You Can't Soak the Rich - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121124460502305693.html

<comment><USER2> Portfolio's Zubin Jelveh identified two major problems with Hauser's figures: (1) They don't include corporate tax revenue, which has dropped dramatically. (2) They DO include revenue from social security and other social-insurance programs, which aren't tied to tax rates and which have grown dramatically.

In other words, the appearance that tax revenue remains flat across the past 57 years of fluctuating top tax rates is a coincidence, to put it nicely, or an accounting fraud, to be a bit more accurate about it.

More details, including corrected charts, are here: [http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/odd- numbers/2008/05/20/...](http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/odd- numbers/2008/05/20/lying-with-charts-wsj-edition)

<comment><USER3> The corrected charts and the author at that link say that it's inconclusive. Which is pretty safe to say.

Perot charts are interesting, more detailed and transparent. They cover areas you are worried about specifically the breakdown of different types of tax. If they are misleading they are transparent (enough) so that at least the user can figure it out. They cover a number of spending and tax issues:

<http://perotcharts.com/category/charts/taxation-charts/>

<http://perotcharts.com/category/charts/>

<comment><USER2> He says it's "inconclusive" in the sense that the evidence doesn't prove what Hauser claims it proves.

<comment><USER3> _My analysis doesn't prove this, but Hauser's Law doesn't prove the opposite._

That sounds inconclusive to me.

<comment><USER2> Or with some context: 'My analysis doesn't prove [something I never claimed] but Hauser's Law doesn't prove the opposite [which Hauser and Ranson did claim].'

In other words, on the growth effects of raising top tax rates he is indeed inconclusive. But on the question of whether Hauser is full of crap, he's pretty conclusive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The argument seems politically motivated. Lower taxes for the consumer tax brackets would be another valid way of increasing GDP (through an increase in consumer spending).

And the graph is meaningless at best. We'd expect to find a correlation b/w the average tax rate across the board and tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. Plotting just the top tax bracket in an effort to show no correlation is intentionally misleading.

<comment><USER5> And even if he had discovered a valid correlation for this period in this country, there is no reason for calling it a 'law'. There is no indication that the correlation will hold up in the future or in the rest of the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was posted here months ago, and shown to be grossly inadequate then. It's entirely meaningless because you could plot anything on that graph and draw an identical conclusion. Surely there must be something that does fluctuate and effect the tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, but if you plotted it on a graph it would appear not to.

Moreover, top marginal tax rate is an all but irrelevant metric since the ultra-wealthy pay considerably lower due to capital gains.

</comment><comment><USER7> On the other side of the macroeconomic coin, despite the standard political back-and-forth [1], government spending has also remained basically constant at 21% of GDP for the last few decades.

But now that may be changing:

[http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/02...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/02/is-21-percent- gone.html)

[1] Thinking of the Democrats and Republicans as countervaling processes maintaining a homeostatic equilibrium that expresses the electorate's preference for a government that spends 20% of GDP is a good way to rehabilitate yourself if you've picked up the vice of excessive political involvement.

</comment><comment><USER8> When searching around for Hauser's Law, I found this comment that directly addresses some of the issues in the WSJ article:

 _The problem I have with Hauser's Law is that it doesn't seem to include state and local taxes, which should raise the bar by quite a lot. Also, why should we look to the nation as a whole? To find out if there's an upper limit, I think we should look at what state has the highest rate. For that matter, perhaps we should look at foreign countries.

While tax revenues may been fairly stable over the past 50 years, that doesn't mean we couldn't generate more if we wanted to.

Posted by edelfenbein at May 21, 2008 10:22 AM_

</comment><comment><USER9> As they say, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. The article graphs the maximum tax bracket with the total tax revenue, with no account for the number of people in this bracket or the contribution of all other brackets in the system. Its understandable, since doing the right thing would require a lot of data and would look a bit like calculus (revenue being the area under the product of two curves), and would sadly be too difficult for many readers.

But we don't have that data, so let me hypothesize a situation where this analysis isn't the whole truth. Article states that we take the same revenue whether the rich are taxed at 90% or 30%. Lets say that the left of the graph has 1 person making $1,000,000 in the 90% bracket, and 1000 other people making $50,000 in a 25% bracket. Total tax revenue is $13.4M.

Now at the right of the graph, we have a dip where the top bracket is at 35%, so in the same situation, our revenue should have dropped to $12.8M but was instead stable! Money on trees! Except there is a simple alternative explanation, which is that the bottom tax bracket went from 25% to 26%. Unfortunately, data on this is not supplied by the article.

It should be easy to see that raising taxes will raise tax revenue (not accounting for accounting tricks employed generally by the rich). Plotting a small component against an unqualified whole data set is plain poor research, and the WSJ should be ashamed.

</comment><comment><USER10> A different perspective:

[http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/missing-1000000-tax-b...](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/missing-1000000-tax- bracket.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Doesn't this call into question the premise of a Laffer curve? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve>

And if increasing taxation lowers GDP doesn't it follow that lowering taxation should increase GDP?

<comment><USER12> Reagan implemented that policy, but then got bogged down in bankrupting the USSR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've got views on taxation that would get me crucified on reddit, but may have a more sympathetic ear on HN. Here's some examples:

1) Eliminating corporate taxes. Would increase employment, capital spending, and wouldn't leave too much of a dent in tax receipts.

2) Eliminating automatic payroll tax deductions. Have citizens actually write out a check every quarter. Very inefficient, but we'd start to see some major reforms in SS/Medicare as federal legislature starts to get calls from their constituents.

3) Cutting payroll taxes and offset revenue with energy taxes (gasoline and carbon).

<comment><USER14> I have read several times that many of the so called "socialist" European countries actually have lower corporate taxes than the U.S. (They have higher payroll and income taxes, of course.)

Offsetting other taxes with increases in energy taxes is close to the consensus opinion of economists, I think.

So, maybe too extreme for Reddit, but not so far out of the mainstream, perhaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I agree with the article's conclusion, but not necessarily its premise. Not sure "Hauser's Law" stands up, or is it just statistical coincidence?

But yes, raising tax rates can certainly decrease tax yields. Take one of my closest friends. He's 28 now. He's a college dropout, and self-made millionaire as of age 24. Amazing guy. He was grossing about $800,000/year in his age 24/25/26 years. He was netting out mid/low six figures, and paying $50,000-$150,000 each year in various taxes. Working (no kidding) 80+ hour weeks. Often more.

I've seen people cite the top marginal tax rate as being in the 90% range post WWII. But mobility has increased so much since then. My friend is an incredibly resourceful dude, as you can imagine. He's a good person. America wants him here, or at least should. But if the government now wanted, after writeoffs, interest deduction from taxes, etc, say... $400,000 per year from him - he'd be long gone. There's enough countries where you can get a "welcomed exceptional people" visa by putting enough money in the bank, or a resident's visa by buying a property. Dubai being one such place.

So yeah, he'd be long gone if the government wanted to tax him more. Now, I can't speak to whether that's fair, or right, or if he's neglecting his patriotic duty by not being willing to stick around in the USA even if it wasn't a smart move for him financially. But it's the way it is. He grits his teeth and pays what he has to because he reckons he'll make more money here doing it that way. If that were to change, I reckon I'd be visiting him in Hong Kong, Dubai, or wherever else pretty fast. He and I both travel pretty regularly, and both of us have lived abroad some. Heck, I'd probably leave if taxes got high enough too.

<comment><USER16> As an American citizen, you are taxed globally. Now, you may think that you can simply renounce your US citizenship, burn your passport and call it a day, but as of 1986 the IRS is able to come after you for taxes for up to 10 years after renunciation of citizenship. In addition, tax information is now shared with INS, so you can be barred entry from the US or end up getting carted off to somewhere you don't want to go if you don't have all of your ducks in a row.

Perhaps you're thinking of starting an offshore company, and keeping your money there. Well, you've got to file a special form each year with the IRS for each entity of this sort, as they are known as "Controlled Foreign Corporations." Failure to provide the IRS with this information once again causes you to run afoul of US laws, which once again puts you at risk of punishment from the country that is globally known as "the world's policeman."

You have to remember that you are a citizen of the world's smartest country. They have pretty much thought of everything.

<comment><USER17> The global taxation feature of the US code is a double taxation on income, as you typically pay taxes in the foreign jurisdiction as well (There are tax treaties that reduce this double taxation in many jurisdictions, but only to a certain amount). It also applies to US businesses that operate globally and is a major reason so many multinationals move their headquarters offshore. The US, I believe, is one of only two countries in the world that taxes citizens globally, the other being Israel.

<comment><USER18> That's definitely not the case anymore. Canadians have to pay taxes on world- wide income unless they can demonstrate they have "severed ties" with their Canadian residence. Working abroad for a year or two in an expat job doesn't cut it.

More and more countries are moving towards world-wide taxation, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm not surely whether the full story is being told in this article.

The 90% tax may well act like a brake on wealth generation, but was only applied at the very highest incomes, not people on mid 6 figures. I bet the elimination of the top rate actually resulted in a large shift of taxation from the rich, to the middle-class, like you and me.

<comment><USER20> > I bet the elimination of the top rate actually resulted in a large shift of > taxation from the rich, to the middle-class, like you and me.

You lose.

The fraction of taxes paid by the upper 1% and 5% have gone up. (Yes, under Bush too.)

This isn't just a Federal phenomena - it happens at the state level too. A huge fraction of CA's income tax comes from a very small number of people. Their income is volatile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've never heard of this idea... I'm scanning econ blogs for the rest of the day to see if anyone comments on it.

<comment><USER22> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_Law>

Has some more information. You won't find much commentary today, because the article is nearly a year old. In any case, this is basically just politics, so I flagged it.

<comment><USER23> I disagree.

I think there is a lesson in pricing strategies here.

The trade of money for goods or services always follows a curve. Whether that is money for governmental services or money for startup services. It's an extremely important concept for strategic market positioning.

The argument of how it applies to government may be political, but the economics are assuredly not.

<comment><USER22> Governments are a corner case though. You don't get to decide, in most cases, what services you want and how much money you're going to spend for them. In many cases, the services provided are for public goods, which have wonky economics and pricing (or lack thereof) of their own. So it's fairly irrelevant to the sorts of products and things most of us work on. If you really want articles about strategic pricing, there is a lot of far more directly relevant material out there... trying to tie this into startups feels like "6 degrees of hacker news".

<comment><USER23> You don't have to go through all these contortions.

Increasing price always eventually results in less revenue. Your ability to choose has nothing to do with it. The curve holds even in forced markets.

That's the point I was making. You're asking for an exact match or nothing, which I think is a little bit on the extreme reasoning side. We don't need six degrees of hacker news, but we can't abandon power curves because it might be uncomfortable to talk about them either.

In fact, even the exceptions are interesting here. It turns out you _can_ soak the rich, at least in narrow markets with the right positioning. What you can't do is force a generic product into a high-end market and expect similar returns.

This is all good stuff. Take out the politics and you've got a great discussion about how product positioning affects gross revenue. The item in question is simply a fixed product in a forced market. But heck, we're in that situation now with many monopolies, so it's not like government owns this particular discussion -- it's a generic discussion with government simply as one example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Did you know that more than 40% of the country DOES NOT pay taxes?

Someone should be taxing that 40%...

<comment><USER25> > Did you know that more than 40% of the country DOES NOT pay taxes?

Did you know that everyone who complains about that is ignorant and selfish and should have their taxes doubled for even trying to make the poor poorer?

By the way, it's a lie, everyone pays taxes, 40% just don't pay _income_ taxes which is but one of many taxes we're all required to pay. Implying that they don't pay taxes is despicably intellectually dishonest.

<comment><USER26> Note: This was originally a little more harsh.

I don't think I am selfish and ignorant for worrying about the incentive effects involved when a majority of the voting public do not pay anything for the programs they vote for.

Of course, I am pretty poor right now myself (Grad school), so your suggestion that my taxes should be doubled doesn't really do a lot.

<comment><USER25> > I am worried about the incentive effects involved when a majority of the > voting public do not pay anything for the programs they vote for.

Don't, the wealthy don't need you to worry about them, they have paid lobbyists to do that for them and they're well taken care of already. You need not fear for the wealthy, they'll be just fine, they always are.

> I can't figure out how that is ignorant or selfish.

It's ignorant because you're concerned about those who need your concern the least, because they've brainwashed you into it by making you think you'll be one of them one day.

It's selfish because you've directed your anger at the poor, those who need help the most, you're complaining about it as if they're the ones who write the rules or control the system; they don't.

Look, there's absolutely nothing wrong with being rich, or wanting to be rich. But it's fucking selfish to point fingers at the poor and say they aren't paying enough.

Frankly, you don't know what poor is, you're in Grad school for Christ's sake, that's not poor.

Poor is shopping in dumpsters for clothes and food because you have no money and no hope of attaining money.

Poor kids don't go to college, many don't finish high school, staying alive is too pressing a concern to be off "wasting time learning" when you're little brother is starving and you could be bouncing store to store buying 1 cent gum with food stamps so you can get 99 cents change to eventually collect up enough to pay the rent so you're not all homeless tomorrow morning.

Poor is collecting rain water in a big tub on the back porch so you can take a bath, and then sharing the water with your siblings one after the next because you don't have indoor plumbing and you've never seen a shower.

Poor is walking 200 feet in snow to go to the bathroom, again because you don't have indoor plumbing and you built an outhouse near the edge of the woods and the distance in necessary to keep the stink away.

This shit happens, here, in America, daily. Poor is an economic status most are born into and never get enough education to realize ways out even exist. You don't fucking know poor, point your accusatory finger elsewhere.

<comment><USER26> > you're selfish because you've directed your anger at the poor

Who said I'm angry at the poor? I'm not. I just think there is a certain intelligent logic in how taxation and representation are rhetorically linked. I also think a majority-rules democratic system where a majority pay $0 in taxes in unsustainable. I think the decisions made in such a system will be stupid and short-sighted, leading to massive deficits, economic collapse, and maybe even political instability in the long run.

Leave your emotions aside for a moment. I am simply trying to discuss what is wise. I am not advocating eating the poor. However, I see that you already have your mind made up and have no desire for discussion.

In addition, you're imputing a ton of motives and positions to me that I did not state. You're in attack dog mode for no reason, and there is no way that I can intelligently engage you if you've already painted me as an evil misanthrope.

The number of people who pay no net taxes in this country is much larger than the number that get their clothes from dumpsters. You're painting a dishonest scenario and smearing me with dishonest motives.

In general I don't enjoy talking to people who think that those who disagree with them are evil. I can say that I didn't enjoy this conversation.

<comment><USER25> > Who said I'm angry at the poor?

You did when you brought up the "40% don't pay taxes" b.s. line that I'm beyond tired of hearing from conservatives. I've heard it a hundred times and it's always from an angry conservative blaming poor lazy people for stealing their money with tax credits. After you hear a lie enough times you start to get annoyed with the people perpetuating it.

> I also think a majority-rules democratic system where a majority pay $0 in > taxes in unsustainable.

Straw man, we have no such system.

> Leave your emotions aside for a moment. I am simply trying to discuss what > is wise.

Easily done, what is wise to look not at the poor, but at the well off when looking for sources of revenue. The poor need sympathy, not scorn.

> In addition, you're imputing a ton of motives and positions to me that I did > not state.

Then don't use the arguments primarily shared by people that hold those positions.

> there is no way that I can intelligently engage you if you've already > painted me as an evil misanthrope

I don't think you're evil; engage me with logic and questions that don't imply blame on the poorest among us.

> The number of people who pay no net taxes in this country is much larger > than the number that get their clothes from dumpsters.

I agree, and I didn't claim otherwise. I was disputing your claim that you were somewhat poor, you aren't.

I don't enjoy people attacking people who don't make enough money to pay taxes under our current system. Those people are _not the problem_ with our system and any attempt to put the focus there seems to me a shallow attempt to deny that simple fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Obama says he'll set policy according to the science... Let's see, shall we?

<comment><USER20> During the campaign, Obama said that he'd raise certain rates even if he knew that the result was less tax revenue.

<comment><USER12> Really? That seems to be a lose-lose proposition to me.

<comment><USER20> Why do you believe that revenue is Obama's only goal?

<comment><USER12> Something to do with the squillion-dollar deficit.

<comment><USER20> Obama is a politician. Revenue is one of many tools, not a goal.

To be fair, the amount of revenue "lost" by these increases is dwarfed by the "stimulus".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The 80/20 rule strikes again</comment>


Why free software shouldn't depend on Mono or C# - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/news/dont-depend-on-mono

<comment><USER2> This is absolutely absurd on its face. Far from facing patent problems, the only interaction Microsoft and Mono has had is for Microsoft to officially support Mono/Moonlight as the official Linux silverlight client.

Jo Shields wrote an excellent rant a few months ago that completely destroys the patent argument (among other things): <http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/rants/124/>

If RMS was being ideologically sound, he would oppose the use of C/C++, on which patents are held by the convicted monopolist AT&T. Instead, he only opposes languages like C# and Java, the success of which poses a credible threat to the vast quantity of C/C++ code the FSF controls.

For those of you who don't know, C# is an EMCA and ISO standard, protected by numerous pledges not to sue, and the use in question is a Debian desktop app to expand and promote Debian Linux as a viable desktop platform; everything is 100% free software all the way down. By RMS's own purported ideological views, this is a great thing.

All I can say is, it feels like I'm trapped in a dreamworld where somehow RMS and MS have switched places; now MS is pushing open standards, and RMS is railing against them and spreading FUD. WTF?

<comment><USER3> Why would you expect Java to be supported by RMS and the FSF before it was fully open sourced? That's fairly basic to their worldview. Throwing out absurd accusations about them trying to protect C/C++ makes you seem a bit partisan on this issue.

<comment><USER4> It's one thing to complain before gcc.gnu.org/java/, kaffe.org, etc showed up. However, once there is an open source compiler and JVM it's time to complain about something else.

<comment><USER5> The standard library?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As I told a buddy earlier, the piece is below RMS' usual standard: "This is a serious danger, and only fools would ignore it" - poisoning the well rather than arguing the case properly...

<comment><USER7> _This is not to say that implementing C# is a bad thing. Free C# implementations permit users to run their C# programs on free platforms, which is good. (The GNU Project has an implementation of C# also, called Portable.NET.)_

I don't get it. Why is the GNU Project developing their own C# implementation but is seemingly anti-Mono? Hypocritical much? They want to discourage the use of C#... so they're developing their own C# suite? Doesn't make sense to me.

Question to those who may know: If C# is an ECMA standard, how can Microsoft shut down C# implementations legally? Aren't ECMA standards free for all to use?

<comment><USER8> According to the Wikipedia page on DotGNU [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotGNU> ], Mono doesn't just aim to by compliant with the Common Language Specification, but to maintain compatibility with .NET releases as they come out. DotGNU, on the other hand, is only concerned with implementing the standard. So, at least in theory, Mono could get into trouble where DotGNU wouldn't.

Still, this isn't making a lot of sense. My understanding is that Microsoft has been very helpful to the Mono project. But what really gets me is "it's a really good thing to have free implementations of C# but a really bad thing to use them..."

<comment><USER9> I would guess what he means is "It's good to be able to use the existing open source C# software, but please don't write any more of it"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Stallman thinks he lives in a black and white world, when in reality it's all shades of gray. His zealotry is getting tiresome (for me).

<comment><USER11> I agree with that, (he believes all software should have to be open-source, I believe) but I also agree with this post.

This post is not saying "we shouldn't make anything relying on any non-free software because all software should be free software." It's a pragmatic post saying, "look, it's likely that all of the man-years going into C# free software will be lost when we can't run that software on our machines. So write it in something that we'll be able to use on Unix forever." If someone chose a proprietary framework with official implementations on Unix systems, this post wouldn't say that those are bad as well.

<comment><USER12> One cool thing about C# (and the .NET platform in general) is the ability to translate your code into another programming language (aside from some possibly incompatible differences in programming languages). So there's really not much stopping anyone from writing a C# to Java converter that would handle a decent chunk of the porting (so you wouldn't lose any software), and then you could just fix up the minor stuff yourself.

For an example, check out the .NET reflector. By default, it lets you convert between C#, VB.NET, (Managed) C++, and CIL. You can also get plugins for IronPython and so forth.

<http://www.red-gate.com/products/reflector/> (it's free)

<comment><USER13> The ability to translate between two programming languages is called a compiler. There is theoretically nothing stopping anyone from writing a anything-to-anything "converter" (you mean compiler).

<comment><USER14> No, the right word is translator. A compiler generally creates a form optimised for execution, like machine code or bytecodes. A translator creates source code files from other source code files.

The program the poster was referring to is actually a disassembler, taking Microsoft IL (assembly for the virtual machine) and converting it to a .Net language. So you might;

\- compile C# to Microsoft IL \- decompile the IL back to IronPython \- use that as the basis of a CPython version.

<comment><USER13> I do not want to enter a dispute concerning naming, but I'll just point out that many consider a compiler to be anything that you might call translator. What would you call a program that transforms C code in assembler code? Isn't assembler code source code?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A few days back I read the story of 'The Tiger and the Traveller' from the Hitopadesha: <http://tinyurl.com/kqsw39> . My first thought was 'That's microsoft !'

That story is very short, the Hitopadesha is much longer (it's a collection of tales, a bit like Aesop's Fables which are more well-known in the west.

It's set up as a morality play, but it occurs to me that there is a certain amount of market wisdom embedded in such tales too. Maybe they contribute to the success of Indians as traders (if that isn't just a stereotype?)

</comment><comment><USER16> This marks the second time that I've read an article linked on Hacker News, come away with the impression that it was written by a raving lunatic conspiracy theorist, followed the "comments" here, and discovered that it was written by this same author.

Has anybody else here had the same experience?

This confirms to me that I don't have any personal bias against this guy (since I'm reading his articles blind). I just can't find any common ground from which to empathize with anything he has yet written. He's somewhat well known, is he not? Is all of his writing like this?

<comment><USER17> Yup. Pretty much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why isn't he afraid that AT&T will excercise patents on C? RMS sounds like he is blinded by hatred of Microsoft.

<comment><USER19> Because C is so old that all those patents have already expired?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is Free Software Foundation all about "no", "don't", "shouldn't" etc ?

</comment><comment><USER21> Is Tomboy the only application that uses Mono?[On a default installation] That seems a bit extreme to include the Mono framework just for a notepad.

<comment><USER22> Of course, there's a chicken/egg thing here. Might as well say "it seems a bit extreme to include Python" just because the occasional app is written with PyGTK, for example.

There are plenty of folks writing applications in C# using the GTK bindings, which in turn need Mono. Tomboy is just one that's become popular enough that people want it to ship as part of Debian's distribution of GNOME (not the only one; IIRC there are three apps in there now which need Mono). So sooner or later somebody's gotta ship it by default to support an application, and then folks who don't have religious attachments to avoiding Mono will think it's no more unusual than any other shared dependency of commonly-used applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The negativity in this article isn't necessary. I like C# I would want to say that the more Linux / Unix C# code will be written maybe and just maybe it will get MS to write an open source .NET framework not just for windows. That's the words I want to read

</comment><comment><USER24> Does RMS support usage of Java?

If yes, are there no threats there? If no, have they given any thought to having an official recommendation for new GUI (GNU) projects, at least a language with garbage collection.

<comment><USER5> Regarding Java: <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html>

As for writing GUIs, how about Perl/Ruby/Python/Lua/... + GTK?

<comment><USER24> Well, if Java is under the GPL now, why doesn't FSF actively promote Java for their projects?

<comment><USER17> I could be wrong, but I don't believe Java is GPL'ed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wish he'd spend his time on more constructive and realistic concerns instead of dreaming up doomsday scenarios and generally sounding like a zealot bent on destroying any chance of Linux having a mainstream future on the desktop. How about:

"Therefore, we should not include any obnoxious orange and bathroom brown colored themes in the default installation of GNU/Linux distributions"

I could get down with that one.

<comment><USER26> The word on the street is that Karmic will lose the brown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Microsoft is estopped by law from asserting patents on C#. That's one of the benefits of submitting specifications to a standards-granting organization.

The EFF should know this, but then again, having seen some of their legal work in the past, I'm surprised that they ever manage to win a case.

 _Edit_ Estoppel is a legal doctrine (which applies to most areas of law), which means that MS has performed certain actions (in this case, submitting the C# specification to the standards body) which would cause 3rd parties to reasonably assume that MS is waiving (patent) protections (or other legal rights in the matter at issue).</comment>


The Business of	Bookmarking - <AUTHOR> http://pinboard.in/talks/biz.pdf

<comment><USER2> I think the "Beard stroking" preamble is one of the more interesting parts. That and this quote:

"The combination of low startup costs and investor aversion means there are all kinds of opportunities lying around for a developer to run a profitable small business, provided he or she remembers to charge money."</comment>


How the Leap Motion Controller Works - <AUTHOR> http://blog.leapmotion.com/hardware-to-software-how-does-the-leap-motion-controller-work/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Despite popular misconceptions, the Leap Motion Controller doesn't generate a depth map – instead it applies advanced algorithms to the raw sensor data."</comment>


Bottom 5% of Americans are still wealthier than 68% of world population - <AUTHOR> http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-the-have-nots/?src=me&ref=business

<comment><USER2> The title for this is misleading. Poverty is defined as the inability to access basic human needs such as food, water, healthcare, education, clothing and shelter. While the relative purchasing power of American's is strong if they go to another country, the relative purchasing power of American's locally is severly diminished. As a result about 15% of Americans live below the UN defined poverty line. So what is "wealth" if you are in that 5% that surely are below the UN poverty line?

<comment><USER3> _As a result about 15% of Americans live below the UN defined poverty line._

This is blatantly false. The UN defines poverty as follows:

 _1) Severe Food Deprivation– Body Mass Index of 16 or below (severe underweight).

2) Severe Water Deprivation - access only to surface water (e.g. rivers, ponds) for drinking or living in households where the nearest source of water was more than 15 minutes away – 30min round trip (e.g. indicators of severe deprivation of water quality or quantity).

3) Severe Deprivation of Sanitation Facilities – no access to a toilet of any kind in the vicinity of their dwelling, e.g. no private or communal toilets or latrines.

4) Severe Health Deprivation – Women who did not receive treatment for a recent serious illness or who did not receive any antenatal care or who did not receive any assistance with birth or who did not receive a tetanus inoculation during her pregnancy. Men who did not receive treatment for a recent serious illness.

5) Severe Shelter Deprivation – living in dwellings with 4 or more people per room (severe overcrowding) or in a house with no flooring (e.g. a mud floor).

6) Severe Education Deprivation – youth who never attended school and who are also illiterate

7) Severe Information Deprivation – no access to newspapers, radio or television or computers or phones at home (e.g. no information sources).

Absolute Poverty threshold is equal to 2 or more severe deprivations of basic human need_

[http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/ydiDavidGordon_...](http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/ydiDavidGordon_poverty.pdf)

There is virtually no one in America suffering from any of these problems. Most of the poor in America are fat, have clean drinking water, flush toilets, watch plenty of TV, and do not have mud floors.

<comment><USER2> That is the UN definition for "Absolute Poverty" which is different to the UN definition for Overall Poverty. But you are right in that I cited the US figures in place of the UN figures. But my original point remains.

Consider this "In 2009, in the United States of America, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was US$11,161; the threshold for a family group of four, including two children, was US$21,756". "Poverty in the United States is cyclical in nature with roughly 13 to 17% of Americans living below the federal poverty line at any given point in time, and roughly 40% falling below the poverty line at some point within a 10-year time span."

Thank you wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States>

<comment><USER3> Just curious, what is the UN definition of "Overall Poverty"?

The US poverty threshold is irrelevant when comparing to India (and determining whether the graph/title is misleading) since we have no idea what fraction of Indian households fall below it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Yes, that's right: America's poorest are, as a group, about as rich as India's richest."

or, how to completely misunderstand a graph and show you have no idea what you are talking about. What a waste of time.

<comment><USER5> I'm amazed that an NYT writer could have made such a big mistake and that no one on their staff detected it.

The graph shows the poorest 20% of Indian society. Within that group, the richest people (i.e. people at the 20th percentile) have incomes comparable to America's poorest.

Unfortunately, the writer seems to have ignored the fact that the richest 80% of Indians aren't covered in the graph.

<comment><USER6> No, you screwed that up. That graph doesn't show the percentile, it shows the _ventile_. A ventile is 5 percentile, so the 20th ventile is the the 95-100 percentile.

<comment><USER5> yes, sorry, my mistake. The y-axis is in percentile,but the x-axis is in ventile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So people should stop complaining about high taxation, in fact we should raise them and give them to the poor, because you'd still be obscenely rich in a global sense right? Or were we going somewhere else with this?</comment>


What if Turntable.fm and Hot Or Not had a child...Presenting SoundOff.fm - <AUTHOR> http://www.soundoff.fm

<comment><USER2> I really love the idea, and the design is really nice/easy to get. The website seems to slow my firefox down a bit.

I tries the battle in HipHop/Rap and almost has always the same songs which is less fun but I guess you'll need to have a lot of uploads and Rap might not be the best genre to try out first.

A/B keys might not be the best keys to choose a song anyway, at least on an azerty keyboard they are pretty far of each other and it's harder to chose a song quickly!

Edit : The link to change the change for a battle seems really small and I did not find it at first. When coming back to the screen asking for fair shake/snap judgement maybe add a button to change genre if we want?

Edit 2: It seems that we must sign up to test the site. Why the change of heart after opening it? It's the kind of site I want to test before, once again, giving my email...

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. Worth a look, its pretty fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> real good idea... real easy to use too</comment>


Huawei sues Verizon for patent infringements - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3049301/huawei-sue-verizon-patent-infringement-including-network-communications <comment><USER2> Interested to see if the US is willing to serve justice to Huawei.</comment>


Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/instagram-has-massive-harassment-problem/572890/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Bringing this to a top-level comment:

People wildly underestimate how dedicated and adept some people are at finding PII given even minute details [1]. The only real way to avoid sharing PII is to stay off the internet entirely.

Even then, pandora's box has already been opened. Your PII is available even if you haven't explicitly chosen to share it [2].

Once it's out (and spoiler alert, it's out), "stepping away from the computer" is no longer an option. The article describes in detail how it transitions from online to real-life harassment: Swatting, stopping by your personal residence, calling your work, calling your friends and family, etc.

Yes, it happens to people of moderate means and very minor celebrity. Yes, you can suffer physical harm or death as a result [3]. Yes, we should also try and solve the swatting problem from the police side as well.

1: [https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/4chan-shia-labeouf- secret-l...](https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/4chan-shia-labeouf-secret- location/)

2: Equifax

3: [https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/30/us/kansas-swatting-death- affi...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/30/us/kansas-swatting-death- affidavit/index.html)

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of a video [1] posted by Tom Scott from "Things you might not know" youbtube. He and a friend posted a photo of themselves watching the eclipse somewhere in the USA and it is scary how accurately their location was found by Internet sleuths.

I feel bad for the new generation of Twitch/Youtube people who are exposing themselves to the Internet. There are some freaky good stalkers out there.

1: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGqEBvlmFAQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGqEBvlmFAQ)

<comment><USER4> I mean if you want a great account of how little information can be used to find you, you have to include the greatest game of capture the flag: Shia LeBeouf's "He Will Not Divide Us" vs 4chan.

> a flag emblazoned with the words "He Will Not Divide Us" would be flown for > the duration of the presidency. The camera was pointed up at the flag, set > against a backdrop of nothing but sky.

> Within 38 hours of resuming transmission, the flag was located by a > collaboration of 4chan users, who used airplane contrails, celestial > navigation, and other techniques to determine that it was located in > Greeneville, Tennessee.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaBeouf,_R%C3%B6nkk%C3%B6_%26_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaBeouf,_R%C3%B6nkk%C3%B6_%26_Turner#HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US,_2017_%E2%80%93_ongoing)

<comment><USER5> it is the first link in the gp post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I continue every month to be more convinced that the fundamental problem is that any platform where anybody, unsolicited, can for free send messages to anybody else, will forever have the "thundering hordes of assholes"[1] problem once it hits even modest scale. Having to hire people by the hundreds to "moderate" is desperately trying to salvage a fundamentally unworkable system, not a solution, even before we get into the interesting second-order effects such "solutions" can create, and what it does to the moderators themselves psychologically. You can't build a solution based around A: hoping the assholes just don't show up or B: that you will be smarter or more dedicated than the assholes.

I don't necessarily have a perfect solution all lined up, but just correctly identifying the problem is step one. I've mentally noodled with a number of models. But the thing they have in common is that none of them start with a new user being able to fling whatever they want to whomever they want for free.

[1]: I don't actually consider it a failure of the system if you encounter _an_ asshole every so often. That's life. But when you start a video stream and you end up with so many assholes typing asshole comments so quickly that you literally can't even read them before they scroll away, even if you want to, that's a structural problem, not just a social problem.

<comment><USER7> This is HN, the glorified peanut gallery, but seriously, what are your ideas? I'm curious to have a discussion about them and see what others think too.

<comment><USER8> Anything that makes the user invest a bit in the reputation of their account before they are allowed to message strangers would do the trick. Charge $10 for signing up. Limit @-mentions until you have built up a small following and activity track record. Require an application to join the forum. Etc, etc.

If a cost is evenly moderately costly to create, and abusive comments quickly result in bans, then the ratio of abusers quickly goes down to a very low level.

The problem is that making it costly to sign up goes against the business model and growth model of sites like Twitter, Reddit, or Instagram.

<comment><USER9> > Charge $10 for signing up.

The problem is that it makes it hard to get enough of a critical mass to convince people that it's worth the ten bucks.

That being said, something awful did it well over a decade ago [1] and has a relatively low amount of assholes/harassment, but it's not zero.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful#Forums](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful#Forums)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem is "massive" in the way that Instagram itself is massive, and having a public account opens you up to a massive attack surface (i.e. the global, growing audience of Instagram and the Internet at-large). As in the case with Facebook and Twitter, there's only so much a social network can do without putting real controls on who can create an account and who can participate:

> _Like Twitter, Instagram enables the easy setup of endless anonymous > accounts: All you need is an email address and you can start posting within > minutes. Abusers leverage this functionality to create armies of fake > accounts to attack people. But while Twitter now allows users to protect > themselves—by muting replies from people who don't follow you, who you don't > follow, aren't verified, haven't confirmed an email address, and > more—Instagram has only implemented some of these controls._

Instagram had a nicer overall "personality" to it initially because it was centered around the posting of attractive, innocuous photos. But in the end, it's still a platform that allows anyone to disseminate information of any kind (not just comments, but screenshots and images of text memes), so there's no reason to think that as it becomes massively mainstream, it won't have the exact same problems as Facebook and Twitter.

edit: fixed grammar

</comment><comment><USER11> "... Instagram enables easy sign up via just an email address"

Is the "easy sign up" such an important selling point, that anything more complicated drives away users?

I'm wondering how could be possible to avoid hoarding burner accounts just for the sake of trolling, while at the same time not requiring 1Billion people to send in scans of their ID to prove their identity.

Not to mention that even requiring ID for proving identity, one can still troll and harass as long as it's not caught on the fact

<comment><USER12> Requiring confirmation with an SMS code seems like a reasonable step to tie accounts to a more permanent identifier which can then be used for moderation.

<comment><USER13> For a nominal fee, one can get a burner phone/account to sign up for any number of sites. It does _very_ little to de-anonymize someone.

<comment><USER14> It doesn't de-anonymize someone, but it's a much bigger hurdle than an email address, which is free and someone can get on a whim. More friction could curb troll accounts.

<comment><USER15> And existing anti-troll measures will be more effective, able to focus on fewer trolls (presumably)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For a primarily phone-based application, this seems pretty weird to me. (It's harder to navigate and participate in compared to say reddit or fb)

I use Instagram, however, the only "harassment" I receive is spam and occasional mentions from p_rn bots. I also keep my profile and I'm not trying to push, sell, or make myself a celebrity.

What I think that may be happening: There are a lot of people who are trying to leverage their message or themselves to a level of celebrity and they don't realize that this is one of the consequences of it (or that they refuse to accept it).

<comment><USER17> _> For a primarily phone-based application, this seems pretty weird to me._

You seem to be pretty out of the loop when it comes to Instagram's primary user group. Many teens/early 20s these days don't even _have_ a computer, a smartphone is all they use. They're definitely accustomed to phone UIs.

> _I use Instagram, however, the only "harassment" I receive is spam and > occasional mentions from p_rn bots._

Don't generalize from a single datapoint, especially when that datapoint is not a representative sample at all.

> _What I think that may be happening: There are a lot of people who are > trying to leverage their message or themselves to a level of celebrity and > they don 't realize that this is one of the consequences of it (or that they > refuse to accept it)._

This is just straightforward victim blaming without even trying to understand what is actually going on.

<comment><USER16> 1.

They may be accustomed to the UI but from using the IG App you don't have the full capability to be aggressively persistent on the phone as you would on the desktop. Yes, mean things do get said, but I would hardly believe that it's as easy as they claim.

2.

This was my experience. I'm a private individual whom doesn't use it to build an audience, sell anything, or any of the like.

3.

Celebritihood has it's upsides and downsides. Am, I saying it's a good thing that it happens no.

<comment><USER17> The whole point was that you don't have to be a celebrity to get harassed and bullied. You don't need to be _anyone_ in particular. Social media can be used to magnify your old-fashioned highschool bullying to completely different levels. And even if it didn't, if cyberbullying was "just" at the level of IRL bullying, it would still be a problem, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > _The platform has cast itself as the internet's kindest place._

Excuse me but _what?_ I thought it was common knowledge that Instagram is one of the worst places on the net when it comes to bullying.

</comment><comment> village-idiot I think social media operators are under-valuing the risk that harassment has to their organizations. Social media companies live and die by the network effect. New social sites sometimes hit a magic threshold point after which they take off like a rocket as "everyone" is on it. Dying social sites drop below that same point, after which it's a "ghost town", and usership falls flat.

There are all kinds of things that can cause that to happen, famously redesigns and changes to moderator actions has done it in the past. But in general having a continuously shitty experience as people harass you is a pretty compelling reason to not use a social site. I cannot help but wonder if enough people will leave to trigger a mass exit or not.

</comment><comment><USER18> I was thinking of a potential solution to this (and many other problems) - filter lists. Instead of putting the onus on the company/social network to police the users, all the content they post and potentially (well, definitely) angering significant parts of the population (e.g. either the democrats, the republicans, or _both_!), they could just add opt-in _" filter lists"_ that would be curated by (groups of) users. A few would be enabled by default (e.g. gore, NSFW, etc), others you could discover simply by searching for specific keywords (e.g. "filter all neo-nazis" or "filter all anti-fa") (like browser add-ons) or by ranking them by popularity, and whatever filters you have enabled, the webpage would also show you how many users/posts/comments are hidden by your filters. That way, noone could accuse any organisation of censorship, the lists could be shared between websites (reducing the effort and enabling smaller companies to function), and the only real responsibility of the companies would be to keep illegal content off the site (or something that break all online etiquette, e.g. doxxing).

<comment><USER10> Twitter has had (unofficial, via third-party services) user created blocklists for awhile now, but still feel like something only used by power users. And the complaints/anger over censorship still exist — IIRC, Wil Wheaton (the uber-Twitter power user) was hounded off of Twitter and Mastodon because of his promotion of a controversial user's blacklist:

[http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible- place-...](http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-right- now-and-thats-largely-because-it-is-what-we-make-it/)

[https://medium.com/@AmberEnderton/wil-wheaton-has-a- listenin...](https://medium.com/@AmberEnderton/wil-wheaton-has-a-listening- problem-accdf6277b88)

<comment><USER19> My favorite user blocklist was the one that listed every Twitter advertiser. I think the maintainer shut it down, but I thought it was a pretty neat idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> With the popularity of non-real-name Instagram pages and "finstagrams" it seems strange that Facebook has not implemented a checkbox for "seriously, this is not my main account, please stop linking it to my main account or phone number or facebook account or suggesting it to ANYONE I might know in real life". But, then again, it is Facebook we're talking about.

<comment><USER21> _" seriously, this is not my main account, please stop linking it to my main account or phone number or facebook account or suggesting it to ANYONE I might know in real life"_

Their T&Cs prohibit having more than one account, so they would never implement this feature no matter how much sense it makes.

<comment><USER22> That's for Facebook.com not instagram. Instagram actively promotes multiple accounts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A better system is needed to allow for verified accounts, without requiring the kind of info that would allow hackers and bad actors to access your real email, address, phone number, etc. Dual authentication is a start but for now, it requires putting even more info out there (I didn't share a phone number on any site until I had to for authentication purposes).

</comment><comment><USER24> Harassment is mostly a problem because of anonymity. Facebook has a point with their "real names" policy.

Maybe we need systems where you can either be anonymous and censored, or identified and uncensored. You get to pick.

<comment><USER25> Real names don't stop harassment, whether on the WELL in the 90s or YouTube in the 2010s.

They do however harm the most vulnerable in society, either excluding them from platforms or making it easy for their harassers to find and target them.

Anonymity is at worst neutral for harassment. Removing it doesn't do what people hope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> *Humanity Has a Massive Harassment Problem

FTFY

<comment><USER27> Maybe it isn't actually that big of a problem?

<comment><USER28> Internet crazies waiting for you at your home or place of employment, most definitely is a problem.

Internet crazies swatting you because you got a portafort in fortnite, or some equally trivial offense like that, most definitely is a problem.

And that's not even getting into the more sinister stuff that the fbi has to deal with.

<comment><USER18> Then surely the problem isn't harrassment, but assault? Also, if you put enough information online, all it takes is one crazy/creepy stalker/murderer to track you down and do anything, that's completely orthogonal to the general problem of "online harrassment".

<comment><USER28> > _Then surely the problem isn 't harrassment, but assault?..._

Woah, woah, woah.

I said internet crazies showing up at your place of employment is a _problem_. That doesn't make it _assault_.

For instance, the outrage brigade might show up to protest in front of the company where you work for a few weeks. This is their right as Americans, and I realize and acknowledge that. At the same time, I believe it is harassment. I didn't say we should do anything to _stop_ it. I only said that it most definitely is a problem. And if it happened to you, I'd bet that right around the time your boss called you into his or her office to give you your final paycheck, you would start to think it is a problem too.

I think you went about 5 bridges _WAY_ too far with calling a lot of that harassment "assault". A lot of the harassment is _not_ assault. That's why it's so hard to stop. The assault stuff is the stuff that the fbi would be called in on generally speaking.

<comment><USER29> Parent is not equivocating harassment (or presence, as you seem to take it) as assault. They are simply stating that one often leads to the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I dont understandy, Why doesn't instagram just come up with some negativity filter/heuristic? Once someone reports being harassed to instagram, they can activate the filter and block all messages/tagging with negative content in it, for any and all messages directed towards the target.

</comment><comment><USER31> Then stop using instagram.

What's with nytimes, theatlantic and the rest of the media and their endless spam and whining about social media?

If you don't like it, stop using it? Leave HN alone.

HN has a massive nytimes, theatlantic, etc spam problem too. We don't have a way to filter useless clickbait media.

If the "journalist" at theatlantic don't like instagram, go start your own version of "nice" instagram and make billions.

<comment><USER32> > Leave HN alone.

You realise these things appear because HN users submit them, and other HN users upvote them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Close the tab, app, etc. Walk away from the computer.

<comment><USER2> Bit hard to do when they're calling your work, visiting your house, swatting you, etc.

<comment><USER34> Posting identifiable information on the internet should never be done. Perhaps middle schools and high schools need to teach kids about the dangers of the internet.

<comment><USER35> This is literally the definition of victim blaming.

<comment><USER36> How else would you avoid people identifying who you are online, other than not posting any identifiable information? If you post your home address and phone number on Facebook and people start prank calling you in the middle of the night and sending pizzas to your house, is Facebook really to blame here?

<comment><USER37> It is extremely difficult to avoid leaking information somewhere, as others have pointed out. Eventually there's a trail.

People often (or at least used to) share their current location on Twitter without having any idea they were doing it. Venmo payments default to public, again something that people often don't know.

And often it's not you who leaks the information but someone you know. Good luck controlling the social media presence of everyone in your family and circle of friends.

<comment><USER36> Okay, so again how is the site to blame if your family or friends leak your info. I agree that these sites should be defaulting most options to non public until people explicitly choose for something to be public - but beyond that, the only thing I can see working is heavily discouraging the bad behavior, and we likely need the legal system for that. All a social media company can do is ban someone for bad behavior, not fine them or throw them in jail.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


High-rise apartments stripped from controversial California housing bill SB 827 - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/10/high-rise-apartments-stripped-from-controversial-california-housing-bill/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Major changes to SB 827 include:

Replacing affordable housing: Any rent-controlled or low-income housing unit that is demolished as a result of the bill must be replaced.

Low-income housing: Developers using the bill for a project with 10 or more units would have to set aside a portion of the new housing for low-income residents — even if the city does not impose such requirements on development.

Demolitions: If a landlord has evicted tenants under the Ellis Act within the past five years — a law that allows landlords to stop renting altogether — that building cannot be redeveloped under SB 827.

Bus stops: The bill would now apply to fewer bus stops — those that have service at least every 20 minutes all day from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., as well as every 15 minutes during morning and afternoon rush hours.

Delayed start: SB 827 would not take effect until January 1, 2021. But the bill prevents cities from trying to skirt the legislation in the meantime by taking off the table land that is currently zoned for homes."</comment>


Imagination Technologies introduces 64-bit MIPS CPU to compete with ARM - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/02/mips_warrior_64_bit/

<comment><USER2> Blog post here: [http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/meet- mips-i6400-warri...](http://blog.imgtec.com/mips-processors/meet- mips-i6400-warrior-cpu-for-64-bit-computing-revolution)</comment>


Famous Software in Beta - <AUTHOR> Does anybody know of an article or book that documents early versions of now-famous software with screenshots, etc.?
I am specifically interested in the types of bugs that the founders of these services chose to ignore while first getting started.
I'm working on a beta version of enterprise software right now. So many bugs. Which ones to fix. <comment><USER2> No exactly what you want, but some advise.

Sit and use the product. Feel the pain. Detect the more painful bugs and fix them. (Loosing all the data is very painful. Being annoyed to repeat some task is painful.)

Somewhat related: "What is the Work of Dogs in this Country?" [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000012.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000012.html)</comment>


Show HN: Regex – Regular expression testing tool for OS X - <AUTHOR> http://motionobj.com/regex/

<comment><USER2> There are other tools that are free. And in my opinion better than this. I've used both RegExhibit and Reggy. Both appear to be Open Source, though development has appeared to have stalled on both. They are at least both worth looking at before you spend 14.99 on an app.</comment>


Animated map of 5000 years of empires that controlled the Middle East - <AUTHOR> http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/EMPIRE17.swf?

<comment><USER2> A minor nitpick: the northwest of the Iberian peninsula, the Romanic-Swabian kingdom of Gallaecia, was never conquered by the Caliphate.

<comment><USER3> Also there were at one point three Caliphates. The idea of a single Caliphate wasn't reality? If I recall correctly, there were always strongmen laying claim to the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Question: Why is this on hacker news?

<comment><AUTHOR> "The focus of Hacker News is going to be anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes a lot more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

<http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html>

<comment><USER5> It's stuff like this that keeps me coming here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For some reason, content like this makes a periodic appearance every few months. A tutorial by IBM on how to better utilize command line tools is another.

Just one step from collections of interesting pictures. Here, all context is lost. History without context is rubbish.

<comment><USER7> Even if you have no idea what these different empires were, it's interesting to see the pattern of conquests in this region. And if you do know what most of them were, it's fascinating to see things usually covered in different books all together one after another.

The main fault I'd find with this is that time doesn't flow at a constant rate. Also it would be interesting to watch the way territories shrank as well as the way they expanded.

<comment><USER6> Showing all the territories, as they expand and contract, would be much more information. Also, the smooth growth of empires just isn't the way it happens. The quick snaps of change would be both more accurate and dramatic.

The time constant is an interesting aspect. If it were tunable, you might get bored in the past and overwhelmed as time progressed to modernity.

Globally, it would be interesting to see colonization through the end of the cold war.

Another interesting map might be a heat map of home prices over an area like NYC's 5 boroughs. Lots of people treat gentrification like some kind of war, so using a similar visualization would be appropriate.

Another map that would be interesting, even over the same time period and region, is total or per capita wealth within an empire. The best visualization would involve the area of the territory shrinking or growing like these scaled cartograms: <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/> [http://www- personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/countycart3070l...](http://www- personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/countycart3070large.png)

update: Normalizing wealth per capita by the number of slaves would be an interesting measure ancient productivity

<comment><USER8> What an excellent idea. One problem: what records do you suggest we use that shows the breakdown by empire of the total and per capita ownership of slaves?

<comment><USER6> The populations are roughly known. In the roman empire, I think the numbers were something around 1:2:2 for citizens, regulars, and slaves. It's also difficult to measure wealth. Should we use gold?

Rate of technological advancement would probably be the best measure.

There are a fair number of records from ancient times, with huge holes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Will the same map in a few years include the American empire? Afganistan, Iraq, (maybe) Iran...

<comment><USER10> No one's going to conquer Afghanistan - certainly not the U.S.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Kingdom of Israel ? That's more biblical myth than real history.

</comment><comment><USER12> booooooooooooooooooooooooring

to me the ugly flash ruins it, it would have been uber in SVG</comment>


The Myth of Multitasking (2008) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://faculty.winthrop.edu/hinera/CRTW-Spring_2011/TheMythofMultitasking_Rosen.pdf

<comment><USER2> This quote from James jumped out at me:

"The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again is the very root of judgment, character, and will."

When people ask me what the point of meditation is, this is pretty much what I tell them. You are training a certain kind of "mental muscle", i.e. the faculty James mentions in this quote.

I know that James, in addition to being a major psychologist and philosopher, studied world religions. That he would express this sentiment so plainly makes me want to find out more about his investigations (since many religious practices have a meditation component), and to see whether James himself advocated meditation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Original source: [http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of- multi...](http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of-multitasking)

</comment><comment><USER4> "You can multitask? Fine. Then read a book and write one at the same time." -David Weinberger, 1999

Obviously (the excellent) William James predates this by some time, but within the context of the modern era, this sort of thing has been discussed long before the Hallowells and Ferrisses of the world made their careers by repackaging old notions.

<comment><USER5> I explain it like this. From downtown Los Angeles, drive to Las Vegas (5 hours) and San Diego (2 hours).

But in 30 minute increments: 30 minutes heading toward Las Vegas, then 30 minute heading toward San Diego.

<comment><USER4> I like that, though they'd need a Humvee.

<comment><USER5> They'll run out of gas and be in the middle of nowhere. (Kind of like what happens when you multitask as a software developer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ironically, I have a feeling that this is falling off the front page so quickly because most people don't have the time/interest to read through a 6-page PDF.

I'll pick out the paragraph that sticks with me the most:

> Then again, perhaps we will simply adjust and come to accept what James > called "acquired inattention." E-mails pouring in, cell phones ring- ing, > televisions blaring, podcasts streaming—all this may become back- ground > noise, like the "din of a foundry or factory" that James observed workers > could scarcely avoid at first, but which eventually became just another part > of their daily routine. For the younger generation of multi- taskers, the > great electronic din is an expected part of everyday life. And given what > neuroscience and anecdotal evidence have shown us, this state of constant > intentional self-distraction could well be of profound detri- ment to > individual and cultural well-being. When people do their work only in the > "interstices of their mind-wandering," with crumbs of atten- tion rationed > out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but > it will surely weaken in wisdom.

I've recently become very aware of the cognitive load of popup notifications, phone push notifications, etc. I went for a week during which I turned off all of these, and once I turned them on again, I was surprised by how incredibly irritated they made me, not to mention much less productive.

YMMV - I just would like us all to make these decisions consciously for ourselves, rather than passively.

<comment><USER7> While trying Not to multitask, I find it really pleasant to do only one thing at a time. First, you learn how to do several things at once, and after you master the skill –here you go –you start really appreciating ability to concentrate only on one thing. Reading papares on pros and cons of multitasking only proves this experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure > one's time; it was a mark of intelligence. "This steady and undissipated > attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius [...] "

Sounds reasonable. But also consider:

> The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed > ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to > function. \- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Crack-Up", Esquire Magazine (February > 1936)

</comment><comment><USER9> Ironically, I struggled to stay focused on reading this article through to the end as notifications from Sparrow and HipChat kept appearing in my periphery vision.

<comment><USER10> I turn off nearly all notifications on my system. Only really important things are sent to the forefront.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have never interpreted multitasking in the workplace to mean doing two or more things at once. I've always interpreted it to mean doing many things over the course of a workday, week, etc. In other words, to me, multitasking means the ability to switch between tasks that may require different skill sets (coding, customer support, technical writing, etc.). I think this piece takes multitasking a bit too literally.</comment>


How An Investigation of Fake FCC Comments Snared a Prominent D.C. Media Firm - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/how-an-investigation-of-fake-fcc-comments-snared-a-prom-1832788658 <comment><AUTHOR> > In emails to FCC from April 2017, Germain explains that CQ is seeking to > deliver "about 250,000 comments per day," and that it would need to "set up > multiple servers to the API simultaneously to meet the needs" of its > clients. Whereas many of the groups responsible for uploading millions of > comments requested only one or two API keys, logs show that CQ, over a > period of several months, requested no fewer than 114.</comment>


(take 8 (phil-hagelberg)) (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogus.me/2010/06/28/take-8-phil-hagelberg/ <comment><USER2> This is from 2010.

<comment><USER3> Oh, but if people annotate the title, it won't compile anymore.

<comment><USER4> ... it will if you annotate it with (2010)

;-)

<comment><USER5> I think what you want is:

      (from 2010 (take 8 (phil-hagelberg)))

<comment><USER6> Or maybe just

        (take 8 (phil-hagelberg)) `(2010)

should compile.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>