Jorge Luis Borges Interview (1977) - <AUTHOR> http://www.denisdutton.com/jorge_luis_borges_interview.htm <comment><USER2> "Well, perhaps no systems are attainable, but the search for a system is very interesting."

This is the heart of so many things that do not have easy answers, especially philosophy. I see the field dismissed frequently as an exercise in the generation of hot air, but there is so much value to be had in the act of the search, even if the destination is unclear, or even unreachable. The process of description is simultaneously a process of understanding, and while the ongoing philosophical dialectic may not find an answer, it has presented so many ways to possibly represent things such that the answer becomes apparent. Or at the very least, such that it is apparent that some given system cannot contain the answer. These systems of logic, of discovery, then become models useful for all kinds of pragmatic thinking, or if nothing else stand as monuments to the limits of our understanding, and possibly to our _ability_ to understand.

Borges says he's not a thinker in the interview. But I dunno, even if his influences are clear, his ability to understand, and then convey these ideas in such a way as to make them self-evident is in some ways the _greater_ act of philosophy than the raw conception of the ideas.

What a phenomenal interview.

<comment><USER3> I really enjoyed the interview as well. Borges' manner of speaking is wonderful.

> Borges says he's not a thinker in the interview. But I dunno, even if his > influences are clear, his ability to understand, and then convey these ideas > in such a way as to make them self-evident is in some ways the greater act > of philosophy than the raw conception of the ideas.

I disagree here. Borges is a storyteller: he's interested in provoking a response from his readers. He's not arguing for or against a philosophy, but rather he finds inspiration in the philosophical writings of people who are arguing one way or another (ie philosophers).

What he's doing is no more or less impressive than what they're doing, but the two things very different. I think he's absolutely right to point that out to the interviewers.

<comment><USER4> I agree. I've done the same thing in works of art - used art as a vehicle for communicating philosophical concepts. Which is fine, but there's no rigor there, no defense of the concept, no detailing the implications. There's no need, because I'm not creating or defending philosophical concepts, only sharing them.

I recently wrote a song called "Everything Is Made of Love", which lifted pretty heavily from Spinoza. The song works well, but it no way makes me Spinoza's peer. More recently, I've been reading some of the Frankfurt School thinkers, and their idea of art as a means of expressing revolutionary (in a political sense) ideas. I looked back on a play I wrote/produced last year in that context, and was very pleased to see how well I expressed the ideas of Marcuse et al, manipulating pop culture in order to criticize society on other levels, even though I wasn't really cognizant of the Frankfurt School at the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a fantastic series of talks he gave in the late '60s at Harvard. It can be almost meditative to hear him addressing literature, poetry and philosophy in his own thoughtful voice.

Listen at:

[http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jorge_luis_borges_1967-8_...](http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/jorge_luis_borges_1967-8_norton_lectures_on_poetry_and_everything_else_literary.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> For Borges fans: Jonathan Basile put together a Library of Babel web app [1] based on the short story of the same name [2]. You can search for up to any string of 3200 characters. While most of it is (predictably) meaningless gibberish, it's kind of mesmerizing to see what results appear near results - such as your own name.

[1]: [https://libraryofbabel.info/search.html](https://libraryofbabel.info/search.html) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel)

<comment><USER7> I've really wanted to start something similar but with a natural language dictionary randomly assembling plausible, grammatically correct sentences as a way to pre-emptively copyright creative work.

Actually that reminds me of a question I had, is there any legal precedence for copyrighting the output of a computer program? One could argue either the program is a creative work, or, the program is a tool that allowed me to create many creative works, but is the output of my program considered 'creative' ?

<comment><USER8> In this case I think it's moot, because by Borges' original description there are 25^(1 312 000) books in the Library, much more than the number of atoms in the observable Universe. So I think (and hope) the site isn't actually storing anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are few reasons to learn Spanish today, but reading Borges is an extremely strong one. Stories such as "Pierre Ménard", "The garden of forking paths" or "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" blow your mind in several different ways and leave a perennial impression on your intellect.

Fortunately, both of his English translators are excellent.

<comment><USER10> There is another valid reason: if you are one of the 1000 million (and rising) people living in Spanish speaking communities.

<comment><USER9> Of course, if you live in a Spanish-speaking community you learn it as a first language when you are a baby; but I was referring to learning Spanish as a foreign language when you are an adult. Being able to read the original Borges is a treat for your mind.

<comment><USER10> As English speaker you will benefit from learning a foreign language, something few (fewer than in other demographics) English speakers do.

Take your pick, but Spanish is a good alternative. There is lots of excellent literature in Spanish, not only Borges. And being in the US (I assume) you will benefit by improving contact with your fellow mexicans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Borges predicts the Internet :

The Aleph

... "I view him," he said with a certain unaccountable excitement, "in his inner sanctum, as though in his castle tower, supplied with telephones, telegraphs, phonographs, wireless sets, motion-picture screens, slide projectors, glossaries, timetables, handbooks, bulletins..." He remarked that for a man so equipped, actual travel was superfluous. Our twentieth century had inverted the story of Mohammed and the mountain; nowadays, the mountain came to the modern Mohammed ...

</comment><comment><USER12> I would also recommend Borges' Norton Lectures. It provides a lot of unique insights about his creative process. [https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Verse- Charles-Norton-Lectures/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Verse-Charles- Norton-Lectures/dp/0674008200/)

</comment><comment><USER13> He appears in the script of the last season of Westword, a couple of lines of Hopkins for connoisseurs to notice.

</comment><comment><USER14> "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." ― Jorge Luis Borges

Library science => information science => information systems.

<comment><USER15> Especially poignant since he became blind later in life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Please mods update the title, there is a typo in the name which is Jorge, without the final s.

<comment><USER17> Updated. Thanks!</comment></comment>


Israel and UAE reach historic peace deal, Israel to suspend annexation - <AUTHOR> https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/israel-and-uae-reach-historic-peace-deal-638524 <comment><USER2> [https://apnews.com/abcb0ed9a84e2d3da7d87c28641ccc21](https://apnews.com/abcb0ed9a84e2d3da7d87c28641ccc21)

Another vantage point from the AP.

[https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/israel-uae- announce-n...](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/israel-uae-announce- normalisation-relations-200813145645861.html)

And Al Jazeera for somewhat completeness.

<comment><USER3> If that Al Jazeera article were on Wikipedia it'd (hopefully) get hit with Weasel Words[0] complaints, at least in the lede.

> ...a deal slammed by the Palestinians who called it a "treacherous stab in > the back".

Which Palestinians? _All of them?_

Further down:

> Hamas condemned the deal, which it said was a "treacherous stab in the back > of the Palestinian people".

Ah... Hamas. The same Hamas whose original charter calls for Israel to be destroyed, "invalidated" by Islam[1], whose officials as recently as last year told Palestinians around the world: "You have Jews everywhere and we must attack every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, if God permits"[2] (he was later forced to walk this back–"how magnanimous" to quote another comment ITT).

Shame on Al Jazeera for regarding an organization openly committed to genocide of Jews and the destruction of Israel as the voice of "the Palestinians." I suppose they think my local butcher here in Toronto (from Hebron) should kill me and my family, because "the Palestinians" are directing him to do so. I'm glad he chooses instead he gives my kids lollipops and be a standup guy and a good friend, despite him being Palestinian and me being Jewish. Thank goodness most of us don't listen to the sectarian warmongering promulgated by the likes of Hamas & Likud and amplified by Al Jazeera & Fox News.

I consider Al Jazeera treating Hamas as the de facto voice of "the Palestians" is an unfair treatment of a group (Palestinians) with diverse views. Saying Hamas represents all of them is a vicious smear against this group of people.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Word...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Words_to_watch#Unsupported_attributions) 1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant#Statements_abou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant#Statements_about_Israel) 2: [https://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-hamas-official-calls- on...](https://www.timesofisrael.com/senior-hamas-official-calls-on-members- of-palestinian-diaspora-to-kill-jews/)

<comment><USER2> Quite the diatribe, but just to clarify Al Jazeera is actually citing multiple Palestinian sources for reactions in their article, not just Hamas.

<comment><USER3> > a deal the Palestinians called a "treacherous stab in the back".

This direct quote they later attribute to Hamas, not multiple Palestinian groups. What do you think the purpose of framing it in this way is? It seems to me to be picking the most inflammatory statement from the most radical of the prominent Palestinian political parties, amplifying it above all other statements, and attributing it not to the political party in question but to all Palestinians. If you read this differently I'd be very interested to learn why you think this statement was put in the first sentence of the story only to be clearly attributed pages in.

I'm not sure what the purpose of referring to my post as a diatribe is. If you care to clarify I would appreciate it.

<comment><USER2> I think a "treacherous stab in the back" (i.e. betrayal by the UAE) is an accurate way to represent what's being said in these quotes:

> The Fatah movement said the UAE is "flouting its national, religious and > humanitarian duties" toward the Palestinian cause.

> Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization's (PLO) > executive committee, said the UAE has "come out in the open on its secret > dealings" with Israel.

Also, I believe it's fair to assume "Palestinians" in the article means the parties/government that represent Palestine, not every individual Palestinian. Especially not Palestinians that don't even live in Palestine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Curious if the China/Iran deal had any influence on the timing of this. Iran and UAE were recently in talks to strengthen relations [0], but Iran and Israel/USA are long time adversaries.

It's an interesting twist.

[0] [https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2020/8/10/why-...](https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/comment/2020/8/10/why- the-uae-seeks-stronger-ties-with-iran)

<comment><USER5> It will be really interesting to see what stance India takes in this bipolar US vs China world.

India has historically been a strong ally of Iran and Russia, but finds itself precariously close to war with China, and with weakening ties to both Iran and Russia. India has also been a strong ally of Israel's and recently has improved its relations with the other middle eastern nations.

It is clear that every sign points towards the US alliance for India, but the political brass still can't completely shed the socialist and even communist cloth some of them were cut from, despite 1991 and everything that came after.

India needs to stop blindly following in the footsteps of the thinly veiled Non-Aligned Movement championed by Nehru. It is a bipolar world, neutrality might as well be a death knell.

<comment><USER6> That's an awfully dark take. Why is it in India's interest to be a piece on the board for the US, Russia or China?

Non-Aligned seems to match their actual interests. They're big enough that they don't have to be anyone's proxy state.

<comment><USER5> Because Non-aligned (NAM) was more or less a lie. India was strongly oriented towards USSR, all while never committing strongly enough to actually get legitimate support. It was also naively ideological, in a "if we play nice, so will everyone else".

India allowed China to get their own UN security council seat on the idea of NAM, all while China itself blocked India's entry into the UNSC.

In 1965, India received zero support from either sides, while being pressured by the same UN to withdraw troops despite having gained massive ground in heavily settled parts of Pakistan. Even Indonesia, India's closest NAM ally and co-founder, supported Pakistan in the war.

Every time India has tried to take the moral high ground, it has come out of it in a poorer position.

India can't stay non-aligned while Chinese and Pakistani leadership keep claiming more and more land (Tawang, Junagad, etc) within Indian borders. It can't rely on tacit support from this paper tiger super power Russia or an Iran that is headed towards becoming a Chinese proxy.

For some reason, India is expected to bear the weight of being the moral compass of the world, all while the same world continuously disparages it for being a discriminatory and backward nation led by a fascist leader. (some accusations are admittedly well placed)

Being an ally doesn't mean, India has to be a proxy state. Japan, South Korea, UK or France aren't American proxy states, but are American allies. It simply means to seek relationships where interests align. To pretend that India is non-aligned is to pretend that India does not have interests.

<comment><USER7> The last "Pakistani" who cared about Junagadh was Shahnawaz Bhutto (Zulfiqar Ali's father, not the son). And for a country who is a stickler about instruments of accession I guess the rules get bent if you want to rebuild Somnath.

<comment><USER5> Pakistan updated their map last week newly claiming Junagadh as their land.

When it comes to partition itself, fair,clean and sensible are the last words I would use to describe it. I maintain that the hasty exit set India and Pakistan to be warring nations till the end of days.

That being said, the idea that any ruler of a princely state should have a right to decide a regions fate is honestly quite weak. Almost all of India's princes happily operated as proxies for British exploitation. Plebiscite would have been the right choice for Kashmir as it was Junagadh. The eruption of invading military forces (put lightly) in independent Kashmir never allowed that plebiscite to ever happen, and for all we know, it never will.

<comment><USER7> After change of demography in Jammu (which Patel and Mehrchand Mahajan went about "anjan banke" no wonder they had shame to not ask Nehru for plebiscite)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For clarity, because the distinctions are important to a lot of people: Israel has agreed to suspend/delay the _process_ of annexation of West Bank land, they haven't renounced the underlying claim. And there is no agreement to halt the settlement-building process there.

<comment><USER9> As israeli citizen I have to clarify: Israel never had a claim on West Bank. Some political forces have. Currently it is under military occupation. There is no internal consensus on this issue. Same goes for the settlements.

<comment><USER10> .

<comment><USER11> Because after decades of trying to make peace and seeing the situation get worse the general population of Israel no longer believes in feel good leftism without some real world solutions. It's all well and good to be anti occupation but then you see rocket production and launching capacity and Gaza and have no interest in seeing that elsewhere.

<comment><USER8> The problem with that logic is that it's not sustainable. Yes, terrible things happen in Gaza (not so much the west bank) absent a working government and/or occupying force.

At the same time, we're now going on the fourth generation of residents of these territories who are born, live and die in a no-man's land. They aren't citizens of any nation, they can vote for no government, they can't travel, they can't start a business or hold anything but the most basic property. And neither could their parents or grandparents. And neither will their kids.

The thread of rocket production is plausibly enough to justify a temporary occupation while a better government can be constructed, etc... But the six day war was more than a half century ago. At some point the excuses have to end.

<comment><USER11> Gaza has a working government run by Hamas. Both Hamas and the pa in the west bank have failed to hold their own elections and that is their fault not Israel's - they can run elections etc. Their kids are being taught in school to hate Israel and that Jews are evil funded by the United Nations. Every generation will get more extreme under this tutelage.

There is not the threat of rocket production so much as there are both rockets and rocket production already. You talk about the six day war but forget Hamas shooting hundreds of rockeslts a day into Israel much more recently than that.

It's ok to say say its unsustainable. What is your solution ? Israelis are tired of hearing that it's unsustainable without a solution. That's why the left isn't getting elected. They have no solution, not even to what is going on today.

<comment><USER8> > What is your solution ? Israelis are tired of hearing that it's > unsustainable without a solution.

I assure you the rest of the world is getting tired as well. But at the end of the day, this isn't my problem to solve. It's Israel's. Eventually, the world will get tired enough to act. It has in the past.

The reason it isn't a crisis for the rest of the world now is fundamentally down to an odd quirk of the way voting demographics work a continent away in the US. And... that actually looks very stable. But eventually something will shift (hell, a Great Collapse of american influence seems not entirely unlikely at this point), and Israel will feel pressure it's been insulated from for the last 53+ years.

That's what "unsustainable" means.

<comment><USER11> >assure you the rest of the world is getting tired as well. But at the end of the day, this isn't my problem to solve. It's Israel's. Eventually, the world will get tired enough to act. It has in the past.

It is literally the least important it's ever been in terms of the world's priority. What other people do you suggest will act? This deal is about Israel normalizing relations with one of the countries that has pushed and paid for the conflict for some time. This sounds like tough talk divorced from reality.

>The reason it isn't a crisis for the rest of the world

Is because it's a low intensity conflict that is expensive to deal with and nobody has a solution that makes sense to both sides.

Banking on the collapse of America to push Israel is funny but not realistic. This peace agreement is exactly because of fear of another obama style middle East policy. This is the UAE and Israel getting together to make sure they can counter whatever nonsense a democrat with Obama leanings starts to pull.

Everyone remembers the Iran deal and Obama's actions in the un at the end of his last term. I promise you people in Israel are as capable of planning as you are, and aren't relying on the fall of the us.

Declared unsustainable but still no solution from you - which is the same reason people with your opinion can't get elected in Israel. Israel is much more sustainable than Gaza but trying to go in to clean out Hamas is not sustainabkr. There are a lot more issues of sustainability than you seem to consider because you aren't considering real world geopolitics

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I spent some time in the region in 2017 (Gaza / West Bank / Israel), and it was obvious to me that nothing would change for Palestinians until an Islamic country was able to represent their interests through diplomatic relations with Israel.

I think this is great news and I'm very excited to see where it leads.

<comment><USER13> You assume that any of the Arab countries care about Palestinians sadly outside of the scope of the Israeli Arab conflict where they can be used as pawns they don't.

Even Jordan which 80% of its population is Palestinians doesn't seem to care much.

The next logical step is to actually allow Palestinians to gain refugee status and removing UNRWA so the refugee camps might actually get some permanent housing, utilities and countries like Lebanon and Syria would have to grant them the same rights as any other refugee group.

<comment><USER14> 80%? How do you define this statistic? From what I understand from Wikipedia this seems to be around 20%

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Israel agreed to suspend its planned extension of sovereignty

How magnanimous of them.

</comment><comment><USER16> Israel suspending its annexation is excellent for Palestine and very good for Ethiopia. There are ongoing negotiations with Egypt and Sudan about the Abay(Nile) River which is somewhat tense. Sometime ago Trump administration wanted to mediate, which was accepted by all parties (with some reluctance) but very quickly the mediator wanted to become an arbiter. The Trump administration was perceived to favor the Egyptians. They tried to pressure Ethiopia into making concessions which it was not prepared to do. The end result was Ethiopia withdrawing from the US mediated effort and soured relation between the two countries.

What a lot of people here(In Ethiopia) think is, the reason Trump Admin was favoring Egypt's weak(er) negotiating position over Ethiopia and the other Nile basin countries is, he and his administration wanted to secure Egyptian support for the annexation of Palestinian territories.

If the annexation is off the table, USA will have a little less reason to use its power to pressure Ethiopia into an unfavorable agreement.

Frankly, the whole US effort was quite absurd. USA was seen very favorably but the rush to make Ethiopia the sacrificial lamb (to steal some poor people's land) is something that will have a lasting negative effect.

This article provides some background of what's going on. [https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/22/trump-administration- af...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/22/trump-administration-africa-aid- ethiopia-egypt-gerd-nile-sudan-dispute-negotiations/)

<comment><USER17> Sorry you got downvoted, one doesn't get a point of view from Ethiopia every day, too bad yours was faded to gray.

<comment><USER16> You are very kind. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow this is big. I would bet that Saudi Arabia will get into this next.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is not news if you've been paying attention, it's just PR before an election. UAE has quietly been working with Israel quietly allied for years:

[https://theintercept.com/2017/06/03/hacked-emails-show- top-u...](https://theintercept.com/2017/06/03/hacked-emails-show-top-uae- diplomat-coordinating-with-pro-israel-neocon-think-tank-against-iran/)

<comment><USER20> Formalizing relations is certainly news. It seems they plan to establish embassies, create direct flights, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What kind of peace deal about the future of Palestinians and Palestinian land doesn't involve.. Palestinians? A skeptical person might think this is more about PR for Netanyahu and Trump.

<comment><USER22> Lisa: I'll stop buying Malibu Stacey clothing.

Bart: And I'll take up smoking and give that up.

Homer: Good for you, son. Giving up smoking is one of the hardest things you'll ever have to do. Have a dollar. [gives a dollar bill to Bart]

Lisa: But he didn't do anything!

Homer: Didn't he, Lisa? Didn't he?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> As an Israeli, I'm ecstatic! UAE citizens - please come and visit Israel, you'll be treated with Abrahamic hospitality and great respect!

<comment><USER24> Is this really true? I recall just 10 years ago a Jewish friend of mine commented on how offended his Israeli guide was that he had bought and wore an Arab head scarf while visiting Israel. That's from a TOUR GUIDE!

<comment><USER25> I can't imagine why the tour guide would be offended – head scarves are by no means out of place in Israel, or anywhere in the region. Many Israelis that I know are thrilled about the trend towards stronger diplomatic ties (and with that, peace) in the region. Israel has previously made big concessions for diplomacy, like giving up the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty.

<comment><USER26> > Many Israelis that I know are thrilled about the trend towards stronger > diplomatic ties (and with that, peace)

And how do they feel about returning the territories they have illegally annexed or occupied- the Golan heights, East Jerusalem and much of the West Bank?

Because otherwise "peace" just means enjoying what you stole without fear of consequences.

<comment><USER20> There are consequences to starting wars of aggression intending to destroy a nation. One of those consequences is losing land if you lose the war.

<comment><USER26> It's a pity you just made this "rule" up, because the delivery was very convincing.

No, such a rule doesn't exist. Seems more like "an eye for an eye" than any form of civilized law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not historic at all... better to see annexation being suspended than continued of course, but let's not pretend this means much. The majority of the west bank has been illegally occupied for almost 60 years. Nothing in the text reverses any of that, it only appears to suspend Netanyahu's further annexation plans he drew up just last year.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs that cancelling a single recent plan to deteriorate an already illegal situation, is sufficient to be portrayed as some kind of historic peace treaty.

At this point Netanyahu can propose some other nonsense plan during his election cycle and win with the 'wartime president' bonus, then cancel them afterwards during Trump's election cycle to give him an ostensible diplomatic victory, while continuing the rest of the charade. The situation only gets worse but people are supposed to applaud it? Give me a break.

<comment><USER28> "Illegal" means nothing in an international context. Who enforces the "law"? What is the shared moral framework from which that law flows?

<comment><USER29> It does mean something and the demarcation line is whether the parties doing it are allies or not. In this case "the West" is the reference point as within this group there's usually a natural or if needed forced consensus on who's an ally and who's the enemy. For example Russia annexing Crimea is widely considered in the West _illegal_. [0]

Now whether you consider the historical claim of a state established by the UN but with no support from the Arab world, one of the two parties that actually mattered, over that party's land, and the numerous wars to expand further as being legitimate compared to Russia's is an exercise left to the reader.

[0] [https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press- releases/2020...](https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press- releases/2020/06/18/illegal-annexation-of-crimea-and-sevastopol-eu-renews- sanctions-by-one-year/)

<comment><USER28> Again you're using the word illegal in a way that only makes sense within an actual legal framework.

Allies have treaties, pacts, and unwritten norms. An ally cannot engage in an "illegal" act, they can only violate a treaty, pact, or norm. There is no legal framework because neither ally is sovereign over the other. In order for you to fall under a legal framework there must be some entity that is sovereign over you.

A citizen (or subject) of some sovereign does not have a "pact" or "treaty" with the sovereign.

As an American citizen I do not have a pact or treaty with my municipal, state, and federal government. They have sovereignty and therefore I am subject to their laws.

<comment><USER29> > An ally cannot engage in an "illegal" act

But this misses my point. I didn't mean "illegal act between allies". I mean the same act against a 3rd (independent) party will be judged as legal or illegal based on whether the 2nd party committing it is friend or foe. Friend bombs a hospital, they fight for freedom. Enemy bombs a hospital, they're a terrorist.

The occupation/annexation is a similar topic. Russia and Israel committed some of the same fouls but in the case of the latter it's a "matter of debate" that never reaches a conclusion. That's because the West doesn't actually want to set a precedent that it's OK. So it's like a never ending trial and as long as that goes on everybody's free to go about their business.

You probably noticed by now that almost no leader explicitly approves Israel's actions, they approve them implicitly by inaction. They always have vague rhetoric which gives the appearance of support for some lofty, worthwhile ideals without actually stating their support for the particular actions or methods, and without making any connection between these and the aforementioned ideals. Then it's left to you to map those words over the real life situation and interpret that your own way. But I learned long ago that what's not said speaks volumes more than what's said.

<comment><USER28> I see what you're saying and yeah I basically agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Israeli and UAE teams will meet "to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, the establishment of reciprocal embassies, and other areas of mutual benefit."

This is exciting news, indeed. Israel, with its huge technology sector and UAE with its massive financial resources could together work to transform the Middle East.

The announcement alluded to future similar deals with other Arab countries. Likeliest would be Saudi Arabia, another oil-rich moderate state that already has informal back-channel relations with the Jewish state.

We shouldn't fool ourselves that this will bring peace in the region this year, but it will certainly put a kink in Iran's expansionist/destabilization efforts, and it will bolster the Trump Administration's prestige in the region, pushing other countries to "fall in line" as it were and support some kind of general framework for peace if not an outright full recognition of Israel's legitimacy.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just the thought of countries and cultures coming together makes the future look positive.

<comment><USER32> These two cultures can't come together while staying the same, and both countries consider their culture worth protecting.

I am not optimistic.

<comment><USER31> Why is coming together same as eroding culture?

<comment><USER33> Ask Native Americans.

<comment><USER31> This is not colonization. Connection of cultures is important for civilizations to grow into the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In case you need more context on the whole issue (as I did), here is a good explanation that I found:

[https://www.vox.com/2020/7/13/21317900/israel-west-bank- anne...](https://www.vox.com/2020/7/13/21317900/israel-west-bank-annexation- palestine-netanyahu-trump)

<comment><USER35> Any explanation for why parent comment was downvoted?

I don't have the background to discern if there's something amiss in the referenced Vox article.

<comment><USER36> Vox is a garbage source for pretty much anything.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Regexp Crash Course - <AUTHOR> https://RegexpCrashCourse.com/ <comment><USER2> I would prefer it not in a per email basis but I've signed up regardless. High probability of eventually marking these emails as spam but I might learn something before that!

<comment><USER3> > High probability of eventually marking these emails as spam

Assuming that they provide an unsubscribe link, why is this your default mode of thinking about this?

They're providing a service, which you opted into. This kind of reaction is incredibly hostile.

<comment><USER2> I'll let gmail unsubscribe if it pops up as an option but I get so, so many emails it is unusable unless I use the mark as spam method

<comment><AUTHOR> 100% of my automated messages have unsubscribe links at the bottom. I'd like to think that each message provides value, but if not... inbox n-1 is just a click away...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python on Pebble - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/hiway/cd237eb1040c38e7ab5306a63575ded5 <comment><USER2> For the confused ones (I was!):

This is about writing an app for the Pebble smartwach ([https://www.pebble.com](https://www.pebble.com)) in Python by using the Python to Javascript compiler transcrypt ([http://transcrypt.org/](http://transcrypt.org/)).

<comment><USER3> This feels... at best kinda silly. Is there anything actually gained here compared to, say, even just using ES6 + Babel?

<comment><USER4> I expect that it would be nicer for those of us who know python but not JS. Although it might be overall better just to learn some JS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The pebble is just a normal Cortex-M processor, so Python should already run on it.

([https://github.com/micropython/micropython/wiki](https://github.com/micropython/micropython/wiki))

<comment><USER6> Memory requirements make this unfeasible for the Pebble.

<comment><USER7> micropython ARM is around 80K.

<comment><USER6> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't exactly Python on Pebble, it's transcribed-to-JS Python. I'm a bit disappointed by the premise...</comment>


The Stock Market Is Now a Casino - <AUTHOR> https://www.tradersmagazine.com/departments/equities/the-stock-market-is-now-a-casino/ <comment><USER2> Some people said some stuff on Reddit, so it must be true.

</comment><comment><USER3> Umm ...it always was.</comment>


Republicans Repudiate 40 Years of Tougher Copyright Laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.volokh.com/2012/11/16/republicans-repudiate-40-years-of-tougher-copyright-laws/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure its fair to say "Republicans", as if there's some consensus outside of the paper, regardless of the amount of Republicans in the Republican Study Committee. I doubt most of them know the paper exists, never- mind what conclusion it might draw. There's also no saying what percent of republicans and percent of democrats might agree with the paper. For all we know 70% of democrats and 40% of republicans might agree with the conclusion (pulled out of a hat, I might expect the % agree to be roughly the same for both parties).

It's unfortunate, and I'm having a hard time finding a way to put it nicely, but other issues seem to take up most of that party's time. If the Republican party pivoted to being a fiscally conservative and socially apathetic party then they might actually do very well.

If they spent their news cycles advocating research on the myriad topics in american law that border on cultish in acceptance, such as copyright and, sure, poverty reduction programs that may or may not be worth their salt, they might do great. We could use a party of respectable scrutinizers that stand skeptical of any longstanding policy that might be costing citizens (or civilization) too much.

But they don't do that. Instead they spend their news cycles (conservative news stations and radio) on all this cultish crap of their own. Obscene amounts of doom-saying over every thing they might dimly disagree with. XYZ is going to "take away" guns, and kill jobs, and "ruin" (ruin!) the economy, and force an end to all prayer, and other ridiculous characterizations. Taxmageddon is the newest one. Taxmageddon. Returning to 90's tax rates is the End of Days.

Lofty policy other than tax cuts, if they are thinking about other policies at all, are certainly rarely talked about, at least on the national stage.

It's an interesting paper we've got on our hands here, but we have no reason to believe that the majority of republicans _know it exist,_ never mind that they are ready to be serious and sincere about examining party priorities that might stop the entire rest of their platform from being a blocking issue towards voting for them.

<comment><USER3> This discussion is likely to venture too far into politics for this forum, but which programs fit under the category of poverty reduction? I ask, because the term makes me think of people with no conceivable prospects who are essentially being sustained out of pity.

However, it is probably fair to draw a distinction between programs like Section 8 housing and food stamps (which probably total less than $30B), and the universe of all means-tested programs.

Increasing the talent pool is vital to producing a dynamic economy. It sounds touchy-feely, but things like school lunch programs are an enormous success when judged on the basis of their effect on childhood development, and the resulting increase in greater eventual intelligence, educational attainment, and productivity. Regardless of whether people have contempt for their parents, or pity that some people may simply have worse luck than others, something as boring as one healthy meal five days a week for nine months of the year has measurable effects on cognitive development for people who didn't choose their parents. The same goes for programs like subsidized preschool education, programs that educate young parents who didn't learn how to nurture from their parents, and many other small programs that are likely to sound very boring and very futile, but effect real incremental change that ultimately benefits the entire economy more than the individual beneficiaries.

On the other end of means tested programs from those that encourage talent pool development, are the social safety net programs that facilitate enterprising risk. Early in the nation's history for example the perfectly justifiable idea of debtors' prisons was abolished for the more pragmatic practice of bankruptcy protection. More modern programs make it increasingly possible for not only young single people to go all in on a startup, but people with families, with less risk that a failure will put their children on the street. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't work on savings, but that they can take an even bolder risk when worth it. It may be logical to argue that they should suffer the consequences of their risk, but the economy probably experiences a net benefit from encouraging people away from their biases toward playing it safe.

I get that social programs are really boring, especially since they tend to be top-down organized and not very entrepreneurial, yet it isn't accurate either to assume that they are all over-sentimental and based on pity alone, or that they all ultimately end up undermining people's chances of standing on their own feet.

<comment><USER4> That all sounds nice enough, but it doesn't ignore the fact that it is still the government stealing money to help save children parents decied to get when they shouldn't have.

As for removing risk, look at the bailouts. Look at what didn't work.

<comment><USER5> An educated population is a public good; especially in a democracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The headline is oversold. The meat is this: " _The conservative-led Republican Study Committee just put out a Policy Brief that questions forty years of bipartisan support for tougher copyright enforcement_ ".

Now that's good news, and I think the analysis in the post is spot-on. This is the kind of thinking we'd hope to see out of a "new, more moderate" reinvented republican party. But one policy brief does not a policy make, and this one doesn't even (apparently) advocate for any explicit policy.

They're dipping a toe in the water. At least they're thinking about swimming, but we've got a long way to go before this turns into something worth voting over IMHO.

<comment><USER7> I'm sure their political consultants are watching very closely how this gets picked up in the social media, particularly by those who are identified as thought leaders.

Seriously, a tweet like "Wow maybe the Republicans aren't so corrupt and stupid after all [link] please RT" could make a noiceable difference in the behavior of Lamar Smith and his ilk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Throwing Hollywood under the bus could pay dividends for GOP"

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/throwing- hollywoo...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/throwing-hollywood- under-the-bus-could-pay-dividends-for-gop/)

Republicans have suggested pivoting their platform in a free-internet direction.

<comment><USER9> Provided how little Hollywood is intent on helping them in any way, I don't see any downside for them. On the contrary, exposing some D congressmen as a puppets of Big Business - in this case, big entertainment business - can allow them to counter frequent similar claims from the D side. And given the skepticism of the R base about any extension of the government powers, as I said, no downside at all. I only wonder why there's not more of this.

<comment><USER10> There's not much downside from antagonizing Hollywood in particular, but there are plenty of non-Hollywood copyright interests, some of whom traditionally swing GOP, such as segments of the recording industry (e.g. Nashville). Though it's quite possible they're losing some of their influence within the party, especially since the departure of Sonny Bono from Congress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Huh. That would certainly make me think more favorably of Republicans, and it fits with the older, more moderate Republican concept of "less government involvement". There's a ways to go on some other topics, though.

It might seem to be an anti-business angle, but the music business is shrinking rapidly and it's kind of like kicking a ball while it still has a bit of air in it.

<comment><USER12> _It might seem to be an anti-business angle_

There's nothing wrong with that; for example, Luis Zingales proposes[1] a "pro-market, not pro-business" position for the GOP. I'm not an American, but I'd love to see a true movement against crony capitalism. We desperately need one here in Portugal.

[1]: <http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon0708lz.html>

<comment><USER13> This is a good editorial on the subject: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-23/why-businesses- can-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-23/why-businesses-can-t-stand- free-markets-commentary-by-veronique-de-rugy.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hollywood votes democrat. RIAA is run by a democrat. MSM media is democrat 9/10. Comcast's CEO vacations with OBAMA. etc.

\-- Old saying: 'My enemy's enemy is my friend.'

<comment><USER15> Actually, it's more complicated than that. Both Silicon Valley and Hollywood mainly support democrats.

Republicans in the past have not offered much that causes either to have to make tough choices. If they did, they might be able to pit one against the other, which would help their party immensely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a _Republican Study Group paper_ that argues for the reform of a critically important regulatory system because --- and they _lead_ with this --- it "Retard[s] the creation of a robust DJ/Remix industry".

I mean I'm not arguing, it's just hard to take that seriously as a Republican policy position. How big is the "DJ/Remix industry"? How big could it ever be? We have empirical evidence, because (according to this paper) other countries have robust DJ/Remix industries.

The reforms at the end of this paper all seem totally sensible. It'd be great if this stuff happened. But be honest: even if we adopted every single reform in the paper, most infringers today would remain infringers, their liability would still be denominated in the tens of thousands of dollars, and it would remain just as illegal as it is today to run businesses predicated on copyright evasion.

<comment><AUTHOR> They don't 'lead' with that. That example appears on page 4 of a 9 page document. It is the first example they use to illustrate the effects of current policy.

The way your comment reads it sounds like the entire position paper is based on the DJ/Remix industry example.

<comment><USER16> I mean to point out that it is their first argument for what is wrong with the copyright system in a numbered list of wrongs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like it. Seriously, 12 years is a long time to be milking stuff.

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe they finally noticed who creative folks vote for.

</comment><comment><USER19> Looks like they've already disavowed this memo: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4799352>

</comment><comment><USER20> "It pleases conservative bloggers, appeals to young swing voters, stokes the culture wars and drives a wedge between two Democratic constituencies, Hollywood and Silicon Valley."

Glad to know they are in this one for

</comment><comment><USER21> Um, except for two idiot Senate candidates who went down in flames, it was the Democrats who were pushing so-called "social" issues this election cycle with radical positions like forcing everyone to buy health insurance that includes contraceptives, whether they wanted to or not.

Saying the employer or the insurer is one paying for the contraceptives is economic nonsense -- the cost ultimately comes out of the employees' pockets. Should, say, a woman who's gone through menopause or a gay man really have to pay higher health insurance premiums to subsidize someone else's birth control? Given that birth control pills are legal and cheap (~$10 a month at Walgreens) this was really just about trying to create a wedge issue by scaring people with a phony controversy.

And after being in office for four years, Obama waited until about five minutes before the election, when the polls showed support was turning in its favor, to announce his very tepid support for gay marriage. Not exactly, a shining example of leading on principle.

<comment><USER22> Should a single man really have to subsidize care for a woman with breast cancer, or a six year old with an inoperable brain tumor?

Shut the fuck up. Healthcare choices are to the individual and the doctor, not to the insurer or the government.

If you don't want to subsidize health, go live in Somolia.

<comment><USER23> _If you don't want to subsidize health, go live in Somolia._

If you love government mandates so much, move to North Korea. See how silly that is?

The real question we should be asking is why employers have anything to do with health insurance in the first place.

<comment><USER24> "If you love government mandates so much, move to North Korea".

Or Sweden, Canada, England or France. That's the thing. There's plenty of examples of advanced countries with a government run healthcare system.

There are zero examples of advanced countries that do things the way conservatives say would lead to prosperity.

<comment><USER13> You seem to have missed "See how silly that is?"

<comment><USER24> It's not silly. All countries with no government or almost no government are hellholes. Whereas, since the fall of the soviet union, most countries with more government than the US are pretty nice.

So, it's not silly to say 'try somalia if you want zero government'. It is silly to say 'try north korea if you want more government', especially since north korea provides fewer government services than western states.

<comment><USER13> _If you don't want to subsidize health, go live in Somolia._

Opposition to government-subsidized healthcare is not anarchism.

So yes, it is silly, to put it nicely.

<comment><USER24> Can you give me an example of a country without government subsidized healthcare you'd like to live in?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Lean Way to Know Thy Neighbour - <AUTHOR> http://leanstartupmachine.com/2012/08/the-lean-way-to-know-thy-neighbour/

<comment><USER2> Success for Voizin seems to be in minimizing the non-financial frictional cost of connecting _as_ _much_ _as_ _feasible_ _possible_ \- and doing so without being obtrusive. It'll be cool to see what they come up with. (It's always so interesting to me that people realize mutual value in something, yet never "cash-in" on that value because they're too afraid to take the first step...)

</comment><comment><USER3> Voizin's pivots could save them 18.6 million building the wrong thing...

</comment><comment><USER4> great read!</comment>


With latency as low as 25ms, SpaceX to launch broadband satellites in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/05/spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-will-launch-thousands-of-broadband-satellites/ <comment><USER2> Shorter summary of SpaceX's Senate testimony [https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6c08b6c2...](https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/6c08b6c2-fe74-4500-ae1d-a801f53fd279/655C5CBED75A50881172C1E9069D91E6.testimony- patricia-cooper---broadband-infrastructure-hearing.pdf):

Initially, the SpaceX system will consist of 4,425 satellites operating in 83 orbital planes (at altitudes ranging from 1,110 km to 1,325 km). SpaceX has proposed an additional constellation of 7,500 satellites operating even closer to Earth.

For the end consumer, SpaceX user terminals—essentially, a relatively small flat panel, roughly the size of a laptop—will use phased array technologies to allow for highly directive, steered antenna beams that track the system's low- Earth orbit satellites. In space, the satellites will communicate with each other using optical inter-satellite links, in effect creating a "mesh network" flying overhead that will enable seamless network management and continuity of service.

Later this year, SpaceX will begin the process of testing the satellites themselves, launching one prototype before the end of the year and another during the early months of 2018. Following successful demonstration of the technology, SpaceX intends to begin the operational satellite launch campaign in 2019. The remaining satellites in the constellation will be launched in phases through 2024, when the system will reach full capacity.

<comment><USER3> Where do you see anything about the antenna size? All I've seen is that this will be for Enterprise customers, and the antenna will be very large.

By the way, a very small phased array will be very low gain, thus using more capacity on their satellite for the same speeds. Unless they've invented a new type of antenna...

<comment><USER2> It's a verbatim quote from the link in my post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's been said before, but what people need to understand is that the goal of this service isn't to make money- it's to balance demand.

SpaceX can plan to launch be 30% more launches than their actual customers need. All those extra rockets are used for internet satellites. If there's an accident (boom) or a sudden need for more rockets, the internet satellites get delayed, and the paying customer gets a rocket.

If customers are finicky about using re-flown rockets, that's fine, the internal customer doesn't care. If a customer backs out for any reason, the internal customer takes their place.

Rocket production gets a smooth flow going, which improves production efficiency.

<comment><USER5> Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars.

<comment><USER6> "Musk himself has stated the goal is to make money to help pay for colonizing Mars."

Which I continue to misunderstand ...

You can go to Mars ... you can have an outpost on Mars ... you can have scientists and tourists and so on go back and forth to Mars - all very positive and exciting.

But you _can 't live on Mars_ for an extended period because the gravity is 1/3 of earths.

Your teeth will decay. Your bones will weaken (even with hours per day of resistance work, which will be mandatory). Your heart will weaken. Your organs will malfunction. You will get cancer from a weakened immune system. Red blood production goes down.

Your body is built for and tightly coupled to Earths gravity. I fail to see how one could actually live on Mars without sacrificing 30 or more years of lifespan.

<comment><USER7> > But you can't live on Mars for an extended period because the gravity is 1/3 > of earths.

Can't you rather cheaply create a centrifuge where you'll sleep - and may be even work indoors - which will maintain 1G? Centrifuge big enough so no significant side forces would occur?

<comment><USER8> This is my question as well. We do that at fairs for fun, a spinning habitat seems very feasible.

<comment><USER9> Feasible for a few billion people, eventually? This concept has been explored in many sci-fi shows, with the usual solution being to make a big ring and spin it in space.

<comment><USER7> We can solve problems incrementally - we often do, and space access history is a good example for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is good news for the USA, but it's GREAT news for countries where the government regularly cuts off and controls the Internet for political purposes. If receivers can be as small as a personal laptop, expect a thriving black market in them in places like Iran and Egypt.

Such receivers can also act as backhaul for mesh networks, providing access to un-censored information in times of turmoil and peace alike.

<comment><USER11> I'd say it's more of problematic than great news for places with state controlled study. But it has potential.

Where it's Great news is places which already can use only satellite internet, but have very poor experience. Rural Australia for example. Having low local (or even global) latency would be amazing.

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure NSA will want a backdoor in the system. If it can do what they say it can do, they are basically the new pipes of the Internet. It's too good for NSA and our current US govt to leave untouched.

<comment><USER13> Say hello to ultra-fine real-time triangulation of your position. Of course privacy protected with the same care and zeal that protects your Tesla.

<comment><USER11> It's not going to be better than GPS/GLONAS. If there is a specific location component in the ground stations, it will be known pretty soon. Otherwise, the location will be very weather dependent.

If you have a phone with you, you're likely providing a better location to Google/Apple right now.

<comment><USER13> Of course. But they will be another cell phone like actor, only global.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Blinks- "SpaceX has also proposed an additional 7,500 satellites operating even closer to the ground, saying that this will boost capacity and reduce latency in heavily populated areas."

This should be interesting, depending on how this is regulated on the legal side it could result in the major ISP's updating our infrastructure, of course nothing has stopped them from agreeing to update infrastructure then running off with our tax money in the past. Not to mention they will probably use legal means to hamstring this if possible. Hopefully this spurs competition in areas with stagnating ISP's and increases availability of low latency connections in sparsely populated areas.

<comment><USER14> > _Not to mention they will probably use legal means to hamstring this if > possible._

I wonder how this could work. It's not like, e.g., Milwaukee has any legal oversight over LEO.

<comment><USER15> One possibility is passing laws/regulations about how many sats can be in a orbital plane or single launch, as they will want to launch dozens, if not the full 53 they want to put in a plane, with a single booster to reduce costs.

They could also get some silly RF regulations passed that make it not feasible economically.

<comment><USER16> Then the operator of the constellation would just shift to using Arianespace as launch provider (which is equally expensive at the moment).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My aunt's town in rural Western Massachusetts still only has broadband in the library plus scanty LTE service and current terrible satellite— how and whether to wire the town with broadband is driving the first contested election in decades.

This could make a major difference for that type of rural town.

<comment><USER18> Same situation for our mid-Atlantic home. There's a ton of pent up demand for this service in all of the rural and semi-rural pockets of the U.S. We have been very poorly served by Congress, state, and local government.

<comment><USER19> > We have been very poorly served by Congress, state, and local government

I live in a semi-rural area. I chose to live there. Why should everyone else pay to give me top-tier internet access?

If high-speed internet access is important to me, I need to move to a neighborhood that has that amenity

<comment><USER20> >I live in a semi-rural area. I chose to live there. Why should everyone else pay to give me top-tier internet access?

One could as why everyone else should have to pay to give you postal service at the same price as someone in, say, NYC when the cost of provision is much higher.

The reason the person above you mentioned government is that it's likely that government owns the streets that any net access would run through as well as having countless other regulations that would need to be followed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's a cool system. There's a slight disadvantage that the satellite-to-ground link is at 10-15 GHz for users, so it will go down in a heavy rainstorm, and some fraction of the time due to other atmospheric effects. Should be reasonably reliable but far from fiber, and it will be interesting to see what uptime they guarantee. Assuming this all ever actually happens.

<comment><USER22> I assume the sensitity to weather etc depends on the type of equipment you have? Couldn't a community use a huge high power and high sensitivity common receiver/transmitter station, that provides fiber to 10-1000 households? The community station could also provide some kind of limited bandwidth fallback such as DSL or LTE that just ensures peoples fiber lines limp along when the satellites can't be reached (so their juice machines don't stop working...).

<comment><USER23> The cost of fiber is mostly the cost of hooking up homes. Once you have that, the cost of running a connection to a telecom is cheap comparatively.

<comment><USER22> I think that's true in places like (large parts of) the US where the "last mile problem" exists. However for lots of rural Africa, China, Australia there surely must also exist a "first 1000miles problem".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Interesting. What would this be able to do ? Current wireless speeds, even with state of the art technology, is going to be something like 10Gbit. That'll have to be shared by an entire city at least (correction: about 2 satellites per state on average. Less for New York), and of course there won't be any CDNs or HTTP caches "upstairs" so to speak. So 1 bit in = 1 bit back out.

Even at 4425 satellites that means, let's see. The earth is 500 million km2, and they don't need the same density everywhere, so some optimizations may be possible, so let's say 5000 satellites. That means 100,000 km2 per satellite. That means one satellite per decent sized country, only about 100 for the entire US. This is not geostationary orbit, so they'll have to aim for evenly spaced satellites.

Let's say they fix their satellites and do 10x what is currently possible, so that means 100Gbit/satellite. Current internet traffic into and out of the Netherlands is 50 times that (granted, more and denser cities than portugal, but the Netherlands would have to share one SpaceX satellite with Belgium and parts of the UK).

They would only be able to provide about 1/10,000,000th of a Satellite to a cellphone in the US, and if they have 100 Gbit/satellite, that's not even 1kbit on average. Even 10x or 100x that capacity wouldn't change much. Doubling or tripling the number of satellites won't fix this, we'd need between hundreds of thousands and to millions of satellites.

This will either need to be rather expensive (certainly as much as your cellphone, probably more, as this seems to indicate the system can only support 100x less users than the mobile network in the US, and even less in smaller dense countries or cities like the Netherlands or New York). Even at state of the art technologies, bandwidth limits are going to be tight. Like any satellite service, I can't see this work at city densities, or for mobiles.

<comment><USER25> The benefit of a satellite network is ubiquitous connectivity regardless of where you are, not speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Seven years. US Broadband providers have seven years to take us over the coals, practice full bore capitalism with our data and generally run oligilistic practices until their time even begins to run out

<comment><USER27> I'll believe it when I see it. They managed to somehow stop Google Fiber, they might be able to stop SpaceX as well.

<comment><USER28> "They" didn't stop satellite Internet, in fact there's a Federal law that requires that everyone facilitate small dish installations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This may help explain why Verizon is cutting FiOS prices and increasing speeds: [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/04/veriz...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/04/verizon-bungles-launch-of-70-gigabit-plan-which-costs-more- than-70)

<comment><USER29> Well, they are cutting options.

The price for 50/50mbps is staying the same in my area, however they have dropped the 75/75, 100/100, 150/150, and 300/300 options entirely and now offer 50/50 or 1000/1000 (which is actually 940/880 which is around the limits of "normal" ethernet).

And while they advertise $69.99 on the site, clicking through to "more info" shows it as $79.99 and calling in to ask about it they are telling me it will be $89.99 for the first year, then $99.99 for the next year with a 2 year contract as a new customer only. And when I told them I am already a verizon customer, they had to re-run it and found that it will actually be $119.99 for the first year, $129.99 for the second year on a 2 year contract.

And that's before I even get the bill which in my experience with verizon is often 10% larger than the quoted price with internet only (and when I had phone+internet+tv it was almost double the quoted price after taxes, fees, expired discounts, required equipment rentals, and other bullshit).

<comment><USER30> Isn't this bait and switch?

<comment><USER29> I don't know, but I know it's taught me to literally never believe a word of anything they say in terms of price, and to literally never sign a contract of any kind with them ever because they can't guarantee what the first bill will be (they can only give estimates), and by the time it actually comes you are already locked in for the 2 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It would be super cool if amateur cubesats could interface with this network. I've always wanted to run a server on orbit, where energy is free and regulations are limited to RF spectrum issues.

</comment><comment><USER32> I was curious about the financials of this project. Here's my back of the napkin:

According to ([https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-set-up-and- la...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-set-up-and-launch-a- communications-satellite)) it costs ~$80-$100 million per satellite to build, launch, and run. So that's ~$354-$443 billion for all the satellites. Let's call it $443.

Now, I pay ~$60/m for internet. That's $720/yr. If they want to recoup costs after 10 years, it'll take ~61.5 million subscribers.

For the U.S. alone, that'll probably never happen. But worldwide? Maybe. Though worldwide the price per subscribe will be less, often times substantially less.

On the other hand, SpaceX will have lots of operational discounts because its their own rockets, and they already have all the supply channels for building space tech. And maybe they aren't looking to payback in 10 years for this initial run; maybe they only want to break even so payback in 15 is good enough.

Just some numbers for thought.

P.S. Businesses unlucky enough to be in "rural" areas, aka most commercial business parks outside of tech cities, are in the unfortunate position of paying the local telephone company/AT&T/TimeWarner thousands per month for roughly dial-up speeds. SpaceX could charge the same but offer broadband speeds and get a nice chunk of business, methinks.

<comment><USER33> I doubt that the per/satellite cost would be anywhere close to $80-100 million. I remember hearing that the plan was for these satellites to have significantly less mass than other satellites and therefore, one orbital launch could deliver many satellites. With these satellites orbiting ~30-34x closer to Earth, the satellites would need to have significantly less mass if they were going to not have their orbital distance not degrade too quickly. I don't know what the expected lifespan of these satellites will be, but I assume they will eventually burn up in the atmosphere.

<comment><USER34> Saying their mass needs to be lower to reduce orbit degradation is the opposite of true. Assuming two spheres of equal size, their drag and thus change in momentum will be the same at the same altitude. But if one sphere was made of lead and the other made of styrofoam, the styrofoam one will decelerate much faster than the lead one. So: lighter satellite of the same shape means shorter life span. But drag dies down roughly exponentially in altitude, so if they're at 1000 km, rather than 100km, that's not a super big factor.

<comment><USER35> Well, they would probably have the same density, so they would be smaller. However, you are still right, as drag scales with r^2 but mass with r^3.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Do we have space in orbit for this? This is a lot of satellites and I also don't get how the latency can be so much lower than current satellite ISPs?

<comment><USER37> 1) Space is huge. This is a little like asking if there's enough space left in earths oceans to float a few thousand pingpong balls.

2) Present internet satellites are all in mostly geostationary orbits that are much further away then the proposed leo's. Realistically the ones we have now introduce a whopping 650ms. This will be a huge improvement.

<comment><USER22> > This is a little like asking if there's enough space left in earths oceans > to float a few thousand pingpong balls.

I'd be pretty nervous about throing 10k pingpong balls into the atlantic IF the collision of two pingpong balls was disastrous :)

Obviously these satellites will be carefully placed NOT to collied - but the effect of a collision is pretty bad. The problem is that any one of them might collide with some tiny piece of junk, turning it 1000 pieces of junk (which is now 1000x more likely to collide with something, and impossible to control). These satellites won't tip the scales, but it's a nightmare scenario that comes ever closer with every satellite launched.

<comment><USER38> Remember that space is 3d. Not only do you have the surface area of the entire earth + the area from where LEO starts. You can then stack layers on top of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Ugh. Are they really talking about Latency, or are the numbers they cite actually RTT? And are the numbers the loop latency, or end-to-end latency to some destination on the public network such as 220.127.116.11?

For comparison my CableCo connection in the left-middle of America achieves a loop RTT of about 10ms (5ms Latency), and an RTT to 18.104.22.168 of 25ms (12.5ms Latency).

<comment><USER40> 1,110km ~= 4ms each way so 8ms from ground to satellite to ground but that only get you to the internet and you need to do that again on the way back so 16ms is the minimum latency possible. However, ~25ms round trips seems possible especially if they have enough ground stations near major interchanges.

PS: Remember, they can put these stations near anything that people want low latency connections to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Neat, TeleDesic[1] V2.0 (or is it 3.0?) :). That effort stalled when single stage to orbit rockets became impractical due to insufficent launch demand when Regan's StarWars program was cancelled.

With a fast turn around re-usable F9 booster (so its relaunch costs are significantly less than launching a new one) Musk would have control over his destiny in this case. When Iridium was being built the whole ground station thing (up/down links into the switched telephone network) was nearly a decade slog of permission, licenses, and regulations.

That said, if he is successful he will suck a lot of money out of wallets that belong to some pretty big fat cats companies. And if he made every ground station a Tor exit node it would really mess with the powers that be.

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

<comment><USER42> > it would really mess with the powers that be

I'm fairly surprised the US government is a-ok with all of this, or maybe they've already sat down and had a chit chat with Mr Musk. Or, if everyone moves to SpaceX internet service does it make no difference whatsoever to the NSA?

<comment><USER43> The NSA will probably monitor the lines going from SpaceX ground stations to what ever Tier 1 ISP they are peering with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> I thought the limiting factor for a satellite ISP was power on the satellite side as much as latency?

<comment><USER45> I'm not an electrical or signals engineer, but IIUC the low orbits would also help there, since shorter distances mean much less power requirements for transmission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Get it up there, and you will have Australia as a client. We have made a mess of the national broadband network rollout, and this might be going live before the NBN rollout is complete. Probably faster, cheaper, and with reliability still to be seen.

</comment><comment><USER47> Oh how I wish I could buy SpaceX stock...

<comment><USER48> I'm seriously considering getting a job there someday for this this reason. (but mostly because Mars)

<comment><USER47> I once got a recruiting email from them, but when I looked later the guy was in prison. He was the "Silk Road 2" guy. So now I don't have any contacts there :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Do this means that it'll be possible to play with folks from another continent with a good latency?

<comment><USER50> Not really, you still are limited to speed of light – so > ~100 ms roundtrips for half of the globe.

<comment><USER49> Sad.. Let's hope for breakthroughs on quantum entanglement research then

<comment><USER51> Quantum entanglement cannot be used for classical communications:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12548175#12548733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12548175#12548733)

"Basic principle is that while measurements between both sides will be correlated, it's not possible to tell how they are correlated until both sides compare measurements."

[https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/203831/ftl- commu...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/203831/ftl- communication-with-quantum-entanglement/203893#203893)

<comment><USER20> Let's hope for "dig a really big hole through the center of the earth" research then?

:)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> So Musk wants to be the Internet, too. I, for one, welcome that.

</comment><comment><USER53> Please call it Skynet. :)

</comment><comment><USER54> Do the same thing on Mars. Then get self-driving space internet machines that transfer internet from here to Mars. They always position themselves to be between here and Mars for best RTT. Thank me later, humanity.

And yeah, I know latency would be between 6 and ~45 minutes.

<comment><USER55> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Internet)

[https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-taking- first-...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-taking-first-steps- toward-high-speed-space-internet)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Compared to my connection Webpass with sub-1ms latencies this seems like ages. But of course not the same can be said about majority of ISPs so this is a big win.

<comment><USER57> Yeah my current options are Verizon DSL(1.5Mbps) or Comcast. During non peak hours, I can normally hit 200Mmb download/upload, but during peak hours I'm lucky to be able to stream a song or video without it lagging. I'm about 5 homes away from getting FIOS, and they recently started expanding in my area after years of zero growth, so I'm hoping I can get a single competitor to Comcast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I was able to pay $20/mo for each month remaining on my contract to end service and start a new contract as a new customer when moving form 50/50 to 150/150.</comment>


Text Classification – Classifying Product Titles Using CNN and Word2Vec - <AUTHOR> https://rajmak.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/text-classification-classifying-product-titles-using-convolutional-neural-network-and-word2vec-embedding/ <comment><USER2> I would like to see it compared to a more boring model. For instance, if you use plain words as features and something like logistic regression it will very quickly get the point that something that has the word "Nikon" and "Camera" and "Coolpix" in the title is a cemra (or a camera accessory.)</comment>


Syntax Highlighted Diffs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1932-syntax-highlighted-diffs <comment><USER2> Interesting change.

It certainly makes some diffs more readable, but in some situations it makes them less readable.</comment>


JPMorgan Chase's Exciting Site Redesign – Learning the Lessons of Mobile - <AUTHOR> http://mobile1st.com/jpmorgan-chases-exciting-site-redesign-learning-the-lessons-of-mobile/

<comment><USER2> Finally!</comment>


Luhn Algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm <comment><USER2> Found out about this as a problem on exercism.io on the Go track.

Given credit cards are limited to 16 digits, could resorting to this algorithm limit the total number of credit cards in a manner similar to unique IPs eventually "running out"? If so, is there a solution in place to deal with this inevitability, even if it's far away?</comment>


On the absurd advertisements for "Windows 7 parties" - <AUTHOR> http://log.valhallaisland.com/post/194962900

<comment><USER2> These parties seem ripe for subversion...

"I went to a Windows 7 launch party and the host kept going on about how great Windows 7 is. About 30 minutes in, he started showing videos of Furry porn and his wife came in wearing a rabbit suit with the crotch cut out of it. I don't know what MSFT is trying to tell us, but I'm a little creeped out."</comment>


IndieGoGo down following Bailout Greece campaign - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/

<comment><USER2> The campaign itself is still down: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek- bailout-fund](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/greek-bailout-fund)

it's redirecting to [https://s3.amazonaws.com/igg- errorpage/greece_message.html](https://s3.amazonaws.com/igg- errorpage/greece_message.html)

This is what I see in case the page goes down from Amazon: [http://clicky.strapr.com/image/2d3F0d0T0B0a](http://clicky.strapr.com/image/2d3F0d0T0B0a)

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice, "Error 503 backend read error". Before it went down I managed to get a €5 promise in edgeways :)

</comment><comment><USER4> ...after coverage on major European press :)

</comment><comment><USER5> And its back up.

</comment><comment><USER6> Yay I helped!</comment>


Why Slack's CEO says he's not worried about Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://www.protocol.com/slack-ceo-redesign-microsoft-competition <comment><USER2> I have been using using Zoom and Slack for over 5 years or so and it is astonishing to me that companies like Microsoft cannot copy their UX at some level at least. I had my first interaction last week with Microsoft Teams and it was dreadful. The registration and sign up is an act of frustration and beyond friction compared to modern apps like Slack and Zoom. I would fire the IT team that picked those products.

If I was Microsoft I would invest in UX. But maybe their customers don't care about frustration and there is selection bias there.</comment>


Backdoored Linux Mint, and the Perils of Checksums - <AUTHOR> https://micahflee.com/2016/02/backdoored-linux-mint-and-the-perils-of-checksums/ <comment><USER2> Article says it's not difficult to make a backdoored ISO with the same MD5 checksum as the valid ISO. I'd pay $1000 to see it.</comment>


Science 2.0: The community for the advancement of science - cool-RR http://www.science2point0.com

<comment> cool-RR This was started by a friend of mine. It's really young, but it seems like an interesting venture.

The more informative "about" page: <http://www.science2point0.com/about>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Science and code writers. The perfect combination.</comment>


Europe's Web Of Debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/02/weekinreview/02marsh.html?src=ISMR_AP_LI_LST_FB

<comment><USER2> The diagram, as others have said, is old, here is probably the most updated version:

[http://www.thepeakeffect.com/2011/09/europes-web-of-debt- upd...](http://www.thepeakeffect.com/2011/09/europes-web-of-debt-update.html)

no mention of sources though.

<comment><USER3> I believe the graphic you link comes from here:

<http://www.eudebtwriteoff.com/>

That is a site put up by one of the authors of a report exploring the idea that the PIIGS should write off their mutual net balance debt: if I owe you $10, and you owe me $2, then we strike the $2, and I owe you $8 while you owe me $0, reducing loss by friction. That report (pdf) is linked from the site.

I found that site by searching for the filename of the image (EURBEF.png), and looking for a post or article that uses it and cites its source. This is one such post:

[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/european-sovereign-debt- cant-w...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/european-sovereign-debt-cant-we-all- just-net-along)

<comment><USER4> This is shocking. A simple, error-proof, accounting move with zero side effects... What are we waiting to do this?

<comment><USER3> Some people make money from friction.

<comment><USER2> It's way more complex than that. The debt includes private and public institutions, and countries from outside Europe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For me, the most shocking thing in the web is that Ireland and its banks owe $867 billion. That's approximately $188,000 for every man, woman, and child in Ireland.

<comment><USER6> Ireland has (or had?) a pretty good economy too with well paying aerospace and other tech industry jobs.

<comment> barry-cotter Not that many although the tech industry doesn't seem to be going anywhere thank fate. Still, it's not like those jobs are even theoretically available to more than maybe a quarter of the population. One thing that surprised me when I read it[0] was the huge difference in profitability of domestic and multinational firms in Ireland per employee in the same sector. Twice as productive, _twice_.

[0][http://www.gillmacmillan.ie/economics/economics/economy- of-i...](http://www.gillmacmillan.ie/economics/economics/economy-of- ireland-11th-edition)

<comment><USER7> This is largely a product of booking European profits through Irish subsidiaries. (Irishman myself, FWIW.)

<comment><USER6> Google's European head office in Ireland would be a great example of that, as well as the shell office in The Netherlands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This diagram is 1.5 years old (May 2010). How much has changed since then?

<comment><USER8> I can't find that article anymore but a few days ago I read an article showing that since August, French banks have largely reduced their exposure to other European countries' debt. By largely I'm speaking of figures ranging from 40% to 80%, depending on the Bank.

What was more disturbing in that article is that it clearly shows that the activity of those banks is still very sane and that they made profits and all indicators are green even through the last few months. In other words, besides market speculation, nothing justifies the 20% drop of the CAC40 or 50% drop for certain groups (Carrefour is now worth less on the market than their assets).

I'll reach back when I find the article.

Edit: I believe it's this article, but it's now behind a paywall:

      http://lecrible.lesechos.fr/?Assurance-vie-transparence-et

<comment><USER9> "Carrefous is now worth less on the market than their assets"

Maybe equity value drop is predicting a drop in asset value?

<comment><USER8> I'd say that their assets in China only are worth more than this. Carrefour has literally withdrawn from Thailand (they had a large and well placed fleet of shops and a good reputation) to invest everything in China. They had long been in China before that but that's just to give an idea of how seriously they take the Chinese market. Their strategy is to be fully implemented throughout the country when the middle class fully emerges. If such a middle class ever emerges, they will be terribly wealthy.

<comment><USER10> Which is why Walmart et al. are _desperately_ trying to build brandshare there. They don't want to be left out of the China frenzy and "stuck" with the reliable old US embarrassment of riches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What countries are running surpluses?

<comment><USER12> Switzerland. It also introduced a "debt brake" in 2003 [1].

Seeing where we stand now this was quite a visionary step. Switzerland paid for it with slower growth etc. but is now one of the countries with the healthiest Budget (a feat especially considering Switzerland does not have any natural resources) and one of the few (besides Singapore and Norway I think) that is not in danger of losing its Triple-A ratings.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_budget_amendment#Switz...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_budget_amendment#Switzerland)

<comment> enjoy-your-stay Unfortunately Switzerland didn't manage to dodge the bullet entirely.

Many people saw the Swiss Franc as a safe haven currency and massively bought them up, driving up the exchange rate. This caused Switzerland's exports to become uncompetitive which is also slowing what is a very export driven economy.

Oddly enough prices haven't really come down domestically either, but neither has unemployment risen that much (despite large layoffs in the financial services sector, particularly in their biggest banks, UBS and Credit Suisse).

<comment><USER13> Yes, in September this year the Swiss bank took the almost unprecedented step of announcing it would print currency at 'any amount' in order to maintain something like 1.2 with the Euro. Having a huge volume of money seeking safe haven in Swiss Francs has all sorts of destabilizing effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sadly most edges seem to be rather one-way - otherwise it might have been a fun exercise to cancel everything out.

<comment><USER15> Given that it's not entirely one-way why can't it be partially cancelled out? Sure it wouldn't go the distance but why is that step not made?

<comment><USER16> The debts are probably government bonds with different maturities and interest payments being held by different banks.

I'm not sure where the information from this diagram comes from because I didn't think a banks exposure to different countries was public knowledge.

<comment><USER17> That data was released as part of the European bank stability tests. You can get the spreadsheets here [http://www.eba.europa.eu/EU-wide-stress- testing/2011/2011-EU...](http://www.eba.europa.eu/EU-wide-stress- testing/2011/2011-EU-wide-stress-test-results.aspx)

Historically it was not available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It would be interesting to see the per-capita debt additionally to the total debt.

<comment><USER19> per-capita debt as a fraction of per-capita income or possessions would be more interesting; a millionnaire or someone with a solid 200K income with a 100k mortgage is not a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The source is from Bank for International Settlements, which has a nice interactive web app for doing your own analysis. <http://stats.bis.org/> The data in this table is almost a year and a half old.

</comment><comment><USER21> Be a lot better if Germany, France, and the US were on there. You'd see how tiny Greece is in the big picture. A lot of people are going to get hurt just to teach a few Greeks a lesson.

<comment><USER22> It's gotten bigger than Greece... if the recovery was intact it would just be the weak countries like Greece that couldn't pay their debts, if the economy dips then the big countries like Spain and Italy can't either. It turns into a death spiral, the more people panic over the crisis, the worse the economy gets, the more countries are at risk of default.

Meanwhile, German economic policy essentially consists of:

      1) Tight fiscal policy to crush any signs of a recovery.

      2) Tight monetary policy to crush any signs of recovery.

      3) Tie yourself to some profligate countries so that you have a cheap exchange rate
       and can sell s***loads of exports.

      4) When the countries you provided vendor finance to start having trouble paying
      you back insist that they follow 1) and 2).

      5) Wonder why everyone hates you.

      ..."It's a pulley system - you throw everyone over the cliff and let the rope
      take you higher. But eventually you reach the pulley."

[http://macro-man.blogspot.com/2011/11/raising-dead-and- axis-...](http://macro-man.blogspot.com/2011/11/raising-dead-and-axis-of- evil.html)

reminds me of Air France 447, the people running the show initially reacted by pushing the stick in the wrong direction, they're still way behind the curve, by the time they react with sufficient force, might be too late, crash of markets, governments defaulting, countries abandoning the Euro.

<comment><USER23> For one I believe that Germans know what they're doing. They might be a little bit too bent on saving Framany's banks - however if these banks drop then Framany drops. If that happens Eurozone has no steering wheel and no engine to get anywhere.

So in fact it is essential that in eurozone:

1\. Germany and France be saved from the worst. 2\. Germany and France beat the other juvenile countries into fiscal submission. 3\. The new "germanized" europe lifts itself out of ash.

Whatever people think, the whole point of eurozone is "germanization" of Europe. It's not as some people state that Germany is trying to occupy the Europe. The fact is that Europe wants to occupy Germany. Thats the whole point, the whole Europe and its citizenry would like to live in Germany.

And Germans know full well what they're doing - I'd even dare to say that they know what they're doing even better than 'mericans. Don't forget that Germany annexed DDR 20 years ago and that DDR was in much worse shape than any of PIIGS. Alo Angela Merkl along with many people in charge, grew up in DDR.

<comment><USER24> _Thats the whole point, the whole Europe and its citizenry would like to live in Germany._

That's nonsense. The German welfare and pension system is really bad compared to e.g. The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries (which are doing fine economically, by the way). Besides that, Germany doesn't even have a minimum wage.

To us, Germany means: potentially bad income when you work (no minimum wage), bad income (Harz IV) when you are long-time unemployed, and bad income when you retire (compared to e.g. The Netherlands where you do not only get whatever private pension you build up, but also a decent state pension).

Citizens of EU states are free to move to and work in other EU states. So, if your point were true, we'd see lots of immigration to Germany. Which isn't the case.

<comment><USER23> I guess I went wrong when I said Europe instead of European periphery (East and Mediterran, or he so called New Europe). Since the France, Benelux, North and Germanic states (the Old Europe) already share much more of the same values and outlooks towards business and civic responsibilities.

And I didn't mean that these peripheral people are all looking to move to Germany and eat Bratwurst and drink Beer, while reciting Goethe and enjoying Shit German Welfare. By the way, calling German welfare bad is absurd and completely a matter of political and personal convictions. Some of our US friends here would call German welfare socialistic and dangerous (?).

There are also other reasons why people don't emigrate - language and cultural barrier is key here. Romanians and Bulgars are migrating to Italy, due to language and cultural similarities. Polish are migrating to UK - since new generations apparently speak better English than German, etc. If more people spoke German, then you would see much more emigration to Germany, hell you don't even need to migrate for the most part. Being able to get business connection with Germany going on a personal level is more than enough for one to get going.

What I mean is that New Europe would want more of Germany (or Old Europe) in their own countries. And by that I mean an judicial systems that work. Government that actually offers some services beyond employment for the unemployable and privileged. And system where hard working people are protected from scores of predators. This is the gist of problems that Europe is facing currently. As far as Greece, Italy and Spain goes - its not the same as the CDS crisis in US. The problems that led to current state of affairs have been well know for a long time, but have not been acted upon due to ignorance and systemic corruption on the part of these weak countries.

<comment><USER25> People from outside europe (which I suspect you are) have this annoying tendency to over simplify things. You can't neatly split europe into "new" and "old". Also, check your dates: what you're calling "new europe" actually joined a decade before the scandinavian countries.

I'm sorry, but you sound like all you know about europe is what's been airing in the news for the last year. You call the spanish economy "weak", when in fact it's the 5th largest. Italy is the 4th.

Please check your facts. A few good comments about the judicial systems aren't enough to offset having an argument that stands entirely on stereotype and pulp news.

<comment><USER23> I am from Europe (Slovenia) and between me and my milieu we have put our feet on all of European countries.

My division is not geopolitical, it is more of an cultural division. Protestant vs Catholic would be a starting point of two bigger blocks.

I haven't called Italy and Spain economically weak. However they are weak as far as civic virtues go, work and business ethics also leave a lot to be desired. When confronted with these issues people usually go and play the "meiterranean melos" card. When in reality these countries are likely just failing to cultivate a sense of personal responsibility in the citizenry and institutions.

<comment><USER26> You'd perfectly call, at least Spain's, economy weak as it is not growing because a correction period. Spain had to reform its subsidized industries, a considerable mass of low specialized workforce and a sub par infrastructure network in the 80s. It has succeed in most of them, but the welfare state has been paid taxing a housing bubble which has popped. So although it has stopped growing, in volume it's strong, and its past performance has been quite good considering where it started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The more I read and hear about the debt problems of the Eurozone, I wonder how France and Germany ever got duped into joining in the first place.

<comment><USER28> They didn't join anything. They created it to extend their markets with a common currency. The others joined in.

<comment><USER29> Well, it wasn't Germany and France alone who created the Euro zone...

<comment><USER29> Oh, wow, I got quite a bit of downvotes for simply stating a fact: the Eurozone has been around since 1999, and 11 states of the EU were founding members. Germany and France were among them, sure enough, but they weren's the only ones.

<comment><USER30> Don't be naive. Without either of them actively promoting and wanting it, there wouldn't have been a Eurozone. Any other country could have dropped out, but neither of these.

<comment><USER29> Not sure were you get any naivite from my post. It's not like Germany and France decided to create a new currency and a few bystanders hopped on board. It was a very complicated and long process, and yes, the German reunification was at the heart of it, 10 years before the Eurozone actually came into existence. Even the US and Russia played key roles in the process.

I do get where you're coming from though, since Germany and France have been the motors of the EU's economy. Fair enough.

But the original claim from the ancestor was that Germany and France created the Eurozone and others joined later. That's simply factually untrue.

Anyway...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Innovation Impacts on the C-Suite - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@czbond/innovation-impacts-on-c-suite-leaders-roles-responsibilities-and-careers-2f7e2a66afc8

<comment><USER2> Don't agree.

\- CEO - analysis wrong, see [http://www.forbes.com/sites/christianstadler/2015/03/12/how-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/christianstadler/2015/03/12/how- to-become-a-ceo-these-are-the-steps-you-should-take/)

\- CFO - the analysis is confusing accounting with corporate finance.

\- CMO - role depends on industry and B2C vs B2B. For strong brands, CMO (if exists) is almost as strong as CEO. Otherwise this could be a strong sales role - and never try to mess with the guys who bring in the money.

\- CIO vs. CTO - not all all tech business is IT, think aircrafts and power plants. Mobile networks are now mainly IP, but there is still radio transmission (CTO) vs. protection of credit card number (CIO)

\- CSO (Strategy) - will more likely move on to CE, see [https://hbr.org/2015/06/the-c-suite-needs-a-chief- entreprene...](https://hbr.org/2015/06/the-c-suite-needs-a-chief-entrepreneur) and [https://medium.com/@AlexFranzAT/fire-your-ceo-and-hire-a- chi...](https://medium.com/@AlexFranzAT/fire-your-ceo-and-hire-a-chief- entrepreneurship-officer-instead-ba440d3390b9)

\- COO - role is actually undefined. It's a running mate for the CEO and complements whatever the CEO lacks

\- CISO - confusing role, and introduced as band aid, not because there is a real need for a C-role. Frequently either reporting to the CIO (so not really C-level), or a different name for CIO (if CTO take care of all other digital stuff)

\- CSO (Sales) - whether this is the same as CMO depends on the type of business. If there is a separate role, this person is most likely managing sales representatives and stores. So really no change.</comment>


Civilization: Beyond Earth, Much Slower on Linux? - <AUTHOR> http://boilingsteam.com/civilization-beyond-earth-much-slower-on-linux../

<comment><USER2> The title made me think that humanity's conquest of space would be slowed down by Linux :-)

It's just a video game benchmark ...</comment>