Eighteen months of Django - <AUTHOR> http://dangoldin.com/2013/05/07/eighteen-months-of-django/

<comment><USER2> I'll add that if you need to background anything, django-celery makes it easy.

celeryd is also good for scheduling tasks with either single or periodic execution.

[http://docs.celeryproject.org/en/latest/getting- started/firs...](http://docs.celeryproject.org/en/latest/getting- started/first-steps-with-celery.html#first-steps)

You can also use it in a typical task queue role. It will pickle or serialize the Python objects that accompany tasks for transmission over the wire.

<comment><USER3> Note that periodic execution, one of the more useful aspects of celery, is not supported on all backends. If you're using rabbitMQ, you're golden. If you're using most or all other transports (including SQS), you're likely SOL and will have to resort to either bare cron jobs or something like django-cronograph that accomplishes the same thing.

celery is definitely nice, but it does have its limitations (like everything else).

<comment><USER4> This is good to know. I've just started using it with redis.

I never really saw the point of that part of celery anyway. Cron's perfectly adequate on its own (and installed just about everywhere).

<comment><USER3> The nice thing about it from our point of view is the ability to keep everything in source control. Granted, you can keep your cron jobs as scripts, but celery+rabbitMQ allows you to keep it all in Python without the extra deployment step. It's not a huge deal, but it does help a bit with maintainability and getting new devs up to speed.

<comment><USER4> We keep all the deployment stuff in source control anyway. For me, it would just mean shifting it from being declared by salt in the "infrastructure" folder to being written in python in the django folder.

I agree that you should keep the code itself in python, but that can be handled just by making it a management command that gets called by cron.

Sysadmins understand and love cron, too. I think celery reinventing the wheel might make some of them a bit mad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For those who would like to get started with Django, here's a skeleton project <https://github.com/jordn/heroku-django-s3> and guide helps get you set up quickly with:

      - hosting on heroku
      - static files on Amazon S3
      - virtualenv(wrapper) isolated packages
      - environment and security critical variables removed from settings.py and stored as environment variables (following the 12-factor design ethic)

<comment><USER6> I have a couple of thoughts:

1\. Why not use django-admin.py startproject --template=<url>? I typically do something like django-admin.py startproject --template=<https://github.com/rdegges/django-skel/zipball/master> mynewproject so I don't actually have to clone

2\. No runtime.txt for heroku?

3\. Not specifying version numbers in your requirements.txt is very dangerous. I prefer something like "Django>=1.5.0,<=1.5.9"

<comment><USER5> Thanks! Basically the answer is that I wasn't aware of the possibility of those things and have tried to keep it as simple as possible.

I made a skeleton project for me as I couldn't find a decent guide for deploying django static's on s3. I fumbled my way through it and corrected and formalised it later so I could do it again. The <https://github.com/rdegges/django-skel> project looks really useful as it contains everything and more you might want to use for a django project (and more), though not yet knowing what magic's it's doing I wouldn't yet jump to use.

1\. That is very neat. I hope to try and copy that.

2\. Noted. I didn't realise the need, as python 2.7.4 is the default. Can see it causing headaches if this were to change however.

3\. Why is it dangerous? I preferred to keep the version numbers so it would always just install latest versions without any extra effort.

<comment><USER6> The reason it's dangerous is that packages can introduce backwards incompatible changes. If you have a project that you don't work on for a few weeks/months and then need to fix a bug, you're going to have to spend additional cycles tracking down the issue and fixing either the backwards incompatible change, or adding a specific version to your requirements file anyway.

I like to try and scope the package versions at the level the maintainer promises not to introduce breakages at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For dealing with packages such as python-psycopg2 and python-mysql, your best bet is to use --system-site-packages.

This allows the virtualenv to depend on packages provided by your distro instead of trying to compile its own. Wherever possible, I try to do this with Python packages that require a C compiler to make deployment a little easier and reduce dependencies.

Personally, I'm not a fan of Fabric and I much prefer configuration management (Salt, Chef, Puppet) because of the added flexibility you get. About the most I use Fabric for is logging into the Salt Master and kicking off a deployment process.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely not. An added bit of compile time is the least of your worries and if you _really_ don't want to compile stuff on production, look at packaging your virtualenv as a compiled deb/rpm.

Never ever ever mix/depend upon system packages in your virtualenv. Ever.

<comment><USER7> You're always depending on system packages somewhere. Compiling isn't the only reason - sometimes it's necessary just to make the damn thing work.

Some examples:

* PIL - Using Pip's version on Ubuntu, you have to hack your directory structure and re-compile the whole thing or PIL doesn't compile in support for your image libraries.

* psycopg2 - This is hit and miss (OS X comes to mind), but depending on the system version guarantees that it has been tested to work with the specific version of Postgres on your system.

* Crypto libraries - Broken packages have ended up on Pip and just cause a bloody headache. The system package is, again, tested and works.

Compiling a DEB/RPM would be a good idea, but it's not a well supported system at all. If there were a simple pip compile --type=deb or something, we would be all over it.

<comment><USER8> PIL - Don't use PIL, use Pillow.

Psycopg2 - Well, it's just a client library - surely you will be making sure your client matches your server's version (whether that's local or a clust or whatever)? Sure your system will likely need Postgres headers installed, but why is that an issue? Actually, let me just check that. e: Yeah, you need libpq-dev installed, but I fail to see the point here? You need to make sure you have python-dev and a correct version of Python installed, too.

PyCrypto - Hmm, not had a problem with this hugely.

What I was suggesting doesn't involve a deb of individual packages, but a deb of the entire app/virtualenv.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here are a few other Django packages that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread:

\- Gargoyle: Feature switches in Django <https://github.com/disqus/gargoyle>

\- webassets and django-assets: For minifying static assets

\- raven + sentry for logging. Sentry is the server, so actually can be used with any project, not only Django.

\- django_extensions: Provides some helper management commands, for example manage.py shell_plus which automatically imports your models

\- dbbackup for backing up your db to S3 or Dropbox

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting post. I decided to use Django for our startup because Python was a requirement, we're planning to have a lot of customers, and Django seems like the most appropriate choice for large scale apps. While I've mostly used non- rel databases, I'll be using postgresql as a database, because it seems to be highly compatible with Django, because Heroku makes scaling it easy, and because it's a good occasion to learn some RDBMS.

</comment><comment><USER11> Using S3 for static media makes perfect sense, but does anyone have information on S3 when your contributors (users in the admin) are uploading lots of images for via something like django-filebrowser or a simple zipfile upload (that extracts the images into a folder)? I haven't seen anything like this in any examples.

<comment><USER12> I think the standard method of dealing with this is to have your users upload the items to the local web server and then have some sort of async task or cron job responsible for moving the files to S3 later on.

Of course this means you'll have to keep track of where the uploaded file is currently located, but if you ever want to scale to multiple web servers you'll need to do that anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea - this is how I've been doing it. The server that gets the upload does some processing and then moves the content over to S3 and adds an entry to the database that references it. It also forces you to write stateless code which is nice bonus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'll add that you should read Two Scoops of Django at <http://django.2scoops.org>

</comment><comment><USER14> As someone who is thinking about doing a python project, should I learn Django or just go with Flask? Any thoughts on those two?

<comment><USER15> Neither! Actually, as the others have said it completely depends on what you're making.

Django is great if you're making a standard cms type website. News feed, blog, etc. There's a bit of a learning curve but it gives you a lot of the scaffolding out of the box (and there are loads of examples to learn from). It has the biggest community (I guess?) so you'll always be able to find answers / libraries / sample code.

Use Flask if you really want to get a website up and running with half a dozen lines of code. You'll have to build everything else yourself; admin, authentication, etc etc - though there are good extensions for a lot of things too.

Thinking about it - if you don't know either of them, spend a day with Flask, by the end of it you should have a fairly good idea of what you get with it. Then run through the Django tutorials. It'll take longer but you'll be impressed with how quickly you can get something fairly complete up and running.

For me, I lean towards Flask (heavily). When you think about what Django does - it's basically a web container with a db/model layer and sensible scaffolding for the views (front and admin). I prefer to use SQLAlchemy (if I'm working with a relational db). In terms of the admin I think that the days of writing admin grid and edit screens that post back and forth to the server are numbered (I use REST and Angular now) - so that's not a bit of Django I use either. By the time you've ripped all that out you may as well save yourself all the config and just use Flask. Having said that - LEARN THEM BOTH. At least just a little bit so you can see for yourself where each one shines.

These days I approach it completely differently. My last two projects have involved a fair amount of complex business logic (and processing work). I've written the libraries I needed first as standalone packages, only introducing Flask as a final step. The web wrapper is just there to provide a web interface (mostly an api) access the db layer and glue it all to my libraries. I'd recommend this approach as it stops you from thinking along the lines of "ok, I'll need to create 3 Django apps, here are my models for each, should I put this code in the models.py or the views.py?" Instead you concentrate on making the real python code to do the heavy lifting, and you architect that sensibly without having to worry about how the web framework would normally prescribe it to be done. You'll end up with far more portable code in the long run.

<comment><USER16> What is your opinion about web2py? I started exploring it a week back, and it seems to have a lot of built in functionality. I thought it would be the easiest web framework to get started with (since it was originally built to help teach students about web programming). However, it seems to have a vast number of components, and it looks like learning all of it would entail almost the same effort as learning Django...

<comment><USER17> Not the person you replied to, but my two cents.

The creator and lead developer, Massimo Di Pierro, is incredibly active and always willing to lend a hand with whatever problem you have. I've seen him around reddit (not sure if he's on HN) and even when he's met with the inevitable haters, he's always been friendly and cordial.

Just like you've said, web2py was originally made to teach people how to build websites, which really shows in its architecture. It forgoes traditional Python conventions ("explicit is better than implicit" being a major one) in order to be more beginner-friendly. Some of the more experienced developers find this annoying, but if you're coming from PHP or a fresh background, it can be much easier to get started. Just take a look at the overview on Wikipedia[0]. It gives a good outline.

This is coming from someone who doesn't even use web2py. I prefer Flask for personal projects and Django for work/group things, but I would whole- heartedly recommend web2py. Run through the book[1] and, if you don't like it, give the Django tutorial[2] a shot. If that doesn't mesh with you, there's Flask[3], Pyramid[4], TurboGears[5], and CherryPy[6]. (The last two I would not recommend for beginners, but they're still good!)

[0]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web2py#Overview>

[1]: <http://web2py.com/book>

[2]: <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/intro/tutorial01/>

[3]: <http://flask.pocoo.org/docs/>

[4]: [http://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid/en/1.4-branch...](http://docs.pylonsproject.org/projects/pyramid/en/1.4-branch/)

[5]: <http://turbogears.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>

[6]: <http://docs.cherrypy.org/stable/index.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How well does Django handle complex forms? The kind where "if x = y show fields p-r (and make them required), if x = z jump the next screen)?

I've just implemented one of these in PHP using the 'old' Symfony 1.4 and it was _painful_. I ended up hardcoding most of the frontend, and writing ridiculous modifications for "add another row" and validation.

Is Django any better at that? Complex forms have been my pain point for over 11 years, and if a framework handles them... I'm in!

<comment><USER19> I've recently (2-3 months) switched to Python/Django and my experience so far has been very positive.

Multi-step forms can be implemented in Django using Form wizards [1]. In order to optionally show fields or make them required I think you could build it easily using the WizardView.get_form method [2]. The functionality to skip steps is built-in and it's very easy implement using conditional views [3].

In conclusion, it's fairly easy to implement the functionality you described using only the core framework without the need to rely on external packages.

[1] - [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/formtools/...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/formtools/form- wizard/) [2] - [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/formtools/...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/formtools/form- wizard/#django.contrib.formtools.wizard.views.WizardView.get_form) [3] - [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/formtools/...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/contrib/formtools/form- wizard/#conditionally-view-skip-specific-steps)

<comment><USER18> Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience!

Have you seen anything saying it helps to build adaptive forms like [1]?

[1] - <http://screencast.com/t/SutggDU5>

<comment><USER19> I'm not aware of any library which could help you build these kind of adaptive forms automatically.

However, the way I would go about building something like that is by using the form wizard (mentioned in my previous comment) with a combination of forms/modelforms [1] and formsets [2]. Formsets are used in situations when you need to display the same form multiple times on the same page (like the multiple addresses/benefits income in your example). However, you would have to implement all the client side interaction yourself since Django does not provide this by default (there are some libraries which are supposed to help with this but I haven't tried them myself [3]).

One thing worth mentioning is that by default, the form wizard only allows you to display either a Form, or a Formset in a step/page. However, there is a ticket open for this [4] which links to a helper class: form_container.py [5] which helps overcome this problem. Hopefully, this will be included in future versions of Django.

Hope this helps.

[1] - [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/forms/modelform...](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/forms/modelforms/) [2] - <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/forms/formsets/> [3] - <https://code.google.com/p/django-dynamic-formset/> [4] - <https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/18830> [5] - [https://code.djangoproject.com/attachment/ticket/18830/form_...](https://code.djangoproject.com/attachment/ticket/18830/form_container.py)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great short and concise article.

I'm in the process of writing a pet project using Django and would really appreciate your insights on what packages you find useful (as mentioned at the bottom of your post).

<comment><USER3> From someone who wasn't asked but has input... ;)

It's not a Python package in the sense that you might mean, but using virtualenv is absolutely fundamental to good Python development (at least the kind that lets you keep your sanity).

South is also exceptional; however, the developer recently ran a successful Kickstarter campaign dedicated to creating an improved version intended to be merged with Django itself, so that's something to watch for.

Django-CMS has proven invaluable for many of my projects and clients, though it's very heavy and more of a project-tacked-on-to-your-project than just a package. It's great to know, though, and very powerful.

django-registration can be useful if you're into full-on user profile usage, though many sites don't actually need this. There's a separate project that provides a set of default templates for this package, and it's almost more useful than django-registration itself.

livesettings is an outgrowth of django-cms that's pretty useful when you need what would otherwise be settings.py constants that can be modified at runtime without a deployment and server restart. Be careful, though, as overuse of this means you might have design issues.

feedparser is a very, very easy way to consume XML feeds.

If you want to parse something in a very user-friendly way, BeautifulSoup is hard to beat. If you're into the nitty gritty and/or need serious performance, lxml serves the same purpose but kicks far more ass.

If you need to interface with Amazon's AWS environments (EC2, S3, etc.), boto is a brilliant library.

These are more Python-in-general than Django-specific, but that's often a good thing.

<comment><USER21> So a stupid question about virtualenv for you. Why does it default to full paths for everything?

<comment><USER22> I actually don't "know" either. But I suspect it has to do with knowing which python to use (system generally) and if the user wants to use global packages as well.

checkout virtualenvwrapper ([http://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.h...](http://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html)) as well for handling virtualenvs.

<comment><USER3> +1, I definitely should have mentioned this. virtualenvwrapper makes it vastly more convenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Nice post thanks - I'm about to tackle a fairly large Django project so it's always nice to see some best practice guidelines

</comment><comment><USER24> nice summary, sent to a colleague who is starting with django.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad to have helped. If he/she has any questions you can have them reach out to me. I'm definitely not an expert but can offer some suggestions. dangoldin gmail is the email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> One more addition: Use heroku.

<comment><USER25> Not sure why this got downvoted. I was being completely serious. Beat having to deal with fabric.</comment></comment>


US military intelligence agencies have influenced over 1,800 movies and TV shows - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-expose-direct-us-military-intelligence-influence-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-shows-36433107c307 <comment><USER2> "The CIA even helped to make an episode of Top Chef that was hosted at Langley, featuring then-CIA director Leon Panetta who was shown as having to skip dessert to attend to vital business. Was this scene real, or was it a dramatic statement for the cameras?"

Wow. Good work on the FOIA retrieval, but I'm utterly out on the hyperbolic speculative tone. The editor undercuts the good journalism being done here when they allow foolishness like this in.

I think the authors are also making the unsupported assumption that every government / Hollywood cooperation incident is a propaganda op, instead of far simpler explanations like "Joe in Langley publicity gets to brag to his family that he made the Top Chef episode happen."

<comment><USER3> I'm not much of a conspiracy nut but I don't have any issues with the excerpt you quoted. Those "reality" TV shows are famously heavily scripted and edited, it wouldn't surprise me at all if they did script the "skip dessert to attend to vital business" to some degree. Maybe he did have to leave early because of a scheduled meeting but it just didn't have the same ring to it?

Now you could say that it's not a big deal either way and I would tend to agree but one could argue that there's a slippery slope when you muddy the line between reality and fiction in the minds of the audience of a mass media.

<comment><USER4> >Now you could say that it's not a big deal either way and I would tend to agree but one could argue that there's a slippery slope when you muddy the line between reality and fiction in the minds of the audience of a mass media.

In reality television that line has passed the horizon a while ago.

<comment><USER5> Where is the line? Some shows like The Only Way Is Essex in the UK was confusing when it first came out, later on we found out it wasn't "reality tv", but a new genre "curated reality".

<comment><USER6> I much preferred some of those Gordon Ramsay series UK versions. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was more akin to a documentary than the US version's on FOX with its awful jumpy editing and constant music in the background. The TV becomes more compelling when game show music isn't blaring and the focus is on how to run a restaurant. Instead of only about family infighting.

The extra 5 or 6 mins helps a lot, nothing feels rushed to a conclusion like US reality TV.

Another good one was Gordon's Great Escape. Documentary style reality tv works so much better IMO.

<comment><USER5> Indeed, those are different things, the US kitchen nightmares being more about the "people zoo" aspect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The money and involvement have had quite an effect. Just look at the percentage of combat films Hollywood makes and compare to 30 years ago. To go by Hollywood the country is on a war footing.

And don't forget other entertainment industries like sports. The Pentagon paid _millions_ of dollars a year just for cross promotion with NFL football (not for recruitment advertising): "honor our troops" and the like.

On the other hand the "think for yourself" crowd... :-(

Edit: in changing "hundreds of thousands" into "millions" I ended up with "hundreds of millions"

<comment><USER8> The ludicrous propaganda of military jet fly overs, national anthem spectacles, huge flags, and people in the military standing on the side of the field at private for profit sports game in a stadium paid for by taxpayers for the team owner's benefit is hilarious.

<comment><USER9> Why is that hilarious. The alternative would be a nation that's not behind it's troops. The us would likely not be a super power. US citizens greatly benefit off the super power status.

Seems like the military is acting in the citizens best interest.

<comment><USER7> What a scary statement.

First: you make a false dichotomy: one can be behind troops without a hagiographic approach to discussing the military (or any subject). In fact the best way to support troopers is to keep them out of harm's way. Consider WWII in Europe: Eisenhower set the invasion a year later than the other allies wanted in order to manage the supply chain better (supporting the troops) _and_ to make sure the real bleeding of the enemy was done by non-US troops. In terms of materiel and logistics, the US won the war in Europe; in terms of fighting, the Russians unquestioningly did. Excellent call by the US if you ask me.

Second: there are other means of being a superpower than military might (which is only one tool in the toolbox....and as history has shown, usually not the right one). If you don't criticize the military, how can you reasonably discuss tradeoffs between military intervention / negotiation / economic hegemony / ignoring the issue?

And I know it's just an HN comment, but the phrase "the military is acting in the citizens best interest" is worrisome on its face: the military should be under civilian control and thus acting in the interests the citizens have _specified_. The military is the organization that should act in its own interests _the least_ since it has the weapons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I've been telling everyone that James Bond and other similar movies serve the same role as military parades in Soviet-block countries, and heavily scripted by the military, they told me that this is another conspiracy theory and I must be plainly wrong.

I wasn't.

<comment><USER11> James Bond is essentially a franchise built around the psychological need to cope with the collapse of the British empire and all of the associated loss of status that goes with it.

In other words, you are correct, Bond movies do not try to hide their nationalism. This is no great revelation.

<comment><USER12> I think you might be over estimating how much the British care about having/not having an empire.

If you can get around the paywall, this might be worth a read: [https://www.ft.com/content/a9c45baa-1dc6-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f2...](https://www.ft.com/content/a9c45baa-1dc6-11e7-b7d3-163f5a7f229c)

<comment><USER13> > I think you might be over estimating how much the British care about > having/not having an empire.

Even if the linked piece is correct (tending to agree somewhat), it is written in a modern context with respect to Brexit. The James Bond novels were created in the early 50's when the empire was still a real thing that was actually breaking up, and before 'multiculturalism' was really a thing in any serious way (see mid 60s-70s-80s for that). Not sure if I agree with the actual point above, but the contexts are certainly different, an adult in early 50's Britain certainly would need to psychologically adjust to a shifting national identity, whether they cared for empire or not..

<comment><USER14> The Bond novels do explore Britain's role in the world but for the readers were also a tantalising glimpse into a post-austerity world following the rationing and privations of WWII. Bond visits places (e.g. Monte Carlo, Jamaica, etc) that seemed exotic at the time but would now be viewed as 'boring' by a gap year student. IMO, the Harry Palmer spy stories [1] (e.g. The Impress Files) better reflect the cynical end of empire feeling.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So in exchange for production support, DOD and IC reserve the right to back out if certain topics are broached, or if they're represented in a way they don't approve of.

The movies and tv shows come to them, and they're subsequently influenced as part of the deal.

Am I reading this correctly? They've really tried to make it scary but I'm left feeling "well, yeah I guess that makes sense, sucks tho I guess"...

<comment><USER16> yeah exactly. also you didn't need a freedom of information act to know this. I remember generals / DOD officials talking about it in a TV interviews (1996 independence day, 2007 transformers). directors are overly focused on realism for better or for worse, so a lot also goes to providing stock footage for inspiration, advice, and fact checking like 'is this aircraft meant for the role its portrayed in the movie'. etc.

and as they said openly in the interviews: they often do it for free, but if they dont like the content they will pull out.

<comment><USER2> Speaking of Bay specifically: Bay is very pro-military and goes out of his way to portray the US military in a positive light.

Observe the scene from Battleship where Lt. Col. Gregory Gadson, the director of the U.S. Army's Wounded Warrior Program, was cast to play a double-amputee soldier who, among other things, fist-fights an alien. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMX3v6exVf8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMX3v6exVf8)

<comment><USER17> Michael Bay wasn't involved with Battleship, though it has been pointed out that it seems to be an imitation of his style

<comment><USER2> Wow, major egg on my face; thank you for the clarification!

I've actually been operating under the mistaken belief that Bay directed that movie. It feels _incredibly_ Bay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a movie buff this doesn't surprise me at all. I'm still waiting for THE movie about the US intervention in Iraq, the same kind of movies that Apocalypse Now, "The Deer Hunter" and even Rambo I were for the Vietnam war. I think my wait will be in vain.

<comment><USER19> The Hurt Locker ?

<comment><USER20> I've found it to be a typical example of American propaganda.

Some good reasons given here: [http://www.globalresearch.ca/the- militarization-of-hollywood...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/the- militarization-of-hollywood-unlocking-the-hurt-locker/20910)

<comment><USER21> Considering Kathryn Bigelow, the director of 'the Hurt Locker', also did 'Zero Dark Thirty' in many respects, the non plus ultra C.I.A control and influence over hollywood, the 'Hurt Locker's' critical position is dubious. In fact it's worth noting that the C.I.A is so good at this that they are not beyond putting ostensibly damaging material or arguments in their films in order to refute them at a more fundamental level, or coming around to devour them more completely in some other film. As paranoid and wacky as it sounds, the general project of propaganda is a totality spread across the cultural field...

Finally it's worth noting that with the advent of widespread piracy, we have been forced to pay for our films / entertainment in other ways. A pirated movie still delivers its ideological payload, whether or not it's corporate interest determining the cars that feature in the 'Fast and Furious' franchise or the military industrial complex permitting a flock of Ospreys to feature prominently in a scene ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like how the article failed to mention the most obvious example. The military backed out support for the movie _Independence Day_ because they didn't want to feed conspiracy nonsense about hiding aliens at area 51.

Clearly this is a propaganda effort to bend the truth into a lie..... right?

I also like how the article never mentioned military supported movies that indicate dishonorable conduct like _Invisible War_ and _The General 's Daughter_.

I think all these very obvious omissions were intentional because the article is wanting to indicate some level of propaganda. Tipping its toe into the pool of conspiracy foolishness.

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_(1996_film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_\(1996_film\))

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

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General%27s_Daughter_(film...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General%27s_Daughter_\(film\))

EDIT:

I have rethought this comment (slow day at work). I do not mean to say the article is completely invalid. The fact of the matter is that the military holds trademarks over most of its common insignia, military bases are private property, and its personnel are employees. It has the right to offer or withhold any of its assets as it deems much like private entities.

That said the military has the right to disqualify commentary or stories negatively without qualification. I believe the word for this is disparagement. You can be negative about the military and still receive military support, but it must be qualified.

My personal opinion on the matter is the military does shape how it is perceived by the public through entertainment. It does shape that narrative. This has the potential to hint at, though very lightly, something resembling propaganda but I strongly believe this is not the intent.

If the public wanted the most accurate and realistic portrayal of the military they would receive their view of that world from journalism or documentaries. This isn't want the public generally wants though. They want entertainment and all the suspended disbelief that comes with it. If you believe this is unfair then choose books as your source of fiction on military interests, which don't appear to have any such manipulation.

In full disclosure I am a warrant officer in the US Army.

<comment><USER23> Agree. Not to mention the most obvious point: actual military cooperation hasn't been needed –– not in many years –– in order to show giant explosions, cool jets, or slick military bases.

I don't think I've ever read a FOIA-based article with a worse signal to noise ratio.

I hope the authors, who are based in London and Bath, find something worth writing about soon or they may go insane from CIA BRAIN WAVES.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Three thoughts on this article:

IMO the author fails to draw the connection to decades of cop shows teaching people that it's ok for cops to break procedure left and right because that's how work gets done.

The bit on military suicide make sense. The more you talk about something the more acceptable it becomes. It makes sense that people who's job is to influence opinion don't want to talk about it.

Technical and subject matter advisors from "industry" aren't worthless. Terrorists in Hollywood movies have been taking batteries out of cell phones when not in use since the early 2000s.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am sure "24" was pure propaganda. And "West Wing". I enjoyed them though, at the time. But now they would just revolt me.

<comment><USER26> I never watched west wing, how did it seem like propoganda, and what message did it send?

<comment><USER27> I'm not the person you're replying to but one thing I've seen pointed out [1] is that it portrays a largely unelected whitehouse staff where everyone is selfless, good, hard-working, quick-witted, reveres the constitution, always ultimately putting the country's interests before their own, always taking the moral choice and turning out to be right.

There's nothing that makes you question the way the country is run, or that tries to explain why real-world politicians' approval ratings are so low.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3OQIp4lda8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3OQIp4lda8)

<comment><USER28> Also the endless monologues where the speaker is just so correct that no one can dare question what they are saying and the target of the monologue is left speechless with just how wrong they were.

Same thing happened with The Newsroom, it's a Sorkin trademark. Although the heavy-handedness was relaxed with season two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As a way to spread propaganda these efforts are probably as good as they can be in liberal democracy. The methods are subtly directing the "sentiment" and removing unwanted issues without trace. They are not trying to hammer ideology too obviously.

If you want to see clear modern US military propaganda film that reaches the pinnacle of Nazi wartime propaganda (not that obvious propaganda like "The Eternal Jew", but highest quality epic and inspiring movies with strongly embedded sentiment) you should watch Act of Valor (2012) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1591479/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1591479/) The only problem with the Act of Valor is that it's not very good movie. The delivery of propaganda in the movie is perfect. It leaves you feeling the same way as the Nazi movie Kolberg (1945) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolberg_(film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolberg_\(film\))

</comment><comment><USER29> This is an absurd situation, having a military minder that tells you what you can and can't say in a production. It is hard to avoid some kind of interference if you want to borrow military equipment though. There is always some standard that you want to uphold that is probably higher than what is allowed by the first amendment.

The solution is to not allow the military to lend any assistance to movie productions. Frankly, it's not their job anyways. This is the only way to avoid the kind of influence described in the article.

<comment><USER13> > The solution is to not allow the military to lend any assistance to movie > productions. Frankly, it's not their job anyways. This is the only way to > avoid the kind of influence described in the article.

Unfortunately this 'solution' doesnt facilitate the foreign effect from distributing these films abroad to spread positive american sentiment and further the goals of the US govt _and_ Hollywood _and_ corporations (product placment for starters, mindshare, etc), so it is 'inferior'..

<comment><USER30> The article is poorly written so I can't tell what's real and what's not, but it seems to imply that people go to the military asking for "toys" (article is very non-specific here), and that's part of the deal. It doesn't seem to imply somehow the military is censoring all films made in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As a teenager I was always watching action films, because my father loves them. I remember at around age 21 thinking, "This just seems like tasteless propaganda and I don't want to watch it"...

</comment><comment><USER32> What I really want to know is: How was it that Neo's passport expiration date was 9/11/2001 -- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neo- Passport.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neo-Passport.png)

<comment><USER33> It was issued on 12 Sep 1991. US passports expire after ten years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Finally an explanation for why Michael Bay keeps getting work.

<comment><USER2> There's a very good film critique dissection of Bay's work done by Lindsay Ellis titled "The Whole Plate" ([https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJGOq3JclTH8J73o2Z4VM...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJGOq3JclTH8J73o2Z4VMaSYZDNG3xeZ7)). She uses Bay as a lens to talk about film studies for a couple of reasons; one of them is that there is no doubt the guy's movies are raking it in, so film theory both highlights what he's doing that's working and---when film theory suggests "What he does should not work"\---provides interesting counter- examples to the standard rules.

(Note that while you're not wrong, it's not ultimately the US government buying all those movie tickets ;) ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> American propaganda is alive and well.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's the news too. Almost every article or TV news report on TSA screening includes someone saying how the security theater is worth it because it keeps us safe.

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder about _Conspiracy Theory_ and the CIA's Project MKUltra. Did the CIA manipulate it? Or somehow not have the opportunity?

<comment><USER28> I would think such things are OK because if people saw it in a fictional movie that doesn't say "based on true events" at the beginning they may be inclined to believe it didn't really happen.

<comment><USER37> Maybe. But MKUltra was mentioned by name, and the methods portrayed were quite gruesome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I remember back when the bush administration gave the TV show JAG, a show about the navy's judge advocate general's office, detailed descriptions of the military tribunals that they came up with...before the media or congress.

Shady, man. The military and IC are the only parts of govt that get to do this weird Public Relations. They shouldn't be able to.

<comment><USER39> It's not just the military/IC.

The first episode (2010) of Blue Bloods (NYPD show) has Donnie Wahlberg torturing a guy in a ticking-time-bomb-like scenario and then his Capt. father (Tom Selleck) correcting his DA daughters reference to "torture" by seriously saying "you mean Enhanced Interrogation" and how awful it is they can't convict the guy without some other "legal" break in the case.

Even years after Bush & Cheney are gone, "liberal" Hollywood filled with this stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> If this was China or Russia, our media would point and scold, calling them names and declaring them immoral, and the enemy.

However, since it's the US, I doubt this will get much coverage in mainstream media outlets here.

</comment><comment><USER41> Most major movies are, if not "CONSUME", "OBEY", etc billboards (like in "They Live"), at least party-line affairs promoting the establishment.

Between promoting the prevalent mores (instead of criticizing them), military manipulation to promote "national interests" like in TFA, product placements, and plots for your inner 13 year old in movies for 40 year olds, with the rare exception it's a long way since the 60s-70s and films like "The Network", "Apocalypse Now" and the rest..

<comment><USER42> "The Network" and "Apocalypse Now" were, and are remembered now because they were, rare exceptions in their own time as well.

<comment><USER43> This is an example of the filter effect. It's like how people turn on the classic rock station where they play only classic rock hits and assume that music today is just worse - the classic rock station doesn't play the stinkers that were also on the radio and popular, so you get the illusion that classic rock has always been solid gold hits.

<comment><USER41> > _This is an example of the filter effect._

Yeah, no. There was a big counter-establishment wave in the 60s and early to mid 70s, documented in myriads of books, articles, biographies, documentaries and such.

And it reflected in Hollywood too.

(In European cinema it was even more extreme with every second movie having leftist leanings).

Were there other, more typical/banal movies? Yes. But that critical movies were far more common in the 60s-70s than they are now is a historical fact, not some "filter effect".

(Also the idea that all periods have the same median quality in arts and same distribution of tendencies is wrong. Some periods do have more/better art than others, or more art of a certain tendency than others, for various reasons).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Yet no mention of Wag the Dog.

</comment><comment><USER45> IIRC, the movie "Wargames" rejected a DOD plot request, and had to do without any support for even external base footage for the film.

</comment><comment><USER46> With use of computer graphics they can do more movies without the military interference.

<comment><USER47> Can they? Isn't the depiction of (real / existing) military hardware protected by idk, trademarks and the like? I mean all bets are off if it's all fantasy weaponry and organizations (like idk, in Starship Troopers).

<comment><USER48> No it is not. The depiction of branded assets is fair game. Mentioning the branded goods is also fair game, but more dangerous because in some cases it might be construed as slander and slander is actionable grounds for a lawsuit. (Famously, LVMH sued Warner Bros successfully when they used a _fake_ LV handbag as a prop and a character said "This is a Louis Vuitton".)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> So, if you want DOD support and resources and voluntarily go to them for help, they will have a say in the script?

To me it seems that anti-establishment Americans are so eager to find evidence of "censorship", "police state" and "tyranny" that they forget what do these words actually mean.

<comment><USER50> DoD policy is to "approve" scripts for movies that request DoD assistance, and has been for a long time.

Production companies are free to get another countries' military to provide assets under different terms. The French and Israeli military have provided filming support for US movies before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Rotten Tomatoes

</comment><comment> aurora- Its not secret, if you want to use the pentagons toys and personnel and facilities then they have to have script approval and will make suggestions if they don't approve. And those suggestions make the film a recruitment tool and propaganda mouthpiece. They request positive depictions of the military, the military solving the problems, etc.

I have also noticed they tend to carry a negative depiction of the other civilian branches of the government especially the CIA, "they made the problem/they tied our hands and now we gotta clean it up" seems a consistent theme.

</comment><comment><USER52> Finally! I've been saying for years "The largest propaganda machine in the world is Hollywood." People usually just roll their eyes.

<comment><USER2> The America of "Snow Crash" has as its primary exports software and culture, via Hollywood.

It seems to continue to be an apropos prediction.

<comment><USER53> No it's not. Software is not even in the top ten of US exports

<comment><USER54> iOS, Android, Facebook, Snapchat, Whatsapp, etc are all software...

<comment><USER53> Okay. So?[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exports_of_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exports_of_the_United_States)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> America's infatuation with their military is disgusting

</comment><comment><USER56> _> Jon Voight in Transformers — in this scene, just after American troops have been attacked by a Decepticon robot, Pentagon Hollywood liaison Phil Strub inserted the line 'Bring em home', granting the military a protective, paternalistic quality, when in reality the DOD does quite the opposite._

So glad the authors were able to stay objective and emotionally removed from the subject /s

</comment><comment><USER57> All nations have propaganda, USA included. I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this.</comment>


Great work is worth paying for; why free apps are a bad thing - <AUTHOR> http://brendandawes.posterous.com/great-work-is-worth-paying-for-why-free-apps

<comment><USER2> Is this a joke or is he serious? I'm not native English speaking, so I may miss some ironic details.

quote: "When you make an app that you've sweated over and spent days crafting—so it's as good as it can be—you owe it to yourself to charge for that app. Otherwise what you're saying is your app is worthless."

This app isn't worthless, because I invested my time in it. So it's at least worth that much time. If I charge for it is my personal decision and may depend on a lot of reasons. If "worth" equals money for you, that's simply a poor view.

quote: "The thing is when you make an app free your audience doesn't thank you for it."

Who cares? I made that thing. It was fun to make and then it's out. Take it or leave it...</comment>


Ada Programming on Slackware Linux - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2012/01/08/ada-programming-on-slackware/

<comment><USER2> Developing in Ada is one of the best ways to go. For being proven for 30 years, more projects should launch new Projects in Ada catching bugs as early in development as possible. For many of my projects, I find that if the code compiles 9 times out of 10 it works as intended (barring stupid logic errors by humans).</comment>


Discussion of the ICO freeze from one of the Ethereum team - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/leashless/status/941501389687214081 <comment><USER2> Interesting "we must learn/accept/fight to cohabit" view, It's super American - Westerners centric though, what happens if decentralised currencies take off in emerging countries?</comment>


Why physicists like models, and why biologists should - <AUTHOR> http://longnow.org/essays/why-physicists-models-and-why-biologists-should/ <comment><USER2> Note this is actually from 1993. I wonder how things have changed since then.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am operating on about 5 hours of very broken up sleep and am generally fried. But this is exactly what I want to do: Create "predictive" biological models with a real world, specific (teaching) purpose. But what I have been thinking recently is that there is a "space" between the basic physiological "rules" of the body and the world around us and that "space" is found in the mind -- that we make countless small choices based on enormous amounts of data/models/whatnot in our heads which bias us towards recreating the outcomes we expect (for example: the entire CF community is routinely told by doctors "people like you don't get well" and "it's the normal progression of CF, there is nothing you can really do about it" and the like --and then they repeat these memes to each other, further reinforcing it and further discouraging people from making any real effort to defy those expectations).

So I have been pondering how one would lay that out as a model, because it is not as simple as "my body has X nutritional deficiency so I crave foods high in X, I eat said foods and then get somewhat better". It is more like "my body has X nutritional deficiency so I crave foods high in X, I run those cravings through my mental filter and in many cases I decide there is something inherently bad about craving them and then I go to great lengths to defeat this built-in self-guiding system, thus not allowing myself to get better, which leads to more cravings and more guilt and more stringent attempts to 'exercise self control'...and round and round we go".

Anyway, it is likely of no use to the forum for me to attempt to think out loud on the topic (especially while fried). But I think it is of use to me.

Peace.</comment>


Paywalls coming to medium.com: "We're building monetisation" - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35709680 <comment><USER2> The HN title is sensationalist considering the length of the article and other points of discussion. The full quote is:

 _" I also think there's a lot of potential for premium or subscription or even user-paid content. Some sort of paywall or membership."_

It's unfair IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> > title is sensationalist

Yep, on purpose. The original title is misleading as well, presenting medium from a false view.

<comment><USER3> > _Yep, on purpose_

That's an abuse of HN. We take submission privileges away from accounts that do this, so please don't do it again.

The site guidelines ask you to change the original title when it is misleading or linkbait, but not by turning it into a sensational opinion piece. Cherry- picking a single detail at the expense of all the others is editorializing. Moreover your title went way beyond what that detail in the article justifies. All of this is what the HN guidelines try to prevent.

I'm not sure I agree that the original title was misleading, but even if it was, the replacement must be accurate and neutral, preferably using representative language from the article. If you have a tendentious point to make, you need to make it via a comment in the thread, on a level playing field with every other user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, I think the submission title doesn't do the article much justice. While it does mention their intention to monetize, it talks about other tings to.

I mean, maybe I don't use it much, but it seems to do a really good job of filtering spam and I don't see much harassment. But it's hard to see opposing views unless you look hard enough for posts which are usually shut down by others. Also, the comments have to be approved by the author which does lead to echo chambers, but they seem to know this since their lawyer Ferrest said that "You shouldn't necessarily be kept safe from other people challenging your ideas."

It's also very SF-centric at times, especially with all the self-help posts, but it does do a good job at content discovery since I can get a wide range of topic from the tech industry through to social issues.

I don't know how they'll sell paywalls to users, though. I mean, the internet has a lot of blogs which are already free to see. Plus, I can use my Pocket recommended feature for diversity right?

<comment><USER3> Yes, the title was an abuse of HN and irredeemably skewed the thread. Someone else is welcome to repost the article.

<comment><USER5> While not true in this particular case, sometimes the title of an article on a linked page changes, making it appear as if the title submitted to HN was editorialized. This happened recently with a link I submitted that used the verbatim title, and I was called out for it when the site's owner changed the title later.

<comment><USER3> That's true, and I'm sorry that got it wrong in your case. The NYT is particularly fickle with its titles, but usually there's some trace on the page that lets us know that the submitted title was an earlier version.

<comment><USER5> My case it was CNN, not the New York Times, but I guess the lesson is to avoid sites that do this often if you want to be taken reliably here.

<comment><USER3> Nah, it's an edge case that doesn't happen often. Just submit the best stories. Nothing else matters by comparison.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I fail to understand what medium adds to any other blogging platform. Especially us technical users have dozens of self-hosted alternatives (in addition to the weird beast that is GitHub pages) that have existed since, like, forever.

Why lock yourself in a proprietary platform that then, invariably (like we are seeing now), is going to have to monetize your content?

Why aren't more people bothered by the fact that more and more previously decentralized/self-hosted models are being transformed to monopolies?

<comment><USER7> > We are going to take things down that are unsafe, that are hate speech, that > are harassment. It's not a legal obligation, it's an obligation to the > ecosystem of the site.

Censorship, it seems.

<comment><USER8> These comments kill me.

You may have the right to say whatever you want, but not on a blog I'm hosting for you.

<comment><USER9> While that makes sense, when these companies aspire to be the dominant platform, an oligarchy, or even a monopoly if they could, their power over public discourse is concerning.

Independent blogs and forums, and even independent media, are declining. The future is trending toward hosted content, with only a few hosts.

<comment><USER10> So, no mods anywhere? You could make the same argument that deleting spam is censorship.

<comment><USER9> We accept certain limits on free speech, even when the First Amendment applies.

Encouraging a few powerful companies to censor anything they like, without restriction, because their platforms are private property is different from accepting reasonable censorship.

<comment><USER8> So go start your own! Medium is only 3.5 years old and are just now talking about revenue. Sounds like there is plenty of room for competition.

Free speech doesn't mean anyone has a responsibility to build and offer what you want the way you want it just because you want it.

Censorship is a real thing, like when the president of Turkey prosecutes people for insulting him. There are phrases that literally may not be said in that country.

Medium isn't telling you your speech isn't legal, but they have no obligation to lend you a megaphone.

<comment><USER9> > So go start your own!

Unfortunately most of us aren't billionaires.

 _" The press is free, for anyone that owns one."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like the idea that ad-driven business are not sustainable. Ads are manipulative almost by definition and the world would probably be better without them (even though it's hard to make an argument for disallowing people to present their products in the best way possible).

The problem with monetization I see is that internet usage is so far-spread. The amount of articles I read per week/month might be fairly constant but it's spread among _dozens_ of sites. I don't want to pay for every single read (as that would make me think twice about reading stuff) so the only option is a subscription but then I'd pay $5 or $10 a month for a single site that, last month, I might have only read 3 articles on.

IMO the only solution would be cross-site subscriptions, i.e. you pay for "online reading abo" and get access to like 50 sites. I'd also wish that they then get payed based on how much I read on each site. I'd actually pay for a service like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what [https://flattr.com](https://flattr.com) was supposed to sort out, isn't it?

<comment><USER12> It would be interesting to see something like this built into the browser and then automated. Perhaps sites could send a header detailing where to send the micro-transaction. You could load up your browser with $X/month and then have the browser divide the money evenly between all the sites who it crossed passing that header. Now you don't have to think about it, and if it's built into say wordpress the content creator only needs to remember to punch their number into the system.

I pay The Old Reader a $3.00 subscription for RSS each month. I find it a good fit. I would love to see an inverted RSS where I send a micro-transaction to everyone on my feed whose published in the month. Again, like RSS, it would be nice to just have the system be automated. No having to remember to look someone up on Patreon or Flattr and then manage how much I'm giving them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice to compare the comments here with [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11222499](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11222499) ("Show HN: Let's encourage ad blocking").

People don't want to pay for content, but they also don't want to see ads...

<comment><USER14> Most people who are reading Medium or are on the internet are broke or in massive debt (cough Millennials).

They can barely afford rent and food.

If you want to monetize you need to either make medium for baby-boomers or change your govt.

<comment><USER15> People prioritise different things, I see homeless people with smartphones. We live in an information age, and people value information.

<comment><USER16> What people seem to not value are the channels that produce information. Information has become ubiquitous, ephemeral and most often freely available through any other arbitrary channel. For pay walls to work, it's an all-or- nothing system.

<comment><USER14> Not really.

Information is more valuable then ever.

I would rather pay 10 dollars for Netflix then torrent.

But guess why I do not pay 10 dollars for Netflix ?

Because Netflix is shit for me. Since I do not live in the US.

The hassle of going to a torrent site and deal with porn ads is _cheaper_ and better then streaming from Netflix.

Since 10 dollar is 45 minutes of working as a programmer - I spend _less_ then 10 minutes a month having to deal with porn ads. Its basic economics. Unless it takes me 45 minutes of porn ad watching I am not going to switch to Netflix - as simple as that.

And guess why I get paid 10 dollars ?

Due to the broken immigration Laws which gives employers an upper hand as I get deported as soon as I lose my job.

Some of the basic needs of life - housing,food - costs me 1/4 of my salary.

And I am at the upper end of the scale - most of my peers are working in coffee shops in shitty service jobs.

Unless this basic calculus change - good luck monetizing selling articles on the web.

\-- from a frustrated millennial --

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If this is set up as something like "5 free articles a month, then $0.1 to read the article, and 70% goes to the author" then I can see it working very well. Medium has proven that it's capable of attracting some talented writers and making the content discoverable - of all the content sites out there Medium feels like the only one I'd really consider subscribing to.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but getting people - enough people - to pay for content is the challenge here, not having perceived quality content / discoverability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> its sad. i like medium. but i do not pay for articles anymore. somebody's opinion is not worth money. 'free speech' should also mean 'free to access' in the internet age.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've never understood what's special about medium.com. It seems like any other blog, Wordpress, Blogger, etc. Plain text articles with some images. Or is there something more to it?

<comment><USER21> Content. You didn't mention the content. Maybe it's the content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really wish people would look into patron funding (eg: Patreon) instead of paywalls.

</comment><comment><USER23> Title: Inside Medium: an attempt to bring civility to the internet

<comment><AUTHOR> And did you find that title true after reading the article?

<comment><USER23> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> People here are complaining about potential censorship and paywalls. Perhaps we can have the best of both worlds and decentralize it, compensate authors and still provide it free.

Implement it as an Ethereum like dapp/smart contract with the same function as Patreon for long-form articles. Make the Dapp usable and accessible through the browser like Instapaper.

Liberate the content, make it 'free' after stretch goals have been reached. Use community curation through voting contracts similar to the slashdot/hl karma points.

Also integrate distributed search, automated tagging and perhaps integrated commenting and Sia or IPFS for distributed storage. And automatically create an epub versions of the top 12 longforms of the week so people can read their longform articles offline on e-paper/paper.

</comment><comment><USER25> It was nice knowing you medium.

</comment><comment><USER26> A paywall for user-generated content? Let's see how well that works. Doesn't quora do the same thing? How does it work for them?

<comment><USER9> Does quora have a paywall? I've never bothered to go past the login wall. (I just Google what I want to read.)

<comment><USER27> Not paywall, but IMNSHO dancing on the line of shady practices - "you're a spider? Carry on. You're a human? No text for you, register!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Goodbye Medium. Aaaaand, hello archive.is copy of Medium!

</comment><comment><USER29> How can someone with previous startup experience can be so shortsighted! Ahhh, now I remember Twitter API restrictions and witch hunting of third party apps and this is coming from the same business culture.

</comment><comment><USER30> about time.</comment>


Should I write HTML or CSS first? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/179537/should-i-write-html-or-css-first

<comment><USER2> You should write first whatever suits your workflow.

I think writing HTML first is the way to go, for the benefit of progressive enhancement, accessibility, SEO:

A barebones HTML document is the lowest level which you can enhance. It is the level of Lynx browsers, screenreaders and formerly search engines. So start with a properly structured HTML document. Then enhance it with CSS and then JS.

If CSS fails to load you will still present a readable document (not littered with iFrames or abusing elements for styling (like header tags)). You will instantly spot where to place skip-links, or skip to content links. You can focus on putting the most relevant content in the first 100 or so words in the HTML document. Writing HTML and then CSS first will ensure in most cases that you won't use JavaScript for layout. You also won't hide content with "display: none", if you want collapsible content, you'll enhance it with JavaScript, and add "display:none" after the page has loaded.

Even if you use a CSS/grid framework, that shouldn't hamper writing the HTML first. You can always add the <div class="row"> later on. Or decide to write your own grid, since the website only uses 4 sizes of columns and a 100kb CSS file is a bit overkill.

In my opinion good design follows from the content. Don't try to strongarm content in a design.

<comment><USER3> Writing CSS first seems very counter intuitive. I don't even know how I'd go about doing it.

The best web design pattern in my opinion is progressive enhancement. For me, this is HTML followed by CSS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not trying to troll, but "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." [1]

Why/How would anyone write CSS before HTML?

1: [http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/charlesbab141832....](http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/c/charlesbab141832.html)

<comment><USER5> For most web text I heartily agree with your quote. But in some cases, e.g., a large family of pages which are to share nontrivial layout (perhaps one page documenting each function in a software library, with standardized formatting for the arglist, the preconditions and postconditions, one or more usage examples...) it might be appropriate to get the shared organization/layout decisions straight before trying to compose much of the text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are two orthogonal issues at hand here.

1) How do i build a site that serves my needs? 2) How do i learn to build a website?

Those are two very different tasks can (and often do) require different potentially conflicting approaches.

If you are familiar with the skills, technologies, and requirements of a project, one starts with a discussion about the needs of a site, and go through design exercises in order to determine what it is that needs to be implemented. That often means markups and design stuff, which will often have nothing to do with either HTML or CSS (although some people do mockup with HTML & CSS).

If you are trying to learn how to build a site, while also building a site, there is a process of exploration and learning that you must engage in before you know what is even possible to build.

This is where a modular and iterative design and build strategy has become popular. When you don't necessarily know where you're going with your end product (because you don't know what's possible), you build small chunks of functionality, experiment with whether it meets your requirements, and then incorporate that smaller experiment into the larger whole.

So, what does that actually mean in concrete terms? Building a site _can_ be like building a house, where you draw up architectural plans (design mockups) and then start doing the engineering to calculate whether your house will stand up and meet your aesthetic needs. But building a site can (and often should) look more like building a series of small experiments, and taking a step by step approach to reaching a product that meets your original concept.

As a very practical matter, almost everyone futzes with both their HTML and their CSS at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER7> You should write tests first.

<comment><USER8> Good grief, tests for HTML! Some people will do anything to get out of doing real work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I expect the "best" answer depends on what kind of page you're building. For example, is this a a stand-alone web page, one page of a one-off site, part of a CMS where templates are used for common patterns, part of a full-blown web application with lots of interaction and every page unique? Will the content be static, generated from a DB on the server, generated dynamically on the client side? Are you designing alone or collaborating with others? Do different people have different roles on the project?

With that said, I typically develop HTML, CSS and even JS in parallel. I try to have a fair idea of what my information architecture, content, layout, visual style and interaction design are before I start, and then treat it somewhat like a software project: start by writing a high-level outline HTML page structure and the CSS to set up the layout and basic presentation style, then add more detailed HTML and CSS for each part of the page, and iterate in increasing levels of detail until I'm somewhere near done. At any point, I might step back and refine/replace something from earlier with something more flexible or generalised, particularly with CSS as the recurring patterns for the page start to become clear.

</comment><comment><USER10> html</comment>


Tackling the misinformation epidemic with "In Event of Moon Disaster" - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-tackles-misinformation-in-event-of-moon-disaster-0720 <comment><USER3> The very idea that deep fakes are somewhere near the top of the list of significant concerns for the media right now is in itself disinformation. And it seems to be very persistent. I keep seeing articles and videos about it all the time. Someone is pumping significant amount of money into this narrative.

The irony is that all this "anti-disinformation" research will clearly be used to run better disinformation campaign if/when the primitive shit being used right now stops working.

<comment><USER4> Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER5> I can't speak for OP, but consider: the very strong scientific consensus is that the earth is warming and that warming is caused by human activity; the best-case study I've seen showed 75% consensus among Americans and that's sharply up over previous years.

The gap between scientific consensus and common belief has been driven by "regular" misinformation campaigns: promotions of conspiracy theories, manufactured doubt, cherry-picking of claims.

Why worry about the novel when the basics are still working?

<comment><USER6> What would you think about a deep fake depicting secret video footage (from a cell phone) of real climate scientists at at a real conference discussing how they are manipulating the data to convince the public and the lawmakers that climate change is a real phenomena. This deep fake would contain real people who really are climate scientists who really did attend a conference together. Its just that this discussion never took place. It was created by deep fake technology.

This type of scenario seems like a very real concern to me. You can extend this example into practically any hot button issue.

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't think it would matter at all. Nobody would know who the scientists were, so you wouldn't even need to use real ones for the same effect. I don't even think most warming deniers would really care, and it wouldn't even spend a week in the news cycle, if aired at all. Do a video of them sacrificing a child to Beelzebub, and maybe you'd get some attention.

Just telling everybody that you were told that this meeting happened through secret messages from a secret high-level traitor from the Soros Foundation would work just as well. It would work on hundreds of people even if you said that you were receiving these messages psychically or encoded through subtle changes in reruns of _Law & Order._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There seems to be this hopeful belief out there that if only indisputably correct information was available to the general public, at long last they would finally support the correct policies and elect the correct leaders.

I think that is a false premise.

<comment><USER9> And yet even on HN this is disputed with such frequency as to warrant raising eyebrows as to what kind of mess we're walking into.

Book burners are with us today, and they're embedded within the "cancel culture" and every online upvote/downvote system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> 15 years ago I created a "pre-deep fakes" automated actor replacement visual effects production pipeline. My ambition was to create "Personalized Advertising" where ordinary people would appear in video advertising for desirable products like film trailers, and various other products and services that typically have a celebrity spokesperson - the basic idea was the celebrity spokesperson would be "with you" in the advert explaining how great the product was while you are depicted nodding and enjoying it.

The system worked, and still would work if I un-mothballed it. I even globally patented the system, with an ungodly expense doing so: [https://patents.justia.com/patent/7460731](https://patents.justia.com/patent/7460731)

However, nobody believed what I was pitching 15 years ago was possible. After I'd demonstrate a scaled down implementation, I'd get interest and an investment pool would start to form. Then one of the investors would realize the tech could be used for porn, and then no matter how I explained the economics of failure such an application would cause, their stupid dicks would take over and I could not get them to realize "porn with anyone inserted" is a lawsuit engine and not a sell-able product.

While pursuing this, I became extremely jaded about what people think occurs in a film production, and the time and expense necessary to add visual effects to any media. The majority of angels and VC I pitched were flabbergasted at what current media and VFX productions are like, and their current level of expense and sophistication. My proposing a fully automated incarnation struck them as complete fantasy. Yet I had a working implementation. Slowly I'd convince them of the possibility... and then they'd get fixated on porn, ignoring the fact that there is no way to make money producing deep fake porn.

I eventually went bankrupt and left media production entirely. After creating my fully automated VFX pipeline, working in VFX without my automation tools drove me nuts. I work in facial recognition now.

</comment><comment><USER11> Forget faking news events. What about petty crime? The cops get sent a video of you defacing property. Your phone data and several eyewitnesses tie you to the area. How do you escape, without a blanket ban on video evidence? If there's a blanket ban on video evidence, what if you have video proof that you were somewhere else?

<comment><USER12> If this becomes a problem, I think cameras and smartphones would be upgraded with a way to certify they are real videos. I have no idea how, and it would likely have to keep evolving, but if the financial incentives are there I'm sure someone will figure it out. Maybe the video gets signed by the phone and can only be verified by that device?

This comment was generated by GPT-3

<comment><USER13> Flash the flashlight in a sequence corresponding to the most recent hash on the bitcoin blockchain, then take a hash of the video and send 0.00000001 BTC to that address from a wallet associated with your personal identity? Would pretty much prove that a specific person recorded this video between two fairly close together times, and the blinking lights would probably do things with shadows that deepfakes aren't great at replicating (and retouching the video to fix those artifacts would make the hash not match).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very interesting and quite creepy in this specific context - <USER2> enlightening as to wider possibilities.

The actual faked Nixon speech is in the "Special Report" starting at 3.37 here (after a scene setting prelude):

[https://moondisaster.org/film](https://moondisaster.org/film)

The original contingency letter from which the speech is derived:

[https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential- libraries/events...](https://www.archives.gov/files/presidential- libraries/events/centennials/nixon/images/exhibit/rn100-6-1-2.pdf)

<comment><USER15> Fascinating. It's good, but there are lots of little emphatic "head nods" that don't make sense in the context of the speech - unless that was just an odd mannerism of Nixon's.

<comment><USER5> I wonder if a more recent subject would've been better. We all know the tics and habits of our current president, but Nixon was half a century ago and I wonder how many of us have seen his speeches in any real depth.

Hell, play me Billy West reading Nixon as "Richard Nixon's head" from Futurama and I might buy it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's the video: [https://moondisaster.org/film](https://moondisaster.org/film)

Not bad but the audio doesn't sound quite right.

<comment><USER17> The thing is that you know it's a fake and are looking for clues that it's a fake. But for many purposes, it doesn't matter if you can fool careful study or expert analysis, it matters whether you can fool a quick glance from someone already predisposed to believe the contents who will retweet or share on facebook and move on.

<comment><USER18> Well said. Imagine a similar deepfake with a Nixon "confession" about having to stage the moon landing to make America look superior. You now suddenly have the next viral facebook or whatsapp forward for conspiracy theorists who are fully convinced of their beliefs.

<comment><USER19> Ye but it has been doable with modern movie production technology for some time without any fancy AI. The biggest difference is the price drop of it?

<comment><USER20> Not just price drop. Also co-conspirator drop, to reduce the number of helpers you need to create the artifact.

But, overall, "deep fake" isn't a critical waterfall aspect. It one piece of the overall trend toward fake archaeology. Fakeaelogy? Farkchaeology?

<comment><USER21> The term "simulation" comes to mind as a description of the emerging art and science of ultra-realistic bullshit generation.

From Baudrillard ([https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/postmodernism...](https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/postmodernism/terms/simulacrum.html)): "Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.... It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real."

<comment><USER22> > Hyperreality, in semiotics and postmodernism, is an inability of > consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, > especially in technologically advanced postmodern societies.

> Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is > fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear > distinction between where one ends and the other begins.

> "The authentic fake." – Umberto Eco

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The irony is that the people most susceptible to this kind of BS also don't believe we landed on the moon, so the effect may be somewhat muted...

<comment><USER24> Everyone is susceptible to deep fakes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For some reason shirt collars seem to be the weakest point on all deep fakes??

<comment><USER26> I noticed that, too. I kept noticing the chin skin tone "smudging" over the shirt collar throughout the video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cute and well made job. I suspected that the video simply took a standard Nixon televised speech and used CGI to remake just the lower half of his face (thus the odd head movements even though his words and lips synced correctly, and if you look closely you can see that the lower part of his face looks somehow "cleaner" than the upper half), what stumped me a bit though was the audio. His voice sounds odd but recognizably his own, especially since Nixon had a rather unique voice. so I thought maybe they cut together words he'd said in different recorded contexts and digitally modulated the audio to construct a speech with an even tone, but no, they actually faked his voice, which impresses me more than the face CGI.

<comment><USER28> I don't think they are using conventional CGI techniques to "remake" his mouth/lips and lower face, if that is what you are suggesting. Seems like the dialog replacement is using a technology called VDR: [https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/cannyai-vdr-face- replacem...](https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/cannyai-vdr-face-replacement- as-a-service/). There's a demo video on that page and some more details about the technique.

<comment><USER27> Sorry, maybe I'm conflating terminology, but I was referring to the use of AI and digital editing to reconstruct the lower part of his face so that it looks real while moving in ways that are false and say things he didn't actually say. This is what they did in some way at least, no?

<comment><USER28> Yeah, I see your point, AI-generated CGI is still CGI!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> To be honest, you could probably get more convincing results than this just by using spaghetti-Western-style dubbing of existing footage.

</comment><comment><USER30> > an Information Ecosystem at Risk

At Risk? Where have these people been for the last 40 years? I don't want to say the authenticity of information doesn't matter. But what clearly matters much more is collective trust in information institutions and from that standpoint the ecosystem has already utterly failed.

</comment><comment><USER31> A really good example to showcase the capability of the technology !

In context of India, where news channels have reneged from due diligence on evidently doctored videos, this is something which can have huge consequences.

</comment><comment><USER32> I am very curious how the legal system will handle deep fakes as they progress to perfect quality that even forensics can not tell.

<comment><USER33> There is already a tool in place that handles much of it, chain of custody for evidence. The video evidence would need corroborating evidence to "pin it down" essentially. Just showing say Hillary Clinton making infant stew wouldn't cut it without a chain of evidence proving there was a location, time, that a camera would actually be there, and there is some actual physical evidence of her murderous cannibalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> A tangent: the movie "The Landing" (2017) is a fun treatment of a non-existent Apollo 18 and disaster.</comment>


What to do with your 401K during a recession - <AUTHOR> https://www.blooom.com/ <comment><USER2> No thanks, I can do that, and not risk my PII.</comment>


Natural TTS Synthesis by Conditioning WaveNet on Mel Spectrogram Predictions - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.05884 <comment><AUTHOR> The audio samples [1] of this paper are very interesting.

[1] [https://google.github.io/tacotron/publications/tacotron2/ind...](https://google.github.io/tacotron/publications/tacotron2/index.html)</comment>


Libreboot left the GNU project - <AUTHOR> https://libreboot.org/gnu/ <comment><USER2> I mean, I'm just going to come out and say it - unless there are emails or something it's got to be hard for the FSF or the employee to make any sort of claims.

If there is not a lawsuit this probably shouldn't even be a thing.

The libreboot founder wrote:

> Libreboot is not part of GNU or FSF anymore. I hereby denounce both GNU and > FSF. Long live the LGBT community, and long live the free software movement. > Meanwhile, FSF and GNU can both go fuck themselves.

To be honest, because I see no evidence - just a bunch of pointing fingers, this seems super unprofessional and possibly just downright defamation on the part of libreboot. Now if evidence is provided I'd be happy to change my mind, but overall this seems pretty childish.

Some of the Reddit comments:

> Having had interactions with this particular developer before, they are a > very ...impulsive individual and given to extreme snap judgements and > opinions (banning discussion of using any *BSD with Libreboot on the IRC > channel for the project because BSD isn't "free enough" comes to mind).

> This reaction doesn't really surprise me, regardless of however accurate it > may or may not be (and I lean more towards giving the FSF the benefit of the > doubt here)

Then there's another who supposedly knows the people involved:

> Leah has psychological problems. Don't let that be reflective of the > majority in the Free Software Community. It is certainly a risk to the > LibreBoot project. The problem is she is the primary person behind > LibreBoot. It's a good project otherwise.

> I know Leah and I know the people accused. Leah's statements are without > merit and twisted into things because she is mad. She has a clear history of > making false and/or misleading statements against people and organizations > she perceives to have wronged her."

Again, because there is no evidence this seems to just be a way to punish FSF because someone got mad.

<comment><USER3> > on the part of libreboot

One of the main contributors to Libreboot points out that only Leah has commit access to the website, and

"(the contributors) are not consulted about any of the views expressed on the libreboot.org website when they are hastily published by Leah."

[http://zammit.org/libreboot-screwup.html](http://zammit.org/libreboot- screwup.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think RMS' intervention is appropriate as reference:

> The dismissal of the staff person was not because of her gender. Her gender > now is the same as it was when we hired her. It was not an issue then, and > it is not an issue now.

<comment><USER5> But the libreboot post says the same, the staff person was let go because of standing up against bullying, the gender doesn't matter directly to the firing

<comment><USER4> The libreboot post clearly mentions that the bullying was about the fact the person was trans, therefore going against what the FSF and RMS claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The statement initially contained words "the person who was fired ... has given permission for this opposition to be made against the FSF". Later, Leah Rowe silently removed these words with commit message "typofix".

[https://notabug.org/vimuser/libreboot- website/commit/18c0a56...](https://notabug.org/vimuser/libreboot- website/commit/18c0a561c44a447d558f66df5a680e162f44a58d)

</comment><comment><USER7> How is Leah Rowe (the Libreboot maintainer) in a position to know better than the FSF why the FSF fired someone?

Is she directly involved? Does/did she also work for the FSF with the people in question, or does she just have some relationship with the person who got fired and is getting their side of the story?

She's now publicly calling for the firing of several people of the FSF & the destruction of their livelihoods and careers.

I have _no_ involvement in any of this, but as someone on the sidelines who's been reading about it here on HN this just seems like he said she said hearsay resulting in the tech equivalent of tabloid dramas & trials in the court of public opinion.

</comment><comment><USER8> There are other legitimate ways to protest.

Breaking down the unity of the GNU system is unwise and a childish fit, at best. Promoting unity among GNU should be the first priority of every project in the system. It is not immediately clear that Libreboot leadership did anything to address their concerns, they simply walked away.

Energy going to causes like this detract from the real mission of GNU: a free operating system. That should be its only concern. There's going to be a lot of flamage on this comment, but the community needs to prioritize technical progress over other things. Other organizations exist to deal with those issues, and so we shouldn't confuse GNU's real purpose.

<comment><USER9> > Other organizations exist to deal with those issues

For the alleged issue of someone being fired due to being transgender, I fail to see how other organizations can deal with her being fired from the FSF. Do you suggest transgender people should only work for organizations promoting transgender rights, who can "deal with their issues"?

Also, please consider that if all organizations and communities behaved as you suggest, then just as the FSF might not organizationally care about transgender rights, every other organization in the world might not care about free software. As a free software supporter, do you really want that?

* Obligatory disclaimer: this comment is not intended to imply any factual assessment of the various claims about the firing.

<comment><USER10> The alleged issue even is not being fired because of being transgender, but being fired because of complaining too much about being harassed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find it very difficult to believe that anyone experienced and conscientious enough to work for the FSF "harassed by a transphobic colleague for being trans". Even if someone is anti-trans, it should be clear that in the current political climate, openly expressing these views is a career death sentence.

Is it possible that things went down as the post suggests? Sure. I find it much more likely that the individual involved _interpreted_ neutral comment of some sort as an attack on her gender, then stirred up trouble. Why do I have such a dismal view? Because it keeps happening, over and over. The perpetually offended have ruined too many good careers, and we need to stand up to them.

<comment><USER12> > Even if someone is anti-trans, it should be clear that in the current > political climate, openly expressing these views is a career death sentence.

I don't want to be the one responsible for someone's career death sentence, but it _is_ posted on a public mailing list: [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg0005...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00055.html)

1) Trans person is qualified for job 2) Hiring a trans person is now risky because of a perception of a potential "shitstorm" should "something" happen 3) Admission that this perceived risk exists regardless of the trans person's experience, aptitude, or temperament.

Is this not a textbook example of discrimination?

Edit: used "risk exists" instead of awkward phrasing "risk is true"

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I thought it important as this is a direct bit of official information from the libreboot.org website itself, and libreboot is often mentioned in many other threads on HN with regards to privacy, laptops, and Free alternatives. I imagine it would be of interest to many here. Please forgive me if the submission is flagged, I can understand the distaste for drama. Let's keep the discussion civil.

<comment><USER13> It's also worth mentioning that one of the main contributors of Libreboot responded[0] on that mailing list thread, and on his website[1] that "[..] Leah Rowe is the only person who has git commit access to the website, libreboot.org, and also the only person who has git commit access to the codebase, [..]".

[0]: [https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg0006...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00067.html)

[1]: [http://zammit.org/libreboot-screwup.html](http://zammit.org/libreboot- screwup.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Leah Rowe's response[1] on the mailing list was unprofessional and a bit troubling coming from a project leader.

[1]:[https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg0003...](https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreboot/2016-09/msg00036.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> Word to the wise... anything that you comment here could be used to end your career today or 5 years later when someone discovers this thread. Please choose your words carefully.

<comment><USER11> Wise words. Like anything having to do with identity, this issue is radioactive. It's become very difficult to criticize members of certain groups, because a vocal minority of people will invariably attribute your criticism to your crypto-hatred of the group to which the subject of your criticism belongs, then attempt to ruin your career over the perceived "hate".

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One person does not an organisation make. One claimed instance of 'discrimination' \- I use quotes on this word as it is often used in circumstances where other terms would be a better fit - does not a policy make. One person who feels violated in some way does not an indictment against a whole organisation justify.

If someone at FSF knowingly and willingly acted in a discriminatory way against someone and said discriminatory behaviour was sufficiently serious that the person being discriminated against can be assumed to feel violated in a real sense, action should be taken against that person at FSF. If FSF as an organisation has a policy promoting such discrimination this policy should be held to the light and discussed in the open so the reasons for that policy and the instigators thereof can be revealed. If the policy turns out violate basic human rights it should be changed or repealed. If FSF refuses to do so... _then_ is the time for actions like this one. Assuming that the claims made in this thread are serious and provable the end result might be the same, or it might not. Maybe FSF would change its ways instead and remove any such policies and/or people from its organisation?

Sending accusatory messages to a mailing list and 'taking your marbles to go home' is not the best way to induce change in society, no matter how aggrieved you feel.

</comment><comment><USER17> As someone hearing about this only now, what actually happened? I find it extremely difficult to believe that the FSF fired anyone based on any one trait. This post says that the trans person "stood up for themselves", and because of the ambiguity, this makes me think that it might not have been as simple as all that.

</comment><comment><USER18> from the original emal list.

> The Free Software Foundation recently fired a transgendered employee of the > FSF, just for being trans.

> I do not believe that the FSF or the GNU project deserve to exist.

> Libreboot is not part of GNU or FSF anymore. I hereby denounce both GNU and > FSF.

> FSF and GNU can both go fuck themselves.

This sort of unsubstantiated accusation in public about GNU/FSF internal personnel decisions looks rather unhinged. It's a crude attempt to give the GNU/FSF and its members/employees a public black eye and solicit an internet outrage mob. Even if this person feels they have some legitimate concern these tactics are deplorable and should be denounced.

</comment><comment><USER19> With such little information out there at the present I don't believe there is any point to discussion right now. With just unverified speculation, people are resorting to their imagination for any explanation which is never a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER20> I really hope that this is not the spark that will shatter the free software movement into bickering about politics.

<comment><USER21> Well, given the rise of contributor covanents and several people throwing around identity politics on technical mailing lists, it definitely looks like it's happening already. But I highly doubt that the free software movement will shatter. There have been bigger threats to software freedom, and the community has overcome them too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> And so libreboot was forked.

</comment><comment><USER10> That's what you get from a movement that more resembles a religious cult. Everything has to bow to their arbitrarily defined software freedoms first and foremost. IMO an even better reason to leave the GNU project and the FSF is that Richard Stallman is a pedophilia apologist. (See the quotes at [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pedophilia](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Pedophilia) of him)

<comment><USER23> Why do you care who makes your software as long as it is good free software? If I started judging people as opposed to appreciating what they do It would be very dehumanizing.

<comment><USER10> When you are a public person, publishing opinions on your website is something you do, and should be judged. Still supporting RMS and seeing him as a visionary how he often is, gives legitimacy to such dispicable ideas.</comment></comment></comment>