The Case Against Patents (2013) - barry-cotter https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.27.1.3 <comment><AUTHOR> I never thought that the case for patents was to increase productivity. I always thought that their purpose was to eliminate trade secrets: people are going to invent stuff whether you want to or not, but without patents, they'll take the secrets to the grave.

My favourite patent of all time is Michael Jackson's smooth criminal patent:

[https://mashable.com/2015/03/28/michael-jackson-shoe- patent/...](https://mashable.com/2015/03/28/michael-jackson-shoe- patent/#AdzmmRRZPmqY)

This is the patent system working as intended. A magician revealing his tricks. Tell us how you did it, and in exchange we promise to not compete with you for a while.

The patent system could work if patent clerks had the time to be a lot more discerning and reject any patent that is obvious or already known. But it takes a lot of work to do that and the deluge of patents makes it impossible to give each application sufficient consideration.

I think the general idea of patents is good, but perhaps it's impossible to execute it correctly.

 _Edit_ : Should have read the damn article. They address concern further below and also argue that patents are not revealing any secrets because pattent attorneys are not qualified to judge the merit of patents and because the way patents are written makes it almost impossible to reproduce their results, and sometimes patents are granted for utter nonsense, such as moving "through the fifth dimension".

<comment><USER2> Trade secret is becoming less and less issue these days. Nowdays information spread and leak like crazy.

<comment><USER3> It's actually better in many cases. For processes, in order to enforce the patent, you have to get a warrant (how can you _prove_ from the product that the process was used?). A judge will generally refuse to grant a warrant to search a competitors premises because that would become an open door for anyone to disrupt their competitor's work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems like as good a thread as any to mention one of my favorite unrealized enterprises: Patent Trolling for Good (PTG)

The idea is simple: take the traditional model of a patent troll, but alter the settlement terms to create a cascade that ultimately ends or significantly reduces the exclusive ownership of facts (aka IP).

Patent Trolling for Good acts like a traditional Patent Troll in that it takes any IP it has and aggressively uses it to make claims against other firms/entities.

However, instead of just seeking cash, PTG offers two options:

\- Pay us a lot of cash

\- Join PTG. By joining: 1) all of your IP can be used by PTG to sue others and 2) everyone in PTG has automatic rights to any IP held by others in PTG

And of course, anyone is welcome to join PTG at any time. You don't have to wait to be sued to join :)

I've brought this idea up with VCs and lawyers a few times across the years but I've never gotten any bites. If anyone was ever seriously and credibly interested in pursuing it, I would give such an entity any and all IP owned/claimable by LBRY ([https://lbry.io](https://lbry.io)) and potentially a small amount of initial funding as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> > exclusive ownership of facts (aka IP)

This is one of the weirdest definitions of IP I have ever seen.

You think a story is a fact? Stories are usually copyrighted and usually part of what people mean by "IP".

Facts are generally not copyrightable. You want to go and make a phone book or a map, you can. Other existing phone books or maps do not mean you can't make your own.

What about a distinctive trademark? Surely you agree that my company logo is not a fact. You want to use my company logo to sell your stuff? That would be deceiving customers if you started to sell your stuff under my name. Is the logo and distinctive mark a fact?

<comment><USER4> Rather than have an argument about categorization I'll instead respond to the core moral question.

I do not think it is moral to claim that you own a story or a logo in the same way that one owns a shirt or a cell phone.

(But yes, I think a story or a logo is much more like a fact than property. Though they're certainly less fact-like than other types of facts.)

_Claiming_ to be another company that you are not is something different entirely (fraud) and does not require IP.

<comment><AUTHOR> The categorisation is important. Copyright is very different from trademarks is very different from patents. It is important to understand these different laws rather than saying that they're all about owning facts or owning whatever it is you consider "owning" to be.

The very term "intellectual property" is troublesome because it indicates the very ownership that you're objecting to. There is no ownership. And there is no property.

A patent is about disclosing inventions. Copyright is about giving the author economic and moral rights. A trademark is about making sure consumers are not deceived. It is a separate law than fraud. You can deceive by abusing trademarks without outright lying.

Patents can be infringed accidentally. You can infringe a patent without ever being aware of it. You cannot accidentally infringe copyright. The plaintiff of a copyright infringement complaint has to prove that you deliberately copied. Independent retelling of a story is fine. Independent rediscovery of a patented invention is not.

It is important to understand these laws, their origin, their purpose, and their nuance, whether you agree with them or not, in terms of the rights they grant and what constitutes infringement. Making the analogy to property and ownership is misleading and leads to the wrong conclusions about how these laws work.

Know thy enemy.

<comment><USER5> Trademarks: Who Copyrights: What Patents: How

Many do not realize that utility patents generally protect how something is done, not what was done. Inventors will often say, we can't patent that because someone else does that thing already. But it is the "how" that matters not the "what."

For example, even though the paper mention Amazon's one-click patent, there are probably 100's of other shopping cart patents that claim different methods of making an ecommerce shopping cart work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am against (all) patents on the following grounds:

The article talks about first-mover advantage.. it seems to me that the case for or against patents depends on how you model it.

If you model it as a single-shot prisoner's dilemma, then without patents, there is no incentive to make result of research public. This is a classical argument in favor of patents.

On the other hand, if you model it as a many-rounds prisoner's dilemma, then even without patents, it makes sense for companies to have a strategy which makes some results of research public, then hopefully piggyback on the research that was done by others and also published (that is, mutually cooperate).

It seems to me that the second strategy can only be viable if the results of the research are "infinitely divisible", that is, companies can make arbitrarily small steps in opening up their research.

However, I don't see any evidence that the research is NOT infinitely divisible, thus it seems to me that patents are not really needed for the latter to happen.

In addition, interestingly, economists generally approve patents as needed for someone to make the first move, but they don't feel the same about similar issues that happen in the market. For example, somebody needs to explore new market first or make a capital investment in a new field - economists do not call for government support in that. This convinces me that the rationale for patents is somewhat hypocritical defense of status quo (caused by rather arbitrary choice in the game theoretical model).

<comment><USER7> IP is fundamentally different from property as me know it.

Something is your property if you have exclusive control over it. Since IP is not exclusive (two people can have the same thought), it is not property.

Patents are the worse form of IP, since it is possible to accidentally infringe on them.

Copyright is almost as bad, _especially at current timespans_ , and because it has such a chilling effect on the internet and other media.

Trademarks are essentially just defenses from fraud, so they aren't really IP.

<comment><USER6> As gowld already pointed out, the distinction between traditional property and "intellectual property" is not as strong as it is often painted.

I would say for the larger part, the exclusivity in both is artificial. As gowld points out, for many physical things there exist fair sharing schemes. And historically, when public lands were enclosured to become private property, it was an artificial process which explicitly created the exclusion. This exclusion wasn't needed from economic point of view.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The case against patents has a moral dimension as well as a utilitarian one. This article is about the latter. Stephan Kinsella makes a good argument for both [1]. Ideas are free and can't owned.

In a way, enforcement of intellectual property rights infringes on physical property rights. If you come up with a process P to assemble certain kinds of physical widgets together, your claim on the patent for P prevents others to use those kinds of widgets in a certain way, even when they own those widgets fully.

[1]: [https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual- property-0](https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0)

</comment><comment><USER9> link to the abstract (not a pdf):

[https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.27.1.3](https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.27.1.3)

</comment><comment><USER10> Restrictions hinder innovation, development and technology. And patents are such restrictions.

The worst cases are the ones that grant monopolies on common or important technologies. They can completely block the progress in certain areas. Even companies with patents stop with innovation until the patent has run dry, if they do any innovation at all.

</comment><comment><USER11> FYI, there was an article about a new patent bill on the front page yesterday, but it dropped off rather fast: "US Software Patents are back with HR 6264 section 7" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17492196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17492196)

</comment><comment><USER12> The authors summarize as:

> ... there is no empirical evidence that [patents] serve to increase > innovation and productivity ...

This seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding as to what purpose patents serve. The public benefit of a patent is that the information is public -- inventions which might previously have been kept secret are instead put into the light where others may use them. The cost to the public of patents are that such use must be deferred out of respect for the temporary monopoly granted to the patent holder.

That is, patents don't increase innovation or productivity -- that is by design. They are just a means of harnessing the innovation and productivity of individuals and encouraging them to make their work public instead of keeping it a secret. So it seems to me that the paper is arguing a strawman rather than making a useful point.

<comment><USER13> > The public benefit of a patent is that the information is public [..] > The > cost to the public of patents are that such use must be deferred

But who does this benefit? The author points out that it benefits big/old ("stagnant") corporations rather than innovators. And that still holds, no?

Here's a thought experiment: if you're a small innovator and you invent something new (let's be evil: a software algorithm), what benefit does disclosure bring you? It's better to keep it secret, because big/old ("stagnant") companies will find legal loopholes in your patent application to work around it. Or, they will run it in the cloud and not tell you at all that they're running your exact algorithm. The innovator would never know.

Big/old ("stagnant") companies, on the other hand, have enough legal manpower to sue you out of existence regardless of whether their patent is valid or not. It's not the patent, it's the legal process that will bankrupt the small innovator.

Can patents be molded to protect the small innovator? Because isn't that the intent? Regardless of whether that protection results in monopoly, disclosure or both.

<comment><USER14> >Can patents be molded to protect the small innovator?

There's plenty of cases of a small or lone inventor making big companies pay for infringing a patent. I think patents are about the only protection for a small innovator to get enough leverage to enter a market.

As a small innovator myself, at probably every pitch I've ever made to investors, I've been asked immediately if I have patents. When I've looked at Chinese manufacturing for products, the first thing they ask is about patents (un-patented means they can copy and sell in a lot of markets, patented makes it harder for them to sell in markets where I have a patent).

There's also plenty of people that are skilled at invention, that don't work for a big mega-corp, and they make their living by being able to stop big corporations from simply stealing their product ideas and crushing them via bigger and better distribution networks.

Patenting a key aspect of a new item gets small players a seat at the negotiating table where a big player has to buy the product. Without patents this would rarely happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think patents should be replaced with prizes. People can propose problems which needs solving and then private individuals and/or government can pledge money to donate to whoever finds a solution to the problem first. However the winner doesn't own the idea. It must be made public.

<comment><USER16> Does the proposer also get compensation after a solution is found, or only the solver?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Interesting that many commenters use the 'make an idea public' argument for patents. However if reinvention and rediscovery of an idea doesn't happen that often then you why would you need patents anyway? Penn and Teller's Fool Us shows demonstrate that very few magic tricks are undiscoverable to other magicians. So just hire one to work it out. That increases the value of magicians and decreases the value of patent lawyers, patent reviewers, patent writers and the patent trade. Surely that is a good thing?

</comment><comment><USER18> Drug patents are ten years. It's common to say without patents no drug company would spend the billions it takes to bring one drug to market. But I remember doing the back of the envelope math in college on the socially optimal length of a drug patent based on the cost, profit motive and public benefit, and it worked out to only about three years.

<comment><USER19> Post-AIA, US utility patents (including APIs, biologics, methods of manufacture/use, etc.) are 20 years with possible adjustments to term length.

<comment><USER18> I was in college a while ago :) Appreciate the correction

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The pharmaceutical industry is usually given as the prime example of an industry where patent protection is necessary; however, this is far from obvious. See Robin Feldman's book Drug Wars (there is an interview with her about it here: http//www.econtalk.org/robin-feldman-on-drug-patents-generics- and-drug-wars/)

<comment><USER15> I would solve it with a combination of public funded research and prizes awarded to those solving important medical needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> [https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/patents](https://reasonandliberty.com/articles/patents)

</comment><comment><USER22> Question for anti-patent folks. Do you like a system where Chinese companies just copy products listed on Amazon and sell them for less?

<comment><USER23> Yes?

<comment><USER22> Fair enough. I think it would promote copying instead of inventing. Not sure how that ends.

<comment><USER16> That would prevent unnecessary "innovations" to refresh IP. You cannot keep everything secret.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Nice name drop

> We are grateful to the editors, the referees, and to Richard Stallman for a > careful reading and comments.

</comment><comment><USER5> Dragging out the old one-click patent I see. I guess I missed where the development of ecommerce was stymied by this patent.

A patent can promote innovation in at least two ways: (1) rewarding the inventors for their toil and risk taking; and (2) by forcing competitors to try to solve the same problem with a different solution.

People seem to forget about the second one.

<comment><USER23> (1) is addressed by the article. As for (2), well... do you have _any_ evidence this outweighs all the downsides of the patent system?

<comment><USER5> Most of the so-called downsides of IP are subjective or viewpoint based. Or, they are imaginary/hypothetical.

But there is this, countries with the strongest IP protection are the most innovative and successful. So there must be something beneficial going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Needs a [PDF] tag

</comment><comment><USER26> Sleep deprived from go live, I misread this as "The Case Against Patents."

<comment><USER27> What?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> [2013]

</comment><comment><USER29> Meanwhile the Intellectual "Property" wants patents treated as real estate and the party of corporate interests is in power.

<comment><USER30> wants? this is the way it has been done for a long long time in the US (the first US patent grant was from George Washington in 1790), there is Property category where there is at least Real Property & Intellectual Property, patents which are in the Intellectual Property 'bucket' so to speak

There are multiple of forms of intellectual property beyond patents: copyright, trademarks, etc

This is the way the legal system has always worked, not an invention of a modern corporate interests, the ancient Greeks recognizes some forms of patent, the modern version is based around the implementations of Italy's patent system in the 1400s: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_patent_law)

no conspiracy here....but yes corporations do like to see a return on their significant research and development investments

<comment><USER29> There is no intellectual "property", merely a temporary exclusive grant made by the public to encourage the arts and sciences. To call it "property" is, as I warned, the goal of the "IP" industry in equating a patent as no different from a house and land. Then it magically becomes some sort of right, but one is fundamental a restriction of your own fundamental human rights because a patent can be accidentally infringed.

A patent can be accidentally issued, but it can be hell to accidentally UN- issue it. Meanwhile the patent constraints your actions and speech through its power. And we want to treat it like a house? The house limits what you may do upon that land, a patent limits what you may do anywhere any everywhere. And you don't even need to know the patent "property" upon your actions even exists.

<comment><USER5> Intellectual property is real. Try stealing some IP from Apple and see what happens -- something real will happen.

IP is as real as any other legal construct, such as, contract rights. The term intellectual property is a term of art that just happens to model some of the analogues that exist between intellectual property, real property, and personal property.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> wow at first I thought it said "Against Parents." I think I need glasses....

<comment><USER25> I saw "Against Patients", for some reason

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> A patent is, first and foremost, a fence. It creates property rights. Do fences increase productivity? Should they? It probably is more productive if your neighbor's dog shits on your lawn, or your clever invention is taken apart and immediately copied by a larger competitor. But is it right?</comment>


Mozy acquired by EMC for $76MM - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/09/23/breaking-online-backup-startup-mozy-acquired-by-emc-for-76-million/ <comment><USER2> Sorry to hear, Drew (or are such news a good thing?) I absolutely despise Mozy. The single good thing is that the backups are reliable.

For those who aren't familiar with Mozy, you have to install the software and wait a day for it to upload about 1 GB or two. After that, it uploads any changed files.

Here is where the fun begins--when you actually need the backup!

Say you need to recover your files. You must login to your web-based account within 30 days before the backups are deleted if they're not touched, and request a ZIP file of your files. After a few hours, you must login and click download. After you download the huge zip file, you must download the decode utility. After that, you must run the decode utility on the contents and unzip.

Then, if this is the same computer as before, with the same operating system as you had before, you can download Mozy and login to it which will at least remember the folders you had set to synch.

But if you change your operating system, or get a new computer, even if you keep the same username (e.g., Vlad-PC) on both, it will treat it as a new computer. So, instead of simply installing Mozy on a new computer, signing in, and it knows the 10 folders you setup to synch and downloads them since you don't have them (which would make too much sense), you must follow the web- based restore procedure above, and tell it which folders to backup for the future all over again.

Mind you, this isn't a follow-the-wizard type procedure--you must figure this out as you go along and always pray you will 1) have your data back, 2) reconfigure which folders should be backed up in the future all over again and hope you don't forget any, 3) wait for it to slowly reupload all these same files all over again since it thinks you're on a new computer.

<comment><USER3> i'd argue this is good news for drew, if anything

<comment><USER2> I don't know; I bet it were the users and the name which were bought, not their "great" technology. Drew needs to get many users asap. Dell has their own service already, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 50 cents a month for storage (plus 3.95 per machine):

<https://mozy.com/pro/pricing>

Or I can get a 500 GB external hard drive for 125 dollars. So...someone help me out. Why would I not just get a couple big drives and avoid all the hassle and slowness of online storage? I don't understand the impulse people have to _pay_ for inconvenience.

<comment><USER5> Off site backup with no user input apart from the initial setup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've used mozy for about 6 months because I saw a few roundups and all of them named it the best. It's definitely got MUCH room for improvement, but it's not too terrible.

It's certainly a wide open market.

<comment><USER3> their mac client is (was?) terrible</comment></comment>


Progressive Web Apps OS Like Platform - <AUTHOR> https://playos.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> A hobby project of mine. It's an environment where users can run PWA's. The platform allows web apps to synchronize data with the platform so when users log in they can continue where they left off.

It's sort of comparable with an OS in the sense that it handles the app dashboard for you and handles communication between PWA's. It also has it's own storage drive so web apps have access to a "Hard drive". And it has its own store so users can easily find web apps for their dashboard. We are planning to add much more features such as the ability to control screens (For example use your phone as a controller for your laptop's screen). And much more.</comment>


IMF: The Age of America About to End - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/imf-bombshell-age-of-america-about-to-end-2011-04-25

<comment><USER2> Somehow I doubt these predictions are going to bear out. History always repeats itself. In the 1980s it was Japan that was going to crush the American economy. For the last twenty or so years the Japanese economy has been flat (it's still the 3rd biggest in the world however).

Japan tried to boost the economy with massive expenditures in it's infrastructure, to no avail. Compare that to China's approach of building high speed rail networks that get cancelled, and to build huge 'cathedrals in the desert' - cities that are overpriced by the government, who refuse to let the price to be dictated by the market (which is what would happen in a true capitalist system). The result is that most locals are priced out of the market. The reason that the cities are being built in the first place is to drive growth figures. Not having any oversight may result in some dramatic revelations about China's supposed growth in the coming years.

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8691083.stm>

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11748644>

[http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601007/n/China...](http://www.sbs.com.au/dateline/story/about/id/601007/n/China- s-Ghost-Cities)

Related HN discussion:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386584>

EDIT: Added link

EDIT 2: Typos

<comment><USER3> History does indeed have a tendency to repeat itself, and if you go a little further back than the eighties you'll se that the way empires usually fall is by overreaching, and trying to control and colonise beyond their ability. In the end they implode.

America is clearly overreaching at the moment.

<comment><USER4> _"America is clearly overreaching at the moment."_

Any facts/figures and comparisons to elaborate on this statement? I can see some arguments for this, but at the same time, the technologies we have these days might give this "overreach" some scaling power, so the US might not actually be overreaching...

<comment><USER3> It seems pretty obvious, so I didn't think it needed elaboration, but try looking at the budget of the US military.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Remember that China holds a lot of our debt. You will not see much public chest beating from China over this because of that fact. Both are equally vested in each others success as the other. China does not want value of the US bonds to plummet and US needs a stable manufacturing partner. At least for the foreseeable future, this economic and political two-step will continue.

However this does present serious doubts about the irrational exuberance in the strength of our markets for long term. It is hard to gauge China and its intentions. I am not saying that US has moral supremacy over China, but that China seems to be doing now what US used to do, for its own stability sake, twenty years ago. It is preparing to be the economic behemoth, despite the troubles it face in real estate and regionally.

The next twenty years should be pretty interesting.

Edit: I wanted to add a reference to this paper out of the Pentagon from two Pentagon top level staffers who assert that we should reduce our military spending and reinvest it in our youth. A very prescient analysis of where United States is heading, in the world. I wanted to add it as its own HN submission, but was not sure if it would be well received. Here is the link to the pdf: [http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/A%20National%20Strat...](http://www.wilsoncenter.org/events/docs/A%20National%20Strategic%20Narrative.pdf)

<comment><USER6> I posted info on the Y Article yesterday: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2478908>

<comment><USER5> I rest my case :)

<comment><USER6> However, yesterday these got traction...

"Warren Buffett is now betting against the US dollar" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2476584>)

"China Proposes To Cut Two Thirds Of Its $3 Trillion In USD Holdings" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2479432>)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America's share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China's would reach 18%, and rising._

So we won't be the top any longer, but we'll still be enormously dominant. So? Competition drives innovation.

All the "America is doomed" folks act as if America is going to crumble to pieces simply because we are no longer the only gorilla in the room.

<comment> mike-cardwell The danger comes when China has enough money to equal the US in military strength and decides it wants as much influence in World politics as America does.

The rest of the World doesn't need that complication.

<comment><USER8> The Chinese have not had a tradition of colonialism. They're just not as obsessed with controlling the world as the west is. They are assertive over neighboring areas that have been arguably part of China for a long time like Tibet, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong but that's pretty negligible compared to the global domination aspirations of the Soviets, the Axis powers or Colonial European powers.

<comment><USER9> They're working on it [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism#Sino- African_rel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism#Sino- African_relations)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > It's a lesson we could learn more cheaply from the sad story of the British, > Spanish and other empires. It doesn't work. You can't stay on top if your > economy doesn't.

Kind of tongue-in-cheek - but that's a lesson I learned from playing Civilization. I know it's just a game, yadda yadda, but sometimes I do wonder how much of it translates into reality. E.g., if this was a game of Civ, China's domination would be pretty much ensured at this point: they have so many "cities" that their "production" output and "science" output will overtake anyone else's in short order.

In fact, that's how I prefer to play the game often: just build minimal defenses to make sure my cities are not conquered, and invest in growth as much as possible. Sooner or later, I'm the 800 kg gorilla of the whole Civ map.

<comment><USER11> In Civ with the current balance of power US would be launching an all out nuclear strike against China to win the game at this stage.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you play Civ, you should really check out victoria II. Much more realistic

<http://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/victoria-2>

<comment><USER12> Was wondering when I would see crossover between this board and those boards!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _"According to the IMF forecast, whomever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world's largest economy."_

Technically this has already happened, as the EU has a larger combined GDP than the US.

It's also not too surprising. For it's land area, the US is very sparsely populated, and 350m people are not going to have the same economic purchasing power as 1000m people, assuming the latter group can catch up in terms of infrastructure and technology with the former group.

<comment><USER14> Is that a fair comparison? The EU is still made of up sovereign countries with their own economic policies.

<comment><USER13> The EU is a single market, and economic policies are governed to some degree by Brussels. I guess it's open to interpretation, but most sources I've seen describe the EU as a single economy, including the CIA world factbook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is this story here? It should be posted to Digg and Reddit, home to all the people awaiting the Ron Paul Revolution and are posting stories about peak oil and the need to return to the gold standard.

Unless, of course, the content of this article is somehow going to influence your business plans or YC application or your Ruby or JavaScript code. (No, I didn't think so.)

Butterfly flaps wings

Adjust your business model

The U.S. is doomed

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh yes, lets parade out yet another rising Chinese menace story.

Are we counting the cities worth of empty condos in the Chinese GDP? How exactly did the IMF arrive at these numbers? Is there external confirmation of government stats?

There are definite signs that there's a bubble waiting to pop in China, just as it did in the US, so i view even analyses by the IMF with some skepticism if they're based on government reporting, given that the government of China has both the means and the incentive to present itself as a growing economic power.

How about we hold off on the sound and fury until 2016, mmkay?

</comment><comment><USER6> Right now, oil and commodities are transacted in US dollars so countries have to stock-pile dollars. When China becomes the dominant economy, this won't probably won't be the case for long.

See this discussion from yesterday -- "Petrodollar Warfare -- AKA the "Oil Currency Wars" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2477659>)

</comment><comment><USER17> We would remain, however, the most technologically advanced nation. Plus, GDP per capita would remain far higher. The majority of economists consider GDP per capita the most important thing when determining the wealth of a nation.

</comment><comment><USER18> We speak of Real-GDP, but the day when China overtakes the US in RGDP/capita is still a very long way off.

Still, probably a good time to start learning the ol' Mandarin.

</comment><comment><USER19> Unlike most other commenters here, I like this article and the general premise. I would be surprised if GDP in China increased so rapidly without also impacting PPP multiples, though. The article was a little light on this angle, but I would mentally adjust their number out to take into account the likely fact that increased GDP in China will continue to drive cost of living up. This pushes out the date a bit.

</comment><comment><USER20> Comparing the US and China "nations" doesn't make sense. A Chinese person can "become" an American, but an American doesn't become a Chinese.

</comment><comment><USER21> Yes, America has the worst economic system there is except for all the others that have been tried.

China? You GOT to be kidding! They are run by a one party dictatorship. They run essentially a centrally directed, command economy. They are still so poor that on average they have a tough time even getting enough rice for their people.

So, starting from where they are, they can get a fantastic rate of growth basically borrowing science, technology, and finance from America. BUT: Once they quit crawling, get up on all fours, and start walking, then they will face the fact that they have some serious problems: (1) Total suckage for a constitution. (2) Similarly for their political and legal systems and human rights, e.g., little things like freedom of the press. (3) Next to nothing in 'democratic traditions'. (4) A lot of filthy air and water. (5) A population with a quite old average age.

So, once they are standing, their people will want to do things about (1)-(5). As a country, they will struggle. The struggles may become violent. On "One fine day" (I know, Japan, not China), they will get (1)-(4) solved; solving (5) will be harder.

Then they will be about where America was in, say, 1950. As they move ahead, actually to do better than America they will have to do well with things that are new, with pushing the envelope, with making progress on new ground. Then they will begin to see the enormous advantages of political freedom, freedom to cut new ground in our research universities, free enterprise, freedom of the press, freedom in art, guarantees of freedom from an oppressive government, etc. They will still have the problem of a population with too old average age and a bad ratio of people to land and natural resources.

Net, bet on the economy in China continuing to grow rapidly for some years, but don't bet on China actually beating America in any significant sense this century.

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/04/24/gps.fareed...](http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/04/24/gps.fareed.take.china.us.cnn?iref=allsearch)</comment>


Node.js User Survey: Unhandled Promise Rejections - <AUTHOR> https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FTJM7YD <comment><AUTHOR> It's sad that the Node team has been debating this "unhandled rejection" issue for so many years, but I'm really excited to hear that this issue will finally be resolved once and for all this year.

If you've ever seen this warning, you probably want to fill out the survey, one way or another:

> [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. > In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the > Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.

For my part, I'm filling out the survey to say that I definitely DO want the node process to stop when I throw an unhandled exception in an async function.</comment>


Ask HN:  Posterous and existing sites? - <AUTHOR>

Wordpress never clicked for me. I did better with Textpattern but remained frustrated. I started a Posterous account today and I posted all kinds of stuff to it in a fairly short time.   At first blush, it appears the whole 'submit via email' format is as wonderful as they claim. I also have a couple of websites that everyone refers to as blogs anyway, even though they aren't.  But those sites have donate buttons, Adsense ads and affiliate programs which help pay for my hosting costs and domain names.  They also have historical stuff, some of which is organized by subject to try to present an overview of information.
Does anyone know if there is either a means to use Posterous to run a blog on your own hosted site or if it is possible to put ads and donate buttons and stuff like that on a Posterous site?  If I could work out some of those issues (and a few other things), I would seriously consider moving all my sites to Posterous or at least using Posterous to manage a portion of each site.  For me, not updating my sites with content frequently enough has been a major issue and this looks like it might go a long way towards resolving it.   Though running my own sites has caused me to learn a little (x)html and css, I'm not really a hacker and that end of things has been an impediment for me to site development.  I have not been able to get site navigation to work right in Textpattern and, well, most (or all) of my sites could probably stand to radically evolve in order to breathe life into them.
Thanks in advance for any information or suggestions. <comment><USER2> It's pretty painless to point your Posterous site to a domain you own, or yoursite.com/blog.

Check under Settings->"I already have a custom domain name (e.g. yourdomain.com)"

I'm not sure about ads.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I got that part already. But that isn't the same thing as using it to upload content to your own site. I have previously been looking for software that allowed me to run things from my own site and did not want a hosted blog platform. But I really like this. Now I am trying to figure out if I can reconcile those different things.

Thanks for replying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can autopost from posterous to a lot of different blogs, including wordpress, tumblr, blogger etc., all of which will allow you to have ads.

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw that but my understanding is that I would need a blog hosted by one of those hosting services in order to do that as opposed to using (for example) Wordpress software on my own site. But it is an angle I plan to look into.

Thanks for replying.

<comment><USER3> No, in fact you can autopost to a self-hosted Wordpress installation. I'm doing that on one of my sites.

First make sure that the following setting is checked in your Wordpress control panel Settings>Writing:

Enable the WordPress, Movable Type, MetaWeblog and Blogger XML-RPC publishing protocols.

Then you go into the Posterous settings for autoposting, provide the url of your wordpress site, admin username and password and that's it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone had experience when industries automated the jobs? Advice to us? - <AUTHOR> Is anyone had experience who lost the job when his job got automated and how to handle that situation?
Let's face it as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and other experts are saying, it is going to happen because of AI and people will loose jobs.
So what advice HNers give and if anyone had that experience how to handle that situation and prepare ourselves? <comment><USER2> Wondering where are they now: the MA toll both employees who used to push the button and hand me the toll ticket as I passed through the booth.

Now I drive through without stopping and a camera takes a picture of my license plate and mails me a bill.

Seems like countless better things to do than that job. Likely the incentive structure was out of wack. I wonder how many other jobs are like that where the value returned is unequal to the value payed.

Seems like much of the first wave of AI will optimize that. It will be interesting when the next wave comes and machines optimize the creatives out.

I have a hard time believing we'll all be poor and destitute. Who knows though.

</comment><comment><USER3> A group of concerned scientists warned of "imminent large-scale technological unemployment"? They described a "cybernation revolution,"-- in 1964.

On this subject Peter Diamindis is brilliant> [http://www.diamandis.com/blog/is-tech-unemployment-good- or-b...](http://www.diamandis.com/blog/is-tech-unemployment-good-or-bad)

</comment><comment><USER4> Work in automation.

The industrial revolution was going to make everyone redundant too. So were computers (without AI).

</comment><comment><USER5> Invest in companies investing in Automation</comment>


Easy to use well documented crypto library that can be trusted? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying learn cryptography and programming simultaneously.  I have virtually no experience using APIs, so, in an attempt to get a clue I've been trying to get OpenSSL's libcrypto working.  I've had some success, but it just seems like the documentation is very sparse and incomplete.  Is there anywhere to find comprehensive documentation on their C libraries, or is there another open source well tested crypto library that is better documented? <comment><USER2> DJB's nacl or libgpgme.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'll check 'em out.</comment></comment>


Calca - Humane Symbolic Calculator for OS X and iOS - <AUTHOR> http://calca.io/

<comment><USER2> Would really like to see a comparison between this and Soulver ([http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/](http://www.acqualia.com/soulver/)). Most obvious differences are the lack of a two-column view and support for Markdown, as well as support for function definitions, which I'm pretty sure Soulver lacks.

<comment><USER3> One feature that Soulver has that I would love to see in Calca is combinatorics - you can do x choose y in Soulver.

<comment><USER4> Developer here, yep that was a bad omission. The worst part is I do that kind of math all the time! You can count on it showing up in updates either as a function or as syntax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe someone reading this would be interested in my own calculator? Not as fancy as Calca for sure, by it can do functions...

[https://github.com/prog-re/klak](https://github.com/prog-re/klak)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would love to have this with Python syntax (possibly with support of numpy and scipy).

<comment><USER6> Have you seen the IPython Notebook?

[http://ipython.org/notebook.html](http://ipython.org/notebook.html)

I think it does what you want

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow! This seems amazingly complete for an iOS/OS X-only app that I've never heard of before today. Is it based on some preexisting algebra system, or totally from scratch? Regardless, it's very impressive.

<comment><USER4> It's from scratch C# code using Xamarin to build the UI layers for iOS/OS X. Well, I also use a parser generator jayc which is based on jay which is a yacc cc. Everything else is mine. It's a pretty standard Expression tree implementation with a symbolic interpreter.

<comment><USER8> Awesome product, I just bought it for my iPhone. Given that it's C# already, any plans for a windows version? I often do these types of calculations in excel at work, but this would be so handy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> See previous discussion at:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6015148](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6015148)

</comment><comment><USER10> And yet no Soulver for Windows... wink</comment>


CSScomb - <AUTHOR> http://csscomb.com/online/

<comment><USER2> Cool service! Worked great on the stylesheet I tested.

You might consider describing the service and benefits on the page you process the file on. I wasn't sure what the service did immediately.

</comment><comment><USER3> Right now I develop csscomb.js. I'll work on support any preprocessors.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seriously, PHP? Integrating that into your favorite editor?

Anyways. A tool to help you have clean CSS sounds cool.

<comment><USER5> How is php worse than perl or ruby for scripting?

<comment><USER6> God. Please don't start this again. This discussion is really no different than the vim vs emacs of old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sort alphabetically. It's not arbitrary, everybody understands it, and no tool needed. This is silly.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd like to see a version of this that could be created as a build task or a git hook.

</comment><comment><USER9> I just ran it on a particularly rank LESS document and it worked great. Nice tool.

</comment><comment><USER10> Been using this as an ST2 package for a while. Works great.</comment>


Show HN: Thymble, a Rails 5 Open Source "Hacker News"-esque News Platform - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bkarst/thymble <comment><AUTHOR> I am a believer in the format of "Hacker News" for community based news but I couldn't find a decent open source version of it in Rails. Here it is. Contributions welcome!

<comment><USER2> Lobste.rs is also an open source Rails(4) link aggregator. Might find it interesting:

[https://github.com/jcs/lobsters](https://github.com/jcs/lobsters)</comment></comment>


Client Emails Are Hard - <AUTHOR> http://jessicahische.is/helpingyouanswer <comment><USER2> This is a great resource, even just for saving time!</comment>


Show HN: Speedsums - <AUTHOR> http://www.speedsums.com <comment><USER2>
        (function() {
          var input = $('#answer'),
              question = $('#question'),
              solved = 0;

          var intvl = setInterval(function() {
            var questionText = question.text();
            questionText = questionText.replace('÷', '/').replace('x', '*').replace('=', '');
            input.val(eval(questionText));
            input.keyup();
            solved++

            if (solved == 119) clearTimeout(intvl);
          }, 50);
        })();

edit: seems to give an error if you solve >= 120 questions, so adjusted to stop at 119.

<comment><USER3> I could get to 118, but it doesn't want a 119th answer, or the UI gets completely broken.

[http://imgur.com/HG0J9fN](http://imgur.com/HG0J9fN)

<comment><USER2> Strange. The 119th answer is fine for me, but the 120th breaks it. I revised the script to not rely on interval multiplication, which can be flighty due to inconsistent latencies, but to rather keep a counter and cancel the interval after 119 solves.

<comment><USER3> This is the script I used, but yours blocks also on 119 for me.

        var answer = function() {
          var q = $("#question").text().replace(/x|÷|=/g, function(m) { return {'x':'*','÷':'/','=':''}[m]});
          $("#answer").val(eval(q)).keyup();
        };
        $('#question').bind("DOMSubtreeModified", function(){
          setTimeout(answer, 200);
        });
        answer();

Don't have much time to search why :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. More fun than I thought it'd be. One suggestion: mark the input field as a telephone input (?) so mobile users can get a nice fat numeric keypad.

(?) I know there are various ways to do this, they just escape me at the moment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea - I'll hopefully find time to make it mobile friendly in the next few days so will definitely implement this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice simple UI. I like not having to hit enter!

If you want to make it more "fair" consider bining the questions by difficulty and randomly select some number from each bin, versus a random selection / generation over the entire pool of possible questions, or actually timing each response individually and showing an average of the percentiles for each answer, instead of a percentile for the average time.

Total sums done: 3,816,583 -- really?

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought about taking steps to make sure that tests are more fair and balanced, but decided against it because I think the small element of luck is part of what makes you want to play again :)

<comment><USER5> I think you might be right about that! On second thought, yes, a very interesting element of the game design.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice. I just ran through it along with [http://www.keybr.com/#!game](http://www.keybr.com/#!game) to spike my mental acuity. Anyone have other suggestions while I'm at it?

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice UI! I like the minions background at the end when the scoring page shows up.

For the timer, can it be a non-decimal number? Seems like I don't really care about decimal time (don't think most users care about fractions of a second)

</comment><comment><USER8> I genuinely enjoy this. I haven't had to 'race' against simple math like that since I did my times tables in late elementary/middle school, so this was a lot of fun. Still got it apparently!

<comment><USER9> I hated it then, and don't like it any better now.

But that aside, this is nicely done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Super handy, Ive applied for air traffic controlling in Australia and these mathematical albeit harder questions are part of the testing.

Can you make a large bank of harder questions?

Similar to the level of the calculation test on [http://www.shldirect.com/en/practice- tests](http://www.shldirect.com/en/practice-tests)

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of Krypto, a pretty fun card game.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypto_(game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypto_\(game\))

Play it here: [http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3569](http://illuminations.nctm.org/Activity.aspx?id=3569)

</comment><comment><USER12> I think I won the game

[http://imgur.com/qSerUAV](http://imgur.com/qSerUAV)

</comment><comment><USER13> The minions gif at the end made me laugh out loud in my office haha awesome

</comment><comment><USER14> I came across a bug when it asked me for 11 x 12. I entered the answer but nothing happened. Pressing return, another digit or some other key failed. I just let the time run down.

I was on Firefox 38.0.5.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for letting me know - will look into it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When you're typing and want to correct with BACKSPACE, but at the same time the timer runs out you'll be returned to previous page and can't see your score...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's happened to me a couple of times and it's super annoying - will try and fix this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Experience on mobile isn't too great... Very laggy and the box doesn't default to numerical input.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah apologies for this - I've been meaning to find time to make it mobile friendly

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Try using / instead of ÷, as ÷ and + are easily mistaken by those with bad eyesight/astigmatism.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did use / initially but a lot of people said that they don't instantly register / as meaning 'divided by'

<comment><USER18> Perhaps some wisely chosen (i.e. clear) SVGs - either inline or as part of an icon font - could be used instead?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Reminds me of Dr. Kawashima on the Nintendo DS a few years back. Nice.

</comment><comment><USER20> Great stuff</comment>


Why Java is so hot right now - <AUTHOR> https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2019/09/05/why-java-is-so-hot-right-now/ <comment><USER2> Come on red hat... you can say Spring Boot.

<comment><AUTHOR> All about that Quarkus

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why not use golang for everything java? It better in every aspect.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Honestly, I think it is because of Minecraft.</comment>


Will Artificial Intelligence Take Your Job? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/truncated/will-artificial-intelligence-take-your-job-2a5624488df <comment><USER2> Maybe automated processes yes, but not maintenance and quality assurance of certain jobs. Not to mention that quality assurance, customer care can be auto but I think these are the spheres where a human eye and contact is important and needed</comment>


Protests in Ukraine - <AUTHOR> http://www.ustream.tv/channel/aronets

<comment><USER2> We have these kind of riots in Hungary (pretty close to Ukraine) as well. They are not really revolutions, but they are a good indicator that the people are extremely fed up with current government policies, which may lead to a revolution.

Exciting times to live in, hopefully the people will be able to get rid of the corrupt ruling class.

EDIT:

Just to give you bit of context on corruption... in the UK where I currently live, politicians are going into prisons for faking a couple of thousands of pounds as expense and profiting from that... A couple of thousands...

Compared to that, a couple of years ago, a guy called Bajnai Gordon was the prime minister in Hungary, who is well known by everyone for his act of destroying the whole agricultural economy of eastern Hungary. He did stole all the money from one of the largest companies at the time. Multiple farmers committed suicide, etc.

Years after that, he became a prime minister. Truly mind blowing. Those people are evil, and have cheeks, they deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prisons.

If you are interested about (the politically correct version of) the story, search for "Hajdu-Bet" here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bajnai](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Bajnai)

<comment><USER3> _Exciting times to live in, hopefully the people will be able to get rid of the corrupt ruling class._

In democracies, the people typically do this by voting for someone else. Why isn't that an option in Hungary?

<comment><USER4> In eastern-european democracies ( like mine in Bulgaria ) your voting options are limited to parties that has stable corruption background, which pay media and poor citizen to vote for them. In this sense there is no way honest people to get involve in the government affairs, because they lack resources ( money, connections, etc. ) that are needed for wining ( even partly ) elections.

<comment><USER5> You can delete words up to "Your voting options..." and you will have described the political situation in the USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are no riots. It's sad that this word is used to label what's happening here. No one is burning cars, smashing up stores etc.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I'm confused too, it kind of looks like a peacefull protest, at least right now while I'm watching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The capitol is more on the west side of the country which has more people that are pro-west, and most people there didn't want the more Russian influenced leader Yanukovych become president in the first place. Now he's doing things to make people pretty upset (not signing the EU agreement). I'm guessing a good deal of the eastern (more pro-Russian) side of the country still supports him though.

The person that is live streaming said this is on street Bankova, I think this is it: [https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d30....](https://www.google.com/maps/preview#!data=!1m8!1m3!1d3!2d30.52992!3d50.446413!2m2!1f217.7!2f63.03!4f90!2m7!1e1!2m2!1s83HPVKxL1RQuVl5iHNb_AA!2e0!5m2!1s83HPVKxL1RQuVl5iHNb_AA!2e0&fid=5)

</comment><comment><USER9> Someone who speaks the language or is there could please give us some context?

<comment><USER10> There's crowd of people who wants to enter president's administration building and 'berkut' police protects the building. Some fights were going on. I don't actually understand what exactly do those people want.

<comment><USER11> They want the Ukranian government to enter into an agreement of cooperation with the EU (a first step to becoming a full member).

Putin doesn't want Ukraine joining the EU since it would put "Europe" right on the Russian porch, whereas Putin would prefer to have a buffer of client- states who take their orders from the Kremlin. Ukraine gets most of its energy supplies from Russian natgas, which has been the main "stick" Putin has used to get the Ukraine to toe his line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This country is pretty much fucked up, criminal as a president, lack of resources, poor people and also European Union bureaucrats are not really interested in Ukraine in its current state. Half of citizines do not speak ukraininan language, they identify themselves as Russians. The other part is only waiting for a moment to gtfo there.

<comment><USER13> > lack of resources

which kind of resources?

> Half of citizines do not speak ukraininan language, they identify themselves > as Russians.

2/3 declared Ukrainian an their native, moreover there is distinct movement of Russian(!)-speaking anti-Russia(!) pro-Ukraine people. Source: living in Russian speaking Ukrainian city

>The other part is only waiting for a moment to gtfo there.

meh

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is my rough understanding of what's going on:

Ukraine wants to increase cooperation with Europe, and possibly join EU. This would undermine it's relationship with Russia.

The previous Ukranian president, Viktor Yushchenko, usually sided with the West, and current president, Viktor Yanukovych, wants to preserve friendship with Russia.

Russia obviously doesn't want to lose allies, so it threatened to stop trading, and impose strict sanctions on Ukraine if they agreed to partnership with Europe.

Some Ukrainians dislike Yanukovych for siding with Russia instead of Europe, thus causing protests.

If you have more knowledge about this situation, feel free to correct me if I err.

<comment><USER15> When you say "Ukraine wants to increase cooperation with Europe", who do you mean by "Ukraine"?

The president? The people in the west (i.e. the ones protesting here)? The people in the east who only speak Russian?

<comment><USER16> Everybody does! Here on east of Ukraine everybody wants freedom of speech, goverment w/o corruption, 3g internet.

<comment><USER17> You should also add that everybody wants to have well payed job. Question is "Which move would be better?". I think problem is that Ukrainians split in two roughly equal parts: pro-EU and pro-Russia (Yanukovych would not win recent election otherwise) and it's almost impossible to have consensus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A mass protest is not a revolution.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm hopeful Eastern Europe will regrow the spine half a century of so called communism destroyed.

<comment><USER20> I'm not a Soviet apologist, but the state of eastern europe has roots that predate the 20th century. Bear in mind that even before communism, much of it had been part of Tsarist Russia in the 19th century or earlier.

It's inaccurate to think of pre-soviet europe as composed of western european style states.

<comment><USER19> I'm not implying pre-soviet era Eastern Europe had a western style. That would not have been possible, not locked between the west and a hard place. Looks like Ukraine is still there.

Geopolitically and historically this (I'm Romanian) has been one shitty place with a lot of influences: Tsarist Russia, Soviet Union, Ottoman Empire, the Huns, the Mongols, the Romans etc. You could not have developed a western style state in this environment.

I'm not implying western Europe had it easier, but just different and it benefited them by the looks of things.

However, from history lessons, at least in my own country things were starting to pick up and it's my belief the situation would've been much better without WWII and especially without the communists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Please share with everyone and help Ukrainians get rid of this Russian rule</comment>


How to run a small social network site for your friends - <AUTHOR> https://runyourown.social/ <comment><USER2> _> Why to NOT run a small social network site [...] If you choose to run a site like this, it means that people will now depend on you for something that's important to them. People on Friend Camp are very forgiving when we have down time, and sometimes that down time can last hours if I'm asleep or at a movie or otherwise busy._

Kudos to the author for responsibly mentioning the caveats and setting realistic expectations. Before asking friends & family to _depend_ on a personal Mastodon server, consider carefully if you really want to take on that burden of responsibility to become a sysadmin and defacto tech support.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I think we'd be better off if we had equivalents of much of Facebook or Twitter implemented as distributed protocols like email rather than as a centralized system. You'd have your own @firstname.lastname@example.com rather than just @fred at the One Big Company. Most ISPs could include them with the basic package or you could get them from someone else online the way you can get email from your ISP or gmail, hotmail, etc.

You could then still run your own server, just as you can with email, but you wouldn't have to take on that responsibility to get most of the benefits of taking control of your social media.

<comment><USER4> isn't what [https://about.riot.im/](https://about.riot.im/) is?

<comment><USER5> no

<comment><USER4> why not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That was a really well written article, and though I didn't agree with some points, I couldn't stop reading it until I finished it. Something about the layout, the line spacing and such was engaging enough (of course, the content and how it was organized was the biggest influence).

I too feel that identity migration (or the lack thereof) is an issue that needs to be solved. I'm not sure if there's a technical solution that would be easy for people to follow. At the very least, users should be able to take their content out and have it migrated/hosted elsewhere, similar to how email content can be moved somewhere else, even if they're forced to get a new address.

I personally believe that Mastodon and other Twitter like solutions are too noisy and disjointed, without clear and prominent topic/subject and threading. Facebook groups has a better interface for handling this kind of conversation.

One point I disagree with is the "neighborhood" classification. Most users will not really understand it or get what it means whenever the neighborhood servers change (new ones get added, some get removed). It seems way too complex. The concept of local vs. global on Mastodon is in itself a cognitive barrier for many people to overcome. Global vs. "friends" is the easiest distinction to understand and use. In my observation most of the users on Facebook tend to use one of these for their posts, and nothing else.

<comment><USER7> > I'm not sure if there's a technical solution that would be easy for people > to follow.

Why not? It should be no harder than specifying the server you want to migrate to, and the handle you wish to use there. Everything else should be handled by the backend, and the receiving server's mod team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The absolute greatest discovery I made on this article is oulipo.social, a social network where the letter e is banned. The text on the page has to be one of the greatest things I have witnessed in a long time. There is a fully functional and amazingly well written FAQ all without the letter e: [https://oulipo.social/about/more](https://oulipo.social/about/more)

Here's question 6 from that page for a taste:

 _What synonym should I sub in for [x]?

Try to stop looking for synonyms; if you try to swap out individual words, you'll find it tough going. Pull back and think abstractly about what you want to say and find words for that. _

<comment><USER9> Ironically the URL for the FAQ contains the forbidden later, but it sure sounds like a cool concept.

<comment><USER9> "Letter" not "later" , damn you autocorrect and also damn the window for editing comments is short :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think what I mainly worry about is that whilst I'd be happy keeping it pretty small - friends of friends, and family - I know that some of my family believe (and share socially) some abhorrent views, as too do some friends of friends, and so I'd necessarily be anointing myself censor-in-chief.

I left Facebook because it was a Sisyphean task to simply point out the glaring omissions and outright fabrications that my "friends" shared. Here? I'd have to actually _deal_ with it, and probably also be somehow responsible for it.

<comment><USER11> It sounds exhausting to have such correct views about everything and yet be surrounded by so many people of inferior intellect. If only we had more brave souls willing to publicly point out how the rest of us are all wrong... :)

<comment><USER12> So you ignore it. Then what? The only ones speaking have their ideas become the 'truth' simply because they're the loudest majority. Next thing you know the earth is a disc or vaccines cause Autism.

<comment><USER13> Isn't this what block and mute are for? Or simply posting a better, more persuasive argument. Not sure why a top down censor is needed.

My own wish is that the tools social networks can use to change what we see would be democratised - I want to be able to choose the algorithms that define my feed, from anything goes to chronological to safe for children to only "authoritative sources" etc. Power to the people.

<comment><USER12> Those are fine tools as well. I'm not even suggesting a top down censor. I'm simply pointing out that the parent to my post is being ridiculous in mocking the grandparent poster for wanting to call out those who are pushing falsehoods.

If all of the 'normal' people just become silent and let the 'crazy' people run rampant because it's impolite to correct them then we head down a path that I don't want to go down. A path where society starts falling apart because common sense things like getting vaccines is no longer popular because the vocal ones have made it so and the people who know it's a good idea have been silent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Small shops can be a diverse ecosystem, en-masse robust and anti-fragile.

Edges, servers at the edges - monopolies are not a free Internet.

Computers run our lives, either we are in control or they are - Stallman is right - without GNU's four freedoms neither societies nor peoples are free.

</comment><comment><USER15> None of those are good enough reasons to want to run your own social network though. I don't want to pay to maintain it, I don't want to spend time fixing it and thinking new features. Most of all I don't want to have to police it! These aren't enjoyable differences and fail to build a convincing case to run your own social network...

<comment><USER16> Those are not good enough reasons for _you_ , perhaps. They may however be good enough for others. Your experience is not the only experience.

<comment><USER17> Case in point: witches.live has code for handling the moon.

[https://witches.live/@anna/102403392019217231](https://witches.live/@anna/102403392019217231)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like the small social network vibe because it reminds me of the old BBS days. I think social networks thrive with some form of exclusivity to keep them stable - Facebook started by requiring your college email address and BBSes were limited by the range of your area code (or else you would suffer long distance calling fees).

A network of 50 friends is interesting, Mastodon seems to group by interest or topic which is interesting, but there was something special about the local boundaries of BBSes that created interesting dynamics and let you see the same people on different boards and in different contexts, all from the same small- ish pool of people. It was a great mix of self-selection (which BBSes I chose to visit, the personal variations available) and forced interaction (who else would visit them and why).

</comment><comment><USER19> Wont your friends be scared of you snooping on their private messages? For all his faults Zuck wont tell the friend circle what a slut so-and-so is.

<comment><USER20> True, he just tells the ad buyers.

<comment><USER19> I have never heard of any leaks of private messages (by facebook, let's not count shoulder surfing or the counterparty telling) coming back to haunt the people who wrote them. So the risk you are mentioning seems more theoretical than the very real risk if a friend runs it.

<comment><USER21> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864427](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5864427)

<comment><USER19> Good point. I should have excluded law enforcement et al from my statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Any tips on how to get your friends to actually use the social network? I've tried and failed with Slack and Mastodon.

<comment><USER23> This is the biggest question to me too. Whenever I try to do something like this, my friends will do it for a short while, seemingly in support of me/the project, then fall off.

I have the same issue with making computer games too. They will try it once, say good job, and never bring it up again. I now try and approach games like, 1) what is something that I can play by myself that still brings value and 2) what is that "it feature" that will make someone curious/interested enough to come back, and focus on that.

Maybe it's the same for community sites.

<comment><USER24> > I have the same issue with making computer games too. They will try it once, > say good job, and never bring it up again.

Are you picking friends who like to play games (i.e. they play games you haven't designed)? If so, are you making the genre of games they like to play? If having your friends enjoy your games is important to you, consider collaborating with one of them, making them part of the design process — make a game _for them_. Better yet, make a game for you to play together, either cooperatively or competitively, whatever you prefer.

Alternatively, make a game where the characters are you and your friends. Ian McConville, of Three Panel Soul[1], made a pixel art game "for and audience of one" where the main character was his girlfriend. At the end, he asked her to marry him[2]. You don't need to do something so grandiose, but being a character in a game might make your friends more invested in playing it.

[1]: [http://www.threepanelsoul.com/](http://www.threepanelsoul.com/)

[2]: [https://www.comicmix.com/2008/06/27/webcomic-news-roundup- lo...](https://www.comicmix.com/2008/06/27/webcomic-news-roundup-love-life- and-poop/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Added to a collection of social network plan ideas: [https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_network_plan](https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/social_network_plan)

<comment><USER26> I've been brainstorming and planning for a different kind of social network and found your list very useful!

Are you planning to do something with it, or just collecting info?

<comment><USER25> Collecting info to help spur ideas among developers and designers. I'd like to hear about your perspectives; reach me at firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is, overall, a great idea but I do worry about security. Even if I keep all of the code fully patched, I have learned that pretty much anything can be broken into.

<comment><USER17> [https://masto.host/](https://masto.host/)

You don't get the same flexibility, but they take care of backups, updates, and security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For what it's worth, I really love the design of this site. It has a really slick xwindows aesthetic.

<comment><USER29> 100% agreed! I'll add that its - dare i say - minimalist-designed approach made it an additional joy to read. I couldn't think of where i saw such a similar look-and-feel, but now that you mention it, yeah "xwindows aesthetic" would be a good description for it! Cheers!</comment></comment>


Officials Announce First DoD-Wide Audit, Call for Budget Certainty - <AUTHOR> https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1391471/officials-announce-first-dod-wide-audit-call-for-budget-certainty/ <comment><USER2> The CR situation has cost the Navy $4B over the last 6 years.

[https://www.fedmanager.com/columns/from-the- hill/2906-navy-c...](https://www.fedmanager.com/columns/from-the- hill/2906-navy-continuing-resolutions-caused-4-billion-waste)

That's just the Navy.

Both parties are to blame. So vote out those incumbents!

Congress really needs to reform how many committees are involved in appropriations.

</comment><comment><USER3> They couldn't do this before deciding that the DoD absolutely needs another $70 billion a year (the budget equivalent to paying for everyone's college) to function? What if the audit finds that $100 billion (before the latest increase) is being wasted and could be saved? Will the DoD budget be cut to $500 billion?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a shame it didn't happen sooner but it is better than previous years.

>The Pentagon is no stranger to criticism over serious waste and purposefully sloppy accounting. A DoD Inspector General's report from 2016 - which appears to be unavailable on the DoD website (but fortunately WAS archived)- found that in 2015 alone a staggering $6.5 trillion in funds was unaccounted for out of the Army's budget, with $2.8 trillion in "wrongful adjustments" occurring in just one quarter.</comment></comment>


Google Downranks 65,000 Pirate Sites in Search Results - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/google-downranks-65000-pirate-sites-in-search-results-180629/ <comment><USER2> I remember I used to do filetype searches for mp3, mp4, flac, etc... and get all sorts of good stuff. I would find ftp servers with thousands of songs and just download anything interesting. I feel like the Google search algorithm peaked many years ago and has gradually been neutered by all sorts of special interest groups who have no doubt harassed Google with legal threats. Google probably doesn't want to censor results the way they have been forced to. Even pdf filetype searches got ruined too because Elsevier and JSTOR probably harassed Google as well. The recent change to Google images where they removed links to images made me switch to Bing.

<comment><USER3> It would be funny to see bing finally reach google search quality not because it got better, but because google got worse.

<comment><USER4> I just used Google Image search and in frustration switched to DDG because I have no idea how to get direct links to the images that Google presents. I don't think it was always this hard? Or maybe I've grown dumber.

EDIT: Evidently you can right-click and view image. I thought that wouldn't get me to the original image since the image as presented in search is smaller in resolution than what Google says the image really is. Either way, in DDG the image actually links to the damn image and not to the site where the image supposedly maybe appears on.

<comment><USER5> You know what DDG is doing is illegal, right? Google Images used to link to direct images as well. But then there were lawsuit threats and a settlement with Getty, which forced them to stop linking directly.

If DDG / Bing become big enough, they too will be forced to stop their practice.

<comment><USER6> It's not illegal. They were sued then Getty dropped the suit when Google agreed to partner with them and remove the links.

[https://9to5google.com/2018/02/09/google-images-features- get...](https://9to5google.com/2018/02/09/google-images-features-getty-deal/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As much as I despise multi-billion dollar 'copyright holding' corporations, I feel this is a strategic move by Google to thrust more legitimate channels of media consumption (Netflix, Prime Video, Et al) to the top of the search results page.

Having said that, people who _actually_ use torrents regularly _know_ their way around Google and other web-based search engines, and this move, therefore, should have little or no effect on that particular demographic.

<comment><USER8> Forget pirate sites, Google is doing this for everything. I'm shocked at how often a search for some generic word or animal name brings up some company I've never heard of, with the Wikipedia page for that generic word buried at the bottom of the first page (sometimes pushed to the second page).

<comment><USER9> Really glad i switched to DDG for my random searches (i can always do a !g if i feel that the results are meaningless).

<comment><USER10> I switched to DDG permanently because of their other bangs. I am a baseball fan and regularly use FanGraphs to look at stats. If I google a baseball player, FanGraphs isn't even on the front page. Instead, I have news articles about him, tweets from him, and a bunch of other sites. With DDG, I can simply go "!fg jose bautista" and get exactly what I want. It really has saved me a lot of time and effort. Same thing with !w for wikipedia.

<comment><USER11> Do other browsers not have site search in the address bar? In Safari, after visiting "fangraphs.com" once, I can just type "fang Some Name", press the down arrow to select the first suggestion, hit enter, and it searches that site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I seriously think we need torrent trackers solely residing on ipfs.

The popular trackers (such as ptb) remove content very easily. It is getting really hard to find tv shows on the net.

What we need is a completely anonymous distributed solution.

We won't need google then.

<comment><USER13> [https://www.tribler.org/](https://www.tribler.org/), which is developed by a not-for-profit research group supported by EU and Dutch research funding, does distributed torrent search without any central server. It's been around for almost a decade now.

<comment><USER12> Thanks a lot for the heads up. This seems to be _exactly_ the thing I was dreaming of.

If anyone is interested [https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki](https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki) link contains more information.

I'm surprised I didn't hear of this project before.

<comment><USER14> It's not like the "Big Media" wants you to know about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would prefer that Google would add labels like "pirate site" or "legitimate copy". How can a normal user understand what kind of site they are visiting and whether the site has a legal copy of a movie? The copyright agreements are not public.

For example, there is a website that allows to watch Japanese TV from abroad (quite expensive by the way). How one can be sure that they are not paying to scammers?

<comment><USER16> How can Google be sure? They can't, so they can't do it

<comment><USER15> If they cannot determine which site is legal then they should not be playing with sites' ranks.

<comment><USER17> They are the owners of the ranking algorithm, they should do whatever they want that's not in itself illegal.

<comment><USER18> Libel laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If content owners want to fight piracy, make content easier to get at a price people are willing to pay. There will always be a certain contingent of people that will never pay for content and will always choose piracy.

I personally stopped pirating music when iTunes Music came online. It was much easier to pay $0.99 for a song than to scour Napster,Kazaa, Limewire, and the rest of the p2p software. Now with Apple Music, Spotify, etc. why bother pirating music?

I subscribe to Netflix,Hulu with no commercials, DirectvNow and Amazon Prime. I could find most of the content on pirate sites, but why would I bother? I would much rather just pay $65 a month (well actually I get Netflix free via T-mobile so $55/month).

Movie Pass was too restrictive and too much of a hassle to bother with, but I have no reason to pirate new releases anymore now that AMC has AMC Stubs A+. I signed myself and my wife up for the subscription the day it became available. A movie is now a cheap date night when we just want to get out of the house and do something.

<comment><USER20> 55$ is still quite a lot of money in majority of the world. Plus some content is not available in some regions. I pay for Spotify but for movies (anime in particular) I still need to resort to torrents sometimes. I'd much more prefer to simply pay and avoid the hassle if only I had such opportunity.

<comment><USER19> Of course you have to cater to the local market realities. Doesn't Chrunchyroll cater to anime fans? If you have to resort to piracy because their is no legal alternative but you would pay for one if it existed, it kind of proves my point.

<comment><USER20> Yes I agree with you. I've actually had Crunchyroll in mind when writing my post - many titles are not licensed for my country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google has been trash for pirate content for awhile now. 9/10 sites it does show are fake and straight up malicious with like 50 different things trying to hijack your browser and make you install shit. Not that real pirate sites are exactly safe, but at least they actually provide what people are looking for.

<comment><USER22> I run all such queries in a dedicated Linux VM so that I visit any "strange" websites only in that VM. I use a browser not connected to my (sync) account and don't login to any of my usual websites. uBlock Origin with all kinds of lists enabled is on, uMatrix is installed but it was too much of a hassle so it remains disabled.

I hope my feeling of relative safety is justified, but I'm not a security expert(?).

PS: Before anyone gets upset that I use such services, I'm not a heavy "pirate" by any measure. When I needed it I purchased software like Adobe Creative Suite or Jetbrain IDE licenses without hesitation. I only use it for things I don't really need and only use once, such as checking out a TV series (I very, very rarely watch anything, relying on specific Youtube and Twitch content instead, leaving two - one came with the apartment rent, one with the Internet - cable TV subscriptions unused).

<comment><USER23> I wonder if I am doing too little in comparison?

I just use incognito and adblock. My impression is that whenever there's a remote code execution bug in chrome it becomes big news (ex: Meltdown/Spectre) so usually I can just trust the browser sandbox. Surely anyone with an exploit that can break the sandbox would use it on high value target rather than wasting it on the mass and having it get patched quickly?

I think I've become complacent since it's been more than a decade since I've gotten a virus/malware just from clicking a link.

<comment><USER22> > _it 's been more than a decade since I've gotten a virus/malware just from > clicking a link_

I'm worried that I probably would not even know when/if I have any malware unless the malware detection actually manages to detect it. I think lots of malware tries to remain inconspicuous and not draw attention to itself, only using your machine as a gateway or data source. Even though I know TCP/IP inside out and could inspect my network traffic, there is soooo much stuff going on in today's PCs that I have no intention of even trying.

I would not even know where to start if I had to inspect my operating system. I remember many years ago when a friend's laptop was always buys and created lots of network activity, it was obvious and easily confirmed that it had become a source of spam emails. I think a lot of malicious code is quite a bit more sophisticated and careful now, plus, the much increased bandwidth and raw PC power most people have available lets the same activity go unnoticed that 10 years ago might have had noticeable effects.

That means I think that not noticing any malware nowadays is not proof of absence of malware when the base rate is included, i.e. if we assume a low number of infections assuming no malware gets it mostly right only because of the that, not because we have a reliable way to detect it. If the base rate changes and our assumptions about infections don't change that would be a sign that our own ability to detect infection does not play a role in how we get to our assumption. It would be an interesting study to compare measured infection rates with how safe users felt (if it is the same user population for both). AV vendors and Microsoft might be able to do that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If only they would downrank sites that exist purely to defame: ripoffreport, stdreport, blacklistreport, etc.

<comment><USER25> I would add sites that exist to extort in that same category. (i.e mugshot sites, and those "claim your business support site" sites.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The onion network is fast becoming the only network.

</comment><comment><USER27> Remember that DuckDuckGo exists and its search results are pretty good.

<comment><USER28> I've been using DDG since around January this year and am continually blown away by how infrequently I need to turn to "The Big Guys" (Google, Bing) to find something I didn't find on DDG. It's been maybe half-a-dozen times relating to forums on some obscure software package?

That combined with DDG showing the top StackOverflow result inline on my search has kept me a very happy DDG user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I searched for "nba finals game 1 replay" and the like during the finals and was _only_ presented with pirate options. There was no legal/legit way to view or purchase these games - and Google was ranking pirate sites all over the first page. I wonder if this has changed.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have noticed a decrease in my Pirate related searches. Hopefully they fix this before Halloween.

<comment><USER31> Google also seems to have done this with little regard for its effects on the balance of power in the eternal struggle between pirates and ninjas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Good start, now if they would just downrank sites that were trying to sell me things or were using identical copy, maybe if I search for subject X, I might be able to find websites with people discussing or explaining subject X.

Generally, when I search for a movie or a book on a search engine, I'm not trying to buy, pirate, or read the wikipedia article about it (or I would have just searched wikipedia.)

</comment><comment><USER33> On any new device I normally do the same thing each time:

1) Install Firefox Nightly

2) Install uBlock Origin add-on

3) Enable Duck Duck Go as default search engine

4) Enjoy

I am still looking for a good replacement for Gmail.

<comment><USER34> gmail has been easy for me. Do you absolutely need the (nice I admit) web ui? I thought I did until I completely switch to using mails clients (mail on macOS and iPhone). I don't miss gmail at all! I realise how long it took to check my email before. I'm using Mailbox.org btw. Cheap, lots of aliases, exchange server etc ... I switched 10 months ago and I don't regret.

<comment><USER29> I use GMail for the stability, longevity and ubiquitous access.

<comment><USER35> Until they lock your account even if you know the password...

Some people are OK with giving their PII like phone numbers to them, then Google is a good choice for them.

For me, it is not. Their schizophrenic registration system that SOMETIMES demands your phone number was the last straw.

<comment><USER29> Free Gmail or paid? I use both, the paid for important things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Duck, duck, SearX

</comment><comment><USER37> How often are pirates just starting with google anyway?

I suspect most folks searching really do want a legit copy.

<comment><USER4> I'm not a regular pirate so I have no idea where to look. Search engines have been useful in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Nzbget + Kodi is actually better then browsing multiple services legal or not.

<comment><USER39> Also sonarr

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This downrank is an ineffective farce. Search google for any show/movie with free and online attached to it and I still reliably get a result on the first page to stream pirated content from.

</comment><comment><USER41> That is why if I need to download anything, I search with duckduckgo now.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is the 65k number an implementation detail? Like because of 16 bits or something?

<comment><USER43> Doubtful...

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I do all of my searching with + Reddit appended. Get way better curated results.

</comment><comment><USER45> torrentz2.eu is a good way to search for torrents. DMCA compliant, at least on paper so mileage may vary. But it has helped me out many times.

Google isn't the internet. Eerily close but not 100%.

<comment><USER46> I thought it was taken down by "the feds", I assume it's being run by some government agency under direction of media rights holders now? These sites seem to survive for some time playing whackamole, but AFAICT law enforcement got all the long running big sites.

It's curious that, again from what I can tell, such sites often get taken over (not the actual sites but copycat domains that Google serve) as copycats in order to serve malware. But somehow that's preferable (for the government agencies) to hosting inert torrent links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I often find that Google sends me to scam sites like Elsevier instead of Library Genesis or TPB when what I am searching for can be found there. Is there a better search engine out there that solves this problem?

<comment> cup-of-tea Make DuckDuckGo your default search engine now. Just do it. You won't miss Google.

<comment><USER48> As much as I'd like that to be true, I end up having to use !g in half my searches. It does okay at keyword matching, but can't infer what I'm actually looking for, falls short at finding obscure/niche topics and its pageload speeds are frustrating compared to Google.

<comment><USER49> Weird things that DDG does:

\- No geo prioritization. If I'm searching for things in (city I'm current in) I don't care for sites from companies located in (city in the US/Canada with the same name).

\- You write "X in Y" (generic example) and autocomplete tries to "fix it with "Z in Y" thanks but I really mean "X in Y". Or sometimes it tries to fix it with even more unrelated things (though sometimes it makes sense).

<comment><USER50> Google does the same. Search for Warsaw while in Poland, yet use english search words. Most results will come up for things in Warsaw, Indiana. Including pages which google has tagged with "Warsaw, Indiana" so they clearly know that's where the results are coming from.

<comment><USER51> Same in Sweden. If you want to know what channels football matches are airing on here the following searches yield entirely different results:

Fotbolls vm

Football World Cup

The former gives you the correct site with the channels listed as the first answer but the second one doesn't even have the channels on the first page.

<comment><USER52> I live in the Netherlands but grew up in the U.S. and I often go back and forth between Dutch and English when searching(depending mostly on context). I have also used my google account while living in the U.S. and later in the Netherlands (this used to _really_ mess up google calendar). I've been searching for "World Cup" (English) on google.com. I get results in English, but they are parsed from the national Dutch news channel and they link directly to highlight clips on their YouTube channel. Seems like there is a probably a lot of complex integration between Google and local broadcasters to pull that off, and it might work just for me because I spent a lot of time setting language and locale settings to try and accommodate my unique use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> All medium traffic sites depend on google. We had a good running shop. We changed some things.

Nearly one week site down due to server crash (don't ask!). No problem.

New server, new IP. No problem.

Force always SSL. No problem.

But then we switched the shopping cart. This killed us. Traffic down 70%

<comment><USER54> Switched the shopping cart? It shouldn't affect SEO.

<comment><USER53> New URLS?

After 4 months we have not recovered from this.

<comment><USER55> 301s were not an option?

<comment><USER53> we did this 1 month later. No effect.

We did a general 301. Not a product specific 301. Mistake?

<comment><USER54> 301 redirects by page for sure 1:1.

Plus, How is this linked to shopping carts?

<comment><USER53> well, website.com/product=11 became website.com/myfavoritejeans

<comment><USER54> This is called product pages, cart will be website.com/my-cart or something in the like.

<comment><USER53> so, should we have done a 301 for every product?

Seems to late now.

<comment><USER54> Yes 301s for each products to new page is ideal.

I don't do SEO for other companies, but I can take a look at your analytics data, and make a couple of suggestions if that can help. PM me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I switched to Bing two years ago and I'm pretty pleased with how well it works.

Insane how people are coming to grips NOW that Google is an advertising company instead of ten years ago.

</comment><comment><USER57> Are there any apps that perform searches on multiple search engines and combine the results?

<comment><USER58> You mean a meta-engine? Like Duckduckgo? Or you actually mean an app you can install?

<comment><USER57> Does ddg use google results? I have read that they do not.

<comment><USER59> They use Google's index I believe, but that is not the same as using Google's results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> They're doing this sort of thing a lot more often, it seems like, whether through manual actions targeting specific sites or algorithm changes that suddenly take a high quality top ranked page and disappear it from results entirely. It's happened to me where I had the most relevant result for a search term (in fact, it's the website that _popularized_ that term) and now it's gone from all Google results. It's still the top result on every other search engine, but I've been unable to get it back at all on Google.

</comment><comment><USER61> Did google search every worked well for pirated content ? Always got to boobies and Viagra with Rolex's first before the latest Marvel or Autodesk software ;)

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm actually pirating a lot less. I started to buy / rent movies on Youtube. Youtube Premium also lets me watch everything with zero ads. Netflix is a major staple.

The fact of the matter is, the "Steamification" of mainstream media is almost complete. iTunes, Steam, Youtube Music, Spotify, Netflix, Prime.

In the future we will be able to stream new movies, possibly infinite variations created on the fly by AI.

Imagine an AI that has watched every possible recorded moving pictures and is able to conjure up entire new story plots, characters, and visuals on their own that caters exactly to the viewer.

Also its harder to download torrents now so I naturally just pay for it if I really need it. The only way I would torrent something is if it was not available for purchase.</comment>