Are Facebook and YouTube quasi-governmental actors? - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/08/07/are-facebook-and-youtube-quasi-governmental-actors <comment><USER2> It is kind of scary how someone can be "blackballed" from the internet.

All of your social media accounts get deleted so you move to your own website. Until the hosting company decides they don't want to do business with you so you start hosting it yourself. Until the domain registrar you used decides they don't like you so now you have to give people an IP address to reach your site. Until your ISP terminates your contract because they don't like people hosting websites on their network.

So many services controlled by private companies that can choose to not do business with someone.

<comment><USER3> > So many services controlled by private companies that can choose to not do > business with someone.

That discrimination is not based on intrinsic qualities, though. You can't discriminate on skin color, sexual orientation, etc. because society-at-large has decided those are qualities that you're born with.

But it's perfectly within everyone's right to discriminate against assholes, if that's what they judge you to be.

You can try to change their minds, but there is no right or law that forces them to listen.

Furthermore, a person can't change their genetics. But they can change their attitude, personality, etc. so those are not intrinsic qualities.

<comment><USER2> Sure, I'm not saying these private companies should be forced to do business with someone like Alex Jones. But maybe some of these services shouldn't just be controlled by private companies. I'm kind of surprised that a government owned domain registrar doesn't exist, for example. If I want to register a domain name I have to go through a private company who can choose not to serve me as long as it isn't because I'm a member of a protected class.

<comment><USER4> There are plenty government owned registrars. Heck the gTLD .gov is pretty much a goverment entity. They even have policy regarding FOIA requests: [https://home.dotgov.gov/foia/](https://home.dotgov.gov/foia/) which is they are exempt. However, good luck getting .gov domain. It probably is not happening unless your an actual government entity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Trying to figure out how a cake baker with 1 store front is NOT allowed to discriminate, but multi billion dollar multinational companies are allowed to... ?

BTW Facebook and Google have both received large amounts of government tax rebates etc. for their datacenters, so there is some government involvement. e.g. [https://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-microsoft- facebo...](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/google-microsoft-facebook- apple-and-amazon-get-2b-in-data-center-tax-breaks-economic-benefit-unclear/)

<comment><USER6> The cake shop is free to discriminate against Alex Jones for the sane reason the YT, FB, AAPL, and Spotify are.

<comment><USER7> So, undecided then? The Masterpiece Cakeshop decision didn't really resolve the issue either way, just punted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Problem: social networks are increasingly building themselves around "journalistic" or "media" companies. These companies can lean on their political alignment to vindicate themselves when things go sour with the network. Easy to turn this into a campaign against "mainstream" media AKA whoever isn't getting banned.

Solution: No idea, but it's interesting to see this play out around media orgs instead of like, actual users who might have an opinion. Alex Jones is a strong face for InfoWars, but the whole thing is a media company.

</comment><comment><USER9> There seems to be a tremendous opportunity brewing for censorship-free service providers. If the Terms of Service were such that they only prevented illegal activity, spam, and other automated abuse being conducted on their platform, and left content alone, is there a way to make that feasible?

<comment><USER10> You're essentially describing where we started out. We know what happens without rules, online and off. There's a reason we converge towards having standards of behavior above basic legality.

We have to stop conflating the importance to speak without threat of imprisonment with a right to publish anything anywhere.

<comment><USER11> I'd argue that there is no significant difference in the way that totalitarian governments silence democracy activists, Muslims or just random people protesting against government actions, and the actions of Facebook, Apple, Google and Spotify.

Yes Alex Jones is horrible. Problem is, if crazy people don't have freedom of speech, you don't have it either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's pretty clear that they are. And so it is arguable that the First Amendment should apply.

However, it's also arguable that the men who wrote the Bill of Rights had not even a shred of a clue about the power of social media on the Internet. News spread slowly then, and there was time for considered debate.

I mean, they were concerned about restraining democratic will to protect against populist extremism. For example, US senators were initially elected by state legislatures. And the Electoral College wasn't just an accounting system.

But damn, I don't have an answer. One could argue that Alex Jones is basically yelling "fire", and so has no expectation of free speech. But what about the antiwar.com people? What's so horrible about advocating the rights of Palestinians, or opposing sanctions against Iran?

<comment><USER13> > One could argue that Alex Jones is basically yelling "fire", and so has no > expectation of free speech.

Of all the things you could argue, I think this is explicitly not one of them. All the crazy and ridiculous things Alex says are in no way comporable to a direct call to violence or endangering Public safety with knowingly false statements.

In other words, Facebook is silencing free speech in a way that is definitely not covered if they must comply with the bill of rights.

<comment><USER12> I meant "fire" in a political sense.

OK, hypothetically, if he were part of a Russian operation to destabilize the United States, would the US government be justified in prosecuting him? I mean, consider Mariia Butina , who "face[s] charges related to interference in the presidential election."[0]

0) [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/us/politics/trump- russia-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/us/politics/trump-russia- indictment.html)

<comment><USER13> > OK, hypothetically, if he were part of a Russian operation to destabilize > the United States, would the US government be justified in prosecuting him?

Sedition is a different charge than censored speech.

> I meant "fire" in a political sense.

When you are talking about free speech, there is no other sense other than the literal in-a-movie-theater sense.

<comment><USER12> Why is he being censored, do you think?

Is it just a PR issue?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yes. The term that is popular in Europe is "Quangos" or "quasi-autonomous non- governmental organization". Quangos doesn't technically apply here, but I think it's a good frame of mind / reference to use.

The fact that government power, has in the West, declined extensively since the 1970's, means the power went elsewhere. The corporate / finance sector, with rock bottom interest rates provided from capital across the globe have received most of it.

Of course this did all provide some benefits via the many innovations we've seen. But there are also many, probably more, downsides that we are seeing now.

</comment><comment><USER15> To the extent that they are strong-armed by governments to carry out government mandates, they are. In some nations, governments may require companies to regulate speech, and in those cases it is hard to argue that these companies are _not_ acting on behalf of the state.

</comment><comment><USER16> What if power companies "de-platformed" you? After all you use that power to spew hate, so they are morally responsible. And there is no constitutional right to have electrical power.

You can just get yourself a generator, right.

And of course, Apple is under no obligation to sell you a MacBook. After all, being a hateful person is not a protected class.

I think it's about time we build a "bad people" list, which companies can consult before providing service. And if any company doesn't respect it, we can social media mob them into compliance.

<comment><USER17> Let's be real here, there are big differences in what you're saying. The power company, or Apple for that matter can't know what you're using their products for. You could be smearing shit on twitter at work, or on the public wifi. There's no connection there. Whereas twitter, facebook, insta etc. the literal process is you send a message to the platform saying "Put X on you're website on my behalf".

A second big difference is facebook decides to de-platform groups on facebook for what they do on facebook, they aren't banning people on a shared bad people list. That would be a kind of cartel/collusion which breaches other restraints on a company's behaviour.

<comment><USER16> You are behind the times. Behavior outside Twitch can now lead to an indefinite ban:

> _In a blog post on Twitch's community board, the company said that if a > streamer uses other mediums to send targeted harassment or hate toward > another streamer, it will consider those actions a violation of Twitch's > policies — even though the activity didn't happen directly on the platform._

[https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/8/16988424/twitch-rules- haras...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/2/8/16988424/twitch-rules-harassment- toxicity-ban-policy)

<comment><USER18> This sounds a lot like how students in the US are treated with respect to first amendment rights in public schools

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Do Facebook and YouTube constitute quasi-governmental actors that should be > held to constitutional standards when regulating their vast marketplaces of > ideas? Mr Tribe says that under current law, they aren't.

Betteridge's Law wins again

<comment><USER20> It seems the point here is to ask if they should be considered as such (potentially via changing the law), not how they are viewed under the current legal framework (where as they said, the answer is no).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> yes

</comment><comment><USER22> No they aren't.

</comment><comment><USER23> > He has suggested that America's government was involved in the Oklahoma City > bombing in 1993 and the September 11th terrorist attacks. He says that > vaccinating children will give them autism.

There is always a two-way relationship between the regulated and the regulator. Therefore, all regulated companies are, in a sense, merged with government. The greater the regulatory regime, the more deeply society becomes impressed with the features of fascism.

Do the stakeholders of the banking, pharmaceutical, media, and war cartels, forged in government agencies (whose charters they themselves drafted) and nurtured through regulation, hold sway over Alphabet and Facebook? It's a simple enough question to research and answer.

<comment><USER24> He also was one of few people who was right about the NSA pre-Snowden. People seen to forget this. When I read the Snowen story my first thought was that, unfortunately, more people would take InfoWars seriously. I do not support censorship, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Free speech does not and has never meant "say whatever you want to anyone without repercussions". Alex Jones isn't in jail; that's about the extent of the privilege his free speech rights afford him, and he still may be succesfully sued.

<comment><USER26> You're thinking of the first amendment and other legal institutions. Free speech is a much broader concept than this. Ask yourself what a right to bodily autonomy would be if the government only promised that its officers wouldn't bring harm to you, but any private citizen could: it would be anarchy. The reason there is no legal commentary limiting censorship is because it is difficult to discern in the general case when censorship is itself a speech act. This does not limit you or I from making this distinction as private citizens in the particular case, as here.

<comment><USER27> > Free speech is a much broader concept than this.

Free speech is exactly and specifically the right to control what expression you and your property are deployed to support. Private censorship isn't merely consistent with it, it is the _core_ of it.

<comment><USER26> Free speech is, in fact, primarily the right to say what you want, not the right to stop others from saying what they want. I admitted that the latter form is sometimes important, but that imparts no requirement on the rest of us to always agree with it.

>you and your property are deployed to support

In particular: "you and your property" is a much more general concept here then it might normally be. If I lend out my printing press to people then I should be able to say what they print with it. If I sell printing presses at a fair market rate, ie I am satisfied with my side of the transaction, then I shouldn't turn around and impose terms on the use of that press. These two things are qualitatively different, even though they both involve limiting the use of printing presses that were at one point mine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Most of these comments fail to appreciate the highly extreme nature of Alex Jones' rhetoric. Its obscene, flagrant garbage. There are dozens of lines he crossed thousands of times. He isn't banned from speech, but there isn't a place for that kind of conduct on platforms with any kind of standards.

<comment><USER29> > Its obscene, flagrant garbage.

It is. So what?

> there isn't a place for that kind of conduct on platforms with any kind of > standards.

Flag it as "obscene, flagrant garbage" and hide it. Allow the user to decide. If they want to switch their account to "allow all", that's their choice.

Google does this with search. They can easily do this on YouTube.

They choose not to, which is unfortunate.

<comment><USER28> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions)

The tradition of American law certainly flies a different way than the approach you suggest. I sincerely respect your position, but feel that wisdom and tradition have found value in taking a more nuanced approach.

<comment><USER29> That's a list of speech that can be justifiably repressed by the _government_. It doesn't apply here. We're talking about private parties and about speech that doesn't meet those thresholds, but is nevertheless reprehensible.

<comment><USER28> I assert that this threshold: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions#Fighting_words_and_offensive_speech)

was broken by this incident: "The Pizzagate incident, like Jade Helm before it, illustrates Jones's ability to influence his followers to take action in the real world, no matter how far-fetched or unrealistic his claims might be. The Pizzagate "story" emerged in the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign, and thanks in part to active promotion by Michael G. Flynn, the son of former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn (who also appeared to endorse the story on social media), was still going strong a full month after Election Day, when Edgar Welch appeared at Comet Ping Pong with an assault rifle, ready to "rescue" the children he was convinced were being held in the basement. Welch fired several shots and spent close to an hour inside the restaurant before apparently determining that there were not, in fact, any signs of any criminal activity anywhere in the building. He surrendered to police, and later pleaded guilty to assault and weapons charges. Welch was sentenced in June 2017 to four years in prison."

Source: [https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/alex-jones- five-...](https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/alex-jones-five-things- to-know)

It is rather audacious to me that you seem to assert that speech in social platforms that are owned and operated in the US with US citizens talking to each other is somehow separate from the rule of law of the US government. The internet was essentially created by the US government. The notion that internet companies somehow supersede individual governments is- dangerous.

The decision of social platforms to enforce their policies in this matter is in part in response to the will of their stakeholders, but also to insulate themselves from anything remotely close to being a party to defamation.

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

> It doesn't apply here. <\- doesn't hold up for me.

One could argue that ironically, in exercising editorial discretion on content, social platforms demonstrate their ability to censure content, and thus open themselves up to liability for all of the content they chose not to take editorial action against.

If you've gotten this far in this thread, please spend some time with Alex Jones' greatest hits and give me your honest opinion of its merit.

Snarky disclaimer: I give money to the ACLU, I believe in free speech deeply, and though every fiber in my being is opposed to their cause I will fight for the right for Westboro Baptist Church to be able to assemble peacefully in public space. But even Alex Jones' site acknowledges the need for limits: [https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/08/07/censorship- platforms-...](https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/08/07/censorship-platforms- delete-infowars-content-not-according-infowars/)

<comment><USER29> You've made a couple of points here.

With regard to the Pizzagate incident, using the same set of arguments, I can claim that fringe leftist publications resulted in the Congressional baseball shooting where people were actually hurt.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_sh...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Congressional_baseball_shooting#Perpetrator)

So are you arguing that all those groups he participated in should be banned? That's what it sounds like.

Are you willing to ban Bernie for incitement?

> It is rather audacious to me that you seem to assert that speech in social > platforms that are owned and operated in the US with US citizens talking to > each other is somehow separate from the rule of law of the US government. > The internet was essentially created by the US government. The notion that > internet companies somehow supersede individual governments is- dangerous.

It is not the job of private companies to enforce the law. That's the government's job. And there's a reason for that. You do not get to be judge, jury, and executioner because you have some superiority complex.

If the government took action, we can have a substantive discussion over the merits of the case ... but it's irrelevant, because they didn't.

> The decision of social platforms to enforce their policies in this matter is > in part in response to the will of their stakeholders, but also to insulate > themselves from anything remotely close to being a party to defamation.

It doesn't matter what reason they had for doing it. They may not even have had a reason. It is their right to do it ... but just because you can, doesn't mean you should. That was my point. It's a poor decision.

> If you've gotten this far in this thread, please spend some time with Alex > Jones' greatest hits and give me your honest opinion of its merit.

What merit does the WWE ( [https://www.wwe.com/](https://www.wwe.com/) ) have?

He's the equivalent in the talk show space. It's entertainment.

Do some people take it seriously? I'm sure they do. Some people take the WWE seriously too and think that it's real. So what?

Even if the content has no merit whatsoever, so what? Again, we're not talking about the government censoring him. That's when merit would come into play. It's a private party.

They can absolutely do it. And they shouldn't, because censorship is bad. Really, really bad.

And let's not pretend like their censorship is targeted at only undesirables. Well, I suppose it is, but it depends on who is pointing the finger. These same shitty companies censor perfectly legitimate content in China, because $$$. Not cool.

All these private companies that banned him, they _all_ categorize content. They can easily have a _nutjob_ category and if I want to watch that, it's my business. I don't need the social engineering, thanks.

Also, social engineering usually backfires. I hear Alex Jones has a really popular app and website now due to all the publicity?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The ad economy incentivizes poor quality content, clickbait and more and more extremist and divisive content. This won't stop, it will keep becoming more and more extreme and more and more divisive. You can confirm this on facebook and youtube at any time.

The interim solution is to demonetize any non-original content, political content, news and opinion based content and disable personalized political or social advertising on all platforms.

Because at the moment the large social media companies are profiting from incentivizing extremism and division and are basically poisoning the well.

</comment><comment><USER31> Facebook, YouTube, and the like are publishers.

As a society, we did not have qualms before the internet about publishers declining to amplify the views of people like Alex Jones. Even in the absence of YouTube's support, he arguably has far more of a voice now than he did in the pre-internet days, before he could host his own website. He has that on top of all the traditional means of communication he always had, which includes passing out flyers and yelling in the street.

It is the responsibility of information disseminators to curate their content. Nobody is going to jail over these editorial choices, so the notion that this is a constitutional issue is pure hysteria. YouTube and Facebook are finally stepping up to the responsibility they have long owed us from the beginning.

<comment><USER32> > Facebook, YouTube, and the like are publishers.

If they are publishers then they should be held responsible for the content they publish.

Just like a newspaper would be.

<comment><USER31> Agree.

I think we are waking up to that, and this is a sign that we are beginning to move in that direction.

<comment><USER32> Facebook etc want to have the best of both worlds.

For example if a reporter at the NYT slanders me then I can hold the NYT responsible.

Facebook wants to say "oh no no no we are just a platform - you have to find and sue the poster" while at the same time heavily curating content.

<comment><USER31> Sure. They would like their liability be zero in both cases. I think it should be more than zero in both cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's time to improve the law and guarantee the right of all citizens to use monopoly services.

Any large private platform or network should be subject to the First Amendment, because most of them don't operate primarily in a free market. Instead they are monopolies that enjoy network effects and as a consequence are easily strong-armed by governments.

If Facebook's stock keeps declining and it ends up a shadow of its current self then it can be released from this obligation.

<comment><USER34> How would any of these sites then be moderated? If removing a comment is now a violation of the first amendment how do you keep sites true to the niche they where founded to serve?

If I run the most popular website for people who like chili do I now have to allow posts related to all types of soups? Can my really popular chili site remove posts about your dog you keep making?

<comment><USER33> If your chili site reaches the status of de facto town square where most public political discourse occurs, then yes you need to let everyone participate.

Silicon Valley social media companies are effectively public forums on private land.</comment></comment></comment>


Why the integrated approach to mobile devices is winning - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2012/06/25/why-the-integrated-approach-to-mobile-devices-is-winning/

<comment><USER3> I usually agree with Chris Dixon, but here I believe he is working from an incorrect premise.

First of all it is not at all certain that the integrated approach is winning for smart phones. In fact depending on what definition of winning one uses, it can be easily said that the integrated approach is losing. There are more android devices being sold than iOS devices and the gulf is widening.

Here Dixon uses a bit of sleigh of hand by stating that Android is integrated now because Google bought Motorola. This is not true. Google bought Motorola for the patents, there is no indication that they will change their Android strategy. They still offer the Android software to all other makers at the same terms as they do to Motorola. And furthermore, Motorola is not even the largest Android phone maker. That honor belongs to Samsung and they are very much distinct from Google.

It is also not exactly true that the non-integrated approach always compromises performance. Remember the days of the old pre OSX macs? Those were truly integrated devices with a closed and proprietary architecture from top to bottom. Were they better performing than the PCs? Not even close.

There is an advantage in performance for the non-integrated approach that business people tend to discount. A non-integrated system is much more open and thus it can easily benefit from improvements from unexpected directions. Thus, for PCs we had the improvements like better sound cards, consumer grade video accelerators, and a shitload of improvements of motherboards, memory peripherals, etc. before apple got them. The open PC was ready to take advantage of any brilliant idea anybody in the world ever thought of. For the mac one usually had to get permission from the Apple headquarters first and Apple management were not always perfect or fast.

This is the great advantage of open systems. Their disadvantage is that there are usually problems with interfaces, etc. This was not much of an issue for the relatively large and well powered PC, but may be an issue for cell phones where power, heat dissipation and space are all at a premium.

In general, it seems that the integrated approach wins out in the beginning, when there is no broad marketplace open systems can take advantage of. But after a while, the non-integrated approach wins out. It seems that relatively less-integrated smart phones are slowly but surely beating their more integrated peers. For tablets, however, integration still rules.

<comment><USER4> >First of all it is not at all certain that the integrated approach is winning for smart phones. In fact depending on what definition of winning one uses, it can be easily said that the integrated approach is losing. There are more android devices being sold than iOS devices and the gulf is widening.

If you define winning as profits generated (which is an important definition because sustained profits earn you the right to keep playing, while market share does not), then the integrated approach is definitely winning, as Apple consumes the lion's share of mobile profits (there are several sources but for reference see here: [http://www.asymco.com/2012/05/03/the-phone-market- in-2012-a-...](http://www.asymco.com/2012/05/03/the-phone-market- in-2012-a-tale-of-two-disruptions/)).

How things play out in 10 years is anyone's guess, but for now the profits, momentum and sentiment remain firmly on the side of the integrated approach.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that "Apple consumes the lion's share of mobile profits" is rapidly becoming a myth.

Eg: [Samsung] _posted a record net profit for all its divisions of 5.05 trillion won ($A4.43 billion) in the first quarter, thanks largely to strong smartphone sales._ [1]

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/samsung- galaxy-s3...](http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/samsung-galaxy-s3-to- hit-10-million-sales-20120625-20xvx.html#ixzz1yskenc7t)

<comment><USER6> 1) Why are you referring to mobile profits, then citing the net profit of the entire company? Samsung do a lot more than phones.

2) Even if you're comparing the whole company's profits, AAPL still win, they raked in 6 billion USD in profit last quarter.

<comment><USER5> Did you read the quote, especially this part: _thanks largely to strong smartphone sales_?

There is no argument that Apple is making more money. The point is that others are also making excellent mobile profits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've studied Christensen's three main books; I find them very appealing but I'm not quite convinced by the component-vs-integrated idea.

While an integrated approach can squeeze out more performance, does it predict industry structure? Here, it's true that the iPhone's integration greatly aids its performance; and performance is certainly needed in this market.

But (IBM) PC's were never integrated... and performance was certainly in demand in that market (for years and years people would keep buying faster PCs). And, to compare them with Apple's Macs at that time (which _were_ integrated, just like the iPhone), PC's often had better performance per buck than Macs.

Christensen argues that this is because the performance enhancement was more due to particular components (especially the CPU), rather than their integration. Thus, those key components became the focus for improvement. So, the result of Intel improving CPUs (for example) was that the performance of the whole PC increased. This saves the theory... in fact, he turns it around, and points out that Intel CPUs were integrated _internally_ in order to get that performance.

While I do find this very interesting, I get the feeling of _post hoc_ analysis in too many of his examples... and a theory that doesn't predict the future is just not quite compelling for me. :-)

BTW: Christensen says that integrated and component approaches have different strengths, and which one wins depends on what that market needs. If the market is desperate for performance (and will pay a premium for it), then an integrated approach will be more popular and profitable. But if the market doesn't really care about performance, but instead wants something that is customizable, then a component approach will win. Markets change over time. Typically, some feature gets better until it's "good enough" (most people won't pay for more of it). He claims there's also an alternation between the levels of a system: if "integration" wins at one level, then "componentization" wins at the parts that are integrated e.g. PC's were not integrated, but their parts (CPUs, HDD etc) _were_ integrated internally... but the parts used within them switched back to being not integrated.

<comment><USER8> I haven't read Christensen in particular but there's another factor which could distinguish PCs and Phones.

PCs were in demand for more or less one quality, power (with screen resolution making maybe two). A phone is in demand for a multitude of qualities - size, power, batter life, screen resolution, ergonomics, etc. A PC that was twice the size, twice the power and half the price of its competitor could do well. Phone not so much.

With a multitude of constraints to combine, it's not surprising that software hardware integration happens. Cars are integrated systems more than a hundred years after their invention whereas you can make do buying different components for your house.

<comment><USER7> First, I'll correct my terminology - it's not "componentized" but "modular". Both integration and modular approach have components, the distinction is that different modular components can be used; there are many components that fulfill the same interface in a modular architecture, whereas in an integrated architecture, the components are interdependent, so you can't just swap one out. It's similar to reusing modular code: you can have different implementations of a List, and they all work the same - and, since it's standardized interface, many different programs can reuse them. But in integrated code, if you change one thing, you have to change everything else. So you can't mix and match, and you can't reuse the code between projects. So "modularity" is really about the cleanly defined interfaces.

Yes, I agree phones are more constrained. But for evaluating the theory, how can you tell how constrained it has to be, to count?

For example, Carmack says that integrated CPUs and GPUs are about twice as fast than as separate modular components (so, for the same power components, an xbox360 can be twice as fast as a PC). And yet, even though graphics power is in demand, the PC market was (and still is) dominated by modular GPUs.

Curiously, Christensen doesn't provide any statistical data across industries (but he did do this for his basic "disruption" idea). I think it's more that, if some quality is in demand, and if that quality can be delivered best by integration, then that might be how it happens. It's a softer theory. I guess the simple answer is that this idea of integrated vs. modular is just one factor of many, so it's not predictive alone.

BTW: surprisingly, cars are _not_ integrated according to Christensen - <USER2> are assembled from different components that can be mixed and matched (e.g. the same electrical system can be used in several different models; and different car, same engine; the same chassis can accommodate different versions of each component, because they have bolts in the same places, and use the same interfaces in other respects). This happened because people don't want faster cars (that integrated components are better at delivering); they want safer, more economical cars. But here I have doubts - it seems both those could be better achieved by integration (esp for efficiency).

<comment><USER8> Hmm,

 _Yes, I agree phones are more constrained. But for evaluating the theory, how can you tell how constrained it has to be, to count?_

That is a good question.

It seems like one simple approach would be to just generalize the big three aspects of phones and cars: Space, Energy and Time. These are kind of the big, orthogonal constraints of our world. You can probably dig deeper and find some others but that's what occurs to me.

People always want cars that are faster, more efficient and fit in a given form-factor. Same with phones. These matter less with desktop machines or say, houses. Laptops are somewhere in-between.

I guess a low-end car might be somewhat less integrated than a higher end car. Etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This may hold true in the short term, but not so certain about the integrated approach in the longer term.

It's really not just about mobile devices, it's about a new platform which is touch and voice based. Its not hard to envision a future where large screens that you can interact with are all over the place, from cars, retail stores, hospitals, replacing poster ads, etc. by touching or speaking with them. These screens will likely be made in different sizes, to accomodate different needs and locations. It's unlikely, in such a scenario, that Apple is going to be manufacturing screens of all sizes to accomodate everyone. It's more likely that a non-integrated approach such as Microsoft's or Google's (or Apple in the unlikely event they change their mind) will deliver on a large scale. The intention of Surface, if you ask me, is Microsoft's way of staying in the game until the above scenario bears out.

<comment><USER10> Apple doesn't manufacture screens, they buy them off of Samsung.

<comment><USER11> This is more about the ecosystem rather than just screens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a different theory. The integrated approach to manufacturing is _required_ to create a premium product and only after a market becomes mainstream (i.e. no longer populated solely by early adopters) is there a significant demand for premium products.

</comment><comment><USER13> iOS won because it was a greenfield implementation, and benefited from having no backwards compatibility issues to deal with. In addition, the outsourcing model of building hardware was largely perfected.

Taiwanese manufacturers proved to be willing to become OEM makers for branded products, and a lot of risk has been taken out of the system. Apple couldn't have managed this in the 80s.

The same pattern has been replayed many times over. Even the humble PC was just a toy before Moore's law allowed it to replace minicomputers and eventually take over departmental servers.

</comment><comment><USER14> Oh, come now. Mobile systems, the one place free software can still wreck havoc, is locked off by hundreds of artifical speed bumps. It is purposefully hard to mess with the os level on these devices.

How many phone distros are there? How easy are they to install? Why is nobody shocked by these answers?

Turing would be fuckin screaming with stallman; we're regressing and nobody cares.

</comment><comment><USER15> That perfectly explains why nokia and blackberry are the biggest winners of the mobile devices market.

</comment><comment><USER16> I will admit upfront that I lean toward the "great man" theory of history, so perhaps take this with a grain of salt.

We all know the old saw that "ideas are a dime a dozen, what matters is execution." What if the strategy (integrated vs. non-integrated) matters a lot less than how well it is executed?

Maybe the reason the "integrated approach" is winning is really that Apple is winning, and the reason Apple is winning is simply that they are executing better than their competitors.

As several others have pointed out, the non-integrated approach kicked Apple's ass in the PC market for years. I think that is simply because Microsoft, Intel, and their hardware partners executed better than Apple. Dell made a better computer than Apple and they did it faster and cheaper too, and marketed it extremely well. Of course they won.

Today with the iPad, it is Apple who is designing a better product, managing the supply chain to make it faster and cheaper, and marketing it extremely well. Their supply chain is so good that [HP could not even get their hands on equivalent parts to build a competitor.[1]

So I think Microsoft can try to go integrated with Surface...it won't matter until they make it better, faster, cheaper than the iPad. Maybe Horace Dediu asked exactly the right question: Who will be Microsoft's Tim Cook?[2]

[1] [http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3062611/palm-webos-hp- insid...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/5/3062611/palm-webos-hp-inside-story- pre-postmortem) [2] [http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/20/who-will-be-microsofts- tim-...](http://www.asymco.com/2012/06/20/who-will-be-microsofts-tim-cook/)

edit: link formatting

<comment><USER17> It says HP wouldn't invest in new factories to get the parts, not that it couldn't get them _because_ of Apple.</comment></comment>


Can AI be taught to explain itself? - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/21/magazine/can-ai-be-taught-to-explain-itself.html <comment><AUTHOR> This isn't specifically explored here, but a theory put forth by Michael Graziano in Consciousness and the Social Brain makes it interesting to consider whether "being able to explain itself" ultimately corresponds to a kind of consciousness...</comment>


EU taxpayers to fund $306m Google rival. No wonder the Yanks think we're dumb. - <AUTHOR> http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/eu-taxpayers-to-fund-306m-google-rival-no-wonder-the-yanks-think-were-dumb/ <comment><AUTHOR> Pathetic. This type of thing will never work. Let the bickering between the companies begin and watch the money be wasted. Instead of pumping money into playing catch-up with Google, they should supporting start-up enterprises that are innovating beyond Google. At least then these start-ups won't be going to the states because of the lack of support and vision in Europe.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just realised that it is not even a fully fledged search engine, but a "multimedia" one:

"Quaero aims to be a multimedia search engine that will work across all online digital media platforms including PCs, mobile phones, set-top-boxes and handheld devices. The engine will index content in several languages and will provide content management tools for media producers to promote their material."

This is my favourite bit:

"But after seeing that Quaero's German and French researchers were working in different directions, the project split in December 2006, with the French continuing to work on Quaero and the Germans focused on Theseus. Managers from both projects have, however, said they will meet regularly to form synergies when possible."

Like I said - bickering.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. I have no problem with government subsidising businesses to help get them off the ground, because a lot of the time it helps them grow to the level of competing quite quickly; except French farming.

However, no corporate group can ever perform well. One company running in a form of dictatorship over their product, like Jobs, can react quickly and, even for a large company, remain competative. However, if every decision has to go through multiple screening processes, tests, etc. you end up with a production cycle equivalent of Microsoft.

The Quaero project is doomed to failure. Not only is it going to have corporate bickering, but it's going to be in multiple languages. You can bet a large number of coders will enter from the UK, Netherlands and many other countries.

This means you're going to need translators to get the documents to read correctly in each individual language, or there's going to be many screw ups. Not only that, but you'll be faced with several days delay between project heads to get to a meeting. Bascially for a weekly status update, it would take probably 3 days to get everything translated and checked. So it's a weekly-3 status update, and what you did today is never going to be on the agenda, it's going to be the 3rd day on the next agenda, by which time something important is gone from your focus.

I belive the best words to describe this are, eww, and, no!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wait wait wait, here in Europe, we are not strong in internet technology or tax spending, but we can do quite good raw milk cheese, and that's what IS important.

More seriously, EU sometime mess up things, teh big way, but : 1) if you are about to mess up something, don't fail shy, fail big, make some noise. If you win, you deserve your bragging rights. 2) EU did actually create some quite good technology, mainly with EADS, ESA and high speed trains.

disclaimer : I'm French.

edit

a more serious answer : what did the people around you told you where you started your venture ? I bet exactly what people here say to quaero.

</comment><comment><USER4> Innovation rarely comes from large companies - especially European ones. Big companies know this and don't care anyway... they can depend on ill-informed politicians and a general public who think Bill Gates is a really cool guy ('he invented the moderen world, don't ya know') to throw money at them.

<comment><USER5> I agree. I'm from Europe, and I watch European companies get whooped by their American competitors on a regular basis. I do think we are better off with subsidized businesses (they prevent monopolies, which are bad), but there aren't many European corporations who both get governmental support and happen to be the world leader in whatever they do. I doubt there's even one.

<comment><USER6> "subsidized businesses (they prevent monopolies, which are bad)"

I always like it how the biggest monopolist ever (in my native Germany monopolizing or near-monopolizing by force education, transport, health care etc) is so eager and capable of "preventing evil monopolys" out of other peoples funds. Very protective. I feel so secure. _shudder_

;)

<comment><USER7> You've clearly never had to use UK public transport. Living there for 5 years made me appreciate just how awesome transport is in Austria. Market forces don't seem to work for trains. I think infrastructure is one of the few things (the only thing?) that is better off regulated.

<comment><USER8> It's not so much the market forces as the way the privatisation was structured, and the perverse incentives that were created. The tube is a good example - there are multiple maintenance firms, line management firms, Transport for London, the unions, etc. All of them have competing agendas, which doesn't fit well when they are providing one product. I would be happier with a public monopoly than the current situation, and would accept a private monopoly instead of both, contingent on them getting the incentives right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the "Throw Money at the Problem" dept.

</comment><comment><USER10> Perhaps a gap in the market is emerging. 1/3 of Google's first 500 employees have already left and stock options will vest for another 2200 staff in Aug 2008 ( [http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with- millions/2100-...](http://www.news.com/Life-after-Google%2C-with- millions/2100-1030_3-6226900.html) ). Additionally, Sequoia thinks it is worthwhile to invest US$31 million in a search engine ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=134291> ).

</comment><comment><USER11> The reasoning behind this idea, I think, is this: since the entire population depends on a search engine to do their work and pretty much everything else, search engines have become a utility and utilities should be state run.

Much in the same way railroads were nationalized in most of the EU sometime during the early 20th century or even earlier.

As far as railroads are concerned, it was probably a decent idea (not much free market competition possible there, really), but whether it works for a search engine remains to be seen.

<comment><USER12> Wow, government controlled search engines. Here we come 1984! Big brother does it again.

<comment><USER11> Except that in a democracy, what a government controlled search engine does with your data is more transparent than what a publicly held company (Google, say) does with it.

Of course the EU itself is very far from being a democracy (unlike its member states) so I'm still not thrilled about the idea, but in principle I'm not opposed to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> They should have funded 306 start-up with 1 million instead. I'm european and I'm ashamed.

<comment><USER14> YC could fund 17,486 startups with that money. ($306 million is almost exactly the square of the amount we invest in the average startup.)

Maybe you wouldn't want to spend it all on seed rounds. But $306 million spent well would be enough to make a startup hub to rival Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER15> The $316m could accomplish much, but I doubt directly creating a startup hub. The drivers which turn cities into creative class meccas wouldn't be included, and it likely would face the same difficulties as the Middle East's education plans: <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/education/11global.html>

It would a powerful change if groups like Gates' ([http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120113473219511...](http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120113473219511791.html)) began investing in the efforts which have the best chance of the results they're seeking: startups. I'm guessing the startup model is antithetical to what BillsG sees as the answer, which is unfortunate.

<comment><USER14> Obviously I'd choose whatever town was most SF-like. Suppose only 1/10 of the startups lived (a very conservative assumption). Don't you think a city with 1749 startups in it would feel like a startup hub?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> $306 to get a head start? Its like they say, If one woman tells you it will take 9 months to make a baby, maybe we'd better hire 9 of 'em so we'll be done in a month.

I think we're gonna need a new category of fail to describe this one.

</comment><comment><USER17> Will they be running Quaero on a fifth-generation computer?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_generation_computer>

</comment><comment><USER18> If Windows Live Search and Yahoo Search can't provide as good of results as Google (assuming they can't based off of Google's increasing market share), does Quaero even stand a chance?

</comment><comment><USER19> This is very typical of the EU, and a major factor in why Europe often falls behind the US in innovation. The basic difference is that the EU believes that state funding will solve the problem of innovation, while the US relies more on capitalism and market forces.

As we saw in the Soviet era not much good comes from letting the state decide who gets the money. More recently France even tried to to make their own state-run internet, owned by France telecom. It was called Minitel.

</comment><comment><USER20> One a related note, can the government aid basic research here in the U.S. (NSF, NIH, etc.) or are the agencies dispensing that money too bureacratic as well? Here are some numbers: <http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/Top50Inst2/default.asp>

</comment><comment><USER21> Neelie, go get 'm!

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

</comment><comment><USER22> First Galileo (the EU's GPS alternative), now this. Do Europeans enjoy wasting taxpayer money on duplicating perfectly good solutions in the name of nationalism?

</comment><comment><USER20> What happened to Europe? Before the middle of the last century, it was the center of everything, innovation included.

How did it lose so much so fast?

<comment><USER14> I think the US was ahead economically by around 1900. Scholarship tends to lag by a generation or two.

Very interesting question though, and one I've thought about a lot, coming from Europe to the US as a kid.

It's possible that Europe may have only lost relatively. I.e. Europe may not have fallen so much as that other places have risen.

The single biggest problem with Europe may be government. There's a tradition in most northern European countries of strong central government. And the growth of technology in the 19c made it possible for a hands-on central government to be very much more hands-on. This seems to have had a disastrous effect on certain kinds of economic growth.

Remember too that Europe had two huge wars go through it during the 20th century. That can't have helped.

<comment><USER23> > Europe may not have fallen so much as that other places have risen.

Right. There are tons of cool things in tech (Linux, Python, Mysql, Qt/KDE, off the top of my head) and the sciences in Europe, just that there are more in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I live in france and before uk this sort of shit makes me sick like they really have a fucking clue in politics as to how to develop and what to develop in tech, fuck me the politicians in the uk didnt get fucking email until about 2001

<comment><USER24> oh and you know they blew 600 million on a computer system to tie the UK health department together, (bog standard shit) didnt even work at that silly price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> doesn't even worth it to comment</comment>


Challenges facing North Korean defectors [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/video/north-korean-defectors-struggle-to-master-money/009D1B6C-804D-4F1F-A3C6-F498E8E5E98E.html <comment><USER2> "Looking to the future, experts on the region are focusing on what happens ... when North Korea inevitably collapses"

I'm no fan of the DPRK regime, but isn't it naive to assume that any state, even a completely mismanaged despotic one, will "inevitably" collapse?

True, they rely on China just for bare survival, but they have their stuff together enough to create a functioning nuclear weapons program in the face of crippling sanctions, so it's not infeasible that they could find a way to continue on if they were totally isolated - maybe they'd kidnap some Monsanto scientists to provide them with GMO and fertilizer technology. Basically, they don't currently bother feeding their people because they don't currently have to, but there's nothing proving they can't adapt if circumstances change.

And I'm not saying they're likely to conquer the world, but with the nuclear deterrent, it's not terribly likely that the US or anyone will invade them without direct cause.

<comment><USER3> >I'm no fan of the DPRK regime, but isn't it naive to assume that any state, even a completely mismanaged despotic one, will "inevitably" collapse?

I could not agree more, and if it does collapse there will be a lot of credit taken for prescience that will amount to having said the same thing for 60+ years. I think the problem is that the intellectual space around the DPRK is dominated by loud people with minimal expertise, but since expertise is so lacking, loud counts for a lot. I've read as much as I could on the subject of the DPRK, and even thoughtful scholars who make very guarded predictions seem very aware of the limits of their knowledge.

One thing that most of them seem to agree on, is that most of us in the West underestimate the degree to which the North Korean people are into their own propaganda/mythology. That at least, seems to match with the struggles that defectors seem to face with adjustment. In essence, the people in the DPRK might not buy into the official line in all things, but what they do believe is no less bizarre.

<comment><USER4>
         us in the West underestimate the degree to which the
         North Korean people are into their own propaganda/mythology.

A lot of people truly do underestimate this. It is hard for Westerners to fully conceptualize but the ideological roots of Juche religious aspects.

A surprising number of North Korean _experts_ actively refuse to read Kim Il- Sung and Kim Jong-il writing on the subject. Which the DPRK actively distributes online. Ignoring primary sources is weird when you're an _expert_ in subject matter.

The main purpose of Juche (from the ideological, not material stand point) is inscribing the significance of the socialist revolution into the consciences of the people at a religious level. As Kim Jong-il goes on to explain that people _need_ some social construct of a deity figure on a sociology- psychicological level. The goal of Juche is to place the importance of the revolution there (as communism is famously extremely anti-religious).

Kim Il-Sung's writes that while socialism may extend to politics, education, and military life. It does not extend to the social and religious aspects of life. Without that daily constant re-enforcement people may lose site of its long term goals. He goes on to blame the failure of the USSR on this, one of his many critiques of Stalin.

\---

We rarely think but in English the expression, "Oh God." Is one deeply rooted within the western Juedeo-Christian tradition. It links our culture back to history of everything Caesar to Charlemagne to WW1 to the present.

Once you can conceptualize that sociology-psychicological connection you can really see how deep ideological indoctrination can run. Furthermore what Juche and the DPRK has achieved.

<comment><USER5> >writes that while socialism may extend to politics, education, and military life. It does not extend to the social and religious aspects of life.

The shaping of cultural life via the relations to the means of production refers to the shaping of the superstructure by the base, Marx claims. Although Bookchin has his own ideas (that the superstructure is not entirely shaped by the base, as evidenced by societies involving shamanism, something which he claims does not arise out of the economic base) most Marxists believe that every aspect of society is given rise to by material conditions, i.e the relationship of people to their means of sustenance. For the proletariat under capiatalism, this means their culture and way of life is shaped by working in return for wage-labour.

However I feel as though Il-Sung may have been hinting at something we already recognise in our own societies; the "American Dream" may be such a substitute for a deity figure which encourages blind faith in the capitalist system, in which "anyone can be anything with enough hard work".

So the question is: does Socialism require such a system of belief, or can it as Marx claims go without due to the normalisation of the Socialist mode of production? This dilemma is a common theme of debate within Socialism, with one camp of Orthodox Marxists saying that everything can be explained in terms of the economic base, while communalists and "identity politicians" claim that changing the relationship to the MoP does little to eradicate the _cause_ of non-economic power structures, including shamanism, racism, sexism etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're interested in this topic, I recommend "Nothing to Envy" as an excellent and illuminating book. It follows defectors mostly before they leave, but includes a portion afterward. Money struggles are discussed in detail, along with other difficulties assimilating.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting side note that is rarely mentioned, a surprisingly large amount of defectors actually defect back to DPRK. When you are enclosed in something like DPRK a lot of the time people can't handle the stress of not being in that sort of system anymore.

One thing to note, there was a study that showed that even when they are in countries with an abundance of food, their eating habits remained the same. They ate the same sized small portions that they used to in NK.

As a comment on the article, I think it would be very easy for China to transition them into a sucessful Chinese model with capitalist reforms whilst still being totalitarian. The people don't necessarily want 'freedom' as long as they are adequately taken care of, transposing western mindsets onto them and assuming that they consider things like 'freedom of speech' as necessary isn't generally helpful.

<comment><USER8> > a surprisingly large amount of defectors actually defect back to DPRK.

Do you have source for this?

A typical north korean escaping to china usually has the option of becoming a slave/wife to a chinese farmer. I would assume that was still a better option during 'arduous march' days but have things imporved that much since then ?

<comment><USER7> There are loads of sources for it, it isn't as odd as you would think, it is even listed on wikipedia with lots of nice sources. Apparently "their number is thought to be increasing." and "In one case, a double defector re-entered North Korea four times." [0]

Edit: I added the link to the nutrition study below also. [1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors#Double_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_defectors#Double_defectors)

[1] [https://synapse.koreamed.org/search.php?where=aview&id=10.41...](https://synapse.koreamed.org/search.php?where=aview&id=10.4162/nrp.2010.4.2.136&code=0161NRP&vmode=FULL)

<comment><USER8> I was questioning your claim of "surprisingly large" double defectors not that there are defectors. 13 out of ~1600 is not a significant number. Your second source is not relevant.

>"In one case, a double defector re-entered North Korea four times."

Constantly sneaking in back forth is a common thing from the documentaries I've watched. 1. People stealing goods and selling them back home 2. People stealing supplies to feed their family back home .

<comment><USER7> Thirteen publicly acknowledged by South Korea, and 700 missing. Most of which, if you read the cited article are thought to have defected back or attempted to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a small sample of what's to come should North Korea collapse.

I can see that south korea can experience a huge boost in their labor force that's currently filled by foreigners.

On the other hand, feeding, educating, housing, employing North Koreans to integrate into South Korea is going to be pretty hard.

China is also unlikely to allow US bases so close to the Yalu river.

When I factor in all these things, I believe that Korea will go through a transitionary state where two systems in one country emerge.

All in all, it could be that the unification collapses due to the structural pressure it places on South Korea and it's citizens to oppose it-Nobody in a capitalistic society is willing to trade away their good life.

Whatever happens, I only wish North Koreans live a free life, whether it's under South Korea's control or not.

Because North Korean collapse could mean a significant economic burden as East Germany's collapse was to West....but they've only had couple decades apart, North Korea is like dealing with Chosun dynasty.

<comment><USER10> In my opinion, the US should make it clear to China that if North Korea gets absorbed by the South, as long as China is not threatening Korea, the US sees no need for US forces anywhere in the country, let along north of the current line.

<comment><USER9> If US withdraws from Korea, it's forfeiting it's sphere of influence in the region. Will it happen one day? Of course. But until that day comes, the US will not budge until China too is conquered (unlikely).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From what I have read, China hates the North Korean regime, but is afraid of what would happen if it collapsed, so it keeps supporting it economically.</comment>


Ask YC : java template engine for generating source code? - <AUTHOR>

Have any of you used stringtemplate, velocity, freemarker or others for generating structured text of any kind? Any experiences or thoughts? Stringtemplate seems to be purely functional and claims to enforce strict model view separation. Is StringTemplate good in real world? <comment><USER2> ANTLR is quite popular and uses StringTemplate to generate source code, for several different target languages. So I would consider that to be pretty good real world use of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have a look at <http://code-generation.net> and Manning's Code Generation in Action.

<comment><AUTHOR> The website is for some product for web development. My application is not even remotely related to web-development. Should have clarified I guess. I am generating C source code from a DSL.</comment></comment>


Neural Networks for the Prediction of Organic Chemistry Reactions - <AUTHOR> http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acscentsci.6b00219 <comment><USER2> One of the authors here. Ask us anything!

This paper is just a first step - what we'd really like to use this for is designing recipes for synthesizing new molecules.

I would also be remiss if I didn't link to a closely-related paper from another group that came out at the same time: [http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ci5006614](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ci5006614)

<comment><USER3> What's worrisome is that on the graphical abstract you have nucleophilic substitution in the neopentyl position, a reaction every chemist _knows_ won't proceed rapidly. And it takes place in dimethyl ether solvent, which every chemist knows it's a gas.

It looks a bit what you see in bad teaching materials, chemistry that is almost correct, but won't work well for some reason we are not telling the kids about. Please alleviate my concerns! :-)

<comment><USER2> That diagram is just meant to show what type the inputs and outputs of the neural network are. I'm not a chemist myself, but the other two authors are.

<comment><USER4> Heh, not a chemist either, but the parent probably has the same feeling I get when I watch "hackers" in crime dramas break into systems and see a bunch of HTML and CSS on their terminals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I skimmed through the paper (through my university's subscription) and found out that the source code & data is (or will be) available on GitHub (yay): [https://github.com/jnwei/neural_reaction_fingerprint](https://github.com/jnwei/neural_reaction_fingerprint)

<comment><USER6> I'm just an old geezer programmer, but my daughter is studying e-tox at UC Davis. I have discussed with her how important computer code is becoming in the ability to recreate results in studies.

This is a good example of providing that kind of transparency.

<comment><USER7> Somewhat off-topic, but there's a professor at UC Davis whose blog I've followed for several years who advocates open, reproducible science. Your daughter might be interested in the the workshops his lab runs: [https://dib- training.readthedocs.io/en/pub/](https://dib-training.readthedocs.io/en/pub/). The next one is Nov 17.

<comment><USER6> Thanks, passing it on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Abstract:

"Reaction prediction remains one of the major challenges for organic chemistry and is a prerequisite for efficient synthetic planning. It is desirable to develop algorithms that, like humans, "learn" from being exposed to examples of the application of the rules of organic chemistry. We explore the use of neural networks for predicting reaction types, using a new reaction fingerprinting method. We combine this predictor with SMARTS transformations to build a system which, given a set of reagents and reactants, predicts the likely products. We test this method on problems from a popular organic chemistry textbook."

</comment><comment><USER9> Very interesting, great concept! The paper is on my to-read list!

I am only afraid that the datasets you have used might not be of sufficiently quality for a neural network application. There are old recipes when the state of art in chemistry was at an earlier stage e.g. before the discovery of specific mechanisms, molecule classes, analytics and general concepts. Also, as mentioned in this thread, there are aspects of the synthetic chemists work and experience that might not be taken into consideration in this approach.

<comment><USER2> Yes, the datasets were the real limiting factor for this project, and as you point out, reactions depend on many more things than their reagents. Hopefully this work will inspire someone to build a better dataset of reaction setups and outcomes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not a chemist, and didn't read the paper, but would it be helpful if the neural network had additional inputs coming from e.g. a (simplified) Schrodinger equation solver?

<comment><USER11> Orbital energies, or other solutions from the Schrodinger equation, would probably help the prediction if they were included as inputs. If you were to do this, you'd have to be a little careful about the cost of doing the quantum mechanics calculation on a whole data set of reactants in your reaction database, but it could be feasible with a cheap method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Forgive my ignorance:

What actually makes it hard to predict a chemical reaction? Can't we empirically deduce them from quantum mechanics?

<comment><USER13> Theoretically, yes, if we knew all of the physics laws accurately enough. However, there are a lot of behaviors that are difficult to predict in the aggregate. That's one of the reasons we end up with different specializations: quantum mechanics, atomic physics, molecular chemistry, organic chemistry, etc.

Another example would be protein folding. Even within the same "level" of chemistry, predicting the three-dimensional structure of a protein molecule based purely on the chemistry we understand and the protein sequence is a hard problem. We're getting better at it, but it's still hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I get "Server Busy".</comment>


160-Year-Old Documents Intentionally Destroyed in Franklin County, N.C. - <AUTHOR> http://stumblingintheshadowsofgiants.wordpress.com/2013/12/21/160-year-old-documents-intentionally-destroyed-in-franklin-county-n-c/ <comment><USER2> One thing about America that a lot of folks don't understand is that - even if you have paid off your property debts - you don't actually own that property until the title has been cleared and transferred to you.

 _EVEN IF_ you have paid your mortgage in full, in many cases, there will not be clear title to the property - and thus, you cannot legally own the property.

Title Insurance companies know this, as do most banks. This is why there is a ~$70 "Title Clearance and/or Reconveyance Fee" that has to be paid at the end of the mortgage - by the borrower - to the Title Insurance company.

America has a huge backlog of uncleared title. In some counties, there are 2 or 3 or even up to 12 generations of title to get cleared - from the earliest title transfer, to the very latest - before someone can have clear title to their property.

So, like the original author of this article, I suspect that there was some Title Lineage evidence in all that stack of documents, which someone didn't want to have discovered .. for some reason.

The lesson learned: ALWAYS CLEAR TITLE ON PROPERTY YOU INTEND TO PURCHASE.

<comment><USER3> So, published 3 days before the OP's post (see [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7017552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7017552)): [http://www.wral.com/historians-lament-destruction-of- frankli...](http://www.wral.com/historians-lament-destruction-of-franklin- county-records/13229922/)

Which says the records were burned because they were full of mold, a health hazard, and had already been designated for destruction in 1964.

This wasn't a nifty little storage room full of rare old materials, it was pile of boxes in a basement with a leaky pipe.

It's sad for sure that a few really cool documents were lost, but they needed to be destroyed to remove the mold threat -- I doubt it was economically feasible to clean or restore the lot of them, and it'd have been dangerous to have folks rummage through them to find things worth restoration (can you remove mold from a ledger book?).

<comment><USER4> Mold threat?! Hahahahaha, this is what archivists _do_. We rescue and restore shit. We fumigate books with bugs living in the pages. We are to this day _still_ piecing together charcoal smudges from the infamous 1973 St. Louis fire, to reconstruct scraps of salvageable information from WWI military records. We fight with archives in Eastern Europe that are staffed _to this day_ with corrupt former KGB members who would rather stonewall you than give you your great-grandfather's shtetl records _even when you are willing to pay them for access_.

Even in the very worst case scenario, all we need is a hazmat suit and a digital camera and a couple of hours so the data isn't 100% lost -- as it was lost in Franklin county.

<comment><USER5> This

The mold talk sounds like a petty excuse. Like we live in a world with no protection masks.

This is mold, not Fukushima debris

<comment><USER6> Mold can be considerably more dangerous than a lot of the artifacts of Fukushima that people have been worrying about.

<comment><USER7> Source?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi, I'm the genealogy geek who first posted to HN about this story three days ago, just before the HN downtime, in the thread about Canada's similarly horrible records destruction: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010885](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7010885)

Since then, the story has gone viral on Twitter and is now back on HN as a post in its own right. And yet there were people like me who knew (and tweeted!) about the impending records destruction through the genealogy grapevine _before_ the burning -- but we felt powerless to do anything about it.

If ever there were an example of how important it is for us genealogy/archives folks to break out of our little world and interface more with the general public more often, this would be it. I'm so glad people here, and on Twitter, seem to really grasp what a big deal stories like this are, and how shameful it is to have destroyed records.

Now, pull up a chair and let me explain to you all about the worrying trend of privatization and commercialization of public archives and public data, or the saga of the SSDI closure...

</comment><comment><USER8> I'll paste a comment I made in an HN thread a few days ago, since this seems to be the same blog post:

Not exactly the "full story" when it omits the facts that support differing conclusions. That's sort of the opposite of "full story".

Some moderating details:

* Documents were damaged by a mold that is hazardous to health

* State archivist claims the documents were of "low historical value"

* Archivist claims some were confidential, and couldn't be legally released to 3rd party

[http://www.wral.com/historians-lament-destruction-of- frankli...](http://www.wral.com/historians-lament-destruction-of-franklin- county-records/13229922/)

<comment><AUTHOR> See Asparagirl's great comments about this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7017891](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7017891)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7018441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7018441)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another, of course speculative, motivation may have been that the destroyed records could have thrown existing land ownership into legal doubt.

EDIT: The article speculates a cover-up. I'm speculating a make-this-messy- problem-go-away action, perhaps by someone who'd have to deal with the mess as opposed to someone who'd be embarrassed by it. On the other hand, I'm not denying that it's a cover-up.

<comment><USER10> Isn't that what the article itself speculates?

<comment><USER11> The article focuses on the potential harm to one or more prominent families' reputations; as you deduce, this kind of evidence would not only harm reputations but may also complicate land ownership.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Prove me wrong. You can't. They destroyed the records.

I love it.

Personally I believe these records showed that the Union had assistance from their extra-terrestrial masters and held the documentation of a coverup after the Civil War.

Prove me wrong. You can't. They destroyed the records.

<comment><USER13> – _All things being equal, the simpler explanation tends to be the true_ –

There exist a big culture and history of land theft in the Americas by the white upper class from the 16th century until present time. Now there exist no evidence of extra-terrestrials.

So I personally belief the post's explanation over yours.

<comment><USER12> There is just as much evidence of extra-terrestrials as there is that this was to protect the reputation of 'someone' from something someone who is long dead and buried once did.

No one cares if your great-great-great-great grandfather was a slave owner. If they did, it would come up far more often.

I can also counter your adage with another:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

The simplest answer is actually stupidity. Someone(s) didn't know what they had and just freed up space that was taken up by records that were long past their retention period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The best of the internet: breathless, half-informed, speculative, and emotionally-manipulative.

More information, please. Otherwise this isn't much more than a rumor from a backyard gossip.

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.wral.com/historians-lament-destruction-of- frankli...](http://www.wral.com/historians-lament-destruction-of-franklin- county-records/13229922/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Saying that books have mold on them is like saying that dogs have fleas on them. Condemning them for that reason is like throwing a pack of stray dogs into the incinerator for having fleas. After all, fleas are a hazard to human health -- the bubonic plague was spread by fleas.

It is indeed possible that the cost to restore these books may have been prohibitive, far out of proportion to their historical value, but the cost to _preserve_ them was certainly not. All they would need to do is freeze them. It deactivates the mold, and prevents continuing harm. The books could sit there, not hurting anyone, until someone cared enough to restore them.

</comment><comment><USER16> Without going into the actual issue of destroying the documents, I find the preservation process slightly disappointing. From the timeline:

* Late May, early June, 2013 – Work began, using a few volunteers,...

* August 5, 2013 ... A request was made to The United Way to supply the Society with computers and Steve Trubilla donated a scanner/copier.

They had months while they could (even just to make the reviews easier) simply scan everything. Page by page while going through the boxes. They didn't have to retype, OCR, describe or do anything else to the documents. Just copy and preserve.

Now they're caught in a disaster situation without a backup. (I'm not disappointed with people doing this, I'm sure they did what they could / thought was important at the time. Just the whole situation is depressing. It's like almost every single "we lost all our data" story out there.)

<comment><USER17> Franklin County North Carolina has 60,000 people. Typically, rural historical societies are neither staffed nor equipped to handle significant archival tasks - often they are a mix of younger reinactors and artisans, and older folk interested in curating. That they did not own a scanner suggests the sophistication of the organization.

From the article, it sounds as if they were trying to follow sound archival practices - e.g. contacting the State Bureau. There was no reason for them to know they were in a race against the clock, and it is absurd to propose that they should have acted in such a way or to violated sound archival practice.

<comment><USER18> > Franklin County North Carolina has 60,000 people. Typically, rural > historical societies are neither staffed nor equipped to handle significant > archival tasks - often they are a mix of younger reinactors and artisans, > and older folk interested in curating. That they did not own a scanner > suggests the sophistication of the organization.

This is absolutely the typical case. Archiving various kinds of documents is hard. Professional archivists generally have a Masters degree in Library Science or a similar field. When there are many kinds of records (paper, photo, etc) it is difficult to start the process and handle things correctly.

<comment><USER17> In this case, it appears that a portion of the documents were in an unstable condition and thus, there was good reason to focus first on preservation over reproduction, dissemination, and interpretation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lesson learned for me: if I ever discover a trove of old documents, I'll contact the historical society, but I'll also contact a couple of newspapers.

<comment><USER19> The happy thing these days is it's easy for everyone to make photographic copies for themselves.

Even if they don't legally stand up, the photos would cause plenty of publicity issues.

<comment><USER20> I was wondering why no highish res photos of the _outside_ appearance of the documents at least, simply as a sort of inventory of what was there, and perhaps any dates, titles, case names on the document envelopes.

I can understand a reluctance to actually open any folded documents in dockets that have been stored in damp conditions and left for 100+ years. I've recently scanned and photographed some documents relating to my family from the 1880s, these have been stored in a tin box and were very dry and fragile. We are just keeping them in the box at present!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think its more likely the documents were the original street plans and guides which, when viewed from sufficient distance above, spell out the name of the last remaining descendant of Jesus and was designed by Da Vinci himself.

 _Prove me wrong. You can't. They destroyed the records._

</comment><comment><USER11> Could a lawyer (preferably from NC) chime in about real estate law and if there's something like a "statute of limitations"? Would adverse possession (or something like it) in effect wipe away any crime committed in coming to possess a piece of land?

<comment><USER17> [IANAL]

They are two separate legal issues: responsibility for a criminal offense and rightful title to a particular piece of real property.

One way of thinking about the difference is that one can be inherited and the other can't [currently]. In legal parlance, criminal v civil tort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> First book burnings in Canada, now in North Carolina. I expect new witch hunts in the New World.

<comment><USER3> They were burned to abate an invasive mold problem, not cover up mysterious Nicolas Cage movie plots.

<comment><USER23> As has been pointed out elsewhere, it wouldn't be that hard to throw on safety gear and spend a few days with a digital camera.

When homes have mold issues, great time and money is expended to clean and repair the homes; they don't instantly demolish them. Why? The value. So it was determine this mold was so bad, and the documents so inconsequential, that instant incineration was the only answer?

<comment><USER24> Agreed. It doesn't take a conspiratorial mindset to suspect that something's amiss here. It suffices to apply Occam's razor.

What's interesting is that the poster above simply keeps asserting, over and over, that it was "because of the mold, ya know" as if the surprise incineration was an obvious, necessary result of the situation. Clearly it wasn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The message is clear : do not trust the governement (or the state)

<comment><USER26> Although the state was in fact responsible for preserving the documents in the first place. In fact, for requiring documentation of transfers. I think the message is: someone in North Carolina needs to go to jail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I suspect these records had something to do with the HN server outage and PG ordered them destroyed.

Prove me wrong. You can't. They destroyed the documents.

</comment><comment><USER28> Oh, the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. The existential immaturity of these actors is profound.</comment>