Oslo had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist, 0 children and 1 driver trafic deaths in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/andershartmann/status/1212465415743512576 <comment><USER2> Some contextual data from US cities in 2018

City – City Population (Metro Area Population), City Density per Square Mile, City Traffic Fatalities

Oslo [1]: 690,335 (1,588,457), 3,938, 1

Nashville [2][3]: 692,587 (1,930,961), 1,374, 82

Portland [4][5]: 653,115 (2,478,810), 4,911, 34

Milwaukee [6][7]: 592,025 (1,572,245), 6,155, 68

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee)

[3] [https://data.nashville.gov/Police/Traffic- Accidents-2018-/8k...](https://data.nashville.gov/Police/Traffic- Accidents-2018-/8kay-6qhc)

[4] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon)

[5] [https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/74093](https://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/74093)

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

[7] [https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about- wisdot/newsroom/statist...](https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/about- wisdot/newsroom/statistics/countyfatality.aspx)

<comment><USER3> Need to look at total miles driven, not just population size vs. number of deaths.

Doesn't Norway have huge taxes on automobiles which chill ownership? If so, then population is not relevant. If only 10% of people can afford to own cars, then the number of crashes and fatalities will certainly be low.

The US standard of living is far higher. Whether that leads to more fatalities or not is anybody's guess. I would prefer the idea that we don't bother teaching people to drive very well or that people don't value developing their own good driving skills.

<comment><USER4> Also need to look at travel times. Norway has low speed limits and makes driving an inconvenience in the pursuit of perfect safety records. But it takes away from being able to get where you want quickly (cities with road infrastructure that is not over-subscribed are way faster to get around than walking/biking/public transit) and on your own terms (no waiting times, room for people/cargo, etc.). The tradeoffs for a better safety record, as well as the lurking variables, are not being considered in this conversation.

<comment><USER5> Imagine thinking that making things more convenient for drivers is worth a lot more dead people!

<comment><USER4> At some level it is. If you think that any amount of risk is too great, then everyone should just stay in their home. But that's obviously impractical.

<comment><USER6> Well, if you can live like they do in Oslo and have 1 death. That seems worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One interesting observation on Oslo is that, pedestrians do cross the street when it's red for them, if there's no moving traffic close by. This is totally different from, for example, Copenhagen, Stockholm and places I visited in Germany. They're like Italians of the north.

That's probably why we felt at home on the streets during our stay there, as a family from Turkey. I would love to have that 0 deaths statistics here instead, though.

<comment><USER8> _pedestrians do cross the street when it 's red for them_

You have to think what pedestrian lights are for. They exist solely to improve the flow of car traffic. Pedestrian lights are in gross contrast to the rights and benefits of pedestrians. Without lights, pedestrians would always have first priority on a crosswalk. Cars would have to stop for any pedestrian crossing the street. However, drivers (of inefficient but fast automobiles) don't like waiting for a more efficient form (on the city centre scale) of traffic (i.e. pedestrians) to cross the street so pedestrian lights exist to ensure enough green time for cars so that they don't _always have to_ stop. Thus, it is no wonder that any sensible person wouldn't cross the street on red if there are no cars coming.

<comment><USER9> I am not sure what you mean with this effectiveness. I live in Prague, the city with (what they say) one of the best public transport systems in the world, and yet, going to my workplace is 45 minutes by public transport and 15 minutes by car. Even though I live close to a subway and tram station, and the workplace is right in the city center, car still wins - where is the effectiveness you're talking about? This is the case for my past 3 workplaces and 2 homes. Sorry but my time is more valuable than waiting an hour per day _just because_.

Before you say that I can read or listen to music on the way in public transport, I listen to audiobooks in the car, and the trams are lately so packed that for me it's especially hard to not puke because of the terrible air (and sometimes smelly people, luckily not that much in winter) there, sadly I would puke right into someone's face. Even though there is a lot of traffic which slows my car down, I am still in comfort. I'd rather sit 45 minutes in a car listening to wonderful music than be pushed inside a can full of people for the same time, and given the traffic, I am not the only one thinking the same.

First improve public transport, make it at least a tiny bit comfortable, then hate cars, not the other way around, that just won't work.

(let the downvotes rain... What did I expect, a discussion? Lol)

<comment><USER10> It is (almost) the same for every city, if you compare driving times from suburbs to city centre. The reason is that city train/metro/tram needs to stop on 15+ stations before reaching the inner city.

Still, to me, train is superior - I can just sit and relax. Driving is much more tiring. 15 minutes or so difference is not worth it.

<comment><USER9> In Prague, subway does not go to suburbs. Few trams do, but they do not reach the city centre. Not my case at all. The subway route I compare to car is 7 stops + 10 min walk.

<comment><USER11> What kind of awful subway is it, that takes 35 minutes to drive 7 stops?

I just checked a Rotterdam subway line and it does 30 stops in an hour[0] which is a ~32KM distance as a bird flies[1].

[0] [https://www.ret.nl/home/reizen/dienstregeling/metro-b.html](https://www.ret.nl/home/reizen/dienstregeling/metro-b.html) [1] [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Nesselande,+Rotterdam/Hoek+v...](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Nesselande,+Rotterdam/Hoek+van+Holland+Haven,+firstname.lastname@example.com,4.2172473,11z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x47c5cd813f600759:0x5074da313c0c6b58!2m2!1d4.586625!2d51.9797308!1m5!1m1!1s0x47c5ad1ea57bcd9f:0x17bb2708c2461a3!2m2!1d4.1284167!2d51.9752644!3e3)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> semi-extrinsic The entire country (Norway) had 0 children traffic deaths in 2019. In total 110 traffic deaths, of which 72% were men, very similar to the past few years. About 2/3rd of deaths were drivers or passengers in a car (the rest motorbike or pedestrian), and of those in cars 1/3rd were not using a seat belt.

So it's likely you could get an immediate decrease in total traffic deaths of close to 20% if you could just force everyone to wear a seatbelt.

<comment> pi-rat Seatbelt issue is probably going away.

My car will nag the hell out of me if anyone isn't wearing a seatbelt at speeds over 20 km/h. I assume this is true for most modern cars.

Part of the population who didn't grow up with seatbelts is aging. I remember my late grandmother hated the seatbelts, they didn't exist when she grew up. Often she would pretend to use the belt, holding it in place by hand so that it looked like she was wearing it. Stupid, and illogical, but that's how it is..

That only leaves the "cool" youths. Once "modern" naggy cars become old and cheap enough for them, they'll probably start too (or go out of their way to disable the sensor, or uncomfortably wear a seatbelt behind their back - turning a passive action into an active one.).

<comment><USER12> Is that easily bypassed? I don't need my car nagging me because I put a large box in my back seat.

<comment><USER13> For the cars I had, it was only on the driver seat. I think it's fair to assume there is always a person driving.

<comment><USER12> I've got one car where the front passenger seat will set off an alarm but if I hit a button on a control stalk it'll ignore it. However, this car loses its mind if I start the vehicle with the driver door open or my seat belt off (pretty common when you want to get the heat or a/c going for a bit before you drive off)

I've got another vehicle where it goes full chicken little if I don't button the seat belt first.

Both of them make me nostalgic for a Mitsubishi I had where the "chime" was a specific speaker that was easily disconnected and not a full blown part of the stereo/canbus/ecu and blasting out of every speaker in the car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Saw this study that pertains to road safty for Oslo published a few years back and some interesting aspects, like seasonal patterns and what works and what does not. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000145751...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0001457516301555)

Clearly an achievement that has been worked for and not statistical anomaly low.

<comment><USER15> Safety for mixed classes of traffic (car vs bike, yard worker vs freight train, sailboat vs tugboat, dump truck vs service truck, etc, etc.) has been studied since the industrial revolution brought about a world where it was common for a workplace to have big heavy things rolling around. Nobody wants to get hit and nobody wants to stop a money making operation because someone got hit. It's a shame that whenever cars/bikes/pedestrians are involved in the discussion it turns into your typical politicized yelling match.

Good on Oslo for using a data driven approach. Finding the political capital to do that sort of thing instead of just caving to whoever screams loudest seems rare these days.

</comment></comment><comment> pi-rat HN 11 months ago: Oslo made its city center basically car-free [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19000076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19000076)

<comment><USER16> That's a bizarre article. If you go to Oslo for yourself you will see it is far from car free - there's cars everywhere like a normal city.

<comment><USER17> It's because of the various definitions of "city center".

The upcoming car free city center in question is just a pretty small area, which has been a driving hell for years anyway, due to all the pedestrians, public transportation and low speeds. Unless you're a taxi who want to increase your fare, you wouldn't want to drive through it anyway.

<comment><USER16> I think 'Oslo pedestrianises a couple of streets' would be more accurate but not very interesting as many places do this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That is amazing. It is easy to imagine that safer cars have contributed most to this. But there are so many other factors.. emergency response, alcohol, road quality, weather... I wonder how it would break down, if it was possible to measure it all.

<comment><USER19> They also look at road section with abnormally high levels of accidents and are actually willing to chance road layout to more intuitive.

It is a legitimate reason to change the curvature or build a bridge or additional exit in Norway "because it's difficult to drive in".

It's really quite incredible, and combine that with safer cars, and you can really start to eat into traffic fatalities.

<comment><USER20> Interesting, because in some places like the UK, road infrastructure is intentionally made "difficult" as it has been proven to make drivers pay more attention and reduce accidents around those places.

<comment><USER21> Do you have a reference for that, out of interest?

That might genuinely be the intention but I'd worry that -- depending on the kind of 'challenge' added to roads -- it might not always work out for the best.

<comment><USER22> I know this approach is used in residential areas in the Netherlands. A lot of these streets are designated as "woonerf" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street)), which means that everything has right of way on cars (i.e. pedestrians, bikes, playing kids, whatever).

The design is often (intentionally) tricky to navigate. Brick/cobble roads to make driving fast uncomfortable. Planter's narrowing/blocking half the road, resulting in the road frequently being limited to a single lane (often alternating sides) so cars can't simultaneously pass. Frequent 90 degree turns, that sorta thing. It make it impossible to drive fast on these roads.

Note that this is only applied in some "zones", generally this applies to streets with houses, which will then connect up to a 30 km/h max road that is less obstructed and functions as a connecting artery to main roads in the city/town and eventually provincial roads (80 km/h) or highways.

Each classification has different goals, so highways and provincial roads are "vehicles only", cyclists and pedestrians will be on completely separate unconnected paths (usually with several meters of separation from the main road).

Main roads will have both cars and cyclists, but usually separate/designated bike lanes (and sometimes even separated bike paths). Only the 30km/h and woonerf streets really have bikes and cars mixed on the same lane (and will have measures that restrict car speed like I mentioned above).

<comment><USER21> Great details, thanks very much! Glad to see that this designation is widespread across a decent number of countries as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here in Perth, Western Australia we have quite reasonable pedestrian right of way laws.

But if you read the recommendations, you will notice the language talks about how it's basically still on you to not die.

For example, pedestrians have right of way when crossing a street where a car may be turning in to, so there should really be no need to check across your shoulder for traffic.

Most drivers don't seem aware of these laws, I get honked at regularly.

[https://www.sdera.wa.edu.au/media/1629/pedestrian_road_rules...](https://www.sdera.wa.edu.au/media/1629/pedestrian_road_rules_yr4.pdf)

<comment><USER24> NYC has plenty of "laws" but the volume of people makes it impossible to thoroughly enforce. Plus we have so many people visiting from elsewhere. Our mayor adopted Vision Zero a few years ago and we're making improvements but we still have quite a lot of fatal accidents.

<comment><USER25> Traffic rules should perhaps not be a federalized matter; certainly not down to _city_ level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've been traveling in northern Scandinavia for the past few months.

One thing that sticks out is that Norway has very low speed limits. They also have strict enforcement compared to the UK and super high fines.

In the northern part of the country you really need it because the weather varies a lot and the highways are basically mountain passes. At the moment around where I am close to Lofoten the roads are pretty much ice rinks as it's been constant rain and wind for a few days whilst the lower surface of the road was compacted snow/ice.

Plus there are animals.

But even in town 30, 40, 50 limits are common in places that would be way higher in the UK.

<comment><USER27> Speed limits in towns in the UK are either 20mph or 30mph, which is 30 km/h to 50 km/h. So speed limits look very similar to me.

The weather is an interesting point though, UK doesn't get any harsh winters - e.g. it almost never snows and doesn't go below 0 degrees celsius, however Norway seems to fluctuate between -5 and +15 degrees celsius.

Oslo: [https://en.climate- data.org/europe/norway/oslo/oslo-81/#clim...](https://en.climate- data.org/europe/norway/oslo/oslo-81/#climate-graph) London: [https://en.climate-data.org/europe/united- kingdom/england/lo...](https://en.climate-data.org/europe/united- kingdom/england/london-1/#climate-graph)

<comment><USER26> The difference is that tiny little villages/hamlets of the sort that I drove though in Northern Norway would definitely not be 20 or 30 zones in the UK.

You might see a 40 or 50 limit. 30 zones are generally reserved for places that are fairly built up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's quite hard to drive in Oslo now. Not impossible but it's not very fun and the speed limits are very low.

When I have to go inside "ring 1", I usually drive to a free parking/charging spot for electric cars and walk from there. It's quite close to aker brygge and close to the high way.

Back when I was living in Oslo (and didn't have children) I didn't have a car at all, no need for it.

<comment><USER29> >it's not very fun

Sorry to hear that other people's lives get in the way of your idea of 'fun'.

<comment><USER30> This is just a linguistic misunderstanding. "Det er ikke så moro" in Norwegian literally translates to "it's not so fun", but normally translates closer to "it's not pleasant/convenient" in meaning.

When you're not a native English speaker, it's very common to have subtle differences in intent lost in translation due to different ideomatic expressions. It's a good idea to be charitable (or ask for clarification) wrt. the perceived intent of the speaker, especially when they're from a different culture.

<comment><USER28> It's not always easy to keep track of the idioms in different languages!

In this case you can also translate it to an American idiom: It's a pain in the ass :)

<comment><USER29> Huh? Well, could you provide an example of your idea of having 'fun' while in a car?

<comment><USER31> What he wrote was: "Not impossible but it's not very fun and the speed limits are very low."

What he meant was: "Not impossible but it's a pain in the ass and the speed limits are very low."

Nothing to do with fun, in the English sense of the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> And 13 days into 2020, and Oslo got it's first traffic death in this year. [https://www.aftenposten.no/osloby/i/2G0EAx/barn-omkom-i- traf...](https://www.aftenposten.no/osloby/i/2G0EAx/barn-omkom-i- trafikkulykke-i-fotgjengerfelt-paa-holmen-i-oslo)

</comment><comment><USER33> From the chart, going from 5 or 10 driver traffic deaths to 1 may be a simple statistical anomaly (and perhaps not even, it could be within the distribution). We would need to know the history of pedestrian and cyclist deaths too. The long term evolution seems meaningful, but that year may not mean anything.

<comment><USER34> I would love to live in a city where 1 traffic death is within the distribution, so I think it means a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's interesting to see how effective lowering the speed limit is (which comes to no surprise). In NYC the speed limit is 25mph, but anecdotally speaking it's largely ignored. I have never seen much in the way of enforcement of those limits, at least in Manhattan.

</comment><comment><USER36> slightly off topic, but had no idea you could hide replies to your tweet on twitter.

It's amazing how many inconvenient counterpoints (and trolls) we can now bury under an extra layer (the view hidden tweets button) because we don't like what they have to say on a public forum.

<comment><USER37> Is a tweet a public forum, or someone's back yard? I can kick people off of my back yard if I feel like it.

<comment><USER36> that's a fair question. I'd say the way it's been used so far (unless you have a private account) that it's a public forum.

If you want your backyard-privacy treatment then turn down your megaphone and make your profile private.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands For some context:

 _The Oslo city center is almost entirely car-free after eliminating parking spots and banning cars on certain streets. The Norwegian capital finished at the beginning of this year, removing the last of approximately 750 street-side parking spots within the city center and replacing them with bike lanes, benches, greenery and parks._

 _With nowhere to park in the city center, there are essentially no cars in downtown Oslo. A few exceptions are made for delivery vehicles during specific hours, spaces for EVs to charge, people with disabilities, and of course emergency vehicles. Parking garages outside the center are available to the public, with 9,000 available spaces, and drivers are diverted via traffic restrictions to use ring roads to bypass the city._

Oslo Is (Almost) Car-Free — And Likes It That Way (March 2019): [https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/05/oslo-is-almost-car- free...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/05/oslo-is-almost-car-free-and- likes-it-that-way/)

</comment><comment><USER38> That's impressive. Even more impressive is that the yearly death toll has been 10 or below since around 2005. Is it because people/teens are now staying indoors more due to the internet or is it due to a policy change or is it technological improvements in cars? I don't speak norwegian so I can't read the linked article.

<comment><USER39> It seems they almost eliminated (not completely) the cars from the city: [https://www.fastcompany.com/90294948/what-happened-when- oslo...](https://www.fastcompany.com/90294948/what-happened-when-oslo-decided- to-make-its-downtown-basically-car-free)

<comment><USER40> Basically not true. This applies to a small section of the city center.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> In contrast, the US had over 40,000 traffic deaths in each of 2016, 2017, and 2018.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-13/traffic-d...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-13/traffic- deaths-in-u-s-exceed-40-000-for-third-straight-year)

<comment><USER42> Comparing a population of ~329M to a city of 1M seems a bit silly. Scale that and you get 121 deaths / million. That's unfair the other way as we're comparing conditions a large city rural areas of the US as well, but since we began with a silly comparison I'm not sure how we fix it without starting over.

In Austin TX, population ~1M, we had 74 vehicle related fatalities in 2018.

<comment><USER41> I mean... it's context to make it relevant to US readers. You didn't see me say there was a direct comparison to be made.

And you're kind of contradicting your claim that it's totally useless. 121/million vs. 1/million shows at what order of magnitude the comparison takes place, which is good enough to contextualize things, and your example of Austin further shows that the order of magnitude isn't far off.

<comment><USER42> It's context that makes no sense. How about this one?:

"In my neighborhood last year there were also no vehicle fatalities."

Is that in any way helpful?

<comment><USER41> No. We have no knowledge of your neighborhood, whereas US readers have a good- enough picture of the US.

It's also useless because a neighborhood is too small a unit of measurement to be useful, period. Unlike cities, states, or the entire country, the vast majority of neighborhoods have zero vehicle fatalities.

<comment><USER42> I'm glad we agree

<comment><USER41> It doesn't seem that way. If you're being snide... well, I guess that's that. Sad that you need to be so critical of one mildly helpful data point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Just speculation but considering the weather we've had this year it could be due to the lack of snow and ice.

</comment><comment><USER44> You can always tell which pedrstrians in Oslo are visitors, because they wait for cars to slow down at crosswalks before setting foot in the street. Norwegians are so accustomed to motorists being attentive that they blindly and confidently stroll into traffic (at crosswalks).

</comment><comment><USER45> It is quite expensive to get a drivers license here in Norway, and it is a rigorous process.

<comment><USER46> You can freely use many foreign driver's licenses without extra expenditures.

<comment><USER47> Yes, and this is true in virtually every country. The licenses of almost every country are accepted for visitors in any of those same countries, thanks to some UN conventions.

An international driving permit which uses a standardized format and includes translations may be required.

<comment><USER48> I think the point here is that EU/EEA driving licences are considered as valid as local licences, without time limits, because Norway is in the EEA.

<comment><USER49> >without time limits

Not true in many EU countries. In France you're supposed to get a French driving license after two years of residence. Never heard of this being enforced, but I know people that changed when their licensed needed renewal so they could deal with a local administration.

<comment><USER48> This is not compulsory. It is perfectly legal to keep your EU/EEA licence as long as it is valid. They can force you to exchange it for a local one, though, if you commit certain driving offences.

<comment><USER47> It is required to get one in your country of residence when it expires (and licenses that are valid for life can be limited to two years), or if it is lost, stolen, or damaged. That's not what I would consider "without time limits," and certainly not what I would consider "as valid" as a local Norwegian license. It's more of an extension of the several months or year that people from any other country get.

<comment><USER50> It's no different than a local renewing the card (the license itself lasts longer than the plastic card).

That's in contrast to people from some non EEA countries who have to take a local driving test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Rome has probably the worst record: 111 traffic deaths from January to November 2019.

<comment><USER52> Worst record in Europe, right? That's like a two-day worth of accidents here in Bangkok:

> A total of 256 were killed and 2,588 injured in 2,529 road accidents > nationwide from Dec 27 to 31

[https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1827019/seasona...](https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1827019/seasonal- death-toll-shrinks-despite-drunk-driving-epidemic)

<comment><USER53> That's a staggering number, but isn't the article including the whole country in this count of 256 deaths? It sounds like "only" 12 of them were in Bangkok:

> Over the Dec 27-31 period, Bangkok had the highest number of deaths at 12

(...which implies a very long tail of cities outside of the capital.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The cause of the decline is mentioned in the article:

"\- Oslo has received several regulations that have reduced the number of places where it is possible to drive. This is especially true within the city center and downtown areas. People have started cycling more. The risk of accidents between motorists and cyclists has been reduced. The more you separate the different road groups, the less the risk of serious traffic accidents. And then we see that the speed limit has been lower on several roads, says Steen."

</comment><comment><USER55> Does Oslo rigorously separate cars from bikes, using bike lanes?

<comment><USER17> Hehe, nope. It's actually the opposite.

Don't get me wrong - they're building new bike lanes at a rapid pace. However, traffic, bicycles and pedestrians freely intermingle most places, which works because it helps reduce car speeds massively.

Drivers perceive intermingled streets as more dangerous, so they drive safer.

This video illustrates it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyWYvovLvMQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyWYvovLvMQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Meanwhile, here in upstate New York...

[https://13wham.com/news/local/pedestrian-hit-by-car-then- tic...](https://13wham.com/news/local/pedestrian-hit-by-car-then-ticketed-for- not-using-sidewalk)

> A man in Ontario County was ticketed after he was hit by a car.

> Deputies ticketed Weaver for not being as far off the road as possible. The > driver who hit him was not charged.

In broad daylight, incidentally.

</comment><comment><USER57> Oslo is also the 'Tesla capital of the world', wonder if their high NCAP safety ratings have had an impact as well?

</comment><comment><USER58> These types of stats are almost meaningless to compare because most of the difference in outcomes is caused by cultural differences which are difficult and unlikely to change. There are two factors that have more effect on traffic safety in the US than anything else when compared to most of the rest of the world: 1) More total miles driven per capita, 2) Distracted driving.

To expand on #2 above, most of the world still predominantly drives manual transmission vehicles, and licensing and enforcing standards are much higher, as well as cultural factors which increase driving engagement. All of this culminates in the average driver being much much more attentive of their surroundings outside the US than inside the US. In the US its nearly the reverse, majority of vehicles are automatic transmissions, almost all newer cars now have BLISS and other automated safety systems which are a reaction to fatalities from distracted driving. Texting while driving is epidemic and is more dangerous now in most states than drunk driving is.

Replicating the factors that Oslo has which drives their stats in the US is likely to be impossible, and probably would create such far-reaching consequences that it's also undesirable.

<comment><USER59> Requiring drivers to be 18 and take extensive driver training and having a zero tolerance for drunk driving is certainly "cultural".

But for the the technical argument (cars, infrastructure) I'm not so sure. Manuals are definitely going the way of the dinosaur in Norway (people buy SUVs and Teslas - they don't even have manual as an option).

Distraction is a problem but it seems it should be as big a problem everywhere where there are distractions. What helps there is infrastructure: a distracted person is much less dangerous in a roundabout than in an intersection. A cyclist on a separate path is less likely to be hit by both drunk and distracted drivers etc.

But yes these things are _expensive_. The consequence of replacing thousands of intersections with roundabouts is huge. Building bridges and tunnels so pedestrians never need to cross roads is expensive. Converting highways to be separated without oncoming traffic is _really_ expensive, even if Norway and Sweden fancy the cheaper alternating 2+1 lane conversions.

Getting rid of the first part of deaths is low hanging fruit. Just change DUI levels (perhaps doing something about distraction but it's unfortunately much harder as there are no breath tests for distraction). That's almost "free".

Going the rest of the way towards zero costs a lot of (tax) money in infrastructure, and that might be a harder sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Similarly, Helsinki (about same population) had 0 pedestrian, 0 cyclist and 0 children killed in traffic, but 3 people killed in motor vehicles.

(The above figures are only for road traffic; several people were killed by trains, but those are excluded from calculations because of politics.)

</comment><comment><USER61> Amazing.

And ~60% of new cars sold are electric in Norway.

They are doing it right.

Too bad the rest of the world is slow to catch up.

<comment><USER62> Cool thing is that electric cars have number plates that start with EV-

<comment><USER63> And EL, EK, EB, EC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Is Tesla having any effect on that?

Most new cars sold in Norway are electric and Tesla has almost 50% share of electric cars. Model 3 is the most-sold vehicle in Norway.

<comment><USER65> Probably some due to the safety features, but I think its wrong to focus on Telsa alone here - modern cars (such as Tesla) have much better safety features than the cars from the 1970s. Norway has a high standard of living, and there are a lot of nice and new cars in Oslo.

Most of this is probably due to the local government focus on walkability. The article describes that the reduction is due to reduced speed limits, an increased amount of bike-paths and limiting a large number of roads to only pedestrian traffic. The large increase in road tolls and increase in cycling has probably also reduced the total number of cars on the road.

Anecdotally I've got the impression that Tesla drivers are among the most aggressive ones on the road in Norway, but this is only my experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Volvos no deaths announcement make a lot more sense in that context. When I first heard it I thought they were insane

</comment><comment><USER67> When I was in western Norway, I noted the abundant use of roundabouts, wouldn't be surprised if that contributes.

</comment><comment><USER68> I am sure that implémentation helps, but likely a big part is norwegians on average are far better educated.

</comment><comment><USER69> Because he was the only person in the country and made an accident?

Whole country 5 million (Oslo 673.000) and 20 percentage expats.

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

You can't have much accidents already by default.

There are many cities in the world like Berlin, Tokyo, Moscow population way bigger than whole Norway.

</comment><comment><USER70> I wonder also how the situation of Norway as a whole is? And is there a chart for other countries?

<comment> seventh-chord For norway, our central statistics agency[1] keeps track of anual traffic fatalities. They provide numbers for each year since 1946, though detailed statistics are only available since ~2000.

In 1946, there were 161 fatalities and 675 gravely injured. This grew more or less linearly to 1971, with 533 fatalities and 4069 gravely injured. Since then it has fallen, again more or less linearly, to 108 fatalities and 602 gravely injured in 2018.

Numbers for 2019 are not out yet, as statistics for december have yet to be released.

[1]: ssb.no

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> gotta get those numbers up boys!

</comment><comment><USER72> I am living in Oslo and just came driving from the city center now, not strange when it is almost impossible to drive around there, lot of light regulation (no turn right on red as in US). Even with socioeconomic value on human life in the $10M range I don't think it is economically beneficial to the city center.

The 'no children died' in 2019 is something else and a really good thing!

<comment><USER73> Oslo city center is doing great economically, and lots of good connections to there with public transit for commuters. Also despite tolls etc. there is bad commuter time traffic and downtown parking shortages, not clear what extra economic benefit would arise from adding more cars to the roads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> Good to see all that oil revenue being used to protect Norwegians, shame about the climate change.

<comment><USER75> Is Norway responsible for the emissions? It's the buyers who decide to burn the oil rather than use it to produce other stuff.

<comment><USER76> If the buyer doesn't want it, Norway sets down the price until someone does. We make sure every barrel pumped is burned eventually.

In the end, we have to leave carbon in the ground. Even with increasingly dubious prospects for profitability, and increasing environmental risks (from oil extradition in the far north), Norwegian governments have not been willing to leave any oil in the ground.

<comment><USER77> Why is turning it into plastics a problem? You don't have to burn oil....

<comment><USER59> Most of the plastic I buy is burned (as trash) probably within a year from me buying it. Sweden burns its trash, we don't stuff it in landfills, and even though I recycle a lot of plastic, it's far from all of it. It's mostly packaging plastic that's recycled, not e.g. toys.

<comment><USER77> In theory, the world should just bury it. After all, it came from the ground.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand why this is a big deal. Oslo has basically made driving so inconvenient and so inefficient, that all of its benefits relative to other modes of transportation are taken away. In those conditions, for example lowering speed limits dramatically, obviously reducing deaths is not hard.

What is being completely left out of this conversation is the impact on quality of life. Cars are simply far more convenient than public transit or biking or walking, when supported appropriately by infrastructure and policy. In the absence of "traffic calming" measures (a euphemism for making driving painful) that accompany Vision Zero initiatives, cars are fast, don't involve waiting time, and are a point to point option that takes you straight to where do you want to go.

Everything in life involves some degree of risk. I'm OK with having convenient car driving options and incurring a higher degree of risk as a result. A small number of deaths does not make me feel generally "unsafe" on the roads and I will happily take the reduced travel times as a trade off. The CDC's data also indicates that vehicle related injuries and deaths have been falling since the 1980s, unrelated to recent traffic calming measures. I bet this trend will continue with rapid declines caused by the standardization of back up cameras, collision avoidance, lane departure warning, blind spot monitoring, and so on. I don't think it is worth trying to optimize for perfect safety when we already have good-enough safety, and we should retain fast travel times instead of letting the boogeyman of safety rule all decisions.</comment>


Reputation Suicide, and Why I'm Quitting Disqus - <AUTHOR> http://www.daedtech.com/im-quitting-disqus/ <comment><USER2> At the end of the day, it's a "free" service. If they have to monetize through ads, they have that right. If you don't like the new price of free, you can move on to a new product.

I would have a very different opinion if it was a paid service from the get- go.

<comment><USER3> I don't think anyone is arguing they don't have that right. And moving on to a new product is precisely what the author has done, so that's a bit of an obvious statement.

The idea here is a visibility: "Check your Disqus implementations because they've changed." It's like when I tell people about the creepy shit Facebook does. I always tell them, "if this is a fair deal for you, great! Just know what you're getting into."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > So imagine my surprise a few years later, when I learned that disqus had, at > some point unknown to me, turned them back on as part of some update. My > readers at the time found themselves treated to things like this.

I don't get it, isn't this exactly what the email says? Starting February 8, Disqus will add ads to non-paying customers' feeds.

I understand the chagrin against marketing-speak, but I don't see the outright deception.

</comment><comment><USER5> Or you know, if it's valuable you could pay.

<comment><USER6> It is, but he feels doing business with someone who abuses his trust is not in his best interest. Call me snarky, but I totally agree.

<comment><USER5> But if they can't get any of those users to pay and its the difference between not providing the service or displaying ads (with fair warning!) what is the lesser of two evils? Disqus continues to exist and thats only a good thing. I don't think "not displaying ads and letting me get it for free" is a fair option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm glad I'm not the only one who cringes at the term "Customer Success".</comment>


After a Terrible 2019, Blizzard Is Going All-In at BlizzCon - <AUTHOR> https://kotaku.com/after-a-terrible-2019-blizzard-is-going-all-in-at-bliz-1839425018 <comment><USER2> There is a lot of talk about protests at blizzcon. I hope the participants succeed and can keep the media's attention on this issue, this has been the best anti-censorship PR in a long time. A big enough community reaction could actually get blizzard to change policy a little bit

</comment><comment><USER3> They'll announce Diablo 4, Starcraft 3, and something else cool (no matter how along they actually are in development or how far out their release date is) and then we'll all forget what a mess they made of things.</comment>


90k+ Paid Chrome Web App Store Users and growing 5k/week - <AUTHOR> http://www.chromeosapps.org/chrome-web-store-sales-slow-to-a-trickle-really/

<comment><USER2> Ugh. This post is flawed. I've been in contact with him all afternoon trying to explain why (I wrote the original post he is attempting to debunk).

Under his 'Paid Apps' banner he is counting applications that use in-app purchases (but are initially free) and that offer free demo periods.

He doesn't know how many of those users are actually paying for items within the applications using in-app purchases, and he doesn't know how many people are paying once their demo expires.

I did my homework on this one. I looked at the 'Paid Apps' section listed on the official Chrome Web Store. When I noticed how low the running weekly download count was, I contacted Google and asked what was up. They said that the 'Top Paid' section on their store was not listed in order (no idea why), but even when I browsed through all of the 'Top Paid' applications, the one with the most downloads still wasn't doing very well.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem is, by the site's own admission, the number of apps has doubled (see their previous post) Meaning the per app sales of the store are half of what they were. So while the numbers aren't as bleak as we thought they aren't great either.

<comment><USER4> This seems an odd way to analyze the impact of user growth given that sales distribution in app stores is so non-linear.

It would seem safe to presume that the growth in paid users will result in stronger sales for the predominant apps – versus them being spread out over the whole inventory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also, paid apps counts apps with in-app payments, so if, for example, you demo MOG, that counts as a paid app as far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong)

</comment><comment><USER6> So looking at the chart you would describe App Sales as trickling.

Geez.</comment>


[Need Beta-testers] Wordpress Powered Personal Website - <AUTHOR> https://www.per.ws

<comment><USER2> My remarks:

      - header image way too big (subjective)
      - features page doesn't seem to list prices
      - If you aren't their [should be there] you won't get what you deserve
      - "Few of who applies to a job have a personal website, it's your chance to impress the employers, GET Noticed"
      - https://per.ws/about-us/ Start the sentence with an uppercase letter
      - https://imgur.com/KLdw2dp Header cut off on smaller screens
      - https://imgur.com/NSoxx2f Spelling of availability

<comment><AUTHOR> Am very very thankful to your remarks, and we will consider it all. we hope to hear from you if you have any other comments. we will send you a 100% discountto your mail.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Get us your review and you will get a 100% discount the Plus level for a Year.</comment>


Kyoto Studio Devastated by Fire Is Revered by Anime Fans - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/18/arts/kyoto-animation-fire.html <comment><AUTHOR> More details: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Animation_arson_attack)

</comment><comment><USER2> 180 comment in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468395](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20468395)</comment>


Interesting discussion about distributed shells [2010] - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/devops-toolchain/browse_thread/thread/99fab04f6f1e6f60

<comment><USER2> As a developer who knows nothing of devops....

Given Pupper, Chef and CFEngine; why would I choose one over the others?</comment>


DHS plans urgently needed to address identified challenges before 2020 elections [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.gao.gov/assets/710/704314.pdf <comment><USER2> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVLH1tLIDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYVLH1tLIDY)

They should start with Rand Waltzman's presentation at DEFCON (link above). In sum, USGOV is still totally unprepared for information warfare ops ongoing and intended.

About 1/2 through this video the content is the best I've ever watched from DEFCON, period.

<comment><USER3> Great video, thanks! I have one question:

There's a part where Rand says he was asked to provide questions for the congressional Facebook hearing. He said he was shocked when his questions were not used and instead "stupid" questions were asked. I'm not sure if he meant this sarcastically or not, but isn't it clear, especially to someone like Rand being an expert in disinformation and related areas, that the questions were likely deliberately not asked? I'm not sure why he was shocked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> when viewed from a sludge-money lens (a la the F35) electronic voting and election security seem largely working as intended:

\- we know paper works (Canada/UK) so there must be an ulterior motive for pushing on tech solution so hard

\- money gets sent to various entities under the guise of tech, security, freedom, etc. (contracts for voting machines, contracts for software, etc.). this basically gives some limited air cover for transfer of funds to entities

\- it nicely feeds into itself: defensive work always needs to keep up with (real or imagined) offensive threats so basically unlimited amounts can be spent without too much eye rolling

\- it is basically a get out of jail free card for both political parties in the future: "elections were hacked" is bipartisan and can be a useful tool to defeat/deny access to popular party outsiders on both parties, as opposed to a genuine candidate blowing up the system (Sanders?)

\- any foreign entity can be conveniently used if e.g. need to get a quick war going to distract the plebs from, say, medical parasitism or offshoring jobs

<comment><USER5> UK and Canada are parliamentary systems so most ballots are one page. Most of those are just a single question with one selection permitted.

In the US the ballot I get in my polling place depends on where I live and sometimes what party I am registered with. My ballot will likely be different than the next person in line. That ballot is many pages with numerous questions per page. And for about half of the questions I am permitted more than one selection.

Machines are a good aid here for this system. Verifiable paper tallies are good for election security though.

<comment><USER6> What you describe is not that different from Australia's preferential system afaict, aside from people at one district potentially having different ballots.

Australian ballots are not always simple, and you vote for your local representative so each district has a different one. Often you will have multiple ballots to complete, and some have the choice between above or below the line voting (where above you select some preferences and below you select all preferences, where all may be over 100 boxes).

Parties often hand out small leaflets outside the voting locations with instructions for above the line voting, which is typically a list of around 6 preferences in order.

Despite this, voting in Australia is done with paper, and we have live coverage with real-time counts on election night. Paper works quite well, computers really aren't necessary.

<comment><USER5> Australia is always a curveball! I've wondered how a precinct counts those ballots, especially if some people vote below the line. I hope someone with experience comments here.

<comment><USER6> You don't have to wonder, the counting process is well documented! :)

[https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/counting/](https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/counting/)

<comment><USER5> Thanks, I'm still confused but it seems in essence before counting they make an educated guess of the two likely winners and first count with that in mind and only do a more complicated tally if it ends-up mathematically possible for one of the others to still come-out on top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here in the UK we still use paper and pencils and while you can still mess with individual votes it isn't something that scales... not like running a DB query:

UPDATE tbl_Vote SET Candidate = [The one that paid us the most] WHERE State = [State Name]

</comment><comment><USER8> Paper and pencils please.

<comment><USER9> The discussion over paper vs. electronic ballots tends to miss many of the largest issues in election security. DHS is correct in pointing out that we need a focus on the larger landscape of election support infrastructure. Notably, electronic pollbooks are a very important part of the voting system which cannot readily be replaced with a non-digital solution. Simply switching to paper ballots reduces the problem, but does not by any means eliminate it.

Calls for paper ballots also tend to get muddled up in the realities of how ballots are counted. When paper ballots are used, they are virtually always still counted by computer using an OMR. A precinct tabulating solution, which is widely used in the US right now, simply moves the OMR from the central election office out into the polling place, and is broadly equivalent from a security perspective to what most people would call a "pure paper" solution except that the environmental exposure of the OMRs is higher because of their presence in field voting locations. However, security measures used to protect centralized OMR in jurisdictions without precinct tabulators are not necessarily any better than OMRs out in the field. In fact, precinct tabulators are generally built with significantly improved anti-tamper mechanisms compared to the older central tabulators. These measures aren't perfect of course, but it is a matter of tamper seals, cryptographic signatures, and audit tapes used by precinct tabulators as compared to absolutely no anti-tamper measures in many centralized tabulators used by jurisdictions with what many people would call "completely non-digital" voting.

While it is possible to tally the ballots by hand without the assistance of OMR, and there are organizations which advocate for this, it is an extremely expensive proposal and it's actually fairly hard to argue that it is superior to a well operated OMR approach - even in the case of hand-tallying of ballots, audit recount should still be performed to ensure accuracy and integrity in the (recently recruited online, poorly paid, minimally trained, and very hurried) election officials.

<comment><USER10> An audit recount is at least possible with paper ballots. If digital records are modified, how are you going to audit them?

<comment><USER9> Digital records kept by precinct tabulators are audited using the paper ballots. These machines read and retain the voter's original ballot for later inspection. if the ballot is machine-marked (done for voters with certain sensory/mobility limitations) the paper copy is produced for the voter's (or assister's) inspection prior to tabulation.

This is perhaps the #1 misunderstanding of electronic voting technology that I encounter and frustrates me endlessly: the most widely used electronic voting method in the US, precinct tabulators, are a paper-ballot based system. The only change from the "traditional" approach to voting in the US is that the OMR is moved from the county elections office to the precinct polling place, which simplifies handling of the paper ballots. The paper ballots remain the "source of truth" and are retained for audit, the machine just tabulates the ballots immediately after the voter turning them in, instead of a courier delivering the ballot box to the central office for tabulation. Precinct tabulators include multiple safeguards against tampering which are far from perfect but reasonably effective against most common attacks - ultimately the safeguard against tampering is the same as it always has been, that the ballot box must be kept under watch of sworn election officials to protect the integrity of the paper ballots. Exact handling of the ballot boxes vary by jurisdiction, in this state they are entrusted to the state court system for retention for several years and can be retrieved and opened for auditing by order of a judge.

Risk models for precinct tabulators are generally ballot stuffing, tampering with software in the supply chain, tampering with election configuration, or tampering with an individual OMR, such as in the polling place (this is by far the case that gets the most attention, even the security community seems to have largely not noticed the first three). Ballot stuffing is generally prevented by use of a machine "unlock" procedure (using a cryptographic token in the most common system) and review of the paper audit tape against the pollbook and/or voting permits generated by the pollbook (number of ballots on tape must match number of issued permits and the number of voters recorded as voted by the pollbook, these are independent checks in my jurisdiction although they should always be equivalent - checking both ways is actually a means of auditing the pollbook). Tampering with individual tabulators is relatively easily discovered by auditing the ballots using a different machine, which is the normal recount process in this jurisdiction. Tampering with tabulator configuration (likely by compromise of the election management system used to program the machines) can be detected by inspecting the paper audit tapes which include the machine configuration, which is normally conducted by a university political science department in this jurisdiction. This political science department also inspects the audit tape totals to audit the central office tabulation where the machine counts are added.

Tampering with tabulator software in the supply chain is by far the most difficult and concerning case. In every case I have ever seen, tabulators are never connected to the internet. However, they are connected to a configuration system which may be internet connected, and could offer a (not easy but possible) route to tampering with their software. It is more likely that such tampering would occur prior to delivery of the machine or perhaps during storage. If done carefully it could be very difficult to detect by any audit method except for a hand-count of ballots. In this jurisdiction and, according to NCSL in the majority of US states, a hand-count is performed on a subset of ballots as part of the normal post-election audit process, and should detect this type of tampering unless the effect is very small.

To be clear, some direct recording electronic or DRE machines are a major concern because there is no paper ballot for independent auditing. The term DRE can be confusing because some DREs produce a voter-verified paper audit trail or VVPAT which is essentially a machine-marked paper ballot which is shown to the voter prior to tabulation. These machines are considered DRE rather than precinct tabulators because they directly record the voter's preferences from the marker rather than scanning a paper ballot, however, because a paper ballot is retained they are mostly equivalent to precinct tabulators, with the downside that voters may not scrupulously verify the VVPAT since they were not required to mark it manually. Only about 28% of voters according to Pew vote using DRE machines, and according to Verified Voting about one quarter of those machines produce a VVPAT. This would suggest that about 21% of registered voters live in jurisdictions where there is no paper audit trail. This is definitely highly concerning, but is a significantly lower proportion of voters than most people who discuss this issue seem to think.

The popularity of DRE equipment increased significantly after the Help America Vote act because DRE machines contain significantly more advanced accessibility features (e.g. blind and mobility-impaired voter modes) and HAVA required jurisdictions to upgrade to machines with these features. However, HAVA does not require DRE at all. Jurisdictions which centrally count ballots or use precinct tabulators can offer voters with accessibility needs a "ballot marker" which they insert their ballot into. After assisting the voter, the machine marks their ballot and returns it to them, allowing them or an assister to verify the ballot's correctness. In my experience most disabled voters prefer to have a human such as a family member or sworn election official assist them in marking their ballot anyway, since it is easier than learning to use the machine's accessibility interface modes, but the ballot marking machine offers them the option of complete privacy. In the case of perhaps the most popular precinct tabulator, ImageCase, the ballot marker is the same machine as the tabulator to save space and equipment maintenance. In this case the machine returns the ballot to the voter after marking for inspection and the voter reinserts the ballot into the same machine for tabulation.

Focusing on all electronic voting methods, including precinct tabulation, as an evil, like a large portion of people in the tech community currently do, has significant downsides. Precinct tabulators, and OMR tabulation more generally, has significant advantages in terms of cost, accuracy (assuming no tampering, as in the majority of cases), and timeliness of results. Further, precinct tabulators have advantage to voters. Precinct tabulators generally sound an alert and return the ballot to the voter if there are problems tabulating it. This prevents votes being lost due to marking errors or damage to the ballot. Precinct tabulators confirm to the voter on a display that their ballot has been successfully tabulated, providing them with a higher level of confidence that their ballot will be counted than central tabulation provides.

This has been a very long comment, but this is a topic about which I am extremely passionate. Those involved in advocating for changes in the mechanics of the US election system _must be sufficiently knowledgeable of the actual methods and machines in use to make reasoned arguments_. This includes knowing the difference between precinct tabulation of paper ballots and DRE, and especially DRE with no VVPAT. Unfortunately it seems that most of the time they do not. It doesn't help that the media and even technical experts (although not technical experts in voting) regularly conflate OMR, precinct tabulation, and DRE, and generally contribute to an impression that the majority of US voters leave no paper trail even when that is untrue.

Were I president of the world, I would like to see legislation which mandates the use of a voter-marked paper ballot. This allows the significant advantages of precinct tabulators while ensuring the ability to audit the election by hand. I would further like to see legislation which requires that all jurisdictions hand-count a portion of ballots as an audit, possibly using the tiered method used in some states in which the size of the audit sample increases as the margin in a race gets smaller, eventually leading to a full hand count (this is essentially a more systematized version of the automatic recount legislation that already exists in many states).

This is somewhat complicated when many people are arguing against the use of any technology in the voting process, while unaware that technology (namely centralized OMR, which is essentially strictly inferior to precinct tabulators) has been in use since the '60s and widespread since far before the introduce of problematic DREs, and unaware of the controls in place to prevent and detect tampering with these systems. Electronic voting simply does not mean that there is no auditable paper ballot - in the strong majority of cases there is. _Let 's focus on the real problem, which is DRE with no VVPAT (with DRE in general being desirable to eliminate due to the limitations of VVPAT), and not cause election authorities to feel that they need to hold onto their unauditable DRE systems because the public acts like the only viable alternative is a full hand-count, which is prohibitively expensive by orders of magnitude to US elections authorities which generally suffer from severely limited funding._

Edit: besides fixing spelling, on a reread I realize that I should emphasize that precinct tabulators are connected to an election management system (which may be internet connected depending on the jurisdiction) _prior_ to the election in order to program them. In some cases this is a direct network connection but more often it's a memory card that's moved from the election management system to the tabulator. They are not connected to anything during actual tabulation or at any time before the audit tapes and results card are removed. It is a sensible policy to require election management systems to be disconnected from the internet, and DHS has focused in on this issue closely in their work.

<comment><USER11> Wow...thank you for all the great info and insight, and for the work you've put in yourself on our elections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting that the DHS response to all 3 points is that they concur, but for all 3 points the resolution the Department points to is a document called the #Protect2020 Strategic Plan, which will supposedly be released on Feb 14th.

Is that actually enough time for the guidance within to be implemented?

</comment><comment><USER13> Simple question, are electronic voting systems required to be FedRamp certified? If not why not?

<comment><USER9> Elections are managed by the states and, in some states, almost all aspects are deferred to the counties. There is currently no standardized framework for elections system security on a national level and it is difficult to implement one for political reasons. DHS has moved in the direction of producing guidance, but it is my hope that a mandatory framework can be introduced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is every incentive in the world to do whatever one wants to our elections right now. It's a free-for-all of bad, patchwork technologies, zero oversight, and a political establishment that is openly encouraging nation state interference.

I am deathly afraid for our elections this year.

</comment><comment><USER15> It's pretty easy to "secure" the election.

1\. Voter ID 2\. Paper ballot electronically counted, paper stored as backup for any disputes or recounts. 3\. No digital / computerized voting machines.

<comment><USER16> Voter ID laws aren't about protecting elections, they're about disenfranchising voters:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans- ackno...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/us/some-republicans-acknowledge- leveraging-voter-id-laws-for-political-gain.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/21/trump- advise...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/21/trump-adviser- republicans-voter-suppression)

<comment><USER17> It's about keeping non-citizens who don't have the right to vote from voting. _Not_ implementing these laws diminishes the enfranchised.

<comment><USER18> Nope, just another form of Poll tax: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_taxes_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_taxes_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER17> No, it isn't. However, let's assume it is. If you don't pay your (separate and presumably uncontroversial) federal taxes, you become a felon and legally disenfranchised. It becomes clear this is all a minor accounting detail.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Trevor Blackwell (YC and Anybots) Contributes to Hollywood Movie Surrogates - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/video/latest-videos/latest/1815816633/exclusive-video--robotech-in-surrogates/31270430001

<comment><USER2> I'm up for that!

I'll see if I can bamboozle someone at Disney to give us a copy of the film on opening night we can screen here at Anybots/YC. Failing that, we can meet up at the Shoreline theater and go for beers at Anybots/YC afterwards.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd be way into that. See hollywood robots, then see how far Anybots is...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> YC Anybots meetup / screening around September 25 ?</comment>


Founder Fuel - Not one woman listed as a mentor - <AUTHOR> http://founderfuel.com/en/

<comment><AUTHOR> This infuriates me.

<comment><USER2> It infuriates me too, but what are you going to do about it?

Here is the fundamental problem:

Girls are not encouraged to be dangerous at an early age.

People that enjoy or able to endure dangerous things are more likely to take greater risks and thus reap greater rewards. So, at the top echelon of achievement, you have a gender inequality.

It's crazy hard to find good people, so women form a minority in another minority. I'm not surprised at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Minorities, perhaps. But they definitely exist. There was zero representation. How can you build a legit network of startup mentors without much diversity?</comment></comment></comment>


A course that has brought women even with men on a spatial cognition test (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/men-are-better-at-maps-until-women-take-this-course <comment><USER2> I don't understand this obsession with attempting to force the idea that men and women are/should be interchangeable. Isn't there something interesting about us being different? I know it's a different issue, but this is one of the reasons I think it will be a shame if we have mass immigration and no borders - the rich differences between us will dissolve into one globalised, corporatised, undifferentiable and utterly debased culture. If (as lots of politicians proclaim vociferously and in a suspiciously coordinated manner) diversity is truly our greatest strength why not do something to defend it instead of encouraging its destruction?

Who benefits from this dislocation of social and cultural bonds? Certainly not the mass of the population, I would venture.

<comment> Const-me > Who benefits from this dislocation of social and cultural bonds?

Good for business for several reasons.

Business no longer need to pay person enough to raise a family.

When genders or people are completely interchangeable, this puts downwards pressure on salaries, increases supply by increasing mobility.

People with dislocated bonds, and people doing work they don't like, are less happy in general. Makes it easier to sell them shiny stuff they don't actually need.

<comment><USER3> I benefit, as a woman who likes math and has great spatial skills! Sorry y'all are buying stuff to soothe your souls 'cause I'm happier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I believe the 3D rotation of objects differences between men and women has been known for quite a long time now, so I'm not sure what this is adding really. Also men are physically stronger than women, but women can lift weights and become stronger too, so not surprisingly practice can eventually trump nature which has been known for melenia too.

I think this obsession with trying to find that everything and everyone is equal has also been written about since Aristotle's time and cautioned against since it eventually leads to demigods and tyranny according to the Greeks since eventually no one can stand any restraint including ones you need to aheader to due to them being true. This equality discussion isn't a marvel of the 20st century, it dates back even before the Greeks and has continued to this day.

<comment><USER5> > I'm not sure what this is adding really.

Research doesn't need to be ground breaking to be useful. A course like the one described in the article can be a helpful resource to women (and men) discouraged from engineering because of difficulty with spacial reasoning.

> I think this obsession with trying to find that everything and everyone is > equal

That's actually not what the article is about. It pretty much says up front that the woman who designed the course had difficulty with spacial reasoning, as many women do. She got better with practice.

Stories like these are valuable to people who believe that innate difference cannot be overcome. We should think of these abilities less like height, which changes very little after adulthood, and more like strength, which can be improved with practice and effort.

<comment><USER4> I agree completely with compensating for weakness, however while that is part of the article, it's clearly quick to go back to the everything is really equal argument and even mentions how gender differences are a popular topic. So it's mixed at best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This might sound crazy, but I wouldn't be surprised if the traditionally male activity of video games could help explain the gap of spatial skills between men and woman.

Navigating and memorizing virtual 3D environments is a skill that seemed very natural to me growing up so it was always a bit strange to watch other people struggle at what seemed like a basic task.

<comment><USER7> Men having an affinity for certain types of video games is a symptom not an effect. The difference between the sexes in this area existed before video games were a thing.

<comment><USER8> That's a really strong claim.

<comment><USER9> Its might be a strong claim in the bay or the PNW, but that different sexes statistically have some different preferences is a pretty tame notion.

<comment><USER10> The "symptom" claim is one thing, the "not an effect" claim seems absurd. Your statement is not the same as GGP's.

<comment><USER7> I should have said cause rather than effect. Men are not good at spatial reasoning because they play video games, but rather they play video games because they are good at spacial reasoning. Of course I mean the types of video games for which spacial reasoning improves play.

<comment><USER10> I'm saying it's probably both a cause and an effect. Do you think that engaging in spacial reasoning tasks _doesn 't_ make you better at spacial reasoning? If it does make you better then playing video games is also a cause for spacial reasoning abilities (though not the only cause).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's surprisingly little detail about the course in the article, just one small paragraph. Especially considering that the course is part of the title.

I'd like to know more about what makes the course so effective. The article mentions sketching, but I'm sure there's more to it than that. After all, I doubt people need tutoring to realize that sketching helps with visualization.

<comment><USER12> Sheryl Ann Sorby; Anne Frances Wysocki; Beverly Gimmestad Baartmans, _Introduction to 3-D spatial visualization : an active approach_. Clifton Park, N.Y. : Thomson ; Delmar Leanring, ©2003.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/introduction- to-3-d-spatial-v...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/introduction- to-3-d-spatial-visualization-an-active-approach/oclc/51301756)

The Development and Assessment of a Course for Enhancing the 3‐D Spatial Visualization Skills of First Year Engineering Students Sheryl A. Sorby Beverly J. Baartmans First published: 02 January 2013 [https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2000.tb00529.x](https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2000.tb00529.x)

[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2168-9830....](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2000.tb00529.x)

JITE v42n2 - Novice Drafters' Spatial Visualization Development: Influence of Instructional Methods and Individual Learning Styles

[https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v42n2/scribner.htm...](https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/JITE/v42n2/scribner.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sports, people! They keep saying men are better at visualizing stuff from various angles and hitting stuff with projectiles. I expected several paragraphs worth of all the outdoor, sporting activities most men are raised to do. Throwing, catching, or hitting balls by itself could cause some of this. Wrestling or fighting, too. Wandering is probably a factor, esp if involving jumps or climbing. Or just wandering through woods where everything is initially weird with much imagery and terrain misleading. Gradually build up a mental picture of what everything actually is. Bust your behind less, too. ;)

<comment><USER14> Yeah I would be curious to see if women who grow up playing ball sports also grow up to have good spatial skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's worth noting that the course brings women even with men unless men take the course too:

 _Sorby's program, for example, improved the spatial skills of male engineering students as well, boosting their scores on tests. Because they start out ahead of their female counterparts, their gains often put them ahead on spatial cognition tests after the course._

<comment><USER16> I find the second part of that paragraph more interesting.

 _However, Sorby says, the course has made a small difference in retention rates for men, "but we're seeing a big difference for women."_

What I would like to know if the bottom percentile of the men who score badly on partial tests will benefit of the course. If it does not then that puts the initial theory into question that spatial cognition influence retention rates in STEM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm pretty bad at mental rotation/orthogonal projection. I honestly think I'd benefit greatly from that course.

<comment><USER18> I've always acknowledged that it's not my strong suit: I thought it was common knowledge that women are, in general, lacking in that area. I'd be curious to do the course to see if it could be improved, and maybe I'll get better at Starfox on the SNES, my childhood dream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The comments section makes the hypothesis that women with strong spacial skills may flock to fields such as animation more than to engineering, which is interesting. Having two equally valid choices, I could see why a young female student would choose a path where there are more role models...

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone know if there's an authoritative source for the course online somewhere?

<comment><USER21> According to the article, the course was developed by Sheryl Sorby. Googling her produces

[https://www.higheredservices.org](https://www.higheredservices.org)

<comment><USER20> Oh, I had completely passed by that site in my own search because it looked like some commercial thing and I was expecting a university course. But this is indeed it, thanks.

$100 to do the course online: [https://www.higheredservices.org/product/developing- intellig...](https://www.higheredservices.org/product/developing-intelligence- about-space-dis-stem-course-us/)

<comment><USER22> Thank you!

I have 3 daughters, 1 who excels in "Intelligence about Space" 2 who score... more typical :) Most certainly I will make this course available to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm skeptical of the 'common knowledge' research that suggests men are better at spatial reasoning than women due to brain differences [1], in fact we should be careful with any assumptions about differences in brain structure dictating behavioral differences. In the past people thought differences in weight of the brain indicated intelligence, and this is clearly nonsense; likewise modern observable sex differences [2] in the structure of the brain cannot be assumed to produce observable behavioral distinctions.

Although we like to segregate traits into masculine and feminine, overlap is incredibly strong on any given psychological task measured. Go ahead and peek at the effect size of any of the spatial reasoning differences studies and you'll see what I mean. Differences in effect size for height between men and women is about 1.4. Now if you look at the mental rotation task, the spatial task for which there is the largest effect size difference between men and women, you see an effect size of 0.56 [3]. There are a number of spatial reasoning tasks, not just the 3D transform task, and they all show smaller effect sizes, with many showing next to none. How about "tender mindedness", a typically female gendered trait? An effect size of -0.26 to -0.31 [4]. For almost all psychological characteristics your sex really is not an effective predictor. What about the structural differences? The 'sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain' study showed an effect size of 0.48. Here's a fun tool to visualize effect sizes [https://rpsychologist.com/d3/cohend/](https://rpsychologist.com/d3/cohend/)

Contingency also matters- if you say women are more X and men are more Y, which kind of men and in which situation are you referring? Women are better at cognitive empathy, men are better at mathematics, women are more anxious / neurotic and have lower self esteem are all questions that contain components of contingency. Women are only better at cognitive empathy than men when they've been reminded that they are [5], men aren't better at math across all American ethnicities [6], and women are more anxious / neurotic, except in certain countries where they're not (Japan, for example) or white American women are, while black women aren't [7].

There's a great quote from Cordelia Fine (who assembled a lot of this research) [8] on risk-taking, "So when we say instead, more accurately, not 'males are more risk taking', but some males, of some cultural backgrounds, from some populations are more risk taking, in some domains, in some contexts, but not others, than are some, but not all women. It no longer seemed so likely that we'll be able to compare the brains in women and men and from average differences between the groups identify the neural basis of greater male risk taking."

1\. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21876159](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21876159) 2\. [https://www.pnas.org/content/111/2/823](https://www.pnas.org/content/111/2/823) 3\. Voyer et al (1995) Psych Bull 4\. Costa et al (2001) J. Pers Social Psych 5\. Ickes et al (2000) Personal Relationships 6\. Lindberg et al (2010) Psych Bull 7\. Hyde (2014) Annual Review Psych 8\. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEX9Usqdurs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEX9Usqdurs)

</comment><comment><USER24> This title is click bait, the title should say what the course is. I shouldn't have to click in to a post to have to know whether it is interesting to me. It's intentionally attention grabbing by withholding key information.

I refuse to read articles or click on links that do this so I haven't read whatever this is about.

<comment><USER25> The reveal is roughly 20 paragraphs into the article in the captioning of an image, or even further into the article as text.

This style of writing really needs to die.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there some sort of course that we men can take so that we can reclaim our dominance in this domain?

<comment><USER27> > Everybody means men, too. Sorby's program, for example, improved the spatial > skills of male engineering students as well, boosting their scores on tests. > Because they start out ahead of their female counterparts, their gains often > put them ahead on spatial cognition tests after the course. However, Sorby > says, the course has made a small difference in retention rates for men, > "but we're seeing a big difference for women."

phew

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Ban Clickbait Title Bullshit

</comment><comment><USER29> It's pretty obvious why men at better are spatial cognition tests. Men were the primary hunters and needed to navigate complex spaces with little reference points away from camp for days a time. Because of this, there was probably a strong selection pressure for men to be good at hunting. Those who were the best at it and didn't get lost were rewarded with increased female reproductive access.</comment>


Kids who played shoot-em-up games in the '90s were probably (mostly) OK - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/kids-who-played-shoot-em-up-games-in-the-90s-were-probably-mostly-ok/ <comment><USER2> Couldn't scroll more than halfway through the article before seeing a Call of Duty PS4 ad. I choked at Adsense's grasp of irony.</comment>


Debian GNU/Hurd Status Update [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://people.debian.org/~sthibault/hurd-i386/2015-08-17-debconf.pdf <comment> vezzy-fnord The preliminary rump kernel support that arrived just a bit more than a week ago is quite promising, if still quite rudimentary. That said, a patched MPlayer linking to rump libraries has been able to play OGG files on a Hurd system: [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug- hurd/2015-08/msg00027...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug- hurd/2015-08/msg00027.html)

Though obviously in the very initial stages, the implications of this development taken to its end could be enormous. Have the GNU Hurd implement translator or server interfaces to the rump drivers, plug it on top of an immutable package and configuration management suite like Guix (actually already being done), and for the first time in history you have a complete, general-purpose microkernel-based Unix-compatible (but beyond plain Unix) system that could rival the likes of GNU/Linux. The great thing about it is that the Hurd isn't afraid to break POSIX semantics where beneficial. This makes it have, among other things, processes running under multiple uids, true Plan 9-style namespacing, unprivileged mounts, token-based authentication, and so forth.

I've been playing with it on-and-off (including cross-toolchains) and been pondering about Mach kernel emulation on Linux. A pure userland server would be most desirable, but faces real changes with modeling port rights as file descriptors sent over ancillary data, how to reliably handle user-level page fault handling on a per-application basis, mapping VM regions across address space boundaries and properly emulating RPC. Kip Macy did successful work on a port of OSF Mach from the MkLinux sources as a FreeBSD kernel module for use with launchd, XPC and other OS X modules, so I think that might end up being a concession I'll look into taking one day. I'm occupied with other projects in the meantime.

It'd be also funny to have Linux "eat" itself in such a manner by becoming a host for the Hurd. Poetic justice, I suppose. But I'll wait to see if the rump kernel stuff pans out first.

(MINIX 3 is great too, much better microkernel, but it's more meant for reliability rather than exposing end-user flexibility like Hurd does with translators. It also doesn't come close to the ~81% of Debian building as is with Hurd, and the MINIX devs themselves are positioning it as an embedded platform rather than general-purpose.)

<comment><USER2> I don't get all this hate on Linux: it basically sustained GNU project for almost 25 years...

<comment><USER3> Diversity is a good thing. Systems-level research is at a woeful state right now because the status quo is Good Enough for a lot of people. Thus, the number of interesting ideas to try, to fail, to succeed is a trickle to what it should be. Database-based and object-based filesystems are little more than research projects because of the hard to shake belief of what stored items should look like and what their properties are.

We need to work on projects with little to no preconceived notions, so we can start poking at things, figuring out what can be done better. We indeed have a working model, but I'm certain we can do better than just working.

<comment><USER4> Are you saying that Linux folks should do a terrible job to trigger advances in systems research ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's awesome to see Hurd continuing to progress. It doesn't matter that "Hurd isn't ready for mainstream use" or any of that stuff. Even if it _never_ becomes "ready for mainstream use" it's valuable to have people experimenting and researching alternative approaches. This and Plan9 both still play important roles, and I expect that, at a minimum, developments coming out of one or both projects will continue to influence Linux and other "mainstream" OS's.

Besides, it's just plain fun to play around with operating systems. I think I have an extra box laying around here idle that would be a good place to experiment with Hurd a bit.

</comment><comment><USER6> Link to the talk: [http://gensho.acc.umu.se/pub/debian- meetings/2015/debconf15/...](http://gensho.acc.umu.se/pub/debian- meetings/2015/debconf15/Debian_GNUHurd_status_update.webm)

Other DebConf15 videos: [http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian- meetings/2015/debconf15/](http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian- meetings/2015/debconf15/)

</comment><comment><USER7> The "top dumb issues" page for porters has value even for non-hurd users. In terms of "don't do this". Its on page 13.

</comment><comment><USER8> Practical question: If I was to get some cheap hardware, like a Chromebook, could I get a Debian GNU/Hurd development environment dual booting on it? What would I have available? I'd at least want a decent shell, tmux and vim and support for the display's full resolution.

I suppose the easier route would be a virtual machine, but I think being immersed in it would be good.

I've wanted to get into kernel or other low-level development for a while and this seems like a perfect entry point. Linux seems too complicating on the surface which is intimidating. And politics suck (see systemd).

<comment> vezzy-fnord bash, tmux and vim are all supported. You can even have a full Xfce desktop.

Hardware support is unfortunately flaky, in part because the GNU Mach code lacks some features like PCI MSIs and uses drivers from the Linux 2.6 era through DDE. Virtualization is definitely the route through which people run it.

The rump integration will hopefully change this situation, assuming it advances forward.

<comment><USER8> I figured this would be about the size of things. I suppose I'll start with a VM. I realized I mentioned Chromebooks in my first post -- reminder to anyone that ARM is not supported, so get an Intel-based model.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> the last document linked to at the end is a really good read too - [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.37....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.37.9653&rep=rep1&type=pdf),

Also I agree with him on the fdisk/mke2fs, I've often asked myself the exact same question. aparently, its not a so popular opinion though, since they're always tucked away in sbin...

<comment><USER10> Not all linux systems do that. Arch symlinks everything to /usr/bin, I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was hoping they will mention something about crosshurd, but there was nothing, and crosshurd doesn't work on recent debian anymore. I'd love to see some way to install from an existing system.

<comment> vezzy-fnord You can either follow my guide [1] based on updated cross-gnu scripts, or try out gnuxc [2] for bootstrapping a full Hurd distribution, with the caveat that it requires your host to be Fedora.

[1] [http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/07/25/0/](http://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/07/25/0/)

[2] [https://github.com/dm0-/gnuxc](https://github.com/dm0-/gnuxc)

<comment><USER10> I found this bit in your post interesting: "kdbus (which was called "neutered Mach IPC" by Neal Walfield)" \- does that mean mach ipc provides typed interface registration / binding between userland processes? I admit, I know very little about mach and thought it was for kernel/user-space communication only (both directions)

<comment> vezzy-fnord _does that mean mach ipc provides typed interface registration / binding between userland processes?_

Yes, practically all Mach subsystems other than virtual memory have ports implicitly created for them. This includes tasks (address spaces) and threads (units of CPU time), which together form processes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not drunk on wine at an OS research conference but I have to ask anyway: Aren't microkernels obsoleted by hypervisors?

<comment><USER12> Not really, no. A microkernel can be a self-reliant, real-time, event driven OS which can be embedded in any number of specific appliances with a specific skillset for a specific job.

A hypervisor is generally used as a way to run another bloated OS on top of a microkernel. Even if you were to run with the idea of containers directly on top of a hypervisor, you're still looking at more layers of indirection that are meant to generalise the use of the entire stack.

Microkernel = specific.

Hypervisor = microkernel with specific purpose of running general stacks on top.

That's how I would distinguish the two in this instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> ● Top dumb issues

● Not linux or BSD? #include <windows.h>

can someone explain the above to me? the slides didn't make sense.

<comment><USER14> Poorly written preprocessor bits in C code that assume that anything anyone ever runs is either Linux, BSD (including OS X), or Windows. They basically write the following:

      #ifdef LINUX
      // include Linux headers
      #elif defined(BSD)
      // include BSD headers
      #else
      // include Windows headers. What else would it possibly be?
      #endif

The "mach.h" one is similar: people make a bad assumption that OS X is the only Mach kernel people use. (Hurd is obviously a counterpoint, just an unpopular one.)

<comment><USER15> I think it's wrong to call it poorly written because the programmer _only_ accounted their C preprocessor code for ~99.99% of desktop and mobile operating systems. The diminishing return for avoiding this approach is so impalpable it hurts. Windows, OSX/iOS/BSD, and Linux/Android literally are everything anyone ever uses, within rounding error.

<comment><USER16> The diminishing return approach is this:

         #ifdef LINUX
         // include Linux headers
         #elif defined(BSD)
         // include BSD headers
         #elif defined(WINDOWS)
         // include Windows headers.
         # else
         #error "unsupported system"
         #endif

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Linking to the slides without the actual presentation should be punishable by death. The entire point of slides is to _supplement_ the presenter's speech, so if they're completely self-explanatory without any talking, then you're doing your presentation wrong.

</comment><comment><USER2> >Hardware support >● i686 >● start of 64bit support

WTF? They started 30 years ago and still on an 32bit architecture nobody cares anymore?

Beside that, I really don't get the point of all this, seriously. Not from a technological benefit, be warned, but from a user perspective the benefit is almost intangible. Why should the average sysadmin care? Linux is a rock solid kernel that does everything, what is the niche that Hurd is filling?

<comment> steve-howard You realize i686 is a catch-all term for 32-bit x86 processors, right? It's arguably the only 32-bit architecture anyone cares about.

<comment><USER18> ARMv7?</comment></comment></comment>


Troubles at Grooveshark - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/KfLMsWWf

<comment><USER2> This is a dupe of a post that has been deleted. Because it's an unusual case, I put up a post about what happened at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7975137](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7975137). That thread seems to have resumed the discussion in the absence of the original post. (Not my intent, but understandable.) We're therefore burying the current submission as a dupe.

All: please don't post this again.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems quite like it could be a bitter ex-employee (or soon-to-be-ex-employee), from the tone. The linked Glassdoor review seems more balanced: [http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review- Grooveshark...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Grooveshark- RVW4413466.htm) \- if still negative overall.</comment>


Bald Eagle Population – The Benefit(?) Of Landfills - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/king-county-wants-to-use-fireworks-to-ruffle-the-feathers-of-eagles-at-the-county-landfill/ <comment><AUTHOR> Seattle has in interesting issue. Too many bald eagles. To the point of annoyance.

"The eagle population has exploded in the last five years, and why? Because they have a free lunch at the dump."

"Up to 200 bald eagles frequent King County's only landfill..."

At first, surprise. Then, so much sense. Relatively safe, forested area; opportunistic; access to stable food supply.

Note (Wikipedia). "by the 1950s there were only 412 nesting pairs in the 48 contiguous states of the US." "In Washington State, there were only 105 occupied nests in 1980." There are now 200 eagles just at the Seattle dump.</comment>