Green Acres: What if Houston were known for its parks instead of its stripmalls? - <AUTHOR> http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/green-acres-2/ <comment><USER3> Hermann Park is within walking distance of my home in Houston. Living by such an amazing space has done wonders for my mood, and my opinion of Houston. The park is wonderfully anachronistic.

It seems plucked straight out of some european city, or at least the east coast of the US. I think that owes a lot to it using the original plans from the 1910s. Growing up in Texas, most of the parks you see are basically undeveloped land, set aside for public use. A playground might be the only feature of some parks. This is completely different.

Where I live in Houston, I can ride light rail to downtown or a baseball game. I can walk to a wonderful park. The museums are stellar (if you haven't heard of the Menil collection, please look it up). I rarely have to even get on a highway, except when I'm heading out of town. The climate is miserable in the summer, thanks largely to the humidity of being a city built on top of what once must have been swamp land. However, the rest of the year is moderate.

I share this because before moving to Houston I would not have assumed any of these things.

<comment><USER4> For anyone who wants to see what Houston has to offer food-wise: [http://www.underbellyhouston.com/houston- love/](http://www.underbellyhouston.com/houston-love/)

Great food isn't surprising given that it's the most ethnically diverse city in America: [http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/07/01/195909...](http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/07/01/195909643/tx2020-houston- racial-ethnic-diversity-americas-future)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember when there were woods and stables around the inner loop 160 freeway in central Houston 50 years ago. A few woods remain, and couple of stables remain, even around the loop.

City parks are wonderful, but they don't replace what I know Houston for - <USER2> wilderness. It's still here but a little farther away.

Sure, it's sprawling and crowded, and crazy at rush hour. But any day of the year, if you want to go camping or go horse riding, well hell, if it's not raining go -- and if it is, put on a raincoat and go.

If you like camping, about an hour south, there's overnight camping at Brazos Bend state park. George Observatory is also there. [http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/brazos-bend](http://tpwd.texas.gov/state- parks/brazos-bend)

Theses are the things I know Houston for.

</comment><comment><USER6> I grew up in Houston. This would require a technology for air conditioning the parks.

<comment><USER7> Shade and water would go some way towards that.

To your point though, the big desert cities (whether in Texas or Arizona or elsewhere) would not exist without AC.

<comment><USER8> Houston,,, not really a desert:[http://web2.airmail.net/danb1/annualrainfall.htm](http://web2.airmail.net/danb1/annualrainfall.htm)

I lived in both Arizona and Texas, and the issue is only supersonically the same. But even given that, I must agree with the spirit of the parent comment remark. Though, having spent some time in both Tucson and Phoenix, I'd strongly argue that the heat island affect just makes a bad situation worse. Replacing concrete with parks is a win virtually 100% of the time in that regard. Not to mention quality of life. The out door shopping in AZ and CA is much more pleasant than that of the strip mall experience.

<comment><USER8> Also, supersonically=superficially and affect=effect. Jeez. My bad; autocorrect is not a crutch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a native Houstonian, this article was a fantastic read on the history that I never knew.

Just last year, my family moved _back_ into the loop (walking distance to several parks) and haven't looked back.

This quote perfectly sums up the problem Houston has had: > We could get high- quality job applicants to land at Intercontinental Airport," said Fowler. "But on the way into town the wives would look over at their husbands and say, 'What are we doing here?' "

Finally knowing how the city is layer out has taught me to:

1\. Get away from the airport and downtown, unless it's for work, drinks, and a ball game. 2\. Find one of the park + restaurant pockets and relax, walk to great coffee (Blacksmith), and Uber home. 3\. Rent a B-cycle to connect between the culturally rich areas. Within the loop, they're only 1-2 miles apart. 4\. Visit museums. Each one seems to be nestled by a park, nice homes, and good food.

Like most cities I've visited, when I go alone, I get a tilted opinion of it. But, with someone who knows the area, you'll be the best it has to offer.

Lastly, despite being an oil and gas town, there's a huge medical community and a bustling Node/JavaScript/Ruby community.

The open-source crowd is extremely supportive and we consistently help find work for new comers and Iron Yard graduates.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nitpick mode: on

      cat article.txt | wc
        134    6494   39992

So almost 6500 words and only 1 map and 1 photo. You'd think if you were writing about Houston's parks you might, you know, show them to us?

<comment><USER4> Brays Bayou: [http://swacdn.s3.amazonaws.com/1/75bf6780_braysbayou45471_11...](http://swacdn.s3.amazonaws.com/1/75bf6780_braysbayou45471_1100x1100.jpg)

Hermann Park: [http://www.hermannpark.org/media/uploads/pages/.thumbnails/h...](http://www.hermannpark.org/media/uploads/pages/.thumbnails/hermann_park_2825-tom_fox__680x400-680x400.jpg)

Buffalo Bayou: [https://silvereagle.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/08/slideshow...](https://silvereagle.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/08/slideshow-09.jpg)

Discovery Green: [http://pagethink.com/media/uploads/project-gallery- images/lg...](http://pagethink.com/media/uploads/project-gallery- images/lg_arch_of_discgreen_16.jpg)

Memorial Park: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Memorial...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/MemorialParkHouston.JPG)

George Bush Park: [http://mw2.google.com/mw- panoramio/photos/medium/70118114.jp...](http://mw2.google.com/mw- panoramio/photos/medium/70118114.jpg)

Grounds of the Menil Collection: [http://theredlist.com/media/database/muses/couples/art_cultu...](http://theredlist.com/media/database/muses/couples/art_culture/dominique- and-john-de-menil/030-dominique-and-john-de-menil-theredlist.jpg)

Sesquicentennial Park: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Buffalo_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Buffalo_Bayou_at_Sesquicentennial_Park.jpg)

Mason Park: [http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/22/13/06/4764076/7/rawImage.jpg](http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/22/13/06/4764076/7/rawImage.jpg)</comment></comment>


Andean condor can fly for 100 miles without flapping wings - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/13/andean-condor-fly-without-flapping-wings-flight-bird <comment><USER2> Paraglider and hang glider pilots can also soar for hundreds of miles without power or flapping. Soaring birds like condors, turkey vultures, hawks, etc. use the same technique of turning in tight circles in rising air to increase altitude. Once cloud base is reached and the rising air stops, they glide significant distances to the next hillside with rising air. Whenever you see birds in the sky circling around the same spot together, it's because they're in rising air and using it to stay aloft.

<comment><USER3> There's thermals (a spot on the land that is warmer than the surroundings so the air rises there), and there's topography that causes rising air (for example when the wind blows at a face of a hill - the air has no choice but to go up).

RC gliders can stay in air basically forever flying back and forth in rising air along a hillside. It's called slope-soaring and it's great fun.

<comment><USER4> Here's an RC glider doing 545 mph with that technique: [https://youtu.be/MoaWlKC3wIM](https://youtu.be/MoaWlKC3wIM)

I don't know how they manage to control it or measure the speed, but it looks legit.

<comment><USER5> That is dynamic soaring [1] which is I guess a subset of slope soaring, and is pretty rare and nuts. It generally requires flying in the lee of a slope rather than in front of it.

Regular slope soaring is relatively more sedate, fun and accessible if you have the right slope.

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

> Dynamic soaring is sometimes confused with slope soaring which is a > technique for achieving elevation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Owls can fly almost in total silence, peregrine falcons can hit close to 250 mph, eagles can spot a tiny mouse from tens of thousands of feet...

Mother nature is wonderful and terrifying at the same time. Suddenly I am feeling sad for sitting in front of a screen for 8-10 hours a day instead of being out and enjoying what nature has to offer :(

<comment><USER7> I think it's equally wonderful and terrifying that nature produced humans, capable of creating the screens we look at all day.

<comment><USER8> But think about the efficiencies and profits!

<comment><USER9> because without them, nature would be a constant foe rather than something we can enjoy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Linked from the same article:

 _Fight of the condor: Peru bull fiestas threaten future of rare Andean bird_

 _At a raucous mountain festival high in the Peruvian Andes, a brass band and booming loudspeaker herald the arrival of the most eagerly awaited spectacle._

 _With the wings of an angel and the horns of a devil, the tonne of life that flaps and bucks and charges into the bullring at first resembles a strange mythological beast._

 _Snorting and kicking up dust, the hybrid – a raging bull with a condor strapped to its back – strikes awe in a watching crowd as it thunders into the arena, then excitement as it repeatedly attempts to gore a matador. The closer the enraged beast comes to a lethal connection, the louder the cheers of "Olé!"_

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/29/condor-peru- bu...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/29/condor-peru-bull-fight- andes)

Olé, indeed.

</comment><comment><USER11> I remember a story from the early 1980's about Steve Jobs.

Steve asked, what is the most efficient animal in motion?

People would give many answers.

The correct answer was a condor in flight.

A common wrong answer was a human being.

Steve then pointed out that the human isn't even close. Not even in the running as far as efficiency of some other animals.

But . . . if you give the human a bicycle, then the human absolutely cleans up in terms of efficiency. Steve wanted personal computers to be "a bicycle for the mind".

<comment><USER12> Isn't the condor still much more efficient. How many calories does a cyclist need to travel 100 miles?

<comment><USER13> Humans in orbit for long periods seem like they'd be the most efficient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I highly suggest people watch this amazing video by Al Bowers a NASA scientist about how flight works for birds and planes.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-dk1NpVNNI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-dk1NpVNNI)

<comment><USER15> Calling Al Bowers "a NASA scientist" is like calling Jeff Bezos "some rich guy". Al was (now retired) the Chief scientist at Armstrong Flight Research Center, and has been a huge inspiration to hundreds (maybe thousands) of young interns over the years.

<comment><USER14> I didn't remember his exact title, I don't think he would object to NASA scientist.

<comment><USER15> I know him personally and he certainly wouldn't. He's one of the most humble people I've ever met. I just wanted to emphasize that he's not just any NASA scientist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Bird physics are really interesting. There's an excellent (and accessible) book called "The Simple Science of Flight" by Henk Tennekes (who is an expert in the study of turbulence) which I really enjoyed reading, highly recommend it.

<comment><USER17> Related: Search Wikipedia for "boids"

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wing flap frequency varies inverse logarithmically with wing span in flying animals, see [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeremy_Rayner2/publicat...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeremy_Rayner2/publication/13904663/figure/fig3/AS:667179653558283@1536079433659/Wingbeat- frequency-versus-wing-length-For-comparison-the-slopes-of-two-predicted.png)

It's amazing how this carries over across species. Hummingbirds fly more like insects than eagles.

</comment><comment><USER19> Some fun facts..

Andean Condors in Peru glide from 14'000 ft up in the andes of Pampa Galeras all way the down to sea level at the Guano islands in the coast of Paracas. All to get stuffed eating crushed sea lions babies carcases..

After eating , Condors can't take of from the ground by flapping.. they got to "hop" up a hill to be able to launch into the incoming air to get some altitude.

Then they fly back up to 14'000ft by a combination of dynamic lift, thermals and wave induced lift when available.

A few years ago, a group of top paraglider pilots tried to recreate their journey up the mountains, but it ended with both pilots pretty badly injured after encountering nasty turbulent winds on the mountain canyons.

</comment><comment><USER20> ~161km.

<comment><USER21> The article says more than 100 miles, that's 1 significant figure, and likely somewhere in the 100-120 mile range. More than 160km is the appropriate conversion, and indeed what the article says, it's likely 160-200km.

If I say it's 50km to somewhere, an appropriate conversion would be 30 miles, not 31.07 miles.

<comment><USER20> Pardon my French, but on encule un peu les mouches là.

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enculer_les_mouches](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enculer_les_mouches)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Youtube channel Moth Light Media did a video on the largest flying birds: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bXov-Z2_9U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bXov-Z2_9U)

Fossil evidence shows records of some truly enormous flying beasts. One of the topics of the video is how their existing relatives, the condors, make use of updrafts and air currents to avoid spending the energy to flap their wings. We're all familiar with the trope of vultures circling above a dying animal, but the circling may also be riding an updraft to maintain altitude without expending additional energy.

</comment><comment><USER23> The low aspect ratio wings paired with the wing tip feathers to reduce wing tip vortices for birds of prey is pretty cool compared to the super high aspect ratio wings of Albatrosses.

</comment><comment><USER24> >"The difference can be likened to pedalling a bicycle uphill versus coasting downhill, said Bret Tobalske, a bird flight expert"

More like - coasting uphill!

<comment><USER25> Any land based analogies (that don't involve a geological time scale) are going to be bad because the land doesn't move whereas the air does and efficiently harnessing that movement to get gravitational potential energy which can be converted into motive power is how gliding things stay airborne

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The article doesn't link to the original study, but I would be curious to know how long was the next longest flap-less flight. If the first one is 5 hours, and the next is 4.5, awesome, but if the next longest bird was not flapping for only 35 minutes, I would attribute this to equipment malfunction rather than some awesome paragliding bird. Science is fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER27> The equivalent for a programmer I guess would be 100 hours without a single LOC. Whole still getting code to production.

<comment><USER28> Hmm, who is more efficient: the programmer who writes 100 lines then deletes them after finding them all unnecessary, or the programmer who (as implied) doesn't need to write the lines in the first place?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I first read this as "Andorian condor" and was intrigued, but a regular terran condor isn't quite as interesting.

</comment><comment><USER30> Once you go up in air, larger wings means less air drag from wing tip turbulence.

</comment><comment><USER31> Fly? Isn't it basically gliding?

<comment><USER32> Except for rockets, everything in the air is gliding. Some things are also powered, but that does not makes them glide less, just more.

<comment><USER3> Ballons aren't gliding.

Helicopters and quadcopters also aren't gliding.

<comment><USER32> Helicopters and quadcopters provide lift through rotary wings, thereby gliding. Fair point about balloons though.

<comment><USER3> That's like saying cars are moving by turning (because their wheels do that).

<comment><USER33> Cars are moved by turning though. From the pistons driving the engine, through the gearbox and drivetrain to the wheels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Laden or unladen?

</comment><comment><USER35> Surely everyone knows this by now

<comment><USER36> The relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

<comment><USER37> Wow such a great one, thanks for posting this.

The relevant soundtrack: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M](https://youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > The Andean condor has a 3-metre (10ft) wingspan and weighs up to 15kg > (33lbs), making it the world's heaviest soaring bird.

With a wingspan this large and a weight this low, the Andean corridor must generate enough lift by itself.

Tl;dr It's a biological aircraft.

<comment><USER4> Aren't aircraft mechanical birds, though?

<comment><USER21> I don't know any aircraft that propel themselves by moving wings.

<comment><USER16> Check out [http://www.delfly.nl/](http://www.delfly.nl/)

It's pretty small, but a very cool concept nonetheless.

<comment><USER39> Wow! never seen that before. That's incredible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder how much it really saves.

Unless there is some sort of bone oddity in the joint, the wings are not locked in place. The bird must still self-support via muscles.

Try it. The relatively bird-like way is like a gymnast on a pair of rings, arms horizontal. Doing things upside-down, consider standing with outreached arms holding heavy objects. It'd be half your body weight at the arm midpoints, which due to leverage is roughly like a quarter of body weight in each hand.

Even without any flapping, that is going to consume lots of energy.

<comment><USER41> That's not a fair comparison at all.

The gymnast example is fighting against gravity with absolutely no external factor other than personal strength, but the warm air / wind resistance pushing against the wings that allows the condor to fly for so long without flapping is contributing immensely to their ability to hold the wings in place.

<comment><USER4> It would be more like having your arms and legs (by body weight) hanging in sheets (so the entire length), rather than rings at the end of them.</comment></comment></comment>


Know Your HTTP Well - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/andreineculau/know-your-http-well

<comment><USER2> Great stuff! Makes it really easy to offer human readable messages instead of HTTP codes in your app.

If you're just looking for HTTP codes, here's the link to the JSON file: [https://github.com/andreineculau/know-your-http- well/blob/ma...](https://github.com/andreineculau/know-your-http- well/blob/master/js/status-codes.json)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great work! Are there similar initiatives trying to collect common knowledge in structured data? (I know this is a broad topic, but can't stop thinking about a more semantic web.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Based on this structured data, another service is nifty: [http://bin.hyperrest.com](http://bin.hyperrest.com)

which coupled with a browser search plugin [http://mycroftproject.com/search- engines.html?name=bin.hyper...](http://mycroftproject.com/search- engines.html?name=bin.hyperrest.com) can brings specifications to the tip of your... "bin+tab" :)

Opensourced at [https://github.com/hyperrest/bin](https://github.com/hyperrest/bin)

</comment><comment><USER5> When job applications are asking for significant knowledge of HTTP, is this what they mean?

<comment><USER6> Personally, I like using HTTP principles when interviewing web developer candidates. I'm not expecting people to know every detail of every RFC, or trivia type stuff in general. I more am interested in how much they know / can figure out about how HTTP-based communication works. I will ask stuff like "Explain how a redirect works, and how clients/browsers and servers interact with each other during a redirect." Also, REST is built on the concept of using HTTP verbs and resources properly, so it is nice to ask them to design a rough draft of an API to edit, add, delete, and list users via HTTP. Without asking them to do it RESTfully. It's telling if their first instinct is to have a "createUser" endpoint versus a POST to /users/

<comment><USER7> > _It 's telling if their first instinct is to have a "createUser" endpoint > versus a POST to /users/_

It's telling of what exactly?

RESTful is just one style of creating application interfaces over HTTP. And as far as I know, web apps with true RESTful interfaces are somewhat rare. [1] If you don't ask the candidate to do it RESTfully, it seems like you're doing the common interview anti-pattern of asking a question that is open-ended but expecting a particular answer.

[1] [http://www.intridea.com/blog/2010/4/29/rest-isnt-what-you- th...](http://www.intridea.com/blog/2010/4/29/rest-isnt-what-you-think-it-is#)

<comment><USER8> > It's telling of what exactly?

That the candidate favors transport-agnostic APIs or has limited familiarity with HTTP. One easy follow-up: "I notice you decided to call the method createUser..." and you've learned something concrete. They'll either stare blankly or discuss their preference for JSON-RPC or SOAP or whatever.

> And as far as I know, web apps with true RESTful interfaces are somewhat > rare.

It's common to take advantage of HTTP's verb syntax.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


6 GDC invited foreign game devs for a speaker's panel had their visas rejected - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/migueldeicaza/status/976958473140256769 <comment><USER2> Move GDC to a friendlier country?</comment>


Drupal, phpBB, Symfony, Joomla complexity improving over time, but not Wordpress - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/ircmaxell/status/335511857743937536 <comment><AUTHOR> Supporting evidence from @ircmaxell, on Twitter: <https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKf6m3cCEAEKDCK.png>

Not 100% sure his methodology, but it looks like this research is in preparation for this presentation next week: <http://portland2013.drupal.org/session/development-numbers>

</comment><comment><USER2> Wordpress has shockingly bad code for how often it is used.</comment>


Groupon will have to move fast to retain its impressive lead - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/18388904?fsrc=scn/tw/te/ar/grouponanxiety

<comment><USER2> On one hand I admire Groupon's tenacity to do their own thing when they flipped Google the bird for their acquisition offer, but realistically, I seriously can't see how they can survive for another 2 years tops.

Groupon claims their database will give them a lead based on consumer preferences, but it's not like Facebook and Google don't have a clue either. I give Groupon a very slight edge here, but not enough to warrant long-term stay.

Groupon's huge overhead with their sales force may be their strength now, but if the recession has taught us anything, it will cripple them in the future.

Also, from local businesses I have personally talked to, sometimes Groupon sets them back so far that they brink on near bankruptcy. The massive amount of volume some businesses get with almost 0 profit margin has closed many smaller stores that have tried Groupon's service. The lack of repeat customers is what absolutely kills these little guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> Groupon has very big profit margins and lots of cash. From the article, Groupon charges "half of the discounted price of a voucher". So if the merchant has a deal for something that's $20 and requires 1,000 people to accept, then Groupon's income is $10,000.

That also means the merchant's profit margin must either be at least 50% to break-even on the deal after paying Groupon or hope that people buying the deal don't show up to collect it. Otherwise, the merchants lose money.

What it comes down to is that Groupon can't charge those types of margins with increased competition, nor will merchants be willing to pay 50% of the deal to Groupon as they increasingly realize the deal isn't profitable for them.

<comment><USER3> The shop's margin would have to be 50% _on the discounted price_ , or assuming the common case where the Groupon is half-off, 75% on the supposed 'original price'.

I think most shops expect to make it up on either people spending more than the Groupon on the one visit, or followup visits... so being negative on the coupon itself isn't necessarily a deal-breaker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, Groupon, along with some other startups, has a problem because the business they are in is a geographically local natural monopoly: In one city everyone uses the coupon service that is most popular in that city because that service has the most coupons from merchants in that city because that service has the most users in that city. So, whatever Groupon does around the world, they can be beaten in one city at a time. That is, a shopper and a merchant in Peoria don't much care that Groupon is also in San Francisco, Australia, and Brazil.

Similarly for romantic matchmaking, restaurant recommendations, headhunting, real estate listing, plumber recommendations, etc.</comment>


Days Since a Cryptocurrency Exchange Has Lost More Than $100M - <AUTHOR> http://dayssinceacryptocurrencyexchangehaslostmorethan100million.com <comment><USER2> If you're going to fetch important quantitative data using a client-side Ajax query, then you really shouldn't default that value to "0". That results in a delay of several seconds or more when the page displays "0" even if the actual value is say, "12". It would be much better to default to either the empty string, or "-", or "fetching..." or something like that.

In my case, there was a "0" on the page as the main value for at least 5-10 seconds (probably due to HN load) before the correct value was displayed ("12").

<comment><USER3> Even better, why isn't the number rendered server-side?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can't argue if many of them are inside jobs for early retirement.

"Hacked" is such a convenient word to cover the story of any losses.

That crappy vulnerability could just have been placed to make people convinced how it was "hacked".

<comment><USER5> One of the core life lessons of crypto is that when you combine anonymity (or at least the illusion of it) with someone else owning the private keys to your wallet, there's nothing stopping that "someone else" from taking your coins without any way to prove who took them.

When you want to be personally responsible for your money, you have to accept that you're personally responsible for its security as well. Banks and financial regulators literally exist to push that responsibility onto someone else in the traditional systems, with the well-known tradeoffs.

<comment><USER6> That's exactly it. We take it for granted that in simpler human-run ledgers accountability is easier to do. Accounting has all these checks and balances designed to place blame on a single individual. Corporations obscure some of that blame but it still works in theory. A complex distributed system means that it can be almost impossible to determine what went wrong and that has some hugely dystopian outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Testing with client-side JavaScript if the withdrawal amount is less than the account balance? Classic!

That had to be a known hole to the designer, presumably whoever wrote that code just bought tickets to a non-extradition country.

<comment><USER8> While you may be right, I think this could just be a classic example of Hanlon's razor.

<comment><USER9> For example, as reported in this thread (I didn't test), without javascript the page reads "0 days". Then that 0 is updated automatically.

Obviously it SHOULD read "loading..." and then that loading... text should be replaced.

Why do I point this out?

Because this oversight coincidentally serves the purposes of the page (its humor), it's a particularly strong impact when that reads 0 days.

It's not supposed to actually read that way, but, there you have it. A good example of the principle in practice.

<comment><USER10> You need to allow everything from twitter and related domains even frames for it to show anything but 0. I was wondering what I missed this time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "client side balance check" \- these people should not be allowed to write software.

</comment><comment><USER12> Viewing this site without JavaScript enabled shows it's been 0 days. Turns out it's supposed to be 12.

<comment><USER13> Doesn't work for me at all even with everything enabled on latest Firefox. (Adblock disabled), twttr is undefined.

<comment> dao- It works if I disable tracking protection in Firefox...

<comment><USER14> Why do they need to track me to show me how many days it has been?

<comment><USER15> I think it loads Twitter posts and the tracking protection blocks that. I don't think the site itself is trying to track.

<comment><USER16> This is correct. It's my site and I'm not trying to track you. I don't care.

If anyone has a better idea of how to make things work so that people with tracking protection don't run into problems feel free to submit a pull request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The site doesn't work for me, but apparently these are the tweets it refers to:

[https://twitter.com/bascule/status/962740918053888000](https://twitter.com/bascule/status/962740918053888000)

[https://twitter.com/ofnumbers/status/962149781400305664](https://twitter.com/ofnumbers/status/962149781400305664)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/957514764011298816](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/957514764011298816)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/938519280240357376](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/938519280240357376)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/760627527450624002](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/760627527450624002)

[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/731733049847599104](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/731733049847599104)

</comment><comment><USER18> I think we will see a rise of decentralized exchanges like 0x and Airswap. Curious to see if they will be able to scale though.

<comment><USER19> I certainly hope we DO see DEXs take off in the near future, but right now, every single one suffers from a severe lack of liquidity, which distorts prices and can make trades difficult verging on impossible if there's nobody with a suitable counter-trade offer.

Liquidity is the number one reason traders love the Forex markets, and the reason so many Forex traders will trade only in the major currency pairs. Hell, I've even known a couple of traders who will only trade GBPUSD or EURUSD for that precise reason: If the market is sufficiently liquid, there is pretty-much ALWAYS someone who wants to trade at your price.

On the flipside, where liquidity is too thin there's no market, no matter how many bells and whistles the "exchange" has, and no matter how attractive the notion of pure p2p exchange might be.

<comment><USER20> > If the market is sufficiently liquid, there is pretty-much ALWAYS someone > who wants to trade at your price.

Really? Liquid means trading volume right? Not that others are trading as the price that I find reasonable?

Lets say I find paying $10 for a BTC reasonable, no matter how liquid, I cannot get that deal.

<comment><USER21> Except that is not reasonable. Myself and many like me would buy way way way above $10.

This is the faulty argument in the 'its going to 0' position, there are too many folks like me that will keep buying as long as we can afford it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> All this bubble speculations, inadequacy of current platforms, taking risks to not miss the trend...

I had been all in favor of blockchain and cryptocurrencies for a decentralized approach to local applications, closed markets. To be fair, I never believed blockchain could reach global scalability and there are still concerns on that part.

We all saw the future value and possibilities before everybody started branding their deficient products with blockchain. I hope the bad taste surrounding this technology will wither in a short amount of time.

</comment><comment><USER23> Currency exchanges existed long before cryptocurrencies. As far as I know they are heavily regulated, more or less reliable and trustworthy. Hasn't the Forex added cryptocurrencies to its listing by now? Is the cryptomarket still the far west these days and if so, why?

<comment><USER19> Many of the Forex exchanges HAVE added crypto-assets to their offerings. It tends to be limited to BTC and maybe a FEW more, though -- some people might view that as a problem.

<comment><USER24> Can you list any specific examples? I'm aware of products that track the BTC price and futures, but not really any existing players which would allow you to buy actual btc so that you can hold it in your own wallet.

<comment><USER19> This is a good point -- many are simply letting you trade CFDs against crypto- currency volatility, which is fine if all you're interested in is speculating in crypto prices.

IIRC Swissquote does do actual BTC, ETH and a few others, though, and istr seeing one or two others, but I'm not a collector and hoarder of Forex exchanges. Pretty sure I've seen a bank or two dipping their toes into the water, too. After all, if there's money to be made out of it, they'll hardly be likely to stay away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It looks like it could do with some more data rather than just

Days Since A Cryptocurrency Exchange Has Lost More Than $100 Million:

 0

<comment><USER26> Did you block the script?

The counter updates to 12 after the script runs, for myself. It is using a Twitter API at the back, so far as I can tell.

<comment><USER27> It stood stuck at 0 for a while for me as well, before eventually updating. It's pretty crazy to see the amount of resources needed to load what is effectively a static page. I guess I shouldn't be too hard on a joke website but it's a bit symptomatic of the current state of the web these days.

<comment><USER16> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

There is a TODO in there to calculate the timestamp based on the tweet id rather than digging through the tweet iframe after it loads. If someone wants to submit a pull request for that it should speed things up tremendously. Bitwise manipulations in JS are annoying though so I haven't bothered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't think the Nano hack counts because when they were stolen it was worth a lot less and the exchange tried to hide the loss for awhile. The exchange was hacked in Nov. I think, when Nano was worth pennies. Rai Blocks was unique in that is went up so much, so that's why the figure is so big.

</comment><comment><USER28> _BitGrail lost $170 million worth of Nano XRB tokens because... the checks for whether you had a sufficient balance to withdraw were only implemented as client-side JavaScript_

That was just one bug and was not the cause of all the losses. Other users reported issues with withdrawals and deposits , especially pertaining to litecoin and etherem over-credits. I think there was a bug that caused people to get too much.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's been a rough month for sure, but I don't think such a high frequency of hacks can continue.

<comment><USER30> Well, at a certain point, if this rate continues, people will pull their money out, fulfilling your prophecy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was wondering why HN on my iPhone suddenly stretched. Damn, this domain name is testing the limit.

<comment><USER15> Why would that cause "stretching"? Here's how mine looks: [https://s9.postimg.org/lcxpndbpr/Screenshot_20180224-203730....](https://s9.postimg.org/lcxpndbpr/Screenshot_20180224-203730.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> It peeves me a lot to see virtual currencies described as being "worth" something in a USD or some other real currency equivalent. By the same token, why isn't open source code described as being worth a certain amount of money? I think we can all agree that useful code that powers much of today's enterprise - entirely gratis, too! - is actually worth a lot more than some imaginary string of bits that gets traded back and forth for arbitrary sums of money.

<comment><USER33> > It peeves me a lot to see virtual currencies described as being "worth" > something in a USD or some other real currency equivalent. By the same > token, why isn't open source code described as being worth a certain amount > of money?

If we called it "code currency" and touted the ability to use open source to buy and sell things then I think people WOULD compare it to preexisting currencies. Instead, open source code is touted as a replacement for proprietary code, and we often hear people making comparisons such as "Gimp vs Photoshop" or "Linux vs MacOS".

The dollar-value for cryptocurrencies is because they are CURRENCIES.

<comment><USER32> A thing can't be called a currency until and unless normal people like myself can use the thing to obtain things such as:

* shelter * food * ammunition * education for the children

As it stands, the craze of virtual currencies is merely a distraction from important issues, not to mention a waste of electricity and mindshare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't understand people who constantly make fun of new technologies that we're only recently about to figure out how to make right. Like people obsessed with making fun of IoT (I don't own any IoT besides a smartphone) or cryptocurrencies (I own a bit). Isn't it normal for new techs to be failing at the beginning? Do we really need to ridicule these nascent techs just because they're not perfect for now?

It's like people making fun of first airplanes 150 years ago ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp7MHZY2ADI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp7MHZY2ADI)). First attempts to fly were full of huge failure, many leading to deaths. Many people ridiculed the very idea we would one day do mass travel by plane.

I thought of anyone, we should know better than making fun of new tech having some failures, this is how tech works. Because one day, one of these techs may take off like these planes eventually did and you will be the one looking like a fool then.

<comment><USER35> It's more making fun of the hype where people who don't understand either the technology or economics make huge predictions based on what would be personally advantageous for themselves.

Air travel had immediate, obvious advantages. There were many technical challenges but getting somewhere fast no matter the terrain was an obvious win. In contrast, the first decade of crypto currency hype has basically been "you should use your money to make me rich and in return you'll get to do what you could already do except it'll cost more and won't have fraud protection". A hype cycle like that always gets mockery and the way to deal with it is to drop it, be honest about what went wrong, and do something which useful.

IoT is a good example of both outcomes: bad products get mocked but millions of useful devices are selling because they do something ordinary people want.

<comment><USER34> > Air travel had immediate, obvious advantages.

And yet, the amount of FUD and ridicule people got for trying to fly was enormous. In hindsight, the advantages of a successful technology are always obvious.

> In contrast, the first decade of crypto currency hype has basically been > "you should use your money to make me rich and in return you'll get to do > what you could already do except it'll cost more and won't have fraud > protection".

That is not how it was introduced to the world, crypto currency was introduced as a trustless decentralized cash currency no tyrant could ever manipulate to the detriment of the people, the ability to send cash near instantly to anyone across the world without a central authority. If bitcoin becomes successful (not saying it will) at fighting currency manipulation and banking the poor, people like you will say "Crypto currency had immediate, obvious advantages. There were many technical challenges but sending money fast across the world with no intermediary and making currency manipulation by tyrants impossible was an obvious win.".

<comment><USER36> > _And yet, the amount of FUD and ridicule people got for trying to fly was > enormous_

Sources? Almost immediately after the invention of flight, WWI started putting them to use [1]. (There was ridicule about the possibility of heavier-than-air flight prior to its invention. But that's not comparable to the matter at hand.)

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

<comment><USER17> Non-mobile link:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: An iPhone app that lets you pick colors and identify PANTONE colors - <AUTHOR> https://cone.app <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

A couple of years back, I posted the initial version of Cone on HN ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14254357](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14254357)) and had received a great response. Cone is a smart color picker tool for the iPhone, which is delightful and very easy-to-use. Not only that, but it also lets you organize colors into buckets and identify PANTONE colors of the object around you (super helpful for interior, graphic, or package designers).

Cone is licensed by PANTONE, so it stays updated with all the new colors they release on time.

Another feature I'd like to highlight is the ability to identify hues of the colors around you. As a colorblind designer, it's super helpful for me to know whether a color is red or green just by pointing my phone's camera at it.

Since the initial version, a lot has changed and here's what the new version brings:

      - Ability to identify PANTONE colors
      - Pick colors from the images in the photo gallery
      - Collect and organize colors into buckets
      - Adjust the color temperature with a neutral grey card for improved accuracy
      - New design
      - Apple Watch companion app
      - and many under the hood improvements.

I would love to hear what everyone thinks about it!

<comment><USER2> How do you compensate for lighting conditions and differences between different phones' cameras when identifying pantone colours?

I'd expect Pantone to be precious about that sort of thing, as accurate reproduction is important to them - right?

<comment><USER3> User of initial version of the app here. This was my main issue with the app. Lighting conditions influenced the shot color significantly. Curious to learn from the author if the app tries to compensate in any way, and if that has been improved in V2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice! Interesting you were able to agree on licensing with PANTONE®, considering they sell a (very underwhelming) hardware device called CAPSURE™ that has a similar premise: [https://www.pantone.com/products/color-control- tools/capsure](https://www.pantone.com/products/color-control-tools/capsure)

</comment><comment><USER5> Been using this for a month, the app is very well designed, and $5 is nothing compared to joy I get by collecting colours during commute and sharing the exact code when I am trying to design with physical world as an inspiration.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We need an open-source color standard. PANTONE has virtually no competition (RAL, etc are a minuscule % of the market share) and they charge exorbitant prices for their color chips. Standard should be open and anyone can make and sell color chips.

</comment><comment><USER7> What i hate about every color picker is that its picking one exact color. If your're looking at a gradient every pixel will be different, but i want sometimes get an average of the color.

<comment><AUTHOR> I faced the same problem, and hence Cone averages out the color inside the inner circle of the picker.

<comment><USER8> Doesn't that tend to give you washed out colours, though?

<comment><AUTHOR> If there's a significant variation in the colors in that small area, then yes, the averaged out color will look washed out. In that case, you can simply pinch-to-zoom into the image for more accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That sounds neat! I'm just wondering how much lighting affects its decision?

Edit: just saw you mention about a grey card too, for calibration which sounds cool

<comment><USER10> This doesn't solve the issue of metamerism, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like a great app, if it would also map PANTONe colors with RAL colours and we are done :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice suggestion. Seems like RAL is equivalent to Pantone but in Europe. I'll look into its licensing and implement it if it's not much of a headache :)

<comment><USER12> RAL is often used in manufacturing. Our powder coater used RAL colors for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well done, website looks great! I will check out the app when I get a chance

</comment><comment><USER14> Just playing with it for 2min I can already tell it's easily worth $3.99 for me. I love the UI—well done.

</comment><comment><USER15> Super cool! Purchased. This may be beyond the scope of the project, but it would be cool if it could create buckets from a photo by automatically pulling out complementary and contrasting colors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I had actually implemented this feature (which worked by extracting 5 dominant colors from an image or the camera feed) but I couldn't figure out the best experience for it to go with the manual picking of colors. I am working on redesigning it and I'll add it as soon as I perfect the experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The website says: "accurately identifies upto ten Pantone® colors"

What is the ten referring to? Total times you can use it?

<comment><AUTHOR> When you see the color details, it will show ten Pantone colors (five from the Coated and Uncoated guides each) matching that color, in the order of their match %.

<comment><USER17> I also didn't understand while reading it on the website. Probably worth rephrasing in order to make it clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Updated the copy to make it clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's $5 for the app, which the website fails to mention.

<comment><USER19> I see $3.99, not $5.

<comment><USER20> OP didn't mention what country they're in. Maybe their dollar is slightly less valuable (like the Canadian dollar)? Cause it's $3.99 in the US, so CAD$4.99 would make sense (USD$4.99 is CAD$5.60)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is it common for Show HN posts to be for paid products? I've not seen any/many of these in the years I've been on here, but I wonder what others think. I've seen waitlists before, but paid apps seem like a different thing.

<comment><USER22> Where are you coming up with Show HN is not for paid products? It's not against the rules ([https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)) and HN is run by a VC firm...

<comment><USER21> Actually, the rules say that Show HN is for things that "other people can play with". You can't exactly play with an app that is paid, and you also can't "try it out, ask questions, and then give feedback".

> _Show HN is for something you 've made that other people can play with. HN > users can try it out, give you feedback, and ask questions in the thread._

<comment><USER22> Why can't you play with an app that is paid?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Creating beautiful letters using a web form and LaTeX - <AUTHOR> https://letters.koenvangilst.nl/?v=showhn <comment><USER2> Would be better if it generated HTML.

<comment><USER3> Why? LaTeX makes beautiful PDFs for printing.</comment></comment>


How to throttle the FCC to dial up modem speeds - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/kyledrake/e6046644115f185f7af0 <comment><USER2> I'd like to see a law that government offices can only have an internet connection as fast as the slowest constituent.

<comment><USER3> Agreed and also this should be true for the pay of elected officials and corporate executives.

<comment><USER4> Good luck attracting and retaining talent if you can't pay market prices for executives.

<comment><USER5> I doubt they should be so worried. Studies show no link between executive pay and executive performance: [http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/focus-0](http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/02/focus-0)

<comment><USER6> I think this is showing a lack of a link between executive pay and _stock_ performance. It could be the case (though I don't know how you'd measure it) that executive performance improved with pay but just had no discernible impact on stock performance.

<comment><USER7> I don't think most executives do it for the money. Money is just a way of keeping score.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the comments

> Should a simple header/corner banner be injected also?

This would be good, particularly if it was served from a connection without this throttling.

<comment><USER9> I'm actually against this idea, for the simple reason that if that page ends up being delivered via cache somewhere, I don't want them thinking "Well, it says I was throttled, but it actually wasn't that bad. I don't see what all the fuss is about."

<comment><USER10> You could inject anti-caching headers, too. Should, indeed, since the page will have been customised for the user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The pictures comment lead me to Tom's list of speeches, the latest of which directly contradicts the claims being made here. Are we _sure_ the FCC is the bad guy?

[http://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-tom-wheeler-remarks- nct...](http://www.fcc.gov/document/chairman-tom-wheeler-remarks-ncta)

"Let me be clear. If someone acts to divide the Internet between "haves" and "have-nots," we will use every power at our disposal to stop it."

"Prioritizing some traffic by forcing the rest of the traffic into a congested lane won't be permitted under any proposed Open Internet rule. We will not allow some companies to force Internet users into a slow lane so that others with special privileges can have superior service."

<comment><USER12> "Actions speak louder than words."

The FCC could put the money where their mouth is by re-classifying ISPs as "Title II - Common Carriers."

<comment><USER13> > "Actions speak louder than words."

I think the FCC's repeated adoption of pro-neutrality regulations are very clear actions. The people who keep knocking them down are the federal courts, and then the FCC keeps setting up new ones framed slightly differently but aimed at achieving the same ends. So, yeah, actions speak louder than words -- and the FCC's actions on net neutrality are pretty consistently in favor of it (just as the words of the majority of commissioners, including the current chair, are.)

The whole "fast lane" idea is based on a couple news outlets reporting of claims of anonymous sources with unspecified qualifications about their interpretation of the content of an unreleased proposal (note also that the original articles weren't actually _consistent_ on their claims, either, as one claimed that the proposal would include a provision allowing for "fast lanes", and one suggesting that the proposal would allow it implicitly because it didn't address the practice at all), claims which have been emphatically denied on the record by Wheeler, whose proposal it is.

Once they've actually published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for public comment, there will be a chance for informed discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can anyone shed some light on what the goal here is. I am all for messing with people for no good reason in subtle ways they do not understand but the author clearly has a purpose here? Is this to teach the FCC about net neutrality?

<comment><USER15> That's the general idea. Show them what life will be like if you're on the internet slow lane in the hopes they'll wake up and realize what it really means. Especially since the branding has become that they really want to create a "fast lane" which actually doesn't sound like such a bad idea until you realize the reality is the exact opposite.

<comment><USER16> _Show them what life will be like if you 're on the internet slow lane in the hopes they'll wake up and realize what it really means._

How do we get from "the kind of deal Netflix struck with Comcast will continue to be legal in the future" to "Comcast will start serving web sites to customers paying $50/month at dial-up speeds"?

It's nonsense. Why have so many ostensibly smart people bought into it?

<comment><USER17> Because Netflix only struck a deal with Comcast because too little Netflix traffic could pass through Comcast. That doesn't hurt Comcast at all, because they have monopoly. It does hurt Netflix, because now they have a bunch of subscribers who can't effectively use their service. People who can't effectively use a service tend to stop paying for it.

So, given that these kinds of deals only happen when service is slow: What's the best way for Comcast to continue to be able to pull these fees in from large services? You're a smart person; I'm sure you can figure it out. Hint: Comcast has not exactly shown reluctance to participate in "traffic shaping" in the past.

<comment><USER16> _Comcast has not exactly shown reluctance to participate in "traffic shaping" in the past._

The only references to Comcast traffic shaping I can find are related to BitTorrent. Did you have something else in mind? And again, what does that have to do with a supposed future of browsing websites at dialup speeds?

<comment><USER18> > The only references to Comcast traffic shaping I can find are related to > BitTorrent.

Isn't that enough?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I like this concept but think about how the user at the FCC will perceive this. When your internet is slow who do you blame?

1 - The site, i.e. "Yahoo must be getting a lot of traffic today."

2 - Your ISP. ie. "Comcast must be overloaded in my area right now."

3 - Your equipment. i.e. "Maybe I need to restart my wifi / PC"

And then, somewhere way down that list you maybe, just maybe think - "I wonder if there is an organized effort by a small group of developers to set up their sites in such a way that my particular IP here at the FCC is having its speed throttled."

I agree that we need to spread the word about what is at stake with Net Neutrality but I'm not sure if this is the best way.

<comment><USER20> They know already. Their techies know. They are on Reddit and HN just like everyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I could see this backfiring. If this gains any momentum at all, the media response from the ISPs will be obvious: "We appreciate that web developers are embracing their right to throttle certain customers. We're very happy that the FCC has decided to grant ISPs those same privileges."

</comment><comment><USER22> If you want to simulate this in JavaScript for all users, I wrote this short snippet: [https://gist.github.com/matthewdfuller/69f990f58f1e0850443e](https://gist.github.com/matthewdfuller/69f990f58f1e0850443e)

</comment><comment><USER23> Cringely has a post on peering issues, slight allusion to the FCC issue : [http://www.cringely.com/2014/05/06/14890/](http://www.cringely.com/2014/05/06/14890/)

</comment><comment><USER24> If you want to throttle IIS, I think the IIS Media Pack Bit Rate Throttling module might be a good place to start: [http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2008/03/14/bit-rate- throt...](http://blogs.iis.net/vsood/archive/2008/03/14/bit-rate-throttling- is-now-released.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER25> This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net neutrality. The people that are going to be affected most by this (if it does work) are going to be the rank and file at the FCC who have no decision making power and only hold a job there. The FCC has 2k employees and most of them don't even work in the relevant bureau that deals with net neutrality.

When news outlets say the "FCC's plan for net neutrality", what they really mean is the plan that Tom Wheeler and his office put together. You're going to hurt the wrong people if you do this and it succeeds. Why not write to your Congressperson instead or think of something that doesn't adversely affect a ton of people who don't have anything to do with the net neutrality debate?

<comment><USER13> > This doesn't seem like the best outlet to protest the FCC's stance on net > neutrality

Its not a protest of the FCC's stance on net neutrality, its a protest of a media _rumor_ of the stance of the FCC chair in a proposal under discussion at the FCC that has been denied by the FCC chair. Literally _no one_ at the FCC (well, except maybe the minority on the commission that were overtly opposed to net neutrality before the recent Open Internet Order was struck down) has publicly endorsed anything like the rumored position.

> When news outlets say the "FCC's plan for net neutrality", what they really > mean is the plan that Tom Wheeler and his office put together.

But when they say it would "allow a fast lane", they mean that a couple of news outlets had anonymous sources that claimed something like that (which other outlets have grabbed and reported the fact that other outlets have reported it), and Wheeler himself has rather forcefully denied it.

Now we've got some news outlets claiming, based on the original leaks, and not paying attention to later information, that the "fast lane" is part of the FCC proposal, and others, based on assuming the original leaks were completely accurate, but trying to reconcile the later denial into a coherent narrative, that the FCC "reversed course" on the "fast lane" proposal.

<comment><USER26> Well, yes and no. The FCC is considering a proposed rulemaking that would require ISPs to disclose their policies to consumers, ban blocking of legal content, and prohibit "commercially unreasonable" traffic discrimination. [http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/openinternet.pdf](http://transition.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/openinternet.pdf)

The specific regulations, of course, have not been drafted, but if these are the only three policies the FCC has in mind, it seems reasonable to infer that the ban on "commercially unreasonable" discrimination, implies that "commercially reasonable" discrimination is permissible. The devil, of course, is in the definition of ""commercially unreasonable." But it seems like there is good reason to worry that this would permit something like a fast lane and, thus, it seems like a good idea for those of us who think this is a bad idea to begin mobilizing.

That all said, I do think that throttling the entire FCC to dialup speeds is a stupid idea. As others have pointed out, this will harm many more people than are actually involved in the regulatory decision in any way, and is unlikely to make a difference in the thinking of the actual regulators in the face of the reams of actually well-thought-out comments they will be receiving from lawyers and internet policy experts.

It also ignores the fact that the "slow-lane," if it does come to exist, is very unlikely to be at anything like dialup speeds. Given the FCC's overall commitment to increased broadband penetration (which has been amply demonstrated, I think) I doubt that anyone at the FCC would be inclined to find such discrimination "commercially reasonable."

If you really want to have an impact, maybe you should band together and write a comment letter.

<comment><USER13> > But it seems like there is good reason to worry that this would permit > something like a fast lane

There might be reason to worry that it could, but to assume that it will and react as if that were an established fact rather than a possibility of concern is not reasonable. Before there is a rule in effect there will be a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking which will say _exactly_ what the rules would be and how the FCC intends to apply them, just as there was with the old Open Internet Order.

<comment><USER26> Sure. I agree with this, of course. But I suppose I don't see the harm in taking action now, even if these are early days, to make our views known. (Though, as I said, I don't like this particular strategy.)

Lobbying in Washington does not begin after an NPR has been issued. Why should we behave differently? The NPR is an important regulatory document because it typically indicates the Commission's favored outcome and plays an important role in framing the debate.

<comment><USER13> > But I suppose I don't see the harm in taking action now, even if these are > early days, to make our views known.

I agree with that -- I just think that the action should be focussed on what regulation should or should not contain, not on treating the regulatory agency involved as an enemy.

> Why should we behave differently?

Attacking people who are decision-makers that have historically been (and overtly still are) supportive of the position you espouse based on media rumors of provisions that might be in a plan that they are preparing _is_ behaving differently than the firms that lobby before a concrete proposal in the form of an NPRM is released. Compare that attacks on Wheeler and the FCC to the Google/Amazon/Facebook/etc. letter.

<comment><USER26> It would seem that we were never actually disagreeing about anything--as I've said repeatedly, I think the throttling proposal is a bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Am I the only one who think that childish?

You aren't even sure that will target the right people and not some kind of public worker who just doing some job!

<comment><USER28> >You aren't even sure that will target the right people

Indeed. The FCC tried to promulgate a rule requiring net neutrality, but a Federal Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC lacked statutory authority to do so [1]. So the FCC is powerless unless and until Congress revises the Telecommunications Act of 1996 or otherwise grants the necessary legal authority to the FCC.

[1] [http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D93...](http://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/3AF8B4D938CDEEA685257C6000532062/$file/11-1355-1474943.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Might as well do Congress while you're at it!

<comment><USER30> White house, supreme court, how about anything from the government?

<comment><USER31> Why not take it a step further and limit the lobbyists and bad telcos?

<comment><USER30> Oh I thought about that, but how are you going to target the lobbyists and bad telcos without harming actual customers on those providers who may very well be against this whole debacle.

Government branches likely have a block of IPs while lobbyists I doubt are registered like that :)

<comment><USER32> I'm sure the lobbyists for the music and film industry can be uniquely identified by their IP addresses. You could at least do them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'd like to have this done to all government agencies, at least all of the major ones.

</comment><comment><USER34> Maybe add the congress and senate addresses? I know that they're not immediately responsible for the decision but they're a good group of influencers.

</comment><comment><USER35> Wouldn't it be awesome to have the major website/companies (like Facebook, Google, MS, Amazon, etc) have a landing page when accessing their site in a style like they did with SOPA but now the whole webpage is unavailable for ~1 minute "due to slowed down traffic" or something. I think that would get the attention of people. (Of course, this should run just for a limited time )

</comment><comment><USER36> I think the focus on the FCC is too narrow. In my opinion throttling all .gov addresses would be more effective.

Including .edu addresses would affect a population with plenty of time on their hands and who aren't afraid to let everyone know about their problems.

<comment><USER37> And a bunch of people who _don 't_ have time on their hands (staff and faculty) who will probably just go "Fuck you guys, now you're getting in the way of work."

<comment><USER38> Isn't that the idea?

<comment><USER37> Not if they can't particularly help effect change. "Random departmental secretary trying to book flights" isn't going to write their congressman over your clever code. All you've done is make their day worse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Does it come with a message that says tongue in cheek that you're on the "slow lane", and they should upgrade to the fast lane? Otherwise they may just think that site is slow.

</comment><comment><USER40> Apache port: [https://gist.github.com/m1/e5f1f190ba309b500f0a](https://gist.github.com/m1/e5f1f190ba309b500f0a)

</comment><comment><USER41> Can someone ELI5 this? Why would the FCC visit your site?

<comment><USER3> They wouldn't, it looks like more pat-yourself-on-the-back then give-yourself- a-high-five internet slacktivism. Someone should make a petition!

<comment><USER42> Think bigger. What if Google implemented something like this to prove a point? This is a genius idea, it goes beyond your standard Internet activism which is usually words and no action.

<comment><USER43> Google would probably have a slightly more elegant solution than copypastaing an nginx config from Github.

<comment><USER42> Which is why I said, "implemented something like this" I didn't say implement this. I meant same idea, but done in a more Google way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'd be willing to bet Tom Wheeler and the "higher ups" of the FCC are not at the office a majority of the time.

It would be sweet if businesses in the service industry (like lets say Manny's) had pics of the top X guys at the FCC in their kitchen. See one of them walk in - just delay their service ;)

Here is Tom Wheeler [http://tinyurl.com/mlwnlgr](http://tinyurl.com/mlwnlgr)

<comment><USER45> Why would you bet they aren't in the office.

A friend of mine who interned at the FCC says the commissioners are almost always around in their offices.

It's not like the FCC pays _amazingly_ well and these guys are sitting on beaches. The commissioners each earn $155,500 a year (they are level IV on the executive schedule).

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is a foolish, dangerous game to play. You know, there are probably just as many people in the government who are trying to win the fight for the people.

What you really want is to identify the browsers of actual users in decision making capability, and target them. Surely, with the level of user tracking going on these days, this is a feasible concept.

</comment><comment><USER47> If only popular social media did this now. I bet the people over there check their facebook/twitter every 10 seconds.

<comment><USER48> No way, they're too busy checking _LinkedIn_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I don't think the entire FCC, and all of their employees are really out to get you and I. A few maybe but I think it's somewhat too broad an approach to punish the few by punishing everyone associated with the FCC.

Their IT staff probably doesn't deserve this either.

<comment><USER50> It's a temporary protest, not a punishment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> the irony of using network management techniques to protest the lack of a law which could outlaw this very type of network management is pretty thick.

pure net neutrality could make it illegal to have software which treats any ip addresses differently.

there are some real issues to think through, but most of what's happening right now is emotionally driven banality.

</comment><comment><USER52> Way to stick it to the man... er, well, the man's crony's underlings.

</comment><comment><USER53> This doesn't seem very productive. As Gandhi once said, "Hate the sin not the sinner". This is not even punishing the sinner, who are not your everyday public workers but likely some lobbying corp.

<comment><USER54> Edit: Nevermind, I guess he did say it--although he's not the originator of the quote.

<comment><USER53> Pretty sure Gandhi said that (I have read his biography 3 times!), but should point out that this is nothing much to do with Hinduism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> How do we know these are actually FCC ips?</comment>


"Dear Mark. I am writing this to inform you that I shall not comply" - <AUTHOR> http://www.aftenposten.no/meninger/kommentar/Dear-Mark-I-am-writing-this-to-inform-you-that-I-shall-not-comply-with-your-requirement-to-remove-this-picture-604156b.html <comment><USER2> Sometimes I wonder that when we shower criticism on Facebook about privacy concerns, we're missing the forest for the trees. The bigger issue I see is the sheer amount of eyeballs trained exclusively to Facebook's content.

What does it mean for society when Facebook can demote a challenging but important article (say, of war reporting) in your newsfeed so it can promote your friend's Wedding photos, because an algorithm says that challenging articles cause people to leave FB, reducing page views and ad revenue?

<comment><USER3> It's a man-in-the-middle attack on culture.

<comment><USER4> just like tv, radio and newspapers. perhaps even churches, temples and mosques... though that might be more controversial to say.

<comment><USER5> There always another radio, newspaper, church. There's really only one Facebook, and it's now how you get essentially all of those things.

<comment><USER6> Its how _some_ people get all those things. Not people who care enough to get their news directly from a number of sources, instead of via the Facebook filter.

<comment><USER7> to be completely honest, having the time and energy to stay well-informed on current events from a variety of sources is a privilege. working-class and poor people have neither the time nor mental energy to peruse a variety of sources. the reason i say this is not to tell you to "check your privilege", by the way. it's to make the argument that facebook's shaping of the zeitgeist primarily affects the impoverished and working classes - the people who bear the brunt of all policy decisions, the people who need to be well-informed the most.

<comment><USER8> Looking beyond Facebook for news and reporting on diverse topics with balanced viewpoints is a "privilege"?

On what can you possibly base this claim? This is why Internet.org and the walled garden got nuked. This is what we really mean when we talk about network neutrality. You type a URL into the address bar and press enter, and the page you requested loads.

While certainly there are populations where internet access is not readily available, that doesn't appear to be your argument. "working-class and poor people have neither the time nor mental energy to peruse a variety of sources" is a bizarre claim I can't quite get my head around.

<comment><USER9> > "working-class and poor people have neither the time nor mental energy to > peruse a variety of sources" is a bizarre claim I can't quite get my head > around.

Consider the possibility that this difficulty lies not with the claim, but with your head.

The real value of money is that you can use it in place of time. The less of it you have, the more time you must spend on dealing with problems that you could make go away much more quickly and easily otherwise. The converse is also true.

That's why people say that it's a privilege to be able to gather a balanced view of the world. I would not say the same, because the rhetoric of privilege is inseparable from personal attack, and making people feel uneasy and defensive is inimical to worthwhile discourse. But when people use that lazy cliché in this context, that is what they mean.

<comment><USER10> > the rhetoric of privilege is inseparable from personal attack

Is this a generational point of view? I don't think that the word "privilege" is "inseperable from personal attack. To me, this very much fits into the definition of a privilege as "a benefit enjoyed by a person, beyond the advantages of most". Access to and time to read a broad variety of news sources is very much a benefit enjoyed by some people, beyond the advantages of most. I don't see how there's any personal attack implicit in that...

<comment><USER9> I've observed people to respond very badly when I use it, and as best I can tell, that's why.

I speak to communicate with people - that's _communicate with_ , not _talk to_ , and if you're unclear on the distinction, any dictionary with etymological information will serve you.

Talking about other people's opinions, behaviors, and beliefs in terms of privilege makes communicating with them harder instead of easier. So it's not worth my while to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Excerpt from [http://www.dagsavisen.no/verden/the-girl-in-the-picture- sadd...](http://www.dagsavisen.no/verden/the-girl-in-the-picture-saddened-by- facebook-s-focus-on-nudity-1.773232)

"Kim is saddened by those who would focus on the nudity in the historic picture rather than the powerful message it conveys", writes spokesperson Anne Bayin to Dagsavisen.

Kim Phuc says that it has been painful to see the picture, but that it represents an important moment in history.

"She fully supports the documentary image taken by Nick Ut as a moment of truth that captures the horror of war and its effects on innocent victims", writes the Kim Phuc Foundation in a statement.

</comment><comment><USER12> > "Facebook is for the pleasure and benefit of the whole world, myself > included, on a number of levels."

Wrong. Facebook is for making money. If providing users with pleasure or benefits makes them money, then that's lucky for the users.

> "Facebook has become a world-leading platform for spreading information, for > debate and for social contact between persons. You have gained this position > because you deserve it."

Also wrong. The second sentence, I mean.

I agree with the intent here. I agree with the outrage at Facebook. The author of this piece, too, seems to understand the futility of this open letter, and I do think it's a good thing that he's making the statement regardless. I just think that maybe he's being too generous to Mark and Facebook.

<comment><USER13> I don't know if I agree with the outrage at Facebook. They are out to make money. They can make more money if they avoid controversy and keep their site a place that brands like to be associated with. It results in corporate censorship for sure, but is it Facebook's responsibility to provide a censorship free platform?

I fully agree with people taking note and becoming aware that Facebook is simply a business providing them a service and not a benevolent social network uniting the world.

But until people are willing to get upset enough about issues like this to leave Facebook, they really have no incentive to change. It's a reflection on society more than on one company. Like it or not, we use Facebook because we like it, it provides a service we're happy to consume. If we're happy and the advertisers are happy why would they care about these sorts of things?

<comment><USER14> This is mostly true, but IMO ignores:

a) the network effects that make people join the network even if they wouldn't want to on their own

b) Facebook's own agressive strategies of bringing users into their network without conscious choice - e.g. the acquisition of whatsapp or the internet.org initiative.

At this point it's more like some property shark who'd buy up half the city's apartment blocks, then proceed to cut services and raise the rents - and when people complain, respond "well, for some reason all those people chose to rent my apartments, so they must approve of what I do"...

<comment><USER15> Point A is especially important. I quit four years ago, and I constantly get bombarded by people trying to get me to come back onto it. I have a few friends who've resisted and never gotten an account, but they are also constantly goaded about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm posting mostly just to make the chorus louder. This was a well-thought out, articulate criticism of Facebook's policy.

It's relevant to free-speech, art, censorship, the means of production, etc., and the fact that Facebook plays a role underscores their power, and why this matters.

It a slippery slope when policy fails to achieve an appropriate, nuanced perspective.

<comment><USER17> There are some good arguments, but I think the post really boils down to "our community guidelines don't match Facebook's; here are good arguments why our guidelines are what they are; we really want to use Facebook; we think news sites (and only news sites) should have exemptions from the community guidelines."

Given the wide variety of news sites and media companies, I don't think Facebook will give blanket exemptions. But Facebook has been willing to make small changes to the guidelines ( e.g., breastfeeding), so perhaps we can look at this as an opening offer in a negotiation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder what the solution to this is. From what I know about reviewing reports about content, it's basically a case of someone reporting the post, then the report being farmed to reviewers, then the reviewers can check the post and I optionally the context to either kill the post or leave it alone.

That means your post is one of hundreds this person sees that day and their guidance is likely "no genitalia, no nipples, and definitely never any naked children". So they act accordingly.

So what's the ideal path from here? Do you educate them about art? What's the line after that? Is this photo ok? What about the famous album cover? What about private party pictures? Etc. Can we even describe a reasonable line? Do we expect them to reverse image search every single photo for context? (Not many people could recognise that photo on its own) How many more people would be needed for clarification? What's the incentive to get them?

<comment><USER19> One solution is to not remove anything until told to do so by law enforcement. If people don't like what's posted they can choose to not view it.

<comment><USER20> I really don't get why sites don't think this way. If you take the hands-off route, you can deflect a lot of criticism: "We don't endorse it, we just let people post what they want". But as soon as you censor, or curate, or promote one item/subject, you become responsible for everything else on your site. Why add extra load on yourself?

<comment><USER21> > I really don't get why sites don't think this way

Because they lose revenue. In Facebook's case because advertisers have demonstrated time and again they won't spend money when their products are associated with controversial content. It doesn't matter how nuanced or obtuse the reason for the controversy.

<comment><USER20> That sounds plausible. I guess I don't see how FB can't throw their weight around. Sure, smallrandomsite.com can't fight advertisers, but FB should be able to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Facebook - context oblivious censorship on the other hand - reality-bubble forming curator algorithms on the other. Somehow the term "negative feedback loop" comes to mind every time Facebooks mechanisms to filter and market content is brought forth.

I don't think internet search engines should try to be helpful. Guessing what the recipient would like to see removes chance for serendipity and creates and information bubble with a radius given by the algorithms parameters... and then, for what is brought out, they remove the too-saucy bits. This is worse than censorship.

<comment><USER23> Facebook hasn't been filtering their trending news for about a week now, and in that time some of the top stories have been

\- A man having sex with a chicken sandwich

\- A fake story about Fox News firing Ann Coulter

\- A fake article about the iphone 8, claiming tim cook said Siri is going to do your chores for you.

So yeah maybe the people were kinda needed?

<comment><USER24> You can get away without people when you have a set list of sources like google news does.

<comment><USER25> They did this previously. The problem was that this disqualifies most news outlets operating on the fringes of reality. Since this includes most of the favorite news sources of tea-partiers it obviously can't stand. I don't particularly like the Democratic party, but any news site labeling itself as "right wing news" is for nutters. Facebook censored those sites and the nutters got angry and that's how we got here.

<comment><USER26> Google News covers plenty of "right wing" news. One can only think FB is intentionally letting quality fall in order to show they really had to do something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're a serf on the content farm, begging your lord for a favor.

<comment><USER27> At least he knows who the lord is and in principle the lord can set things straight. A step above complaining to the void or casting a throwaway vote.

<comment><USER28> Similar situation with Saddam or Gaddafi really. I don't understand why people were so upset with them.

<comment><USER13> So you are saying that Mark Zuckerberg is a dictator and no one has the freedom to leave his rule?

This is so different, if you don't like Facebook use a competitors service. If a good one doesn't exist that lines up with your moral aspirations create one. But under Saddam and Gaddafi, you don't like them, keep quiet or you might disappear, if the wrong person over hears you.

<comment><USER29> > if you don't like Facebook use a competitors service. If a good one doesn't > exist that lines up with your moral aspirations, create one

Is anyone working on this?

<comment><USER30> The product manager for Google Plus just punched a hole in his hat.

On a serious note, there were platforms that used to dominate discourse on the internet before Facebook. Usenet, ICQ, AOL, Myspace.

Now there are alternatives. Medium for blogging; Reddit and 4chan for discussion; Twitter for sharing breaking news, trolling celebrities, and complaining about customer service; LinkedIn for connections and keeping in touch; Pinterest for sharing photos and links; Snapchat for sharing photos and videos; _et cetera_. I have a few friends, particularly in the 25-and-below generation, who don't have a Facebook but are very active on Snapchat or when it was trendy, Vine.

Don't forget countries where Facebook is a minority player. Weibo, Renren, WeChat, VKontakte are examples of thriving social networks that could possibly grow beyond their borders.

<comment><USER3> social networks are a natural monopoly, you want everybody to be on the same one. So if you want to avoid the centralized authority problem, you need to define it as a network of many nodes communicating via open protocols. Sort of like email. This is how Diaspora and GNU Social work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Relevant: [http://www.theonion.com/article/horrible-facebook- algorithm-...](http://www.theonion.com/article/horrible-facebook-algorithm- accident-results-expos-53841)

For those who don't understand why this is relevant: the important point is that Facebook was never, is not, and will never be meant for dispersing information and fostering meaningful discourse. Its only raison d'être is entertainment and generating revenue for its shareholders, so it's rather pointless to try to fight their arbitrary rules.

If you are trying to bring up meaningful discourse on Facebook, you're not getting the right audience, because Facebook is all about reinforcement of the user's existing believes and world views.

I have friends and ex-colleagues who hold different political views than me. I virtually never see their posts on Facebook, because algorithm and machine learning. And I'm aware of that fact when I use Facebook.

Afterposten is in the media business, they understand the unwritten rules. Call me a cynic, but I feel that the only point of their open letter is to sound righteous and generate publicity.

<comment><USER32> > Its only raison d'être is entertainment and generating revenue for its > shareholders, so it's rather pointless to try to fight their arbitrary > rules.

How does it do that without users? I was taught, anyone with any interest in the operation is a stakeholder. If easy dispersion of information is their offer to users, they should be liable for that. If they aren't, the user should either seek support from the government to hold the debtor (facebook) accountable in an anti-trust issue, or consequently reevaluate the offer, if the original intent can not be expected anymore.

Since FB uses advertisement, which is controversial, this is not a clear cut case to me. Because of multiple share holders, facebook has to arbitrate the interests in their own interest. This is also controversial in the question of delivering the best experience regardless of the advertisement. The advertisement just makes it so much more complicated, because it often times borders on deception, if not fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how monopolized publishing is these days. If you want to get the message out about something, how much are you at the mercy of a few distribution channels and how much do we have an open ecosystem that gives everybody equal rights? I am honestly not sure.

How important is it to be on Facebook? On Twitter? On Reddit? On HN? Indexed by Google? Have connections to the Huffington Post?

If you have something interesting to say, can those forces stop you? Or will it spread because it is interesting?

If you make great art, will it become popular just because it is great? Or does it depend on your marketing skills?

Could we have technology that makes interesting, helpful content spread no matter what?

Do we have to invent some kind of "internet voting" system to accomplish this? Can blockchain technology help with this?

<comment><USER34> It certainly makes it a lot more difficult to get the message out about something without those channels. And if those forces don't like what you're saying, it becomes much harder to find for other people.

Popularity depends a lot on your marketing skills too. If you can 'figure out' the secret to success on social media sites, or how to get your site's SEO to be good, that helps a lot more than the quality of the work at the moment. Unfortunately.

Not sure if you can make interesting, helpful content spread no matter what. Seems like it could be a challenge to have any system to find interesting content that isn't dependant on any third party services or search engines. And even more of a challenge to get people to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> A VIP reason to have popular alternatives to services like those provided by the likes of Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter that are not controlled by monster corporations.

<comment><USER36> A very important person reason?

Also, I think the actual problem isn't these corporations, it's ultimately the governments of the world.

Even if the major social networks allow something highly controversial to remain, sooner or later they may be required by the government to take it down. Even someone as big as Apple will have trouble standing their ground, as was shown recently.

The government and the law is what's supposed to protect people's right to information and free speech, yet they are also the ultimate source of censorship.

<comment><USER37> Its ultimately the people. Governments just give the people exactly what they allowed to happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > _Facebook is for the pleasure and benefit of the whole world_

Wait, what? Facebook is more like tobacco: addictive, very bad for you, and very profitable.

<comment><USER39> You shouldn't really try to sum up Facebook in a single sentence any more than you would do the same with the internet as a whole. The truth, of course, is much more nuanced than a short sentence permits.

For instance Facebook allows me to communicate with friends and family I wouldn't otherwise be able to communicate with (at least not as efficiently). I can't see that being bad. As a matter of fact it's something I derive a great sense of satisfaction and wellbeing from.

<comment><USER40> I wish people would stop kidding themselves that Facebook is the same as the Internet as a whole. Facebook is just one service you happen to use. Some of your friends happen to use it too. Please don't pretend that cutting it off would mean you couldnt communicate with your friends anymore. You and your friends are resourceful. You would find another way. The Internet is a big place with many pipes for you and your friends to use.

<comment><USER39> As a matter of fact I communicate with some people who I would almost certainly have no way of communicating with or, in fact, knowing if they are alive or dead.

(I moved a lot as a child)

I get your point that it's not the only solution to this problem. But it is currently the _best_ choice, even if only because of the network effect.

>I wish people would stop kidding themselves that Facebook is the same as the Internet as a whole.

I never said that. That's ridiculous. I said it's complex enough that summing it up in a single dismissive sentence is probably disingenuous.

>Please don't pretend that cutting it off would mean you couldnt communicate with your friends anymore.

Never said that either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> While I get this is not the main point this part stuck out for me

> Furthermore, Facebook should distinguish between editors and other Facebook- > users

Sigh ... so he's asking to be marked as one of the "elite" by FB while us plebs should be treated lessor?

</comment><comment><USER42> Well that's funny. I cannot find the picture anywhere. I even tried disabling uBlock and then was promptly reminded of why I use it.

<comment><USER43> For me, it was HTTPS Everywhere that was causing the problem. Disabling it showed me the pictures.

<comment><USER42> That was it. I wish Google would start with the red alerts already so webmaster may start getting their shit together.

<comment><USER43> I have five privacy tools on this browser: uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, HTTPS Everywhere, NoScript, and a free VPN. It was quite tedious to go through each of them before I figured out it was an HTTPS issue.

<comment><USER44> It's your choice to use those tools to influence your experience browsing free content on the web provided by someone else's servers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I think of FB users as a kind of _peasant_. It is an unpleasant thought, but I cannot escape it.

Digital serfs.

</comment><comment><USER46> > If you take the liberty to challenge Facebook's rules, you will be met – as > we have seen – with censorship.

You are in Marks living room. He has asked you not to bring certain kinds of photos to his place. You did anyway so he took the photo from you. You brought another copy the next time. Now he is getting angry with you.

Maybe you should meet at your place in the future? Or maybe you shouldn't be friends with Mark at all.

<comment><USER47> I hate physical metaphors for digital things. They always seem so succinct, and without possible counter argument.

You're absolutely right that if this happened in someone's living room, their rules should apply.

However, there are 1.3 billion people in "Mark's living room". Is it still his?

<comment><USER48> Unfortunately it is still his. When people sign up, there is a line hidden somewhere that says "This is my living room and you agree you stay here on the condition that you will agree to whatever I might ask you in future".

In a way, some physical metaphor like this one drives the point home well. Though Mark might not say bluntly that "You are in my living room, just adhere to what I order you", he is actually saying something like "I'm not permitting this in my living room because it is an inconvenience to other people".

The ugly truth is 1.3 billion people are guests and no matter how big they are they have to agree with the host.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> > Facebook is for the pleasure and benefit of the whole world

I wish that were true, but Facebook is actually for selling the world's eyeballs to advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER50> Am I the only one getting a 404 for the image in question?

<comment><USER51> Yeah, all the images on the page look hard down for me.

<comment><USER52> Weird. It works for me.

<comment><USER50> People are saying this is due to HTTPS Everywhere (Chrome plugin)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> > But, dear Mark, you are the world's most powerful editor.

If we want to treat Mark as the editor to Facebook, then he wants to tailor its content to the type of audience he wants to attract and business he is in.

Would Teen People or Vogue print a picture of napalmed children on its cover?

</comment><comment><USER54> Does not Facebook get to decide it's own morality, just like anyone else?

<comment><USER55> Well, it can, but it does still make a weird line in the sand

You can be naked for the following reasons: Breastfeeding, Satire, Comedy, Artistic (but only photos of art), educational, and surgery (but only reconstructive)

but being naked because you didn't exactly have time to grab clothes while fleeing from being burnt up, is too far on the nudity scale?

<comment><USER54> But why do you get to question Facebook's idea of morality? If you don't like it, don't use the service. To question someone's morality solely due to it being different than yours is, bluntly, a waste of time.

<comment><USER41> I don't know if this is a good analogy but should the phone company be able to tell you what you can have conversations about? What makes FB different? Yes there are alternatives. There are also multiple phone companies.

I can guess some differences. FB conversations are semi-public, phone conversation are generally not. Except AFAIK except for ads you have to opt into most info in FB. To get news from this source you have to have joined/liked their group. So you opted in. Maybe some friend shares the post but you opted into friending them.

I'm not saying FB should or should not limit what you can post. Only that it's interesting to consider other examples. Why should the phone company not be allowed to ban certain topics but FB should?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I suggest they do a bait and switch make the headline be about a lipstick or a boy band then hit the reader with the horrors of bombing 12 year old little girls with Napalm.

</comment><comment><USER57> He would have had a point, had he not a Facebook presence. Yes, it is very easy to avoid having a Facebook page: just don't make one.

</comment><comment><USER58> A very valid point, which will sadly be entirely ignored.

</comment><comment><USER59> Soon, people will start to realize that for actual information, news, and debate, you have to venture outside of Facebook, just like you have to venture outside of TV for those things currently in the US (not a single actual news program available on broadcast or cable but plenty of "News" entertainment programs). Otherwise you're just processing mindless drivel that you already agree with and that you already know. Which is exactly the state of being Zuckerberg and other people trying to push garbage products onto people prefer. Until then, our society will probably just keep pretending that Facebook is something other than brain junk food because most people don't want to admit to themselves that they are being controlled and manipulated, and most people simply just don't give a fuck about news, history, historical photos, or anything beyond petty celebrity gossip or other such nonsense (that's why those things are pulled from timelines).

</comment><comment><USER60> Between this and stuff like youtube's ideas of "advertiser-friendliness" [0][1] the major websites are shaping up (down?) to be so. freaking. spineless.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn3-Q1lY7fU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn3-Q1lY7fU) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDwdBc0-uq8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDwdBc0-uq8)

</comment><comment><USER61> Facebook is terrible. I wish people would cease using it.</comment>


U.S. may act to keep Chinese hackers out of Def Con hacker event - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-may-act-to-keep-chinese-hackers-out-of-def-con-hacker-event/article18835000/

<comment><USER2> Already a thread on the front page about this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7793675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7793675)</comment>