Nearest black hole to Earth discovered - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52560812 <comment><USER2> How close would a black hole have to be to cause some damage to the Earth or it's orbit?

<comment><USER3> Gravity obeys the inverse square law, even with black holes. In fact, you could replace our sun with a black hole of equal mass and the orbits of the planets would remain the same[0].

So a black hole would probably have to be a lot closer than 1,000 light years away or else be a _lot_ more massive at that distance to affect us in any noticeable way.

[0][https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-sun/black-hole- su...](https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/review/dr-marc-sun/black-hole-sun.html)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Books for "Mathematics in Biology" - <AUTHOR>

HNers: could you suggest me a book or two in 'Mathematics in Biology'. Beginners or intermediate is what I am looking at.
I was intrigued by "Essential Mathematical Biology"  http://www.amazon.com/reader/185233536X).
I usually pick a book based on amazon ratings. I also pour through HN comments and find it equally rated.(eg: "random walk thru walk street" on amazon vs the comments here at HN) <comment><USER2> This book has even better reviews: <http://books.google.com/books?id=VmCQ28GWqE0C> Mathematical Biology: Spatial models and biomedical applications By James Dickson Murray. Amazon link: [http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Biology-Introduction- Inte...](http://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Biology-Introduction- Interdisciplinary- Mathematics/dp/0387952233/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274143109&sr=1-1)

Mathematical approaches differ greatly depending on the area of biology. I could recommend a good review if I knew your favorite area.

<comment><AUTHOR> i don't have a favorite area - to say. I want to get a book to pique my curiosity.</comment></comment>


What we lost (now that web programming is mainstream) - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/post/what-we-lost.html <comment><USER2> This is exactly what I was thinking today. I've spent the last couple of weeks implementing TLS (This is the second time I've had to do this now, it's endless fun) and this time I'm sort of "cheating", because the platform I'm writing for already has high quality ASN.1, crypto and X.509 libraries and enough of PKCS#1 that I scarely have to lift a finger.

Web programming is horrifically dull scut work to my mind, I'd far sooner be writing the heavy lifting in the back end.

<comment><USER3> Web programming is only boring because companies have been focussing on using the newer frameworks and tools to reduce the amount of time it takes to develop typical projects instead of setting loftier goals to use them to develop bigger, better, things. We should be building cathedrals, but instead a lot of people/companies are focussing on churning out the same old brick building; only faster and cheaper with a better paint job.

<comment><USER4> That's an interesting idea - what are examples of things you would consider a cathedral? I get the sense that what you're getting at might not just be a failure of ambition but a failure of imagination.

<comment><USER3> One idea in general, is jumping out of the browser, and not in the Silverlight/Apollo way. It's important that we begin thinking of the Internet in more abstract ways instead of the current primarily visual experience. We've reached a point where a lot of objects we deal with on a daily basis are augmented by computers (e.g., our cars). We're on the cusp of these devices and many more being augmented by the Internet. What does it mean for my fridge, book shelf, or weight-lifting equipment to have Internet access? Questions like this have been left in the domain of so-called futurists or academics. But I think it's time for industry to start taking these seriously. The technology is here.

<comment><USER5> The problem with that is that while there are millions of computers that can connect to the internet, hardly any cars/fridges/whatever can do that right now. The technology is there, but not widespread. So as a young startup trying to get attention, the millions of potential users from traditional computers pulls much more strongly than a few thousand internet ready fridges.

<comment><USER6> Is it ever good for a startup to anticipate the future, or should they try to surf the wave?

<comment><USER5> Of the successful startups I can think of off the top of my head, few - if any - were first to market. Especially with new technologies being riskier and more expensive, it seems the wisest thing for a cash-strapped startup is to stick with whats popular. Though avoiding risk is probably not a common trait among tech entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER6> I guess if I want to be cutting edge I have to either be academia or military, huh?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "[..] still algorithms, data structures, and low level programming are marginal and it's hard to become a good developer without being exposed to this concepts."

The people who would have become good developers in the "old days" will find their way to this information and become good developers anyway.

<comment><USER8> This bears repeating. People think increased difficulty identifying the good developers (lower signal:noise ratio) means there are fewer good developers. It's a heuristic bias, as far as I can tell.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "take reddit or even a much more complex application like ebay, if you take away scalability I bet it is very hard to discover some very cool algorithm inside."

I didn't know that assessing what people would like enough to read or buy was a solved problem. ;-)

<comment><USER10> maybe he's subtly alleging that they didn't do much in the way of solving it.

<comment><USER9> Maybe, but I think his main point was that the environment has changed, and now that the gritty fundamentals of just making a web app are polished, there's nothing left to do.

Except there probably is. In previous years, you'd have to do all sorts of backbending to get your software in a cardboard box and on someone's shelf. Or schlepping to the Fortune 500. Now, people can access underlying magic, if there is any, much more directly. I can't think of a better example than Google.

There's a certain magic to reddit, too. In it's heyday, the frontpage was really, genuinely good. An algorithm doesn't have to be complex to work well.

And consider eBay. Let's just let people post stuff, right? But it would be a mess without a search system, without a way to detect fraud, and without a way to award users. None of these things are solved problems, really, and the existing solutions took enough thought that many would be online auctioneers said they thought it would never work.

<comment><USER11> I think that's all true -- there are core algorithmic issues in both reddit and eBay that are interesting and for which there is a _lot_ of room for improvement. But at least to me, the problem with most of the work being done on webapps is that very little of the time is spent on these kinds of problems -- the vast majority focuses on moving data back and forth from the database, adjusting the UI, working around browser bugs, and similar grunt work. IMHO, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I guess I can see where he's coming from but the point of all these frameworks is to get the tedious/boring stuff out of the way to focus on your core competency.

No longer can you just be a very good hacker to succeed, you also need to be able to raise money, market your product, and quickly adapt as the excrement hits the fan.

In any case, for good sites there is a lot of algorithm work going on in the back end that may not be visible at first sight (pun intended). This goes back to having good service - you shouldn't have to notice the good but you definitely notice the bad.

<comment><USER13> I agree that the frameworks are _great_ for automating a lot of the junk we used to have to do manually. The "problem" is that people are cutting their teeth on things that don't require much knowledge, so they may miss out on a lot of fundamentals.

After the low-hanging fruit, there are some real problems that require some serious knowledge to solve.

> _No longer can you just be a very good hacker to succeed, you also need to > be able to raise money, market your product_

Some people are just coding, not doing startups :)

<comment><USER14> "Some people are just coding, not doing startups :)"

heresy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Scalability is not a problem to be waved off. I think there are bigger chunks of problem space to be fixed in scaling applications than there are remaining in systems programming.

We're going to have a new generation of engineers that understands how shitty the scalability situation is today, and has experience with its pain points, and figures out exciting new solutions to those pain points.

(which is not to say that there aren't big problems remaining in systems programming! Just that I think there's more to the scaling thing than this guy does.)

</comment><comment><USER16> I disagree. "Web" part is usually just the UI, exactly how the author views it himself. 10 years ago people did that in Visual Basic (yes, it existed for those who don't know and was even more popular), but "heavy lifting in the back end" has always been there, just as it is today, along with every imaginable data structure from CS available in some library or another.

This is why I don't see what's different. I had a boring VB-Forms job in 97 immediately upon graduation, just like I can have a boring Rails job today.

Speaking of optimization: We have plenty of hardware startups here in Austin, where cool guys code in C running under real-time OS and have 4-32MB of total RAM (without paging) with very limited libraries, I bet there are more jobs like this today that there were total programming jobs "back in the day", since number of devices you can code for is growing exponentially. And oh yes, they do have to optimize.

</comment><comment><USER17> So, what we lost is that people no longer have to spend years developing in lower level languages like C before being able to become competent programmers? Maybe I could understand his point of view better if the author explained explicitly why he was pessimistic about the future of web programming instead of just vaguely mentioning that skills have been lost and he has "no reasons to be optimistic".

I guess it's just a pet peeve of mine when people present an argument without actually taking the time to bring forward any specific reason for the stance they are taking. It's like they are expecting the commentators to do all the work supporting or refuting their assertions.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think for many seemingly simple web apps there's a huge payoff to spending lots of time adding serious behind-the-scenes brains. It's an especially great competitive advantage because it's invisible. Competitors won't even know how important that part of your system is to winning, so they'll hopefully never even try to implement something similar.

Max Levchin fighting fraud better than his competitors using sophisticated analysis/number crunching is a good example.

</comment><comment><USER19> "Not everything is bad of course, lately a lot of developers switched to Ruby, Python and other elegant and much more abstract programming languages so at least developers of today are exposed to things like functional programming"

Well - maybe on the python side, I don't know, but most rails/developers and apps are blissfully unaware of anything remotely functional from what I have seen (of course DHH and rails framework people have a field day).

</comment><comment><USER20> I can see where this guy is coming from. I've always viewed web programming as sort of "low brow" but in the end it is what is in demand so it is what you do regardless.

</comment><comment><USER21> Web programming lacks challenge only if you lack imagination.</comment>


UK plans age verification for porn websites from 2018 - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40628909 <comment><USER3> This has probably very little to do with porn and is most likely the first step in the UK's government attempt to track more closely who is accessing what on the internet and even have the power to blacklist and make inaccessible areas of the internet they deem inappropriate or inconvenient.

The enforceability of this is hugely questionable (they have heard of VPN right?) and the societal benefit of less porn is also hard to quantify asaik. Porn is not like hard drug use, cancer or drinking-and-driving where there is a definite and significant cost to society in terms of measurable harm etc.

The UK has a lot of issues to address currently with Brexit looming, so focusing on porn could also be a 'clever; political distraction from the pending mess Brexit is shaping up to be.

<comment><USER4> This is primarily a kneejerk political reaction by a shambles of a Conservative party looking to be seen to be doing something on a "moral issue" by its party members.

<comment><USER5> I always wondered, why socialistic idealism is frowned upon asa idiocy but moralistic idealism is enshrined and a realizable utopia for conservatives.

<comment><USER6> Would you mind defining the two terms?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Which will definitely, once and for all, stop teenagers looking at porn.

Definitely.

<comment><USER8> Well, that will depend on how exactly the way the customers "will have to prove they are 18", as an example we know how no teenager under 18 would ever tick a box near "Yes, I am 18 or older".

On the other hand needing to provide a photo or scanned image of your driving license or passport AND give access to the web camera to the site to verify your identity, while reasonably effective might _somehow_ produce as a side effect a reduction of customers.

<comment><USER9> It's in the article - sites will be required to request credit card details.

<comment><USER10> Except they quote gambling and age verification there (UK) is not related to credit cards.

<comment><USER9> I appreciate that, but various other reports do seem to indicate that credit card details will be required. We'll have to see, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is, of course, completely barmy regulation. The most interesting thing will be the decision over what classifies as a porn website. Currently, as a teenager, you're probably most likely to 'stumble across' (i.e. view unintentionally) pornography on non-porn sites like Reddit or Tumblr. Will the regulations require age verification for these sites? If not it will not even begin to achieve its stated aims.

<comment><USER12> AFAIK it's commercial sites only, so you're dead right this legislation has failed before they even try and implement it.

<comment><USER13> Well, youporn is mostly free - is that considered "commercial"?

<comment><USER12> I think the tube sites would be considered commercial 'cause they're run by the commercial porn companies. What won't be covered as far as I'm aware is things like reddit, tumblr etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would like to present to the court exhibit 1: The EU/ or UK "Cookie Laws" AKA "ePrivacy directive."

In the months before and after its implementation there was a lot of discussion around the (vast) grey areas in the laws. After some months, the internet has coalesced on answers. All sites need to implement a nag screen for unknown users, in order to get "informed consent". This consent will be stored as a cookie and users should not delete cookies, or we will have to nag you next time you visit. We will also create a cottage industry of "compliance" specialists that will help you with the language of your nag screens and TCs.

Websites got slightly more annoying. Two-bit consultants made some money. User privacy was not improved in any way.Legislation regulating the internet is tricky business.

<comment><USER15> I've never heard a peep from anyone about the site I admin which still doesn't have one of those cookie-naggers. Hopefully, when the UK leaves the EU, the one good thing that might come out of it will be getting rid of that silly legislation.

<comment><USER16> If you're getting this kind of idiotic legislation in return, the net result does not appear positive.

<comment><USER15> Don't get me wrong: the net result is _definitely_ not positive as far as I'm concerned!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an awful piece of legislation and will pretty inevitably produce dangerous side effects whilst not in any way meeting its goals. It's a shame to see this kind of uninformed law get introduced in a supposedly advanced country.

It won't meet its aims as the targets (teenagers) are well aware of how to geo-shift their access using Proxies and VPNs and also it doesn't (AFAIK) cover non-commercial sites, so imgur, reddit etc don't count and they've got a load of porn for anyone who spends more than about 5 seconds looking.

On the flip-side there are significant downsides here. One UK adults will need to give their identifying details to commercial sites if they want access. In some cases those adults will not want it publicly known that they use those sites.

When they inevitably get hacked, we'll have an Ashley Madison style problem again with the possibility for blackmail as a result.

Also I'd imagine even more sites will mirror the content of the commercial porn sites and these less reputable sites have a rep. for hosting malware, so we'll likely see more devices gettting infected...

So far from coverage I've seen on the "mainstream" UK media, none of these issues gets a mention...

</comment><comment><USER17> This, if enacted, will do more than any effort by the EFF or others to enhance online privacy. VPN usage, TOR and bitcoin/ethereum acceptance online will skyrocket.

After all, what the UK government is proposing is basically to learn its citizens from an early age how to evade censorship by giving them a proper incentive to figure out how to go under the radar.

<comment><USER18> The funniest part is you're probably right. After all to most people it's what the Internet is for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm expecting that the agency set up to police this will eventually be enforcing a policy of only allowing internet access to users who have a government assigned unique ID which will be tied to your entire online activity. first they justify it for porn, then for terrorism

<comment><USER20> The plan is for the BBFC to police it, which is ridiculous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is obviously preposterous, and there is basically no chance of it lasting or being significantly effective.

I am pretty curious though about what approach to safeguarding children might be effective – or indeed, if research suggests that it's required. It does seem reasonable that freely available pornography at a young age could have substantial effects on sexual and social development; before slamming into full-blown 'moral panic' mode, it might be good to know what those effects are.

<comment><USER21> Anecdotal evidence (myself) suggests that those effects, if there is any at all, would not be significant :)

I do wonder though, how do you scientifically analyse that? Ask people if they were exposed to porn as a kid to pick your evaluation candidates? That'd be unreliable. Expose some underage people to porn (horrible) and evaluate them after tens of years? I don't think so...

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I worry this will just funnel kids onto the kinds of porn web-sites that are unlikely to follow government regulations anyway, as they might have more damaging content.

Are there any cases where something like this has been rolled out elsewhere where the effects can be looked at?

<comment><USER23> Alternatively they'll (continue to) go to Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, etc - the sort of sites that this law will have no impact on.

<comment><USER24> Now that you mention it, pretty much every website with user content has porn on it. So this regulation will either ban those as well, or cause people watching "professional Hollywood porn" to instead watch user-generated porn, which doesn't solve the problem the regulation is trying to solve at all.

As a small website owner (not a porn website owner though), I really don't care if a country blocks my website because of silly censorship laws. Sure, it hurts finances a bit, but if a government truly represents the people (yeah right), then the people don't want to see my website anyway, right?! I wonder if larger websites like Reddit, forum boards, and file hosting sites will follow this same attitude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> >Mr Hancock said: "All this means that while we can enjoy the freedom of the web, the UK will have the most robust internet child protection measures of any country in the world."

This had me chuckling - I grew up in the Gulf region - they have the "nobody gets access" policy - way more robust.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, also the same for Turkey under the dictatorship of Erdoğan. Internet there is amazingly robust. They also iterate among beautiful blocked page designs for artistic freedom: [https://www.google.com/search?q=eri%C5%9Fim+engellenmi%C5%9F...](https://www.google.com/search?q=eri%C5%9Fim+engellenmi%C5%9Ftir&tbm=isch)

Back when this craziness started, they had even blocked the sites giving STI information because they had "sex" in them. Not sure how it is right now.

The promotion in any form for alcoholic beverages are banned too. This is the web site for the biggest beer maker: [http://efespilsen.com.tr/](http://efespilsen.com.tr/) (It says basically that according to a change in regulation, they aren't allowed to have a customer- facing website anymore).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I look forward to all teenagers learning what a vpn is and how to use one.

<comment><USER12> or just going to non-commercial sites for their porn...

<comment><USER26> They are targeting all porn sites, commercial or not.

<comment><USER12> I don't think they are. From [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40630582](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-40630582)

"This, she explained, was because the Act does not tackle the fact that services including Twitter and Tumblr contain hardcore pornography but will not be required to introduce age-checks. "

It's only commercial porn sites that are being targeted. Sites that happen to host pornographic content (e.g. tumblr, reddit etc) aren't included

<comment><USER26> I stopped reading the BBC 4 years ago because of their biased coverage. Here's a reputable source to my statement: [https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/nov/25/what-how- and...](https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/nov/25/what-how-and-why-the- uks-new-online-porn-restrictions-explained)

The relevant section, "a sentence was slipped in that gives a regulator powers to act against sites "making prohibited material available on the internet to persons in the United Kingdom"" \- That means any website hosting said content, whether they accept money or not.

<comment><USER12> yeah I think that article's a little old and doesn't reflect the actuality of what was placed in .

From the lords debate on the topic [https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2017-02-02/debates/D2C24...](https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2017-02-02/debates/D2C2419A-449B-4388-993A-149517F9CD2E/DigitalEconomyBill)

"However, I want to mention briefly user-generated material on social media, an issue that naturally arises in debating this Bill if we are told that it will not cover it, despite a vast amount of hardcore porn that can easily be viewed by anyone, including young children, being just a couple of clicks away. "

They mention tumblr/facebook being included but only when showing "commcercial" material, which appears to be the differentiating factor so sites like reddit wouldn't be generally in-scope.

<comment><USER26> I stand corrected. Thank you. The next question is, "What is social media?". What about sites where the content is user generated but those users are compensated in tokens which are exchangeable for real money? Is that commercial or social?

<comment><USER12> indeed, one of the many grey areas that will be "interesting" for the new regulator to look at when they're created...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The answer is to educate teens in school and at home. To put a big lock on porn sites will not help and it's not even feasible to completely shelter them from that topic.

</comment><comment><USER28> Won't someone please think of the children!!

How about this for how to enforce parental controls... Encourage parents to supervise their childrens internet usage and educate the parents how to set up pfsense to control their own home.

I know its not for everyone, however we also have to ask the question, just how big is the problem of internet porn for society when viewed by minors? I don't have kids and haven't seen any studies, so honestly I just don't know.

Surely there are ways that you can educate, inform your kids, and maybe prepare them for what access to an unregulated stream of all of humanities information could contain.

</comment><comment><USER29> Is this really addressed to minors? Because making identification mandatory is going to affect everybody behaviour.

It also makes a perfect excuse to control what is accessible and that could be expanded to other kinds content.

Also, it's frequently the case (I can't think of exceptions) that the people in power always try to control the sexual behaviour of others. I would like to know the reason for politic and religious authorities to be so obsessed with sex.

In other gregarious species, who can reproduce is decided by the high status individuals. Maybe is related to that.

</comment><comment><USER30> I understand this is unpopular on HN and I don't think this is the right approach either but what is the solution? Or do you think there's no problem at all? I think it is a potential problem where some young people don't realize that some fairly disgusting and extreme sex acts are not the norm and start dating thinking that is what you do instead of loving someone, that would cause them serious issues in developing relationships.

<comment><USER31> My wife studied psychology recently, and yes, it's a huge problem. There really are teenagers who think that gang bangs are the norm, and that they have to participate. I thought she was joking when my wife told me some of the stories (case studies actually), but these things really happen if you get exposed to this when really young, and nobody bothers to correct your views.

<comment><USER32> But this is not pornography-specific. This applies just as well to views about healthy relationships, self respect, food consumption, alcohol and drug use, financial discipline, world views and whatnot. Teens need to be educated so they can form an informed and nuanced view of the world. Not sure you should ban all teens from McDonalds because some parents can't get the message across that fast-food is unhealthy.

In other words, is the main problem here that gangbang videos exist or that some kids get a really shitty upbringing that leaves them full of gaping holes, incapable of handling life or making wise decisions?

The point I'm trying to make is that people are shifting the responsibility and consequently limiting freedom and varied views for all, like the ban on "gay propaganda" in Russia or "facesitting" pornography in the UK. It's the wrong solution to a (I assume for some) real problem.

<comment><USER31> It's a really hard topic to navigate; on the one hand you don't want your 12yo daughter to watch disgusting and mostly misogynic videos, and on the other hand you have freedom of speech and net neutrality. The thing is: Do I have to tell my kids at age 8 that fisting/gang rapes/... are not how you really do it, and tell them what it's really all about? Or should I wait until age 11? Or will they come asking (I doubt it)? What if their friends already showed them at age 6 at school, is the damage already done then?

And yeah, 6yo do have access to porn if they can read/write by then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> When I was a teenager there always were a few used mags that we swapped or gave each other. If kids have smartphones, they'll resort to video sharing, and there are few ways to avoid it.

I'm not sure that's a good way to spend the taxpayer money.

</comment><comment><USER34> They might as well call it Operation Could-Not-Possibly-Go-Wrong.

>Companies breaking the rules set out in the Digital Economy Act face being blocked by their internet provider.

Seems to imply it would be the burden of individual sites. I'm sure many of which already have low margins since advertising in this space is extremely hard. So I'm going to guess most of them would sooner IP block all of Europe before bothering with this.

<comment><USER35> A company operating outside the UK's jurisdiction wouldn't be affected at all from my reading of that. The UK could direct UK ISPs to block noncompliant sites entirely, but then they're in the position of trying to enumerate every site in the world that hosts porn.

Good luck with that.

<comment><USER34> >but then they're in the position of trying to enumerate every site in the world that hosts porn

HAH.

No problem. I have a succinct filter that covers most of them:

        0.0.0.0/0

...The only real flaw is that it doesn't cover IPv6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Some parents will always find the appeal of the nanny state irresistible but it's an extraordinarily self serving desire the exists outside the concept of freedom and democracy and like all utopian solutions sound good in practice but doesn't work in the real world.

How many things is the state going to control? How many moles are you going to whack? Most networks are able to keep out pornography quite easily with consequences for those who seek to work around. This is an opportunity for those can can secure networks and provide products and services to parents.

The parent is in control to place constraints they see fit and parent, rather than seeking state intervention and empowering those who seek control and power. A nanny state built on 'saving children' is never about saving children but feeding on the vulnerable and self righteous sections of society to concentrate power.

There are always those in power who will latch on any excuse they can find and like always they remain the biggest threat to not just children but everyone in a free society.

</comment><comment><USER37> What about torture or murder? and I'd also argue many news sites should be 18+ too. So you're gonna need age verification to watch people engaging in a natural sexual act but if you want to see the Zeta's hacking off a rival's head with a chainsaw, go right ahead. Madness!

</comment><comment><USER38> Thankfully there's absolutely no porn on peer-to-peer services.

</comment><comment><USER39> Ah, as usual, why solve something with education when you can solve it via forcing anyone who wants to watch porn to give their credit card details to a shady xxx website.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great idea, teens will just switch to Tor to get _extremely unlimited_ genres of porn.

</comment><comment><USER40> This sounds silly, but the existing situation is also silly. Kids aren't allowed to go to pornographic movies in cinemas. What's the point of those restrictions, which people have been happy with for probably 100 years, when they are allowed to do all that online?

It sounds like the law should be harmonized one way or another - <USER2> everything up or close everything down, otherwise it's pointless.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure that analogy holds; the Internet is just such a different thing from cinemas. Still, I'm sure no-one actually has a problem with the concept of preventing under-18s from watching porn online, it's the implementation that's the tricky bit. For example, no-one has a problem with cinema restrictions, but they might do if you had to hand over credit card details to watch a film, and if it were still trivially easy for under-18s to sneak into the cinema.

<comment><USER41> > Still, I'm sure no-one actually has a problem with the concept of preventing > under-18s from watching porn online

I'm sure lots of under-18s would have a problem with that. The vast majority is unlikely to _accidentally_ end up on a porn site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Where is all this anti porn stuff coming from in the UK? I thought as a civilization as a whole we were moving away from that medieval thinking.

<comment><USER43> This is the question I've been asking as well, especially since London and the Soho exists.

<comment><USER44> This is probably the aftershock of the Jimmy Savile scandal plus various child sex scandals involving catholic priests, etc. UK politicians feel obliged to protect the children but at the same time are reluctant to address the real systemic issues - none of the many abuse scandals had anything specific to do with the Internet, of course. The real crimes are enabled by bigotry and awkward silence, not by anything on the Internet. Who knows, maybe those politicians who are suppressed perverts or pedophiles themselves cry out the loudest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This sounds like yet another solution that can be easily bypassed by the typical technically proficient teenager with raging hormones.

I recently read an article about how easy access to an almost unlimited amount of pornography is giving boys unrealistic sexual expectations and placing unreasonable demands on girls. I can't find the link to the article right now but from this and several others that I've read, this is a real problem. Issues like personal freedom, consent and others are all true. However, the typical website has a vested interest in making sure that it's offerings reach a large audience and I'm sure they're not beyond pushing the envelope a little to make that happen.

What is a solution?

<comment><USER46> There's a website and community dedicated to that problem, [1], and they cite numerous articles of the kind you mentioned. Quoting:

> To date every study offers support for the porn addiction model (no studies > falsify the porn addiction model). The results of these 34 neurological > studies (and upcoming studies) are consistent with 220+ Internet addiction > "brain studies", many of which also include internet porn use. All support > the premise that internet porn use can cause addiction-related brain changes

[1] [http://www.yourbrainonporn.com](http://www.yourbrainonporn.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> How will this work with image search in Google, Bing, Yandex, etc.? Last time I checked you only need to enter an explicit search term and uncheck the filter, and you're flooded in porn.

Will they be forced to make their filters mandatory if the IP number looks as if it comes from the UK?

How will this work with porn sites outside the UK (such as most of them)? Will they all be blocked by default on the basis of some UK government censorship list or authority?

<comment><USER34> It seems like governments have decided that if you're on the Internet, you effectively have to follow the intersection of all laws from all countries that are also on the Internet.

I think looking at IP ranges is pretty effective actually. Google already does send people to different regional sites based on where they're coming from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I agree with most here, it's a wasted effort and mostly the start of a slippery slope towards future policies.

But to the problem it purports to solve, underage kids viewing material that they shouldn't be viewing, what do you propose as a workable solution? I don't mean a 15 year old occasionally viewing a normal porn video, porn sites these days house all sorts of things you wouldn't want your kids to stumble across.

</comment><comment><USER48> Funny that the British conservative party that came up with the term "Nanny State" is literally behaving like a nanny now.

<comment><USER49> the political claims have always been silly. They support small tiny government except for the big expansive military. They want big government out of people's lives except for what they consume and do in the bedroom.

<comment><USER50> People shouldn't be doing perverted stuff in the bedroom, y'see. It should be in the invitation-only high-class clubs!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The key part of this is whole thing is the mechanism of enforcement - at the ISP. To do this UK ISPs will need increased government controlled infrastructure operating within their ISP core networks. This to me sounds like post Brexit GCHQ wants to significantly increase the amount of access and control it has to all UK web browsing traffic...

</comment><comment><USER52> This is the same country where you have to buy a television stamp isn't it?

<comment><USER53> yeah but that bit is cool cause the publicly funded BBC outputs good content with zero ads.

<comment><USER28> Australia has ad free tv too, and radio stations and all the same kinds of initiatives as the BBC (admittedly the tv is terrible by comparison to the BBC so) called the ABC.

there are no TV licenses in Australia though.. its just included in your tax which is how it should be here in the UK. Paying people to police the TV license is absolutely retarded

<comment><USER50> The ABC is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay underfunded compared to the BBC. And conservative governments hate it and throttle it wherever they can. Despite being shown time and time again to be even-handed by both internal and external reviews, the conservatives treat it as a mouthpiece of the progressives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Maybe this will help stop young people from accidentally stumbling into XXX content, but it seems to me like it would be a push into darker corners of the web for those that are actively seeking it out.

</comment><comment><USER55> Its a red herring used by the government to build a stronger surveillance state.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

</comment><comment><USER56> Regulation, no matter what you think about it, is and will always be a great source of business opportunities.

Hard to implement? Business opportunities (aka money) don't come freely ;-)

</comment><comment><USER57> Uk guys, I will offer you private VPN access for a small fee :)

</comment><comment><USER58> They are having troubles blocking ThePirateBay. Good luck blocking ALL porn websites that don't implement this nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER59> > which doesn't solve the problem the regulation is trying to solve at all

What problem is it, really?

</comment><comment><USER60> I see they take after Russia.

</comment><comment><USER61> Certainly one way to raise a savvy digital generation.

<comment><USER62> In a weird way it may be a good thing to teach our offspring how to deal with and work around censorship on a small, non-political scale. Also, this topic assures they learn the lesson thoroughly, both because a lot of self-interest (unlike with 'boring' politics) and because of the obvious stupidity of this censorship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> >online pornography ... had been seen by 65% of 15-16 year olds and 48% of 11-16 year olds.

I don't think percentages work the way you think they work.</comment>


Show HN: Medly – Make Music on iPad - <AUTHOR> http://medlylabs.com/

<comment><USER2> Not exactly a new idea. What is you prime distinguishing feature? Have you reviewed the other hundreds of Apps with similar claims to be sure you are actually filling a need? Like, say, Garage Band (for a high profile freebie and highly polished example with similar claims)?

Good luck!</comment>


Google and Microsoft make patent peace - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-and-microsoft-make-patent-peace/ <comment><USER2> "What we do know is that Microsoft makes approximately $3.4-billion a year from its Android patent licening deals. " [sic]

I guess this might be good news for Google?

From my perspective, patents are a toxic drain on morale/intelligence/innovation that we have no hope of curtailing in my lifetime.

<comment><USER3> I have always had this feeling that patent wars are only around to make the lawyers more money.

Imagine how many firms would lose millions if the major tech companies worked together

EDIT: (nothing against lawyers in general since they are obviously just doing their jobs)

<comment><USER4> Not a big fan of lawyers (personally seen people screwed by them twice) but there's this weird meme that lawyers can make lawsuits happen as they please. The cases where this can happen are very rare as far as I can see, yet the meme persists.

<comment><USER5> In some situations you actually can essentially create lawsuits out of thin air. In class actions, you can pick and choose people to be "class representatives" and file a suit.

Patent trolling is a pretty good example too. You buy some patent you find and then start suing anyone under the sun.

But this sort of competitor patent battle isn't easy to start by a lawyer. You'd have to convince your client to start it. But a huge F500 doesn't just have one lawyer, they have their own in house lawyers who make the choices. And then go find a firm to carry it out.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking more of the corporate warfare type of lawsuits, but I would still say, given the litigation landscape, that lawyer-initiated lawsuits are rare. Both class-action and patent trolls, despite the disproportionate media attention they garner, appear to be statistically a small fraction of the total litigation activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So will MS stop demanding money from various Android manufacturers now? In general I hope they'll change their attitude from patent aggression to patent disarmament. We need more changes like this.

</comment><comment><USER7> So does this mean the next nexus will get an micro-sd card slot? Cause this is has kept me away from one due to this meaningless feud.

<comment><USER3> They completely avoided this question in their reddit AMA

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3mzrl9/hi_im_hiroshi_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3mzrl9/hi_im_hiroshi_lockheimer_here_at_google_with_the/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Definitely a move in the right direction. Software companies have operated with a war mentality for too long, despite their common interests. They trade employees pretty often too, exposed no-poaching agreements aside. Competition isn't going away any time soon, but I think everyone appreciates more interoperability and cooperation. Will the Internet communities following them be able to follow this example?

<comment><USER9> I find it the opposite. In my perception, the patent hatched buried was actually a good thing for everyone else, because the patents were fought _against_ (with the likely outcome to be revoked as non-patentable bullshit that software patents are). With that peace treaty, nothing is against those patents and they are actually strengthened, which is not something to celebrate.

Of course, would the announcement contain something about dropping the patents (and not the lawsuits), my opinion would be surely different. But all I've read is that two giants won't touch each other and it's not something I do care about.

<comment><USER8> I see your point. But there will be a lot of opportunities for software patents to be tested in court. When people look at history and see companies agreeing not to sue each other, what direction will that push the argument? I hope a good one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Google and Microsoft agreed to work together against patent trolls in the European Union." I hope the irony of this isn't lost on anyone - especially as it relates to Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if Apple enabling ad blocking in iPhones and iPads had something to do with this. Many see it as a direct shot at rival Google, which makes most of it's money from advertising. Days later and suddenly Microsoft and Google are besties. It will be interesting to see what comes of this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Google is slowly becoming the next Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER13> They make patent peace with themselves but not with the small guys?

</comment><comment><USER14> Do you think this handshake was partly due to the CEOs of both Microsoft (Satya Nadella) and Google (Sundar Pichai) having the same roots (India)?

</comment><comment><USER15> > Earlier this week, Microsoft re-signed an Android patent-protection pact > with I-O Data for an undisclosed amount.

You don't say? A patent _protection_ pact. So they don't even try to hide the fact that it was a mafia-style protection racket all along now?

"Such a nice business you got there. You wouldn't want it to be dragged in Court and lose millions or hundreds of millions of dollars? Why not just pay us this tiny $5 fee per phone, forever, instead, for an OS we never participated in creating?"

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

</comment><comment><USER4> TFA (perhaps unsurprisingly) does not mention this particular Microsoft-Google case:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/appeals-court- uph...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/appeals-court-upholds- microsofts-legal-win-over-motorola/)

Of all the patent lawsuits that happened in all the smartphone wars that nobody won, this was the _only_ case where a company was actually sanctioned for, essentially, abusing patents. And this happened on Google's watch. For all the rhetoric Google spewed about how their competitors were abusing patents, ironic that they were the one company that was actually found to be a bad actor. I always thought Google for too much of a free pass on that one.

Interestingly the Ars article I linked does not mention Google at all. Guess it's not so surprising they got a free pass.

<comment><USER16> Did you link the right article - the referenced article references a court case between Motorola and Microsoft - one that started before Google's acquisition of Moto.

It seems the patent battle was Microsoft abuse of its own patents to take a percentage of all Android sales (and Moto's revenue).

Edit: Motorola vs Microsoft, not Google

<comment><USER4> It started a couple months before the acquisition but largely went through and ended (I.e. with the 14M verify against) while Google owned Motorola.

<comment><USER16> Well I'm not sure how the article backs up your statement. It was _Microsoft_ who started the patent litigation against _Motorola_ , and it was _Motorola_ who decided to not pay Microsoft. Google was only tangentially involved due to its acquisition which happened after the litigation started, so I'm unsure how Google is getting a free pass - Google really didn't do anything (as far as the scope of the article goes).

<comment><USER4> When you fully _own_ the entity that is involved, you are not "tangentially" involved.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Announcing a beta release of the Android SDK - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/08/announcing-beta-release-of-android-sdk.html <comment><USER2> "We regret to inform developers that Android 1.0 will not support 3.5" floppy disks."

Classic.

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone exited by this? Anyone on HN developing something for Android? Just wondering what the platform looks like, I'm writing two apps for the iPhone and was maybe considering doing something on my on time for android if the platform is decent.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm fairly happy with it - it really is pretty open, and will only get more open with time.</comment></comment>