Larry Lessig: I'm All In - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/referendum-presidency-larry-lessig/411013/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> > _But it weakened the credibility of the campaign. Was I really trying to be > president? Or was I just trying to make a point?_

Obvious answer: he's just trying to make a point, the whole thing is a publicity stunt, and his campaign has never had and still does not have any credibility whatsoever.

> _But the result was almost no national media focused on a campaign that was > actually more viable than that of at least two of the other Democratic > candidates,_

"More viable" meaning that when you add up the poll numbers for Lessig plus those other two candidates, the percentage rounds to zero. Likewise they have no budget, no endorsements, a tiny donor base, no institutional support from the Democratic party, no grass-roots campaign organization, etc. etc.

Lessig's approach to politics is to shout "HEY EVERYBODY, LOOK AT ME! I don't have any experience or support, and I haven't tried to engage with the political system before, but vote for me because all those other guys are corrupt!" That works if you're a billionaire with universal name-recognition like Trump, running in a primary with a bunch of weak other candidates, targeting primary voters responsive to knee-jerk racism and insults. Lessig isn't Trump though.

In the 2014 midterm elections his PAC raised a moderate amount of money mostly from Silicon Valley VCs, threw it at a handful of congressional races, and had absolutely zero impact on anything.

Seems like it's not working out this time either.

<comment><USER3> The thing is though, Lessig is completely right. Members of Congress spend 70% of their time raising money. They're not lawmakers, they're professional fundraisers. Think of a startup whose founders spent 70% of their time raising money, they would never get anything done. And since fundraising is now such an integral part of a Congressman's day to day, they have two classes of constitutes to think about: the voters, and the funders. And there is a very small group of people who give > 50% of all campaign cash and more or less have control over the entire country. This is why common sense laws that have majority support from the voters (gun control, marijuana legalization etc...) never get the traction they should. The funders don't want them, and they have the final say, not the voters. It's crazy how complacent people have become about government incompetence.

The becoming president and then resigning thing was weird. I'm glad he's dropping it, because you can hate the method all you want, and I too think he comes off really distant out of touch sometimes, but what he's saying needs to be heard.

<comment><USER4> > Members of Congress spend 70% of their time raising money.

Why do they do this? Because the politicians who spend the most money on advertising generally win the elections, right? I'm wondering if what we're seeing here is the failure of democracy with universal suffrage. Most of the voters don't seem to be independent thinkers. They could have voted for politicians who haven't been "bought". But they don't. For example, there are other political parties out there - Green Party, Libertarian Party etc., but almost nobody votes for those.

<comment><USER5> This is more a problem with vote distribution.

The parties outside the main two cannot win because they're always going to be a minority. If a minority could still hold a minority of the seats for getting a minority of the votes, the landscape would be vastly different.

Instead, we have an average vote system based on geographic region that can only allow for major parties to hold seats.

This is not the case in all democracies - most european parliaments have more than two parties because of the difference in the way minority votes are handled.

This is a failure of US-flavor representative democracy.

<comment><USER4> I suppose you have a valid point. I have one question, though: aren't political TV ads actually illegal in most European countries?

<comment><USER6> European political campaigns are usually cheaper than US ones, but they're by no means cheap in absolute terms. We have corruption scandals here too... before '92, a lot of political parties were almost entirely funded by either the US or the USSR; they've been economically struggling ever since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lessig is just as electable as anyone out there, but I am not sure he is much of a strategic thinker. He just gave up the one thing that made his #hackthepresidency style campaign interesting.

At this point & with the right campaign you could run a rump roast for the presidency and it'd have a decent shot at grabbing a signficant share of the vote.

I could name way more but Lessig top problems imo are:

He lacks conviction. That rump roast is more red blooded than he is. If you are running for president, you can't just expect to win based on having a few good ideas. You need forcefulness. Someone says you can't attend a debate? You don't kick back and watch it on tv. You show up anyway and have your supporters provoke a riot when they don't let you in. Hopefully the media makes a field day out of it. Arrested? Even better. It fits in with your narrative.

Lessig's next big problem is - He needs an angle. Lessig seems to be too principled to participate in the usual games that gets people to the oval. That puts him at a big disadvantage. If he doesn't like how the sausage is made, he needs a strategy or SOMETHING to compensate for the power the machine gives you. Trump is a natural showman. Rubio is handsome, Ben Carson is a religious nut. Each of these guys is in the race, but Lessig isn't. Until Lessig finds something that gives him some oomph, he might as well just curl up into a fetal.

</comment><comment><USER8> I realize I'll probably get downvoted in this thread for saying this, but allowing more money into politics is actually giving people more choice in elections, and Lessig is becoming a victim of the problems with the system before Citizens United. Between both parties, we have over 20 people running for President. We have more choice than ever. Why? Because these individuals can afford to do so, and don't need to rely on getting mainstream media attention to find donors they need to finance their campaign. Lessig, on the other hand, is running a campaign to fix campaign finance, and is running into issues with what hobbled the system before - media gatekeepers who aren't giving his campaign any attention. Yes, I understand that allowing the free flow of money into politics favors the wealthy, but at least now there is some sort of counterbalancing force to the media basically deciding who becomes our President. I don't know what would be a true democratic equalizer (maybe eliminating political parties), but Lessig's way of doing things had more problems than many want to acknowledge.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. Do you want "more choices" that are paid and pre-selected by the same 200 richest families? Or do you want actual choices supported by the _People_ , who get their money not from few large donations, but from many small ones.

In the latter's case, you can have serious campaign finance reform, without restricting your _real_ choices. What we want is for the money "vote" to be an equalizer just like the regular vote. If 200 families can pick a "winner", despite millions of other people actually wanting someone else to win, then something is seriously wrong with that democracy, and the money vote is way too skewed in favor of a few.

<comment><USER10> Your reply is completely nonresponsive to bsbechtel's point.

The point, stated more explicitly. There is a relatively small overton window permitted by the media - this is essentially what Chomsky would call "flak machines" and Moldbug would call the "cathedral". The "People", as you call them, will simply support whoever the media chooses to anoint. This set of candidates will basically be nothing but a few left wing Republicans and establishment Democrats (think Bush/Romney/Hillary) and we'll get more of the same.

In contrast, the richest 200 families are far less monolithic than the media. Money actually makes it possible for choices that the media establishment dislikes to get real traction. For example, Ross Perot or Donald Trump. If the People like such a candidate, they can then vote for that candidate.

tl;dr; The media has network effects which enforce a narrow overton window. In contrast, one eccentric rich guy can - if he chooses to spend lots of money - break through that and get other ideas out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _> This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others. Now the strongest contrast in substance is the priority that I give to democratic reform. This difference should then press an obvious question for every other candidate: How do you expect to achieve what you are promising without this reform? And if you believe this reform is necessary, then why isn't it your first priority?_

But in all these words he never gets around to explaining how as President he would _actually make the reform happen_ , other than saying it'd be his "first priority" and (twice) that he would "work with Congress."

Oh, is _that_ all it's going to take to completely upend the deeply entrenched systemic power of elites who are richer than Croesus, Larry? We just need a President who _wants_ it bad enough, and is willing to ask Congress for it nicely? Huh.

I bet Barack Obama wishes he'd thought of that. All this time he could have just gone down to Capitol Hill, clicked his heels three times and made the Koch brothers disappear! Who knew?

Lessig is such a paradox to me. His heart's in the right place, he's clearly earnest, and he's managed to accomplish some remarkable things, like Creative Commons. But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high. It's Mr. Bean Goes To Washington.

<comment><USER12> "But every time he wades into electoral politics he does so in ways that are so desperately naïve that they'd be funny, if the stakes weren't so high."

Same was said about a big-eared Senator from Chicago with a funny name, that gave a good political speech in 2004.

Lessig is trying to find a mix between himself, the platform, and the process. You need to be naive if you ever hope to solve any seemingly intractable problem.

<comment><USER2> Obama was a career politician with lots of support and credibility, a best- selling author, and a charismatic speaker, with an absolutely incredible campaign organization. He was running on an anti-war platform during a highly unpopular war.

Lessig doesn't have any of those things.

<comment><USER12> Obama released his first book to coincide with his first political campaign. And his second book 1 years prior to announcing his run for president.

Lessig is a reasonably charismatic speaker.

The rest I agree, Lessig is no Obama.

Look, I don't expect Lessig to make much of a dent in 2016. I wouldn't say he'll never make a dent. The only way TO make a dent is to naively keep trying, and learning, and being willing to look dumb in the process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Observations from Australia:

* Lessig is trying to reform US politics with minimal grassroots support and from the outside. That's pretty much impossible, even without the sort of broken system he's trying to reform.

* Bernie Sanders seems to be offering similar reforms, though not as a No.1 priority. Lessig is essentially arguing that he'll implement one Sanders policy as a priority, and then get out of the way - that sounds completely silly to me, and I don't see why you wouldn't just vote Sanders instead.

* I'd contend that the problems in US politics run much deeper than campaign finance - voting systems, the structure of government, separation of powers, etc all need a thorough look and possible overhaul. Any campaign finance reform would probably end up being disappointingly ineffective compared to how it's being sold.

</comment><comment><USER14> Lessig is not thinking this through. If he wants to be taken seriously as a candidate he's going to need to address every single issue the others have. By the time he's done that, his message will be diluted and sidetracked, and he'll have groups of people who may support him on the corruption issue but disagree on other issues, e.g., how to handle Syria.

At this point he kind of reminds me of Donald Trump who also has not taken time to formulate many policy positions but just wants to the voters to trust him it'll all be great.

Additionally, a big part of being President is just the relentless work at championing your causes and causing your opponents to fail if they refuse to compromise. Lessig seems allergic to this type of work, politics, and campaigning in general. I don't know how he expects to get his legislation passed.

Even on the issue of corruption, I'm not sure he's effectively explained his solution. He's just laid out legislation to pass, but hasn't detailed how he'll get Congress to pass it without amendments that destroy it, how he'll keep the Supreme Court from eviscerating it, and how the rules could withstand attempts to game them.

<comment><USER15> _He 's just laid out legislation to pass_

Errr, as far as I know he hasn't entirely done that. From his web site, [https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/](https://lessig2016.us/the-plan/) he has two specific "Equal Right to Vote" laws plus " _In addition, we will enact automatic voter registration and turn election day into a national holiday._ " Then there's a Ranked Choice Voting item with specific language, but the third item is not specific, and as other discussions here have noted, here the devil is in the details:

 _CITIZEN FUNDED ELECTIONS

All citizens deserve an equal ability to choose our leaders.

The Citizen Equality Act will end pay-to-play politics by changing the way we fund campaigns by taking the best of Rep. Sarbanes' Government by the People Act, and Represent.US's "American Anti-Corruption Act." That hybrid would give every voter a voucher to contribute to fund congressional and presidential campaigns; it would provide matching funds for small-dollar contributions to congressional and presidential campaigns. And it would add effective new limits to restrict the revolving door between government service and work as a lobbyist._

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It'll be interesting to hear his foreign policy. He's probably the smartest guy running, and the least corrupt. That said, I'd have a hard time voting for someone whose only official job is to be the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and whose only platform is to be a placeholder representing the concept of reform. I want to know how he's gonna handle {the Middle East, Russia, etc.}.

<comment><USER17> Does it matter how he'd handle those other issues if he gets his reform done? You seem to be saying that continuity in handling those issues in a way you like is more important than the reform he's proposing. Wouldn't it be worth having a few years of "bad" foreign policy in exchange for a whole future of reform?

<comment><USER16> Yeah, it does. It's pretty damned important to trust that the Commander-in- Chief would be a competent leader of the armed forces. How would he respond to an act of war? What would he do to stabilize the Middle East and neutralize ISIS?

Of course every outsider wants reform. It's nice to see a smart person thinking creatively about how to achieve it. Still, you don't get to be Commander-in-Chief unless you can instill trust that you can handle being Commander-in-Chief.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love Lessig but speaking of mistakes, he should do a poll about his glasses.

Whether he switches to something more likable or not will be an indicator of how savvy he would be on the job.

<comment><USER19> I'm assuming half of your point is humour and the other is the fact you don't like his glasses.

It is on this second half I'd like to comment.

It shifts the focus on form rather than content. Sure form has its non- negligible role, but in politics and most domains it should never take precedence over content, the actual message itself. And here lies one part of the problem Lessig is trying to go after: the corruption of our mind in its ability to be seduced by form at the expense of content. It is that kind of corruption that makes it possible for movie actors without real political substance to become president. It is that kind of corruption that makes the present political system a democratic farce.

If we want him to succeed we have to do our part too, and it's precisely because we haven't for ages, that we have such situation today. Even if he succeeds and changes the rules of the political game, if we the people also don't change the way we think, then this can start all over again in 4 years without us even realizing.

So maybe he could do with another pair of glasses, but we the people also need another pair of glasses.

Deal?

<comment><USER18> Well you totally missed the point.

There's plenty of substance with Lessig. I just am talking about one bit of substance, which is whether he has the pragmatism needed to get and then to do the job or not.

The glasses (which I actually like; not sure where you got your "fact"... but I doubt US voters will) are the form here, to use your word. Not the substance. They are trivial.

So yes, the glasses are not substance. His lack of pragmatism in clinging to them is substance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I feel sad because I'm probably Lessig's ideal target audience, but I don't like any of this. I don't like that he backed down so quickly from his first approach, because of the polls. Isn't that what corrupt politicians do? I don't like that he is so vague about what he's going to do to fix corruption - I get it that it's about taking money out of politics, but how do you get there, especially when Congress is seized up?

And I want to hear about other issues, too, if he's seriously running for president. What about local police corruption, violence, and abuse? What about drone assassinations? What about corporate welfare that socializes risk and privatizes rewards? What about poverty and basic income? What about simplifying the legal system so that justice isn't too expensive for most people? What about extra-legal punishment like no-fly lists? What about the goddamn NSA? What about the security theater at the airport we pay for and endure?

From the other candidates all we hear about is "the economy", mid-east terrorism and related problems, immigration, and now and again (against all odds) climate change. From Lessig you just hear about corruption. If you want to impress me as a real Presidential candidate, speak eloquently about the days when the US would never have even considered torturing someone for any reason; when 1984 was a cautionary tale about surveillance, not a manual on how to do it; when we needed to work together to defeat an enemy, we did it, or to achieve a great goal like the moon, we did it, and how we can do it again, but this time we're going to End Oil, worldwide. I want to hear about how we can use technology to make government at every level more accountable and more responsive, and I want to hear more about our aspirations. I want to hear that we will recover the first asteroid from the asteroid belt within 20 years. I want to hear that federal funding will be tied to the creation of independent police review panels in every major city. I want to hear that blanket surveillance will be made explicitly illegal.

But I don't hear hardly any of that, not even from Lessig. Which makes me sad.

<comment><USER21> _I don 't like that he is so vague about what he's going to do to fix corruption - I get it that it's about taking money out of politics, but how do you get there, especially when Congress is seized up?_

If he were to be elected he would have a very strong mandate to fight for the reforms he proposes -- a strong enough mandate that Congress might be forced to adhere to it. If the people put Lessig in the Presidency it's pretty clear what the people want. A Democratic congressperson or senator who voted against such reforms would surely be risking his/her job. The same might even be said for TeaPartiers.

Regarding everything else... he claims most of it won't happen because the system is rigged. Most good causes like the ones you list could never command the singular and focused attention from the people it would take to defeat the powers that oppose them, even if the people generally would be in favor. We don't have a referendum system. That's his whole point -- to hack one in. I think it's still his point, he's just realizing that he has to play politics to do it.

<comment><USER22> > _If he were to be elected he would have a very strong mandate to fight for > the reforms he proposes -- a strong enough mandate that Congress might be > forced to adhere to it... A Democratic congressperson or senator who voted > against such reforms would surely be risking his /her job._

Note peoples' diverging approval ratings between Congress as a whole and their own Congresspersons. Each Congressperson could find a local reason to nitpick over, and thus vote against, a measure they and the country broadly support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think Lessig should reinstate his promise to resign after passing the Citizen Equality Act, run as an independent, and pick a good conservative to be his running mate. The corruption of democracy by special interests is not only a Democratic issue. Hell, it's one of the Tea Party's Core Beliefs.

This would get him more attention, it would get some conservatives voting for him, and it would get some some progressives voting for him. As a progressive, I'd accept a term with a conservative president if it meant taking a huge step to fix the system as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER23> I admire Mr. Lessig's convictions and his ideas, but frankly the concept of a self-resigning President is half-baked. It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects to the world at large.

The United States isn't a startup. You can't have a Minimum Viable Presidency focused on a single issue.

<comment><USER24> > It reveals a fundamental lack of understanding about the role of the > Presidency in United States politically and socially and image it projects > to the world at large.

Your comment is ironic to the core. The role of POTUS is not to serve the current system of contributors after the fact. That's the nature of the problem. The idea that POTUS is sancrosanct or even in a different class (projects to the world at large, lol) shows how far we have diverged from the concept of a public servant. POTUS is just a man and deserving little more than cursory protections and respect. The political system has been corrupted to make it a MONUMENTAL effort to get someone in the office. This does not make the station special. We have had real need for reform and this backward thinking that POTUS is elevated is part of the cultural shift that needs to occur to break the corruption cycle. It won't, of course. Partly because people are too stupid to break their own socialization (nobody will acknowledge it's so broken that anyone elected is unqualified, so you get lip service to "fight corruption") and partly because statistically, no large democracy has ever even accidentally broken the cycle before a catastrophic decline.

<comment><USER23> It's hardly ironic. It's realistic, and your defense is simplistic at best.

What does President Lessig do during the first 100 days of his Presidency if war breaks out? What if a natural disaster strikes putting millions of Americans at risk? We have no idea because his Presidency is not about governing towards a better future but rather tearing down a system he doesn't like.

Noble as his idea may sound on the surface it is a childish proposal which does not take into account the complexity of the system it intends to address.

<comment><USER24> > your defense is simplistic at best.

Defense of what?

> What does President Lessig do during the first 100 days of his Presidency if > war breaks out?

He does what EVERY President does. 100 days or not (how are the # of days relevant? howabout 3! sounds a lot like political hand waving). What happens is surely that he makes a statement and the executive branch provides function. He's not a general, but he can make individual decisions just like any successor. His death or resignation doesn't cripple the country, as much as some might fantasize.

The complexity you are talking about is the same religious belief that portends that a POTUS is somehow holding the nation together. More irony, calling my characterization simplistic.

<comment><USER23> Do you actually believe that this is the way the world works?

Super curious if you do or if... [https://xkcd.com/6/](https://xkcd.com/6/)

<comment><USER24> Of course I do. The idea that a single individual directs (generally through a number of cabinet positions, notably Secretary of State) is how the US presidency worked under a number of administrations, most notably Bush Jr and Reagan. Jimmy Carter was a micromanager, by contrast. The physical process of running the US presidency does not come in an orientation, just a transition process (handoff of key information and items). POTUS function is a matter of philosophy and personal style in dealing with the bureaucracy. It's how the station really works, if you're interested in the reality.

<comment><USER23> Sure, just like any other high-level executive function which is basically my entire point.

If you ever find yourself in a position of executive authority, you'll realize pretty quick that direct action is usually a disaster in the making when dealing with internal matters. However, by using indirect methods through key designates, you can actually get quite a bit done even in the worst bureaucracies.

By contrast, direct action is often required when dealing with external issues. Executive heads tend to deal only with other executive heads. This is true in business, and doubly true in politics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This notion that "outsiders" are what it takes to reform government is a popular campaign theme, but has never succeeded. The basis for justification is essentially one of "the system has made others corrupt, but not me" \-- it's a play on principles rising above the temptation for personal gain in order to achieve reform. Aside from being untrue, we've actually seen how this plays out.

Many of the far-right members in the House of Representatives that identify with the Tea Party are also highly principled. Listen to their campaigns and you'll hear how they'll "fix Washington" and such. One may or may not agree with those principles, but many of those members are steadfast in their beliefs, and govern based on those beliefs.

And what has been accomplished? To quote Admiral Stockdale - Gridlock!

Reform will never happen with a single leader. It will take the right people in all levels of government to make it happen.

</comment><comment><USER26> The way to create "equality" is via the libertarian movement. Get rid of the rules and social safety nets. Hell, let all the immigrants in! If we have a truly libertarian society, than it won't be a problem. Giving government the power to chose who is rich and who is poor is not going to create 'equality' (whatever that means), it's just going to give the government the ability to handicap the able and enable the disabled.

That being said, I don't believe 'equality' is what we need. What we need it is a society that rewards those who teach, learn and work for the good of the community with security and dignity.

</comment><comment><USER27> Larry Lessig definitively has my vote.

It is just inconvenient, that I am not an US-American. But if he would run for election in my country, I would give him my vote.

The reason: He really takes democracy seriously -- some thing, that I would not attest to most people in our government -- and definitively not to the leading politicians of most political parties in my country.

That is the reason, I fear that democracy is bound to fail -- and to be replaced by corporate ruling (in fact, we are already at this point, where corporations have much more power than politicians or voters).

</comment><comment><USER28> Lessig seems to be too in love with the idea to the point that he doesn't realize that the execution is what matters.

He would've been better off organizing people to get one or more of the legit Dem candidates to promise to work on this reform if elected.

This also assumes that the president has enough influence to get meaningful reform passed which isn't a reality with the current Congress.

</comment><comment><USER29> > This change now sharpens the difference between our campaign and the others.

Not really. Now he's just yet another candidate who has an issue they talk about more than the others. For Trump, it's immigration. For Sanders, it's wealth inequality.

Except he's a fringe candidate talking about an abstract issue which most people don't actually care about that much.

</comment><comment><USER30> Lessig should do something useful and realistic, instead of this grandstanding and pretending that he can go from zero-to-President in 2.4 seconds as if politics were some sort of Tesla. It's embarrassing.

To wit: he should run for the House, or Senate, or he should support candidates who are in favor of overturning Citizens United (i.e., Democrats).

<comment><USER31> Uh, the PAC he started does the candidate support, but he can't be associated with it while running as president.

<comment><USER30> Great. I agree with that, of course. And perhaps if he wasn't wasting millions of dollars of donor money on running for President, his PAC could do more good.

What if Lessig actually won? It wouldn't matter _at all_. You think the Republican Congress is going to pass sweeping campaign finance reform? Jesus Christ could return and be President and he wouldn't be able to make that happen, either. Lessig surely understands our system well enough to know this. So why is he doing this very expensive pretending that him being President will cause any change? If a Democrat in the White House could magically fix this, Obama would fix it right now.

<comment><USER31> What would he need congress for? Some people run _just_ to change the conversation, not to win.

<comment><USER15> In fact, that's been a successful third party tactic in times past: get successful enough and one or the other major parties will absorb it and much of its platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let's say that Larry Lessig succeeds. What would happen then? Would it be primarily journalists who would influence the government then, rather than corporations and rich people? Journalists tend to be left-leaning. The left is probably better on some issues, such as the environment, however, they aren't always so good for the economy and entrepreneurs. Personally, I'm really not sure whether the US would be a better or worse place without money in politics.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think many agree with Lessig's policies. But I have serious doubts he wants to get money out of politics. If his voting history's any indication, he wants the money in politics to be from a wider range of the population.

[http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig- lawren...](http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/lessig-lawrence- democrats-debate-2016-213215)

</comment><comment><USER33> > America gave birth to the idea of representative democracy

And here was me thinking that was the Greeks. Thousands of years before America existed.

<comment><USER34> I believe the Athenians practiced direct democracy rather than representative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I first gained interest in Lessig when he offered a poll to vote for his vice president (who takes over when he steps down).

[https://lessig2016.us/vote4vp/](https://lessig2016.us/vote4vp/)

I just love the idea of Neil deGrasse Tyson being president.

</comment><comment><USER36> Thank you, Mr. Lessig.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10138724)

</comment><comment><USER37> I largely agree with Lessig's point about our campaign finance laws being the root of all evil, and I think he's spoken rather intelligently about this in the past. But I'm frankly amazed at how earnestly he speaks about his "discovery" that "elect me, an outsider, to fix Congress" polls so well.

I mean, this is not a novel talking point. Does it really take an expert pollster to tell you that people like this message?

</comment><comment><USER38> Oh boy. Looks like he'll have to show he can be president to get his reform passed... and otherwise his campaign hit a wall, what a surprise. My response: [http://magarshak.com/blog/](http://magarshak.com/blog/)

<comment><USER39> response to your response: it's a good idea but would there be margin of error? Would have to be. And how could you do a recount on close issues?

What makes more sense is to allow online voting (with appropriate safeguards) and then restructure the process so the votes actually mean something, i.e. break the two party system as a start.

<comment><USER38> Well, that's the Buridan's ass problem. You simply don't change course unless the majority is large enough. For example unless clearly over 80% of the country votes a certain way, you keep the status quo. If you are unsure, you keep the status quo.

In the Buridan's problem the solution is a timeout: if you haven't made a decision and can clearly see that the timeout has passed, you pick a certain predetermined decision (in this case the status quo).

Polling also prevents sybil attacks, ballot stuffing etc. and is impervious to voter turnouts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Sounds super confusing</comment>


Feds Beg Court to Let Them Search Phones Without Warrant - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/04/smartphone-kill-switch/ <comment><USER2> They are already searching phones without warrants.</comment>


Guido van Rossum - Tail Recursion - <AUTHOR> http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/tail-recursion.html

<comment><USER2> Why do you need to make a distinction between self recursive calls and other calls? And why a distinction between method calls and function calls? In Scheme all calls in tail position are tail calls, is there a special Python reason why that's not possible?

I don't think that stack traces are such a big deal. Stack traces only change if some function f calls another function g and immediately returns. The information that f wants to do nothing isn't very useful.

You are already making a trade-off between execution speed/memory cost and debug information. You don't record every function call even though that would be very useful for debugging. The current situation is an arbitrary trade-off, an a bad one in my opinion.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure I understand your argument about stack traces and functions doing nothing. With TCE (tail-call elimination) the problem with stack traces are thus:

* with self-recursive functions it is no longer possible to see how many times the function has called itself (since the stack trace is collapsed to a single entry for the function rather than a proper trace of each call). This is a non-issue in my opinion - unless you have a language that also lets you know what your function call parameters were for each stack frame (if not then you are left with 'manually' working out where the recursion went wrong). As for debugging - it makes no difference since every self-recursive call made has no further effect on the computation.

* with ordinary tail-calls the issue could be a whole lot more noticeable as it means that given an error the stack trace will no longer contain any information on how you got from A (where you started making a series of tail-calls) to B. This one bears more thought (and I'd be interested in how Scheme implementations deal with this).

You further say "You don't record every function call even though that would be very useful for debugging" and I don't agree. Every debugger I've used records every function call on the stack (effectively the path to the current node in the call graph). If you meant that it doesn't record every function called in the history of the execution of the application - I agree that is useful and can easily be handled with a good logging infrastructure (and I'm sure that at least a few good debuggers would support such a log feature too). In fact, such a logging approach would possibly be an adequate solution to the tail-call problem. However that solution would need some extra "assistance" in order to be a valid approach in a "pure" functional language.

<comment><USER2> > it makes no difference since every self-recursive call made has no further > effect on the computation.

Yes, that's what I was trying to say. It's the same for non-self-recursive calls.

> If you meant that it doesn't record every function called in the history of > the execution of the application

Yes I do mean that. Here's an example: <http://www.lambdacs.com/debugger/>

This records not only function calls but literally everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like Guido pulled the article? It's not coming up for me, and there's only one (non-tail-recursion) article in the archives for April.

<comment><USER5> I guess it meant this one:

[http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/tail-recursion- elimi...](http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/tail-recursion- elimination.html)</comment></comment>


Britain from Above: 24 Hour Britain - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00d24qq/ <comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately only available to UK ip addresses but contains some real pretty data-vis</comment>


Our Irrational Fear of Forgetting - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/opinion/22gullette.html

<comment><USER2> Nonsense. Your memories comprise much of who you are. Losing them is like losing parts of yourself, and it's extremely disconcerting.

I'm only 29, but I've had a few points of memory loss (amongst other mental issues). You've done things, significant things even, but have zero recollection. I've had to go to my email and IM archives to verify events and convince myself that yes, they happened. It's shocking when you find out days or whole weeks have happened, yet they are just erased from your mind. Imagine if a family member asked you about your trip to X, a place you'd never gone, yet everyone acted as if you had. You'd laugh and think it a joke, until you realised it wasn't a joke - then how'd you feel?

Coupled with dementia and other symptoms of Alzheimer's (or another loss of mental function), it's no wonder some would want to kill themselves. Why would you want to live in a disjointed dream, perhaps with a constant sense that something is terribly wrong, but not understanding what's happening? Why would you want to destroy others' memories of you, by leaving them with years of "not you"?

I probably have 2 or 3 decades before things are really bad (perhaps a lot more with advances in medicine and technology), but if I ever get too bad, I'm going out on the highest note possible. If not for me, for my family.

</comment><comment><USER3> _The fact that only 1 in 8 Americans older than 65 has Alzheimer's fails to register._

That's supposed to be comforting? Alzheimer's isn't the only way for your mind to fall apart, and a lower bound of 12.5% of that happening doesn't give me warm fuzzies. Aging really, really sucks and we need to fix it.

<comment><USER4> Smokers have a 11-17% chance of developing lung cancer, according to this study.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7895211>

<comment><USER5> As a smoker, my two thoughts are:

1.) I'd rather have a 10% chance of dying than a 10% chance of living many years with something like Alzheimer's.

2.) I'm not someone who says "I wish I could quit but I'm addicted", I find it easy not to smoke but I do it because I really enjoy smoking. I'm trading possible early death with current pleasure. Alzheimer's doesn't have any upside or choice involved.

<comment><USER6> You say it like if you smoke, you cannot get Alzheimer.

<comment><USER5> No, I really don't. I was merely pointing out the difference between smoking risks and normal risks. As a smoker maybe I have an equal chance of getting lung cancer as Alzheimer's, but personally I'm more worried about the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let me summarize the article: "Forgetting stuff every now and then isn't that bad."

Yes, that is indeed the entire content of the article. I apologize if the article is meant as a joke, I'm not entirely sure either way. This makes me wonder:

"[...]but she discovered an upside to forgetting. She had forgotten old rancors as well as President George W. Bush's name."

I also wonder why I keep reading newspapers.

<comment><USER8> Dunno, this article really hit home to me. This past year has been the first time I've been involved in a relationship that's gotten to the transactive memory phase, and that's kind of scary. On the one hand it frees up cognitive cycles to let you do things you never could have done otherwise, but on the other hand there are chunks of your life that are disappearing. (If I remember correctly, this is theorized to be one of the reasons why men are more likely to commit suicide after a breakup.)

I guess that's the way it's always like with our parents, but somehow it feels different with a significant other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have a fear of forgetting insights i just had - it's not irrational, because if I don't grab them quickly enough they vanish (though sometimes come back).

</comment><comment><USER10> "...she discovered an upside to forgetting. She had forgotten old rancors...."

This bears repeating, because it's both interesting and unexpected. I have a relative with Alzheimer's—diagnosed a year ago—and while the signs are unmistakable, she's also still perfectly conversational, reasonably independent, and most surprisingly, much more amiable towards people to whom she was formerly rather cool. Our best explanation is exactly as stated in the article: that she had basically forgotten the rancor.

Anyway, I saw her so clearly in that line of the article I had to point it out, because it was (and still is) so surprising to us that this would be an effect of Alzheimer's.

</comment><comment><USER11> We are measuring our own human memories against the flawless nature of computer system memory and as a result people are raising the bar on what "normal human memory" should look like.

We shall just have to decrease the amount of time it takes for humans to access the flawless computer memory.

When the amount of data for one person to remember becomes too great then increased specialization is required.

<comment><USER12> We can also take advantage of computers to help us to be able to actively recall things, using spaced repetition systems. These are an attempt to make long-term memorization as efficient as possible.</comment></comment>


DC-area schools consider copyright policy that takes ownership of students' work - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/prince-georges-considers-copyright-policy-that-takes-ownership-of-students-work/2013/02/02/dc592dea-6b08-11e2-ada3-d86a4806d5ee_story.html?hpid=z1

<comment><USER3> Surely this can't be legal under existing copyright law. From the article, "The District holds common law copyright, at a minimum, to all relevant intellectual property its city and school employees create, a spokeswoman said." I take it that the school district's lawyer was not consulted before that statement was made, or else the lawyer was a doofus about copyright law. There isn't any "common law copyright," in the first place. (FIRST EDIT: a reply to this comment correctly points out that the story is primarily about a "proposal by the Prince George's County Board of Education" and that the District of Columbia public schools are a distinct public school system. So I should make clear that I think that ANY school district that thinks it can assert a copyright interest in pupil or student assignments is mistaken about the law, and parents should challenge districts that make such statements.)

The work-for-hire exception to the general copyright law principle that the right of copyright belongs to the creator from fixation is narrowly construed, and school pupils attending a public school don't meet the rather narrow exceptions that trigger the work-for-hire doctrine.

[http://www.theiplawblog.com/archives/-copyright-law- ownershi...](http://www.theiplawblog.com/archives/-copyright-law-ownership- issues-underlying-the-work-made-for-hire-doctrine.html)

<http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf>

School pupils are not employees of school districts. Works produced in the scope of employment by school district employees may indeed be works for hire (there is some scope for interpretation in applying this part of the work-for- hire doctrine) but, again, students and pupils are not employees of the school district. They have authorship rights in their works from the moment of fixation. (That students and pupils are usually minors, not adults, is an additional complication in asserting that right, but that doesn't pass the right to the school.)

Anecdote: I made a school art project in second grade, a picture of a Mongol horseman, that somehow was precociously good, probably because I had seen other such drawings at home when reading history books. The school's specialist art teacher was so impressed by the picture that she took it, and I HAVE NEVER SEEN IT AGAIN. Every time I tell this story, I encounter other adults who also remember producing an art project in school that was taken by a teacher, never to be returned. Thanks a lot.

My advice to parents, which I advise parents to memorize, whenever I speak at a public meeting about educational law: if a school official tells you that you must put up with some school rule, because the rule is the law, say, "What is your legal authority to ask me to do this?" Statutes and case holdings and administrative regulations have citations. If it's really the law, someone can look it up and see exactly what the law says. Schools can only make up policies under authority granted to the schools by other law-making bodies. And if a school district has a policy, it still needs to be written down somewhere. In my experience, most school district officials who say "It's the law" are nonlawyers and are often mistaken about what the law says. If a school tells you that you can't do what's right by your child because "it's the law," ask for the citation of the law. If it's really a law, there is a citation, and the law can be looked up. In the United States, under its Anglo- American system of law, the default assumption is individual liberty (and parents rather than schools acting in the interests of minor children), so make sure to check the specific law before believing your freedom is restricted by the law in the manner the school official claims.

SECOND EDIT: A different top-level comment in this thread mentions a policy of the University of California Berkeley. I have an inference about what that is about, and it would be enormously helpful to the discussion to link to the exact text of what students agree to as they enroll, which is surely a public document that very likely lives on the World Wide Web.

<comment><USER4> > _If a school tells you that you can't do what's right by your child because > "it's the law," ask for the citation of the law. If it's really a law, there > is a citation, and the law can be looked up. In the United States, under its > Anglo-American system of law, the default assumption is individual liberty > (and parents rather than schools acting in the interests of minor children), > so make sure to check the specific law before believing your freedom is > restricted by the law in the manner the school official claims._

Unfortunately they're likely to mumble some semi-related law and then call the police.

<comment><USER5> What are they going to tell the police? "These parents won't let us copyright their children's work, please arrest them."?

<comment><USER6> Harassment. Making a scene, also known as disturbing the peace. Refusing to leave, which amounts to criminal trespass. Maybe even assault, if they're really feeling their oats and are willing to claim you made them fear for their safety.

<comment><USER5> If it gets to the point where a school official asks a parent to leave, my advice would be to walk away and call your favorite education lawyer. Do you really think refusing to leave is going to change their mind?

<comment><USER6> > Do you really think refusing to leave is going to change their mind?

I think you missed my point: The fact they accused you of refusing to leave does not mean you did, in fact, refuse to leave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every time I read something like this, I can't help but feel that society has lost sight that the primary purpose of copyright is to promote and encourage creative endeavors _for everyone's benefit_ [1], not to safeguard individual ownership of 'intellectual property.'

Is anyone at this school system even wondering, "does society at large benefit from this?"

\--

[1] As pyre points out below, this is the case in the US, but not necessarily in Europe, where the history of copyright is much longer and more complex. (Thanks pyre!) The Copyright Clause of the US Constitution is: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Source: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause>

<comment><USER8> Depends. As I understand it, using copyright for the betterment of society is a British/American view of copyright. Elsewhere in Europe it's seen as an author's right to control one's work.

<comment><USER9> But those "moral rights" are generally not transferable to others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When my son was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley he used to put a copyright notice on all his homework because the University has a similar policy. The policy was legal because students has to agree in order to gain admission.

The Prince Georges policy has no legal standing because first graders cant enter into contracts. Apparently nobody contacted a minimally competent lawyer.

<comment><USER11> Not a Cal student, but Cal & the UC have a number of pages about copyright, including: <http://ipira.berkeley.edu/uc-copyright-policy>

_IV C. Student Work

A student work is a work produced by a registered student without the use of University funds (other than Student Financial Aid), that is produced outside any University employment, and is not a sponsored, contracted facilities, or commissioned work.

Ownership of copyrights to student works shall reside with the originator._

and a terser version at: [http://copyright.universityofcalifornia.edu/systemwide/owner...](http://copyright.universityofcalifornia.edu/systemwide/ownershipguide.html)

Note also that schools using anti-plagiarism services like TurnItIn might want at least an implied license to copy putative student works so they could submit a copy of the work to the service.

<comment><USER10> I can accept that his reasoning was flawed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, as a student in HS I literally wouldn't have been able to turn in certain homework due to an agreement I had signed as a contractor(1).

There's an excuse for you. "No Ma'am, I don't have today's homework, I'm under nda."

(1) It was a ridiculous contract, probably completely invalid because I was 17 at the time, but still... Homeschooling for _business reasons?!_

<comment><USER13> From what I read, it looks like the policy would apply to work produced 'for the school' or use by the school or part of the school, or with school equipment. So I suppose if you claimed all work you turned in had been produced by you prior to the assignment, for your own, or other, purposes, you (or the copyright owner) would retain your rights.

<comment><USER14> I believe that noonespecial's "ridiculous contract" was such that the other party claimed copyright ownership to all copyrightable material generated by noonespecial, including work which had no relation to the other party.

This would, therefore, include work done for school, if a transfer of copyright for schoolwork is required as part of the education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why would you want to own the IP for a bunch of crappy school projects?

<comment><USER16> Some universities have plagiarism detection systems and to tell if you're copying from your buddy who took the course last year they store all submitted work. Often these systems are outsourced to companies like 'turnitin' [1] which can also compare work between universities. Work is stored forever, and if anyone submits something similar to your work, professors get to see both side by side for comparison.

In order to store students work in the plagiarism detection system, the student has to grant the university/turnitin an appropriate copyright license.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnitin>

<comment><USER17> There's a big difference between granting the school a non-exclusive copyright licence (including one that allows them to sublicense to anti-plagiarism companies), and assigning them your copyright. I'd be happy to do the first, but not the second.

<comment><USER18> The first has pitfalls. For example, is it even possible to grant a non- exclusive, _non-revocable_ license?

So, they are going to prefer the second, as the pitfalls of the second are primary the objections of students.

<comment><USER17> > is it even possible to grant a non-exclusive, _non-revocable_ license?

...Yes?

IAN(Y)AL. But licences aren't revocable by default. If I grant you a licence by contract, then you have a licence. If I want to revoke it, I have two options.

\- One, I can ask you if you'd be willing to waive/vary the contract, in return for some good consideration. But you don't have to accept.

\- Two, I can send you a letter saying "I revoke your licence", sue you, and crucially, try to convince a judge to _imply a term_ into the contract that allows me to revoke the license. Which is pretty hard. Terms aren't implied lightly. Especially if I put the word "irrevocable" in the contract, no-one's going to imply a clause saying the exact opposite.

Important thing: "by contract". If I grant you a licence gratuitously, outside of a contract or deed, that's different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's a copy of the draft proposal:

Use of Creation of Copyrighted Materials (Prince George's County Public Schools) [http://www.boarddocs.com/MABE/pgcps/Board.nsf/files/943N845D...](http://www.boarddocs.com/MABE/pgcps/Board.nsf/files/943N845D5399/$file/Copyright%20Policy%20Revised\[1\]2\[1\].pdf)

</comment><comment><USER20> What would the ideal policy be?

My ideas are:

\- Students own their own work; even if they don't really care for it. I don't see any value in a 10 year pile of homework, but if you create a great piece of art, you should be able to take it home. Realistically, most work is valueless and binned.

\- Any created teaching materials may optionally be released as open source, under some license that prevents anyone profiting from them. There's often a gap between good work, and good releasable work (final polish, consistency and so on). Anyone (e.g. some school district) wanting a particular set of work released should be prepared to fund this final polishing. So, a teacher could make a great course, subsequently receive funding to make it brilliant for others, and share it with the world. Thus any good teaching materials created benefit the most amount of people.

<comment><USER21> "What would the ideal policy be?"

Not applying copyrights to education and knowledge, because copyrights make no sense in an age of widespread fast Internet access. Further, as public schools are government entities, they should not have copyrights at all; all unclassified government work should be in the public domain, and schools should not even think about classifying their teachers' or students' work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Are there any amusing ways of hacking this policy?

What are the implications, for example of a student preparing a piece of work that breaches the law in some way and then immediately informing the authorities since the school board now owns said work.

I can imagine the Board finding themselves owning all kinds of work that 'accidentally' breach copyright. It might be interesting to try and engineer such a 'poison pill' piece of course work and watch the board squirm as they argue that 'this really doesn't belong to us'.

<comment><USER17> Happily (or unhappily), the law is applied by humans rather than computers, and isn't very susceptible to that sort of thing.

Also -- 'being the copyright holder of a work that infringes copyright' isn't a thing. If I copy Harry Potter, by the act of copying I'm infringing JKR's copyright. That I assigned copyright of any original works I make to X doesn't make X liable to JKR for that instead of me! (I can't assign JKR's copyright to X - I never had it in the first place).

(Even if I make a derivative work of Harry Potter without permission - <USER2> there will be new copyright which can be assigned to X - that doesn't change anything. It just means that you'd need both JKR's and X's permission to copy it. It wouldn't make X liable to JKR).

Not to mention, works doesn't necessarily "belong" to the copyright holder. I may own a painting, but the artist still hold the copyright on it. Wrong's generally aren't about 'belonging', anyway. Most restricted things are acts (e.g. making a copy of a copyrighted work, or communicating it to the public). Possession of an infringing work is usually only a wrong when coupled with e.g. intent to sell.

(IANAL)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Are there any other countries where the education systems often reach this level of legal activity/deliberation/antagonism?

Or do they just quietly get on with teaching students?

</comment><comment><USER23> So I suppose they're also considering paying the students for their work? Otherwise this will probably last about 5 seconds on a 13th Amendment challenge.

</comment><comment><USER24> The board of ed has forgotten its mission. Its mission is to educate students, not to profit from the students' works.

</comment><comment><USER25> Important note: By "DC-area", the Washington Post means the Maryland suburbs.

</comment><comment><USER26> Whenever I see something like this, I used to furiously bang away at the keyboard and type a lengthy, long rant, but now I don't even bother.

It's become all too commonplace that I just hang my head in shame and grow depressed to see my fellow human brothers and sisters become captives of selfishness and corruption.

</comment><comment><USER27> What possible reason could there be for this, that, in any way, serves the public? Don't these schools have bigger problems than stealing people's work? It seems even having this as a discussion is a waste of public funds.

<comment><USER28> This is already pretty common at the college-level.

<comment><USER29> That doesn't make it right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think the copyright shit is hitting the ceiling now.

</comment><comment><USER31> What I find interesting is, it is totally the schools copyright when you think about it.

There's no way the students would be thinking up what they were without the collaboration of their teachers.

Sure schools should have special rules, they need to encourage not stifle, but in any logical sense it is their IP.

</comment><comment><USER32> Legality aside, I could go either way on this. Schools are in dire straights financially. While I understand the gut reaction of how nonsensical the proposal sounds - if it raises money for the schools to provide better education, then it may be the lesser of two evils.

Maybe a better solution is some kind of joint copyright (if that's even possible)? Where one must get permission from the other if they plan on using it for publication or otherwise.

<comment><USER12> So they force you(especially if you're poor or underprivileged) to go to the school, lirerally at the point of a gun with truancy laws, force you to complete the assignments, and then appropriate the work for themselves alone and possibly _profit_ from it.

Oh I think there might be a term for that.

<comment><USER33> _"force you to complete the assignments."_

I understand that you're forced to go to school but how are you forced to complete assignments?

<comment><USER12> Once they get kids into the system, they have a suprising array of coercive methods to get students to perform. Vague threats about future actions, social shaming through posted grades and holding students back as their class moves on, etc.

I grant you that hard-core slackers laugh at this until they can get away with dropping out, but a large majority of students will conform to the physiological pressure to comply.

<comment><USER34> I literally did no (assigned) work in High School, failed every class, and still graduated a year early. It was about 50% moral outrage at the state of our education system, %40 I could teach myself things better, %10 I was a lazy arsehole.

<comment><USER9> Graduated from the school, or ditched the school and got a GED from the state?

<comment><USER34> I graduated from the school. They wanted to get me out of there so at the end of my Sophomore year, they gave me a test, I aced it, and I got to not attend my senior year. (Strangely, they still let me compete in the Science Olympiad because I was the only one who knew how to use the GPS)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fed court ruled that 5th Amendment protects against forced decryption - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/tech-manager/personal-data-encryption-it-and-the-fifth-amendment/7467?tag=nl.e036

<comment><USER2> POWNED.

Nice work, branches of government!</comment>


Show HN: Keysniffer – Linux kernel mode debugfs keylogger - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jarun/keysniffer <comment><AUTHOR> keysniffer is a Linux kernel module to grab keys pressed in the keyboard, or a keylogger.

keysniffer is also an academic project for devs willing to learn Linux kernel module programming, with extensive comments, checkpatch.pl scanned code, standards-compliant Makefile and DKMS support.

keysniffer was initially written for the US keyboard (and conforming laptops). By default it shows human-readable strings for the keys pressed. Optionally, the keycode shift_mask pair can be printed in hex or decimal. You can lookup the keycodes in /usr/include/linux/input-event-codes.h.

The keypress logs are recorded in debugfs as long as the module is loaded. Only root or sudoers can read the log. The module name has been camouflaged to blend-in with other kernel modules.

You can, however, execute a script at shutdown or reboot (the procedure would be distro-specific) to save the keys to a file.

DISCLAIMER: keysniffer is intended to track your own devices and NOT to trespass on others. The author has never used it to compromise any third-party device and is not responsible for any unethical application.</comment>


Google Maps Instant (inspired by Youtube Instant) - <AUTHOR> http://hartlabs.net/instant_maps/ <comment><USER3> The funny thing about the "instant" search is around the time of AJAX exploding four or five years ago, this type of "real-time" search was all the rage. Over time it disappeared, most likely because it both wastes resources and a lot of users found it annoying. From that, auto-complete suggestions was the next evolution. Now we seem to have gone full circle. As impressive as it is that they're handling way more searches than before with lightning speed, the whole thing seems really naff. The marketing video for Google Instant in particular is hilarious - "I don't even have to press Enter!"

I work for Nokia and we used to have "real-time search" on Ovi Maps and this was removed around a year ago, again due to a confusing and poor user experience. After all this buzz I saw some people on the internal communication tools ask if we have the technology internally to do instance geosearch.

Marketing is everything.

<comment><USER4> This is a classic engineer response. It's not about who does it first, it's about who does it right. We didn't have the technology to implement this properly 5 years ago. I've never seen the Ovi Maps tool you mention, but I'm willing to bet that it wasn't polished enough to make it natural for users.

Now, I'm not entirely convinced that Google Instant is polished enough either- anecdotally, I've already seen some confusion. But saying "it's all marketing" willfully ignores the lesson we've all been taught by Apple: a revolutionary feature that isn't intuitively usable is no revolutionary feature at all.

<comment><USER3> Actually, to me it seems like the real lesson most companies are picking up from Apple is to grossly overstate every little thing they do in the name of hype and buzz.

I mean, revolutionary feature? Seriously? My whole point is this revolution happened five years ago and people learnt their lesson and moved on. I'm sure a lot of developers will be asked to put this back in, but on the plus side if you're not dealing with Google scale it's a trivial thing to implement.

<comment><USER5> I think you guys are talking past each other. Your claim is that, if Google Instant is successful, it will be because of marketing/hype/some-other-non- technical-reason. His claim is that it will be because Google made the feature (which everyone agrees existed in a basic form 5 years ago) accessible to the average user.

I don't think you guys are going to be able to settle this debate without some data about real life users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The concept doesn't translate for maps.

An address as entered from left-to-right goes from the very specific to the general. Therefore all the api calls and screen updating you make are completely irrelevant until I type in my city half -way through.

<comment><USER7> google maps on my android phone does this type of instant-search recommendation and i always thought it was stupid, too. i just typed in "1218" on it and it's trying to recommend me "1218 grand-saconnex, switzerland" (i live in the united states).

if it's going to do search recommendations, it should at least do a regional geo-ip/gps lookup and offer suggestions i'd probably be driving to.

<comment><USER8> That is possible, but when I was making this, I didn't want to use server-side technologies (php) because I wanted it to stay fast, which would have been necessary to determine your approximate location and get the GeoID prior to page generation.

It is easily possible, however, it just would have been soooo slow in comparison.

<comment><USER9> Then don't use php... It's possible to grab user location via javascript, the client just needs a compatible browser. I'd say judging by the people who would stumble upon your project more than half would have a browser capable of grabbing location via javascript.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I typed in my home address in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it put me in Long Beach, California.

I think you're on to something.

</comment><comment><USER11> Someone looking for a job on the Google Maps team?

<comment><USER12> He says so right under the input box. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Geocode was not successful for the following reason: OVER_QUERY_LIMIT"

I was half way through typing my city's name...

<comment><USER14> Adding a quarter second gap between new searches would probably avoid this.

<comment><USER15> And not making it a modal popup would prevent it locking down my browser.

<comment><USER8> I sorda forgot that in there when I made it, then it got copied over to the CDN. So changing it was a little difficult. But I did ultimately change it; it now redirects you to a different version of the page with a fresh API key and a different IP address.

While it hasn't fixed the API limit issues completely, it has helped significantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hi guys. Ever heard of Google Instant, Youtube Instant and Google Maps Instant?

Well, I made Google Picasa Instant. By the way, I'm looking for a job too!

... Okay, Actually I didn't but it could be possible.

<comment><USER8> I did make an Instant Google Image Search.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1681775>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Hi, I'm the creator of YouTube Instant. This is pretty awesome. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER18> Google Maps team, at least much of it, is in Bangalore.

Like to relocate to India?

<comment><USER19> The Geo team has a whole building in Mountain View, I'm sure they'd let him work there :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> \- [http://google-maps-utility- library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/tag...](http://google-maps-utility- library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/tags/keydragzoom/2.0.1/examples/) check out these samples to allow users to zoom into a point when they've found it, eg: [http://google-maps-utility- library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/tag...](http://google-maps-utility- library-v3.googlecode.com/svn/tags/keydragzoom/2.0.1/examples/dragzoom.html)

\- Great to see business listings too: [http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/reference.html...](http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/reference.html#_resultlistings) [http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/boot- complete....](http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/boot- complete.html) [http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/v2...](http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/v2/examples/control- googlebar.html)

Good work so far.

</comment><comment><USER21> I think waiting for a space to be typed so you know the newest typed chunk is a usable discrete piece of data along with a small delay for when no space is typed would make this work better.

In thinking about how this compares to youtube instant, I'm not sure an autocomplete would work well at the global level without more thought and refinement.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is really impressive. I wonder if the guy will get a job offer - <USER2> certainly seems to be a pretty quick coder.

</comment><comment><USER23> You should give it a short time lag. Instead of it immediately trying to find out my location, make it find my location after I stop typing for 2 seconds.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is clever. Who cares if it's copycat? I bet you if it was slickened up slightly it'd be a perfect fit on Google's stable. I think transition animations and auto-zoom would help.

And how about this for an idea: Why not split up the boxes in two, one for city and one for address? It seems this might work better with a box for general tuning and one for fine-tuning. Just a thought.

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, cool but... first place? I wonder how many other "clones" we'll see in the next days

edit: don't want to be mean

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, it got my house, which is in Spain, albeit after a long list of JS alerts. Nice job! Even if you can't get around the errors, at least don't inform the user via JS alerts, they steal the focus from the search box and hence are _indescribably_ annoying.

</comment><comment><USER27> Are the map pins ever cleared? As I continue typing a long place name, I can see the 'shadow' behind the pin getting darker and darker with each keystroke.

It's 'neat' but I don't think it's useful, per se. Possibly no more or less useful than YouTube Instant though.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's broken

Example: 110 W 75th st, new york, ny

Compare to the correct location on google maps: [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=110+W+75th+st,+new+york,+ny...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=110+W+75th+st,+new+york,+ny&z=15)

</comment><comment><USER15> <http://i.imgur.com/YFCKK.png>

Modal popup came up about three times. There's gotta be a better way of handling that - I wasn't even typing very fast.

<comment><USER8> It wasn't your fault. Unfortunately, it's a combination of no buffer between queries and a lot of people using it at the same time.

I did remove the alert window, but it will take time to propagate to my CDN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> You get a job too I guess but you should get rid of the query limit.

<comment><USER30> Plus get an auto-zoom feature.

<comment><USER31> And clear markers from the prior keystroke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I type "New", it shows me 3 cities on the map (New York one of them). I then continue " York" and it doesn't do anything.

I think Google's phone call might delayed a bit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Update to v0.2 just went live

Major features: \- Intelligent zoom \- More efficient API usage \- Markers clear with new searches

</comment><comment><USER33> I really like this - can you make an iPhone application that does google maps instant search?

<comment><USER8> It works on iPhone and Android. :)

<comment><USER33> It does too! I have added it to my home screen but the accuracy does not seem to be that great - e.g. searching for a Roka restaurant in Canary wharf london doesn't work, postcode search in UK also doesn't seem to work

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is the "scroll up to zoom out" behaviour intended? Usually it's the other way.

<comment><USER8> I didn't modify the default events. It could perhaps be a bug with the Google Maps v3 API. I will look into it, and report a bug if necessary :) Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Whoa! It only needed four letters to pinpoint my home street in Finland.

</comment><comment><USER36> "Geocode was not successful for the following reason: ZERO_RESULTS"

</comment><comment><USER37> Haha, I like your try! And it works really smooth.

</comment><comment><USER38> instant is cool no doubt.. but the proactivity becomes irritating after a while

</comment><comment><USER39> I like how typing "Paris" went to Paris, France and then adding ", Texas" takes you to the location expected as well. I like to see tricky cases like that handled the least surprising way.

</comment><comment><USER40> any Facebook/Twiter Instant?

btw, there are lots of good ideas about command line - reverse search as in readline, context help as in Cisco IOS or SoftIce debugger and Zsh of course.</comment>