Bradley Manning's Post-Sentencing Statement - <AUTHOR> http://holdenweb.blogspot.com/2013/08/bradley-mannings-post-sentencing.html <comment><USER2> " _I initially agreed with these methods and chose to volunteer to help defend my country. It was not until I was in Iraq and reading secret military reports on a daily basis that I started to question the morality of what we were doing. It was at this time I realized in our efforts to meet this risk posed to us by the enemy, we have forgotten our humanity._ "

One of my best friends spoke similarly when I met him after his tour as a Marine in the first Gulf War in 1991. Based on what he saw, after long introspection, he applied for conscientious objector status. He felt he was sent around the world not to protect his country's freedom or safety, but government and corporate interests. He felt his conscience could only oppose all wars he could possibly imagine his country fighting. He could only learn that by going, not from what his government told him before going.

The situation today seems more objectionable than then. I feel like the more we learn about the government's actions, the yet more objectionable they seem.

I shudder when I connect the data point then to today's and extrapolate a few years out.

But I still take inspiration from people who honor the Constitution over what seems opposing policy.

(Edit: since people are asking about what happened to my friend, instead of evaluating his conscientious objector intent, they gave him bureaucratic run- around for years until it was easier for him to get his Honorable Discharge on schedule.)

<comment><USER3> Manning joined the military in late 2007 or early 2008...long after incidents like the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib, and even the admission by President Bush himself that the decision to go to war had been based on faulty intelligence.I cannot take Manning's claims that he had no clue that there was anything untoward going on until he arrived in Iraq and began reading secret military reports.

Now, I wouldn't have expected him to have an adult's awareness of all the political issues, but did this young man never see the front page of a newspaper or watch a television news broadcast during the previous four years? You would have to have been living under a rock to be unaware that the US invasion of Iraq had been the subject of controversy.

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

<comment><USER4> So maybe he was living under a rock. Is that a crime?

What is the alternative hypothesis, that when he joined he had an understanding of the ongoing horrors? That seems harder to believe than _" he was in fact living under a rock."_

<comment><USER3> He was between the ages of 19 & 20 when he joined the Army. I think it's quite reasonable to expect basic adult awareness of what organization he was signing up for and to be aware that the Iraq war was far from a clean-cut ethical situation. If he lacked such basic awareness, then that does not say very much for his judgment, does it? As it was, he had been described since high school days as 'very smart, very opinionated, very political' and had taken college classes in history before signing up for the army.

As it was he had a Top Secret clearance before he was ever deployed to Iraq. Now there is no way he got a Top Secret clearance without exhibiting the ability to understand the military context he was headed into. If he had ethical reservations about the conduct of the war then it just might have been a good idea to raise them prior to deployment, no?

I'm not unsympathetic to the guy, but taking his story at face value requires adopting a position of _spectacular_ naivete.

<comment><USER5> Not everyone thinks like you, not everyone has the same experiences and viewpoints as you. There are people all over this country that continue to enlist in and support the military, and view it and the government as forces for good. Obviously he knew there was some controversy, but so what? That doesn't mean he's going to make the same conclusions as you.

You're arguing from a certain viewpoint, and being blind to the fact that people can come from different places that are entirely foreign to you. Maybe he was brainwashed, or willfully ignorant, or something else; whatever the case may be, it's possible for people to come to realizations that they were unable to see before.

<comment><USER6> A parallel is useful. My father joined the Junior ROTC in high school, and the ROTC in college. He rose eventually to the rank of second lieutenant in the US Army Reserve. He started taking some of his college time to do charity work in Mexico and eventually ended up helping build houses in a Native American community that had finished an uprising against the government. He returned to file for conscientious objector status only to discover he had been promoted to First Lieutenant. Given that Vietnam was escallating, they refused his request for a general discharge and he refiled. They called him up for active duty and he refused. They sent him to to the stockade and he set himself up as the go-to person for helping people apply for conscientious objector status. His request for a general discharge was rejected again, on the basis that he was too honorable for it. Six months later (more time in the stockade, I think totalling around a year), they reached a deal where he would teach a driving course and be honorably discharged. The course was done on film, but by the time they finished it, they discovered that Lt. Travers had made such a name for himself in the stockade in terms of helping people apply for discharges that they couldn't use it. At the end of the day he was honorably discharged and the court martial called off.

It's one thing to watch movies or think about things. It is another thing to see the results of war with one's own eyes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always argued in defense of Manning's actions, but simultaneously that he did break military law and should we be a nation of laws, he should be treated accordingly.

I was wrong.

The State breaks the law. And _it does so daily_. For helping to point this out Mr. Manning deserves a prize, not a punishment.

<comment><USER8> Yep, the rule of law argument is really only valid when the laws are not a shamble, otherwise you just come off as authoritarian as far as I can see.

<comment><USER7> How do we get more people to evolve to this position?

<comment><USER9> That's the _really_ bad news of the age: I don't think we can.

"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." \- [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck)

Ideas, just like science, advance one funeral at a time.

<comment><USER10> I'm not entirely sure that's true. Consider the rapid advances in the mainstream acceptability of LGBT concerns over the past 20 years, and the number of people who have come to `a new understanding'. Similarly, the shift in perspective over the acceptability of racism; James Meredith, the student whose enrollment at Ole Miss sparked riots, is still alive as are many of his schoolmates. I'm reasonably sure that most of them have had their opinions regarding integration changed by public opinion and the subsequent years.

<comment><USER11> It would be interesting to know the amount of background efforts in the years prior to these "sudden groundswells" (which makes me think of the overnight success myth). For example in the civil rights situation, a a t of stuff happened in the background of WWII and immediately after in the army, as well as having lots of academic and popular writing going on.

I'm also interested inthe demographics of the social graph of the wave of support. I suspect it starts in the 20somehing crowd realizing that they are allowed to have their own valid opinions and taking up the banner that was conveniently placed there for years prior waiting for them to find it. All those years it was available were formative years for those people and the idea was floating in the background, therefore not foreign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Largely forgotten in all this is the fact that Manning was tortured in retaliation for the leaks. That this is being treated like an afterthought, with no indication of any accountability, illustrates how far we have descended in such a short time. I hope Manning continues to speak out against torture during his time in prison.

<comment><USER13> In the other article from WaPo about Manning sentencing, there was this quote:

"Manning will receive a credit of 1,293 days for the time he has been confined prior to the sentence, including 112 days of credit for abusive treatment he was subjected to in the brig at the Quantico Marine Base."[1]

The math isn't clear, but it seems to confirm he was somehow compensated for the horrible treatment. I would call it psychological abuse, not sure if it equates to torture. Given that it's a sort of admission of wrongdoing, I suspect the days of credit were part of the plea deal--otherwise he'd be persuing further actions over it.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/judge-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/judge-to-sentence-bradley-manning- today/2013/08/20/85bee184-09d0-11e3-b87c-476db8ac34cd_story.html)

<comment><USER14> While solitary confinement isn't considered torture today, there are psychologists who, after studying the effects of such confinement, have started trying to get it labeled as a form of torture.

<comment><USER15> There are some levels of pain I would actually prefer over solitary confinement.

Consider that more people kill themselves because they can't bear psychological pain than they do because they can't bear physical pain.

<comment><USER16> Isn't that because psychological pain is much more common?

<comment><USER14> I would think it's because, while physical pain readily heals, psychological pain doesn't seem to heal nearly as effectively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> sam-mueller FTA: _One might wish that President Obama could put up such a principled defense for his scurrilous conduct in handing over the security of the American people to secret courts and universal surveillance._

What exactly is Obama's defense? I know myself and others are extremely disappointed in his direction, despite voting him in for a second term. Yet it doesn't seem like he's made any attempt at justifying his direction. Does he even feel obligated? Has he directly addressed the issues of his hypocritical back-flopping on prosecuting whistleblowers, or blatant disregard to our privacy rights? Is he just ignoring the backlash?

<comment><USER17> Here's my hypothesis. Obama is thinking about the situation like a lawyer and as a result he can't understand why there would be such a vociferous objection now of all times.

As the recently declassified FISC opinion shows, most of the NSA program is broadly within well-established law. Third-party doctrine means it's not illegal to get data from third parties like Google or Facebook, and it's well- accepted that 4th amendment protections don't apply to foreigners. The U.S. has been surveilling foreigners for decades now, and has been gathering records from third parties like banks, etc, for decades as well. The _legal_ nit to pick with the NSA's recent efforts seems to be that it's doing searches on purely domestic communications that indadvertedly get caught in the nets (though it also seems that the NSA isn't trying very hard to make the nets finer). But you can't object to the very foundations of the program purely on legal principles.

If you're looking at it from a legal point of view, it seems like a lot of uproar over something that's bad, but not something that's bad down to its foundations.

But to the digerati, it's a much bigger deal, and as someone who is not in that group I think Obama can't appreciate that point of view. The idea of getting e-mails from Google strikes a chord with many people in a way that the idea of getting bank records from banks doesn't. The digerati oppose electronic surveillance on principle, and don't care if analogous programs have existed in other areas for decades.

Incidentally, I don't expect Obama, or old line politicians like Feinstein or Pelosi to "get it" any time soon. This seems to be a "you either get it or you don't" issue. Either you have a visceral aversion to the idea of electronic surveillance or you don't. It's much more an emotional issue as anything else, and Obama's not an emotional guy. He's also a big government liberal, so he doesn't have any reason to oppose the NSA program on those grounds. He's got the most aggressive foreign policy and national security policy of any Democratic president since, well I don't even know who. He's the second-coming of Reagan on that front. He has no reason to view this as anything other than some NSA programs that stepped out of line and need to step back on the right side of the line.

<comment><USER18> I had been hoping that Obama's relative youth would put him closer to digerati territory, but it would seem that we're not there yet, despite his legendary social meda campaign and BlackBerry addiction. I think most people still think about spying in terms of WW2 and spy movies: individual humans listening to individual telephone calls of known targets. Obviously they don't have the resources to care about your "personal life", so they're just hunting the Worst of the Worst, right?

Only when one is savvy enough to understand that (a) a database never forgets, and (b) a well-mined database never shuts up, does the real danger of these programs become apparent.

...of course, there's also the possibility that Obama _does_ understand all of this, either because he's somehow checkmated by the agencies and their knowledge, or he's part of the club and genuinely believes in naked power. But your theory is probably the most likely.

<comment><USER19> >Obviously they don't have the resources to care about your "personal life", so they're just hunting the Worst of the Worst, right?

Even this argument is flawed, there are FBI documents showing they very much cared about the personal life of noted communist agitator Martin Luther King.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Americans seriously need to band together and find a way to punish those responsible for these crimes, not the people who are willing to risk their own lives by disclosing the crimes happened.

Until you do, the legal system is a joke.

<comment><USER21> > Americans seriously need to band together

Not Americans - individuals. All wars and the state itself, which _is_ war, are various manifestations of the same conflict: individuals vs the mob.

There are no Americans, gay, feminists, unemployed, disabled in this war. There are no groups whose rights need to be protected more than those of individuals. This war will continue as long as we appoint somebody who promises the illusion of protection in exchange for our personal responsibility.

There is nothing to lose, therefore nothing to fear, therefore nothing to protect. Imagine this taught in schools instead of warrior worship sprinkled with "because I said so".

<comment><USER22> America the country is the thing causing these problems. Americans have more control and more responsibility for that country than anyone else in the world does. Everyone else belongs to another country they have to worry about, and do worry about, more successfully on the whole. You're not seeing Italy firing bombs at the Middle East right now.

<comment><USER23> I love Americans. Some of the behaviour of the United States government I am not so sure about.

Of course the behaviour of governments in other countries can be just as absurd. We are not so different. You're not seeing Italy firing bombs at the Middle East right now. The stories are different, the absurd behaviour is much the same. [http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/](http://www.beppegrillo.it/en/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Philosophically this is always on really shaky ground. Those that strongly support Manning's actions are saying "We want to live in a nation of laws. However, if an individual believes those laws to be unjust or unfair, _based solely on his determination_ , then he should be free to ignore those laws and act as he sees fit. He should not be punished" That's a pretty open ended precedent to set. There is absolutely no doubt that people die in the US every year who would not die in say a Western European country because of the choices this country makes around the role of government in helping the sick, the poor and the old. Is someone free to break the laws and put lives at risk in the name of rebelling against the injustice of those who die or suffer when we have the resources to ensure they don't? That's why even if Bradley is right he's wrong. And btw I have so much respect for the fact he is getting 1/10th of the coverage of Snowden but may actually be more worthy if anything of attention.

<comment><USER25> That's not the situation. He exposed the fact that the US Military was breaking the law. Thus whistle-blowing. There are laws protecting him and he is still being punished.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is actually a very nice sentiment. Unfortunately, given the jadedness i've aquired over the last few years have convinced me that it will do little good for his freedom.

I only hope that, as demographics in america swing younger, the libertarians and progressives can put put aside our differences and get this guy a pardon down the road. Scooter Libby is free and Manning is in jail.

<comment><USER27> Scooter Libby was charged for obstructing an investigation. He didn't leak any secrets. I don't see the connection.

<comment><USER28> I thought he exposed the identity of an undercover CIA agent. That seems like a fact that was supposed to be secret, which he leaked (supposedly.)

<comment><USER28> You're right, he was convicted of obstructing the investigation about how Valerie Plame's identity was leaked... so it's not fair to say that he leaked it himself. He just protected Dick Cheney, who - semantics aside - was likely the actual leaker (in terms of responsibility for the leak and directing that the leak occur).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization.

Manning is white-washing his actions a bit here. He doesn't mention divulging years worth of diplomatic cables, including cables with countries uninvolved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he divulged them en masse, without regard for their content.

<comment><USER30> >I would have a much easier time supporting Manning if he did as Snowden did, and turned over select documents to a reputable media organization.

Define reputable. If his objective were to have talking heads bicker about it on CNN, then handing it over to WaPo or NYT would have been well-advised. If, on the other hand, he wanted real people to have access to the information so they could participate in an informed debate (which is what he said he wanted), then those outlets would have been a terrible place to go. Wikileaks could at least guarantee that the material would reach the public unaltered; the MSM could not.

<comment><USER31> Also, it might not have even gotten to the level of talking heads. It could have been covered up. Assange said that WaPo had the Collateral Murder video for a year before WikiLeaks did, although WaPo has denied that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Bradley Manning is not a criminal. He's a prisoner of conscience.

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

<comment><USER33> I was unfamiliar with this term. That was a very interesting article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> How many Americans died fighting to protect their country's ideals of freedom? When I hear about the "War on Terror", the TSA, the NSA, police militarization, etc. I wonder... "Is this the freedom they died to save?"

</comment><comment><USER35> This guy has spent 3 years in solitary confinement and is facing 35 more in the brig. And yet has the courage and clarity of mind to explain why he did what he did and say he will "gladly pay that price". Astounding.

</comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone else see the irony in this statement? Manning's defense in this argument is almost the exact thing he was supposedly rebelling against. The most glaring example is on one hand he says patriotism was used as the justification for many horrific actions and on the other he says he broke the law, disclosed classified information, and endangered others due to his own love of country.

<comment><USER37> What don't you understand? Patriotism was the path of committing atrocious acts, so he did "unpatriotic" things in the eyes of those in power, who were manipulating patriotism to align it with their terrible actions.

<comment><USER36> _" I understand that my actions violated the law, and I regret if my actions hurt anyone or harmed the United States. It was never my intention to hurt anyone. I only wanted to help people. When I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for my country and a sense of duty to others."_

He explains away his actions as an act of patriotism. He acknowledges the laws were broken and lives were endangered in order to accomplish his goals, but he acted anyway out of love for country. That sounds like similar logic that could be used to explain a lot of the action he revealed.

<comment><USER38> Absolutely the same logic could be used to explain the actions he revealed, that is exactly the problem.

We are being forced to choose between realities. Either his action is a noble one born of patriotism, or those that he revealed are.

Both sides are claiming to be right, noble and patriotic, and both sides see themselves as acting appropriately.

The question is which reality do we want to be true? which side do we want to be associated with and to support?

Pick your side, and see where that decision takes you.

There are no objective realities here. Just a personal decision regarding the reality we wish to support, encourage and stand with.

<comment><USER39> Well, I'm not going to side with the people who gunned down a Reuters journalist from their Apache and the military who tried to cover for them over the person who outed their conduct. I guess you can choose which way your patriotism swings, but it seems like a fairly obvious conclusion to me.

<comment><USER36> To be fair you are taking the worst action of one entity and comparing it with the best action of the other. I don't think many people here would say what happened in the Collateral Murder video was justifiable or disagree with the motive Manning had in leaking it. The problem is that is just a piece of the picture. Manning released a lot more information and some of it endangered innocent people. He basically put innocent people in life threatening situations to expose that innocent people had previously been killed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I just wonder what city will arise as the capital of the Eastern American Empire. How long did the Roman Empire last after the split? 80 years (395-476, give or take). Yeah, I don't expect to live that long, but it's going to be rough downfall.

Hopefully we can create some kind of planetary federation to keep a lid on this privacy/freedom shit before it gets too out of hand.

It kills me that Joss wrote one of the better "tree of liberty" quotes in recent memory ... maybe that's just where we're at as a culture:

"Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."

</comment><comment><USER41> Foreign Policy magazine stated that the Manning leaks was a catalyst for the revolutions in Tunisia which triggered the Arab Spring. It may not have been good for the US, but it was good for the world. Democracy spread to two arab countries.

</comment><comment><USER42> Poor guy; I take his statement at face value.

But, he's misled: In simplest terms, "War is hell.", and this is not news. Germany bombed London and killed mostly civilians. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and civilians were a large fraction of the deaths. The US fire bombed Japan and killed maybe 80,000 civilians in one night and did that on many nights. The two atom bombs killed many more civilians. The US and England bombed German cities and created horrific conditions for mostly civilians (although often war production workers) maybe best addressed just by hoping that the deaths came quickly, which no doubt often they didn't. Germany attacked to the East all the way to Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad and likely killed many more civilians than soldiers. Did I mention that "Was is hell"? It is.

In Iraq, a civil war was going on, and the US, to its credit, eventually stopped it, but while it was going on no doubt many Iraqis did all they could to kill other Iraqis, and civilians got caught in the crossfire.

Gitmo? Of course there is "due process", as defined and executed by the US DoD but, right, not as in the US criminal justice system. We treated them as prisoners of war out of uniform or some such. That's the form of "due process" they get from the US DoD fighting a war. Did we follow some statements of the UN? Maybe not, but the UN wasn't fighting the war, either. As prisoners of war, in many ways they are very well treated. If the US were to let them go, then a significant fraction of them would attack the US again. Last I read, it's costing the US $1 million per prisoner per year -- we are being very generous.

The poor guy just is not looking at reality.

<comment><USER43> Gitmo?

We _tortured_ those poor SoBs. We _never_ torture PoWs. You know why? So that we _have_ a reputation of never torturing PoWs, so that when our soldiers are captured, they stand a good chance of _also_ not being tortured. That reputation has been obliterated, and for what, exactly? What accurate, actionable intelligence ever came from Gitmo? We have put our soldiers in _very_ _real_ danger for absolutely no gain whatsoever.

I hope to hell whatever _real_ power we end up tangled with next can overlook our crimes and summon the basic human decency to treat its captured American soldiers with decency and respect.

<comment><USER42> Yes, you have a point.

But, the standards have long been that easily a PoWs life can be so bad that maybe usually there will be little difference. Consider what the USSR did to German prisoners -- marched off to Siberia or some such and never heard from again. North Korea did to US prisoners in the Korean War? What North Viet Nam did to Senator McCain?

And our torture was water boarding, cold rooms, loud music?

Your "decency and respect" are asking a bit much. Did I mention, "War is hell"?

Supposedly at times prisoner interrogation can yield quite useful results, but you may be correct that from Gitmo we didn't get much (at least that we didn't already have).

But there is such a thing as a _dumb ass clusterfuck_ , or the older FUBAR or SNAFU, and there's been a lot of that since 9/11.

More narrowly we elected W, and with 9/11 he and Cheney seemed to get all super-hyper concerned about their oaths of office to "protect and defend the US", paid a bit too much attention to _threat scenarios_ of Saddam putting a nuke in a cargo ship, sending it to a major US port city, and setting it off, etc. Yes, it was a difficult threat to evaluate -- small risk of a big loss.

As we know now, Saddam was talking about WMDs mostly to scare his own people and neighbors, and our intelligence was so poor we didn't know better.

So, W/Cheney convinced themselves that Saddam, definitely a bloody thug, following Stalin, was a threat to the US and that the US should invade and occupy Iraq and set up a democratic government and could do so quickly for maybe $60 billion. The guy who said $120 billion or some such got fired. The guy who said we'd need 500,000 troops to occupy the country got fired.

Did I mention clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU? Saddam had told us that it would be tough to hold the country together. We didn't listen and, instead, ignited essentially a several sided civil war. By the time we put down the civil war, likely more Iraqis had died a violent death, from us and/or other Iraqis, per month and in total than at any time under Saddam. We killed, what, 5000+ US soldiers? Seriously injured, what, 50,000+, 100,000+? Blew, what, net present value $3 trillion? SNAFU? FUBAR?

There was a lot of really sick violence. E.g., when an angry Shiite captured a Sunni or an angry Kurd captured a Shiite, or an angry Sunni captured a Kurd, etc. new chapters in torture could be drafted. And several US workers where strung up from a bridge.

So Manning didn't t like it. Easy enough to understand -- I didn't like it, either.

But, W/Cheney were elected, about as fairly as the US can manage. Of really high importance, the US Congress authorized Gulf War II and appropriated the money for it. And the result was a _bloody mess_ : The people really badly injured were the lucky ones because they died quickly and, thus, didn't suffer as much before they died.

But, that was reality. It's not too difficult to see just why it happened. It's clearly what is likely to happen in many situations of military action and US national security. It's not really a big surprise. I'm sorry reality is like that, but in this universe, in this solar system, on this planet, now, that's the case. Heck, there were bloody battles in the US Civil War, Medieval wars, Roman wars, etc. There's been plenty of torture, as I recall, by some Spanish Roman Catholics. Again, the lucky ones were the ones who died quickly. Death? There's been a lot of that. Ugly? Once I was reading the Bible and got to where the pregnant women were cut open, threw the book across the room, and have not opened it again since then.

For W/Cheney, as far as I can tell, they were superficial, simplistic, simple- minded, silly, sloppy, stupid, etc. and put in less thought and planning than needed for a good Sunday BBQ.

The thing for a person to do is to try to stay out of the way of such a huge disaster. That's what Manning should have done.

More generally all US mainstream media and all US voters should clearly understand that when a politician starts talking passionately about "protecting the US" (translation: covering his ass so that if something happens don't blame him) and US military action in foreign lands, firing experts with skeptical estimates, "to spread democracy, freedom, and prosperity", see a big chance of throwing away a lot of US blood and treasure, ugly, violent deaths of a lot of people "over there", and a really big clusterfuck, FUBAR, SNAFU.

Track record: Korean war, mixed. Viet Nam war, total SNAFU, accomplished essentially nothing good. Gulf War I, pushed Saddam out of Kuwait quickly and relatively cleanly. Gulf War II, total clusterfuck and will likely result in just a Saddam II in Baghdad. Afghanistan, smaller scale clusterfuck, essentially nothing good. Syria, seed of a total clusterfuck -- just add military aid. Egypt, the US supplies the Egyptian military, and they keep down the radical Islamists, don't attack Israel very much, and keep the Suez canal open.

It's mixed.

<comment><USER43> _We_ don't torture PoWs. _We_ know that information obtained from torture is -at best- unreliable, and more typically is whatever the tortured feels will make the torturer stop torturing.

Comparing American torture to Korean or Russian torture is not the point. (The misbehavior of other countries doesn't excuse the misbehavior of ours.) The point is that, as a matter of policy, we _do_ _not_ _torture_ because it doesn't provide usable information, and it gives enemies more reason to torture our troops when they capture them.

I carefully read the remainder of your reply. While I agree with one of your over-arching points (poorly lead large organizations in chaotic situations often produce sub-standard results), I don't see how the remainder of your reply relates to my condemnation of and furious anger toward those who destroyed our reputation as a country that humanely handles PoWs by ignoring centuries of history and research.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If there is one lesson we can all take from this it is: No matter how cruel or wrong the actions of your Government are, they are always right even when they are wrong. Democracy? I think not.

</comment><comment><USER45> [text deleted]

At some point, I will learn that HN is not the place for intelligent expression of political expression divergent from its denizens' norms.

My bad.

<comment><USER46> I can be snooty too.

At some point, I will learn that many people just aren't capable of pulling the blinders off and realizing that killing thousands of innocent people every year without any sort of accountability is just complete lunacy.

Honestly, it seems like your definition of "intelligent" is "middle of the mainstream road." I can't really see how that holds up to tell you the truth.

<comment><USER45> You assume that all consciences will reach the same conclusion as yours. They don't. They haven't.

A military "accountability" of individual conscience would essentially be a reversion to feudalism, with armed power first migrating to leaders based on visions of conscience, then deteriorating to coalitions of interest. And now you're back at "might makes right" but without any ethic to get you out.

Even granting we are killing thousands of innocents without accountability, Manning's statement is not a safe way out.

<comment><USER46> > You assume that all consciences will reach the same conclusion as yours. > They don't. They haven't.

That was my point. I was returning the undue egoism.

> And now you're back at "might makes right" but without any ethic to get you > out.

That's where we are right now. It's the definition of democracy (close enough to republican government for the pedants).

> Even granting we are killing thousands of innocents without accountability, > Manning's statement is not a safe way out.

Anything that reduces our imperialistic tendencies is safer than allowing the imperialistic tendencies to grow. To throw it back at you: might _doesn 't_ make right.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nancy Drew in Starlight - how-about-this http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/10/14/nancy-drew-in-starlight/ <comment><AUTHOR> Growing up I read a lot of the Nancy Drew books that my sister would borrow from the library and her friends. I got hooked on reading because of these books. Short and fast paced, I generally liked them better than the Hardy Boys. Being a guy though, and out of the fear of being ostracized out of my already small all-male friend circle, I had to read them in secret and couldn't discuss anything related to the stories or the characters with my friends :)</comment>


Gamers for Freedom: A handbook for protesting at this year's Blizzcon - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P6VXEB-0ICNuBGWQInj_QaFaD2t62ACWPeYVG9ujpTQ <comment><USER2> >Game publishers and developers certainly have a right to moderate the content that appears on their platforms. And in many cases, moderation is essential to ensure that gamers are safe from harassment, threats of violence, and other dangerous behavior. But silencing gamers from speaking about their identities and experiences puts us all at risk of personal attacks and widespread oppression.

I don't agree with blizzard but this statement really appears contradictory to me. It still advocates censorship and doesn't get at the root of the problem that the censorship was occurring at the behest and pressure of a foreign government. Personally, I think clearly written rules about what is and isn't allowable in a platform, that's enforced equally seems pretty reasonable to me. Enforcing speech selectively, with no clear guidelines will still lead to problems.

<comment><USER3> Moderation != censorship.

<comment><USER2> No, but selective moderation based on unclear inconsistent guidelines is. Look at hn, I'd say it's heavily moderated, but the guidelines are clear and the moderation is mostly consistent. When accounts and comments get banned or killed here, it's usually obvious how the guidelines were broken, most of the time.

<comment><USER4> censorship isn't just bad moderation.

<comment><USER2> I never said it was. Censorship comes in many forms. I was just pointing out I don't believe all moderation is censorship, but selective, inconsistent moderation can become a form of censorship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Blizzard is motivated by money, that seems to be the chief complaint: Blizzard behaves on the basis of profitability rather than morality. So why would a moral appeal have any effect?

A boycott would get results, this just gets clicks.

<comment><USER6> A moral appeal is the method of getting more people on board, to support whatever actions against blizzard that they are trying to achieve.

<comment><USER5> > whatever actions against blizzard that they are trying to achieve

That is what seems so hackneyed about this. This is like doing marketing for "whatever product we decide to sell". The goal should be defined first.

What would be too little from Blizzard? What would be a "good" response? When would it be too late? What exactly do these people actually want Blizzard to do?

This Google doc is an attention-seeker's manifesto; it is highly inflammatory and uses emotionally provocative language about rights and freedom and doing the right thing, yet it avoids being too specific so that Blizzard cannot win because they cannot discern what response the protesters want.

<comment><USER6> > The goal should be defined first.

> What would be too little from Blizzard? What would be a "good" response? > When would it be too late? What exactly do these people actually want > Blizzard to do?

I'll give a solution. They should completely reverse every punishment that they made, against everyone, get rid of any "rules" they had that caused these punishments, and do not enforce this in the future.

And if they received any communications from the Chinese government, then they should publish it all, and they should say that they will never give in to any explicit or implicit pressure from them.

And they get bonus points, if they do stuff like create Mei Li, pro Hong Kong skins for overwatch.

Doing this stuff would absolutely make all the protesters happy.

<comment><USER7> >get rid of any "rules" they had that caused these punishments, and do not enforce this in the future.

Great, I cannot wait to see all the political speeches while trying to catch some esports or sports. If you're an (e-)athlete, what better time and place to let the world know about your feelings on MAGA, ICE camps other than broadcasts of your gameplay?

<comment><USER8> I am eagerly awaiting participant advocacy for a free Ireland/Palestine/Kashmir/weev at the next annual StarCraft tournament.

<comment><USER6> Awesome! Me too.

I love knowing more specific details and storylines, related to an individual person.

This is true for real sports. People have lots of details about them that aren't directly related to the game.

And I am glad that you are also as excited as I am to see these personal storylines play out!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love they can just use google docs and publish a "site" like this so easily to share. No html required. I hope Google doesn't start getting political and pulling these kinds of docs.

<comment><USER10> Their website [0] was registered and online 4 days after it happened.

As such I don't think they have to rely solely on google docs to publish their stuff.

[0] [https://www.gamersforfreedom.com/](https://www.gamersforfreedom.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anyone know why Blizzard is under fire but Apple isn't?

<comment><USER12> Before this event, Blizzard was a Reddit darling, whereas Apple was not.

<comment><USER13> BLIZZARD?? "Do you guys not have phones?" Blizzard?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's going to be entertaining this year if nothing else.</comment>


OSMC is a free and open source media center - <AUTHOR> https://osmc.tv/

<comment><USER2> Because this wasn't clear to me immediately: This is a Linux distribution with Kodi preinstalled that grew out of the Raspbmc project.

Link to their GitHub repo: [https://github.com/samnazarko/osmc](https://github.com/samnazarko/osmc)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is from their wiki site for more clarification

Kodi is a media center application and OSMC is the operating system that runs Kodi and brings it to your device. OSMC is not a fork of Kodi but rather a Linux distribution that ships Kodi as the main application. This is a similar concept to Kodi running on top of Windows or Android.

OSMC is based on Debian Jessie (a flavour of GNU/Linux) and has been heavily optimised to provide the best TV experience possible.

</comment><comment><USER3> The information available on the website and github is pretty sparse. Will it play blu-ray iso's or folders? Support for DTS-MA? TV tuner support documentation just says "most work", which really doesn't answer the question at all. In general the documentation just says it will do anything you want it to, without going into any specifics.

Do I have to go back through the docs on Kodi and assume this will do everything Kodi will?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an open source project and hence lacks the resources to document or be as polished. As mentioned in my comment below it is a OS which runs only one program which is the Kodi Media Center but it will support Apps along with Kodi Media Center.

<comment><USER4> > This is an open source project and hence lacks the resources to document or > be as polished.

PostgreSQL is an open source project, and has documentation on par with its commercial alternatives. Open source doesn't have to mean poorly documented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been using Raspbmc and OSMC (which spawned from Raspbmc) on both RP1 and RP2 and they've both been great. While OSMC is only on RC2, it's fairly solid and RC3 should be coming any day. As well as standard addons for Kodi, it has an App Store that will ultimately let you install things like torrent clients and the like with ease. Their default skin needs a little work but it's nice and fast.

Great job Sam and the team.

</comment><comment><USER6> As a recent newcomer to OSMC: It's awesome once it's set up. Finding some of the options though can be tricksy.

<comment><USER7> What were the options you have issues with? I'm looking into it for one of my nodes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How many XBMC based distros are there now?

</comment><comment><USER9> Wake me when they have a device that supports 4k@60fps smoothly. I have yet to see one do so on Kodi.</comment>


Make better choices: Hawaiian monk seals keep getting eels stuck up their noses - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/07/make-better-choices-endangered-hawaiian-monk-seals-keep-getting-eels-stuck-up-their-noses-scientists-want-them-stop/ <comment><AUTHOR> This article was interesting, but the photo in the article is just too much! That seal looks so relaxed, like he doesn't even know he has an eel in his nose and he's just having a relaxing day on the beach.

</comment><comment><USER2> Ya... Are we sure there's no chemicals coming out of the eels? They look very, very calm. I wonder if something else isn't going on.</comment>


The key differences between Python 2.7.x and Python 3.x with examples (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://sebastianraschka.com/Articles/2014_python_2_3_key_diff.html <comment><USER2> "Now, in Python 3, we finally have Unicode (utf-8) strings"

This is not correct. Python strings are either ASCII, UCS-2 or UCS-4 depending on what code points they contain. Python 3 source code is by default UTF-8 and string literals are converted to the internal representation.

You have to encode strings into UTF-8 bytes to actually get UTF-8 when executing the program.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really nicely written and easy to read. Low on opinions high in facts. A++ will read again</comment>


What happens when MiniTest runs, or, what I think about testing using classes - <AUTHOR> http://interblah.net/how-minitest-works

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be covering RSpec in a subsequent article. I think it should be interesting to dissect the underlying differences in philosophy and implementation.</comment>


Butts in Seats - <AUTHOR> http://mattgiffune.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/butts-in-seats/

<comment><USER2> It seems like the conflict between #1 and #2 is the big challenge (and opportunity) here.

#2 posits that people (and thus their companies) get great benefit from being close to each other and able to exchange ideas rapidly as the mood/need/opportunity strikes.

#1 posits that telecommuting will take over the world because people tend to prefer flexibility and simplicity over artificially synchronized schedules and forced face-to-face appearances.

Hacker spaces (and the collection-of-lean-startup-labs type places) are great for small scale things, but could "telecommuting centers" work out just as well as commuter/carpool parking lots in the DC area? Combine Internet access, power, and (maybe?) mid-scale video conference + smart whiteboard facilities. Large companies can spread their workforce out around the country and pay into these spaces based on the employee-hours worked there.</comment>


Who Cares? Crowdsourcing Your News Intake - <AUTHOR> http://johnkary.net/who-cares-crowdsourcing-your-news-intake/

<comment><USER2> don't you see any irony in writing that post and then posting it to a news aggregation site? it's very much a "do as i say, not as i do" post.</comment>


Rewiring Your Brain: Neurofeedback Goes Mainstream - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/neurofeedback-brain-regulation-neuroscience-457492 <comment><USER2> > Newsweek

> pharmaceutical companies don't like us because it gets people off of drugs

Sounds a bit like "Doctors hate her! Click here to learn this one weird trick for weight loss"

</comment><comment><USER3> "This magazine article is only available to paid subscribers"

<comment><USER4> Works here. Try [http://i.imgur.com/mzDNngh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/mzDNngh.jpg) .</comment></comment>


Airbnb's Global Growth - <AUTHOR> http://www.airbnb.com/global-growth

<comment><USER2> An AirBNB unit was rented out in our building, and was a semi-regular source of noise and trouble. So, we took the listing to the landlord and they shut it down: it's illegal here now, and it's specifically forbidden in the lease.

The more popular AirBNB gets, the more likely it seems that this sort of reaction will become the defacto one in popular areas.

This is already the case with large developments like Stuytown in NYC: [http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/31/airbnb-takes-manhattan- wi...](http://www.betabeat.com/2011/05/31/airbnb-takes-manhattan- with-2k-bookings-a-night-but-many-listings-may-be-illegal/)

<comment><USER3> You know what? I'm fine with that. The idea of using someone's apartment oogs me out anyway.

AirBNB is rapidly turning into the best market for small, independent, _professional_ hoteliers. There are a lot of them, and Craigslist used to be the only option for these folks.

<comment><USER2> Actually, I believe many vacation home rentals were (and are?) done via VRBO.

Renting out an individual apartment -- even 'professionally' -- is not necessarily unusual, but increasingly difficult due to the spotlight AirBNB has brought to the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, an infographic with actual info. I want a larger size version of the graph of the Airbnb traveller network.

<comment><USER5> The traveler network looks awesome, but tough to use. What cities does Boston attract vastly more than it draws Bostonians there? What cities do San Franciscans go to significantly more than any other urbanites?

I tried a similar thing at TripAdvisor, using data from the Cities I've Visited(tm) FB app. One of the interesting results was that folks who visited Yellowstone disproportionately visited Zanzibar, compared to everyone else. Both off-the-beaten-path parks, but still, it was fascinating to see data backing up the hunch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's funny, I was just thinking yesterday how I hadn't heard much about Airbnb since all the attention from the robbery in SF this past summer.

There was a lot of negative press, and some serious concerns.

It's great to see that they've overcome that hurdle, and are growing like crazy.

<comment><USER7> I'm waiting for an announcement from RideJoy - it's like AirBnB, but through cars. I couldn't imagine the potential liability of strangers hooking up online only to drive together...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What an incredible story. Think back 4 years to 2008. Where were you? What were you doing? Imagine going on the journey that the founders of AirBnB have had in the next 4 years. Some people out there are starting something that will grow as fast or faster. I wonder what is going through their minds.

<comment><USER9> Love this thought process, most likely they are saying to each other something along the lines of, "Let's raise money by selling Obama Os 2.0 cereal".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome, but why does compete.com think their traffic is going down since raising funding in July? <http://siteanalytics.compete.com/airbnb.com/>

<comment><USER7> I assume their traffic is likely cyclical - students finishing semesters and taking off to remote places for the summer. I would expect it to come up a bit in December, again in March, then peak up again June through July.... then coast back down.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been hearing a lot about design focused startups lately. It seems to be the trendy thing to talk and debate about. I'm not going to side with design over engineering, but I just want to point how well Airbnb has focused on design. From every detail of their UI to their offline user experience, it all has been designed beautifully. I don't think anyone can argue against the fact that great design helped Airbnb become the success they are today.

<comment><USER11> "I'm not going to side with design over engineering"

It shouldn't be one or the other, it should work in unison. Design includes aesthetics and user interaction. Airbnb wouldn't successful if the user flow wasn't well crafted and a far superior experience than using Craigslist.

<comment><AUTHOR> _It shouldn't be one or the other, it should work in unison._

I completely agree. That's why I prefaced my comment by saying that I wasn't siding. Most people talking about the subject will be strongly supporting one particular side.

<comment><USER12> So where should we put the lack of newline to <br> conversion inside place reviews - design or engineering?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


YapDi - Yet another python Daemon implementation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kasun/YapDi

<comment><USER2> Having written a specialized daemon library for PHP, my take is that this seems clean, but unless you need special functionality, I really prefer a while(true) and supervisord.

In my case (<https://github.com/shaneharter/PHP-Daemon>) a project needed a way to run code on a timer every second. For more basic cases supervisord or similar is the way I'd go.

And no, I wouldn't suggest that anybody write daemons in PHP. It's one of those things that was the best of several bad options. Python is a bit better, but if I had my choice it would be in a language that had real threading.

</comment><comment><USER3> Daemonization is really something that ought to be done outside the process being daemonized, a la supervisord or (if you prefer Python) something like my own project, finitd[0]. Unless you have something you must do as root before dropping privileges, leave daemonization to a separate, purpose-built program like these. It's the UNIX way.

[0] <https://github.com/jemfinch/finitd>

<comment><USER4> I don't really understand how it would matter to a user, but you do know supervisord is written in python as well right?

<comment><USER3> Ah, no. I was actually thinking of DJB's daemontools, but had supervisord on the mind because it was mentioned elsewhere in this thread.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, potentially useful.

It seems a little sad to me that Twisted is so unappreciated; it solved many current problems a long time ago, including very good deamonizing.</comment>


Wikipedia blackout notice now on all English Wiki articles. - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_News

<comment><USER3> Note that NoScript (among other things) blocks the blackout bar. If you want to go directly to the anti-SOPA message, that's located here:

[https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti-...](https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia_anti- SOPA_blackout)

And here's the part where they discuss the NPOV issue:

=====

In making this decision, Wikipedians will be criticized for seeming to abandon neutrality to take a political position. That's a real, legitimate issue. We want people to trust Wikipedia, not worry that it is trying to propagandize them.

But although Wikipedia's articles are neutral, its existence is not. As Wikimedia Foundation board member Kat Walsh wrote on one of our mailing lists recently,

We depend on a legal infrastructure that makes it possible for us to operate. And we depend on a legal infrastructure that also allows other sites to host user-contributed material, both information and expression. For the most part, Wikimedia projects are organizing and summarizing and collecting the world's knowledge. We're putting it in context, and showing people how to make to sense of it.

But that knowledge has to be published somewhere for anyone to find and use it. Where it can be censored without due process, it hurts the speaker, the public, and Wikimedia. Where you can only speak if you have sufficient resources to fight legal challenges, or, if your views are pre-approved by someone who does, the same narrow set of ideas already popular will continue to be all anyone has meaningful access to.

</comment><comment><USER4> So; the blackout will work something like this:

<https://test.wikipedia.org/?banner=SOPA_blackout_alt>

The exact text is being figured out here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Propo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Proposed_Messages)

(I think the current draft isn't very informative; it doesn't actually explain anything, just that there is a protest of SOPA/PIPA & link to some blogs).

My personal take is that as of last weekend we are now on the back foot - <USER2> going through with a protest _right now_ plays into the hands of the politicians. What will happen is that SOPA/PIPA are effectively dead anyway (and were when the Whitehouse didn't outright support them), the press will cover this protest until it bores them and then, after the election, a lot of it will be slipped through under another name.

A mass blackout has the most impact, from a media perspective, the first time. I worry that WP and others have essentially been goaded into misfiring. (I also note that Issa has backed off going after SOPA this week; which I suspect is the right way to play against a delaying tactic).

I hope I'm wrong, but I am a little worried :(

<comment> mike-cardwell FWIW, if you disable JavaScript, that test.wikipedia.org page isn't blacked out.

<comment><USER5> Confirmed. I use NoScript and I saw no warning noticed until it was turned on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it interesting that they decided to blackout globally and not just the U.S. Their rationale:

=====

Why is this a global action, rather than US-only? And why now, if some American legislators appear to be in tactical retreat on SOPA?

The reality is that we don't think SOPA is going away, and PIPA is still quite active. Moreover, SOPA and PIPA are just indicators of a much broader problem. All around the world, we're seeing the development of legislation seeking to regulate the Internet in other ways while hurting our online freedoms. Our concern extends beyond SOPA and PIPA: they are just part of the problem. We want the Internet to remain free and open, everywhere, for everyone.

=====

<comment><USER7> I think they have followed an erroneous path towards the decision that this should be a global blackout. I'm not in the US, so this affects my view. I believe the vote was highly biased towards contributors who obviously followed their way to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative> because they already care about SOPA. As someone outside of the US, I don't particularly care. The US already has stupid laws, like the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which isn't actively copied by most other countries and has created opportunity and profit outside of the US. Like most people outside of the US, I don't care if they can't drink before they are 21, gamble online or export cryptography. In fact, I'm happy that the US can pass stupid laws like that since it creates opportunity for the rest of the world.

Not that I agree with SOPA, I think it's a stupid law, but I don't think Wikipedia should subject the rest of the world to this. Think about it, how can one now honestly tell countries like China that Wikipedia is not controlled by US political thought, when it's advertising exactly that through this action.

<comment><USER8> _> I'm not in the US_

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

In the UK where we can't deport a "cleric" who is guilty of hate crimes, people can be deported to the US for breaking their copyright laws with no reference to the legality or not of their actions according to our laws. No doubt other countries have similar relationships with the US. _Not being in the US does not mean you are completely shielded from the affects of US laws._

There are side affects too, you don't have to be directly affected by the law to have an effect on your life. If Wikipedia content came under the scrutiny of laws such as this and had to be taken down, being US based they would have to take the content down _for all users not just US based ones_.

OK the site could move all its hosting arrangements and its employees could all move to another territory but that:

1\. is hardly practical

2\. doesn't entirely solve the jurisdiction issue, unless you know of a magic country that will stand up to the US legal system, allows the current freedom of expression Wikipedia depends upon, has the technical infrastructure to support such sites, and that the relevant people will be happy to move to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> SOPA/PIPA seem to be dead in their current forms. Lawmakers are going to route around this public awareness by waiting a few months and renaming the legislation. I think Wikipedia should have waited until the next threat emerges.

<comment><USER10> Look at it from a strategic perspective: those of us who are protesting with blackouts are doing so to send a message to Congress and the non-tech public. We don't want to send the message that they can get us to go away by pretending to retreat, so even if SOPA is temporarily shelved, the blackouts should still take place. This proves that we're willing to act when threatened, and that we're capable of acting again if they threaten us again.

<comment><USER11> How is that remotely strategic? That's not a strategic perspective, that's s brain dead perspective. Blacking out Wikipedia right now does not change the behaviour of congress. The masses will look into SOPA angrily, find out that congress has already killed it, and then forget about it.

7 months from now during s major news event it will be attached onto some other bill and all public will toward opposition will be dissipated. Will Wikipedia repeat their blackout? It will be far less effective.

"following through" is not strategic. Congress is only concerned with manipulating the masses, they have no fear of a bunch of nerds who prematurely ejaculate when attempting to exert power.

<comment><USER10> _The masses will look into SOPA angrily, find out that congress has already killed it, and then forget about it._

That's easily addressed by changing the wording of the blackout text: "Although Congress has shelved some or all of SOPA/PIPA, we still need to let them know that we won't accept this in the future. Call your representative and senator, thank them for listening to their constituents about SOPA/PIPA, and let them know you oppose the introduction of similar bills in the future."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Currently they have blacked out the "donate to wikipedia" area

<comment><USER13> My brain skips this area of the site, I'm sure this is true of many others.

The proper effect tomorrow will be a full page one however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not showing to myself in Canada.

We know lots of Americans too! :(

<comment><USER15> I'm seeing it in Canada.

<comment><USER14> I had javascript turned off :S

They were only using a javascript blocker.

<comment><USER15> Out of curiosity, why do you have Javascript disabled by default? Security?

I'm curious because when programming web applications, I'm always making graceful fallbacks for non-Javascript users. It's usually not too difficult, but it adds to development time and code size. Honestly, I've been wanting to drop you guys for a while!

So I want to ask where your coming from. And maybe more importantly, is it okay for devs to start relying on Javascript yet?

<comment><USER14> Hah, the only reason I had it off was because I was testing my own website's "you require javascript to view this site"'s page and had forogotten to turn it back on.

I never surf without javascript, it breaks almost every web page I frequent.

I have javascript as a requirement to use my service and nobody complains.

Cheers.

<comment><USER15> Haha, fantastic, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I know this will generate a lot of awareness and constituent calls to Congress. But I don't think the effect on casual users will be exclusively what the blackout-proponents are hoping.

People will become more conscious of Wikipedia as an entity with a political agenda than before. They will realize it could go away – not just because of government censorship but also when it suits the lobbying goals of project leaders.

Among some readers, that could energize more devotion, but among others, create a sense that Wikipedia is more common, more political, and less relentlessly reliable than they'd thought.

I wonder if Wikimedia or anyone else is doing repeated surveys of users that could be used to judge attitudes before and after the blackout.

<comment><USER17> Wikipedia may have a political agenda, but here it is simply fighting for survival. It may indeed go away, but its editors are willing to fight to prevent it.

Jimbo Wales did a wide editor survey on his talk page. The few opposing voices (that I remember of) were about Wikipedia's neutrality. They were missing the fact that, while Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, the existence of Wikipedia relies on non-neutral things like the right to freedom of expression and not being taken down on a whim because someone, somewhere, reported for some reason to some authority that some page was infringing some copyright.

<comment><USER4> Well, in fairness, that couldn't happen to Wikipedia directly because of provisions in the SOPA legislation.

The concern (which no one at WP is doing a good job of explaining...) is that we might be defined under SOPA as a "search engine" and therefore forced to stop linking to sites that, on a whim, are considered copyright infringing.

<comment><USER17> > _Well, in fairness, that couldn't happen to Wikipedia directly because of > provisions in the SOPA legislation._

'till next time? Good thing you show that you won't let people walk on your turf.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'll bet fox news will never post one article on the first global protest blackout action. If it does, the message will be completely fabricated internally.</comment>


Mathematicians Should Stop Naming Things After Each Other - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/89/the-dark-side/why-mathematicians-should-stop-naming-things-after-each-other <comment><USER2> Having worked in mathematics for 10+ years, I can tell for sure, that the least problem you will face when trying to understand Calabi-Yau manifolds are the naming conventions.

Unwrapping the last term alone is a multi-year endevour if you start from scratch:

> [A] manifold is a locally ringed space, whose structure sheaf is locally > isomorphic to the sheaf of continuous (or differentiable, or complex- > analytic, etc.) functions on Euclidean space [IR^n]. -- > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold#Mathematical_definiti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifold#Mathematical_definition)

Note that definition, does barely use inventor's names and is still very dense and hard to unwrap.

I never found naming conventions to be a notable problem.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Even if a relatively short description is possible ("complete normed vector space"), if a concept is used often enough, it might be named (in the case of the example, "Banach space") - what's the problem with that?

In daily life, we don't say "Pull the horizontal surface suitable to sit on closer to the somewhat higher horizontal surface suitable to perform office tasks on", we say "Pull the chair closer to the desk", because we have given these concepts names.

</comment></comment><comment> proto-n "This nesting of proper nouns helps to make higher math impenetrable not just to outsiders, but also to working mathematicians trying to read their way from one subfield into another."

As if the biggest and only hurdle to understanding and working with advanced math was learning names... by the time you understand the concept and it's importance to a degree that you can work with it, the name becomes second nature.

</comment><comment><USER4> In my limited experience these objects are complicated and unintuitive enough that it would be hard to come up with a short simple descriptive name for them. So then you are back to applying an arbitrary label, like a name!

<comment><USER5> But then, who better to name them than the individuals who made the breakthrough? As the article mentions, the pair of pants, hairy ball theorem, no free lunch, and refers to conway, presumably the game of life.

The creators/inventors/discoverers are in the best position to come up with a name, because they presumably understand the concept enough. Though it does require a degree of creativity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author certainly has a point. However, when he mentioned rote memorization I was reminded how easy it came to me to remember all these names. I majored in physics and minored in math, and at some point I realized how many theorems and mathematical objects I knew that were named after a person without sitting down and trying to memorize them. As soon as the concept of, say, a Taylor series, Hilbert space, Schrödinger equation, the Schwarzschild radius or the Tesla unit was introduced, the name stuck immediately.

Then again, I could add another argument as to why naming things after persons is bad: it's ridiculous how many things have been named after Euler [1] or Gauß [2]. But I'm not aware that this causes widespread confusion. Maybe it's not a problem.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_Car...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_named_after_Carl_Friedrich_Gauss)

<comment><USER7> In terms of memorisation, naming something after a person is very beneficial.

The ease of remembering something is a function of how many associations you can make to it. For instance, for a person you can associate with their name:

1\. Where they lived.

2\. What they looked like.

3\. Interesting information about their life

For example you might remember Galois lived in France, he looked like a kid and he died in a duel.

If someone just makes up a word it's going to be much harder to remember because there's no attachment points for associations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps the opposite is true-- to wit, a concept given a special name makes it easier to remember, marks it distinctively, and the assignment of the name itself indicates that it is an important concept. In the case of prolific discoverers such as Thurston, or say, Euler, the second quality breaks down, but this can be obviated by choosing different descriptive names (which themselves need not even exclude giving credit to their discoverers, provided they are chosen appropriately).

</comment><comment><USER9> Meh, if naming things encourages people to come up with discoveries for humanity, it's worth it.

These jobs pay like crap but require an intellectual.

</comment><comment><USER10> My favourite maths-related term: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monstrous_moonshine)</comment>