Police across Canada are using predictive policing algorithms, report finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/k7q55x/police-across-canada-are-using-predictive-policing-algorithms-report-finds <comment><USER2> Honestly, better just to skip straight to the linked report that Vice is just lifting from - ([https://citizenlab.ca/2020/09/to-surveil-and-predict-a- human...](https://citizenlab.ca/2020/09/to-surveil-and-predict-a-human-rights- analysis-of-algorithmic-policing-in-canada/))

The executive summary does a far better job at articulating the situation, its problems, its negative implications, and proposed mitigations than most of us will be able to manage in an HN comment.

Note that the report suggestions are not to ban predictive approaches. I think the report recommendations are reasonable under the assumption of competence and good faith among all parties. If you don't think that the limitations the report suggests are sufficient, I think that's a reasonable sign that you're not assuming good faith and competence - which is fair, but does totally shift the argument.

If you're just assuming that the police will abuse this regardless of safe guards (that's fair), you can just make that argument up front, and cut through all the shit, and then you can get down to arguing over real conflict points.

<comment><USER3> The police have shown us that they don't act in good faith. But maybe if we decide to keep them around, these recommendations, along with better civilian oversight to ensure they're actually implemented, will mitigate the dangers of predictive policing.

<comment><USER4> >>The police have shown us that they don't act in good faith.>>

There are ~650k police officers in the US employed by ~18k agencies. Can you provide more detail on how it is that that group has shown us a lack of good faith?

<comment><USER5> By not publicly and consistently condemning and/or holding their fellow officers accountable when they should be.

The blue wall of silence.

To be fair after the murder of George Floyd you did see some officers and police chiefs doing this in the initial round of protests.

Generally speaking though police departments have proven incredibly difficult to reform - there's a lot of entrenched behavior, such that even if one officer isn't engaging in anything illegal themself, the police culture brings huge pressure to bear against anyone who might condemn another officer for breaking the law.

<comment><USER6> The US situation seen from French eyes is quite surprising. Here we have the IGPN, which is "the Police of Police" so when an officer does something wrong there's an inquiry about it. But more importantly, there are sanctions.

The system isn't perfect by any mean but to give you an example of how infrequent Police murders are, our local BLM movement had to find a 4 year old case as their "George Floyd".

<comment><USER7> > The system isn't perfect by any mean but to give you an example of how > infrequent Police murders are, our local BLM movement had to find a 4 year > old case as their "George Floyd".

Thats not same comparison though, people dont' own firearms in france like they do in USA.

<comment><USER6> You're right about legal firearms, there are much less of them in France. However criminals have no trouble equipping themselves, and Kalashnikov shootings are quite frequent between rival gangs.

<comment><USER5> It's no excuse but my understanding is the issue here in the US is sort of the random traffic stop - what if the person the cop stops has a gun?

Thus every interaction with a probably "non-criminal" citizen or whatever carries fear and danger.

Again, no excuse at all. But I do think there's a relation between racist (and all) police violence, and the overall violence in our society - which firearm ownership is one aspect of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this just computerization of what already existed? "Hey, I need to get my arrest numbers up so let's head on down to <area of town> where we know we'll pick up at least a couple people for <mostly harmless activity>". Now the police are just optimizing the algorithm to maximize their goal.

The problem isn't the means, it's the goal itself.

Where the police can predict they're going to be arresting a lot of people, maybe instead we should be focusing on how we can reduce the problems in those areas that lead to crimes and arrests. Send some social workers, some youth outreach, open a food bank, get health workers in there.

"Tough on crime" policies gets expensive when you have to house and jail all those "criminals". It's a lot cheaper to just prevent future crime by helping people.

<comment><USER9> >> just prevent future crime by helping people.

OK "just" prevent future crime via... helping people.

What does that even mean? Have you costed out your helping program to show this is true. We have more social programs, care agencies and food banks than ever before, yet the problems and problem areas are as bad as ever. Let's see if you change your tune after being the victim of serious crime

<comment><USER10> In the US, the criminal "justice" system is _phenomenally_ expensive. According to EJI [1], it cost us $182 billion in 2017. There are ~2.3 million people in US prisons [2]. That's almost $80k/prisoner/year. That's a lot of social services.

[1]: [https://eji.org/news/mass-incarceration-costs-182-billion- an...](https://eji.org/news/mass-incarceration-costs-182-billion-annually/)

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER11> How will those social programs stop, e.g., rapists from committing more rape when they're freed on bail when none of the prison reform programs so far are doing that?

Are we not better simply containing the rapists so that they cannot access a vulnerable population instead?

<comment><USER10> Please don't strawman me by implying that I'm advocating for freeing rapists. That's not productive, nor is it discussing in good faith.

Let me give you some stats from the Wikipedia article I linked, which I encourage you to read:

"tough-on-crime" laws adopted since the 1980s have filled US prisons with mostly nonviolent offenders.

46% of state prisoners serving > 1 year are serving time for a nonviolent offense. (I flipped this around from "54% of state prisoners serving > 1 year are serving time for a violent offense).

15% of state prisoners have been convicted of a drug offense as their most serious infraction.

And here's the source the Wikipedia article links called "Why Texas is closing prisons in favour of rehab" [1].

That's hundreds of thousands of people serving harsh sentences for nonviolent and drug offenses. It's pretty well known at this point that the US criminal justice system has serious problems and is--again--extremely expensive. I encourage you to google around and read up on it.

[1]: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us- canada-30275026](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-30275026)

<comment><USER12> For what it is worth, Your position cant be strawmanned if you don't explain it.

If your core position is that money can be saved by avoiding incarceration, you would probably get a more productive response by stating it explicitly as well as how it relates to the post you respnded to:

>What does that even mean? Have you costed out your helping program to show this is true. We have more social programs, care agencies and food banks than ever before, yet the problems and problem areas are as bad as ever. Let's see if you change your tune after being the victim of serious crime

<comment><USER13> It is a strawman because the response made suppositions that the gp did not imply. That is not a good faith argument. Forcing positions upon people is not a productive means of discussion.

<comment><USER12> I felt that the post was just interjecting with a fact and did not explain how it relates to or modifies the parent post. It is hard to respond without supposition if they fail to put forth an argument. I read the interchange as follows.

>mabbo: states that we should focus on crime reduction, not enforcement

>ticmasta: questions if crime prevention is economically or practically viable. They propose that increased expenses have not and will not result in a reduction of "serious crimes".

> Camgunz: points out that incarceration is expensive and this could support a > lot of social services.

> Natsu: questions again how social programs will stop violent crimes like > rape when existing programs have failed.

> Camgunz: Dont strawman me, Nonviolent incarceration is expensive.

Camgunz seems to be talking past the question of if social programs can work and reiterating that incarceration is expensive.

<comment><USER13> I think the crux comes down to this section of the exchange.

> Camgunz: points out that incarceration is expensive and this could support a > lot of social services.

> Natsu: questions again how social programs will stop violent crimes like > rape when existing programs have failed.

How __I__ read this (and I'm guessing Camgunz) is that camgunz provides context to ticmasta's questions about being economically viability by noting how much we spend within the prison system. Implying that this is the metric that we are working with. There was an assumption made here, which is extremely common, that policy just adds cost and does not reduce it somewhere else. What Camgunz is suggesting is that by spending money elsewhere we can reduce the costs mentioned. IMO a net even would be a gain in the sense that we are being more humane and maximizing individual freedom (considering being in jail means pretty low individual freedom as well as potential long term consequences like being unable to vote in the future).

Natsu then made a non-sequitor argument that is commonly associated with dog whistling (it may not have been intended this way, but that is part of the power of dog whistling. By definition it is coded language). The supposition that Natsu implied was that rapists are going to rape and this cannot be prevented, therefore we should just contain them. The data does not support this nor is it effective because we can only prosecute those who have already committed an action or are in the act (this isn't Minority Report, we don't do pre-crime and I think we'd all agree that is highly immoral). Further Natsu said that prisons already do not solve the problem, therefore we should just contain them. The context of the discussion was about reform, which acknowledges the fact that prisons do not accomplish this. Starting with mabbo we get a claim that we should be focusing on crime prevention, which would include (presumably) changing how prisons work. With a focus on reformation as opposed to punishment. Additionally, Natsu's statement is associated with an "all or nothing" approach, which is not what anyone here is suggesting and is a common technique used to derail a conversation, because there will always be outliers in data (i.e. letting perfection get in the way of improvements). Simply, the discussion is about reduction not abolition. Lastly, the jump to rape is one to extreme cases. A drive to an emotional appeal above everything else.

Simply, the response was not in good faith and had a high potential to be intended to derail the conversation. It exhibits many of the tactics that people use to perform such a task (again, it resembles dog whistling enough that it is reasonable to be taken that way).

I will also direct you to my response to Natsu where I link evidence of a negative cost policy (legalizing and taxing prostitution) that fulfills said objectives. I also stress the focus on reduction over abolition. There are many other policies similar to what I mentioned, including reform around marijuana laws (referencing back to Camgunz, which would you rather have? Spending 80k/yr for a non-violent pot dealer (max punishment is several years) or taxing pot, regulating to increase safety, de-stigmatizing and allowing people to seek professional help if it is negatively impacting their lives, and reducing funds that go to cartels that also contribute to migrants fleeing their countries and heading to America? The former costs a significant amount of money while the latter distributes money through the economy and allows taxes to be taken off the top). Not all policies will end up working like this, but again, this isn't an "all or nothing" situation, it is about improvement through iteration and utilizing the data that we have to make better policy. These two are low hanging fruit but do illustrate the point being discussed here.

<comment><USER12> I read your post a couple times and I think I get where you are coming from.

I think the disconnect between us comes from the different assumptions and emphasis _we_ made filled in for each post. You assumed that Ticmasta ignored indirect costs in a cost/benifit analysis. Camgunz addressed this as you point out. And I assumed that tomasita's central point was that additional spending does not reduce crime or recidivism, and camgunz sidesteped the issue. I imagine Natsu's reading would be the same, given that they restated the same ting, but with more inflammatory language.

I tend to agree with you and camgunz that decriminalization of many activities is attractive based on it's own merits. That said, I think that it is also important to acknowledge that not all problems can be solved by dumb money, solved by smart money, or solved at all.

<comment><USER13> The problem comes down to a few parts. 1) The language is similar to that used by dog whistlers. 2) We have higher expectations from people on HN and expect them to be more familiar with subjects they are responding to. 3) We require good faith arguments here [0] 4) that aren't lazy 5) and can't be disproven with a simple search. ( 6) (which wasn't violated in this case) we expect people to read the article). HN has always had higher standards and expectations than other forums. I'm happy to get conversations back on track, because it is a problem we're facing a lot in society (in general), but now the conversation is derailed.

[0] There's three parts to communication. 1) The idea intended to be conveyed. 2) The words said. 3) The idea that was heard. The three things can convey three different ideas. A good faith argument means that you are trying to understand what was intended. It usually means giving the benefit of the doubt.

<comment><USER12> I agree with everything you said about communication and still stand by my original point and suggestion.

Camgunz would have a more productive conversation if they added more context to their post, describing how it relates to the parent.

I agree that the other posts could be improved as well.

I don't think that there was any dog whistling. As I understand the the term, it Requires a hidden meaning, and rape is simply inflammatory and hyperbolic. The exception is if you think that the poster was intentionally using "rapists" as code for blacks and Hispanics. If so, I didn't pick up on the intentional racist angle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There are lots of good arguments against the use of these technologies, but disproportionate effect on marginalized communities may be ironically a less powerful one to people who believe in them, because the intent is to find indicators independent of the experiences of individual enforcers. Anyone with experience in marginalized communities knows it is a good bet to predict the self-sustaining effects of marginalization, which are violence, drugs, mental illness and exploitation by people there to take advantage of it. Doesn't take rocket science to predict where that's going to happen and to be there when it does.

The real solutions are way upstream of a police encounter, where these predictive models would have a way more viable impact in elementary and high schools where people can be nudged and diverted from police encounters in a more subtle and constructive way.

But even then the tech still reinforces and systematize the aggregate bias (or experience) of the data analysts, with the real danger it just becomes a justification, the same way statistics are always used, which is the way a drunk uses a lamp post - for support and not illumination. Whether it's teachers using it to mark and isolate kids from positive peers, or police using it to divert them from a bigger incident, it's the same underlying belief in social engineering that problematizes "other" people and tries to "fix," them.

We should begin by recognizing that these ML systems are weapons, not "solutions," and regulate the use of them in the context of weapons against an enemy other, then ensure someone holds personal individual accountability for that decision, including the social and political aspects of it.

The second order effect is that more-focused enforcement methods will necessarily mean more confrontations with people prone to violence, which creates a selection bias toward violent encounters with police, which makes these systems all the more dystopian.

<comment><USER15> Eh, I'm not sure I agree.

I was contracted by The Government of Canada to help them with a recommendation engine that was built to help people. The problem? Some criminals had reverse engineered the algorithm and were using it for really, really horrible ends.

What would you have had me do? Not reverse engineer the criminal's reverse engineering? Did I help GC make a "predictive policing" app because they could now alert the RCMP to these bastards?

It's a balance. We need privacy, but we also need security. My take on it is that we should start with good faith and only surveil where it makes sense (embassies, airports, etc) unless there is some sort of signal (in the ML sense) of bad faith. From that point on it should go through the crown's lawyers (like it does in Canada), but ultimately we need to stop murderers, human traffickers, and other people that make the world worse.

I agree that some ML systems are weapons, but I don't think they all are. Some are benign. Some start off off as benign then get turned into dual use, like the one I worked on. But not all weapons are necessarily bad. We need a government that can actually protect us.

There is real evil in the world.

<comment><USER14> I'm saying the tech is a weapon you use to target something, ideally for good reasons, but it's still a weapon and it's the targeting decision that needs accountability. Knowing what I do about tech, I don't think privacy and security are a trade off or zero sum.

I do think privacy and _surveillance_ are a trade off, and surveillance is what you have when you don't have security or trustworthy systems. I agree there is actual evil in the world, and it's particularly where you don't expect it.

The law isn't designed to fight evil. As a society, a better cultural understanding of evil would do more to improve our ability to deal with it than blunt technical weapons to surveil it.

<comment><USER15> I agree that _the law_ isn't designed to fight evil, but many laws are designed to fight evil. It's a subtle distinction, but one worth pointing out.

Surveillance is part of sense-making for law enforcement and even though I don't think that security and privacy are always at odds, and there are definitely cases where they are not zero-sum, when dealing with persons of interest in criminal investigations it tends to be the case that degrading a suspects privacy improves societies security. But it should be done right. Warrants, probable cause, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are two entirely different matters being conflated here:

"Where will crime happen" prediction, which is based on crime reporting data for the most part and, as a sibling by comment by motohagiography articulates very well, the solution is upstream. This tool is useful, but problematic. Especially with "more encounters with police lead to more charges of all types" issues.

"Who will commit crime" predictions are just plain problematic; they discard the entire premise of innocent until proven guilty that is supposed to underlie Canadian enforcement and jurisprudence as well as tend to be self fulfilling prophecies.

<comment><USER17> In what manner is it problematic? No one is being punished by the system predicting that they will commit a crime.

<comment><USER18> So you would be okay with police driving behind you for years, waiting for you to make a mistake?

Uneven application of even a just law is still unjust, and also undermines trust in the justice system.

<comment><USER17> Again... is tracking and following potential future-criminals actually what this tech is used for?

<comment><USER16> [https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/p...](https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/2020/investigations/police- pasco-sheriff-targeted/intelligence-led-policing/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is dumb. Predictive policing algorithms predict where the police will be, not where crime takes place: as crime data is simply a measurement of policing activity.

If there is bias in policing, it would therefore be amplified.

Ban police from using this technology.

<comment><USER20> This is my first thought as well. If police go to a place, there is more likely to be a recorded instance of a crime investigated in that place, and thus the algorithm will be more likely to send the police there in the future.

The crime map for Vancouver is interesting - I'm glad to see that the tool reported in the article is at least exposed to the public.

[https://geodash.vpd.ca/](https://geodash.vpd.ca/)

<comment><USER21> In some sense, if you did not send police anywhere at all, you would have no crime to report.

The solution to end crime, then, is to never send the police anywhere.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure if you're kidding. Of course police presence leads to escalation and more crime, and many places would be much safer without police.

<comment><USER22> This is not a good position. What you would get is vigilantism instead as people take matters into their own hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Let's algorithmically predict which police officers are most likely to commit misconduct, and then follow them to catch them in the act if and when they do.

Seems only fair…

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately non-white police are more likely to use deadly force [1], so you'd get the same social justice outrage. Good idea in principle though.

[1] [https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/32/15877.full.pdf](https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/32/15877.full.pdf)

<comment><USER18> The second page of that link shows the authors retracted the paper, and they also issued a correction.

> we want to correct a sentence in our significance statement that has been > quoted by others stating 'White officers are not more likely to shoot > minority civilians than non-White officers.' This sentence refers to > estimating Pr(shotjrace, X). As we estimated Pr(racejshot, X), this sentence > should read: 'As the proportion of White officers in a fatal officer- > involved shooting increased, a person fatally shot was not more likely to be > of a racial minority.'

<comment><USER23> They retracted the paper because of political pressure, not because of any factual errors (this is pretty clear in both the timing of the retraction and the retraction statement).

> While our data and statistical approach were appropriate for investigating > whether officer characteristics are related to the race of civilians fatally > shot by police, they are inadequate to address racial disparities in the > probability of being shot.

That's not what my comment addressed. It addressed the probability of non- white officers shooting to kill being higher than that of white officers. I think that conclusion is still supported by the paper (as in the last line of your quote).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Being profiled so deeply by government on an individual level using automated systems is the holy grail of the police state and is the most advanced and worrisome form of mass surveillance. It is possibly fine today, but over the course of 50-100 years there will surely be severe and scary problems with this

<comment> core-questions Perhaps you should stop simply giving all of your data away, then? Nobody's making you post all your thoughts and pictures and location and plans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Of course understanding that this is Canada: I don't recommend this kind of approach. It might solve the immediate problem but, does not address the cause. Having police visibility during "peak" times will resolve the issue of crime in a specific area and time but, will not solve the crime from not happening somewhere else. Also, I don't know who is working on these reports and whether or not they apply their own biases. The US already has an issue with over policing. This would definitely exacerbate it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Social scientists have wanted to predict when victimization, abuse, suicide is going to happen for a long time.

This is the other side of the coin.

I suggest that as long as 'individuals are not targeted for culpability' \- ie they are looking in 'general terms' and especially for 'victims' then maybe this might work?

'Jane Doe is at very high risk of abuse from a family member' -> maybe we should just check in.

'123 ABC St. is at very high likelihood of break-in - maybe just cruise on by to 'show a presence'.

All of this said, I often wonder if these 'algorithms' just reproduce with cops on the ground, managing relationships _already know_.

'Yes, thank you computer, Jane Doe who's been beaten by her husband 3 times is 'at risk''.

'Yes, thank you computer, 6th and Finch, aka 'crack corner' is at 'high risk' of crime'.

</comment><comment><USER27> Part of the problem is that police are being tasked with the impossible: to increase closure rates on crimes for which they have little evidence.

This is part of us in Canada both underfunding social services _and_ offloading the defence of person and property on to the state.

If we properly funded mental health, low income housing and food banks and also allowed citizens to defend their property and their family... Well I suspect that police would have less to do.

</comment><comment><USER28> I recall a former RCMP officer who created something similar only it was for historical data not used to try to predict anything. This "Person of Interest" (sci-fi TV show) level of prediction seems impossible.

Although giant powerful computers are used by stock analysts to predict trends. Stocks aren't people but there is a direct link between human emotion and stock buying and selling.

</comment><comment><USER29> "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neil has a section devoted to this sort of thing. Good read, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't know whether PP algos work or whether they're fair or what the trade off between fairness and effectiveness should be. But I am amazed the number of commentors here who think the devs behind the algos are not smart enough to normalise data for police numbers in an area!?

<comment><USER31> It's a difficult problem area. I would bet naively normalizing the data would introduce many new concerns. Does the amount of crimes reported scale linearly with police presence? If not, your data is now going to be skewed. How do you count police numbers in an area? Man hours, individual officers, or something else? Keep in mind that not all officers are going to be responding to the same type of crime and so police hours are not interchangeable.

IMO machine learning algorithms are brittle and prone to breaking in unexpected ways. In the past, organizations who should have known better and should have been smart enough have produced bad machine learning systems. Policing is a highly sensitive area. It's okay to be very concerned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Source article: [https://citizenlab.ca/2020/09/to-surveil-and-predict-a- human...](https://citizenlab.ca/2020/09/to-surveil-and-predict-a-human-rights- analysis-of-algorithmic-policing-in-canada)

</comment><comment><USER33> Palantir is just getting more and more scary everytime I read it hear anything about them

</comment><comment><USER34> The concept of criminality as a protected career category is a political litmus test of no other content. May as well just ask if people are "D" or "R".

</comment><comment><USER35> Do they work? Are they cost effective?

<comment><USER36> Name one commercial ML algorithm that works with 100% accuracy all the time.

<comment><USER37> Nobody needs 100% accuracy though, they just need better-then-current accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is no different than the human profiling that Police engage in. Except now we have logs and we can track the decisions that are being made. We can adjust the algorithms rather than re-train humans. We can replace an algorithm quickly if it doesn't give us the results we want, whereas removing bad cops takes years, if it's even possible.

Secondly, Canadian police operate differently than American ones. They aren't perfect, but don't read this article with the lens that American media has shaped for you about their own police forces.

<comment><USER39> You're right: there is no difference; they both don't work and are unethical. The idea that someone _may_ commit a crime based on things they are doing is abhorrent. It runs against the idea of innocent until proven guilty.

It's the same idea as "violent video games cause violent people;" It's _not true_. If you play an online FPS like COD, should we be watching _you_ more closely because you _may_ end up shooting up some place?

EDIT: previously said "guilty until proven innocent"

<comment><USER38> You aren't contributing honestly. The police systems work, but they have problems. And again, _don 't view Canadian policing with an American lens_.

Toronto, for example, has an independent division of police called the SIU, Special Investigations Unit. Any time an officer is involved in a violent altercation, the SIU is onsite and investigating. Not perfect, but better. They also have a mental health unit that responds to non-violent calls where people are in distress. Again, not perfect, but better. Toronto and Vancouver both operate safe injection sites. Toronto recently put up hundreds of homeless people into vacant apartments to get them off the street.

All this to say, I don't see these programs in the US. You guys aren't even trying to improve your Police. Don't view canadian police with an American lens.

<comment><USER40> Nope, they're not the same, but I've lived on both sides of the border and see a high degree of similarity. Out West, we don't have much of a black population. The issues with policing here are stark when comparing indigenous to non-indigenous populations. We had an analogous incident to Trayvon Martin a few years back; white dude murdered an indigenous dude, was tried by at white jury and got off scott free: it's not _just_ the police, it's also the broader culture that has seen indigenous peoples as vermin since first contact. We have police shooting to kill instead of de-escalating. Even in Vancouver, I see cops treating white arrestees with dignity and respect whereas I see them pinning black and indigenous people to the ground as their first move -- almost every single interaction that I've witnessed. Toronto had a program very similar, and with similar impact, to NYC's stop and frisk program. White criminals go largely unmolested, while even middle class black and indigenous people get harrassed on the regular.

Militarized cops carrying long guns and wearing body armor show up to nonviolent oil protests and do what they can to escalate the scene. Liberals were outspoken against declaring nonviolent oil protests an act of terrorism until they got in power, and then the story was "we don't want to take this enforcement tool from the police." Generational trauma from the residential schools, a "soft genocide," remains unaddressed to this day and white citizenry doesn't seem to understand why folks want to topple statues of John Macdonald. The medical system is still forcably sterilizing and removing children from indigenous women.

The main difference is that the genocide in canada was largely effective; the black population in the US wasn't eradicated to the same degree, so the racialized politics aren't as visible here.

We need to remove a bunch of duties from police, and hand them to social services, mental health care workers, and unarmed bylaws enforcement. Just like the US. That will free the police up to investigate actual crimes, and work to improve the lives of people who are shat on by our society.

<comment> core-questions > Even in Vancouver, I see cops treating white arrestees with dignity and > respect whereas I see them pinning black and indigenous people to the ground > as their first move -- almost every single interaction that I've witnessed.

This is nothing but an anecdote; you don't know the whole situation in these cases, you're probably just walking by, you don't know what happened beforehand, you don't know what level of threat these individuals posed. It's also almost certainly a case of bias confirmation, you're paying attention to the demographics during an arrest and chalking up datapoints when you see what you're looking for. Are you everywhere in the city? Do you have a representative sample of policing? Not even close.

You're just looking to see this happening, and nowhere in your mind does it possibly occur to you that these perps might have been disrespectful, might have fought back, might be "known to police" already as a troublemaker that's causing yet again another incident despite living in a city with nothing but programs and handouts and tolerance for the antics of the homeless.

> nonviolent oil protests

Illegal trespassing, in many cases, and the show of force is to make it clear that there will be no violence, because none will be tolerated. If anything, it should help make it far more clear cut that there cannot be any pushback on these issues. It doesn't matter what your opinion is on the subject, it matters what has been decided by the government, and it's probably better that a protestor realizes that they have no hope of violent resistance rather than giving it a try.

> The main difference is that the genocide in canada was largely effective

Is this really how my fellow citizens view their own history? What an incredibly biased, anti-White narrative. No wonder folks like you want to deconstruct everything that is well-built, predictable, and good about our nation as we have it today: you view it all as an evil inheritance that was stolen, rather than a beautiful workable system hewn out of cruel nature.

> We need to remove a bunch of duties from police, and hand them to social > services, mental health care workers, and unarmed bylaws enforcement.

I'll give you this: it might actually have a chance of working here, to some extent, because of how nonviolent people generally are and because we don't have a massively armed population.

Still, there will be incidents where these unarmed support officers are going to be physically overpowered, abused, beaten, even raped; there will be incidents when people get away who should be caught; and when it happens, we'll all just have to remember that that wouldn't have happened if sufficient force had been present.

> work to improve the lives of people who are shat on by our society.

One of the big dichotomies between people like you and people like me is that it never seems like your side is willing to admit to the large numbers of people in this position who themselves shit on society rather than the other way around. Again, we have as many opportunities for a leg up here as there have ever been, anywhere in the world.

<comment><USER41> > Is this really how my fellow citizens view their own history? What an > incredibly biased, anti-White narrative

It seems like perhaps there is a lot of Canadian history that you haven't reckoned with.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_indigenous_peoples#Canada)

In particular I think the Beothuk in particular might have opinions on this.

There is a good reason to have an honest reckoning with history and then move forward from there, not for the purposes of blame but rather to start with a sound basis in fact for making decisions about the future.

<comment> core-questions > It seems like perhaps there is a lot of Canadian history that you haven't > reckoned with.

Perhaps instead it's simply that I am an adherent to the great Western tradition of the last two thousand years: namely, the sins of the father are not the sins of the son.

I see narratives like this as an attempt to bludgeon Canadians into accepting blame for the actions of others which are deliberately contextualized by "historians" to make them sound as evil as possible.

Great, there were some battles in the past. My ancestors, like everyone else's, fought battles for their existence from the dawn of time. How many subgroups were wiped out in Europe as they vied for dominance? Should I feel bad for them, too? Do you? Should people just be passive, do you think that will work game-theoretically in the long term?

> an honest reckoning with history

All "honest reckonings" that have come out in the last hundred years or so are used to demonize western people; small wonder that people are beginning to question whether it's really honesty, or an attempt to disenfranchise us within the nations we created and brought to greatness.

<comment><USER41> I think that if accepting the truth of what actually happened is viewed by you as being "bludgeon[ed] into accepting blame for the actions of others" is a problem with how you personalize the actions of others in the past that you view as part of your identity group as opposed to an attempt to blame you personally.

If I quote John A Macdonald saying ".. refusing food until the Indians are on the verge of starvation to reduce the expense" and then quote Mackenzie's response that he's not starving them enough - how is that offensive to you personally? It seems like it could only hurt you if you believe that you are on the "team" of the governments of that day - why would you think that? Let's all be on the team of justice and fairness and not take personal offense at the ignorance of the leaders of the past (or the present for that matter)!

<comment> core-questions > a problem with how you personalize the actions of others in the past that > you view as part of your identity group as opposed to an attempt to blame > you personally.

I can accept what happened, from the historical record, while denying that it needs to have massive historical relevance to current events, or that it implies any requirement of action. I can accept what happened without accepting that it is okay for it to be used as a method of attacking my identity group, none of the living population of which have committed such acts.

The fact that the deaths of these people will be brought up for hundreds of years with no path to redemption on the part of my identity group is a problem. What I take from this is that there is to be no "burying the hatchet", so to speak; that my children will also be blamed for this with the same severity that I am, as will my grandchildren, as will people in the year 2300.

It will NEVER stop being a bone of contention as long as it continues to have narrative power to attack my group; it will never stop having this power until it is simply denied its power and shrugged off as the actions of another century.

> If I quote John A Macdonald saying ".. refusing food until the Indians are > on the verge of starvation to reduce the expense" and then quote Mackenzie's > response that he's not starving them enough - how is that offensive to you > personally?

It is offensive to me personally because quotes like this are not part of the mere study of history, but are brought up specifically to be used as a justification to literally behead the statues of the founders of my country. These statues, like all public art and memorials, are supposed to stand as historical artifacts and truths regardless of the actions these people committed. This justification to tear down statues in turn becomes one of the many steps on the road towards overthrowing my country and my culture entirely. One look at what is happening in the USA today is all it should take to make it clear that this is just the means to an end: once every statue is removed it will be on to the museums, and they're already working on the textbooks.

> Let's all be on the team of justice and fairness

As long as the old-stock, historical Canadian nation gets a seat at the table and gets to be represented for what it is, that's fine; I want justice as much as the next person. In fact, I am of the belief that we've got just about the best justice system in the world here, and I only want to see it improve. It is clear to me that for this to work, the improvement needs to come in a form that doesn't demonize White Canadians as genocidal people, or as inheriting the sin of genocide, as though we came across the nation and murdered everyone we saw with impunity. Such a thing could not be further from the truth.

<comment><USER41> > I can accept what happened, from the historical record, while denying that > it needs to have massive historical relevance to current events, or that it > implies any requirement of action.

Apply this logic to me walking up to you on the street and beating you and stealing all your money and two days later saying, "I acknowledge what happened, but I don't think it is relevant to today or implies any requirement of action to remedy."

Likewise apply this logic to me seizing all the property of your parents when you were an infant and then you as an adult approach me about this and I say, "I acknowledge what happened, but I don't think it is relevant to today or implies any requirement of action to remedy."

Likewise apply this logic to me seizing all the property of your grandparents when your father was an child and then you as an adult approach me about this and I say, "I acknowledge what happened, but I don't think it is relevant to today or implies any requirement of action to remedy."

Without worrying about why I might have done those things above when I did them or just how much responsibility I might have for the actions, the various mitigation or explanations, that an injustice occurred and that consideration should be given to righting it seems trivial to acknowledge. Just consideration, it doesn't even cost anything!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


SCL – A Very British Coup - <AUTHOR> http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/03/20/scl-a-very-british-coup/ <comment><USER2> I would say that most Brits I meet are good. But there is a certain kind, usually an Englishman, who is pure selfish evil. I've lived in a few countries where SCL/CA has been active, and its destabilizing propaganda resulted in death and turmoil. I think there are three drivers at play in the formation of these, "the worst kind of Englishmen":

1\. Boarding school syndrome, covered in this article for its role in Brexit. It renders its victims as lacking empathy. [https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/educatio...](https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/boarding- schools-bad-leaders-politicians-bullies-bumblers)

2\. A sort of Affluenza which has infected the British upper and upper middle classes. As the UK has become more and more expensive, the upper middle class lifestyle, involving private schools, a flat in London and a house in the country, have become out of reach, and it has induced a sort of elite desperation. 3\. An English 'exceptionalism'. Many Brits are somewhat parochial, and although they know very little of the outside world, seen through the eyes of empire in a very simplistic way (which many elites do), you can get this type of behavior taking place.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely this. I've lived here 3 years now and I love the British, but the self-defined English, yikes. Narrow-minded, lazy, parochial, backwards- looking. They don't all look to Farage, but they may as well.

The worst thing about these people is the complete lack of self awareness they have of their own country (the UK, not England). They think England is the guiding light in an otherwise dark place, something which the rest of the world admires and aspires to, whereas the reality couldn't be more different in my experience speaking to other foreigners about the UK. The things that I and others admire are things like the BBC, this beacon of objectivity and quality, and bulwark against American dross (changing in the days of streaming, but still), the openness and energy of London, the innovation of British design and art, the energy of the creative scenes here, even the polish and efficiency of the professional and finance sectors. The self- defined English think this is the problem.

I hope brexit is a sluice for these people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The webpage of Mark Turnbull for the SSI at Exeter University appears to have been taken down days after the article (story) was published.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180321124441/https://www.exete...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180321124441/https://www.exeter.ac.uk/strategy/members/markturnbull/)

<comment><USER5> It's not just the webpage.

> The University of Exeter has confirmed that it is no longer associated with > one the directors of scandal-hit Cambridge Analytica.

> It was revealed by DevonLive.com on Wednesday that the company's managing > director Mark Turnbull was an honorary fellow at the Exeter University > Strategy and Security Institute.

> The university confirmed on Thursday that his status has now been revoked.

[https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/exeter- university-...](https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/exeter-university- cuts-ties-man-1372587)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also: [https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/976848641628491778](https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/976848641628491778)

"Suspended Cambridge Analytica Chief Executive Alexander Nix has been recalled to the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee which claims there were "a number of inconsistencies" in evidence he gave to MPs last month"

</comment><comment><USER7> Undercover reporters investigate Cambridge Analytica:

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

The information commissioner is still waiting for her request for a search warrant, made on Monday, to be heard by a high court judge:

[https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/22/cambridge- an...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/22/cambridge-analytica- warrant-high-court-adjourns-hearing-information- commissioner?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Sync_Dev)

Meanwhile, crates with documents have been removed from the building:

[https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/information- commissio...](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/information-commissioner- cambridge-analytica_uk_5ab03488e4b0697dfe19a876)

Doesn't look good.

<comment><AUTHOR> The UK establishment are directly involved in CLS.

Are you sure there will be a genuine investigation? UK Saudi arms inquiry was withheld because it didn't fit UK aims:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/home- office-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/home-office- terrorist-funding-report-saudia-arabia-focus-not-publish-conservatives- government-a7766381.html)

No prosecutions for 2008 banking collapse.

I think it looks pretty good (for CLS).

<comment><USER8> I think that the more the UK state covers for CLS, the worse the blowback could be. Every single country that CLS has been involved in will have an official starting an investigation and dusting off the extradition forms.

<comment><AUTHOR> The ruling party has prominent people on the board / with shares! This is why you and I are not in the UK establishment. We are inhibited by shame and a fear of losing. When we step back they double down. Everything or nothing, no in between. It is their birthright.

<comment><USER8> I don't buy into all of that particular narrative, as it was obviously started by someone playing divide and conquer games.

<comment><AUTHOR> You don't believe a party which is steeped in class division and owns a company that seeds false news are not nice people?

Maybe I should send a couple of girls round, get some pictures? You don't win arguments with the truth!

They are not nice.

<comment><USER8> I think that the entire concept of The Establishment, UK class distinctions and the whole class war movement that accepts the basic premise, amplifies it, then reflects the image back, is one of the most successful long running dīvide et imperā strategies in existence, so why would I ever go along with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't agree with your analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So, if this is all to be believed and we link it with what else is known, elements within the oldest of the Old Guard at the top of UK politics, alongside the Putin oligarchy and some US billionaires who align with the Dark Enlightenment orthodoxy, are deliberately destabilising the US political system, trying to break up the EU, while actively undermining hundreds of other democratic systems around the world.

I really started to wonder what the hell was going on when right wingers started shouting the anti-globalist slogans of the late '90s left wing anarchist movement, as that clearly was an agenda that was unlikely to have organically transferred. A group of billionaires wanting to rule openly over balkanised microstates, in opposition to the globalising efforts of the liberal free marketeer billionaires, was one though that kept coming back to me. And look, here they all are.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm relatively indifferent towards the matter, social media is cancer, but compare and contrast narratives:

[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/harper-reed- oba...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/harper-reed-obama- campaign-microtargeting/)

<comment><USER6> 1) It seems like the Obama campaign was "above board", even giving interviews about what they were doing;

2) CA overstepped their agreement with Facebook, agreed to delete their data, and didn't

3) The CA process specifically harvested data from _friends of_ people who'd signed up, including under false pretences.

4) The Channel 4 interview talking about bribes and entrapment: [https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica- revealed-t...](https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed- trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to- entrap-politicians-investigation)

Edit: 5) It doesn't seem like anyone on the right claimed the Obama campaign was unethical in this way at the time?

<comment><USER10> Not sure it's so different. Here's from an Obama's campaign digital head:

> Facebook was surprised we were able to suck out the whole social graph, but > they didn't stop us once they realized that was what we were doing.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/03/19/why- are...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2018/03/19/why-are-we-only- now-talking-about-facebook-and-elections/)

Whereas team Obama didn't just get friends of friends, they got everyone regardless of their privacy settings or apps in use?

edit: adding original source for the quote instead of forbes:

[https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568130117459975](https://twitter.com/cld276/status/975568130117459975)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A little stopwatch for your Mac's touch bar - <AUTHOR> https://touch-bar-timer.alexzirbel.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I made this for a really minimal version of daily time tracking. The touch bar turned out to be a great place for a stopwatch: tapping is easy, and you can easily check if it's running or not - even in fullscreen mode.

More info in a little blog post: [https://www.alexzirbel.com/touch-bar- timer](https://www.alexzirbel.com/touch-bar-timer)

It's open source, code here: [https://github.com/azirbel/touch-bar- timer](https://github.com/azirbel/touch-bar-timer)

Finally, thanks to Pixel Point for their Mute Me project, which was the starting point for this codebase. [https://muteme.pixelpoint.io/](https://muteme.pixelpoint.io/)</comment>


John McAfee believed to have been detained, campaign manager says - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/john-mcafee-believed-to-have-been-detained/ <comment><AUTHOR> Is there any information where he was trying to go to port? Name if the boat is "The Great Mystery"</comment>


Unicoder.js - <AUTHOR> http://tholman.com/unicoder.js/ <comment><USER2> This relies on limited number of precomposed characters and browser fallbacks to a font containing them. Chrome/Windows cannot display anything except first and second-to-last lines, IE and FF work fine though.

You could instead use combining characters (\u20dd, \u20df) to decorate any unicode char, but the number of fonts supporting this feature is extremely limited. One such font is Cambria on Windows, but spaces should be used to properly center a char inside enclosing mark (<char> \+ space + \u20dd) [1]. I wonder if a font exists which fully supports combining chars and contains metrics for centering them.

[1] [http://jsbin.com/cuxogojivo/2/edit?html,css,output](http://jsbin.com/cuxogojivo/2/edit?html,css,output)</comment>


A Letter I Will Probably Send To The FDA on 23andMe - <AUTHOR> http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/11/26/a-letter-i-will-probably-send-to-the-fda/

<comment><USER2> _" There are several thousand papers about genetics, linking specific genes to everything from eye color to intelligence to chance of developing colon cancer. Some of these papers are no doubt correct, others will no doubt in time be found incorrect. However, I worry you want 23andMe to independently validate each of these results before informing customers about them."_

As they should. If they can't show that the associations they're reporting are valid, what purpose does it serve to report them? That's the whole point. It's not like drug regulation at all, because most of this stuff isn't settled science (and hey, not for nothing...we _do_ test the effectiveness of the antibiotics that get sold at your local pharmacy. A doctor should know that.)

Tell you what: send me your saliva and $80, and I'll write you up a _really nice_ genetic report. It'll tell you all sorts of great stuff, _and_ it'll be $20 cheaper than 23andMe. But don't try to force me to certify that I'm not making everything up -- that would be stifling my innovation! After all, I'm providing a cheap service. Disruption!

For a community that goes absolutely crazy with skepticism about every scientific study (i.e. _" correlation! not cause!"_), there sure seems to be a lot of credulity to go around on this issue.

<comment><USER3> Is your genetic lab certified by the CLIA[1]? 23andme's is and I don't think anybody is arguing that they shouldn't be regulated as a genetics laboratory. It's the FDA's decision to regulate them as a medical device that people think is inappropriate.

[1][http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and- Guidance/Legislation/CLIA...](http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and- Guidance/Legislation/CLIA/index.html?redirect=/clia/)

<comment><USER2> Read the letter from the FDA. That's not what they're doing at all. They're requiring a company that sells a direct-to-consumer medical test to certify the safety and validity of that test. I don't think anyone is concerned that they're cross-contaminating their samples or working in a filthy lab over at 23andMe -- they're concerned that the whole design of the test is broken.

Again, most of this stuff is sketchy science. You can do the microarray experiments in a proper (e.g. "CLIA certified") lab, and still have a useless, dangerously misleading test.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 23andMe has two choices:

1) Stop making health claims about their service 2) Produce the evidence required to substantiate their health claims

The FDA has very high standards when it comes to health claims, see the Warning Letter for Cheerios: [http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/u...](http://www.fda.gov/iceci/enforcementactions/warningletters/ucm162943.htm)

Fiber can help lower cholesterol. Cheerios have fiber, thus why not make the claim that Cheerios can help lower your cholesterol?

The FDA is not big on "extrapolation". If B causes C and your product A causes B, you can't claim it also causes C.

How did General Mills respond? The simply modified their claims:

 _3 grams of soluble fiber daily from whole grain oat foods, like Cheerios and Honey Nut Cheerios, in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease._

<comment><USER5> Processed food vendors get away with some pretty awful stuff, like Vitamin Water claiming their customers couldn't possibly confuse their product with something healthy.

<comment><USER4> The FDA can't be everywhere, but Coca-Cola (makers of Vitamin Water) got a Warning Letter from the FDA back in 2008 over their health claims for diet Coke!

[http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2...](http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/2008/ucm1048050.htm)

<comment><USER5> I missed the part where they took it off the market.

<comment><USER4> They didn't have to, Coca-Cola did a quick 180 and stopped making the health claims.

<comment><USER5> Uh, "Vitamin Water(tm)" isn't a health claim? I was not making it up: Coke argued that nobody would mistake a product called "Vitamin Water," that is, in fact, colored HFCS-water, for something healthy. That's a bit more dubious than selling you a cheap genetic test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Physician here. (Disclosure: I have no financial interest in this or any related company.) (Edited out some 'heated' remarks)

Medicine is NOT, I repeat, NOT 'hard' science. Most of the 'normal' lab values we use when reporting things like elevated white blood cell count, anemia, etc. are based on population studies with the average considered normal and setting extremes as 'abnormal.' You will find that different hospitals even have different values of abnormal. Not to mention, for cutting edge therapies (Oncology, I'm looking at you) there is no 'standard' of care and there is a high variability between physicians. My point is that, I could go on and on about how much the field of Medicine is subject to the vagaries of stuff like regional practice, academic pedigree ("Oh, we at Hopkins always do it this way, but Mass Gen does it that way."), as well as bias like anecdotal evidence (the plural of anecdote is NOT data!) or just plain mis- or dated information. If you are out of med school/training for only a couple years, the amount of new therapies, lab tests, etc. can be staggering and if physicians aren't learning about the new, then they quickly become dated.

So, what am I saying? The FDA is holding 23andMe to an unreasonable standard. If your doctor saw the same test results, they might tell you the exact same correlation (oh, you are predisposed to Alzheimer's or Parkinson's). Tests are incredibly complex... I mean we still don't have a perfect pregnancy test! Again, there is sensitivity, specificity, with false positives and false negatives. If you are unfamiliar with how inaccurate medical tests can be, please read up on some of those items. This is the best we've got for now. If people can order pregnancy and HIV tests over the internet, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to find out they 'might' have a predisposition to high blood pressure. I would argue 23andMe is not doing something so radical... as far as I'm concerned, pregnancy and HIV tests should NOT be over the counter if we are going to limit genetic screens because there is a LOT of work to be done in positives of either.

Unconvinced? Well consider this. Over the counter Tylenol products are responsible for about 500 deaths per year in the US. Do you believe that Tylenol should be prescription only just because a minority of consumers make mistakes? If not, then you must conclude that over the counter sales of 23andMe should be allowed unless the FDA can show it has ACTUALLY harmed people.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23974801/tylenol- warn...](http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_23974801/tylenol-warn-users- potentially-fatal-overdose-risk)

<comment><USER7> You seem to completely miss the point, however - the FDA is asking (telling) 23andMe that they need to provide the documentation of the efficacy of their testing process. Accuracy and margin for errors, and NOT, as you seem to be implying, "forbidding the use of such a service unless accuracy can be guaranteed".

Yes, 23andMe makes claims, and uses phrases like "likely", "most often", and so on. The FDA is asking to be provided the evidence that such statements are accurate, or how accurate they are.

<comment><USER6> Check their webpage:

[https://www.23andme.com/health/all/](https://www.23andme.com/health/all/)

Under each item, there is an extensive explanation including the technical report regarding the exact details of what is being tested with citations.

This is the list of FDA approved 'genetic' tests:

[http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedur...](http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/InVitroDiagnostics/ucm330711.htm)

It's a sad mismatch between practice and regulation. Industry is WAY ahead of regulation. Very common tests performed by Clinical Geneticists are not included in this list. Yes, they will give you the disclaimer, but the data is there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dear Ms. Turnipseed, As you are no doubt aware, you recently assigned young Snidely a grade of "F" for the assigned paper on Richard I due some 6 months ago. I concede that he did not, in fact, produce such a paper and acknowledge that you offered to work with him outside of class on several occasions. But, as you must agree, he has attended class faithfully, has taken copious notes, and has even been in the library on more than one occasion. Clearly, his chosen topic, "Richard I: Lion Heart or Lily Liver," promises a worthwhile exploration of an important subject. I'm sure you will agree that, had he laid pen to paper (or digits to keyboard), he could have produced a more than adequate paper. Accordingly, I insist you assign him full marks forthwith.

Sincerely etc. etc, Snidely, Sr.

</comment><comment><USER9> 23andMe didn't need to make medical statements to get most of the early adopters on board. Lets face it they made a dumb decision to do so.

<comment><USER10> And then they made a dumber decision by stonewalling the FDA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Probably premature since it appears that 23andme ignored the FDA for six months.

</comment><comment><USER12> For the more technical customer of 23andMe, there probably isn't a need to do all of the interpretation themselves. There are tools which will take the raw data and query public databases to build together a similar (and sometimes more up-to-date picture). I don't think the FDA would want to shut down something like SNPedia.

But, there is a lack of quality tools available to query public genomic databases based upon raw data received from services like 23andMe. If anyone is a 23andMe customer, try out Promethease[1]. There is probably room for selling software to DNA service customers, but it probably isn't that big of a market (yet?).

An example, well-designed tool for viewing raw data files is 4Peaks[2].

[1]: [http://snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease](http://snpedia.com/index.php/Promethease)

[2]: [http://nucleobytes.com/index.php/4peaks](http://nucleobytes.com/index.php/4peaks)

<comment><USER13> Having never heard of SNPedia before yesterday and still not being sure of it's correct pronunciation, I have no recourse but to say it as "tinpedia."

<comment><USER14> More likely SNP stands for single nucleotide polymorphism, usually pronounced "snip", so "snipedia" is probably more apt.

Or maybe I'm totally wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Many of my colleagues do not know of the existence of personal genomics, and believe that genetic testing is a once-in-a-blue-moon procedure to be ordered only when there is high clinical suspicion for a rare disease such as cystic fibrosis."

If true, that is quite embarrassing to the medical community.

</comment><comment><USER16> > _However, I worry you want 23andMe to independently validate each of these > results before informing customers about them. Worse still would be a demand > that the company validate the results_ with its specific testing kit _. It > would be cost-prohibitive even for a single company like 23andMe. It would > destroy any possibility of competition; even if one company did it, new > startups would not be able to._

Looks like a case of the FDA doing what it does best--ensuring the task of medical innovation remains with big pharma, and leaving Americans stunned at the results.

<comment><USER17> 23andMe has plenty of money behind it through its investors. 23andMe has been trying to play the game of Big Supp (the "natural supplements" industry, which has billions of dollars of revenue) by trying to imply health claims that it can't back up with evidence. That's nice work if you can get it, but 23andMe doesn't have the same sweeping exemption from regulation that "natural supplement" makers have.

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/new-concerns-about- the-s...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/new-concerns-about-the-safety- and-quality-of-herbal-supplements/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is it just me who thinks this sounds more like an ad for 23andme?

</comment><comment><USER19> Has it occurred to anyone else that 23andMe is possibly playing a PR game here? I find it hard to believe that they and their lawyers thought they could ignore the FDA for months. I never heard of the company before yesterday and now I'm seeing them everywhere.

<comment><USER20> They've been a well known company for several years. I don't think this kind of publicity helps them very much, since they're specifically banned from selling their product at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You're a doctor without a primary care provider? Why/what?

</comment><comment><USER22> What kind of doctor would write such an irresponsible letter? Oh...

 _But the alternative is banning all information that anyone could possibly use to evaluate their own health._

stopped reading there.</comment>


Artificial Intelligence has crushed all human records in 2048 - <AUTHOR> http://www.randalolson.com/2015/04/27/artificial-intelligence-has-crushed-all-human-records-in-2048-heres-how-the-ai-pulled-it-off/40#22498940

<comment><AUTHOR> discussion on stackoverflow:

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22342854/what-is-the- opt...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22342854/what-is-the-optimal- algorithm-for-the-game-2048/22498940#22498940)</comment>


UK announces a 'Google tax' to stop companies diverting profits overseas - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/12/3/7325919/uk-announces-a-google-tax-to-stop-companies-diverting-profits-overseas

<comment><AUTHOR> With these 'protectionist' measures and EU ruling on breaking up Google. Does it signify EU trying to muscle control and power when most of new world power is with US and Asia/China/India.</comment>


The underground world of drone racing in Australia - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2015/06/11/drone-racing-australia/ <comment><USER2> For i do quad races its not underground and you dont need much except spare money to get started. Theres no programming soldering or what not involved if you buy a ready to fly mini quad for 500 usd.

Learning to fly takes a bit of time and there will be broken propellers but i know good racers that learned to fly very well in 2 month, flying on weekends.

Lets not make it sound like this elite, hard, highly skilled, contact us first because you suck kind of stuff. Its not like that. Its fun and no more difficult than video games - except you dont get instant respawn... Most of the time.

We fly up to 16 here.

<comment><USER3> I suspect the 'underground' nature is down to the radio spectrum they can use, vs the spectrum they do use.

      "The technology allows for eight people to be in the air at the one time racing against each other, however the Australian laws limit frequencies we can use only really allowing four people to be in the air at once."

That said, I suspect given the Tx power, I suspect nobody _really_ gives a shit.

<comment><USER4> The commonly used legal spectrum is in the 2.4 ghz. It's probably underground due to them not participating in any sanctioned or officially regulated events.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We do the same thing here. Pretty fun and challenging hobby. Recommend it to anyone who enjoys tinkering with tech. Be aware of the costs, because it's not cheap. A good setup will run a thousand dollars.

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if you need a camera that stabilizes the image or it's not needed or you simply get used to the motion. I said this because on of my projects at University was doing this same thing but for RC cars, and ooh boy!, we can't drive more than 10 minutes without getting dizzy.

<comment><USER4> I've done both and have used a rubber mount for the camera. it absorbs vibration pretty well. Though fatigue does start to kick in at the 10 minute mark. Were you standing up by any chance? Sitting down makes way more comfortable. First time I did it almost puked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any computer controlled autonomous flyers races, yet?

<comment><USER4> yes but it's currently not that fun. it's like watching cars on the highway. it relies on beacons and rf for sensing the track. like watching those sumo robot videos on youtube. fun for a short time

<comment><USER7> Need to add an open class, with firearms and flamethrowers and acid shooters. That would make it fun longer.

<comment><USER8> When I was at school we were supposed to build a robot that put out a candle. Basically an LDR guided squirter.

Mine used an aerosol and a lighter until I got told off. Someone had to relight the candles.

So that idea is right up my street :)

<comment><USER4> those are fun and done inside a maze. which makes super cool. though the candle is stationary. including a moving target is like playing tag as a blind person (wi th the current affordable tech).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why email is broken and what we can do to fix it - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fetchnotes.com/post/27340726341/why-email-is-broken-and-what-we-can-do-to-fix-it

<comment><USER2> Email is not broken.

It does what it does perfectly.

All these calls for to-do functionality, events planning, etc. Nobody needs it except the writers of these articles. Just use other applications for it. We don't need to shake up email just because you want to.

<comment><USER3> The problem with email is that it's no longer a communication tool but a representation of the things you need to do. If it was just about communication, then that's one thing, but that's not what it is anymore. That's why you see so many people email themselves or say "yeah email me to remind me". But when you go down that path it's just an unorganized firehose. If we're stuck with communication tools representing "what we need to do", shouldn't we be building better tools to support that rather than saying "eh it's good enough"?

<comment><USER4> What I don't know that I've ever seen in these kind of "replace email" articles is an investigation of why, if email is so unsuited to this task, it is so widely used this way. It may turn out that the things the author thinks are disadvantages are closely related to advantages of email. For example, the complaint that, with email, anyone can "add something to your to-do list"; sure, that's a problem, but the fact that I can just ask any person I run into to email me a reminder without having to fiddle with my email system to allow them to do that, is actually a big advantage. The challenge for an email replacement, then, would be to allow more control over this without introducing any more friction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd argue that the folder hierarchy that most email clients and organizational processes use is fundamentally flawed as well.

Information doesn't exist in one place and shouldn't be confined to a single folder. Tagging fixes this.

<comment><USER6> Honestly, I'm too lazy to tag thing. The search is the only thing I actually enjoy in gmail.

<comment><USER7> I use a couple of GTD tags like "waiting for" and "someday", then use Gmail's Multiple Inbox to keep them in peripheral view so I remember review them periodically. Otherwise search is the way to go.

Gmail shortcut tip: when looking at a message, type "l" (lowercase "L"), which will popup the labels picker, then type the first letter of the tag you want to apply, then enter to apply it an "y" to archive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Facebook groups, Asana, Fetchnotes, etc are great for cases where you can get a whole team/group/family on one or a couple communication platforms. It's much harder to get your friends to adopt a new tool, like the different pre- iMessage BBM-like services, unless you can convince them they need it for a specific task/project, or the tool has a 'cool' value-add (Voxer-walkie talkie).

</comment><comment><USER9> The candle/light bulb analogy is the wrong analogy. The correct one is the light socket/wall outlet analogy. When electricity was first run into homes, it was all about light. So houses would have screw in bulb sockets installed. As more useful electric devices became available, people screwed adapters into the light sockets to run their devices. What they really needed were wall outlets (the Edison plugs we have in the US today).

Wall outlets didn't kill the need for light sockets, they simply split off certain functionality that wasn't best served by those sockets, because those sockets were never designed for that purpose. Light bulbs killed the candle (except emergency, devotional, and mood lighting) and I don't thing todo, calendar, task management apps will kill email, but simply return it to it original, more limited purpose.

</comment><comment><USER10> Some good points but bad subject line. Email is the one non-broken constant I've used continuously. I started out using email, gopher, archie, usenet. Now, in the addition to "general web use" I'm still using email and, well, not much else. I'm sure there are plenty of people making good use of notetaking and to-do list apps but don't confuse it with the fundamental non-brokenness of email.

</comment><comment><USER11> This again...

</comment><comment><USER12> I would also say TODO lists are broken. Would love to hear your thoughts on that.

<comment><USER13> I love my paper based TODO lists. I kind of have OCD and sometimes I will even write a TODO list for the things I need to do within the next hour. So for the type of user like me, nothing beats the flexibility, accessibility, and usability of a piece of paper. I don't think Fetchnotes should tackle TODO list functionality, I believe its awesome powers lies within long-term note taking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why email is broken: author doesn't know how to organize himself

What we can do to fix it: use author's commercial web site

...great, thanks</comment>


Blogs of startup founders - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought it would be really cool to have a list of all the blogs of people running startups - people who are talking about, and sharing, their experiences. Here are a few I know:

Harj Taggar (Auctomatic): <http://mealticket.wordpress.com/> Kul Taggar (Auctomatic): <http://kulveer.co.uk> Pairwise: <http://blog.pairwise.com> Xobni: <http://xobni.com/blog> Crowdstorm: <http://blog.crowdstorm.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> There's Avi Bryant of dabbleDb.com at <http://smallthought.com/avi/>

And of <http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/> of plentyOfFish.com at <http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> We're a little outside of the tech circle, but an interesting startup none the less. We build workout programs for iPods, and more importantly we have a social net where personal trainers can build workouts for their clients (for iPods) and then sell these workouts.

The blog talks about the company and also teaches personal trainers how to use technology (and our products) to make extra $$. <http://pumpone.wordpress.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> Mine's at <http://www.tonywright.com> (one of three founders for <http://www.rescuetime.com).> My co-founders don't blog, the bastards. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER5> Two great blogs by a brilliant mobile entrepreneur:

Jason Devitt: www.brash.com/ His company: <http://skydeck.com/blog/>

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://blog.richcollins.net/>

<http://quiblz.com/>

</comment><comment><USER7> This has a bunch:

<http://www.startupping.com/venus/entrepreneurs/>

</comment><comment><USER8> Wil Schroter (Go Big Network): <http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Will throw mine out there:

Dharmesh Shah's blog: <http://OnStartups.com>

</comment><comment><USER10> Adam Smith (Xobni) personal blog: <http://blogs.xobni.com/asmith>

</comment><comment><USER11> here is mine as well...for what its worth <http://www.promoterforce.com/blog>

</comment><comment><USER12> mine's <http://www.sergiutruta.com>

</comment><comment><USER13> Most startups these days have blogs, and the better ones seem honest and transparent, and are written by founders. I think this is a good way try and get extra publicity, too -- get picked up by google's blog search and technorati. Take every link you can get!</comment>


Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved: Methane Bubbles - <AUTHOR> http://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/08/bermuda-triangle-mystery-solved/

<comment><USER2> Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved: Proper analysis reveals nothing of statistical significance.

Mine doesn't cling to any shred of mystery or danger, but I suspect it's more accurate.

</comment><comment><USER3> Damn. It's never as exciting as you hope it will be.</comment>


Show HN: Exploring React-like functionality without React - <AUTHOR> https://dosyago-coder-0.github.io/explore-react-without-react/ <comment><AUTHOR> Context: I don't much like the JS frameworks (Vue, React, Angular), even tho I really like JS. I consider there's probably a "better" and more pure (regarding JS, HTML, the web and the browser) way to develop web apps, and for views I tend toward using ES6 template literals rendered on the server, and on the client (as an alternative to excess JS and style encapsulation (through Shadow DOM or otherwise), I use named iframes and forms targeted to those.

But purely as a challenge and out of curiosity I'm trying to see if this approach I tend towards (specifically the ES6 template literals) can do what React does. So I'm trying to follow along with the React Introduction documentation, and implement what I see there in as few lines of pure JS as possible (without using JSX / AST parsing / or otherwise transpiling the language ).

So far I've gotten to part 5 of the React Introduction, the "State and Lifecycle" section, and have implemented the main demos before "state" is added. I've put them all on one page using iframes purely for convenience.

Tested on IE 11 (but failed as ES6 template literals are not supported), and worked on Edge 12, latest Chrome stable and Firefox dev on Windows 10.

Source: [https://github.com/dosyago-coder-0/explore-react-without- rea...](https://github.com/dosyago-coder-0/explore-react-without-react)

If you're not familiar with the React Introduction documentation (specifically it's Demos and Examples) this may not mean very much to you. But if you're interested in how I'm doing it, take a look at the source. I've tried to keep it faithful to the Demos and make as few changes as possible.

I'd like to make it through the rest of the Introduction to React and reflect on this approach and if it's a useful alternative for me. Maybe this should be a Medium post titled "Implementing React without React." I might write one if many people want that.</comment>


Management horror stories: 76% of employees leave toxic bosses - <AUTHOR> https://soapboxhq.com/blog/management-skills/management-horror-stories <comment><USER2> Eek. I can definitely say I've had my fair share of bad managers (both direct and indirect). I can also say that I've left orgs as a result of them too. Great advice though.

Happy Halloween </comment>


Why Designers Need to Write - <AUTHOR> https://antonsten.com/designers-write/ <comment><USER2> Thanks. good reading... although I would argue that other categories need to (learn to) write too. Developers for instance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! And I completely agree. Being a designer, it's what I can relate to though.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Newpass – No more passwords - <AUTHOR> https://www.newpass.io <comment><USER2> What's the likelihood of supporting disposable 6-digit codes _a la_ Google Authenticator or Authy? It would be kind of neat to be able to implement this sort of thing without having to request any contact info at all (sites that require phone numbers are annoying, and there's only one email-based option AFAICT); just provide a QR code and tell the user to scan it with their 2FA app of choice, or (optionally) fall back to requesting a destination for verification codes (i.e. for those who don't have smartphones but do have email addresses or SMS-capable dumphones).

<comment><USER3> Not every language has drop-in support for 2FA, but Python/Django has a pip package: [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-two-factor- auth](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/django-two-factor-auth)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I played with SMS, SMS reply, and MMS. All worked well and as expected (I used a Google-Voice account for testing). Probably one of the easiest out-of-band login solutions I've used. For SMS a "link-or-reply" feature would be nice. Depending on the particular use-case it might be easier for me to press a link in the message versus typing something. Also perhaps eventually an app (swiping notification is enough to complete login)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. The SMS link option is one that's definitely on the roadmap for the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sure someone's emailed about it, but the button says 'comfirm' instead of 'confirm' for (at least) the sms and mms options.

<comment><AUTHOR> My proofreading sucks. Thanks for catching that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can't anyone guess the MMS picture. Out of 5 options there is a probability of choosing the right one.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are in the process of adding more images and expanding the list of options. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Couldn't get an SMS on trying login (India)

<comment><AUTHOR> Where did the process stop? Did you receive a confirmation code? Thanks for the feedback.

<comment><USER7> Still waiting for an SMS.

<comment><USER8> Are you in the the NDNC [1] ?

[1] [http://ndnc.in/](http://ndnc.in/)

<comment><USER7> No. Curiously enough, thats the second time someone asked me that today online ([https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/33glky/coai_spamming...](https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/33glky/coai_spamming_via_sms_for_anti_netneutrality/cqkonne))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No pricing structure?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an early developer preview right now. Pricing will come, but we're looking for feedback on what makes the most sense.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sure, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER10> Since this looks like something people can try out and give feedback on, we added "Show HN" to the title for you. This is the local convention. Will take it out if you prefer.</comment>


internet memorials  - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6700743.stm <comment><USER2> So maybe my startup idea isn't so far off?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=15030>

<comment><AUTHOR> I dont know if I told you this, but my suggestion is to focus on Grief Counseling. That will be a big hit.

Memorials are macabre.

<comment><USER2> I think your suggestion is good. My idea IS a form of grief counseling in that the site will facilitate the act of remembering by friends and families.

<comment><AUTHOR> well, if you like it, at least vote me up - someone regularly trolls my posts to vote me down. I have 1 point right now, up from -6 !

<comment><USER2> I did vote this post up. Which is why you have 2 points on it. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> forget about remembering.

think about - comfort while grieving.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Library of Babel - <AUTHOR> https://urbigenous.net/library/library_of_babel.html <comment><USER2> nearby: [https://urbigenous.net/library/universal_library.html](https://urbigenous.net/library/universal_library.html) which is reminiscent of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois_connection#Syntax_and_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galois_connection#Syntax_and_semantics)</comment>


My Little Optimization: The Compiler Is Magic (2018) - <AUTHOR> http://belkadan.com/blog/2018/03/My-Little-Optimization/ <comment><USER2> If you're looking to do this kind of matching with a large number of strings, you may want to look at Aho-Corasick: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aho–Corasick_algorithm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aho–Corasick_algorithm)

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I missing something, or are there no benchmarks in this?

<comment><USER2> There's a couple of links to Godbolt, which are a technically a bit hand-wavy but usually get the point across well enough.

<comment><USER4> Until I looked at that, I could not figure out what justification existed for the author's claim that "It turns out that simply switching to string_view gave the compiler enough information to automatically turn the code I had way back at the beginning into the switch-on-length variant."</comment></comment></comment>