AI Is Getting Better at Detecting Handguns - <AUTHOR> http://www.vocativ.com/415937/ai-detecting-handguns/ <comment><USER3> > what if police officers were equipped with body cameras that could alert > them the instant they come into view of a handgun, or some other weapon?

And then

> Overall, the optimized model achieved 84% accuracy, with zero false > negatives [...] and 57 false positives.

So in the what-if scenario above, 16% of cases would falsely escalate a situation dramatically? Seems like a horrible idea. And "really good" seems like a stretch.

<comment><USER4> That number should be compared to the rate human officers unnecessarily escalate a situation because they think there's a gun. I don't know that number but it could easily be higher than 16%.

<comment><USER5> It should really be compared to the number of instances human officer's act as if there could be a gun " just in case ". Like in a traffic stop.

If officer's don't have to potentially gun someone down because they made a hectic movement 84% of the time, that's a pretty big win.

Imagine 84% of " black guy mysteriously died" actually led to convictions of officers because their ai thing told them "definitely no gun, bro"

<comment><USER6> > Imagine 84% of " black guy mysteriously died" actually led to convictions of > officers because their ai thing told them "definitely no gun, bro"

I imagine that, like body cameras, the AI thing will, in those events, conveniently be deactivated, malfunctioning, misplaced, or have it's records lost.

<comment><USER5> probably. but you can only pull that stunt so many times.

<comment><USER6> > probably. but you can only pull that stunt so many times.

How many? Because apparently we haven't yet reached it with body cams.

<comment><USER5> Until you've produced a sample. Then some statistician can write a paper on it and someone takes it to the supreme court and 20 years later they will decide that there was probably something fishy going on.

Like I know?

But if you compound different systems, like the ai handgun thing and dont store the data in the same place, it becomes exponentially less likely that suddenly 2 critical systems failed at the same important moment for some reason.

the real issue with police brutality is the fact that it is, in fact, legal, and police is trained to respond in such a way. what protesters get wrong about police brutality is that its supposedly illegal. it is not. most instances of police killing someone are actually legal. which doesn't make it right. but its legal. saying somethings illegal when its not just makes you look like an idiot.

people need to protest for better laws, not getting individual cops sentenced, because that wont ever happen with any kind of regularity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> " _But what if police officers were equipped with body cameras that could alert them the instant they come into view of a handgun, or some other weapon? Or if bank's security system could sound an alarm the instant cameras detect a robbery in progress?_ "

Why are we even bothering with spending money trying to create technology like this? How often do banks actually get robbed anymore by gun-wielding maniacs? And how often do officers actually die in the line of duty by getting shot by armed citizens? This is the more frequent case than the bank robbery, and even that is exceedingly rare. Only ~140 officers died on the job in 2016 and of those only 64 died from being shot. Factor in that even in a fair amount of circumstances when they know someone is armed they still end up getting shot and that number of preventable deaths (in theory) gets even lower.

What I always find strange is the obsession with "officer safety". Being a cop isn't even one of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the country, statistically speaking. It's far more dangerous to be in logging, farming, construction, fishing, transportation, etc. And that's comparing the numbers for a very high year like 2016. In 2013 the number of officer deaths was less than half of 2016 - only 31 cops died from being shot - out of ~900,000 officers in the nation.

This kind of thing is just a colossal waste of money.

" _Systems like these still have a ways to go, especially since those false alarms could have deadly consequences for civilians being approached by body camera-wielding cops._ "

That's the biggest issue I have with this. This will become a new reason for them to detain and probably stop and frisk. "The device alerted me to a possible threat" \- this will be the excuse and this will lead to reduced rights because the courts will, of course, consider it "reasonable suspicion" based on the technology. There will also be no incentive to increase accuracy since interacting with more citizens makes/catches more criminals, which means numerically they are doing a better job.

<comment><USER8> > What I always find strange is the obsession with "officer safety". Being a > cop isn't even one of the top 10 most dangerous jobs in the country, > statistically speaking. It's far more dangerous to be in logging, farming, > construction, fishing, transportation, etc.

I don't think it has to do with the numbers exactly. If you are a skilled logger and don't make any mistakes, you are likely pretty safe. As a skilled cop, without any mistakes, your life can still be in jeopardy at the drop of a hat. No amount of safety gear can protect a cop from someone pulling a knife or other weapon with intent to harm either the cop or an innocent civilian.

I think there is also the aspect that cops are public servants. It's compassion that makes me want to keep these folks alive who are voluntarily taking risks to protect me and my community.

I think the numbers are also not totally representative - are all 'cops' lumped in together for the statistic about job safety? Does that include detectives doing mostly office or investigative work? Does it include officers writing parking tickets? Does it blend cops patrolling the suburbs with cops patrolling inner cities?

I don't have any sources about my claims here, I don't really know a lot about the dangers of logging or the statistics about the dangers of being a cop.

\---

What bothers me the most about this is that visual presence of a firearm is immediately associated with criminal behavior or intent.

<comment><USER7> That's a good point about the risk not being in control of the officer through something like skill. Though, I don't think that changes the essence of my point, which could be summed up as diminishing returns. If we had a much higher rate of officer fatalities, then I would say pursuing this technology makes sense. But I think the resources can be allocated better elsewhere.

Totally agree that the mere presence of a gun being an alarm bell of sorts is the biggest issue here.

<comment><USER9> I disagree, I think the presence of a gun is definitely cause for alarm. The only reason anyone should be carrying a gun that is visible to others is if they intend to use it. If you want to carry one regularly (as opposed to only when you're going to use it), get a concealed carry permit, and keep it concealed.

<comment><USER7> I strongly disagree that having a weapon on display is only done if there is intent to use it. In some areas of the south, open carry is quite common. It should also be noted that getting a concealed carry permit is not always that easy, depending on where you live.

The reason I have no issue with open carry is that it 1) makes the weapon more quickly accessible should it be needed and 2) it acts as a deterrent. I think having a gun visible to any possible violent criminals would make them far less likely to choose that individual than one who may or may not be concealing it in their pant leg, purse, backpack, etc.

In fact, those two reasons are exactly why cops open carry when on duty. They need to have quick access just in case shit goes down and it makes people think twice (and then a third and fourth time) if they see an armed officer - how likely is it that someone is going to try to assault a cop and escape arrest if they could be shot in ~1 second?

Police by nature cannot be everywhere at all times. Even in dense cities it is not realistic to expect an officer to be able to respond within 30 seconds - <USER2> length of time that means the world when it comes to violent crime, whether it involves a gun or not. The further out you go from the dense cities the longer the response time, making it even more critical to have protection for yourself. This is the entire reason why the second amendment exists - to be able to protect yourself when the government cannot enforce and defend your rights for you.

<comment><USER9> > _it acts as a deterrent_

I'm pretty sure this has been thoroughly debunked. The only thing that carrying a weapon does is make it more likely that someone will die if an incident occurs. Not only because now there's a gun involved, but also because if the criminal's victims are armed with guns, then the criminal is going to be armed with a gun too.

> _In fact, those two reasons are exactly why cops open carry when on duty._

What cops do and don't do is pretty much irrelevant to talking about the general public. They actually have the legal authority to do things like shoot people, or just to arrest them in general, meaning the presence of a cop (armed or otherwise) acts as a deterrent to crime already.

> _This is the entire reason why the second amendment exists - to be able to > protect yourself when the government cannot enforce and defend your rights > for you._

No, the second amendment exists because it dates to when militias were common (in fact it explicitly mentions militias). I believe it was also meant as an escape hatch to allow another revolution if the US government got out of hand (which comes back to the whole militia thing). It was not intended as a deterrent for ordinary crime.

<comment><USER7> That has not been debunked - I'd say the jury is still out, at best. Many of the studies that supposedly debunk this claim have issues like including suicides, cherry picking specific violent crimes and excluding others, not accounting for gun purchases made in high risk areas because people buy out of fear (meaning violent crime was on the rise before the purchases), etc. One of the most reasonable studies I've seen is the one conducted by the CDC and was commissioned by the Obama administration.

[http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use- firearms-s...](http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cdc-study-use-firearms- self-defense-important-crime-deterrent)

The CDC concluded that it is an important deterrent to crime and found consistently lower injury rates for armed citizens compared with victims who used other defense methods (or had no defense method at all).

What cops do is absolutely not irrelevant in this regard. I would like to remind you that ordinary citizens can usually legally detain and physically restrain a criminal and can perform a citizen's arrest when they witness a felony crime in progress. What better way to do that than with a gun? Also, any person can legally apply lethal force if their life is in jeopardy. Cops are granted the extra benefit of being able to apply lethal force when someone else's life is in jeopardy and theirs is not.

Yes, a crucial reason behind the second amendment was to maintain the ability to fight against a tyrannical government. Another reason is the ability to fight on behalf of your government on an as-needed, short-notice type of scenario. The third main reason is what I mentioned - self-defense. The threats of that time were much greater - angry Brits that we snubbed, Native Americans that we killed, wild animals, etc. Plus the need to hunt. Being armed was a necessity. It was so obvious, that I think that part didn't even get mentioned in the second amendment. However, later on a number of states added specific state constitutional provisions that secured the right to "bear arms in defense of themselves and the state". These provisions usually included an element of self/personal defense as well as the state or "common defense". These are separate things. A very clear example is Colorado - " _The right of no person to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or in aid of the civil power when thereto legally summoned, shall be called in question; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to justify the practice of carrying concealed weapons._ "

Please also keep in mind that since the constitution trumps all other laws (federal, state, etc.), all other laws that are passed must conform to the constitution to be considered legal and valid. Colorado's language is extremely clear and plain. It has never been overturned or deemed unconstitutional. This therefore means that the second amendment must contain the right to personal self-defense not in service of the nation. And it should be clear based on these state provisions that were all passed that it was clearly a major element.

<comment><USER9> > _This therefore means that the second amendment must contain the right to > personal self-defense not in service of the nation._

No, it just means the second amendment doesn't _prohibit_ that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Am I misreading this article. They had 30 test scenes they tested this with, and in those 30 tests it returned 57 false positives? That seems super useless. It sounds like it is basically just throwing alerts for every scene.

<comment><USER11> The "scenes" are likely hours of video footage, but yes this is certainly missing a denominator. I think the best unit is probably "fraction of video time a handgun is on screen" but that's not told in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I live in the south, it is perfectly legal and socially acceptable to carry a handgun, concealed or open. Something like this could add context to a situation, but sounding an alarm because of a handgun present sounds like a bit much.

</comment><comment><USER13> So 3d print modifications to your handgun that alter its shape but not its functionality. Not a difficult workaround.

<comment><USER14> A lot of common security measures can be defeated with modest technical skill and diligence. Fortunately for the police and the public, the vast majority of armed criminals are not even modestly technically skilled and diligent. They're largely fools with poor impulse control. If you are smart enough to spot weaknesses in security measures and implement workarounds, you probably already have a job with better long term prospects than "bank stickup guy."

There are _some_ criminals that get rich from armed robbery, but your typical armed bank robber has a short and none-too-lucrative career:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-robbing-banks- in-r...](http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-robbing-banks-in-record- numbers-in-houston-and-most-of-them-are-getting-caught-2012-8)

[https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2013/04/26/bank_robbers...](https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2013/04/26/bank_robbers_why_do_they_even_bother_anymore.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/04/where-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/04/where- did-bank-robbers-go)

<comment><USER15> > A lot of common security measures can be defeated with modest technical > skill and diligence. Fortunately for the police and the public, the vast > majority of armed criminals are not even modestly technically skilled and > diligent.

Yes - although almost none of them have the technical expertise to manufacture a gun and yet significant number of criminals own them. Similarly criminals don't need the expertise to own a "gun obfuscating device" to own one.

<comment><USER14> There's a large, legal market for firearms in the US, so it's not hard for a criminal to take advantage of that. What's going to produce a large, legal market for dedicated gun obfuscating devices that criminals can similarly take advantage of? I don't think that there is going to be one. I think it will be more like a criminal getting access to e.g. plastic explosives: either he's part of a criminal organization, already has a specialized day job that allows for diversion, or has reasonably high technical skill and can manufacture the materials in a home workshop. I'm not sure the "diversion from legitimate business" path even works here, because again, I don't see the business need for disguising open carried guns. If Johnny Hothead, having no specialized connections, gets an offer to sell him some explosives then it's probably coming from an agent of law enforcement rather than the local Crime Depot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It seems something like this would be great for airport scanners too, although the biggest benefit would be in luggage scanning. I think the challenge would be finding a diverse enough set of true positives to train the model.

</comment><comment><USER17> I cannot believe no one had pointed out the matching Robocop scene yet: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mqDjcGgE5I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mqDjcGgE5I) scnr</comment>


Biologists Create Cells With 6 DNA Letters, Instead of Just 4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/05/synthetic-dna-cells/?mbid=social_fb

<comment><USER2> A dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7716587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7716587).</comment>


Information Security Course - <AUTHOR> Hi fellas,
Would anyone be kind enough to tell me which is the most informative and exhaustive MOOC or online tutorial / courseware to learn Information Security?
I have enrolled for IGNOU's PGD program but am always on the lookout for better education. So far, I have gone through Coursera's InfoSec syllabi's but that doesn't seem to be as intense as IGNOU. I have also referred to MIT OCW's Computer Systems Security and would like to know more such courses.
Thanks. Regards. <comment><USER2> What about this? It was free to evaluate when I looked before and Jonathon S Weissman is a fun teacher ;-)

[https://www.edx.org/micromasters/ritx- cybersecurity](https://www.edx.org/micromasters/ritx-cybersecurity)

<comment><AUTHOR> $1k? It's very expensive for me!

But thanks for the suggestion :) I will seriously consider it.

<comment><USER2> It was definitely free when I did part one, most of the Edx courses have a free evaluation and you can access all of the course but not get a certificate. I did some of this course as well as some Azure certifications. With a discount voucher I think I paid about $60 for the Azure certifications and the courses were run by Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Found one - [https://onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in/noc19_cs29/preview](https://onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in/noc19_cs29/preview)

Information Security - 5 - Secure Systems Engineering by Chester Rebeiro</comment>


Deno: 1.0 officially scheduled on May, 13 Review of the features - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/olivierloverde/deno-1-0-officially-scheduled-on-may-13-review-of-the-features-1kb0 <comment><USER2> For those unfamiliar with it, Deno is a new project by Node's original creator R. Dahl. While Node has grown in use and size, there are underlying issues that are very hard to address without a massive overhaul, and to turn those issues around, Node → Deno was born.

The core features Deno promises to bring are sandboxing out-of-the-box, built in Typescript support, standard modules, etc. Personally, I haven't tried Deno out, but I'm very much looking forward to it. Anyone who's ever built a production application with Node will be familiar with its shortcomings. There are of course community-driven solutions to overcome many of them, but they are still bandaids over underlying issues. Hopefully Deno can address at least some of them.

The official webpage [1] offers some API examples and relevant information as well.

[1] [https://deno.land/](https://deno.land/)</comment>


The Best Industries for Starting a Business Right Now - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/ss/best-industries-for-starting-a-business?partner=rss <comment><USER2> All in one page version:

<http://www.inc.com/print/77?partner=rss>

<comment><USER3> On a sidenote: I never understood why these 10 page presentation things have to autoload the next slide after X seconds. Either you haven't finished reading or you sit around waiting, so you use the back/forward buttons to navigate anyway. The only thing the autoload does is annoy you as the content suddenly changes for no apparent reason.

<comment><USER4> Slightly more pageviews for slightly increased ad revenue?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Bad article title. I thought this would be about immediate business opportunities in the current economic climate.

A better title would be "Best Industries to get if you want long-term potential regardless of economic ups and downs".

<comment><USER6> I think the better title would be "best industries to be in, if you started a year or two ago, because if not you're already late to the game and have several fast-rising competitors who now have a year or two head start on you".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting to see Health care IT and SaaS as two separate categories; both of which our startup (<http://www.carecloud.com>) falls into!

</comment><comment><USER8> So, Basically, Everything!</comment>


Roger McNamee is really sad about Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/5505441/mark-zuckerberg-mentor-facebook-downfall/ <comment><USER2> _> Zuck has always believed that connecting everyone on earth was a mission so important that it justified any action necessary to accomplish it._

Anytime someone starts telling you that their end is so noble it justifies any means, you should run away from them as fast as you possibly can.

<comment><USER3> It's no wonder that folks in the valley are so fascinated with AIs running amok and turning the world into a paperclip factory, because apparently that has been Facebooks business model from the start.

A very relevant article from Ted Chiang: [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real- dang...](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-danger-to- civilization-isnt-ai-its-runaway)

 _" Consider: Who pursues their goals with monomaniacal focus, oblivious to the possibility of negative consequences? Who adopts a scorched-earth approach to increasing market share? This hypothetical strawberry-picking AI does what every tech startup wishes it could do — grows at an exponential rate and destroys its competitors until it's achieved an absolute monopoly. The idea of superintelligence is such a poorly defined notion that one could envision it taking almost any form with equal justification: a benevolent genie that solves all the world's problems, or a mathematician that spends all its time proving theorems so abstract that humans can't even understand them. But when Silicon Valley tries to imagine superintelligence, what it comes up with is no-holds-barred capitalism."_

<comment><USER4> I guess in a way, these big valley companies are indeed turning themselves into superintelligent entities that do exactly what folks in the valley worry about.

<comment><USER5> This is not new. First it was the militaries and governments, then it was the financial institutions, now it's big tech companies, and eventually it will actually be AI (because firms will use AI to guide their actions).

Aligning anything with its stated goals has always been a hard problem, the superintelligent paperclip factory just happens to be sensational enough to grab attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have to explain to a relative or acquaintance why FB is bad and they just don't get it, point to this article, it'll save a bunch of time. Great articulation that sums up their issues and potential solutions. Sometimes things bear repeating they are so important.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is it feasible to create a corporate structure that would encourage it to act with the public interest in mind? Are there any known patterns, research, or tries? My very ill-informed mind is thinking of a parent-child structure where the parent gets to veto and only veto decisions made by its children that may be harmful for the general public.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like government regulations?

Thats typically been the way we've managed these kinds of threats/bad actors, but technology is changing so fast and policy makers are hamstrung by bureaucracy, incompetence, apathy or all three.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, initially my first reaction was "we need regulations" then I realized that's just not going to possible especially in the future. We need a new corporate structure that can compete and reproduce in the current market.

<comment><USER8> Or additions to / restructuring of the current regulatory bodies so that they can respond to such things faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm reading all the time about how fake news on Facebook supposedly influenced the elections, but I haven't heard of any factual confirmation of that. Did it really happen? Did somebody research that? How much influence did they find? I have seen research that says convincing people campaigning is pretty much hopeless - they'd nod to ads they agree with and ignore ones they disagree with, but won't change their minds : [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3042867)

Maybe this research is wrong - but I'd like to see any research if Facebook fake news did really have any influence at all.

<comment><USER10> The waters are further muddied by the fact that nobody can agree on a definition of "fake news."

It's meaningless, sensational claims all the way down.

<comment><USER11> Sure we do: fake news is the dissemination of incorrect information purporting to be the truth (and not someone's opinion).

<comment><USER9> That's "lying" (if intentional) or "being mistaken" (if sincere). People do it all the time since speech was invented (and probably before that too - I've read about some animals being capable of lying).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Cry me a river. He still owns FB stock and AFAIK has not donated prior profits to charity.

</comment><comment><USER13> A heavily-recycled story that's been making the rounds since at least 2017. No matter, have to keep the outrage machine going to drive traffic!

<comment><USER4> I'm personally glad the story made to the front page again as I find it very relevant today and I've never read it before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I first thought it was because FB thought his last name was made up.

</comment><comment><USER15>
        I got involved with the company more than a decade ago and have taken great pride and joy in the company's success … until the past few months.

_few months_? Then you haven't been paying attention or are just as bad as them.

<comment><USER16> He says in the next paragraph that that was from an email he sent to Marc and Sheryl before the 2016 election.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a official confirmation that he really mentored him?

All I saw once is a statement that he knows him

<comment><USER18> Roger's a nice guy and a cool Deadhead, however it's hard to get the guy to stop talking at times. He was interested in a company I created at one point and in the few times we chatted (2-3) he dropped Zuck's name a few too many times in normal conversation. I don't know if it's true or not, but I frequently wondered to what extent he mentored him, like they chatted frequently for a few months? It seemed to me at the time that he was trying to position it as, "would you like to be the next person I mentor post-Zuck?" Lots of weird red flags all-around in those talks, which later fizzled out.

<comment><USER17> yeah, thats exactly what I imagined

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think the right steps are already being taken. Breaking up Facebook would just decentralize the problem up and make it impossible to solve. At least with Facebook everything is in one place, and they have the money and resources to fix things.

<comment><USER4> Honestly curious: what steps do you see that are being taken?

<comment><USER19> The company is slowing down revenue growth to ramp up more security measures. Zuck seems committed to fixing Facebook even if it hurts near term investments.

<comment><USER20> The data security, while deeply troubling, is not the most troubling thing about FB.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The post title was changed from the article title, it should be: "I Mentored Mark Zuckerberg. I Loved Facebook. But I Can't Stay Silent About What's Happening."

</comment><comment><USER22> Anyone have a GDPR-friendly link? Wayback[0] won't save the site[1], for some reason. =[

[0] - [https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://time.com/5505441/mark-z...](https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://time.com/5505441/mark- zuckerberg-mentor-facebook-downfall//*)

[1] - [https://web.archive.org/web/20190117191830/http://time.com/5...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190117191830/http://time.com/5505441/mark- zuckerberg-mentor-facebook-downfall/)

<comment><USER23> [https://outline.com/v8mnmn](https://outline.com/v8mnmn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The piece of sh#t bloatware that is time.com just crashed my phone while loading all the resources to read a text-based article. Go figure.

<comment><USER25> Looking at it via ublock origin the number of things blocked just keeps on ticking up. At aprox the 1 minute mark its at 108.</comment></comment>


Google cancels I/O developer conference amid coronavirus concerns - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/google-cancels-io-developer-conference-amid-coronavirus-concerns/ <comment><USER2> I wonder why more of these conferences aren't moved to VR, to AltspaceVR for example. It's a platform dedicated to events and conferences, with amphitheaters, multi spectators, moderation tools, private rooms, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think most of the conferences in the next few months will get canceled. Very heavy hit for the organizers of these events</comment>


Facebook to publish data on Irish abortion referendum ads - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/20/facebook-publish-data-irish-abortion-referendum-ad-spending-targeting-voters <comment><USER2> Despite the fact that transparency is a good thing, what will happen now ? Every time someone loose an election the will blame Facebook (or Google or anyone) ?

I understand that when the result are tight it's important to be fully transparent, but the election looser always have an excuse (It's FB, it was too sunny so people went picnic, etc...)

I'm speaking generally, not on this specific election. Just wondering what future elections result will be

<comment><USER3> There's a quote in the article from the leader of the Irish green party, Eamon Ryan, that to me underlines why this is important, "We want transparency about online political advertising so hidden funding does not distort the democratic process."

It's that hidden funding that scares me. Whether it's massive spending by mega-corporations or targeted ads by foreign intelligence agencies. We can't understand how our democracy is being affected unless we know who is behind the money.

<comment><USER4> I'd take this concern seriously if we weren't 50 years or more into carefully chosen and promoted intentionally divisive issues shaping what everyone thinks of politics.

<comment><USER5> What does that mean?

<comment><USER6> Abortion is exactly the kind of issue that has zero impact on those in power, who can always go to another country, but influences elections.

In terms of shaping views, welfare was designed to allow single mothers to stay home and raise their kids. Yet by twisting the issue people no longer support the idea.

Unions are no longer seen as something that helps 'you', they now help 'other' people.

<comment><USER5> Are you saying they don't actually care about the issue?

<comment><USER6> Clearly some people care about the issue and many say they care about it. But in terms of overall importance the tax bill for example got vastly more support. So, I suspect actual support is rather low.

In other words people might vote yes, yet at the same time prefer it not come up for a vote.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure I get where you are going. It might be a divisive issue but saying that simply because it comes up and you think something else is more important doesn't mean it is being used just to be divisive.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't "simply come up"

Tens of millions of dollars keep it in the forefront of your brain. There is no accident here. There is no "simply comes up"

<comment><USER5> So the amount of money spent means people don't really care or it's an illegitimate topic or something?

I'm suspicious of some topics and the support they get myself, but your approach here seems much too fast to dismiss a topic that maybe you don't like. It's way too easy to just say something is not organic or illegitimate when the issue is unpleasant rather than really deal with it. I don't know if anyone has a good way of getting their finger on legitimate, or topics that are more "important" than others in a democracy.

<comment><USER4> I couldn't care less about abortion on a personal level. It has zero impact on my life and never will.

But it's very clear to me that it's an artificially promoted issue that plays on people's emotions.

Divisive issues are not accidents. They're focusgrouped and marketed with extreme care.

<comment><USER5> >Divisive issues are not accidents.

I don't think I understand what you're saying. There can't be divisive issues?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is great news. However, I saw the most ads on Youtube; it would be great if Google followed suit and released similar data.

I hope this sets a precedent for publishing ad spending in future referenda too.

<comment><USER8> It says in the article:

 _Under pressure from Irish politicians and activists, including the non- partisan Transparent Referendum Institute, Google banned all referendum-linked advertising on its sites._

Did this only happen part way through? Or were people still advertising, Google just claimed they weren't?

<comment><USER9> It happened about a week or two out from the vote, in a campaign that had been officially been running for a couple of months (I can't remember how long exactly), and had seen low-key unofficial campaigning for easily a couple of years at that point.

<comment><USER10> I think really there's been a lot of campaigning going on since it was first enacted back in 1983. Even the Attorney General warned of unintended consequences.

The supporters of the 8th are highly organised, and motivated (as anyone would be if in their head they actually equated any and all abortion to killing of actual babies), and any revisitation had been continuously thwarted.

However, it's really in the last 5 years since the Death of Savita Halappanavar [0] that the issue took hold in the public consciousness, and campaigning really began in earnest.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Using the banner of "transparency" to stifle political advertising is just censorship through other means.

We should instead explicitly allow and protect unlimited anonymous political messaging.

<comment><USER12> "We should instead explicitly allow and protect unlimited anonymous political messaging."

Richest party wins? Is that how democracy should work?

<comment><USER13> Well "democracy" already has a problem if voters are so vacuous and easily swayed by paid advertising.

<comment><USER14> There's a reason that advertising works ... they tap into the deepest human instincts and urges. As much as anyone wants to believe they are too smart to be swayed by advertising, it's only hubris.

<comment><USER15> Any data/citations on this? I feel like myself and most people would not change their views(especially on abortion) based on a few seconds looking at an ad on facebook.

<comment><USER14> With regards to political views, the point isn't in any way to _change_ your view, it's to _use_ your view. By taking out ads that stoke someone's feelings about abortions, they can get them to follow a FB page, which can then in the future be used to promote other things (like specific political candidates), or to spread propaganda (like, "hey look at this fake news over here").

And thus, by association ... your views can certainly change.

> "If this person/page that I agree with so strongly on abortion (or whatever) > has this other opinion over here, I should probably give that a second > consideration"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> as long as it remains anonymized I see no problem with revealing the money. it is when it becomes public who donated that issues arise. at most I could see revealing country of origin

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if this is going to be a one-off, or if perhaps this is a test for larger elections/referendums to come.</comment>


Go Mo - Mobilize your site now (by Google) - <AUTHOR> http://www.howtogomo.com <comment><USER2> One of the worst tools I've used so far!</comment>


Show HN: The Crowdtilt Mobile App - <AUTHOR> http://tilt.crowdtilt.com/mobile/

<comment><USER2> Just a few cases for the app other (as of 50 minutes since post time) commenters aren't appreciating:

-I want to split a bill at dinner with friends

-I want to contribute to a charity fundraiser while at the event they are holding

-I want to snag tickets to an event that might sell out while out and about and don't want to wait till I get back to my computer to do it

-I want to snag tickets to an event while at the entrance to that event

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I've been following Crowdtilt for a while (interviewed there), and their use case has never really been about the Kickstarter type of crowdfunding. It's more of a bite-size type of crowdfunding model (with A LOT of retention; they mentioned their stats on repeat use) instead of elaborate projects. This app actually makes a lot of sense.

<comment><USER4> Thank you (co-founder of crowdtilt here). And yes, our view has basically been that we want to build the most open and accessible crowdfunding tools for the entire web/world. Crowdtilt.com might be for medium size campaigns, Crowdhoster (built by us and powered by our API) is for large-scale ones like Soylent, and now with our mobile app, we want to see if people will want to take the mechanics of crowdfunding models and want to go small with them.

If Crowdhoster is like the wordpress (hostable, customizable, open-source), then the Crowdtilt app type of campaigns (launched from the app, at least) is like the twitter of crowdfunding, or perhaps more appropriately, for anytime a group would interact around a small, casual financial objective. There's no guarantee the behavior will become our primary creation driver, of course, but as devs, it's exciting to try and take something as conventionally complex as crowdfunding/fundraising/pooling money with a group and simplify it down to something easy to digest in a mobile experience. If you download the app and have any suggestions or feedback on our approach to tackle this problem, would love to hear it at email@example.com. And another lens to view our approach toward mobile is this - 7/8ths of the world will never own a computer. Like, ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just a commentary on your methodology, not your product - I'm not sure I appreciate a submission to HN that goes to a URL that (on an iOS device at least) opens straight to the App Store app page (even if it is free).

I'm reading HN on my iPhone using one of the various alternative mobile interfaces running in Safari. Clicking your link, to learn anything about what you made, requires switching to the App Store. Completely disrupts my normal news flow.

... Is there a reason you don't have a one page splash covering the highlights and features of the app? Can anyone without an iOS device even learn what you've done?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, sorry about that! The app just launched today, so I wanted to throw up a link.

Here's a blog post that can hopefully give you some additional clarification: [http://blog.crowdtilt.com/post/61679155794/put-change-in- you...](http://blog.crowdtilt.com/post/61679155794/put-change-in-your-pocket- the-crowdtilt-mobile-app-is)

<comment><USER5> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't love the idea that someone might be so disinterested in their own crowdfunding campaign to have to launch it from a smartphone, rather than spending the time to do it from a proper computer.

<comment><USER7> Consider this: I see a pothole on my street, I hate it so I take a picture and tweet about how I wish it was gone. Enter crowdtilt, instead, I take a picture and create a campaign, it gets shared on facebook and twitter and suddenly a movement to fix the pothole has started. Worst case the campaign doesn't tilt and it's the equivalent of a tweet, best case we raise money to actually fix the damn thing, talk about putting your money where your mouth is!

While this behavior may not exist yet, I see a future where this app enables people to make much stronger statements about change they would like to see and gives them a dead simple way to contribute to those changes (plus all the fun spontaneous social stuff :).

<comment><AUTHOR> This comment is totally on the mark. Campaigns like that pothole example are already popping up on Crowdtilt!

Check this (currently live) campaign out: a community in Oakland feels unsafe in their neighborhood and isn't being helped out by the local PD, so they're pooling funds together for private security: [https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/security-patrol-for- lowe...](https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/security-patrol-for-lower- rockridge-southwest)

<comment><USER8> This is an awesome use of Crowdtilt...though I'm glad I don't live there myself!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've done everything from paying for group t-shirts to sports teams to shared vacation homes and I've never thought the problem was hard enough to need an app for it.

<comment><USER2> How about splitting a bill at dinner? Or contributing to a campaign on the go before it sells out?

<comment><USER10> > How about splitting a bill at dinner?

1\. Divide food bill between number of attendees

2\. Divide drinks bill between number of drinkers

3\. Each individual adds 1 + 2 and ponies-up accordingly

Apologies if I have misunderstood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does the actual collection take place? I'm sure 30% is too steep a cut for splitting a dinner check. Has Apple loosened its policies on third-party payment processors?

<comment><USER12> Collection takes place through our payment service provider, not IAP. There is no 30% cut.

<comment><USER13> Yep - IIRC, in-app purchases only apply if the purchase itself is delivered through the app (usually content)

This is how apps like Uber, Lyft, InstantCab, Instacart, etc. let you pay through your phone, and why Netflix and Hulu don't even let you sign up for their service on iOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is the only way to receive a link/register via SMS?

</comment><comment><USER15> Android version?</comment>


Show HN: Created a Job Board for Remote Programming Jobs - <AUTHOR>

Based on the multiple "Who's hiring remotely?" and similar posts on HN, I thought it might be useful to have a site that aggregates remote programming jobs.  There is way too much spam out and an inconsistent way to say "work from home" so traditional searching doesn't work (or rather, takes a long time per person).  I've worked in a few remote programming positions so I figured I might know of some companies or searching tricks to find them.
Let me know if you'd find this type of thing useful.  If we can get some traffic going, then maybe we can start attracting companies to actually list their jobs with us.
http://workfromhomeprogrammingjobs.com/ <comment><USER2> What sets this apart from Elance, oDesk, Rent-a-coder, et al?

<comment><USER3> To me it looks like they're aiming for more nichey, hand picked full time jobs, rather than sites like Elance which are geared more toward one-off contracts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep that's it. It's for full time "regular" coding jobs, and not part time gigs. Plus the big time sites mentioned tend to have ridiculously low pay gearedat outsourcing, NOT recruiting top talent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Click click: <http://workfromhomeprogrammingjobs.com/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Many thanks for this, its potentially very useful - I'm following the RSS feed.

</comment><comment><USER5> It'd be nice if freelancers could post their resume/company info as well.

<comment><USER6> I disagree, I think this is a good idea with potential, diluting it with freelancers, will attract the crap shoot that elance, guru and the rest are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I would only want to do this if I had a way to impose a certain level of quality. But really, that's the problem I'm trying to solve with www.codeanthem.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> potentially useful idea - good start

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been scrumming various job boards for anything like this. Good work!

</comment><comment><USER9> will do good if you get enoght jobs :)</comment>


Systemd requires HTTP server and serves QR codes - <AUTHOR> http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.redhat.fedora.devel/169082 <comment><USER2> A daemon that isn't part of systemd init or even started by default does yes.

</comment><comment><USER3> WTF?

So a port gets opened to serve content that the user doesn't want nor need?

What if the box is not a server? What if it's a mission-critical server for something other than http?

Why do we have systemd? So many hate it so very much, who is backing it and why?

<comment><USER4> > So a port gets opened to serve content that the user doesn't want nor need?

Not by default.

> What if the box is not a server? What if it's a mission-critical server for > something other than http?

If you read the thread, you'll see why it's there and what service needs to be running for it to be active.

> Why do we have systemd? So many hate it so very much, who is backing it and > why?

Red Hat is backing it, and I'm happy they are doing so. There are plenty of good reasons, starting with [http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd-for- admins-1.html](http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd-for-admins-1.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Building an embedded HTTP engine into an Init system?? Fuck that. Someone needs to reign these people in.

<comment><USER6> it's a service that isn't enabled by default, nor is it often even installed by default. I've found it useful though to use the gateway service to create a nice interface to browse the journal on local web app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What the _hell_ is going on with systemd and how can this possibly be a good idea?

</comment><comment><USER8> Apparently it is there to give the admin/user a quick way to grab the initial log singing key...

</comment><comment><USER9> This was from 2012

<comment><USER10> And apparently _still_ nobody has read the mailing list to see what it's for...</comment></comment>


A bitcoin miner in Python - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Looks like this thread is missing some useful information!</comment>


Chinese Family Reportedly Paid $6.5M for Spot at Stanford - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/yusi-zhao-stanford-university.html <comment><USER2> I truly do not understand the shock and outrage.

Jokes about the wealthy/elite getting their offspring admitted to schools in exchange for "buying buildings" or making considerable donations to school endowments have been around far longer than me, and I'm 50.

At what rate do the offspring of apex elite attend top tier schools?

Does that all work on merit?

Did Chelsea Clinton truly deserve her acceptance to Stanford when her father was President? I assume so....

Or was it a much better executed version of Libyan dictator Qaddafi's son and the London School of Economics scandal?

To me it seems these things have always happened.

The only surprise, I think, is when people think they are amongst the elite to whom most rules don't apply, but they're really just part of the super affluent and risk being made examples of.

<comment><USER3> I think you understand the outrage perfectly. I think you may be overestimating the shock.

<comment><USER4> Maybe there's a conflation of the "shock?" There's the level of shock implied by the media and then there's the level of shock experienced by viewers of said media.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked at Stanford in both academic and business departments.

Given the prevailing attitudes and pedigrees of the non-scholarship students, I'm surprised it took this long for the public to realize how elite institutions operate.

Furthermore, I don't think people appreciate that going to an elite institution isn't concerned much about academic rigor, rather it's about networking and getting a pedigree "certificate of authenticity." I'd be willing to bet around half of students cheat as there can be no proctors per the honor code and guess around 10-15% of students buy their way through school.

Universities are a business; elite universities are also status reaffirmation factories.

</comment><comment><USER5> I get that going to a well regarded school is good for your career prospects.

But if you're that rich, what's the benefit? It's not like your child will have trouble finding a job, you could even pay someone to employ them.

Also does anyone know what kind of degrees the kids of rich people who paid to get them in get? I doubt they're graduating with a Master's in Physics.

<comment><USER6> Even more frustrating for me is that for someone that rich it is easy to provide early opportunities for the kid, so that they grow into a person that Stanford actually would want on their own merits. Paying for good schools, tutors, experiences, mentors is a useful helpful thing. You can not buy friends and consciousness, but you can buy the opportunities to grow that on your own. The fact that these people had so many opportunities and still failed to be good parents is beyond sad.

<comment><USER7> Theres an (arab?) parable about this. Something along the lines of "the grandfather is born in a tent and dies in the palace. The son is born and dies in the palace. The grandson is born in the palace, and dies in a tent."

The people who strive and exceed can accomplish great things. Those who are born to greatness may maintain it. But if they dont remember why their lineage strived it can all be lost.

<comment><USER8> "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel." \- Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum of Dubai

<comment><USER9> In this case, I think the context was different. I think he was talking about competition to petroleum

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They already bought the politicians off so its quite easy to buy Stanford spots.

<comment><USER4> After donating a $20m building, is an elite institution ever going to pass on a donor's kid?

The main source of outrage between the current scandal and school donation quid-pro-quo is the brazenness of individualized graft. Before, the rigging of the admissions game had a level of indirection and spatial-temporal separation that seemed amenable and subtle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if there was a correlation between how much someone had to pay, and how bad the student was.

</comment><comment><USER12> Lowering the tuition for other students by $6.5M sounds like a win to me

<comment><USER3> Yeah, because that is how these things are priced. Oh no, wait a minute, they aren't. They will actually be priced using perceived-value-added, so someone paying 6.5 million might push that up a bit.

<comment><USER6> I do not know about Stanford in particular, but elite schools have some of the best financial aid programs in the US. If against odds a kid from a blue collar family gets into an Ivy, they might very well pay zero tuition (which was the case for a number of acquaintances of mine).

However, this money was not paid to the school to buy a spot. It was paid to a white collar criminal who falsified data in order to make it look like the kid "deserved" to get in Stanford.</comment></comment></comment>


Kops – Kubernetes Operations - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kubernetes/kops <comment> awinter-py FWIW kops gave my team a better kube experience on AWS than EKS (their managed version)

guessing EKS isn't as bad now as it was 12 months ago, but 'managed kube' varies tremendously across clouds, especially re ingress & overlay networks

in my experience of AWS EKS, GCE's GKE and digitalocean's one, GCE has the tightest integration between load balancers and ingress, and even that can be clunky

kops is overlay agnostic and lets you choose, which is a con but also a pro

my guess is anyone that needs serious networking performance is still not sold on kube

<comment><USER2> Heads up, AWS has a public GitHub repo ([https://github.com/aws/containers- roadmap](https://github.com/aws/containers-roadmap)) where users can submit bugs and feature request for managed Kubernetes (EKS). It is quite robust and actively maintained by AWS engineers.

Recently managed Kubernetes on AWS (EKS) rolled out the ability to make your master public or private. Previously if you set it to private, you were only able to lookup the master endpoint DNS entry within the VPC. After much backlash[1], they now advertise the private ip publically which allows much greater flexibility. A highly anticipated and nice change.

[1] [https://github.com/aws/containers- roadmap/issues/221](https://github.com/aws/containers-roadmap/issues/221)

<comment> awinter-py making an open source contribution to benefit a big 5 company with deep networking expertise in-house and which _also_ has forked secret versions of mysql and postgres should at least earn me some kind of rebate

<comment><USER2> huh? Rebate how you figure.

<comment> awinter-py oh wait, this is just a bug tracker -- I thought you were suggesting people make OSS contributions to kube plugins that only work on EKS

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're looking to standup a kubernetes server and _not_ on AWS, take a look at kubeadm[0][1]. kubeadm does just enough to build a cluster and not much more -- it's a really light-feeling (even though what it sets up is complicated) bit of kit.

I use it to run on baremetal, and it's a wonderfully simple and robust tool (as well as officially supported) -- it's almost _too_ good, because you should really know everything it's doing and if you use it from the start it's easy to get lost when something goes wrong (most of the time nothing will, but eventually something will).

[0]: [https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/setup- tools/kubeadm/kub...](https://kubernetes.io/docs/reference/setup- tools/kubeadm/kubeadm/)

[1]: [https://github.com/kubernetes/kubeadm/](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubeadm/)

<comment><USER4> The difference between kubeadm and 'The Hard Way' is setting up a ton of certificates you then have to manage and manifests/config for etcd, kubelet, kube-proxy, kube-apiserver, kube-controller-manager, and core-dns. If you diff the default manifests of kubeadm and 'The Hard Way' you'll find they're not especially different.

You should still take the time to read the docs on the components and decide if you want to make changes. 'The Hard Way' doesn't explain what's going on any more than kubeadm does. It's just a set of instructions to follow (that are GCP specific).

<comment><USER3> > The difference between kubeadm and 'The Hard Way' is setting up a ton of > certificates you then have to manage and manifests/config for etcd, kubelet, > kube-proxy, kube-apiserver, kube-controller-manager, and core-dns. If you > diff the default manifests of kubeadm and 'The Hard Way' you'll find they're > not especially different.

The end results are similar but the process is vastly different. kubeadm is almost a one-shot tool, doing it the hard way is a learning process. I was trying to say that obviously when you want to just get it done (or script your cluster) then use kubeadm, but if you're learning k8s it's better to do it the hard way at least once. Building an intuition for for the system is made up of (and where to go/which logs to look at when something goes wrong) is important.

> 'The Hard Way' doesn't explain what's going on any more than kubeadm does

Even just following a guide, running the ancillary tools yourself, downloading and running the binaries, etc is way more explanation than kubeadm or other tools give you -- 90% on a fresh machine you just run kubeadm and you're "done" (for some sense of the word).

Before kubernetes the hard way[0] (which is a fantastic resource, though it's gcp specific) existed, I used the CoreOS guides[1] (this was before they started just pushing "use tectonic" and obviously before they were bought out and essentially merged into atomic/fedora/whatever) -- they were fantastic and did more of a walk through of the what and why of the pieces of k8s. Reading through these guides was essential to building my intuition about k8s (I've even written about the process[2]), and I think it's important for people to do this experimentation as well.

One of the best things about k8s is it's ability to unchain you from cloud providers -- using only managed k8s (without something like crossplane[3]) would be effectively squandering that advantage IMO. Yes most companies don't actually _need_ to run multi-cloud, but I expect that the ability to offer k8s as a managed service interface will make it easy for _anyone_ to become/run a cloud provider, and that's a future I want to see -- more cloud providers means more competition which means a better world for startups and those who consume hosting services.

[0]: [https://github.com/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard- way](https://github.com/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way)

[1]: [https://coreos.com/kubernetes/docs/1.2.2](https://coreos.com/kubernetes/docs/1.2.2)

[2]: [https://vadosware.io/post/fresh-dedicated-server-to- single-n...](https://vadosware.io/post/fresh-dedicated-server-to-single-node- kubernetes-cluster-on-coreos-part-2/)

[3]: [https://crossplane.io/](https://crossplane.io/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Kops is very convenient. It's been the go-to solution for standing up clusters on Kubernetes in my last two companies. In fact, I'm using it tomorrow to set up a demo cluster for a talk in San Diego.

</comment><comment><USER6> If nobody makes a thing called Keystone for this Kops thing, I am going to be very disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER7> I once created a Kops cluster and decided to update masters from m4 to m5 family and then noticed the AMI did not have the actual drivers to mount NVMe disks but the blue green did not work and until I could revert it the old master instances were terminated and I could not get them back. But it was ~2 years ago and I believe it would be much more useful than the current state EKS is in.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the fact that it can generate terraform configurations.

</comment><comment><USER9> I read Kpops</comment>


The GOP's hidden 46% tax bracket - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/11/02/the-gops-hidden-46-tax-bracket-000570 <comment><USER2> Misleading title. The marginal tax rate would be 46%, but the net tax rate you pay on all your income would still be less than the 39.6% marginal rate. The article explains that it's equivalent to setting the marginal tax rate for a different chunk of your income up to 39.6%.</comment>


A demo for Apple fans - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/stories/2010/07/25/aDemoForAppleFans.html <comment><USER2> It must be really, really hard to be Dave Winer. All day long, every day. I wish him the best.</comment>


A couple seconds of random YouTube videos with few views - <AUTHOR> http://astronaut.io/# <comment><USER2> Browsing quickly a few random videos is a nice concept to get a glimpse at what random people do. (reminds me of "zapping" on Canal+)

I noticed same people on different videos, and was thinking the "randomness" might not be so random. I wonder what's the algorithm to pick a random video?

</comment><comment><USER3> What do you want to experiment about?</comment>


How Fentanyl Ingredients From China End Up in the U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/08/chinese-company-helping-fuel-opioid-epidemic/596254/ <comment><USER2> I used to work in chemistry a while back and the trend at the time was outsourcing chemical precursors from China. In the late 1990's it was rare to buy from them, but by mid-2000's most of our chemicals came from China. They literally sprouted a whole chemical industry pretty quickly.

Send drug precursors just came along with that capability. Want to order a starting material for Lipitor? Sure! What about fentanyl itself? Sure! Just another chemical.

<comment><USER3> The unusual thing is that it used to be India that was the source for generic drug company's APIs, with the basic bulk materials coming from China.

Either China ramped up its domestic game and/or India itself outsourced to China.

<comment><USER2> My impression (limited it might be) is that a lot of drug companies went to India to manufacture their own drugs. As you mention, India already had some experience through their domestic generic drug industry.

China built out their own outsourcing outfits somewhat on their own and then US manufacturing shifted to them after.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like the whole "disrupter selling the imcumbent's people opiates" [1] is a recursive theme in statecraft.

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

<comment><USER5> Except China isn't forcing us to buy opium at gun point.

Couple things that would be interesting to find out..

1\. What percentage of the company's total fentanyl pre-cursor sales are for legitimate medical purposes?

2\. What percentage of total orders are fentanyl pre-cursor orders?

Hard to assess scale without this information.

*The people downvoting don't realize there are legitimate uses for fentanyl or what? It's a prescribed painkiller (fyi).

<comment><USER6> England didn't force Chinese citizens to become drug addicts. That came from mass poverty. And the English were happy to get all that silver back for all the tea they had been buying.

As for the miserable poverty England had, they were happy to have their own citizens drink themselves to death.

And when the emperor said enough is enough, the british took a page out of Americas playboy with dealing with japan and trade. But went step further.

And now we have the second largest economy pulling out victimhood, and Americas grand old party is using the same playbook.

Get in power, play a victim, and crush hard working people under your heel.

<comment><USER7> I think you have your dates wrong.

The Chinese, after repeated requests through diplomatic means and appealing directly to Queen Victoria, seized all the opium the foreign merchants were bringing into Canton, destroyed it, and then refused to compensate them. This lead to the British Navy interceding. This happened in 1839, 13 years before US Admiral Perry opened Japan with gunship diplomacy.

Don't get me wrong, both of these actions are abhorrent. But mid 19th century Britain needed no guidebook on how to impose its will

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks If you go down the chain far enough, almost anything is a "drug precursor" \-- This is why a skinny trashy white person in possession of acetone and iodine can be charged with manufacturing methamphetamine.

Fentanyls are pretty simple molecules to make, and banning the "precursors" mentioned here basically means one needs to choose a slightly different synthetic route, or make a slightly different drug.

As for the Chinese company profiled in the article, it is literally the same as any other successful Chinese company in every aspect -- Except for the part where they explicitly discussed Fentanyl and demonstrated that they knew it was a common drug of abuse. But, without personal first hand exposure, they might well consider fentanyl to be the same as cannabis or ketamine, also widely reviled "drugs of abuse" in China.

So, a charitable reading of this article just comes off as uncritical fearmongering. A cynical reading frames it as a "war on drugs" / "war on China" piece.

<comment><USER8> > This is why a skinny trashy white person in possession of acetone and iodine > can be charged with manufacturing methamphetamine.

Has this actually happened? You need a few more ingredients in the chain before you get meth out the other end...I would hope a jury would know this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If this is indeed a major source for ingredients for illegal fentanyl reaching the US, why hasn't it been cut off at that point, through diplomatic channels between the US and China?

Edit: This is an entirely sincere question, and seems an obviously relevant followup to the article, and important to US society plagued by opiate abuse. I realize, after downvoting, that my question could be read multiple ways, but I'll leave it as I initially asked it.

<comment><USER3> It may not matter at this point.

It's so cheap and scalable to produce and so potent, I figure importers "Got while the gettin was good" and already moved containers of precursors or active ingredients state-side.

It could take decades to wash out.

Meanwhile the focus seems to be on ultra-small scale importers bringing in a few grams through the mail.

The kingpins love this distraction, because it just cuts out their competition by removing consumers' direct access to manufacturers.

<comment><USER10> Excellent point. I would bet anything that the chinese government gave their oligarchs ample amount of time to move a large buffer of inventory before the ban went into effect.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to read for three months in the woods? - <AUTHOR>

I just graduated college, but before starting a programming job in the fall I'll be blissfully without electricity for a few months. I'd like to read some books to make me a better programmer while I have the time.
Books that require a computer to do exercises would probably be a wash. I will have paper and pencil.
What can I read that makes me think in new ways about programming, or will give me practical tools to work with in the future. <comment><USER2> Well, if I had to spent 3 months in the woods, I'd certainly would want some books about survival in woods, a good book about edible mushroom identification, how to build traps and hunting weapons, stuff like that.

If you survive the 3 months in the woods, then you will have ample time to revise your programming skills later in your long live.

Programming is also about knowing your priorities...</comment>


CS183C Session 8: Eric Schmidt - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/cs183c-blitzscaling-class-collection/cs183c-session-8-eric-schmidt-56c29b247998 <comment><USER2> "I went to Novell under the mistaken goal of being a CEO. I didn't do the due diligence, and if I had, I wouldn't have gone. Our basic goal was to get out with our professional reputations intact and not end up in jail. The books were cooked, and people were frauds. But it turns out you can overcome that, and the skills I developed helped at Google."

I'm quite surprised that he would say something like that in public. I understand that this is a transcript made in a class in which Eric Schmidt was being interviewed. I know the chances are slim, but can anyone confirm that he really said this?

<comment><USER3> As far as his reference to Google, it seems the next sentence is what he means: "I understood the rule of cash, so we did everything we could to manage for revenue, and the rest is history."

<comment><USER2> That's how I understand it. I just think what he said in the sentences before is potentially slanderous. Doesn't he basically accuse Novel's management at the time of fraud?

<comment><USER4> It's not slander if it's true. "the books" is a permanent record and can be easily verified if it goes to litigation.

<comment><USER5> > not slander if it's true

but that's trade secret!

no seriously, I wonder if that's been tried.

<comment><USER4> It's literally the law. At least that's what my lawyer told me. I hope she's not lying?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > At Novell, we had what I called "glue" people. They sit at the boundaries, > and help everyone work together.

What does he mean by this? Social people that make a good environment? Or generalist that know a bit of everything?

> You don't hire generic people — you hire people who have had stress and > achievement.

Isn't this bias inducing towards good storytellers?

> Once we decided to review all the tactics, we put in a scoring system. > Sergey said, the problem is, these scores are biased.

How does google evaluate performance?

<comment><USER4> The world is biased towards good storytellers. I highly recommend reading Lauren Rivera's Pedigree. It's published in 2015 and resonates with my friends in consulting and finance.

[http://www.amazon.com/Pedigree-How-Elite-Students- Jobs/dp/06...](http://www.amazon.com/Pedigree-How-Elite-Students- Jobs/dp/0691155623/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1445190973&sr=8-2&keywords=pedigree)

<comment><USER6> Does the book teach you how to be a good storyteller?

BTW, thanks for this one [1]. I'll be reading it, and similar material, really soon (had it bookmarked here.)

Regarding my comment, I should have explained myself better in any case.

I suspect all software developers have experienced some amounts of stress in getting things done on time. My problem is that I don't keep a track record of it.

Just a few days ago on a phone interview they asked me of any interesting problem I had solved. My honest non-impressive answer was "nothing in particular, I just go at it and keep going".

I have faced countless problems and when I do: I fix them. I don't write them on my diary. But now I know I should have.

One thing I do keep track are my programming and linux notes because I've dealt with so many different technologies.

And will be moving those to github and blogs since nowadays you need to be a social coder.

[1] [http://kelukelu.me/interview/](http://kelukelu.me/interview/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Hope it helps.

Yes, the book helps. She wrote it to expose unfairness in American society, but unfortunately some people read it as a "how to break into the elite." One section explains how storytelling works in an interview context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > 6 months after we went to auctions, we had to merge three different > databases. I asked if I should be in the datacenter, and the engineers said, > what are you talking about, we never go to the datacenter.

Hah! Good one. The best datacenter is one you never see, and never have to see.

However it does make me wonder if Schmidt knows less about software than I thought he might. The random scattered mentions of machine learning present the same image. Then again, I assume this is a person taking notes which are snippets of conversation potentially out of context.

<comment><USER8> Eric Schmidt was one of the authors of Lex (not the original version) when he was an intern at Bell Labs.

He has a deep understanding of software. I've met him, he asked about my project, and his level of detailed questions showed he understood a great deal about software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Q: Hiring? > A: One of our rules was, we don't want to hire your friends. > Another rule was not to hire people from "lesser" universities. Another rule > was to only hire people with good GPAs. It was frustrating, but it meant > that we ended up with a lot of really smart people from great universities, > and that served us well.

I wonder what led to Google changing their minds and not considering the GPA as a part of hiring decisions.

<comment><USER10> They ran out of perfectly pedigreed people to hire, when they got big and competitors offered better prospects.

<comment><USER11> This is my guess. Recently Google began to aggressively recruit at my university over the last two years or so. The cynical question is, of course, "why only in the last two years?" when our particular CS program has been around since the 80s.

The recruiter claimed that it was because more people started to be hired out of my school. But that still isn't sufficient to discount this possibility.

Granted I'm living in a country that isn't the U.S., that could have played a role. But I'm not confident either way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Gnome" is actually Noam Shazeer

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I was wondering about this.

Noam was a very successful early googler. He was one of the feel people at early Google who actually did fundamental work in machine learning (George Harik was the other).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > The teams are far larger than they should be. It's a failure of architecture > — the programmers don't have the right libraries. I hope that machine > learning will fix that problem.

This may have been a transcription error, but as written I can't make sense of it. Can anyone else?

<comment><USER8> It is now understood that products can be built with far fewer developers, who leverage machine learning on large data sets. Much less code has to be written, and the ML does most of the work in tuning the product behavior.

<comment><USER13> Sounds good to me! Where can I learn about these techniques. I've got a 4 CPU Ghz machine sitting waiting for my keystrokes. Please tell me how I can get this thing to help me write software.

<comment><USER8> It is best learned by working at companies who are practicing this art.

<comment><USER13> Hrm. So the revolution will be closed source? No, seriously... are there books on the subject? Open source libraries? Which companies are developing such tools? Googling is not turning up a whole lot.

<comment><USER8> I'd say that Facebook, Google, Twitter, and a few others are really good at this.

Many of them release a fair amount of their code as open source, but these sorts of capabilities are generally dependent on having absurd amounts of data, which is prohibitively challenging for anybody who doesn't run a website that sees massive traffic.

<comment><USER13> Are we talking about the same thing? I was referring the point in the interview when Eric says that ML will help make software development teams smaller.

I was imagining some bit of AI that had figured out the best way to download asynchronously. Or the best way to layout a UI with code. You could maybe describe a process using natural language & it would just create a best attempt for you. You could then modify or steer it.

Seems doable, but I don't see how you'd need big data from massive numbers of users. And seems very interesting given that APIS and what they can do is much more finite than the physical world.

<comment><USER8> Finding the best layout of a UI using a machine learning algorithm is an example of what I meant. In theory it means you don't really need a UX team or a UI team alongside an engineering team.

I went back and re-read the interview and I believe I'm channeling Eric properly.

<comment><USER13> I'm very much interested in these things. To remain competitive indie developers and the open source community will need to apply these methods as well. I hope to see some publicly available tools soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That last part about antitrust is weird. European (antitrust) law is biased against large companies? Huh.

<comment><USER15> Well, the point of antitrust law is to prevent cartels and monopoly abuses; companies of all sizes can be guilty of such. My guess is that he's saying that EU law tends to crack down on large companies even if they are only the largest (not single) player in a competitive market, while leaving alone the SMBs that collude to corner a small market.

<comment><USER16> While IANAL, the monopoly part is a misnomer. It is really about abuse of market position.

When Microsoft got into hot water during the browser war with Netscape, it was about abusing their position in one market (computer OS) to gain a position in another (web browser and web server). This by bundling Internet Explorer for free with Windows, that in turn had special binding to their IIS web server.

So when EU is looking into Google, they are looking into how their position in one market gets used to affect other markets (like say when they re-jig their search algorithms).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anybody know why the playboy interview put the IPO in jeopardy?

<comment><USER18> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_period)

<comment><USER19> To add to that, here's an article about this particular case: [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-playboy-article- delay-...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/will-playboy-article-delay-google- ipo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Definitely looking forward to watching the video.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is filled with punctuation errors. When I saw the first one, I just regarded it as a typo and kept reading. But it wasn't a typo, which is annoying—it's as if this interview was done by someone allergic to question marks.

<comment><USER22> I think what happened is these are notes some person took during a class in which Eric Schmidt was being interviewed. So the questions and answers are whatever the notetaker was able to get down in real time. The entire content likely paraphrases only the most salient things being said.

<comment><USER21> So this material was valuable enough to blog, but not valuable enough to proofread? I don't follow that logic. I can't imagine posting writing or an interview that hasn't been proofed. I think an interview with Schmidt would demand at least a first-pass edit.

<comment><USER10> So proofread it yourself, or stop complaining about stuff people give you for free.

<comment><USER21> Your logic fails. I should proofread someone else's blog post because they didn't, or else I shouldn't complain? Mmmmm. Got it.

You obviously don't even understand what writing is, on the internet or anywhere else. Writing is done as a service to the reader. If you can't be bothered to do an edit and correct obvious spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, you're telling your readers that what you've written isn't very important, interesting, or worth reading.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


FDA Repays Industry by Rushing Risky Drugs to Market - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/fda-repays-industry-by-rushing-risky-drugs-to-market <comment><USER2> Wow. What a terrible and one-sided article. It's apparent the author has little understanding of how the FDA and drug approval works.

Yes, all drugs have side effects and yes, some drugs will be approved and later pulled from the market when we have more data. It is impossible to fully vet a drug in clinical trials. It's meant to reduce the risk, not eliminate it.

And yes, drug manufacturers pay most of the FDA budget. That's by design and there is zero evidence that it has an impact on the FDA's independence.

<comment><USER3> > there is zero evidence that it has an impact on the FDA's independence

This is a strong claim. Do you have any proof? Has anyone studied this?

<comment><USER2> I think the fact the FDA has rejected plenty of drugs for companies who have been "working the system" is proof enough.

Generally manufacturers are scared of the FDA. They have a lot of power and aren't afraid to use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The new regime began in earnest in 2011. The FDA is also now making it easier to obtain experimental drugs for terminal illnesses.

There are some negative side effects, but overall, so long as there is full disclosure of known issues (we may need to improve upon this) I think people are better served by having a wider choice of medicines to address their ailments. Pro publica, here, is not being pro public but more anti pharma for unknown reasons.

It's distateful when public interest orgs transform into political orgs with agendas.

<comment><USER5> "It's distateful when public interest orgs transform into political orgs with agendas."

Okay, so what exactly do you think public interest orgs are?

<comment><USER6> > Okay, so what exactly do you think public interest orgs are?

Public interest organizations represent the diffuse general public against concentrated power, e.g. when the EFF pushes back against Hollywood lobbying for retroactive copyright term extensions.

The issue is to avoid an "us vs. them" frame, because not everything MegaCorp wants is against the public interest. There is a public interest in having access to more medicine. It's counterproductive to fight something that helps everyone just because it also helps MegaCorp.

<comment><USER5> The OP said was distasteful when they turn into "political orgs with a political agenda".

The EFF is in fact, a political org with a political agenda. They don't pretend otherwise.

Whether they are working on behalf of the public all depends on your relative viewpoint.

Pretty much all of them believe they are working on behalf of the public, even the ones HN would classify as industry lobbying orgs, etc.

<comment><USER6> > The OP said was distasteful when they turn into "political orgs with a > political agenda".

There is a difference between political in the sense that all legislation is political, and politics as an "us vs. them" tribal conflict where anything which is bad for your opponents is good for you and vice versa. Having anyone, but public interest orgs especially, participate in the second kind of politics is distasteful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Related article some may find interesting: [http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/fda_inspections_fraud_fabrication_and_scientific_misconduct_are_hidden_from.single.html)

<comment><USER8> This is probably the best refutation to the (currently top) sub-thread about this article being one-sided.

> It does so not only by passive silence, but by active deception. And despite > being called out numerous times over the years for its bad behavior, > including from some very pissed-off members of Congress, the agency is > stubbornly resistant to change. It's a sign that the FDA is deeply captured

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Between 2011 and 2015, the FDA reviewed new drug applications more than 60 days faster on average than did the European Medicines Agency."

At least the article didn't try to imply it's a new problem, which might drum up some clicks. Kudos for integrity that way.</comment>


11 Disappointments About He-Man, In Retrospect - <AUTHOR> http://www.11points.com/TV/11_Disappointments_About_He-Man,_In_Retrospect <comment><USER2> At first at thought "He-Man on HN?", then after reading the article I had a good laugh as it brought me back to the good old days as a child, and now how have complete understanding of how cheesy He-man really was but sadly didn't see it until now, yep ignorance is bliss.</comment>


Google Gets a Seat on the Trump Transition Team - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/11/15/google-gets-a-seat-on-the-trump-transition-team/ <comment><USER2> Or more precisely, a law professor at George Mason University, who received Google funding for at least four academic papers gets a seat on the Trump Transition Team.

<comment><USER3> Wright received $762,000 in funding from Google for at least four academic papers, all of which supported Google's position that it did not violate antitrust laws.

He might as well be a Google employee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> sort of meta.. who's behind The Intercept? A lot of their headlines (which I've been seeing more of these days) seem rather inflammatory and bordering on clickbait. So does some of the writing. Using words like "surreptitiously" when talking about the iPhone syncing call information. (it's really not doing it surreptitiously.)

Not a fan of them.</comment>


Viddler serving 1,500 requests for video per second - <AUTHOR> http://blog.viddler.com/cdevroe/traffic/

<comment><USER2> There are some really good videos on there too--you can learn about so many things, and they tend to weed out the junk. This is a breathtaking one about Japan: <http://www.viddler.com/explore/jiggymedia/videos/1/94.966/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Mind-blowing.

</comment><comment><USER4> wow

</comment><comment><USER5> anyone know of posts about their architecture of scaling adventures? I'd love to see how they're handling all of that.

<comment><USER6> Hey ddemchuk- alas, no real posts about the setup yet-- we have about 30 servers + amazon ec2 and some random VPSs - multiple languages, multiple backends, and many subsites all balanced with nginx at the front. One day I will write an actual post about this. Fire away if you're curious about anything in particular!

<comment><USER5> I would love to read a post about it, I'm a huge fan of reading about people's scaling and architecture decisions. Thanks for the reply!</comment></comment></comment>