Door-Busting Drug Raids Leave a Trail of Blood - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/18/us/forced-entry-warrant-drug-raid.html <comment><USER2> No-knock raids kill police. They kill civilians. They kill animals and babies. They are the worst, most dangerous way to serve a warrant, according to police themselves. Yet these same police continue to use them because preventing someone flushing their weed down the toilet is more important than killing a baby in a crib. As long as our society accepts this justification, babies, people of all kinds, and animals will be killed and property destroyed. Police will get richer. Meanwhile, in WA, OR, CO, AK, etc. people go to the store and buy their weed peacefully without incident in a nice, safe, comfortable environment that is a tax boon to the states and better for all of society.

So the difference is just exactly how you want to make that extra money, and who in society makes it. As a society we can choose to go with the status quo, empowering police departments across the country while they shoot and kill more and more innocent people to enrich themselves, or we can finally legalize something that people are going to do anyway and use that money to fund our schools and hospitals to better society. The sad part is that most people are so closed-minded on the subject, they only see the first option. Then they get mad when babies get killed when that's a direct result of a policy they supported and voted for.

<comment><USER3> I don't think this is about weed. It's about a structure that's set up with all the wrong incentives. Police departments get to seize assets related to drug offenses with no due process. Departments are being flooded with money to buy military resources, with the provision that they use them within the year. And once they have the resources there's a whole industry of ex-military businesses designed to train departments in SWAT-like techniques.

When your local police department trains on equipment meant for executing urban warfare, is it any wonder that the wars come to our cities?

<comment><USER2> Oh, without a doubt weed is just an excuse to feed the rubes. I should've been more clear. I agree with your thoughts on armaments buildup in police departments. It's no wonder at all.

<comment><USER4> Radley Balko's book "Rise of the Warrior Cop" goes into these issues in depth. He looks at the history of how the war on drugs, among other things, has contributed to the rise in military equipment and tactics being used at the local level.

There are a shocking number of no-knock raids which have resulted in death of not only officers and some offenders, but innocent people who's homes were raided based on wrong information and in some cases the police literally getting the address wrong.

[http://amzn.to/2mlNWxj](http://amzn.to/2mlNWxj)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These need to be banned. No, I don't want to hear your pet exception. Loss of evidence isn't enough to justify the state murdering people.

<comment><USER6> > These need to be banned.

It seems unlikely that the state will voluntarily cease this activity, as it achieves the quintessential goal of the state of instilling fear and creating the impression that the state lives in a legal and moral framework divorced from and above the common law.

In libertarian circles, we often hear people advocate responding with violent self-defense. While this is perhaps more likely, if done with frequently and vigor, to result in meaningful change, it also continues to utilize a "might- makes-right" approach to political change, which I find even more abhorrent than the legislative process.

So how do we achieve this ban peacefully?

<comment><USER7> One way might be to make the money for these settlements come partially or entirely from police union treasuries. Right now cops don't give a shit if someone is awarded millions in a wrongful death suit because, hey, it's not like they're paying for it-- that cost is all on the taxpayer. If it actually hit them in the wallet they might be a little more careful.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps police should be licensed like professionals (doctors / lawyers) and be required to have malpractice insurance. Premiums could be based on their prior conduct. Gross misconduct would result in them losing their right to work in law enforcement. I imagine that would solve the problem.

<comment><USER9> > Perhaps police should be licensed like professionals (doctors / lawyers) and > be required to have malpractice insurance.

Or just not covered by a near-blanket immunity from liability. If they were exposed to personal liability, you wouldn't need to expressly require liability insurance, they'd see the need quickly. And insurers would probably take care of the equivalence of licensing requirements by the factors that controlled insurance pricing.

<comment><USER10> Police officers are exposed to personal liability more often than you'd think. But police unions almost universally require that the municipality indemnify or otherwise insure their officers for any personal liability.

It's similar to D&O (director and officer) insurance that every corporation carries. Directors are exposed to substantial personal liability from stockholder suits, but all that cost is just passed through to the corporations.

For many, many reasons I don't think professional liability insurance is a good comparison. Suffice is to say that being a cop is not a traditional professional occupation. The incentives just don't line up the same way. It's like arguing we could make the internet safer by making programmers personally liable for their bugs. There's some superficial logic to it, but only when you ignore the reality of the labor market and how it's structured.

<comment><USER6> You've made a somewhat strange comparison:

> [advocating that police officers be personally liable for their conduct is > like] arguing we could make the internet safer by making programmers > personally liable for their bugs.

What I like about this comparison: It treats police brutality as a systemic civic problem, like bugs in software that lead to global insecurity on the internet. Police brutality, like internet fragility, is a problem that threatens (at least nearly) everyone. Also similar is that people are reluctant to recognize the peripheral damage - police brutality decreases the quality of government and capacity for civic engagement for everyone, not just the victims.

Things I don't like about this comparison: The idea of personal liability for programmers because bugs because internet insecurity is an incredible abstraction. Compared to, for example, police officers who literally break down people's doors and shoot them, it's pretty hard to see the similarity in terms of the connection. Also: a company that decides to deploy a product that contains bugs has an opportunity to audit the software in order to prevent that. There's really no similarity in that respect.

These cops know better - nobody thinks that breaking down someone's door in the middle of the night and terrorizing their family is proper behavior for an adult in a free society. But they do it anyway. This is malicious, horrific conduct and it's a stretch to say that liability is improper for the perpetrators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Innocents have died in attacks on wrong addresses, including a 7-year-old > girl in Detroit, and collaterally as the police pursued other residents, > among them a 68-year-old grandfather in Framingham, Mass. Stray bullets have > whizzed through neighboring homes, and in dozens of instances the victims of > police gunfire have included the family dog.

I think about this almost daily. Sometimes I seriously have trouble falling asleep because I'm afraid that the next wrong door will be mine.

Am I the only one?

<comment><USER11> _> I think about this almost daily. Sometimes I seriously have trouble falling asleep because I'm afraid that the next wrong door will be mine.

>Am I the only one?_

No, but it isn't a very rational fear. Do you have trouble sleeping because you're scared of driving your car? How about choking on your food when you eat? When was the last time you tested your Carbon Monoxide detector? Ever plug anything into an electric outlet? How long each day are you staying seated?

There are a hundred mundane things you likely do daily - each of them coming with a risk of death.

Most people don't factor the risks of the more mundane things they do and they actively overestimate the risks of other, less mundane events.

<comment><USER12> That depends on your definition of rational. Clearly, it's not the greatest risk, not even remotely close to that. But there are a lot of interesting cognitive biases at play here, and some of _those_ exist for a reason.

For instance: it doesn't actually matter which risk is greatest; it's rational to fear that which is most avoidable. After all, that's where your attention is best spent. And similarly, we're social creatures and benefit from that hugely: and it's rational to spend attention not just on risks that you personally can avoid, but on those you can avoid _with_ your community. And it's rational to spend extra attention to avoid in particular those risks which are exploitable by competitors: i.e. violence. After all, those risks (unlike "natural" risks) have a tendency to snowball. And then of course you have the fact that this kind of extreme violence poses risks to the community at large by undermining the trust a community needs to exist in the first place.

Humanity may well be one of the most peaceful of comparable species (in terms of probability of serious injury by others of the same species), but part of that may plausibly be precisely _because_ we're particularly sensitive to violent abuse. Is that irrational if it grants such huge benefits? If it is, is any empathy rational?

In any case; I don't think the analysis can be quite as simple as risks ranked by probability of dying.

At minimum, pointing out irrationality doesn't necessarily help much to alleviate the fear.

<comment><USER11> _> At minimum, pointing out irrationality doesn't necessarily help much to alleviate the fear._

The only way to get over an emotional fear is to recognize that the emotional fear is at odds with reality. This is ignoring psychological fears of which there may be nothing you can do. For psychological fears I am referring to very specific phobias that may or may not be the result of a traumatic experience.

People scared of clowns usually had a bad experience as a child. My uncle swapped my Barney VHS with Stephen King's IT. For a long time I was scared of clowns. But it just isn't _rational_ for me to be scared of clowns and I eventually got over that phobia.

Some people are terrified of the color yellow. There's no rhyme or reason - they just are. I'm sure there are various treatments ("exposure" seems to be a common one, similar to PTSD treatments) but some people will just have to live with their phobias playing a large and disruptive part of their lives.

Being so terrified of police, terrorists, people throwing pennies off of buildings, etc. are simply things I cannot empathize with. If I was worried about every freak accident in life I'd never leave my house (but what if a meteorite struck my house? [0])

[0] [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130220-russi...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/02/130220-russia- meteorite-ann-hodges-science-space-hit/)

<comment><USER12> You're missing the key point of my message.

It's _not_ rational to expect fear to be an unbiased estimator of risk. If you regard fear as a motivation, then it would be _irrational_ to ignore factors other than risk.

And that means that merely stating that things are not very risky is not a valid basis for concluding that it is irrational to fear them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is why I want to move out into the desert, somewhere far out, where I can see anyone coming for miles. Sadly, cops do whatever they want in America, because Americans are brainwashed to think everyone is a criminal, or if the cops are involved, they were somehow asking for it.

<comment><USER14> Rather than run away from the problem let's get together and fix it for everyone.

<comment><USER13> While this is a nice sentiment, I'd be happy to hear any real productive advice you might have. I've been fighting this and the war on drugs for a while. As time goes on, sadly I feel like we're losing more ground than we're gaining.

<comment><USER14> Well basically anything which says "let's just give up" is just not helpful. There has been progress.

<comment><USER13> I'm not saying move out of the US. I'm saying I'd like more warning when anyone sneaks up on me. Who's giving up?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Never forget that the police work for elected officials that you vote for and put in office. The best way to hold them accountable is at the voting booth (or better yet, run for office yourself).

<comment><USER16> If you have an example of a politician who is against this kind of thing, please tell us. Seriously, I'd like to see how they describe their position.</comment></comment>


Coronavirus: It is time for a radical acceptance of reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-brutal-logic-of-coronavirus-a-e7be4add-4695-4d48-b1d6-0c593a668e92 <comment><USER2> Pasted here - [https://pastebin.com/5Ben9q4w](https://pastebin.com/5Ben9q4w)

</comment><comment><USER3> > The only way to defeat this pandemic is to approach it with the seriousness > it deserves. It is time for a radical acceptance of reality.

This is all so surreal to me. Shouldn't we have taken this with the seriousness it deserves when China was locking down 700 million people?

Like, even if you didn't believe what China was doing was correct, you should at least have been trying to formulate your best arguments over why China's reaction was wrong and looking for confirmatory and dis-confirmatory evidence over your arguments.

Instead, we spent six weeks in a state of such basic blissful ignorance of China (& other early countries/cruise ships) that we're scrambling now because we don't even have the data to make the right decisions.

For example, there was a case in Hong Kong where one person got it through the sewerage pipe of an infected person 10 floors above because they improperly modified their vent pipes: [https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health- environment/artic...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health- environment/article/3050068/coronavirus-your-toilet-how-hong-kong-policy) . (This is a famous example of how SARS spread through Amoy Gardens in HK so HK people are hyper paranoid about this infection route).

This piece of news didn't even make a ripple in the West (I know because I have friends who work at SCMP and I asked them to look at the analytics, the only western media that picked up their story was... drudgereport.com)

Friends I know in HK are like, "Yeah, the canto news covered this story quite widely so we're all pretty aware" but you can't find any English awareness of this. Even the C D FUCKING C is not aware of this, their page on fecal borne transmissions ([https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/water.html](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/water.html)) STILL says:

"CDC is reviewing all data on COVID-19 transmission as information becomes available. At this time, the risk of transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19 through sewerage systems is thought to be low. Although transmission of COVID-19 through sewage may be possible, ___there is no evidence to date that this has occurred_ __. This guidance will be updated as necessary as new evidence is assessed.

SARS, a similar coronavirus, has been detected in untreated sewage for up to 2 to 14 days. In the 2003 SARS outbreak, there was documented transmission associated with sewage aerosols."

The case in Hong Kong happened ONE MONTH ago and the CDC didn't even pick this up!!! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

<comment><USER4> you can't lockdown too quickly, because you need a plan for removing the lockdown, otherwise you have to stay on lockdown forever.

In this epidemic the lockdown is meant to avoid overwhelming the medical system while we get herd immunity (by contamination and eventually vaccines) in the general population for when we remove it.

<comment><USER3> You don't have to lockdown but you should be gathering evidence and preparing contingency plans for different scenarios. The saddest shit ever is I assumed this was all going on behind the scenes and serious people in serious suits were sitting in serious meetings looking at all the China data and drawing up plans that would all get revealed to the public at the right time.

The last few weeks have been a sad disconfirmation that this is not the case. If even world leaders are getting this, it's strong evidence that nobody in their government has any fucking clue what they're doing (or at least the people with the fucking clue were not empowered to act).

Trump holds a press conference announcing this is a national emergency and even during the press conference, people were standing less than 1m apart, people were constantly touching their face, each speaker adjusted the microphone at the exact same spot and touched the podium at the exact same spot without sterilizing in between, nobody was wearing a mask and everyone was shaking hands except ONE person who did the elbow bump. Sure, some of this can be attributed to optics but they should also be demonstrating best practices if they want others to be taking those best practices seriously.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For me it was obvious what will happen since i came across this article [http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic- actions/](http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/01/27/dramatic-actions/) a few days later. Not exactly how intense and when exactly, but that it WILL spread globally and potentially cause all sorts of disruptions. Now i'm sitting here, trying not to be smug, sipping my greek mountain tea, reading that Spiegelshit and thinking to myself: Oh, really? Just now you are saying that? Good job!

(Not saying anything about baseball bats and how they should be applied, no no no, wouldn't ever do that)

</comment><comment><USER6> So, you click on this and you get an all German landing page, which I had trouble with at first. You need to click the orange button that says "akzeptieren" (I probably mispelled that, though) to continue to the article with ads and no subscription.

The actual article is in English.

</comment><comment><USER7> If anyone runs into what seems to be a paywall written in German, click "Acceptiert" (spelling?) and you will get the English article. At least, this was my experience.

<comment><USER8> I think having an ad-blocker on breaks this and send you back to the paywall with a new warning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's the meat of what I have to say (extracted from a very long, upset rant):

Stop blowing your goddamn noses at the table in a crowded restaurant, thereby sharing your disease with a bunch of people who had no warning and no way to get way from you.

Stop licking your fingers to open plastic bags.

Stop wiping your face or nose and then touching other people, ew.

If you are in charge of anything, train your cashiers to absolutely never, ever, ever, ever upon pain of death (okay, firing offense) lick their fingers or wipe their face before handling bags, bagging items or giving change to their victims aka your customers. I have stopped going to some stores over this shit.

Use self checkout. If you run a store, install a good self checkout that doesn't make your customers crazy.

Stop touching people. Keep your hands to yourself.

Stop touching things unnecessarily.

Stop coughing at people. Go to the bathroom to cough, blow your nose, etc. To the best of your ability, try to not sneeze at people if at all humanly possible.

Wash your hands. Especially if you use a public toilet, good god.

Clean your home.

Clean your car.

Get rid of your giant pile of junk cluttering up your closets and going unused and rotting in place.

Walk more so the air isn't so polluted. The world will generally be healthier.

Honestly, this isn't that hard. You already know most of it.

You just refuse to do it and when I tell you "Please don't do that" you act like I'm the one being a bitch instead of correcting your gross, disgusting, bad behavior that spreads disease like you worship Nergil.

My qualifications if you absolutely need qualifications to listen to the same shit you have been told five hundred million times by all the health experts on the planet and just chose to ignore:

[https://doreenmichele.blogspot.com/2020/02/perspective- and-p...](https://doreenmichele.blogspot.com/2020/02/perspective-and- priorities.html)

[https://atypicalcysticfibrosis.blogspot.com/p/atypical-cf- de...](https://atypicalcysticfibrosis.blogspot.com/p/atypical-cf-defined.html)

I have fantasies I'm going to start a website called _Stop Touching Your Face_ , but the reality is it seems likely that project will be stillborn. Thus, this attempt to say or do _something_ , knowing it will fall on deaf ears, as usual.

<comment><USER9> Many of your suggestions are ineffective and counterproductive. I hope people listen to better sources of information.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious which ones you think are ineffective and counterproductive. My understanding is that it's in line with what the WHO recommends:

[https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2...](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel- coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public)

Wash your hands frequently

Regularly and thoroughly clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water.

Why? Washing your hands with soap and water or using alcohol-based hand rub kills viruses that may be on your hands.

Maintain social distancing

Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing.

Why? When someone coughs or sneezes they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease.

Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth

Why? Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth. From there, the virus can enter your body and can make you sick.

Practice respiratory hygiene

Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately.

Why? Droplets spread virus. By following good respiratory hygiene you protect the people around you from viruses such as cold, flu and COVID-19.

If you have fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical care early

Stay home if you feel unwell. If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical attention and call in advance. Follow the directions of your local health authority.

Why? National and local authorities will have the most up to date information on the situation in your area. Calling in advance will allow your health care provider to quickly direct you to the right health facility. This will also protect you and help prevent spread of viruses and other infections.

Stay informed and follow advice given by your healthcare provider

Stay informed on the latest developments about COVID-19. Follow advice given by your healthcare provider, your national and local public health authority or your employer on how to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.

Why? National and local authorities will have the most up to date information on whether COVID-19 is spreading in your area. They are best placed to advise on what people in your area should be doing to protect themselves.

<comment><USER10> > I'm curious which ones you think are ineffective and counterproductive.

These ones:

>> Clean your home.

>> Clean your car.

>> Get rid of your giant pile of junk cluttering up your closets and going unused and rotting in place.

<comment><USER6> Please kindly explain to me how on earth a dirty car and a dirty home is better. I'm having a lot of trouble taking this reply seriously, but I'm trying to follow HN guidelines.

<comment><USER10> > I'm having a lot of trouble taking this reply seriously, but I'm trying to > follow HN guidelines.

I do not understand your trouble. This is a serious reply.

You asked which suggestions were ineffective and counterproductive. Your list was interesting but derailed in the end, so I listed the most obvious candidates. This is to help you in case you want to edit your post or make suggestions to friends and family.

Here is an alternative suggestion in case of a "large pile of junk": a strong UV lamp (of the kind that is used with reptiles) should be sufficient to alter the viruses present on the surface, removing any need to touch it.

However, we have limited information about how UV could be helpful at the moment, so it may be better to just spray alcohol on the pile and not touch it.

<comment><USER6> Thank you for clarifying. I'm stepping away from this discussion. I've already said that, but wanted to acknowledge your good intent.

<comment><USER10> > I've already said that, but wanted to acknowledge your good intent.

Much appreciated, thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mickey Mouse and Batman will soon be public domain - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/a-whole-years-worth-of-works-just-fell-into-the-public-domain/ <comment><USER2> >On January 1, 2024, we'll see the expiration of the copyright for Steamboat Willie—and with it Disney's claim to the film's star, Mickey Mouse. The copyrights to Superman, Batman, Disney's Snow White, and early Looney Tunes characters will all fall into the public domain between 2031 and 2035.

I guess 5-16 years counts as soon these days?

<comment><USER3> If you consider the time needed to pass the legislation necessary to prevent this, then yes.

<comment><USER4> Why? It takes one session or less for Congress to pass a pre-written law that updates some numbers in existing law, as has been repeatedly done over decades.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Disney just needs to call in the "favors" they are owed from the Congressman they supported during the elections. Maybe sprinkle in a media campaign to fear-monger the fact that "Disney might lose Mickey" as an insurance policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I guess soon we'll be able to retire the old Slashdot rule:

> In the USA Copyright lengths are very simple. Anything older than Mickey > Mouse is public domain and everything else is still copyrighted.

(via [https://m.slashdot.org/thread/28736323](https://m.slashdot.org/thread/28736323))

<comment><USER7> 2024 is still a few years away... maybe too soon to count those chickens since they haven't hatched?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is making a big legal mistake I think... You _should_ be free to make a Mickey Mouse doll with modern colors and white gloves after Steamboat Willie enters the public domain because those would be _derivative works_ (of the original). The colors of the character's clothes can certainly be _trademarked_ but after the initial copyright expires any and all color combinations should be fair game (legally speaking).

If this were _not_ the case the entire body of case law on derivative works would be turned on its head. The entire _point_ of derivative works law is that there's an original that everything else is based on. If the original is public domain _any variation thereof_ is also public domain from that point forward except for _exact replicas_.

Meaning: You can produce all the Mickey Mouse stuff you want as long as you're not literally copying something that's still under copyright. Mickey Mouse dolls are fine as long as your artwork wasn't literally copied & pasted.

<comment><USER9> What if i make, market and sell (in 2024) a doll with just a pixel (or point) of a different colour (assume green on red pants) and argue that point of green showcase a different mickey, with eco friendly thoughts ? Every thing else would be very similar

<comment><USER10> Judges aren't computers and won't be fooled by that. They are humans who are very familiar with humans attempting to deceive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> << The same legal issues will arise when other iconic characters... Winnie the Pooh, and so forth—fall into the public domain >>

Psst! Winnie the Pooh is already in the public domain! q.v. A.A. Milne.

It's the cultural gravity-well of disnified Pooh Bear that triggers my teeth- gnashing irrational hatred of Disney, more even than the unconscionable copyright shenanigans or treacle blanching of global culture or 'get-em while their young' marketing tactics. I quietly toss any Disney materiel that manages to appear in my 3 y.o.'s life, and replace it with original sources.

<comment><USER12> Having had worked for Disney in Orlando I sometimes feel the same. I just don't get it, they're not bad movies, but it scares me to see just how attached people get to Disney. Now that they own Star Wars and Marvel I've lost interest in both just because I knew once they took Star Wars they would milk that cow as much as possible. I am still kinda mad they took away the awesome game studio. They really could of made amazing games, instead we've got EA making Star Wars games.

<comment><USER13> I agree that people can get pretty tied to Disney and have seen it, but why does that impact your love for the things they own at all? People were fanatic about Star Wars before, but if Fox had put the same marketing power behind it as Disney does, would you felt the same? Or Marvel - had the parts of the MCU that Sony owns been bigger, would you like Spider-Man any less?

<comment><USER12> I wasn't as big into Star Wars or Marvel before the buy out, so now I'm less likely to be, except Deadpool, now I feel like it's going to be beaten to death by Disney.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Aren't there trademarks involved? The original stories would be public domain, but I'm not sure how easy it'd be to market them without Disney/DC's permission.

There's also the fact that copyright over characters is tied to their first appearance, and (especially in Batman's case), most other recognisable characters from the series aren't public domain. So you could write a Batman story, but it couldn't involve Robin, or the Joker, or hell, any of Batman's familiar rogues gallery.

But it's nice to see this about to happen none the less.

<comment><USER15> That's not how this works. The actual books/movies/cartoons that Batman appears in will eventually be public domain — you'll be legally allowed to copy, edit and distribute these without restrictions. However, "Batman" (the idea, the concept) is still protected by trademark laws making it illegal to produce new (non-derivative) Batman books/movies/cartoons without the trademark holder's consent.

<comment><USER16> > "Batman" (the idea, the concept) is still protected by trademark laws making > it illegal to produce new (non-derivative) Batman books/movies/cartoons > without the trademark holder's consent

This isn't true. The concept of Batman as it existed in the comics that are in the public domain is open to being remixed and put into new stories and derivative works. Even with the name "Batman" and even without giving any credit to DC comics whatsoever.

What the Batman trademarks are able to prevent is someone trying to use the Batman name to confuse consumers into thinking some product is being sold by DC comics.

As the article points out, the exact borders of what trademark can be used for in terms of merch is fuzzy, but a specific strategy that doesn't work is using a trademarked name to prevent creation of copies or derivative works of something in the public domain

When creating new works with Batman, you'll have to fastidiously avoid using any elements of the character that were introduced later, but you should be good.

<comment><USER17> > When creating new works with Batman, you'll have to fastidiously avoid using > any elements of the character that were introduced later, but you should be > good.

Everything in your comments makes sense except this part. If this goes as currently planned Batman will be in the public domain, but not e.g. Batwoman (introduced decades later).

However, I can make my own new superhero now called Foobarman and introduce a Foobarwoman without anyone having grounds for saying I'm ripping off Batman.

So if Batman is in the public domain I'll be able to have a Batwoman. Having a female version of a character isn't per-se a copyright violation just because that path's been taken before.

Of course if I go further and actually rip off entire stories involving Batwoman I'll be in trouble.

<comment><USER16> > if Batman is in the public domain I'll be able to have a Batwoman. Having a > female version of a character isn't per-se a copyright violation just > because that path's been taken before.

I think you're making a legal argument, and I have no idea if your interpretation is what the court has already decided/will decide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If a cartoon character is still in commercial use and being further developed, I'm not sure if it's good practice to turn it into public domain. I don't think there had been corporations/artists that have had the longevity of Disney, and the fact that Disney has continued to invest in and develop the characters over the years makes this somewhat of a special case (compared to other literature characters where the author stops developing them after they are published).

I'm no copyright lawyer nor do I know much about copyright laws, but one should recognise the positive effects of copyright protection, which encourages innovation and investment. Those incremental investments Disney has made should be acknowledged.

But of course, the danger in this argument is that in the future someone can just make tiny face-value 'investments' into their copyright to argue for an extension, that would be detrimental to the whole copyright vs innovation balance.

<comment><USER19> > If a cartoon character is still in commercial use and being further > developed, I'm not sure if it's good practice to turn it into public domain.

Disney doesn't have any issues defending its repackaged public domain products like fairy tales. I don't see why Mickey Mouse would be harder to brand and market than the Disney princesses.

<comment><USER20> At this point he's probably a trademark. Everything by Disney uses Mickey Mouse badges or iconography to identify itself as Disney.

<comment><USER21> IANAL, but the Mouse Ears logo is different than the character himself. Fewer things are branded with Mickey's face.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Steamboat Willy was 1928. In 1998 when the latest copyright changes were made it was 70 years old when copyright was extended from 75 years to 95 years. So frankly it's not unrealistic to say we're no closer to Mickey Mouse being out of copyright than we were in 1998.

<comment><USER23> Is there legislation pending to alter the copyright term again? If not, then we are indeed closer.

<comment><USER24> Yeah, and it's better than that actually, in that the RIAA specifically said they weren't even pursuing the idea last year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd be so excited if Superman ever entered the public domain. Then I'm convinced we'd get much better adaptations than the drivel we've been seeing for the last several years.

<comment><USER26> > I'd be so excited if Superman ever entered the public domain. Then I'm > convinced we'd get much better adaptations than the drivel we've been seeing > for the last several years.

Individual works are entering the public domain, but what you're proposing is much trickier and largely unsettled legal territory.

When early Superman stories enter the public domain there's no legal guarantee that courts will agree that this includes the right to tell new stories with the character. Further it almost certainly DOESN'T include the right to tell stories about the characters using elements that come from later, still-under- copyright works — and much of what we think of as Superman's mythos comes not from the early comics but from the 1940s radio show (flight rather than big jumps, The Daily Planet, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, kryptonite, "look, up in the sky..."), or from silver age comics of the 50s and 60s (Braniac, Bizaro, Zod, most of the characteristics of the arctic fortress of solitude, vision powers, breath powers, kandor...).

It'll be decades before a recognizable Superman mythos is public domain.

<comment><USER27> What about "Superman" as a trademark? I assume it's already fine to make characters with Superman-like powers but with another name.

<comment><USER26> > I assume it's already fine to make characters with Superman-like powers but > with another name

You may want to take a look at the outcome of National Comics Publications, Inc. v. Fawcett Publications, Inc. [https://bit.ly/2CHZt0i](https://bit.ly/2CHZt0i) the courts have and will slap down clearly "ersatz Superman" characters.

edit: had to use a URL shortener because HN keeps mangling the Wikipedia URL

<comment> em-bee [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Comics_Publications,_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Comics_Publications,_Inc._v._Fawcett_Publications,_Inc.).

(HN removes the last ".", adding another makes the url work :-)

<comment><USER26> Ah, thanks! I couldn't figure out how to get it to stop eating that

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This sounds like something that isn't going to happen unless senators actually get reminded that this is a thing people care about. Has Ron Wyden (D-OR) indicated that he knows that he might have to fight to keep public domain day from being postponed again?

Has anyone written to their representatives about this? Are we going to be proactive or are we waiting to organize a defense of the public domain until _after_ a bill to attack it has passed the House?

</comment><comment><USER29> >And assuming Congress doesn't interfere, more works will fall into the public domain each January from now on.

>On January 1, 2024, we'll see the expiration of the copyright for Steamboat Willie—and with it Disney's claim to the film's star, Mickey Mouse. The copyrights to Superman, Batman, Disney's Snow White, and early Looney Tunes characters will all fall into the public domain between 2031 and 2035.

Given this list, I don't see Disney, Warner Brothers, and DC comics all sitting idly by. If I was a betting person, I would bet that Snow White will not enter the public domain on the 2030's.

<comment><USER30> Isn't Snow White (as in the fairy tale) centuries out of copyright? Disney's specific version will still be protected by trademark, so at best one gains the right to host the Disney footage online in 2030.

<comment><USER31> Apparently Disney's names for the dwarfs, other than Sneezy, are copyright. So pantomimes regularly turn up with a slightly different array of dwarfs. (And different songs, of course)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I think major beneficiary would be the cloners and fake product manufacturers in China. You can expect thousands of questionable quality but very cheap toys with Mickey Mouse theme getting dumped on to Amazon.

<comment><USER33> Don't confuse _copyright_ with _trademarks_.

Mickey Mouse is still trademarked. The movies and books are copyrighted.

Also where have you been for the last hundred years where knock-off Disney everything has been the norm?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm curious how long the legal charade of IP can last before people realise how unworkable and detached from reality the concept is.

<comment><USER35> It's not about "people" or "reality", it's about filling already fat copyright holders' bellies with more caviar, nothing more. The Wall has already been built, no need to be outraged now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> can someone explain? i was under the understanding that it's the works that are under copyright and will be what enters the public domain and not the mickey mouse character as a whole. so people can go off and remix steamboat willie and the mickey mouse representation found there, but it isn't like another company can suddenly take the mickey mouse character and start using it in a broader sense. is that not correct?

<comment><USER37> When Steamboat Willie enters the public domain, those aspects of the Mickey Mouse character that are in that film will also be in the public domain, so people will be able to use the Mickey Mouse character, as long as they don't use aspects of the character that were introduced in later (and so still copyright) works.

Something similar happened a few years ago with Sherlock Holmes [1]. The original Sherlock Holmes stories are public domain, and so the character can be used without the permission of the Conan Doyle estate. However, some of the later stories are still under copyright, so anything about the character which only appears in these later stories cannot be freely used.

[1] [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sherlock-holmes- no...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/sherlock-holmes-now- officially-copyright-and-open-business-180951794/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There was a great list on BoingBoing recently of works entering the public domain this year:

[https://boingboing.net/2018/12/31/thanks- justin.html](https://boingboing.net/2018/12/31/thanks-justin.html)

Also a rather sadder list following it of works that won't be (yet) because of the copyright extension.

</comment><comment><USER39> When that time comes I think it will be a good litmus test of where we stand in terms of corporations and the rule of law. I would be surprised if Disney didn't already have an army of lawyers, lobbyists, and fixers working on this.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is what I don't understand. To me, it seems a bit more complicated to me than a simple 'copyright expiration'.

As far as I understand copyright, it stops anyone copying the exact same _original_ image/music/video.

Derivative works have always been allowed, but it's generally a Trademark that stops the derivative works dead in their tracks, as far as I understand. Also, is there a statute of limitations on Trademark? ie Can Disney keep up their TM on Mickey, stopping anyone else from using it?

So all I think this really means is that the original videos are now in the public domain.

<comment><USER41> > Derivative works have always been allowed

Other way round - copyright has always covered derivative works, that's how the GPL operates. And why you need to clear every sample you use in a music track.

<comment><USER42> I've never understood why I see so many posters on HN (and in other tech- related circles) who seem to think derivative works have no legal encumbrances.

<comment><USER43> Probably just taking for granted (understandably so) the fact that so much of what we develop with has extremely flexible/forgiving licensing

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> So we might see Steamboat Willie knock off videos coming soon?

This is where I think we need a common video stamping agreement- something like taking key frames in a video and hashing them, then signing the hash, and storing that in the metadata - I can rerun the check and so be sure that the certificate signing the hash is disney - if not just do not run the video.

I know this sounds like EU central copyright database thing but if we have to have some copyright (which I think we do) we then need a automated way to verify which is some form of database (decentralised for preference)

<comment><USER45> If you want to be sure that you're watching the Disney original, just look for the video that says "Steamboat Willie, presented by Disney". _That 's_ what trademark law protects - it stops other businesses from passing off on your reputation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Even if someone is in the right, what is to stop Disney using frivolous lawsuits to deter people from exercising their rights?

<comment><USER47> PR. And if they're meritless, sooner or later a judge would get really angry at Disney and make them hurt.

<comment><USER48> The term you're probably looking for is "vexatious litigant"... though I seriously doubt Disney's legal team would let that happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Sorry for the naive question, can anyone explain what it means for something to enter the public domain? What is the public domain anyway? Is there a database somewhere of all the public things?

Does it mean anyone can put batman on a t-shirt, sell that t-shirt and keep all the profit? Does it mean batman movies can be pirated without repercussion?

<comment><USER50> There is the _Public Domain Review_ [1] "dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas" that have fallen into the public domain.

Think about Shakespeare's works for a good example of something in the public domain. Anyone can use Romeo & Juliet's characters any way they like. Similarly, there is a huge amount of derivative work of _Price and Prejudice_ [2]

[1] [https://publicdomainreview.org/](https://publicdomainreview.org/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_adaptations_o...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_literary_adaptations_of_Pride_and_Prejudice)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> No they won't. These characters are not only copyrighted, but trademarked as well, and that's perpetual.

</comment><comment><USER52> Shitty click-bait - we all know disney will just pay-off some politicians and keep it's ip out of the public-domain. As they did the last few times. The have 12/16 years time still

</comment><comment><USER53> If I understand correctly, you can only use the initial art as it is, but nothing else. Latter colorful work and trademark(not even related) should be still far from allowance, legally speaking.

</comment><comment><USER54> Sopa was 7 years ago? Wow.

</comment><comment><USER55> Is there reason to assume that Disney won't wreck it again? Because I remember seeing "Mickey Mouse is about to be public domain!" headlines 20 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER56> I have a theory that in the next 50 years these copyright extension will become less relevant as more and more creative works start using less restrictive licenses.

That's my hope, anyway.

<comment><USER5> I think they matter more than ever. Today, content is king and being able to ham-string up-starts by effectively eliminating several generations worth of content is great for established business interests.

If copyrights were only good for 30 years, then it would be cheap to start streaming services for music and movies. There's tons of great movies and music that you could to bootstrap your operation. Movies like Back to the Future could be freely viewed on YouTube.

Public domain works are incredibly valuable. Which is exactly why our founding fathers put the management of such powers in the hands of the federal government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I would hope so. I'm older than the hills, and I was obsessively drawing batmobiles as a kid.

</comment><comment><USER58> I own a batman.tld, no idea what do do with it though, any suggestions?

</comment><comment><USER59> I still think Disney and others will make one more push for extension in 2023.

</comment><comment><USER60> We'll see about that. They've clung to their creators this long.

</comment><comment><USER61> Imagine the fanfiction renaissance that is about to be birthed.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm curious about mashups here...

</comment><comment><USER63> Do they?

</comment><comment><USER64> _> So if the usual suspects had pushed for another copyright extension, they would have had a serious fight on their hands. Digital rights groups, online activists, and lobbyists from big technology companies would have swarmed Capitol Hill making the case against copyright extension. Evidently, major rights holders didn't have the stomach for another battle like that._

The fight now should go the other way - reverting current insane copyright term to its previous lengths. Copyright lobby might not be able to extend it more, but it doesn't mean that the current one is acceptable.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. What's more, this is exactly what the 'left' wing political parties should be doing about now. They always say they can't get young people to vote. They always complain about losing to their opponents or what not.

Well, maybe actually saying they'll fix copyright laws, throw large corporations to the curb and actively fighting to reduce the term to a reasonable length may help with that. Show they're not corporate shills, and do something that younger people may actually support them with.

Is that enough on its own? Hell no, there are tons of things these parties need to do to win trust back. But it would be a great rallying point for them, and get a decent amount of support from internet folks and younger people.

<comment><USER65> The problem is that they are corporate shills. There are quite a few things I wish the Democratic party would do that I'd support, and lots of them they did historically. Even if they were still actually pushing anti-war, freedom of speech, and related things then that would be fantastic, but lately they seem to tow the same line as the Republicans on those issues.

<comment><USER66> > The problem is that they are corporate shills.

I really think the defining political problem of our age is campaign finance reform and to a lesser extent election reform.

<comment><USER67> Which is the primary aim of the new democratic house. I would not consider someone trying to limit corporate control of politics a corporate shill.

<comment><USER68> The primary aim of the new democratic house is to continue in the same way under the same leadership as they have for the last 30 years. They're a conservative party who mainly want the same things as Republicans, but have somehow managed to bamboozle a whole new generation into thinking they're the party of civil rights, egalitarianism, labor, etc. They're about as interested in campaign and election reform as the Republicans.

<comment><USER67> How do you square your claims with this _?

_ [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18802997](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18802997)

<comment><USER68> Politicians lie, and words are cheap.

<comment><USER67> I'll re-evaluate them after I see what this house does. I certainly don't want what the current party in power does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> It's adorable how people think Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain.

<comment><USER70> Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> No they won't. I do not believe for a minute big content will let that happen.

They should. Not doing it is theft.

Disney made great use of the Brothers Grimm, and has no interest in giving back. All greed and the desire to avoid another Disney from happening.

FREE THE MOUSE

<comment><USER72> What is the argument for not protecting copyright? What public good does making Mickey Mouse public domain serve?

<comment><USER73> > What is the argument for not protecting copyright?

Copyright is censorship.

<comment><USER74> The fair use doctrine provides enough outs that it's not outright censorship.

<comment><USER73> > The fair use doctrine provides enough outs that it's not outright > censorship.

In Germany's analogue to the US-American copyright law (Urheberrecht), there exists no fair use doctrine.

EDIT: And even if we ignore this: a little less censorship is still a censorship.

<comment><USER74> There's a balance to strike between intellectual property and censorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Maybe I'm wrong here, but I don't see why Mickey or batman should be public domain. Both of them are being actively used by their companies, it's not like they are abandoned cultural memorbilia.

<comment><USER76> They're still trademarked</comment></comment>


The Art of Gentrification - <AUTHOR> http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/the-art-of-gentrification

<comment><USER2> The concept of gentrification is typically used in a sloppy and unhelpful way. It is used as a slur, as if gentrification is prima facie bad. But reuse of urban contexts, turnover of neighborhoods, is a fact of life. Cities outlive people and industries.

The legitimate grievance, I think, is where public money is used to subsidize neighborhood transformation. (As was done in SoHo with forgiveness of back debt on properties and other give-aways.) This tends to be highly non- democratic, a process in which wealth is concentrated in the hands of well- connected land developers.

The article touches on this briefly, but to me this is the key problem. Everything else is just people on the sidelines grouching about how others got lucky by buying in to SoHo (or wherever) early on. Reductively put, just sour grapes.

<comment><USER3> In context of the US property market, I believe the situation is slightly more nuanced than "sour grapes" (though there is certainly some of that for some detractors).

A key feature of the US property market is credit leverage, and one aspect I see not discussed a lot is that leverage is very unevenly (please note, I did NOT say "unequally") distributed. Property developers can access far more leverage than retail customers, and this is arguably a feature, not a bug.

This becomes an issue however, when the leverage prices out the long-time residents who want to stay, because the urban amenities are far more walkable and generally accessible than an equivalently-priced suburban location has access to. Property tax increases on these long-time residents over a period of 10-15 years of gentrification are very unforgiving. There is a legitimate concern that these long-time residents (many of whom are elderly or multi- generation households) are involuntarily pushed out by the increased property taxes, and are disproportionately able to capture the latent profit of selecting a desirable location far in advance. There are arguments to be made about disincentivizing really long-term delayed gratification and very high- density living arrangements for the multi-generational settings when these types of externalities to gentrification are dealt with. Knock-on effects can also be brought up, like the disincentives to establishment of large, multi- generational households to mitigate the adverse financial impact of early stage eldercare on lower economic families (that is, large, multi-generational households can more easily self-provision amongst family members early stage eldercare, leading to higher quality of life overall). On the other hand, you definitely want developers to continue urban development and densification for its generally-accepted benefits (on energy utilization if nothing else).

There are no good solutions to this dilemma, short of revamping credit leverage rules, which has its own set of thorny negative externalities. An interesting approach I saw operating first-hand in China in a third tier city was the developers of one high-rise complex offered to not only buy out the family's property (I think in China it was some right-of-use leased from the central government that was being purchased, and not the land itself), but as part of the buyout guarantee to sell enough apartment unit bedrooms to house the family at one-for-one replacement plus an additional separate two-bedroom apartment unit, all at a steep discount to what was offered to retail unit buyers, on top of subsidizing the temporary housing of the family in nearby leased apartments during the construction phase.

This was a very long time ago; I doubt very much this still happens in the China of today. It had the effect of gracefully transitioning the lower (relative to the new residents) socioeconomic family unit that did not want to vacate the land at first, give them access to the urban amenities they wanted to stay close to in the first place (and denser available amenities at that, as the area filled in around the high-rise after completion), kept the family together as no one had to split up for different commuting arrangements, and give them a unit to rent out for income to compensate for increasing property taxes and utility expenses in the future. If this took place in the US, it would also give them an extremely low basis to pay property taxes upon so the arrangement could be quite sustainable for the transitioned family even with sharply-increased property taxes (I'm not familiar with how property taxes work in China, so I don't know what happened property tax-wise in the situation I saw when I spoke with the developer and resident family's patriarch). While some might see this kind of offer as expensive to the developer, the developer had sufficient permitting to dramatically densify the same plot of land that the bought-out families were on such that it had only a very minor impact upon profitability, while earning PR points with the locals that spread good advertising he couldn't have bought even if he wanted, and avoiding any rancor over the development that typically arises from gentrification-displaced residents (the developer recognized he couldn't help the neighbor residents who were adversely affected by his development pushing up their shelter costs, but that was understandably out of his control).

<comment><USER4> About the Chinese solution you referred to: to a certain extent this is practiced in San Francisco, but it's not widespread. See for example this article [1] about the ParkMerced redevelopment, where existing tenants' rent control was grandfathered in to replacement units, with the developer getting their profit out of the remaining units.

A similar (maybe more interesting from the public policy perspective) is the TAMA 38a/b system in Israel. For background, this is a market in which ownership of individual apartments in a condo arrangement is very common. Developers are allowed to renovate buildings to add floors and sell off the new units for their own profit, under the condition that they pay for renovation of the building to new safety standards (earthquake and bomb shelter), and usually whatever other upgrades the existing owners can squeeze out of them. It's kind of a use of the government's virtual "asset" of the economic benefits of easing zoning/height restrictions in order to pay for public safety/infrastructure improvements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At first I thought the piece would be an ironic how-to on gentrification, but instead it is a play on the word, "art." A certain building from New York's pre-gentification era in Soho has become art because of gentrification.

</comment><comment><USER6> You'd think if it were so beautiful, there would be some photos in the article?</comment>


UberTAXI is arriving in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uber.com/2012/10/17/taxi-is-arriving-in-san-francisco/

<comment><USER2> "Automatically adding" a 20% gratuity is a no-go for me. That's about what I normally tip for a cab ride, but it's not their call to do that. Uncool.

<comment><USER3> It's what makes Uber delightful tho. You just hop out and get on with your day. No impatient cabbie with his hand out. It's fine with me.

<comment><USER4> Fine, but don't call it a gratuity. Call it a service fee. "Mandatory gratuities" make me look for another service provider.

<comment><USER5> If I understand this properly, it is a gratuity. The way I understand it, the taxi is still a normal taxi in operation but essentially has hooked into Uber to give it a new way to find fares and to have people pay. If this is the case, then the rate is the same with or without Uber and you still need to pay the gratuity and Uber just automatically selects that gratuity to be 20%. It's actually appreciably different from Uber choosing a rate and then adding a 20% automatic gratuity on top of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a San Francisco resident, I don't really see any reason to use this. I have Lyft for when I just need to get somewhere, and it's cheaper and more desirable than riding a taxi (yes, even after the improvements "uber-izing" a taxi makes), and I have Uber for when a black car is more appropriate, and Uber SUV for when I need to transport more than just myself or myself and another person.

It seems like those three services fit the full spectrum of use cases. Maybe this is just a way to appease the taxi cartel temporarily, while they don't realize their service is becoming obsolete.

<comment><USER7> In practical terms, it's a way for Uber to put more cars on their network, which hopefully makes it more likely that there's a ride nearby when you open the app in the Sunset, Richmond, Pac Heights or wherever else there's a low concentration of taxis (OK, so everywhere in SF).

<comment><USER8> Is Lyft actually cheaper than a taxi?

<comment><USER9> Uber TAXI automatically charges 20% gratuity + $1 fee so Lyft/SideCar will likely be cheaper, even if it's just because you can specify your gratuity.

<comment><USER10> Lyft now automatically includes $2 gratuity, fyi. Still cheaper by 10-15%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What the post doesn't mention: how many taxis they have signed up. This is important. Their launch of UberTAXI in New York was a failure for many reasons, but one was that no-one could ever get a ride, because it turned out they had barely any cab drivers signed up to use the system.

If they aren't mentioning numbers out of the gate then I'm skeptical. Also amused that this story is currently 3rd from top on the home page, but numerous stories about their utter failure in New York were nowhere to be seen on HN.

<comment><USER12> Hey there, we have about 65 taxis in SF already and should be up in the hundreds shortly. It's a completely different regulatory environment than NYC, and (thus far) much friendlier toward innovation. You can still use Square to pay for a cab in SF, but not in NYC.

<comment><USER11> _You can still use Square to pay for a cab in SF, but not in NYC._

Why would I want to? NYC cabs have credit card readers.

<comment><USER12> Square would have replaced the readers with their own tablet-based terminal: <http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2411065,00.asp>

<comment><USER11> Yeah I read about that. I don't understand why I (as a passenger) would care, though- it's replacing one credit card terminal with another. Except the new one will have a more responsive touch screen. Yay?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hope this does not spell the end of UBERx (<http://blog.uber.com/2012/07/03/sf-vehicle-choice/>). As of right now, I can still see UBERx cars on the map so I have my fingers crossed.

<comment><USER12> Definitely not - UBERx is still going strong and we'll keep adding cars to it. We just didn't want to confuse people by lumping X/Taxi into one post.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> First I thought this wasn't worth the news, but then I realized that this isn't just a new service for Uber. I imagine this is a way for them to deal with SF taxi services that want to get rid of black town cars.

Uber is now giving taxies a way out. By adding them to the system, cabbies cannot complain that Uber is awful and illegal competitor.

If the cab service sucks, well, it's the Taxi's fault and you can still book Uber Black. Uber wins. If the taxi service works, Uber will get a cut from the transaction.

Either way, Uber wins.

<comment><USER14> I talked to a few drivers about Uber Taxi when they launched here in Toronto about a month ago. They seemed to love it. Pickups have a rating and verified identity, which is a safety bonus. Fares are pre-paid with 20% gratuity automatically. And they don't have to pay the credit-card processing fee.

<comment><USER10> As someone who lived in Toronto and moved to SF, it's a different scenario. Taxis in Toronto are plentiful, and there are almost always taxis available - just not where you want them so it fits. In SF it's different - there's not enough and they can pick up rides anywhere. That's why calling a taxi doesn't work as well as Toronto (where you can call one and they'll show up). In SF half the time they don't show up because they'll pick up a far on the way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They've had free Uber TAXI in Boston since Tuesday morning (until Thursday 8pm) and it's been awesome. I ubered home yesterday and to work this morning.

I'm pretty sure the idea was to get the cabbies onboard. And it worked: both cabbies I used were in love with the extra cash and said that they and all their friends would use Uber from now on. They had amazing revenue nights! We'll see what happens when the traffic dies down, but I'm betting it was a smart investment on Uber's part. I wonder how much it cost.

According to one of the cabbies, they tried charging $200 for the iPhones when they initially rolled out, and it went nowhere. Then they gave them away for free, and a lot of cabbies got the phones, but the traffic was too low so they just left it in the glove compartment. Now they're on board. Well done, Uber!

I wonder if they paid the regular Uber drivers for the reduced traffic during the promotion...

</comment><comment><USER16> "There are only about 1,500 "medallions" (essentially permits) that allow taxis to operate in San Francisco. To put that in context, NYC has over 13,000."

Wow, intentional abuse of statistics used without context, while claiming to provide context. NYC is 10x the population of SF, so has fewer per capita mediallions than SF.

<comment><USER17> That may be, but most of NYC is devoid of hailable medallion cabs. Manhattan, where an overwhelming majority of cabs are to be found, has a population only 2x that of SF.

That said, there are parts of SF without hailable medallion cabs too, so... :)

<comment><USER12> Zamfi nailed it - NYC is 10x the population, but Manhattan is not. If you've ever tried to get a cab in both NYC and SF, you know that difference in medallions is very real.

<comment><USER18> I think I maybe once saw a cab in Brooklyn, but it turns out it was just a yellow car driving like a maniac.

(99% of taxi trips in NYC start or end in Manhattan. There are no cabs in the outer boroughs and they will only take you there if you get in, close the door, and get out your phone to call 311 if they refuse to take you. I don't even try anymore.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What's cheaper? UberX, Lyft, or UberTAXI?

<comment><USER10> Lyft < UberX Haven't tried UberTAXI yet to know, but I would expect it to be in the middle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just got out of an Uber cab in Boston (due to the free cab promotion for this week). So far so good. The driver did get yelled at by another driver because he was a Boston cab picking up in Cambridge, but I'll bet people will get over that.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm liking using taximagic.com in Portland, and love it, so I'm excited to see taxis also available through Uber.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can't wait until self driving cars are Uber.

<comment><USER8> LOL! But never going to happen!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Cli-money, a simple Unix finance utility - <AUTHOR> http://www.launchpad.net/cli-money <comment><AUTHOR> Does anybody have any feedback on this? I'm only an amateur programmer, I always appreciate hearing from more experienced pros...</comment>


Show HN: Simple Movie Trailers Downloader in Ruby - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GoTux/Ruby/blob/master/atget.rb

<comment><AUTHOR> Version 1.1 {2013-11-11} is out with "posters" download support. Any comments and ideas are welcome ^_^

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is my second script in ruby, I hope you guys like it ^_^</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for an easy and cheap-ish way to create t-shirts for my startup - <AUTHOR>

Ideally there'd be a way for users to order online through the site directly rather than me having to buy a bulk of them and sell them myself. Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> Here's some relevant advice (that doesn't actually answer your question, but might be useful)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2174367>

I'm a former professional T-Shirt designer. Here's a few pieces of advice for people thinking about designing t-shirts:

1\. Reduce the size of the design - while it looks great on a flat t-shirt (and perfect for the promo picture) you need to add room for a human body at the sides (surprisingly more than you think). My rule of thumb is to measure from your left nipple to your right nipple. Try sticking printouts to your chest and you'll see what I mean. A logo could probably fit on a large post-it note (roughly the size of the of an iPhone).

2\. You need to position the design so it floats in a woman's cleavage. The most popular t-shirt I did had a small duck that looked like it was sitting on a woman's chest.

3\. Screen printed t-shirts are printed light-colour to dark colour (like an oil painting). If you put a full print of white under the other colours they will look more vibrant - even black. But remember that t-shirts have bleeds measured in mm! getting accurate registration on cloth is tricky.

4\. Large designs with many layers of solid ink can get very sweaty to wear. Try to keep things small and have gaps in the design. The recent trend for grungy, worn & badly printed designs were naturally less sweaty.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is incredibly helpful, thanks a ton for answering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Are you selling them or giving them away? If selling, do you intend to use that as a main source of revenue?

I'll assume that you want to have your customers buy shirts with your logo/brand with the least amount of bother for you. Also, I assume you don't intend to make serious money with the sales. In that case, it's best to use a site like cafepress.com (or a competitor) where you just upload the logo, and they'll take care of the rest.

<comment><AUTHOR> Selling (I'm also planning on giving some away but I figured I'd just buy those myself and hand them out), but no, not a main source of revenue. So yes, your assumption is correct.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check them out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I haven't ordered any t-shirts yet, but I've been digging this company's user interface to get the design set. Prices seem reasonable. What's really cool is the selection of t-shirt brands. Meaning, you can get a nice, soft American Apparel shirt. Vistaprint did not offer as many choices (styles, brands or colors). Zazzle seem too expensive.

<http://www.customink.com></comment>


JSMin with sourcemaps (grunt flavor) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twolfson/grunt-jsmin-sourcemap

<comment><USER3> I hate it when github projects have no information of what the project does in readme.md.

In this case I know what JSMin is but have no idea what sourcemaps - <USER2> project doesn't give me enough information to understand whats different than the normal JSMin.

<comment><USER4> Since this is a tool that creates an output format, I think it is expected that if you find it you have a general idea of what it does. I don't believe there is an onus on the developer to include information about a general topic the tool is for (if they did, they would need tdo include what grunt is, what jsmin is, what sourcemaps are, why they are good, blah blah blah)

That being said, sourcemaps are a new feature in web dev environments that allows you to debug the compressed javascript as though it is it original uncompressed file. It does this by taking a automatically generated file created by the javascript compressor that is referenced in the compiled javascript as a comment. More in depth - [http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/source...](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/sourcemaps/)

<comment><USER3> thanks for the explanation!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys for the heads up. I have added synposes to both of my repos.

<comment><USER5> Is the destination file generated for the sourcemaps correct ? It seems to point to the destFile, instead of the sourceMap</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google: The Value of Content Distribution Networks - <AUTHOR> http://www.afnog.org/afnog2008/conference/talks/Google-AFNOG-presentation-public.pdf

<comment><USER2> Meanwhile, the Google Maps and Google Analytics javascript files are the slowest loading files on my site.

<comment><USER3> You think that's bad, try the PayPal donate button sometime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> sounds like google is replicating akamai.

For folks that are interested in CDN, you should know about consistent hashing (helps to know about it in general): <http://bit.ly/2P1wL> [pdf]

 _disclosure: I have worked at akamai in the past._

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems like this is how they're trying to reduce the bandwidth that YouTube is using.

</comment><comment><USER6> typo on page 10</comment>


Python-based tools for document analysis and OCR - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tmbdev/ocropy <comment><AUTHOR> C++ version of backend [https://github.com/tmbdev/clstm](https://github.com/tmbdev/clstm)</comment>


So you're a feminist who works at Uber? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/women-of-uber/so-youre-a-feminist-who-works-at-uber-b9744a016ab1 <comment><USER2> User trying to repair their image.</comment>


Ask HN: Can a customers credit card be linked to their phone number? - <AUTHOR> Can you authorize a payment on the server when a customer texts you. <comment><USER2> Sure, but I would be extremely careful doing it as it is easy to spoof a number and could possibly open some other issues.

You would also need to have the user create their account and enter payment info via a website first. After that though, you just create a webhook through a service like Twilio to respond to a set of texts and when the Make Payment text is received it processes the charge. You could require a pin or something form of verification to help ensure it is the actual user and not their kid accidentally playing on the phone.

You wouldn't be directly associating the credit card to the phone number though. You would simply be associating the phone number to a user in your system, and then the user would have a payment method associated with them through your processor (i.e. Stripe) in the form of a token.

And just to be clear I would never use this to require the user to text a credit card number to your company.</comment>


Julie Ann Horvath: Naming names, Settlement, Preston-Werner Won't Sue Me, etc. - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/220030495/Julie-Ann-Horvath-on-Github-TPW-etc

<comment><AUTHOR> She certainly knows how to go out guns blazing. Has now added this one, along with claiming that while she had not initially intended to sue, she will be now:

Fun fact: the rumor I'm accused of spreading? I heard from @GitHub's hr lead > than once. She watched while @mojombo blamed and harassed me. [https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459263440906092544](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459263440906092544)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm not sure if she realises, but this whole thing is making her look worse than Github. Sure the reverts and secret posts were shitty, but they just seem to be one or two immature employees. TPW's wife coming into the office seems to be more an error of judgement rather than harassment.

It's good to see she has a sense of humour: [https://twitter.com/darth/status/459088080981348352/photo/1](https://twitter.com/darth/status/459088080981348352/photo/1)

My advice to her would be to delete all her tweets except for the above picture, and just laugh it off.</comment>


The worlds worst IoT idea is almost fully funded - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/candletouch/candle-touch-the-first-smart-connected-real-flame-candle <comment><USER2> Sometimes I wonder if some KickStarter campaigns are simply money laundering efforts. Create something that no one in their right mind would want and have your mules make pledges.

<comment><USER3> I had the same thought, especially since 73% of their funding is owed to the $10,000 nondescript "retail package" tier.

I can see people throwing away their money at a silly Kickstarter idea, but I have a hard time believing that not one but two "retail entities" saw this and came to the conclusion that $80 retail price for one candle is viable enough to pledge 10 grand for a mystery custom retail package.

<comment><USER2> The guys on the Grumpy Old Geeks podcast are always laughing because the hacks they envision when looking at new products (software, IoT, SmartAnything) often show up some number of months later. I wonder whether we'll see this in a newspaper headline in a couple years.

[https://gog.show/](https://gog.show/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The worlds worst IoT idea is almost fully funded

Most dangrous perhaps.

This is an absolutely great idea. An actual use for IoT that makes sense.

But it is very unsafe.

If could be put away and accidentally ignited, or have been knocked over.

If you can't see how useful it is, then you are quite short-sighted.

But the reason it's so great is people haven't designed non IoT versions because of the extreme danger.

<comment><AUTHOR> How is using your phone to light something on fire a great idea? It leaves a huge security problem in it's wake.

<comment><USER4> If you can solve the issue of accident fires, there are no huge security issues. It would not be any different to a normal light.

I can not see a time where a 'hacker' could light it and cause a fire but it not have the issue of accidental fire.

Skipping that, it an amazing product. Candles are for some reason important to human beings. This would sell well and it's what people want, and I think make lives a little better, actually tying abstract technology to something real.

I have no idea how you can mitigate the fire risk, if you could though you'd probably save lives given current candle deaths, but I think it's not possible.... Certainly in it's current form it will kill people through accidents.

<comment><USER5> What is the use case for lighting a candle remotely? This seems a lot worse than a candle with a physical ignition button on it.

<comment><USER4> You walk home and get 10 candles going, and in places you can't reach.

I think the use case is incredibly obvious.

Exactly the same as lighting! And smells too if you want.

Being IoT it is also safer than candles once you solve the lighting it safely without being able to see it issue. If a cat physically knocks it over it can warn you, normal candles don't.

You could argue it'll make candles more common and cause more fires, but that's a different issue.

<comment><USER5> If you're lighting them in places you can't reach, that seems to imply that you will not be able to put them out easily either, and it sounds like there is no off switch for this smart candle-- you have to do it by hand.

Warning you when they knock over would be pretty neat though. I hope that feature is implemented in this product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The real feature I would want from an IoT candle is to be able to turn it off if I leave the house or go to sleep. You have to phyiscally put a lid on this candle to turn it off?

<comment><USER7> Yes, what they have here is akin to an IoT light bulb that you can turn on but not turn off, with the added bonus that in this case "on" is a safety risk.

Don't often see a true-to-life, physical embodiment of the phrase "half baked"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it really the world's worst though? I mean the candle can still be lit with a match after the company closes down right?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a remote incendiary device. That anyone can just buy and use to burn down any structure with no barrier to entry. That's the point. Why are people so obtuse?

<comment><USER9> If you want to burn down a structure then a molotov cocktail is a lower barrier to entry and requires less access than this candle would. And if you have the access necessary the a remote control kids toy plus some fuel would be almost as easy. At best this gives some plausible deniability.

If a lot of people really wanted to start fires I think we'd see more fires.

<comment><USER8> I don't even think it gives really any plausible deniability, I don't think you could buy this, burn down your house, and expect to collect the insurance.

If I was going to burn down something it's not really great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can you allow random people to control it? Kinda of like the Twitch plays Pokémon. Reddit scents my house.

</comment><comment><USER11> The best part is that you have to use their wax refills. So they'd get you on the initial purchase and then get you again supplying you with wax.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Please report this to the Kickstarter staff. This is the least thought through IoT project I've ever seen and that's a tall order.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dumb wax warmer + smart outlet is a good alternative for anyone that likes this concept but dislikes it when their house burns down.

</comment><comment><USER12> I see a demand from people making wedding videos - a couple in a romantic backdrop and suddenly candles light up.

Other than that I am not sure. Wonder if the ignition device is height adjustable. If I have a half used candle, where the wick doesn't reach the ignition device - I guess I will need to replace the candle.

</comment><comment><USER13> In other news, you can now remotely start fires from your phone.

<comment><USER14> Even better: Anyone on the internet can start fires in your house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm sure no one has asked for this(Please don't judge me.). But I would be willing to drop 25 bucks on this not 49 as that is way too high.

<comment><USER16> What are you basing $25 on? Also, how much are you willing to pay for the refills?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Actual title is "Candle Touch™- The First Smart, Connected, Real-Flame Candle". Don't editorialize in the submission title.

</comment><comment><USER18> The real punchline is that it has a /reminder/ to blow out the candle. If they were remotely concerned about safety it would involve local timers which reliably extinguish it even if it lost power and the battery died. That would still have "cat knocked it over onto flammables" risks but it would actually be less dangerous than conventional candles.

<comment><USER19> Well, that mechanism would make the candle a lot less attractive unless they found a way to completely change the style.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> At least there is a market for it among magicians. [https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/close-up-magic/spark- self-...](https://www.vanishingincmagic.com/close-up-magic/spark-self- lighting-candle/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't know what's more surprising, that they need 30 grand to get a prototype out the door (I feel like this could be done with off-the-shelf parts way cheaper than that, starting fires electrically is something every undergrad EE should be well versed in) or that they say they've spent _five years_ working on it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Internet connected candle ransomware: insert 1btc or your house burns down?

</comment><comment><USER23> Would the Underwriters Laboratory even certify this nonsense?

<comment><USER24> "App enabled" ovens, if you read the manual, come in one of two flavors:

* Bluetooth only, no WiFi, to mandate proximity

* Manual activation steps required, like turning the knob to a "remote enable" setting, so you have to validate that nothing that'll catch fire is in the oven.

A big reason this was done was because the UL has a real distaste for combining fire with not being present to watch the fire - and that's in a closed space by an appliance that is purpose built for that.

So yeah, no. Absolutely not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can´t wait to read the "Hacked Smart Candle starts massive fire in California, again" headlines.

<comment><USER19> We'll just disable the internet when it gets windy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you leave the lid on it's not a threat right?

Also I'd like to see one with an automatic lid.

</comment><comment><USER26> What could possibly go wrong?</comment>


Build a human-level AI by compressing Wikipedia - <AUTHOR> http://prize.hutter1.net/

<comment><USER2> This won't work! It's a stupid idea! Whereever did these guys get the idea that the principal task of the human brain consists of compressing information about our environment? Even if this succeeds, all they will end up with is a very good compression algorithm for text. This is typical of research on AGI, just grabbing at straws with no idea of what's going to work. The field is not scientific.

If history is any guide, though, a lot of trying and failing like this is necessary before we figure out what's important to work on. I still think they should instad use their 50000€ on paying food and rent for a young, inspired researcher in the field to try out as many crazy ideas as possible.

<comment><USER3> Well the title is rather misleading; I don't think even they think they will produce any AI out of this.

I think the reasoning goes more like: 1\. Intelligence is good at representing information succinctly. 2\. This is similar to what a data compression algorithm does. 3\. Maybe if we come up with some uber-powerful compression algorithms, it will teach us something about intelligence too.

There's actually been a lot of papers about the parallels between data compression and AI. Look up the program "MegaHal" and papers on it by Jason Hutchens. He shows how a Markov model can be thought of as a kind of data compression.

That being said, there are theoretical limits on data compression efficiency, as shown by work by Shannon and Huffman. These apply to lossless compression, so at best I think all they would be doing is experimentally verifying the theoretical limits. If they want to find a data compression algorithm that tells them something about intelligence, it's going to have to be a lossy compression algorithm, not lossless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Three problems:

1) Wikipedia has far more information than a normal human, thus it would surpass human-level AI.

2) Compressing wikipedia into one persons mind would create a schizophrenic AI that's likely to kill people or die in a fit as its brain has an edit war.

3) It would take a human-level AI to first understand the information and then discard the useless crap and junk people post on wikipedia. I mean can you imagine asking an android what they think about Pamela Anderson's next divorce and having them randomly say "teh big boobs WOOT!1!11!"

Besides, information is redundant in intelligence. A cro-magnon would understand particle physics just as good as any one of us if they knew the information because they're intelligent.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hm, but when I compress wikipedia, it isn't lossless...</comment>


The future of work in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-future-of-work-in-america

<comment><USER2> I think it's interesting to look at the limit case: a Star Trek-like future in which everything is automated and individual labor is mostly unnecessary.

What happens in such a world? Under a pure free-market system, there is a real possibility that such a future would end up quite horrific. A few people would own the capital that implemented the automation, while the majority of the population would have nothing. It would be, in a way, very similar to feudal times, when a few owned the important capital of the time (land).

<comment><USER3> Actually, in a automatic production economy, design becomes king and whoever can design the best product becomes the most important person.

This already happened in the case of the internet. Cost of labor is almost zero upon scaling, and the people who make the most valuable and well thought out websites gains the most market shares. It is not the people who owns the capital that profited the most on the internet, but great individual and team of designers and makers.

It is also not assumed that the automation would be owned by the few instead of owned by everyone. Personal 3d printers are on the rise, and I foresee a future where we print our products and 3d printers spreads like the personal computer.

<comment><USER4> And how many of those displaced workers will be able to design?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People told the inventor of the steam shovel that he would cause massive unemployment because "one steam shovel replaces dozens of men with conventional shovels."

He replied "Or thousands of men with teaspoons."

I'm surprised how many people still think productivity will be the source of collapse... or how many people think low productivity is the answer to all economic woes.

That view point has always been wrong in the past, and I'm skeptical anything will change to make it right in the future.

<comment><USER2> The difference is that at that time people weren't hitting up against natural resource limits. Productivity decreases the need for labor, and society reacts by producing more overall which keeps people busy. But that only works when there are no other constraints on growing overall production.

<comment><USER5> From an economic theory point of view, productivity increases generally increase the demand for labor.

The suggestion that there is some level of "need" for labor suggests that there is a certain "need" for produced goods, and we happen to be at it right now.

But we used to be below this level of output (which suggests our current level isn't a "need"), and consumption is still increasing... rather than leveling off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Beware graphs not starting at 0. I'm not saying there isn't merit in the argument, but the attempt to mislead the reader by placing 57 at the bottom of the graph isn't a good start.

<comment><USER7> You can see the whole data here (and change the scales):

<http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/PRS85006173>

It only goes back to 1940, but it would be interesting to know what the labor share was before that. I'm guessing it was smaller, especially in the late 1800s.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the point where it's worth pointing out that the portion of the population involved in food production has collapsed massively over the last couple of centuries. People generally seem to find new things to value when their time frees up.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Technology and the Web are destroying far more jobs than they create."

Sorry to be skeptical, but neither this article nor the original that it links cites a single reference to support this claim. How could you even quantify how many jobs the web destroys? A business can go under for many reasons other than direct competition from web-based businesses.

"The Internet is destroying vast income streams that once supported tens of thousands of jobs in industries from finance to music."

Yeah, we've heard over and over again that the music industry is being destroyed by the internet and that draconian copyright enforcement regimes are required to prevent the industry's demise. But it doesn't seem like less new music is being produced today than in the 1980s. And for every record store owner that went out of business there's now an RIAA lawyer or lobbyist taking his place. As for the financial industry, yes, some stockbrokers have been put out of business by online trading, but that seems to be a really good thing, since I now get to pay $10 for a trade instead of $400, and I can spend that extra money to support the employment of sushi chefs.

</comment><comment><USER10> SPOILER: This being on kurzweilai.net means--some pages around--that the solution is the (gradual) merger of humans with machines and thus an enhancement of human physical and cognitive abilities. See the trailer on <http://transcendentman.com/>

The loss of jobs is part of the adaption phase, a dead time until the system reacts. People often assume that the world changes but humans stay the same, a case of improper ceteris paribus.

For a hypothesis of past human structural (genetic) change in a short time (in this case as a driver, not a reaction) see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Clark_%28economist%29#A...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Clark_%28economist%29#A_Farewell_to_Alms)

</comment><comment><USER11> The Kurzweilai.net blog-spam barely summarizes the article, the original is here:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/labor-day-2012-the-future- of-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/labor-day-2012-the-future-of- work-2012-9)

<comment><USER12> Here's the actual original:

<http://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept12/future-of-work8-12.html></comment></comment>


ACTA updated: Now (somewhat) less outrageous - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/acta-is-here.ars

<comment><USER2> Standard negotiating tactic: Ask for something so completely outlandish, that, even when cut down by the outcry, you get what you actually wanted in the end.</comment>


Tesla Model S P85D Smokes Dodge Challenger Hellcat in 1/4 Mile - o0-0o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG6veF_34QE

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not a great example. The driver of the Hellcat clearly didn't know how to drive.

Doesn't matter. Neither of them will take a Nissan GTR.

</comment><comment><USER2> Also costs twice as much. But seriously, as more of these videos appear, it seems electric motors torque characteristics are superior for drag racing.</comment>


MerbCamp Announced - <AUTHOR> http://merbcamp.com/

<comment><USER2> Ah, I just moved back to San Jose from SD/La Jolla, I used to go to UCSD.

It's a great campus. You'll definitely know if you're near the conference room because there's a GIANT bear made out of rocks in the courtyard. Every few months they have "Bear gardens" which is free pizza and beer for students/faculty.

Also be sure to check out SDRuby while you're there, I'm pretty sure they'll throw something special for MerbCamp.

Let me know if you guys have any questions about the school or area.

</comment><comment><USER3> Merb seems to be a great platform.. I hope the community grows to the point of more adoption because it is a little too esoteric at this point. For example there aren't even any books published about Merb yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Manning one is on the way, and the community that exists, developers included, is fantastic.

<comment><USER3> I am really looking forward to that book! Fortunately I know a few people who are active in the Merb community and I am learning a little bit on their coattails :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Explain to me how this is different from RoR, other than the vague buzzwords of "speed," "lightweight" and "powerful" listed under the homepage.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Exciting stuff. Who all is going to make it there?

<comment><USER5> I will definitely be there. Not that that's of any major consequence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why, oh why is it not in silicon valley? Sounds like a great idea though.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm pretty excited about this, just have to see about those plane tickets.</comment>


Ask HN: How much sells/traffic you need to attract investors? - <AUTHOR>

Not sure this is the right forum. I'll remove if the question is out of place.
Our startup we are trying to found has about 10K unique visitors per month and average 500 unit sells. According to our estimate we need 30% more sells to breakeven (founders do not take salary yet - only employees get money and that fixed cost can not be eliminated). We tried to do a lot of tricks (blogs, seo etc.) that do not cost money. But that 30% seems very hard. It is becoming hard to manage the money we are losing every month - we never tried for outside funding to keep things simple. We never thought we would need that. But not a single thing worked out as we planned when we started :(.
Now, we have decided we need a little funding to get to the point when we wont need outside money to survive. We are actually looking very small amount to cover the 30% for a year or a little more than that.
Whom and how should we approach? Or should we try to manage the money ourselves by some other means (consulting?)?
I'll not post details about the business since I do not want some other people who track us and try to guess our every step may identify us and our situation.
Thank you for any suggestion. <comment><USER2> Investors typically don't want to invest small amount in a company, they want to give you enough to make you a success right away. So if your company looks like it could become a quick success, then investors will be interested. But if youre selling something that isn't going to make a ton, than you better be close to making a profit for investors to take a peek.

</comment><comment><USER3> It helps me when I know what the site/business model is. Every niche and business is different and should take a different strategy because of this.

</comment><comment><USER4> the biggest problem is you don't know how to make it profitable with more money. if your capturing email address on customers visitors you can try selling other products etc to your list.

</comment><comment><USER5> How short are you each month? Would part-time consulting cover it?</comment>