Rust 1.46 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/08/27/Rust-1.46.0.html <comment><USER3> The most exciting component of this release is the const fn improvements. With loops and if available, you can now do non-trivial computation in const fn for the first time. It reduces the gap between Rust's const fn and C++'s constexpr to a large degree. Ultimately, the miri execution engine that this feature builds upon, supports a much larger set of features that even constexpr supports. It's been a project spanning years to get it merged into the compiler, used for const fn evaluation, and stabilize it's features (this part is far from over).

In addition to the linked examples, I have some code of my own which is made simpler due to this feature: [https://github.com/RustAudio/ogg/commit/b79d65dced32342a5f93...](https://github.com/RustAudio/ogg/commit/b79d65dced32342a5f9313960856114d88d50f4a)

Previously, the table was present as an array literal in C-style, now I can remove it once I decide for the library to require the 1.46 compiler or later versions.

Link to the old/current generation code: [https://github.com/RustAudio/ogg/blob/master/examples/crc32-...](https://github.com/RustAudio/ogg/blob/master/examples/crc32-table- generate.rs)

<comment><USER4> I wonder why && and || are not allowed in const functions?

> All boolean operators except for && and || which are banned since they are > short-circuiting.

I guess I'm missing something obvious but why does the short circuiting break const-ness?

<comment><USER5> Short circuiting introduces conditional branching. If you call a function on the right hand side of a || or && it might or might not be executed depending on the value of the left hand side.

Until this version of rust, all conditional branches were banned from const functions.

I guess to keep things simple they just banned any feature that might cause branching.

<comment><USER4> Ahh that makes a lot of sense, if you're going to have a compiler insert the result of a function having conditional branching seems a bit gnarly I guess?

<comment><USER6> For the history of this feature request, see [https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/issues/29608](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/issues/29608) as a starting point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm learning rust right now and there is a lot to like. Steady updates like this are also very motivating. The ecosystem feels very sane - <USER2> compared to npm. Top notch Wasm support, cross compiling is a breeze.

That said, coming from a FP background (mostly Haskell/JS, now TS) Rust is... hard. I do understand the basic rules of the borrow checker, I do conceptually understand lifetimes, but actually using them is tricky.

Especially in a combinator world with lots of higher order functions/closures it's often completely unclear who should own what. It often feels my library/dsl code needs to make ownerships decisions that actually depend on the usage.

Anyways, I guess this gets easier over time, right? Should I avoid using closures all over the place? Should my code look more like C and less like Haskell?

 _[edit] great answers all, providing useful context, thanks_

<comment><USER8> > _the borrow checker, I do conceptually understand lifetimes, but actually > using them is tricky._

I've been using Rust for a little over year, almost daily at work, and for several projects. I have a pretty good intuition about how the borrow checker works and what needs to be done to appease it. That said, I don't think I'm any closer to understanding lifetimes. I know conceptually how they are supposed to work (I need the reference to X to last as long as Y), but anytime I think I have a situation that could be made better with lifetimes, I can't seem to get the compiler to understand what I'm trying to do. On top of that very little of my code, and the code I read actually uses lifetimes.

<comment><USER9> I've been writing Rust code since before the 1.0 days, and I still can't understand lifetimes in practice.

When the compiler starts complaining about lifetimes issues, I tend to make everything clone()able (either using Rc, or Arc, or Arc+Mutex, or full clones).

Because if you start introducing explicit lifetimes somewhere, these changes are going to cascade, and tons of annotations will need to be added to everything using these types, and their dependent types.

<comment><USER10> I think you're really intended to do the latter rather than the former. I mean, Rust lets you do either–it gives you the choice if performance isn't your concern–but usually it's better to not clone everything.

<comment><USER11> Nah, either is fine. Rust gives you the tools to do both for good reason. Which is right for you completely depends.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So, I want to learn Rust. I am a C# / Python programmer, experienced.

Are there any particular set of problems that I can solve systematically, so that I can learn all the features of Rust?

<comment><USER13> I am in similar boat. Python centric data scientist. Very tempted to try to learn Rust so I can accelerate certain ETL tasks.

Question for Rust experts: On what ETL tasks would you expect Rust to outperform Numpy, Numba, and Cython? What are the characteristics of a workload that sees order-of-magnitude speed ups from switching to Rust?

<comment><USER14> I'm far from an expert, but I would not expect hand-written Rust code to outperform Numpy. Not because it's Rust and Numpy is written in C, but because Numpy has been deeply optimized over many years by many people and your custom code would not have been. When it comes to performance Rust is generally comparable to C++, as a baseline. It's not going to give you some dramatic advantage that offsets the code-maturity factor.

Now, if you're doing lots of computation _in Python itself_ \- not within the confines of Numpy - that's where you might see a significant speed boost. Again, I don't know precisely how Rust and Cython would compare, but I would very much expect Rust to be significantly faster, just as I would very much expect C++ to be significantly faster.

<comment><USER13> I deal with a lot of ragged data that is hard to vectorize, and currently write cython kernels when the inner loops take too long. Sounds like Rust might be faster than cython? Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER15> Also it might take 20x less RAM compared to using Python objects like sets and dicts. In Rust there's no garbage collection, and you can lay out memory by hand exactly as you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If anyone wants to know more about const fns, see [https://doc.rust- lang.org/reference/items/functions.html#con...](https://doc.rust- lang.org/reference/items/functions.html#const-functions)

It is the Rust way of specifying a function as being _pure_. In other words the output is dependent only on the function arguments, and not on any external state.

This means they can be evaluated at compile time. I suppose in the future, it could also allow better compiler optimizations.

<comment><USER17> Never worked with Rust, but I am pretty sure that having a function be pure is not enough to evaluate it at compile time.

<comment><USER18> Why not? By definition the output does not depend on runtime property so you should be able to compute it at compile time right?

<comment><USER19> Pure functions are functions where the return value only depends on the function arguments. If the function arguments are not known at compile time, obviously you can't evaluate it at compile time. It would only be possible to do that when all the arguments are also known at compile time (constants).

<comment><USER20> But a const fn can also do that: if given non-constant parameters it will be evaluated at run-time. So I (having never used Rust before) still haven't see the distinction between pure and const. What's an example of a function that is pure but cannot be evaluated at compile time with constant parameters?

<comment><USER19> The parent didn't specify calling with constant parameters, which makes a huge difference. To answer your question, basically anything the compiler doesn't know how to evaluate - which has been expanded in this release, but does not include everything still.

<comment><USER20> Looks like we have some terminology confusion. I read mijamo's question as being about the theoretical ability to evaluate at compile time (the value is knowable) not whether the compiler does do it, and that's what I meant in my comment too.

If you say that 'pure' functions are not compile-time-evaluatable because they may be given parameters that are not known at compile time, then you must also say that const fns are not compile-time-evaluatable. I think it's also clear that we mean for const fns to count, so the assumption that the parameters are known at compile time was implicit in the question.

Under those two assumptions: are pure functions evaluatable (in theory) at compile-time (on values known at compile time)? As far as I can think, the answer is yes? In which case, I'm not entirely sure what the distinction between 'pure' and 'cosnt fn' is supposed to be except to separate out the part of 'pure' functions that can are evaluated _in practice_. Is there anything more to it?

<comment><USER19> I think that's it in a nutshell. You can't evaluate everything at compile time, even when you could theoretically. So you need some way to mark the subset of pure functions that can be evaluated at compile time, which is what const fn does. That way if a const fn only calls other const functions you know you can evaluate it. It's a convenient way of tagging functions.

<comment><USER16> That's what I thought I said in the original comment. I wonder what people disliked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Glad to see `Option::zip` stabilized. I tend to write such a helper in many of my projects to collect optional variables together when they're coupled. Really improves the ergonomics doing more railroad-style programming.

<comment><USER22> Do you have an example? I'm having trouble understanding how zip would be used in practice.

<comment><USER23> You sometimes have two Options that must both be Some to have any effect, but other reasons prevent you from making an Option of a tuple of those two fields. Eg think of deserializing a JSON that contains optional username and password strings, but you need both if you are to use them to authenticate to some remote.

In that case, you currently have to write code like:

        if let (Some(username), Some(password)) = (username, password) {
            /* both are set */
        }
        else {
            /* at least one is not set */
        }

With zip this can be written as `if let Some((username, password)) = username.zip(password) {` In this case it doesn't look like a big difference, but it does allow you to chain other Option combinators more easily if you were doing that instead of writing if-let / match. Using combinators is the "railroad-style programming" that kevinastone was talking about. For example, you can more easily write:

        let (username, password) = username.zip(password).ok_or("one or more required parameters is missing")?;

You could of course still do this without .zip(), but it would be clunkier:

        let (username, password) = username.and_then(|username| password.map(|password| (username, password))).ok_or("one or more required parameters is missing")?;

The zip form does lose the information of which of the two original Options was None, so if you do need that information (say the error message needs to specify which parameter is missing) you'd still use the non-zip form with a match.

<comment><USER24> The zip solution however requires any reviewer to look up on what it actually does, whereas the "if let" is more of a language fundamental and known to most reviewers.

Therefore I would actually prefer the long/verbose form without the zip.

<comment><USER25> It's just the opposite. zip is a normal function written in normal code, so if the reviewer doesn't know what it does then they can just click through to the definition in their IDE. Whereas "if let" is some kind of special language construct that a reviewer has to look up through some special alternative channel if they don't understand it.

<comment><USER24> If I'm doing a code review I don't have an idea. I only see text (yeah - limitation of the tooling, but reality). I can search for the functions, but it's a hassle and I want to limit having to do it to as much as possible. It's even not super easy in Rust, since some functions are defined on (extension) traits and you don't exactly know where to search for them if you don't have the IDE support and are not already an expert.

"if let" is certainly a special construct - but it's also one that Rust authors and reviewers will typically encounter rather fast since a lot of error handling and Option unwrapping uses it. Knowing the majority of library functions will imho take longer.

<comment><USER25> Understanding - or looking up - library functions is something you're always going to have to do during code review (it's well worth getting IDE integration set up). zip is a very standard and well-known function (I used it yesterday, in a non-Rust codebase); it may well end up being better-known than "if let". Learning what a library function does is certainly never harder than learning what a keyword does and it's often easier (apart from anything else, you know that a library function follows the normal rules for functions, so if you can see how its output is used then you can often tell what it does. Whereas you can't rely on that kind of reasoning with language keywords).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The quality of life improvements to cargo look very nice, and I feel that rust wouldn't be remotely as successful without such a tool. I'm very glad I won't have to be manually picking target directories out of my borg backups anymore when I'm running out of disk space.

</comment><comment><USER27> These const fn's are cool, but won't this also lead to long compile times down the road?

<comment><USER11> Yes, any time you move computation to compile time, it makes the compile time take longer. As always it is a tradeoff.

One thing that people may not realize, especially now that we have loop. You may expect this to hang the compiler:

        const fn forever() -> ! {
            loop {

            }
        }

        static FOO: u32 = forever();

But it won't:

        error[E0080]: could not evaluate static initializer
         --> src/lib.rs:2:5
          |
        2 | /     loop {
        3 | |
        4 | |     }
          | |     ^
          | |     |
          | |_____exceeded interpreter step limit (see `#[const_eval_limit]`)
          |       inside `forever` at src/lib.rs:2:5

This does place an upper limit on any given const fn.

<comment><USER27> That's fantastic!

That could be a real hard-to-source build stall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Awesome! Any idea when relative links will be available in rustdoc? Seems like it's just on the edge of stabilizing ([https://github.com/rust- lang/rust/pull/74430](https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/pull/74430)) but I'm curious how long it takes to see in a release after this happens.

<comment><USER11> There can be fuzziness here depending on exactly when it lands, but generally, if something lands in nightly, it'll be in stable two releases after the current stable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > if, if let, and match

> while, while let, and loop

> the && and || operators

Common Lisp user here. Why just that? How come you can't have the entire language as well as all your language customizations available at compile time for evaluation?

<comment><USER30> You can! Just not through `const fn`. Rust has macros, which at their limit are capable of running arbitrary Rust code that manipulates syntax and communicates with the compilation process, just like in a good old Lisp.

Why isn't `const fn` like this too? One word answer: determinism. Rust takes type/memory/access/temporal safety very seriously, and consequentially you can't use anything in a `const fn` that isn't fully deterministic and doesn't depend in any way on platform-specific behavior. This includes, for example, any floating-point computation, or any random number generation, or any form of I/O, or handling file paths in an OS-specific way, or certain kinds of memory allocation. The span of things possible in `const fn`s has been expanding over time, and will in the nearish future largely overtake C++'s direct counterpart of it (`constexpr` functions) in capability. But some things will intentionally never be possible in `const fn`s, for the reasons given above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is there a resource that explains what const functions are and why you would use them?

<comment><USER11> [https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-next/const- fn.h...](https://doc.rust-lang.org/edition-guide/rust-next/const-fn.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Can Mozilla layoffs (on Servo team) impact Rust future? It is just s question to understand if there are others big rust project healty out of there. Just curious

<comment><USER11> [https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/08/18/laying-the- foundation-...](https://blog.rust-lang.org/2020/08/18/laying-the-foundation- for-rusts-future.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> `const fn` improvements are amazing!

I can't wait for when we'll be able to `const fn` all the things. Regex, expensive constants that feel as though they should be literals, etc.</comment>


So how does hacking work anyway? - <AUTHOR>

I am more of a web designer/front-end developer with a little experience in everything else.  However I realize the potential of programming languages but I have never quite figured out or grasped how they go from writing a nice little web app to the drastic other side of breaching a web site, climbing into their databases, hacking their email, etc..  Can someone explain (and I'm sure someone on here can) how it all works?  It seems to be a big secret but I want to know. <comment><USER2> It's not a big secret at all ;)

tptacek has a list of books on Amazon, linked to from his news.yc profile, which cover a wide range of application security topics (<http://amzn.to/cthr46>). I own The Art of Software Security Assessment and The Web Application Hacker's Handbook and I can vouch for them as quality resources, although I'm not sure how accessible they would be for a beginner.

In terms of a more practical introduction, Google Gruyere is an application deliberately built with security vulnerabilities for the purposes of learning (<http://google-gruyere.appspot.com/>). There are plenty of other projects along those lines: WebGoat is another good example.

<comment><AUTHOR> What languages did you start on?

<comment><USER2> PHP was my very first language, which in hindsight was probably a good choice for a couple reasons:

1\. It's used in a ton of web applications. It's slightly less popular than in the past due to the influx of frameworks like Rails and Django, but a lot of major web software (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, MediaWiki, phpBB) still uses it.

2\. People tend to write very insecure PHP code, especially when they fail to use a framework. Again, this is slightly less true now than it was in the past. However, it's very common to see bad practices like:

\- SQL queries generated via string concatenation

\- Output escaping done manually, on a per-element basis, rather than in an automatic, context-sensitive manner.

\- File upload scripts that let you upload PHP files, or file download scripts that accept a filename but don't sanitize against directory traversal attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> OWASP (such as testing guide) would be a good place to start or simple books such as Innocent Code / Web hacking Exposed. Having prior experience in server-side coding will help massively.

Just like many other professions hacking/breaking is all about practising - you can safely hone your skills on these : [http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20090406/hacking-without-all-the- ja...](http://ha.ckers.org/blog/20090406/hacking-without-all-the-jailtime/)

</comment><comment><USER4> While most popular penetration testing books only scratch the surface of the topic, they are still a good resource for beginners. "Gray Hat Hacking" is on it's 3rd edition and offers of good intro into many tools of the trade. <http://amzn.com/0071742557>

</comment><comment><USER5> Metasploit includes a significant quantity of reference code: <http://www.metasploit.com/></comment>


Google is banning Irish abortion referendum ads ahead of vote - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/09/google-is-banning-irish-abortion-referendum-ads-ahead-of-vote/ <comment><USER2> Irish Times article: [https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/google- abortion-vot...](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/google-abortion- vote-ad-ban-unprecedented-so-why-did-they-do-it-1.3489617)</comment>


Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia? - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randal_L._Schwartz <comment><USER2> Yes. No reasonable person could even contest this. Randal Schwartz has been written about in reliable sources extensively, owing to an incident in which he was convicted for a felony involving breaking into Intel servers.

•••• PEOPLE OF HN: ANYBODY CAN PROPOSE ANY ARTICLE ON WP FOR DELETION. THERE IS NO BAR FOR IT. ••••

If you make comically stupid proposals, like "[Barack Obama] isn't notable and should be deleted", an admin will shut you down. But otherwise, if even an iota of thought is required to make the decision, it will go to AfD and get shouted down.

This AfD is not going close "deleted"; by WP's own rules, it basically can't be deleted. This isn't newsworthy. If we had an HN story any time anyone made a misguided AfD posting, that's all we'd ever talk about here.

Meanwhile, before anyone suggests that they've done the world a favor by directing attention to the AfD: canvassing support for a "keep" vote actually makes the admin's job harder. It muddies the issue. It means that every well- reasoned comment will carry a subtext of "maybe this is a sockpuppeted comment". Not a win.

And: before anyone complains about the damage done to the encyclopedia by the big ugly "this page might get deleted" tag: this article _actually is poorly sourced and needs improvement_. WP's immune response to non-notable articles is going to end up improving this particular article by inciting WP nerds to dredge up the (numerous) news stories that reference him.

 _PS: Not for nothing, but WP's coverage of Randal Schartz is wanting, in that it drastically pares back what is notable about him (his felony hacking conviction) in favor of what he is "locally famous" for (his Perl advocacy). This is a consequence of a very vocal FORS contingent that watches that page._

<comment><USER3> If it drags in my interest I might try to rescue the article tomorrow. The lack of sources at the moment means it runs a reasonable chance of people mindlessly !voting delete.

(but to echo tptacek; if you are going to follow this link and comment on the proposed deletion ''please'' take a moment to review the notability policies and make a sensible, valid argument rather than the "this is ridiculous" sort that has already appeared. If anything, that sort of thing usually goes against the article)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every time I think Wikipedia couldn't slide any further into craziness, I see something like this. Nobody ever seems to step back and ask "what exactly are we accomplishing by campaigning to get content deleted?".

Somewhere between "preventing spam, vandalism, and vanity pages" and "delete everything" there's a line; the exact placement of that line seems non- obvious, but individual cases like this seem incredibly obvious (and spam, vandalism, and vanity pages seem rather obvious as well, so it works in both directions).

<comment><USER2> Respectfully, you don't know what you're talking about. Nothing crazy has happened here. The whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can do stuff like "propose that WP delete a page". Note that the page hasn't been deleted yet.

When Randal Schwartz is actually _deleted_ from Wikipedia, then you have an argument.

<comment><USER5> You do realize that leading off with "Respectfully, you don't know what you are talking about" isn't reducing the image of insularity Wikipedia has acquired? It says "If you don't get up to speed on the obscure processes, such as that anyone can nominate an article for deletion, you can't participate in the dialogue." For some reason, unexplained to outsiders, this is a feature, not a bug. At least recognize that Wikipedia is the odd subculture, not the people critiquing Wikipedia.

<comment><USER2> I felt bad for telling him he didn't know what he's talking about. But the fact is, he doesn't. And however "insular" you think that makes Wikipedia, note than I am not a WP'er. I find WP insular and obnoxious for reasons entirely unrelated to its (I think reasonable) notability guideline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a Web site that thinks it appropriate to offer a synopsis for every episode of Burn Notice. There's a page for each season, plus a page for the show itself.

Why is the inclusion of Randal even an issue?

"Reasons for deletion

...

Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia"

I like Burn Notice, it's fun and entertaining. But does it need to be in an encyclopedia? More so than Randal L Schwartz? Talk about intellectual mob rule[0].

0: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_kahn)

<comment><USER4> I frequently use Wikipedia as a source of information on a TV series, and that includes an episode list and synopses. If people might want to look it up, why should they have to move that content elsewhere to one of the various TV summary sites, most of which suck a lot more than Wikipedia (with the exception of special cases for shows popular enough to have dedicated sites, like Memory Alpha).

<comment><USER6> * I frequently use Wikipedia as a source of information on a TV series, ... *

So do I, and it's quite handy. But if Wikipedia is to be the host for what is, essentially, mass-media trivia, then why would it not also be the host for arguably less mundane content, such as a page on Randal Schwartz. Or me, for that matter?

It just depends on how Wikipedia's owners decide to handle it. But they're currently defining themselves as an encyclopedia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The one takeaway I see from these "Wikipedia article deletion stories" is that as time progresses, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain the notability requirement as society progresses from a smaller number of more authoritative sources to a large number of less authoritative ones.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've just added my "keep" to the discussion. The following is OT, but I'm curious:

Does anyone else find the fact that the Wikipedia talk pages are wiki pages to be about the stupidest thing ever? Wikis are designed for occasional edits, not active discussions. It's very annoying to try to save a comment and find that it is rejected because someone else got an edit in while you were editing.

It seems clear to me that the talk pages should use an HN or Reddit like system, not wiki pages. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER9> Service idea: pan-web Disqus-like discussion widget that works like HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> There would be no wiki without Randal. I learned all I knew about Perl from his book. -- Ward Cunningham

</comment><comment><USER11> One of Randal's additions to the world is the "Schwartzian transform", something I remember using extensively a decade ago when I was doing web programming in Perl:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartzian_transform>

</comment><comment><USER12> It's not worth the time to fight Wikipedia deleting its own content. I've seen more notable pages get deleted by petulant administrators. The bureaucracy of that site stinks more than the US Senate.

</comment><comment><USER13> And the result of the discussion is KEEP, just as it should be.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Randal_L._Schwartz)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion. I did my part (adding a pile of references to places where Randal had been interviewed and presented as a notable authority), and between all our effort, we have a better article than before (hopefully).

Proof that - sometimes - this Wikipedia thing works the way it should. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER14> I recently read the article with interest. Before this HN thread. Is that sufficient?

</comment><comment><USER15> heh. i think this is a generational thing. he was pretty damn central to the early perl culture, but i'm not surprised most people these days haven't heard of him. i guess the question is - to what extent should wikipedia cull entries for people who are no longer as famous as they one were?

to give some idea of relative fame, i'd say he was no less famous in his community that, say, paul buchheit is these days.

[and i'd like to know more details about how the prosecution ended up being expunged - whatever that means. he did time, right?]

<comment><USER16> Notability is not temporary: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Notability...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Notability_is_not_temporary)

<comment><USER17> Although notability is not temporary in theory, Wikipedia has always (and probably always will) suffer from presentism. Things that are important today get a disproportionate amount of attention. It is maybe easier to evaluate something's historical notability with the benefit of hindsight.

That said, I never really understood the effort to purge Wikipedia of vanity pages and the like.

<comment><USER18> > I never really understood the effort to purge Wikipedia of vanity pages and > the like.

Well, think about it this way. I go to Wikipedia, create a page about myself and bits are cheap so nobody cares. There's nothing published about me, so none of the information there is reliable, but nobody's going to read it anyway, so nobody cares. Then I click over to Michael Jackson's page, scroll down to the "cultural influence" section and chime in that...

* [[C Dwyer]] is a big fan of and has been heavily influenced in his daily life by Jackson. He was really sad when Jackson died. [<http://caseysite.com/blog/i-love-mj>]

Bits are cheap right? All the world's information is important. Why should anybody reading about Michael Jackson be deprived of my opinion about him?

Clearly, there's a point where this becomes ridiculous. Notability has to be resolved sooner or later, so why not resolve it from the start? What makes Wikipedia intriguing is that articles can be interlinked to expand on and enhance each other. If an article cannot benefit other articles, much less does more harm than good, why include it?

I'm not a Wikipedia editor nor much of a Wikipedia user and I don't personally care how they conduct their business. If I were in charge of maintaining the integrity of something like Wikipedia, however, let's just say it would focus a whole lot more on quality than quantity than it currently does.

Would I include an article about Randal L. Schwartz in a general purpose encyclopedia? No. Would I include it in an encyclopedia about computer history and computer science? No. An encyclopedia about the history of Perl? Maybe a footnote.

<comment><USER19> If I'm just a footnote in the history of Perl, you're woefully ignorant.

<comment><USER18> Maybe more. I'm certainly no Perl historian. But if I were, and I were writing a book about it, I doubt I would include a lot of biographies.

<comment><USER19> If "author of first book about Perl" doesn't make your book, you're a pretty poor writer.

<comment><USER18> Nothing I said was meant to be taken personally, so please stop with the ad hominems. I apologize if I offended you. I didn't mean to imply that your life and work are not important. I just don't feel like every single biography is worthy of ``the sum of human knowledge'', even if that person's work is. I guess that's not a fashionable opinion to have in the post-Twitter era, especially on a website where people submit their .vimrc files as potential ``hacker news'', but it is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

<comment><USER19> It's not about being taking personally. It's just a fact: I wrote (with Larry Wall) the first book about Perl. And then the second book about Perl, which became the seminal teaching guide. If that doesn't deserve a note in the Perl history, you're confused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As others also stated, I'm not sure why this is even an issue. He was infinitely instrumental in early web culture through his perl work - influencing an entire generation of developers (if only to drive some of them to PHP!) :)

What seems to be missing from Randal's wikipedia page is his karaoke skills. Perhaps those are best left to wikimedia instead.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you look at the discussion you will see that Randal himself has made multiple contributions to the page, which is against Wikipedia's policy, and could be the perceived grounds for deletion.

Aside from that, this is still only a proposal for deletion, like many others have said. I don't think this is any real cause for alarm.

<comment><USER19> Seriously? I've been very very careful to abide by WP:BIO. The only changes I've ever made are to add ISBNs or my photo. I even stay out of the talk page for the most part as well.

I call "troll".

<comment><USER2> I have a problem with you calling people a "troll" when they are merely wrong in the particulars of WP policy. The fact of the matter is that your changes to that page have _not_ been restricted to ISBNs and your repeated photo changes... and that's just the stuff that's in the history of the page with your name on it; it does't account for the advocacy you've made on the Talk page for the removal of the coverage of your felony conviction.

<comment><USER22> Making accusations such as he did without taking the time to verify them may not be purposely trolling, but it does have a very similar negative effect on the quality of the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yes. Over time, if Perl is no longer significant either practically or historically, perhaps his wikipedia entry could be archived as "ancient history", but for the moment it is relevant.

</comment><comment><USER24> the whole "notability" requirement on WP really bothers me; it's not like this is britannica, where there's a limited number of pages to cram all this info into. i'd much rather have a definitive resource, than one that only covered "notable" material.

</comment><comment><USER25> I would be offended, too, but when I went to his page I see no signs it is under threat of deletion. Tempest in a teapot fugit?

</comment><comment><USER26> The real question to ask is why does anyone take wikipedia serious as a source these days? I would trust Schwartz's opinions on Peruvian copper mining, quantum physics, square dancing, or any other subject long before I would trust any article on wikipedia because Schwartz has more credibility.

<comment><USER27> > The real question to ask is why does anyone take wikipedia serious as a > source these days?

Who's saying you should? And what's different about "these days" versus, I don't know, 2005? Feel free to substitute there your favorite year from any point on the timeline of Wikipedia nostalgia.

Edit: Goddamn. I really hate to do it, but challenges, please?

The notion that you can/should/could ever trust Wikipedia is some weird inference that has been tacked on by uninvolved bystanders following Wikipedia's success, and does not originate from within Wikipedia. Wikipedia's stance on the reputability of itself and other tertiary sources is as well documented as the limitations of liability in GNU software.

<comment><USER9> If I understand it correctly (I think Wikipedia is trustworthy therefore I am stupid), I believe this is a fairly minority opinion.

<comment><USER27> What?

<comment><USER9> I think the vast majority of internet and wikipedia users find it to be a credible source.

<comment><USER27> Let's be clear. We are talking about whether one should "take wikipedia serious _as a source_ " (emphasis mine). You invoke "source", too, but I'm unsure if your focus is on how reliably accurate Wikipedia is, or if you really do mean to say what you say.

Even assuming yours is the saner of the two--that your "trustworthy" and "credible" mean to say that Wikipedia is reliably accurate--well, I'll first note that this was not the topic at hand.

Since you've appealed to common opinion twice, can I presume that your own use of Wikipedia is also a typically casual one? That is, that you rarely if ever make a point to verify the claims made in articles by:

i) Cross-checking the cited sources, and/or

ii) Independently verifying things in some other way

If I'm permitted to make that presumption, then for my second point I'll note that _unless you've done these things, the statement that Wikipedia is "trustworthy" and "credible" is a vacuous one_.

I'll also note that I deliberately made a point of saying _who_ 's holding this opinion when I wrote that it's a "weird inference that has been tacked on by uninvolved bystanders following Wikipedia's success, and does not originate from within Wikipedia". There is, I think, a fairly realistic view of Wikipedia within the Wikipedia community, especially from those who were involved early. The "vast majority of the internet and wikipedia users" are not Wikipedia editors.

\--

To revisit the point I made in the edit to my initial reply to bugsy, I'll say that there's a reason every page on Wikipedia links to a page that says the following,[1] the formatting of which I can neither accurately reproduce nor adequately convey here:

> _WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY_

> [...]

> That is not to say that you will not find valuable and accurate information > in Wikipedia; much of the time you will. However, _Wikipedia cannot > guarantee the validity of the information found here_.

(emphasized in the original)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is migration to HTML5 from Flash for videos not yet a reality? - <AUTHOR> One of things that I keep hearing is that Flash has too many vulnerabilities and it's better to move away from it. I see that Flash prominently gets used for video rendering in browsers. I also hear that HTML5 has the necessary support for native video rendering and is an alternative to using Flash.
However, almost all other major websites still use Flash. Youtube does have optional HTML5 support and works fine (for me). But a majority of other prominent websites (twitter for example) still seem to use Flash.
I don't have much knowledge when it comes to video rendering in browsers, but is it that difficult to just switch to HTML5 for video rendering? Are there some technical challenges that this migration is delayed? Personally I haven't used Flash, in browser, for anything other than basic video playing abilities (play, pause, stop, change volume), so I would expect it wouldn't be much of a ask for HTML5 to support this. <comment><USER2> \- cost of replacing flash with HTML 5 video player, requires testing, and a developer to provide

\- DRM

\- requires messaging current users about the change, providing fallback in case of non compatibility, user-support and tracking of failure

The current website works well enough with flash, and using flash does not impact traffic ( most of desktop users have flash ). Business incentive to move to more modern technology compared to the cost ( replacing/ implementing/ support ).

<comment><AUTHOR> >> \- DRM

Curious about this one. Do you mean using HTML5 might make it easier to copy the content? And using Flash prevents/makes it difficult to do that? Or is there more to it?

<comment><USER2> A flash client could use adobe DRM ( test here [https://helpx.adobe.com/flash- player/kb/protected-video-cont...](https://helpx.adobe.com/flash- player/kb/protected-video-content-play.html) ), or even use a negotiation scheme that is harder to reverse engineer compare to javascript.

current HTML5 standard do not defined a DRM standard.

I would like to add that it is only a small part of the issue as the average user would not probably care but as you can see here ( [http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html](http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html) ), downloading video is one right-click away.

Youtube does some clever event interception to prevent this.

But again the cost of a developer to replace the existing system, re-encoding the videos ( sources might have been lost ), might be too high for a "normal" website to update their content.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, that's informative.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alex Stamos: Asking tech companies to police hate speech is "a dangerous path" - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612332/facebooks-ex-security-boss-asking-big-tech-to-police-hate-speech-is-a-dangerous-path/ <comment><USER2> "Tech companies" is just way too broad a designation to use here. No one is seriously asking Apple to police hate speech in iMessage or Facetime, for instance, or Verizon to police hate speech in SMS. No one expects AT&T to police hate speech in a phone call.

What people are concerned about are the newsfeeds and timelines, specifically. Companies like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube love to pretend that their newsfeed/timeline products are just like chat apps or phone calls--neutral messaging platforms.

They're not. And the specific reason they are not, is the algorithmic timeline and content suggestions.

It's silly to worry about giving these products "the power to determine what people can—and can't—say online." They've already seized it for themselves--by deciding for me which content will show up in my newsfeed/timeline/suggested list. They decide which content gets promoted to me.

Yes they use an algorithm to do so, instead of human decisions. But guess who built the algorithm?

Companies that run algorithmic newsfeeds and timelines need to own their role as a publisher and a gatekeeper of content.

Instead of pretending they don't make choices, they should be introspective and thoughtful about the criteria they are using to make those choices. "Engagement" is not neutral criteria because emotions are not symmetrical. Engagement is higher on topics of fear, anger, rage, violence. That's down to our evolution; that's down to the amygdala.

So if you build a publishing system designed solely to maximize engagement, it's going to become a system that preferentially serves content that feeds negative emotions. There are articles and case studies where a person starts with a fresh account and sees what kind of content gets pushed to them; inevitably they get horrible conspiracy theories and fear-oriented content.

Making decisions about what content your audience sees is an act of publishing, even if it's executed via complex algorithm. The companies doing this need to accept their responsibility for what they decide to serve and promote.

<comment><USER3> > They're not. And the specific reason they are not, is the algorithmic > timeline and content suggestions.

I think the more pertinent reason here is that these platforms have broadcast capability (immediate communication with many people) as opposed to p2p capability (traditional SMS or phone calls). Even if Twitter was strictly chronological, without any algorithmic mutation, we'd still presumably be insisting they police content, right? I agree with your conclusion that they're publishers, but to me, what makes a publisher a publisher is not content curation or mutation, but is simply broadcast capability. And so our drive to regulate follows quite naturally from similar drives to regulate the press and media.

<comment><USER4> Not really.

One involves a neutral role, in which subscribed feeds are delivered to users without modification or filtering.

The other involves an active role on the part of the platform for any number of reasons: increased engagement, removal of voices that may cause perceived damage or lack of trust in the platform itself, or other, more ideological reasons.

I've noticed an intentional avoidance of distinction, lately, between active and passive behavior on a number of fronts, from sexual activity, to medical advice and intervention, to social media publishing. It's a pretty crucial component in ethical analysis that I suspect is being intentionally blurred.

<comment><USER3> The public wouldn't buy the 'neutral' aspect, as every mechanism that a platform provides, is in some way biasing the type of content that is broadcast. Twitter's RT feature, which requires no curation or modification of actual content by Twitter, still biases content to that, perhaps, which is most divisive or simplistic. Broadcast technology, even without algorithmic bells and whistles, is already a biased technology. I think we might in-fact agree, but to me, there is no crucial ethical difference between a chronological twitter and a algorithmically mutated one, for in either case, the very platform itself (its existence, its design) pre-biases the type of content that will flow through it, and thus we'd end up with content that would make us consider policing it.

So, in your words, I would say, it is somehow fundamentally impossible for a technology to be "passive".

<comment><USER5> Retweeting doesn't bias content; it's rather the opposite: making it easy for people to share content they like removes a longstanding bias. The old models of broadcast media selected content to fit the biases of a few powerful media executives.

You may find the choices of the average person "divisive or simplistic" but the Retweet button doesn't dictate their choices.

"Policing" content, however, is all about dictating people's choices, motivated by the thought that the "police" know better than less powerful people, and reestablishing the biased filter controlled by the powerful (new-)media executives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This strikes me as a timely and important sentiment.

When we demand that Twitter ban anti-semitic tweets, or that Cloudflare block white supremacist websites, or that Youtube deplatform Alex Jones, we are taking the power to limit speech (which the founders felt was too important to be wielded by the government) and handing it to middle managers at software companies. The de jure rule is "Freedom of Speech shall not be infringed" but the de facto rule is "Don't say anything that would upset the advertisers."

This seems like a Bad Idea (tm) but until/unless a decentralized Mastodon/Scuttlebutt style platform gets traction, I don't know what the solution is. It's a natural result of relying on private apps as a primary method of communication.

<comment><USER7>
        > we are taking the power to limit speech (which the
        > founders felt was too important to be wielded by the
        > government)

Someone spray-paints a swastika on your car. Do you think the founders would mind if you painted it over?

<comment><USER8> It'd more like Ford trying to ban people from putting Hilary or Trump bumper stickers on their cars. In your scenario, an individual had their property vandalized. That is not comparable to platforms censoring certain views.

<comment><USER7>
        > That is not comparable to platforms
        > censoring certain views.

Historically, it has been. If someone had sent a letter to The Pennsylvania Chronicle, containing a recipe for baking a turd pie, I don't think Ben Franklin would have felt the need to print it.

Facebook, Twitter, Google... they're the ones footing the bill to host their users' content.

<comment><USER8> The Pennsylvania Chronicle isn't a platform. It's a publisher. Readers' letters getting published is the exception, not the norm.

The ideas discussed here would be more like a telecoms provider specifically refusing to do business with someone because they disagree with their politics.

<comment><USER6> What's the difference? AFAICT the idea that when a website gets big enough it becomes de facto infrastructure and gets governed by different rules is pure imagination.

<comment><USER9> There are rules that treat telecoms differently precisely because there is opportunity for market failure.

The argument is, that some software companies have crossed into becoming a telecom like entity. A market failure exists, where consumers may need protecting.

Obviously, current laws dont treat facebook, google, or microsoft that way.

Do we feel the same way about gmail/outlook starting to censor emails that google/microsoft dont approve of?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Putting aside that it's a slippery and malleable label to apply to undesirable speech, there is an elitism hiding in these ban-hate-speech arguments.

The core assumption is that while _I_ am able to see these vile ideas for the lies they are, the unsophisticated masses must not be allowed to hear them, lest they fall prey.

This is problematic in ways that used to be obvious to people in free societies, but for some reason seems lost now.

<comment><USER11> The issue is that the wealthy and also foreign adversaries are exploiting the algorithms to amplify speech that serves their interests. That typically does not serve the interests of average people.

The issue is how to avoid exploitation and manipulation.

When the KKK marched several decades ago, it got coverage in newspapers and media proportional to its influence in society. Today, the wealthy and foreign opponents can weaponize hate speech like this to fan flames of division for their own purposes. That is the problem.

<comment><USER10> So, one common thing I see is I don't think left-leaning people right now realize how similar to the extreme fringes of the right they sound.

Your first two paragraphs would be a huge hit on /pol right up until you got to the point of resolving which adversaries and interests you're talking about.

I don't know where it takes us when an authoritarian, silencing approach is what both sides agree on, and they just haggle over where to point it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Essence of article IMO "If democratic countries make tech firms impose limits on free speech, so will autocratic ones"

Free speech is what defines a democratic country.

Terms like 'Hate Speech', 'Fake News' are buzz phrase distractions that get in the way of the core of this reality. We already have a legal system in place that defines libel, threats etc. We don't need a new layer of corporate jurisdiction over our ability to speak online or monitoring what we can or can't say

</comment><comment><USER13> Cockroaches thrive in the dark corners. Sunlight is antiseptic. And forcing ideas/speech into those dark corners don't keep them from growing, it merely allows it to grow unobserved and un-countered.

Ideas are the only counter to other ideas and how we communicate those idea is via speech. Suppression only invites martyrdom on the behalf of those suppressed, increasing their credibility.

<comment><USER14> There is evidence that deplatforming works ([https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do- social-...](https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media- bans-work))

<comment><USER15> > though it may have some unintended consequences that have not been fully > understood yet.

I think no one disagrees that it "works" insofar as it stops the bad person from getting their bad ideas out there. Opponents of deplatforming generally argue that the long-term reaction to the deplatforming is worse than the problem the bad person's ideas were causing. Better to counter the bad ideas with good ideas to do long term good.

<comment><USER16> Even apart from the Streisand effect, conspiring to suppress crappy ideas gives them undeserved credibility. " _They_ didn't want you to hear this."

<comment><USER17> That's a reasonable concern and may even be true for some instances, but in the case of Milo Yiannopoulos for example, he practically just went away. Milo himself says he spent all of his savings and lost his friends. Even his most ardent fans stopped speaking out about him.

Nobody is listening to his ideas enough to give them underserved credibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's still too many unsolved philosophical questions here. What is hate speech? What should the limits of free speech be? How do we contended with the multitude of religious, legal, and cultural differences and anomalies when policing news and thought across the world? How do we react to people weaponizing the policing of hate speech to remove free speech?

I have yet to hear compelling answers to this problem, and I am not that optimistic that it can be solved in the next few decades. I do agree that trust busting is the wrong approach. At least the problem is currently centralized.

<comment><USER19> Speech is either free or not free, there is no middle path.

If you want free speech, you accept the consequences. If you want "regulated" speech, there are consequences.

That's it. I would argue that the level of satire a society can cope with, is directly proportional to the quality of democracy the society has.

<comment><USER20> Ignoring nuance doesn't make it disappear. Every developed country on earth regulates speech to varying degrees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't understand why someone needs to censor anything in the first place. If a user finds posts of another user offensive, etc, then the first user can unsubscribe/unfollow/block/... the second user. If everyone thinks the same way then the offensive user will just speak with her/himself.

<comment><USER22> That's how you end up with echo chambers and parallel online universes.

<comment><USER21> I think censorship is the way to create echo chambers in a much faster way

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well, these unnamed "tech companies" are responsible for the proliferation of absurd lies that will elect a far right authoritarian candidate in my country, Brazil. The spread of this lies happens with the support of a well financed organization.

I always thought that the Internet would be a democratic platform that would improve the debate in society. Maybe we would go back to a democracy without intermediaries.

I was wrong.

We are entering a dystopian world where the profits of a handful of companies are more important than the rest of society.

<comment><USER24> Modest proposal: The government should appoint a Department of Truth to review and approve all social media posts in a country to eliminate election misinformation.

<comment><USER25> What's really depressing is that I can't tell if you're joking or not.

<comment><USER26> (s)he's joking, but the only reason I'm sure is the use of "modest proposal", not the actual content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> 161 comments and no one has mentioned Glenn Greenwald and the Intercept's prolific coverage on this issue? I'll do a quick websearch and fix that.

 _Should Twitter, Facebook and Google Executives be the Arbiters of What We See and Read?_ August 21 2014 - [https://theintercept.com/2014/08/21/twitter- facebook-executi...](https://theintercept.com/2014/08/21/twitter-facebook- executives-arbiters-see-read/)

 _Facebook Is Collaborating With the Israeli Government to Determine What Should Be Censored_ September 12 2016 - [https://theintercept.com/2016/09/12/facebook-is- collaboratin...](https://theintercept.com/2016/09/12/facebook-is- collaborating-with-the-israeli-government-to-determine-what-should-be- censored/)

Then: _Facebook Says It Is Deleting Accounts at the Direction of the U.S. and Israeli Governments_ December 30 2017 - [https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is- dele...](https://theintercept.com/2017/12/30/facebook-says-it-is-deleting- accounts-at-the-direction-of-the-u-s-and-israeli-governments/)

 _" hate speech" from:ggreenwald_ on Twitter - [https://twitter.com/search?q=%22hate%20speech%22%20from%3Agg...](https://twitter.com/search?q=%22hate%20speech%22%20from%3Aggreenwald)

</comment><comment><USER28> Tech companies are using algorithms to prioritize the messages we see, which makes them incredibly valuable as advertising platforms. It seems like Mr. Stamos wants these companies to have all the rewards and none of the complicated responsibilities to match it. If they don't want that responsibility, then they need to get out of the business of sorting and recommending. Let them be like Craigslist.

</comment><comment><USER29> The choice is: police hate speech or promote hate speech.

Observation: promoting is cheaper (even profitable). But they can promote it with plausible deniability.

Which is a more "dangerous" path? And to whom? Society? Shareholders?

<comment><USER30> Speech isn't "dangerous". You know what you do about people that say stupid things: you call them out on it. The answer to hate speech is more speech.

<comment><USER31> speech is dangerous. hate speech promotes and incites violence.

<comment><USER32> We already have laws that deal with explicitly inciting people to violence.

So called "hate speech" generally is not an explicit endorsement of violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Counterpoint: no it isn't. US law isn't global anyway, and companies already do it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Policing "hate speech" will just create niches where you won't be censored. It's only a question of time until someone comes up with an idea to monetise that. Imagine a platform where "moderate speech" will be banned because it's against the house rules...

</comment><comment><USER35> I've been social on the internet since the early 90s, and it's been a wonderful place for most of it. Before it became so egalitarian, the people adept at socializing on it were pretty left leaning or downright libertarian. Now everyone is in on it, so we're getting confronted by parts of society we could pretend didn't exist 10 years ago. I don't know why I didn't see it coming.

There's a can/should debate hidden in here. Tech companies totally _can_ police hate speech (or any kind of speech) on their platforms, thanks to handy things like a ToS. Whether they _should_ is a cultural question about what kind of a society we want to have. If history has taught me anything, it's that the _can_ side of the debate wins in the long run.

<comment><USER26> > Now everyone is in on it, so we're getting confronted by parts of society we > could pretend didn't exist 10 years ago. I don't know why I didn't see it > coming.

Did you have the same biases I did? At that time and age (my teens, mostly), I just assumed people with different values than mine were ignorant, and so naturally they wouldn't be capable of using advanced technology.

I'm not proud of that, but there's still a _lot_ of that sentiment kicking around, including in the form that giving people additional access to technology and knowledge will educate the masses into the "correct" set of values held by whoever's pushing for greater technological adoption.

<comment><USER36> There was some truth to that assumption when the internet was more niche and the old ecosystems were in place - it required a certain degree of curiosity and willingness to learn and explore when there were established "reputable" ways.

Greater access does help /if they are willing to use it in self improving ways/ in the first place. If they just use it for tabloids and gossip it won't be a library to them but tabloids and gossip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Alex Stamos doesn't realize that the political tides have shifted. The technolibertarianism that has been prevalent in Silicon Valley since at least the 1990s is on its way out. Governments around the world are increasingly asserting their sovereignty, and that's not going to change. The internet is not a wild west where a bunch of tech people are free to do whatever they want, ignoring all the consequences and negative externalities they create.

It's a coincidence that John Perry Barlow died at the height of all this, but I think it's extremely symbolic that governments are asserting their power just as technolibertarianism's radical cleric passed away.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is already going down the path of "what is hate speech". Here is what I think is a pretty simple definition:

Speech that explicitly or direct line implicitly dehumanizes anyone.

Then the arguments become pretty simple: does a statement dehumanize someone? Does it indicate that they are any less human than another? That's a much easier discussion to have.

<comment><USER38> I feel that this comment dehumanized me. Therefore, you must remove it. See the issue?

<comment><USER14> How do you feel dehumanized? Let's have that discussion.

(see the answer?)

<comment><USER39> With the appropriately-tuned hate-filter you wouldn't get to defend your idea and have a discussion, you would just be de-platformed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dead 8800 GTX scienced to undeath by oven, mad owner - <AUTHOR> http://icrontic.com/articles/dead-8800-gtx-scienced-to-undeath-by-oven-mad-owner The tale of one man's journey to revive his dead GeForce 8800 GTX using panic, happy thoughts, and an oven pre-heated to 385°F. <comment><USER2> I think I'm gonna try this with this dead 7800 I have sitting here.</comment>


Ask HN: If you were forming a team, would you hire your colleagues? - <AUTHOR> If you were forming a team for a new project or startup, would you hire your current or former colleagues? Why or why not?<p>If they were forming a team, would they hire you? <comment><USER2> Definitely, yes. Provided I've got a need for their skill-set.

Why: Because I would be well aware of their core, strengths, and weaknesses at the same time. Moreover, it'd be counter-productive in spending time to find the person fit for the job.

If they were forming a team, would they hire you? I believe they should, provided my skills are useful for them.</comment>


Hawaii Votes to Go 100% Renewable - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/100-percent-renewable-hawaii-says-aloha

<comment><USER2> "... by 2045"

That seems a strangely conservative goal, and apparently even this target is a heavily contested issue.

Is there some technical reason for this, or is it just weird politics? Hawaii seems like a near ideal spot for this to happen.

I believe Scotland is aiming for 100% renewable usage by 2020, though since they export about 20% of their generated electricity I think that translates to about 80% renewable generation.</comment>


Bursts - <AUTHOR> http://brsts.com/

<comment><USER2> Clicked around for about 15 seconds. Had the pseudo-book in front of me, then a page of multi-colored blocks, clicked one of the green blocks, it opened a tooltip asking me for tons of personal info without any clue about what I'm doing and why I should care. At that point ⌘W (close-tab) was an automatic reflex.

</comment><comment><USER3> Weird, the source shows a lot of text but it is not displaying anything at all if you do not have Flash.

My infantile mind suggested "breasts" rather than "bursts" :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> The interface is confusing and buggy.

Before I figured out how to change pages, I was able to keep 'guessing' one of the 3 available words on the first page repeatedly. I could get the top score just doing that if I had the patience.

Guessing words is very easy and grows old very quickly. The point of doing it isn't clear, and the point of 'adopting' words is not clear at all.

<comment><USER5> Is that what it was, a word-guessing game? Obtuse interface, unclear instructions. I bailed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If I wanted your Web site to make noise, I would have licked my finger and squeaked it on the screen."

</comment><comment><USER7> This page describes what the "experiment" is all about -

<http://barabasi.com/bursts/>

You're basically revealing the actual book one word at a time as you adopt them.</comment>


Why We Love Slack - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@rogerdudler/why-we-love-slack-b6c300d6248e

<comment><USER2> I use Slack as well and I find it very effective.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah :) It is really interesting because everything was there already somehow. But the combination and execution is just great and unique.</comment></comment>


No Need to Demonize High-Frequency Trading - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/07/no-need-to-demonize-high-frequency-trading/

<comment><AUTHOR> The article is notable because the author is a former CFTC commissioner. The CFTC regulates futures trading in the US.</comment>


Amazon's Curious Case of the $2,630.52 Used Paperback - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/technology/amazon-used-paperback-book-pricing.html <comment><USER2> It is more than likely the repricer. Amazon will remove prices eventually. The reason nobody catches these is that they are slow moving books. We used to only clean them up once a week sometimes as much as once a month. It happens with all the repricing software. Some are better than others and you can always add caps. I think our cap was $4000. You have to set the cap that high because there are certain architectural, medical, and occasionally historical texts or sets that will run this high. ...and books are a volume game. The more you process the more you sell.

Software generally used... Monsoon Fillz SellerCentral NeatoScan Thrift books (close to the largest is primarily in house software).

When I worked there we ran close to 120k skus (sku = ean, condition combo). We were not the largest but, for a time in the top 10% of third party new and used book sellers. We got our books from remainders, closeouts, and auction. Most of the time we could process ~15-25 pallets/gaylords of books per week.

It's a repricing issue that no one has caught yet because it's a crappy title and no one is worried about losing a sale. Titles with a rank of < 10k are monitored daily for mispricing issues. Other than that...scan more books, get them listed, it's all about the numbers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't this a known method of money laundering?

<comment><USER4> This article was ridiculously, preposterously, embarrassingly credulous. I cannot believe anyone could possibly be so naive but here we are.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've seen this phenomenon discussed before on Hacker News and Reddit, and it's disappointing that the New York Times did a shallow article and didn't really get to the bottom of it. The explanations I've heard include:

(1) Bots running against each other bidding up the price on obscure titles. One strategy might be to price a book that you _don 't_ have in stock at 10% greater than the other seller who presumably does have it. Then if you get an order, you buy the other seller's copy and ship it to your customer getting a 10% profit. But things run amuck if multiple bots follow the same strategy.

(2) Exploiting people's stupidity and laziness. Almost nobody is going to buy your book for $2464, but if eventually somebody somewhere clicks on the purchase button--because they were too lazy to keep searching or thought it was the going price--well then you've earned the profit of selling 600 legitimate books (at, say, $4 profit each) by doing 1/600 of the work! This could indeed be your business model.

(3) Money laundering. Ie., book buyer A with lots of ill-gotten cash buys a worthless book from seller B for a huge price. Seller B makes an enormous profit, pays his taxes, and appears to be a clean, highly successful rare book dealer. Buyer A and seller B are obviously part of the same organization, maybe the even the same person.

(4) Automatic repricing software. If you're a large seller, you don't manually choose the price of each item, but leave it to an automatic system. You'd think that slow moving items would be priced _cheaper_ to get rid of them. But perhaps the software keeps raising the price because it thinks it is a rare item, or due to errors in the algorithm.

It's funny how everyone who speculates about this is convinced of their own explanation. I'm not so sure. It might be all of the reasons above in different proportions. I'd love it if someone who was actually doing this outrageous pricing would speak out and tell us first hand.

<comment><USER6> I think for 1, we had a story on HN a few years ago, for a academic book. It was linked elsewhere in the thread: [http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358](http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I occasionally look to see if there are any hardcover copies of _The Art of the Metaobject Protocol_ up for sale, one appeared and is still listed at a little over $11k. I even messaged the seller at one point around 11:30pm about it (I'd buy it if it were a couple orders of magnitude cheaper...) and somewhat surprisingly they got back to me within the hour to inform me that "there is a listing error while pricing the book. However, we already informed our listing team to rectify the mistake as soon as possible." Given the other comment here on how teams clean them up ~once a month, I guess we'll see in August if it's still there and at that price or not...

</comment><comment><USER8> The old world of warcraft auction house method, post something extremely high and hope someone mistakenly buys it.

Profit.

<comment><USER9> I ran into what apparently is the same scam, but for shipping: [https://twitter.com/gwern/status/1009609380877225984](https://twitter.com/gwern/status/1009609380877225984) You offer a reasonable price for the item and then charge $1k for shipping or something like that, and apparently Amazon will enforce it.

<comment><USER10> Common scam on Instagram too. Run a "contest" that anyone who likes a photo immediately "wins". They choose 6 out of 20 products as a prize, with listed values from $10-60, but actually mass produced in China for <$3. All good until you enter your shipping information, and shipping is $30.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> i've read about this phenomenon before. speculation was that many/most prices are set automatically, and that these absurd prices were somehow attempts to manipulate other prices.

money laundering also seems like a good explanation.

<comment><USER12> Probably thinking of: [http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358](http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358)

Laundering may explain some odd prices on Amazon. But in that article, the author witnessed the two bots one-upping each other on a certain schedule. I don't think that was laundering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> At that price, better to buy a stamp and write the author directly, including a check big enough to cover hardcover list price, plus postage. They might have an extra copy in a box in storage somewhere, and they might even sign it for you.

I'd be afraid that if I ordered the conspicuously expensive one, it would show up hollowed out and filled with dirty fentanyl-heroin, or the book is utterly normal, and the seller is a money launderer that now has my home shipping address.

<comment><USER14> The book is utterly normal, and the seller is grateful to have your clean, unlaundered money instead of having to pay their own seller's account with their dirty money (and let Amazon take their cut). They'll just buy another copy of the book with the dirty money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> My experience as a developer tells me that this was somebody trying to test something in production, while forgetting to de-list the book sku first.</comment>


To catch a gravitational wave - <AUTHOR> http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/october-2014/to-catch-a-gravitational-wave

<comment><USER2> Too bad that LISA[1], a space version of this type of experiment, was postponed when NASA dropped out of the program.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Ante...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna)</comment>


Reality: The Ultimate Video Game - <AUTHOR> http://expressiveegg.org/2017/05/13/reality/ <comment><USER2> Reminds of that Life Explained As a Video Game... [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWIi6Pytde8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWIi6Pytde8)</comment>


Afghanistan in the 1950s and 60s - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/07/afghanistan-in-the-1950s-and-60s/100544/ <comment><USER2> _Keep in mind, when looking at these images, that the average life expectancy for Afghans born in 1960 was 31, so the vast majority of those pictured have likely passed on since._

Average life expectancy doesn't really work like that. Your life expectancy even in a "primitive" culture has always been 60 years or so, give or take a dozen, _once you survive childhood_. It's the massive infant and child mortality - the norm everywhere before the 20th century - that drags down average life expectancies _at birth_.

<comment><USER3> Cannot emphasis this more. Also dangerous professions tend to kill people a lot.

When I mention the age that several famous romans died when they were not warriors, people act surprised (Cato the Elder for example died at 85, I forgot the names, but I even made once a list of senators that died past 90).

Here in Brazil life expectancy is 73 years old, and for example the sole reason it is not much higher, is traffic accidents (it was calculated that if pedestrian crossings were strictly enforced for example, this would bump up our average life expectancy by 3 years!)

<comment><USER4> Right. Looking at just average life expectancy makes differences in medical technology seem more dramatic than they are. In the U.S., average life expectancy at birth has increased from 50 to 76 in the last century (26 years). But remaining life expectancy at age 60 has increased only 7 years, from 14 more years to 21 more years. Most of the increase is the result of lower mortality among children, and lower mortality among young adults as the result of a shift from dangerous factory/mining jobs to service jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing how much a country can regress due to bullshit pulled by major powers. While I know that "why can't we all get along" is a tired trope, it disappoints me that we can't avoid completely halting a nation's progress for 60 years almost.

Like when you hear how India was on track to become a major industrialized nation until the British decided to turn it into the world's biggest piece of farmland.

<comment><USER6> Let's not forget Iran in the 50s.

<comment><USER7> Yes, and especially that the US toppled its democracy to install a brutal dictator. The Iran hostage crisis was largely in response to that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some context here: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_num...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/09/kabul_city_number_one.html)

Great series of blog posts by Adam Curtis on Kabul over the last 50 years. One of his main ideas is that the war on terror is a sort of accidental continuation of the Cold War. The huge leftover infrastructure, bureaucracies and culture needed to do something, so lacking a real enemy, it invented one.

If you buy that at all then Afghanistan is really interesting because it was a major conflict in the Cold War, and also (obviously) the war on terror. So current foreign policies and attitudes towards Afghanistan often mirror those of the Cold War in a strange and dissonant way.

Lots of great BBC archive footage in there too. Hopefully it's viewable outside the uk.

<comment><USER9> I love Adam Curtis's work and that is a great series on Kabul. Sadly a lot of that footage isn't viewable outside the UK. It's a shame he's not permitted to publish those videos on YouTube or Vimeo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone who served in Afghanistan last year, very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER11> This reminds of the book The Kite Runner. It describes a very different Afghanistan in the 70s before the Soviet intervention.

</comment><comment><USER12> I just returned. The contrast in culture is striking - flying overhead in a sophisticated aircraft watching farmers till land by hand outside mud huts in remote villages - living life as they have for a millennium. Afghans are resilient - Nato will leave, the war will fade, and they will choose their destiny.

<comment> barry-cotter _the war will fade_ Afghanistan is now and has ever been a war zone. Why would that change just because the Americans declared victory and went home?

<comment><USER12> I'm not arguing there will be peace - I'm referring to the Nato war, and I don't think anyone familiar believes it is ending in victory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's really sad to see how effective they have been in ruining this society.

More like this: [http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a...](http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan)

<comment><USER14> Foreign influence didn't help, either. It wasn't all the fault of Afghanis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The sad thing is: this is almost analogue to Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, etc, the list goes on an on...

I wonder when (and if) the middle east will become again what it used to be.

<comment><USER16> When the oil runs out, so they no longer have influence over the rest of the world, and the rest of the world has no interest in them.

Afghanistan may not directly have oil, but it plays into other things. It's a symbolic point for both the Muslim world and the outside world. Militancy is funded by Saudi oil money. Invasions are funded by the US (and previously, by the Soviets).

Pouring billions of dollars of outside money into resource/cultural wars in otherwise poor and isolated nations turns them into nightmares. Afghanistan is just another tumor in this cancer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks so peaceful then .... I wish it goes back to then.

</comment><comment><USER18> > Keep in mind, when looking at these images, that the average life expectancy > for Afghans born in 1960 was 31, so the vast majority of those pictured have > likely passed on since.

... lies, damned lies and statistics. Why do people keep on using the mean for lifespan, when so many interpret it the wrong way?

<comment><USER19> I suspect there is a point or ideological agenda to the lie "People earlier in more 'primitive' cultures were lucky to live to see their 30th birthday", its the old "life was brutal without civilization and a state to keep you safe and well" which then suggests we should also be lucky today to have all this modernism and be thankful to have "progressed" so far as to live to 31.

<comment><USER20> > "life was brutal without civilization and a state to keep you safe and well"

It was. Children died in infancy, which is why the life expectancy was so low. If that isn't brutal, you need to redefine the term.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to improve product intuition skills? - <AUTHOR> Recently I had an interview for a Data Science position. My candidacy was declined due to lack of product intuition skills. What are the ways to improve it? <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm an old greybeard, but what is "product intuition" in the first place ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Create a product people want, push it to market, change it based on customer feedback.

In a way it's really kinda silly, "you don't have product intuition yet" well that's why I'm here for a job, if I had product intuition I'd build my own !$#* product. And when you can do all the stuff they ask you to be able to do on your own, why would you want to come work for them?

Just my thoughts, others have more experience here.

<comment><USER4> From the marketing side, we call that finding product-market fit. (If you want to search for resources.) I think the CTO at the startup I work for is pretty good at it. But, I don't know how he does it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What if there is no inheritance? - <AUTHOR> What if there is no inheritance, so that everybody has the same start, does that make life fairer? <comment><USER2> I really like Warren Buffet's description of the ovarian lottery, below. I think about this question a lot now that I'm a (relatively wealthy) parent with two small children. If I have the opportunity, is it acceptable for me to provide them with a privileged life. Maybe so, if I can also teach them to be grateful for what they have received and understand that it's their job (as well as mine) to make a more fair world.

Warren Buffet: "My political views were formed by this process. Just imagine that it is 24 hours before you are born. A genie comes and says to you in the womb, "You look like an extraordinarily responsible, intelligent, potential human being. [You're] going to emerge in 24 hours and it is an enormous responsibility I am going to assign to you — determination of the political, economic and social system into which you are going to emerge. You set the rules, any political system, democracy, parliamentary, anything you wish — you can set the economic structure, communistic, capitalistic, set anything in motion and I guarantee you that when you emerge this world will exist for you, your children and grandchildren.

What's the catch? One catch — just before you emerge you have to go through a huge bucket with 7 billion slips, one for each human. Dip your hand in and that is what you get — you could be born intelligent or not intelligent, born healthy or disabled, born black or white, born in the US or in Bangladesh, etc. You have no idea which slip you will get. Not knowing which slip you are going to get, how would you design the world? Do you want men to push around females? It's a 50/50 chance you get female. If you think about the political world, you want a system that gets what people want. You want more and more output because you'll have more wealth to share around."

<comment><USER3> It's John Rawls' Veil of Ignorance!

<comment><USER4> My thoughts exactly.

For anyone not aware: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Milton Friedman on a 100% inheritance tax:

[https://youtu.be/MRpEV2tmYz4](https://youtu.be/MRpEV2tmYz4)

The argument is basically that it would encourage very wasteful behavior. If you think about it, people often work to make the lives of their children better off to a large extent. My grandfather who lives in a poor country living on a pension still sends me $100 he saved up periodically despite the fact that I'm wealthier than him by many factors.

Without the ability to pass on wealth to future generations, empires would not be built in some cases, end of life would include many wasteful lavish purchases and the black market for wealth transfer services would balloon

<comment><USER6> What is a "wasteful purchase" in this case? If the idea is to keep the money moving and to not give people huge amounts of free money by accident of birth, is not any purchase that isn't effectively taking huge amounts of raw materials and destroying them (as opposed to making something useful out of them) a good thing?

<comment><USER5> I would argue a wasteful purchase is fast cars and boats. By buying these IMO frivolous goods, you're diverting resources from investments that would serve society to those that benefit the very few (luxury auto makers). If instead you invested in stocks and bonds that fund companies that generate value and passing on the future proceeds to that investment to future generations, this would be arguably a better use of resources

<comment><USER6> Unless you buy at the IPO, which is a minority of share purchases by a very long way, you're not funding companies. Buying a company's goods, such as cars or boats, however...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People would still differ genetically. Right now we skirt that issue by saying that we can't control genetics, but we can control how society treats its people. But presumably someday we will have the power to control genetics, and we'll repeat the same debate all over again.

So long as there is inequality of outcome, there are probably always going to be people who assume unfairness---not just in people who lack a sense of agency and self-responsibility, but because I think humans generally have an instinctive dislike of inequality of any kind. This will continue until the end of time: if you believe in fate (whatever that means), some people are always going to have better fates than others (unless you want to give everyone the same life), and people will keep getting mad.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm 30 and I luckily still haven't collected inheritance. If and when I do, it will come too late in life to make much difference. The head start I was given was down to the way I was raised by my parents, including the things they paid for. So unless you're suggesting making it illegal to buy your children clothes, food, education, etc, (an extreme form of communism?) I'm not sure inheritance has much bearing on social inequality. Only the very wealthy have so much inheritance that it impacts the way they conduct their life from birth.

</comment><comment><USER9> Even without inheritance, not everybody would have the same start, because of how they are raised. For instance, rich parents can afford more expensive toys and tutoring.

To make education more equal, you would have to separate children from parents and give them all the same quality of education. But radical changes to society would be required to do that.

<comment><USER10> It goes both ways. Children of the well-off can end up feeling abandoned in daycares and boarding schools. Compared to other children who are generally raised by their parents (or close family members) with whom they develop a strong bond, it's not entirely clear to me who has it better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Then you'll just see more aggressive versions of the tactics the rich already use, like setting up charities that employ their children, etc. And the middle class will get screwed again.

<comment><USER12> That's interesting: why the middle class? What about classes below the middle?

<comment><USER13> because the poor aren't giving their descendants monetary inheritances. The middle class can give their descendants some form of monetary inheritances, but wont be able to afford to use the complicated schemes that the rich do. Hence, the middle class gets screwed.

<comment><USER14> The middle class can already bequeath to their children tax free. Only the extremely wealthy face restriction and it's very easy to avoid (via capital gains step ups, lifetime gifts etc). With a little planning, you can give $5.5 million tax free.

<comment><USER15> 5.5m per parent.

<comment><USER13> depends on the state

[https://taxfoundation.org/does-your-state-have-estate-or- inh...](https://taxfoundation.org/does-your-state-have-estate-or-inheritance- tax/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Absolutely not.

Working to enrich the lives of our children is a fundamental drive. You can't eliminate that with a law.

<comment><USER6> But we could insist that people do it while they're alive.

<comment><USER17> ... because everyone knows when they are going to die.

But seriously, you want to end up with a bunch of spoiled brats?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What we traditionally think of inheritance is only part of the picture of what makes life unfair, but abolishing it would certainly help stop the top 0.1% controlling massive dynastic wealth for generations.

</comment><comment><USER19> The only way to do this is to have a 100% death tax and to have an open bidding system for all assets. Otherwise you'll see deathbed $1 transfers of wealth. The open bidding system for any transfer at any point in life.

The problem with this whole concept is the number of people who received some kind of wealth transfer from their parents. Pretty much everyone I know has received financial assistance from their parents and are terrified of the idea of not having that leg up. Even amounts as small as $5,000 is far more than most people get. A lot of people don't realize how much their parents gave them.

<comment><USER20> To claim that there is only one way almost always belies a profound lack of imagination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> That would mean all posessions need be taxed at ones death. So governements would be in competition for those taxes. Most likely by offering tax benefits ;-)

</comment><comment><USER22> Yes, inheritance is fundamentally immoral. An obsession with one's genetic output is simply primitive tribalism.

My kid has had enough benefits already, and frankly if he can't make it as an adult that's his problem.

Some people of course can't make it as an adult for reasons beyond their control (disabilities, extraordinary bad luck, et al) and society would be better off providing a viable baseline for _everyone_. For example: good roads benefit everyone. Universal health care benefits everyone and helps small businesses. This problem will only get more extreme as robots take over more and more labor.

BTW my kid's only problem with my approach is that I joke that the assets are going to the home for homeless cats. He doesn't consider cats a good enough cause :-)

<comment><USER23> > Yes, inheritance is fundamentally immoral. An obsession with one's genetic > output is simply primitive tribalism.

I assume you favor your own children over other people's children? If so, wouldn't that also be "immoral"? When you picked up your child from the maternity ward, would it have made no difference to you if you had picked up someone else's child instead?

<comment><USER22> >> [me] Yes, inheritance is fundamentally immoral. An obsession with one's genetic output is simply primitive tribalism.

> I assume you favor your own children over other people's children? If so, > wouldn't that also be "immoral"?

Well, as I said, "My kid has had enough benefits already". Certainly he had the benefits and drawbacks of having the parents he did.

The dual problems arise from the social consequences of a "dynastic drive." One is the need to produce fully functional adults without the need of financial, social and other control over one's progeny. If children and their parents know they will grow and make their own way, it reduces, let's say, "parent" issues in adulthood. Both know there's no chance to "fix it" post moving out.

The second problem is the general "me" vs society issue. You were alive, you got to be a good and a bad person (all of us have been both), you had the lucky breaks you did. When you die, that's the end of it. If you are focused internally and on your genetic stem line (whatever that really is) you are less focused on your needs, and those of others, from society as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> How about you can leave no inheritance to your kids if you want to, but you keep your hands off the rest of us's stuff? If you want to talk about "fairness", freedom is fair. Stealing from others (even if done through the mechanism of government) cannot be.

</comment><comment><USER25> How exactly would you do this?

Certainly by the point a parent dies, the child has already reaped many benefits. Education, networking, travel, exposure the finer things money can buy...

Furthermore, isn't there some benefit to having people who are ambitious with built-in safety nets? What if Bill Gates hadn't been able to go to Lakeside? And would we still have Microsoft if he wasn't comfortable dropping out of college?

Not everyone starts in the same place... some people have more money, some are taller, smarter, prettier, stronger, faster, etc. We have to make sure the rules reflect this and constantly work towards keeping the playing field as level as it can be for those starting out.

</comment><comment><USER26> What if all inheritance was collected and evenly distributed? - at a rate of X assigned at birth based on existing pool to be awarded at age Z or by medical need... In general, people do not value governmental transparency so we always have corruption that would subvert this, but it's the solution that I would select (in some fashion).

</comment><comment><USER27> Taxing property, rather than income, can have this effect.

<comment><USER25> Sure, if we were all investment bankers.

But what about cattle ranchers... apple growers... asparagus farmers... shouldn't they be allowed to pass on their businesses to their kids too?

I know that ranches, like the one I grew up on, are capital-intensive business that have relatively low margins. Just about anyone would look at a rancher's books and say, "Yeah, sell it, invest the money in a mutual fund and you'll make a lot more money." The secret: ranchers aren't doing to for the money.

* Paul Harvey, God made a Farmer - YouTube || [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VrUewoakmQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VrUewoakmQ)

<comment><USER28> Only rich farmers and farmers that die young give their farms to their kids. Most farmers _sell_ their farms to their kids. Farmers don't have pensions or retirement investments -- they spent 40 years paying off their mortgage and then use that capital to fund their retirement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes! Composition over inheritance!</comment>


Samsung's foldable smartphone reportedly costs $1,770 - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/samsungs-foldable-smartphone-reportedly-costs-1770-launches-in-march/ <comment><USER2> From the pictures it looks like a brick. It's thicker than the width of the thumb of the guy holding it. Even unfolded it's very thick. I don't want to think about the weight of that thing.

I'd like to buy a foldable phone that becomes a tablet but I'm not going to buy something like that even with a zero less in the price. Maybe they'll engineer them better in a few years, if this doesn't kill all the market for foldable devices straight away.

<comment><USER3> Wasn't the general word that they'd put it in a 'case' so that nobody could see what the actual thickness and design was like?

<comment><USER2> I didn't know that. I hope that's the case (pun intended.)</comment></comment></comment>


The Long, Weird Half-Life of Trinitite - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/trinitite-trinity-test-mineral-cultural-jewelry <comment><USER2> While interesting, it does not contain anything about real half-life, but is about the way humans deal differently with the remains of a nuclear explosion.

<comment><USER3> The article is probably taking artistic license with the term "half life" to refer to the unusual longevity of interest in trinitite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tektites ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tektite)) are similar to trinitite, but originate from meteorite impacts instead.</comment>


How have you faced discrimination working in tech? - <AUTHOR> https://www.openmiq.com/conversations/39?ref=hn <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I realize this is a bit of an unconventional post and would be better suited as an Ask HN tag, but I wanted to hear people's experiences of discrimination outside of just usual text.

Full disclosure, this is a new platform that I've been building for the last few months. Even though it's something I've worked on, I do think it's an important conversation to have and thought this would be the best place to host it. If you have any feedback, I would appreciate that as well.</comment>