Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVRFA?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links <comment><USER2> This could be a very big moment. EA is selling a completely broken product - and I mean that from the perspective of the average consumer, not the nerd who thinks all DRM is broken - and they're doing it for _absolutely no reason_. If this lasts long enough and gets enough press, it could actually be a turning point against DRM like this.

That would be so wonderful.

<comment><USER3> Oh, there's a reason. Like Diablo III, the point is that it's effectively impossible to crack. With enough processing offloaded to the server, would-be pirates need to write something that's almost a whole new game.

This is the future that big videogame companies are rushing to embrace, one where customers do not and cannot own games, merely rent them for an uncertain period. Indies and smaller studios with Kickstarter funding are going to continue eating a bigger part of their lunch.

<comment><USER4> The irony is that it is not only impossible to crack, it is now impossible to play as well. Unplayable games are impossible to crack, but this does not make them any less absurd. DRM has come to its logical and absurd conclusion, it seems.

<comment><USER5> It worked out the same way with music. For a short time the labels were experimenting with selling CDs that weren't actually audio CDs, but had been damaged in various ways to make them unplayable on a computer. The result of that experiment speaks for itself. Hopefully it will play out the same way here.

<comment><USER6> The result is that we are increasingly switching to renting our music via services like Rdio and Spotify.

And I can't say that this trend is all bad. I know what I pay for (temporary access), and I'm OK with that.

<comment><USER5> Apple seems to still be doing alright selling digital music, and they voluntarily stopped using DRM.

<comment><USER7> Apple didn't voluntarily stop using DRM; they convinced the labels to stop requiring it. Piracy isn't Apple's concern, but the user experience is.

This is in service of saying that DRM isn't in the user's best interest and even big companies that care about user experience don't like DRM. Apple didn't ship DRM on its OSes when they were DVD based either. Yes they probably lost some sales due to piracy, but not having to deal with serial numbers is big for users.

<comment><USER8> No, Amazon stopped using DRM to have a competitive advantage versus Apple, the music companies went along because it gave them a real competitor to iTunes, and eventually Apple managed to renegotiate their contracts so they could also remove the DRM.

<comment><USER9> Juicy, juicy revisionist history!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel bad for the game devs who got to see their hard work turn into something they don't intend.

I suppose this is a great advertising technique for small firms, startups, indie shops, etc. "Don't want this[<http://amazon-pulls-sim-city>] to happen? Work for our small team. We won't destroy your work."

I know it's standard to say "you get a part in the decisionmaking process!" That's part of it. But a lot of people are willing to let go of the big decisions if they get to be a part of something great. But they have to trust that it will come out well in the end.

<comment><USER11> Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility? I understand the frustration at the DRM concept, but you can't blame this on the larger entity as a whole when it was likely just a bug in some code or a small oversight.

Things were clearly working when it was in beta.

<comment><USER12> No, its not that simple.

 _Isn't this just a technical error (bug) that is a game dev's (or infrastructure engineer's) responsibility?_

Isn't mandating the constant involvement of otherwise unnecessary tech that is known to be error prone and unreliable just the result of a poorly thought out buisness requirement?

No, its not that simple either. Because they probably did think it out, knew they were choosing the riskier technical option and expect/expected failures to happen.

My read of the situation is that they expected the rest of the game to get a better reception overall and blunt the bad PR from the inevitable failures caused by the always-on/centralized aspects.

<comment><USER13> Yep. There were probably tech guys who said you shouldn't do it, but the tech guys that said you can probably got the promotions.

<comment><USER14> It kills me a little inside to know this is probably 100% correct.

<comment><USER15> It's actually very unlikely. What is likely is that all the tech guys will be laid off because SimCity didn't meet financial expectations.

<comment><USER16> This isn't a bad thing. EA should fire all it's developers, designers, sales people, management, liquidate its assets and distribute the proceeds to its shareholders, and quietly go out of business.

Really, the tech guys that got laid off will almost certainly go to find better jobs. Almost by definition, since they won't be making games at EA anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> EA needs to pivot this game, fast.

Even in the best case scenario, where the servers all get fixed _this evening_ and the game works flawlessly for everyone for a month straight, the damage to the game's name has been done. The meme is hatched: SimCity 2013 has a highly brittle dependency on poorly-planned cloud infrastructure.

There's a private region mode in the game (that you nonetheless can't use offline in the current architecture). EA needs to have Maxis crunch for the next couple of weeks to make this work offline. Yes, I've read the nebulous quotes about "part of the sim happening in the cloud." Whatever that is, they'll have to move it to the client.

Once offline play is possible, if EA wants any chance to make back its investment on this game, they're going to have to first promote the new offline mode, and then spend the next couple of months doing some post-launch rescoping of the multiplayer aspect. They can still make it work; it could still be fantastic – but they have to move fast.

<comment><USER18> Remember EA is a business, not an offshoot of Reddit/HN. Imagine you're the SimCity product manager and the choice was between a massive refactor or provisioning a bunch of new servers. Which would you choose?

I'd love to agree with you, but I just dont think its plausible.

<comment><USER19> One-time cost vs. ongoing cost for years to come? It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

<comment><USER20> yeah it. EA shuts down the servers when they are tired of paying for them. Game dies. Sim City get puts on madden schedule.

<comment><USER21> Or, slightly less cynically, demand is always orders of magnitude higher for the first week or two after release, so it's only a short term investment in servers if they can be merged later.

<comment><USER20> The point is at some point they could pull the plug. I still play older version of SimCity to this day.

<comment><USER21> Sure they could. But if I get £40 of value from my game before they do, I can live with that. It's not ideal, but it doesn't make it a poor purchase.

<comment><USER22> I think there is a broader cultural loss though.

In the future years when "study of video game history" becomes a thing, people will be able to examine and analyse old games like SimCity 2000 by actually playing them as they were. Since they have been archived and preserved by wide distribution.

Then as you get further into the future maybe you start to come across games where you have to say "sadly the only existing copy of the server code was lost in the great github fire of 2020, so all we can show you is this archived footage".

<comment><USER23> > so all we can show you is this archived footage.

You mean the tens of thousands of videos that will be posted. Historians will have no shortage of source material.

I'd actually argue that the videos are more valuable as they show first hand how the game was played at the time. Think a recording of a long-forgotten instrument compared to the actual instrument, which is more valuable?

<comment><USER22> I think there's quite a difference between playing and watching. Think of it like trying to understand Shakespeare based on clips from Baz Luhrmann's reinterpretation of Romeo and Juliet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can we talk about this more clearly?

This isn't strictly "evil DRM" as people are highlighting.

Unlike some other games, it's not like SimCity is just phoning home to figure out if it is licensed or not, and preventing unlicensed copies.

SimCity depends on EA/Maxis' server infrastructure for a great deal of storage and computation related to the macro-scale components of each game. Not only is city state synced there and shared between players, but regional dynamics and macro-scale economic systems are continuously maintained in the EA cloud. There's plenty of other features that are done server-side, and in total they represent a substantial piece of this game.

We can argue about whether these things should be computed and stored in the cloud, but I think there is a plausible, if imperfect, argument for doing so; Many players are involved and system resources are scarce relative to simulation complexity.

Regardless, the use of the cloud in this game is for more than just to deter pirates. That much is clear. And it's also clear that EA cannot "simply remove the DRM" and expect people to have a full offline experience; this is a primarily multiplayer game.

Indeed, this seems part of a trend in the games industry--that of bringing MMO(massively multiplayer online) experiences to more games. Call it social or something else, more games are working to get people to play with others. It's good business and actually creates some special experiences.

In any case, EA/Maxis have clearly not executed the launch for SimCity well. With 10 years of pent-up demand, it would have been wise to provision more server side resources to keep the experience good. It's hard to keep up with so many users, and perhaps a longer beta period would have helped.

But as a SimCity player and vet, I'll say that stripping out the online piece of this game doesn't make sense, and that piece was certainly designed for the benefit of gamers.

It's not strictly DRM or EA milking their customers.

<comment><USER25> I don't think you're adding clarity here.

People are upset about the lack of a single player offline mode, which _absolutely is_ about preventing unlicensed copies. There is no technical reason for its absence.

The cloud based stuff sounds great, and if it were an optional extra that was unavailable at launch due to technical difficulties, I doubt you'd see a hundredth as much bad PR.

<comment><USER26> >People are upset about the lack of a single player offline mode, which absolutely is about preventing unlicensed copies. There is no technical reason for its absence.

I see this sentiment expressed pretty often, but in this case it seems flawed. From what I understand, you can't build a city that does everything, instead you rely on the other cities in your 'region.'

The new Simcity is no more single player than World of Warcraft. The previous games were single player, as they focused on a monolithic city. This game is designed from the ground up with the assumption that you will play with other people. There's no technical restrictions preventing Blizzard from offering single-person servers for WoW, it just doesn't follow from the game design. The same is true here.

<comment><USER27> It's possible to have a single-player experience, where one player controls all of the cities in a private 'region'. It's alluded to here: <http://kotaku.com/5988848/tips-for-playing-simcity> Ironically, if they hadn't included that feature, arguments such as yours would have a lot more weight, but as it is there is a purely-single-player experience, and you still needlessly connect to a server for it. (I don't own the game, just going off what I've read on the Internet)

<comment><USER28> And even if this were lacking, I for one would still be demanding it, and that it would work entirely offline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The fundamental problem with Sim City is that it is historically a single- player, offline experience. And it didn't help that this is the first true Sim City we've seen since 2003 (Sim City 4) and many media hyped this game to be possibly the best Sim City yet, and the most realistic city simulation experience.

Yes, there may be technical limitations that required processing to happen on EA servers. And yes, they make it clear on the front of the box that an internet connection is required to play the game.[1]

But most people purchasing this game expected that for the most part, this would be primarily a single player just like the previous titles, and that the internet connection is only required for DRM and/or occasional online interaction. They don't realize that a lot of the engine lives in the cloud.

So there is a different level of disappointment because of the expectations that were there. If this had been a follow-up to an MMO, they would have known that the game heavily depended on server performance, and it may have been a little more forgivable.

But most people don't understand why the game doesn't work. "Just disable DRM for now. Or disable multiplayer interactions. Make it offline only for now."

What I can't believe is that this isn't just minor hiccups with the launch -- this is catastrophic failure. Why couldn't better load testing simulate and predict what they're seeing today?

Regardless, as many have said, this will ruin the name of Sim City, at least for a period, and will cause even more bitterness with EA than what already exists.

[1][http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/815mDnNUDhL._SL1121_.j...](http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/815mDnNUDhL._SL1121_.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER30> As a game author I am very ashamed of what the industry has been doing in the last few years.

It started with FPS mania... Then crazy DRM that destroyed your PC (Starforce I am looking to you).

Then... more crazy DRM! (SecuROM, that for example refused to launch Spore on dual-GPU laptops).

Then online only DRM...

Then DLC mania (Horse Armor, I am looking to you... unfortunately as the harbinger of something much worse past you).

Then Diablo III (and now SC5) managed to be the first games I don't want to play even borrowed, pirated or given to me. If someone give me a DIII CD, I won't even re-sell it and inflict something evil on someone, I will just throw it on the trash, because online-only DRM for Single Player game, transforming the game into a sort of cloud-based service, is one of the most evil things that companies could invent, specially because they can just yank the game from you when they wish (also you cannot have fun cheating alone or modding, cannot play when you are deployed in some war without internet on the HQ or live in the third world, cannot play if you deride EA/Activision/Ubisoft on the forums and they decide to ban you...)

<comment><USER31> Can't play when the company decides to stop spending money on servers...meaning your game will actually expire and stop working one day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The title of the 5-star review Amazon highlighted as the helpful is delightful: "Got me off my video game addiction!"

If there isn't some kind of anti-DRM movement surrounding these review this game might break some kind of record for worst reviews. As of now there are 737 1-star reviews.

<comment><USER33> Spore (the last Big Game released by Maxis through EA) is currently holding that record, I believe.

       By September 14, 2008 (ten days after the game's initial Australian release),
       2,016 of 2,216 ratings on Amazon.com gave the game one out of five stars,
       most citing EA's implementation of DRM for the low ratings. [1]

Spore's DRM issues were different, however.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_(2008_video_game)#DRM_con...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spore_\(2008_video_game\)#DRM_controversy)

<comment><USER34> I actually legitimately hated Spore for its gameplay. So much promise and hype...such poor execution.

<comment><USER35> Spore was really great in that different people could learn to hate it in completely different ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The dev team did an IAMA on Reddit a few months ago, where this was all foreshadowed:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/14v8er/drama...](http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/14v8er/drama_in_riama_maxis_video_game_developers_run_an/)

<comment><USER20> This sums it up <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYLmsEBGug>

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> When a game requires an internet connection to work we call it DRM and slam it. When a text editor or spreadsheet requires an internet connection to run we call it innovation.

<comment><USER38> The situation isn't as simple as you put it. This time, there is single player game that shouldn't need forced interactivity with an internet connection. Compared to a text editor where the internet connection allowed multiple users to operate on it at the same time.

<comment><USER39> That and I'm not spending 60$ for Google Docs access.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> EA is offering refunds but only in some cases, with a very haphazard criteria: [http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18gs2vgs50fjijpg/original.jp...](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18gs2vgs50fjijpg/original.jpg)

<comment><USER41> I think that has to be the most amazing customer service interaction I have ever seen. I hope EA's payment processor hits them hard over all those charge backs.

<comment><USER42> Unlikely. If you're on Origin and ask your bank a chargeback, they'll block your account and hold all your legally bought games hostage.

That would be the same as any cloud service(PSN, Steam, Google Play, App Store…), which is a shame, and should be forbidden by law since the consumer gets zero protection in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I was initially apprehensive about the server-based architecture of the game. However, after playing it for a few hours and being pleasantly surprised, I can now see why they did it. There's a concepts of multiplayer regions with cities that contact each other, and it's more than simply visiting the city.

It's a full economic simulation in which you can sell excess electricity supplies to other cities, lend them public services such as police or fire protection, build mass transit like commuter rail between cities, etc. Long story short, I was surprised to find that there are a lot of features that legitimately need a server. I initially expected the server-based system to be purely for the purposes of DRM, but anyone playing it can probably determine that it's a bit more than that.

Now if they can wrinkle out the bugs and get the servers running (which is, don't get me wrong, a huge huge _huge_ issue right now), I'll be happy.

<comment><USER44> > you can sell excess electricity supplies to other cities, lend them public > services such as police or fire protection, build mass transit like commuter > rail between cities, etc.

That was already possible in Sim City 4. Even in older versions (Sim City 2000 iirc) you had neighbor cities and could buy and sell utilities. Those features work just as well when controlled by AI. There is just no reason not to implement it aside from the DRM benefit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm not going to lie: I will buy this game as soon as someone cracks the DRM and allows single, offline play.

<comment><USER46> You mean, when someone reverse engineers their massively multiplayer server scheme and rewrites an entire server wrapper for a game that follows the client/server paradigm?

This isn't a case where a client-only software package is locked by a remote server.

This is a case where core game logic is stored on servers and will have to be reverse engineered or emulated on some level to play truly offline.

<comment><USER47> I kind of started poking around at the backend protocol this morning. It's all websockets over HTTPS (very trendy stuff) and is hosted on EC2. I'm yet to dig much further than "let's see what this looks like in wireshark", but the behaviour and some of the errors I've observed in-game point to some kind of sync-every-now-and-then architecture. I wouldn't be surprised if it was really easy to do up a custom server for it.

I'm going to keep poking at this thing, so I'll document what I find here: <https://gist.github.com/deoxxa/5111644> \- feel free to join in!

<comment><USER48> The "hidden" servers are probably due to the game not being released in Europe yet. I'm assuming they are reserved capacity for when hundreds of thousands of new users join.

<comment><USER47> That makes a lot of sense, I hadn't thought about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I don't understand why people buy games from EA? I mean, seriously, why buy it?

They have been pulling this crap for years and each new release just gets progressively worse.

About a year ago I decided if it's not on Steam I'm not buying it. It really sucks to miss out on some of the games, but I refuse to support such an asshole of a company.

<comment><USER21> As a consumer: If my £40 game gives me £40 of entertainment, I will buy it.

This held for Mass Effect 3 and Battlefield 3. And considering the reviews it has been receiving, I'm confident this will be true for SimCity once the early server issues have been ironed out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm going to disagree slightly.

The primary "DRM" in this game is not DRM in the sense of something that attempts to control your computer in such a way as you can not make copies or run an unauthorised version.

The DRM here is about moving game logic to a server under EA's control. I think this is the correct way to do DRM in that it works and does not require locked down client platforms or invasive rootkits.

I would much prefer to pay for something as a service than have some third party try and take control of my computer. After all, people don't complain about 37 signals , google or World of warcraft for their business models which essentially amount to the same sort of "DRM".

The issues here seem to be that:

EA didn't plan for the demand and make sure that enough servers were available.

Since there is no monthly service fee, there will come a point at which it is no longer economical for EA to run the servers. This will make the game unplayable unless there is some plan by which they will release the server software for download after X years.

There are certain expectations built around the SimCity brand, mainly that the games have high and timeless replayability and that they can be played in isolation. I wonder if the game had been named "Simcity online" would have changed the reception?

</comment><comment><USER50> "Guess what? If you'd love to experience the nonstop thrills and excitement of SimCity, then please remove $60 from your bank and promptly pay someone to kick you repeatedly in the friggin' mouth." - Ouch! Once again EA fucks up another great gaming franchise that could have made them a lot of money by implementing DRM that doesn't work. I know Blizzard did this with Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, but at least their servers could handle the load...

Not surprised. EA is a failure of a company being run into the ground by greedy and paranoid CEO's who essentially treat their customers like criminals. I feel sorry for the developers who obviously did an amazing job, the new Simcity seems like a well-built game with smart AI developed by no doubt some of the smartest minds in development, such a shame most people will never get a chance to play the game before demanding refunds.

The uninformed will blame the developers but it's the fault of EA itself, not the developers who did an amazing job. I want to play this game, but I'm going to download the cracked version when it's released instead because it'll actually work.

<comment><USER51> What was wrong with Starcraft 2?

<comment><USER50> Nothing. That is my point. Starcraft have always on DRM, but they did it right. You need an internet connection for single play in SC2 as well as Diablo 3 and they did it right at least. There were a few teething problems, but it worked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Where's Steve Jobs when you need him?

> Steve Jobs summoned the MobileMe team to the Town Hall > auditorium on > Apple's Cupertino campus for an obscenity- > laden dressing down. 'You've > tarnished Apple's reputation,' > he told them. 'You should hate each other > for having let > each other down.' Then he named a new executive on the spot > > to run the team."

[http://macdailynews.com/2011/05/08/steve-jobs-to-those- respo...](http://macdailynews.com/2011/05/08/steve-jobs-to-those-responsible- for-mobilemess-you-should-hate-each-other/#Gb5gk9Qr5v3TWy0M.99)

<comment><USER53> Although it is more likely in this case that the EA executives mandated online only to the developers.

<comment><USER52> No doubt. Doesn't mean you have to implement it badly though.

<comment><USER53> Agreed! But having worked at a company similar to EA, I know the developer may have wanted to implement certain things a certain way, but may not have been able to due to corporate mandates. For example, they may have wanted to deploy using AWS, but their CTO demanded they use the in-house infrastructure he has been working on. Obviously just speculation, but things like this happen all the time at large companies where internal factions put their own agendas ahead of the product and users. I would just hold off blaming Maxis or the development team until more is known.

<comment><USER54> Here's the thing though: they DID use AWS (one of their EU servers is 184.108.40.206). They have no excuse besides poor architecture design for not simply doubling server capacity.

<comment><USER53> Right, but I'm just saying that there isn't nearly enough information to claim the devs let down the CEO (as the parent comment implied). We don't know why things are failing, or or who made the decisions that let to the problems. We don't even know if they have tried to throw more servers at the problem (I hope so).

I agree that given the narrow scope of the online plain in SimCity, they should have an architecture that scales easily. I hope they do a public post- portem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Amazon is still selling the physical version. Why would they pull the digital download and not the physical copy? Is it because there are different people responsible for it?

<comment><USER56> I thought it might be an automatic block based on 1-star reviews, but both products have the same 88% 1-star reviews right now.

Digital: 765/866 = 88.3%

DVD: 912/1038 = 87.9%

<comment><USER21> If there's an automatic block, it's more likely to be related to refund requests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> The box-art says, "Winner of 26 PC Game awards". Is that for the series or for Sim City V? I have a hard time believing its the latter.

<comment><USER58> Probably for the entire series but it's still false marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Overall, this games seems like a good example of how not to launch a product:

<http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/simcity>

Fanboy perspective: [http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/simcity- impressions-we...](http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/03/simcity-impressions- we-waited-ten-years-for-this/)

</comment><comment><USER60> Seriously, how is this legal? They're obviously very open about it requiring online, and the extent to which the servers are involved, and the fact you need Origin.

However, this isn't some cheap game, some small company, some inexperienced producers who didn't know what to expect. That their servers aren't up to the job is inexcusable, and clearly their fault.

Even if Origin has Ts & Cs that boil down to you don't actually have the right to play games you buy, even if you buy them on a disc - which I'm sure they do, how is this possibly legal? The game is unplayable, it's their fault and they could have made it work if they'd chosen to.

<comment><USER52> It would depend on your local consumer laws. Under UK law, for example, Simcity would not currently be considered 'fit for purpose' and they're clearly obliged to give you a refund:

[http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/consumer_ni/consumer_...](http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/nireland/consumer_ni/consumer_common_problems_with_products_e/faulty_goods_e/what_is_meant_by_goods_not_fit_for_purpose.htm)

...assuming you're buying it from a UK(/EU?) subsidiary.

Local laws will vary. IANAL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> SimCity and SimCity 2000 were such great games, it's a bit disappointing to see how EA screwed up the rest of the series.

<comment><USER62> The only thing bad about SimCity 4 was the performance was less than stellar. Other than that, 3000 and 4 were just as good as 2000.

<comment><USER63> A decent size SC4 city can bring today's hardware to its knees, and the game is 10 years old.

<comment><USER64> It would be more accurate to say that SC4 is not optimized for today's hardware. It relies entirely on single-threaded performance, which has not improved appreciably since the days when it was released. Furthermore, it is 32-bit and not large address aware, which means it is limited to about 1.5GB of memory. Needless to say, this would max out a Pentium 4 single-core system with 2GB of RAM circa mid-2000s, but it will leave your (not too) modern 4-core desktop with 8GB of RAM sitting mostly idle with lots of free memory. The game may run slow with large cities, but that's because it doesn't know how to take advantage of modern tech, not because that modern tech is being pushed to its limits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Three things

1) remove the online DRM 2) significantly expand the size of the ridiculously small city area (let users push the bounds of their system by choosing how big of a city to work on) 3) enable a save/load to go with the offline mode

Do it as fast as possible. And then suck up to users by providing some free DLC here and there.

Anyone taking bets that EA will do the opposite of these obvious steps?

</comment><comment><USER66> I wish I had read about this before I bought the game. I feel screwed over, I would have never bought the game if I knew it was like this.

There's something the game industry doesn't get in their zeal for control over users. (And lets be clear, this is about control, not just about piracy.) Here's what the game industry doesn't get: your barrier to entry is already exceptionally high. You might be able to get away with this in the short term, but it's a bad long term proposition, because I'm almost always going to choose convenience over quality (and I'm not alone). Asking me to pay $60, wait for a 12GB download, and have a very powerful rig is already a huge stretch. When you factor this mess in it's just not worth my time. I'd rather go get an indie game, or play a flash game. It's just not worth my time to deal with this, even if the game itself is impressive.

<comment><USER67> Not too late for a refund

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Side note, it's a little odd that the additional images for a video game are all concept art.

</comment><comment><USER68> I can only speculate the designers said "Oh man, if we can interact with each other's city that'd be awesome" and someone higher up said "It'll always be on!"

Everyone saw this coming. Everyone. I don't understand how they couldn't prepare better?

<comment><USER69> Because EA doesn't care about their customers that much. There's no reason on doubling your launch fleet for a few days when it will hardly effect the sales of your game. Save money and let customers bitch for a few days, just more free press about your game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> After the Tetris debacle[1] on iOS and putting obtrusive adverts into their iOS games for new ones despite me paying for them (a cardinal sin IMHO) combined with endless DRM debacles and horror stories about how employees were treated, I took the decision to never buy or install another EA game again.

Electronic Arts (which EA is the mutated-gollum-like growth of) was actually a software developer that was based on the idea of the developers being artists. They shared lavish profits with them, put the developers' faces on boxes and made some amazing games. If you want to see some highlights of Electronic Arts' back catalogue, take a look at these:

* M.U.L.E - <http://www.worldofmule.net/tiki-index.php>

* Desert Strike - [http://www.mobygames.com/game/desert-strike-return-to-the-gu...](http://www.mobygames.com/game/desert-strike-return-to-the-gulf)

* Populous - <http://www.mobygames.com/game/populous>

* The Bard's Tale - <http://bardstale.poverellomedia.com/>

* F/A-18 Interceptor - <http://www.mobygames.com/game/fa-18-interceptor>

* Indy 500 - [http://www.mobygames.com/game/indianapolis-500-the-simulatio...](http://www.mobygames.com/game/indianapolis-500-the-simulation)

* Road Rash - <http://www.mobygames.com/game/road-rash>

A lot (but not all) of these were games developed when Trip Hawkins was in charge. Trip Hawkins went on to found the failed 3DO console, which is where a lot of the modern 3D versions of the popular franchises (NFS, FIFA etc.) first started out.

If you don't like DRM, being nickel and dimed, or scummy company practices. I highly recommend you boycott EA and spend your money on the plenty of City building alternatives on Steam[2] instead.

[1] - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_(mobile_video_game)#App_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_\(mobile_video_game\)#App_Store_removal/)

[2] - <http://store.steampowered.com/>

</comment><comment><USER71> The servers being down, I can _almost_ forgive, but this whole affair with the DRM is very puzzling. EA has a history of angering users who buy their games. And yet, for apparently no good reason, they have incorporated into their latest offering the one element that is guaranteed to anger virtually everyone who buys their game.

It's pretty simple - I paid money for your game. Now, I own it. EA, maybe you need a tutorial on how money works. Let's not get side-tracked and start talking about whether or not I own my songs on iTunes or any of these more entrenched markets. If I buy a video game, I should be able to play it 10 years later, even if the EA Sim City Servers are long-gone and now devoted to keeping track of whatever the latest terrible incarnation of Madden does.

I didn't buy Civ V (not EA) because of DRM. I haven't bought other games because of DRM. I wanted to buy into the Sim City franchise again but I'm not buying Sim City V because of DRM. You just lost a sale and likely a future customer.

</comment><comment><USER72> It's been fun while I've actually been able to connect to EA's servers. (which is rare). I'm not going to beat the anti-drm drum, but I will say this. If EA is going to go this route they had better have the resources available to make it happen. I for one actually don't mind it, if it was able to work.

<comment><USER73> This is all an assumption but:

With the amount of stuff that gets simulated on their servers, the sim city servers are probably more resource intensive than even really popular FPS servers.

That means they're also more expensive per person than most other game servers.

What happens when it's no longer profitable for EA to keep them running? I doubt they'll release the source code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I'm not sure if this will work but there's a petition for EA to remove the server requirement... [http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-inc- remove-a...](http://www.change.org/petitions/electronic-arts-inc-remove- always-online-drm-from-simcity-and-future-games)

</comment><comment><USER75> I am waiting to see what comes of this before I buy. However, They had overloaded server issues during the 1 hour beta AND the extended 4 hour beta leading up to the launch.

Hoping they can get this resolved quickly. I think we're dreaming if the fix will involve a non-DRM offline mode.

</comment><comment><USER76> I haven't been paying much attention to SCV except that it seemed to be generating a lot of hype and excitement...so I'm kind of confused why the game has to be so intricately tied into whatever (apparently faulty) online service that EA has setup.

I mean, besides the DRM. I don't get why my fake city has to be attached to a world of fake cities if all I want to do is play in the sandbox. Didn't the designers/executives consider that many people would be perfectly fine playing alone? And then slowly rolling out the multiplayer features?

I doubt we'll see it, but it'd be great to see a post-mortem of the actual bug. Was it load-related or just something extremely boneheaded?

<comment><USER77> "I mean, besides the DRM."

But that's the core issue, really.

<comment><USER76> No, the core issue is: the game doesn't work. Lets face it, gamers would still be buying the game with DRM if it didn't crash.

If what you mean is: "Crashing (to the point of unplayability) is an inherent consequence of DRM"...the many wildly successful games that have DRM would indicate otherwise

<comment><USER77> I didn't mean any of that. I meant that DRM is _the_ reason one would implement constant-onlineness into a game that should also (mostly, even) work as a single player game. My apologies if my use of the word 'issue' suggested something different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> I really, really wanted to buy this game. Since I was young I've always loved the SimCity series and was hoping this would be great... I was even going to buy a new PC just to play it.

Fuck you EA - you're disappointing my inner child!

</comment><comment><USER79> Most single-player games that have an multi-player or online component also have an offline mode for single-player use.

This game should have been a combination of a basic single-player mode (campaign style, maybe with goals to accomplish, etc) in addition to a multi- player mode that would allow for online play with other cities.

At least with a single-player mode you know there is a part of the game you'll always be able to play, long after the online components have been discontinued.

Conceptually, the online mode sounds pretty intriguing but, obviously, was poorly executed.

</comment><comment><USER80> SimCity 2000/3000/4 still work perfectly, and are available for free.

<comment><USER21> Since when are they available for free?

<comment><USER81> I think SimCity 2000 was considered abandonware, or was it only the first SimCity game? I'm not really sure about it. But the first 4 games are definitely playable without any internet connection whatsoever.

<comment><USER82> According to Wikipedia, original SimCity is available on Wii (virtual console) and iOS, and 2000 is still available on PSN. Hardly abandoned. And playable without an internet connection is far from "available for free".

<comment><USER22> Available for free in practical terms vs available for free in legal terms..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> The programmers will probably be thrown under the bus for this instead of the suits who dictated the game's stupid social direction and always-on DRM, but I'm glad that this game is so far looking like an epic failure. Gaming companies need to be punished in the marketplace for rampant stupidity.

They deserve this game to flop, and it's good for gaming as a whole if this is an epic failure so EA will learn a lesson.

(Though I have doubts that a company as thick-headed as EA will learn anything positive from this)

</comment><comment><USER84> My copy is on its way in the mail. I'm a huge SimCity fanatic and was slightly worried that when it got here I'd sink too much time in it and get behind on my work.

Thanks EA!

</comment><comment><USER85> NO Longer Valid - Amazon smartened up (in terms of running a profit making business) and decided to resell the game, its the number 1 seller now after all

</comment><comment><USER86> Well, that's what you get for buying a DRMed game.

Stand for your rights.

</comment><comment><USER87> Looks like it's available now - any confirmation that they stopped selling it over 'game issues', or if that was just conjecture to get more clicks?

</comment><comment><USER88> Here's a thought: if you can't get your act together with servers during a launch, stagger the launch. IE, when you buy your game, you have a place in a queue, and when there is enough server capacity to support you, you are let into the system. That way, you can change gamers expectations such that they are being let into an exclusive party, not that the game that they purchased is defective.

</comment><comment><USER89> And this is why I basically do not pre order anything. If I do, its pretty much considered charity in my mind (eg a kickstart -esque situation)

</comment><comment><USER90> But they promised...<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLYLmsEBGug>

</comment><comment><USER91> To me, the problems we see today will pale in comparison with the problems people will experience years from now. If the game is unplayable today, what will it be like when EA decides that keeping the servers running is unprofitable, and turns those servers off?

(I think there's some sort of analog to historical preservation of art and buildings here.)

</comment><comment><USER92> I have played the last couple nights (since release) on the West Europe 2 server though I'm on the East Coast. Not ideal I guess but I've had to do the same thing for other games. Hopefully it still works when I get home in a few hours :)

Speaking of "broken" memes.

I used to play SimCity like you, until it got an arrow in the cloud. Improve on that please.

</comment><comment><USER93> Reading the comments below it sounds like there is an infrastructure scaling issue going on down at EA (I'm no DRM specialist).

If that is indeed the case: Methinks the AWS sales guy/gal on the EA account has just been handed the easiest ROI they could ask for. "Buy my cloud, and we will be able to start selling your game again."

<comment><USER94> Unfortunately the way this often goes is that someone who was responsible for not using AWS correctly blames AWS instead of himself and EA stops using them, or using them for future games.

Although that won't tend to work if EA is already using AWS a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> Nitpicking: The name of the game is just "Sim City". They dropped the numbering scheme and went for a total reboot.

<comment><USER2> > The name of the game is just "Sim City"

No, it's not. If you're going to nitpick, get it right. The name of the game is SimCity.

<comment><USER96> If you're going to slam his comment, at least offer a reason why it's incorrect

<comment><USER97> The title is 'SimCity', all as one word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> I was thinking of buying this, but meh, never mind.

(may as well just wait for the cracked version and enjoy the game with more convenience)

<http://www.reddit.com/r/simcity> seems to be summing up the problem pretty nicely with some clever use of the curved roads.

</comment><comment><USER99> I have been amazed at the interest level in this game. I shared in the excitement and could not wait for the Mac version. Now the bad backlash, bugs, and generally horrific reviews have significantly deflated my interest. Gaming startups - make a better one!! ;)

<comment><USER100> like this [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1584821767/civitas- plan-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1584821767/civitas-plan-develop- and-manage-the-city-of-your-d)

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> Its sad they didn't use the playfish devops team that flawlessly launched simcity social.

</comment><comment><USER102> Looks like Amazon sells it again.

</comment><comment><USER103> Short of asking for a refund, and not buying the game in the first place, who at Maxis and EA can customers write/call/etc to let them know what I feel about the business decision to force online only DRM?

<comment><USER104> Short their stock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> I still see "buy and download" button and it says "Available". It has a warning about connectivity problems but the game seems to be still available for sale.

</comment><comment><USER106> Not really game issues (though they definitely seem to exist as well, unstable games is just par for the course these days), broken DRM and server issues.

</comment><comment><USER107> I wonder if this is just a way to get around all of those horrible reviews. They'll probably put it up again soon with cleared reviews.

</comment><comment><USER108> So did they not even bother to look at the debacle of a launch that was _Cities XL_? Or did they imagine themselves immune?

<comment><USER58> EA has a very long history of anti consumer practices. Pretty much everyone expected some kind of fubar on launch but even this level of incompetence surprised most jaded gamers.

<comment><USER109> They sold server-side processing as a "feature" for what should otherwise be a single-player game. Did anyone not see this coming when it was last discussed on HN?

I remember thinking that the servers were guaranteed to melt on launch day.

<comment><USER109> Interesting. I guess one person didn't see this coming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER110> EA for the most part does not respect the player experience.

How is it 2013 and NFL 2K5 is still the best NFL sim?

</comment><comment><USER111> It would be hilarious if a cracked version allowing offline play would appear on TPB :)

</comment><comment><USER112> When torrenting your game offers a better user experience than paying for it, well...

</comment><comment><USER113> Looks like it's available again

</comment><comment><USER114> Oh dear, looks like the virtual rioters have broken out into the real world.

</comment><comment><USER115> dwarf fortress is the new simcity.

</comment><comment><USER116> The brain-dead corporate douches in gray suits pulled the trendy social bullshit into the legendary single-player game and ruined it. That's unbelievable!

</comment><comment><USER117> I think the real reason Amazon stopped selling it was the Amazon Buyers looked at the game and said: "What? No subways? Small City Size? We can't sell this!"

</comment><comment><USER118> Wow, Upwards of 800 amazingly dumb people on the review page. Didn't they see the first 100 reviews <i>before</i> making the purchase?

<comment><USER119> Perhaps they bought in advance?

<comment><USER118> Thats even worse</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: AirHelp flight scanner finds all past flights and checks for eligibility - <AUTHOR> https://www.airhelp.com/en/ahlp/travels/ <comment><USER2> A quick pitch for Tripit. Although you can let Tripit scan your email, you can instead just forward airline and hotel receipts to it and it automatically parses the data. It then puts it in an iCal calendar that you can import to Google Calendar. Personally, I use a Zapier to copy the Tripit calendar entries into my main calendar so that my colleagues won't try to book me into meetings while I'm on flights.

Finally, Openflights.org is an awesome site that imports and visualizes your Tripit data.

[https://openflights.org/user/dankohn1](https://openflights.org/user/dankohn1) In the last 7 years, I've flown 44 days in the air for 428,989 miles which is 1.796x of the way to the moon (i.e., I'm almost home!).

More travel info [https://www.dankohn.com/travel](https://www.dankohn.com/travel)

<comment><USER3> Hi,

Johnny here, I work in product @airhelp.

We love Tripit! We love them so much we have a partnership with them: [https://travelupdate.boardingarea.com/tripit-airhelp- partner...](https://travelupdate.boardingarea.com/tripit-airhelp-partnership/)

And originally we had a Tripit integration. But we decided to remove it for launch because we ran into a few bugs (on our side).

That is a super cool hack with Zapier, thanks for sharing. I'm currently using Fantastical 2 (on of my fav products) with connection to Google Cal. Gmail already populates my calendar with the flight times but unfortunately not the travel time to the airport. Maybe I should add some kind of buffer for all my travel events.

-jq

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure if the app works as advertised. I submitted my claim and 4 weeks later their team is still reviewing it. A question to their support team has not been answered for 2 weeks. All in all, it looks like a scam to get inbox access.

</comment><comment><USER5> IMO, the legal network and a reputation of always suing airlines are the most important things in this line of business. For example, if you are seriously delayed while departing from an EU airport, you are entitled to a compensation. Inside the EU this mostly works, but consider the case when you live outside the EU and the non-EU airline basically tells you: "sue us". I'm currently using the services of one of their competitors to try and extract 250 euros from one small airline that thinks that because they're outside the EU they can delay a flight for two days and not pay the legal amount.

</comment><comment><USER6> That company does offer this for one reason:

"We're here to end your flying woes once and for all. We help air passengers around the world secure compensation for delayed, canceled, or overbooked flights. We're also the first service to provide a free map with your personal travel stats in just one click."

Giving a third party access to my mails next to my ISP: no way.

</comment><comment><USER7> There a bunch of services like this that scan emails and offer something valuable enough in return that they might be worthwhile... Earny is another one.

I really like the idea of them but I just wish there was just some better security model. What if granting read access to Gmail could give you an auditable log of every email read through the API? That way, services like this could prove that they are being responsible with their access rights.

<comment><USER8> How is it going to help to know _after_ the fact, that they are not trustworthy?

<comment><USER9> It helps future users avoid the service. Although, I think a better solution would be if Gmail etc. had an API where you could whitelist based on email address. Then these scanning services could ask permission per email address.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Must have a Google, Hotmail or Outlook account. Yeah, nah.

</comment><comment><USER11> I filed my first claim with AirHelp a few weeks back. It's "sent to airline" now, so we'll see what happens.

I don't think that I'll hook this directly into my email, but if the one-off service works well, I'm sold.

</comment><comment><USER12> Any chance of support for KAYAK or AwardWallet? Both offer a TripIt style forward booking email to add to an itinerary - I think AwardWallet offers an API for access to account data.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wish I could import my flights from App in the Air

<comment><USER14> Hi. We actually check your past flights for eligibility and send you an email with compensation amount. Then you can use AirHelp or contact airline directly to file for compensation. Hope it helps

Bayram, CEO @App in the Air

P.S. We've got API to access one's flights (with permission, of course): [http://docs.appintheair.apiary.io](http://docs.appintheair.apiary.io)

<comment><USER13> Hi Bayram! I loe App in the Air, have used it for years now. Top 4% of travellers 2016! :) I just wanted to test AirHelp's maps feature really, not for the compensation but because it looked cool.

<comment><USER14> Cenk, oh wow - cool! thanks for being with us and please let us know if any questions or feature requests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yeah absolutely not giving access to scan my emails. Sorry. I don't care what service you have, if you can't provide an alternative way to get the data I'm out.

Also where's your privacy policy? I don't see it. You're also not the first service to show a map of flights I've take. There's been services around for YEARS.

[http://www.jetitup.com/](http://www.jetitup.com/) [https://my.flightradar24.com/](https://my.flightradar24.com/) [https://www.flightmemory.com/](https://www.flightmemory.com/) [https://openflights.org/](https://openflights.org/) [https://www.jetlovers.com/](https://www.jetlovers.com/)

To name a few.

<comment><USER16> Their privacy policy is here: [https://www.airhelp.com/en/privacy/](https://www.airhelp.com/en/privacy/)

I don't see anything specifically about what information they collect from scanned emails.

<comment><USER15> My biggest question is: why isn't it linked on the homepage? (along with virtually any other company information).

<comment><USER16> It is linked from their homepage: [https://www.airhelp.com/en/](https://www.airhelp.com/en/)

The linked page ([https://www.airhelp.com/en/ahlp/travels/](https://www.airhelp.com/en/ahlp/travels/)) is a terrible landing page and doesn't have much information or a link to the homepage. The homepage is much more informative about what they offer, which is more than just a map of your past flights.

<comment><USER15> Oh, I just assume their linked page was their homepage. That's pretty bad on their part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No way. E-mails are incredibly sensitive data, you are not getting access. I'd consider using this if I could manually put my flight details in, but F-U-C-K T-H-A-T.

What reason do I have to trust you at all?

What if you got hacked?

Plus I don't use any of these emails. This is an awful idea.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ever wondered how many flights you've taken or how much money you've spent on tickets? With AirHelp's new travel map you can find out. From now on you'll know EVERYTHING about your traveling habits, such as: \- how many flights you've taken \- how many countries you've been to \- how many days you've spent in the sky \- how many km/miles traveled \- how much money you've spent on flight tickets \- how much time you've spent watching safety demonstrations \- how much time you've waited in line at security and everything displayed in the dopest dope travel map!!!

And here's the kicker! If you've been on a delayed flight that is entitled to compensation, we'll automatically let you know and offer to claim the compensation for you. You'll NEVER miss out on compensation again because AirHelp automatically got your back.

Finding 10-12 flight itineraries among tens of thousands of other emails is more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack. Therefore, the first step of the process is selecting all emails that potentially contain an itinerary. We achieve that by an algorithm that combines some good-old-rules with a machine learning piece based on Extreme Gradient Boosting model. The next step is extracting all flight details from emails. In order to do that effectively, we use a set of our home-grown parsers and partner with 2 vendors to process less popular formats. This way our coverage and accuracy is higher than what any of our competitors can provide, and is paralleled only by Google's Inbox. Even before the official launch of our email parser, our systems were processing around 500,000 emails every week. It meant that at peak times quite powerful machines were needed to keep up with the demand. Anticipating the official launch, in order to drive down the costs the critical parts of the system got re-written to the Go language, and today's launch was handled from one of the smallest AWS EC2 instances. Currently we repurposed the tools created for building itinerary parsers to construct software for verifying other documents sent to AirHelp by claimants and extracting from them necessary data.

<comment><USER18> "Ever wondered how many flights you've taken"

What I would pay for is something that would make me forget the amount of time I've spent in airports and on crappy flights over the years.

<comment><USER3> Well ... sadly I've spent about 29 hours in security lines...

[https://app.airhelp.com/shared- stats/22d49947a0bf239c931b7d2...](https://app.airhelp.com/shared- stats/22d49947a0bf239c931b7d2827e31dc7?lang=en) #mytravels

-jq

PS. I work in product at AirHelp</comment></comment></comment>


Fractal demo in less than 1024 bytes - <AUTHOR> http://youtu.be/3PcTcfy8n8w

<comment><USER2> I'd rather see a link to the demo itself instead of a YouTube video. Download here: <http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=59600></comment>


The Median of a Trillion Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://matpalm.com/median/index.html <comment><USER2> what about using histograms: a histogram is N bins, where N is the number of values that an integer could assume and each bin stores the count of the number of times that value is seen. assume an integer is 32 bits. 2^32 ~= 4 billion bins. to store counts of up to a trillion, we'd use a data type that goes up to at least a trillion, we can use a 64 bit uint for that. so 2^32 bins * 2^3 bytes per count = 2^35 or ~32GB. my hard drive is bigger than that, so we can potentially just break the bins down into a bunch of files, maybe even 1 file per bin if the OS lets us. after we've stored all the numbers in our bins, we just iterate from our first bin adding up all our counts till we hit half a trillion. the bin that one is in is our median.

if we more than 1 computer, we could map the range among all the computers (so if we had 2 computers, 1 computer would take the first 2^31 bins, the 2nd computer would only care about the second 2^31 bins, etc). then you could iterate through all the computers in order, just passing along the current count so far, stopping when you hit half a trillion.

<comment><USER3> Note that the range of integer values to consider is not specified. We don't know if they are signed and 32 or 64bit values.

The histogram is indeed the best algorithm and the one I would use. I call it the hash select. Note that it may be applied recursively, by narrowing the bins. Quick select is then in fact the hash select with only two bins.

Note also that since histogram filling is distributed, one needs to add up the histograms to find the one containing the median value. This is a good reason for not using histograms with 2^32 or 2^64 bins.

A 1024 bin histogram, would allow to find the median value of 32 bit integers in at most 4 iterations, and 64bit integers in at most 7 iterations.

The algorithm to identify the bin containing the median value is then very similar. One adds up the number of all lower values, until the bin containing the n/2 th value is found. This bin contains the median value.

Instead of adding up all histogram, which may be done pairwise (OlogN), one could do this for each bin, progressively, until the bin containing the median value is found. I guess there is a nice optimal and distributed algorithm to find out there. But we get the general picture.

Another optimization would be to adjust the histogram boundaries to fit the biggest and lowest value in the value set.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I liked the question and after thinking hard about potential algorithms, I came to a different conclusion:

\- In general for data sets of this size, you don't want anything more then a linear algorithm or less preferably.

\- Also, because a median is a statistic measure, it's use will be of a predicting nature. (Why would anyone need the exact median of a trillion numbers?)

\- Because of the uncertainty involved with predicting and the size of the data set, I think a sample approach would be appropriate.

\- A sample size of 1000 - 10,000 numbers per machine is enough for significantly recognizing any reasonable distribution.

\- We could take the median of those 1 - 10 million numbers directly or we could apply curve fitting techniques to gain a lot more insight.

Of course if someone could provide a reason for needing the exact median I am completely wrong.

<comment><USER5> Thats a good point. Two things come t mind though. One is that since its an interview question they are probably just using this to test your knowledge of (distributed) algorithms.

The second is that you might want the exact answer if you are using the statistic to convince someone of something and you don't want to leave any room for doubt.

<comment><USER6> And getting the exact number is already a linear problem.

<comment><USER4> In the ideal case you find the correct pivot immediately, but in worst case you will have to sort the whole list. Thus O(n) = n log n.

<comment><USER6> No. You can find every order statistic in O(n) [1]. And even if someone handed you the pivot, you still had to prove that this is right.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selection_algorithm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting article, but I kind of wish the author would use a few capital letters.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is the perfect answer to an interview question, with the proviso that it is nearly impossible to demonstrate over the course of an interview. You can sketch out the general nature of the approach but actually doing something productive with it takes a wee bit longer.

For questions like this, you think between the phone screen and the serious interview you could send someone an email saying "Here's homework: we have a torrent here of a substantial data set. Find the median number, document your approach, and we'll talk about it at the interview."

<comment><USER9> That all depends on what one is actually looking to find in an applicant. If the goal of the question is to actually determine if the interviewee has the ability to research a problem, think it through, and implement the solution, then the "homework" approach is definitely superior.

However, if the thrust of the question is to see the applicant think on his/her feet and possibly apply some knowledge from a college class on algorithms (I never covered a problem in this depth in my undergrad comp sci education, but it's definitely standard to discuss computing order statistics), presenting it in the interview is best. The idea of the solution as presented here could easily be sketched out in the interview, and a skilled interviewer could lead the applicant through fleshing out some details if that was so desired.

That said, I think the latter is more often the goal of a final round interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're familiar with the linear time deterministic selection algorithm, this is straightforward to solve. It's usually taught in intro to algorithms classes. See CLRS chapter 9.

Incidentally, the algorithm is from 1973 and four of the authors went on to win the Turing award: ftp://db.stanford.edu/pub/cstr.old/reports/cs/tr/73/349/CS-TR-73-349.pdf

</comment><comment><USER11> Since 10^12 is way way bigger than a 2^32, it's either the average of the numbers, or a strange degenerate case. (10^11 1's followed by 10^11 3s).

just calculate the average, and remember the item closest to the current average.

<comment><USER5> Eh? Thats not true.

The only time this would work is if the distribution of the numbers was symmetric (or close to symmetric).

If you have

1 --> 599,999,999,999 times

4 --> 1 time

10 --> 400,000,000,000 times

Your average will be about 4.6 (a little higher) and your algorithm will return 4 as the answer when it should be 1.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I commented right before bed. I thought of a bunch of problems with the average while trying to get to sleep.

I was thinking since the size of an outlier is constrained by fitting in 4 bytes, there must be a way to show the median is in some band of numbers around the average. I didn't think of a particularly useful algorithm though.

Thanks.</comment></comment></comment>


Spotify Hit with $150M Class Action Over Unpaid Royalties - <AUTHOR> http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6828092/spotify-class-action-royalties-david-lowery-cracker-150-million <comment><USER2> I have mixed feelings about this particular case, because on the one hand, yes, I want artists compensated fairly, and on the other hand, I do hold the belief that Spotify is putting a good-faith effort towards paying musicians and "rights holders" day in and day out.

I'd like to see this case actually go to court, if anything so that it would force all three parties - Lowrey, His Label(s)/Management/Publisher(s), and Spotify - to provide some documentation regarding how this system actually works. My understanding, for good or ill, is that Spotify points the finger at royalty collection societies / labels / publishers / etc when possible (and not forbidden by contract or NDA), and royalty collection societies / labels / publishers / etc tell artists to blame Spotify. I'm not fond of the murky arrangements what so ever!

Getting a good, clear understanding of the mechanics would be nice, well, for other artists like Lowery. Could this case show that Lowery's own management and labels haven't been doing their part to get him his money? I'm curious. Will the case ever go to court, or is it maybe more of an avenue to try and get a settlement check? I could see that happening too.

I might be in the minority as an independent, but I've been quite pleased with the reporting and transparency by Spotify, iTunes, et al by way of my distribution firm, and therefore have no real basis to feel compelled to try and join the suit.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it makes me wonder whether his complaint is really with his label, but he can't sue his label without creating friction. So he sues Spotify, Spotify performs discovery which shows his own label is withholding these royalties, he turns around and sues his label (or more likely, settles with them).

Better still - what if Spotify turns out to be right, and he didn't provide the required information to Spotify to allow them to pay him his royalties, so his complaint is really with himself?

<comment><USER2> Agreed! I don't think there's any chance he could get a class action status against his own label, but he successfully got out in public quite a while ago bitching about how he made roughly $17 for a milllion streams of "Low" and that got his profile up. My gut instinct is that the "willful infringement" isn't going anywhere, and after a critical breakdown of accounting, Lowery is probably owed another check that could buy him lunch at Chili's. This doesn't seem anything close to the kind of heavyweight punch that Eminem threw at Universal over royalties.

You're right though, if he's at fault for not getting himself paid, that'd get a chuckle out of me, and also another facepalm for an instance of a musician who should stick to the music part and not the businessman/activist part.

<comment><USER4> I suspect that the main point is to drag the accounting into the light.

Both Spotify and the record companies are going to be in for a shellacking if they let this go to trial given that both of those parties are carrying on some very shady money games.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Record labels was useful historically, because they handled distribution (physical stores, CDs, different countries).

Nowadays, record labels are a PR-agency at best and should be compensated as such. Artists getting a 10-20% slice[1], the typical revenue-split, sounds like a rip-off to me.

A good artist, using Instagram/YouTube/FB/website + Spotify/Rdio for distribution doesn't need much help from a label. Sure, a producer, studio, PR manager and other staff is useful, but that doesn't motivate a 90% cut of profits (in my view).

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/artists-press-for-their- share-14...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/artists-press-for-their- share-1405905178)

<comment><USER6> You could easily argue the labels create all the value. They can pretty much turn any type of talent into bankable star.

<comment><USER7> And in thst world I almost prefer the honesty of the Korean/Japanese music factories where the singers just get salaries instead of this whole system of Hollywood accounting where an artist is just an expense account with all expenses to be paid to their label, never to go into the black...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We've hit a weird period where if I hear about a song, like Lowery's Almond Grove, I can instantly listen to that song on demand on a legal service without paying anything. (I don't even get a pre-roll video ad.)

The underlying economics here have changed from the 90s. Partly because of all the price fixing back then,[0] but mostly things have changed along the lines any economist would have predicted, once you add instant free duplication and teleportation of bits to the world.[1]

A right is a right, and Lowery makes great stuff so I want him to get some return. But it seems like he keeps starting fights with all the places trying new business models, trying desperately to fight against the economics. He's picking fights with the few holdouts still trying to trade music for actual money.

He's capsizing all the lifeboats because he's angry at the sinking ship. It's like he doesn't understand he's at sea.

[0] [http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-30-cd...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2002-09-30-cd- settlement_x.htm)

[1] ie, Price tends towards marginal cost. Overly simplistic maybe, but this is an awfully provocative case study: negligible marginal cost and pricing at effectively nothing.

</comment><comment><USER9> Actually I have a question regarding spotify's payment model: I heard that every subscriber's payment are put in a big pool, and artists are paid according to their global click/listening rank. If this were true, then when I pay 10 dollar's per month and all I listen to is Carsick Cars (my favorite Chinese indie band), still the majority of 10 dollars will go to Justin Bieber and Adele. Is that right? Another model is to pay the artist according to each subscriber's stats. For example in my previous example, all my payment (except those for Spotify) will go to Carsick Cars. Additionally, I'm wondering which of the above payment model is fair to both the audience and the artists?

<comment><USER10> If all you listen to is Carsick Cars then their global ranking will be boosted and assuming that you listen an average amount all your royalty money will go to Carsick Cars. If you listen a greater than average amount then even more money will go to them.

<comment><USER11> There's a minimum payout, so unless you listen to your neighborhood band a lot then they still get nothing and all of your $10 goes to bands you never even listened to.

The Spotify model even encourages people to _not_ listen to music. Putting your music library on shuffle and turning off the speakers is the best way for a paying subscriber to get money to the bands they like. Streaming an excessive amount on mute also takes money from other bands that you don't like and redirects it to your favorites. Even better, sign up for an ad-supported account, play your favorites on mute, and the artists will get even more money per play.

It's a terrible model that rewards people for abusing it. Splitting your $10 among your bands is a much better model, but they won't do it because ads don't pay enough so they mix together ads and paid accounts so they can get more listeners. Spotify model is good for Spotify, but not for anybody else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> David Lowery has a history of doing stuff like this. I love his music, but he's become a bit of a troll on this issue in recent years. (See his blog The Trichordist: [http://thetrichordist.com/](http://thetrichordist.com/))

His most recent post does a pretty good job of pointing out where he stands on this issue: [http://thetrichordist.com/2015/12/24/the-mother-of-all- frida...](http://thetrichordist.com/2015/12/24/the-mother-of-all-friday-news- dumps-spotify-admits-it-has-an-unpaid-royalty-problem/)

Personally, I want to see Lowery make a few more bucks off of "Eurotrash Girl" and "Take the Skinheads Bowling," but his approach to the issue seems to have a take-no-prisoners vibe to it, which is too bad because it sort of undercuts a lot of the fairly valid points he might have. He's not afraid of going after listeners, which is a bummer because the listeners are probably less at fault in this case than the labels are. (He also looks like an older Chuck Johnson these days, which doesn't help matters on that front.)

No matter the complaints about tone or anything like that, we definitely need guys like Lowery making the case for artists. But he might win more support if he were to take some style tips from Taylor Swift [1] on the issue. Swift has done more on this whole issue than Lowery has and she hasn't once had to resort to making fun of an intern who doesn't buy CDs.[2]

[1] [http://www.techtimes.com/articles/75173/20150813/taylor- swif...](http://www.techtimes.com/articles/75173/20150813/taylor-swift- attacks-spotify-again-while-praising-apple.htm)

[2] [http://www.stereogum.com/1069672/david-lowery-on-file- sharin...](http://www.stereogum.com/1069672/david-lowery-on-file- sharing/news/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is music really worth this much? I mean, its intrinsic value to society? It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other such thing, but really, $150,000 per song?

Why can't we put a clamp on the problem of every random artist thinking they've created something that lasts a few minutes and has more value than most people make in a year?

The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain. This would do away with many industries that serve almost no purpose for society, other than to attempt to extract value where no value has been created.

The conventional way for artists to make money should come from performance.

<comment><USER14> > It's normally used as the backdrop to a party, or exercising, or some other > such thing

This is way off. Music changes peoples lives. It defines generations. To many, it is one of the most important things in the world.

> The entire system of copyright and recorded art needs to be abolished, and > any music that is recorded instantly becomes the public domain.

No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works.

<comment><USER15> > No way, artists deserve to be paid for their works.

Unfortunately for the artists, what they value their work at (living income) and what the market does (close to zero) is drastically different.

You can't will music to be worth something because you're nostalgic over times gone by.

<comment><USER16> People are stealing the music. If they actually made the music unavailable to streaming services then the artists have a shot at people actually purchasing the music. I actually think that they need to double the price of subscriptions. People listen to music as much as they watch TV and maybe even more so... Cable TV doesn't give you unlimited everything but we pay like 10x that per month and we still have to listen to the ads in many cases. So I definitely think maybe they need to hike the price to $25 or $30 per month.

<comment><USER17> >then the artists have a shot at people actually purchasing the music.

Or they'll just pirate it.

>So I definitely think maybe they need to hike the price to $25 or $30 per month.

Spotify will charge what the market will pay. They think that $10 a month is the sweet spot, any more and they will lose more revenue in lost subscribers than they gain.

>Cable TV doesn't give you unlimited everything but we pay like 10x that per month and we still have to listen to the ads in many cases.

And cable TV is currently losing subscribers. I'm not sure that's a business model you want to emulate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> David Lowrey has a pretty long history of hating on digital media and while some is very well founded, some is "Hey you kids back in my day..." BS. I think he is someone that was comfortable in the old business and doesn't want the burden of selling placed on him and wants the Label to sell. But now if you are clever you can find ways to both have a traditional arrangement and appeal directly to your fans who would gladly help support him.

</comment><comment><USER19> My understanding was/is that spotify goes in to agreements width record labels and the record labels provide spotify with music.

If i am right about that, then the record label that provided the music would be at fault. As they sold material that they did not have the rights to sell.

I guess you could find them at fault as they are not verifying what they are getting. But that would not be a civil case.

<comment><USER20> Labels deal in sound recordings, which have historically been licensed independently of the underlying music compositions. Most distributors like Spotify will obtain separate licensing for compositions, whether from collecting societies like ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC, and/or through direct deals with artist / publishers themselves.

This setup may seem odd, but but it has historically been used to provide some protection against labels "screwing" artists - b/c although a label takes the sound recording rights and therefore controls royalty payments back to artists for the recording [if any -- after recoupment, etc], the artist typically retains their own publishing rights and can license those separately for $$ not subject to their label deal (though subject to cuts from societies, and their individual deals with publishers etc). This opens up new revenue streams for artists to get paid outside the control of their label: by radio stations/bars/restaurants via PROs, or in sync-right deals for placement in movies or on TV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> FYI, it's not class action yet and the $150m is the maximum based on the statutory damages the complainant details. I'm not a lawyer, the headline just seems to kind of jump the gun a little.

</comment><comment><USER22> This looked plausible until I saw it was David Lowery.

I predict this will go nowhere.

</comment><comment><USER23> The problem with all the music platforms and labels is that all platforms made a wrong decision when saying we are licensing all this stuff.

They should've just done a platform where the label needs to pay and could upload the stuff. Something like "pay X per uploaded song and X per traffic done", but get the rest off the revenue of the song. However at the moment the royalties stuff is way more complicated than it should be.

</comment><comment><USER24> Has anyone seen a link to the actual document filed to court for the lawsuit? I'd like to see it if so. Typically in class actions the lawyers take home the bulk of the settlement, with those actually affected taking home small amounts (except for perhaps named plaintiffs, with higher 'reward' payments than others in the class).

</comment><comment><USER25> What is the purpose of copyright? From the constitution "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts".

To maximize the creation of intellectual goods, we should pay artists enough money to have them enthusiastically create them, but no more. Of course, this money should only get paid to people who are creating works that people want to consume.

Our music copyright system has many problems, but I think it's fairly remarkable that we've stumbled on what I believe is fair prices for it: $10/mo/user or $15/mo/family for access to a full catalog, or ad-supported free for access to radio-like streaming. Ad-supported free is pretty meagre, but it was the government that set those rates, so we'll assume that's fair for the sake of this argument.

While dividing that $10/mo up by play seems fair, it doesn't seem maximal. A few artists get millions, most are lucky to get enough to get enough to buy a cup of coffee. They might be making a meagre living touring, but once they decide to have a family they give it up and get a real job.

I'd love to see log scaled payouts to address the problem. So if you A had 10x as many plays as B and 100x as many plays as C, A would get paid 2x as much as B and 3x as much as C. (using log10 for illustration -- the natural logarithm or some other lower base would probably be better).

Such a change would be relatively easy to make for compulsory-licensed music such as Pandora and other "Internet Radio". It would be harder to make for the voluntarily-licensed music such as Spotify, though.</comment>


Filling Information Gaps: Experts - <AUTHOR> http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure/2008/04/filling-informa.html

<comment><USER2> This article reminded me of one that I read over at The Industry Standard ([http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/18/keep-it-simple- be...](http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/18/keep-it-simple-because-vcs- are-stupid)) - Keep it simple, because VCs are stupid. It's a really good point that every founder should keep in mind that they know their business FAR better than the VC they are pitching. They should enter every meeting and discussion with that in mind.</comment>


Coming soon: A new site for fully free collaboration - <AUTHOR> https://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/coming-soon-a-new-site-for-fully-free-collaboration <comment><USER2> Why is the no mobile friendly css on this site? It is almost impossible to read this on a phone.</comment>


Information cascades - <AUTHOR> http://lesswrong.com/lw/z/information_cascades/ <comment><USER2> Can someone parse the 3rd bullet point in the article for me? It seems as if a word is missing.</comment>


Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's, and is becoming an assisted suicide advocate. - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/coming-to-terms-with-the-final-chapter/2010/02/11/1265477648911.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

<comment><USER2> Tch, show proper respect. That's "Sir Terry" to the likes of us.

And I don't think "becoming an advocate" is perhaps worded strongly enough. A few choice quotes from something he previously wrote on the subject (the link in philk's comment):

 _"I live in hope - hope that before the disease in my brain finally wipes it clean, I can jump before I am pushed"_

 _"I am enjoying my life to the full, and hope to continue for quite some time. But I also intend, before the endgame looms, to die sitting in a chair in my own garden with a glass of brandy in my hand and Thomas Tallis on the iPod - the latter because Thomas's music could lift even an atheist a little bit closer to Heaven - and perhaps a second brandy if there is time.

Oh, and since this is England I had better add: 'If wet, in the library.'"_

 _"I have met Alzheimer's sufferers who are hoping that another illness takes them away first. Little old ladies confide in me, saying: 'I've been saving up my pills for the end, dear.'"_

As terrible as death is, interminable, futile suffering with no hope of respite until the bitter end isn't necessary and isn't what most people want.

<comment><USER3> Much less to inflict that and the costs associated with it on the ones they love.

I've always sided for the ability to choose in this because I really do think there are things worse than death, especially when you're assured there's no recovery before the end.

<comment><USER4> I'm (also) pro everything. Pro Choice. Pro Abortion. Pro choose your own death. Pro Gay Marriage. Why?

 _I don't give a fuck what anyone else does._

If I have to, I will die while living off of a tube because my religion doesn't allow me to commit suicide. I also won't tattoo myself for the same reason. (I do choose not to follow some laws, yet I follow others)

Just because I personally believe anyone who commits suicide is going to hell (Note: I don't actually believe that previous statement), doesn't mean I'm going to stop him or her. Not my place.

=]

<comment><USER5> The only issue with assisted-suicide, is at what point does the line get drawn between assisted-suicide and murder. If we do 'make it legal' I think there needs to be some clear definition in this area so that it doesn't end up _too_ grey (i.e. the method of assisted-suicide has to make it clear that the person wanted it; legal documents must be signed or something similar).

Also the question of "What happens if someone changes their mind at the last minute" needs to be answered or at least have some sort of legal context to it. I haven't spent a huge amount of time pondering the issue, but the opening of legal loopholes is the only thing that I could possibly see blocking this.

Well, I guess the other thing might be some sort of required counselling to prevent impulsive emo teens (or similar) from using such a thing (i.e. make sure that people are in a rational frame of mind when making the decision, not just running off to die because of a break-up).

<comment><USER6> Well the real question is has DNR orders already crossed the line into euthanasia? I'm sure there have been many people allowed to die who would have made a complete recovery from their injuries.

As far as I know where euthanasia is currently legalized the person has to pass a psych test to see if they are of sound mind and that they're not being coerced into making the decision. If the psychiatrist feels something is off then the euthanasia isn't performed (at least in theory). The person also has to suffer from a terminal illness that the doctors at the euthanasia place can verify.

Emo kiddies aren't going to pass the psych evaluation or the terminal illness evaluation. However there should be a chicken clause that the person getting euthanised still has the ability to back out right until the end.

However with legalised euthanasia the state would be required to cover terminal illness costs in all people who refuse euthanasia for various reasons, because it's unlikely that these peoples families will voluntarily cover the costs when there's the option that they don't have to.

<comment><USER3> I'll play devil's advocate here, and point out that a lack of DNR orders have probably imposed torture on many more than have been possibly been euthanized, because the family _can't_ respect their unwritten wishes without huge legal battles.

Though I do see where you're coming from, and the last part is a good point. It'd certainly be abused that way, but that'd hardly be a first for a gov't-supplied service. That's part of why things with high abuse potentials are handled by the government, though; no private industry wants to touch them, and they're nearly guaranteed to lose money. As it's "for the greater good" though, it's worth the taxes (arguably).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So from what I read (thanks ot this submission) about terminally ill people killing themselves the consensus for people to kill themselves would be some kind of morphine/opiate overdose. Sounds like a decent way to go.

I always thought I should get a gun (Possession of firearms is largely illegal where I live so this would involve some shady dealings and a lot of money) if I am ever diagnosed with something painful and/or terminal.

As a programmer who is used to working with his mind I am horrified at the thought of staying physically alive but slowly losing my mind. Getting enough morphine to overdose should be easier than buying a gun from a criminal. Damned if I'll stay alive in constant pain just so some religious nuts can feel elevated.

<comment><USER8> I think a preferred option for many people in this situation would be to go to an assisted suicide clinic like Dignitas in Switzerland where you can choose to die at a time of your choosing, without pain, surrounded by your loved ones, with the 'operation' performed by a medical professional. A problem with trying to kill yourself is the risk of getting it wrong - shooting yourself in the head but not managing to kill yourself, not taking enough of your drug of choice - and leading to a possibly lengthy agonising death, or permanent coma etc.

The problem people in the UK have with going to somewhere like Dignitas is that the law around assisting someone with suicide is vague, so if someone's family goes with them to Dignitas, they risk arrest when returning to the UK. In practise I think prosecution has never happened, but people have certainly been arrested on returning to the country.

Personally I think assisted suicide should be legal (although not as something that can be a spur of the moment decision) so that people can choose to take their own life, without the risk of pain or error, and with the support of their families.

<comment><USER5> > _I think prosecution has never happened, but people have certainly been > arrested on returning to the country._

How would they know _why_ you left/re-entered the country unless you told them? Do the UK authorities track anyone the enters/exits a Dignitas facility?

<comment><USER8> I presume it comes about through reporting the fact that the person has died. 'arrested on returning to the country' probably should have been 'arrested after reporting the suicide and having stated their own whereabouts at the time of death'.

There's an example of it happening here:

[http://www.lists.opn.org/pipermail/right-to- die_lists.opn.or...](http://www.lists.opn.org/pipermail/right-to- die_lists.opn.org/2009-July/003495.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Actually, alzheimer's can't be diagnosed premortem. It's only diagnosed by characteristic neural striations during a necropsy. Before death, the only conclusion that one can draw (along those lines) is some kind of dementia, not the particular kind. (citation: Dr. Corballis, GT PSYC 3020 - Biopsychology)

</comment><comment><USER10> I have to agree with him to some degree.

Modern medicine allows us to extend life far beyond circumstances that would normally kill us. If someone is old, unhealthy, and no longer wishes to live they should be able to choose to end their life. The medical resources that would be used to keep them alive could be devoted elsewhere.

I certainly don't advocation allowing a healthy person to end their life because they have a chance at things getting better.

<comment><USER11> _I certainly don't advocation allowing a healthy person to end their life because they have a chance at things getting better._

This is gambling with other people's lives. If such a healthy person is forced to stay alive, things might never actually get better, and they will have suffered needlessly by staying alive. (And if things do get better, that is merely relief from suffering.)

On the other hand, if such a healthy person is allowed to end their life, that's all there is to it. They'll never regret it.

Besides, if you deny people professional help with ending their lives, they will try to get the job done themselves, often with bad results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Listen to his Richard Dimbleby Lecture to understand his viewpoint <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qmfgn>. There are text versions and recordings floating around. Here's a shortened one: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/02/terry- pratchet...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/02/terry-pratchett- assisted-suicide-tribunal)

</comment><comment><USER13> It's good that Terry Pratchett is advocating for this (although it would be much better if he was healthy).

This article reminded me of an Op-Ed he wrote in the Guardian last year, which I posted as another article (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1128224>)

</comment><comment><USER14> There was a healthy discussion on this issue just two days ago on Reddit: [http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/b1n8h/i_remember...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/b1n8h/i_remember_when_i_was_younger_hearing_about_dr/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Terry Pratchett writes movingly and convincingly that assisted suicide should be allowed. Coming up with some general rule about how and when will be the hard part.

I can't see any legal reforms in this area being anything except controversial and problematic. I fear it will be a long time before the legal system can accomodate the mature, considered decision to end one's own suffering.

I'm referring, btw, to the Australian legal system. From the sounds of it, the UK system is in more or less the same position.</comment>