](https://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Rise-Information- Empires/dp/0307390993)).

It argues that every information networks in the history- telegraph, telephone, radio, cable - follow the pattern of consolidation and disintegration. The new inventions always had the chance to disrupt the old industry, but our modern network - the Internet - might be an exception. Because the Internet is the master switch of all things digitized.

</comment><comment><USER45> Remember in the 90s when Microsoft was the subject of an antitrust case over bundling a web browser?

</comment><comment><USER46> Are the existing laws enough to regulate them though? The anti competition laws don't apply here as all of them are competing in the same space and all of them are huge.

</comment><comment><USER47> Integrating technologies for both decentralization and common platforms are the answer, not more traditional government or more capitalism or more communism.

</comment><comment><USER48> yet again, one of those posts. all those people who have the ability to do something, discuss and post detailed comments and then wait for next such article, and then rinse and repeat.

what is the point of discussion, if we nothing concrete, other than rhetoric can be done?

</comment><comment><USER49> No. This MAGA (Microsoft, Apple, Goggle, Amazon), is actually making American tech great.

</comment><comment><USER50> > In 2013, the European Commission fined Microsoft for giving preferential > treatment to its own browser, Internet Explorer.

I don't understand why Microsoft gets fined, but Google gets a pass when they used their other products to push Chrome to a dominant position.

<comment><USER51> The EU have in large part shifted their attention to Google (and Facebook) at this point.

Microsoft still takes occasional scruitiny as well, though not nearly as much AFAIR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> "Too big to control?" Uhhhhmmm I don't want to be controlled. No control necessary. Just guidance.

<comment><USER53> Can you name a government since the Roman Republic that has not had antitrust law?</comment></comment>


Age of oldest rocks off by millions of years - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21644-age-of-oldest-rocks-off-by-millions-of-years.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news <comment><USER2> Reading article, I couldn't find logic in this:

"They found that the half-life is just 68 million years, 30 per cent shorter than thought. That means that every rock dated by samarium-146 decay – which include some of the oldest on Earth and the moon, and even some Martian meteorites – formed 20 million to 80 million years earlier than thought."

There wasn't a link in the article but with the code at the end and searching, there is the original:

<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6076/1614.short>

"Terrestrial, lunar, and martian planetary silicate mantle differentiation events dated with 146Sm-142Nd converge to a shorter time span and in general to earlier times, due to the combined effect of the new 146Sm half-life and (146Sm/144Sm)0 values."</comment>


Who Are We at War With? That's Classified - <AUTHOR> http://www.propublica.org/article/who-are-we-at-war-with-thats-classified <comment><USER2> My favorite analogy for US security policy during the past two decades is a huge allergic reaction. It seems quite likely that allergies are caused by the immune system lacking antagonists and instead latching onto factors that are not real threats [1]. Similarly, the early '90s saw serious reductions in objective threats that US security was organized to deal with, internal (a sustained decline in crime [2]) and external (the disappearance of a second superpower). The resulting reaction is... what else if not allergic? Police is more militarized than ever and drives tanks into the living rooms of nonviolent offenders. The military's budget is unprecedentedly large and it hunts down shepherds in the Afghan hills at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per kill. Any claim that such threats are comparable with those that were adequately met in the '80s (crack epidemic, nuclear-tipped ICBMs etc.) is nothing short of risible. Yet the response is, if anything, even more aggressive than it was back then.

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

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Crim...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Crime_over_time)

<comment><USER3> It we accept this analogy, the question that arises is - if nature hasn't figured out how to eliminate allergies over millions of years of evolution, what magic do we expect a government to perform?

<comment><USER4> Not everyone is susceptible to allergic reactions. Without modern medicine, the people who are susceptible tend to die relatively quickly. Seems like the analogy leads to the decline of the united states and the rise of some other country that doesn't suffer from this particular affliction. They will probably have other problems though.

<comment><USER5> So the corrupt govt challenge is to be a benign allergy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated."

[http://middleeast.about.com/od/usmideastpolicy/a/bush-war- on...](http://middleeast.about.com/od/usmideastpolicy/a/bush-war-on-terror- speech_2.htm)

The War on Terror is a perpetual war by design.

<comment><USER7> Best business model ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The AUMF needs to be sunsetted. Heck, if necessary, pass a resolution/law that congratulates everybody on a job well-done and declares victory. Whatever it takes.

A state of war is a temporary thing in a democracy. It has to be. Otherwise the natural tendency of the executive to overreach will be completely unchecked.

I suggest that the job we're doing now is much more like "global policeman", including using lethal SWAT forces, than being in a war. I think such a role is necessary, and I also think that there's no way in hell all the nations of the world are going to overtly agree to this. (Although I suspect a majority are very happy having the yanks clean up the nuts using Predators as long as the PR isn't too bad. Even better, they can support various strikes and options with their intelligence services while publicly railing against the Evil Empire. A lot of foreign political leaders have been playing this game long before 9-11.)

That's a fine and dandy pickle for the world, and I have sympathy for the problem of crazy people wanting to come and hurt civilians in order to affect political change. The problem is, democracies can't be in a state of war for decades. Even assuming that all of the threats are clear and present.

We need a way out of this, and pronto. This is a structural problem for the U.S. that is much worse than slavery ever was. Here's hoping the light will come on for the voting public and they'll start pressuring their elected representatives to do their damned jobs and stop spending so much time politically posturing and positioning their party for the next election.

<comment><USER7> > We need a way out of this, and pronto. This is a structural problem for the > U.S. that is much worse than slavery ever was.

Absolutely. And to find a way out of this, you first need to completely take the money out of politics - radically, entirely.

I see the corruption of Washington (and then: democracy) via money as the _core_ problem, in the US.

<comment><USER8> Politics is about votes, not money.

You can get votes by promising free chickens in every pot. You can get votes by bringing a big defense contract into an area. Politicians get elected by votes, and the political system runs on votes.

Yes, money is used to fight the battle. But focusing on the money is idiotic. Money is a completely secondary factor. It's main modern use (I speak of direct contributions, not the sweetheart deals to relatives that really is at the heart of corruption) is to attack the opponent's base and prevent them from turning out to vote.

Also, political power is much more important than money. Being able to launch a Predator strike trumps any amount of campaign contributions.

This focus on money has to stop. It's like saying businesses are all about making money. It's not that it's a false statement -- it's that it misses the point entirely of what's going on. Business provide value by giving folks stuff they want. Money is a secondary way to keep score. Political power is accumulated by votes. If you can gain a thousand votes by simply making a speech, much better than throwing money at folks. It's an easy win. Focusing on money ignores the entirety of what's really going on.

You want a really corrupt system, start overengineering the money side.

<comment><USER7> Ok, we disagree.

But, as an example, I'd just like to mention the obscene amounts of money being wasted during presidential elections. Why should candidates be allowed to be able to get more votes because they spend more money because they literally got paid/owned by some private interests/ultra-rich people? It's just plain stupidity. How can we allow that?

We're technically not exactly there yet, b/c not every household has an Internet connection yet, but why shouldn't the goal be this:

Set up just 1 website where all political parties can express their positions. And let that be the _only_ allowed form of communication with the voter.

It's a sane _pull_ versus an insane _push_ approach.

And it would take _a lot_ of money out of politics, which can then be spent for intelligent things like research, for example.

<comment><USER9> Just to be clear: northwest is for the repeal of the 1st amendment.

OK, so candidates can only use one site. Then "Friends of Candidate" will set up a site, or some random blogger with a million followers will set up a website. There is no stopping the message, or the money. The voting system needs to change, among other things. the government should also do less, so there is less power to be had at the top.

<comment><USER7> > Just to be clear: northwest is for the repeal of the 1st amendment.

I am certainly not against _any_ part of the constitution!

> OK, so candidates can only use one site. Then "Friends of Candidate" will > set up a site, or some random blogger with a million followers will set up a > website.

Of course that is and should be possible, because it is free speech!

The thing is: it should be made illegal to _advertise_ such a blog with money. Of course there will still the possibility of abuse, but that is the case with _any_ other law.

Doing what I propose would make a _huge_ difference in the money-based corruption of the entire system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> War

-> Creates new enemies

       -> More war needed to kill them (feed military budget)

          -> Creates new enemies

             -> More war needed to kill them (feed military budget)

                -> You get the idea...

To keep the cash cow going, keep it all secret (or at least very nontransparent).

<comment><USER10> I think there are two issues in this:

      0. Where is the money going?
      1. Are foreign and domestic policies using tactics that a civil society should use?

Often, in positions of power where secrecy is used to hoard information as a form of job security, what happens is that any challenging argument becomes the secret-keeper protrarys themselves as having more intelligence than any critic, so the challenger always appears misinformed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well this comes to mind, the US economical dependence on military and war:

"This is a very significant power group. And it is a power group that is not just at the top of the White House. It is not just a few generals. Rather it is all the people connected to and profiting from that system. _And that 's about a third of the US population._ So all the way from Chelsea Clinton down to the someone in the gutters of San Antonio whose brother is deployed in Iraq."

[http://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange- Schmidt.html...](http://wikileaks.org/Transcript-Meeting-Assange- Schmidt.html#1318)

</comment><comment><USER12> "the U.S. is at war with "Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their associated forces." So who exactly are those associated forces? It's a secret. "

It's not a secret at all. They've demonstrated it in the past. Based on observation, "associated forces" can be defined as "anybody who has some connection to". There is no definitive answer because it changes constantly and there is no need to provide justification anyway. War is being fought by the government, for the government. Your civilian inquiries are not welcome.

</comment><comment><USER13> Eastasia or Oceania - just flip a coin.)

In Russia we used to call them "the enemies of the people" and, of course, they were among us and everyone could be marked as such just by a gossip or finger-pointing by a neighbor.)

</comment><comment><USER14> I thought it was Eurasia?

<comment><USER15> We've always been at war with Eastasia.

<comment><USER16> Doubleplusgood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> very impressive how prescient george orwell was; impressive but of little consolation. I'm a big fan of technology; but i hope that technology wasn't the missing something that previous governments lacked to be able to enforce their authoritarianism.

<comment><USER18> This is Huxley's future not Orwell's. It's not that "the people" can't change society, they just don't want to think about it and would rather watch television, whether that be sports, sitcoms, or infotainment.

<comment><USER19> That was true of Orwell's future as well - the Proles, which composed 80%+ of the population, weren't spied upon at nearly the same level as the Party members, they were just too poorly educated and content with the status quo as long as they were fed meaningless entertainment created by Party machines.

<comment><USER20> Huxley does not exclude Orwell. What we have is a Huxley layer over an Orwell core. People don't care enough to change, but, when they do, governments know and can act swiftly and forcefully.

<comment><USER21> We have neither Huxley's world nor Orwell's. In Huxley's version we would exile free thinkers; the US government never exiles people (with so much invested in the prison industry, how could we?). In Orwell's version, free thinkers would be tortured until they either die or learn to love the system. The US government just marginalizes free thinkers, allowing them to continue to live and work in our society (with the exception of whistleblowers) but ensuring that they never find themselves in a position to change anything.

The common theme in dystopia is that free thinkers are ignored by the rest of society, which is either apathetic or too brainwashed. We are certainly at that point, but neither Brave New World nor 1984 accurately describe what America is becoming.

<comment><USER22> Never exiles people? What about Snowden?

<comment><USER21> He has not been exiled by the US government, he is in a self-imposed exile. In fact the US government has been doing everything in their power to get him back to this country, so that he can be thrown in prison as punishment for being a whistleblower.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Guys come one. Have a little patience! Building up the China thing is going to take a few more years. Until then we need to keep the military complex busy with some extended theater of war games.

</comment><comment><USER24> The problem with the US Government is that they try so hard to garner support from everybody, which leads to situations where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. With all the wheeling and dealing going on, allies turn to opponents where convenient (and vice versa).

Today we're helping a certain group of people, tomorrow we're bombing the shit out of them. Why?

> it would be difficult for the Congress to get involved in trying to track > the designation of which are the affiliate forces

Translation: when their usefulness ends then we stop supporting them, at which point they turn against us. This happens so frequently that monthly briefings would be a pointless formality.

In their effort to _control_ everybody, more spitefully slip through their fingers.

<comment><USER25> >The problem with the US Government is that they try so hard to garner support from everybody

Do they really?

<comment><USER26> Yes. Through aid and arms deals, through influence and promises of corporate investment, through manipulation of political systems and propaganda.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The list of the usual suspects in 'Round up the usual suspects'. This is not something that they would not like to specify further.

It might have something to do with 'Continuity of governance' plans; those plans may have detailed lists of 'internal enemies'; those are supposed to be round up in times of emergencies (like supposed leaders of 'occupy' or something)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_of_Operations_Plan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_of_Operations_Plan) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84)

</comment><comment><USER28> Al Qaeda may not even exists anymore.

<comment><USER29> Al Qaeda may not even exist. FTFY

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interviewer: Is the government winning the battle against terrorists?

Helpmann: Ah, yes. We're fielding all their strokes, running all of them out. We're consistently knocking them for six. I'd say they're nearly out of the game.

Interviewer: But, Mr. Helpmann, the bombing campaign is now in its 13 th year.

Helpmann: Beginners' luck.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think their reasoning for withholding a list of names of Al Qaeda affiliates is a bit weak, but I can still see how it might make sense. After all, we're fighting for transparency because we know information can be powerful, but that power is not always a positive force. Information can aid in organization, and we do have an interest in keeping our enemies disorganized.

The real question is, do other comprehensive lists of Al Qaeda affiliates exist? If so, then releasing this list would probably not substantially increase the information currently out there.

<comment><USER31> > _I can still see how it might make sense._

Yeah, but as the good professor stated in the article, we are already dropping bombs on their heads, so they are pretty much aware that we know who they are (paraphrasing).

<comment><USER30> Yes, members of the Al Qaeda affiliates know that we know who they are. But do potential sympathizers know who the Al Qaeda affiliates are?

<comment><USER31> I don't know that it matters. When you think about it, it's actually kind of a silly notion that we don't name them because we don't want to give them free advertising.

Like there are a bunch of guys itching to participate in jihad and strap themselves up as suicide bombers, but just can't figure out where to sign up?

I think that's unlikely. And, I would agree with the professor's other point that the bigger risk is these secret wars and the fact that Americans don't know what's being done in our names. That's extraordinarily detrimental to a democracy, to say the least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I thought congress had to make a formal "declaration of war", so how could it be classified?

Perhaps I live in this fantasy land where little things like the law and constitution are ignored by those in power.

<comment><USER33> Congressmen on select committees have clearance, but cannot tell you what they know.

Basically, the Congress had ceded it's ability to approve/disapprove warlike action to the executive. They retain the power of the purse, but it is difficult to be in a position politically where you are "cutting off support" for "the troops".

That's also a key reason why we had the "support the troops" propaganda. Even if you were against the war, how can you be against your neighbor's sons and daughters?

<comment><USER34> >Congressmen on select committees have clearance, but cannot tell you what they know.

This isn't exactly true. Congressmen have an explicit Constitutional protection for anything they say in the House. This was most famauslly used by Senator Mike Gravel to leak the Pentagon Papers, and set the precedent of Gravel v. United States that doing so is legal.

In reality, attempting to do so would cost significant political capitol, and will likely make it difficult for the Congressmen to get onto such committees in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Then I wonder if the knowledge of something being classified is itself classified? Would that not be an infinite recursion?

</comment><comment><USER35> The associated forces are the internet activists probably. That's why they monitor our moves.

</comment><comment><USER36> China: [http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/07/24/the-two-faux- demo...](http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/07/24/the-two-faux-democracies- threaten-life-on-earth-paul-craig-roberts/)

</comment><comment><USER37> We are at war with [REDACTED]. We have always been at war with [REDACTED].</comment>


Hacker News login design - <AUTHOR> http://cdpn.io/DbkfJ

<comment><USER2> Meh, the current design is good. HN has for one of its objectives to maintain content quality by obscurity. Lets not have a fancy design to attract people.</comment>


Ask HN: Website font's getting smaller overtime? - <AUTHOR>

I've had this totally unscientific feeling lately that website are using smaller font size. I've been asking around and a few people told they had that feeling too.
Not really where to start looking I though about you, dear HNers.
Could it be a side effect of spreading use of reset stylesheets ? Or is that a trend to accommodate iphone users ? Or am I just dreaming ?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'd say just the opposite, at least as far as design 'trends' go.

In the late nineties, every website I worked on had insufferably small type. This was primarily because the web was designed by graphic designers that were new to this web thing. They would often draw a box for someone else to fit the type in. Tables were the dominant method of aligning objects on the page.

Thankfully, we've gotten smarter since. We know that those "words" actually matter. They communicate and are highly scannable, often even better than obscure iconography or visual elements.

Services such as TypeKit <http://typekit.com/> should provide everyone with the ability to design beautiful web pages with great typography, and anyone who cares about good typography tends to want that type to actually be read.

Check out virtually any new startup and you'll likely see large bold typefaces, short and concise phrases with a strong visual aesthetic leaning toward a minimalist style.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well it's true that website design are better, typeface are taken into account. But was referring to a mre recent history, like maybe the last two years.

It's really about the font size and not the design. Sadly I find myself zooming more and more often just to read comfortably an article. Well, maybe it's just me :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It could just be the further ease of implementation, and spread of information about, good typography implementation. When the Ruby-esque templates were first taking hold, I would've argued that fonts were getting bigger, or at least the headlines, but downloadable type on the web also offers different weights, which I think is perhaps the biggest change. Weights make a lot of sense in print, but I wonder if one the web we were somewhat better off, readability wise, with at least consistent weighting.</comment>


Advanced iOS virus targeting Hong Kong protestors - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/30/hongkong-china-cybersecurity-apple-idUSL2N0RV2D320140930

<comment><USER2> The original post describing the malware in detail:

[https://www.lacoon.com/lacoon-discovers-xsser-mrat-first- adv...](https://www.lacoon.com/lacoon-discovers-xsser-mrat-first-advanced-ios- trojan/)

Also worth noting is that they don't have an attack vector for it at present or any evidence it's been deployed. Seems like an 'in development' version that was latent on the control servers, since you have to jailbreak and get the package through Cydia.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, this should really be the link. The current one is pretty fluffy.

<comment><USER4> It's more than pretty fluffy; it's downright misleading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> See also--android spyware app targeting Occupy Central protesters:

[https://code4hk.hackpad.com/Fake-Code4HK-Mobile-App- HQXXrylI...](https://code4hk.hackpad.com/Fake-Code4HK-Mobile-App-HQXXrylI6Wi)

[http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1594667/fake- occu...](http://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1594667/fake-occupy- central-app-targets-activists-smartphones)

</comment><comment><USER6> Ok so it's only jailbroken devices, again.

<comment><USER7> Still quite significant with older reports indicating more than a third of all Chinese iPhones are jailbroken:

[http://technode.com/2011/05/03/around-35-percent-of-ios- devi...](http://technode.com/2011/05/03/around-35-percent-of-ios-devices-in- china-are-jailbroken-umeng-report/)

If you can trojan one in three iphones that's a hell of a severe security issue.

<comment><USER8> Is it really their fault if people jailbreak devices? I tend not to think it is.

<comment><USER9> The entire purpose of a jailbreak is to bypass the security protections on the device.

It should be a known risk. I imagine many people don't know (friend told them "this is how you install this weird thing", "this lets you customize icons", "this lets you get apps for free"), but this _is_ the purpose of jailbreaking.

<comment><USER10> After spending some time in Hong Kong, these are the motivations that I've seen for jailbreak:

1\. Piracy. Apps are expensive on iOS, but Hong Kong loves brands. Having an iPhone is a fashion symbol. Also, access to pirated _content_ (video/music) is a big deal in HK; content is often expensive or unavailable in the region. Content piracy apps, such as BitTorrent clients, Baidu music downloaders, and some MKV-friendly video players, are only available after jailbreaking.

2\. Carrier unlock. iPhones sold in Hong Kong are carrier-unlocked, but imported iPhones are often carrier-locked. To force a carrier unlock, you must jailbreak your phone. As a result, a lot of iPhones in HK are either jailbroken to allow carrier unlock or use hardware-based SIM card hacks.

3\. Tethering. In HK, most data plans did not allow for free tethering (at the time I was there). Jailbreak allows "illicit" tethering that uses the same data plan, without informing the carrier about how the data is being used.

So, don't assume that jailbreakers are necessarily ignorant.

It's unfortunate that jailbreaking comes with non-obvious security compromises.

<comment><USER11> All the points that you raised are either plain illegal (piracy) or against terms of services you use (tethering). Not sure about carrier unlock in HK, because for example in my country (Poland) it's legal to unlock your phone and there's even this law that every carrier has to provide means to remove the simlock off the device after the end of their contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know it's an old argument, but they don't have an attack vector and thus no known infection, because iOS is locked down, so only jail broken devices would be at risk. Say what you will against Apple's tight control over their ecosystem, but between keeping the NSA out of our phones data and things like that ineffective, it'll keep being a plus for me.

<comment><USER13> Only "jailbreakable" devices are at risk: it doesn't matter if the exploit has already been used or not, the issue is that an exploit is possible on your device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My activist, iPhone-using friend in Hong Kong had not heard of this yet, as of right now (like 11:30AM Hong Kong time)

</comment><comment><USER15> Most people assumed that the Apple encryption was designed in reaction to NSA intrusion into everybody's privacy. But it might also be a strong sales argument in markets where intrusion into people devices is just normal.

<comment><USER16> The encryption won't prevent spyware from reading information on an active device. Once the user is logged into the device, the spyware will have access to the OS. These are two separate issues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The code used to control that server is written in Chinese

Chinese is a programming language?

<comment><USER9> I assume they mean variable names/comments/strings found in the program, but you're right that was a poorly written sentence.</comment></comment>


No-fly list trial: Court awards fees on government attorneys' bad faith - <AUTHOR> https://papersplease.org/wp/2019/01/03/plaintiff-in-first-no-fly-trial-wins-another-appeal-on-attorneys-fees-and-government-lawyers-bad-faith/ <comment><USER2> > Even Attorney General Eric Holder got involved in the government's > obstruction of discovery in the case, signing what appears to have been a > perjured affidavit falsely claiming that he had personal knowledge that > disclosing the status or reasons for Dr. Ibrahim's blacklisting (i.e. the > fact that an FBI agent had made a mistake), "could reasonably be expected to > cause significant harm to the national security."

The attorney general, knowing full well that the entire case was based on the government screwing up, perjures himself by claiming that letting anyone know why this happened would cause harm to national security. This is the danger of secrecy in law. When you can claim something must be kept secret with no burden of proof, you let government's hide embarrassments.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, there is no way that counts as perjury. The question asks for a legal conclusion, not a fact, and for good reasons we make it very hard for anyone to call perjury in strained conclusions. In a real case, you wouldn't just have to admit "oops an agent screwed up." You'd have to give some sort of contextual information about the process the agent was supposed to be following, and how he deviated. There is a colorable argument that this could result in some disclosure of importance to national security. Just because it's a stupid argument and the judge didn't buy it doesn't mean it's perjury.

The government got the correct sanction here, a finding of "bad faith" and attorneys' fees, which is what courts do when parties push thin legal arguments further than they should.

<comment><USER4> Surely this can't be the proper standard for national security claims. Otherwise, arguments of the form must always be acceptable, and without repercussion:

Based on [redacted, even from the judge] the court must make [arbitrary judgment].

That's giving the exective branch more authority than simply giving them immunity from perjury would!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case anyone else is confused, the term "en banc" refers to a case which is heard before _all_ the judges on the bench for that court, rather than just one. En banc hearings are generally made in cases deemed of extreme importance. As such, this is a fairly strong finding.

<comment><USER6> > In case anyone else is confused, the term "en banc" refers to a case which > is heard before all the judges on the bench for that court, rather than just > one.

Rather than just three, no? When I argued _pro se_ in front of the 2nd circuit (which was a great time, btw - I highly recommend it), it was in front of three judges.

<comment><USER7> Generally a case is heard "en banc" by a larger panel only as an appeal -- at the discretion of the court -- from an inital decision of a 3-judge panel. In most of the circuits, en banc rehearing is before all the judges of that circuit. The 9th Circuit is so large and has so many circuit judges that even en banc appeals are haeard by only a subset of the circuit judges. An en banc panel in the 9th Circuit consists of 11 judges: [http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/10/En_...](http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/general/2017/02/10/En_Banc_Summary2.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder why the government fought this tooth and nail. Do they just really hate to lose, so they double down time and again? Or are they worried that losing once will open the floodgates to a torrent of litigation?

<comment><USER9> The government believes the law, with its checks and balances, is not strong enough to prevent attacks. The law prefers letting 9 guilty people walk free if that prevents one innocent person from being unfairly punished. You can't allow 9 hijackers to attack just to avoid not allowing one person to fly.

As the government is limited by the law they use tricks to go around it, in this case by using a secret list with secret rules and contents. You're not allowed to know the list exists so you can't contest if you are on it by mistake. There can be no precedent that allows people to remove themselves from the list.

<comment><USER10> > You can't allow 9 hijackers to attack just to avoid not allowing one person > to fly.

Yes you can, and should. That's the _entire_ point of the idea that it is better to let 9 guilty people walk free than to unfairly punish one innocent person.

<comment><USER11> Not only that, hijackers ceased to be a problem as soon as everyone understood they would crash the planes instead of ransoming them.

It has always been the case that a plane full of passengers could overcome half a dozen hijackers, but the historical assumption was that you shouldn't fight them because you could get hurt. If you're going to get hurt _anyway_ , that's out the window, so you fight them, so does everybody else, and the passengers win.

You'll notice that there have been no further crashing of airplanes into buildings after 9/11, despite the fact that the TSA's security record is terrible.

<comment><USER12> Also the steel fucking doors that block the entrance to the flight deck. The TSA shouldn't be looking for anything smaller than a plasma torch.

<comment><USER6> You'll have to pry my plasma torch from my cold, dead... Oh, I can just check it and pick it up at baggage claim? Sounds good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If this is a victory, I'd hate to see defeat: 14 YEARS and millions in fees to reverse a clerical mistake. Not one FBI or DOJ employee is in jail, suspended or fired.

<comment><USER14> We don't see defeats because they don't have the money for a voice that will carry. They happen every day. Those people just have to deal with being wronged, quietly. This is how imperfect people become true criminals.

<comment><USER15> The (rhetorical) question is: if "victory" means spending 14 years and $4,000,000 in order to not get a remedy -- while no one on the "losing" side suffers any penalty -- if that's "victory", what does "defeat" look like?

There was no claim about the existence or visibility of actual defeats.

<comment><USER14> Yes. It was all rhetorical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Judge William Alsup ruling...

You may remember him from the Uber/Google or Google/Oracle proceedings. He codes: [https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs- googl...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/19/16503076/oracle-vs-google-judge- william-alsup-interview-waymo-uber)

<comment><USER17> _En banc, the 9th Circuit reversed the panel and found that Judge Alsup had applied the wrong standard and abused his discretion in finding that the government hadn't acted in bad faith . . ._

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> False claims are so damaging. Its a problem that's been with us a long time, though. It's even one of the 10 commandments:

"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" \- Exodus 20:16

<comment><USER19> There's a pretty wide range of interpretations in the US about what neighbor means in that sentence, so there's a good chance the people defending this case think it's not wrong to bear false witness against foreigners.

<comment><USER20> That may well be but it has nothing to do with the bible. The bible is explict about the treatment due to foreigners and in fact that is reflected in US law.

Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. - Deut 27:19

There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you. Exodus 12:49

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt - Lev 19:34

<comment><USER19> I think you're taking it a little too far when you say this has nothing to do with the bible. There are also verses instructing people to kill, rape, and enslave foreigners. As with most topics, there's enough in the bible to support whichever side you prefer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ok, so what's the disincentive for government attorneys to do this in the future???

<comment><USER8> Probably the sheer amount of time and effort legal campaign has consumed. No government agency has infinite money and staff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Dumb question, how can a non-citizen sue the government in an American court?

<comment><USER7> This was one of the issues raised, and resolved in Dr. Ibrahim's favor, in the second of the three appeals to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in this case.

The court found that she had sufficient connection to the US (including having lived in the US for years, and having children who were born in the US and are US citizens) to give her legal "standing" to raise these issues.

However, non-US citizens outside the US generally don;t have any right to challenge denials of US visas in US courts, which is why she remains barred from the US with no way to challenge that. (It's possible that one of her children could raise that issue in a US court, but they are afraid that if they they return to the US, the US might put them too on the no-fly list again, trapping them in the US.)

<comment> dane-pgp I'm not sure if being "trapped" in the US is the biggest concern for her US- citizen children visiting America. Couldn't they travel by land from Canada? Hopefully them bringing such a case would cost less than $4 million and 14 years.

<comment><USER7> People have bene prevented from flying between Canada and Europe becuase of objections from the US government. So being able to cross from the US to Canada (assuming Canada would let her in, which isn't assured if she is a US but not Canadian citizen), that wouldn't guarantee being able to get back to her home and family and profession in Malaysia.

<comment> dane-pgp I'd be interested to read an article about people being prevented from flying between Canada and Europe because of the US government. I think I remember a case of Canada refusing to let someone enter as part of a pre-booked journey which had a leg that took them into the US, but even then, I don't suppose that the affected passenger was a US citizen.

Similarly I don't know if there are cases where Canada has refused entry to a US citizen that isn't a wanted criminal (suspect) in the US or guilty of something that Canada themselves object to.

We could certainly imagine all sorts of extreme scenarios, such as the entire family secretly being spies for China, and the US tipping off the Canadians, but neither country being able to publicly reveal this, but -- assuming that these children are just innocent victims of an abusive bureaucracy -- I'd like to see them launch a case in the US.

There may be many good reasons for them not doing so, but I don't think that their ability to travel to Canada (from Europe, for example) nor their ability to travel by land between the US and Canada, is the limiting factor.

<comment><USER7> "I'd be interested to read an article about people being prevented from flying between Canada and Europe because of the US government."

Here you go:

[https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/02/16/british-man- marooned-...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/02/16/british-man-marooned-in- canada-because-of-us-no-fly-list/)

[https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/03/18/canadian-denied- passa...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/03/18/canadian-denied-passage-home- from-germany-because-of-us-no-fly-list/)

[https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/05/25/us-intervenes-to- bloc...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/05/25/us-intervenes-to-block-uk-to- canada-trip-by-ex-gitmo-prisoner/)

None of these people were scheduled to fly to, from, or via the USA.

There have also been people denied passage on fligths between other countries, merely becuase they were scheduled to pass through US airspace without landing. But that's a different issue from the incidents reported in the links above:

[https://papersplease.org/wp/2009/05/16/air-france- passenger-...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2009/05/16/air-france-passenger- data-and-no-fly-orders/)

[https://papersplease.org/wp/2010/06/07/another-paris- mexico-...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2010/06/07/another-paris-mexico- flight-barred-from-us-airspace/)

[https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/07/25/mexico-barcelona- flig...](https://papersplease.org/wp/2011/07/25/mexico-barcelona-flight- barred-from-overflying-the-us/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Remember that State Secrets have a long history of being used to cover up government incompetence and prevent victims of the government from seeking justice.

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

</comment><comment><USER24> This is why I like lower taxes. The government should be so desperate for money that it would have had to be more reasonable with which cases it chooses to pursue.

<comment> dane-pgp No matter how little money you give a government, it will always rather use that money for unreasonable things if you elect a government that has unreasonable priorities.

In fact, the opposite argument almost makes more sense: "I like paying high taxes, so that, after the government has wasted money on the unreasonable things it wants, it will still have so much money that it will have to spend it on reasonable things as well."</comment></comment>


Show HN:Prayer Intentions - My First iPhone App - <AUTHOR> http://mdoerneman.posterous.com/pages/prayer-intentions

<comment><AUTHOR> It took me 4 months working on and off, mornings and weekends to finally get my first app in the iTunes store. I was hesitant to learn objective C so I started out trying to build it with html/javascript/phonegap using tiggzi.com. After getting rejected twice for the app not being up to Apple's standards, I bit the bullet and dove into objective c. I watched a few Stanford classes in iTunes but mostly I did a lot of searching on StackOverflow.</comment>


When mechanical analog computers ruled the waves (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/03/gears-of-war-when-mechanical-analog-computers-ruled-the-waves/ <comment><USER2> Dave Jones of EEVBlog recently tore down an analog navigation computer used on the B52 if you want to see inside a mechanical computer of this type [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzGaO4Kdz2Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzGaO4Kdz2Y)

</comment><comment><USER3> My dad's eng degree is in electromagnetic mechanics . He graduated just as mechanical relays (actually analog computer controlling a relay) in the power grid were being replaced by electrical ones.

A few interesting things he points out:

-Throughout his career nothing has had the longevity of these mechanical devices. As late as the 2000s he had projects replacing mechanical relays installed in the 30s. Digital becomes obsolete and needs replacement in ten years when the manufacturer stops support.

-If a Turing machine can be implemented as an electrical circuit, and an digital computer is, ultimately, an analog circuit; then an analog circuit can do at least as much as a digital can. It's just impossibly more difficult to do.

<comment><USER4> i'm not aware of anyone replacing digital relays after 10 years. The SEL relays we buy have a 10 year warranty and are designed to last at least 25 years: [https://selinc.com/company/quality/](https://selinc.com/company/quality/)

<comment><USER3> It was a bit of hyperbole. But digital rot really is not taken as seriously as it should.

I mean the Iowa computers were on combat duty until the 80s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Earlier discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7419837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7419837)

</comment><comment><USER6> Those instructional videos in the article are extremely well done. They seem to be part of a longer film, does anyone know if it can be found online?

<comment><USER7> I think it's this one: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1i-dnAH9Y4)

(it's "Basic Mechanisms in Fire Control Computers" parts 1 and 2, from 1953)

<comment><USER6> Thank you so much! No Netflix tonight ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For more info read the very good "Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics" by David Mindell.</comment>


Multiple-Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? - <AUTHOR> http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/

<comment><USER2> I tried using just a laptop screen for a year, after using 2-3 monitors before that. I just recently switched back to using 2 monitors (well, my laptop + a big monitor).

Using the single small screen did help my focus and attention, but I found that that was more due to habits it created. There were plenty of cases where I miss the extra real estate and felt it slowed me down.

Now I feel like I have improved my habits, I still close down apps so I'm working on one thing at a time, I have stopped keeping my email/twitter on the second monitor to invite distraction, etc. But now I have the added luxury (it does feel like a luxury) of the extra screen real estate.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree: I think if you can develop good habits then 2 screens could work well.

It's interesting how you used a single screen to "train yourself" into getting good habits. That could help others as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I used to have three monitors, then went down to two, and now I'm at one. I personally feel that multitasking decreases my productivity, and that were increasingly trying to stretch our attention. I often open multiple tabs at once, have my phone blinking on my desk, gmail notifications, blinking LEDs elsewhere and etc. I often produce my best work on my 10 inch dell mini, I think others should try it too.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've done something similar. I have a 13" Macbook Air and found that I can focus better when I'm staring at just one screen.

This sandboxes my attention: do one thing at a time, finish it, and move on to the next thing.

Most of the time my second monitor was used for email and Twitter, which was a constant distraction.</comment></comment>


Ember Phone: iOS7's Phone.app Implemented in Ember.js - <AUTHOR> http://joefiorini.github.io/ember-phone

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently only keypad & add/view contacts (no edit or delete right now).

</comment><comment><USER2> firefox os competitor?</comment>


Show HN: Source Code Plagiarism Detector - <AUTHOR> https://zanatex.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

I've created a free-to-try plagiarism detector aimed at preventing students from submitting plagiarized code for CS assignments. Submit some code and it will try to find matches online, including fuzzy matches. I'm looking for feedback on the usability of the tool as well as its usefulness as a product.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> What is the benefit of using this tool over the free MOSS tool from Stanford? Does it support checking plagiarism within a class? If I have 200 undergraduates in my CS course can I upload all of their submissions and have them all checked against each other? Does your tool only work on certain languages? I have some examples I want to test this evening and I'll post any more thoughts. I have always been fascinated by cheating detection in CS. I wish you the best in this endeavor!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your reply! I see this tool as complementary to MOSS. This tool will fingerprint your submissions and compare them to approximate matches found online (e.g. GitHub). As far as I know, MOSS only compares submissions that you have access to and not online sources. This tool does not compare your submissions to each other since MOSS already does a great job at that.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I made a store to send the "Idea of a Pear" to friends and family - <AUTHOR> https://ideaofapear.com <comment><USER2> What is the background idea behind this? I'm maybe out of the loop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for asking. I made this after making the tweet: [https://twitter.com/elliottsphone/status/1205912688779501571...](https://twitter.com/elliottsphone/status/1205912688779501571?s=20) recently. I thought it would be interesting to make it a reality and learn how to use the stripe / sendgrid api.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very strange, it uses stripe payments too, what happens when I pay for the Pears? haha

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure if this answers your question but you can send pears to other using their email. Recipients will receive your purchased "idea of a pear" as an emoji.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I got some pears for Christmas, now what I need is an idea of a pear _recipe_.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh good idea. Let me know if you come across any good recipes. All I know is sliced pears.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/apple-and- pea...](https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/apple-and-pear-crisp- recipe-2012748)

I was out of apples, and only had 3 pears, so I weighed them, divided by 4 lbs, and scaled the rest of the recipe by that ratio. It turned out pretty well. I highly recommend using a digital scale with tare to weigh ingredients. It makes things so much easier and more accurate.

I wasn't really previously aware, but apparently a "crisp" has oatmeal and a "crumble" doesn't. This may be Americanese. In any case, it's much easier and faster than a pie and just as good with ice cream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You mean pearcoin?</comment>


Show HN: Get SMS/tweet updates on World Cup goals - <AUTHOR> http://worldcupsms.herokuapp.com/

<comment><USER2> Not to detract from this service, but for anyone who's looking for a good push app, I can highly recommend the World Cup app from ITnext. As a heads up, the push messages for goals arrive before they actually happen on TV, due to broadcast delays, which can be an annoying spoiler.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brazil-the- yanks/id805898412...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/brazil-the- yanks/id805898412?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER3> Interested in doing Web-Push on the same data? Can hook you up to a totally free roost.me account.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am interested, how do i sign up?

<comment><USER3> Shoot me an email at casey at roost.me and we can coordinate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> UVB-76 Link to the twitter at the bottom of the page is broken; should be 'alerts' instead of 'alert'

Also, this kind of use of FIFA trademarks will almost certainly result in a DMCA takedown notice. Very unwise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Good call on the FIFA trademarks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Boy I hope this is good because the FIFA app is garbage. With 720 pixels to use, the notifications still spill over the edge because they have to put "Powerade FIFA World Cup Championship" or something before the actual news, which is of course extremely character-poor, something like "USA 2-2 Portugal" or something. Looking forward to giving this a try.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are using HipChat this is a good option:

[https://github.com/jefforulez/gooolbot](https://github.com/jefforulez/gooolbot)

<comment><USER6> Similarly, if you're using Hubot, I've been really happy with the results from this person's fine work based on the Open World Cup API: [https://github.com/gberger/hubot-world-cup- live](https://github.com/gberger/hubot-world-cup-live).

We're using it with Slack, but it will work with any Hubot instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool! Before I sign up, is there a way to cancel?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can send 'STOP' to end incoming SMS!

<comment><USER7> Cool, thanks! Unfortunately the service missed 2 of the 3 goals that happened in the game since I signed up...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Probably has to do with the poor filtering mechanic i added minutes prior to the game. I'll take a look at it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great job! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> hey, thanks :)</comment></comment>