How Fact-Free Parenting Policies Rob Kids' Independence - <AUTHOR> http://5kids1condo.com/very-superstitious-how-fact-free-parenting-policies-rob-our-kids-of-independence/ <comment><USER2> Back around 1960, when I was eight and my little sister was six, we went with our dad to a chess tournament at the Mechanics' Institute in San Francisco. [1]

Of course if you're six and eight and not really into chess, nothing could be more boring. So we asked Dad if we could do something else. He gave us a few nickels and quarters and said "sure, how about riding the cable cars and go see the town?"

So we did! It was the most awesomest thing ever. We rode every cable car we could find, walked around town and saw the sights. The best part was when we found a street with our last name on it!

Everyone was nice. The cable car operators saw that we were a couple of kids riding around on our own, so they showed us how the grip and the brakes worked, pointed out interesting things to see, and made sure we knew how to ride safely - even when we were sitting on the outside of the cable car kicking our feet.

We forgot to ask for lunch money, so when we got back to the chess club as Dad was finishing his games, he took us out for a bite to eat and we told him all the stories of our adventure.

What a great day!

[1] [https://chessclub.org](https://chessclub.org)

</comment><comment><USER3> Over-protecting kids is probably not the main point here. Bureaucrats tend to focus on only one goal: not taking any responsibility or risks. Letting kids being independent is a risk for them, even if this is for their own good. And you can carefully explain to them the case, with scientific evidences, but they are not accountable for anything, and won't bother to change their mind. Because there is a second thing bureaucrats hate: admitting they were wrong.

<comment><USER4> The counterpoint is, however, that the 'risk' is real: while most parents wouldn't hold the ministry accountable for minor risks, 'most' is not 'all'. They're doing CYA for a reason, not because they get jollies from it.

It's the same reason why politicians say nothing of substance anymore. In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even cost you your job.

It's not just a case of 'bureaucracy gone crazy', but also of 'we demand too much of them'. The stereotypical example is that teachers used to just teach, and now they need to be nurses and social workers as well.

<comment><USER5> > In the olden days, the occasional slip-up would slide. These days if you say > the wrong thing, you can spend weeks or months defending it, and it can even > cost you your job.

I think Trump is proving you wrong.

But I get your point, the risk is really because a few people are idiots with too much powers to break things.

We see the same things with the medical personal: they get very cautious and conservative because they are held accountable when something goes wrong, whether it's their fault or not.

But then forbidding idiots to have power would not be very democratic wouldn't it ?

<comment><USER4> Trump isn't really proving me wrong. He made a lot of promises. He's completely unable to get any of them done; he's a completely ineffective politician. He's alienated his own staff and political allies. He won't survive the next election, and doesn't even want to. He doesn't care to stay, and without impeachment, there's no way to remove him. Total amount of elections won = 1, total amount of 'stuff done' = 0.

Trump doesn't care about keeping his job _or_ doing his job _and_ he effectively can't be fired (which is rare for most positions). If you don't care about those kinds of ramifications, then you don't need to defend your slip-ups. He really is an atypical case here.

<comment><USER5> > He really is an atypical case here.

Not in my experience.

I France we have politicians lying, cheating and even being condemned coming back all the time.

<comment><USER6> You don't even need to go as far as France. RI and NJ do that too.

<comment><USER7> > You don't even need to go as far as France.

The implication in the comment above is that he's already in France. So going to RI or NJ would be going further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While helicopter parenting is a thing here in Germany, too, it is still possible to use your sane judgement as a parent for a lot of things. My daughter is not yet in school (so I am not into a peer group that talks about such stuff), but I see the 7-year-old neighbour kids walking to school without supervision, just as it has been the custom here in my own childhood. I have to admit there are fewer of those on the street (and more accompanied by parents), but kids still have the same freedoms in law that I had. Heck, in anti-gun Germany they are allowed to shoot at shooting clubs beginning 12, doing their first solo flight in (sail)planes at 14 and have their boat driving license at 16. I often critisize our country for its obese body of law, but life of kids is not too much restricted.

<comment><USER9> There currently is discussion about how parent should stop bringing their kids to school and let them ride the bus or walk. In the often narrow streets in front of German schools, parents drive their children to the gate of the school in their SUVs and endanger everybody around them.

<comment><USER10> My mother, a former Austrian primary school teacher has, in her words "dragged this mother out of her car and showed her what could've happened." I think that the school doesn't let parents drop kids off right at the door any more for this reason, they have to go to the parking lot down the street instead. Most kids that live near walk or cycle to school (once they're allowed to).

Edit: I think the school recommends that parents walk with the first graders for a certain time (those that are in walking distance) until they feel that the kid knows the way and the rules and feels safe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't mind the idea of the state protecting children. What I mind is it happening without essential protections such as a right to jury trial, a presumption of innocence, and illegal behavior being limited to what is defined by actual laws written by elected representatives.

What we have here is the terror of the police state. Anonymous tips, petty bureaucrats making life changing rulings on a whim with no clear laws to establish legal behavior. I would love to see the whole thing challenged as unconstitutional and abolished and folded into the much more functional justice system.

<comment><USER12> In the OPs situation he can just politely tell the child protection team that he's heard their advice, but that he disagrees, and that he's not going to change his behaviour.

The social workers then put all the information together and take it to their lawyers, who'll either say it's not strong enough to go to court, or ask him if he really does want to ignore the advice because they think they have a good case.

At that point I assume they go to court, and then the state has to persuade the judge that he's an unfit parent and that removing the children is the only option - that nothing else will do. He doesn't have to prove he's a good parent; the onus is on the state to make their case.

The court has to respect his parenting choices, unless those choices are harmful or neglectful or put the children at risk of significant harm.

The court also has to take into account the views of the children, and it's likely these children will be happy about the travel arrangements, and will be persuasive to a judge.

This (quite old) report includes information on Canadian parents allowing children to engage in risky activity (11 year olds taking cannabis, for example) and Canada ranks 17th, which is pretty poor.

[http://cwrp.ca/publications/401](http://cwrp.ca/publications/401)

<comment><USER13> > _but that he disagrees, and that he 's not going to change his behaviour._

I don't think that's how it works, in this day and age.

As Adrian mentions in the article:

 _Being a divorced, single dad who has his kids 50% of the time, I have little recourse to challenge the Ministry's decision. Disobeying it even in the slightest (i.e. allowing a trip to the corner store by my 9.75 year old), could result in the Ministry stripping me of equal custody of my children, a remarkably draconian outcome I would never risk._

This is very similar to how it would work in Australia. The cards are especially stacked against you if you're unfortunate enough to be the bearer of a Y chromosome during a separation involving children.

<comment><USER12> > could result in the Ministry stripping me of equal custody of my children,

It's not true though.

The ministry can't strip him of equal custody rights, they can only go to court. A judge is the only person who can strip his rights away.

THe claim is:

> Disobeying it even in the slightest (i.e. allowing a trip to the corner > store by my 9.75 year old), could result in the Ministry stripping me of > equal custody of my children

And that claim is just bullshit. Show me any case in Canada where this has happened.

<comment><USER13> I can't speak for Canada, but in Australia...

In Australia men don't have a 50% custody _right_. The mother can just cease participating in the shared parenting plan. She could say "he lets them roam the streets unsupervised". Then it goes back to court, the courts tell the mother "you have to participate", and then she "forgets" or her "car breaks down" or she "doesn't have enough money for petrol". This can also, though rarely, work with the genders reversed.

The result is the same: The Government strips you of custody because someone claimed you stepped out of line.

I don't meant to sound like I have an axe to grind, but I do, so that's how it comes across.

<comment><USER12> But you're talking about a totally different situation.

OP isn't talking about a mother frustrating the will of the court (and I agree that's a problem); OP is talking about an agent of the state removing children from a parent.

If anything your argument just supports my point: she's violating her child's convention right to a family life with its father, but the courts can't do much about it.

If this "the state can just take your children" argument held any water the state, after the court cases, would see the mother breaking the court order and take the child off her. They don't, because it's very hard to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The "Cover Your Ass" culture which results in mandating helicopter parenting is sadly widespread, and not just in Canada.

We need to be ever vigilant to stop petty bureaucrats everywhere from making arbitrary rules and taking away valuable freedoms and discretion. Do what you can at work and in your personal life to maintain freedoms.

EDIT: One simple thing we can do is make a donation to the legal fighting fund established by the writer of this article to fight this draconian Canadian regulation. There are links to the legal fund donation page in the linked article.

</comment><comment> d--b Also people don't realize this anymore, but when you're a single parent and have FIVE kids, you HAVE to teach your kids independence, cause you can't be behind each and every one of them all the time! When one of them gets sick (which is just about every other week), you're pretty pleased that the others can get to school by themselves.

</comment><comment><USER15> I walked the whole city I was born in and took whatever busses and trolleys I wanted (I knew all the routes) when I was 7-9 years old (in the 80's) in a city of 300-400k people. This is simply insane and stupid. It's the reason why I will never have kids in the US or Canada. What kind of shitty culture and society allows this kind of degradation of kids? Is it any wonder they grow up not knowing how to live? It's shameful and disgusting to allow children to be policed in this way. I'd blame it on government/bureaucracy, but it only follows the norms of the shitty culture that enables it.

<comment><USER16> Yes, tell me more about how shitty my culture (and by extension) the people of that culture are. Any other insult you want to lay on a group of 300+ million people that you've so carelessly stereotyped without giving a careful thought about it?

<comment><USER17> He's right

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm sympathetic. But given the article is against "fact-free" parenting. I didn't find the data presented very compelling.

Basically you'd need to know how common crime against children traveling unsupervised on buses in a similar scenario.

The closest example presented is kids in New York riding the subway, so presenting stats on that would be useful.

I'd also like more details on the Japanese example, it's honestly not uncommon to hear news reports of kids being abducted in Japan. I'd personally be interested in the stats, but as a comparison point it doesn't make sense unless you can normalize for the overall lower crime rate that Japan has.

If anyone has good data against "Helicopter parenting", I'd be curious to see it.

<comment><USER19> From the post:

> And the odds of your child being kidnapped by a stranger on the bus? > Incredibly long. A 2003 study in Canada found just one case nationwide of a > stranger abducting a child, in the entire two years prior.

I personally found the article very compelling. This kind of mindless fear, in direct contradiction of clear evidence, makes my blood boil.

<comment><USER20> While I agree with the general assertion in the article, cherry picking statistics for just one, very rare, crime isn't compelling evidence. Why not present the stats for all relevant crimes?

<comment><USER21> So what kinds of crimes are you willing to look at? Murders and abductions are probably the worst and easiest to track.

Robbery much harder and often unreported or reported as bullying.

<comment><USER22> Honestly I'd be far more worried about my kid being hit by a car than being a victim of any crime.

Or maybe they try something stupid (we all did stupid things as kids and I don't expect my kids to be smarter than I was) and wind up drowning in the river or falling off something.

<comment><USER17> > Honestly I'd be far more worried about my kid being hit by a car

But why?

Is it common for them to be hit by cars?

Is it safer for them to go to school with parents?

And if someone hits you while you are trying to protect your kid, is it less traumatic?

And if while you take them to school you hit someone else's kid, is it less traumatic?

Is it common for kids to drown or fall and die while parents are not there?

From what I see it is common for adults to drown while they're trying to save someone else (usually not kids, but other adults)

If you start thinking about everything that _could_ happen, you wouldn't let your kids go out

Kids spend a lot of time alone and still they manage to survive

Why going to school should be any different?

<comment><USER20> _Is it common for them to be hit by cars?_

According to CDC it's the second most common cause of accidental injury death among children aged 5-14 (after being in a car crash)

<comment><USER17> With or without parent's supervision?

The post I was replying to specifically said he's scared that his kid could be hit by a car when going to school _on his own_

It's fairly obvious that accidents are the most common cause of death for kids My point is that parent supervision don't protect them from being hit or end up in a car crash or fall down from a bridge

p.s.: main cause doesn't mean it is common I believe it's not very common, it's catastrophic for their young body when it happens, but not common

<comment><USER21> Critical part is actually "going to school". Typical stats on accidents do not say where you were going, but at most where you actually were. My suspicion is that most vehicular accidents happen during play or free roaming, especially in an unsupervised kid group, not when actually going somewhere on their own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This article is depressing as hell.

I used to walk to school at the age of what, 8? There was one really quite busy road I had to cross on my own, the rest was residential. But learning to cross the road is something that was dogmatically addressed from a very young age. "Stop. Look. Listen." I remember learning about that aged 5ish? My parents knew I could cross the road, they'd taught me, the schools had taught me. It was tested in the crucible of parental observation and then I was trusted to continue.

Of course someone could come along and kidnap me as I blithely wandered along the pavement. But frankly if we're going to spend our lives obsessing about extreme tail risks then we've already lost.

<comment><USER24> _But frankly if we 're going to spend our lives obsessing about extreme tail risks then we've already lost_

Yes. And the tail risks are asymmetrical here. Bureaucrats take on responsibility for thousands or hundreds-of-thousands of children in their district. They look bad _however few_ of these kids are harmed or killed. So what might be a perfectly acceptable risk for an individual family is not acceptable to the local government.

The more they interfere and assume responsibility for children the more _additional_ responsibilities their offices will be loaded with when things go wrong. Which will cause further problems, et cetera, because although parents love and provide for their children, institutions don't know how to (and can't afford to).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The point of parenting isn't to avoid getting criticized for being a "bad parent", or to do things that make you look like a "good parent". The point is to provide the necessary conditions for children to learn how to be independent and successful adults. This involves taking reasonable levels of risks, and figuring out what amount of risk-taking is reasonable, and learning how to navigate the world in general.

</comment><comment><USER26> The way blame gets assigned and risk gets assessed by human society is often quite pathological.

In a typical setting, there are options A & B. As an example, let A be the option to allow young kids to ride independently on a bus and B the option to legislate against letting young kids ride independently on a bus.

The cost of A seems high to human emotions and the lazy thinker, typically involving rare but high-impact events (something really bad happening to the well-trained kid taking a bus) that get cherry-picked as important to consider.

The cost of B seems low to human emotions and the lazy thinker, typically involving diverse continual low-impact events (all kids affected by legislation losing out on chance to learn independence, environmental impact of using a car instead of public transport) that get neglected because of their low emotional appeal and more complicated accounting. (It may be hard to prove that lots of low-impact things add up to a big thing -- there are too many things and causal relationships to point to.)

In many cases, the cost of A is actually objectively lower than the cost of B, so A is the better option. In such cases, whereas all options and their consequences should be considered together with their probabilities, in reality, option B is often deemed to be the better choice, and A a bad choice, because the cost of A appeals more strongly to emotional. Consequently, someone who picked A (law-maker or bureaucrat) gets blamed but someone who picked B doesn't get blamed and is harder to blame, including in court. To protect themselves, they pick the inferior option.

I think this sort of pathological risk assessment is the root of the cover- your-ass culture that permeates society.

<comment><USER6> Wash rinse repeat for 90% of not specific laws about behavior in a noncommercial setting...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm really glad this parent is fighting the decision; no ministry should be able to interfere with personal freedoms when the stakes are so low, basing their decisions on far fetched court cases that have nothing to do with the situation.

As a point of comparison, school kids in Austria typically walk to school or use public transit on their own from first grade (6-7 years old).

In the beginning of the school year, older students watch zebra crossings and block traffic when kids need to cross.

</comment><comment><USER28> I find it incredible that these bureaucrats routinely threaten people with taking away their children. Aren't even the most reasonable people going to get dangerous when faced with that kind of a situation? I don't have kids but I can't even imagine.

<comment><USER29> Yes, but they'll most likely have a Police escort when they come and take your children away. If you want to escalate it further then for sure you will not be getting your children back under your care any time soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> A friend of mine is father of 7. When they had their fifth kid, children protection started to show their faces on a regular base.

Because, you know, having that much children, you are probably a bad parent.

Of course, it's not a bad thing that they ensure that there is, in fact, no obvious problem home. It's important to watch for the children, they are the future of your country.

But in his case, a wealthy entrepreneur, his wife is a nurse, with the biggest house I've ever been in, and one of the happiest family I know, they still visits every couple of months, seamingly looking for a reason to piss them off.

It looks like (and it's just my opinion) they can't accept different form of life standards.

<comment><USER31> I'm skeptical that this is the whole story, CPS departments don't have the staff to monitor every Duggar-wannabe. But if there was an incident that put you on their radar (even if it was actually nothing), I could see it taking a long time for them to take you off their list.

<comment><USER30> Well I don't really know. Maybe 5 kids is a trigger here in France.

But on a semi related subject, my wife and I decided to not put our kids in school this year and do home schooling.

To be well prepared, we asked people already doing it, joined Facebook groups of homeschooling parents nearby, etc...

The most frequent advice we had is to watch out when government will send someone to check out if everything is ok, as it's badly accepted in France to do homeschool. And they're known to try to corner you to get the kids back to school.

And a lot of parents think you're doing bad for your kids making this choice, so may be there is jealousy/angry involved.

But again, it's in France not Canada or US so it might be different.

<comment><USER31> It would have been helpful to mention you were describing a situation in France, it makes a big difference which country you're in and most people here don't have experience there.

I have heard that homeschooling is not as accepted in France as it is in the U.S., it seems like there quite a few individual liberties Americans assume that are not protected in France.

<comment><USER30> Yes, sorry about that, I realized it when reading your answer, that's why I answered, to add context.

France is hiding behind terrorism to prevent parents to do homeschooling, arguing it will help radicalization.

Of course it's completely irrelevant, but governments hate to lose control on people.

<comment><USER31> I don't think homeschooling is "completely irrelevant" to radicalization. There are American homeschoolers who are pretty radical in their beliefs and take their children out of school to prevent them being exposed to other beliefs.

I would agree that with Islamic radicalization (probably the only kind of radicalization being considered) in Europe, education at home by parents is not a significant source of radicalized youths.

<comment><USER30> Yes, I read something about that subject in a recent HN post, with the religious opinions for homeschooling.

But in France, that's really irrelevant. All the recent terror attacks have been perpetrated by persons with a public school education.

So short sighted politicians could also claim that it's the fault of the public schooling system ! And that also be irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bureaucrats have little stake in this but see high risk to their careers so they want to play safe. Only way to affect change is to somehow convince them that this is good for their career. Or get lucky enough and find the one person who believes in and cares enough to push the issue through the system.

</comment><comment><USER33> Any countries out there where this kind of helicopter parenting isn't endemic in the culture?

<comment><USER34> Per walking / public transit to school, Japan is always the big example where many kids do so on their own. I feel like I've read this is _mandatory_ there, but a quick search finds no backing evidence so maybe not.

I'm curious though in Japan whether this is part of a general trend combating helicopter parenting, or if it's just a one-off social norm.

<comment><USER35> CBS Dec 2015 on Japan [http://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI](http://youtu.be/IkVvXVDs5aI)

Not sure if they're common/representative, but two interesting things the mother demonstrated (2:14):

1\. She can track the kid via GPS

2\. When asked, she said she would never let her son walk alone to school in the United States

<comment><USER18> It's been common in Japan since before the second world war.

My wife, who went to school in Japan, says it's seen as a good thing, to encourage independence.

There's a popular TV show, where they follow small kids (maybe 4 or 5?) on their first "trip alone" to do a chore, obviously they're being followed by a camera crew. But the TV show promotes kids taking responsibility for themselves (and it's cute of course).

The US is just seen as a much more dangerous country than Japan. I mean, it actually does have a higher crime rate.

Sorry, this is all purely anecdotal. But I believe it to be the general case (would as always love to see data).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think the question the Ministry official asked him about what would happen if the kids start fighting is an important part of the equation.

Society has gotten more legalistic. The bus driver or a random adult passenger doesn't have legally defined authority to discipline the author's kids, which means they don't have the authority at all.

But basic human decency demands you intervene if you see little kids fighting or doing something dangerous (even if you'd just roll your eyes if it was a couple of drunk guys).

This tension propagates through the system until somebody basically rules kids can't ride the bus unsupervised until they're old enough to be unsympathetic.

<comment><USER18> What happens if two adults start fighting? What is the difference?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A more sinister way of looking at this is that the government wants to raise children to be more dependent on an authority figure. So that when they grow up to become adults they will more naturally defer to authority and the state will have an easier time controlling the population and instituting draconian measures.

This goes hand in hand with another commenter where no-one wants to take the responsibility for being wrong and always defers to an "authority figure". Because nobody got blamed for buying IBM.

</comment><comment><USER37> At least in Menlo Park, CA, I'm seeing more kids walking to school. You can now drive down a road that passes three schools around 3 PM without being caught in a traffic jam of SUVs queued up for kid pickup.

I wonder if computer use is helping. I used to see kids struggling under enough backpack for a weekend campout. The backpacks seem to be much smaller now. Maybe more content is on tablets and laptops.

<comment><USER25> Computer use is likelier helping through the existence of cell phones. They're essentially electronically supervised, so the physical supervision feels less necessary to observers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Once there are numerous children riding unaccompanied on the bus, the stats may change. Obviously in the current environment (where no children are riding the bus), the number of incidents are small (his stats are from school busses). What happens when people realize that dozens of children are riding public buses all the time without a parent in sight?

The current climate of "over-protecting" kids may be the cause of the lower rates of child-related crimes. Check out some graphs of the kidnap rates falling. Maybe the "woefully ignorant" public policy makers actually have the right answer?

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/there...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/14/theres- never-been-a-safer-time-to-be-a-kid-in-america/?utm_term=.3a60649a53b4)

</comment><comment><USER39> I smell a confidence trick.

Nowhere in his article does Crook mention any specific names of government workers he interacted with, specific dates when he met with caseworkers, or specific actions or enforcements the government would take regarding his case.

In an article full of links to specific stats and empathy inducing images of his children, he does not show a single government correspondence.

I hope my assumption is just misguided cynicism, and that there actually is a concrete reason to give this man money.

<comment><USER39> from [https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/british- columbia/vanco...](https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/british- columbia/vancouver-man-ordered-to-stop-letting-his-children-take-city-bus-to- school/article36180815/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&reqid=ab593daa-153f-4fb3-9a01-e6142ab95e76)

"In a June 23 letter that Mr. Crook provided to The Globe and Mail, the ministry said it looked into concerns that "you were pulling the children's ears and allowing them to take transit unsupervised." Asked about the ear- pulling, Mr. Crook said it was treated as an afterthought in the investigation and follow-up, and that the main focus was the bus trips.

The letter says there are no child-protection concerns and that the children are safe in their father's care."

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> What must be the most painful part of this is that he's in a weak position having shared custody. A normal parent could just give the middle finger and they'll never have their kids taken away for a single minor behaviour like that. But someone with tenuous custody has to bend over backwards to look like they're doing it right. It seems he could actually lose his kids quite easily because they have another home ready to go to.

<comment><USER5> It's amazing an institution as such power, and that they can exercise such power, not based so much on a legal ground as on moral ground. Yeah they mentioned lawyers, but there is no law against what the parent did.

<comment><USER12> They can't do anything without going to court. Of course there are laws that govern this.

<comment><USER5> About the result yes. But the procedures they engage can have a tremendous impact on one's life, and even more when a court is involved, whether they are right or not.

Can you imagine having to kiss some distant bureaucrat bottom, accepting they invade your life, endangering your reputation, making you question your choices, threatening you to loose your kids, making them look at you differently, all that __even before any decision is taken__ ?

This is madness.

<comment><USER12> He doesn't have to do any of that. He can chose to not engage at all.

Again, the state can't do anything without going to court, and when they go to court they have to prove their case, he doesn't have to prove anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Relevant: [http://www.freerangekids.com/](http://www.freerangekids.com/)

</comment><comment><USER42> In Finland each child gets a yellow cap when they start school around age 7. They are expected to be making their own way to school, and this cap makes it easier for other road and public transport users to spot them and assist them if necessary.

</comment><comment><USER43> I wanted to make a small donation but I am not comfortable entering my credit card information on a website I know nothing about. This is the first time when I wanted to make a donation, and there was no PayPal option to do it.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's seems pretty tough in Norge too. The local Children Protection Service seems powerful.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BBWXhrN4AM4](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BBWXhrN4AM4)

</comment><comment><USER44> Wow. I took the bus alone to school from 6-7 years on, back in East Berlin.

</comment><comment><USER45> Those kids are too young to be riding the bus alone.

<comment><USER46> How come?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I had to stop reading when the father of FIVE starts talking about sustainability. He might have some credibility in my eyes if he had a vasectomy after 2 kids. And even more if he snipped them at 1.

</comment><comment><USER48> >Attorney General, and determined that children under 10 years old could not be unsupervised in or outside the home

Good night... glad I live in America.

<comment><USER49> America's got its own share of issues wrt this topic:

[http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free- rang...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/living/feat-maryland-free-range- parenting-family-under-investigation-again/index.html)

<comment><USER48> And can you imagine how much worse it would be if there actually was a "legal" unsupervised age???</comment></comment></comment>


The Scale of AWS and What It Means for the Future of the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2015/1/12/the-stunning-scale-of-aws-and-what-it-means-for-the-future-o.html <comment><USER3> I sincerely hope there are a few top cloud providers fighting for market share. An AWS monopoly is not a good thing.

Google has awesome data center technology, and my guess is they have at least as many servers as AWS (even if most of those servers are for internal use). If they are willing to invest for the long term, they can be a credible player.

Microsoft appears to be deeply committed to Azure. As in - we can not lose, we will spend whatever it takes to make this fly. They will also leverage their somewhat captive enterprise customers with Azure / AD integration.

Not clear to me how the rest of the pack will fare.

<comment><USER4> I've been quite impressed by AWS uptime. I've been looking at Azure - I am cautiously bullish. I'd like to take their services out for a genuine ride, but don't have the time to really invest deeply into exercising them.

<comment><USER5> They give you $150 credit each month for 3 years upon signing up with bizspark with nothing to pay up front. Surely that justifies taking the time to check it out if you're already curious.

<comment><USER6> $150/month can't even come close to paying me back for the downtime experienced using Azure. Plus their online console is one of the most useless interfaces I've used.

<comment><USER7> I am a BizSpark member, and my blog: [http://www.devfactor.net](http://www.devfactor.net) is hosted there. I CAN say that when I got ~500k page-views in the last week of December Azure held up fine.

In terms of performance, it is pretty good for the price (free).

My only issue has been the down-time, Its actually been down more than my previous Linux host. I hope MS can figure out how to keep it online a bit more often :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "The cloud will keep getting more reliable, more functional, and cheaper at a rate that you can't begin to match with your limited resources, generalist gear, bloated software stacks, slow supply chains, and outdated innovation paradigms."

If the cloud is so great, how come it's so much cheaper to rent a dedicated server at scale?

<comment><USER9> Because it's a lot more difficult to scale. EC2 allows you to spin instances up and down, balance load between then and cluster databases, etc. etc.

If you know all you need is one server, dedicated is great. If you need flexibility, less so.

<comment><USER10> Nothing you mentioned, spinning instances up and down, balancing between them, clustering databases, is exclusive to EC2, AWS or "cloud" computing in general.

Scalability is largely a _design_ exercise, not, as much as AWS sales engineers want your CTO/CFO to believe, an infrastructure exercise. At the point where infrastructure becomes an issue, you're building your own AWS.

I'm happy to admit that AWS might make _some_ of this easier, but it's almost certainly going to be more expensive [1], and it's often at the cost of flexibility (lock-in, AWS-specific knowledge).

How are dedicated servers, or even collocated servers, possibly less flexible?

[1] There are exceptions, S3 and Route53 stand out as, at the very least, being cost-competitive to a greater extent than other AWS/Cloud offerings.

<comment><USER11> I'm unaware of any dedicated provider that will let me take a $20/mo small instance and scale it within minutes to an insanely beef 8 core instance for a day for about $20 and then back down, with less than 15 mins total downtime. Total cost for a month less than $50.

One of the things I feel AWS has succeeded at is putting control of infrastructure in the technology team's hands. In many places dedi or colo requires contract negotiation with the provider and involves some sort of purchasing dept. There are some places I've worked with where getting a dedi/colo could be weeks or months of different teams paperwork. With AWS the tech team can spin up 100 servers with no outside involvement needed after the initial work of getting an aws account with $x-xxx k/mo limit.

It's hard to beat the operational flexibility AWS provides, but I can see a few scenarios where creating your own mini private cloud out of dedi/colo servers could be more cost effective.

<comment><USER8> > I'm unaware of any dedicated provider that will let me take a $20/mo small > instance ...

You are looking in the wrong places. Dedicated server providers offer dedicated servers. What you want is a VPS. There are dozens of VPS providers with a multitude of products and billing by the minute or by the month and everything in between.

> In many places dedi or colo requires contract negotiation with the provider > and involves some sort of purchasing dept. There are some places I've worked > with where getting a dedi/colo could be weeks or months of different teams > paperwork.

This is merely a failure on the part of your employer.

> It's hard to beat the operational flexibility AWS provides, but I can see a > few scenarios where creating your own mini private cloud out of dedi/colo > servers could be more cost effective.

It's more like the other way around. To refute my point, please give some examples where AWS is cheaper AT SCALE.

AWS might make some things easier or more convenient, but in no way does it come cheaper at scale as their PR flak claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> AWS has really taken the IaaS thing seriously. I don't think about failed hard drives, power supplies or switches anymore.

I think about the health of my applications and design them to fail gracefully when failures happen. You can do this with hardware but then you've got to go to the DC or send someone there to fix it. It's not just an API call away from being fixed.

<comment><USER13> Great way to think about it! Running applications in a highly automated way is just so _freeing_.

I define my server fleet as an AutoScalingGroup. If any machine fails, a replacement is brought online and begins taking traffic automatically - <USER2> only a few minutes. No operator intervention needed.

As a person who once had to recover failed machines manually and individually, it's a beautiful feeling. Not to mention the enormous flexibility of being able to launch additional machines at any time, or automate the scale-up process.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "All 14 other cloud providers combined have 1/5th the aggregate capacity of AWS (estimate by Gartner)", yet the slides say "5X the cloud capacity in use than the aggregate total of the other 14 providers". The "in use" part is very important to include in the sentence as it makes a difference to understand capacity vs just having a lot of customers.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't buy networking gear so this claim that it's getting more expensive over time really caught me by surprise. Anyone know why?

<comment><USER16> Maybe it is because the more people switch to cloud services the less hardware they need to buy. And then if the hardware manufactures can't do economy of scale, the cost of production will rise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I often wonder about the implications of having the U.S. government (increasingly) running in Amazon's cloud...

<comment><USER18> Not just the government, probably most of the sites you visit in one way or another link to Amazon. Look at how many sites go down when there's an AWS outage.

What does this mean for personal privacy when most of the services you use are backed by one platform?

<comment><USER19> You make it sound like there is one shared database for everything. AWS does a great job of internal firewalling and separation.

<comment><USER20> "AWS outage" can mean various things, but there are and have been AZ-wide outages, and given the difficulties of replication and redundancy, there are services which are located (or reliant on -- even if unintentionally) a single AZ.

So yes, much online infrastructure _does_ have AWS dependencies. Sometimes (by way of secondary services) in ways that the operators of the service itself may not be directly aware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> >> Every day, AWS adds enough new server capacity to support all of Amazon's global infrastructure when it was a $7B annual revenue enterprise (in 2004)

Curious to what that means or how it is measured.

What did Amazon run on in 2004? A warehouse full of E1xk's or had they started moving to x86 by then?

Are they adding a single cabinet of dense x86 servers each day (which I'm sure is as powerful as a datacenter full of Sun gear from 10 years ago)?

</comment><comment><USER22> EDIT: I have been downvoted. This is not really an article, it is an advertisement for AWS. Perhaps people don't like me downplaying their commercial.

The future of the cloud is not AWS. Its not in Amazon's datacenter or some other company's data center. Its not even necessarily in a server.

The servers are going to mainly go away as we transition slowly from server- based networking to content-based networking.

That means that the fundamental protocols are completely unconcerned with what server they are running on or where.

The future is things like Named-Data Networking, Ethereum, distributed apps.

As a stepping stone we might see public clouds that allow you to deploy to ANY city anywhere in the world, enabled by distributed secure data storage and other technologies like Docker and OpenStack.

There is absolutely no reason everyone should run their applications on AWS.

We will also eventually move away from vendor-specific REST APIs to systems built on open semantic interface/data definitions.

<comment><USER23> I've been waiting for that to happen for the last 15 years, ever since Gnutella came out in 2000.

If you're going to claim that's the future, you ought to understand why distributed content-addressable P2P networks like Chord (created by YC's own Robert T. Morris), Kademlia, Alpine, and JavaSpaces all failed, and P2P sharing networks like Napster, Gnutella, Audiogalaxy, and Kazaa were unable to break out of their illegal-music-sharing niche. And then explain why it's different this time. If anything, the forces that made distributed hash tables unworkable in 2001 are _stronger_ now, as Ethernet bandwidth, file size, and disk space have increased much faster than consumer Internet bandwidth.

<comment><USER22> "UCLA, Cisco & more join forces to replace TCP/IP" [http://www.networkworld.com/article/2602109/lan-wan/ucla- cis...](http://www.networkworld.com/article/2602109/lan-wan/ucla-cisco-more- join-forces-to-replace-tcpip.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> "...they built to their own networking designs. Special routers were built."

What an audacious call by Amazon

<comment><USER25> This is an awesome video about why they had to, and how it works: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5hsL- JNY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5hsL-JNY4)</comment></comment>


8-bit Weather - <AUTHOR> http://8bitweather.co/ <comment><USER2> This is pretty cool, although I will admit my imagination may have went a bit wild in the few seconds which passed between my reading the title and the page loading. I conjured an image of an 8-bit dynamic animation of weather across the globe.

</comment><comment><USER3> In case of curiosity, here are all the possible weather icons :)

[http://jsfiddle.net/x6w7f44y/](http://jsfiddle.net/x6w7f44y/)

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks more like 16-bit weather though. 8-bit machines didn't generally have high resolutions (= 1x1 pixels) with that many shades of color. The best had _either or_. In contrast, the weather guy looks like a PC EGA era illustration.

</comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of the weatherpixie.com widgets (a site project, closed in 2010) [http://peter.stillhq.com/jasmine/blog/goth-weather-pixie- xma...](http://peter.stillhq.com/jasmine/blog/goth-weather-pixie-xmas- tree.jpg)

<comment><USER6> Or forcast.io's embed: [http://forecast.io/embed/#lat=49.2803&lon=-123.1122&name=Van...](http://forecast.io/embed/#lat=49.2803&lon=-123.1122&name=Vancouver)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The antialiased text and raster images are kind of killing the illusion. I feel like they got the look of the guy reasonably 8-bit looking, in sort of a Maniac Mansion way. SVG images probably would have looked a lot better here though.

</comment><comment><USER8> It says it is 46 degrees here in Grenada. I can assure you that is a bit off.

<comment><USER9> Centigrade or Fahrenheit? Grenada the country or the first result from yahoo's geocoder (i.e. some street with "grenada" in it's name in a US state)

unrelated ... if it is the West Indian country - how is the technology / hacker scene there? I spent early internet working in Dominica (Commonwealth of)

<comment><USER8> Fahrenheit, though 46C would have been way off in the other direction :) And it did seem to recognize my location properly, though I can't verify where the backend _actually_ pulled weather data for.

I'm just here for a vacation, but have spent some time exploring. The technology scene seems rather limited overall. I think you could easily find a spot to work from for a month or two. Cost of living is lowish, Internet access does not seem to hard to come by, people are friendly and the island is very safe. But you're not likely to come across a whole lot of other like- minded hackers (IMO).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of [http://thefuckingweather.com/](http://thefuckingweather.com/)</comment>


Show HN: My Latest Kids app(6-8) got Featured by Apple :) - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magic-doodles-christmas/id762124389?ls=1&mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> Right now it is at Number 20 in Kids (6-8) Category in United States.</comment>


Looking for Wireless Innovation? Try Comcast - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-09-20/comcast-crops-up-as-an-unlikely-wireless-phone-innovator <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry. Who in the market for a Fi competitor would trust Comcast?</comment>


A record 7M Americans have stopped paying their car loans - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/auto-loan-delinquency-number-record-new-york-fed-2019-2 <comment><USER2> I currently don't have a car - but am looking to get one very soon.... I havent bought a car in about a decade, but looking at all cars these days, I can't believe just how much all cars cost these days - and with fuel prices...

When will Tesla make a van or truck?

What I want from a car company like tesla is a standard powertrain-sub- structure onto which I can bolt whatever body style I want.

There used to be boutique car manufacturers back in the 1920s - It would be great if they came back...

What happened to that electric car maker that was on Alameda Island old navy base? I cant recall what they were called...</comment>


Ask HN: Elevator pitch, fact or fiction – how long does a startup need to pitch? - <AUTHOR> How long should a startup need to effectively deliver a pitch about what it does? <comment><USER2> I have never built a company, but I've worked on a fair number of technical projects of varying sizes. The concept of an elevator pitch has helped me often in scoping projects, in communicating about projects, and in making sure I have a clear understanding of the project I'm working on.

The point of an elevator pitch is to be able to describe your project clearly in just a few sentences. I've never considered the point to be, for example, getting funding in 90 seconds. Rather, it's a litmus test: if you can't describe your project succinctly in 90 seconds, you've probably got some issues. Those issues could be

\- lack of clarity around what your project actually does \- overemphasis on buzzwords \- having a project that doesn't do as much as you think it does \- inability to see your project from someone else's perspective

An elevator pitch should give your audience a clear understanding of what you're trying to build. It should give people listening or reading the chance to ask followup questions such as "How do you plant to build that?" or "How far have you gotten so far?"

Writing out a good elevator pitch is also a nice thing to have when building a landing page, or the home page for a project.

</comment><comment><USER3> As long as you don't get funded and then forever to sell your product or service. Pitch is an essential part of being an entrepreneur. it's like breathing it never ends. cause if it does well you know what happens.</comment>


Eric Ries Tells Lean Startups: "Stop The Line So That The Line Never Stops" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/25/founder-stories-eric-ries-lean-startups-stop-the-line-so-the-line/ <comment><USER2> This is actually part 3. For those who missed it:

part 1: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/23/founder-stories-eric- ries-l...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/23/founder-stories-eric-ries-lean- startup/)

part 2: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/24/founder-stories-eric- ries-v...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/24/founder-stories-eric-ries-vanity- metrics)

</comment><comment><USER3> Snake oil salesman. Read the quick bio: everything revolves around him teaching how to do development, not actually leading any real projects.

I worked at GM during the lean craze and read my fill of these "we should be doing it like the Japanese" articles back then. If the Japanese pooped in a paper bag and left it by the door, then our managers thought there must be genius in that bag and would force us to do the same. It was insanity.

Lean == Snake Oil

<comment><USER4> Hum... just saying... the guy was a co-founder at IMVU. That's at least one real project. You should really read his book.

<comment><USER3> He's relating auto manufacturing (something I have experience with) to software development and startups (something I have experience in).

No. I will not read the book, because all information in it will be stretched analogies.

Trust me when I say this, the two fields are different.

<comment><USER5> "He's relating auto manufacturing (something I have experience with) to software development and startups (something I have experience in)."

I haven't read Ries's book but the "Lean Software" book by the Poppendiecks was full of over-stretched analogies and feel-good management book style anecdotes. There was a push to make "Lean Software" into an enterprise software fad to succeed "Agile", but it never really took off. I hope "Lean Startup" doesn't become the new "Agile" (lots of consultantware and repackaging of simple and old concepts and not enough "meat" for working devs/PMs). It does have that fad-of-the-day smell though. Lots of marketing and glibness and sizzle. How much steak? Time will tell.

PS: I don't agree with the folks downvoting you. You have a valid point worth considering. If you could post a few lines on what you see as the specific differences between the two fields and the "snake oil" bits that you perceive that would be cool.

<comment><USER4> Lean Software and Lean Startup are two different things. I have experienced lean software first hand and I can tell you it is no fad. I have set up Kanban in companies a couple of times and the results were excellent, even better than Scrum.

And when you say "it never really took off", please show your facts. Kanban has been around for a couple of years really, and I don't see it decreasing in interest.

It would be good if people who talk about fads and buzzwords actually knew what they are talking about before criticizing. Just saying...

<comment><USER5> "Kanban has been around for a couple of years really, and I don't see it decreasing in interest."

this doesn't show it "taking off" which would mean an _increasing_ rate of adoption with something like a "hockeystick" curve.

"lean software" got a few early adopters who tried visualising software production as an asembly line analogue, (with all the accompanying "kanban", "muda" etc bullshit, _without_ ever having worked on or designed an assembly line. fwiw I am an Industrial Engineer, though I work in sw these days and I daresay I have seen more real world assembly lines than most lean software evangelists have) but it never became anything like mainstream. In contrast, Scrum , though borderline scammy with people sitting through 2 day courses becoming "scrum masters" became widely adopted. What Scrum, however scammy, has is "take off". What "lean software" has is an early fizzle.

Lean _manufacturing_ may have been a revolution, but the jury is very much out on whether lean software has any real impact.

"it would be good if people who talk about fads and buzzwords actually knew what they are talking about before criticizing. Just saying"

must be lonely, up on that cliff of superior wisdom and snap judgement, where you are the only one who knows about lean software,agile etc and anyone who has a contrary view to yours is a clueless moron ;)

<comment><USER4> I didn't say anything like that. I never said you didn't know your thing about industrial engineering, but if you had practiced lean software, you would know that beyond the name and a few key concepts, it has been greatly adapted and cleverly tailored to take into account the reality of software engineering constraints. All I'm saying is that I have seen it work on several SOFTWARE projects, now have you even tried it for real? (sincerely and humbly asking...)

<comment><USER5> "but if you had practiced lean software," and "have you even tried it for real?"

sure. I have (and your assumption otherwise, as evidenced in your "if only people knew what they were talking about" opinion is revealing).

Here is a war story fwiw I didn't decide the methodology on this project, I was just part of the team - (the only "methodology" I believe in for sw dev is "hire bright people and let them figure it out")

On this particular project,there was a "lean and agile coach" (who had a PHB backing his efforts) who had a card wall where he monitored the "work in progress" and "queue size" and so on. It was obvious he had zero manufacturing experience, had never seen a real assembly line (or work cell or kanban card) and had just read this stuff up in the 'lean software' books (the authors of whom, in common with the agile gurus have zero credibility as devs or product designers) .

As expected, the project ran into trouble, the devs revolted at being treated like assembly line workers, the "coach" eventually got fired (along with the middle manager who mandated the change) and the team went back to their previous "we figure what makes sense to us and fits our environment " 'methodology' and software delivery improved, the clients were happy and all was well again. The lean terminology is a source of team jokes now -eg: "I just visited the bathroom to get rid of some muda", "Anyone monitoring he WIP for a coffee?"

And oh yes I expect to hear the "No True Scotsman" defense. "That wasn't _real_ lean software. Hire me and I'll tell you how to do it 'right' ". Right.

The more important point is, without experience in _both_ manufacturing _and_ software dev, it is terribly easy to get carried away by stories about Toyota's success in car making (and the 'lean software' authors and consultants are careful to sprinkle Toyota _anecdotes_ throughout their books and slides - none of them have worked at Toyota afaik) and adopt random elements of their assembly line processes, (or to be more precise, what you THINK is happening in a Toyota factory) into your sw dev.

"cleverly tailored" my ass. "Cleverly marketed" is more accurate. Any successful "tailoring" would need the tailor to be an accomplished expert in _both_ sw dev _and_ lean manufacturing and be at the top of their game in _both_ fields - a combination of Linus Torvalds and Taichi Ohno. I am not sure such people even exist.

What we have are consultants with mediocre dev skills and zero manufacturing experience who scramble from RUP to agile to lean software to whatever-fad-is- next and are always looking for the next fad to ride, the next book to write, and the next conference to speak at.

<comment><USER4> And it's not because you anticipated the "No True Scotsman" defense that I will refrain from using it as it is totally relevant. Using one specific case to disprove an entire methodology, be it such a poor counter-example, is "shaky evidence" at best. But I'm the one who should get a stats education, right?

Once again, good luck to find any success in your angry little ivory tower, as luck seems to be the only thing that can save you. End of trolling.

<comment><USER5> "Using one specific case to disprove an entire methodology, be it such a poor counter-example, is "shaky evidence" at best."

heh but you used equally anecdotal data and equally shaky evidence to support the snake oil methods. I quote

"I have experienced lean software first hand and I can tell you it is no fad. I have set up Kanban in companies a couple of times and the results were excellent"

So you say. Your anecdotes and experience are valid but mine are not. ;) Very convincing.

This is the standard snake oil salesman defense- when a methodology fails it is _always_ because people didn't do it right. Nothing intrinsically screwy with the fad itself.

And when _you_ claim some unverifiable successes that is convincing evidence about the intrinsic soundness of whatever you are defending. Pathetic. For every anecdotal "success story" you can find an equally anecdotal "failure story". Which was the point. And went right over your head. There was no claim this was evidence. (as someone trained in engineering and stats, I use the word "evidence" and "proof" _very_ carefully).

"But I'm the one who should get a stats education, right?"

well you are the one who brought in an agile methodologists silly home grown survey as 'evidence' (when specifically asked for a non vendorware peer reviewed citation mind you) for some grandiose claims.

This shows (assuming you weren't just trolling) that you don't know how to judge the statistical validity of a survey or when to use one as evidence. If you really believe Ambler's marketing spin on agile is some kind of convincing 'evidence' for the validity of "lean software" you definitely need to learn some stats (among other things).

"End of trolling."

Thank You for finally admitting you were trolling. That clears things up. Wrong forum. On HN the assumption is that people are being genuine even if their writing style is abrasive. If I thought you were trolling (vs just being a bit incoherent) I wouldn't have responded to you at all. Live and learn :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lightspeed Venture Partners Blog - <AUTHOR> http://lsvp.wordpress.com/ <comment><USER2> One of the important points which they emphasize, which I've also heard from Guy, Seth Godin, and nearly everyone else-

The focus of a meeting with a VC isn't to get them to fund you. It's to get them to invite you back to a second meeting.

Keep it simple, focus on the hooks, and try to drive the key points home.

I imagine that the YC application is a similar process- They're going to read thousands of applications. I expect that the best strategy is to explain what's going on in broad strokes, so that you get the interview. Don't try to sell the entire project in one go. Focus on getting to the interview.</comment>


Even Netflix Can't Avoid Android Fragmentation - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/video/even-netflix-cant-avoid-android-fragmentation/

<comment><USER2> We have fragmentation everywhere. We have different versions and brands of browsers rendering websites, written in different languages, using different databases. We have people running Windows, Macs and Linux. We have multitude of variations of Linux OS.

Fragmentation is all around. Yet it all works.

Somehow when it comes to Android - it's the "go to response" when something doesn't work. It makes me feel like every article that uses "android fragmentation" isn't very well thought (or maybe was even paid for Android bashing).

IMO NetFlix wrote iPhone version earlier because a year ago it seemed like iPhone is going to be the only platform worth pursuing, not because of "Android fragmentation". They just started iPhone version much earlier.

</comment><comment><USER3> "lack of a common digital rights management (DRM) solution"

Thank you Google. We don't want no stinkin' DRM.

<comment><USER4> > _We don't want no stinkin' DRM._

Consumers don't care about DRM. Consumers care whether they can enjoy their media anytime, anywhere.

Hollywood cares about DRM for the edge case of people who want to do something with media _besides_ enjoy it anytime anywhere, such as give it away.

DECE and PIFF are approaching an interoperable spec; the AES based methods used by Microsoft and Apple now vary only slightly. When consumers stop noticing DRM preventing them from legitimate use cases, it will be here to stay.

<comment><USER5> you think consumers won't consider being able to pass on the film/book they just enjoyed (the way they would a physical dvd/book, etc.) a "legitimate use case"?

<comment><USER4> A well architected DRM could support lending and even support an aftermarket for used "media".

However, it seems more likely Hollywood will eventually decide they're not selling media, but "entertainment experiences", and will try to train consumers to pay for the experience. Hollywood would like that, since one can't conveniently resell a used experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Remember that Netflix's CEO, Reed Hastings, is on the board of MSFT. This is the same reason used why Netflix for linux isn't available (it uses Silverlight and the linux version doesn't effectively support DRM). The cynic in me would love to think that this jab at Android isn't just a strategic move to help Windows Phone in it's fragile fledgling state. However, my understanding is that Netflix's hands are tied on the issue of DRM, if they don't support it, the content owners won't let them stream, much like iTunes was for music in the early days.

<comment><USER7> How does Netflix DRM currently work anyways?

<comment><USER4> PlayReady. PlayReady works on OS X.

[http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/25/netflix-goes-with- micro...](http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/05/25/netflix-goes-with-microsoft- playready-drm-for-upcoming-streaming-devices/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The problem isn't fragmentation - the problem is that Android doesn't do DRM.

And that may not be considered a problem by everyone... :->

</comment><comment><USER9> Why does Netflix even need DRM for streaming?

Their streams are not HD are they?

I mean they play on my standalone DVD player, if for some weird reason I wanted to record it, I could record the analog output to my VCR but it's not HD so why bother?

So on Android devices just do 640x480 max and if you want HD, rent the bluray?

<comment><USER10> Netflix will stream at 720p if you have the bandwidth. That's HD.

Whatever Netflix's feelings on DRM are, they'd never get licensing to show much if they didn't have DRM. That's outside of their control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bittorrent on the other hand works nicely.

</comment><comment><USER12> Did the author or this article even read netflix's statement? There was no "lamentation" of the fragmentation of the Android market. Because Android doesn't enforce a DRM model on every android handset Netflix is going to be working with individual manufacturers to try to bring DRM to as many phones as possible.

When I read "Netflix on Android" it seemed more like an apology to me. Netflix was saying we're sorry that we're going to fragment the market and confuse people, but this is the only way. They mentioned nothing about any fragmentation that already exists.

</comment><comment><USER13> Off the top of my head, I would say open source and DRM are mutually exclusive. Since a movie has to be decrypted on the client, the key can never be kept secret.

<comment><USER14> Like an SSH session?

<comment><USER13> I don't think that's the same problem. In an ssh session, you decrypt the data that is sent to you on your end, so you know the key it has been encrypted with (it is your public key after all).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article seems off to me. It seems like perhaps the author has reversed the fragmentation issue:

Quote: "Peters wrote that the fragmentation will also lead to slower rollout across the devices than Netflix would have liked:

"Unfortunately, this is a much slower approach and leads to a fragmented experience on Android, in which some handsets will have access to Netflix and others won't.""

Doesn't the above say that lack of generalized DRM (a feature that doesn't exist in Android at all) will lead to fragmentation, not fragmentation will lead to more fragmentation?

I understand that some devices will have netflix and some won't, but isn't this more because Google decided against providing a system for DRM and less about there being different types of devices on the market?

<comment><USER16> Bingo. The lack of "common platform security mechanism and DRM" leads to imposing a fragmented approach rather than Android is fragmented.</comment></comment>


How to combat healthcare benefit costs as a startup - <AUTHOR> http://siliconflorist.com/2010/11/18/calling-oregon-entrepreneurs-action-doityourself-health-healthcare-reform/ <comment><USER2> The concern I have with this article is that it dances around the core problem with US health care, which is that the underlying market for health services is --- in most cases --- coupled directly and inextricably with the health insurance establishment.

It's all well and good to tell people to fund HSAs or buy health discount cards or get savvier about spending and buy generic meds. But a trip to the emergency room or a serious illness is simply going to max out your deductable, no matter how cost-conscious you are.

The core problem is that medical services are priced by colluding hospital chains and insurance companies, and those prices are both (a) deliberately decoupled from the actual economics of providing health care and (b) a fig leaf covering the way hospitals and insurers actually resolve invoices.

Unless/until you can extract the insurers from medical pricing, no amount of free market cheerleading is going to fix the problem. _We don't have a free market_ to fall back on.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand - what's the problem with insurers colluding to reduce costs? If they successfully create a downward price pressure, isn't that a good thing?

<comment><USER2> The side effect of their collusion coupled with their commanding share of the market is the destruction of the private market for health care, presumably because the administrative overhead of servicing that market and ensuring that it is transparent and inefficient dominates the returns they'd expect from it.

This isn't complicated: the price list for medical procedures bears no relationship either to the cost of those services or the money changing hands between providers and insurers.

<comment><USER3> Why do you believe the private market was destroyed by collusion between insurance companies, rather than the massive government subsidies (20-30%, I think) provided to the employer-supplied insurance market?

<comment><USER2> You're trying to pin down a value judgement I'm not making. Stipulate that the government played a major role in creating this problem. Now what? I'm pretty sure my point still stands: there's no free market for private health care to fall back on, no matter how efficiently you consume health services.

<comment><USER3> I'm not disputing your main point that the market in medical services is very far from free, or attempting to pin down a value judgement.

I'm only questioning your claim that collusion among insurance companies does much of anything besides push us closer to monopsony pricing.

<comment><USER2> Collusion between providers and insurers has, as an _externality_ to the actual transaction taking place, severely distorted the market for medical services in the US. I'm not questioning whether insurers should be able to negotiate prices with providers.

If employer-sponsored health insurance wasn't the primary vehicle for medical expenses in the US, maybe you could get an actual price list for hospital services even in the face of aggressive negotiation. But it is, and so you can't, and any conversation about health expenses that tries to dodge that point is disingenuous. That's my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The crux of his prescription is to reserve insurance for the catastrophic, low-probability events like getting cancer or hit by a bus, but high- deductible catastrophic plans seem carefully calibrated to make you go bankrupt anyway. Given any other choices at all, I wouldn't trust my heath to one.

I reviewed plans with a health insurance broker in Washington state in September, who openly mocked some Regence (Blue Shield) coverage with a fifteen hundred dollar annual limit on "complex imaging", which means MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans, mammography, etc. He said, "Do you have any idea how many scans you'd get if you had cancer?", and that $1500 might cover most of the first one. If you missed that detail and got sick, you might as well not have insurance.

<comment><USER5> _I reviewed plans with a health insurance broker in Washington state in September, who openly mocked some Regence (Blue Shield) coverage with a fifteen hundred dollar annual limit_

That's not high-deductible, it's low-benefit. A high deductible plan would have you pay out of pocket up to $5k or $10k, and then cover everything above that. I agree that a plan that caps benefits (at something less than $1 million or so) is practically worthless, because the sort of events you actually want to insure against get expensive really fast.

<comment><USER4> _That's not high-deductible, it's low-benefit._

I have less experience shopping for group plans, but in the individual market you will die of natural causes before you find a high-deductible, high-benefit plan, let alone one without fatal loopholes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _"The second dimension is becoming savvier healthcare consumers."_

Once you conflate patients with consumers, you have fundamentally moved away from a public health model towards a model where costs are based on what the market will bear rather than the costs associated with providing the service.

</comment><comment><USER7> Question to people who have small (e.g. <5 people) startups: what system do you use for employee heath care?

<comment><USER8> This is a question I would love more clarity on. Especially pre-employee - what do bootstrapped founders typically do for their own healthcare? Do most roll the dice and go without? If so, do you stop going to regular dentist check-ups, etc.?

<comment><USER9> If you live in MA, you can purchase health insurance using the state exchange over the web. Minimal prices for a family of two are about $550/month (or were last I checked). Prices/availability can only vary based on age/gender/location so you don't have to worry about being denied coverage for a preexisting condition. You can cancel with one-month's notice.

<https://www.mahealthconnector.org/portal/site/connector/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Relocate to the UK.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't believe people aren't tearing this asshole to threads. Between all the bullshit in his article, what he's really saying is this: let's pay less for health insurance by transferring more costs to the individual. I suppose you might support this if you're so deluded as to think lots of people are going to the doctors office because they're bored and have nothing better to do than have time consuming, often humiliating, uncomfortable to painful procedures and tests performed on them on a schedule that's extremely inconvenient. OTOH, those of us whose heads aren't firmly buried up our assholes think that people mostly try hard not to go to the doctor or hospital because the experience sucks, and so the way this Dave asshole is trying to save money is by discouraging _you_ from getting health care you need by making it cost more.

ps -- people who don't straightforwardly acknowledge that health insurance isn't insurance, it's group cost pooling, are idiots who should be ignored in the health care debate. It's not insurance and shouldn't be because we can tell that in certain cases people will cost a lot of money to treat. Insurance would leave them out in the cold. Societies with integrity or conscience treat people anyway. Compare to insurance -- if you build a house in a flood zone on the florida cost, you should probably be told hell no -- no company will sell you insurance. If all the women in your family get breast cancer, we should still give you health insurance for when you get breast cancer.

<comment><USER3> _I can't believe people aren't tearing this asshole to threads. Between all the bullshit in his article, what he's really saying is this: let's pay less for health insurance by transferring more costs to the individual. I suppose you might support this if you're so deluded as to think lots of people are going to the doctors office because they're bored and have nothing better to do than have time consuming, often humiliating, uncomfortable to painful procedures and tests performed on them on a schedule that's extremely inconvenient._

This has been proven experimentally (by a randomized trial) to be true. When people pay more out of pocket for medicine (95% copay vs 5%), they consume 30% less medicine, but have statistically identical health outcomes.

<http://www.rand.org/health/projects/hie/>

The reason people consume unnecessary medicine is unknown, but the fact that they do so is not in doubt.

(I'm not even going to address your claim that "anyone who disagrees with me on the purpose of insurance are idiots".)

<comment><USER11> The glibertarians' favorite experiment -- which is (btw) 30 years old and unreplicated despite attempts, and has methodological flaws. To name just one: a number of people dropped out of the study. The authors have dismissed this as a concern, but you don't have to think to hard to figure out why it is a real problem. Second, as the author admits: "For most people enrolled in the RAND experiment, who were typical of Americans covered by employment-based insurance, the variation in use across the plans appeared to have minimal to no effects on health status. By contrast, for those who were both poor and sick -- people who might be found among those covered by Medicaid or lacking insurance -- the reduction in use was harmful, on average"

Good system.

<comment><USER2> This unproductive argument is exactly what's wrong with your Pickett's Charge case against the ethics of insurance as oppposed to "cost pooling". People who disagree with your slippery slope argument will just put you on their own slippery slope; pretty soon you'll be arguing that yes, it's only fair for us to be buying everyone's kids X360's.

There are plenty of pragmatic problems in the current system to address arguments to. The solutions to those problems will improve people's lives without requiring anyone to adopt new political ideologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're in NYC and an early start-up freelancers union can be useful.</comment>


Comcast-Funded Civil Rights Groups Claim Low-Income People Want Ads Over Privacy - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2017/03/29/isp-civil-rights/ <comment><USER2> Them wanting people to believe that this will lower the cost of internet service is laughable. Have TV ads lowered the cost of cable?

We need to think of the internet as a public utility. How absurd would it be if every time you used water in your home, you heard an advertisement playing from a speaker in the faucet.

<comment><USER3> > Them wanting people to believe that this will lower the cost of internet > service is laughable. Have TV ads lowered the cost of cable?

It's a very important point; this false argument is often used. In truth, in the marketplace, goods are not priced at 'cost-plus'; i.e., they aren't priced by taking the cost to the vendor and adding a profit margin.

Goods are priced at the point that will maximize profit for the vendor; economists would say at the point that maximizes marginal profit. Colloquially, they charge as much as they can.

The fact that the vendor has another stream of income from Product B doesn't cause them to reduce their prices for Product A. Microsoft doesn't cut the price of Windows because they are making so much from Office.

<comment><USER4> > Microsoft doesn't cut the price of Windows because they are making so much > from Office.

Microsoft _did_ cut the price of Windows to get people to adopt it early on _because_ they would be making so much money from Office.

Microsoft Word vs. WordPerfect, Excel vs. Quattro Pro and Lotus 1-2-3. These battles were won because of Windows and that cemented their position as industry leader.

Now that Microsoft is in a dominant position they don't cut the price of Windows as much, but to remain on top they do give the OEMs a very sweet per- unit deal they really can't refuse.

<comment><USER3> > Microsoft _did_ cut the price of Windows to get people to adopt it early on > _because_ they would be making so much money from Office

If that's true (and that's not my understanding) they did it to gain marketshare and maximize profit, not because they already had enough profit. In that scenario, they cut the price of Windows to make even more from Office.

<comment><USER4> They cut _short term_ profits in order to cement long-term ones, so yeah, they were maximizing profits but over a longer time-scale than one transaction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of Facebook's arguments in support of Free Basics.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia- india-35197062](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35197062)

</comment><comment><USER6> It makes sense. Poor people can't pay for privacy, now that it became a feature instead of a right.

<comment><USER7> First there is strong bias here, so we actually do not know really if it is true.

Second, lets imagine that poor people would prefer whipping instead of imprisonment (they can return to work sooner) or fine.

Should we follow the same logic here then and accept it?

<comment><USER8> In your example, "whipping", "imprisonment", and "[or] fine" are all examples of punishments for a crime.

Being poor is not a crime.

<comment><USER7> Of course being poor is not a crime. But we all may make mistakes. For example exceed the speed limit.

Say, instead of fine 50, I may agree to accept 5 whips with a wooden stick on my back. Because I need these 50.

So should we accept whipping the poor if they demand it?

<comment><USER9> I don't see how physical violence is on the level of some company paying to know you visited a porn site.

<comment><USER7> Both are violating ones decency. On different levels of course. In both examples decency is traded for money.

I would argue that violation of the online privacy is worse than whipping. No, the problem is not that somebody knows what specific content you are watching. The problem is that they find out you are poor.

Youtube once considered that I could be a stereotypic poor person living in the US. The result was ugly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How about ads with privacy? They are not mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER11> > How about ads with privacy? They are not mutually exclusive.

Yeah, but internet advertising fetishizes "personalization" and quantitative metrics, which are predicated on invasions of privacy. Advertisers could put those toys down, and go back to more traditional, privacy-preserving advertising, but I don't think they have the maturity and willpower to do so on their own.

<comment><USER12> you're asserting that the reason why advertising organizations who are competing to deliver the most valuable advertising product to their clients end up invading people's privacy is a lack of maturity and willpower? You're insane if you believe that this problem is not systemic.

<comment><USER11> I was talking collectively about the ad-men and the companies hiring them. And yes, I think the group lacks the maturity and willpower to act ethically in the face of competing pressures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm wondering how this is all going to play out with ad-blocking software and plugins...?

Are we going to see where - if you run such software - suddenly you can't browse any sites, or you can only browse very slowly?

Or will running ad-blocking software be considered illegal or something - because you're depriving potential profit from somebody?

Will ads slowly take over the entire experience? To the point where you just don't want to use the internet any longer (or at least the web)?

Will people move back to gopher and ftp (oh, we can only hope)? BBSs? Door games and MUDs to the rescue?

My wife and I have considered moving to a more rural area of our state - we're both tired of the city and of people in general. I've lamented about how out in such areas, internet service would be spotty or non-existent, but you know what?

Maybe that's a good thing, ultimately. If I need internet for some reason, I'll just mosey into town, send an email or two, then mosey back home.

These advertisers, their enablers, ISPs, and the corrupt political machine that supports it all? They can go f--- themselves.

</comment><comment><USER14> wow, give me something i very much don't want while taking away something i very much want. Sounds more like corporate rights than civil rights.

</comment><comment><USER15> Oh my God, that is _low_.

And quite frankly, for a of people, they're probably right. Especially because people don't understand what they are giving up, because it somehow has to do with "computers" and are therefore different from real life.

If, however you were to explain to a person, that this would be the same as his landlord knowing every single step he took in his home, when he took that step, what he was listening to when he took the step, who he was taking the step with, exactly how he looked when he took the step and use it to shoe advertising, he would cry foul and he would understand that this was not a small thing.

</comment><comment><USER16> They'd probably also agree to slavery to get food and shelter

<comment><USER17> I can't imagine what they would be willing to do for a luxury like health care!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Low income people also would prefer spam and coolaid every single meal instead of starving - that doesn't mean it should be promoted as a good diet...

</comment><comment><USER19> I think it's asinine "free market" religious nonsense. If we had done this ~100 years ago with phones being rolled out to rural areas, the free market would have said pay $1000 a month for phone service. Instead the government forced everyone to pay a subsidy so it'd be cheaper in rural areas, and even cheaper for poor people anywhere including cities.

No one complained about this.

So now the idea is privacy is a commodity to be purchased, and freedom from ads is a commodity to be purchased. It's every man for himself, that leads to more distrust, less cooperation, and more acrimony and I think it's incompatible with a civil society. This classist variety of Republican/conservative/capitalist - whatever label to put on it - is vile. It's neo-aristocracy, and it's anti-democratic.

<comment><USER9> If this business model is not OK for Comcast why is it OK for Google and the rest of the internet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ads _over_ privacy?

Why can't we have Ads vs. Privacy? Income for Comcast can come from either at the cost of serving ads OR at the cost of privacy--not both. What the fuck?

</comment><comment><USER21> They mean Comcast funded corporate control group? Calling it "civil rights" is an insult. This paid propaganda is just sickening.

</comment><comment><USER22> On the plus side, the low-income group can probably get the privacy issue addressed through great customer service.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have no problem with ads being targeted to me. It increases the likelihood something useful will pop up on my screen. I also don't mind using sites which are ad free, nor do I mind paying for ad-free services like YouTube Red.

</comment><comment><USER24> Is there nothing Comcast won't do to screw the public?

</comment><comment><USER25> This idea makes sense, empirically. There is a cost to provide internet, and low-income individuals may be more willing to provide a combination of valuable assets (cash & data), while higher income individuals would be willing to provide more cash in exchange for no data.

Regardless, the end payment is the same, it's just a question about how you want to pay.

Edit: For those who think this may be a money grab, remember that the government is getting tax revenue out of the profits ISPs make from monetizing your data. While the ethics of this are debatable, the alternative is zero additional government revenue. So the ethics of privacy need to be weighed against the ethics of providing programs for communities that could be beneficial.

<comment><USER26> If they provide a _decent_ free connection (at least 10/2), and support it buy collecting your data, then fine. But to force it on people who pay for a connection makes zero sense.</comment></comment>