YouTube wins case against Viacom - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/youtube-wins-case-against-viacom.html

<comment><USER2> A few comments on this summary judgment ruling:

1\. The decision came at the trial-court level and is not binding on other courts (though it might be persuasive). It is a summary judgment, meaning that the judge decided it before a trial could be held based on affidavits submitted by the parties. This also means that it will be easier to reverse on appeal than would a decision after trial.

2\. The decision puts the burden on a copyright holder to identify item-by- item each claimed instance of copyright infringement and to report it under the DMCA. It leaves the hosting party in a position of being able to ignore what may or may not be infringing on its site _so long as_ it responds promptly and faithfully to take-down notices for specific items.

3\. The court sharply distinguished precedents concerning sites that had facilitated P2P copying, concluding that those cases had nothing to do with the DMCA safe harbor. Viacom had obviously played up those cases, essentially arguing that the defendants here profited from the regular and widespread posting of infringing materials on the YouTube site and therefore should be guilty of some form of contributory infringement liability. The court stiff- armed all such arguments by saying, in effect, "no, that's all different - Google's sole obligation here was to comply with DMCA and, if it did, it can't be held liable as a contributory infringer."

4\. The court also dismissed the idea that Google could be held liable for not doing wholesale take-downs upon receiving a general notice that broad categories of materials on its site were potentially infringing (in essence, holding that a hosting site cannot possibly be in a position to determine what truly is or is not infringing just because it falls in some category or other of materials that might be infringing). Thus, the court refused to interpret DMCA in a way that puts the hosting party in a position where it must actively monitor its site for offending materials apart from its obligation to respond to specific take-down requests.

5\. What is really involved here is a policy dispute over the safe-harbor protections of DMCA: Google says it is enough that it complies with take-down requests; Viacom says Google should still be liable if widespread posting of infringing material is regularly going on and if Google is profiting from that activity.

6\. Though the judge did not make formal mention of it in his decision, it cannot have helped Viacom that it appears to have had dirty hands in this mess, in part by having its own agents upload a good number of the allegedly offending materials to the site. This sort of conduct really stinks of a setup and prompt judges to shape their formal legal reasoning in a way that reflects their disapproval of such misconduct.

7\. On a final note, summary judgments are notoriously difficult to uphold on appeal and so this will be appealed and the outcome of that appeal will be anybody's guess. Therefore, an important victory for Google but by no means any sort of final one.

<comment><USER3> General legal question: If you're a judge, you presumably think you're right, and so you'd want your rulings to be upheld. So, if it's harder to appeal after-trial rulings than summary rulings, why not just make up your mind beforehand, but let the trial go through, and then rule afterward, and then it's easier to uphold? It's horrible for everybody else, but you aren't paying the legal fees.

(Not that I think judges _should_ do this, just wondering about the incentives.)

<comment><USER2> A bit of legal theory here.

When a case is filed, a party brings a complaint, which sets forth allegations constituting claims for relief. The allegations are factual in nature but are generally stated.

A party who has been sued ultimately responds to the complaint by filing an answer in which he admits or denies the allegations made against him. In the normal case, most material allegations are denied.

The allegations that have been denied form the factual issues in the case, which ultimately must be decided by a trier of fact at a trial. When the facts have been so determined at a trial, the law is applied to them to determine whether one or more claims has been proved as to all of their elements (liability and damages or other relief sought) and, if so, judgment is entered on such claims against the wrongdoing party.

The time between the filing of a complaint and the date of a trial is typically a year or more.

Between the original filing and the trial, discovery is conducted by the parties. Discovery is done through a range of legal mechanisms that allow each party to discover what evidence underlies another party's case. This can be through written interrogatories, document requests, admission requests, depositions, etc. The idea behind discovery is to find out what admissible evidence exists to support the allegations that are at issue in the case.

After a reasonable period has passed for each party to conduct discovery, any party can move for summary judgment if it wishes. This is a tough motion to win. In essence, a party asking for summary judgment is telling the judge that, based on all the undisputed evidence that will be before the court in connection with the motion (evidence submitted by the moving party and by the opposing party), the moving party will be entitled to judgment "as a matter of law." If the court agrees that there are no material undisputed facts relating to all the essential pieces of a claim in the case, or if the undisputed facts show that there is an insuperable barrier to relief on a party's ability to prove a claim, the court can make a _legal_ determination that such a claim be disposed of then and there and without need of allowing that claim to reach trial.

At a trial, it is normally up the "trier of fact" to resolve all _factual_ disputes framed by the justiciable issues in the case. That usually means a jury (assuming one or more parties has demanded a jury trial). And, since the right to a jury is constitutionally guaranteed, a judge has no authority to supplant the authority of a jury to determine factual disputes at the trial. If no one has demanded a jury, or if the nature of a claim is such that is not triable to a jury, then the judge acts as the trier of fact in lieu of a jury. In either case, when a case presents disputed material facts that need to be resolved before it can be decided, the resolution of such facts is _always_ left for trial and cannot be short-circuited by a judge before trial.

Thus, when (as in this case) a judge is presented with a summary judgment motion, the judge cannot dispose of any claims without first finding that the material facts relating to the claim being ruled upon are undisputed. If, in the course of the motion, a party presents evidence that, if believed at trial, would support that person's position and potentially support a judgment in that person's favor, then the judge must hold that disputed facts exist that preclude the claim's being dismissed summarily before trial.

That is why summary judgment is so hard to get. In virtually every case that is fought in court, a party will have something to present in terms of evidence that might allow that party to win at a trial. The evidence may not be strong or particularly credible, but a court has no power to weigh the strength of evidence in deciding whether to enter summary judgment. If contradictory evidence is presented, and is material to an issue, then summary judgment is automatically denied.

In this case, Viacom basically admitted that, with respect to every take down notice involved in the case, Google had acted promptly to remove the offending material. The judge also acknowledged that Viacom had presented evidence that (if believed) suggested that Google knew that there was widespread copyright infringement on its YouTube site and that it even encouraged such infringing activities so as to profit from them. Having so assessed the evidence, the judge interpreted the DMCA in a way that this latter evidence was irrelevant to any issue in the case - that is, it was not material to the resolution of the infringement claims that Google might have wanted to profit from infringing activity because all that mattered under DMCA is that Google always acted quickly to do the take downs whenever Viacom flagged an offending item. Having so construed the law, and given that Viacom had no evidence to dispute the fact that Google at all times acted promptly to do the take-downs, the judge held as a matter of law that there was nothing left for a jury to decide at a trial and that the judge could therefore enter a judgment on such issues summarily before trial for Google and against Viacom.

In this context, a judge would not have any particular incentive normally to avoid entering summary judgment just to try to make any ultimate ruling more appeal-proof. If the judge here, for example, had denied the motion and let the case go to trial, this would simply have put a jury through a useless exercise of trying to determine certain facts that the judge did not regard as relevant anyway. In the end, thinking as he did, this judge would have wound up with the same result in any case.

When considering incentives generally, though, it is true that is generally "safe" for a judge to deny summary judgment in most cases, even when a party has otherwise made a pretty compelling case, because that decision is not appealable and the net effect of the denial is to force the parties to go to trial. In such a case, in order to protect his record and avoid the potential for reversal on appeal, a judge essentially "kicks the can down the road" and fails to do the right thing that would save all parties a great deal of time, effort, and expense. This does unfortunately happen and is a source of great frustration to litigants in some cases. It also means that meritless cases can get to a full jury trial, where the pressure to settle is great just because a party would rather pay at that point rather than take unnecessary risks with what a jury might do.

<comment><USER4> _The allegations are factual in nature but are generally stated_

Minor thing, but could you clarify this statement? Do you mean "usually stated", or "stated in a general manner"? I'm unsure about the legal meaning of the words.

<comment><USER5> Stated in a general manner. What's being alleged rather than the evidence to support it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What court this judgement was granted in? It is supreme court? if not, can't it be appealed all the way.

<comment><USER7> District court of New York.

[http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrust...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/press/pdf/msj_decision.pdf)

<comment><USER8> So if memory serves (IANAL, but I did take a class on court procedure a long time ago), they can appeal this to the district court of appeals. I believe that SJ motions are dispositive, so they can appeal it immediately, too. Viacom almost certainly will, too. EDIT: I was confused. It says they dismissed the whole case, not merely a part of it. So yeah, Viacom will almost certainly appeal ASAP.

So this is still pretty far below the Supreme Court (which might or might not be willing to grant cert; they don't have to hear just any old case) and there's likely to be quite a bit of legal wrangling to go through. Perhaps even years worth, unless they can settle.

Google has been smart from what I've seen in terms of pointing out that the relevant part of copyright law is whether someone has permission to post something, and that's not something you can determine algorithmically. Even Viacom's lawyers screwed that up, after doing due diligence, and had to remove Viacom-posted clips from the case. Twice.

<comment><USER9> We have to see what grounds they appeal the case on but unless there is a significant Constitutional question in play SCOTUS rarely grants cert.

<comment><USER8> This doesn't get appealed to the Supreme Court (yet). This would next go to the District Court of Appeals for that circuit (and would later get appealed en banc) unless there's some point of law I don't know about that's special to this case. Which is possible, given that IANAL, but I think this is a pretty straightforward copyright case, so I'm not sure where else they could go without coming up with some new claims.

You don't get to appeal to the Supreme Court until you've exhausted all your other appeals. And there aren't many instances where SCOTUS has original jurisdiction (those are _very_ rare, and in that case you go straight to the Supremes rather than dealing with lower courts).

But, no, I don't think they'll grant cert (though you never know). Viacom flamed out on summary judgment. IMHO, this is more like SCO where you have an angry litigant who will exhaust all appeals rather than admit defeat, which is why I feel that appeal is inevitable.

Also, they'll be lobbying lawmakers to change the law. You can bank on that. They're already working on the Obama administration from what I can see, given that piracy crackdown they promised.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I was simply stating that the grounds for appeal are usually similar, if not identical, to the grounds for further appeals. Given that, even if Viacom were to fight this up the chain, it is unlikely that they'll grant cert if there isn't a Constitutional debate or conflicting precedent. In this case, since it was SDNY, the case appeals to 2d Cir.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Viacom has posted a brief response on their website: <http://news.viacom.com/news/Pages/summaryjudgment.aspx>

<comment><USER11> Seems like they were already settling in for the long haul anyway:

 _This case has always been about whether intentional theft of copyrighted works is permitted under existing law and we always knew that the critical underlying issue would need to be addressed by courts at the appellate levels. Today's decision accelerates our opportunity to do so._

<comment><USER12> Sounds like they are going to challenge the law, not Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This lawsuit actually goes much further than just Google: if the judge had decided that the way YouTube was going about DMCA takedowns was incorrect, any website/service provider would have to moderate user submitted content before allowing it on the site since there was precedent in the interpretation of that law.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is big, even if only one battle in a larger war.

</comment><comment><USER15> Congratulations and way to go YouTube!

Here is a video (with a cute girl) of some typical YouTube music pirates:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh1nU7SeYg0>

<comment><USER16> I went looking for a topical remix of Der Untergang but, sadly, there does not seem to be one.

Yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What happens if Viacom appeals and wins? Presumably it gets sent back for trial or something?

<comment><USER17> Yeah—as grellas says above, a ruling on summary judgement basically says "the law is so totally on this guy's side that there's no point to having a trial to decide what the facts are", and all an appeals court has to do is say "umm, actually, if the facts are X or Y or Z then this guy loses, so go have a trial". And after the trial, whichever side doesn't like the verdict can appeal again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Viacom won't take this lying down (it will set a hell of a precedent), but great win for YouTube and the future.

<comment><USER19> Actually the interesting thing is that a good chunk of the ruling is citing multiple existing precedents stating that youtube is not guilty of contributory infringment.

So it seems the precedents are there, but only the big guys like Google can stand up and get them recognized in court.

<comment><USER20> The cost of litigating a case like this is pretty unfortunate. Some of the more on-point precedents were recently set by Veoh (cited on pp. 24-27 of the YouTube decision), who won their case and then went bankrupt almost immediately afterwards: [http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/veoh-files- for-bankru...](http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/veoh-files-for- bankruptcy-after-fending-off-infringement-charges/)

<comment><USER19> Ah, even if you win, you lose.

After I made my previous post I was pondering what Viacom hops to win in this case. The obvious thought is that they want to gut the DMCA safe harbor, but this seems like it would make combating piracy harder in the long run.

The safe harbor is the carrot offered so that service providers respond to DMCA takedown notices. Without that carrot, or with it much farther away, service providers are less likely to cooperate with Viacom.

Viacom is setting the playing field for service providers like this: 1\. Dedicate resources to DMCA takedowns and then spend millions defending your safe harbor status anyway, or 2\. Spend millions in copyright fines

This is a bad playing field to set, the DMCA takedown is a pretty sweet deal for Viacom. Why spoil it by making option 2 so attractive to service providers? And then option 3 dawned on me:

3\. Don't allow user content

I don't think this case is really about copyright at all. It seems to me that Viacom's real goal is just to squash a competitor using the courts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I didn't hear about this case. Summary?

<comment><USER22> Viacom uploaded promotional materials to YouTube, then sent YouTube DMCA notices to take them down, then uploaded them again, then sued YouTube for hosting copyrighted content.

If you had to re-read that sentence a few times, don't worry, that's normal.

<comment><USER23> Geez. I wonder which lunatic at Viacom thought of that. Do they think is is Cirque du Soleil?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looks like the only winners in the fair-use wars will be multi-billion dollar corporations.

So will viacom go directly after the uploaders next or does this lawsuit prevent that? Because end-users have been proven to lose most of the time with far less money to defend themselves.

<comment><USER25> What?

Google won because they did nothing illegal, end users loose when the do something illegal.

Money does help in lawsuits, but you really think end users loose due to lack of money? Even when their defense was donated?

<comment><USER24> Yes, when there are staggering judgments against users, I think something is fishy, and I have to assume poor defense (ie. a million dollars for 30 songs). It's designed to scare the average person into settling for several thousand dollars because they cannot afford a defense at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Those who think they can never do wrong won against those who can never do right. Thrilling.

<comment><USER27> This is very exciting! In this case, I want the law on Google's side. Some of the provisions of the DMCA are ridiculous, but the DMCA claim/counterclaim process is better than alternatives, like vetting all user submitted content up-front. Sites depending on user-submitted content don't have to worry about undue burden.</comment></comment>


'Frenzy of hatred': The dramatic rise of far-right extremists - <AUTHOR> https://news.sky.com/story/frenzy-of-hatred-the-dramatic-rise-of-far-right-extremists-11609611 <comment><USER2> I can't help feeling that the general rise in hatred is fuelled by the press reporting every news story with so much "outraging".

"You must be outraged by this now!" seems to be a rallying cry. Chill. Yes, there's lots of chaotic evil people in the world, but most people are neutral, good or lawful.

[edit to clarify who was who]

<comment><USER3> yep, journalism is all about the clicks, not the truth, these days. And people click on shit like this.</comment></comment>


Microsoft to show code in Brazil to calm fears about spy 'back doors' - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-microsoft-brazil-idUSKCN12J2TA <comment><USER2> What a jokish news! Made my day! Can't decide if it's Microsoft bullshitting Brazil or Brazil bullshitting it's own population. But I have my idea.</comment>


Challenge: Can we build a company to 10k MRR in 90 days starting from scratch? - <AUTHOR>

We've got a SaaS company that is doing pretty well,  and development is coming to an end. We're ready for a new challenge and we had the idea of trying to develop a business with 100% transparency including a 1 hour webinar once a week for 12 weeks.
We've thought about doing this in one of two ways:
1. We develop the idea 2. Let the community vote on the idea
The goal would be obviously to develop a business but also to share 100% of what we do to get customers, how we build the product and everything in between.  100% bare all.
Would this be something that startup founders would be interested in seeing?  If so would you prefer option 1 or 2 above? <comment><USER2> I enjoy these type of challenges and I think you may surprise yourself with what is possible.

The trick is that every time you face a decision, where you need to sacrifice one priority for another, you always pick the priority that _makes you money faster_.

This is a very good constraint for an early business to have.

I would recommend the SEO market as a place to start (speaking from experience). The top forums have very active marketplaces where people are already paying money for SEO services and software. The engineering behind the products is not generally good, and many products are snake-oil. You can differentiate yourself with a product backed by quality engineering, targeting a use-case that does not directly spam the web.

Think something like rank trackers. Tons of those exist, none are very good. The "moral argument" against rank trackers is basically nil, especially compared to the moral argument against blackhat SEO services. Therefore it makes sense to enter the SEO market with a product relatively benign, like a rank tracker, instead of something like a link spammer.

Go to the SEO forums. Find what people are paying the most for. Make a better product. Sell it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Try this:

Run the company normally, but on each week, have a 90 minute confirmed-user webinar.

45-60 minutes discussing what you did in the week and then have and then:

For the next 30-45 minutes, you list the problems you've faced and the actions you've decided on taking. This won't work for every problem, but for where your own internal solutions are not based on expertise, you allow the community to vote/share on solving that problem.

Doing this company-building would be fun/okay normally, but would be amazing as a remote business (on the web, employees/founders spread across the world).

Mixing the entrepreneur community with the remote community (although there is tons of overlap already) will attract thousands of views of the experiment over the years.

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting, we run a remote company and that is our main market currently so that could be a great fit and really good for us.

<comment><USER3> go for it :-) I look forward to watching and learning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Cool thank you both for the comments and feedback - will let you know what comes with it. Great advice, I'll bring this around again when ready to roll.</comment>


Here come the mediata startups - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2013/12/04/here-come-the-mediata-startups/

<comment><USER2> I didn't feel like this post was very clear, but I do (think?) it pointed out some important ideas. Data as the fodder that a community uses to discuss and dissect its area of focus is going to be a high growth area. It provides an almost endless stream of content and information that can be used by the community.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess it sucks that 'datamedia' is trademarked :-)

I think this article is worth reading if only to point a light in a direction that has clearly seeing some major change. I ran into it trying to explain was priceonomics was but that is the tip of what is possibly a more significant trend.</comment>


Ask HN: Review my app, LayoutGenerator - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone -
I'm part of a start up working on creating a tool to simplify web development. Our first app makes it easy for developers to position elements of their site. People can draw in divs directly on top of an image/mockup using our editor (written in Cappuccino!) and we output cross browser compatible, table-free code. We'd love any feedback on this product and any tips on how we can improve it.
App is at: http://gen1.recreclabs.com
We eventually hope to make this a completely automated process (we have algorithms that detect various elements of a website) and have the editor be used only for minor fixes. Is this something you guys would find useful?
Edit1:
Some sample screenshots of websites we have been using are in:
http://dontbite.me/~okay/screens/ <comment><USER2> <http://gen1.recreclabs.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm. That's kind of neat. How about using edge detection to suggest boxes? E.g. I swipe the mouse along one linear feature, and if it's an edge, you create some kind of guide-line there. Do that again for another perpendicular guide-line and there's a corner, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are doing the processing server side, so that might be slightly difficult, but we are intending to make the process automatic, including auto-finding the divs.

here's an example of our auto-detection algorithms:

[http://gen1.recreclabs.com/mocks/43?guid=67e5e7082e6a6283296...](http://gen1.recreclabs.com/mocks/43?guid=67e5e7082e6a62832969)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do you have any sample layout images to try uploading?

</comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps you could add some more feedback after selecting the image? It's great that it starts automatically, but it took me a few seconds to notice the progress indicator.

</comment><comment><USER6> Make your HTML output lowercase. It's the predominant style these days.

Also agreed that drawing divs from scratch (no image upload) could be useful.

<comment><USER7> We've fixed the uppercase html, if you modify your mock and preview the code, you'll see the update.

Thank you for the feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey, cool idea in theory. But I'm not a huge fan. The markup it generates isn't really that clean, and the overall process isn't very fluid. I personally believe that we will not get to a point where this can be done by a machine for at least a few years.

But best of luck with it...!

</comment><comment><USER9> Strangely, I was writing some CSS the other day and thought 'why doesn't something like this exist'.

Glad to see you've produced a working version.

Perhaps the business model should be, free for simple use, but chargeable for more complex sites / designs.

</comment><comment><USER10> Neat demo, but the markup this produces isn't all that clean, and certainly not intuitive.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ideas:

\-- Slice up the background images for me, and include them as css background images

\-- Hierarchical nesting of divs? (this div is inside this div)

\-- Integration with some grid framework, e.g. 960gs

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! 960gs sounds interesting, looking at it now.

the tool right now automatically does hierarchical nesting if a div is inside another one.

the download zip contains the sliced images and the html to display them in the layout specified, is that what you are refering to for image slicing?

<comment><USER11> Ah I didn't see that-- just saw the generated code. Nice. You might want to add that to step 3 on the homepage, and have the button say "download code and images".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not quite sure why I had to upload an image. I took a screenshot of this page and uploaded it, but it seems as though if I was given a blank page I could have designed the same layout.

<comment><AUTHOR> Overall, the idea is to automatically turn a mockup of a page into HTML. This is predicated on the user having a picture of the page they want, whether it be a photoshop drawn file or by hand.

In this version, we are outputting floating CSS (with padding, margins, etc) & intelligently named divs, which is intended to save web devs time on getting all that together by hand.

<comment><USER12> I see the goal, but why is an image required to use the app?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I see what you are getting at. You are right - an image is unnecessary currently, but we have features implemented that do image analysis that will be available in our next release.

<comment><USER13> I think that even with image related features, an option to just draw divs on a blank page would be welcome and popular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just a note on your image file extension. It doesn't accept _.tif (only_.tiff). Some programs will save it as *.tif by default.

Might want to check other possible formats too.

<comment><USER15> Thanks PureSin, we'll definitely look into that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Love the concept -- will definitely use this!

</comment><comment><USER17> I guess I should probably assume that the answer is no, but does this work with Internet Explorer 7?

Either it doesn't, or I can't figure out how to proceed.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've been testing against IE8 on Win7, which we've managed to get working.

We've gotten a few exceptions earlier (which we assume were from you :-D) We'll take a look at the logs and try to figure out what went wrong, sorry about that.

<comment><USER17> No worries. I was at the office is all. I don't voluntarily use IE7 for the fun of it. ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


Why on earth did we choose Jenkins for 2019? - <AUTHOR> https://www.rookout.com/why-on-earth-did-we-choose-jenkins-for-2019/ <comment><USER2> Does it need to be justified just because it is old? All the new build systems are cool for some cookie cutter 2019 webapps but for anything more I don't know of anything else as easy to deploy, setup, and comes with so many plugins and wealth of supporting information.

Just seems strange to have to justify something that "just works" for so many years. It isn't even really "old" compared to many tools you use every day.

<comment><USER3> Yep, the UI might be a bit dated and often a bit convoluted but it's really a powerful tool which does the job well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's possible to deploy Jenkins "right", but good grief is that rare. The typical Jenkins deployment feels like every new project or pipeline demands a new plugin, and will harass the ever loving piss out of you to upgrade if any of those plugins get a bit stale.

Why run a command in a shell build step when you can install a plugin that abstracts everything away in a non-intuitive manner?

<comment><USER5> In your opinion what does a good jenkins deployment setup look like? Do you have any examples? Our Jenkins looks like it's about to blow up from all those plugin warnings.

<comment><USER4> They keys, in my book, are to avoid plugins absolutely anywhere possible.

Don't allow your Jenkins Master to create the Jenkins Slaves -- instead create the slaves via the same tooling your create the master, and register them with the master via the same (or similar) discovery mechanisms you use elsewhere in your environment.

Don't use plugins that configure your build tool of choice. Yes, it's initially spiffy that you can click around and change ant's behavior, but when things break you can almost never repro manually.

Shell steps. Shell steps. Shell steps. Make sure it's trivial to manually execute any step in the pipeline. It should be rare that you actually manually execute the step, but it helps you avoid landing in situations where it's impossible to debug the Jenkins build, because your plugin or non-shell step insists on cleaning up after itself in a manner you can't manually override.

Finally, read this before even getting started: [https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2841313](https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2841313)

Once you've read it, read it again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Title is clickbait. They didn't choose Jenkins in 2019, but 8 years ago:

> eight years in

Maybe they chose to stick with Jenkins in 2019 and not discard their 8 year old Jenkins setup?

<comment><USER7> We choose it a few months ago , jenkins is just old...

<comment><USER6> Ah. In that case, the wording is just really weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pipeline is very cool but very quickly hit roadblock due to different supports from plugin. To my knowledge, it's up to plugin to support pipeline.

1 years ago, it doesn't even have a support way to call `scm checkout` and get revision. You have to go all way around by calling out to shell to get `git rev` write to a file and read it back. Groovy DSL supports it now but given backthen I feel like even Jenkins team didn't push Jenkins hard enough.

Configure Pull Request Builder, Github Hook Trigger and Build Context are a hit or miss with Groovy DSL too :(.

I think in 2019, it has no reason to continue use Jenkins other than we are too familiar with it and don't want other approach. Concourse CI has a steep learning curve but it's way better and a right approach to me. At least, you don't have a UI where people go in and trigger build. Jenkins make it easier to be messed up.

</comment><comment><USER9> Well - I dealt quite a bit with Jenkins shared libraries when porting jobs from Jenkins 1.x to Jenkins 2.x recently. Declarative pipelines are often too restrictive leading to a mixture of declarative and embedded scripted pipeline scraps. In the end I would have preferred to be able to program the pipeline with python.

The only reasons to still use Jenkins in 2019 are SCM polling and e-mail notification. For manual builds I just use python with fabric for remote builds.

<comment><USER7> I wrote the "only reasons" as I see them, feel free to correct me.

Also we use scripted pipeline all the way

<comment><USER9> I guess the reasons depend on the environment, in my case a multi-platform embedded product. E.g. in my case I don't have a use for dynamic node instantiation. Testing partly requires fiddling with hardware and diverse system architectures, so these parts have to be done manually. Delivery bundling isn't fully automatable as well, so there isn't a place for Jenkins in the go-to delivery pipeline I have in mind. It would just complicate things imho. So what's left is SCM-based triggering of builds, unittests, dynamic tests (valgrind, sanitizers) and system tests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the key pieces that we've been missing is an HA setup for Jenkins. We use JJB to automatically create jobs, have everything set up with configuration management, so that works but we still have some downtime if our master loses connectivity etc.

<comment><USER11> I built a nasty "HA" solution for Jenkins out of Ansible, JJB, and Consul/Vault once.

Basically, Consul would monitor the Jenkins master for liveness. If it discovered that the master had gone down, it would spin up the cold standby machine, first attempting to use a recent disk snapshot and then by re-running plugin installation, JJB, and copying in a secrets store file from Vault (and essentially starting the server fresh again). Then all the slaves would self- configure using Consul to figure out which "master" node was actually master.

It was gross, and I hated it, but it gave us Jenkins failover in under a minute in most cases. We only lost all our job history once in a year and a half, and this was in a flaky-ass openstack environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's old, it's clunky, but it does just work most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER7> OP here , feel free to ask me anything :)

<comment><USER13> In the "Use code instead of a template language (Groovy vs YAML)"-section, you write that you prefer a DSL over a programming language. Is that because you consider YAML a programming language or how is it supposed to be understood?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not what I expected but pretty cool.

<comment><USER7> Just out curiosity - what did you expect? :)</comment></comment>


Fully Homomorphic Encryption Without Bootstrapping [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/474.pdf

<comment><USER2> This Yagisawa paper is of poor quality and lacks adequate proofs. It unfortunately uses the exact title as a 2011 paper by Brakerski, Gentry, and Vaikuntanathan: [https://eprint.iacr.org/2011/277.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2011/277.pdf)

The BGV paper is the real deal.

<comment><USER3> Even the typesetting is atrocious in the Yagisawa paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Broken a few weeks later: [https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/519](https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/519)

</comment><comment><USER5> The paper suggests that it would take on order 2^27 bit operations for encryption/decryption for securely parameterized instances of this scheme, small ciphertexts and keys, and a simple multiplication and addition formula. If true, this would be an incredible leap - a breakthrough in efficiency. And efficient FHE would be a game changer for the Internet and the world.

Evaluating the claim thus requires skepticism and care. The quality of the paper is suspect as are its proofs. But, as is the case with science, heuristics like this count for little.

They do seem to have selected a hard worst-case problem to base the system on. Obviously this means very little if secure keys and setting in this complexity space can not be found in practice - or if the details of the cryptosystem, for one of many many reasons, lead to its easy compromise.

Looking forward to a proper peer review of the scheme.

Edit: Looks like it's already broken!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9734512](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9734512)

<comment><USER6> How many bit operations do non-FHE tasks need in comparison?

<comment><USER5> Admittedly much fewer (on the order of 'a few'). It's also hard to compare, as constants are hidden in big-O. Real performance comparisons between cryptosystems are comparisons of real-world engineering implementations: especially since side channel blinding, exception and case handling, etc need to be taken into effect.

The take away is that this would still be nowhere near as efficient as 'traditional', especially symmetric, encryption. What would be a breakthrough is that presumably the scheme would be orders of magnitude more efficient than current existing theoretical FHE schemes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Totally clicked on it because I wanted to know what "Homophobic Encryption" was.</comment>


Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons - <AUTHOR> https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/origins-of-the-sicilian-mafia-the-market-for-lemons/52B18A611BD8AE26B4FDE3814A4239F1 <comment><USER2> I really don't like the authors shoehorning a linear model into this work. I perceive it as an attempt to give the article an undeserved veneer of statistical/mathematical rigor.[1]

I think their hypothesis would be much better supported by typical social science approaches, such as citation and quotation of primary sources and comparative study.

For example, how does the Sicilian Mafia compare with the Camorra (Naples) and 'Ndrangheta (Calabria)? Did these organizations undergo a similar expansion during the same time period? Were their origins and expansions rooted in similar phenomena?

[1] [https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to- become-o...](https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-our- era-s-astrologers)

<comment><USER3> It's less a way to come off as "sciencey" and more a way to get your ideas accepted at this point. The people I know in the list of thanks would wholeheartedly agree with your the regression is forced but it gets neo- classic economists (when I was studying the vast majority and presumably still holding the reins of key publications) to not dismiss you as "psychologists".

I'm not sure if the right approach is to use basic maths to illustrate the idea makes sense but doesn't need that formalism to make it acceptable or to refuse the charade. I genuinely think the smarter people I know are also uncertain about it.

<comment><USER4> _> it gets neo-classic economists [...] to not dismiss you as "psychologists"_

Lol, that's funny - I'm pretty much at the point of dismissing "fundamentalist neoclassic economists"... As much as they try to deny it, economic studies are just social studies with a couple of simplistic graphs on top to look "mathy".

<comment><USER5> As far as I'm concerned, economics is just supply and demand, and the efficient market hypothesis. Anything beyond that is some combination of politics, psychology, and social studies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where I grew up (Crete), I kept on listening to stories by elders about how their grandfathers and family members left the place due to vendettas between families and all went over to Sicily.

Judging by the mentality of people around me, even those days I'd say they pay too much into respect, and disrespecting someones honour by any means could lead into the start of a vendetta. Bear in mind we are now in 2018 and those things are still happening.

My sort explanation is that obviously people that resided in Sicily, Southern Crete etc were not afraid to use force to defend their honour, and make a living. Later on people that left Sicily and went to e.g New York were a bit toughed up by living in a place that vendetta was a very common phenomenon and while they saw an opportunity where they could force fear into the other racial groups in new york, they took it.

<comment><USER7> Social scientists seem to dislike it (possibly because it's a singular answer and thus cuts off future PhD papers), but Frontier Thesis and similar frameworks of people-as-reflection-of-environment seem one of the more solid results from those fields.

As you noted, how can the entire culture and environment around someone not shape their person and way they go about living?

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

<comment><USER6> I can reflect to that. As a person that lived over 10 years abroad, coming back to Greece and Crete has been difficult. I can see myself and some foreigners that resided here after their pension came in, doing things that we wouldn't do e.g in the UK. (I can see changing in the way I drive, interact etc and that has been paved by the surroundings, given the fact that I got my licence in the UK and have been driving for 10 years there, without any prior driving in Greece. Now that I am back I can see how I've changed the way I drive and its mainly cause of the other drivers, you have to adapt. Driving is just an example to show that even people that ain't willing to change their mentality based on their surroundings, do change in order to accomodate.)

<comment><USER7> Related question, as 10 years seems a good time: do you think it changed you as a person?

I.e. If you imagined yourself _never_ having moved away, do you think you'd react / think differently now than you do? (in a broader sense than driving)

<comment><USER6> Definitely.

Been away for 10 years and lived a bit in New York and the rest of the time in London, changed me a lot.

Now that I am back, I am having trouble communicating with people around me, as they can't believe nor understand some experience am sharing with them.

My funniest moment so far is an Expo I went to in Athens which is supposed to be the top Expo for balkans, and they had a smart room for the hotels of the future. The narrator that was running the whole story went and picked up an alexa echo, putting it right infront of his mouth, giving a command like 'alexa night mode'. I couldn't believe in my eyes. I do happen to use alexa and have it all around my house, so that came out as a shock to me as to what they believe as groundbreaking tech here.

On other fields I'd say workplaces, while I work remotely, I can definitely see my wife and close circle on how unprofessional they are with their jobs. Also discrimination is another thing here, people advertise for jobs only for women or jobs only for men and specific ages which is definitely discriminatory.

As an example, if I ever start my own company here, I am going to run it by the book and I'll definitely use a model closer to London or even Scandi countries, I'd never discriminate against anyone etc.

So yes if I imagine myself never having moved away, I'd definitely be a completely different person right now. (Don't get me wrong, there are still nice people here, and some parts of the lifestyle are way better compared to big cities)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone else interested in the subject, here is another paper you might like:

Economic Origins of the Mafia and Patronage System in Sicily (2009)

[https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-03160...](https://web.wpi.edu/Pubs/E-project/Available/E-project-031609-103313/unrestricted/JSardellMafia.pdf)

<comment><USER9> This sounds very reasonable to my personal observations. It's basically a type of government, that is not officially recognized as such. And yes, people are worse off under it than under most official governments. However even without mafia like governments, due to the chaos of whatever change is happening, they are already worse off even without any mafia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A similar development underway in avocado-producing area of Mexico ... [https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/2017...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/cities/2017/may/18/avocado- police-tancitaro-mexico-law-drug-cartels) ... likely not to the extent of the Mafia but shows the same environment and incentives.

</comment><comment><USER11> Well maybe that's one of the first "application", but it's a well know fact that Mafia's rise was fostered by the Italian unification.

Southern Italy was for the most part a feudal system controlled by a traditional aristocracy.

The unification prompted by one of the Northern Italian states meant the wiping out of the existing Southern Italian aristocracy.

Northern Italian bourgeoisie and aristocracy became the new ruling classes of the new unified Italy.

Although they tried to replace the Southern Italian aristocracy with a new class of bureaucracy, the traditional feudal structure of the South and the sudden void of power made it easier for an organization like Mafia to arise.

<comment> aaron-lebo This is related to what you are speaking about:

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

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

Crazy how something that happened 8 centuries ago can still have an effect.

<comment><USER12> The "unified Italy" only happened in 1860/1861, and the Northern Italian state was the "Kingdom of Sardinia", which comprised mostly Sardinia, Liguria and Piedmont. Only 1.5 centuries ago.

What you are referring to is the Norman conquest, which is different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This book [1] goes into great detail on the history and origins of the mafia - including the lemons. It's a great read.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Cosa-Nostra-History-Sicilian- Mafia/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Cosa-Nostra-History-Sicilian- Mafia/dp/1403970424)

</comment><comment><USER14> I am confused. Wasn't this part of the statement in the Godfather with what happens at a fruit stand on the street?

<comment><USER15> There is a well-known association between the Godfather movies and oranges. For example, Don Vito has an orange slice in his mouth when he dies in the garden. And yes, the fruit stand scene. There are many more examples.

I'm not too familiar with Mario Puzo's novel and use of oranges but it would be fascinating if there was somehow an innate link between the use of oranges in the movies and the origins of the mafia (what this paper is claiming).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It isn't about the mafia, but it is about Italy, Lemons, and life...

The Lemon Gardens by D.H. Lawrence from Twilight in Italy (which in it's entirety is an extremely beautiful and meditative book):

[https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lawrence/dh/l41tw/chapter2....](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/l/lawrence/dh/l41tw/chapter2.2.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> I strongly recommend this podcast to learn more about citrus and the history of Italy: [https://www.eatthispodcast.com/citrus-in- italy/](https://www.eatthispodcast.com/citrus-in-italy/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I saw an historic video in Italy that said Mafia arises around the control of water.

</comment><comment><USER19> This work is really outrageous.

</comment><comment><USER20> > According to the detailed description of lemon production in Harold G. > Powell (1908), the production of lemons in nineteenth century Sicily started > with the sowing of bitter orange seeds in spring in small seed beds under > the bearing lemon trees. After one year from the seeding, the small trees > were transplanted in small clumps at a distance of about 60 cm from each > other. When the plant reached a height of almost a meter, the tree was > transplanted to the groves at 3–4 meters of distance from each other.

Curious. Wouldn't those still have been bitter orange trees? Perhaps the authors left out a step where the bitter orange trees were cut down and their rootstocks used for grafting on shoots from the lemon trees? If so, I wonder why they were planted near a lemon tree to begin with — to acclimate them to lemon wood or something?

<comment><USER21> Something odd going on indeed... Either the bitter oranges were later grafted with lemon plants, or the reason to plant near the lemon tree was in order to produce, by hybridation, other seeds that had mixed attributes, some of which would be very similar to lemons. The former makes more sense however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was kind of expecting something to do with the classic economics paper "The Market for Lemons", but in this case it seems to be actual literal lemons, for what it's worth!

<comment><USER3> During my PhD on Institutional economics, the confusion was common -- even more so when we had a conference in Corsica. With this article, I'm assuming it's going to become a joke and a shorthand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> interesting

</comment><comment><USER24> "hampered economic development in Italy for more than a century"

Hamper compared to what? A magical utopia without crime, or a realistic counterfactual with another set of criminals?

Speaking of which: is organized crime worse or better than disorganized crime?

<comment><USER9> Why are the best discussion points these days always downvoted? One doesn't have to agree with someone, but one should appreciate reading something one hasn't thought to be correct oneself.

Also some people really, and reasonably, argue that government is nothing else but a kind of Mafia that simply one the competition for being called "government". You also know the discussions of "freedom fighter" versus "terrorist" declaration, right?

<comment><USER25> "Herschel I. Grossman (1995) and Stergios Skaperdas (2001) both consider mafia as an alternative enforcer of property rights. Using a model with two actors (a self-governing community and mafia) and potential robbers, Skaperdas (2001) shows that in the absence of an enforcer of property rights, mafia can represent a sort of second best solution"

I do agree, that mafia act as a government. But there is still quite a difference to a democratic government. It is more a olygarchy/despotism.

But I believe our roots of government back in the middle ages, when feudals conquered new peasants to profit from them, were very alike. And there might be still characteristics in our institutions from that legacy. People definitely view it that way, when they pay taxes ...

<comment><USER9> Absolutely agree. Mafia is not a democratic type of government. And even most despotic governments are probably better than the average mafia, for the people they rule. Reason being that you can't rule a big, stable country if you are too tyrannic. Other government-types will compete with you, and even foreign governments will try to take your land and people.

<comment><USER26> Democratic != good.

<comment><USER9> Also agreed. However: democratic >= mafia

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia)</comment>


Why Reddit is mediocre: some scientific evidence - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/09/09/why-reddit-sucks-some-scientific-evidence/

<comment><USER2> First of all. I feel like this author only recently found out about Reddit through TheFappening.

>Leskovec and his colleagues don't look at Reddit, but instead at four other prominent information-sharing Web sites with roughly similar mechanics (these sites, like Reddit, allow users to "upvote," or "downvote" posts and comments).

The paper compares CNN.com (general news), Breitbart.com (political news), IGN.com(computer gaming), and Allkpop.com which are all completely different from Reddit.

>(1) People who write low quality posts are more likely to write again when they get negative attention. Furthermore, the quality of their posts deteriorates.

Simply not true. Posts that are downvoted dissappear (getting downvoted 'into oblivion'). This discourages shitposting.

>(2) People who write high quality posts are encouraged by positive attention to write more.

Not entirely true either. Posts that are 'popular' get upvoted. Posts that get upvoted get upvoted. Often these are made up anecdotes, or quick witty jokes, wordplays, quick digestible fluff. The whole gilding thing makes it worse (sometimes).

>This may help explain why so many of Reddit's subreddits are dominated by bigots, misogynists and other people who appear to thrive on public abhorrence.

Ooh so that's what this article was all about ...

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it does seem like it misses the point. The biggest problem I have with Reddit is that most sub-Reddits don't promote high-quality comments, and instead reward jokes and pop-culture references. Fun drinking game: Go on the Men's Fashion Advice sub-Reddit, search for "Bonobos" and take a shot every time the top-rated comment in a post is a joke along the lines of "y u buy clothes from an ape lol"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Poorly written it seems.

Also, Sub-reddits vary from sub to sub, poor moderation. You cannot drag all of them into it just because one screws up.

This is a fluff piece.

</comment><comment><USER5> The study cited researched communities at CNN, IGN, Breitbart, and allkpop. How similar are these communities to Reddit? (A serious question; I've never participated in any of them.)

To be clear: The article bases its analysis of Reddit on the study,[1] which examines the communities named above but does not mention Reddit.

[1] [http://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/disqus- icwsm14.pdf](http://cs.stanford.edu/people/jure/pubs/disqus-icwsm14.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER6> The paper is fairly interesting from a methodological POV, and I do agree with the hypothesis that negative feedback actually does encourage trolls too, but none of those communities are anything close to reddit in their scope. The biggest problem I see in making the analogy is the fact that two of the four communities(allkpop, IGN) studied are fairly myopic in their subject focus, and subject to filter bubbles.

<comment><USER7> But so are subreddits, by definition. Why would a collection of independently myopic communities act differently? It might I suppose but it seems less likely.</comment></comment>


What are the odds we are living in a computer simulation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/books/joshua-rothman/what-are-the-odds-we-are-living-in-a-computer-simulation <comment><USER2> What would this simulation run on? At some point, there has to be _something_ that exists.

<comment><USER3> It's simulations all the way down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem I have with simulation theory is why would the creators of the simulation be so cruel as to give the us (the sims) self realization.

I can see creating a world of sims, running on autopilot, even with variable personalities, talents, and beliefs. But why would you let each sim be conscious of their surroundings?

It's infinitely cruel to arbitrarily create and destroy sentient beings.

</comment><comment><USER5> I personally think the logical fallacy is where the leap happens at the point of since future beings exist, and future computers would be thousands of orders of magnitude more powerful, thus it is highly likely we're a simulation. I remember listening to Elon make this argument, and to me he makes a leap that is illogical.

</comment><comment><USER3> A relevant short story is _I don 't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility_.

[https://qntm.org/responsibility](https://qntm.org/responsibility)</comment>


Lego 2016: What's Up in the Lego World (5 Things) - <AUTHOR> https://kidskud.com/lego-2016-whats-lego-world-5-things/ <comment><USER2> They need to get back to having some evergreen non-licensed themes, besides Town, that aren't bat-shit crazy. Selfishly, I would like that to be Castle or Pirates; there's been a gap there since the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit sets went offline, and I think they could make a mint with more along the lines of Kingdoms Joust and Medieval Market Village.</comment>


What do you expect on a Linux distro to learn Web Development? - <AUTHOR> If you were a newcomer and you wish to learn, train and practice web development for example: django. Let's suppose you know little about Linux and python, how a Linux distro could you help you? What tools, wizards, configurations, would you expect? <comment><USER2> None, the particular web stack should take care of any tools, wizards, or config that is relevant.

Web dev has become to broad.

See [https://apollokit.org](https://apollokit.org) for a good example. You still need some tools around. Yarn and nodejs, but that should be it. Docker for the more adventurous.

</comment><comment><USER3> PHP Laravel offers a Vagrant virtual machine image with instructions. One can be up and running in 15 minutes. [https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/homestead](https://laravel.com/docs/5.8/homestead)</comment>


Zeus: Programmer's Editor for Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.zeusedit.com/whatsnew.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Zeus is a language neutral programmer's editor for the Windows platform.

The latest Zeus Version 3.97m has just been released.

This Zeus release adds support for the Go language with features like syntax highlighting, code folding, code completion, class browsing, code templates and debugging.

Zeus also supports the Go Build, Format, Run and Document commands and can be configured to work with gocode.

NOTE: Zeus is shareware, runs natively on the Windows platform and can be run on Linux using Wine.

Jussi Jumppanen Author: Zeus Editor</comment>


The Dysfunctional Trillion-Dollar U.S. Fighter-Jet Program - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/magazine/f35-joint-strike-fighter-program.html <comment><USER2> > One solution favored by Winter during his recent tenure was so-called agile > software development. His vision for "continuous capability development and > delivery" resembles DevOps, a popular method in the private sector for > quickly testing and evaluating features for new products. Coders generate > software upgrades or patches in a matter of days or weeks, pass them along > to users to test and then push out the update more widely if the changes are > successful.

Are the rest of the details of the article, about domains I don't personally understand, equally subtly inaccurate and misleading?

<comment><USER3> The current title I'm seeing is "Inside America's Dysfunctional Trillion- Dollar Fighter-Jet Program" which seems misleading as well; it's more of a history of press releases. Doesn't look like they interviewed anyone actually working on it aside from the fellow in charge if that.

<comment><USER4> How does such a poorly researched article get published in the NYT? My personal blog is better researched than this.

<comment><USER5> If you hit Publish on your personal blog three days later than originally planned, you're unlikely to be fired over it.

<comment><USER4> It's because they don't care enough about being accurate. Maybe you're right, and that carelessness is a byproduct of speed. But, it's not like this was breaking news. They had enough time for a technical editor to have a look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > There soon turned out to be an essential flaw in the grand plan for a single > plane that could do everything. Design specifications demanded by one branch > of the military would adversely impact the F-35's performance in another > area. "It turns out when you combine the requirements of the three services, > what you end up with is the F-35, which is an aircraft that is in many ways > suboptimal for what each of the services really want," said Todd Harrison, > an aerospace expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. > "It is much more expensive than originally envisioned, and the three > versions of the plane actually don't have that much in common."

And nobody was surprised.

<comment><USER7> I think the Navy and Air Force could have shared version with a lot in common. The Marines want VTOL and I understand that feature is important to the Marines. Unfortunately, the VTOL requirements have force compromises in the design. Without VTOL, I believe the Navy and Air Force would have ended up with a platform that was more acceptable then what they are getting.

<comment><USER8> In other words, nobody learned anything from the Space Shuttle program.

<comment><USER9> That and there was some other 1950's era fighter that they tried to make dual use and eventually the Navy convinced congress to put a stop to it. Which they could because during the cold war it wasn't just about funneling money to congressional districts.

Me I think the F35 is the 21st century equivalent of a battle ship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been following the development of this plane for a while now. I remember reading in a different article that the intention of this plane is to be a sort of everything to everyone type of thing. It's meant to replace a lot of other planes that are more fit to their specific purpose and has a ton of bells and whistles. Pilots hate it. I find that striking and it further validates some principles I've developed over the years. Namely, smaller units fit to purpose that compose together to make a larger whole will defeat a single unit designed to handle everything. It also validates that management cannot force a project to be successful no matter the stakes. At best you get a half assed final product delivered on time but untested and brittle.

</comment><comment><USER11> Too many folks here are commenting on the F-35's design as an airplane, instead of what it really is.

The F-35 is a beautifully designed trillion dollar uncuttable expenditure. If you look at how the program was designed to consume money, instead of deliver anything of value; it's a work of art!

<comment><USER12> The F-35 program could have sent every child under the age of 18 to a trade school, professional training, or college. I'm not saying we _should_ do it unconditionally.. just pointing out how we can fund an insurmountable project by not wasting money on what the big government contractors want more than our armed forces or the taxpayers

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> An interesting angle which is underreported in my view is who is responsible for extremely expensive new military aircrafts: (former) pilots, who are now High-Ranking officers. No pilot has any interest in giving up flying and switching to drones/remote aircraft which are clearly the future. My bet would be that the first country which bets 100% on autonomous aircraft will probably be China, where there will be less opposition to such a move. The western countries will follow and the F35 will most likely be the last "big" non- autonomous program (excluding aircraft for special roles).

On an unrelated note: I submitted this article 4 days ago without any discussion [1], does anyone know what the time frame for resubmission on HN nowadays is?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20758128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20758128)

<comment><USER14> The future is drones and so many in the air force know it. Not sure why they haven't bet fully on it. I guess there are no dog fighter drones yet but the first time a supermanuverable <10m drone destroys a 100m manned fighter well it is all over.

<comment><USER15> Supermanuverable <10m autonomous aircraft that have destroyed modern fighters already exist. They're called missiles.

Modern fighter aircraft are expensive because they are relatively large and crammed with tones of expensive avionics and sensors. Increasingly, the quality of your sensors and your ability to evade detection are more and more important while maneuverability is less important because of said missiles. Better sensors are larger and require more power to operate necessitating a larger aircraft. Also, the number of Gs an aircraft can pull is limited by both human survivability and airframe strength. This means as the size of the aircraft increases the max number of Gs it can pull will decrease. Missiles can pull 50 Gs. Even if you remove the human, no aircraft large enough to carry the necessary sensors, fuel, and weapons to be combat effective will reach even 1/3 of that because it would rip the wings off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's great to see this in the Fighter-Jet programmed mostly with C++, instead of Ada. I've read of rather queer flaws, such as that one mentioned involving the helmets. To its credit, C++ programmers are cheaper and more numerous, so you get what you pay for.

People will mention every catastrophic flaw Ada programs have ever had, but how many people will remember this as an example of how C++ fails at being a real language for real projects?

<comment><USER17> A thousand parts, suppliers, personnel, sensors, design sheets, and technical documents, and you first instinct is to blame the programming language?

They're building a plane, not Microsoft Excel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A trillion is a big number. Space station big.

Personally, my expectation is that the F35 is America's $30,000 toilet seat -- financial cover for our secret UFO program of much higher performance vehicles. Building parts in 50 states is, of course, good congress fodder, but it's also a good way to make sure no one knows what they're building.

It is this lie I tell myself to continue believing in America's technological superiority :)

<comment><USER19> Yes, I had the same idea. It is so insane, overpriced and ineffective, that it must be a fake budget, used to hide a _black_ program that will deliver the real technological advantage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A really interesting biography which shows this is far from a new problem is Boyd: The Fighter Pilot who Changed the Art of War.

I read it a few months ago. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER21> I think Steve Blank is a big fan of this book

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems 3 new separate aircraft would have been much better and cheaper.

It's true that the F35 seems a little beefy, compared to other aircrafts.

A single engine is quite bad for survivability.

While I can admit that vertical liftoff can be an asset if you want to respond quickly to an attack without building airstrips every 50km, it's hard to really justify building so many aircrafts with a airframe shape that allows VTOL. VTOL is a tough compromise on aircraft.

Having an aircraft that can play several roles is not a good idea. Regrouping roles is a good idea, but regrouping them all into only one is really not a good engineering decision.

That's like deciding to design a pen-lighter-laser-pointer-usb-drive-knife- screwdriver into a single device. It sounds cool, but in the end, it's better to see what can go together and what should not.

Unless the F35 has a next gen radar which allows it to see enemy aircrafts from farther, it will be bad at dogfights.

<comment><USER23> > A single engine is quite bad for survivability.

Are you sure about this?

[https://www.quora.com/Do-twin-engine-fighter-jets-provide- hi...](https://www.quora.com/Do-twin-engine-fighter-jets-provide-higher- safety-Are-they-anyway-better-than-one-with-a-single-engine-jet)

From my research it looks like the same is true in civilian aviation. Statistically twin engines are more dangerous.

[https://www.flyingmag.com/wrong-worry-twins-versus- singles/](https://www.flyingmag.com/wrong-worry-twins-versus-singles/)

<comment><USER24> Single-engine fighters are ok for the Air Force, who fly high over land. Twins are preferred by the Navy and Marines, who either fly over water, or down low and get shot at, or both.

The civil link you provided refers to "light twins" (ie. underpowered and used in GA) used in training and EMS. Not applicable to airliners, which can safely take off on one engine.

Something to think about: all of my former twin instructors have been killed flying light twins.

Four-engine airliners are actually preferred for oceanic routes for safety, but regulators now allow twins (ETOPS), for cost reasons.

Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Perhaps some of this budget is part of the >$21 trillion unaccounted for & unauditable funds in classified budgets.

[https://hudmissingmoney.solari.com/the-real-game-of- missing-...](https://hudmissingmoney.solari.com/the-real-game-of-missing- money-i-introduction/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I wonder if there's a system where the contractors apart of the program, which according to the news reports are so above budget / behind schedule, could submit post mortems to whichever agency audits this program. What hurdles they wish they knew going in.

Similar to this: [https://mozyrko.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/77-failed- startu...](https://mozyrko.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/77-failed-startup-post- mortems.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER27> This is a not a new problem. There is a classic comedy scene of the Bradley fighting vehicle's problematic design process here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA)

</comment><comment><USER28> Will there even be pilots in dogfights in 20 years? Won't it be mostly autonomous by then?

It stands to reason removing the human component would be a far better engineering choice than this monstrosity.

I'm reminded of the quote, "A flying car is equally bad at being a car and an aircraft."

<comment><USER29> I think you're badly overestimating the speed of development in defense tech. The F-35, a comparatively conventional aircraft, started development 20 years ago and look where it's at. We'd be incredibly lucky to have an even slightly functional one-off prototype of an unmanned fighter 20 years from now.

<comment><USER30> All the "sixth gen" or "next gen" programs recently started claim to be optionally manned. E.g the British/Swedish Tempest (introduction planned 2035) and the Dassault/Airbus NGF (also 2035-2040).

It's not inconceivable that one or both of those programs will have an optionally manned fighter in active service in 20 years (2039).

<comment><USER29> It's equally conceivable that the "optionally" will be dropped as problems develop and they need to try to control costs.

<comment><USER30> I'm not very familiar with the details of what's needed tecnically for "optionally manned". Maybe it's extremely complex and expensive. My guess would be that it's not extremely complex or expensive. UAVs have been in active duty for years so the remote piloting/link tech is already mature. Converting a _current_ fighter to unmanned is done routinely at under $1M per hull, to create target drones. And those fighters were never designed initially to be unmanned, that's just a hack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Pairs well with today's discussion of multi-stakeholder coordination on managing forest fires: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20783166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20783166)

</comment><comment><USER32> Reminds me of the Bradley Tank in Pentagon Wars: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA)

</comment><comment><USER33> It still blows my mind that a trillion dollars later no american has the courage to say "so our trillion dollar plane...it doesn't fly.

US is miles ahead...someone have the courage to level.

<comment><USER34> On another level I present you the new Spanish submarine, first too heavy and now too long and obviously too late and too expensive : [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-80_Plus- class_submarine#Hist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-80_Plus- class_submarine#History)</comment></comment>


Apple agrees to $500M settlement for throttling older iPhones - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/2/21161271/apple-settlement-500-million-throttling-batterygate-class-action-lawsuit <comment><USER2> This is an egregious breach of trust, completely akin to VW's shenanigans falsifying emissions testing. And yet there doesn't seem to be much outrage about it. Is Apple indeed so completely encapsulated in Teflon?</comment>


Most Facebook users are older, 35-54 now largest age group - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/08/MNTS18KFB8.DTL&feed=rss.news

<comment><USER2> So there are more 35-54s than 25-34s on Facebook. However, there about twice as many people in the 20-year span than in the 10-year span, so they're still underrepresented.

More 35-44s than 25-34s would be news.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would assume it's because facebook has become a great way for that age group to get in touch with people they haven't seen in years, not for job networking, although I may be wrong.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure about that. On a recent plane trip, I sat next to a 14-year-old who was lamenting that her mom was now on FaceBook because she needed to be for job leads. I've heard similar stories from several of my recently-out-of- college friends.

And my cubemate is Facebook-friends with her manager, which makes for an interesting dynamic in what she can or can't post online...

<comment><USER3> Wow, that's interesting, my gut reaction was that the site had turned into a free alternative to classmates.com.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/classmates_com_e...](http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/classmates_com_employees)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is most likely because linkedIn is not as cool as Facebook.

The 30-40 age group might actually be beneficial for Facebook. This group arguably has highest disposable income. I would think this age group is most likely to spend money on Facebook apps.

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like a good thing for social networks to be representative of society.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a big risk for Facebook -- that they'll no longer be a cool place for HS/College/twentysomethings because of all the older folks.

By making sure everyone's 'view' is different, they fight this a little. Facebook to a college student looks dominated by students and student-related activities -- even if dad and granddad are just a few links away.

They may eventually want to offer a differently-branded sub-network, though, to combat the risk from a youth-oriented competitor. Use much the same backend, but dress it up so differently you know the old folks and professionals won't show up -- and your activity in one sphere is clearly distinct from the other.

<comment><USER5> The problem is not the look of the site. At least I don't think it is.

The problem is that is Mum checks facebook once a week, 19 year old daughter doesn't want to post drunk pictures of herself making stupid sexy faces at last night's party.

<comment><USER8> Yes, the most important 'look' of the distinct subnetwork is: you can't see mom, and she can't see you.

<comment><USER9> I agree with both of you. Facebook does a good job of making it seem that the whole universe of Facebook is just your friends. From the moment you log in, all you see is stuff about your friends.

On the other side, as soon as you accept a friend invite from your mom, your privacy is gone. Sexy pics, quizzes, 5 favorite beers, etc. Most people don't want their parents seeing that stuff.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Switching Doctors: The American Horror Story - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ncryptedcloud.com/changing-doctors-hipaa-act-lingering/

<comment><USER2> 1) This is an ad for nCryptedCloud

2) It really isn't that hard or bad. This may come has a surprise, but hospitals are used to dealing with HIPAA compliance and are quite good at sending patient data in compliance with it.</comment>


Why GitHub Hacks on Side Projects - <AUTHOR> http://zachholman.com/posts/why-github-hacks-on-side-projects/ <comment><USER2> I think that's a great point on new hires contributing to a fun side project early on, when you're starting somewhere new it's great to have an opportunity to do something cool that you can own other than the nitty gritty of digging into core product code and bug fixing. Even if it doesn't contribute directly to the bottom line, company-wide side projects are a great opportunity to sharpen the saw.</comment>


The Full-Fat Paradox: Whole Milk May Keep Us Lean - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2014/02/12/275376259/the-full-fat-paradox-whole-milk-may-keep-us-lean <comment><USER2> I hope they're correcting for the reversed causation -- i.e., if you notice you're getting pretty overweight, you're more likely to _avoid full-fat yoghurt_ , whereas if you are staying lean (for completely unrelated reasons), you're not nearly as likely to worry about it.

There's no mention of ruling this out in the article, though I didn't read the study itself to see how/if they addressed it.

<comment><USER3> Chemically it is insulin that triggers the signal in our body to store fat. Carbohydrates trigger a large insulin response while fats cause no insulin response (protein is somewhere in the middle)

The nutrients in dairy are all fat soluble and so there some things that specifically target the excretion of fat from our systems. Drinking full fat milk will have more of those nutrients as it comes in bound to fat.

There may be some amount of causation going on because of milk (Dairy calcium specifically).

BBC documentary talks about the calcium thing here:[http://vimeo.com/m/18339967](http://vimeo.com/m/18339967)

Gary taubes [http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lDneyrETR2o](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lDneyrETR2o) and Robert lustig [http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM) talk about the carbohydrate hypothesis

<comment><USER4> > Chemically it is insulin that triggers the signal in our body to store fat.

A misleading oversimplification. Maintaing a net-energy-surplus is the causes of fat storage. Insulin is just one piece of the mechanics of how surplus energy gets stored as fat. There's no need to worry at all about insulin; just don't eat too much, and you don't get fat.

> Carbohydrates trigger a large insulin response while fats cause no insulin > response (protein is somewhere in the middle)

ORLY? Show me a biochemistry text book that dares to tout this nonsense.

Bust insulin mythology: [http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319](http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319)

Gary Taubes again.... sigh....

> The nutrients in dairy are all fat soluble

Sorry but I don't think those words mean what you think they mean.

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much for your feedback. Clearly I've presented my understanding of things (with references to where that information came from)

While I'm not sure that "Taubes again sigh" is an argument I'm on board with (ad hominem fallacy?), nor is ORLY? A compelling argument (ad CAPS et meme fallacy?) I'm happy to adjust my understanding based on new evidence.

I'll happily read your reference and try determine if there is anything of value in it.

As well, fat solubility was presented to me as I passed it on in my comment, if my understanding is off I'd happily adjust to newer and better information.

<comment><USER4> You're right I shouldn't have been so crass. It's just that the more I learn the facts about nutrition science the more I rage at the mythology; and Taubes is a king of myth.

When I started learning, I fell for the fallacious claims of Lustig, Taubes, the low-carbers, the paloetards; damn I was convinced! But then I switched to biochemistry & nutrition college textbooks and now a couple years later I've shed most of my overconfidence-of-a-novice. But I get very frustrated to see so many other people like I was, believing things that are just not true.

The most important advice I've ever read about nutrition is: NO NOT SUBJUGATE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES TO MINOR DETAILS. Net-energy balance is a fundamental principle. Obsessing over carb-types and insulin levels are minor details. It's like worrying about the candied-cherry on top of a HUGE piece of cake. The calories in the cake contribute 1000x more to your body-comp than the cherry. Another example is that adding every supplement you read is "good for you" will not contribute to your health anywhere nearly as much as a daily 45 min walk. Do not subjugate fundamental principles to minor details.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > middle-aged men who consumed high-fat milk, butter and cream were > significantly less likely to become obese over a period of 12 years compared > to men who never or rarely ate high-fat dairy.

What I would like to know is if those not eating high-fat dairy compensate with high-carbs dairy.

The way this article is written led me to think that _eating fat_ would help people avoid obesity which is a very different story than "you should choose high-fat dairy instead of high-carbs dairy"

Anyhow, I'm glad fat is making a come back. There's this weird , untold thinking that eating fat automatically translates to storing fat which is nonsense.

<comment><USER6> > What I would like to know is if those not eating high-fat dairy compensate > with high-carbs dairy.

That's an interesting point. I have noticed that a lot of low-fat foods in the store seem to try to compensate for flavor losses by adding sugar. Totally non-scientific observation, but I wonder if there's something more to it.

<comment><USER7> All things considered, things that are low-fat/no-fat and low-sugar/no-sugar taste like cardboard and they're not very filling at all. I'm quite sure that our food overlords discovered that fairly quickly, and just as quickly they realized that consuming sugary bullshit had similar physiological effects compared to opiate addiction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you've been drinking 2% milk since childhood because that's what your family drank, I suggest you try whole milk.

You might never go back because the taste difference is unbelievable.

<comment><USER9> And then try raw, unhomogenized, unpasteurized milk. :D It will feel like angels dancing on your tongue.

<comment><USER10> That's illegal in most if not all of the US.

<comment><USER11> No, it isn't. It's illegal to sell it across state lines, or in some places to the general public. But in most states, you can buy it at a farm, or other licensed facility. It isn't like heroin, or even pot, and you won't get in trouble for possession.

[http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm](http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/raw_milk_map.htm)

<comment><USER10> Looks like I'm wrong, but it also looks like in most of the country where you can buy it you can only buy it from the farmer directly. So it's still not easy to get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As an aside, why is that every time I've been to the USA I cannot seem to just buy fresh whole milk?

I always seem to find these massive containers, full of enriched this, and added that. Sometimes flavoured or low-fat.

If I wanted vitamin enriched low-fat something or other I'd be spoilt for choice... but if one wants regular milk, from a cow, untouched except by pasteurisation, well this seems quite difficult.

Was I just going to all the wrong shops?

<comment><USER13> "full of enriched this"

Before vitamin D fortification which began around the 1st great depression (1930s not 2007), bone deformities due to lack of vitamin D were the norm. Pro-fortification propaganda claims 90%+, anti-fortification propaganda glosses over it only being about half, and relatively minor. So the truth is probably in between.

Its very much like salt. If you know how and where you look you can buy nearly pure NaCl in a store (look in the canning aisle...) but anti-caking Mg salts and iodine are added. After that, gross levels of iodine deficiency were rare.

Or the TLDR is unless you're taking the proper supplements, you're better off not drinking "untouched except by pasteurization" milk. In some states its illegal to sell raw milk or in some states illegal to sell unfortified milk so if you really want to, you have a long evening with google to research which nanny state vs free state to visit and shop.

This is aside from the obvious issue that unless you're a baby cow, perhaps you're an adult human, you really haven't evolved to drink cow milk as an adult human so you almost certainly should not do so, at least not on a regular basis. Human milk would be much healthier balance of nutrients for a human to drink for obvious reasons, although culturally would be considered creepy, and your innards are way too old to be drinking milk anyway if you're posting to HN. Maybe you could industrially adulterate cow milk to make it nutritionally similar to human milk, that would be much healthier and not as culturally creepy as the real stuff.

<comment><USER14> > Before vitamin D fortification which began around the 1st great depression > (1930s not 2007), bone deformities due to lack of vitamin D were the norm.

The UK doesn't fortify milk with vitamin D, yet they also saw a fall in the number of cases of rickets etc. That would seem to cast doubt on your causation.

<comment><USER15> True but plenty of other foods are Vitamin D fortified. Most cereals and other dairy items like butter or margarine or yogurt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of the things that ruined full fat milk for me in the UK was the introduction of homogenised milk. It ruined my morning porridge where my dad and I would pour off the cream that settled at the top as a breakfast treat. Homogenisation spoiled that for us.

Full fat homogenised milk also created a greasy slick on top of any hot drink you added it to.

Since then I've only consumed semi-skimmed milk. It's a shame we mess about with perfectly good natural products such as milk.

<comment><USER17> So wait, you can't just buy cream in the UK? What would be the difference than skimming it off the top? I'm also wondering if you can make your own non- homogenized milk by mixing the cream with the skim milk. Full fat milk is 4% cream.

<comment><USER16> Yes, you can buy cream on its own, but that wasn't what I was getting at. The point was that in non-homogenised milk, the cream naturally separated to the top of the bottle. It wasn't a lot, but just enough to make porridge better. It was a tradition/ritual thing. Also the cream wasn't as thick as say even single cream. I suspect (and no offence intended) you're a good few years younger than I am to have experienced these things. :)

<comment><USER17> Oh I know exactly what you're talking about. Just was making a suggestion. I am in my 30s I understand the physics completely and always did even before your post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well, this is not news at all. Americans used to consume 8 kilos of butter a year 40 years ago and lots of other fats too.

Now they consume much less fat(but low quality like palm oil), much more sugar, and they are terribly overweight.

People also consume much less fresh products thanks to the refrigerator. Some things will taste similar but carry 10% or less enzymes and vitamins than the fresh thing right after recollection.

<comment><USER19> Americans also used to use a larger proportion of the workday to do physical labor, walked more, and didn't use computers, among other things that have changed over the past 40 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Take this report with the same grain of salt it's recommending taking the conventional wisdom of avoiding dairy fat. These diet studies focus on extremely narrow questions and generally have homogenous (pun intended) population samples.

Ignore the headlines. The best diet advice I've heard is Michael Pollan's: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

<comment><USER21> > Ignore the headlines. The best diet advice I've heard is Michael Pollan's: > "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

So it's better to accept these fuzzy arguments from authority than to try to develop a model of optimal nutrition from actual scientific research?

<comment><USER22> If you really study the scientific research (i.e. you don't just read a headline in a newspaper saying "SCIENTISTS SAY COFFEE IS GOOD" or "SCIENTISTS SAY COFFEE IS BAD" and you actually understand the limitations of nutrition study design and the conflicting results across seemingly similar studies), you'll come to about the same conclusion: there are tons of uncertainties in nutrition, and eating lots of plants is about the least uncertain advice out there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe there's a category of people who eat healthier _and_ are leaner, and they could buy whole milk because they consider it's healthier too.

It _may_ be a statistical bias...

Like "people who eat foie gras are leaner", which is probably true too.

</comment><comment><USER13> From a chemistry point of view milk is an emulsion of cow fats dispersed in water (and some proteins, and electrolytes, not relevant to this discussion). Shaking up milk or using a churn breaks the emulsion and you get solid butter. Strangely about 95% of the population has no idea where butter comes from beyond "it comes from the store". Ordinarily water and oil don't mix very well. Some really tasty foods (not just milk) involve oil/water emulsions, sauces, gravys, salad dressings, mayonnaise, to a greater or lesser extent raw baked good doughs, etc.

So thats chemistry lesson 1, lesson 2 is "lots of stuff" in o-chem class prefers to partition itself in oil or water phase. So at least some ochem lab work involves a sep funnel which is a magic, yet simple, way to do liq vs liq extractions. Stuff moves from being dissolved in liq 1 to being dissolved in liq 2. Its a law of nature that its impossible for an undergrad lab involving a sep funnel to not have an accident or incident of some sort, usually more funny than dangerous. Not surprisingly one liquid is usually polar and one is usually non-polar because you can't do much of an extraction if liq 1 and liq 2 mix perfectly to create liq 3. And the sep fraction is often crazy, if you work the polar / nonpolar hard enough. I would imagine the sep fraction for salt or sugar in water/veg oil could be nearly a million, like the only salt in veg oil might be mechanical turbidity/suspension. Thats just a guess but I'm sure its ridiculously high if not a million. You can still have a "useful at lab scale" extraction if its only a factor of 2 or so, just pointing out its not shocking to be much higher.

Anyway the point of this chem discussion is there is no such thing as milk, there's a liquid that comes out of a cow and its got all kinds of crazy stuff in it, some of which STRONGLY partitions into either the polar or nonpolar phase. So the eventual discovery is probably going to be some kind of hormone, protein, mineral, herbicide, antiseptic, antibiotic, pesticide, solvent, "something" that strongly partitions / dissolves into fat and not into water. In the list above, hormones, herbicides, pesticides, and solvents tend to partition strongly into fat, the other stuff is a tough call one way or the other.

I would theorize that other animals living in the same contaminated conditions would partition the same way. Us mammals are not as biochemically different as some think. So its entirely possible you'd get the same effect from eating fatty meat, perhaps bacon, or foods cooked in (or made with) lard. Its worth some study.

<comment><USER24> I'm not a chemist so this was a bit difficult to parse for me. As I understand it, you're suggesting that the effect is not caused by the fat _per se_ , but by some compound that is dissolved in the fat. Am I correct?

<comment><USER25> I think the point was is that when the fat is removed from milk, it is not only fat that is removed, but also compounds that readily dissolve in fat.

This means that any effects seen could be due to the additional compounds as well as the fats that have been removed. I am not sure it is possible to distinguish what is the major cause for the effects seen.

<comment><USER24> Thank you, that line of reasoning makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm quite involved in fitness and I know a thing or two about diet. Milk is not bad, it never was. The only significant difference of full milk and skimmed milk from my point of view is GI (Glycemic Index). Full milk has GI of 41 whereas skimmed milk has a GI of 32 [1]. Obviously the lower GI the better. [1] [http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/milk-really-low- glycemic-440...](http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/milk-really-low- glycemic-4404.html)

<comment><USER27> Then again, the fitness life has never really been considered the epitome of healthy living...

Don't get me wrong, your focus on the GI index is definitely better than an obsession with low-fat, and something tells me your dietary program is much more than that even though you spared us the fleshed out details.

<comment><USER26> Well, the "fleshed out details" is obscenely vast subject that I just didn't want to contaminate this discussion with. If there are people practicing something more healthy than fitness then good for them. I am in it to look good and feel good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Another misconception is that skimmed and semi-skimmed milk would be better for lactose intolerance—it isn't as there is a similar (if not slightly higher) concentration of lactose in skimmed and semi-skimmed milk

[http://www.gihealth.com/html/education/lactose.html](http://www.gihealth.com/html/education/lactose.html)

</comment><comment><USER29> It's only a paradox if you believe in the first place that dietary animal fat is bad for you.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why Nutrition is So Confusing:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/why- nutriti...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/opinion/sunday/why-nutrition-is- so-confusing.html?hp&rref=opinion)

</comment><comment><USER31> In Germany it is actually quite hard to find skim milk. I guess at least 98% of the milk you see in a supermarket has either 3.8%, 3.5% or 1.8% fat content. In some supermarkets you can find 0.1% milk, but that is quite rare.

</comment><comment><USER32> the article quotes the president of the "dairy council" and ceo of a milk company.. uhhhh not sure were seeing the 'whole' picture here. lame

</comment><comment><USER33> organic whole milk is pretty much the only I can enjoy. The rest tastes awful.</comment>


Opera 12.10 launches with SPDY And WebSocket, Win 8 And OS X Improvements - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/06/opera-12-10-for-desktop-launches/

<comment><USER2> Very cool to see SPDY in Opera.</comment>