Google Plus to relax the "real names only" restriction? - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8mBX

<comment><USER2> I think Google's on the right track - they're just optimizing for friends and families instead of brands. It's defensible to posit that the relatively high quality of Facebook's social graph is due in part to how strongly they validated identity in the early days (by requiring e-mail addresses from reputable universities). Further, it might not be realistic for a social network to pursue both the highly validated identity model (i.e. Facebook) and the wide-open, syndication-friendly route of Twitter simultaneously in the early stage.

There's room for improvement, but this has some of the air of the usual end- user indignation that a product doesn't have a comprehensive feature-set at launch.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm somewhat concerned that "find a way to use pseudonyms" is some implementation of "multiple pseudonyms, as long as you have your real name on an umbrella account", which completely misses the point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, maybe.

Different people want pseudonyms for different reasons. Some people want to be able to completely divorce content created under one name from content created under another: for example, a well-known public figure might choose to interact with close friends and family under a pseudonym so that those people aren't dragged into the public spotlight. Other people are just known by different names in different social circles — perhaps the people you play tennis with gave you a nickname, or you have friends in another country who find your given name awkward and hard to pronounce. For those people, an absolute water-tight division between pseudonyms is not necessary.

Personally, I'd be happy with settings of the form "To contacts in circle X, display the name Y", and "To strangers, display the name Z". I don't _mind_ my friends knowing my real name, I just don't want friends blocking me because they don't recognise the value I've put in the only name field Google displays.

<comment><USER4> > Personally, I'd be happy with settings of the form "To contacts in circle X, > display the name Y", and "To strangers, display the name Z".

Most of my friends are in multiple circles (a "friends" circle and a circle based on why I know them). If I set different display names for two circles, what does it display to someone in both of them?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why I'm just some schmuck posting on HN, and Google are the ones with the globe-spanning enterprise - because they're better at finding answers to tricky questions like that than I am.

If I had to guess, I'd say "use the name attached to the circle with fewer members", because I imagine a lot of people will have a few big circles for reading by content, and a number of small circles that represent their actual social circles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds like they are trying to keep it from becoming another MySpace full of shit names and people being silly.

My intuition tells me a top-down approach isn't the best route, though.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm seeing more and more issues on G+ that annoy me about Facebook.

They got some things right, but I'm afraid the core is the same old revenue- oriented and privacy-invading crap.

Not-Facebook is not good enough and looking at the end-result it is kind of disappointing.

<comment><USER6> I'm getting a lot of down-votes, which is cool but maybe I haven't explained my reasons for thinking like this:

I love email mostly because it is not controlled by a single provider; I can always run my own email servers (and I do). I also love email because you can be anonymous - you can use a pseudonym - heck, you can fake the headers to make it look like you're email@example.com, although smart email clients will figure it out. I also love email because it doesn't have a single point of failure -- if one email provider goes down, that won't block the Internet. I also love email because if you have your own domain, no email provider can freeze you from sending or receiving emails, although they can try to do that.

Google+ does fix some of the annoyances of Facebook, but it fixes none of the more hard-pressing problems and still has many problems that Facebook has.

Google+ / Facebook are nothing like email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wait, was it ever a "real name only" restriction? Didn't it always say that you should use the name that you "commonly use"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the instructions said "commonly use", but then Google started kickbanning people whose "commonly used" name didn't fit the fairly narrow parameters of Anglo-Saxon real names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is there some credence to the rumor that having a g+ account could shut you out of other google services, like gmail?

<comment><USER9> My profile was suspended on Google Plus, then I can no longer share any Google Reader items.

Chrome Inspector network requests shows that it's a server 500 error, and it tries to call the Multi Sign-on URI even I didn't enable Multi Sign-on.

When I tried to delete my Google Plus service, the page[1] is just 404.

Looks like G+ isn't really a finished or proper tested product.

[1]: <https://plus.google.com/settings/plus>

<comment><USER10> _Looks like G+ isn't really a finished or proper tested product._

It's currently in a "field trial"[1]. If you're using it now then you are a tester, so complaining about a lack of testing a little nonsensical.

[1] [https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/google- plus/fie...](https://sites.google.com/a/pressatgoogle.com/google-plus/field- trial)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "or who are using obviously fake names, like "god" or worse."

There will be someone with crazy enough parents for this to be possible, and for the child not to want to change it. For something like this, there isn't really many crieteria you can use, just on the off chance you get something authentic.

<comment><USER12> It's not an unheard of abbreviation for Godfrey. Jack Bruce, formerly of Cream, named an album that way:

[http://www.jackbruce.com/2008/Music/Albums/more_jack_than_go...](http://www.jackbruce.com/2008/Music/Albums/more_jack_than_god.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I guess the obvious question not asked is whether Google set the "real name" bar artificially high in order to slowly work out where the edges of the issue are. It might simply have been more efficient to wear down a draconian rule than to build up from none.

</comment><comment><USER14> never saw anything about using a real name, don't have my proper name on my gAccount, so it doesn't matter -- gPlus working fine, identity working fine.

<comment><USER15> Yes, you are indeed the only person that matters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> _removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like "god" or worse._

Yes, because fake names and personalities have worked so badly for twitter! Well good to know G+ is safe from people like Fake Steve Jobs.</comment>


Ask HN: What's does your home office set up look like? - <AUTHOR> Curious as to how people have set up their optimal home office space? Pictures and links to equipment would be awesome. <comment><USER2> I believe reddit.com/r/battlestations is what you are after

</comment><comment><USER3> I always thought this would be incredibly interesting for the Hacker News crowd. I'm sure there's more than a few /r/MechanicalHeadPens people here. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Some setups here: [https://kit.com/explore/setup](https://kit.com/explore/setup)</comment>


Amazon gets priority while mail gets delayed, say US letter carriers - <AUTHOR> https://www.pressherald.com/2020/07/21/first-class-and-priority-mail-delayed-in-favor-of-amazon-parcels-according-to-portland-letter-carriers/ <comment><USER3> The real issue here is the fact that the USPS is overloaded and requires extra government attention. If you don't properly fund and support you public postal service, you don't get on-time mail deliveries. Maybe that is the issue.

This has little to do with Amazon. Amazon is paying the USPS according to their contract. If the contract from 2013 is unsatisfactory, then it should be renegotiated by USPS. I wouldn't be surprised if it is a 10-year deal, and has hefty fines for late deliveries.

A journalist should be able to request the contract and see why USPS is now overloaded: Is it because USPS is not receiving enough funding from the government, or because the contract with Amazon is really bad for USPS. It sounds like the fact that Amazon is shipping so many parcels is a symptom, not the (systemic) cause of why parcels aren't shipped on time. If the USPS is to blame, then who made this deal and what were their reasons? Was it a national deal? Why is it a problem now? Why wasn't this anticipated? And how can it be avoided in the future?

Aren't contracts of the government with private parties publically accessible? I mean, you, the taxpayer, pay for the contract so you should have access to it, as well be able to check on the government's workings. At least, that's how we do things in europe.

<comment><USER4> > The real issue here is the fact that the USPS is overloaded and requires > extra government attention.

I agree with this, and this attention needs to come in more ways than extra $$. As others said, USPS is stuck in a weird state: need to be self-funded with no authority to set prices. So the gov't needs to either subsidize some things or let USPS compete.

However, to fix USPS some of that attention needs to come in the form of hard kicks and forced reorgs. USPS is a dinosaur with a lot of inertia against improving efficiency and modernization. That causes problems, costs a lot of money and drives customers away. USPS is also notorious for advocating for spam senders (who give USPS a lot of revenue) and against people they are supposed to serve. Those are all problems that external "attention" should resolve.

As an anecdata, I was occasionally involved with field testing campaigns which include significant shipping for next day delivery a couple of thousand miles away (something would break or some new hardware would be needed and will be shipped from home ASAP). This provides a non-insignificant revenue to the shipper. We tried USPS, but it just did not work. With FedEx we get accurate, near real time package tracking, so the minute the package is dumped at our hotel we see it and someone can drive out and pick it up. With USPS, their system was showing delivery at the end of the _following_ day. Maybe something changed in the last few years, but I doubt it.

<comment><USER5> USPS is efficient and self-sufficient, congress has just done everything possible to make it look like they're failing.

If they didn't have to prepay pensions (something no other government agency, or private company in the world is required to do, or does), they'd be in great shape.

<comment><USER6> In fairness, pension pre-funding should be an expectation of all government agencies and private companies with pensions. But the way it was introduced was absurd, IIRC USPS had 10 years in which to pre-fund 50 years of pensions.

<comment><USER7> 75 years. USPS is congressionally mandated to fund the pensions of postal workers who have not yet been born.

<comment><USER8> I've seen this claim elsewhere but IMO it's ridiculously misleading. It's technically true that USPS is mandated to fund pensions for people that aren't alive yet. However, they're not required to actually start putting the finds away _until_ those people grow up and start working for USPS.

<comment><USER9> The absurdity is that it's not required of any other agency or private company.

<comment><USER8> EVERY company (either private or publicly traded) in the US that offers a pension is legally required to do one of two things:

1\. Pre-fund the pensions of employees who aren't born yet

OR

2\. Stop offering the pension before they hire the people who haven't been born yet

Some companies chose to do 2, but without an act of congress the USPS is locked into option #1. This is tautological for any long lived pension plan. It will eventually serve people who haven't been born yet. I don't see why people are so surprised by it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, maybe we need a "delivery neutrality law" as well. In Germany it's the same story, DHL treats Amazon packages with utmost care and always delivers them on time, while anything else gets deprioritized. Guess the delivery companies don't have much choice here as Amazon packages make up 20-30 % of their parcel business now (at least in Germany), especially since Amazon is building up their own logistics in larger cities to compete with them.

<comment><USER11> Your statement is rather misleading.

First of all, any people outside Germany need to know that "DHL" in Germany refers to the regular parcel post of the former German national post. What other countries outside Germany call "DHL" is actually called "DHL Express" in Germany and they are a separate subsidiary of Deutsche Post World Net. They have their own fleet of delivery cars and also local parcel depots.

Secondly, it's important to note that in Germany, Deutsche Post DHL delivers 95% of all packages within Germany on the next day. This means, that your insinuation that non-Amazon packages are not delivered fast is untrue.

And, thirdly, Amazon pays for their packages being prioritized. Amazon calls this delivery service "Amazon Prime", at DHL, these packages are internally called "PRIO" (it's also on the label) and Amazon actually pays for that. Other types of packages include "VIP" which is used for packages with valuable content.

And since Amazon pays your the prioritization of their packages, every other customer can do that as well with DHL guaranteeing that your package gets delivered on the next day.

However, since 95% of all DHL standard packages in Germany are delivered on the next day anyway, most customers aren't using this particular service. There is simply no gain since a standard parcel ("Paket" as compared to the even cheaper "Päckchen") already comes with tracking and insurance up to 500 Euros.

Please keep in mind that in the US, regular packages take 2-3 days which is why choosing priority shipment in the US makes a huge difference as compared to when ordering from Amazon Germany.

<comment><USER12> The idea of paying for a superior level of service is exactly what net neutrality is supposed to prohibit, so your response just kinda lends credibility to the parent comments analogy.

<comment><USER13> Service tiers make total sense for mail, even under a "neutral" system. Sometimes people need, for example, guaranteed next day delivery. So, if Amazon wants to pay extra for that service tier like everyone else ... what's the problem?

The real issue is if Amazon gets that service at a discounted rate. They probably do, and I can see arguments for why we wouldn't want them to be able to. But I can't see arguments against service tiers.

Besides, service tiers exist under net neutrality. I can choose to buy a 1Mbps connection, or a 1Gbps connection. The latter gives me a clear advantage. Yet that's allowed under net neutrality because _anyone_ can buy those tiers of service.

<comment><USER12> Every reason that mail service tiers make sense can be applied to net neutrality too. VOIP, streaming media, multiplayer video games all "need" a much better QoS than say browsing a web page, or downloading a torrent does.

Anybody who wishes to compete with Amazon will also have to pay additional fees to offer an equivalent service, and if high QoS delivery channels become over-subscribed, prices for them will increase. Further discriminating against competition.

> So, if Amazon wants to pay extra for that service tier like everyone else > ... what's the problem?

What's the problem with an ISP creating a seperate QoS tier for people who require it, and charging more for it? It's exactly the same thing.

<comment><USER14> > Every reason that mail service tiers make sense can be applied to net > neutrality too. VOIP, streaming media, multiplayer video games all "need" a > much better QoS than say browsing a web page, or downloading a torrent does.

That's a pretty good argument against net neutrality. It's a bad argument against service tiers for mail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I mean, that's certainly one way to make sure you can't vote by mail!

But is this not a case of an underfunded agency, that is trying to do its best in a bad time, with no money, and trying to placate those who shout loudest?

I'd wager that packages (not just Amazon) make up a lot more post than actual letters nowadays - I know I rarely have any post (although UK) as everything is online - but if people aren't getting their next/same day delivery on time, then they kick off and shout about it - which isn't going to please Amazon, and the USPS don't/can't lose that contract

<comment><USER16> Why do postal services even need to be handled by an agency?

It's just a normal service like any other. Normal companies do that just fine. As evidenced in lots of history and in other countries around the globe.

<comment><USER17> > It's just a normal service like any other. Normal companies do that just > fine.

No, they don't. Like others have mentioned USPS delivers to anyone in the extended U.S. with sane prices. They also provide sane international shipping prices. USPS also provides other services like free shipping materials and free pickup. Hiding these and the other services they provide behind companies who only care about the bottom line would hurt people who couldn't afford the services or simply have services they're used to dropped.

<comment><USER16> If you want to help people, it's more efficient to use a program that's financed by progressive taxes and targeted at the poor and needy.

Instead of a hodge-podge that's financed by city dwellers who need to send a lot of letters, and assists people who chose to live in the middle of nowhere even if they are filthy rich.

Yes, charging more to people who cause more costs would be exactly the point.

(The poor people could use the targeted help I talked about to afford the higher price. Or they could use that help to buy something they need more than sending letters. Like food or nice clothing for an interview etc. Or whatever they fancy.)

<comment><USER18> Universal mail delivery isn't just about helping the poor and needy. It's also about allowing the government to deliver services efficiently.

The government has an obligation to send every citizen voter registration cards, census forms, driving licenses, tax forms, firearms registration forms, passports and so on.

The alternatives - an IRS office in every backwater town, denying a vote to people living in remote areas, ATF agents delivering gun permits in person, denying driving licenses to people without a home internet connection - <USER2> either be more expensive, or less constitutional.

Unless UPS or FedEx wanted to take on a universal service obligation, of course...

<comment><USER16> The German government manages to send those forms out just fine, despite them privatising Deutsche Post and eventually abolishing their letter monopoly.

<comment><USER19> Deutsche Post / DHL service quality has absolutely declined as a result of this and keeps getting worse so I don't know what argument you are trying to make.

<comment><USER20> Same in Sweden with Postnord.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Honestly this (or, at leasst, prioritisation of parcels over letters and printed paper) is the right way round. If it were practical I'd back an actual and punitive financial tax on sending anything via the post that could be communicated electronically instead. Waste of paper and resources.

</comment><comment><USER22> I am worried what's going to happen with big vote-by-mail election. How much chaos will ensue with an overwhelmed USPS?

We've already seen elections with ballot invalidation rates of 25% in NYC with some of the primaries. A lot had to do with postmark dates and signatures.

<comment><USER23> In my county (in California) there are dedicated ballot boxes that are not serviced by the post office. The ballots are collected from the boxes by county election officials. Is this not a thing in other states?

<comment><USER24> Washington State is entirely vote-by-mail, and we have the option of returning to drop boxes located at libraries or city halls and well as mailing them in.

My anecdotal observation is that the majority of people use the drop boxes, but that was also pre-pandemic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is also the case in Italy as far as I know. I was a mailman for the Italian mail service for some months in the summer of 2019. We were encouraged to give priority to paid work (advertisement, other deliveries). Mail doesn't make any money, it's just a public service. Which is why the postal service also does banking and has its own mobile carrier. These things pay for the public mail service to work. Anyway this is the case in Italy so maybe it's not relevant.

<comment><USER26> Yeah it's a similar situation in Switzerland. Not sure about the prioritization of deliveries though but the postal service started to offer different kind of services (like starting a bank "Postfinance" [which I guess is a swiss thing to do], or selling office supplies). In general: revenue from mail is down but revenue from parcel is up. Also during the COVID-lockdown people started ordering shit online like crazy, so there were of course delays and problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> > ...which mandates that the agency pre-fund health benefits for retirees up > to 2056.

On it's face that sounds like an incredibly onerous requirement. Not being a US resident though, it's quite possible it makes sense and my ignorance simply can't tell. Could someone with more insight provide additional context here?

<comment><USER28> For a variety of reasons, there is a deep seated animus towards the post office held by key donors to the Republican Party.

It doesn't make particular sense.

<comment><USER29> It makes sense in the wider context of the republican party generally viewing free universal services as a bad thing - the push to privatize education, the push to eliminate or scale back public health care systems like medicare, the push to scale back public pension systems like social security.

A given politician might have their own reasons for wanting to privatize everything (profit, ideology, etc) but it's pretty consistent across the whole party that they aren't fond of any of these programs - I wouldn't actually attribute this to key donors.

<comment><USER28> Most of that party platform stuff is just fluff.

The more reactionary donors have a real generational hatred of civil service in general and the post office in particular. Alot of fringe thinking from the 1960s and 70s is front and center today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Aside from this article and similar, I can't find any credible confirmation that Amazon packages are delivered "fourth-class" or what that means. After all, big bulky boxes are hardly competing against catalogs for space in the mail truck, the differences in size are so huge.

Amazon has a private contract with the USPS that presumably puts it in its own unique category regardless of other labels, and the USPS likely loses money for late delivery, so this is just things operating how they're intended to operate.

The real problem is politics that doesn't give the USPS the flexibility to expand. I live in Brooklyn and haven't gotten a single package delivered on time by the USPS in the past 3 months, always 1-3 days late.

Any normal business hires more employees as business booms, and remember the USPS _makes money_ off Amazon. Unfortunately, the USPS is so hamstrung by politicians that it can't simply expand to meet demand, the way e.g. Amazon Fresh has.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hmm my local postal office never deliver large Amazon package, they just "attempted delivery at 9am but nobody is home", then come and leave a note later in the mailbox.

</comment><comment><USER32> The USPS provides universal service, especially to areas that are unprofitable. Moreover, congress sets their rates instead of letting market forces determine rates. Finally, they are under retirement funding rules that commercial carriers are not. Then, after being required to run unprofitably, legislators observe that the USPS is not competitive?

One can't help but wonder if Amazon wants to pull up the ladder behind them.

<comment><USER33> That's why Amazon built their own Shipping network now. They only use USPS where it makes financial sense, notably often in the Midwest or in places where they don't have other deliveries. They are rapidly gaining competitive advantages that cannot be equaled without billions in investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> We are still paying for full prime and I have not seen 2 day shipping in ages.

</comment><comment><USER35> One of my COVID resolutions has been to aggressively attack every source of junkmail I can find.

I figure, reducing the load in my mailbox (my actual goal; I haaaaate dead- tree mail) will have the collateral benefit of reducing the load on the carrier's shoulder.

I've enjoyed partial success so far, but just fired another volley of unsubscribes yesterday. We'll see.

<comment><USER36> So far- have you found any particular methods to be the most effective? (Return postage envelopes with a form letter, online tools, other options)

My grandma, who passed a bit less than two years ago is still receiving all sorts of junk mail. I have tried unsubscribing normal ways from some of it (online forms, etc) and none of that seems to work at all.

I do use the "do not mail" junk mail opt-outs which has reduced the volume that comes in both her name and mine, but there's still loads of "previously accepted/subscribed-to mail" that I can't seem to put a stop to- even if I use the publisher/sender's preferred opt-out method.

<comment><USER35> I used to get a TON of mail for the guy who previously lived at my address. Even eight years after he moved.

So I'd call the various companies and ask them to stop. And one miraculous time, I ended up talking with a rep who told me The Secret. Paraphrasing: "I can remove him from our database, but he'll be back in a few weeks when we do our next import from the credit brokers. That's where you need to focus your effort, try Equifax."

Funny thing was, I could not find a form for "My name is Alice and I swear Bob no longer lives at 123 Main", but I could find a form for "My name is Bob and I swear I no longer live at 123 Main". So I filled that out, didn't sign it, and sent it in.

It slowed to a trickle within a month or two, and all but stopped within a year after that.

I just filled out [https://pc2.mypreferences.com/Comcast/OptOut/Default.aspx](https://pc2.mypreferences.com/Comcast/OptOut/Default.aspx) so we'll see if that stems the deluge of Xfinity mailers...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > he suspected the practice was in response to pressure from superiors on the > national level.

This I think is the interesting part of the news.

<comment><USER38> What rank-and-file boots-on-the-ground employee of a mega-corp who works at a local office doesn't think the clueless paper-pushing bozos at the head office are the ones cramming through bad decisions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Well 95% of the letters I receive go straight into the trash can, so I'm really not too concerned if it's delayed

</comment><comment><USER40> I cannot believe with the decrease in 1st-class mail that the USPS is still running delivery trucks 6 days per week to every house. It's a complete waste of resources.

They should go to 3 days per week, then cut back to 2, and maybe even just 1 per week. Since the pandemic, I have been leaving my mail in the box and getting it Sunday night. You know what I'm missing? Nothing! There may be 2-3 pieces of mail plus some junk mail, and I don't get email delivery of any bills: it's all physical mail.

Most people do not care if they get junk mail plus a few bills every day or once a week. They do care if they get their Amazon packages delivered. So to me, it's perfectly reasonable to delay 1st-class mail and prioritize, uh, "priority mail".

</comment><comment><USER41> Fine with me. I pay Amazon $129 per year for Prime service and if this is one of the ways they arrange it, great. What else comes by mail? Junk, or bills that are due in 3-4 weeks, or statements. First class mail was always kind of variable in delivery speed anyway.

</comment><comment><USER42> That makes sense.

Amazon is mostly packages people ordered that they want.

Mail is mostly junk mailers that people didn't order.

Customer satisfaction is optimized by getting the Amazon packages routed higher priority.

<comment><USER43> Did you read the article? Do you work for Amazon perhaps?

Amazon is not the only ecommerce company in existence.

The article clearly states in its 3rd paragraph that packages (not junk mail) from other senders are being delayed in favor of Amazon packages:

"...willfully delaying thousands of first-class and priority parcels so that fourth-class Amazon parcels can go out for delivery instead"

<comment><USER42> That behavior still makes sense if one factors in that Amazon is a customer with the option to ship via another carrier if they find the USPS can't meet (Amazon's) delivery targets.

USPS is, unfortunately, operated like a private company, and their bottom line gets hit harder if Amazon switches most of its business to FedEx than if other, much smaller firms decide 1st class isn't a reliable enough guarantee and stop paying for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Many comments about overtime being banned as though it is a bad thing.

My understanding was that "Overtime" was meant to be used sparingly for short term circumstances - not for months on end - to avoid burnout.

From a labour cost point of view, most places pay penalty rates for overtime. Often 20% to 50%. Or maybe that is my naive view here in Australia.

So wouldn't it be cheaper to just hire more employees/daytime contractors? Plenty of people looking for work I hear.

</comment><comment><USER45> I've always thought it inefficient to have mail delivered every day. Doing deliveries every other day seems like would be an easy way to save money. No?

</comment><comment><USER46> This is true overseas as well. Israel Post used to have huge issues with deliverability, but whenever an Amazon package showed up they'd get priority and was rarely, almost never, lost or delayed.

In fact, they even have a partnership now and text you when an Amazon package arrived ("a package has arrived from Amazon") but not always when another vendor's package arrives, even if there's a phone number attached to it.

</comment><comment><USER47> Where's the bottleneck?

A lot of USPS is via trucks, but what about planes? Don't they do freight via commercial airlines? Could it be a backlog that's just increasing?

</comment><comment><USER48> It's not so crazy that the highest rate mail goes through (if that's the case) at the expense of bulk-rate mail. But if first-class and priority mail is being delayed, as is being alleged, that's a problem. People aren't getting the service they paid for.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is the logical analog to and extension of the assault on net neutrality.

The reasons this is a fatal stance in a functional first-world democracy are identical.

</comment><comment><USER50> USPS sent tens of thousands of ePacket (international air mail) packages by boat recently—supposedly the first time in history they've done that. Instead of shipments arriving in 1-2 weeks, they took 6-12 weeks.

Completely screwed people over. Our organization has now dropped USPS entirely for international shipments, and we spend a few million annually on shipping.

There was also a massive rate increase recently, particularly to the UK, that has made USPS far less competitive compared to other shippers.

</comment><comment><USER51> The only meaningful mail most people get is packages, so from that point of view, this headline is a good thing not a bad thing.

<comment><USER52> This is not true for much of society. Many, many people receive important documents in the mail: voter IDs, driver's licenses, voting forms, Medicare and Social Security forms, utility bills, mortgage statements, IRS docs, unemployment benefits, and more. These all seem pretty meaningful, no?

<comment><USER53> Yes but who orders a shiny new utility bill and obsessively tracks its progress until it's finally delivered and they can joyfully unbox it? Who orders their mortgage statement and medicare form and forcefully complains to the ombudsman when they come late three times in a row?

<comment><USER52> People who are struggling to make payments or rely on Medicare for their health? Is it really so hard to imagine how other people live their lives differently?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Do we need "net neutrality" for mail?

<comment><USER55> YES! Repeal the private express statutes. There's zero reason USPS should have a government granted monopoly. Allow them to set their own prices too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> The postal service is one of the only ways for democracy to happen this year. Amazon and USPS has been strategically linked by groups that dislike both organizations.

First people are told that vote by mail leads to fraud and secondly that Amazon is deeply political and against the current power in Washington. Throw in ownership of the Washington Post, and you a suddenly have a good recipe for a fake news conspiracy to rile up the base with in an election year.

Benjamin Franklin knew the power of the post office in the 1700s. They were smart enough back then to know that people spread out to different geographic areas needed a legitimate way to vote and communicate.

He also knew that this system should retain some form of government control because the amount of information moving around inside the post office could be used by private parties to influence government affairs.

Other than the political angle, the attacks you see against the USPS are simply about money. Over the years, in the rush to privatize, the USPS was set on the path to be a private company.

Their idea was you remove funding from USPS, make insane capital requirements for future commitments that no other company has to do, then wait until they have massive capital expenditures.

The old mail trucks we are are familiar with have supposedly been catching on fire because they are way past their service dates. As far as I know, the USPS does not have a plan for replacements for these outdated vehicles, and even if they did, where is the money going to come from?

Last point in my rant is that you could ask probably half the country or more if Amazon helped bankrupt USPS. I bet many would say yes because that is what they have heard or read in articles. Amazons contract likely provided needed capital to keep USPS going since 2013.

Instead, the people who have been actively trying to bankrupt the USPS for more than 30 years are now trying to blame the main private sector company that supports it.

It's all lies, as usual. The post office has some of the best main street real estate all across the country. Any political crony knows that if they can get their hands on that after being privatized, the control over information in the mail system, and the value of the land all across the country, would turn that crony into quite an oligarch.

TLDR; Support your local post office if you care about democracy

</comment><comment><USER57> Are Amazon packages not also "mail" once they have paid the USPS?

</comment><comment><USER58> There is other mail than Amazon packages?

</comment><comment><USER59> The post office has been unduly laden with nonsense financial restrictions by the GOP in two presidencies now (Bush and Trump). Put another way, they've purposefully sabotaged one of the oldest institutions in America in order to crater it on behalf of private businesses.

Are there things that can be changed at USPS? Certainly, but they are not the primary cause of distress for this institution. See also: The current assault against the NHS in the U.K.

</comment><comment><USER60> Amazon is more of a threat to the 'American way of life' than Communism ever was.

<comment><USER60> obviously, bezos downvoted my comment. I dont think they are bad, they are just too big - and monopolies are breeding ground for evil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> []

<comment><USER62> Funny, this was the inverse of my experience growing up in Hawaii. UPS and Fedex were an hour drive to get the package. USPS would bring to the post office down the road. I always tried to get USPS whenever I could

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Break Amazon up. Its a monopoly.

</comment><comment><USER64> Isn't this whole thing started because trump is trying to get back at Bezos? He's mad because Bezos owns the Washington Post.

<comment><USER65> so you're telling me because Trump is trying to get back at Bezos, he's telling the Postmaster to prioritize Amazon's packages over regular mail delivery?

Do you believe Russia is involved in this too?

<comment><USER64> No, he's angry at the USPS for not charging Jeff Bezos more.

He has tweets ranting about them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> My mail is basically advertisements and bills. I'd much prefer the packages I order to get priority.

<comment><USER67> There's more to this than just your personal consumption: absentee voting is likely to be pretty high this year and the mail system is common amongst the incarcerated to speak with their lawyers and loved ones.

<comment><USER66> Systems shouldn't be optimized for narrow edge cases, like incarcerated mail or mail in ballots, but for the typical case. The majority of all mail is advertisements and bills. I suspect if you asked people to vote, they'd prefer Amazon packages get priority.

<comment><USER67> > Systems shouldn't be optimized for narrow edge cases, like incarcerated mail > or mail in ballots

Millions of incarcerated, an entire state for mail-in-ballots--these are very typical use-cases.

> I suspect if you asked people to vote, they'd prefer Amazon packages get > priority.

We've never voted on allowing anti-competitive behavior before, why start now?

You just really want your gadgets, don't you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Good. How often is mail something I need vs spam, or things that could be emailed to me or sent digitally.

Amazon are things I needed delivered.

</comment><comment><USER69> USPS should start their own e-commerce website. "Amazon" is a utility.

</comment><comment><USER70> If the USPS would stop filling my box with pounds of junk newsprint and other spam, then I might be sympathetic. Amazon sends me stuff I ask for. The majority of stuff USPS sends me goes directly in the trash. It shouldn't be allowed to send people bulk mail unless that person opts in. Mailbox spam is worse than digital spam because there is a distinct environmental cost to printing so much crap. USPS shouldn't be providing discounted services for anyone.

</comment><comment><USER71> Amazon's contract probably pays extra for every parcel delivered on time.

Whereas other USPS users just pay to have it delivered 'probably' tomorrow.

The way to fix this is to align the incentives... Let any company pay only if delivered by a deadline, and let USPS decide what to deliver first.

<comment><USER72> Additionally, the USPS is incentivized to do this because they're underfunded. Amazon has money, so they're forced to do business with who can help pay the bills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is fine with me. Most of the mail I get from the USPS is junk, and the rest is from Amazon and Ebay. I'd prefer to get what I want faster than the junk.

<comment><USER73> Yeah how about non-amazon shops?

<comment><USER14> If they were as good as Amazon I would buy from them, but they aren't, so I don't.

This is just the USPS giving service to what people care about most. They have no obligation to treat all sources of mail equally.

Non-Amazon retailers are of course free to pay for better service, and if they can't afford it, then they don't deserve it. If they were as good as Amazon they could afford it, as a result of customers paying for what they want.

<comment><USER74> > They have no obligation to treat all sources of mail equally.

Yes they do, they have a legal monopoly on certain kinds of delivery and that comes with corresponding obligations.

<comment><USER14> No they don't. I don't believe you. Point us to the statute that says they have this obligation.

<comment><USER75> 39 U.S.C. § 101

<comment><USER14> That doesn't say the USPS has to treat all sources of mail equally. It says they have to deliver to everyone, which they do.

<comment><USER75> Among other things, it says that the USPS must prioritize expeditious delivery of "important letter mail". This has usually been interpreted to mean that traditional postal service – first-class letter envelopes – must have top priority, above things like package delivery, contracted last-mile Amazon delivery, etc.

<comment><USER14> That is completely different from treating all mail equally. In fact, it is the opposite of that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Where do I start to learn Ajax? - <AUTHOR>

Really want to know how to create cool forms, with the help of JavaScript. Rails main functionality, is basically Ajax, and being a Rails coder, I'd love to know a little bit more about this "Ajax". <comment><USER2> See this one from Mozilla:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Ajax](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Ajax)

</comment><comment><USER3> Read XMLHttpRequest specification, www.w3.org</comment>


Cloudflare's 22.214.171.124 might lead to slower CDN performance - <AUTHOR> https://www.sajalkayan.com/post/cloudflare-1dot1dot1dot1.html <comment><USER2> > Dear Cloudflare, please turn on ECS by default.

Cloudflare has made it clear that they won't. From [https://developers.cloudflare.com/22.214.171.124/nitty-gritty- detai...](https://developers.cloudflare.com/126.96.36.199/nitty-gritty-details/) ,

> 22.214.171.124 is a privacy centric resolver so it does not send any client IP > information and does not send the EDNS Client Subnet Header to authoritative > servers

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I quoted that in the post. Regardless, I make the case for EDNS Client Subnet</comment></comment>


How To – Literally – Sound More Confident and Persuasive - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/smarter-living/how-to-sound-more-confident-persuasive.html <comment><USER2> > "Sometimes we think crafting the perfect email will be the best way to > persuade people," he said. "But what we find in our work is the voice can be > quite impactful."

Conversely, I think this is a large part of why I agonise over emails, and generally prefer to just go and talk to people. When I talk to someone, my attention is on their reactions, and I choose how to say things in response to that. In writing, I'm speculating about how every word will be perceived, spending effort imagining fictional readers.</comment>


Two gay men wanted a baby and a surrogate helped - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/they-were-gay-and-wanted-a-baby-she-loved-being-pregnant-they-made-a-deal/2018/09/07/a001f19c-9014-11e8-bcd5-9d911c784c38_story.html <comment><USER2> The most famous football (soccer) player in the world was outed? No, he wasn't. He got several kids already this way. Good so.</comment>


FCC will also order states to scrap plans for their own net neutrality laws - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/11/fcc-will-also-order-states-to-scrap-plans-for-their-own-net-neutrality-laws/ <comment><USER2> Does this also mean the FCC will attempt to invalidate those state laws bought by ISPs to block municipal network competition?</comment>


Fashion for Nerds by Example - <AUTHOR> http://nerdboyfriend.com/directory/ <comment><USER2> Wow! Historical pictures of famous people and links to the clothing they wore. Which you can actually buy.

Some serious work has gone into this. And it doesn't even seem to be monetized - the links are without any affiliate referrer information

<comment><USER3> That actually really sucks that it does not have any descriptions, "about us" or anything.

As a non-fashion person myself I didn't understand what the site was about you I read your comment.

I can see how this would be a great resource for fashion minded people.

Ps. If the owner of the site need help monetizing, let me know, I can help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's nice and all, but I fail to see what's wrong with my Airwalks/Sketchers, jeans, black tee shirt and charcoal-colored hoodie.

<comment><USER5> That's nice and all, but I fail to see what's wrong with my Airwalks/Sketchers, jeans, black tee shirt and black-colored hoodie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those interested, the site's run and curated by Roxana Altamirano. She has great taste. [http://putthison.com/post/655938745/our-fam-roxana-from- nerd...](http://putthison.com/post/655938745/our-fam-roxana-from-nerd- boyfriend-breaks-down)

<comment><USER7> How do you know this? This site needs an about page with links.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm happy to see a fashion site that isn't about bare chested young males in sexual positions. It's a nice change to see a fashion blog for stylish influential men in good clothes. Thank you for the post!

<comment><USER9> Check out "Put this on" and "Kempt."

<comment><USER10> The Sartorialist! <http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would avoid the William Faulkner look, but this site is wonderful. It makes me want to wear more men's clothing.

</comment><comment><USER12> Photos are nice. At least a little text to let people know what's going on would make it even better. Not everyone has context right off the bat (and people who click through search results aren't necessarily going to read your clever domain name).

</comment><comment><USER13> Great content, but a really badly put together site.

</comment><comment><USER14> So that's pretty amazing.</comment>


What caused the Black Death and could it strike again? (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/what-caused-the-black-death-and-could-it-strike-again <comment><USER2> The US Rocky Mountain region gets a handful of cases every year. It's easily treatable with antibiotics if caught early.

<comment><USER3> Idaho just got a case a week or two ago! The kid will be alright because of antibiotics.

<comment><USER4> According to this article, _" Even with the best treatment, some 14 per cent of pneumonic plague victims still die."_

<comment><USER2> Over 80% of plague cases in the United States are of the bubonic form, which is less often fatal. [0]

The case of the boy in Idaho is bubonic.

[0] [https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/plague/maps/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yersinia pestis, and your choice of "no" and "yes, this happens yearly"

</comment><comment><USER6> I understand the article, but its quite a wide berth to just stop OBOR for that, the routes also foster more efficient trade and commercial activity between hubs.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, it must be able to travel on people or their possessions in airplanes. I don't think it's fair to just blame China for moving it along, when there are many many other vectors. If there's some special reason obor is dangerous, call it out. Otherwise, airplanes exist!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Well, iff the reader accounts for the headline's question implicit qualifier: "could it strike _us_ again" where we probably aren't in China or Kazakhstan ...

... then Betteridge's Law applies as always.

(But seriously, this qualifier almost always applies when discussing any kind of non-universal disaster or malaise. Some resource-stripped sh&thole on the other side of the world could get _overrun by zombies_ and it still needn't matter to us because it's only a resource-stripped sh&thole.)

<comment><USER9> Zombies are a physical impossibility, so nobody sensible worries about zombie attacks.

<comment> King-Aaron > so nobody sensible worries about zombie attacks

As an interesting aside to this comment: [https://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombie/index.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/phpr/zombie/index.htm)

<comment><USER10> I guess the CDC does this in good faith but for military, zombie scenarios are a way to prepare for civilian uprisings without explicitly naming it. Easier to make a "zombie plague preparedness" exercise than a "Trump supporters take arms when their president is impeached".

Zombies are a local inside enemy that allow training on the domestic territory. Hard to name a fictional enemy that would not make headlines otherwise.

<comment><USER11> Would a generic "terrorists" label spur too much controversy?

<comment><USER10> Terrorists that would take over a whole civilian area and are able to send waves of thousands of infantry? Yes, clearly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your Thoughts Can Release Abilities Beyond Normal Limits - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?v=1&id=your-thoughts-can-release-abilities-beyond-normal-limits <comment><USER2> A quote: "There seems to be a simple way to instantly increase a person's level of general knowledge. Psychologists ..."

Ahh. Psychologists. Expectations calibrated.

"Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right."

Ah, yes -- that conclusion should be easy to rigorously quantify, explain in neuroscientific terms, turn into a general theory, and replicate before anyone assumes we're doing actual science. But no one will shape a theory, there will be no replications, and this study, like 99% of psychology studies, will disappear without a trace, only to be inadvertently repeated years from now by someone who will arrive at the opposite conclusion.

<comment><USER3> _explain in neuroscientific terms_

Isn't that putting the cart before the horse? The article draws attention to a phenomenon that isn't predicted by current theory. Before a predictive theory has been developed, there is even some censorship or bias risk in using neuroscientific terms.

<comment><USER2> >> explain in neuroscientific terms

> Isn't that putting the cart before the horse?

Not in science. In science, the explanation is both the cart and the horse. No explanation, no science. Einstein didn't win a Nobel Prize for noting that electrons are emitted by a metal surface, he won for _explaining why_ they are emitted. Had Einstein been a psychologist, publishing the fact that electrons are emitted (for simply _describing_ ) would have been enough.

> The article draws attention to a phenomenon that isn't predicted by current > theory.

That's uncontroversial, since there are no theories in psychology, only descriptions. This, by the way, is why the director of the NIMH recently decided to abandon the DSM, to so-called "bible" of psychiatry and psychology, on the ground that it only contains descriptions and therefore has no scientific value (the DSM will remain as a diagnostic guide):

[http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- dia...](http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming- diagnosis.shtml)

Quote: "... symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment ... Patients with mental disorders deserve better."

> Before a predictive theory has been developed, there is even some censorship > or bias risk in using neuroscientific terms.

I think there's little risk in asking "Where's the science?"

<comment><USER3> _In science, the explanation is both the cart and the horse._

I'm sorry, but no. Observation comes first, then hypotheses, then prediction, then verification. Explanations go from proposed to confirmed, but they are certainly not the genesis of scientific knowledge. The phenomenon itself _must_ come first, otherwise all you have is the fitting of facts to theory.

So, we have observations w/out a coherent, compelling, or generally agreed-to theory. If and when a successful theory is developed, it will predict observations to date and predict more effects not yet observed or observed and ignored. Well, that sounds like a pretty exciting field of science, actually.

<comment><USER2> >> In science, the explanation is both the cart and the horse.

> I'm sorry, but no. Observation comes first, then hypotheses, then > prediction, then verification.

The corpus of scientific theory is a set of tested, falsifiable _explanations_. Legitimate sciences don't rely on mere descriptions, even well-tested ones.

But let's take your claim and test it scientifically -- let's assume that we don't need explanations, we can get by with your stated criteria: observations, "hypotheses, then prediction, then verification." Here goes:

Let's say I'm a doctor and I've created a revolutionary cure for the common cold. My cure is to shake a dried gourd over the cold sufferer until he gets better. The cure might take a week, but it always works. My method is repeatable and perfectly reliable, and I've published my cure in a refereed scientific journal (there are now any number of phony refereed scientific journals). And, because (in this thought experiment) science can get along without defining theories, I'm under no obligation to try to explain my cure, or consider alternative explanations for my breakthrough — I only have to describe it, just like a psychologist.

Because I've cured the common cold, and because I've met all the requirements that psychology recognizes for science, I deserve a Nobel Prize. Yes or no?

Ask yourself what's wrong with this picture, and notice that the same thing is wrong with psychology — all description, no explanation, no established principles on which different psychologists agree, no effort to build consensus, and no unifying theories.

> So, we have observations w/out a coherent, compelling, or generally agreed- > to theory. If and when a successful theory is developed, it will predict > observations to date and predict more effects not yet observed or observed > and ignored. Well, that sounds like a pretty exciting field of science, > actually.

Yes -- and shaking a dried gourd can cure the common cold.

<comment><USER3> To continue your thought experiment, another researcher designs a new, double- blind trial of gourds, and discovers that while gourds per se have no effect, the placebo effect is statistically significant.

There is no explanation for WHY expectations would effect outcomes. In fact, any explanation at this stage would be provisional and highly suspect. And yet, there it is. What are we to do, ignore this phenomenon as if it didn't exist? Question the statistical ability of the researcher, and all other researchers who document a placebo effect?

And lo, the messenger. Ready, aim, fire.

<comment><USER2> > To continue your thought experiment, another researcher designs a new, > double-blind trial of gourds, and discovers that while gourds per se have no > effect, the placebo effect is statistically significant.

Without a search for causes, for explanations, even the placebo effect is routinely disregarded. For example, it has been recently discovered that all psychological therapies are equally efficacious. Until now, the assumption was that Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy was superior to others, but that's been disproven. But, even though all therapies produce the same outcome, no one in psychology seems willing to consider the idea that it's all placebo effect.

> In fact, any explanation at this stage would be provisional and highly > suspect.

Except the one that Occam's razor suggests, the default assumption under these circumstances: placebo effect. Or, perhaps better, the non-explanation suggested by the null hypothesis -- nothing meaningful has been measured and no conclusions can be drawn, which I think is your point.

> What are we to do, ignore this phenomenon as if it didn't exist?

No, but as scientists, we would do well to avoid drawing any conclusions not supported by rigorous experiment -- including the responsibility to propose and then test a theory about what's been observed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _In many cases, thinking that we are limited is itself a limiting factor._

I've noticed this is true in ever facet of my life. When I was 14, I memorized pi to 50 digits with almost no effort. Later, I memorized it to 100, then 200. I realized at that point that I could memorize anything that I wanted to. I memorize phone numbers, credit card numbers, everything with almost no effort and not using any mnemonic device. It's so handy when buying something on the Internet to have every credit card in my wallet memorized.

Invariably when I demonstrate this to someone I get the, "Oh I could never do that, my memory is terrible." I actually convinced a friend of mine many years ago that he could in fact memorize pi to 100 digits... and he did and still remembers it to this day. I'm convinced anyone can do this and the major thing stopping them is their belief that they can't do it.

<comment><USER5> I'm happy you have this ability, but suggesting that everyone else just isn't living up to their potential because of some mental block that you have supposedly (and accidentally) overcome is, perhaps, limiting your compassion. You are very lucky to have an exceptional memory; others are not so lucky, and must work hard to do what costs you no effort. Supposing they just aren't trying hard enough or are succumbing to some crippling lack of self-faith is belittling and people will rightfully resent it.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure if you read my comment before becoming offended by it.

Your response makes it all about me, but I specifically mentioned other people being surprised by their own memorization capabilities after I asked them to consider that maybe they're more capable of memorizing numbers than they believed.

Your comment also says that I memorize through "no effort" when I stated, "almost no effort" which is > "no effort". When I originally memorized pi to 50 digits it took about 15 minutes which is what I could consider "almost no effort" but that's more than 15 seconds which is what I would consider "no effort".

And I'm sorry my comment made you resentful. Hopefully you don't resent other people telling you how with little effort they were able to increase their vertical jump or learn how to play the guitar.

<comment><USER6> > _" I'm not sure if you read my comment before becoming offended by it."_

That post didn't read to me like he was in the slightest bit offended.

It's simply making the point that if you view the world through a lens of "you can do anything if you just try" then there's a downside of becoming less compassionate as one might ascribe to laziness what may (more correctly) be ascribed to a genuine physical or mental inability.

<comment><USER4> _That post didn 't read to me like he was in the slightest bit offended._

He said that my post was belittling and he was resentful of it.

That seems to be a textbook definition of offended. Please tell me how I misunderstood.

<comment><USER5> I am not offended. I wrote that the sentiment I described was belittling and people would resent it.

<comment><USER4> _I am not offended. I wrote that the sentiment I described was belittling and people would resent it._

Sorry, I don't believe you. You were either directly speaking for yourself or you were using weasel words a la, "people would resent it."

In either case, you should man up to the fact that you were truly speaking for yourself. There were three people that voiced their offense at what I said. Two appeared to not be able to avoid petty insults and name-calling. One of those two ended up deleting the dozen or so responses they had in here, apparently ashamed of what they wrote.

I'm still hoping that you'll own your words more than the other two.

<comment><USER5> You are very much mistaken, and are making a fool of yourself.

<comment><USER4> What an absurd thing to say. I feel sorry for any kids you may have if this is how you speak to people.

Someone worthwhile would just admit they were offended at what I said and move on with their life. I'm sorry you aren't such a person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In my Psych course in college we were told on how playing on gender roles can affect performance. Boys and girls were given a math test. On average they performed equally. However when they were given the test and told that the test was also to evaluate how girls do as compared to boys the results were interesting. Girls did worse then average on being told this and boys did _better_ than average. This article seems to reinforce this point, as the expectation that boys would do better actually caused them to perform better than average. It also points out how corrosive stereotypes can be, as just the expectation that girls would not do well in math caused a drop in their performance. I don't have references for these studies unfortunately.

<comment><USER8> Boys were more motivated by competition, and girls were stressed by expectations that boys will be better.

Regarding the original article, people who were told the answer got flashed might simply doubted their intuition less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _In many cases, thinking that we are limited is itself a limiting factor._

I've noticed this with self confidence as well. Its interesting because suppose there were two people who were both identical in capability - the one with confidence will do much better. He/She will put ideas out, will come across as more impressive to other people, and in the long term grow faster than the unconfident person because of it...

I mention it because I was surprised when I realized that success is not just intelligence, hard work, and social interaction, but that success is also intertwined with general personality characteristics, like confidence.

<comment><USER10> Confidence plays a massive role in success. If you can balance the fine line between confidence and arrogance you'll find more doors open up to you than ever before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We've known for a while now that the placebo effect is not just psychological; it affects real physical change.

In one experiment, when given a morphine placebo, patients reported pain relief, but when a morphine-blocker was silently introduced, the placebo morphine no longer worked. [*[http://letterstonature.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/the- placebo-...](http://letterstonature.wordpress.com/2008/08/27/the-placebo- effect-it%E2%80%99s-all-in-your-head)]

It's fascinating and deserves more research.

<comment><USER12> Good Wired article on the subject [1], especially about Fabrizio Benedetti [2], a neurologist who has mapped the various hormones and mechanisms that underly the placebo effect.

(One fascinating claim mentioned in the article is that in clinical trials, Valium can no longer be statistically distinguished from placebo, possibly due to patients' expectations. This statistical skew in favour of placebo is problematic for a lot of drug research, essentially preventing manufacturers from proving that their drug works.)

[1] [http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all)

[2] [http://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/neurobiology-of- placebos-...](http://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/neurobiology-of-placebos- with-fabrizio-benedetti-bsp-77.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> semi-CSB that may be related:

I often travel with electronic prototypes and/or custom parts, which can be really annoying if you have to cross an international border and go through customs.

I found that the best way to get through it speedily is to also carry one of my Antbots, and go into sales pitch mode when asked to explain it. People will automatically want to get rid of a traveling salesman and the fastest way to do so is to let you through.

Got me out of a ticket once, too.

<comment><USER4> Yeah there's a number of techniques similar to that which get people to leave you alone. Here's my favorite:

[http://www.daily-comix.com/image/comic/small/1307/jesus- save...](http://www.daily-comix.com/image/comic/small/1307/jesus-saves-bus- seats-alone-jesus-comic-1373668240.jpg)

<comment><USER14> As long as we're trading comic links - it can also be used as perimeter defense.

[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00014.htm](http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff100/fv00014.htm)

or as a method for private communication

[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff800/fv00751.htm](http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff800/fv00751.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I am a great fan of Napoleon Hill.

But my eyes always glazed over while listening to him talk about tapping into the "Infinite Intelligence".

If nothing else, I would like to thank this article for gently reminding me that I do _not_ know everything there is to know about this universe.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm glad lutusp has already jumped in here to decry the shoddy quality of "science" relied on to build the opinion piece kindly submitted here. He is correct that psychology often relies on data unrepresentative of humankind as a whole,

[http://hci.ucsd.edu/102b/readings/WeirdestPeople.pdf](http://hci.ucsd.edu/102b/readings/WeirdestPeople.pdf)

often engages in dodgy data manipulation after gathering the data,

[http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/](http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~uws/)

and is usually part of a larger scientific universe of rushing to publish.

[http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/mks/statmistakes/filedrawer.h...](http://www.ma.utexas.edu/users/mks/statmistakes/filedrawer.html)

That said, while we will always have to be wary of grandiose claims about preliminary study results,

[http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html](http://norvig.com/experiment- design.html)

and especially about "mind over matter" claims,

[http://norvig.com/prayer.html](http://norvig.com/prayer.html)

there are skeptical psychologists

[http://www.lscp.net/persons/dupoux/teaching/JOURNEE_AUTOMNE_...](http://www.lscp.net/persons/dupoux/teaching/JOURNEE_AUTOMNE_CogMaster_2011-12/docs/Lilienfeld_2004_Teaching_PseudoScience.pdf)

[http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/o...](http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2005/september-05/the-10-commandments- of-helping-students-distinguish-science-from-pseudoscience-in-psychology.html)

[http://www.psichi.org/pubs/articles/article_730.aspx](http://www.psichi.org/pubs/articles/article_730.aspx)

and other researchers in psychology who apply rigor to their discipline, so over time we may actually find out something about human behavior from psychology more reliable than the weak and debatable assertions found in the article submitted here.

AFTER EDIT:

Because the submitted article mentions the placebo effect, in the usual manner of popular articles, perhaps I should share here some links that are helpful for understanding what placebo effects are all about. Some of these online links cite quite a few useful scholarly publications.

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/behold-the-spin-what- a-n...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/behold-the-spin-what-a-new-survey- of-of-placebo-prescribing-really-tells-us/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/michael-specter-on- the-p...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/michael-specter-on-the-placebo- effect/)

"In other words, the best research we have strongly suggests that placebo effects are illusions, not real physiological effects. The possible exception to this are the subjective symptoms of pain and nausea, where the placebo effects are highly variable and may be due to subjective reporting."

Despite the numerous press releases on the Web pointing to publications co- authored by Ted Kaptchuk, who has NO medical training or credentials,

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/dummy-medicine-dummy- doc...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/dummy-medicine-dummy-doctors-and- a-dummy-degree-part-2-0-harvard-medical-school-and-the-curious-case-of-ted- kaptchuk-omd/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/dummy-medicine-dummy- doc...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/dummy-medicine-dummy-doctors-and- a-dummy-degree-part-2-2-harvard-medical-school-and-the-curious-case-of-ted- kaptchuk-omd-cont-again/)

the statements typically found in those articles, such as "Recent research demonstrates that placebo effects are genuine psychobiological phenomenon [sic] attributable to the overall therapeutic context, and that placebo effects can be robust in both laboratory and clinical settings" are untrue.

[http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-rise-and- fa...](http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-rise-and-fall-of- placebo-medicine/)

"Despite the spin of the authors – these results put placebo medicine into crystal clear perspective, and I think they are generalizable and consistent with other placebo studies. For objective physiological outcomes, there is no significant placebo effect. Placebos are no better than no treatment at all."

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20091554](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20091554)

"We did not find that placebo interventions have important clinical effects in general. However, in certain settings placebo interventions can influence patient-reported outcomes, especially pain and nausea, though it is difficult to distinguish patient-reported effects of placebo from biased reporting. The effect on pain varied, even among trials with low risk of bias, from negligible to clinically important. Variations in the effect of placebo were partly explained by variations in how trials were conducted and how patients were informed."

Fabrizio Benedetti, a co-author of one of the most cited papers who is also a medical doctor, sums up his view this way: "I am a doctor, it is true, but I am mainly a neurophysiologist, so I use the placebo response as a model to understand how our brain works. I am not sure that in the future it will have a clinical application."

To sum up, despite claims to the contrary by a person without medical training who is often covered by the lay press, the best-considered view among medical practitioners with clinical experience is that the placebo response has no clinical application.

See also:

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-thinking-make-it- so...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/does-thinking-make-it-so-cam- placebo-fantasy-versus-scientific-reality/)

[http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html](http://www.skepdic.com/placebo.html)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/revisiting-daniel- moerma...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/revisiting-daniel-moerman-and- placebo-effects/)

<comment><USER17> While I would agree that "the placebo response has no clinical application", I would not discount it so easily. Modern medicine tries to sweep all kinds of things under the "placebo effect" rug. In general, whenever something happens to the human body that we cannot explain by chemistry and mechanics, we call it a "placebo effect". This view of medicine treats the human as two separate entities: the body and the mind.

I believe this is a narrow view. Our brains are not separate from our bodies and have a huge influence over what happens with us. And it seems that at lot of what we previously called "autonomic" systems can be influenced by the mind. This is something we do not understand, which is OK — but I don't think it is OK to mock anyone who says otherwise.

My views on these things changed after, having spent 8 years trying to cure joint pains, I finally got rid of them just by thinking (a simplification, but close enough). Oh, and the throat infections and allergies? Gone, too. That sort of killed my smug scientific approach, or more precisely, made it clear to me that our scientific tools are inadequate and that there are lots of things happening in our bodies that we a) do not understand, b) cannot meaningfully measure, c) cannot reason about in statistical studies. This doesn't mean it is impossible to measure those things, just that at present we do not know how to do it.

I also now believe that "medical training" is not it's all cracked up to be. And I learned that doctors really hate saying "I don't know".

So, I would much rather hear people say "something is happening that we do not understand" rather than discount any articles like this one as pure quackery.

<comment><USER18> > In general, whenever something happens to the human body that we cannot > explain by chemistry and mechanics, we call it a "placebo effect".

If by "we" you mean you, sure. If you mean scientists I call bullshit. You're going to need a good citation to make that claim.

> having spent 8 years trying to cure joint pains, I finally got rid of them > just by thinking

Not surprising. Pain is the one thing you expect to be able to change by "thinking." Pain is perception and placebos (and thinking) change perception.

> Oh, and the throat infections and allergies? Gone, too.

Now we're going down anecdote road. You do realize that allergies change as you age right? My anecdotes: until I was in my late teens / early 20's I didn't have allergies. Then suddenly one year I had them badly. Years later they went away again. My dad never had allergies until they came on strong in his 50's.

Similarly infections come and go.

> And I learned that doctors really hate saying "I don't know".

Good doctors don't. The problem is that the medical profession is full of egos. Egos don't go well with admitting you don't know or are wrong.

<comment><USER17> In other words, you have no idea why the pain comes and goes, or why allergies come and go.

Which is fine.

I'm just trying to say that whenever we don't know, we have a tendency to reject and ridicule _any_ new hypothesis, especially if it's in the field where we also have no idea on how to measure things. So, while agreeing that a scientific approach (measure, quantify, prove, etc) is better, I would not reject nor ridicule hypotheses that we can neither prove nor disprove. Personally, I find them interesting, as they lie on the boundary of what we know and might offer promising research in the future.

[I don't want to pick up on your simplification wrt pain, so I'll just note it's huge. Psychosomatic pain is not about "perception" at all, it's real, and the symptoms are real.]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> FWIW, pretty much the entire sub-field of "priming" in contemporary psychological research has come under significant scrutiny over the past few years. I am no expert, I would encourage you to read this: [https://chronicle.com/article/Power-of- Suggestion/136907](https://chronicle.com/article/Power-of-Suggestion/136907)

"The studies that raise eyebrows are mostly in an area known as behavioral or goal priming, research that demonstrates how subliminal prompts can make you do all manner of crazy things. A warm mug makes you friendlier. The American flag makes you vote Republican. Fast-food logos make you impatient. A small group of skeptical psychologists—let's call them the Replicators—have been trying to reproduce some of the most popular priming effects in their own labs.

What have they found? Mostly that they can't get those results. The studies don't check out. Something is wrong."

</comment><comment><USER20> This is explained simply by setting your mind to something, selective attention, etc. I'm not sure why commenters are looking for exact science when we don't even have a working model of consciousness let alone the subconscious.

When we focus our attention on something, we are applying more brain resources towards that task, sending more energy through our neurons, etc. If sitting in an aircraft simulator makes you more alert due to the excitement of the experience and task, it makes sense that you will invest more energy into it to get a better outcome. Not too mysterious.

I disagree with those commenters who imply that there is nothing scientific about making observations without a theory to attach to it. I actually tink it's a lot more responsible than trying to force a theory that we don't have enough evidence for.

</comment><comment><USER21> Montaigne explained this phenomena over a hundred years ago: [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm#link2H...](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3600/3600-h/3600-h.htm#link2HCH0020)

</comment><comment><USER22> I have experienced this my self in real life. This is very cliché but it reminds me of Starwars, "these are not the droids you are looking for," I have seen the power of thinking influence others in a very positive way.

</comment><comment><USER23> Thought, intention and expectation—these are causal and creative. Our experience of the world is substantially shaped by how we view it.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is easily explained by a broader psychological phenomenon. The brain and ego will invest itself in a task in direct proportion to the expected payoff.

</comment><comment><USER25> ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Ozgun Atasoy is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Marketing at Boston University School of Management.

</comment><comment><USER26> "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't—you're right." – Henry Ford

</comment><comment><USER13> The sleeper must awaken!

</comment><comment><USER27> This is all about releasing the blocking mechanism that exists. I feel people like Eckhart Tolle have somehow mastered this, at least in the realm of the scope of abilities they are most comfortable being confined in.

<comment><USER28> Eckhart Tolle is pretty much repackaging meditation practises with a huge dose of new age nonsense. As such, there are certainly the odd kernel of useful stuff in there, but I'd recommend a decent introduction to meditation over Tolle any day.

<comment><USER27> I've not read any books of his, though I've yet to see in video him say anything that was non-sensical. What are you referring to?

<comment><USER29> Uh, The Power of Now starts off with something about quantum entanglement "proving" that we're all one with each other.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Powir – open-source windows based power and battery monitoring tool - <AUTHOR> https://powir.slapbot.me/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! For anyone wondering what is this tool and why we need it..

I'd like to wind back couple of weeks ago when I was looking for battery monitoring/analyzing tool and was shocked to find that there existed no such tool on the market, so I decided to build one for myself!

Powir is a tool designed to help people evaluate their power and battery condition of their windows based systems. It achieves the goal by showcasing various metrics collected from the system and doing statistics to formulate an overall benchmark of your system.

Some of its features include:

\- 100% portable app with no installations required: download and run! \- Provides you with a simple and clean UI to list your battery and system information. \- Shows you the trend in battery capacity as well estimate life since the OS was installed. \- Ability to export all the data via various formats: PDF (app), JSON (processed), HTML (original report)

I've launched it on ProductHunt as well: [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/powir](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/powir)

App is completely open source and available on Github at: [https://github.com/SlapBot/powir/](https://github.com/SlapBot/powir/)</comment>


How to clean an airliner - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151004-how-to-clean-an-airliner <comment><USER2> Bed bugs can be a major problem. They thrive in the wiring looms and complex mechanical motor systems of modern airline seats, especially the flatbed types in the higher classes. I have personally experienced a bed-bug-ridden long haul flight London-Brazil. Aircrew told me mine was not an isolated incident (flatbed sleep, middle of the night bedbug attack inside my collar).

One of the issues is that certain highly effective fumigants are illegal in most countries, and those that are not are seeing developing resistance. You need powerful fumigation to get into all the tiny little areas of a very complex machine that is an aircraft. Some airlines, I am told, will wait for the aircraft to fly to a country where fumigant policy is more "relaxed" and give the plane a full dose poisoning there.

<comment><USER3> You can kill them by heating the air inside the plane. They and many other unpleasant contemporaries cannot stand a certain amount of heat.

I experienced bed bugs once and since that horror have a very uneasy feeling about hotels, trains, planes etc.

<comment><USER4> "Horror" is about the right term. I wouldn't want to wish them on anybody, except perhaps the politicians in my country.

<comment><USER2> There is one horror even greater. That is to wish the politicians in my country onto the bed bugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I worked for few days after high school with company that do cabin cleaning during aeroplane ground handling. This is in SouthEast Asia, and I'm dealing with budget airlines. Most have 1hour turnaround time. So imagine inside the cabin..

00:00 - Passenger disembark

00:15 - Everything started

00:20 - Cleaning/supply crew / repair crew / QC inspector (12 unit)

00:30 - Food crew (4 unit)

00:40 - Flight attendant & safety officer (8 unit)

00:50 - Cleaning crew / repair crew / safety officer /food crew disembark. I believe captain and copilot will be on the plane by now.

Each steps done by different team with almost no synergy with others. It was not pleasant experience if you consider the space inside the smallest 737. If you'd think that I'll clean every nook and cranny, you're way off your chart. We're specifically looking for visible stain(vomit/blood/soda). The only special treatment First & Business Class get is stricter QC.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're at all squeamish, I wouldn't recommend searching the Flyertalk forum for the word 'vomit'. There you'll also find comments like "they don't supply us with cleaning materials, we have to use the soap from the toilets [to clean up issues mid-flight]" from some flight attendants.

<comment><USER7> My SO recently left her job as a flight stewardess for a large airline, so I have heard many such interesting stories. On one of her last flights somebody in business class couldn't wait for the bathroom, so they just peed on the floor - then went back to their seat :s

<comment><USER8> So was this a flight to China, or a flight from China?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if there is study correlating ones overall health with number of flights he takes every month.

<comment><USER10> if you're taking >= 1 flight per month, you're probably easily in the top 5% percentile bracket for income world-wide. so, with an appropriately broad perspective, you're probably relatively healthy.

<comment><USER4> > you're probably easily in the top 5% percentile bracket for income world- > wide.

Either that, or your job requires you to be on a flight every month. There /are/ such jobs.</comment></comment></comment>


Trump Plans to Suspend Immigration to U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/us/politics/trump-immigration.html <comment><USER2> this and his other positions are so inane that they aren't even worth arguing against anymore. trump is a domestic terrorist, pure and simple, and he is completely despicable. i have been downvoted on hacker news for stating the u.s. is an authoritarian state, and here he and his sycophants continue, completely unchecked by anyone, in this direction. a standing president is using a public health crisis to broadly increase unchecked power in order to secure his re-election. i would not be surprised if his next actions start trying to get rid of the election altogether. all of these actions are disconnecting families, ruining careers and lives, and are also killing people, both immigrants and citizens. trump is throwing the united states under the bus to serve his ego. if this isn't treason, then i don't know what is. everything that has been fought for (woman's rights, minority rights, immigrant rights, checks and balances, openness, etc.) is being completely eroded by the greatest narcissist and sycophantic following the world has ever seen.

i, a u.s. citizen, am at the point where i have no choice but to start considering moving out of the u.s. to rejoin my family. it's at the point that it may be years, if ever, before they're ever allowed to come back to the u.s. and it's likely at least a year before i ever see them again.

<comment><USER3> At what point will the EU be justified to invade the US to liberate the people?

<comment><USER4> The EU doesn't liberate the Chinese citizens from the CPP, or seem to help Hong Kong.

So, never?

<comment><USER3> I don't see how that is relevant.

B>A does not imply A=0

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heh, why am I not surprised?

To be honest, the only thing that surprises me is that he hadn't done this already.

</comment><comment><USER6> Restricting immigration may not logically follow the pandemic crisis and associated lockdown but it does track with similar decisions by China, Taiwan, Australia, France and Germany to name a few, and there are many others.

Certainly, it seems difficult to separate the administration's perceived proclivities from good decision making but if one argues that the lockdown, in present form, should continue, I'm not sure I see malice as obvious.

</comment><comment><USER7> What could possibly go wrong?

</comment><comment><USER8> Didn't Trump want to build a wall? Not surprised all the inane things he promised are slowly falling into place.</comment>


Ask HN: Experiences with running an Engineering Blog as a small company? - <AUTHOR> I work as a developer at a small, tech-company with about 15 engineers.
I really enjoy reading engineering blog posts by other (mostly way bigger) companies and was wondering whether it would make sense to start an engineering blog ourselves.
It could attract new developers who see that we do some cool stuff. It could also help retain developers, because they can present the cool technical stuff they did to the world and are happy. That is at least how I would feel.
Of course we don't release cool new stuff all the time and everyone is busy, so I would expect maybe 2 or 3 articles per year.
Does anyone have good or bad experiences with this?
What would you as a developer think about an engineering blog by your employer? <comment><USER2> I would highly recommend starting a blog if you have something you find interesting to say! Or even of you want to demonstrate the message that your company wants to show. I started my blog worldofindie.co.uk purely because I saw other companies posting about what they found interesting, and the comments being full of other cool information taught me so much. I like to post about what I am up to, and write things I would want to read. You may not get much traction at first, but it is sometimes useful to step back and write about stuff in a different way to everyday engineering writing. Basically, go for it.</comment>