DemocracyOS - <AUTHOR> http://democracyos.org <comment><USER2> As with others, I am really struggling to see why this has "OS" in the name. It's not an operating system. I'm guessing it stands for "open source", which isn't really an acronym people use in favour of OSS/FOSS (probably because OS already has a very well established meaning).

Can someone share some insight on the naming decision?

<comment><USER3> Agreed, why not just choose "Democracy"?

<comment><USER4> I actually know who owns democracy.com but still, democracy reminisces a 2000 year old system.. we need to update that.

<comment><USER5> In the spirit of the US Military. "Improved Democracy" Or "Updated Democracy". If you're not familiar with this...search US Army IOTV to get an idea.

<comment><USER6> How about "Future Democracy System" or "Joint Democracy Platform" ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is amazing. I have dreamt of a system like this and armchair-proposed it to friends countless times. I am always faced with derision in such conversations[1] - but I believe that a secure implementation of such an idea could be the future of democracy.

Or rather, its past. Ancient Greek democracy wasn't perfect (slavery; not everyone was citizen) but it was much better than our current system of professional politicians and uber-powerful political parties and lobbies.

The small, first struggle will be to implement it as securely as possible - for this you'll likely need to distribute specific hardware[2]. The second and largest struggle would be to actually change constitutions and take power away from the organizations that have hoarded it for decades[3].

There is a lot of scepticism in these comments. My infosec and analytical side is obviously going to go into full-attack mode when there is something solid to take apart - BUT for the time being I'd like to say a huge "bravo" to both this team and YC for backing them.

I hope you change the world.

[1] how would it work; why would people care to get involved; execution/implementation issues; fraud; ...

[2] something between RSA tokens and dedicated mobile voting machines

[3] probably centuries

<comment><USER8> Thanks for your insights!

Totally agree; finding out what democratic interaction should look like and how it should work for societies in the current hyper-connected paradigm is -at best- something that will take a lot of time.

There is, undoubtedly, a technological challenge to address, but moreover I think the greatest challenge is the cultural one. We're risen to think communites (countries, towns, organisations, etc.) should be managed in one of so many fashions, but we're willing to ask ourselves time and again what other possible ways there are for doing this, and implement on that.

We may not nail it soon, but we'll definitely try as long as we can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Political systems should protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. I worry that Democracy OS's idea fails to address this issue. If the politicians always vote with the majority, what if the majority wants to violate the rights of the minority?

<comment><USER10> The remedy is to require more than a majority threshold for decisions to be made. For example, a decision could require 80% agreement before it becomes law.

In the USA we handle these issues with a representation by region (states) rather than by population. Solutions feel more like post-processing, then data gathering.

<comment><USER11> That doesn't defend against tyranny of the majority; it just requires a larger majority.

In the USA we defend against tyranny of the majority with the constitution. The constitution places strict limits on what the majority can do to the minority through governmental force.

<comment><USER9> I agree with wyager.

A political system should be a strong constitution that defines the rights of individuals. Something like DemocracyOS should be used to engage the population into ensuring that political actions are in fact constitutional and just.

<comment><USER12> I think what we really need is ConstitutionalRepublicOS which would be a bit more complicated. But by defining strong constitutional invariants with regard to individual rights perhaps we could pre-strikedown unconstitutional laws before they are enacted. That would require a more precise legal language that let's you run some kind of static analysis against against the laws however.

<comment><USER13> maybe we could think about a two-tier system were we delegate only decisions that should be taken our of the hands of majority and to the citizens the huge number of decisions that we can make that affect our every-day lives. I think the only way for citizens to be responsible for the decisions we make is by start making them. We've outsourced decision-making for a far too long time.

<comment><USER12> I do think some of the divisive issues that are taken up often end up cloaking other matters that should be focused upon. Perhaps with strong enough invariants and a pre enactment filter it would much harder to use divisive social issues politically. Maybe we could replace polls with votes on some things and have better recall mechanics too. I think a lot of the dysfunction is due to the fact we can and have passed radically unconstitutional laws in the past to great detriment to the entire population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, this platform allows policy to be decided by a "technorati"[1] class?

Are there individuals with low-income, little to no internet access, don't know what a blockchain or open source is, have hectic work schedules with the addition of raising a family participating on your platform?

From what I can tell this platform is giving more power to those who already have some sense of power. This platform does not alleviate the problem of those in society who do not have any power or say in political processes. It may even be argued this platform may contribute to the problem.

[1] Those who have the privilege, time, and monetary means of internet access, acquiring/have knowledge of internet technologies, and being a participant.

<comment><USER4> The only people that believe that internet access is only for the rich, is rich people.

We come from Argentina, a latinamerican country and we are very aware of the social challenges we face.

But it's not just a technological solution, we ALSO created a Political party that does a lot of offline activism helping society understand the power they have using digital technology.

The Net Party ran for elections in 2013 and got 1.2% of the votes in Buenos Aires, it was an incredible first election for a small party and that led to DemocracyOS being implemented officially by the Congress.

Thanks to that, a lot of bills got attention. For example: Nureses now have better working conditions thanks to the action taken on DemocracyOS for the Congress of Buenos Aires.

Read more about it here: [http://democracyos.org/about- us](http://democracyos.org/about-us)

<comment><USER14> "Its candidates are committed to always vote in Congress according to what citizens vote online."

You've built a system that requires privilege. And you're giving power only to those who have that privilege.

You didn't address the fact there are those who do not have that privilege. Helping people understand the power of digital technology is meaningless if there are those who do not even have the digital technology.

Are you going to buy them the digital technology? Are you going to pay for their internet access? How are you going to provide equal privilege?

EDIT: Who is your demographic?

<comment><USER15> _Are you going to buy them the digital technology? Are you going to pay for their internet access? How are you going to provide equal privilege?_

It may come as a shock to you, but poor people have cellphones and internet, too.

<comment><USER14> And the ones who don't?

<comment><USER15> The current world population is 7 billion people.

Approximately 1 billion smartphones are sold every year.

Do the math.

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

[2] [http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2665715](http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2665715)

<comment><USER16> Because nobody buys more than one phone ever. Those two numbers have no impact on each other.

<comment><USER15> What do you think happens to all the old phones of the people who buy new phones?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What about the monitoring and modification of online communities by the GCHQ? This doesn't even look resistant to that.

Also, what about traditional ballot stuffing? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100#Hacking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_100#Hacking) anyone?

I could only trust this if there were attached a mathematical proof of its usability. Otherwise, I kind of doubt it's worth anyone's time.

<comment><USER13> We are working to validate democracyOS votes with the blockchain. Happy to listen to any other suggestions

<comment><USER18> Please check out: [https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2014/08/30/every-vote- count...](https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/security/2014/08/30/every-vote-counts- ensuring-integrity-in-large-scale-electronic-voting/)

This is a paper describing an end-to-end verifiable self-enforcing electronic voting system called DRE-i (Direct Recording Electronic with Integrity).

In my opinion this is a superior solution to any other electronic voting system developed to date.

<comment><USER13> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think this is great - it's an attempted solution to an important, difficult problem, and they've got a number of interesting angles. In particular I think the branching of proposals, and hopefully being able to diff / blame, could be as important, or more important, than trusted voting.

I look forward to seeing more of the implementation. Congrats on the launch, and thanks for working on a difficult problem that we all need to see solved.

<comment><USER13> Thank you! Totally agree with the branching aspect and yesterday we were playing with some ideas to order debate in pros&cons. Also, we are looking for funding to form a blockchain team, to validate democracyos votes in bc. All ideas are super welcome! firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a Brazilian, I find this initiative to be extremely important.

However, I've recently seen 'democratic' videos urging for a military dictatorship. Millions of Facebook users shared the message and ~1M people protested last sunday, while trying to kick out our president.

So I wonder if, contradictorily, some might exploit DemocracyOS to install anti-democratic regimes.

Is there a way to ensure such thing won't happen?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9vqx9oTQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HR9vqx9oTQ)

<comment><USER13> It's crazy what's happening in Brazil these days, as a close neighbour(Argentinean) it pains me to see such upheaval. To your point, we could set up a protocol that the SaaS version of DemocracyOS can only be used inside the limits of a constitution, but we have no control over the Open Source version. It's like twitter it's a platform for expressing oneself and it's content moderation is v. limited. It's all our responsibility to make the best possible use of the tools we create.

<comment><USER20> Spot on. I still believe the beauty of the project is that it's open-sourced, so our community of developers would be able to make wiser choices for the country.

Infinitely better than corrupted politicians.

<comment><USER13> For sure! Being Open Source it's fundamental to the spirit and vision of DemocracyOS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When this is successful, I don't understand how you will combat the capture of the platform form the traditional parties.

A traditional party can ask their supporters to vote for them in the elections, and then ask them to vote for the same laws in this platform. They don't ever need to discuss, or they can discuss and discuss and vote for the official party decision nevertheless. So the party gets double votes, unless the other parties also try to abuse the system. (If everybody abuse the system, the biggest party get double votes.)

In the comments sections of the newspapers is very usual to see very politized users and real or alleged accusations of astroturfing, shills, suckpupets, meatpupets, 50-cents-army, choriplaneros, ...

<comment><USER8> Super-valid concern. The truth is that very-politically-involved people aren't that big a percentage of the overall population (at least from the numbers I've seen - usually around 10%). So we're trying to find ways of making it easy for that other 90% to engage in civic participation. If we get to nail that, then even any 'arranged' participation would not account for a significant part of the votes for a given issue.

Also, from our experience with DemocracyOS, users actually participate in stuff they actually care about, and not equally on _every_ sort of issue. So it's interesting to see how larger userbases would unfold with apps like DemocracyOS or similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Very questionable people behind it (close second hand). All hype and self promotion. Zero experience. Shunned often in most online forums in Argentina, save TedX. I really don't get how YC decided to back this project.

</comment><comment><USER4> Hi guys, I'm one of the founders. Glad to answer all your questions.

<comment><USER23> Why did you choose to implement Yet Another Blockchain Solution?

Assuming 3-letter agencies haven't already broken it, they will sooner or later, and now all your users will be susceptible to having their votes manipulated at the whim of US intelligence.

<comment><USER4> Im still waiting for proof on this claims. Regardless, the blockchain is still a protocol lacking good applications and products. But its fundamentals described in Satoshis papers + the traction it got, speak for themselves. It's a technology with growth. Show me another one like it, and I'll be glad to study it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe I'm slow, but I've seen this a couple times now and went to the website, read the "about" section and I still don't understand what this is or what problem it's solving. I think OS in the name lead me to immediately assume it was another operating system. So considering I thought it was a new operating system, the more I read the more underwhelmed I am. Good luck on the project, but IMO you've not named it appropriately nor described how it uniquely solves any problem. Sorry if that sounds harsh, just giving honest feedback.

</comment><comment><USER4> Guys, if you want to play with a secret version of DemocracyOS (the SaaS implementation), help us here: [http://hub.democracyos.com](http://hub.democracyos.com)

</comment><comment><USER25> This is very inspiring stuff and very exciting that YC is backing it! A key thing that Pia said in her TED talk: technology is only a tool here, cultural change and reinvention is necessary. I haven't had a chance to play with DemocracyOS yet, but the focus does somewhat seem to be on "direct democracy" (as opposed to "representative"), and as others have pointed out, that's fraught with problems.

But I hope and believe this is just a first, experimental step. And I hope that next steps will be informed by the rich tradition of experimentation in "participatory, deliberative democracy". This includes things like citizen assemblies, citizen juries, participatory budgeting, wisdom councils, etc. What these approaches have in common is a blending of citizen participation with informed deliberation, often including a random sampling (of citizens).

As two superb examples of this, I would point to the Citizen's Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia, Canada, 2004) and the Dialogue with the City (Perth, Australia, 2003). Some really useful books: Tao of Democracy (Tom Atlee), Deliberative Democracy Handbook (Gastil & Levine), Deliberative Democracy in America (Ethan Leib).

<comment><USER13> We met Tom Atlee lately, he is fantastic. His insights on how to move forward, the importance of diversity in the process, where super sharp. I would add to the list, When People Speak by Fishkin and check Marina Gorbis' book on The Nature of the Future, specially the chapter on the future of government. Her proposal of a new large, agora of randomly chosen citizens is super interesting and challenging.

<comment><USER25> Glad to hear you met Tom! He's our secret national treasure. It's awesome to hear that you are already plugged in to this area of thinking. Thanks for the Gorbis reference, sounds similar to Ethan Leib's proposal for a fourth branch of federal gov't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I like the sentiment _very much_ and I think the demo platform looks like a solid foundation. Not crazy, like others, about the "OS".

That said, I think that, as far as revolutionizing elections/politics in any important sense, something far more drastic than this will be required. Finding new ways to debate hot political questions of the day, as a function of what is coming out of the news (any news outlet), is missing the point.

There is a lack of disengagement with politics, and moreover, it is absolutely justified. The manner in which most of the discussions are conducted are nonsensical. There is an abject lack of nuance and thoughtfulness. Discussions are necessarily vague and always conducted with superlative certainty.

Here is a fact: there is not enough information on this page[1] to form a reasoned opinion about the Bank on Student Loan Fairness Act. There probably isn't enough information on 20 pages. Yet that is the script. Learn about a complex issue in 60 seconds, and then decide where you come down on it. It's patent nonsense.

If there is to be a revolution, it will need to deal with the reality that there is a facade between the machinations of governments and corporations and the people, and that facade is the news. The news is our window into vast, vast complexity and the basis for making choices that supposedly affect our local quality of life all the way up to the direction of history. So long as the important decisions are organized in this top-down hierarchy of power, a website isn't going to change much.

No, the most promising ideas about upending hierarchies try to actually redistribute the power from the top. Imagine a politician running for office in the context of some website like this, who, through some formal, public process, granted certain levels of access to online advocates, in the event of a win. For example, someone able to marshal something in the order of 10 votes would be promised one lunch in the first 2 years.

The details are less important than the inversion of power hierarchies that new technologies enable. Until that can be practically harnessed, approaching electoral matters along conventional axes is unlikely to get much traction.

[1][http://demo.democracyos.org/law/54766690be6cbe0c0023e08f](http://demo.democracyos.org/law/54766690be6cbe0c0023e08f)

<comment><USER4> Very insightful, there's no doubt we have a lot of work to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This looks like Liquid Feedback[1] done right.

Liquid Feedback was a "liquid democracy" platform developed by the german pirate party. Both the software and the party are now largely dissolved; ironically killed by their over-zealous interpretation of democracy, which resulted in a lack of direction and rabid dilettantism.

[1] [http://liquidfeedback.org](http://liquidfeedback.org)

<comment><USER4> Yep, you got it. We actually started contacting them, but they were already doing private consulting + all the source code of LF is in german, impossible to understand. And the UX, well, it wasn't very usable.

But it was a great initiative that we researched 3 years ago when we began.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've seen a few of these now over the years, and I've come to believe a successful implementation should combine argument mapping, consensus building, and a trust network. Just framing an issue and having a comments section isn't enough; that form is ubiquitous across the Internet yet hasn't proven a viable way on its own to actually make decisions.

<comment><USER13> I agree, we have a long roadmap ahead and all your points should be in it. If you wish to contribute, by all means github.com/democracyos. It's an open source project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If people scrape together a few votes and do not get their wishes rammed through, they will complain exactly like they complained about the White House petition site - because it was not a direct way of getting in legislation to (say) legalize marijuana. I don't see how DemocracyOS can solve that problem.

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord The idea of "open source governance" is hardly new. I'd imagine such a system in the form of a web app would be swamped with irrelevant queries. Assuming an idealistic direct democracy where citizens draft new laws or modify existing ones, the feedback loop of constantly changing legal information to its application would be overwhelming. On the flip side, too much unaddressed issues and slow or wasteful processes would create apathy.

Personally I always thought the most attractive model for such an endeavor is to store laws in a markup format, and go through the old school route of mailing lists and patches. You'd be making use of highly tested infrastructure and actually require for participants to put a little effort in learning.

<comment><USER29> Well, this has the fun distinction of actually being functioning code in active use. I'm pretty happy to see some "open source governance" that isn't just talk. I'm only aware of one another project that has crossed that line.

<comment><USER30> I'm actually pitching a similar idea to a major corporation.

Here is a reading list if you are interested in the subject. There have been (at least) four conferences on the subject of online deliberation.

[https://www.loomio.org/](https://www.loomio.org/)

[http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELibe...](http://wikis.evergreen.edu/civicintelligence/index.php/ELiberate)

[http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Ch...](http://odbook.stanford.edu/static/filedocument/2009/11/15/Chapter_26._Schuler.pdf)

[http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/](http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ncn/)

[http://online-deliberation.net/](http://online-deliberation.net/)

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

[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=134286...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1342861&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D1342861)

[http://www.virtualagora.org/](http://www.virtualagora.org/)

[http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf- paper.pdf](http://parliament.sourceforge.net/ftf-paper.pdf) Parliament: A Module for Parliamentary Procedure Software

[http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf](http://www.cs.uu.nl/groups/IS/archive/henry/RobertReport.pdf) Prakken, Henry. 1998. Formalizing robert's rules of order: An experiment in automating mediation of group decision making. Tech. Rep. REP-FIT-1998-12, GMD.

<comment><USER29> Huh. I was briefly exposed to CSCW in college, but somehow I never made the leap to its relevance to modern democratic procedure. Very neat. Thank you for the list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I love that it's not about goverments but governance. Open Source projects can use this. Apartment buildings.

Obviously getting modern tools to shitty politicians is always going to be the focus with things like DemocracyOS, but I'm really excited to see this for deciding stuff on the small communities I'm a part of.

The one weird thing is that they're non-profit, open source. I hope they survive on that model. Is it only donations?

<comment><USER4> We believe that you cannot put a price tag on the right to participate. So the nonprofit is a fundamental first step in our mission.

We want to figure a self-sustainable model, donations can only get you that far. The task ahead of us is a big one: we want to build governance for the internet society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. -- Oscar Wilde

</comment><comment><USER33> At first glance I find it very similar to the idea of Liquid Democracy of the Pirate Parties. Is there any significant difference? Days ago at HN, I heard that such systems failed greatly due to endless quarrels and external mistrust.

</comment><comment><USER5> How will this assist with those not readily capable of engaging with technology? Or perhaps I'm not fully understanding all of it.

</comment><comment><USER34> There's some information, you need to know. In Argentina, people has no representation. You don't vote for a "district representative" as in the USA. Here people vote on a "party-list" called here "lista sabana" ([http://babeldigital.com.ar/data/img_cont/img_imagenes/img_gr...](http://babeldigital.com.ar/data/img_cont/img_imagenes/img_gr/665_imagen_unica.jpg))

The "lista sabana" is a large list of party-candidates (in 6pt font) headed by the "leader" or "caudillo" name (in 62pt font).

If the "caudillo" has a 40% approval rate, the first 40% of people on the 6pt- font list WILL enter the congress, so the firsts spots on the lists are literally SOLD beforehand, based on the "leader" popularity index. The spots can also be exchanged for "popular support" with labor union leaders (to herd people into political rallies).

So, here the "congressman" have no direct relation to the voters, they've only a direct dependency on the "leader". They do as they're told or else they will not be included in the list on the next elections.

 _There is no such thing as "constituents" in this system._

That's a reason why DemocracyOS and the "Net Party" are viable here. _When representation is completely broken, direct-democracy sounds good_.

Here's a quote from a document on Paraguayan system (the same system):

"But what if the elected representatives of the legislature were not voted in directly by the people? Would that discredit the authority of the legislative branch? The actual voting method in Paraguayan politics for a legislator to enter government is to lobby for their name to enter a "lista sabana," a list of names on a sheet that represents the party candidates. The people then vote for that party list, rather than for the individual. Party leaders can then decide which positions to give to the party faithful. In this way the political class can make deals, play at back room politics to add their name to the list, exchange favors with voters and backers, and conduct business behind closed doors. The Congress can then vote to apportion more funds from the Treasury to fund their election campaigns, increase their salaries and benefits, and buy their votes with political largesse. The system reinforces the worst excesses of political cronyism, including links to crony capitalism. Ultimately it erodes the social trust between the governed and the governors and creates inefficiencies in a country's economics. Attempts have been made to remove, or "unblock," the "lista sabana" by allowing voters to choose individual candidates to the legislature, but so far these attempts have failed."

</comment><comment><USER35> I wish people in Pakistan used this. it would really help that country.

<comment><USER4> try starting a democracy here: [http://hub.democracyos.com](http://hub.democracyos.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> "We support real browsers and IE10+" \-- [https://github.com/democracyos/app#browser- support](https://github.com/democracyos/app#browser-support)

I chuckled.

</comment><comment><USER37> Love the direction this is going. Dreamt about such a system in the past as well. Looking forward to a mobile first experience which enables me to weigh- in on (local) issues in real-time.

<comment><USER13> hi! some pilot live implementations with council-members in the US: marfarrell.democracyos.org (SF) benkallos.democracyos.org (NYC). Would love to know your thoughts. email@example.com

<comment><USER8> typo :)

it's markfarrell.democracyos.org

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Bitcoin is the real democracy of the internet era.

</comment><comment><USER39> The technical quality of the project has been so far debatable[1][2].

The Partido de la Red results seem to reveal a problem that is obvious at first sight: the underrepresentation of those who need representation the most[3].

I have doubts about whether direct democracy is a good idea, at all[4]. Summarizing, dividing the burden of decision making is inefficient for the population at large, and it does not guarantee better results.

People behind this project admit that this does not fully solve the problem it is attempting to solve[5].

Even if I could ignore the previous statement (which of course I can't), I wonder if the advantages of moving from an indirect democracy to a direct democracy are enough to even try to solve the problems. I think the cost of switching is high, and I cannot see any benefit.

In USA the main problem with democracy is the lack of interest of population in government elections. Does micromanaging decisions make this problem better or worse? The question is valid. It could be better if the feeling is that no matter who wins nobody will represent the voter; it could be worse if people do not care about the decisions that have to be make. There are other possible options, of course, but I don't really know if this solves problems or makes it worse.

I wonder how selection bias would affect decision making. People will mostly vote on subjects they feel passionate about, and ignore the others. Which will probably lead to what programmers know as bikeshedding[6].

Now I would like to highlight the positive of thinking about this problems and attempting a solution. Also following up Congress's debates and actions is something that should happen more often, for example Congressional Dish[7] attempts to do so.

[1] (Spanish) [https://medium.com/@alejandrocrosa/votarias-a-un-partido- que...](https://medium.com/@alejandrocrosa/votarias-a-un-partido-que-te- garantiza-fraude-d412f1a6992c)

[2] [https://twitter.com/dhh/status/576422593244299264](https://twitter.com/dhh/status/576422593244299264)

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9245536)

[4] (Spanish) [https://catdevmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/democracia- direc...](https://catdevmind.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/democracia-directa/)

[5] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9244628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9244628)

[6] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Trivialit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality)

[7] [http://www.congressionaldish.com/](http://www.congressionaldish.com/)

<comment><USER4> It's not "direct democracy". It's just democracy. If you trace back the term used by the Greeks, they called both the technology and the concept agora. Etymologically, agora means "speaking in public", "thinking with others" and in many verses it's used as antonym of war.

Democracy is always a work in progress. Otherwise it would be a totalitarian concept.

So what we are trying to understand is simply democracy but for the digital age. Using computers and networks, and the power of software. Open source, collaborative free software.

<comment><USER39> > It's not "direct democracy". It's just democracy.

Uh? I think we are in a Representative Democracy[1] and what DemocracyOS proposes is a Direct Democracy[2]. It is not "just democracy" since both Representative and Direct democracies are forms of democracy.

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

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

<comment><USER4> You're to tied to theory, I'm talking from an abstraction: democracy as a force in society unleashed when no single ideology dominates a culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Votes? Really?

<comment><USER4> More than willing to figure out the ways of doing consensus. Yet any enforcement on the need to consent some perceive it as a dangerous dictatorial pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> FYI OS means Operating System not Voting System.

<comment><USER4> means both things :)

<comment><USER41> how so? o.O

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> this trend toward naming your pseudo-company "somethingOS" is getting really annoying.

<comment><USER43> that's true-- for these guys it actually makes sense though based on what they're doing IMO

<comment><USER44> Maybe I'm just missing it, but why? I associate OS only with operating systems, and these guys don't seem to be making an OS.

<comment><USER4> Open Source / Open Society / work too.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The terrorist inside my husband's brain (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://n.neurology.org/content/87/13/1308 <comment><USER2> I love the article, but hate how it personifies LBD as a "terrorist". I mean, a degenerative disease has no political goals. I don't even see anything about infectious agents, to which one could ascribe goals of some sort.

If one must personify, LBD is basically a traitor.

But whatever, I mean no disrespect. It's just that the usage detracts from the article. It should have been caught by an editor. And if it was introduced by an editor, that was a poor decision.

<comment><USER3> I think the way it is meant to be interpreted as is "inflicting terror", not necessarily in the strict political sense.

Basically it's sneaky, can hit anytime, you don't know how to find & target it, when it's going to attack, where it's going to come from, and what suffering it's going to cause (but you know it's going to be bad). It seems to me the metaphor is quite apt.

Personally, I didn't feel like the usage detracted from the article at all.

I'm not sure why it causes such a strong feeling of "hate". Mild disappointment perhaps, but hate?

<comment><USER2> Upon reflection, it annoys me so much because the label "terrorist" has become so misused in propaganda. Friends are "freedom fighters" and enemies are "terrorists". Regardless of the actual merits of their cases. I'm just very tired of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Note: this article is about the actor [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams)

<comment><USER5> A great story about a guy's 2008 interaction with Robin Williams:

[https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-randomly-meet-a- cel...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-randomly-meet-a- celebrity/answer/Dallas-Adams-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm glad she told the story. When William's death was in the news, everyone was talking about "depression." This really wasn't the full story behind his death.

<comment><USER7> Williams also abused cocaine in the 70s and 80s. And there is some evidence that cocaine abuse is linked to Parkinson's type disease.

[http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/23/7/2564.full.pdf](http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/23/7/2564.full.pdf)

<comment><USER8> LBD/Alzheimer's is not "Parkinson's type".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is so painfully true.

My mum's partner has LBD. It's still considered obscure: the diagnosis only came after she pushed and pushed. But it's insidious - the inevitable, relentless breakdown of a human being. Two years ago he was a bright, independent man, with an active social life, a dozen interests and a retirement to look forward to. Now he can't sit down in a chair without missing and she can't leave him alone for more than a couple of hours.

</comment><comment><USER10> What a harrowing experience for everyone involved. Coupled with financial difficulties, this could be the worst nightmare imaginable.

</comment><comment><USER11> For something that affects 1 in 6 people it seems surprising that it was missed during 2 years of diagnoses.

<comment><USER12> The 1-in-6 figure I believe is for brain disease in general. 1.5 Million out of ~300 million is a much rarer case.

> As you may know, almost 1.5 million nationwide are suffering similarly right > now.

> He just happened to be that 1 in 6 who is affected by brain disease.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Previous discussion [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12619622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12619622)

(Don't know how to mark as dupe)(Or more probably haven't got enough karma)

<comment><USER14> Hacker News has its own algorithm to detect dupes, but it only does that for 1 or 2 days (Sorry I don't know the specifics). However it means that there is nothing to mark.

Having said that, it is fine to repost a particular topic. What has been read by people in 2016, might still be interesting to read about in 2018 too, there might be people who didn't notice it in 2016 or people who didn't even visit the site in 2016.

The time interval doesn't even have to be that long.</comment></comment>


Cttrie – Compile-time trie-based string matching for C++ - <AUTHOR> https://smilingthax.github.io/slides/cttrie/ <comment><USER2> Why not just hash the string using constexpr ?

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==

C preprocessor based compile time hash from lolengine:

[http://lolengine.net/blog/2011/12/20/cpp-constant-string- has...](http://lolengine.net/blog/2011/12/20/cpp-constant-string-hash)

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==

#define H1(s,i,x)(x _65599u+(uint8_t)s[(i) <strlen(s)?strlen(s)-1-(i):strlen(s)])

#define H4(s,i,x) H1(s,i,H1(s,i+1,H1(s,i+2,H1(s,i+3,x))))

#define H16(s,i,x) H4(s,i,H4(s,i+4,H4(s,i+8,H4(s,i+12,x))))

#define H64(s,i,x) H16(s,i,H16(s,i+16,H16(s,i+32,H16(s,i+48,x))))

#define H256(s,i,x) H64(s,i,H64(s,i+64,H64(s,i+128,H64(s,i+192,x))))

#define HASH(s) ((uint32_t)(H256(s,0,0)^(H256(s,0,0)>>16)))

template<size_t N> constexpr uint32_t h(char const (&s)[N]) { return HASH(s); }

constexpr uint32_t h(const char_ s) { return HASH(s); }

uint32_t h(const std::string& s) { return h(s.c_str()); }

int main(int argc, const char __argv) {

        auto s = "keep";
        std::string x = "simple";

        switch(h(x))
        {
            case h("keep")  : std::cout << "keep"; break;
            case h("it")    : std::cout << "it"; break;
            case h("simple"): std::cout << "simple"; break;

        };

<comment> ur-whale The hash has to look at all the chars in the string.

Does the trie have to as well?

<comment><USER3> The string compare has a lot of branching and looks at both strings. The hash method one checks the hash of the test string(size_t) with the size_t of the other string. The hash itself, say fnv1a, can be very quick(a xor and a multiply I think per character) I think I remember testing this and it was quicker. ill try to find the test, but it is easily done. Either way, it's the only way to use a switch statement this way

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're OK with textual code generation, you can also use something like re2c:

[http://re2c.org/](http://re2c.org/)

And then you get the power of regexes too. re2c will match an arbitrary set of regexes (including constant strings) by walking through the string byte-by- byte, a single time.

A trie is basically a special case of a DFA.

<comment><USER5> "A trie is basically a special case of a DFA." The best definition of trie I read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like this trick that I use in C. It's limited, as it only matches string prefixes, but it works pretty well in the end: [https://tia.mat.br/posts/2018/02/01/more_on_string_switch_in...](https://tia.mat.br/posts/2018/02/01/more_on_string_switch_in_c.html)

It allows you to write something like this: [https://github.com/lpereira/lwan/blob/master/src/lib/lwan- ti...](https://github.com/lpereira/lwan/blob/master/src/lib/lwan-time.c) \-- which is generated as a binary search by GCC.

<comment><USER7> Something we've used before is preprocessor string hashing similar to [1]. Basically we hash strings at compile time to ints and use those for our case statements. Word of caution though, there's the possibility of collisions. It works great on a limited set of strings like XML tags and such.

1\. [http://lolengine.net/blog/2011/12/20/cpp-constant-string- has...](http://lolengine.net/blog/2011/12/20/cpp-constant-string-hash)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another approach not mentioned: LLVM's StringSwitch [1]. Unfortunately it's not designed to be used independent of LLVM, so it has a dependency or two. Also note that it's a slightly different use case (can only return different values, is not used for flow control).

[1] [https://github.com/llvm- mirror/llvm/blob/master/include/llvm...](https://github.com/llvm- mirror/llvm/blob/master/include/llvm/ADT/StringSwitch.h#L23-L41)

<comment><USER9> It is mentioned right near the end of the slides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Although I understand people want to do some crazy stuff with template metaprogramming, I'm more concerned with how it will affect build times (you're basically running a tree-walk interpreter in a compiler that was not supposed to run a turing complete language... it's going to be very slow.)

For more practical reasons, what about just using runtime interned strings? Each unique string is hashed and allocated in heap memory only once, and to compare the strings you just compare the hashed values (which is just uint_64 comparison). Then you can easily use switch statements to compare your strings... As for performance, interning has an initial runtime cost for each string, but it will probably be miniscule compared to the massive compile time cost induced by crazy constexpr stuff.

Example of a string interning library:

[https://github.com/mattiasgustavsson/libs/blob/master/docs/s...](https://github.com/mattiasgustavsson/libs/blob/master/docs/strpool.md)

</comment><comment><USER11> If I recall correctly, [https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/libs/spirit/doc/html/i...](https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_68_0/libs/spirit/doc/html/index.html) uses trie's for it's compile time recursive descent parser for writing grammars and lexical analyzers.

</comment><comment><USER12> This only an issue if you want to have many hardcoded strings in a switch. If you want that, there is a probably a better way to organize the code.

<comment><USER13> I'd assume that in most cases where this comes up, you're not exactly in a position to not use those strings, e.g. because they're defined in an input format you're processing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interesting. The way I would have thought of doing something like this is by laying out each "switch" case sequentially in memory, then having the "SWITCH(string)" macro expand out to something that compute the offset necessary, using a similar pre-computed trie, and jump to that offset. That way fallthrough should work as expected.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here is my response to this: [https://andrewkelley.me/post/string-matching- comptime-perfec...](https://andrewkelley.me/post/string-matching-comptime- perfect-hashing-zig.html)</comment>


React: Lifting state up is killing your app - <AUTHOR> https://itnext.io/react-lifting-state-up-is-killing-your-app-3ad6f0e1213d <comment><USER2> There's a related discussion on Reddit [https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/dhck3y/react_lifti...](https://www.reddit.com/r/reactjs/comments/dhck3y/react_lifting_state_up_is_killing_your_app/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it a duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21246628) ?

<comment><USER4> Seems like it. Thought HN prevents that.</comment></comment>


Show HN: PyPI package information tooltips in requirements – VS Code extension - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Twixes/pypi-assistant <comment><AUTHOR> Surprisingly, VS Code has such useful tooltips built-in for npm's `package.json` and completely lacks them (even with the official Python extension) for pip's `requirements.txt` (or `constraints.txt`). This extension fixes that oversight.</comment>


The Odds of Airborne Terror - <AUTHOR> http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terror.html <comment><USER2> It's important to remember that basically nothing has a zero probability and anything that's happened once has some likelihood of happening again---you can decrease the probability but you can't eliminate the possibility. At that point, it's a cost-benefit analysis problem (and a resource management problem). However, whether you're talking about air terrorism or health care or child education or anything else, it's often hard to convince a general population of this... and it often ends up seeming like you're trying to throw someone under the bus if you even try. _sigh_</comment>


Top 5 MongoDB gotchas - <AUTHOR> http://devblog.me/wtf-mongo

<comment><USER2> Just to clarify on positive/negative limits on a cursor: if the limit number is negative, then the database will return that number of results and close the cursor. No further results for that query can be fetched. If the limit is positive you can leave the cursor open to receive further results, hence the option for both. (see [http://stackoverflow.com/a/11995057/1148648](http://stackoverflow.com/a/11995057/1148648))

</comment><comment><USER3> So not only is performance abysmal, the query language has several non-obvious syntax problems. In retrospect, the idea of using JSON as a query language seems ill-advised and counter-intuitive.

I'm glad I am finally rid of MongoDB in my day-to-day job. I won't miss it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, those 5 are very specific corner cases. Most people will not face them in real life.

<comment><USER3> The array insert order syntax seems like something you'd encounter every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wouldn't the simpler, faster and more appropriate syntax be

if (N > 50 || N < 1) ??

<comment><USER5> No it wouldn't, because -30 is supposed to work the same as 30, so you want to convert the sign to positive first. Personally, I'd use something like:

        if (!N || Math.abs(N) > 50 ) {
            N = 50
        };</comment></comment>


Why code? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-coding/b108eee5aeee

<comment><USER2> Yeah! I'm totally with you - I made a lot of these same points in my TEDx talk last year: [http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/You-Should-Learn-to- Program-C...](http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/You-Should-Learn-to-Program-Chr)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. If I had watched this video before writing my post, I would have added some really interesting points. Great talk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > Everyone should study code , for the same reason we should study > mathematics, chemistry, economics, philosophy and ethics, local and world > history.

I lost you here. EVERYONE?

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not?

<comment><USER3> I think its better if everyone does what they are supposed to do. I cannot imagine how learning to code will help sales and marketing people to solve problems of the world.

<comment><AUTHOR> But my point was not that everyone should start coding and leave whatever they are into.

Programming might simplify many of your tasks. Perhaps you're an Analyst in Finance or Consulting, who needs to deal with a whole bunch of spreadsheets - you could benefit a lot from being able to write a simple script to parse the data and process it into whatever you want instead of having to copy and paste a few hundred times. Or maybe, you're a teacher, who might benefit from moving some educational modules or visuals onto the web. Or perhaps, you're an engineer who might benefit from the ability to do some amount of numerical computing via computer programs.

Having a better understanding of code will definitely help.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Spark MacOS mail client 2.0 with team functionality - <AUTHOR> https://sparkmailapp.com/de/blog/introducing-spark-for-teams <comment><USER2> I love those new features. However, I'm not sure everyone will like the collaboration on email like envisioned by Spark developers, also not sure how many will be willing to pay for just that.

Calendar functionality are really buggy, hope they can fix it soon.</comment>


Merb Sprint has Begun - <AUTHOR> http://merbunity.com/news/43

<comment><AUTHOR> Show your support by reporting or killing some bugs:

<http://merb.lighthouseapp.com></comment>


Mozilla Joins Open Invention Network - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2010/09/21/mozilla-joins-open-invention-network/

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems more and more that the only real reason to engage in the patent game is mutually assured destruction or forcing somebody to come to the table and talk about licensing.</comment>


Smart Medieval Bookmarks - <AUTHOR> http://medievalbooks.nl/2014/09/22/smart-medieval-bookmarks/

<comment><USER2> PDFs have no bookmarks.</comment>


Replacing Social Security Numbers Is Harder Than You Think - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pakwnb/replacing-social-security-numbers-is-harder-than-you-think <comment><USER2> > The problem underlying identity theft is not the existence of social > security numbers, but rather, how little authentication is done for a person > requesting credit.

> Why don't they do [stronger authentication] for credit card requests? At a > guess, it's because these stronger schemes are too inconvenient, and will > drive away consumers who are trying to apply for credit.

> If that guess is correct, it suggests that the real solution is regulatory: > make credit providers liable for the full damages, including ongoing > inconvenience, suffered by victims of identity theft. SSNs are not the > problem; authentication commensurate with the risk to all parties, including > especially individuals, is.

Doesn't sound that hard to me...

<comment><USER2> I want to clarify that it doesn't sound like a hard _technical_ problem. Bending the will of our politicians is much harder than it should be, unless you have a lot of money.

<comment><USER3> What kind of money are we talking?

<comment><USER4> According to OpenSecrets[0] (MPAA PAC), it's $100k - $200k, or about $1k - $5k per politician. That's actually a lot less than I expected

[0]: [https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00139519](https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00139519)

<comment> keithb- This latest article about Detroit developers seems to support that [0]. A meager $300K dished out to politicians opened up the possibility of $700M-$1B _plus_ the developers of these buildings can collect income tax from businesses and folks who occupy them for the next 20 years.

What's the now?!

[0] [https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/how-dan-gilbert-just- scor...](https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/how-dan-gilbert-just-scored-up- to-1-billion-in-taxpayer-money-and-few-noticed/Content?oid=5981552)

<comment><USER5> It's a bit more subtle than that, in the same way that the cost of an ad is larger than the cost to place that ad somewhere. But on steroids.

If you just show up and dump $300k on some politicians laps, the effect isn't likely to be particularly overwhelming. You need to cultivate relationships, wait for a good moment (when the money is disproportionately valuable to said politician), at least sell the perception that you're able and willing to dish up more in the future, etc.

So the actual cost is a lot higher than the amount the politician actually receives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The equivalent of a social security number is used here in Norway (fødselsnummer) as my ID for all sorts of things. I use it when I log in to my bank, when I apply for a loan or credit card, when log in to the state run tax web site, when I apply for my pension, if I am admitted to hospital I will have a bracelet with my full name,and this number both as plain text and as a bar code.

It's hardly a secret yet identity theft is not a major problem here.

<comment><USER7> It is used as the "username" for all those things, not as the "password". That's the major difference.

To login to secure services like all government services, our banks, our digital post box etc we mostly use BankID.

With BankID you enter your SSN, your personal password and a code from your 2FA key fob/phone app. [https://www.bankid.no/en/](https://www.bankid.no/en/)

<comment><USER8> So what's stopping anyone from downloading the phone app and getting your BankID and 2FA code? Is there a verification process to be able to use the app?

<comment><USER9> There is a verification process: Only institutions capable of doing proper KYC can hand out BankIDs.

<comment><USER6> For those, like me, who don't know what KYC is: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer).

I wonder if I or, more likely, someone else could write a GreaseMonkey script that would turn all these obscure abbreviations into explanatory tooltips.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> More examples of other countries (and their solutions, not particulrly hard) in this thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15210634](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15210634)

The "secrecy" of the SSN is seemingly an US only problem, that all the rest of the word has already solved, one way or the other, so, no it it is not "harder than you think", it is "not hard at all" ...

</comment><comment><USER11> Banks and other issuers of credit just need to have high penalties for libeling people when then give false information to credit bureaus. $5,000 for a wrongly reported debt might make the banks more cautious about libeling people when fraudsters steal money from them by impersonating someone else.

<comment><USER12> If I was a bank opposed to this plan here is how I would kill it. I'd say (well, I'd pay people with bullhorns and signs to say) the new requirements for 'wrongly reported debt' require banks to have greater ID requirements, greater ID requirements have been linked to less minority representation thus that plan is a racist plot.

It would be dead in the water before you could draft the bill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems to me like SSN is missing an open free (as in paid for by taxes) 2FA service.

When I obtain a drivers license or passport (or some other process to confirm my identity at a government facility) that I should be able specify my 2FA medium (email address or phone number [text or call]).

Any organization that wants to prevent identity theft should be able to do a 2FA challenge. As an individual I would receive a phone call or text or email "Acme Co. is processing a request to open up a new line of credit under your SSN. Did you initiate this action?"

There should then be regulatory requirements on banks, insurance, etc that require 2FA confirmations before associating an SSN to your account.

</comment><comment><USER14> Somebody should warn all the countries that don't have them or an equivalent

</comment><comment><USER15> Ten years ago, maybe. Today though, most people have devices that are both portable and computationally powerful. This has the potential to finally make secure keys that are actually convenient to use.

<comment><USER16> How do you authenticate yourself when you need to rekey the app?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if public-key crypto enabled ID-cards for example would be a good idea to solve this problem.

<comment><USER18> So... national ids? Not a politically popular option.

<comment><USER19> Aren't we treating SSN cards like national IDs already? What make national ids not popular politically?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It'd be really hard to change SSNs as database keys. But we could stop using knowledge of SSNs as authorization. Make a public database, put all the SSNs on it, and associate each with a public key.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's only hard because PHBs (and Vice reporters, apparently) are willfully ignorant of public key cryptography.

<comment><USER22> The author acknowledged the existence of cryptographic solutions, but points out that what they lack is the ability to be memorized.

<comment><USER21> Anything that can be memorized can be trivially compromised. There's nothing special about an SSN in this regard. It's the _protocol_ that's broken. To prove you know the secret you have to reveal the secret. PKE is the only solution to this problem that works remotely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are two inherent problems with SSNs:

1) No check digits--every number is valid. Adding a couple of extra digits would help tremendously

2) No ability to retire/change the number--this is the big one. Once the criminals get your SSN--game over. You can't change it and shut the old one down. If you simply changed this, a lot of the issues with SSNs would _go away_.

Then there are the usage issues:

SSNs have two tasks which need to be separated:

1) Identification for "blocking" or "association" tasks. SSNs are fine for identity on a blocking task--ie. trying to shut something down, taxation identification, etc.

2) Identification for "allowing" tasks. SSNs are _BAD_ for allowing tasks--new credit card, new bank account, etc. These kinds of tasks should always require SSN _plus_ something else. This is where the primary failure modes are.

<comment><USER24> > _No ability to retire /change the number_

You can change your SSN in certain situations [1].

[1] [https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/article/3789/can...](https://faq.ssa.gov/link/portal/34011/34019/article/3789/can- i-change-my-social-security-number)

<comment><USER25> Well, even that has its problems. Consider the case of Rachel Yould [1], who obtained a second SSN with her married name claiming abuse and stalking from her father. She was convicted of falsely using the second SSN and name as an originator and cosigner for hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans in both her married and maiden names under false pretenses.

[1] [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/the-scholar- je...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/10/04/the-scholar-jeffrey- toobin)

<comment><USER5> That's a rather special case; the nature of the HALE program means that you can't allow someone to ask "do SSNs X and Y belong to the same natural person?". Whereas such a question would be entirely reasonable for the SS issuing authority to answer under more normal circumstances.

(as for whether this case was actually a case of fraud, well, "the heart of Yould's defense was that she thought she was allowed, under the hale program, to use the new Social Security number to apply for the loans above the lifetime cap and to use one name as a co-signer for loans to the other" pretty much sums it up for me... who would think that?!)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Troy Davis execution goes ahead despite serious doubts about his guilt - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/22/troy-davis-execution-last-words

<comment><USER2> _It was Davis's fourth execution date, and it was dragged out, for more than four hours, to what must have been tortuous effect for the prisoner and his family._

Capital punishment is probably a relic that we no longer need and should be trying to outgrow, but this system that allows these constant, dramatic, last minute stays of execution is barbaric. Far worse than just being sentenced to death and killed. I'd wager that the founding fathers would find this cruel and unusual and be appalled.

</comment><comment><USER3> That is horrific.

Related article: "Troy Davis: 10 reasons why he should not be executed" [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/21/troy- davis-10-re...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/21/troy- davis-10-reasons?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487)

America is a crazy place.

</comment><comment><USER4> I can't believe they executed this guy based on circumstantial evidence only. The system is so fucked.</comment>


GitHub Integration - <AUTHOR> http://blog.leanpub.com/2014/04/github-integration.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, this evaporates my main annoyance with using Leanpub. It's a far more attractive option to me now...

</comment><comment><USER3> Nit:

s/wass/was/

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it's fixed now.</comment></comment>


Why Your Mobile Service Sucks, and Will Continue to Suck - <AUTHOR> http://bernalwood.wordpress.com/2010/12/08/why-your-mobile-phone-service-will-continue-to-suck-blame-nimby-neighbors-and-your-san-francisco-supervisors/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but specific to San Francisco.</comment>


TPP analysis - <AUTHOR> http://keionline.org/node/2108

<comment><USER2> CORPORATE TPP's, CETA's, et al, "SECRET" VULNERABILITIES. Which NON Shareholders WILL QUALIFY FOR EXEMPTIONS?

Please SHARE the info & questions below re; C-CIT, CETA, TPP CORP.'s "secret" vulnerabilities with your associates/ friends, particularly those in other EU countries, but, especially, Spain, Ireland & Greece, who will SHARE it with 10 other people, etc.

I agree with you about the dire effects upon "workers' rights, consumer protections and environmental standards", but, I ADAMANTLY DISAGREE with your non economic comment that....

"We can rebut all these pro-TTIP arguments but time is running out" regarding the pro treaty politicians who are under their influence of corporate lobbyists with the promises of future considerations, et al, & their statement

"That jobs will be created, wages will rise, and living standards will improve". DUMB comments like these will continue to "just" give away OUR "farm".

From an economics point of view these comments ARE part of the BIG LIE ("Buyer/Voter Beware").There is a truism in economics that the voters do not seem to understand, &/or, just don't care about & that is; unless the wages of the employed & unemployed, who may not be enjoying the same extra benefits as "our" corporate leaders, are pegged to the GROSS incomes (ie, before they write off "the cost of getting out of bed, etc.") of the corporate leaders, the wage earners continues to fall behind.

It is this writer's observation that, not only is this disparity between;

1) the SHAREHOLDERS & their corporate leaders

and

2) the wage earners (ie. the NON shareholders),

increasing, it has recently started to accelerate to the point where wage earners are feeling the collective "whip lash" & the encroachment of poverty, but, the CETAgreement & the other treaties/ "arrangements" are grossly & delinberately exacerbating the aforementioned acceleration of the disparity with the corporate secret enterprises, doing secret international financial transactions (The Wall Street Meltdown was just a small probe before the "invasion") & being adjudicated "guilty 51% - 49%, or, VERY guilty 49% - 51%" against the NON shareholders ONLY (ie. The "Net Amount") by the cyber (Death- Star Chamber) Tribunals for their cyber jurisdiction & in their cyber "country".

On the other hand, the reader, YOU, might consider doing your due diligence "research" & sending your IMPROVED versions of the following Notifications, Letters & Questions to YOUR relevant leaders, friends, family members, associates,et al. 1) EU Presidents; You've Been Served with "The NOTIFICATION of The PREEXISTING CHALLENGE toThe EU - Canada CETAgreement" (see; davidehsmith.wordpress.com "Response to EU Presidents' Acknowledgement of (the aforementioned) 'NOTIFICATION' ",

2) "The MERKEL (Chanc. Germ.) Letter; To Sue, or, Be Sued",

3) "The Submission" to The SUPREME COURT of CANADA (or, YOUR Submission to YOUR Nations Highest Court):

"The SHAREHOLDERS ( & their corporate leaders) of CANADA, et al, v the harmless NON shareholders, both; Native & non Native Canadians, et al",

4) "PUTIN; The WHITE KNIGHT?"

5) "YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN"; President George Bush reneging on the FTAgreement "with" Canada

6) "But, Will CHINA & INDIA Support 'PUTIN (BRICS); The WHITE KNIGHT' "?

&

7) et al.

Finally, it IS worth while to repeat;

"What the TREATY of VERSAILLES was to the 20th century PALES in COMPARISON to the TPP, CETA, C-CIT, NAFTA, et al, in the 21st". And, if you do not know about the Treaty of Versailles, &/or, its significance in turning Europe, et al, into an economic basket case for the 20th century, ask your parents, &/or, your grandparents

By way of closing, I look forward to reading about your thoughts, your feelings, your improvements, etc. regarding the above.

Sincerely,

David E.H. Smith \- Researcher -"Qui tam..." ______* To SHARE Information & Questions re; The Relationship between Human (Nature) Rights & Economics in 1) Native Canadian Treaties and 2) the C-CI Treaty, the CET Agreement, the TPPartnership, et al, via The WAD Accord and the List of RECENT ARTICLES, LETTERS & NOTIFICATIONS by DEHS, see; davidehsmith.wordpress.com</comment>


The age fallacy of entrepreneurship. - <AUTHOR> http://sahillavingia.com/blog/2010/10/29/the-age-fallacy-of-entrepreneurship/

<comment><USER2> There must be many factors that go into 'what makes a good entrepreneur'... and many fallacies as well.

I'm 60. My background is neither in entrepreneurship, business nor computer technology... but rather a strange combination of cultural anthropology and the arts.

A few years ago, out of my interest in cultural evolution I came up with a simple idea... an easy way to think of it is as similar to x-box points but instead of for games... its for political/charitable contribution... (small money, large numbers and immediate feedback as a response to "Citizen's United decision... is more powerful than might at first seem apparent).

(Anyway, patent has been just granted for the method. If anyone's interested there's a demo at <http://www.Chagora.com> which was all I could afford to get built.)

My only point here is that whether its because of age or lack of experience or the fact that neither political party wants anything changed I've been unable to get any interest at all from entities I'd have believe would at least have a few questions.

Of course it could be just a dumb idea... but I don't think so considering the feedback I'm finally starting to get. But it took a patent before anyone would pay any attention to a 60 year-old, non-techie old hippie... (and bankruptcy, foreclosure and credit ruin).

Sorry for the slight rant but its been a tough 4 years.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree, it is a fallacy. But use it to your advantage if you can, it won't last long. I started my first real company at 20 years old, but I am now 41. I no longer get the "wow is he young to do that" response, but at least I now have 20 years experience running a company. It balances out in the end.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=918417>

There's some good discussion about teenagers who call themselves CEOs of their "startups" at the link above, with a comment from PG.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can call yourself anything you want, entrepreneur, CEO, etc. It may be a fallacy to measure entrepreneurship by age. But I am not sure it really matters though. The only thing that matters in this game are bottom line results. If you want great results, it's better to accept the natural tendencies of the media, investors and the public and exploit them where you can. Because for every advantage you have (being young for the media and investors for instance) you'll find equal disadvantages now or later (being young for hiring more experienced execs as you grow your company for instance). Good luck!!!

</comment><comment><USER6> There's an odd mismatch when a person says: "I'm tired of people emphasizing youth, because actual experience is more important. And I'm only x years old!" - it undermines what you're saying.

It'd also help to link to specific examples of people getting press coverage because they're young. Otherwise it's easy for me to say "Nah, those stories usually say 'Blah blah didn't have much experience, being so young, but they still came up with a good idea and had the maturity to follow through on it, wow.'"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Passion + rant = rambling. Let me know how I can improve!

<comment><USER7> Personally, my first step would be to remove every assertion that has a "maybe" near it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ugh, I do that a lot. Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Interview with Aucadia.com, where Fans Get Involved in the Bands They Love - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2009/10/29/interview-founders-of-aucadia-com-where-fans-get-involved-in-the-bands-they-love/ <comment><AUTHOR> Let me just say that I love the concept. I know many people have tried similar ideas before.</comment>


The 21-Year-Old Behind Tumblr - <AUTHOR> http://www.nysun.com/article/66108

<comment><USER2> On Pg2: "In Japan, we have tradition to value cute things high," a Japanese user, Yukihiro Matsumoto, wrote.

Hmmm...does the NYSUN reporter know who that Japanese user might be..?

<comment><USER3> Also, what is a "...a hybrid between a social networking site and a traditional blob..." ?

<comment><USER4> Apparently a typo, but I saw that and laughed and was going to note it here as well. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, no mention of Christian Neukirchen , the guy who invented the tumblelog.

<comment><USER6> i love his tumblelog, two cool pics and a bunch of links

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> yeah I dont really get it...its just a social wordpress....

</comment><comment><USER8> Ye gods. I'm skinny, but somebody needs to pin that guy to the ground and pour some lard down his throat or something. Then again, if they ever decide to do 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' with real actors, he'd be a shoe-in for the lead role. :)</comment>


Containers Come to Firefox Test Pilot - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/03/containers-come-to-test-pilot/ <comment><USER2> I do find the name – "containers" – a bit confusing. "Contextual identities" would seem like a better fit, because that's what it will be used for.

I am reading this name also on other places, surprised Mozilla sticked with "containers":

* [https://blog.mozilla.org/tanvi/2016/06/16/contextual-identit...](https://blog.mozilla.org/tanvi/2016/06/16/contextual-identities-on-the-web/)

* [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project)

* [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers)

<comment><USER3> It's only confusing if you're a technical person -- the sort of person who hears "containers" and thinks "oh, Docker." For laypeople who don't have that association already burned into their brain, it's a simple label that pretty clearly communicates the purpose of the feature -- much less scary- complicated-sounding than "contextual identities."

<comment><USER4> Yes this, we did some brainstorming and solicited user feedback about names and decided Containers makes sense for a general audience. Docker Containers and 'Contextual Idendities' are kind of inside baseball.

<comment><USER5> Why not "Persona"? ;)

I kid, but it makes sense. Containers describes the implementation, not the user experience or benefit.

(Reusing the name "Persona" for any new project is a running joke at Mozilla. :)

<comment><USER6> I like persona too, or facade, or anything else that shows this is about what you present to the world... but most users won't think of it that way. Theyll think of it a keeping a bunch of sites in a box. They don't think about how the internet sees them, only how they see the internet.

<comment><USER7> "Persona" was a jest towards [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Persona](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Persona)

<comment><USER6> I know, but it still works with the idea that a userprofile has multiple personas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Containers are great. I've been using them for a bit. They definitely need a few things. Like an ability for the "new tab" to be sticky (if I'm in a container - new tab should open in the same container), and the ability to pick which container to open things in when the OS triggers the browser to open a URL. Right now it's very leaky... Say I start a registration process for a site in a container, they send a email confirmation, I click the link and it opens outside of the container, leaking the cookies. Bad for OPSEC.

<comment><USER9> It would be great if it could create automatically one container per domain: every site would be neatly separated from all the other ones. If you logged in Facebook the other tabs for other sites wouldn't know about it. Doing that manually every time is almost impossible.

<comment><USER10> I would pay actual money to help get a feature like that into Chromium or Firefox. Hell, if Firefox added that exact feature I might actually rethink my decision to switch to Chrome once they drop support for all the addons I use.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are also hard at work supporting add-on authors porting to WebExtension APIs. I'm especially trying to help Privacy & Security add-on authors.

<comment><USER9> uBlock, NoScript, Self Destructing Cookies. Also DisableWebRTC. Firefox would be Opera, Chrome or Vivaldi without them. No particular reason to use it or a random one among the others. Stylish and Greasemonkey are useful too, when sites insist doing the wrong things. I hope all of them survive the switch. Will they?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can keep track at [https://arewewebextensionsyet.com/#addons](https://arewewebextensionsyet.com/#addons)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The UI/UX for container tabs will be a difficult design challenge. How do you explain to typical users what a contextual identity is and why/when they might want to use one?

I think per-window contextual identities, instead of per-tab, might be a good mental model. It's easy to explain to users that tabs in different windows can't see the same cookies. This is a generalization of Private Browsing window's throwaway context identities today. It's harder to explain that some tabs in the window are in the "Shopping" container and others in the "Personal" container.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great feedback. A segment of people seem do correlate windows with containers more easily than tabs. We are measuring both window & tab usage in the experiment to get a quantitative sense for it too.

I personally use Tab Groups add-on and associate each of my tab groups with a container, but I also mix my containers in a certain group. E.g., sometimes I'm on hacker news for fun, and sometimes I'm here for work. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Amazing. These types of changes are a step in the right for direction for Mozilla. I abandoned Firefox long ago for Chrome but now with containers, e10s, and Electrolysis I'm planning on moving back.

<comment><USER12> I realize it's somewhat off-topic, but when on Android, I have found no better browser than Firefox because of extensions. uBlock Origin is indispensable if you don't want to root your device.

<comment><USER13> I don't use extensions and still find Firefox better than Chrome on Android.

It is a really good browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems like a reimplementation of Profiles, that you can use with `firefox -P`.

The main issue here is one of UI. If you click a link in a PDF, what profile should the link be opened in? My take is that if you have multiple firefox instances it should ask you, otherwise it should just open on the only one open.

<comment><USER13> It's a simple UI version of Profiles.

The choice of container is no more or no less complicated than the choice of profile for links in external programs (or within Firefox)

<comment><AUTHOR> Just to be clear, this is NOT just a simple UI version of profiles. Containers only separate Cookies, localStorage, indexedDB, HTTP data cache, Image Cache (bug in progress), and other areas supported by originAttributes (See [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Projec...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Contextual_Identity_Project/Containers#What_is_.28and_isn.27t.29_separated_between_Containers))

I.e., Containers do NOT protect against some lower-level privacy vulnerabilities like plugin enumeration or history-sniffing that are mitigated more by using entirely separate profiles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can't wait to say "Eat that gmail" (for annoyingly logging me into every other google property).

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the most satisfying experience I have so far using Containers. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I really love this. Will be a very easy way to keep gmail, aws accounts etc separate. Awesome idea. No more temp incognito tabs!!!

</comment><comment><USER17> Is autocomplete also handled per container? There's an awful lot of privacy sensitive info that can be gleaned from there but it's not listed as being covered.

<comment><USER18> I don't think a website has access to your autocomplete unless you select one of them.

<comment><USER19> Google has access when completing your query or wherever that autocomplete goes.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can disable search engine suggestions in the Firefox Search preferences, if that's what you're worried about?

<comment><USER19> I am not worried about anything I was just pointing out that there is still a potential problem. I understand that for knowledgeable users like average joe on hacker news is probably common sense to disable such features if he wants "full privacy".

Anyways; it's not safe by default which should preferably be.

<comment><USER20> Firefox can autofill password fields if you choose to remember them yeah. There is a platform bug filed for making these container specific or choosing not to auto populate when they were saved in a container.

The test pilot experiment is really to help us to figure out how people are using containers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> IMO it would be awesome if we could configure a few privacy-related settings per container. For example, enabling first-party isolation for Shopping would be great. And creating a container that forgets cookies after a very short timeout (kind of like private browsing) would be nice, too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Independent of Containers in test pilot, we are planning to do a shield study with variations of privacy-related settings toggled for users, then measure and ask users how their web experience worked. The goal is to find improved privacy related settings that don't break the web for people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The section "How does the Test Pilot experiment differ from Containers in Nightly?" isn't really clear. It doesn't explain what Nightly (and Developer Edition) users should expect to what they use (if they're not willing to jump to Test Pilot).

Are container tabs are being moved out of the browser core to the Test Pilot walled-garden extension store? Or Test Pilot extension is just enabler and all the stuff is still in the core? Or core is becoming chromeless/API-only and extension does the UI? Or both systems are going to be developed in parallel (or maybe Test Pilot is fast-ring and built-in stuff is a snapshot of whatever looks stable at relase time)? Or is it something else?

<comment><USER23> All of the machinery is in core, and will stay there (much of it is also depended on by the Tor uplift project's first party isolation features). This Test Pilot experiment is predominately about iterating on the UI.

Test Pilot isn't a "walled garden extension store." It's just a bunch of normal Firefox add-ons that are authored by Mozilla and happen to be explicitly experimental / ephemeral.

<comment><USER20> Yeah Test Pilot just is there to help us gather more data on how people use Containers so we can shape it's future. Lots of people are asking for features and we would like to concentrate on the ones that users would like.

Containers are indeed internal to the browser using origin attributes which are a platform feature. We have opened this up to extension authors also in WebExtensions so they can play with ideas also.

<comment><USER22> Thanks. Good to know containers are in the core.

Telemetry isn't an issue. If anything, it can be fully disabled. And yours is done right - all the data sent is properly described and observable. (Although it would be cool if there'd be a helper "let me decide later" mode when I can let browser collect data for a short while, get notified to review it, and then decide whenever it contains anything I consider sensitive or not...)

Maybe this is silly and irrational, but... While it's all your work (and thank you for this!) and decision, it just somehow doesn't feel right that an locally-installed software - no matter how experimental - is ephemeral, almost like it's not a software but a service. With normal AMO addons - even the experimental ones - I can browse the version history and roll back if something's not right. Test Pilot feels like end-user is completely out of control of whatever happens (unless they don't participate and just install from Git repos).

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right. We keep control over the experiments so that we know the consistency of the data we're measuring.

A problem with using our full release channel Telemetry is that so many users have so many variables it's hard to compare apples to apples. E.g., was their performance issue caused by a setting, an add-on, the site they were on, or Firefox itself?

Test Pilot experiments give us some controls and parameters on the experience so we have a clearer idea of what's causing what.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there any chance those could be synced with KDE Plasma's Activities (which implements a quite similar concept on the DE level)?

The biggest issue with using Activities has always been that browsers know nothing about them, so when clicking a link in any application, it was opened in the most recently active browser window - no matter which activity it was on.

So ideally there'd be a way to have Firefox simply inherit KDE Plasma's Activities as Containers, so one wouldn't have to maintain and somehow map Activities/Containers for both at the same time.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a neat idea. Is there a bug for it in bugzilla?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> People interested in this may also like this add-on, which I've been using for years: [https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/private- tab/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/private-tab/)

It lets you open private tabs in the same window as regular tabs.

</comment><comment><USER26> How is this different from Profiles?

<comment><USER4> Containers are per-tab and isolate only tracking-related data (not bookmarks or history, for now). Also containers don't require that you open multiple instances of Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> From the post:

> _How will users know what context they are operating in?_

I find that themes are great for knowing what context I'm in, like the Totem mechanism in Inception. I'm not sure if we can have a different theme for each container though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Another good idea. I filed an issue in the repo for this. Add +1's here:

[https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot- containers/issues/343](https://github.com/mozilla/testpilot- containers/issues/343)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> i love this brilliant idea, i have always needed something like this and as substitute i've been using two browsers.</comment>