The psychology of stress and burnout - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161116-stress-is-good-for-you-until-it-isnt?ocid=global_capital_rss <comment><USER2> It's all in your head, for better or worse.

Extreme sports or intense physical exertion have been key, for me, in dealing with daily stress.

And no, I'm not some superstar adrenaline pumped athlete, just an amateur that loves skydiving/paragliding/fast motorcycles/hiking/etc over the weekend.

I didn't realize how much these activities help me, until I had to take a break from them for whatever reason (e.g.: winter where it's cold enough that you can't do most sports, but with not enough snow to go skiing or something).

I could almost measure the effects: the longer the break, the lower the threshold for daily stress -- from feeling slightly irritated to almost angry over the simplest triggers, if enough time had passed.

Then I'd do one skydive and it would make all the difference in the world, whatever daily stressful thing would happen "in the real world" it just felt like it didn't register as dangerous/stressful in the brain.

My feeling is that you can raise your tolerance threshold for what counts as stress, you just have to find out what works for you.

I'm guessing it also has something to do with these activities being very focused, so you're kinda disconnected from what's happening in the world and just truly "in the moment".

Maybe that pause from stress is what does it?

Has anyone else had similar experiences?

<comment><USER3> What if you are afraid of extreme sports? What alternatives would you recommend?

<comment><USER4> If you live near an indoor rock climbing facility, I'd recommend checking it out! Rock climbing can be done in an "extreme" way, but also can be done in a very beginner-friendly, incremental way.

I climb, have lots of friends who climb who do software. The two seem to go together well.

<comment><USER5> Yes - it's a wonderfully technical activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have a friend that is to damn good as a developer and allowed one of the big Canadian companies failed projects to burn him out thoroughly.

He is looking into opening a bakery now, and by the look of it, no amount of convincing is going to change his mind.

So no matter what you do, your mental robustness and coherency comes first. Don't let anybody every come close at touching that.

Btw opening a bakery is an amazing prospect if you go into it full force ahead, with happy thoughts and planning. Opening one as a result of a burnout, well I guess it can be therapeutic, but not sure about the validity of the idea in that case. Taking half a year off everything can probably bring you more life force at your disposal.

<comment><USER7> As someone who's been there, it all depends how hard it was. You can recover from light burnouts quickly (by traveling, taking sports), however, hard burnouts change you for life - you'll be lucky to not end up as alcoholic or drug addict.

For me, it took couple of years and few failed jobs until I got on track. Today, I'm more than happy to be my own boss as freelancer.

<comment><USER8> Hello! I'm currently on the "couple of years and a failed job" track... any advice?

<comment><USER9> Not the op, but, Therapy, exercise, and develop at least a few deep friendships.

For me talking about stuff helped me realize i was angry and depressed. It's hard to see how your mind comes up with ideas, an outside observer can point out motivations for behavior that aren't obvious from inside my own head.

Exercise kind of quiets my mind down. While burning out, work kind of hurts. It's not exactly but something like painful to execute. With excercise, I kind of rescale that feeling. Executing on X isn't as bad as running for a half an hour.

Having a couple of friends you can talk to about whatever is nice. Family is great too, but they don't always have the perspective to give helpful insight. Parents, spouses, might not tell you the whole truth, or their perspective is colored by the past. A friend will tell you you're being an idiot, or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm in the midst of a light burnout right now - and I realize it's partly my expectations, and partly the expectations of my company.

As part of a start-up you're expected to be insanely productive at all times - so much so - that "normal" productivity feels like you're spinning your wheels and not getting anything done.

The other side is the company encouraging being a "hero". Being the one who can do anything, who gets X, Y, Z done on time, even if it takes all night. The praise and recognition fades quickly - as you realize you've set the expectation such that you can function at 200% at all times. (And you start feeling stressed as you fall to 150%, to 120%, to 100%.)

Some of the comments in this thread are spot on. For the level where I'm at (not full-bore burnout), I'm trying to prioritize my life outside of work again (aka have a life outside work). Sleep well, exercise, pick up hobbies again, go for hikes again, and so on.

Burning out to me - is letting work take up a disproportionate amount of your time and mental energy - so much so that the microcosm of work starts feeling like the _most_ important thing.

Getting out of it (for me) is all about regaining that perspective.

<comment><USER11> One thing for a some perspective.

Many people struggle to even achieve 100% most of the time. Work consumes such great amounts of energy that not much fun can be had on evenings or weekends. Going out with friends? Forget it. Laying down is most that can be done. Even though that work is only 8-10 hours each day (not much considering how much many people work) there is nothing left at the end of the day. All energy is spent on just keeping oneself alive and getting by. Sometimes even that is too much and after years of a seemingly good job, everything is gone. Quitting is not an option since there is not much money saved. Working less won't provide the money needed to keep on going. Changing jobs won't cut it since all other jobs would be worse. With friends forgotten and family dead, there is no point to keep on going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Burnout is caused by a series of failures. Your brain is quick to pick up patterns and will assume your next attempt will be a failure.

To get over burnout, you need a series of successes. Create small, attainable goals and complete them. Engineers in particular need a sense of accomplishment. This way you will look forward to you next endeavor instead of dread it.

<comment><USER13> My personal experience here disagrees. I had a series of failures resulted in me feeling like I was on tilt, and after identifying that, designed a series of simple easy wins which helped get over that.

Those easy wins then made it easier to focus and successfully complete a major 9 month infrastructure overhaul without any downtime(!), and while the sense of accomplishment from completing that successfully was huge (and the bonus wasn't bad either), the stress during that period was extremely high, and the resulting burnout was very real. A few months later, as that became obvious, I quit my job. It took more than 15 months off work before I began to feel even slightly recovered.

EDIT: and to tie this in to my other post[0], it's also worth noting that all I was doing during this period was "sleep, work, drink, repeat", which no doubt contributed to it.

# [0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12986124](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12986124)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> For anyone interested in the wider philosophical questions around stress and burnout, I recommend reading "The Burnout Society" by Byung-Chul Han [1], a contemporary Korean-born German philosopher. Very little of his work has been translated to English, but it's written really well. Makes a compelling case that the pressure for positivity and achievement lead to self- or auto- exploitation [2]. If anyone has additional reading recommendations around this, I'm interested!

[1] - [http://sup.org/books/title/?id=25725](http://sup.org/books/title/?id=25725)

[2] - [http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2016/01/we-have- bec...](http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2016/01/we-have-become- exhausted-slaves-in-a-culture-of-positivity.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> The real problem I see, and experience myself, is a form of addiction to stress whereby one's cortisol levels eventually raise one's baseline. This translates into a need for more stress to reach the baseline, which is perceived as the resting-point. This is achieved easily with quick acting hormones boost such as adrenaline (base jumping...) but just perpetuates the problem as it does nothing to lower the baseline... Similarly, one can also counter cortisol with other hormones, such as oxytocin (love, music), serotonin (empathy, pride) or endorphins (exercise) or trick the system with mimicking substances, but that won't solve the problem either. There are also available options to lower the cortisol baseline (e.g. phosphorylated serine) but I am afraid that the only way to achieve a permanent normalization is a change in lifestyle. Even if a profession is stressful in itself (e.g. restaurant/bakery) it might not be as stress-inducing to me as it is to you. Reasons for these individual differences are complex and not easily solvable. No silver bullet. Cortisol can be measured easily with saliva tests. If these levels are high, including at night, you're stressed out, that you feel so or not.

</comment><comment><USER16> From DOES16 London - Better Faster Cheaper .. How? (slide #29) [0] [1]:

      Recipe for burnout is inverse of recipe for success

      Word Overload: Job demands exceed human limits.
      Lack of control: Inability to influence decisions that affect your job.
      ...

Also: Understanding Burnout [2].

[0] [http://www.slideshare.net/botchagalupe/does16-london- better-...](http://www.slideshare.net/botchagalupe/does16-london-better- faster-cheaper-how)

[1] [https://imgur.com/a/5yrMm](https://imgur.com/a/5yrMm)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLPyV8lBbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kLPyV8lBbs)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm in full-blown burnout mode right now, but it's more related to dissatisfaction with the work I'm doing. I'm fucking sick and tired of building web apps and I want to work in more interesting/technical topics such as computer vision. But the time investment needed to build the background and experience required to be useful working on those kinds of problems seems impossible to manage while working full-time. I'm really at a loss as for what to do. What's worse is that this longing for more meaningful work has begun morphing into a pretty serious case of depression and is impacting my ability to do my job. Anyone ever found themselves in this kind of a situation? What did you do?

<comment><USER18> As someone who just transitioned from university to a pretty much unrelated programming job, it occurs to me that I could have gone into either web development or computer vision, to use your example. Either way I would have been joining a team as a junior developer with only hobbyist experience and expected to learn on the job. Perhaps if you lowered your salary expectations and were willing to accept a relatively junior level role you would be able to break into that area of work, and with your existing experience would be able to work your way up more quickly than a truly junior dev like myself.

<comment><USER17> I probably would be willing to take a salary hit. Thanks for the advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > Dealing with stress over time can break down the body's ability to deal with > short bursts of stressful situations, he says.

For what I could get from the article, under (mild) stress your thinking becomes sharper, but as it lasts longer, it breaks you down and you can't handle stressful spikes.

So, perhaps, not being stressed all day long is the key? I mean, just surf the stressful spikes, don't have a light stress constantly, because you won't be able to deal with those hard moments of stress (and yes, they will come someday and all you've gained from the light-stress-boost will be thrown away because you'll burn out).

<comment><USER20> Acute stress is good (adrenaline -> fight or flight), chronic stress is bad.

So, worrying about money or being fired or <insert real life problem> all day every day will wear you down and limit your ability to reason. There's not much brainpower left over. This is why it's, for example, difficult to be super productive at work when you're going through a divorce or dealing with a breakup. And why it's never a good idea to launch a new product while moving house.

But, going bungee jumping or downhill mountain biking or racing cars or just driving too fast on the freeway. That's relaxing. Gives you focus, gets you away from the chronic stressors and into the immediate. Wonderful.

<comment><USER21> > Acute stress is good (adrenaline -> fight or flight)

citation needed

<comment><USER22> The purpose of stress is to quickly adapt the body to survive a fight. A set of changes happen to the body.

For example, the blood becomes thicker in order to clot faster when you are bleeding. However, with chronic stress, this can cause thrombosis.

Under stress, the stomach stops the digestion so that the energy goes into running to flee the danger. With chronic stress, your stomach is messed up and you get all sort of indigestion.

And so on. Many examples of changes that have a simple explanation but are hazardous in chronic stress situations.

For reference, read the Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers or anything by Robert Sapolsky.

<comment><USER21> In the context of the article it looked like "Acute stress is good" was referring to episodes of acute stress on the workplace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A large part of why I left my business after eleven years six months ago was because I mismanaged stress to the degree that it had severe consequences upon my health.

At the time, like a frog in warming water, I constantly normalised it - working 20 hours a day for a year isn't stressful, it's heroic! I enjoy this! I thrive on stress. The booze? Oh, that's just to help keep me awake.

About four years ago I stopped eating and sleeping properly - I mean, previous to that I hadn't done either properly either, but four years ago it ceased to be voluntary. I lost huge amounts of weight. I told people I was on a diet. I started having bouts of delirium and puking that would put me out of action for days or weeks on end, unable to sip water even, slipping in and out of sweaty consciousness. I told myself I was just really unlucky with food poisoning.

About six months ago I just stopped - couldn't go on, couldn't face another day in the hell I'd created for myself, stomach knotted from anxiety and hunger but not hunger. Went on sabattical. Watched mountains for months. Read. Cried. Ranted and raved. Began to heal. Got medical help. Discovered that I had given myself a stress driven syndrome not really seen since children in fucking Victorian workhouses - cyclical vomiting syndrome.

Gave notice. Sold equity to company, made orderly transition. Three months on, I'm still coming to terms - beginning to remember wanting things, having desires, not feeling like every moment not spent working was a betrayal - being able to feel something like joy. Above everything else, I haven't puked in months and I'm even beginning to have to watch my weight.

The main thing I've learned on reflection is that I did this to myself. I chose roles and responsibilities that crushed me, and I failed to emotionally disinvest in the company as it grew. I also habituated stress to the degree that I didn't even perceive it as stress, and denied it to myself even as I ground my teeth to aching stumps. In hindsight, I can of course aim to not put myself in the same situation again, but at the time I had nothing to really check my reality against. People around me were supportive - but rather than saying "hey, you're killing yourself", it would be "want another coffee? Need smokes? You work so hard." \- so essentially enabled the behaviour rather than confronting it. There's an almost dangerously cultish obsession with industriousness in our society.

I digress.

The other thing I learned that I hadn't really understood was that stress can ruin your physical, not just mental, health.

<comment><USER24> I'm so sorry about the cyclical vomiting syndrome. I've watched a friend wrestle with it for years, it's no joke. Her's is also triggered by positive stress, like excitement to see a favorite band in concert. I'm so glad for you that things are turning around in your life. It sounds like you've had to do some hard work to get here. Thank you for sharing.

> There's an almost dangerously cultish obsession with industriousness in our > society.

Yes!

<comment><USER23> Mine was (I really hope the past tense continues to apply) also triggered by both positive and negative stress - weddings and work disasters prime catalysts - but I think the constant high background level of stress was a mandatory part of it. Used to wake up every morning feeling sick. Don't any more. Haven't had an attack since I out and out quit.

I hope she continues to find a way through it - it sucked even more when I had no idea what it was, and was rationalising it, sometimes into nightmarish proportions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I recommend Christina Maslach's books on the subject of burnout. Her research tends to focus on institutional and group-dynamic causes of burnout, which is a nice counterpoint to the self-care and personal-wellness discussions that people often have around the subject.

</comment><comment> koga-ninja Burnout happens when you're doing what you don't like. Grinding down, going against the grain. The techniques I use to deal with stress are: Zazen - Japanese Zen meditation. If it was good enough For Japanese samurai fighting duels, then my life is So easy compared to this. Painting - very relaxing and fun, but then you need to like It. Mileage may vary.

<comment><USER26> I was getting extreme, severe panic attacks and had become agoraphobic. Tai Chi and meditation changed my life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Highly recommend Robert Sapolsky's work on this. You can find his lectures on youtube, very educational and entertaining on Human Behavioural Biology. And more to the point his book, [https://www.amazon.ca/Why-Zebras-Dont-Ulcers- Stress-Related/...](https://www.amazon.ca/Why-Zebras-Dont-Ulcers-Stress- Related/dp/0805073698)

<comment><USER22> Frankly, this!

You can read from the other comments that it is not common knowledge yet what stress actually does to you.

Stress as a facility is useful for humans and other animals. It helps the body to focus on the threat and increase the chance to escape and survive. Stress makes a tiny damage to the health but once you survive, the body returns to health.

However, there are cases where you have long-term continuous stress, without any release. It is common with social animals like humans, and an example is the burn-out. The tiny damage becomes major damage and can be irreversible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is an interesting side to HN. The BBC article is pretty dull, the comments are far more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER28> Stress is such a huge killer of productivity and even, at chronic levels, people. We're trying to put a dent in it - Shameless plug, support our Kickstarter! [https://getlief.com](https://getlief.com)

</comment><comment><USER29> I saw John Willis, Director of Ecosystem Development for Docker, talk about this at QCon London in the context of our industry. First time I've ever cried at a tech conference; it was an absolutely amazing session. There is a video here: [https://www.infoq.com/presentations/it- burnout](https://www.infoq.com/presentations/it-burnout)

</comment><comment><USER30> Please don't go to hookers if you are burnout. I was using alot of hookers and now going through very painful stds.

</comment><comment><USER3> I would add music and workout. Music help get distressed very easy. And workout help bringing more oxygen in the system.

<comment><USER31> >Music help get distressed very easy.

You mean de-stressed, not distressed: the captain of the Titanic sent out a distress call because his ship was sinking, while the string quartet played music in hopes of de-stressing the ill-fated passengers.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for correcting me. Wont blame the autocorrect :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Stress is a state of mind and a function of how much you have practiced stress.

</comment><comment><USER33> I love how people are like "go for a walk" or "work out" or "sleep more" or "it's all in your head" (maybe you should tell someone who has pancreatic cancer "Oh it's all in your belly"). It seems to me like most people don't understand the incredible destructiveness and pain of an actual burnout. How trapped you are and how you do not see any way out anymore. I nearly got there and I have seen people who have been crippled _for life_ by it.

<comment><USER2> > (maybe you should tell someone who has pancreatic cancer "Oh it's all in > your belly")

Well... isn't it?

I actually phrased it as "it's all in your head" to highlight that you _can_ do something about it, unlike cancer, it's something you can control by power of mind/will (not saying it's easy).

\- formerly burned out.

<comment><USER34> The fact that something is "all in your head" doesn't imply much about how much control you might have over it. Schizophrenia is "all in your head." Some people do have a reasonable amount of control over the situation, but many people have little control.

<comment><USER35> > The fact that something is "all in your head" doesn't imply much about how > much control you might have over it. Schizophrenia is "all in your head."

So is a brain tumor or glaucoma, in a literal sense, but I doubt many people would seriously use the expression "all in your head" for any of those. In my experience it's overwhelmingly used for anxiety and depression, with the implication being that there's no hard physical problem and that you just need to change your habits/attitude/beliefs (which, incidentally, is an approach that is notably ineffective for schizophrenia, apart from being done with _others_ as a harm reduction mechanism).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm in one of those (inescapable) open-office nightmares right now. All day, every day, people are talking right next to me, making it impossible to concentrate. They're not even talking about work, they're talking about cars, or kids, or movies, or inane bullshit. I don't care that they're talking (and apparently management doesn't either, because since we're in a panopticon, if I know it, they know it too), but when they do it five feet away from me, I can't block it out or concentrate. I can concentrate well enough to write this post on Hacker News, but I can't concentrate well enough to put together a workable recommendation on centralized identity and access management. But I'll be asked for a recommendation on identity and access management anyway, because I'm expected to know every answer to every question off the top of my head instantaneously, even though I haven't been able to concentrate on anything effectively for the past ten years. Yeah, team work makes the dream work. BRB, going to set the building on fire.

<comment><USER37> Quick answer: Headphones and music/white noise.

Long answer: If you really feel this strongly about your working environment then you should seriously consider telling your manager. It's in their best interests that you're happy/comfortable/working as smoothly as you can. If they can't or won't change your situation, look for another employer. Ten years, Christ.

<comment><USER36> > look for another employer. Ten years, Christ.

Actually I've had 3 over the past ten years. They're all the same. You've never noticed?

<comment><USER38> Hopefully the previous two didn't burn down...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The best professional skill is compartmentalizing.

 _Leave work at work._

<comment><USER40> That advice is about as useful to me as "you're depressed, so snap out of it!" I don't mean that as an attack, it's just that what is obvious to some people is very, very difficult for others to do so simply.

<comment><USER39> No, it's extremely useful, and no different than other people in the thread who express how exercise or hobbies have helped them cope with work stress. They're implying compartmentalization too, because having a hobby shows that there's more to life than work life.

<comment><USER40> You're right! I just didn't have the ability to see that. Thanks for your insights.

<comment><USER41> You can replace work thoughts with work on your sideproject thoughts. That helps... a little bit

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Probably unpopular, but has anyone tried psychedelics?

I always use it to "reformat" some terrible behaviors due to stress.

Definitely not the answer to anyone's problems, but perhaps gives a new perspective.

</comment><comment><USER43> Drink hot water and go for one hour early morning walk;

<comment><USER44> I don't know about the hot water, but definitely taking my dog for a 3-4 mile walk around town every morning helps me out. Days that it's crappy outside or I get rushed up and don't have time to do it, I'm considerably more irritable and less willing to put up with the bs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Are they trying to say that exercises are good to us, until it is too much? What does not kill us makes us stronger.

<comment> saiya-jin you can screw up your body in numerous ways if you overdo it, ie grow enlarged heart, screw up joints or spine and end up semi-disabled relatively young. just look at pro lifters, most of them after career end up obese with various health issues, some barely able to walk or lift anything more than sheet of paper.

it's a think line to walk, unique to each of us, where you try to grow as much as you can without crossing it

<comment><USER45> That is what I failed to emphasize - it must be "just right" \- not too much and not too little - optimal - slightly better than good-enough.)</comment></comment></comment>


Giant squid filmed in Pacific depths, Japan scientists report - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2013-01-giant-squid-pacific-depths-japan.html <comment><USER2> I remember when I was little, hearing that they had no real recorded evidence of the giant squid. It immediately created this massive sense of excitement and wonder as to what else could be swimming around in the ocean.

I still to this day am in absolute fascination of random pictures that show up of creatures from places like the Mariana Trench. It just boggles my tiny brain that so much biological diversity exists.

Here's a few that popped up on Reddit the other day -- <http://imgur.com/a/xkfSv>

"And lo on the seventh day, God slammed a bunch of shit He wasn't finished with down at the bottom of a trench and hoped that nobody would notice."

<comment><USER3> Good god man! between the anglers (<http://i.imgur.com/zTHuT.jpg>), and the goblin sharks (<http://i.imgur.com/40WP8.jpg>) ... stuff of nightmares!

<comment><USER4> At the risk of turning this into Reddit, here's a humorous anglerfish video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-BbpaNXbxg>

<comment><USER3> aaahahaha ... the part when the angler fish was comparing it's camouflage slayed me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a better link I think, it has the video of the film being aired in Japan.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/giant-squid- video-j...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/giant-squid-video-japan- photos_n_2426777.html)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for that. I thought it was rather strange for an article about video footage to have only two stills from the video rather than the video itself.

<comment><USER7> You want weird, search for it on YouTube. You'll find videos Ken Burnsing around on those same two still images, while people talk about how sweet it is.

<comment><USER8> What does that mean?

<comment><USER9> Ken Burns is a historical documentarian known for using slow pans and zooms over still photographs accompanied by voice-over narration.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know the ocean is huge, but why don't we (or are we?) send hundreds of micro-robot vehicles down?

> After around 100 missions, during which they spent 400 hours in the cramped > submarine, the three-man crew tracked the creature from a spot some 15 > kilometres (nine miles) east of Chichi island in the north Pacific.

Because that sounds sub-optimal. Do you really need humans for tracking?

<comment><USER11> Well, how do you communicate with the robots? Radio waves don't penetrate water.

So say you have a robot that's autonomously floating around look at stuff and then it goes by a giant squid. There is no one to tell it "Hey! Look, a giant squid! Stop and turn your camera at that!" so it just keeps going.

Also, I have no idea how they would know where they're currently located (again, no GPS).. but I'm sure they have some solution.

One huge advantage I could see is potentially you wouldn't need to pressurize anything. Optics can easily be made to work immersed in water, electronics can be slathered in epoxy so you don't get any short circuits. Then there shouldn't be any limit to how deep the thing can go.

<comment><USER12> > Also, I have no idea how they would know where they're currently located > (again, no GPS)..

US Naval Submarines have done this for a long time.

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

<comment><USER13> And they are good at it.

I spent some time on a submarine and navigation is one of the most critical things to the cruise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Architeuthis, one of the "last mysteries of the ocean."_

I thought it was generally held that we know less about the world's oceans than we do about the space around us.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you love this sort of thing, I'd love to suggest you join:

<http://www.reddit.com/r/deepseacreatures/>

Amazing pictures from a brand new (day old) community. :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow. Giant squid are the coolest thing next aliens in my book. Read a 20 pg article about them in the New Yorker once. Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER17> Come in Tokyo. Giant squid spotted. We have it in our wholly Yakuza-run scientific and diplomatically supported squidding sights. Target confirmed. We have T minus five to wok... T minus four...

<comment><USER18> You laugh, but biologists who study squid often do like to eat them. I've heard that at least one species is only documented in one report that includes pictures, measurements, and a description of how it tasted.

<comment><USER4> Architeuthis in particular actually has too much ammonia in its flesh to be edible (some researchers compare the taste to floor cleaner).

<comment><USER17> Good tip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Japanese researchers discover giant Takoyaki in unprepared form.

Why is it always the Japanese researchers that study these yummy species like squid and whale? Is it that kind of research that ends with shipping the study probes to a high class restaurant at the end?

</comment><comment><USER20> When are they going to start hunting them to extinction for delicious, scientific reasons?

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't wait for them to release the Kraken footage.

</comment><comment><USER22> Reminds me of the the giant squid from Michael Crichton's Sphere.

</comment><comment><USER23> In the still it looks like Iron Squidman.

</comment><comment><USER24> Its a viral for pacific rim!!!!</comment>


Ask HN: Please send me your startup spam, I'm making a startup email filter! - <AUTHOR> TL;DR: I recently starting getting into machine learning and I'm building a bot to filter out startup engagement emails for fun and need training data.
--
I don't know about you, but I'm sick of getting emails from startups/sass when I sign up "checking in" with me.
I did go through a period of replying bluntly with "Please, for the love of god stop emailing me." or sending them ical links which actually take them to a rick roll, but I've decided I'm going to attempt to solve the problem once and for all with ML!
I would love some help though, if you have any emails like this and want to help, post them below or forward them to alexbarlowis [at] gmail.com
Thanks <comment><USER2> It's probably worth noting that email you sign up to receive is not spam.

If you don't think that receiving four emails in exchange for a free month of a $60/month SaaS product is a fair deal, your options include clicking the "Unsubscribe" link on that mail or not signing up for those mails in the first place.

Penalizing the company by marking the emails you asked them to send you as spam seems like a mean thing to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a much easier solution: the vast majority of legit auto-generated email will have a "List-Unsubscribe" MIME header. I filter based on that header into a 'Bulk' folder.

There are some exceptions, e.g. emails that go via the Drip service, but given limited number of automated email services you can probably catch 99% of emails with a few rules, rather than machine learning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I've collected quite a few from friends + colleagues already and only one has such a header.

Also, that doesn't help with my having fun and learning more machine learning!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I understand you're primarily interested in training data here but I should ask.

Is this a problem? You're talking here about startups/saas you have signed up for sending you spam? I would expect most people don't sign up for too many of these and it's easy enough to click the unsubscribe link, would be worse to miss an email you appreciated getting.

</comment><comment><USER5> Do you also want recruiter spam? I get _tons_ of that.</comment>


Ask HN: I am creating an exe from Python. Which is the best way and why? - <AUTHOR>

Some options I know are py2exe, nuitka, or cx_freeze. Any others? <comment><USER2> Best way to do it is to rewrite it for a different runtime. You have chosen your language poorly to this task.

</comment><comment><USER3> Best in which way?

<comment><AUTHOR> I want the exe to run outside the python shell and also want to hide my source code. There are so many options but I am sure there must be one of them that stands out.</comment></comment>


LiveShare PS: Collaborating in real time from inside Photoshop - <AUTHOR> http://blog.invisionapp.com/liveshare-ps-real-time-design-meetings-inside-photoshop/

<comment><AUTHOR> We (along with a few select beta users -- thanks guys!) have been using this to run our internal design meetings for a few months now.

It's TOTALLY transformed the way we work through design problems as a team.

Basically, it lets you: * Turn your Photoshop canvas into a real-time web meeting with any number of participants. Point, sketch, voip, chat -- it's all included! * Take a quick "snap" of your canvas and get a sharable link that others can leave comments on. * Beam your Photoshop canvas directly to your mobile device for real-time, in-hand review. ... and a few more surprises on the way!

</comment><comment><USER2> Mac only, Photoshop CC only. Nope.</comment>


Several Baltimore schools have no students proficient in state tests - <AUTHOR> http://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/6-baltimore-schools-no-students-proficient-in-state-tests <comment><USER2> Wow, funny to see this on the front page of HN, as someone who once taught high school math there. That two-year stint was the most challenging experience of my life, _by far_.

I was the founding math teacher at a brand new turnaround school with a rookie principal. I had 5 weeks of training, and my job my first year was to prepare my students for the very same state test mentioned in this article. To connect that with the typical HN world, I was literally a day 1 employee at a startup meant to replace an institution that had failed in more or less the exact same situation. Despite the intensity of the experience, it was deeply transformative for me.

To briefly react to this article, I am not surprised. Baltimore is a poor and segregated city. But that socioeconomic stratum has many layers. There are many ways to end up at a better school. Some are selective, others are high demand and have a lottery, still others you simply sign up for. So you need to have good academic performance or have someone looking out with you with even just the modicum of savvy required to simply opt for a better school. If you have neither of those things, you end up going to your default neighborhood school (e.g. any of those 6 mentioned in the article), which is certain to be completely swamped with students coming from deep poverty and social dislocation. These are schools that tend to have the same number of 9th graders as 10th, 11th, and 12th combined, due drop outs and transfers.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

\----

I journaled my experience here: [https://alanjayteaching.wordpress.com/?order=asc](https://alanjayteaching.wordpress.com/?order=asc).

Another Teach For America Baltimore alumnus wrote a book on her experience. I found it to echo many of my own reflections, almost eerily so: [https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Terrordome-Years- Baltimore-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Teaching-Terrordome-Years-Baltimore- America/dp/0826219861).

One of the schools mentioned, Fredrick Douglass High, has a deep history, and its modern day woes were profiled about a decade ago in the HBO documentary Hard Times At Douglass High: [http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/hard-times-at- douglass-high...](http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/hard-times-at-douglass- high-no-child-left-behind).

<comment><USER3> So was it like the cop turned math teacher in season 4 of The Wire?

<comment><USER2> If all the most intense moments of my brief teaching career were compressed into like 2 weeks: that's what Season 4 is like. So in one sense, it's truthful. But it's also a bit misleading.

The real day-to-day experience was much more mundane and psychologically draining over the long grind of the school year, punctuated by sporadic crises and constant minor disruptions. It's an unbelievable amount of work to buy supplies, plan lessons, physically maintain your classroom, perform your material, engage those students, respond to the dynamism of hormonal teenagers, resolve conflicts, grade work, help administer the school, coach, conference with your colleagues, and follow-up with parents. Somewhere in there, you _maybe_ get attend to your own physical needs. And no matter how badly you fuck up, you wake up at 6am to do it all again the next day, and the next.

The challenges you face are manifold. I had a student arrive that spoke zero English. I had students who were refugees from Iraq, one of whom survived a school bombing. I had multiple students return after stints in the justice system. I had one student who lost his cousin, aunt, and grandma all in one day in a fire. I had a 14 year who had never learned subtraction. I had students with deep psychological issues, including one I believe (unprofessional) to be a sociopath. I had one student quietly stay after class to ask me if he could have one of my soups for lunch, since he hadn't eaten all weekend. I had to report one student's account of sexual abuse. I had students in rival gangs, and far worse, students who were gang wannabes. This is just what I remember off the top of my head, year's later.

Put 25 or so students of these students in a room, and you never know what's going to happen in a given class period. The class, like a sports team, succeeds or fails as a unit. Many of these students come from home lives and neighborhoods where the idea of education lifting them out of poverty is demonstrably a total myth. You need to convince them that their whole experience is false, and get them to buy into the idea that solving for x is worth a damn.

That's what it's like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4>
       Navon Warren grew up in West Baltimore. He was three months old when his
       father was shot to death. Before his 18th birthday, he would lose two uncles
       and a classmate, all gunned down on the streets of Baltimore.

If Navon is in any way representative, I'm really not sure what they expect schools to do. The school only gets them for 35 hours a week, 8 months per year. Over half the school qualifies for free lunch, which I think is a standard poverty indicator (though crazily enough, half isn't high poverty! [1]). Not much of that sounds like a home life or environment conducive to learning. I'm guessing the school pays poorly too, combined with what sounds like pretty horrific circumstances for much of the student body, makes me guess they aren't getting the best teachers either...

[1] [https://nces.ed.gov/blogs/nces/post/free-or-reduced-price- lu...](https://nces.ed.gov/blogs/nces/post/free-or-reduced-price-lunch-a- proxy-for-poverty)

<comment><USER5> They could provide for counseling and therapy within the schools themselves.

Currently, to receive mental health services, parents usually need to initiate these requests by navigating through a bureaucratic maze

<comment><USER6> Also, given that most mental health services are available only 9-5, it is going to be prohibitively expensive for a parent to pick their kid up from school regularly to drive them cross-town. Maybe there is a bus they could use, but it would be much harder than going to a wing of the school.

Or (speculating whildly on something more complex than I'm representing) maybe they could set up some sort of online videochat therapy so those kids who could afford a £35 android phone and wifi could access therapy from outside school?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      > Last year, not one student scored proficient
      > in any state testing.
      >
      > "That's absurd to me. That's absurd to me," says
      > Warren's mother Janel Nelson. "That's your teachers
      > report card, ultimately."

This is bad. Teaching is an incredibly stressful job and putting more pressure on teachers only causes them to leave to schools in which their effort pays off.

Children need to be taught to take on more autonomy for their grades and other outcomes in their life. It's okay if they need to be spoon-fed a little bit when they first join a school, but they must be weaned off this if they are to have a chance in the "real world".

<comment><USER8> It's ridiculous to blame the students in this case. If every single student failed, that is either a problem with the teacher, or a problem with the test.

<comment><USER9> Problem with the parents.

<comment><USER8> Every parent in the school? If it were a problem with a handful of students maybe, but if every student fails, there is a more systematic issue at play.

<comment><USER9> It's self selecting. Any parent that cares even a little bit will realize the school is crap and get their kid out of that situation asap.

<comment><USER8> Maybe if they are can afford to move and switch school districts. Or if they live in a school district where they can choose their school (which also correlates with income).

Edit: Also, If a school is so bad that you have to move away from it to avoid being considered a bad parent, that reflects worse on the school more so than the parents.

<comment><USER9> I'd encourage you to go learn about Baltimore city schools. The failing schools being discussed in the OP are Middle and High Schools. Baltimore doesn't have school zones at the high school level. Any student that lives in Baltimore could go to any of the high schools. Some are good others are total garbage. Bottom line, you don't have to move, you do have to be proactive though.

[http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Domain/9530](http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/Domain/9530)

<comment><USER8> Thats a fair point, but it doesn't change the fact that it is ultimately the school's fault. Besides, it isn't like you can just choose to go wherever you want. There is a lottery process and obviously not everyone gets their first choice.

<comment><USER9> The lottery process is only for the charter schools. The rest of them have an application process similar to applying to colleges. Baltimore has more than 24 high schools.

[http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/about/by_the_numbers](http://www.baltimorecityschools.org/about/by_the_numbers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is such an eggshells issue. I think a lot of people probably feel extremely reluctant to speak openly about this, or try to diagnose it, and that seems very bad, because children are suffering and their futures are being compromised.

I don't doubt for a second that the school systems are letting kids down, at least somewhat. I'm a huge critic of public education, based on bitter experience. On the other hand, schools cannot be expected to produce great results no matter what else is happening in a child's life.

If we were to look at the demographics of these schools, would we find that 99% of the students are black? It matters in this case because there's an epidemic of fatherlessness among American blacks, and it's known to be very detrimental to the development of children. Who knows how much of a role this factor plays, but not mentioning it seems like a doctor not mentioning smoking might be the culprit in a patient's cancer.

If I'm wrong and there's some other more likely smoking gun in this situation, please tell me. I would like to know about it.

<comment><USER11> Why would you latch onto fatherlessness rather than poverty, lack of safety, or lack of a healthy environment?

<comment><USER12> 1\. Single parent households have it harder on average. In American culture, that generally means that mothers (and grandmothers) raise the kids, not the dads. "Fatherlessness" is shorthand for this.

2\. Men actually bring some things to family and neighborhood culture. Some people might get offended at this notion, but it's not controversial to say that femininity is wonderful, distinctive, and has special things to offer. But this must also be true of masculinity. I'd argue that men, generally speaking, have different ways to approach the problems you list. This is applying the "diversity makes us better" principle in a place really needing some new ideas and new strength.

<comment><USER11> > have it harder on average

"Harder" meaning the affects of poverty, right? Having two parents involved is only one way to address that.

Starting with talking about fatherlessness and "culture" is blaming the victims and, frankly, racist. I'm not saying a cycle of negative learned behaviors is irrelevant but there are so many other factors to address first.

<comment><USER12> > "Harder" meaning the affects of poverty, right? Having two parents involved > is only one way to address that.

Not just poverty. Middle class single parent households have it harder than equivalent two parent households as well. We respect good single parents especially because we recognize how much harder it is to, say, take classes in the evening or lead the PTA if you're also making sure your kids are clothed, educated, fed, nurtured, safe, and so on.

> Starting with talking about fatherlessness and "culture" is blaming the > victims and, frankly, racist.

I don't think this cultural issue is unique to black communities or even urban ones. I've already posted on race and fatherlessness:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14387245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14387245)

Please stop attacking allies. There's enough convincing to do without outgrouping and ending discussions of important issues by throwing around conversation killing (and frankly inaccurate) epithets.

...as far as blaming victims... I'm not interested in putting anyone in stockades on any of this. I do think we need to recalibrate our cultural calculus on what kids need to properly thrive. Home situations should absolutely be on the table, not for the purpose of judging, but for the purpose of setting expectations for prospective parents, people deciding whether to make marriages work, people picking out potential mates, etc.

Part of the problem, in my mind, is that in our effort to avoid victim blaming, we framed certain life choices as valid forms of self actualization instead of truthfully really hard situations. There has to be a way to be supportive and loving to single parents without also misleading the next generation into thinking that finding committed partners isn't also a big priority.

> ...there are so many other factors to address first.

Are there? Why is the social injustice of family structure on the bottom of the list?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> These are not schools. I don't know what to call them, "Public institutions for young people waiting to go into dysfunctional lifestyles" comes to mind. There could be others.

Shut them down. Seriously. If you are failing this terribly, the very _least_ you owe taxpayers and the poor kids and parents associated with those schools is honesty. Not spin. Not statistical bullshit. Honesty. Shut the damned schools down. The resources we are allocating there are actively working against the public interest.

I'm sure the cries will come out "What to do with these at-risk kids?"

That's a great question, and folks can have a wonderful public discussion about that. Unfortunately, that discussion gets into winners and losers -- various interests have various goals that they want to achieve.

So let's separate that out, put it aside for a few months. For now, close them down. Immediately. Try some brutal honesty and see if it doesn't move the dial forward a little bit.

<comment><USER14> There was a story on NPR yesterday, about a small region of Indiana -- a hotbed of school choice -- that looks like it will soon have no functioning schools. So this is happening already.

In my view, the problem is that every kid is guaranteed a chance to attend school. This is even written into some state constitutions. Thus all of the schools are joined together at the hip, even if they don't want to be. The higher functioning schools depend on selective admissions and operating at near capacity, which in turn requires the government to operate last-resort schools.

 _This is a continuous government bail-out of the selective schools._ So you can't just shut it down because the successful kids need it. In fact, periodic or continuous government bail-outs are probably a feature of any attempt to privatize what is necessarily a public good, such as health care and possibly air travel.

I'd prefer a return to totally public education and more intensive efforts to battle poverty and segregation. But a possible measure for eliminating the last-resort schools would be to take the kids who can't get into any school, and assign them to schools at random, then let the successful schools figure out how to deal with them.

<comment><USER13> Good points, and although we may have different worldviews you have some neat ideas.

The problem I was trying to address in my comment was _organizational inertia_. If you have scores of people in a big building creating their own system of doing things, it becomes impossible to change those ways. It's not a matter of policy, philosophy, or whatnot. It's simply the way large groups of people operate.

You might be able to take those same teachers and administrators, put them in tents in a park next door, and have vastly-improved results. Or not. Whatever your philosophy of "how to do good school", if it's not working in a particular instance, you have to deal with the organizational inertia first and foremost no matter how you'd like the rest of the game to play out.

<comment><USER14> In my view, the "organization" we're dealing with is the economic and environmental milieu that kids are exposed to from birth. Focusing on schools rather than addressing, e.g., segregation, is _organizational inertia_ on a grand scale. Better segregated schools is like faster horses.

Randomly assigning kids to schools would create a dis-incentive for schools to depend on segregation to achieve their results.

<comment><USER13> So your thesis is that it's silly to talk about school effectiveness because of the larger socio-economic condition of the population.

In other words, given certain external conditions, there should be no successful schools.

Proceeding down this path of analysis, you should find counter-examples, if they exist, and begin listing conditions that make schooling impossible.

Also not my point, but certainly a fun exercise. So close the schools, provide the useful public services they offer (if any), and work on the larger conditions.

The question remains whether or not the political structure that is paying for and supporting these organizations is honest enough to stop the dysfunction when it's thrust in their face. Even in your scenario, close them.

ADD: I want to point out that there is this Stupid Human Trick we all do: when presented with a situation that involves difficult-yet-implementable decisions, we point to some larger, impossible-to-solve situation and demand that this situation be addressed first. It's a way not to deal with things. I've spent decades watching Cold War arguments play out with "Well, if we had peace in the Middle East, these other things would also fall into line"

We were never getting peace in the Middle East. But it was easier just to throw their hands up and ask for the moon than it was to make the simple, immediate decision that was achievable.

<comment><USER14> _So your thesis is that it 's silly to talk about school effectiveness because of the larger socio-economic condition of the population._

No.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's the example Maryland high school tests:

[http://mdk12.msde.maryland.gov/assessments/high_school/index...](http://mdk12.msde.maryland.gov/assessments/high_school/index.html#/04)

</comment><comment><USER16> i hate to say this but Baltimore city is kind of a mess in recently years. Crime, riot, administration corruption. Also lead paint is still a thing there, which is really harmful for developing brain

</comment><comment><USER17> For reference on what these tests might look like (mostly Algebra).

The article indicates they're primarily talking about high schools (and one middle school). I'd suspect that the testing questions are not too far removed from the HSA (High School Assessment) tests of prior years. The HSA used to be a required test you had to pass to graduate in Maryland high schools (I believe they've changed to a new testing platform in recent years, to something called PARCC).

If you click on the following link, then click on the "What does HSA look like?" tab, then scroll down for Algebra for 2009.

[http://mdk12.msde.maryland.gov/assessments/high_school/index...](http://mdk12.msde.maryland.gov/assessments/high_school/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Out of curiosity, what are those math tests like?

<comment><USER19> [http://mdk12.msde.maryland.gov/assessments/high_school/look_...](http://mdk12.msde.maryland.gov/assessments/high_school/look_like/2009/algebra/view.html#/01)

Looks OK to me, for an 18 year old. Nothing on integration/differentiation or imaginary numbers, and the use of matrices doesn't really show why they're useful - but that stuff can be covered in the first year of college.

<comment><USER20> Checked it out. Actual math is trivial (too trivial, in ex-USSR most of that is covered by 5th-6th grade, or 12-13 y.o.), but the test itself is horrible imo. Multiple-choice sucks for math, by design it tends to focus on minutiae of definitions or your knowledge of exact approaches taught in school; also too many trick questions (like X axis labeled with uneven steps, who does that at all and how is this relevant to statistics understanding?) and questions like:

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--- Look at the pattern below.

2.6, −5.2, 10.4, −20.8, . . .

If this pattern continues, what is the sixth term? \</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

which sound like a bad IQ test where any answer is valid but you need to guess what test designer had in mind that evening.

Probably because they had a checklist of "competencies" and tried to separately test each of them.

</comment><comment><USER21> 10 years since The Wire season 4, the situation is still the same.

<comment><USER12> Seven years since Waiting for Superman.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is no surprise to anyone who's seen the Wire.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wish the article would like to the study that examined these schools

<comment><USER24> As far as I can see, Project Baltimore is just this organization's name for its articles on Baltimore issues. There was not any separate study.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't believe the headline and report. (The schools include "Excel Academy" and "Achievement Academy". Statistically, zero proficient students at any of these schools would essentially have to mean not one student can spell the name of their school.)

Sorry. No matter the shape of their bell curve, the article is sensationalist and cannot possibly be correct. What's their source? How can such an absurd fact be so?

Edit: I thought proficient meant "competent" (one of the definitions). According to the article, "Just one student approached expectations and scored a three." whereas 4 and 5 on the 5-point scale were deemed "proficient.". However, I still have trouble believing it. This includes graduates. At Frederick Douglas, just one of the schools surveyed, "half the students graduate and just a few dozen will go to college". Apparently we are to believe that among all these schools, with all its graduates, and all its college attendees, not 1 student scored a 4/5 in English and Math. That's not how bell curves work.

<comment><USER26> You're definitely not from Baltimore and most likely not from the United States.

<comment><USER25> No, I'm not from Baltimore. The article says "a few dozen" kids will go to college from Frederick Douglass High School, which is one of the 6 named high schools and middle schools. If we take "a few dozen" to mean 25, and apply it to the 6 schools, that is at least 150 college-bound students.

Out of 150 _college-bound_ students, you believe that exactly 0 had a 4 out of 5 in both math and English?

We are not talking about generalities or averages here. The article makes the extraordinary claim of "exactly 0." This is simply an extraordinary claim. Like saying nobody is over 6 feet tall in an American city of a population of 500,000. I mean sure, the average could be lower - but _not one_?

Since you seem to know a bit more about Baltimore, could you expand on the reason for this extraordinary fact?

Maybe it is a statistical anomaly based on the total number of high schools and middle schools, that 6 should happen not to have any students with an over 4 in math and English. Plus I note that they say math _and_ English. Perhaps if they said "math or English" they would have.

So it definitely seems a bit fishy to me.

<comment><USER26> > Out of 150 college-bound students, you believe that exactly 0 had a 4 out of > 5 in both math and English?

Yep. I'm sorry my previous comment was flip. But I totally believe this figure.

I'm from Baltimore. I didn't go to one of these schools. These schools are in totally broken communities where maybe some people do graduate high school but those graduations aren't meaningful in any sense. Those schools aren't schools. They are pre-prisons. The teachers have no chance and kids who may want to learn have no chance either. These are brutal, lawless environments policed literally by city cops.

That there could be exactly 0, zero people who succeed in the environment seems not only possible but actually necessary. These aren't schools. They are pre-prison holding facilities.

<comment><USER25> thanks for starting to respond more seriously, but I just don't understand and would like your further clarification. You call them pre-prison but what does the "few dozen" of them going on to college mean? Prisons don't produce college diplomas, so what is that figure? I am totally confused. Please direct your attention to the cited figure of a few dozen of each of these schools going on to college. That is not anywhere near 0.

<comment><USER26> So college in the US is overwhelmingly just more of high school. Also 50% of people who go to college drop out. Being college bound doesn't mean anything. Especially if you are a URM and even more so from a place like one of these schools. People are anxious to give these people a chance and some opportunity to succeed, which I think is great but doesn't mean they are prepared for college. At least not what college used to be. College really is just more high school, or what high school used to be. There are remedial algebra and English courses in college. People I know with college degrees don't know the difference between their and there and definitely can't articulate thoughts in writing. That's the situation in the US in 2017. Unless you graduate from a top college, college just means to went to high school twice. Even top schools are full of basically illiterate people who are just wealthy. Ask them to write something and you'll get a bunch of gibberish. I'm not exaggerating. It's pretty sad.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pacman in HTML5 / Canvas - <AUTHOR> http://arandomurl.com/2010/07/25/html5-pacman.html

<comment><USER2> Seems to have a small bug, dead ghosts that are on their way back to the middle to be reborn can kill you while you are still able to eat the other ghosts.

<comment><AUTHOR> They dont go back to the middle at all, they just wander around quickly for a few seconds then turn back.

I havent implemented the proper behaviour for ghosts yet, I just wanted to publish this now as it was mostly about the html5 issues, I can do the proper behaviour later.

<comment><USER2> Ah that explains it, good to know that its currently as intended :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would like to see a pacman in svg for comparison purposes.

</comment><comment><USER4> It says:

Sorry, needs a decent browser: (firefox 3.6+, Chrome 4+, Opera 10+ and Safari 4+)

But I run "Chromium 6.0.484.0 (54673) Ubuntu 10.04".

I feel that it would work perfectly on chromium 6, and you are a little bit too strict in your user agent check :-)

</comment><comment><USER5> It complains in Safari 5 and the WebKit nightly build that I need a better browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeh I was quite surprised that safari failed the test to play audio, usually when stuff works in chrome its ok in safari, I assume its some silly mistake on my end but as far as I can tell, safari doesnt support ogg audio at least.

<comment><USER6> Safari support has been added in a fork <http://github.com/jpld/pacman>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That was one of the more difficult pacman implementations I've played.

</comment><comment><USER8> Cool. The ghosts aren't very intelligent. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> heh - [http://github.com/daleharvey/pacman/blob/master/pacman.js#L2...](http://github.com/daleharvey/pacman/blob/master/pacman.js#L219)

I didnt realise the ghosts has fairly complicated strategy, should be fun to implement now the mechanics are mostly done.

<comment><USER9> I was just barely working on a pacman clone about two months ago... turned into mostly just research. It turns out the ghosts follow rather simple patterns between two modes (spread out / attack) which turn into complex behavior, mostly due to how they interact with each other.

I found this thread very helpful for the Ghost AI: [http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/68707-pac-man-ghost- ai-...](http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/68707-pac-man-ghost-ai- question/page__p__845359)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks

<http://home.comcast.net/~jpittman2/pacman/pacmandossier.html>

was the best guide I found, its brilliantly in depth and covers more behaviour than I ever realised, like how the pacman turns corners. Pity I only found it after I mostly finished it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> pacman_util.js is missing from your tree, and I don't see anywhere mentioning what it might be,.

</comment><comment><USER11> so the google one was what, flash?

<comment><USER12> javascript, I believe.

<http://github.com/macek/google_pacman/tree/master/src/js></comment></comment>


California Has a Staggering Amount of Pension Debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2016/05/11/california-has-a-staggering-amount-of-pension-debt.html <comment><USER2> When you have CHP officers getting paid $110,000 a year, it's no wonder.

[http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=highway+...](http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=highway+patrol&page=15)

<comment><USER3> It's actually a quarter million a year in total benefits.

<comment><USER4> Can they elect to receive a quarter million cash dollars in lieu of benefits? If not, such benefits are not really part of their compensation any more than their uniforms or cars.

<comment><USER3> I guess it depends on what constitutes "other pay." There's an officer with $70,000 worth of Other Pay. But overtime pay is definitely paid in cash.

But if you want to quibble about $70,000 in pension and healthcare payments, that still leaves $160-180k a year in direct compensation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tons of countries has hidden debt as they retirement is pay as you go system and at the same time the population is aging.

</comment><comment><USER6> I spent many years as a passionate and vocal fiscal conservative. I stayed up many late nights arguing for relatively balanced budgets and smart (generationally fair) budgets. Over time I realized it was likely hopeless, since words (even the truth) can't compete with the tangible materialism of bread and circuses; so now I embrace ''Accelerationism''. We will eventually hit the top of the Laffer Curve, the max debt-to-GDP debt load, and all related fiscal ceilings and cliffs. Let's just hurry up (and try to spend the remaining debt space in the best ways possible) and get it over with so we can have more meaningful debates about how to structure society.

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

<comment><USER7> You're overly US-centric I think. The US can run unaccountable deficits due to reserve currency status, huge capital availability etc. There are still advanced countries which are fiscally conservative.

<comment><USER8> It's also difficult to compare US states -- which can't print money, with the U.S. debt level (relatively acceptable in the developed world). Perhaps a better comparison is Illinois and California (the highest poverty rate in the nation, when taking into account cost of living) with eurozone countries like Italy and Greece, which cannot devalue their currency to remain competitive. Yet, unlike the Eurozone, there will be more significant federal distributions to these states which racked up debt and receiving more federal aid including Medicaid / ACA grants, educational assistance, and food stamps. But we will continue to experience what is happening in parts of Michigan and Illinois, where states and cities have to make material sacrifices to pay down the debt.

<comment><AUTHOR> California also makes material sacrifices to pay down the pension debt. Consider the condition of the roads (especially in Los Angeles) and the budget problems facing the UC and Cal State University systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is $77,000 a lot though? It's much less than Alaska's $113,000 and less than the average of the top 5 states on the list. Accounting for the net-present value drops the obligation quite a bit, most of these costs will not bear out for several decades.

I think it's more important to look at the growth of this obligation over time. Is it going down as more people move to the state? And how is it doing relative to tax revenues?

</comment><comment><USER9> Should add to the California state constitution that whenever there is a budget shortfall directly related to a thing they voted for, they or their estate including portions already inherited has to pay for it, up to the entire value of the estate.

Because the problem is these politicians know that a problem 20 years out is not their problem and they will never be called to account for their short sighted decisions.

Unions are equally culpable. Their negotiators and leadership should be under the same penalties as the politicians. They ask for concessions that can never be financially stable, essentially guaranteeing that the entire future budget will have to go to pay for the current union's retirement, screwing their future members.</comment>


React component to PNG converter - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jxnblk/repng <comment><USER2> It would be cool to combine this with a perceptual diff tool in a continuous integration setting. Then you could see when the visual display of components changes in unexpected ways.

<comment><USER3> That would be awesome! Most components do require props tho, how would you deal with that? As in, I know you can pass the props, but you would have to define some CI testing props for each component.

<comment><USER2> I had thought about that too. I wonder if also integrating with something like React Storybook[0] or Cosmos[1] would solve that problem.

[0] [https://voice.kadira.io/introducing-react-storybook- ec27f28d...](https://voice.kadira.io/introducing-react-storybook-ec27f28de1e2) [1] [https://github.com/react-cosmos/react-cosmos](https://github.com/react- cosmos/react-cosmos)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh, this renders a PNG of how a component looks.

I thought this would be storing JavaScript code in PNG pixel data.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice!

It would be good if you added some contribution guidelines :)</comment>


Wsk: how bloomberg graphics does builds - <AUTHOR> https://bloomberg.github.io/wsk/ <comment><USER2> Project contributor here. This document lays out our motivation behind building this and how we evaluated other systems out there like Gulp and Webpack: [https://github.com/bloomberg/wsk/blob/master/HOW-DID-WE- GET-...](https://github.com/bloomberg/wsk/blob/master/HOW-DID-WE-GET-HERE.md)</comment>


Mozilla lays out multi-process Firefox engineering goals - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Mozilla-lays-out-multi-process-Firefox-engineering-goals-1280853.html <comment><USER2> On the article - What Mozilla are doing first with Electrolysis is like WebKit2, rather than like Chrome which is almost-but-not-there-yet process per-domain which will come later. There was also some original research which went into Firefox 4 with per-compartment garbage collection.

They're also looking at a multi-threaded DOM in Rust.

In case anyone hasn't been keeping up with it, Flash was already sandboxed months ago, before Chrome implemented it (this is different from Out Of Process Plug-ins).

I recommend you disable the Google Updater plug-in which takes up memory and doesn't really do much of value considering it shouldn't be in Firefox in the first place. NoScript has a click-to-play for Flash built-in so if you're using Flashblock get rid of it because it conflicts with NoScript.

<comment><USER3> Chrome's flag for sandboxing plugins dates back to before the code was open- sourced: [http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/commo...](http://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/chrome/common/chrome_switches.cc?revision=15&view=markup) (search for "safe-plugins"). The reason it was never on by default for Flash is that you can't sandbox Flash without breaking Flash functionality. How did Firefox solve this problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having separate processes for each tab will increase resource usage. This isn't a problem if you've got a standard up-to-date home computer, but is a problem for someone with outdated hardware like me. The thing is, there currently is no other browser that matches what Firefox can do for me in terms of plugins and tab management (particularly the ability not to load all tabs on start-up, but only the one I was looking at, which is helpful for saving RAM and bandwidth). If Firefox moves in a way that increases its resource usage, what alternative will there be for me? I will refuse to use an old version, and will be just left behind.

Note that I am welcome for suggestions of browsers that can potentially be a Firefox replacement if Firefox ever is no longer usable due to high requirements.

<comment><USER5> "Having separate processes for each tab will increase resource usage."

My PC is a single core 1.66 GHz Atom running Windows 7 Professional in 1 GB of RAM.

I can assure you multi-process Chrome outperforms Firefox on this machine, both in performance and memory use for real-world browsing.

You should double check your assumption about separate processes increasing resource usage.

<comment><USER4> Last time I tried Chromium, it used more RAM than Firefox for me for the same amount of tabs open. Maybe things have changed now. My laptop by the way is a 1.4GHz Celeron M with 768MB RAM

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This could be specially interesting for the ARM crowd. If this makes it easier to spread browser activity across more separate processes, a 4 or 8-way simple ARM core-based chip could be a viable platform for a desktop.

It's a long shot, I agree.

<comment><USER7> What makes you think their code isn't multi-threaded as it is?

<comment><USER6> I know it is. But threads are vulnerable to all sorts of synchronization problems different processes sharing nothing but read-only executable pages aren't. Besides, each process would also run on one or more threads, making thread-count go up. It just looks like it's an arrangement friendlier to many- core machines.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Link to the original blog post: [http://blog.mozilla.com/products/2011/07/15/goals-for- multi-...](http://blog.mozilla.com/products/2011/07/15/goals-for-multi- process-firefox/)

Both this and the write-up are curiously short on roadmaps or predictions though, and the Electrolysis page on the Mozilla wiki only talks about work already done (content processes in Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox, and out-of-process plugins). Given the benefits this will bring, I'd love to know when it's likely to arrive!

I know some Mozillans (?) sometimes post here - anyone have any idea what stage Electrolysis for desktop Firefox has got to?</comment>


Making Sharing Better - <AUTHOR> http://blog.quora.com/Making-Sharing-Better?share=1

<comment><USER2> This is a welcome change but I'm still irrationally resentful of Quora for not offering a legitimate API for accessing our data.</comment>


Test shows big data text analysis inconsistent, inaccurate - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/2878080/test-shows-big-data-text-analysis-inconsistent-inaccurate.html

<comment><USER2> Holy shit! Stop the presses! Enriching source data by filtering out low-signal information and selecting for high-signal information improves unsupervised clustering?

It's great to see physicists getting into other disciplines to show everyone else how wrong they are. As we all know, when you study physics and math, you're at the top of the reductionism pyramid, so you don't even really need to worry about having a background or experience in the thing you're studying. You just data at a formula, and if it doesn't work, you get to go to town berating professionals in the field using that formula. That's how it works, right?

Pre-processing your topic-modeling data is a pre-requisite to getting good results. This is fairly common knowledge. Not pre-processing is certainly the more naive approach. Computational linguists have backgrounds in things like syntax, semantics, and discourse so that they _know_ what components of language to select for and how to format them without mis-representing the source data.

This article characterizes a straw man to tear down in the service of advertising a proprietary solution. It's basically an advertisement with a scientific reference for good measure. We call these "white papers" \-- not serious journalism.

I can make these assertions from personal experience. I used latent Dirichlet allocation on high-fidelity natural language data to provide topic modeling for hundreds of thousands of wikis. We used the data for ad optimization as well as recommendations -- both of which provided statistically significant improvements in engagement. The approach worked. The recommendations were reproducible. I used all open-source software.

I guess I should have gotten into physics.

</comment><comment><USER3> Big data text analysis is an approach, not a method.

They merely showed that Latent Dirichlet Allocation is not the best method to solve the specific problem of classifying human language from unstructured text. New techniques will always come up to be more accurate and reproducible, and eventually become the new most used one. TopicMapping sounds promising. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8976877](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8976877)

paper: [http://amaral- lab.org/media/publication_pdfs/PhysRevX.5.0110...](http://amaral- lab.org/media/publication_pdfs/PhysRevX.5.011007.pdf)</comment>


Germany Considers Fining Facebook $522,000 per Fake News Item - <AUTHOR> http://heatst.com/tech/germany-considers-fining-facebook-522000-per-fake-news-item/ <comment><USER3> This would set a very frightening precedent. Will they also fine reddit every time a misleading story is submitted to a subreddit?

Most of the fake news articles made during the election were poorly written hoaxes with the goal of collecting ad revenue. Without any of them, Trump still would've won. But even if a foreign nation is spreading propaganda through news articles, unless it calls for violence or other crimes, I don't see why Facebook has an obligation to remove them.

<comment><USER4> >Without any of them, Trump still would've won.

Then why is Breitbart planning to expand into the French and German markets _precisely_ on the eve of French and German elections? Do we think that these websites _themselves_ actually believe they have no political influence, when they seem to be deliberately operating as ad-fueled propaganda outlets for the far-right?

And don't think I'm just being partisan. If World Socialist Web Site was pulling this stuff I wouldn't be happy either.

<comment><USER5> > And don't think I'm just being partisan.

You are just being partisan. The notion that somehow fake news is a thing, that it misleads people, or that it affects elections is ridiculous. It's an excuse for losing an election and avoiding blame.

Fake news has been a part of our media since forever. Go read the tabloids. People enjoy that stuff and that's all it is, entertainment. Would you ban tabloids from newsstands too?

<comment><USER4> >You are just being partisan.

I just don't think the two sides are equivalent here. AFAIK, there is no far- left fake news website with the same revenue or audience numbers as the far- right has right now. The far-right is _winning_. If you side with them, go ahead and be happy, but I don't think I've said anything false by merely noting that they're succeeding in their stated goals of making money and spreading their views.

>Fake news has been a part of our media since forever. Go read the tabloids. People enjoy that stuff and that's all it is, entertainment. Would you ban tabloids from newsstands too?

I'm not advocating banning anything. I'm advocating that ordinary journalistic standards should apply to anything which markets itself as journalism.

<comment><USER5> > AFAIK, there is no far-left fake news website with the same revenue or > audience numbers as the far-right has right now.

Why is this a competition you want to win? Seems like a race to the bottom.

> I'm advocating that ordinary journalistic standards should apply to anything > which markets itself as journalism.

There are no universal "journalistic standards". There are standard to which specific outlets hold themselves to and that's great, but that's hardly an argument to holding others to the same standard.

I have no expectation that The Sun holds itself to the same standard as The New York Times and frankly, I wouldn't want them to.

<comment><USER4> >Why is this a competition you want to win? Seems like a race to the bottom.

Who said I want to win?

>There are no universal "journalistic standards". There are standard to which specific outlets hold themselves to and that's great, but that's hardly an argument to holding others to the same standard.

Well, if I might put forward a positive program, I think that publishing falsehoods under cover of journalism, in a way that harms people's lives, should be a civil offense which the victim can sue for. Let the lawyers duke it out in court: not every case will be ruled the right way, but being sued is itself a penalty that will discourage sleaze.

We already have a moral standard for when "fake" speech stops being free: when it is both false and harmful. I don't think we'll destroy the freedom of Western societies by expanding that to cover, "both _bullshit_ and harmful", and we'll deter quite a lot of genuine harm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This discussion around 'fake news' shows clearly but also shockingly how governments lost the ability to control communication. It's not about deciding if a news is real, propaganda or fake—the borders are blurry anyway—it's about who is controlling the communication.

The communication to its people is the one of the most important power a ruler has. Around 50 years ago, governments could influence their nations with state-owned mass media such as tv and radio. Then, private tv and radio came, then the Internet, they lost control but not much, they still could control or subtly influence communication in large part.

Now with FB, it seems that they lost any control and new right-wing parties are way more experienced in employing social media for their needs. Instead of pushing millions into social media and government-driven bot armies, they whine and call for censorship.

I think FB won't do anything, what can Germany do? FB's power is much bigger than Germany's government and legislative. Which is a disturbing thought.

<comment><USER7> FB is not the main avenue for news outside of governmental control. If anything, FB makes it easier to control the flow of news for governments due to the centralised nature and the fact that FB has a commercial interest in remaining on a relatively good footing with the powers-that-be. Which is why FB cooperates in 'fighting "fake news"' (yes, double scare quotes here as both the 'fight' as well as the 'fake news' are of questionable nature).

Anyone can start a 'news site', either using one of the established blogging platforms or by renting some space on the 'net and running their own site. That this avenue is mostly taken by what is considered 'the political right wing' is not surprising, given that the majority of established media in a large part of Europe (which is where you'll find the largest proliferation of 'alternative' media) is considered to be on the 'left side' of the political spectrum. In some countries this development has gone so far that a majority of people don't consider established media to be a reliable and trustworthy source of news, e.g. Sweden [1]. Some of the 'alternative' media strive to uphold traditional standards of journalism, often as a reaction to the demise of those traditions in the established media. Others just try to push their message using whatever they think will stick, standards and traditions be damned. The former are a valuable addition to the media landscape and could prove vital in the sight of extending governmental control of media. The latter are at best a nuisance, at worst a factor in destabilising society. While they may consider themselves to be 'patriotic citizens defending their freedom', they only serve to reinforce stereotypes of whatever political movement they represent.

I for one am glad that the 'net makes it possible to publish outside of governmental control. I also know enough not to blindly trust whatever is published, be it through 'alternative' or 'established' media. In the 'fight' against 'fake news' the question soon rises who gets to define which news is 'fake' and which is 'true'. The government ('ministry of truth'...)? The established media (whose political bent was the original reason for alternative media to arise in the first place)? Who will watch the watchers?

[1] [http://www.svt.se/kultur/ny-studie-halften-lockas-inte-av- tr...](http://www.svt.se/kultur/ny-studie-halften-lockas-inte-av- traditionella-medier) (in Swedish)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> And I hope Facebook fights back with everything it's got if Germany goes through with this.

I know why politicians don't care about the consequences of such actions, but I'm always surprised of the support here on HN for such actions, when the horrible, slippery-slope consequences should be obvious. Well...I do know of one reason, but I won't go down that political rabbit-hole.

<comment><USER9> > And I hope Facebook fights back with everything it's got if Germany goes > through with this.

I suppose the ultimate sanction from Facebook's perspective would be to null- route any traffic from or to Germany. No news, no fines!

Losing 40 million users ( one-fortieth of their userbase ) would be a lot less painful to the company than what Germany's leaders would receive from their electorate.

<comment><USER10> How about users from elsewhere spreading news about Germany ? Seems not like a question of orientation, but more like a topic-filtering action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article itself is kind of inadequate reporting without defining fake news. It references an interview in Der Spiegel. This article is free but references a Spiegel paywalled interview which might (or might not) elaborate on the subject.

[https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&...](https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spiegel.de%2Fnetzwelt%2Fnetzpolitik%2Fthomas- oppermann-plant-gesetz-gegen-fake-news-a-1126182.html&edit-text=&act=url)

Note that Germany has a longstanding law against one particular kind of "fake" information - holocaust denial. For obvious reasons. Germany takes saying "never again" to Fascism very seriously. The notorious "protocols of the elders of Zion" is in some way the original "fake news".

<comment><USER12> > The notorious "protocols of the elders of Zion" is in some way the original > "fake news".

No, Hearst and Pulitzer's "yellow journalism" was fake news of substantial political impact that predates the Protocols forgery.

<comment><USER13> No, the people who wrote and ratified the First Amendment to the constitution of the United States engaged in truly "fake news" themselves. They published lies they knew were lies in order to gain political advantage, and many of them did so quite gleefully.

They knew what the meant by Freedom Of Speech, and it without question included political fake news. It's not something they overlooked, it was a regular part of the political fabric of the time. And contrary to what the current panic is saying, it all worked out OK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Fake news" is the ultimate new-speak. Since fake news is nearly by definition opinion this type of law in a round about way makes it illegal to have opinions deemed fake by the government.

There's accrediting organizations for journalists that's kind of a start.

Legislating what people believe isnt solving the problem

<comment><USER15> > Since fake news is nearly by definition opinion

I don't think this statement is true. I googled "example of fake news" and the first article gave a good counter-argument: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news- stori...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/facebook-fake-news-stories- zuckerberg_us_5829f34ee4b0c4b63b0da2ea)

> One example of fake news is this anti-Hillary Clinton story from the faux > Denver Guardian, which declared in all caps: "FBI AGENT SUSPECTED IN HILLARY > EMAIL LEAKS FOUND DEAD IN APPARENT MURDER-SUICIDE."

> Everything about the article was made up, from the city where the crime > supposedly occurred (there is no Walkerville, Maryland), to the quote from > "Walkerville Police Chief Pat Frederick." (A town with a similar spelling ― > Walkersville ― does exist, but doesn't even have a police department.)

This is not a matter of opinion. It's a matter of simple fact.

An organisation with the reach and revenues of facebook, which has become a de facto conduit for news on a scale unparalleled before, does have a responsibility to civil society to not corrode it from the inside by acting as a giant megaphone for completely made up crap.

<comment><USER16> I don't know man. Anyone can go out and shout random things to people on the street. Anyone can make a website and put made up stuff there or maybe a blog, or a a micro-blog, maybe Twitter account. It seems Facebook is organized around people and their "walls" where they can put w/e they please. If people want to follow such person and share their content it's really on those people not the platform provider.

<comment><USER17> Facebook is not just a platform provider in this case, because it has algorithms which decides what content will show up on users' news feed, therefore it's filtering content (even though it's a script).

By this it could be said that the algorithm acts as an editor over content and in Germany this kind of filtering/moderation/censoring has laws and responsibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I wonder how this would affect fake news sites like the Onion? Are those going to be verboten?

<comment><USER19> Probably they'll have to have a clear indication that the "news" article is a humorous piece and not real news. In Poland, our Onion equivalent (aszdziennik, a pun on Nasz Dziennik ("Our Daily")), has such a note under every piece they write. Recently, they also often have a note saying an article is indeed real news instead, because reality has a habit of beating even the best fiction...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Who decides what is fake and what is not?

<comment><USER21> Interesting question, let's try to split the three categories:

      - Clear fake news ("sgift lives in ..." and a false value)
      - Clear true news ("sgift lives in ..." and a correct value)
      - <USER2>

The first two shouldn't be too hard, but also not very interesting. Most 'fake' news is more or less a matter of opinion, so you can debate as long as you want if it is fake. I don't see how that could be decided outside of a courtroom and I don't know of any trials that have ended in less than 24 hours.

<comment><USER22> Which category does clickbait fall into? There's usually some kernel of truth in clickbait articles propped up by a lot of hyperbole. Does that make it fake?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This reads like like a knee jerk reaction empty of substance and tailored for headlines. How would you ever enforce this effectively and fairly in practice?

</comment><comment><USER24> This will just set up the ability for any government to censor any website, as other countries will use this as a précédent if it gets through.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hopefully they plan on using the money to fund their school systems. Maybe then they will stop turning out morons who don't understand that everything you read on the internet isn't true. Sources 101. The U.S. might want to consider it too.

</comment><comment><USER26> Will we see laws that allow governments to suppress stories automatically? Seems likely.

"Any forum / website must expose some API for the suppression of fake news to the central authorities."

They already have read access (PRISM, Snowden, etc), now they will get delete access.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is the German government planning on supplying a regime of government funded (inherently biased) fact-checkers to gauge "fake news" in their country? Otherwise, this plan seems foolishly reactionary.

</comment><comment><USER28> So a largely disrupting law will be passed on an EU xountry, based on ALLEGATIONS about Russia messing up US elextions...

I find that funny and tragic at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER29> just out of curiosity, how many of you actually checked this news?

</comment><comment><USER30> we can all hope this is a fake "news item".

</comment><comment><USER31> for perspective, libel (publishing false damaging information) is already punishable

so the judicial system _already_ has the "ministry of truth" responsibility, whether or not that bothers you

</comment><comment><USER32> So US media will effectively be banned? ;)

</comment><comment><USER33> Nanny state has to make sure that wittle people are getting the right information, hmm?

Looks like Germany can't fully shake off its fascist past.

</comment><comment><USER34> I smell less the odor of censorship and more the aroma of shakedown, something the EU never tires of doing to US companies.

Maybe we should withdraw from NATO. I'm sure plenty of Ossies aren't above making a euro helping Wessies improve their Russian.</comment>