Why Wikipedia is Dying - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@andrewjho/why-wikipedia-is-dying-f2e5604df62f#.uwtahyxqf <comment><USER2> 1) Wikipedia is not dying. It is the sixth most popular website on the internet. Traffic to Wikipedia continues to grow at above-average rates.

2) Wikipedia does not have a shortage of editors. It is in fact overwhelmed with editors who have a net-negative impact on Wikipedia's stated mission. By failing to read the rules and failing to accept the rules when informed of them, you have made yourself a net-negative contributor. These rules are not inscrutable, but are publicly available and explained in depth. The admin who removed your content provided a link to the relevant rule.

3) Wikipedia's primary challenge today is quality, not quantity. The overwhelming number of abusive users create an enormous burden of editing. The pedants, petty tyrants and robots of Wikipedia may be a deterrent to new contributors, but they also form the immune system that protects Wikipedia against abuse.

4) In the space of 15 years, Wikipedia has become the largest and highest- quality encyclopedia available. The community has developed a complex set of processes to ensure continued quality. Those processes may be imperfect, but they are demonstrably effective. Your criticism comes from a position of complete ignorance as to the necessity and efficacy of those processes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll charitably assume that you're arguing from a position of ignorance, not malice. Read before writing: [https://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism](https://www.gwern.net/In%20Defense%20Of%20Inclusionism)

(1) The metric that matters, active user growth, has been _declining_ since 2007.

(2) Right, the 1 MB of bandwidth I took up and 5 KB of storage space I consumed with userspace pages outweighs the hundreds of minor corrections I've submitted over the course of a decade. By the way, Wikipedia _does_ have a shortage of editors relative to its popularity and potential.

(3) Deletionism destroys more information than it protects. This is easy to establish. Educate yourself.

(4) You are circularly using the status quo to justify itself without having explored alternatives and without having performed any research into the historical evolution of Wikipedia and Wikipedian culture. Again, educate yourself before posting.

<comment><USER3> > The metric that matters, active user growth, has been declining since 2007.

How do you expect it to continue growing? There aren't enough people to continue active user growth. It's like your expecting it to be a pyramid scheme that makes money as long as you sign up more people than exist on the planet.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're strawmanning my argument. I did _not_ say, as you imply, that active user growth should continue indefinitely.

Take a look at this graph: [https://www.gwern.net/images/2012-henkvd- activewikipedians.p...](https://www.gwern.net/images/2012-henkvd- activewikipedians.png)

First, one would typically expect the number of active users to keep increasing but for the _rate of increase_ to gradually decline, _not_ for the number of active users to actually start _decreasing_ gradually after multiple years of very rapid increase.

Second, if you don't see something wrong with that graph, get your eyes checked out.

<comment><USER3> There comes a point where everything that should be in wikipedia is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When you consider the scale of wikipedia, it's easy to see why governance does not take the form of polite exchanges. There simply isn't time. You want a conversation with an admin, but that admin isn't being paid to moderate, so their time is already donated. The tedium involved with politely speaking with every abuser (and OP is most certainly an abuser) would require a full time staff. That doesn't even consider the different languages such users speak.

Wikipedia is no longer a scrappy little community of people who like writing essays. It's a walled garden of information and the only way to moderate is with an iron fist.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your argument is completely logically incoherent. It amounts to saying that the status quo is circularly self-justifying because... because... _just because_.

Have you considered, for instance, the possibility that relaxing the moderation (and -- yes -- allowing some real abusers to slip through the cracks) but dealing humanely with those who the admins can interact with would be better for Wikipedia on the whole? (Probably not.)

<comment><USER4> I haven't considered it because you haven't made a convincing case for me to do so.

That Wikipedia has fewer volunteer editors does not in itself indicate a decline in quality. Maybe all the people that left were shitty editors.

That you disagree with the way they handle enforcement of the rules you broke is not evidence of a deficient system, only that you don't like it.

I have my own misgivings about wikipedia, but the post linked here doesn't mention any of them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What on earth would lead a person to believe that this might even possibly be a reasonable use of Wikipedia?

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you seen what the typical Wikipedia userpage looks like? E.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ser_Amantio_di_Nicolao](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ser_Amantio_di_Nicolao).

People pretty much DO use them as personal websites -- the differential enforcement seems to come mainly from how established a user is.

<comment><USER6> That's just a bio (albeit slightly strange) of the guy. I feel like that's within reason as it's a user page (i.e. who the author is).

On the other hand, here, let me list a bunch of my recipes for safekeeping is NOT a description of the user in any way or shape.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. Arguing over what the True and Canonical Purpose of Wikipedia is will go nowhere.

The only relevant fact is that it was consequentially better for the administrator to behave otherwise. _Even if we assume that the user was 100% in error and that the pages should be removed_ , the administrator's actions _still_ served to objectively harm Wikipedia (in net).

<comment><USER7> How would it be better, in the long run? Almost no people will use their bio page for storage of recipes or any kind of blog. There are explicit roles against doing so, _and_ Wikipedia is constantly inundated with spam.

Off the small fraction of people who do try to do this, most will probably think, "I guess I was out of line, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not my personal storage space." Anyone left over who is going to ragequit over someone not being nice enough when they enforce the rules, frankly, probably doesn't have the type of personality that can handle a lot of the often heated discussions that go on on Wikipedia.

Honestly, I imagine the extreme edge cases represented by the productive editors likely to be seriously dissuaded by this are not a real contributing factor in any perceived death or decline of Wikipedia (one of the most successful and widely used products on the internet).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> LOL, so wikipedia is dying because this one person thought it would be a great idea to store personal recipe archive on it and admins deleted it. That's not really compelling evidence.

</comment><comment><USER9> The user's pages on Wikipedia were deleted by an admin because it was used more like a personal blog, which Wikipedia was never meant to be. Of course, perhaps the admin could have given thr user a chance to copy over the content before deletion but then again I don't blame the admin for considering it similar to regular spam and deleting it. Maybe they still have a copy and perhaps the user can request for it.

I still find Wikipedia to be a good source of information and don't consider it dying. Even if it is dying, I don't believe this to be the reason.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're justifying the administrator's actions based on _a priori_ notions of what Wikipedia is or was "meant" to be.

This allows you to ignore the _actual consequences of actions_.

What's the point of a rule if it doesn't lead to positive consequences?

<comment><USER10> Mate, this isn't about abstract philosophical disagreements over what Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is a private platform entitled to make and enforce its own rules about what it is and how it should be used, that you've been using for years and have no excuse for not knowing the obvious basic rules of, one of which is "don't abuse wikipedia by treating it as an all-purpose host for your personal data". You have zero grounds to be pissed, and zero entitlement to the time and effort of a volunteer moderator who saw someone blatantly abusing the site's hosting generosity. Not letting you use Wikipedia's servers as your personal cloud service has absolutely nothing to do with a perceived decline in the character or culture of the site.

Make a Google doc next time.

<comment><AUTHOR> You seem to have completely missed the argument of the linked article. (Also, saying that something "isn't about X" doesn't magically make it not about X.)

You also seem to be mixing up what "is" with what "ought to be". Feel free to read more about this common fallacy here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem)

<comment><USER10> It's pretty clear that you are confused about what Wikipedia is (not your personal cloud server) vs what you think it ought to be (your personal cloud server). Getting angry about your clearly-against-the-rules behavior being stopped and using that as a reason to go on a rant about Wikipedia dying of incivility is ridiculous.

Wikipedia may or may not have a problematic culture. You were still obviously in the wrong and no one owes you their time to go into a gentle negotiation about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll break this down into easy-to-understand parts for you.

> It's pretty clear that you are confused about what Wikipedia is (not your > personal cloud server) vs what you think it ought to be (your personal cloud > server).

Nice "clever response," but you would realize -- if you had read and comprehended my article & comments -- that I have no such confusion.

> Getting angry about your clearly-against-the-rules behavior being stopped > and using that as a reason to go on a rant about Wikipedia dying of > incivility is ridiculous.

"Ridiculous" is not a counterargument.

> Wikipedia may or may not have a problematic culture.

Meaningless statement. Waste of space.

> You were still obviously in the wrong

A factual restatement of what the rules are does not even come close to constituting a reply to the linked post, let alone a counterargument.

> and no one owes you their time to go into a gentle negotiation about it.

Normative statement. It's also incoherent. My position is that it is _consequentially better_ for administrators to act otherwise. If you can't reply on consequential grounds and without making appeals to what people "should" or "shouldn't" do, then just don't reply, please.

<comment><USER10> I read your article and all of your comments, and my consequentialist argument is this: you will be a lot happier, and other people will like you more, if you learn to use rationalist thinking modes and lists of fallacies less as weapons to wield against others, and more as tools for self-examination and ways to question not only what you're thinking but why - sometimes you'll realize that you're over-reacting to a perceived insult, and justifying your angry response with a weakly related argument about why the entity that insulted you is terrible. And maybe you'll stop yourself before you do that publicly where people can see your tantrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If this isn't a joke, you're extremely self-entitled and you need to chill out if you get offended this easily.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wikipedia does often seem a bit lacking in basic politeness. Something like Hacker News's 'be civil' type guidelines might help.

</comment><comment><USER13> andrewjho, I can see you are very passionate about this. But you seem to be arguing with everyone in this thread. So, first, let me tell you that I largely agree with you about inclusionism. What you want... yeah, I want that too. However, Wikipedia is a collection of information, as well as an encyclopedia, a process, and a community. You find yourself in the position of disagreeing with the community. This can suck, because it is obvious that you wouldn't feel so passionate if you didn't love Wikipedia.

I recommend that you direct your passion towards expanding the Wikipedia community into a new direction commensurate with your goals. Sometimes communities need to separate in order to make everyone happy. A good city needs both the quiet streets with toddlers on bikes and the hot nightspots with pounding music. Do you have a right to play your music? Damn straight, I say, and play it loud and proud. But your neighbors may be perfectly justified in saying "not here, we believe this is supposed to be a quiet street". That seems to be the nature of your disagreement with the community.

I'm not aware of Wikipedia having any policy against deep linking. There have also been a number of success stories of special interest Wikipedias (e.g. wookiepedia, Conservapedia) which have been successful. In theory, you could start an "everythingopedia" which includes Wikipedia as a subset through deep linking (therefore making it very useful) in addition to your other items which would be deleted in the normal Wikipedia. I don't know if someone has already tried this, but it seems to me that you will find more success making a place for your own type of community than trying to change the minds of a community which does not agree with you.

</comment><comment><USER14> Finest Astroturf platform of all time!

</comment><comment><USER15> Lol</comment>


Brilliant branding and marketing - <AUTHOR> http://www.mayhemsale.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This web site was combined with a series of AllState "Mayhem" commercials [1] during the AllState Sugar Bowl, a hilarious Twitter campaign [2] and the ability to watch his "product demonstrations" again via YouTube [3]. All of this was made shareable via Twitter and Facebook links on each page of the web site.

I can't remember seeing old and new media used together in such a memorable fashion before - Well done AllState!

P.S. I hate advertising ... but this was _ENTERTAINMENT_!

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQhvrCUnKsM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQhvrCUnKsM)

[2] [https://twitter.com/Mayhem/with_replies](https://twitter.com/Mayhem/with_replies)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQhvrCUnKsM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQhvrCUnKsM)</comment>


MILA and the future of Theano - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=topic/theano-announce/PiH4p7NqZ60#!topic/theano-announce/PiH4p7NqZ60 <comment><USER2> I would assume retiring Theano implies they are working on some other framework. What is it?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say it's rather that the that the features Theano pioneered can now be had from several other well-backed projects. I have no personal insight to MILA, but I suspect the development of Theano must be consuming considerable work time from academic researchers, and they concluded that time and effort would be better spent e.g. on developing and examining ML algorithms. I wonder if some other organization will pick up responsibility for Theano. Seems to me like a project that might be difficult to keep healthy on only individual volunteer contributions.</comment></comment>


Sport data feeds – anything other/better than Opta? Potential for disruption? - George-Kaplan I'm working on an app plus web site for football (soccer) fans and I'd like to create a number of widgets with fixtures, tables and results.
Opta http://www.optasports.com/ appear to me the market leader provider (and something of a monopoly). They also charge monopolistic prices.
I feel that sports has huge potential, but seems like it's dominated by Opta and ... no one else.
Are there any other FOSS or lower-cost sport data providers out there? If not, why not? Is the field open to disruption? <comment><AUTHOR> There are many, many companies working in this area.

[http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sports+data](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=sports+data)

One prominent example: [http://www.sportsdatallc.com/](http://www.sportsdatallc.com/)</comment>


Twitter ranking equation - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/04/twitter-ranking-equation/

<comment><USER2> Check it out at twitranking.me

</comment><comment><USER2> Building an app for it right now!! up in 30 minutes</comment>


Antigua Government Set to Launch "Pirate" Website To Punish United States - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/antigua-government-set-to-launch-pirate-website-to-punish-united-states-130124/ <comment><USER3> I'm heating up my popcorn kernels in a large pot of oil as we speak, things are about to get very entertaining. If Antigua start a piracy website selling US copyrighted material, won't the US just ban access to the site and other countries (definitely the UK and Australia) will follow suit? Potentially resulting in free-speech and Internet rights advocacy groups (and the likes of anonymous) kicking up a massive storm of trouble?

It's obvious the bans on Internet gambling is due to the fact it's hard to regulate and it's even harder to tax and when it comes down to it, it's all about money. The US only has themselves to blame, this isn't about protecting people from addictions because lets face it if you want to gamble legally you can go to a casino and if you want drugs you can walk down to the corner and if you want booze you can go to a bottle shop or bar. What's the difference between Internet gambling and going to a casino? The government can tax non- Internet based casinos...

If it gets that far and something isn't worked out prior, this will be an interesting test of Obama's merits as a president and where he stands on things like unrestricted and free Internet access. Given the US's harsh words against China's censorship over the years, it would be pretty ironic if the US were to block such a site.

<comment><USER4> _won't the US just ban access to the site?_

Currently, the US has no ability to do this, they have no country-wide firewall like China.

At best, they can revoke/hijack the domain name, since ICANN is pretty much under US influence, but the site would remain accessible by IP address, and it is likely that tens/hundreds of alternative domain names would be set up by the site supporters.

Or, the US could hijack the IP space with BGP black holing/null routing, but this would be seen as an extremely offensive act. It would be the first time a western country does this AFAIK.

<comment><USER5> Or simply ask the major ISPs to block it. They are already opting into 6 strikes and throttling certain types of traffic (e.g. torrents). It wouldn't surprise me at all if they "voluntarily" (or really, voluntarily) blocked such sites.

<comment><USER3> This is the exact kind of blocking I was thinking of. Merely blocking the domain would be enough to prevent access from basic users but maybe not knowledgeable pirates, similar to what has happened with The Pirate Bay in the UK and ISP's blocking access to it.

<comment><USER6> But blocking that domain in the UK did nothing to slow bittorrent traffic, according to several sources. [http://torrentfreak.com/censoring-the-pirate- bay-is-futile-i...](http://torrentfreak.com/censoring-the-pirate-bay-is- futile-isps-reveal-120711/)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it was circumvented Pretty quickly. You can't outsmart a pirate. It's a good example of a government trying to restrict what it's citizens can do however, even if it failed the government tried to block access in the first place.

<comment><USER7>
       You can't outsmart a pirate.

You should share that theory with the ones they put in prison and the many they've successfully sued.

It's literally irrelevant if you don't _like_ their results, it's malicious if you encourage others to be ignorant.

<comment><USER8> >You should share that theory with the ones they put in prison and the many they've successfully sued.

Which are a tiny, microscopic even, minority of people who pirate.

<comment><USER7> You're right - they haven't figured out how to sue everyone at once so people are indeed outsmarting them by clicking links on TPB proxies!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great development.

Sometime, maybe 20 years from now, you are going to be able to say "I was there when everyone was figuring out copyrights and patents and stuff."

That said, its an interesting maneuver on Antigua's part. Using the WTO rules to push the conversation along. The article on Ars Technica about the Dutch not liking the attention they are getting for facilitating tax avoidance is another interesting piece of this puzzle. I could imagine a number of ways this might branch, from a 'economic zone' which is "the internet" to a outright revolt by the people and the creation of multiple 'shadow' internets.

These are the 'conversations' that I find very interesting:

"Where" is the Internet with respect to taxation and commercial commerce doctrine?

"What" is role of the economic powers in shaping that doctrine, and "who" is the economic power with the most influence? (Currently its the US but it will be China in 5 years if the trend continues)

What is the role of the nation-state in person-to-person interstate commerce? What "should" it be?

All very very interesting questions and discussions that drive a lot of action from pornography, to gambling, to software sales, to chat rooms.

<comment><USER10> I'm just waiting for a ruling or law that says digital purchases confer the same rights (of resale, of perpetual use without asking permission) as sales of physical media. Period. This is crucial for ebooks in particular.

Until then, we won't be able to declare this madness over and look back.

<comment><USER11> I don't know how you can solve that problem. The right of first sale works great when you have an item that, once sold, it guaranteed to be out of your possession. With digital media, it suddenly gets _really_ murky: what does first sale mean if I can trivially hand you a copy?

As long as DRM is involved, you don't really own it, so we have to assume the removal of DRM as a pre-cursor to even being able to consider this question, but, once it's gone, thing thing your are selling is...what?

I don't foresee this being answered without a wholesale "information is free" society.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm a bit confused by this. Antigua is a party to the Berne Convention, which requires them to recognize the copyright of works by authors of other Berne countries the same way it recognizes those of its own authors.

Can the WTO override this? I'd expect that all the WTO could say is that it is not a violation of treaties and agreements that the WTO oversees for Antigua to pursue this remedy for the WTO violation, but that wouldn't relieve Antigua of obligations under non-WTO treaties.

It's been a long time since I've read the relevant treaties and agreements, so maybe I've forgotten or overlooked something.

<comment><USER13> If necessary, Antigua could remove copyright protections to Antiguan authors (at a loss of nearly $0), in exchange for letting Antiguans ignore foregin copyrights (at a gain of >>$0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's about time internet gambling became available in the USA and this prohibition-type nonsense ended once and for all. I don't see why doing it on the casino floor in Vegas is fine but doing it at home isn't. Sure it's addictive but so is alcohol, and you don't have to step outside your home to drink that. The nanny state must go.

<comment><USER15> _I don't see why doing it on the casino floor in Vegas is fine but doing it at home isn't._

Because it's damned hard to tax gambling winnings when they happen outside the US government's jurisdiction. A brick-and-mortar casino in Vegas will issue you a 1099 if you win enough; a virtual casino in Antigua is under no such obligation.

<comment><USER16> How does that work when you "win" but have actually lost? If I go into a casino, spend 20k, then win back 15k, have I _actually_ lost more than the difference 5k because that 15k is taxed?

<comment><USER17> For amateurs, the IRS has a concept of gambling "sessions". You net your win/loss within a session. You report the total of all winning sessions as income, and itemize your losing sessions (which can't exceed wins).

States and cities have varying laws. Basically most states with casinos allow you to do the same as on federal returns. Those without require you to report all wins as income and not deduct losses, effectively making it impossible to gamble with any regularity (since you could easily owe taxes on $200k of income, of which you only saw $10k... or worse, -$10k).

Pros can simply net their wins/losses (while maintaining a record-keeping notebook). To qualify as a pro you have to derive almost all income from gambling.

Gamblers get worried when people want to close tax loopholes (such as itemized deductions for certain things). They can come scarily close to losing their way of making a living.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >One option would be to ask users for $5 a month in return for unlimited access to U.S. media.

Day 1 customer if this is true. I live in Bolivia and will pirate it anyway, the US media corporations refuse to price things according to my location, so screw em.

</comment><comment><USER19> How would Antigua measure $21 million of copyright? For music and movies, would it be the publisher-suggested retail price of albums and blu-ray discs?

If they want to sell the content online, how do they even find out content pricing when publishers don't sell direct and give different prices to different retailers?

If they want to sell content subscriptions, how can they guess how much content they could stream for $21 million?

<comment><USER20> > _How would Antigua measure $21 million of copyright?_

I think the bigger question is: How would the US verify that only $21M of infringement occurred?

<comment><USER21> The current "standard" appears to be: connect to the Bittorrent swarm, see how many people are connected, multiply by $OBSCENE.

That's assuming this ends up peer to peer, I guess that's a bad assumption given that it will be government-sanctioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really think this is interesting for a couple of reasons:

1\. The US, who is a member of the WTO, thinks it doesn't need to comply with its ruling.

2\. If this does happen, it will be interesting to see if the US tries to interfere with it. For example, would the US try to prevent people from reaching the site and would they pressure finance companies to keep people from buying from it?

I can't wait to see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER23> ur tl;dr summary:

The WTO granted Antigua the right to suspend US copyright to the tune of $21 million annually in 2007 because the US ignored the WTO's earlier (2005) ruling that the US violated international free-trade laws by barring Antiguan gambling companies from the US market. Antigua now plans to actually use that ruling to legally sell US copyrighted material over the Internet without paying copyright holders.

</comment><comment><USER24> News flash: Anyone who comes to Antigua with 10TB of High Definition movies is eligible for Antiguan Citizenship with no extradition guarantees.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone know why the US govt is so vigorously against Internet gambling? Is it propping up some other illegal activity?

What is the deal?

<comment><USER26> They can't tax it in either direction, the operators, being out of jurisdiction, are not liable for taxes, and the winnings that should count as income do not get reported anywhere.

<comment><USER8> But it's not allowed in the USA either where none of those problems would exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In chess, they call this a fork.

<comment><USER28> Sort of. Remember that the US has options beyond your average chess piece, like nuclear weapons.

<comment><USER29> Oh come on. The US would never nuke someone over something like this. If they did then every nation on earth would have to consider the US the worst kind of hostile and react accordingly.

<comment><USER28> Oh, absolutely. I thought that went without saying. My point was only that the US is not powerless against other nations like a queen under attack by a knight that is also attacking the king. There is a way out other than US copyrights going away, though I'm not sure what it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The US will eventually legalize online gambling and capture their market. Then the WTO will end the suspension of copyright and then the US wins.

For good gambling discussion: <http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/57/poker- legislation/>

</comment><comment><USER30> How is this going to make any difference?

Pirated content is already available in US and other countries via thepiratebay and other torrents sites. Pirating copyrighted content is already considered illegal in the US, and is being actively monitored by media companies. If this Antiguan website indeed becomes accessible to Americans, or say other country, how will downloading from this site differ from downloading via torrents. Since torrent usage is already being monitored in US, there's a high likelihood that American ISPs would monitor the usage of this site as well.

Edit: Downloading copyrighted content -> Pirating copyrighted content.

<comment><USER9> "Pirating" is the act of acquiring a copy of a copyrighted work in a way that is contrary to existing law. "Downloading" Copyrighted works can be done completely legally, the simplest example being to buy a copy of a movie on itunes and transferring it to your phone or tablet. This is a 'third' way of legally downloading content which is sort of like buying property with a tax lien on it, the government (in this case the WTO) has stepped in, set aside the rights of the property owner, and is sanctioning an action to make whole the person or entity who is wronged.

So the WTO sets aside the rights of US Copyright holders and allows Antiqua to sell those works, allowing it to recover damages that the US Government has failed to pay. The government could "pay" the $21M fine and the WTO would rescind this, but if they do that then they show that they are wrong in denying access to the US market for Antiqua gambling interests. If they don't pay it, they are bound by membership in the WTO to abide by its decisions. It is a delicious paradox.

<comment><USER31> ""Pirating" is the act of acquiring a copy of a copyrighted work in a way that is contrary to existing law."

Okay - I'll bite. What does that mean? How does one acquire a copy of a copyrighted work in a way that is contrary to existing law? Or, alternatively, How does one acquire a copy of a copyrighted work in a way that is compliant with existing law? As a "Pro-IP Law" enthusiast, I'm genuinely interested - <USER2> layperson's understanding of the law is that it deals with distribution, not downloading.

<comment><USER9> Its pretty simple actually, the owner of the copy 'right' expressly authorizes the copy being given to you. That is in accordance with the law. So any number of examples, you buy a book at the book store, you buy a DVD, you watch a movie at the theater, all of these actions result in a 'copy' of the work coming into your possession that is sanctioned by the owner of the right.

Any illegal copy is one in which the owner hasn't sanctioned transferring a copy to you.

Copyright law carves out specific exemptions for lending libraries and the First Sale doctrine, part of the unified commercial code (UCC) gives you the right to transfer your copy to a third party as long as no new copies are created (so you no longer have a copy).

Note I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.

<comment><USER13> You missed parent's question, which is how the _recipient_ can violate copyright.

You are describing how the _sender_ can violate copyright.

<comment><USER9> Fair enough, in the US it apparently only affects the receiver if one can prove they knew they were in receipt of stolen goods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> How much bandwidth does Antigua have? Depending on whether they can delegate their "piracy" privilege to companies in other countries, that might be the limiting factor.

</comment><comment><USER33> so they are going to open a site to sell that which pirates pirate for free? I don't see the economic sense of it.

<comment><USER18> I see it.

I live in Bolivia and have a semi-decent internet connection. If such a website existed where I could pay 5 to 10$ per month and I could stream unlimited videos in decent quality (think 360 to 480p from YouTube) I would pay it hands down.

It's a matter of conveneance and good service, both of which piracy doesn't offer.

Why do I pirate media? It's just too expensive for me and the general people in 3rd world countries.

<comment><USER34> You should take your time to improve your pirating skills and find new sources.

For example, have you tried with this site?: <http://www.argenteam.net/search>

There you have both the torrents/emule links and really high quality subtitles if you need them.

<comment><USER35> I'm not the OP, but I'm from Uruguay and I pay for Netflix because of the quality and convenience.

The local latin american pirate equivalent is Cuevana:

<http://www.cuevana.tv>

which has had its share of run-ins with justice.

No torrent site has the convenience of Netflix, and Netflix itself is still a bit behind cable tv in convenience - I want some kind of "channel" experience for Netflix, I think there are some devices in the U.S. that offer it, but none here in Uruguay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder why Antigua picked that particular industry, actually? There is simply no god-given right to profit from organized gambling. Why don't they organize an alternative banking system instead? That should be much more profitable, and nobody would object to getting rid of the current politician- controlled banking industry, unless they engage in charging usurious interests or in similar abuse.</comment>


Turning Education Upside Down - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/turning-education-upside-down

<comment><USER2> _Courses are being offered by universities like Harvard and M.I.T. and by the teenager next door making videos in his garage._

Where is the teenager next door posting these videos? Just YouTube? Or is there a platform that lets independent teachers easily create courses with videos, assignments, tests, etc.?</comment>


Design Patterns in Python (Free Book) - <AUTHOR> http://dpip.testingperspective.com/

<comment><USER2> Gotta love the MVC pattern ... with an SQL injection vulnerability - <http://dpip.testingperspective.com/?p=18> (What happens when you search for a component ID of "'; drop table defects")

Also, what is the controller _doing_? Why is there even a DefectModel with database code in it? Why is it not using an ORM style like every other database-fetching thing written this century?

I've looked at a couple of "chapters" of their "book" now, and it's all hideous train wreck code like this, with stuff that reads like it's been cut+pasted out of a wiki somewhere, and no sample output/data. I'm not sure what you're supposed to learn from these examples, other than "Design Patterns are hard".

</comment><comment><USER3> These are Java design patterns. Python has different patterns. That's why people say that Factory is natural in Python.

Two examples, what i consider (very simple) Python patterns (without fancy names though):

        if __name__ == "__main__":
          ...

        def MyDecorator(func):
          def wrapper(...):
            def my_func(*args, **vargs):
               ...
            return my_func
          return wrapper

</comment><comment><USER4> I looked at couple of them. Some of the patterns has a note mentioning it is a port of C#/Java/C++ implementation in the Wikipedia article.

Python is drastically different from C#/Java/C++, and a direct port of classical patterns won't make much sense. It will work, but it will the equivalent of Fortran programmers writing Frotran in Python.

If anyone is interested, this talk by Alex Martelli is a good starting point:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vJJlVBVTFg

I think Bruce Eckel was writing a book on "Design Patterns" in Python, but that's not completed. However, there is a book using Ruby, which shows the classical approach for implementing design patters, then shows how it is done in Ruby:

<http://designpatternsinruby.com/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Do we really need factory pattern in Python? I mean with all those dynamic calling methods?

I'd like to see more patterns with decorators, list comprehension, map/filter chain and yield.

<comment><USER4> > Do we really need factory pattern in Python?

Yes.

        from PIL import Image
        im = Image.open("bride.jpg")

Image.open here is a factory, and im will be an object of a different class, depending on the filename you pass to it(jpeg, gif, png).

That is just one example, but you get the idea.

<comment><USER2> Well really, what's the point in calling it a factory? In Ruby or Python everything is an object, every method or function call returns an object, hence _everything_ is a factory, and the term loses its meaning.

In this particularly case Image isn't a class, and Image.open isn't a method: [https://bitbucket.org/effbot/pil-117/src/162542cc8aca/PIL/Im...](https://bitbucket.org/effbot/pil-117/src/162542cc8aca/PIL/Image.py#cl-1943)

I don't know that there's any equivalent for this in Java, so I think the grandparent's question still stands.

<comment><USER4> > In Ruby or Python everything is an object, every method or function call > returns an object, hence everything is a factory, and the term loses its > meaning.

I don't think _factory_ is defined as _anything that returns an object._

I am not a design pattern buff, but here is what the wiki entry says:

* it deals with the problem of creating objects (products) without specifying the exact class of object that will be created. *

I don't see why it has anything to do with everything being an object.

The Image.open example is _factory pattern_. It isn't implemented the same way it's implemented for Java/C++, and I wasn't commenting on the implementation; but that doesn't make it _not factory_.

Similarly, the command pattern, in a language with first-class functions and closures, will be implicit and look nothing like the one implemented in GoF book.

If you are taking the implementation in GoF as the definition, callbacks as we do in Ruby, JS, Python et al. look nothing like _command pattern_. But the implementation isn't definition, and GoF explicitly mentions it that these patterns aren't the same in all languages.

<comment><USER2> > I don't see why it has anything to do with everything being an object.

Well it certainly blurs the lines, doesn't it? If you're returning an object anyway, it's not that much of a stretch to return a slightly different object depending on circumstances. Why does it warrant a pattern all to itself and an entire chapter of a book? And more to the point, why should I care about it, other than to try and decipher legacy ex-Java code like this?

To return slightly to the original point - where are the patterns for list comprehensions, decorators or generators? There aren't any, because in the Java/C++ world it's so hard to throw functions around like this. You need to look to fields like FP and Haskell to find good uses for list comprehensions beyond the very basic stuff.

<comment><USER4> > Why does it warrant a pattern all to itself and an entire chapter of a book? > And more to the point, why should I care about it, other than to try and > decipher legacy ex-Java code like this?

I think we started discussing different things. I wasn't saying the way GoF implements factory for C++, or the article in question does that, is useful; I mentioned elsewhere that copying patterns literally from Java/C++ isn't really fruitful when programming in Python <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3399581>

Many of the classical design patterns will either be invisible or simpler in dynamic languages. In Peter Norwig's presentation, he claims 17 of the 23 are either invisible or much simpler for Dylan - we can make the same claim for Python, Perl, Ruby et al.

But even in Python, some patterns are non-obvious, and it's better that the developer knows them beforehand, rather than re-inventing them. Apart from the non-obvious ones, you sometimes need the others as they condense a paragraph of explanation to single term.

Factory isn't one of those non-obvious patterns - a competent developer, given the problem for the factory pattern(the above Image.open) will invent factory in under 5 minutes.

<comment><USER2> So, I'm curious - which patterns do you consider non-obvious in Python?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Somehow, i'm not sure if i like the word "pattern". Patterns are something which can be used generally and repeatedly. I think that's sort of scary. For example: I've learned factory usage while doing twisted and it came naturally how and why this was used. But somehow i feel that with all those books and courses about "design patterns" new programers are missing out how to find a solution. It's like "here are your tools, MVC, factories and observers, try to solve your problems with those". This can be dangerous when a programer first looks how he can mold his problem to be solved with some pattern, whereas he should first analyse the problem and use patterns carefully where they fit naturally. I'm scared of a programming world where every bit is solved by factories of factories of metafactories ;)

<comment><USER7> Design patterns are useful because they improve.. design. I mean application and code design. They model a recognizable structure. You are right: they have been sold as the ace of all trades in CS books and courses and they are not. That lead to the ' factories of factories of metafactories ' situation. Experience and intelligence are the real 'ace of all trades'. On the other side chaos is not good for anyone. Instead having a common lingo to identify code structure and common solutions to local architectural challenges is a good thing.

<comment><USER6> So, wouldn't it be better to write books on how someone got from a problem to a solution and why the outcome was something that can be described as a factory pattern, rather then the other way around?

I didn't read books on design patterns, but the book from the link structures around what design patterns there are and how they got applied to a problem. It'd be nicer to first have a problem and show why and how a particular pattern is better than, say, a bunch of monolithic lines of code.. So that you can say "oh and by the way, the way we solved that problem falls into the category of factory patterns".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> related: Norvig's presentation design patterns in dynamic languages (and how many of the GOF patterns are built in idioms, e.g 'strategy' is just passing in a function as a parameter).

<http://norvig.com/design-patterns>

</comment><comment><USER9> For everyone saying if you really need these patterns. From the site header

> This book is about learning design patterns through the medium of Python > language.

Its a book about learning the patterns, not idiomatic (or even good) Python. As a example of idiomatic and good python, this book is useless, but if you just want to understand how patterns are used in other languages, this book is not bad.

<comment><USER2> Except that a lot of patterns tend to be language specific. So while it does teach you patterns, sort of - the patterns here are unlikely to be of any use, since they won't be usable if you're writing Python, and if you're writing Java or C++ you'll need to translate them anyway.

For instance, go and have a look at the example code for his command pattern: <http://dpip.testingperspective.com/?p=22> That's not idiomatic _anything_ \- in normal Python you'd probably expose a couple of methods on the Light (on/off) and construct a switch to call those. Two classes, duck typed and no need for Command abstract classes and all the extra boilerplate.</comment></comment>


Uber's Surcharges Demonstrate The Harsh Reality Of Dynamic Pricing - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/01/ubers-new-years-eve-surcharges-demonstrate-the-harsh-reality-of-dynamic-pricing/ <comment><USER2> I don't think the issue is dynamic pricing but the app's UI. If it said "We'll be charging you $50 for this trip" instead of "The rate will be 6.5x than normal", users would not have taken the ride.

If the UI was right, the prices wouldn't have increased to more than $50 per mile since demand would have likely decreased when the rate was about $20 per mile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Uber dynamic pricing is positive for customers on New Year's Eve, in that it ensures that if you are willing to pay money a cab is available for your use. The market, it's magic.

<comment><USER4> I'm as big of a proponent of the magic that is supply and demand as anyone, but uber's pricing was not exactly transparent. Last night was the first time that I used the service. My first ride from my hotel in Chicago to my party destination at 9pm was $15, awesome. Not only was I thrilled by the quality of service, but I saw the message that fees would be higher that night and was expecting a higher price tag. Fast forward four hours later and I was ready to head back to the hotel. Same route, except this time the price was $54. Ouch.

The thing about market forces is that the buyer needs to be aware of the price in order to make a rational decision that affects demand and alleviates the strain on existing supply. Uber's app indicated I would be informed of the additional charge prior to my ride, but that certainly never happened. In that regard, I feel slighted and my feelings toward the company have been damaged as a result.

<comment><USER5> But this has always happened on NYE to minicab fares.

In London it's almost impossible to get a black cab on NYE. Black cabs have their fares capped by regulation to something like 3x the regular fare. As such, it's not lucrative to work that night for such a small difference when they could be with their families.

Minicabs on the other hand are not capped, and are largely unregulated. Many of them do work precisely because they can charge much higher rates, and they do.

I once got a minicab on NYE that cost over £170 for a journey that should have cost closer to £30. Caveat emptor.

What seems to be the case here isn't the market doing what the market does best (regulate supply and demand and the cost thereof), but the naivety and optimism of the consumer who hopes for cheap prices despite a severe spike in demand and a shortage in the supply able to meet the demand.

The last time I needed a cab on NYE, I chose to walk the 11 miles home. I was drunk, I was singing New Order most of the way. I actually really enjoyed the walk and saved myself a lot of money in the process. I've lost my naivety around cab fares on that night.

<comment><USER6> All I can say to Londoners is; if you think this is bad, wait for the Olympics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are there any companies out there that try to predict these price hikes and recommend the best time for you to do something?

As in, "I noticed that you're asking for a cab. If I were you, I wouldn't be in a hurry, ask again in about half an hour and you'll get a much better deal." "I see you're at a bar. You should probably hop into a cab sometime soon, the prices are about to soar."

Bonus points if you can use multiple sources at once. "I know that you heard hotels in Houston are going to be expensive next week so you rescheduled your trip for next month, but if you go to these restaurants and use this deal for car rentals, you'll end up saving money overall by going next week."

Obviously we're a few years away from those kind of recommendations, but is anybody working on the core idea of predicting when it's best to use a given service?

<comment><USER8> FareCast used to do that for flights; It's been bought by Miscrosoft and integrated into bing travel somehow (although I can't tell which of the answers you get there are "organic" and which are "farecast").

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The general public's problem with dynamic pricing for highly scarce goods and captive market (stuck in the city) is that it makes for extremely bad feelings.

The phrase "Price gouging" comes to mind. Even when dynamic pricing is available, as long as people are stuck, they will feel resentment.

Another example is when there are hurricanes or floods. Shops could charge "market pricing" for bottled water, but this only generates ill-will. What shops do is to ration the supplies so that all those who need bottled water get some.

The problem with cabs is you can't implement rationing. Furthermore, supply is always going to be tight even if all the limousines came out in full force. It is one of those once-a-year spike in demand.

The airline industry solves this problem by offering advance bookings. The benefits of advance booking is that it incorporates some kind of price signal so that people can decide whether they wish to travel or not. However, it will take considerable cultural change for people to modify their discretionary going-out based on fares alone.

<comment><USER10> Steeply increasing the cost of water bottles or scarce items during a flood or hurricane lessens stockpiling more effectively than rationing. Furthermore, prohibiting "gouging" eliminates the incentive for shops to keep an oversupply of water in case of a hurricane.

<comment><USER11> Also, increased price after a natural disaster causes the supply side to overcome obstacles such as downed trees, and dangerous hazards such as structurally unsound bridges.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure if it's a good idea to motivate bottled-water companies to send their trucks over _structurally unsound bridges_ just because people will pay $10 per bottle on the other side of the bridge.

<comment><USER13> You might think differently if you didn't have access to clean drinking water.

<comment><USER9> Delivering water under extremely hazardous condition is an act of heroism. One doing it should not cheapen it by trying to extract maximum rent, especially from people who might have just lost everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I can predict what will happen next New Year Eve. Riders will hedge against Uber's unpredictable price inflation by demanding the ability to lock in a lower price several days or hours in advance. This "feature" is available now, it's called a limousine service.

<comment><USER15> Let's take it a step further. Uber could provide a futures market for car service. The same economic incentives which drive cattle producers to lock-in the prices at which they will sell their cattle at the same time as they lock- in their feed prices exist for car service. Thinking about staying at the swanky hotel that's located a few miles from the party? Buy a forward contract on car service at the same time you book the room.

The issue I see is that, without standardization of "product", it would be hard to create an active marketplace. To a driver, taking someone away from the city to the suburbs isn't as valuable as a route which leads to another customer's point of departure. This, of course, implies that the drivers would also be participating in the futures market. If they noticed, before considering taking NYE off to be with their families, that they could earn $200/hour, they might reconsider.

Furthermore, would customers be willing to lock-in service at a particular time? What if the party is still going strong at your appointed time? You could sell your service slot to someone else, but would you be willing to put your contract up for sale while sipping a martini with your significant other? Is there a market design which provides sufficient certainty and price/demand visibility in a way where transactional costs don't destroy the value proposition?

Perhaps the ubiquity of pocket "trading terminals" will usher in a new era of dynamic pricing which will require the design of new market models? Next up, concert tickets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Demand and supply meet at equilibrium when all players in the market are rational and have perfect information. In Uber's case, their poor UI meant that people did not have perfect information and there was a market mismatch.

What should have happened is that many people would have realized that paying $50 to drive a mile was absurd and walked, resulting in a more reasonable 2 - 3x surcharge rather than an insane 6x surcharge.

</comment><comment><USER17> Knowing the economics behind it, I'm all for dynamic pricing even though it does _feel_ like a ripoff to me personally.

I'd be very interested, though, to know how much of the increase (~6x normal according to a screenshot on their site) is passed along to the driver.

<comment><USER18> Uber takes the same cut as they normally do.

<comment><USER19> The same _proportional_ cut, or the same constant cut? I'm unfamiliar with how their revenue sharing with drivers works.

But, either way, I'm fine with this practice. The only possible controversy is how well they inform their customers that it will happen, and how clear it is on their app what the price will be. It would be bad for them to have a bunch of customers expect to easily get an Uber on New Year's Eve, then be disappointed by lack of availability or high prices.

I wonder why Uber does this? Is it mainly an incentive for their drivers (to get as many on the road during a high-stress time)? Or is it because they would rather have customers see high prices than to see zero availability?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It also looks like they first "round up" to the $15 minimum, then multiply by the dynamic factor.</comment>


The first humans arrived in North America a lot earlier than believed - <AUTHOR> http://nouvelles.umontreal.ca/en/article/2017/01/13/the-first-humans-arrived-in-north-america-much-earlier-than-thought/ <comment><USER2> Always wondered why this is such a surprise. Getting around the planet, especially over very long time periods, is just not that hard. We're stuck in a mentality that says long distance travel was impossible prior to Columbus. But realize he was just the guy who traveled and came BACK. To migrate over long distances you don't by definition need to return, so the people you left have no idea where you went. Also you have to have a motivation to tell people where you went. Supposedly there had been fishing expeditions to the new world coast for a long time prior to Columbus. The fishermen didn't want anyone to know where they were finding such good fishing grounds so never told where they had traveled.

In addition, the evidence points to a major impact around 12.5kybp centered around the northern plains. This would have destroyed most of the evidence of any human presence.

<comment><USER3> Madagascar is a large island about ~400km off the coast of Africa. It was settled by Austronesians who embarked about 2000 years ago launching from the island of Borneo (of Malaysia), not by Africans, although Bantu speakers do appear to have colonized the somewhat closer Comoros Islands.

Cape Verde, the Azores, the Falkland Islands--the world is not lacking for places that were never colonized until the Age of Exploration despite being remarkably close to continents. Actually colonizing a place is more difficult than getting a few people together on a boat and hoping you hit land (read up on how the Austronesians actually colonized the remote islands that they found). When crossing such massive bodies of water as the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, you need stores of rations if you want to live to make it to the other side, and it's not clear that a Paleolithic society could have produced a sufficient food surplus to provision the voyage.

Also, the possible discovery of Newfoundland based on the Grand Banks doesn't predate Columbus by all that much. The clearest indications of its existence postdate Cabot's exploration in 1497. Claimants of precedence generally still date to the 1400s--usually making reference to around 1470. Archaeological evidence of any pre-Columbian, post-Viking contact with Newfoundland has not been forthcoming.

<comment><USER4> The parent is talking about visiting and you warp it into colonizing. Aboriginals probably knew about these places but had better places to live than a craggy, barren island with salt spray in their faces. If the aboriginals had the foresight to predict the land grabbing empire builders they may of dug themselves in but then some other fanciful justification tale like religious freedom would have been created to justify aboriginal displacement and land robbery.

<comment><USER3> > To migrate over long distances you don't by definition need to return, so > the people you left have no idea where you went.

That sure sounds like discussing one-way colonization to me.

Also, the islands I discussed (save Madagascar, which is a full-on continental crust fragment and is the fourth-largest island in the world) are all volcanic islands, not atolls--the Azores are actually the highest point in Portugal.

The Caribs did expand into the Caribbean Islands, many of which are smaller than, say, the Falklands. It's highly unlikely that large islands would have remained unsettled by neighboring tribes if they could have reached them-- especially since we know that the distances involved do seem to preclude them having been reached. Oceanic transport is not a trivial invention.

<comment><USER4> I didn't say atoll. Migrate doesn't mean you have to colonize every way point.The op also said "fishing expedition" which doesn't mean colonization. You don't have to marry the first person you have sex with either. Tule reeds are common in North America. Totora reeds grow in South America. Chumash regularly traveled 22 miles between what is now Catalina Islands and LA. The Chumash are best known for their sewn-plank canoe called a tomol that ranged up to 30 feet long. Cuba is 93 miles from Florida. Pre-Columbian South Americans built reed boats. Heyerdahl went 5,000 miles across the Pacific in a reed boat. Falkland Islands are 300 miles east of South American southern Patagonia coast. Pre-Incan pottery shards found in the Galapagos by Heyerdahl and Arne SkjolsvoId during an expedition to the archipelago in January 1953. Galapagos are 563 miles west of Ecuador. Regarding the Galapagos, Incan oral history tells of king Tupac Yupanqui voyage to the west and discovery of two "Islands of Fire." The Galapagos were not colonized either. Not everything in Caribbean Islands is tropical paradise. From worldwildlife.org: "Caribbean islands are often portrayed as lush tropical paradises, but Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao are better described as desert scrub. The three islands, known locally as the ABC's, are located 40-80 km off the coast of Venezuela just 12 N of the equator. Due to their leeward location, the islands receive only 350-550 mm of rain per year."

<comment><USER2> The Falklands are a pretty poor example imho. The fact that people were not there does not imply they couldn't get there. If they had no sheep, there would be no point staying.

<comment><USER4> I was responding to the assertion that European colonizers were discovering and claiming islands, specifically the Malvinas, from the backyard of indigenous peoples, of which they were totally ignorant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the challenges of North American archaeology is that it's likely that many potential archaeological sites are now underwater, since sea level was about 400 feet lower at the peak of the last ice age.

<comment><USER6> I've always felt like if there were other earlier migrations, since they necessarily would need to be coast and seafaring migrations (potentially no bridge or path through the glaciers to southern North America), then by definition all trace of those migrations and settlements would be almost entirely be lost because they are coastal cultures, at least initially. 400 feet is a _lot_ of lost coastal area. So I've always felt very skeptical that the absence of earlier archeological sites proved anything.

<comment><USER7> Something just seems wrong about the timeline. Not the NA timeline, I mean the European timeline.

We have seafarers reaching Australia 40,000 years ago. I don't think it should come as a shock that seafarers reach North America 24,000 years ago. Except that maybe we should keep digging because why did it take 16,000 more years?

I think we may be labeling the Dawn of Civilization pretty badly when we have agriculture and intercontinental tribes debuting thousands or tens of thousands of years prior.

Maybe the first inland civilization, sure.

<comment><USER8> The something you're looking for may be the ice age.

Personally I wouldn't be terribly surprised to hear that humans reached Alaska either before or after the last ice age. But right in the middle? Strange timing.

<comment><USER9> I heard the story [1] that when people where able to cross the bering street due to the lower sea level, they could not proceed from Alaska due to the massive ice shield and when the shield was gone, the bering street was closed again, a mechanism described to be similar to a revolving door.

[1] Tim Flannery (2001), The Eternal Frontier: An Ecological History of North America and its Peoples

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I've read it too, but it's odd.

It's more difficult to move on ice or water than on grass. Moving on grass is convenient. But ice and water aren't impossible, we know that people reached Greenland from the northwest and stayed there, and we know that people reached Australia and even Easter Island.

Well-regarded books say strange things sometimes. Have you read Jared Diamond's Catastrophe? Its argument about why the Norwegians who moved to Greenland died presupposes that the technology that led to viking ships had nothing to do with fishing and, and states that Norwegians would rather hunger to death than eat fish.

<comment><USER10> I think you mean Collapse ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse:_How_Societies_Choose_to_Fail_or_Succeed))? Do you have more rebuttal to that? I'm reading it at the moment, and I'm always looking for issues with JD's usually compelling arguments.

<comment><USER8> Yes, Collapse, sorry.

No, I don't, really. Except that dried cod was a well-known foodstuff in Norway at the time, that's a recorded fact. Any argument that rests on Norwegians not eating cod is a poorly founded argument, no matter how well phrased.

([http://nrksuper.no/super/files/2013/10/t%C3%B8rrfisk2-e13823...](http://nrksuper.no/super/files/2013/10/t%C3%B8rrfisk2-e1382344196288.jpg) is it. Tastes good, is light and doesn't require refrigeration. Smells though.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Bourgeon examined the approximately 36,000 bone fragments culled from the site and preserved at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau — an enormous undertaking that took her two years to complete. Comprehensive analysis of certain pieces at UdeM's Ecomorphology and Paleoanthropology Laboratory revealed undeniable traces of human activity in 15 bones. Around 20 other fragments also showed probable traces of the same type of activity. "

15 out of 36,000 is not very strong evidence. In a collection of bone fragments this large, nature and random chance are bound to produce a few fragments that strongly resemble those processed by humans. If humans were in the region 24000 years ago, other sites of similar age will eventually be found. If not, this site probably doesn't provide strong enough evidence to stand on its own.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you're wondering about the term "before present", the present is defined as 1950 for geological purposes. I'm afraid it's probably too late to correct it to 1985.

<comment><USER13> You probably meant 1970? :)

<comment><USER14> They might be thinking "Back to the Future" rather than unix?

<comment><USER15> you're right. they probably _were_ thinking of Back to the Future, which was, in some ways, a far better film than Unix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is pretty cool. I'll admit that, until a few years ago, my knowledge of human migration to the Americas was very poor. Based on my American public school education (and personal naïveté and lack of curiosity), I just thought everyone came over on the Bering land bridge in one go, then gradually split into the various cultures that Europeans eventually encountered. Of course, things are more complicated than that, and there appears to be a lot of uncertainty in the scientific community regarding the precise chronology and source populations of migrations.

<comment><USER17> The era of humanity's initial diaspora is truly fascinating. I'm particularly awed by just how quickly humans managed to colonize the Americas. By any account, humanity progressed from the just a few thousand people gaining their first footholds in the Americas to conquering the entirety of both continents with an established population numbering in the tens of millions in just ~10,000 or so years. The pace of expansion and growth is truly amazing considering how challenges posed by geography and nature.

It's not that it's impossible for humans to branch off and establish new groups in previously unexplored regions, it's that establishing sustainable communities on virgin territory isn't a one-time affair. Think about how many failed attempts were made by the groups who conquered the vast deserts, mountain ranges, and rivers between their place of origin and their new homes. To successfully conquer two continents in such a short span of time is just insane in my mind whenever I stop and think about it.

It's also funny to see how confused the efforts of archaeologists can be on this topic. This article cites the previous date of "earliest human presence" in North America as 14,000 BP while there has been well known evidence* available for years that humanity had spread as far south as Chile by that time. Obviously this discovery now makes the Monte Verde evidence far less controversial but the disconnect between the Canadian and Chilean researchers shows just how regional and siloed the study of the early America's can be.

*Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Verde)

<comment><USER3> > It's also funny to see how confused the efforts of archaeologists can be on > this topic. This article cites the previous date of "earliest human > presence" in North America as 14,000 BP while there has been well known > evidence* available for years that humanity had spread as far south as Chile > by that time. Obviously this discovery now makes the Monte Verde evidence > far less controversial but the disconnect between the Canadian and Chilean > researchers shows just how regional and siloed the study of the early > America's can be.

The date of 14000 BP would assume that the earliest migrations were essentially the Clovis culture, which is a theory that is generally considered thoroughly discredited by the archeological community and has been for several years. However, to the public, the Clovis-First, single-wave migration hypothesis is probably what they learned in school, and so every press release of a scientific find that further discredits this theory gets touted as "Earth-shattering evidence that everything we knew was wrong!"\--despite the fact that this is far from the first evidence of the fact and even that the scientific community is largely unsurprised at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Simplified map from national geographic helps show migration patterns of the world: [https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human- journey/](https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/)

Actual article is open-access: [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0169486)

Simply amazing that a human community existed for 8,000 years in total isolation from the world.

<comment><USER19> One thing that bothers me, is that most first world archeologist keep ignoring evidence of humans in Brazil at least 40.000 years ago.

Even more interesting, there are evidence of "negroids" in Brazil at that time, while the "mongoloids" people (the current native americans, that have features shared with asians) timeline seemly match the straight theory, some Brazillian historians believe that what happened is that the first attempt of colonizing South America failed somehow, and when the current natives arrived, they early settlers were already long gone.

As for a controversial archeological dig, one with 40.000 years ago humans in it, see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_Furada_sites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_Furada_sites)

<comment><USER20> Can you expand on the evidence of "Negroids" in Brazil 40,000 years ago? I'm familiar with the idea of pre-Clovis settlements and the controversy around that, but I was under the impression these were thought to be earlier settlers from East Asia, like the Clovis people.

The only indication of Africans in South America I can think of are the much later statues and idols of faces from Olmec Mexico, circa 1000 BC, which some claim have "Negroid" features (a supposition that has to be debunked with an unfortunate degree of frequency).

<comment><USER19> The Negroid thing is more speculative, due to the lack of decent human remains with that age, but we DO have some old remains (older than 10.000) that are seemly negroid, for example the skull nicknamed "Luzia" that was found in Brazil. (there are some others too, but Luzia made international news when it was found).

Some people are trying to find more remains, and others are trying to do genetic research on those remains, one theory is that there was two (or more) waves of migration.

Another theory, is that the people that crossed the strait 22000 years ago were negroids, and "co-evolved" to have Asian features like modern Asians because of converging evolution or coincidence.

A third theory that was more popular when there was fewer evidence (when Luzia was first found) was that Luzia features were just normal genetic variation, and that she was a mongoloid that looked negroid because of randomness.

<comment><USER20> I'd never heard of Luzia, but I just read into it a bit and it's definitely intriguing. Thanks for the response and the new rabbit hole to dive into!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very interesting related Wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre- Columbian_trans-oceanic_co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre- Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact)

</comment><comment><USER22> So is it safe to say even native americans are actually immigrants?

<comment><USER23> Well yeah. We've known that for years.

Hell, if you live anywhere that isn't a specific part of Africa, you're pretty much guaranteed to be an immigrant or a descendant thereof.

<comment><USER24> If only the Neanderthals had thought of building a wall (and made homo sapiens pay for it, of course).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm not sure that evidence of stone tools means that these were human animals. Many other species can conceivably use stone tools.

</comment><comment><USER26> The oldest direct evidence are dated feces from a island cave 14K BP. Then there is a lot of bones 13K.

</comment><comment><USER27> > This has been demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt by xxxxxx, a professor > in yyyyyy's Department of Anthropology

Anthropology and "shadow of a doubt" never fit well with me in a sentence.

I'd like to hear an independent view on the data.

A lot of bone and not many 'human made' scratches with clear evidence of carnivore activity in the cave.</comment>


Once a Joke Goes Viral, Who Cares Where It Came From? (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://newrepublic.com/article/122765/once-joke-goes-viral-who-cares-where-it-came <comment><USER2> The idea of giving credit to original creativity, citing sources properly, etc, can be very difficult.

I have had lots of ideas that were derivative of other people's work. Maybe almost all of my ideas. Coming up with anything truly unique is _super hard_!

I have written a lot in my career, but most of it is for clients and courts. Much of it is quite original in a sense, because the facts of any two circumstances are never quite the same. However, my legal writing is almost certainly never going to be used by anyone else to make money or take credit that I might otherwise think should be mine. But I have made money by doing all of this writing.

On the other hand, I used to be a professional editor and sometimes writer. Some of that work could much more easily be used by someone else either to make money or to be passed off as their original ideas etc. That's where I would start to feel bothered if I weren't given credit or compensated for that work.

But the actual work of coming up with ideas, writing them down, and giving them to someone else to read is not really very different between those two (or three if you count writing and editing as different) jobs! So why would I feel differently? Why do I want credit for one, but not the other?

<comment><USER3> I think you answered your own questions right there, but there is a little more juice to squeeze: legal writing had limited domain of interest and is just "the person who observes these fact commits them for transmission". Whilst the other writing (it seems from how you couched it) has a cultural aspect to it, [more] personality in the writing, broader interest and possibly for entertainment or general education.

We value our personalities, our distinctiveness, more than we value our characteristics that are shared with others. Anything that's creative in an artistic way we see as being more valuable that things we produce simply by being conduits of information -- making up a joke and telling it and getting a laugh feels much better than telling someone else's joke and getting a laugh.

You want credit for the cultural value but not the mere ability to transmit information, the later being something that's essential inherent in your physical make up, the former being creative output of your personality and more unique characteristics.

A simpler way to look at it is that if people can make money from something then it's valued by society. You seek recompense for the value you add because you've been trained to do so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci."

<comment><USER5> The Pagliacci joke has become a nice example of remixing on Twitter:

[https://twitter.com/spacetwinks/status/965428890830344193](https://twitter.com/spacetwinks/status/965428890830344193)

[https://twitter.com/daveexmachina/status/1106964873299329026](https://twitter.com/daveexmachina/status/1106964873299329026)

Including my favourite, crossovers with other memes:

[https://twitter.com/mdkii/status/1067126458534019074](https://twitter.com/mdkii/status/1067126458534019074)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I came up with an original "dad joke" a few years ago that I was incredibly proud of, posted it to Reddit and got many upvotes. Then later on I started to realize that everything on Reddit was reposts and I thought to myself: "wait...what if _my_ joke was a repost?" so I googled it and sure enough somebody else had already invented it before me. I'm about 95% sure that I really hadn't heard the joke before and that I really did think of it on my own, but it was kind of obvious so there was plenty of opportunity for it to be discovered independently any number of times.

<comment><USER7> You can't just post that without telling us the joke. C'mon! - unless it might dox you :)

<comment><USER6> Yeah that's why I was hesitant. The joke hadn't been posted so many times on Reddit that I was comfortable sharing it :P But here's another dad joke to tide you over! Did you know that Sir Isaac Newton had a brother that sold frut? Yeah his name was Fig. :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment> alexanderthe- From Tim Ferris' Tao of Seneca:

"Epicurus," you reply, "uttered these words; what are you doing with another's property?" Any truth, I maintain, is my own property. And I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another, and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property. Farewell.

-Seneca the Younger

</comment><comment><USER8> Humor is crowdsourced now.

If it's not upvoted/reposted enough it's not funny.

And like that Key & Peele skit, it doesn't do you well to insist that you created something if someone else makes it popular

[https://youtu.be/k1tsGGz-Qw0](https://youtu.be/k1tsGGz-Qw0)

(but seriously though, appropriating something without credit is not cool.)

<comment><USER3> Politicians don't credit their speech writers and no one seems to care about that -- so appropriating things seems fine in some circumstances?

Artists don't, in general, credit the architects of buildings they draw, nor the gardeners or horticulturalists who make other scenes they might paint/draw. Singers don't credit the creators of life stories they write ballads about.

[IMO the politician is not there as themselves, they're a corporate body really, they can represent views that honestly they wouldn't hold because their backers -- financial, moral, political, or otherwise - hold those views. The problem with that is they don't identify the corporation they represent, IMO they really should be giving traceable credit for all of their inputs.]

<comment><USER9> > Politicians don't credit their speech writers and no one seems to care about > that -- so appropriating things seems fine in some circumstances?

That's typically a work for hire though. When I load up Photoshop and click on _About_ , I don't see a list of all the developers that wrote the code. I think speech writing is the same thing.

<comment><USER10> Older versions of Photoshop do show such a list in their about menu. For example, here's CS4: [https://i.imgur.com/33i24Sk.png](https://i.imgur.com/33i24Sk.png)

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing that was a courtesy move on Adobe's part. I can't imagine those people retain any rights to their work on Photoshop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's a culture on twitter now, of "exposing" viral tweets (usually jokes) for having been stolen from less prominent people on the platform.

I think it's great despite the obvious pettiness attached to the practice.

</comment><comment><USER12> Check out _Jokester_ by Isaac Asimov for another take on the origin of jokes.

This comment has more to do with the question posed by the headline, which I found didn't match the article very well.

<comment><USER13> > the question posed by the headline, which I found didn't match the article > very well

The later paragraphs do show the link between headline and the content. No? Looks like the final straw that broke him was Lloyd's infringment lawsuite accusing him of stealing from a film which he co-wrote.

<comment><USER12> They're not entirely unrelated. I found the final paragraphs to describe how the research of attribution is difficult. I interpreted the headline as questioning whether attribution is even relevant or desirable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Do you want to hear a joke about UDP? I don't care if you get it or not.

<comment><USER15> An ASCII character walks into a bar. The bartender says, "What's the problem?" The ASCII character says, "I have a parity error." The bartender nods and says, "Yeah, I thought you looked a bit off."

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Isn't this the driving principle behind memes? Categorize information into some new digestible format but the author is less important than the meme.

<comment><USER17> No, at least not exclusively. When an someone starts making money posting other people's work, the author of said work becomes important.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My partner came up with a joke many years ago which I have actually heard repeated in more recent years.

It's not a good joke, but I still laugh whenever I hear it.

"what does a dyslexic zombie say?"

<comment><USER19> is the joke finished? I do not understand it.

<comment><USER18> See sibling comment for underwhelming punchline. You will be disappointed.</comment></comment></comment>


Users revolt over bugs in Second Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/doc/46569/Untitled <comment><AUTHOR> Posted on Scribd due to nasty ads on original site.

</comment><comment><USER2> The instability issues with Second Life cripple what could otherwise be a rich user experience. Even when it works, it feels creaky and burdened. Not surprising, given the nature of 3D graphics, let alone the streaming of user created content in real-time. The other major issue is that while the 3d environment works very well for social interaction, It isn't so great for interacting with more traditional infomation like the written word. If they could integrate some tools to more seamlessly interact with 2d data like webpages, then heck, I'd spend all day in there.</comment>


Why aren't we building our own Printers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/openprinter_announce/comments/aotep/announcing_the_openprinter_project/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's an intro article on this on Hackaday as well [http://hackaday.com/2010/01/26/why-arent-we-building-our- own...](http://hackaday.com/2010/01/26/why-arent-we-building-our-own- printers/)

With all the excitement around 3D printers, it would be nice to see something similar in 2D or at least a combination.</comment>


Dive Into 2010: HTML5 Book Reflection - <AUTHOR> http://diveintomark.org/archives/2011/01/09/dive-into-2010

<comment><USER3> Interesting stats!

14k sales in 6 weeks is great for a tech book (~5k lifetime being the norm), but on the back of 2 million visitors to the web site, and Mark Pilgrim's reputation, it illustrates why publishing is a tough biz.

O'Reilly pays authors 10% of net income, which is usually 50% of retail. Given Mark's book is going for $30 retail and $17.72 at Amazon, that's about ~$0.88 - $1.50 per book for print (for the sake of the argument, let's assume digital is in the same ballpark). Mark's royalty check for $9225, + whatever advance Mark got (say $5k?) equals roughly $1/book sale for the author (assuming that payment was for 14k sales to date). Given it takes 100s of hours to write a book (and hundreds more to write a good one), making $1 per sale, on average sales of 5k lifetime, or 14k sales in 6 weeks for a top tier author like Mark... let's just say technical writing is not exactly something you do for profit :)

Also of note is the 75%/25% print/digital sales ratio. This would suggest that the free online version is cannibalizing digital sales, given O'Reilly usually sells ebooks 2:1 ([http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/does-digital-cannibalize- pr...](http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/does-digital-cannibalize-print-not- likely.html)), but I guess you could make a case that the loss in digital sales is made up in extra print sales from the book's exposure online.

<comment><USER4> Interesting deductions! I just wanted to pipe in here to confirm that your math and your stated assumptions are correct. My take is the standard 10%. My "top tier" status, as you flatteringly put it, bought me the freedom to simultaneously publish the book online under a Creative Commons Attribution license. I negotiated for licensing, not money. I have no regrets.

<comment><USER5> Your story provides some interesting confirmations of the points I raised in my own story of 2009: <http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/>

Despite being approached to do the 2nd edition of what was a popular book (in its field), my negotiations on the licensing failed and, as anticipated, the 2nd edition has done extremely poorly compared to the 1st due to new competition and a lack of anyone _serious_ recommending the book because it's not available in an open format to "scope out." (And as someone who recommends books, this is key for me. I can't buy every beginners' book that I don't need merely to judge them for others.)

Your post will serve as interesting ammunition in future discussions between many authors and their publishers, I suspect, and I applaud you for putting it out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > 6% of visitors used some version of Internet Explorer. [...] Microsoft has > completely lost the web development community.

This is something we all know but it's interesting to read another tidbit supporting that conclusion nonetheless. Not only do web developers avoid using Internet Explorer, we've been traumatized enough by IE that we actively evangelize against it.

<comment><USER7> That was one of the more interesting stats to me as well. Given my IE trauma I actually read it as 6% as IE6 users but 6% of all IE versions, wow - <USER2> has really lost credibility with the web developer crowd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a fantastic book, and probably the one I've recommended most this year. I used it (the online version) to both learn about the new technologies and also to prepare curriculum to teach other folks about them. I love how his writing style combines narration and humor alongside the technical topics. Read it! :)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm wondering if any conclusions should be drawn from the disinterest in microdata.

On one level it's to be expected - most interest in HTML5 is coming from front-end people whilst microdata is of most interest to 'back-end' types (and SEO bods).

However one shouldn't forget Cory Doctorow's metacrap thesis: <http://www.well.com/~doctorow/metacrap.htm></comment>


Ask HN: What should I charge for the development of Twitter analytics software? - <AUTHOR>

How much should I charge a client for the development of some Twitter analytics software, essentially a more customized/granular but simpler version of the as yet unreleased Twitter Publisher Analytics? I'm pretty inexperienced as to pricing in this business. <comment><USER2> estimate the number of hours you expect it to take to build, then triple that, and multiply by your hourly rate. Break down the cost of the project by each major feature as a line item, and if the client pushes back on the price, DO NOT LOWER YOUR HOURLY RATE...instead, remove features to lower the price

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I almost always double my estimates, and if it's a bigger unknown project, triple it. You can do fixed cost, but make sure that you have a fixed set of features that you both agree on and an hourly rate for scope creep (which will happen as soon as they see anything). Or keep it entirely hourly, in which case, some scope creep might be welcome on your end.</comment></comment>


Tabvention – Manage Your Browser Tab Addiction - <AUTHOR> http://tabvention.io/

<comment><USER2> Haven't tried, but I think I would find this intrusive and annoying--I'd be mentally keeping track of how many tabs I had open and then checking my bookmarks if I went over. Not for me, but maybe useful for some.

I've tried session managers too, and those are okay for restoring state when things crash.

THE GREATEST THING is Tabs Outliner (chrome only). This displays all your windows and tabs as a tree and lets you rearrange, easily close and restore windows, selectively restore, add notes to tabs, etc.

A slight learning curve, but worth it for the power surfer. Demo of some of the features in this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqjcrfKjobY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqjcrfKjobY)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it even good practice to have a dozen of tabs open? Maybe it depends on the type of websites open? Travel related with 10 SO questions and 3 Youtube instances? That's not focused work right? The point is I am very confused why people have dozens of tabs open at once. Please share with me the reason behind this habbit

<comment><USER4> I use tree style tabs[treeee] in Firefox and often open 5-10, process them (which may involve opening several more each). Eventually I find the information I need, but this makes it easy to group the depth of my search. This branch is from the API docs, that branch is from StackOverflow (and usually has a subbranch of questions that catch my attention from the more fun StackExchange sites, whoops), and then another branch with language specific questions. I try to clear everything at the end of the week, but it's really not a huge burden because I can collapse a tree and just mentally ignore it until then. Average day with lots of coding? 100+ tabs easily.

[treeee]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/tree-style- ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was thinking about something similar a couple of weeks ago: Wouldn't it be useful to be able to serialise browser state? I.e. saving a full package of html+css+javascript state to a compressed file on a hard disk.

Having that ability would solve a host of problems - e.g. having too many tabs. Older tabs could simply be serialised down to disk to free up ram/processing power, and read back in to exactly the same state when the user wants to interact with them again.

They would also aid in debugging, as users could send a serialised snapshot of a page as part of a bug report to help devs diagnose problems with websites.

Unfortunately however, I know far little about hwo browsers are constructed (and I have far too little time) to implement such a thing, but it's something that I've been wishing for for a while now!

<comment><USER6> maybe you will like session manager

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session- manager/bb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session- manager/bbcnbpafconjjigibnhbfmmgdbbkcjfi)

<comment><USER5> Ah interesting! I'll check that out asap!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recently switched back to Firefox exactly for this reason. Firefox has tab overflow so that I can actually tell what an open tab is. Additionally, Firefox can be set to ONLY load the current tab on startup. Have you ever been to a hotel and opened your browser only to be presented with a captive portal? With Chrome all of your other tabs are now going to that page also. It caused me lots of sadness once.

I maintain a work and personal instance of firefox. When things seem a little sluggish I move open tabs related to projects into a wiki. Or, if its just something I wanted to 'read later'... I read it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Related to this is an issue that exists for a while now on Chrome on Android devices. Apparently, it isn't possible to close all tabs with a simple operation on this version of Chrome. This causes the number of tabs to accumulate endlessly, and it is apparently driving users insane [1]

[1] [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=268157](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=268157)

</comment><comment><USER9> Lots of tabs are a hint you are time-slicing too finely, IMHO. If I have more than a manageable number, it's a little hint to myself that I'm getting spread too thin to make any sort of reasonable progress on anything.

</comment><comment><USER10> On a mildly related note, does anyone know if there's a nice analogue to Firefox's tab groups in Chrome? I'm not sure if I'm ready to make the plunge into something automated like this.

</comment><comment><USER11> this is going to change my life, thank you.

<comment><USER12> I've been using Session Buddy [1] to "lasso" a set of my open tabs for later use. A little bit more love to that UX and it'd be bliss. I worry about Tabvention automatically closing my tabs.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session- buddy/edac...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session- buddy/edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko?hl=en)

<comment><USER13> I'm using it, too, but it should find a way to eliminate dupes. Also, all these tools lose the history, i.e. if you reopen a tab, you can't go back, which I understand, but would wish there was a way to store at least few hops back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone know of a comparable extension for Firefox?

<comment><USER6> [http://www.one-tab.com/](http://www.one-tab.com/)

not the same, but has a similar impact.

However, it still does not solve the underlying problem, but that is a non- technical one and can only be approached with some kind of yoga, meditation or any other self-control trickery.

<comment><USER13> In Firefox I had nearly 9,000 tabs in there (no kidding). One day, after rebooting the browser, the .json file it was using got truncated to 0 - one of my worst days ever!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you pay for a bitcoin insurance policy? - <AUTHOR>

Lets say you could pay $xx/month to have your bitcoins insurance, in case of theft or lost coins, or anything along those lines... would you do it? <comment><USER2> Contemporary insurance schemes usually rely on the insurer having some means (or some chance) of possibly recovering the sum, either by siccing their lawyers on the thief/thief's bank or getting the police to step in.

With bitcoin there's really no viable way to do this as there's no easy way for a sub-NSA-level actor to trace BTC transactions.

So I'm at a loss as to how such a system could be made to work.

<comment><USER3> I don't think this is true for many types of insurance. In many cases, insurance companies can "go after" a perpetrator, like in car accidents and credit card fraud situations, but what about home insurance that covers fire/flood/acts of God? What about life insurance or health insurance?

In these cases I am pretty sure the insurers make their living by shrewd actuarial rate-setting that tries to make their "average" policy profitable, and by having a large enough customer base that the "average" case is statistically likely.

The way to make BTC insurance work would be similar: calculate the costs to replace BTC, times the likelihood of needing to, and charge more than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What would stop someone sending them to another address which they own, and then claiming they were stolen?</comment>