Beware of Transparent Pixels - <AUTHOR> http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2017/05/09/beware-of-transparent-pixels/ <comment><USER2> Really nice article! Succinctly demonstrates the problem with not using premultiplied alpha.

> As an Artist: Make it Bleed!

> If you're in charge of producing the asset, be defensive and don't trust the > programmers or the engine down the line.

If you are an artist working with programmers that can fix the engine, your absolute first choice should be to ask them to fix the blending so they convert your non-premultiplied images into premultiplied images before rendering them!

Do not start bleeding your mattes manually if you have any say in the matter at all, that doesn't solve the whole problem, and it sets you up for future pain. The only right answer is for the programmers to use premultiplied images. What if someone decides to blur your bled transparent image? It will break. (And there are multiple valid reasons this might happen without your input.)

Even if you have no control over the engine, file a bug report. But in that case, go ahead and bleed your transparent images manually & do whatever you have to, to get your work done.

Eric Haines wrote a more technical piece on this problem that elaborates on the other issues besides halo-ing:

[http://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/gpus-prefer- premultipl...](http://www.realtimerendering.com/blog/gpus-prefer- premultiplication/)

<comment> mark-r I'm not sure I understand your concern. If the software converts all your assets into a premultiplied form, the bleeding you applied won't hurt anything even if it doesn't help. Yes, it's extra work that shouldn't be necessary - but we often find ourselves living in an imperfect world.

I completely agree that premultiplied alpha should be used everywhere. I'd even go a step farther and say that you should use high bit depth linear values too, but that's a topic for another day.

<comment><USER3> A 16bpp linear pre-multiplied format would be awesome. sRGB is a pain to use in practice:

\- Slow to convert to linear colour space (requires a pow).. except \- GPUs use an 8-bit lookup table to convert input sRGB to output linear value. \- This doesn't work for more than 8 bits as the table gets excessively large very quickly.

It's a pity PNG doesn't have flag to mark the image data as being pre- multiplied.

<comment><USER4> That little ditty is also very likely why PNG has zero uptake in visual effects and CGI.

Associated (aka premultiplied) alpha is the _sole_ means to embody both occlusion and emission. Unassociated (aka straight or key) alpha cannot represent these facets.

Consider a candle flame that exists as mostly emission and low to no occlusion. With associated alpha, you can use zero alpha triplets with non- zero emission RGB to represent this real-world scenario. With unassociated alpha? Impossible.

<comment><USER2> > That little ditty is also very likely why PNG has zero uptake in visual > effects and CGI.

The main reason why CG studios can't use PNG is because both renderers and compositors always output pre-mult images. Yes you can choose to un-pre-mult them after rendering, but the native result of a blending operation is always a pre-mult color, regardless of the input sources. Unpremultiplied blending still results in premultiplied colors.

Since everyone knows that un-premultiplying (dividing) is to be avoided at all costs, it means you can't render or comp something and then save the file in PNG.

> Associated (aka premultiplied) alpha is the _sole_ means to embody both > occlusion and emission.

I would suggest avoiding thinking of image colors as emissive. That's a material property, and using RGBA to encode material properties is only something you'd do if you were stuck in a weird fixed-function pipeline with no choice, or if you were really really low on disk space. Otherwise, emission colors go in their own separate emission channel that doesn't have an alpha value.

<comment><USER4> It is emissive.

Feel free to reference the original Porter Duff paper regarding "luminescent pixels" or Alvy Smith's opinion on the matter as relayed by Zap Andersson in the legendary Adobe thread.

[https://forums.adobe.com/thread/369637](https://forums.adobe.com/thread/369637)

Here is a sample of the candle referenced by Zap:

[https://i.imgur.com/bnXyAl1_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&f...](https://i.imgur.com/bnXyAl1_d.jpg?maxwidth=640&shape=thumb&fidelity=high)

Remember that a ray tracing engine uses associated alpha as that is the sole format it can generate. Only associated alpha models emission _and_ occlusion.

Further reading:

[http://lists.openimageio.org/pipermail/oiio-dev- openimageio....](http://lists.openimageio.org/pipermail/oiio-dev- openimageio.org/2011-December/004709.html)

[https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/ocio- dev/ZehKhUFqh...](https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/ocio- dev/ZehKhUFqhjc)

<comment><USER2> > It is emissive.

Yes you're right; I wasn't arguing with you about that. I always feel like calling it additive rather than emissive. But just because you can represent additive colors in premult images doesn't mean you should, and I'd speculate wildly that it occurs less often in production than halo problems. Someone who writes lens flare and rainbow shaders is going to scold me for saying that though...

In the context of the OP's article, and of artists who paint images with transparency in them, worrying about emissive colors isn't really an issue. Artists very rarely paint pre-mult images, they can't work with premult images, generally speaking. No doubt a few people who know what they're doing do it, but I can't personally say I've ever seen an artist painted premult image with emissive colors, nor do I recall ever seeing a software rendered layer with emissive colors either. Is this common now? I've been out of film & games for a few years now.

I'm already familiar with everything you referenced; and I can vouch that it's all very good stuff so thanks for sharing, especially the Adobe thread. I hope others here benefit. It's amusing that an entire industry knows who Chris Cox is because of this thread, right? :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of "Is there a reason Hillary Clinton's logo has hidden notches?" [https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/73601/is-t...](https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/73601/is- there-a-reason-hillary-clintons-logo-has-hidden-notches)

<comment><USER6> ... which reminds me of similar notches from typography at small sizes. Interesting how physical bleeding ink and rendering issues result in similar workarounds.

<comment><USER7> For the curious: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ink_trap)

<comment><USER6> Thanks! I couldn't remember the term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Even with an alpha of 0, a pixel still has some RGB color value associated > with it.

Wish the article was more clear as to _why_ this happens. Let me elucidate: this happens because, per the PNG standard[0], 0-alpha pixels have their color technically _undefined_. This means that image editors can use these values (e.g. XX XX XX 00) for whatever -- generally some way of optimizing, or, more often than not, just garbage. There are ways to get around this by using an actual alpha channel in Photoshop[1], or by using certain flags in imagemagick[2].

[0] [https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/](https://www.w3.org/TR/PNG/)

[1] [https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/png-t...](https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/png- transparent-alpha-0-pixels-undefined-rgb-values)

[2] [http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse- server/viewtopic.php?t=...](http://www.imagemagick.org/discourse- server/viewtopic.php?t=13746)

<comment><USER9> While what you wrote is correct, it's not actually the problem being described in the posted link. The problem in the posted link is just as relevant if the alpha value was "01" for "you pretty much can't see it but it's meaningfully there", and has to do with image filtering artifacts as opposed to purely data representation.

<comment><USER10> Also the problem can occur with any image format; what matters is how it's stored in the texture not on disc.

<comment> mark-r But it's specifically a problem with PNG because the spec explicitly allows encoders to substitute their own RGB values for any transparent pixel. Most other formats are expected to store the values you give them without modification.

<comment><USER10> No, the problem discussed in the article can occur with any image format (that supports alpha) and occurs later in the pipeline so it really doesn't matter how the texture was stored on disc. Or even whether it was stored - this could happen with procedurally generated textures.

<comment> mark-r The article discussed one possible workaround, which was to specify RGB values for the fully transparent pixels in the artwork. If the PNG tool you're using substitutes its own RGB values in those transparent pixels, as allowed by the spec, the workaround doesn't work. That's why PNG in particular is a problem.

If you follow the recommendation at the end to use premultiplied alpha for all computations, this becomes a moot point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is extremely useful to take advantage of (that you can store RGB values in 0-alpha pixels). I've written some pretty simple but powerful shaders for a game I'm working on by utilizing transparent pixels' "extra storage" which allowed for either neat visuals or greatly reduced the number of images required to achieve a certain affect. For instance, I wrote a shader for a characters hair that had source images colorized in pure R, G, and B and then mapped those to a set of three colors defining a "hair color" (e.g. R=dark brown, G=light brown, B=brown). If I didn't have the transparent pixels storing rgb nonzero values, the blending between pixels within the image would jagged and the approach would have been unacceptable for production quality leading to each hair style being exported in each hair color. As a total side note I really enjoyed the markup on the website. Seeing the matrices colored to represent their component color value is really helpful for understanding. Nice job author!

<comment> mark-r Paint Shop Pro had some picture frames that were fully transparent in the middle. As an Easter egg, a couple of those frames had pictures of the staff in those transparent areas and you could use the unerase tool to see them.

<comment><USER12> Aww, just checked my Paint Shop Pro 4.12 (Build Date: Dec 21 1996) and it doesn't yet have these picture frames :/

<comment> mark-r That's because 4.12 didn't have partial transparency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't like this article because it blames the wrong people and buries the _real_ solution, premultiplied alpha, at the bottom. Already there are many comments here that are confused because they didn't even see the premultiplied alpha part of the article.

The issue with the Limbo logo was not that the source image was incorrect. The image was fine. The _blending_ was incorrect because the PS3 XMB has a bug. Not using premultiplied alpha when you are doing texture filtering is a bug.

<comment><USER14> I don't think that's a fair summary of the layout of the article. Once the article reaches the "How to Prevent This Issue" section there's far more space given to using premultiplied alpha than manually bled images, and it's not blaming anyone. It just tells an artist how they could fix it and tells programmers how they could fix it. Nobody is blamed and the "correct" solution isn't buried at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Premultiplied alpha results in less color depth, though. If my alpha is 10%, then my possible RGB values become 0-25. Even if I multiply by 10, I still lose the maximum possible values 251-255, and only values 0, 10, 20, 30... 250, are possible.

The correct solution is to pay close attention to all of the factors... and to be ESPECIALLY aware of pixel scaling. Provide your RGBA textures at the 1:1 pixel scale they will be rendered (or higher!) if at all possible.

<comment><USER2> > Premultiplied alpha results in less color depth, though.

That doesn't matter unless you color-scale the image (like multiply by 2 to make it brighter) before displaying it. Otherwise, the depth is at the correct resolution for display.

And premultiplied alpha should be used for final display, not just for the halo-ing reasons demonstrated here, but for lots of reasons.

Artists should generally be working in un-premultiplied alpha though, and the premultiplication is something that should happen right before an artist image is used. Artists shouldn't work in premultiplied images (and they generally don't) because of the color depth issue, and because it's crazy to paint premultiplied transparency manually.

<comment><USER16> > that doesn't matter unless you color-scale the image (like multiply by 2 to > make it brighter) before displaying it.

It does if you stack several image layers. Let's say I have a particular color tone. Then I use that as background color. And I also stack 10 layers of the same color with alpha 0.05 on top of that. If you use premultiplied colors then this will actually result in a different color.

Due to rounding those colors often tend to be more greyish too. So if draw some vector graphics and have multiple basic shapes with semi-transparent edges (aliasing!) stacked on top of each other you can get some ugly fringes.

<comment><USER2> Yeah true, I suppose there is rounding error. Is this something that has actually happened to you, or are you saying it's a problem in theory? I'd be hard pressed to come up with a real-world use case for 10 of the same color being comped. For this to be a problem, the visible elements being comped would have to be _exactly_ the same color, without any gradient or noise at all...

Even if it did happen, the error is bounded - with 10 layers of the same color, the maximum error in any channel is 5, and the average error is 2.5. It's pretty hard to say it would be wildly and noticeably different to most people even with 8 bit color channels, but I certainly have met some film directors and CG supervisors who were very color sensitive. It would be literally invisible in anything higher than 8 bits.

I'm curious -- why do you say the rounded colors would tend toward gray? Rounding error can happen in both directions, so I would expect rounding errors to cause a uniformly distributed error -- some colors would get slightly more saturated, some less, some of them would shift hue, and some would be unaffected.

You lost me on the edges part & aliasing. Rounding errors will not be visible as fringes, so if you're seeing fringes, you have some other problem... perhaps failure to pre-multiply! ;) Tell me more about stacking shapes and getting fringes. Is this stacking 10 of the same shape in the same place, or at the edge crossings of different shapes? What kind of fringes are you seeing?

Anyway, I've never witnessed a case in 20 years of film & game production where rounding errors caused a visible, detectable problem, but I'd love to know if there real cases where it's an issue!

<comment><USER16> > Is this something that has actually happened to you

In a toy project where I tried to automatically generate SVG shapes and rendering them to a html canvas (which uses 8bit per channel premultiplied alpha). The assembled shapes occasionally overlapped and it did lead to visible color inconsistencies.

It's also a problem when working with PNGs. When you put your PNG pixels into a premultiplied space and pull them out again you actually lost information to rounding, which negates the benefits of a lossless format.

> You lost me on the edges part & aliasing. Rounding errors will not be > visible as fringes, so if you're seeing fringes, you have some other > problem... perhaps failure to pre-multiply! ;)

Well, if you got a solid shape then there's no alpha. But the aliasing at the edges introduces partially transparent pixels. If you then pull out the pixel data and apply it to a different canvas you get mismatched colors.

I only spent a few hours on it, so I don't recall all the details, but my conclusion was that it is inadequate for image manipulation since it is lossy and lacks precision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Using premultiplied alpha avoids this. Jim Blinn's books from the 90s give a very thoughtful treatment of the topic.

<comment><USER18> The Porter and Duff compositing paper is good, too.

One clarification, though: With premultiplied colors, something like (1,1,1,0) is either illegal or a light source. It's not a valid normal color.

<comment><USER4> Entirely false in that it is indeed a completely valid combination. See luminescent pixels in the Porter Duff paper. It represents a pixel that has no occlusion and is emitting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> You also have a similar problem when you render opaque, rectangular images without the clamp edge mode, and the renderer is in tiling mode, so the borders wrap around when your picture is halfway between pixels and become a mix between the top/bottom or left/right colour, corrupting the edges. Easy to fix, but annoying until you get what it is that corrupts your edges.

Also: "The original color can still be retrieved easily: dividing by alpha will reverse the transformation."

C'mon, you can't say that and then make an example with alpha=0. Do you want me to divide by zero? The ability to store values in completely transparent pixels is lost.

<comment> mark-r It would be more accurate to say that the original color can be approximated. The approximation quality goes down as the transparency goes up, until at zero it gets lost entirely.

<comment><USER19> You're right. I didn't want to mention precision because it's a whole other can of worms, but one worth knowing how to deal with. I was looking at it from a mathematician's point of view, using rational numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While reading this article, it struck me that the amount of "useless" data increases as the alpha value approaches 0. For example: in a pixel with rgba values of (1.0, 0.4, 0.5, 0.0), the rgb values are redundant. Is there a color format that would prevent this redundancy? Perhaps by some clever equation that incorporates the alpha values into the rgb values? I don't think Premultiplied alpha would work, because you still need to store the alpha value for compositing later...

<comment><USER2> Would you count compression schemes as valid answers to your question, or are you asking about the raw data not having any redundancy?

There're no channel formats or clever equations I'm aware of that avoids the redundancy part. But your question totally reminds me of Greg Ward's RGBE format, which is a high-dynamic range format stored in 8 bits per channel, with an extra 8 bit exponent channel. [http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~bjw/rgbe.html](http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~bjw/rgbe.html)

RGBE isn't doing exactly what you're asking about, but it's similar in a way. Instead of storing 16 bits per channel separately for each channel, what you really get instead is 16 bits (sort-of) for the brightest channel, and the other 2 channels in 8 bits each - discarding the extra bits. You can't see them because the bright channel will prevent you from seeing anything super dark in another channel, so you can discard the extra color resolution in the darker channels.

If you count compression, then pre-multiplying would help the situation. Anytime the alpha value gets low or goes to 0, the color channels do too, so run length encoding or DCT or whatever else will collapse large transparent areas into all zeroes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Premultiplied alpha is also more "correct" in that it separates how much each pixel covers things behind it (the alpha value) from the amount of light it is reflecting or emitting (the color values). These two values should really be interpolated separately, and that's what premultiplied alpha gives you.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm surprised that John Carmack seems not to use premultiplied alpha and recommends bleeding: [https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1818885715...](https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1818885715012604&id=100006735798590)

</comment><comment><USER23> > pay attention to what color you put inside the transparent pixels

I don't understand this. When I make transparency I don't use any color? I use the Eraser tool or Ctrl-X, not a color with 0 opacity.

<comment><USER9> This is actually a very common problem with 3-D stuff and transparency in textures. This isn't an issue with the colors of the pixels themselves, it's an issue with texture filtering. nVidia has a pretty good explanation as it applies to games and 3d graphics: [https://developer.nvidia.com/content/alpha- blending-pre-or-n...](https://developer.nvidia.com/content/alpha-blending-pre- or-not-pre)

Say you have two adjacent pixels using floating point RGBA values of (0,0,0,0) and (1,1,1,1), and you apply it to a 3-d shape. Because of the rasterization algorithm, you will be sampling weighted averages of the two pixels, either because you're scaling up and need to interpolate, or because you're scaling down and need to average.

The average of (0,0,0,0) (fully transparent) and (1,1,1,1) (opaque white) is (0.5,0.5,0.5,0.5), a half transparent gray. But you'd intuitively expect (1,1,1,0.5), half transparent white. This is the essence of the problem. The fix is to make sure that your transparent pixel was (1,1,1,0) and not (0,0,0,0).

<comment><USER24> Surely the answer if you want this is to weight the final RGB by the transparency. E.g. the final red channel would be (R1xT1 + R2xT2)/(T1+T2)

<comment><USER9> You're mostly right. The industry-wide accepted answer is to multiply the opacity into the colors before interpolating, so the formula would be (R1xT1 + R2xT2)/2 for the average, and then to do later transparency blending as if the opacity term was already multiplied in.

<comment><USER24> Which means that your output pixel cant be both white and low transparency. I guess its a typical graphics 'close enough and better performance' outcome (where mine is marginally more difficult to calculate and needs some more logic to avoid divide by 0)

<comment><USER9> > Which means that your output pixel cant be both white and low transparency.

Did you mean low opacity?

If so, that's not quite right. (0.1,0.1,0.1,0.1) premultiplied is the same color as (1,1,1,0.1) "normal." They're both white and low opacity, just in different representations. You don't actually lose much granularity because the graphics card has to multiply the color channels by the opacity value sooner or later.

Separately, your formula doesn't work for interpolation. It works for averaging, but in order to do texture sampling, you need interpolation, so your formula can't actually be used unless you can adjust it to deal with interpolation gracefully.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the answer - I did not know of this premultiplacation. This makes it effectively the same or very close? Assuming output transparency/alpha is (T1+T2/2), dividing by this gives the difference

I don't quite get your point on interpolation, but I'll look up when I have the chance

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is also relevant for CSS: Some browsers (I think Safari) treat "transparent" as "transparent black" for gradiets, so "linear- gradient(transparent, white)" will result in unexpected grayish parts in the gradient. As a workaround, one needs to use "linear-gradient(rgba(255, 255, 255, 0), white)" instead.

</comment><comment><USER26> Note that SVG 1.1 doesn't have an option for color interpolation to work in premultiplied/associated alpha. SVG 2 is not finalized though, I added an issue some time ago.

[https://github.com/w3c/svgwg/issues/303](https://github.com/w3c/svgwg/issues/303)

It affects gradients, animations and imported+scaled raster images. Maybe other stuff too, I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER27> Used to experience this all the time when making maps with custom textures for older games... Lots of people sure didn't though. Especially source ports that would apply filtering to games that didn't have any in the first place and you'd see blue or purple outlines because their original formats were obviously paletted

</comment><comment><USER28> I thought this would be about web or email tracking.

</comment><comment><USER29> DR;TL: use premultiplied alpha for transparency

</comment><comment><USER30> There is also performance overhead.

</comment><comment><USER31> s/sawn/swan/</comment>


Ask HN: For parents, how do you expose your kids to STEM? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN parents, I'm wondering how you expose STEM topics to your kids?
On my side, I think I picked the interest as my parents frequently took me to Natural Museums when I was 5 and I was super interest to dinosaurs and palentology in general at the time. We also sit together every Sat night to watch a few episodes of palentology programs (probably BBC or something else but there was many years ago). I never studied in that field but nevertheless I think that was one good trick to get kids into STEM and I'll probably do the same for mine.
What's your trick? I really believe that every kid is naturally interested in STEM but needs some guidance. <comment><USER2> I prefer some safe experiments that they can do with minimal help.

Changing the color of red cabbage juice with lemon and changing it back with backing soda. (Bonus points for the bubbles.) (Some teas also change color, but it not so dramatic.)

Magnets, lot of magnets. Make a complete analysis of every wall and object at home to see if it is magnetic, and think what is is made of. (Try also coins. Here in Argentina, some of the 10 cents coins were magnetic and other non magnetic. (Self nitpick: ferromagnetic.))

Some germination experiments. (Bonus point for spotting the difference between corn and beans.)

Watch light at night using a CD as a diffraction lattice to get rainbows. Some light have a continuous spectrum (like the old incandescent lights) and other have very peaky spectrum (like the old red/orange/yellow/green leds, or the neon lamps of different colors). (Modern lamps and white/blue leds are more complicated.)

Did you see the video of the feather and hammer in the Moon? (This in not in the DIY category, but there are a lot of things to talk about.)

</comment><comment><USER3> What kind of Stem topics are you looking for? For natural sciences, documentaries like Our Planet can get kids interested in animals and ecosystems. Birdwatching is also a great start, I recommend guides like Sibley's guide to whatever region of the world you live in.

For plants, I strongly believe that guidebooks like Tree Finder ([https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/tree-finder-may-theilgaard- wa...](https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/tree-finder-may-theilgaard- watts/1100324456)) can be a fun activity. You can turn it into a scavenger hunt or make hikes more enjoyable. There's similar books for insects and flowers as well.

For programming and tech, graphical programming languages like Scratch ([https://scratch.mit.edu/](https://scratch.mit.edu/)) are good introductions. Oftentimes, basic math and physics concepts can be rolled in as they get older and want to create more complex programs.

Engineering has a wide variety of different kits that can be completed, but the best way is to figure out what your kid wants to build and see what you can do to make it happen.

And finally, always be on the lookout for learning opportunities. For example, my parents would let me keep the change at the grocery store if I could calculate it before the cashier returned the money.

</comment><comment><USER4> Visit science centers in your area, watch science shows and documentaries, watch rocket launches together.

We have science nights where kids can ask how something works and then we white board explaining how it works. Or we just pick a topic and white board it.

Lego mindstorms, check out Lego First Robotics League, if you can't find a team to join you can create your own team. They have a few options for different age groups.

Do science kits, chemistry and electricity.

Do your own experiments like rubbing a balloon then holding it by a stream of water in the sink. There are thousands of cool experiments and projects out there.

Kids are naturally interested in this stuff.

When they are a little older arduino projects are good fun for the kids and adults.

</comment><comment><USER5> My four year old daughter loves books. I have been buying her books since she was born about math and science and engineering. [1] There are a lot of good children's books now [2] that she enjoys hearing the story and they are just on the shelf with the other books. Someday it's all princess books others it's animal books. Recently I've found my How Things Work book and I've been reading a page or two of that in between the stories when she wants to read the whole Mickey and Friends anthology. Another great resource has been my wife got us a RaddishKids [3] subscription for Christmas and we've really enjoyed making the recipes and they are very kid friendly and highly recommended. We've found quite a few new favorite recipes that we keep going back to. I'm not an expert seeing as my Datapoints == 1, but I personally feel even an exposure to great many things helps breed interest in things. If you don't know something exists how can you think about it? My ultimate goal is to help her become a self sufficient human not necessarily an Engineer or Scientist or Programmer. She has helped me change light switches and fix stripped screws for door hinges, she helps cook dinner when we're not in a rush and sits on my wife's lap when she's using the sewing machine.

[1] Baby loves science books by Ruth Spiro [2] Books by Andrea Beaty, Ada Twist scientist etc, Grace Hopper:Queen of computer Code that I bought from Adafruit, How things work and sorry I don't have the authors name right on hand but he has some other great books on architecture 'built to last' I think was one that are beautifully illustrated and fun. [3] [https://www.raddishkids.com](https://www.raddishkids.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> Besides the other great advice here, I always try to make my kids question their reality and develop some critical thinking. I will sometimes say things that don't sense, give answers that are obviously wrong, etc., in order to check if they are really thinking about what I'm saying. My oldest got pretty good at catching these things, so now I'm going to more subtle things, and he is also started catching things that don't come from me: he recently found a plot hole in one of his books.

Also, video games are really good at making them interested in numbers, calculations, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> As far as commercial products go, we've had luck with home chemistry kits. Also, optics (projectors with little slides, binoculars, magnifying glasses). And home insect kits (caterpillars to butterflies, keeping ladybirds and feeding them aphids) went down extremely well.

Otherwise, I just take my chances when I can. When there's some interest in some random thing, I just try and run with it and encourage further scrutiny.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why STEM? Just chill out, it never takes much intuition to figure out what someone else's talents are.

Everyone will show you their innate talent. Don't be that shitty parent that has an idea of what that talent should be.

What you meant to say was, 'everyone has a natural interest in _something_ ', roll with that.</comment>


And that, kids, is why we call it a "Patch" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/Codealike/status/819990490774904833 <comment><USER2> My favorite is "log", named after logbooks. Logbooks have maritime origins, where the ships speed is recorded. Even today, speedometer on ships are in many languages called "a log" since the original method consists of throwing an actual log overboard with a string attached to it. The string would have knots with regular intervals. To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a certain time.

<comment><USER3> > To determine the speed, you count how many knots pass through your hand in a > certain time.

But how did they count "a certain time"? (Before stopwatches).

<comment><USER4> The origins of precise clocks is because ships needed to calculate how far they had travelled in terms of longitude (eastwast/westward. How far you've travel north/south is easy to calculate by how high the sun goes).

The British crown established an award for whoever could come up with a precise clock of this reason, it's a fascinating story, I recommend the book "Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time" by Dava Sobel.

<comment><USER5> Also if you're interested in inventors from the late 17th Century, I highly recommend: "The Man Who Knew Too Much: The inventive life of Robert Hooke"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is why the DEL key is all ones. It was used to overpunch the wrong letter on a paper tape and replace it with a character that meant ignore (delete) it.

As done on an ASR-33 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33)

<comment><USER7> I'm sorry, "all ones"?

<comment><USER8> The ASCII code for DEL is 127, which is 1111111 in binary.

<comment><USER7> Ah, of course. :) Thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Things like this are great to remind ourselves of some of the rationale for the ways things are.

When I worked at a company which used a lot of Fortran, I kept a punch card at my desk. Among other things this made it easier to explain to new people why there was a column limit for code.

Eventually an HR person came around and told me to remove the card because the top management was coming to visit soon. Among other things this made it easier to understand the role of HR in a large company.

<comment><USER10> > _Eventually an HR person came around and told me to remove the card because > the top management was coming to visit soon. Among other things this made it > easier to understand the role of HR in a large company._

What on earth?

<comment><USER11> Yeah I am with you here. Why would you not want management to know you have an educational punch card?

<comment><USER12> Maybe just to make the desks look clean? But yeah, HR... everyone's favourite department, it seems.

<comment><USER13> HR's function at a large company is to defend the company against you.

<comment><USER14> Oooooh and also, if you're not paying for the product, you -are- the product.

Leave these glib platitudes at Reddit.

<comment><USER15> Actually, it's a testable hypothesis. This is the inverse of what you believe, I presume?

It seems trivial to find a counter example to your claim...

It seems difficult to support even the weaker claim, that there exists an HR department at a large company that defends your interests against that company.

I wonder why you seem so convinced of your position?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> My favorite is "monkey-patch," which came from engineers incorrectly reproducing an earlier term, "guerilla patch", as "gorilla patch": [https://web.archive.org/web/20120730014107/http://wiki.zope....](https://web.archive.org/web/20120730014107/http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/MonkeyPatch).

</comment><comment><USER17> There were patches to machines, cables, memory modules, dresses, etc etc before punch cards. They are all better metaphors than that picture because they offer functionality and aren't just binarily subtractive like the picture.

<comment><USER18> First punch card control system was made in 1725, so it's not exactly a new technology.

Source: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> <sigh> no it isn't. The word 'patch' was used to mean 'a small fix' hundreds of years before computers were even invented. e.g. patching a hole in a sweater.

<comment><USER20> Is there an old use of the word patch that doesn't directly relate to physical holes (eg., would someone call fixing a tear a "patch"?). If no, then the line of reasoning still makes sense, because without punch cards there would be no physical holes to patch.

<comment><USER21> I would wonder what term has been used historically for "a small fix to a large conceptual design after flaws have been pointed out." In the modern day, that's almost always "a patch": mathematical theorems get patches, architectural plans get patches, etc. When did this usage start, and what came before it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That's amusing, but the linguistics sounds wrong to me. The "patch" tool was written by Larry Wall (of Perl fame) in the early 80's based on the preexisting diff format. Neither had much ancestry in common with paper tape storage, which was never really a Unix thing.

<comment><USER23> You think Larry Wall chose the name with no reference to existing terminology?

<comment><USER22> I'm saying there's no evidence that this terminology has anything to do with paper tape

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What about "Monkey Patch"?

</comment><comment><USER25> That's wonderful!

</comment><comment><USER26> bugs also used to be real _bugs_

<comment><USER27> For those interested Grace Hopper helped popularize this term

        In 1946, when Hopper was released from active duty,
        she joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation
        Laboratory where she continued her work on the Mark II
        and Mark III. Operators traced an error in the Mark II
        to a moth trapped in a relay, coining the term bug.
        This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log
        book. Stemming from the first bug, today we call
        errors or glitches in a program a bug.

Reference (wikipedia) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug)

Reference (which wikipedia cites) [http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Hopper.Danis.html](http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Hopper.Danis.html)

<comment><USER28> Grace Hopper (grasshopper) popularizing bugs... Can't make this stuff up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's a photo of the first computer "bug" from 1947:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13404211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13404211)

<comment><USER6> Incorrect. It was the first case of a software bug being an actual bug. In other words - a true pun. The first computer bug was found in 1843 by Ada Lovelace. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug#History) Thomas Edison used the term bug to indicate a flaw in 1873 [http://theinstitute.ieee.org/tech-history/technology- history...](http://theinstitute.ieee.org/tech-history/technology-history/did- you-know-edison-coined-the-term-bug)

<comment><USER29> Punch card's date back to 1725 so the term may relate to literal bugs. Though, not in what we think of as computers.

<comment><USER30> Language nit-pick: in English, we just use "s" to make words plural, no apostrophe is needed. The correct way to make "card" plural is "cards."

<comment><USER31> Like oxen, geese or sheep?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Still Here, Part 1: A Memoir - <AUTHOR> http://randi.io/wp/archives/86 <comment><USER2> I have a seething hatred for weev, his clique and anyone who behaves similarly. I hope to think they're a small minority of people but it's amazing how many women they've tried to turn off tech with their idiocy, their defamation, their death threats and their abuse.

When I see what happens to women in tech and a lot of the abuse they have to withstand, I admire those that can stand the trolls. I don't think I would be this resilient faced with this abuse.

I wish we could be in a world where everybody would be accepted in the tech community regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. I hoped before that due to the relatively higher education level of tech workers, people would be more tolerant but it seems that's not the case.

PS: Now, in the case of weev and his AT & T conviction, I of course support reversing it and support the work that EFF is doing defending him but that's despite weev. It's because, in this particular issue, he's innocent. That doesn't stop him from being an horrible person.

<comment><USER3> I wonder though, has he actually turned a statistically significant number of people off?

Suppose field X had a crazy person so dedicated that he shot a US president in order to send a message to a woman working there (far more than Weev has done). Suppose that pervert letters to women in field X were completely expected and commonplace, and had been for many years. Would women flee from X?

Surprisingly, acting has no shortage of women. Pervs sending creepy letters is a topic of humor: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0)

Journalism has similar issues. Still plenty of women. Seems like there must be something else at play.

[edit: replaced the word "anyone" with "a statistically significant number". This better expresses what I meant to say.]

<comment><USER4> That's survivor bias [0]. The point isn't whether there's still at least one woman in the field, or whether there's "plenty of women" (what does that even mean, anyway?). The point is whether anyone was _stopped from entering the field at all_.

The ones who are still in the field are the ones most resilient to the abuse. But you miss out on the contributions of all the people who left and did something else. How much farther along might we be in software engineering, or sculpture, or architecture, or <insert your favorite field here> \-- had the toxic environment not been present in the first place?

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

<comment><USER3> _" plenty of women" (what does that even mean, anyway?)._

Not really sure - I don't personally view a lack of $GROUP as a problem. If you feel similarly then disregard my entire post - it's premised on the idea that the reader does view a lack of women as a problem.

There are two claims here. One is that bad behavior exists. The other is that this bad behavior plays a significant causal role in keeping women out of tech.

The latter is what I'm questioning. Since large number of women seem to want to enter acting in spite of it having a far worse reputation (never heard of a "casting couch" in tech), it seems that bad behavior alone is a poor explanation for the lack of women.

<comment><USER5> Basically, you want a formal proof that "bad behavior plays a significant causal role in keeping women out of tech" is a valid hypothesis?

While scientifically interesting, I don't see the utillity for that, honestly. Do we really not agree that this has to stop? Does it really matter how many people harassment would keep out of the business? While skepticism has its place, harassment is not a technical, but a social problem, and I, for one, can bring up enough empathy to not need the scientific method to want to stop harassment.

As to the casting couch, I don't know how it's where you live, but here in Europe, while everyone in the acting and music community is familiar with the term, the "casting couch" exists merely as a myth, not an actual thing preventing women to begin working in acting. Besides, the acting/music community is _far_ beyond the 1/10 (or whatever) gender split in the tech community, so even if someone would try to establish the casting couch as a de-facto gate-keeping procedure, female members of the in-group would call it out, ending this phenomenon much sooner than would be possible if the gender gap in those communities were to be as it is now in tech.

Even then, you wouldn't bring up statiscics how many women were entering the acting field by "passing" the "casting couch". So I'm confused and would like to know what your point really is.

<comment><USER3> No, I'd like to see evidence of some sort that the effect is significant before concluding it plays a significant role in keeping women out of tech.

If you want to tackle the problem of crazy people trolling public figures, be my guest. I don't see any reasonable steps that we could take that wouldn't be oppressive, but maybe you have more imagination than me. Just don't be surprised if you solve this problem but tech remains 25% women.

<comment><USER5> We're not discussing "crazy people trolling public figures" here. No one wants to do anything about your favourite sunday newspaper cartoonist and his daily Obama caricatures. We're not talking about your neighbour kid playing phone pranks on you.

What we're talking about here are death threats, sexual harassment, and calling your boss to get you fired. Deliberate, organized hate. Effective and planned activities to harm an individual who doesn't represent the in-group you're happening to be in.

I couldn't care less how the gender distribution remains after we've solved THAT issue. This is a showstopper bug that has to be solved BEFORE we even begin to debug the gender gap.

Anything else would be ridiculous: "Yeah, we're trying to find ways to get more women in tech, but since we don't have any scientific evidence to back up that the harassment, hate and verbal abuse against women in tech is a root cause of too few women in tech, we're still investigating and solving other possible causes"

If you were a woman (I suppose you aren't), would you want to work in an environment that is obviously this toxic?

<comment><USER3> _If you were a woman (I suppose you aren 't), would you want to work in an environment that is obviously this toxic?_

I don't think tech is "toxic".

I've put as much of my money where my mouth is as my plumbing allows. I recently (read: past few months) did everything I could to help a girl I care about get into tech. I think she'll be happier in the field than in her various alternatives.

<comment><USER5> Well, that's because I assume you're a decent human being, and that's great - and I try to do the same (while not having experiences specifically with girls, I try to support women in tech where I can)

We both are fortunate to not see a problem in our specific peer groups, but strangely seem to disagree that the problem still exists for some other peer groups, and that we should do anything possible to stop that toxicity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I will say this, from the perspective of someone who has been around online communities for approaching 20 years and moderating in various online mediums for 10+ years - women get harassed online far too much in most communities. The extent some of the harassment goes is mind boggling.

One of my good friends had a beastiality erotica written about her as part of a campaign to defame her, where the people involved went as far as taking the ip addresses of the moderators and redirecting them to a harmless image whenever they attempted to load the actual image. The primary reason is because a group of people didn't like how she acted, including dating the founder for a short while of the site the community was based on.

Another member of the community was naively coaxed into sending someone else some pictures of her naked, which was then gathered up and used to slut shame her - she was not even 18, which made it distribution of child pornography.

I have had to ban countless harassers who would go on a public TF2 server I run and immediately try to harass the women who had the gall to use a microphone - I take a zero tolerance attitude towards this behavior, harassment of any kind is unacceptable. Whatever positive contributions some of these people might have, it certainly isn't worth accepting that sort of behavior as the norm, driving away good people who did nothing wrong.

<comment><USER7> Your individual actions are laudable. Is responsible moderation the only way to create welcoming communities, or are there ways to scale that?

<comment><USER6> I'm of the opinion that it always starts at the top - even silence can be the wrong action, especially with behavior that normally gets decried as unacceptable at large.

Moderators have such large power to influence the directions communities go - in a way, moderators are like unofficial judges. Bad decision making ruins everyone's quality of life who participates. This is in large part what makes places like 4chan and Reddit not great in my eyes. Some of the moderation policies here on HN are also highly suspect as well, and it is reflected in some of the comments you see here and in some other posts.

Communities have often proven bad stalwarts of proper decorum and respectfulness - you can see it quite often in forums or boards of various types and various subjects. 4chan, Reddit, HN, sports forums, video game forums, etc. More community run forums tend to devolve into chaos, where many otherwise good people who would normally stand up to abusive behavior end up leaving since they get drowned in a sea of mob rule. The only way I have been able to see this situation get stopped is by strong moderation, since they have special authority to make or break situations. However, moderation also has to be mindful of the community as well - some actions, even if right, can drive away people. Communities can mold around how a moderator behaves, so one has to be careful not to be too strong armed.

It's a delicate tightrope one has to walk as a moderator, and one managing moderators.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm tired of the fact that this debate has deteriorated into sides lead by extremists.

On the one side there is the gamergate crowd, who despite their constant denial are fundamentally sexist and misogynistic in pretty much every second sentence they utter. And the existence of these pricks serves as a cover for the ubiquitous but much more subtle sexism in the tech industry. Which in turn is being denied by the people smack dead in the middle of it (this thread to will see a lot that kind of denial).

On the other side however are the consummate activist, the ones the bigots refer to as "Social Justice Warriors" who see sexism in everything, stifle any debate with finger pointing, bullying and witch hunts (as recently demonstrated with "shirtgate"). These people are no better than the pricks they claim to be fighting. They don't just fight sexism and inequality, they want to bury anything they are uncomfortable with, including basic human desires and freedom of any kind of non-politically correct form of expression.

And from the tactics used and the collateral damage caused, I find it increasingly difficult to tell the two sides apart except for the the symbolism and rhetoric.

<comment><USER9> Here's a hint. One side is threatening "the greatest school shooting in American history"

<comment><USER10> By one side you mean one person who affiliates with that chosen side, trying to say that all the SJW's or GamerGate people support murdering children is ridiculous.

<comment><USER11> It was actually woman and feminists specifically they were vowing to kill, not schoolchildren. It's "School" as in "college".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I stopped hanging around on IRC because of people always being weird to women, it's just depressing to watch. Maybe I should have stayed and made a stand...

<comment><USER13> I rarely see people being weird to women on IRC, but I guess it's as IRL: there are good places and bad places.

<comment><USER14> It may depend a lot on the IRC network and channel. IRC these days seems to be confined to open-source software discussion, so the communities are more helpful.

<comment><USER12> This was on freenode, on the channel for a development tool. I'm not going to name names because the people involved weren't actually members of the project IIRC, just regulars on the channel.

It wasn't nasty or anything, just... weird. It gave me an overpowering urge to uninstall irssi and go outside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is a good post, I want to make that clear because that's about all I'll say about the rest of it beyond the second part being marred by a flaw that deeply bugged me:

Idle speculation about 4chan causing the Pilchuck shooting was uncalled for, and as somebody who lives fairly close to the events very insensitive. It's one thing to talk about Elliot Rogers where it was made very clear that his motivations were pertinent, but turning whatever shooting tragedy into a political billiard ball is one of those things that we should stop doing because it's not improving discourse.

</comment><comment><USER16> > _When a woman publicly tells her story and a man tells her that her > experiences are invalid_

That's what happened with Zoe Quinn, except gender reversed. Her ex told the story of how she abused him, and it got censored and slammed everywhere.

Edit: I'm a bit freaked out by the downvotes. What's wrong with my comment?

<comment><USER17> I have not downvoted you, but the zoe post wasn't slammed because its author's experiences were considered invalid but because it is a textbook example of slut-shaming. And now you are saying that the target of this was an abuser.

And it's a stretch to say thezoepost was censored. It's still available at its original location.

<comment><USER18> > a textbook example of slut-shaming

Accusing someone of cheating on you is slut-shaming?

<comment><USER17> That's a very generous description of the zoe post.

If Eron wanted to only accuse Zoe of cheating on him, he could have done that and left it there.

<comment><USER18> He accused her of being a shitty human being - lying, cheating, denying the above, deceiving the author to have unprotected sex with him (should she be locked up in an embassy?), having double standards/no principles... Still, I can see no slut shaming in the text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As an outsider reading this, I feel like there is a missing side of the story. Did those people really do all those things for no reason? What prompted them to harass her? Edit: I'm not saying there are ever circumstances where what they did is warranted. The story just seems to be so one dimensionally against her, couldn't help but feel something was missing.

<comment><USER20> Careful, that question is forbidden. You will probably be accused of "victim shaming" in a minute.

Sadly most people seem not interested in the psychological or sociological motivation of those abusers. There is always something that triggers abuse (no, I am _not_ saying that it must be something the victim did). I wish we would investigate into that and help people stay clear of the psychopaths that way.

<comment><USER11> Kathy Sierra suggests that the fact that she was listened to by many people was what triggered the hatred for her:

[http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid- point/](http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point/)

 _" I now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility is the point at which others are seen to be listening, "following", "liking", "favoriting", retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have (in the troll's mind) "drunk the Koolaid". Apparently, that just can't be allowed."_

Read the whole thing, it's heartbreaking and eyeopening. It also involves some of the same people that attacked the author of the current post.

So whatever these two woman did to "incite" this harassment was shared by at least two kinda-succesful woman in tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's very hard not to sympathize with this as most of our generation who went to tech are "misfits". As a minoroty that's even harder.

I don't understand why randy would focus on making tools for blocking people on Twitter though - writing about it is more effective and less 'ragey'.

It would also be nice if she adds how to help.

<comment><USER22> I told myself that I wouldn't comment on any of this, but goddamnit. MY NAME IS RANDI. IT IS LITERALLY PART OF THE URL.

<comment><USER21> Sorry :) An honest DYAC mistake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> To maybe save some from reading through this rambling who like to stay away from the topic: It does not seem to be about women in tech generally but seems to boil down to the work of a few socio-/psychopaths caught in a feedback loop.

<comment><USER23> You sound like you're probably part of the problem.

<comment><USER24> Please don't do that; a hit and run labeling does nothing to improve the situation.

If you think the grandparent poster is part of the problem, at least explain your reasoning. Without that, there's no chance of them correcting their behavior or, at the very least, seeing things from a new perspective.

Not saying I do or do not agree with your assessment; just hoping for more constructive discourse and positive criticism on HN going forward.

<comment><USER25> The world does not owe misogynists infinite amounts of patient one-on-one education. Expensive labor. The linked article is more than sufficient. Public, contemptuous dismissal is the correct response.

(Or how much money are you willing to pay to fund this education you expect others to provide?)

<comment><USER20> Are you calling me a misogynist? How on earth did you get to that incredible insult from my initial post?

This kind of abrasive behaviour is exactly why discussing these issues seems impossible. This is why people like me get sick and tired of it. Please educate! Please give me objective education, I crave it!

<comment><USER17> Your post seeks to minimise the issue (it's not about tech in general/just a few bad apples) something which is directly addressed in Part II of the original post: [http://randi.io/wp/archives/91](http://randi.io/wp/archives/91)

I think the reasoning basically goes that trying to minimise the problem of misogyny is a symptom of misogyny.

<comment><USER20> I am sorry but I do not see that directly addressed at all. I have now read it 3 times. There are selected examples, personal experiences, the Gamergate shitstorm which is beyond the point of sanity by a long shot and a lot of rambling. And that lead to my conclusion of being not something one has to read if one is interested in making the situation for women in tech better.

<comment><USER17> This is the part I meant:

> What's even more troubling than the abuse, however, is that so many people > are oblivious to these issues. Even after Kathy was brave enough to post her > personal story, people think she's a statistical abnormality. Since I've > started talking more openly about my experiences, a staggering number of men > that I know and respect have spoken to me privately, apologizing because > they didn't know this was happening. I've related those conversations to > other women, and they were shocked. They didn't understand how men could not > see these problems, but it's because so many of us are being so goddamn > quiet.

But on re-read, I accept that it was too strong of me to say 'directly'.

Anyway, the "it's only a few bad apples" response is common enough to have been addressed many times by essays on sexism in tech. It's akin to the "not all men" narrative.

<comment><USER20> Thanks! Still reads as mostly anecdotes to me. I know enough women who are not subject to such abuse to know that it is a tiny minority that is. Or maybe they are not parts of communities where this is more normal? (Obligatory disclaimer: Not victim blaming for being in certain communities.)

I wish oblivious (apparently) responses like mine would actually get valid feedback/criticism instead of being swept under the rug on an instant. I have learned nothing today except to never ever participate in a discussion of these issues. Instead I felt a lot of anger and hatred against the

I really wish people would concentrate on finding out what motivates people to harass and abuse instead of directing their anger at those who question their methodics and tactics.

<comment><USER22> >I know enough women who are not subject to such abuse to know that it is a tiny minority that is.

Are these women really not subject to abuse? Is it possible that they just haven't felt like they could talk about it? Could it be that they don't realize that some of the things they've experienced constitute as abnormal behavior? It took me a long time to figure that one out. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that others would have the same problem.

<comment><USER20> It could very well be but I am very close to some of them and am confident that they are neither oblivious nor feeling like they have to hide anything. They are well respected in their respective communities.

<comment><USER26> Your anecdotes do not support your stated conclusion that "it is a tiny minority"; at best, even if your data is actually accurate, you've gathered evidence to support the conclusion that there exist people who have not been harassed or abused. Likewise, there is more than enough evidence to support the conclusion that there exist people who have been, and more than enough evidence to infer that those aren't just "isolated incidents" ([http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Isolated_incident](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Isolated_incident)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You had been target of completely sexist discrimination and many of the perpetrators should be on Jail, but Annita Sarkeesian and a few like her are a completely different subject: [http://youtu.be/WuRSaLZidWI](http://youtu.be/WuRSaLZidWI)

We always look for people with the same motivations and the same struggle than us so I blame no one who relates to her.

<comment><USER14> Anita Sarkeesian isn't a completely different. She is a woman in tech (more specifically, video games) who is harassed for speaking out about sexism in video games. Perhaps some of her essays have inaccuracies, but none of this justifies the horrible abuse she gets on a constant basis.

Also, Thunderf00t's videos on her seem to focus on single details as if her entire argument would fall down, when it wouldn't, and by repeating something enough times until it seems to be true. I'm hardly the best person to talk about these, though.

<comment><USER28> Totally agree. Personally I think Anita provides quite a fresh look at the portrayal of women in video games and other pop culture, and it's interesting to hear her perspective even if one disagrees with it.

It just seems thoroughly unhinged to mount a campaign of sexual harassment and death threats in response, rather than countering with a reasoned line of argument, or simply just shrugging it off.

<comment><USER29> I haven't found Anita's videos particularly compelling as unique analysis, but that's become an utterly tertiary issue to the completely insane crap which has happened to her, and started happening, at the mere _idea_ that she would make them.

<comment><USER27> No, you don't understand, the crap that has "happened to her" is how she is making a living out of it, unlike the poster of this article and anyone actually suffering from it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


[Ask HN] Do you think this code will *really* work? - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/kheqUuct

<comment><USER2> You're still allowing all tags that can load flash, applets, custom plugins for media playback.

<comment><AUTHOR> oh sure! I totally miss that, I will clean it for iframes, objects, applets and videos. Thanks</comment></comment>


The Aphex Face (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bastwood.com/?page_id=10

<comment><USER2> Doing this stuff yourself is a lot of fun. I used SpecLab and Coagula when I messed around with this previously, though there may be better stuff out there now:

[http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html](http://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html)

[https://www.abc.se/~re/Coagula/Coagula.html](https://www.abc.se/~re/Coagula/Coagula.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've actually begun storing all my private information this way and traveling with them recorded to minidiscs.

<comment><USER4> Porn must be weird for you.

<comment><USER5> But possibly fun to dance to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My brother and I occasionally send each other little computer-based puzzles back and forth, mostly for fun or to show off some new steganographic technique we've thought of. I felt pretty proud when it took him more than a couple days to find the hash in the audio file's spectrogram.

</comment><comment><USER7> Okay so you encode the brightness of pixels as the amplitude of the complex FFT results. What do you do with the phase?

<comment><USER8> It's a log power spectrum (or log abs spectrum) that is being displayed, so you can get away with only adding the pixel values to the real part. There are probably cleaner ways to do it soundwise to avoid high frequency noise, but it would get the job done.

I think it would be interesting to embed these types of things as the difference _between_ left and right channels (or channels of 5.1 surround), so that it could only be seen by subtracting the two channels then doing the log power spectrum. Lots of fun!

<comment><USER9> Showing (L-R) of the Fourier magnitude is actually one of the settings I like to use when showing music in baudline[1]. I use it to see how some songs utilize the audio spectrum and stereo effects a lot easier to see when showing the difference between the channels instead of the usual side-by-side.

I wonder what it would look like to encode the phase as a hue rotation (HSV). Probably a mess of colors in most cases, I would guess.

[1] [http://www.baudline.com/manual/channel_mapping.html#channel_...](http://www.baudline.com/manual/channel_mapping.html#channel_mapping)

<comment><USER10> Hmm.. never seen it done that way. The typical way[1] is to view the difference of phase rather than frequency.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goniometer_%28audio%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goniometer_%28audio%29)

<comment><USER9> It was just an idea - the only advantage might be that you could easily see the whole frequency spectrum at the same time instead of having to infer it from the lissajous pattern. It probably isn't that useful most of the time. Baudline can show you magnitude with phase as different colors (or real+imaginary), but that can blur together sometimes.

A goniometer is super-useful during synthesis. The recent(-ish) versions of sunvox[1] lets you put a goniometer on any module in the synthesis chain; I love being able to see stuff like the phase of a delay effect.

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dRTLqabGmo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dRTLqabGmo)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> _-__--- I was wondering how long it would take to see this posted again after the quake-on-a-scope thing. Not too long, I guess!</comment>


Does The Linux Community Need Corruption? - <AUTHOR> http://linux.blognotions.com/2011/09/21/does-the-linux-community-need-corruption/ <comment><USER2> Oddly, this very article is an example of the transparency of the Linux community: reporting on the community's own ties to corruption. Ironical.</comment>


How To Recover Your Google Account - <AUTHOR> http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Recover_Your_Google_Account

<comment><USER2> In my case, I got my account back after 7 days. Here's the wonderful email I received:

"Our system detected suspicious activity occurring with your account, and disabled it to ensure that the account user was the same person as the account owner (you)."

I'm sorry, but you don't shut off someones account for 7 days just because someone else _tried_ unsuccessfully to get into it. My password is strong enough to thwart some idiot trying random passwords thankyou. Luckily in my case I was able to hassle Adwords support. I'm not convinced I would have got it back at all if I hadn't been able to contact them and get some progress.

It's a good thing though - I now have a very nice email server setup (Thanks slicehost for the awesome articles).

And I've downloaded all 4 years worth of email from gmail.</comment>


Ask HN: Did anyone else get spammed by Mashape API marketplace? - <AUTHOR>

I got two identical messages sent from two GMail addresses. Based on the e-mail they sent them to, I suspect they scrapped my address from my GitHub profile - does this happen frequently? Do most people keep their email private on Github? <comment><USER2> Yep.</comment>


Femtosecond lasers allow physicists to directly observe zero point energy - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/femtosecond-lasers-allow-physicists-to-directly-observe-zero-point-energy <comment><USER2> Great post. This is really exciting. Being able to 'see' something more easily is such a big step into the quantum world. I love the word 'unvoid'.</comment>


Millennials love Bitcoin, still don't trust or understand it: survey - <AUTHOR> https://decrypt.co/9380/millennials-love-bitcoin-dont-trust-it-or-understand-it-survey <comment><USER2> im a millennial who dispises bitcoin because i understand it perfectly. i think anyone who actually understands bitcoin would hate it.

<comment><USER3> I know everything about bitcoin and I love it.</comment></comment>


TTIP Enters New and Dangerous Stage as Democracy Is Dismantled in Secret - <AUTHOR> http://truepublica.org.uk/united-kingdom/ttip-enters-new-and-dangerous-stage-as-democracy-is-dismantled-in-secret/ <comment><USER2> It's especially frightening for us Europeans, that TTIP can overrule existing local legislature, and that officials representing EU states only have access to the full text of 600 pages for 2 hours every thursday, accompanied by two security guards beside you at all times, behind closed doors, after the metal detector where you have leave all your electronics and recording devices behind. Oh, and you're not allowed to take any notes, not even with a pencil. Good luck with booking a slot! If another representative is interested in reading a couple more pages this week, you'll need to wait till next week.

<comment><USER3> Just to make one thing clear: Before the treaty comes into force it needs to be voted on by the Euroepan parliament and national parliaments. Before the votes the treaty will be published. What is a highly guarded secret are the current _drafts_ , not the final agreement.

It's actually not really different from how most laws are written, especially those proposed by the government. While those are in the drafting phase MPs usally don't have access at all.

<comment><USER4> If the deal is done in secret, people'll complain that its secret.

If the deal is not done in secret, people'll complain about the draft terms before it is finalized.

<comment><USER5> > If the deal is not done in secret, people'll complain about the draft terms > before it is finalized.

That little bit there is called democracy. Without transparency, it's called fascism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note that TTIP still has to be agreed upon by the EU Parliament. Personally I don't really care what the lobbyists are writing in secret. At some point they have to present to the EUP (where we actually have representation) and they have been very consistent at shutting down the crap that the corporations try to get through.

It's not that secret. It's secret while they work on it, sure, but I've watched countless debates with the Commission vs. EUP. I still have faith that Parliament can protect us (and if not then there's still public outrage and protest if TTIP is ridiculous).

<comment><USER7> Well, we just found out that 6/7 of our countries MEP's in Parliament voted for TTIP without even reading it. With no consultation or anything else.

I have very low hopes that reason will prevail in this case.

<comment><USER8> > Well, we just found out that 6/7 of our countries MEP's in Parliament voted > for TTIP without even reading it.

Voted for a not-yet negotiated trade agreement? Are you sure you've not misunderstood this?

[http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/about- ttip/pr...](http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/in-focus/ttip/about- ttip/process/index_en.htm#_main-stages)

<comment><USER7> I was talking about the preliminary resolution on 9. Jul. 2015. While that indeed wasn't a final voting, I have still little hope that the result will be any different.

<comment><USER9> What hope do you really have? All of the corporate interests are aligned on this and they are the ones that own the representatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems a fitting, though unrelated, clip from Snowden at NH Liberty Forum: [https://youtu.be/M94ZO6jYU6c?t=19m28s](https://youtu.be/M94ZO6jYU6c?t=19m28s)

People who plan your future in secret, do so exactly because they fear you stopping them.

Stopping all of this is a matter of getting involved in your local/state/nation-state politics now... today. It is disingenuous to suggest that you will get `a chance` to object later. Perhaps that is the case technically, but it will be pushed through unless you have a community, and a local/state government willing to oppose it, and stay opposed to it. The offensiveness of TTIP is lost on most people outside of the technical community. Or, if you give up on your current governance... you can come join those of us in NH who are generally very opposed to such things: [https://freestateproject.org/](https://freestateproject.org/)

</comment><comment><USER11> The site seems to be down. I know most people here are tech-savvy enough to find this on their own, but here's a cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://truepublica.org.uk/united- kingdom/ttip-enters-new-and-dangerous-stage-as-democracy-is-dismantled-in- secret/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Interesting how a whole article can be written without defining what they are writing about. What the fuck is TTIP?

<comment><USER13> To add to the other replies, there are two areas where TTIP is particularly controversial.

One such area is that the TTIP _might_ include provisions that are broadly worded and have unintended (or "actually intended but they'd never admit to it") side effects. For example, if businesses in foreign countries gained new rights to sue national governments if the governments act in a way that costs those businesses revenue, would that mean a government can no longer ban smoking in public places by law without paying compensation to the cigarette firms? Or if we extended patent rights in the pharmaceutical industry, would that limit the access of patients in poor countries to generic medicines they can afford, and force them to buy branded versions at much higher cost or go without?

The other area of controversy is the secrecy of the negotiations. It seems likely that significant parts of the proposed agreement have been influenced or even written by lobbyists representing special interest groups. However, pushing these kinds of changes via a trade agreement means the exact wording is kept between a small number of officials from the EU and US and isn't subject to wider scrutiny. Even elected representatives in European and more recently national governments only have access to documents under tightly controlled conditions. Thus there is concern that what will be presented for more democratically accountable consideration will effectively be a _fait accompli_ , one big take-it-or-leave-it bundle of new rules backed by heavy political pressure to take it even if some of the details aren't wanted.

For a more detailed criticism, there are a few articles like this one around:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip- and...](http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six- reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html)

<comment><USER14> >For example, if businesses in foreign countries gained new rights to sue national governments if the governments act in a way that costs those businesses revenue,

That is completely untrue.

<comment><USER13> Maybe it is. The trouble is, we know that there is a credible threat of international agreements being used to subvert previous national positions in general, but we don't know what the real proposed wording says in specific areas of this particular agreement. It's impossible to have a rational debate on the subject under these conditions.

<comment><USER14> It is untrue.

A businesses in foreign countries CAN sue a national governments if pass protectionist regulations that favor domestic businesses.

For example: The US can pass environmental regulations blocking all logging on Federally owned land. They can not pass regulations that only allow US-based companies to log on Federally owned land. If they did, then foreign companies could sue for being excluded.

>It's impossible to have a rational debate on the subject

With all the FUD being spread around, I completely agree.

<comment><USER13> _It is untrue._

As I have consistently said, that may be the case.

But the fact is that I don't know that for sure, and unless you're both one of a very select group and violating an explicit confidentiality agreement by posting here, neither do you.

<comment><USER14> >As I have consistently said, that may be the case.

Just like it may be the case that the moon landings were faked.

>unless you're both one of a very select group and violating an explicit confidentiality agreement by posting here, neither do you.

The full text of TIPP has been released for months now. I know because I have read factual reporting from journalists who have actually read the text, not from ignorant FUD spreaders in website comment sections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems like many people don't really understand how lobbies work.

Corporations' interests aren't identical so they cannot be defended by one lobby. And there are lobbies defending non-corporate interests. And those can be a. quite powerful b. quite nefarious.

The secrecy during negotiation is necessary because "someone soemwhere has a good reason to oppose something".

The fact that there are many somewheres, someones and somethings involved make it impossible to do it in public.

<comment><USER16> > "someone soemwhere has a good reason to oppose something"

Especially since TPP is (in large part) designed to prevent China steamrolling entire industries and crushing foreign economies through shear size and sketchy economic measures. If the negotiations are public China has way more time to react to the measures, either by working around them or by threatening countries until they drop out.

TPP may or may not be a bad thing, but "negotiated in secret" doesn't make it bad.

<comment><USER15> I actually had internal constituencies in mind..

Goat Cheese farmers or Cab drivers have and will make hell if there's even one line that they deem unacceptable even if the whole thing could (not necessarily will) be beneficial for the whole country.

And given the populist tendencies of the media on some topics, the people will probably agree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Knowing _how_ the negotiations happened is quite interesting, and should not be kept secret now.

For instance, discussions about late, seemingly small changes can reveal agendas. Commas, minor word substitutions and other small-distance edits can have _major_ alterations in meaning.

To the extent that minutes and logs of meetings were kept, they should now be published.

To the extend that minutes and logs were burnt or destroyed or avoided, the TTIP should be treated similarly.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Representative democracy is often presented as the only form of democracy possible in mass societies. It arguably allows for efficient ruling by a sufficiently small number of people on behalf of the larger number."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representative_democracy)

Democracy is more a form of elitism than "power to the people". It has always been like that.

Another system is possible (like Futarchy or a form of Anarchism) but the transition is risky.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futarchy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futarchy)

<comment><USER19> Well don't forget the idea of direct democracy where we leverage modern IT and allow the people to vote directly on issues, eliminating the need for representatives whom are, of course, often corrupted by monied interests.

Many movements and initiatives currently exist promoting this method of government[1]

[1][http://aceproject.org/ace-en/focus/direct- democracy/citizen-...](http://aceproject.org/ace-en/focus/direct- democracy/citizen-initiatives)

<comment><USER20> The idea of open citizen voting directly on all issues terrifies me. I see democratic representation as a way to pay someone to read and understand all of the legal jargon most people won't take the time to bother with.

People don't take time to read their medicine bottle warnings, let alone the contents of the new Higher Education Act. I'm honestly afraid that righteous attitudes fueled by ignorance would rule.

It would put an incredible amount of power in the hands of mass-media as well (more than they already have). Well-designed and well-timed stories can sway public opinion waaaay too easily.

Combine that with how the government seems to handle IT security issues in these type of large-scale projects, and you have a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER19> _The idea of open citizen voting directly on all issues terrifies me. I see democratic representation as a way to pay someone to read and understand all of the legal jargon most people won 't take the time to bother with._

Except they don't really either.

They typically have a rather large staff to do that for them, and paid lobbyists fill in the rest, along with large contributions of course.

To be honest, I find this lack of faith in the intelligence and integrity of your fellow man/woman rather disturbing, especially in this current social- justice warrior environment where we are _all_ depending more on each other to get things right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hey smart folks,

How does TTIP affect small business, and startups in Australia-Canda-America- Asia?

How does TTIP affect small business, and startups in the Pacifics?

<comment><USER22> I don't think it has any direct affect on those areas. Australasia has TPP, Canada has NAFTA.

<comment><USER23> There's also a similar deal to the TTIP called CETA that Canada are involved in:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Tra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Trade_Agreement)

As far as I know there are roughly 5 multinational trade deals in the works at the moment... TPP, TTIP, TISA, CETA and one more I forgot the name of that involves China.

EDIT: The multinational trade deal currently being negotiated that involves China is the RCEP:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Comprehensive_Economi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Comprehensive_Economic_Partnership)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's so much mistrust and doubt that it's hard to see a solution that would satisfy all when it comes to communicating political processes with the public. Sure, we all might prefer for the process to be open, to have edits and additions recorded together with the "who" in some kind of revision system, but would we then trust those who maintain the repository?

If we do; who would then be trusted to read through the 600 page document and give an objective report on it's content? Because it has to be viewed in context, right? Not just a single paragraph used as click bait to up the advertising revenue. Who would we agree on should be considered a "real journalist"?

It's tricky. We fear what we don't know and distrust those who do.

A dreamy solution would be a system that allows politicians to comment on laws and voters to assign and re-assign points to those they agree with. Voters wouldn't decide laws but be able to show their support for different view points which we could graph over time and match against politicians votes.

But, yeah, internet voting is equally tricky.

</comment><comment><USER25> >Personally I'm in favor of democracy, which means that the central institutions in the society have to be under popular control. Now, under capitalism we can't have democracy by definition. Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions of society are in principle under autocratic control. Thus, a corporation or an industry is, if we were to think of it in political terms, fascist; that is, it has tight control at the top and strict obedience has to be established at every level -- there's a little bargaining, a little give and take, but the line of authority is perfectly straightforward. Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy.

-Noam Chomsky, Business Today, May 1973

</comment><comment><USER26> Sometimes I just want to think those treaties' function is to curtail multinationals, so that countries can be able to effectively organize themselves against those corporations who have become hard to regulate in a context of globalization.

So if you want to successfully do it, you have to keep as many people in the dark, since I also believe those big companies have a tremendous influence on politicians. Maybe it's just to let people negotiate in peace, without having to deal with noise you can see on meetings like the G20 or G8, and all the special interests knocking on your door. Maybe this deal is pure international politics, which is going beyond the scope of democracy (the world is not a democracy, last I checked).

We already have separation of church and state, maybe it's time to have separation of business and state? That's why I think it's easy to paint those treaties as A Bad Thing(tm), but I think it's more difficult to grasp the complexity of international politics intertwined with international trade.

Although I could be completely wrong, but I always tend to take things with a bigger grain of salt when it involves activists who can't really give me a clear reason on what X thing is bad.

<comment><USER27> It's very difficult to give you a clear reason on why X thing is bad because.. well, nobody have seen X.

But, if you are not very naive, you should be asking yourself why a free trade treaty is so important when we already have free trade. And if it's only a few changes to the current situation, why all the secret?

Anyway, the things that have been leaked don't sound very well.

<comment><USER4> > you should be asking yourself why a free trade treaty is so important when > we already have free trade

Depends on your definition of "free trade", but we don't have completely free trade; many countries have high tarrifs, for example Japan's rice tarrif.

[http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/10/06/tpp-deal- expec...](http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/10/06/tpp-deal-expected-to- shake-up-japans-agriculture-sector/)

(OK, this is TPP, but I'm sure the same point applies).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is this a reason to vote Brexit?

I would like to be able to vote out any political party that is entering into such an agreement, but if it's the EU's bureaucracy itself I have no democratic way to do so.

(I'm asking this sincerely. I don't yet know enough to be able to be for or against Brexit.)

<comment><USER29> Believe TTIP is being pushed by the UK government and resisted by countries in Europe.

<comment><USER6> Wrong. UKIP and Labour hold the majority seats for the UK in the EUP and they're both against TTIP.

<comment><USER30> How would that stop the UK government from pushing this? The EUP does not control the UK government or the House of Commons.

<comment><USER31> @deif TTIP will have to be ratified by the individual national governments, either by voting on it in parliament or through direct popular vote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Assuming we could stop this- the next 'Trade Alliance Agreement' coupe would then be named HHKQ ? The only way this repetition can be broken, is by the world agreeing on taxing the hell out of every organization that can try to usurp legitimate democratic structures..

</comment><comment><USER33> All I wanted out of this deal were unified automotive safety standards (hopefully choosing the more proven standards of the two for each case). Instead, we seem to have ended up with another slew of controversial elements that apparently serve someone's interests.

</comment><comment><USER34> It looks like this site got hugged to death, does anyone have a mirror link?

<comment><USER35> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftruepublica.org.uk%2Funited- kingdom%2Fttip-enters-new-and-dangerous-stage-as-democracy-is-dismantled-in- secret%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Ftruepublica.org.uk%2Funited-kingdom%2Fttip- enters-new-and-dangerous-stage-as-democracy-is-dismantled-in- secret%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6590j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Welcome to the New World Order, you didn't think it was gong to be a democratic order. Did you?

These sweeping treaties (they are not agreements) lay the foundation of world government. yiu can be certain that nothing good will come from politicians secretly meeting to talk about a plan that no one is sharing. These treaties provide for unprecedented power to corporations to determine the goods and services to be traded. They are stripping away the boarders and soon the beast will be revealed.

The word of the decade is transparency, you assumed it was the government being transparent when in fact it is you and me that are transparent to the governments and corporations.

<comment><USER37> At what time and place exactly was the "old" world order democratic?

<comment><USER38> Athens had Sortition.

It's pretty much as democratic as you can get.

<comment><USER39> Except for those pesky women and slaves.

<comment><USER38> True.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> hmmm I love the smell of marxism in the morning

</comment><comment><USER41> democracy was dismantled a long time ago by corporate manipulation

remember how Obama was going to ban lobbyists? ha

<comment><USER42> >democracy was dismantled a long time ago by corporate manipulation

In the US, yes. Now they are spreading it to Europe with TTIP.

Edit: Not that Europe is some sort of magical haven of democracy currently, but this surely won't improve the situation.

<comment><USER27> In the Euro-area, for the important economic decisions, there is not democratic control by design.

I recommend this lecture by Varoufakis ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCA68U3P_Z8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCA68U3P_Z8)) where he explains his experience.

In fact, I think that the situation is worse in Europe that in the States. The members of the Euro have very limited capacity of action because they have lost control of monetary policy to "higher" authorities.

TTIP will have a similar effect, democratic governments constrained by rules sets in treaties almost impossible to change.

My personal opinion is that this is the real goal of TTIP.</comment></comment></comment>