Tell HN: I made a freelance translation site in only 5 months - <AUTHOR> http://www.caterpi.com <comment><USER2> Can I be both a Customer and a Translator? Using the same account balance? So, can I translate stuff and then use that to pay for having my own text translated? That would avoid going through PayPal and the fees involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> I haven't added that feature yet, but will probably do so in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> it seems simple which is good, but it also seems way too simple. Some suggestions

* I understand why you want to list A->B and B->A separately, but I'd say it should be the default that someone is able to translate both ways, so favour the common case and let users correct it later.

* Also, If I am fluent in N languages, I must list all the individual pairs, but it seems unlikely someone able to translate english to swedish and english to norwegian wont be able to do swedish to norwegian too. I'd say "list languages you can work with, then review pairs" is a better option.

What is there to guarantee the quality of the translation? I0've seen the stars, but they only make sense after a translator has worked for a long time. * Couldn't translators at least link/list previous works in the language pair? * Could we have some kind of meta-moderation? Say, each translator from lang x/y is randomly given a snippet of someone else's translation and can rate it. * Couldn't we have preventive moderation? Request translation of a tiny text for some non-profit org, say, two sentences of wikipedia, and submit it to other translators for validation (or just check it's not google translate's output)

I've seen abhorrent translations between niche languages (e.g. hungarian & italian) because the customer has no way to tell if the translation is good, and usually does not even have structure in place to _collect feedback about it_.

This means there is not even the chance of going back post facto to take back your money/improve your translation/give bad rating. In practice this translates into a perfect market for lemons

Finally: technical writing is not marketing writing, nor literature, nor drama and especially not legal speak, I believe listing categories in which you are confident is much needed.

But all in all, I wish you the best luck and these are mostly minor nitpicks :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Regarding translating both ways, I disagree. Myself, I am pretty decent at French --> English, but awful the other way around.

Your other points I totally agree with. At this point, I'm in the midst of bootstrapping, so it'll be awhile before I can do some form of community moderation. This will of course present some new problems to solve, so much time will have to be spent thinking about the pros and cons :)

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.

<comment> barry-cotter I gotta agree with you on translation not being commutative. I'm at least competent German->English, but doing the reverse brings me the pain.

<comment><USER4> I've done professional translations, and in that environment, you _only_ translate from the "other" language to your native language, unless you are well and truly bilingual, as in born, raised and educated in both languages.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hm, I'm inclined to think it would have taken me somewhat less time than that. I made this site in about one month:

<http://deanza.campuseagle.com/books/>

Then again, Django is an awesome web framework, I copied someone else's recaptcha integration, I worked my ass off, and the code is generally full of hacks, such as discarding all but the longest keyword when a user searches.

But I'm not the fastest:

<http://r09.railsrumble.com/entries>

I could use a forum dedicated to programmer professional development. I'm not interested in TopCoder because I'd rather work on my own projects, but I am interested in discussions of how long other people take to finish things, what the right place to be on the coding speed/code elegance continuum is for various project sizes, how to make fewer stupid mistakes that cost you 5 minutes, etc. It seems possible that some of the supposed 10x productivity differences in developers are due to trainable aptitudes, doesn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yours is a beautiful site, I'm impressed!

There's a few reasons why I think I took so long. Listed, in order of time taken:

1\. Going off on many, _many_ tangents before buckling down and focusing on the core product.

2\. Design. I'm a poor designer, and it took me about 7 iterations to get to the version you see now.

3\. Fixing bugs. There's just so many of them.

4\. Learning about, and implementing custom localization on appengine (needed because there are no filesystem writes for .mo/.po files)

5\. Working on it part time

<comment><USER5> "Yours is a beautiful site, I'm impressed!"

Thanks. Actually I did everything _but_ the design :-P

"1. Going off on many, many tangents before buckling down and focusing on the core product."

Yeah, if I had counted those tangents it would have taken me longer too :-) It took me a little over a month starting from scratch, but there were a few weeks of learning before that.

"4. Learning about, and implementing custom localization on appengine (needed because there are no filesystem writes for .mo/.po files)"

Nice. I actually initially built my site for App Engine, but I decided I needed to have control over my IP address (Amazon's Product API, which I will probably integrate with if I continue working on the site, throttles requests by IP address.) So I went with Linode, which gives you your own IP and the option of renting more for $1/month/IP.

I'll bet people would appreciate it if you open-sourced your app engine localization solution, especially if no solutions are currently available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Design: Clearly "inspired" by Basecamp. It's fine for proving the concept, but will have to change once you've ganed some traction.

I'm not sure if the language dropdown is supposed to work. It doesn't work for me on the iPhone. You shouldn't care about this at all, just a note.

The design polish is a huge plus. It looks nice all around, something I don't often see with projects like this. I think it could use a touch of UI polish, but it honestly doesn't matter at this phase.

Product: Seems OK. Your core issue is solving the chicken/egg problem. You need to convince freelancers to join without jobs and you need to convince people with jobs to join without translators. In that light, features like forums seem like massive scope creep. Forums don't get you any closer to getting traction. That should be your sole goal at this point.

Marketing: The value prop isn't super clear to me. You're not effectively answering the question "Why do I need this?" and "Why do I need you, over the other guy?"

Overall decent job. Keep up the hard work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I have to admit the front page design is very inspired by the 37signals website. I've been experimenting with adwords with no conversions, so I wanted to try some other ideas. You're right though, I will absolutely be changing it later :)

Thanks for the feedback

<comment><USER7> I'd look at what JustAnswers.com is doing. They seem like a good fit in terms of what you're trying to accomplish with building a marketplace for translation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love your logo!

a. "Orders" and "Jobs" both lead to only a sign-in form. I would expect some short information and more explicit motivation for signing up there. Does it make sense for the "Orders" item to even show up in the menu for unregistered users?

b. I would expect the Gravatar hash images to be rather confusing for people who do not know what Gravatar is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! It was designed by kotan @99designs: <http://99designs.com/people/kotan>

About the Orders and Jobs links.. I've been annoyed in the past with the UI completely changing for some sites after logging in (especially the main navigation buttons).

I'll have to think of something to put there :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been working on it as a side project for the past 5 months. Tell me what you think!

<comment><USER9> It looks pretty good right now. I remember your site coming up on here every now and then, although I really don't remember much of how it looked before.

As of now, it looks clean, usable and has potential. Grats.

</comment></comment><comment> barry-cotter I signed up, which I think qualifies as a vote of confidence. How much action are you getting? There don't seem to be any open jobs at the moment. How are you going to grow your network? No one seems to have gotten any feedback yet.

It's a small thing, but on the language selection menu it'd be nice if I could skip to a language by typing.

From the FAQ A: Your text is sent to a pool of translators, one of which [/whom] may choose to accept the job.

<comment><AUTHOR> The site was just launched two weeks ago. Mostly I've been working on fixing bugs, recruiting translators, and experimenting with FB ads and adwords.

As a programmer, I never realized how much work is involved in marketing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice. We provide transcripts of phone calls to our customers. If someone asks for translations I can surely refer.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks really useful. Question: What process do you use to ensure translation quality? I noticed I can sign up as a translator without any barriers.. are you only going to rely on feedback? What if someone gets angry that their translation was poor?

<comment><AUTHOR> For now, anyone can get either get a refund with a click of a button, or repost the job to be worked on by another translator. Eventually, I'll be adding some safety checks to see that it isn't being abused.

<comment><USER12> The above commenter's question is _paramount_ if you're serious about taking this somewhere.

Check out this German start-up: <http://www.tolingo.com> They have a bit of a head start but never mind. Crucial about their service is that 2 people work independently on each piece of customer copy.

How customers end up with one correct copy in the end, I have no idea, but this is part of their pitch and this is what customers are concerned about.

Also, your About page is an FAQ, but you _need_ an 'About Us' page.

Great start -- not sure what about this took you 5 months -- now it's about execution and continuous improvements ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You should offer validation services ..

A wants Engish (E1) to French B translates Engish (E1) to French (F1) website facilitates C translating French (F1) to English (E2) without seeing the original English copy (E1).

It would essentially double the cost though .. hrm. Or maybe part of (F1) would be translated back into English (E2) for validation. Hopefully is a couple sentences are accurate the whole thing is?

I agree with other posters that the Buyer is at the mercy of the Translator. Its like those people with Chinese tattoos that they thing mean "Love & Peace" but they really mean "Supermarket"

</comment><comment><USER14> Cool site! I like the design. Clean and chic. I would maybe add a rollover or a button-like image to the "Basic translation" and "Freelancer" div/links because it's unclear that you can/should click those...

<comment><AUTHOR> Done!

<comment><USER14> Awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like this idea, but the thing I would be most concerned about as a user is translation quality.

You might look at these similar sites for ideas:

<https://www.onehourtranslation.com/> (they also offer an interesting free tweet translation service)

<http://trans-aid.jp/> (seems to be all volunteer, Japanese-oriented)

<comment><USER16> (full disclaimer - I work at myGengo) myGengo (<http://mygengo.com>) tests translators and does quality-checking for multiple levels to ensure customers are happy with the output. We also allow customers to rate translators and - I'm trying to be honest here - we're almost embarrassed to show the feedback comments because they sound too good (<http://mygengo.com/talk/customers/testimonials>).

Customers also have the option to request changes / corrections, and even to reject if they are not fully satisfied.

Anyways, just an alternative solution. The online-translation market gets interesting by the day :)

<comment><USER17> I've used Tomedes for translation services (<http://www.tomedes.com>). Also, was very satisfied with their quality. Just had a look at mygengo. I'll try it soon

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice job! I used to be in translating business for a short while.

I would suggest that freelance translators are asked to enter their profile information in all languages they translate to and from. Depending on initial language a site user has chosen, profile information can be updated to that language. That way a customer who speaks only one of the languages can understand too.

</comment><comment><USER19> That looks pretty good. You should however add categories for areas of expertise.

For example, technical and scientific translations usually fetch much higher prices. Thus, translators with technical expertise are unlikely to use your site and compete with the lower priced general purpose translators, unless their special skills can be easily differentiated.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is awesome! I just added myself as an English->Hindi (and vice versa) translator. Is the $0.05 per word rate standard in this kind of service? I have no clue about it, so I just kept it at your default. Do you have any customers yet?

</comment><comment><USER21> There seem to be a lot of options for modern language translation, but it is not uncommon to come across a Latin quote on the internet, and I have yet to find a good easy to use Latin to English translation tool/site.

</comment><comment><USER22> first, 2 bad things: 1\. if you "add to cart" nothing, it does something weird. 2\. I don't like the "in only 5 months".

then, a good things: 1\. Website is pretty clean, I like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll fix that asap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really appreciate the minimalist design and layout. Too many folks clutter up the UI (I'm just as guilty as any).

If I need any translation services, your site is bookmarked.

</comment><comment><USER24> How are you planning make many with it? As I get to know an email of a translator, I don't need a mediator any more, do I?

</comment><comment><USER25> I was hoping you'd pick the other logo with the librarian looking caterpillar! Anyway, site looks really clean and fresh.

</comment><comment><USER26> Tiny suggestion: make the entire blue and green boxes clickable as links, and give them a bit of mouseover highlighting.

</comment><comment><USER27> cool!

i would love to see a feature (eventually) that allows you to easily hire a "team" of translators to either collaborate on a translation or translate them individually in parallel (you would have to work out the granularity here) and rate each other's work. I'd love to have more than one opinion for critical / tricky pieces.

</comment><comment><USER28> almost all the links at the top require sign-in. Also it I didn't realize that the green div on the right was click-able and where I actually wanted to go.

</comment><comment><USER16> Funny - why do you expose all emails on your site?

<comment><USER29> Yeah - seems like a great resource for spammers :(

<comment><USER30> I thought spam was dead (for power users at least).

Good spam filters killed it (gmail and co).

<comment><USER29> Hmm. I have a feeling that any sysadmin out there would disagree that spam is dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good job. I like the space and your site brings real value to everyone coming to the table.

URL is solid.

I know it's early on, but I'd like to see some examples or sample translations somewhere. And when you can get some press and testimonials it will make the site feel more trusted.

I'd also consider adding some type of image(s) on the homepage. It's missing a human element and at the end of the day it will be someone translating this stuff so I'd recommend adding translator user photos on the frontpage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good advice, thanks.</comment></comment>


Halting Password Puzzles (2007) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://crypto.stanford.edu/~xb/security07/hkdf.pdf <comment><USER2> One word: passphrases.

People find it very hard to remember a short password with crap stirred in, or an eleven-character random string. Remembering three or four random words is easy, and actually hard to crack. Six words is spy-grade (if actual spies were any smarter than a toddler).

$ shuf -n 4 /usr/share/dict/words

Stripping off plurals and tenses costs a bit or two of entropy each, but makes them much easier to remember. If you worry about security, it's much better to add a word than to make fewer words harder to recall or type.

<comment><USER3> Anytime you're designing a diceware or xkcd "correct-battery-horse-staple" type of password system, it's really important to choose your dictionary really carefully and not make it too big. Humans tend to have a pretty hard limit around five to ten thousand words that they can remember easily, and the bigger your dictionary, the harder it is to remember less common words that might crop up.

And then there is the problem of spelling those words correctly, which is hard for people with dyslexia or other types of learning difficulties.

If your random number generator can be trusted, then a 10k dictionary gets you about 13 bits of Entropy in that part of your password. But it takes a lot of words like that to get into the 128 bit range which is still pretty damn weak for password security — ten words at 13 bits each would only get you to 130 bits.

And then you run into the problem that most people have difficulty remembering more than six or seven "objects" for a given entity. This is why local phone numbers are no more than seven digits long in the North American Numbering Plan.

All password/passphrase systems are compromises. Even a password management system is a compromise, because then you have to worry about the maintenance and security of the password management system on top of all the passwords it is protecting.

And don't get me started on biometrics.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm a pro; still harmed by CCleaner's malware. What could I have done? - <AUTHOR> Frustrating.
I'm a pro user (or at least that's how I consider myself, unless I suffer from the Imposter Syndrome).
I don't click links just because. I just don't. Not once in a million, not by mistake. I just don't.
I don't install software that comes from an "Unknown Publisher", even if I have to have it. I just don't.
I use CCleaner for a long time, as it's considered trusted, reliable and crap-free.
I did install the dodgy CCleaner 5.33. It was digitally signed by Piriform: https://i.imgur.com/GlDiEJM.png
And yet, it contains malware that was injected to the build process, thus got it to be as part of the "normal" program files and signed.
The trust model has broken.
What could I have done differently? <comment><USER2> There was not much you could have done. Personally I never used CCCleaner even though folks on my team did. I just didn't have a use for it because I wanted to make sure I understood chrome's caching logic. SO maybe I am slightly more "Pro" than you. But I install lots of software that could have had their deployment process hacked without me knowing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Think twice before installing a new application. Try to use the OS default applications as much as you can tolerate them.

I don't think you need CCleaner in 2017.

Recommended reading: [https://usesthis.com/interviews/marius.eriksen/](https://usesthis.com/interviews/marius.eriksen/)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's not like CCleaner was out to get you - they got hacked. It's like if your bank got hacked and your stuff got stolen. The bank didn't trick you.

What should you do now? Never update an app automatically. Wait at least a day and see if there are any issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know they didn't, I know they were hacked. The question is how can one be cautious and alert, if that doesn't help? Digital signatures were invented so you can trust the program you're installing, but if that doesn't happen, what else?

Also, I didn't update automatically. It was a fresh install on a relatively new machine. And even if I did disable auto update - in that case I would've installed it manually. What's the difference?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Think twice before installing a "Anti- (virus/malware)" software. I havent installed one in either windows/linux/mac for the last 10 years ( because norton/mcafee/avg and others used to mess up the speed ).

\- use ad blocker

\- dont auto update

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't do all tasks on one computer. Computers dropped in price so there's no reason to do that.

You can use a livecd for surfing the web. The web is one of the biggest sources of badware.

</comment><comment><USER7> not using CCleaner would be a start.

pay attention to the version of what you are using and avoid using things on auto-update or on a version which haven't been battleproof.

use linux and check the source code of everything you run... but it's a lot of work

so basically I don't think you could've done much, nor most of the people can unless you would accept living in a very walled and time-consuming computer setup

<comment><USER8> Most Linux users would have been caught the same way, what with PPAs and autoupdates. If a trusted party is compromised, it's essentially game over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't get how can you be a pro yet use this kind of crapware.</comment>


Can Turkey's Republic Survive Erdogan's Purge? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-07-21/can-turkey-s-republic-survive-erdogan-s-purge <comment><USER2> "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause."

This is history in the making.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well I'd like to read the rest of this but the page has refreshed on me 3 times and I'm not even halfway through...

</comment><comment><USER4> Is this a Betteridge situation?

>Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."

Seems like Bloomberg already knows the answer!

<comment><USER5> This is one of the cases where I actually think this is a meaningful question.

The number of people removed from any positions of power in this purge is terrifying. It's a total power grab. It could even lead to the transformation of Turkey, from a secular state to an Islamic one.

<comment><USER6> Not to defend Erdogan, but if the coup were succesful the same or worae purge would have happened, by the hand of a not elected president. I wish Dilma Rousseff had done the same here in Brazil, but she didn't and our republic isn't surviving the purge.</comment></comment></comment>


Want to Become a Super Thinker? Read These Thought-Provoking Books - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/personal-growth/want-to-become-a-super-thinker-read-these-thought-provoking-books-c86cd08a18c4 <comment><USER2> Any hn recommendations from this list?</comment>


Jokers Please: First Human Mars Mission May Need Onboard Comedians - rv-de https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/15/jokers-please-first-human-mars-mission-may-need-onboard-comedians <comment><AUTHOR> Most comedians being notoriously depressed might prove beneficial for the amount inclined to participate should this come to fruition.

</comment><comment><USER2> Oh, I would SO be ready to sign up as the comedian on THAT trip.</comment>


Google's Sentiment Analyzer Thinks Being Gay Is Bad - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/j5jmj8/google-artificial-intelligence-bias <comment><USER2> Isn't all Sentiment some kind of bias. I'm not really coming up with a universal positive/negative sentiment.</comment>


Sonic.net implements DNSSEC, performs MITM against customers - <AUTHOR> http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.encryption.general/21150 <comment><USER2> Sonic has been doing that for a year. All they're doing is applying a blacklist at their DNS servers. Unlike OpenDNS and Google, they don't divert DNS no-finds to ads. It is annoying, though, that they don't clearly identify who's displaying that message and why.

Sonic has an alternative DNS server without this feature (at 184.108.40.206 or 184.108.40.206), which is useful if you're testing things that need to see phishing sites.

<comment><USER3> While OpenDNS does do the redirect thing (It can be turned off), Google have never done that and even state quite expressly that they don't in the Google DNS FAQ:

[https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/faq#nxdomains](https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/faq#nxdomains)

So if you've been redirected while using Google's DNS then I strongly urge you to check your systems for malware.

edit: OpenDNS may have discontinued it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDNS#Discontinued_Advertisi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDNS#Discontinued_Advertising)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The forum post referenced in the email was posted on March 14th, meaning that this has been going on for awhile. Have they done anything in the meantime to improve the usability of this or present DNSSEC enabled services that do not have this man in the middle action going on?

Done right this can be a really good service- malware that takes advantage of cutting edge exploits (combined with computers that get updated slowly if at all) can be hard to block if it isn't being cut off at it's source, and a company proactively protecting their customers can be a very good thing. However, to do that right requires a few important steps-

1\. Notifying the customer of what is happening. This is a huge fail since they give their customers no notice of what company is actually doing it.

2\. Instructions to report false positives. They're not even saying who they are, so there's clearly no easy way to report false positives.

3\. A commitment to only blocking active exploits. They shouldn't be censors, they should only be blocking things that can actually cause damage. The fact that they're blocking political and financial sites due to social engineering is clearly problematic.

4\. Finally, they should add a way to get around the block. This is unfortunately a difficult thing to do with DNS based blocking and I'd be willing to cut them some slack on this if they could make up for it by rigid standards of damage and a fast false positive response.

When my team managed the blocklist that mbam uses we had to deal with this kind of stuff, but overall it worked really well and as time went on more features were added to the product to make sure customers had control. This type of service can be done right, but when it's not I feel it can do far more harm than good as people abandon security because of the perceived inconvenience that's really just a shitty product.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been a Sonic subscriber for a few years now and I'm configured to use the affected DNS servers, but I've never encountered a block and I don't really see the problem (aside from not branding the block page.)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hrmm this is depressing, I was a Sonic customer back in '97 when they first opened, along with the public Internet.

They always win 5 stars from the EFF for privacy, is this really as bad as it seems?

</comment><comment><USER7> In my opinion, 1&1 Internet should be on the Black list.</comment>


Ask HN: If you were to write a script that could change the world - <AUTHOR>

What would it do? <comment><AUTHOR> How about a script that rounds of the fractions of dollars automatically into an account setup for funding investors in developing nations?

</comment><comment><USER2> Useless question..

<comment><AUTHOR> pointless answer

<comment><USER2> Answering your own question at first place.. fail!</comment></comment></comment>


Next generation GPS satellite launched - <AUTHOR> http://www.universetoday.com/2010/05/28/air-force-launches-next-generation-gps-satellite/

<comment><USER2> This new type of satellite, Block IIF, will broadcast a new military signal and also a new civilian signal: L5 (safety-of-life). It'll be interesting to see what kind of accuracy GPS receivers get when they start using the L5 data, because it's supposed to be especially beneficial to aviation.</comment>


Michael Shellenberger's apology for "climate scare" [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://wattsupwiththat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Schellenberger-Apology.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This was originally carried by Forbes, and subsequently removed as it did not fit their editorial standards [1]. I have linked the "archived" copy.

[1] [https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-robson-forbes-falls- to...](https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-robson-forbes-falls-to-cancel- culture-as-it-erases-environmentalists-mea-culpa)</comment>


Flash Boys a Year Later - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/03/michael-lewis-flash-boys-one-year-later <comment><USER2> I read the book a few weeks ago, and I was somewhat disappointed.

He focusses way too much on the IEX gang, and in a way that is puts the team members on a pedestal. Something about it made it sound like he spent a lot of time with this gang and not so much with others. I'm sure they're smart guys, but I just don't like the style and it seemed overdone to me. This is having worked in finance for 12 years and met loads of smart people with credentials and interesting stories.

Anyway, aside from the style I thought there was a lack of real investigation.

There was one interesting strategy mentioned, the BATS front-run. Superficially, it sounds like it might work. You see a trade on BATS, you pull and reverse. Okay. But what exactly is wrong with that? There's a number of market makers who collectively make the market. A big fish comes in, scares away the minnows. Is that wrong? If there's a big buyer, shouldn't the price be higher? That discussion didn't seem to be there.

Another interesting story is the Spread Networks line. Now, what exactly is being arbed between Chicago and New York? The S&P Future vs ETFs in NYC? Vs the basket? Can that really support a dozen or so firms paying tens of millions each? Maybe it can, let us see the data. A recent conversation with an HFT friend did not reveal the answer. And what happened when the microwave towers came in? Is the line useless now? At the end, I wasn't satisfied I knew WHY the speed was necessary. All I can think of is that there's some very obvious trade that can't lose money if you're the fastest. What is it, and why is it a no-brainer? Is is anything untoward happening?

And then there was the funny order types. How about giving us a concrete example? Use such-and-such an order, cause the market to cross, end up at the front of the queue, profit. There was some mention of the multitude of order types, but the case isn't made until you bring something concrete. Someone like Nanex might have data showing these shenanigans. I picked up another book by Tabb, who was mentioned, that has some more detail.

<comment><USER3> I really enjoyed Dark Pools. Of course it also focused on a side but it was more enjoyable to see how things came to be, the creation of Island and how seemingly good intentions created the market we have today.

<comment><USER4> _> how seemingly good intentions created the market we have today._

It's been a bit since I read Flash Boys _[edit: didn 't realize you were talking about a different book]_, but from memory dark pools were never created with good intentions. At best, they were created with the intention of enabling cheaper trades by not having to route orders to the broader public market (just like a colo CDN)?

And dark pool owners had all the information needed to gather real-time reporting on the prices predatory dark pools were trading normal investors' orders at vs. the broader market price.

Which is to say, they absolutely knew they were screwing someone.

<comment><USER5> It's tough to discuss dark pools for a couple reasons. First, they have a sinister name. Second, they're generally run by giant financial firms, who nobody likes right now. Third, they're a fuzzy concept. In reverse order:

A dark pool is really just a private exchange, or really just what you'd call anything that functioned in any way like a private exchange. They're a tool, deployed to solve problems for (primarily) large investors. When you start talking about market structure and facilities, it can get pretty weird to talk about "intentions". Major exchanges are also routinely used for shady transactions!

The best-known purpose (or "intention") of a dark pool is to allow huge buy- side institutional investor to move large blocks of securities. If you don't spend much time reading about market microstructure, you're probably unaware that this is one of the fundamental problems in trading.† Market "physics" dictate that there is no instantaneous price available for the sale of a large block of securities. A huge order will gobble up many orders off the order book, and, as it executes over time, it _moves prices_ \--- the intent of a large investor to dump a lot of securities on the market is extremely relevant to everyone else in the market, and to the correct price of that security.

The best known dark pools tend to be owned by giant investment banks and similar firms. This should be unsurprising, because one of the key services those firms offer their clients is "efficiently shopping or buying large blocks of securities". To deliver that service on open exchanges, they have to compete with other firms that are aggressively trying to detect big moves and profit from quickly making prices reflect those moves, often while the move is happening. The participants in a dark pool are cooperating to "more efficiently" move large blocks in private without impacting prices (as much) while the move is happening.††

(Dark pools also end up executing some retail order flow as well; as "private exchanges", they're also a useful service for their operators to be able to sell to retail brokerages. They take on the task of trying to ensure orders are executed quickly, and their other trading clients get exposure to retail order flow, which is demographically likely to be uninformed and profitable to trade against.)

Finally: the name. It sounds Death Star-ish. But really it's just a comparison to normal "lit" exchanges, where order books are visible to participants. "Lit" and "dark".

It might seem like lack of transparency and visibility into prices could be a license for all sorts of shady stuff. And some shady stuff happens (apparently most of which has to do with the promises made to dark pool clients when they agree to execute orders there). But most of the "shenanigans" that drive concerns about HFT require order visibility (I like to suggest that they are direct consequences of the CAP theorem, applied to electronic markets).

† _Bafflingly, a huge and apparently valid complaint about _Flash Boys_ is that Lewis --- a former bond salesman --- doesn 't seem to understand this fact._

†† _I suspect we 'll find that when we start ascribing motives and intentions and morality to market activities, we'll quickly find out that this stuff is all murky, and that almost any activity can be "shady" or "virtuous" viewed through the right lens. For instance: some dark pool controversy involves big pools persuading big investors to execute trades on their pools, whereupon they're "victimized" by HFTs and other aggressive traders. Through the lens of "promises should be kept" and "truth in advertising", this is bad. But through the lens of "giant financial firms probably shouldn't have a special sneaky execution lane for dumping a zillion shares on the market without alerting other investors that they are moving the market", things look a bit different._

<comment><USER6> _The best-known purpose (or "intention") of a dark pool is to allow huge buy- side institutional investor to move large blocks of securities._

That is the raison d'être for only a couple of dark pools (mostly the older ones like liquidnet). The reason most big i-banks have their own dark pools is because it's cheaper to trade on their own ATS than it is on most of the public exchanges. The "take fee" paid by anyone crossing the spread on the 5 biggest exchanges (by volume) is usually in the range of $0.0025 - $0.0030 per share, which doesn't seem like a huge number, but it can add up when you are trading tens or hundreds of millions of shares daily. If banks can trade customer and internal flow on their own ATS, they don't have to pay those fees.

You can look at the average trade sizes broken down by symbol and ATS. The data is here: [https://ats.finra.org](https://ats.finra.org). The average trade size for most ATSs is somewhere between 100-200 shares. The whole "dark pools are for crossing large blocks" thing is sort of anachronistic these days.

<comment><USER5> I was hoping someone would come and provide this additional color. Doesn't this fact _reduce_ the moral implications of dark pools, though?

<comment><USER6> There are a couple of complaints I have seen.

1) That orders that are "pegged" to the NBBO at dark pools may execute at inferior prices relative to the true NBBO. If the market moves from 20.23 x 20.24 to 20.24 x 20.25, you can in theory try to quickly buy in the dark pool at 20.235 and lay off by selling at 20.24 in the lit market. The theoretical per-share profit would be 0.005 before fees and probably zero after. This is the whole point of the IEX 40 (or whatever) miles of fiber in your order entry path. It gives IEX the opportunity to update their view of the NBBO while your order spins around in the coil. I think the issue is partly intrinsic to pegged orders. The pegged order is effectively getting a free ride re pricing based on the the price discovery happening in the lit markets. Maybe that is a natural trade-off? I actually read a really good blog post recently where a guy tried to work out what would happen if more exchanges tried these sorts of delay gimmicks. It's worth a read if you're interested. [https://mechanicalmarkets.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/should- ie...](https://mechanicalmarkets.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/should-iex-become-a- full-exchange-incentives-for-exchanges-to-compete-by-increasing-delays/)

2) The Barclay's thing where the claim is that Barclay's could prevent you from trading with certain counterparties or types of counterparties but maybe they didn't? It's been in the news but I don't think anything has really been settled. One interesting thing is that the court case is between the NY attorney general and Barclay's, not between Barclay's and any of Barclay's (presumably legally sophisticated and deep pocketed) customers.

3) Unsophisticated or low-cost order routers that sequentially try to trade at various dark pools signal to the market makers who are quoting on those dark pools that someone was potentially trying to sweep. If you think market makers should be able to use this kind of information to avoid being adversely selected against on their other orders, then it probably doesn't bother you, but it bothers people like Michael Lewis. A crappy order router can let out a lot more signal than a good one. It seems like the kind of thing you could A/B test but I don't work on the buy-side so I'm not sure what they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> HFT is not bad. Technology is democratized now. The best trading tech is available to consumers. The professional edge lies in their unlimited, low- cost leverage not in their technology. As a consumer, HFT is not my competition it is my order facilitator. A huge share of equity trades get their price IMPROVED by the market makers in order to capture the trade flow.

I love Michael Lewis. The Big Short was a very enjoyable read. I've read all of his stuff. I've run into the guy at the grocery store. But Flash Boys was just silly. Even if you believe it, the guy getting "disrupted" was not a retail trader but a broker crying that HFT was making it hard for him to dump orders on the market in 10,000 share lots.

Edit: I won't respond to every critic, I respect your views but I've given it thought and have reached a different conclusion. You can quantify that orders are filled today more quickly, at better prices, with far lower commissions, and we have tighter bid-ask spreads, more penny-wide markets than ever before, and an explosion of ETFs that give retail traders access to something that they otherwise would need a futures contract ($100k in notional value) to trade. And of course in the world of algorithmic trading, there is technology not available to consumers. But a consumer today can have a setup at home that is as sophisticated as a professional trader's setup. That never used to be the case. But the software is commoditized now. The trading platforms available to consumers, like Thinkorswim and Interactive Brokers, are top- shelf.

<comment><USER8> It's absolutely not democratized. The opaqueness of the trades and the fact that the vast majority of trade volume passes through pools with centralized (and again opaque) rule-writing means that the those centralized authorities can and do write the rules to privilege insiders.

<comment><USER5> What "opaqueness" are you talking about? What kinds of "trades"? What are you referring to when you talk about "trade volume"? What "pools" are you talking about? By the technical definition of the term --- and the context of your subsequent words --- you could (validly) be referring to the major exchanges as "pools"; they are, after all, centralized and responsible for their own rule-writing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Shook to its core" is more than a bit overstated.

<comment><USER10> I was going to say the same thing.

My feeling is that "Wall Street" mostly ignored the book, which they expected to have no lasting impact. And even that turned out to be an overestimate. Not only has it had no lasting impact, I wouldn't say it had a fleeting impact either.

In fact, I can't think of a single measurable impact the book has had on Wall Street. At most it gave people who already distrusted the financial industry a few more reasons to do it, but it led to no new laws, no new regulations, no prosecutions, no _anything_ really.

And if you ignore the headline and look at the article, Lewis's main argument seems to be that he made some very rich people "angry". Which is 1) a far cry from "shaking wall street to its core" 2) something he offers zero evidence—even anecdotally—to support and 3) also not true, as far as I'm aware.

Don't get me wrong; I've read several of Lewis's books, I like his writing, and I'm sure he's a great guy. But I kind of doubt even Lewis believes this spin; it's just marketing.

Edit: It's also worth remembering that the losers in the rise of HFT are overwhelming the big institutional players in the market. People have this weird idea that HFT is all about big banks victimizing small investors, but in reality the big banks are the losers, and the small investors are the winners. (Yes, really.) Which makes Lewis's claim that he was making the richest people in Wall Street angry so ironic. They were already angry at HFT, and they tried to use Lewis as ammunition in their ongoing fight against HFT. It's a bit like making a movie about how fracking is terrible, then priding yourself about how you must have made the big oil majors very bad...not even realising that they were the ones funding you all along, because fracking is a threat to them, not an opportunity.

(And yes, that happened. Matt Damon's film _Promised Land_ turned out to be heavily funded by the UAE, who has a vested interested in discouraging domestic fossil fuel production in the US. I'm sure Damon thought he was standing up to Big Oil, but reality is more complex.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "between high-frequency traders, who trade with computer algorithms at nearly light speed"

Seriously, why the do we have to put up with this shit? "Google, which returns the results of your search queries over a network at _nearly light speed_ ". "Your remote control, which changes the channel on your television at _nearly light speed_ ". It is too stupid for words. Old school luddism.

<comment><USER12> The book explains that one company was running their own fiber optic cable between Chicago and New York to shave a handful of milliseconds off the latency. HFT firms also built their trading desks as close as possible to where the fiber terminated in New Jersey. This isn't the speed of your mom's google query, they were literally running up against latency caused by the speed that light travels down a cable.

<comment><USER13> Right. If you're totally unfamiliar with HFT, you don't realize how far they go to get latency down. Computers are too slow for HFT. There are trading algorithms written in VHDL and loaded into FPGAs which are looking at packets as they come in over gigabit Ethernet.[1] (That description is four years old and out of date.)

All this is really to achieve front-running, executing an order after another order has been submitted but before the first order is executed. This is betting on a sure thing. It's also illegal.

[1] [http://www.wallstreetfpga.com/resources/fix-on-an- fpga/](http://www.wallstreetfpga.com/resources/fix-on-an-fpga/)

<comment><USER14> Your understanding of what defines front running is incorrect.

Front running is when your stock broker gets an order from you but then turns around and executes an order on his own behalf before he executes yours. This is illegal because your broker has a fiduciary duty to you, his client.

It's not front running when I see an order on one exchange and then, very quickly, go make an order on a different exchange. It's not illegal because I have no fiduciary responsibility to any of the other people involved.

You have no right to execute multiple orders on different exchanges atomically.

<comment><USER13> If someone paid for order flow or fast access so they could do that, it's illegal.

<comment><USER5> If that's true, you should be able to cite a statute, an SEC/FINRA/CFTC rule, a court ruling, or an exchange rule to explain how (allowed and prohibited behavior on markets being defined by all four of those kinds of sources, frustratingly enough).

I suspect you won't be able to find any such source. Malfeasance by trading firms makes career cases for prosecutors.

That's not to say, normatively, that that's how things _should_ be: obviously, prosecutors are not making much of a dent in the trustworthiness of big financial firms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The best argument I have heard in favor of HFT was from Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies. He said that the so-called market-makers would run at the first sign of trouble (as they did in the 1987 crash) and caused prolonged downturns, whereas the algorithms for HFTs were truly liquid market- makers and kicked back in the buying faster once prices got irrationally low.

<comment><USER16> I worked at a market maker (owned by a bank) that handled around 8-10% of US stock trades. When things like the flash crash happened, the strategy was to stop anything automated, because the simple strategies had no way of knowing the cause. Trading on normal market-microstructure signals, the trading that provides the bulk of liquidity, would just get you creamed.

To meet our market maker requirements, which allowed us to do things normal market participants can't do, like naked shorting, we would do things like leave a 1 penny bid and ten-thousand dollar ask and not change them for the entire day. Exchange regulators tried to address this and made market makers quote within some percentage of the bid/ask. Nasdaq literally just created an order type that would automatically reprice itself to always be exactly that percentage away from the bid/ask, so that it could never execute--just like the previous 1-penny bids--but would comply with the regulation. The order type only existed to bypass that regulation and was literally created in response to demand after its passage.

Even without that order type we'd just do (and did do, it took them a while after the regulation to add the order type) the same thing in the models' trading logic.

<comment><USER17> Do you have any links/resources for the subject matter you're covering in this comment? I'd like to learn more about what you're saying, and I can't seem to wrap my head around what it is you're trying to express with penny bids.

<comment><USER14> What he's trying to say is that his firm was contractually required to have a bid (an offer to buy) and an ask (an offer to sell) for some set of stocks.

But under certain circumstances they didn't really like this requirement so they kind of cheated by changing their bid to 1 penny and their ask to $10,000. For a stock that trades around, say, $100 this means that while they de-facto had a bid and ask in place it wasn't really a real bid or ask as no one else would ever want to trade at those prices.

<comment><USER16> And under the regulation we might have been required to ask at minimum $120 for that stock when it was trading at $100. If the stock had a big day and rose to $200, Nasdaq would just raise our ask to $240, or whatever exact amount the regulation required. The only risk compared to the old way of doing things was that someone would hit the stock with a huge enough order to blow through all liquidity in one shot on the way up to our ask.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I read the book the week it came out and it felt like watching a gripping thriller. I think the reaction/ debate to his book was a (welcomed) distraction for the Wall Street bankers. His book left much unanswered, inevitably, but I fail to see any progress/ change since he published it. His debate on Bloomberg with William O'Brien (BATS Global Markets Presidents) was legendary and great viewing. But ultimately Brad Katsuyama came out as the hero of the book and it would be interesting to know how the IEX Group are doing now... I hear there are plans to make it in to a movie? Perhaps I will be able to watch it as a gripping thriller...

</comment><comment><USER19> I've spent more than a few words bashing Flash boys so I won't try to do it anymore.

In a way I feel kind of bad for Michael Lewis. He's had such success with earlier books that it must be hard for him to find a target for each new book. In my opinion this book was his first awful book.

Instead of finding data and following it through to reach a conclusion he starts with a trendy conclusion, HFT is bad, and then really contorts and reaches with his data to try and make his case. He was also hit by the issue of HFT starting to wind down around 2010 and really starting to wind down around 2012. Many HFT firms no longer concentrate on the US Equity markets alone, they do alot more volume in the futures, options and bond markets where there are alot more mathematical correlations, and hence more opportunities for mispricings to correct.

If you want a sound rebuttal, and in my opinion a better book have a look at this book:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8577237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8577237)

I find it more balanced, better researched and it provides a much better understanding of the HFT industry.

Having said that, credit where credit is due, he's a tremendous writer and the book is a fun read that you can consume in 2 days. If you like it then I recommend his entire back catalog, they are all fun and informative reads.

 __EDIT __someone asked for an example of why I didn 't like the book so....

One of Lewis' biggest issues was what he termed HFT front running. This alone was a pain as front running already had a well understood meaning( it originally was meant for a intermediary who took your order and executed its own order ahead of yours, often buying the stock lower and selling it to you at a slightly higher price).

His example was that a HFT system would see an order for say Microsoft trade on the exchange BATS, say a buy of 1000 shares. The HFT system would then run ahead to all the other exchanges and buy up the remaining shares on those other exchanges, an ammount that might be 1000 shares or it might be 100,000 shares, so when the remaining part of the order to buy Microsoft got to those exchanges it would have to buy the shares from eh faster HFT system at a higher price.

This is down right silly for a few reasons.

1) it assumes that the order that got filled at BATS was either a market order or a limit order that was priced for more than the fill price, because if it was a limit for the same price as the fill then buying up the remaining shares won't do the HFT firm any good:)

2) it assumes that the order was for more shares than what got filled on BATS, so now the HFT firm is exposing itself by owning shares it's not even sure anyone wants to buy at the price its willing to sell.

3) it assumes that the HFT system can both buy the remaining shares at the original price and get to the top of sell side of the order book to sell those shares back. The HFt firm now has to take the risk that it won't be at the top of the order book and even if it was right about steps one and two, a big if, it might not be able to capitalize on it as it can't jump ahead of anyone who had previous sell limit orders at the price it now wants to sell at.

There are just so many unknown factors there that there is almost no way this type of trading system could be profitable.

Remember HFT firms worship at the alter of the law of large numbers, they make fractions of a penny per share traded but only do it if they have an edge ie 90% upside to 10% downside. There just isn't any edge to be had in the above scenario, its just a heaping pile of risk.

<comment><USER12> Ah so in your view, why was the order flow of retail brokerages worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year to these HFT firms?

Michael Lewis is not the only person accusing HFT firms of front-running trades. Joseph Stiglitz, a nobel laureate in economics, has made similar accusations. Does he too just not understand the market?

<comment><USER20> _why was the order flow of retail brokerages worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year to these HFT firms?_

Order flow from retail brokerages can be assumed to be "non-directional", which means that it comes from people who are buying or selling for some reason other than "I have better-than-market knowledge of information which will shortly be relevant to this stock."

One _extremely important_ example of directional order flow is when you have the knowledge "100k shares of this stock are shortly going to be shopped on various exchanges" because _you 're doing the selling._ This will typically cause price impact (i.e. the price of the stock declines), meaning that market makers who take your first few hundred/thousand shares are going to get shellacked. They generally don't love this.

In the (virtually guaranteed) absence of directional order flow, market making is a _license to print money._ Both sides pay you the spread and you don't accumulate much inventory risk. (i.e. You buy, you sell, you sell, you buy, and you're rarely left with a meaningfully sized position in either direction which would expose you to the stock at issue.)

That's why you pay for non-directional order flow. It's like leasing a toll bridge.

<comment><USER14> It does seem like the fee being paid for order flow should be able to be captured by those making the orders in the form of further reduced spreads rather than by brokerage firms selling the flow. Though perhaps the issue is that with stocks regulated to trade in penny increments that's hard to do?

I am uncertain.

<comment><USER21> The spreads can't reduce much more than they are now due to the regulation issue.

The order makers do see part of that rebate in the lowering of the fees they explicitly pay to trade.

Robinhood is a particularly good example of this. They seem to be financing a no-fee model based purely on selling the order flow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Just finished the book, was not shaken to my core.

When 99% of trading became computerized,very few "trading desks" knew anything about the foundation of what they did. They were still trying to be an 80's guy.

Not surprising that learning deeply about the electronic system at the basis of trading was lucrative for the few who did,

</comment><comment><USER23> More of a question than a comment, but how do Trading Fees [1] effect HFT and the market? I suspect that high volume trades over time could be seriously effected by the trends in these fees.

[1] e.g. NYSE Trading Fees, [https://www.nyse.com/markets/nyse/trading- info#trading-fees](https://www.nyse.com/markets/nyse/trading-info#trading- fees)

<comment><USER24> Most HFT players are market makers, not market takers. If you take a look at the fees in that link, the fees for liquidity taking are positive, i.e. $0.0027, whereas the fees for liquidity providing are negative, i.e. $(0.00150).

Exchanges offer rebates to market makers to incentivize market activity on their platform.</comment></comment>


Who cut the cheese? - <AUTHOR> https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/316515/who-cut-the-cheese?cb=1 <comment><USER2> Prior to the Industrial Revolution, cheese was sliced by hand for sale in shops and markets - in fact, as a matter of historical record, in ancient times there were people in many places around the world who would cut the cheese all day long.</comment>


Regulatory Capture at ICANN - <AUTHOR> https://reviewsignal.com/blog/2019/06/24/the-case-for-regulatory-capture-at-icann/ <comment><USER2> There seems to be a progression of MBA-ification of the Internet domain name namespace management.

Originally, there was what seemed to be a custodian role, looking after the namespace. Then it seemed to possibly be getting confused as a profit center, with fees. Then ICANN happened. Then there was inexplicably created a bizarre cottage industry of numerous middleperson "registrars", effectively selling or renting domain names they didn't own. And a few big businesses, including Superbowl ads. Plus there were the squatters, of course, since no one was looking after the namespace anymore. Then an explosion of TLDs were sold. So now we have business people talking about "market share" of TLDs, and "consumer" options:

> _Allowing .org and future domain names to move to market-based pricing makes > sense with today's healthy TLD market, which is populated with many choices > for consumers to choose from. The .org domain name is well known as one of > the first TLDs in the market available for public registration, but it still > only holds 5.5 percent market share, with just over 10 million names in the > .org space compared to almost 140 million domain names and 75 percent market > share for .com._

<comment><USER3> > Plus there were the squatters, of course, since no one was looking after the > namespace anymore.

Explain how ideally you think this should have been handled then? Specifically someone wants to register a domain name and how should they go about doing so and what specifically should be required of them prior to registering and what should happen if they don't 'use' the domain and how are you going to define 'use the domain exactly' and how you will review fairly whatever the interpretation is? How would you setup an alternate system for doing so and practically implement it?

Squatters by the way are a myth that was invented in the 90's by the media and used in an obviously pejorative way.

<comment><USER2> > _Squatters by the way are a myth that was invented in the 90 's by the media > and used in an obviously pejorative way._

How do you mean it was a myth? You remember all the domain name for sale landing pages, the faux SEO (not really) pages, the domain name marketplace sites full of massive numbers never-used domains (sometimes domains with some token SEO-ing done on them to increase the rank they could mention), the registrars who helped automate massive buying of domain names, and all the people (including people you knew personally, not made up) talking about how they were buying up domain names for their value rather than to use (and the people themselves sometimes said they were "squatting")? Are you saying something else?

<comment><USER3> No the idea that there is something wrong with that is what I challenge. Why? Because it assumes that there is either a practical solution to preventing that behavior or that that behavior is in some way bad. For whatever the reason even though the internet is commercial people seem to think that domain names in particular (and specifically .com) is some kind of public trust that it's wrong to profit off of. Everyone knows that there are other ways to use a domain name they just decide they want (mostly) the .com. And it's not different because it's the internet.

So for example let's say you want neilv.com but someone has it figuring they can sell it to someone at some point. There is nothing preventing you from picking (especially today) neilv.somethhingelse or neilvonline.com and so on. But you have decided (most people) they want the .com. Then they feel entitled to having that .com when they come around to needing it. And they also think there should be some perfect system developed to decide who is the valid user and use of that domain when that practically would never happen. Now if the little old flower shop choose neilv.com and was 'using it' but not 'using it' is that more legit? Not really. The average person might still try to entice that owner with money so they could use the domain name.

Lastly people think that as a group others will or should not seek to profit and that trying to profit off an opportunity that you spot (that someone else doesn't; or in advance of them) is wrong in some way. But it's not. It's human nature and it's acceptable it's just that it pisses people off so they try to paint it in a negative way. And if someone decides to take a chance and grab domains with the intent of waiting for the right buyer to come along that is not any different than other ways people will try to make money.

The media of course (and bloggers) feeds into this and stokes it in many ways.

If it was so obvious that buying domains or trying to hoard them was a way to make money why didn't everyone do it? Not because they thought it was the wrong thing to do. Because they didn't think of doing it and/or didn't have the money to do it or weren't around or weren't creative enough. Not because they felt it was wrong.

> the registrars who helped automate massive buying of domain names

Exactly and anyone can do this. It's not tax medallions dolled out by politicians. Anyone can buy up domain names.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for clarifying and explaining.

I could possibly see your argument, but ICANN's early actions ("Now everyone can get money by being a registrar middleperson, for what's still necessarily a central registry! And sure, one person can buy thousands of namespace entries, to scalp them!") didn't give me the impression that they'd worked through all the possibilities for the goal of managing this resource. The best anyone could come up with was throwing away the prior rules, unhinged profiteering handouts, and assuming an unregulated market will work it out in the end?

FWIW, just a small counterexample to the assertion that people weren't stopped from buying domain names on any possible wrong-ness of it... I distinctly recall being surprised and disapproving when I first heard of someone registering a generic word (not based on the name of their organization) as a domain name. It was like the reaction when the first Usenet spammers started. It's not that nobody had thought of that, but there was some sense of stewardship and respectability that precluded such things (and also, at one point, rules about commercial use). We onboarded a large number of people into some of the thinking with every new college frosh class, every September. I'm not saying that that particular notion of decency was sustainable during a gold rush, but "they felt it was wrong" _was_ the barrier sometimes.

<comment><USER4> The thing is, by definition, the registry is a monopoly for a certain TLD. So the idea was that those registries need to be regulated. What if they would just ask insane prices?

A registry has an 'easy' part, and that is actually maintaining a list of names and associated data, and providing that as DNS zones.

The hard part is dealing with individual customers. Providing service, collecting money, etc.

So the idea at the time was to have lots of registrars competing on what service they provide for what price and having more or less regulated registries that provide a fixed service at an agreed price.

By and large this system worked.

Early on, it was not clear if large zones like .com would actually scale. So there was some restraint of registering silly names, because that could lead to problems.

At some point, computers got fast enough and big enough memories that large zones were no longer a serious worry and everybody moved in to get all the nice domains.

<comment><USER2> I'd say the many-registrar-middlepersons approach system worked badly. All we needed was the registry to do very straightforward things, under contract. Instead, we got additional complexity and inefficiency, gobs of money being handed out to opportunists, people newly arriving to the Internet interfacing with certain "registrars" that used dark patterns to upsell, whois frontends rumored (and I've seen this myself) to grab the domain you're checking and then offer to sell it at an inflated price, and typically the domain name you wanted for your startup or other project was already registered by a squatter (I saw this many times) requiring you either to pay up the gouging scalper rates or keep trying to outpace the dictionary combinatorics attacks, and domain names more accessible to the deep-pocketed.

<comment><USER4> Think about the current state of ICANN. And now ICANN has to award contracts to monopolies for gTLDs like .com and .net.

What could possibly go wrong?

The registry part is easy to specify.

For the registrar, look at how google normally operates: everything they can automate works well and is cheap. As soon as something goes wrong and the they lock you out of an account it becomes hopeless. Imagine that google would be the only registrar for .com or .net

Of course, with a free market come shady parties. But with a bit of effort it is possible to find registrars that work quite well.

With just one monopoly per gTLD, it is likely that bad things will happen in the long run.

<comment><USER2> I don't know why we're still talking about monopolies. It should be a contracted clerical registry doing a very straightforward thing, according to rules.

<comment><USER4> Reality is that this lasts for a few years. And then the contracted party finds ways to raise prices or make a mess or both.

Look at the history of decisions taken by ICANN. Contracts get awarded with hardly influence from the larger internet community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recommend reading the entire article, the conclusion is particularly scary:

>ACT and Comptia have been infiltrating every workgroup, even the one on Open Source (WG 7). They are doing the best they can to drown any initiative that would not only promote OSS in Europe but also that could help Europe create a sucessful European software sector

My thought is that outside of high-risk areas like ICANN, they're not having much success. The OSS community in Europe is far stronger than that in America.

<comment><USER6> > My thought is that outside of high-risk areas like ICANN, they're not having > much success. The OSS community in Europe is far stronger than that in > America.

By what metric?

<comment><USER5> Personal anecdotes. I frequently travel to Europe to collaborate with free software developers or attend free software conferences, and attend comparatively fewer in the US (and they're generally smaller in attendance here, too).

<comment><USER7> Europe is smaller and more amenable to fast and cheap transportation, I think, which encourages conference participation.

<comment><USER5> That's true, Europe is a lot smaller and denser than the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> ICANN fees should be ten to one hundred times greater than they are in order to reduce the ridiculous hoarding that has occurred.

We used to say that fees should be low so that the average person could have their own domain. After all, there is no inherent cost in the sale, so why should ICANN profit? Instead, organizational fees are $0.18/yr for dot com domains, even though the registrars charge at least $8.00. This captures 97% of retail registration proceeds in private hands. Yet at the same time, no domains are available. Who could afford to own so many unused domains at $8/yr? No one, because they establish private registrars and own then at $0.18/yr, covering these meager costs by selling marginally valuable domains for $100 and short dot coms for tens of millions on secondary markets.

If there are thousands of votes that ICANN should not be allowed to raise rates, they are certainly from people who are profiting off their sale, and not people using them for the intended purpose of identifying servers on the Internet. If we are concerned about profits, we should push for them to be assigned to a charity benefiting something deserving.

<comment><USER9> > ICANN fees should be ten to one hundred times greater than they are in order > to reduce the ridiculous hoarding that has occurred.

No. Hobbiests and regular people won't be able to afford domains just because some squatters decided to profit off this. You are probably salty just because a squatter grabbed a domain you liked, and yeah thats irritating but that doesn't mean that millions of people should be denied the right of having their internet presence by making prices so high that they can't afford them.

<comment><USER10> 1$ / month per domain would have zero impact on affordability for the average American on .com. With .counrty codes they could have higher or lower fees at their discretion.

Instead DNS is basically useless for the average person who uses search engines and bookmarks to find things.

PS: The Phone number system oddly enough is far more user friendly in practice.

<comment><USER11> _> 1$ / month per domain would have zero impact on affordability for the average American on .com_

Sure, but if there are no price caps, what makes you think .org domains will be available for that price?

 _> DNS is basically useless for the average person who uses search engines and bookmarks to find things._

Um, you do realize that when you click on that search engine link, you're using DNS to find the actual site, right? Search engines point at URLs, not IP addresses.

<comment><USER10> DNS as an abstraction layer is useful, but the specific name is not. There is a reason people resort to bit.ly and other URL shortcuts.

<comment><USER12> > ... people resort to bit.ly and other URL shortcuts.

Isn't the usage of that on the way out (likely long tail though), due it being a security nightmare?

eg you never know if some url shortener is pointing to malware, bouncing through trackers, (etc).

Even if the same url "seemed ok yesterday".

<comment><USER10> I don't think they are safe or a good idea. But, t.co ranked #36 most popular website. ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_website...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites)) So, they still seem to be very common.

DNS is incredibly important infrastructure, but the protocol is more than just a name. Getting a geographically local IP from a universal name is independent of what the name is. Replace Microsoft.com with MVKVS or other short string and that still works.

<comment><USER13> t.co is a special case, as Twitter generates t.co links automatically in tweets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you look at all of the decisions that ICANN has made over the years, it's been quite obvious that ICANN has always acted in the interests of domain registrars rather than the Internet community as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER15> The response to his claims of regulatory capture was the worst part for me. This a really bad look for ICANN.

Any regulatory organization should constantly be on their toes about possible capture. Anyone who rejects research on the matter with actual data and earnest intentions as "insulting" and "incivility" is very concerning.

</comment><comment><USER16> The notion of "regulatory capture" mischaracterises the history, IMHO. I think that term implies that the regulation is based in some actual government- backed authority acting in the public interest.

But ICANN has no actual source of legal "authority" over domain names. Their position is maintained only through the willingness of authors of DNS software and network adminstrators to use the ICANN root.zone. What keeps the world's DNS resolvers pointing to ICANN's approved root zone is simply consensus. Unchanged default settings and the tacit agreement of network administrators.

It could be that the author is currently maintaining a significant number of regsitrations, possibly doing a little "domaining" in his spare time. If so, that is motivation to protest any increase in prices. The truth is that domain names _should_ cost almost nothing. The real cost of maintaining a domain name is not even close to what is being charged by registrars.

If I am not mistaken, the story behind the privatisation and commercialisation of domain name registrations can be traced back to President Clinton, certain Clinton staff members/advisors, and an ICANN-precursor, called "NewCo" at the time. "NewCo" is shorthand among lawyers for setting up a private company.

I think "regulatory capture" is a misleading way to describe the very old problems with ICANN and its conflicts of interest. There is no governmental regulatory agency acting in the public interest to "capture". ICANN, both the idea and implementation, is a private company. Adept at fending off any legal challenges.

</comment><comment><USER17> Most of the people involved with this circus seem to think that they can maintain an artificial scarcity of names, that they can be manipulated like a real resource to gain financial advantage.

However, all that's needed to completely obsolete the existing domain name system is for any significant part of the total population of Internet users to agree to use a new one.

It's not even necessary to change the software used for DNS or change how the system works. Just agree to change, select new master servers, configure the software and start resolving.

Because of the way the system works, the old and new DNS trees can even coexist, all that's needed is to list members of the new system as servers for resolution, to be checked in addition to the ones for the old system.

Thinking about it, it's quite likely that this has already been done, and that independent DNS systems are already in use for things like the "Dark Web".

The major purpose of having an organization manage the name and number spaces is to organize them and avoid collisions... I don't think the people at ICANN really understand how replaceable their function is.

<comment><USER18> > Thinking about it, it's quite likely that this has already been done,

OpenNIC

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> .pics

.pictures

.photo

.photos

.photography

ICANN jumped the freaking shark and made an irrevocable mess of internet naming.

<comment><USER20> I don't see why impose any restrictions aside from the country TLDs. We have enough letters, we could make TLDs affordable.

<comment><USER15> > we could make TLDs affordable.

As long as we throw out the whole 'memorable' part. Which has both branding and security implications.

We need to either commit to a limited set or unlimited set. Being stuck in between in the worst of both worlds. If it's unlimited we can treat domains more like phone numbers and rely on 'contact book' style systems for personal reference instead of memory. Which would help solve both branding/security issues.

You could even diff the URLs against your URL "contact books" (I'm trying not to say bookmarks), to warn against possible phishing too.

<comment><USER19> > If it's unlimited we can treat domains more like phone numbers and rely on > 'contact book' style systems for personal reference instead of memory.

So then we can throw out the DNS and just use IP addresses or some IPFS-esque scheme.

<comment><USER21> Or use a federated contact book, such that a site operator could openly publish a memorable name, and those names could be propagated to others and given aliases.

...so then the nodes operated by the FAANGs would be authoritative just by virtue of popularity. Dangit.

I guess we're back to HOSTS files.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm not happy with ICANN's behavior in recent times. Their bylaws and organization seem to be well designed, but I was wondering - is there a deterrent? Is there a mechanism for punishing their executive staff when they act in bad faith? What do they have to lose?

</comment><comment><USER23> > The public interest is at best being represented, in majority, by people > tied up in potential conflicts of interest in the given matter. At worst, it > looks like special interest groups for VeriSign and The Internet > Society(ISOC)/Public Interest Registry have captured multiple groups at > ICANN and are trying to use it to line their organizations' pockets.

> This appears to be a case study in regulatory capture. Beyond public outcry, > there appears to be very little stopping ICANN from simply pushing through > these contracts despite overwhelming evidence that the average internet user > isn't in favor of these changes.

The whole internet naming system in place right now has issues due to this fact. DNS and naming have become a critical part of the internet infrastructure and deserve to be owned, controlled by and/or operated for the best interests of the people.

</comment><comment><USER24> Everything I read about ICANN as of late is just horrible. There must be something we can do :(

<comment><USER25> Of all the monopolies in the world conspiring against the interest of the general public ICANN is probably one of the ones most able to be usurped.

People only use DNS through public facing DNS servers. You can run your own if you want, whenever you want (and many routers are already doing just that, creating .local domains etc with dnsmasq). Practically anyone can operate as a naming system and you don't even need to hard break with ICANNs canonicity - you can still delegate to full ICANN compliant DNS providers if you want, but you can also go against their name policy where you want too if you are operating the name server.

Fixing DNS is probably one of the easiest "sea change" movements possible - many devices get their DNS delegated, so rather than convincing every grandmother to change their phones DNS server they often just need to change the DHCP provisioned DNS servers.

Of course, being "one of the easiest" doesn't make it actually _easy_. You need to convince a critical mass of DNS provisioning routers, devices, etc to stop respecting ICANN as the naming authority and pretty much every large corporation that would have a stake in this has already sunk cost with the ICANN / registrar mafia to get theirs. At this point, the monopoly often benefits them by shutting out competition through exploitative pricing and name restrictions.

The only practical way to ever get that critical mass is through automatic changeover systems. Updates to routers, phones, computers, etc that replace their priority DNS servers. Good, uh, luck with that, especially if the replacement you are pushing is going to be incompatible with (some) ICANN registered domains.

But anyone can run their own DNS server. And they can advertise whatever names they want. They don't have to listen to ICANN, but a replacement needs to gain enough adoption to displace ICANN's authority, which like with many monoculture monopolist services (Twitter, Facebook, Blink, etc) is extraordinarily difficult even in one of the easiest instances of it to fix.

<comment><USER4> By and large, a domain is less than 20 euro a year. You can come up with alternatives, but is it really worth it?

The hard part of domains is dealing with trademarks. In recently years it has been remarkably quiet in that area. Which means that ICANN is doing something right.

I don't particularly like ICANN, but the ccTLDs and legacy gTLDs are very stable. Which is a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Here's the brief itself, which is where I started from: [https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org- renewal-2019-03-18...](https://www.icann.org/public-comments/org- renewal-2019-03-18-en)

</comment><comment><USER27> I imagine that once a majority of people are using the google dns servers that everyone seems to advise these days, that google will simply decide to ignore most of this and serve whatever domains they like. I don't know if this is better!

<comment><USER28> I do not advise using Google's dns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> >"Increased competition and choice has been a major benefit for consumers in the TLD market. Moving the .org legacy TLD to a new TLD contractual agreement is also an opportunity to move to more market-based pricing in the domain name space and away from arbitrary price caps.[...]"

Honestly, I agree with ICANN on this. But then ICANN contradict themselves when they introduce URS, PDDRP and all of that, which blatantly goes againnst the free market and competition.

You can't make IP holders happy and have a competitive market at the same time.

ICANN want to have their cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER30> At this point in time, it doesn't make sense to restrict tld anymore.</comment>


Q about car-circularity - <AUTHOR>

Is the following list car-circular?:

  (((1 2 3)) 4 . #7=(((5 . #7#))))
 If so, why? <comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it is, but I saw a test case here claiming it is:

[http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/academics/courses/325/program...](http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/academics/courses/325/programs/exercise- tests.lisp)</comment>


Elevate Conversion Rate on Your Landing Page with Multiple Forms - <AUTHOR> http://www.pagewiz.com/blog/landing-pages/multiple-forms-solution

<comment><AUTHOR> Placing multiple forms on your page, or even a form on each section could seriously make it easier to convert on. You've probably come across this situation before: your internet browser takes you to a landing page that has a great headline at its top, which is immediately followed by a form.</comment>


Node-oracledb 2.0 with pre-built binaries is on npm - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.oracle.com/opal/node-oracledb-20-with-pre-built-binaries-is-on-npm <comment><USER2> Glad to see Oracle working more with Javascript. For years that was a strong claim of MongoDB, but recently Oracle has done better (although so have many other vendors).</comment>


New York Auto Show: Upgrading Auto Software In A Flash - <AUTHOR> http://www.txchnologist.com/2012/new-york-auto-show-upgrading-auto-software-in-a-flash

<comment><AUTHOR> Anybody else see "Really, Really Bad Idea(TM)" all over this?</comment>


Why is Stubbs BBQ sauce for sale in a Prague grocery store? - <AUTHOR> https://thinkinginpublic.org/story/why-on-earth-is-stubbs-bbq-sauce-for-sale-in-a-prague-grocery-store/ <comment><USER2> My wife is Swedish and her family live in Sweden, but we live in the US. Every year we ask them what they want us to bring them when we make our annual pilgrimage to the homeland. My brother in law wanted bbq sauce, so my wife bought six bottles of sweet baby rays sauce. She took a photo of the bottles and sent it to him. He laughed because sweet baby rays is available in Sweden at a lot of the grocery stores. So she went back to the store and bought six bottles of Stubbs. On our last day in Stockholm I was at the grocery store and saw a new display for Stubbs. Can't win.

<comment><USER3> Rufus Teague made some sauce. Pretty good, I like it better than Stubbs, and still obscure enough they might not have seen it.

<comment><USER3> Also, I think you could kill a bear with the bottle, so it might ship well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I met one of their sales reps back in 2004 when I was working at a faux high end grocery store. Easily the highest pressure sales I had seen at that level, the guy would have sold his first born for a week of endcap space. If that was indicative of their sales culture, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a shelf with it on the moon at this point.

</comment><comment><USER5> Like the Czechs of central Texas, my ancestors started immigrating to the U.S. from Bohemia almost immediately after the 1848 Revolution [1] resulted in the elimination of feudalism in Austria.

That's a long enough time ago that there was effectively no "conversation" left between my immigrant family and the (few) who stayed behind and somehow managed to survive. Thus I'm a little skeptical that the use of Stubb's BBQ sauce in today's Czech republic is the result of a direct conversation between the immigrant population and the native one.

Instead, I suspect instead that Czechs and Americans today have more access to each other's cultures due to the fall of the Soviet Union, and increased globalism. Stubb's has been widely distributed in the U.S. for decades, and in Europe for quite some time, so it's not really surprising that it would make its way to the Czech republic.

Funnily enough, a _new_ conversation may now be starting. My great-uncle-once- removed started using Facebook a few years ago to find long-lost relatives in the U.S., and has managed to find one or two in the Czech republic. (Still, almost all of us are in the U.S... World War One was not kind to those who stayed behind.)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_of_1848)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is super interesting!

I wonder if there's a clear trend or explanation for Czech-Texans moving (back?) to the Czech Republic? This does a great job of explaining a connection between Czech culture and Texas BBQ in Texas, but not how that leads to BBQ sauce hopping back across the Atlantic.

<comment><USER7> Quality of life greatly improved since post-Soviet days. Plus, if money isn't an issue Czechland wins over Texas any day

<comment><USER8> reminds me of this quote

"If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell"

― Philip Henry Sheridan

<comment><USER9> "You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas."

-Davy Crockett

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Prague is the largest city in Czechia, a cultural and international hot spot, with a large student and foreign population. I'd guess this grocery store was in Zizkov.

</comment><comment><USER11> You can get Stubbs all over Europe.

<comment><USER12> Yeah. Stubbs sauce was produced in Texas for a long time but they were bought by McCormick* (the spice company) a few years ago. They have the same global distribution powers of any other large commercial food business, so I'm sure they could get Stubbs in whatever country they forecast good demand.

* [https://www.wsj.com/articles/mccormick-buys-stubbs-sauce-mak...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/mccormick-buys-stubbs-sauce-maker-for-100-million-1435144894)

<comment><USER13> For a large company their sauce is pretty good. We eat it all the time. McCormick seems to have treated it well.

<comment><USER14> For a (somewhat) large company, McCormick maintains the quality of many products they make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Probably the same reason we can get Nutella in basically every US grocery store? Stubbs was sold in Costco 2-packs dating back to at least my college years, so it's not exactly a boutique brand.

</comment><comment> adam-a Perhaps it's a little less mystifying if you consider that Budweiser is a Czech beer. There have been strong culinary ties between the US and the Czech Republic for a long time.

<comment><USER16> Nope—same name but different breweries. [http://business.time.com/2014/01/27/where-a-budweiser- isnt-a...](http://business.time.com/2014/01/27/where-a-budweiser-isnt-allowed- to-be-a-budweiser/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> That's a really good question. I grew up in Austin, and while Stubb's isn't bad, I wouldn't consider it a top-tier Texas BBQ sauce. It's popular primarily because it's associated with a popular tourist music venue in Austin. I'm guessing it's a reverse transfer because the significant number of Eastern European immigrants in parts of South/Central Texas.

</comment><comment><USER18> There is the same sauce at Coop in Switzerland.</comment>


Ballmer sells Windows 1.0 - <AUTHOR> http://codesketch.com/2010/11/25-years-ago-this-was-the-future-of-computing/

<comment><USER2> "Except in Nebraska!" Does anyone have a reason why Nebraska would be singled out?

<comment><USER3> [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OfferVoidInNebras...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OfferVoidInNebraska)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It makes me sad that those features seemed advanced, when something as complex as the Sketchpad had been created a good amount of time before. (more here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchpad>)

(Note: Its not completely related, but its just that the Sketchpad seemed to me much more advanced than what had Stevy here so excited)

<comment><USER5> Hell, NeXT was founded 25 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hilarious. Is this real?

<comment><USER7> I can't find a source at the moment, but I remember reading more about this a few years back. IIRC it was made as a joke for an internal company conference, or something along those lines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> wait... I had that clock on my Amiga 500! And Reversi! And notepad! ...or something like it. So what gives?

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of the old SNL Bassomatic skit.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good old Microsoft — selling features instead of benefits. Some things never change.

It's a shock that the same company who brought us Windows could also make the Xbox. Without J. Allard, I worry about its future.</comment>


Suicidal Vet Calls MDMA Treatment 'a Miracle' - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/suicidal-vet-calls-mdma-treatment-a-miracle <comment><USER2> I have no doubts, and I'm so thankful of the research that MAPS is doing. I haven't even been thru any trauma and MDMA pulled me out of depression and greatly reduced my anxiety. It was an absolute miracle for me. It disgusts me that the stuff is illegal while cigarettes and alcohol are not. AMA.

<comment><USER3> I went through a similar experience. About 10 years ago I was in a bit of a funk and depressed, anxious etc. and further I think I was in denial about the problem. I was almost completely unproductive for about 6 months.

Went out one weekend and had a mid-range dose of MDMA and with the afterglow in the days later I felt like a new person, complete with a spring in my step.

It felt like I had been hoarding a lot of useless stuff in my mind and never being comfortable in my head, while MDMA was the clear-out I needed.

I wouldn't advocate for each depressed or anxious person to try it as a cure- all, but I definitely advocate for more research (and have donated to the cause) and greatly reducing the stigma around the drug

<comment><USER4> I'm wondering what you consider a mid-range dose.

<comment><USER3> 1mg / kg (or just a _little_ more)

I only later learned more about dosages and found that the downsides are at higher (1.5mg/kg+) doses and with long re-dosing

<comment><USER4> I don't mean to be rude, but not only is 1mg not a 'mid-range' dose, but it's not even enough to get effects from the drug. 100mg is ~average for a small/beginner dose (usually cost $5-10), could that be what your thinking?

Source: My own and my friends' experiences.

Edit: my apologies, I didn't see the /kg part of your equation. After doing the math, yes that seems like a reasonable beginner/small dose.

<comment><USER3> 1mg _per KG_ of bodyweight

<comment><USER5> Given the high individual variance, dosing psychedelic substances by bodyweight isn't usually considered very effective at estimating the final effect.

Always start with a low/threshold dose first and go from there (this might be less practical for MDMA, where you want to limit repeated exposure).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> MDMA can be extremely dangerous to your long term mental health. I'm not saying it doesn't have valid medical benefits, it certainly seems to, but if you consumed MDMA at any where near the frequency it is safe to consume alcohol it would not go well.

Don't get me wrong, I think it should be legal, but lets not pretend it is comparable to alcohol.

Edit: TL;DR MDMA probably has incredible medical benefits, but this does not mean that it can be safely consumed at the same frequency as alcohol or tobacco.

<comment><USER7> Pretty much any drug can be extremely dangerous. I see this response often (and I'm not critzizing you here) but look: painkillers, right? Given all the time. Can be EXTREMELY dangerous. Alcohol: CAN BE extremely dangerous. Millions of people die a year in alcohol related death. Nicotine: dangerous. Blood pressure medication: can be dangerous. Birth control pills...also dangerous. Drugs are freaking dangerous. Anything you take, could be dangerous yes. But that does not mean drugs should not be approved. Every drug is dangerous. So I am really sick and tired of people pointing out that "this could be dangerous". Yes it could. It could also save lives. Might it kill some people due to complications? Yes it might. Lots of drugs have complications that could potentially end in death. Just watch any damn tv ad for a drug in the US!!

<comment><USER8> Yes but MDMA specifically will mangle your brain after very little recreational usage relative to almost all other drugs. Recreational use of MDMA a few times a week is _very bad_ on the long term health of your brain, very few other drugs are on that level — certainly none of the drugs you've listed.

<comment><USER9> Sorry but few times a week is not recreational anymore. your brain needs rest for some months to rebuild/rest the receptors. truly these substances are controlled because they need little to get an overdose (at least in developed countries). It is a risk prevention measure because not everybody has the iq of 100

<comment><USER8> Recreational usage is not relative to the substance, it's dependent on behaviour. If you're dependent on a substance (whether that's physically dependent or mentally) you're no longer a recreational user but if you're using something frequently or infrequently for enjoyment then you are a recreational user — regardless of whether or not that substance is safe to use at your chosen frequency.

<comment><USER10> I think the point was you can't claim recreational usage when you are using the substance in such a way that you will be doing harm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I incorrectly thought the article was about a veterinarian and euthenasia of animals/pets.

<comment><USER2> Haha, if they were a veterinarian they'd have easier access to treat their depression with the party drug and cat tranquilliser Ketamine, which _also actually works_ [1]

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4243034/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4243034/)

<comment><USER12> My understanding is that ptsd related depression responds differently to treatment than depression alone.</comment></comment></comment>