2018 reform of EU data protection rules - <AUTHOR> https://ec.europa.eu/commission/priorities/justice-and-fundamental-rights/data-protection/2018-reform-eu-data-protection-rules_en <comment><USER2> Enforcement factsheet: [https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta- political/files/d...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta- political/files/data-protection-factsheet-role-edpb_en.pdf)

Pretty clearly primarily enforced by national regulatory agencies, _who are the only ones who can apply fines_.

It mentions citizens taking companies to court, but [https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta- political/files/d...](https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta- political/files/data-protection-overview-citizens_en.pdf) says that's for monetary damages, not for fines. This is unchanged from previous laws.

Can people stop freaking out now?

<comment><USER3> In Germany offenses against the GDPR can cause a "Abmahnung" which do not result in a fine but a charge. There a legions of filthy lawyers waiting for the 25.5.

<comment> nils-m-holm This is a big problem here in Germany and might very well be a reason to shut down my site on 5/24.

<comment> nils-m-holm Would the downvoters care to explain what offended them? Looking the other way does not help solve a problem.

<comment><USER2> Well, my immediate thoughts in response to that reply were:

"Why is some extra law specific to Germany relevant to my comment? This is a discussion about the GDPR, not about national data protection laws."

<comment> nils-m-holm It's not about national laws, it's about the implementation of the GDPR on a national level (namely C&D letters).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a great resource because it is from the EU, provides clear examples, cites the actual legislation and Article 29 Working Party Guidelines (which is the group that is tasked with preparing official opinions on GDPR).

I think that if you want to really comprehend something, you should go to the primary source. The GDPR legislation is far more approachable than it seems (as an official 261 page PDF). When the preamble and the mechanical bits about how the GDPR will be governed are removed, the parts that important to companies are only 34 pages long. You can use this to guide your reading: [https://www.enterpriseready.io/gdpr/how-to-read- gdpr/](https://www.enterpriseready.io/gdpr/how-to-read-gdpr/)

<comment><USER5> I respectfully disagree. This is a terrible resource, which frequently says things that are either mostly vacuous or just plain wrong.

For example, here's their page on the right to erasure:

[https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/refo...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/dealing-citizens/do-we- always-have-delete-personal-data-if-person-asks_en)

Its opening paragraph reads as if data subjects have an automatic right to have their data deleted unless one of the three exceptions applies. In fact, Article 17 of the GDPR itself grants that right only under a list of specific circumstances, and the exceptions are just that, which is an entirely different situation that will lead to the opposite decision on whether data must be erased in many normal situations. Even the list of exceptions shown isn't complete.

For another example, here's their page on demonstrating compliance:

[https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/refo...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/obligations/how-can-i- demonstrate-my-organisation-compliant-gdpr_en)

There is _literally nothing_ on that page that would help any business I'm dealing with to demonstrate compliance, unless you count the references to the primary sources at the end. There are a couple of ideas about codes of conduct or certifications that contain no substantial details, and even the vague hints about other things you might have to do don't go into any detail about who does or doesn't, leaving the entire page almost entirely content-free unless you happen to be in an industry where the kind of scheme they mention exists.

This sort of "guidance" is everything that is wrong with how the GDPR is being handled. It is verbose, ambiguous, sometimes seriously misleading, and almost entirely non-actionable. I'm actually worse off than I was before I read it, because I know nothing useful now that I didn't know before, I would have been misled by several of the pages such as the one I mentioned above if I hadn't already known better, and that's still half an hour of my life wasted.

<comment><USER4> Well, you're clearly thinking deeply about this and you seem to care. Which is great. I've been digging in deep on this the last few months so I have some thoughts. Respectfully (srsly), I think you might be misinterpreting the legislation (this resource is provides more concrete examples of how you should interpret it).

For example, Article 17(1) lays out the MANY grounds upon which a Data Subject can request erasure. If ONE of the mentioned criteria is met including the very broad Right to Object (Article 21) then it must be erased. 17(2) states you must fwd this request on to other online orgs. 17(3) provides the exceptions for which a Controller can object to the erasure.

It is important to note that the spirit of GDPR is one where Data Subjects rights (to their data, to object) are the default. Sort of like innocent until proven guilty. This is a big shift for most companies who would contend that they own the data & data exhaust from use of their application.

As for compliance demonstration... yes, this is still a mess. My only suggestion there is that if you're working with software companies, try to study what the leaders are doing and take some inspiration. [https://www.enterpriseready.io/gdpr/preparing-for- gdpr/](https://www.enterpriseready.io/gdpr/preparing-for-gdpr/)

Happy to hear your thoughts. Genuinely interested in other people's perspectives on this.

<comment><USER5> _For example, Article 17(1) lays out the MANY grounds upon which a Data Subject can request erasure. If ONE of the mentioned criteria is met including the very broad Right to Object (Article 21) then it must be erased._

Yes, but crucially, if the data is still relevant and you're processing it on a proper basis, the data subject doesn't necessarily have a right to have it erased.

If your only legal basis for processing is consent, subjects get most of the rights under the GDPR automatically and you have very little choice about complying. One of the big changes in the new regime is that consent can be withdrawn retrospectively.

If your basis is legitimate interests, things are more complicated. Subject rights are stronger in this situation than with some of the other legal bases, because they can object to processing. However, the right to object is itself subject to balancing tests that aren't clearly defined, except in the specific case of direct marketing.

For the stronger bases, such as performance of a contract or compliance with legal obligations, subject rights are still quite limited even under the GDPR. For example, under EU VAT rules, we are required by law to keep evidence of where our customers are located for quite a long time, and customers can't require us to delete that evidence prematurely.

There are some other important details to be considered, for example if you're processing data about children, but that seems to be the basic situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This guide does not clarify one important question: Does a company in the EU have to apply gdpr guidelines for none European users. If so, this would be a significant disadvantage for all European companies since their none European competitors obviously only have to comply for European users.

One scenario in which this would be very relevant: A website needs to show a very long consent form to users that want to use their service, under gdpr regulation. Under gdpr these consent forms are very alarming and they will have a drop-off rate. The drop-off rate of the form will be the competitive advantage of none European companies.

Hence, will we see an exodus of European startups from Europe to the US?

<comment><USER7> Maybe I'm just stupid, but that seems very clear to me from article 3.1 [0]:

This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, regardless of whether the processing takes place in the Union or not.

[0]: [https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/](https://gdpr-info.eu/art-3-gdpr/)

<comment><USER6> Ok, let's assume this interpretation is correct.

Targeted advertising will require explicit user consent under gdpr since pii is collected. It's fair to assume that there is no big incentive for a user of a website to consent to targeted ads. Targeted ads are usually way way more profitable that contextual ads. If you are a large publisher, would you really want to have your company in the EU in future?

<comment><USER8> They're only way more profitable right now because they exist. I guess if you want to sell something the EU has pretty much banned, basing your business inside the EU won't work.

<comment><USER9> How can an alternative be more profitable? Targeted ads allow to TARGET someone. That means that instead of wasting views on someone that won't be interested (and thus, be a waste of money) you use it on people that will care.

For sure if you have 5$ of budget per sale, if it takes 1000 views to get a sale or 1 views, you won't pay the same for views in both situation depending on the efficiency of the ad.

<comment><USER10> He did not say that an alternative would be more profitable.

What he meant is that right now, because targeted ads exist, non-targeted ads sell far worse. Once targeted ads are not an option anymore, non-targeted ads will get more attention again, because the demand for advertising will not go away.

There will be somewhat of a drop in demand, because advertising might be less effective, so it makes more sense for companies to invest into developing their products instead. But you can hardly justify unethical behaviour with some industry making money off of it. Drug dealing, slavery, forced prostitution etc. are also illegal, even though there's a hugely profitable market for those.

You have to draw the line somewhere. Governments are supposed to draw the line there, where the effect of doing something results in a net negative for this society by given values that this society considers important.

But even assuming a society only cares about its overall profit, I would be surprised if there's not some effects going on, due to targeted advertising being sharp enough of a tool to psychologically influence people to buy useless crap they don't need. And people buying useless crap they don't need is not good for the overall profit of a society. They could be buying useful crap that they can use to make more of a profit instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> First, I am not a lawyer. I don't even play one on TV.

The big question I keep hearing is; I'm in the US (or other non-EU country), does GDPR apply to my company or organization?

The shortest possible answer is: _Maybe_ :)

The answer is: _YES_ if your company has a physical or legal presence (like an office, employee, parent-company, subsidiary, etc.) in an EU country. The GDPR applies to you and you need to to start reading up ASAP as you only have a few weeks to figure this all out.

The answer is likley: _NO_ (but be careful here) if you have no physical or legal presence in the EU. Bonus points if your business isn't really aimed at the EU.

The answer is likley still: _NO_ if again, you have no physical or legal presence in the EU but do rely on EU traffic as a direct or significant part of your business. At that point is all about how much risk you're willing to take on as we see how this law is interpreted.

Any country can claim this over any other territory they wish. But that doesn't make it true. For the claim to be effective (except by use of force), it must be agreed either with the legal authority of the country.

Right now there appears to be none. No one is clearly citing any treaty with the EU as giving them this authority.

      Disclaimer: This isn't legal advice. This is my personal view
      on a complicated issue that I'm trying to discuss in order
      to learn more myself.

<comment><USER8> They explicitly contradict you.

[https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/refo...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data- protection/reform/rules-business-and-organisations/application-regulation/who- does-data-protection-law-apply_en)

 _The law applies to... 2. a company established outside the EU offering goods /services (paid or for free) or monitoring the behaviour of individuals in the EU._

Do you have any evidence? You're doing business with EU citizens. You allow them to connect to your site.

Wouldn't this operate similarly to how extradition by the US of foreign hackers work?

<comment><USER12> It does not matter what EU thinks. What matters if what can EU do and the answer is nothing unless your company _operates_ in Europe

> Wouldn't this operate similarly to how extradition by the US of foreign > hackers work?

It would not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice guidelines, seems like for most small businesses it will be straight forward to be GDPR compliant

<comment><USER14> you are vastly underestimating the ease of implementation

<comment><USER15> Depends on your business. I didn't find it as hard as PCI compliance for instance

<comment><USER16> Unless you actually maintain full payment account numbers, PCI compliance pretty much boils down to "I pinky-swear I'm not doing anything wrong" and the rules have virtually no teeth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> And for a nice easy to read version of the regulation; [http://gdpr- info.eu/](http://gdpr-info.eu/)

<comment><USER18> With the minor caveat that gdpr-info.eu looks official due to the .eu domain, but is actually run by 'intersoft consulting services AG' as advertising for their consulting service (the content is just the laws of course)

<comment><USER17> True. (although I wouldn't associate .eu with anything being official)

I just like it as it is broken up nicely and has links to any relevant recitals and deregations etc

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> PSA: Please make sure you're not relying on HN comments for your understanding of the GDPR if you're the one responsible in your organization. I need to get back to all the panicked questions CS has forwarded to me (the DPO equivalent for my company), but please understand that there's a lot of misunderstanding in every HN thread on this topic.

<comment><USER20> Heh, I'd say that it's even worse than "misunderstanding".

Besides honest misunderstanding, there's so much FUD being spread by people on HN who are afraid that their greedy data manipulation plan for a startup has been completely foiled...

So much FUD that you definitely feel sometimes that the comments are straight out of [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/)

Caricaturizing (a bit):

"HN1: The GDPR takes away our freedom to make tons of money from your private data! Dirty EU commies and their superstate imposing their law worldwide!

HN2: The law doesn't apply worldwide and it protects my privacy. Just block users which are geographically in the EU. Also, read the law, it's only 60 page and more readable than most RFCs.

HN2: Nah, I'm good, I'll just rely on internet FUD as my main source of info. Dirty EU commie bureaucrats!"

PS: Obviously not all comments are misguided, but good God, there's soooooo many which miss the mark by a mile...

<comment><USER21> Please do not violate the Prime Directive. Thanks.

<comment><USER20> > Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say face-to-face. Don't be snarky. > Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets > more divisive.

I was snarky but it is definitely something I would say to you face-to-face.

The quality of discussion around the GDPR here on HN was not up to the standard quality. Part of it was because, in my opinion, a lot of people here are entrepreneurs and this made them really subjective and almost blind-sided them to the benefits for users.

The GDPR is not perfect but it's a great long term measure, one I hope will be followed (and improved upon!) by other administrations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The more i read about it the more it seems like gdpr will either

\- cause an uproar from small and middle-size businesses in europe

\- not become enforced

the facebooks and amazons of the world are already fine so they won't complain.

</comment><comment><USER23> How does this affect server logs? Under the "what is personal data" section they list ip addresses as personal data.

<comment><USER17> Do you have a legitimate reason for storing that data? Probably not, so just stop it from being logged.

<comment><USER9> Never have been in a DDOS attack? Good luck doing anything without getting the IP.

It's useful to know where the requests come from too. You get a bunch of request from IP that come from a specific peer and that peer is saturated? How could you verify that without a log? You want to add CDN to the right locations. Where should you?

Really, I think it's just make more sense for any small company to block EU and when you have the means to do it correctly (with the help of a competent DPO), then yeah add that EU in your market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can the average lawyer get rich off this?

Can lawyer A (who is not affiliated with the EU government) sue Company B on behalf of the users and get a payday?

For reference, I read a thread where a guy in my town sues businesses for violating the ADA and the settlement is like loser must fix steps and pay plaintiff some compensation. Maybe its this story or maybe its another guy: [http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-landlord-wins-case- agains...](http://www.startribune.com/st-paul-landlord-wins-case-against- serial-ada-litigant/370215081/) , actually I think its this guy [http://www.startribune.com/doctor-lawyer-wheelchair-user- it-...](http://www.startribune.com/doctor-lawyer-wheelchair-user-it-s-the- same-person-and-he-s-filing-disability-lawsuits-by-the-bundle/381330311/)

<comment><USER25> Sue every European company on the basis of logging IPs, should be free money for lawyers

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An important one to note as it's applicable to all businesses whose customers include EU residents because it addresses the collection and processing of their personal data locally and internationally.

<comment><USER26> I honestly can't wait to ask my local retailer what data they have on me based on their loyalty cards. So far they were exempt from data disclosure laws because they were not an IT company.

<comment><USER27> I always lose my loyalty card from time to time (it doesn't have any _loyalty_ advantages you just have to have it to get the discounts) and ask for a new one. I wonder if they were able to link them back together

<comment><USER28> Unless you always pay cash - it should be trivial to link by the payment card number.

<comment><USER27> Do they actually see a card number? Anyway, I have a couple and I have a habit of losing/breaking those as well. I'm just really bad at holding on to cards it seems

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Does anyone have an example of the "documentation of data processing activities"?

Edit: Especially in the context of a company that does not handle/store customer data, but only employee info.

<comment><USER30> [https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general- da...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data- protection-regulation-gdpr/accountability-and-governance/documentation/)

The above link contains a sample Excel template with details of the various information a record of processing should contain. If you are only processing employee data this should be straightforward. It's a link to the ICO, the UK's data protection authority, but it should be useful regardless of where you are (assuming GDPR applies to you of course!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So .... github, sourceforce, bitbucket. When someone asks to delete their data do all their commits have to be deleted or edited to remove their name from the commit logs? How about changelog if the project has one? Comments from source? I'm guessing you'll say "no, because they agreed to open source their data" but how is that any different from agreeing to so-and-so's terms of service?

In the same manor what happens to wikis and wikipedia when a user wants to delete their data?

If the data was copied by another user does that data become their's to keep or does that need to be deleted too? Example: Jill sends Karen Jill's address via Facebook. Jill want's all of Jill's data deleted from Facebook. Does Jill's address she sent to Karen have to be deleted? Pictures? Pre-internet that data would be on a piece of paper in Karen's possession. Now it's less clear as it's really in Facebook's possession and Karen just has access to the data on Facebook's servers. As Karen I'd be upset if what I considered my data (my copy of Karen's address) to be deleted but is that clear in the GDPR?

<comment><USER32> Let's stop coming up with stupid, stupid examples where you have spend more time thinking about how to troll than thinking how the GDPR applies.

(Hint: The right to erasure is not absolute, and applies to personal data.)

<comment><USER31> And what is personal data? this problem exists even without the GDPR, my question is does the GDPR make it law in the EU. In Google Docs if Jill shares a document with Karen and then Jill deletes her account Karen will lose access to the Jill's document. That situation doesn't map to the real world where sharing a document meant Jill sending Karen a physical copy. Personally I consider it a bug given it doesn't fit expectations from the real world. If a document shows up in Karen's files it's Karen's copy of that document. Karen shouldn't have to track which docs are actual copies and which are still considered Jill's.

In any case given it's possible to delete Jill's data from Google is Google required to delete the document from Karen's account even if Karen has made a copy? Where is this covered? It's not really Karen's copy, both are Google's copy. It's on their servers.

This is not trolling. This is trying to understand the GDPR.

<comment><USER32> What, just like you don't "own" software, you buy a license which can be revoked at any time? The digital world doesn't map to physical concepts any more. Even before the GDPR, Google has always been able to shutter your account for various ToS violations, and you better hope you had backed it up.

<comment><USER31> What happens at google is irrelevant except to demonstrate the issue. The question is whether or not the GDRP __REQUIRES __that Jill 's copies she sent to Karen get deleted from Karen's account.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Your Kindle got stolen? Don't count on Amazon's help - <AUTHOR> http://vaultausir.blogspot.com/2013/02/your-kindle-got-stolen-dont-count-on.html <comment><USER2> I'm sorry....but the OP is being naive and is wrong to slam Amazon here. The protocol Amazon has established here is sound...are they supposed to deliver details of a device just because someone who was once registered to it demands so? In 99% of the cases, sure, no harm can come from it...but it's better for Amazon to adopt a clear line on this, so that their customer reps don't f--k up on the 1 percent of requests that are actually malicious social engineering attempts

* I'm not without sympathy...I was once liberated of much more expensive devices at gunpoint...and it is frustrating that the tracking capability is limited, even with a police order.

<comment><USER3> _The protocol Amazon has established here is sound..._

The story I read could be summarized as: "Amazon has no protocol for stolen Kindles and flies by the seat of their pants instead, even if that means telling paying customers things that are not true."

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry, but paying customers of what, exactly? Amazon's Kindle device? Amazon's Kindle store?

Which of these products comes with a service which helps you find your stolen goods? Amazon offers this as a convenience feature, not as part of your purchase price of the Kindle. A purchaser of a Kindle is not entitled to this service.

<comment><USER3> _I'm sorry, but paying customers of what, exactly? Amazon's Kindle device? Amazon's Kindle store?_

Both, presumably.

 _Which of these products comes with a service which helps you find your stolen goods?_

Let's suppose that neither does. What does this have to do with "telling your paying customers things that are not true?"

<comment><USER4> Okay yeah that was not kosher, but I was more addressing his sense of entitlement that, how DARE they not give him everything he wants and more?!

When you buy an item that is capable of being tracked (iPhone, car) you generally pay for a service to locate it (iCloud, onStar). Otherwise you have to get law enforcement actively involved, not just you, which raises the bar a bit for those who qualify.

Imagine the Amazon nightmare: "Hey Amazon? Yeah I misplaced my Kindle, is it at my house or Grandma's?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it's good that Amazon is not disclosing any information about anybody without a court order. I'd be worried if they were disclosing their customers information to any police agent without a warrant!

<comment><USER6> It would be less frustrating if they said this in the first answer and don't let the customer run tho the police (twice).

<comment><USER7> Exactly. Making him and police send the mail and then refusing after telling that they would disclose is terrible on their side!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author's story is unfortunate. But this is not the tip of the iceberg. It is not a tragedy, either.

A kindle costs about $100. The FBI won't get involved - even if you live in the United States. A person is lucky if local law enforcement cares. The expectation that a corporation should devote significant resources to international law enforcement over each petty theft is absurd.

<comment><USER7> Lets leave the price for a minute, saying that this is not a tragedy is a bit insensitive.

Even if it is $100 only, it is $100 only and saying that Amazon or anyone should not get involved for such a small amount is not at all fair.

<comment><USER9> _saying that this is not a tragedy is a bit insensitive._

Compared to being robbed, raped, beaten, abused, starved, or murdered, I think that losing a luxury device to a non-violent theft is most definitely _not a tragedy_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is not exactly a surprise to me, and I don't believe is purely Amazon fault, we have today in the world some very abrasive legal systems where liability is really dangerous.

It is like the thief here in Brazil that broke his leg after his victim roof gave away, sued the owner of the house, and won.

<comment><USER11> >the thief here in Brazil that broke his leg after his victim roof gave away, sued the owner of the house, and won.

Source?

<comment><USER12> I am brasilian too, I could find this one [beware of strong images]:

[http://www.cidadeverde.com/asssaltante-morre-eletrocutado- do...](http://www.cidadeverde.com/asssaltante-morre-eletrocutado-dono-de- trailler-e-indiciado-por-homicidio-54052)

The thief tried to break into the a trailer but it had electric fences. The thief died electrocuted and the owner of the trailer is being accused of murder (facing charges and trial).

I remember reading several others like this one, so this is real in Brasil.

<comment><USER13> Yup, as other poster noted this would result in charges against the owner in the UK too.

You can't use deadly force against someone for theft in most civilised countries.

<comment><USER14> You generally can't use deadly force against someone who is not threatening your life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is frustrating, but asking for correctly formed court documents is normal and good.

In theory insurance should cover that. Or the thief, if they're ever caught.

</comment><comment><USER16> If your Kindle gets stolen, it's still your Kindle and Amazon should therefore disclose any information they have stored on your Kindle.

The underlying problem seems to be that a Kindle can be registered by new users without consent from the current/last user. That is very irritating …

<comment><USER17> > it's still your Kindle and Amazon should therefore disclose any information > they have stored on your Kindle.

What's to stop me from mentioning to a group of friends that I hardly use my Kindle anymore, and one of them offering me $50 for it? Is it still my kindle? Do I have to specifically de-register it before the exchange takes place?

What if I beat my wife nightly and she takes off one day into hiding, taking our Kindle with her? Am I legally allowed to recover any location or usage information (assuming it contains that, like a Fire) to teach her a lesson that leaving me is a bad choice?

One should be forced to obtain a warrant to obtain any information about a digital device (kindle/ipad/surface/galaxy) that is not the kind of information readily given by the operator of the underlying service to end users by default. It'll prevent a lot of shitty "edge cases" that unfortunately aren't uncommon, including unwarranted digital spying by law enforcement in the first place.

I agree on the second point though. When one encrypts a disk on OSX, it requires a complete and painfully (to a lay-user) manual process to wipe that disk to reuse unencrypted if the encryption key is no longer available. The same process should be employed for re-registering any device without the knowledge of the previous registrant's information.

<comment><USER3> _What's to stop me from mentioning to a group of friends that I hardly use my Kindle anymore, and one of them offering me $50 for it? ... Do I have to specifically de-register it before the exchange takes place?_

Yes?

Is this so different from selling someone a car, a cell phone, a video game console, etc.?

 _What if I beat my wife nightly and she takes off one day into hiding, taking our Kindle with her? Am I legally allowed to recover any location or usage information (assuming it contains that, like a Fire) to teach her a lesson that leaving me is a bad choice?_

You are attempting to confuse a pretty simple issue of property rights by throwing some over-the-top moral issues and potentially bad outcomes into the mix, as if either the morals or the outcomes have a bearing on the property rights situation or the law. You might as well say "What if I steal a Kindle from Adolf Hitler? Should he be allowed to track me down?" The way things "should" be doesn't have a lot to do with this.

In any case, if your abused wife took off with your LoJack or OnStar equipped car, I would expect the theft recovery people would, you know, recover the theft. They wouldn't ask you if you had stopped beating your wife first. They wouldn't first tell you to get the cops involved, then tell you they actually required a court order, then tell you that all data related to your car had been lost.

For a relatively low-value item like a Kindle, perhaps it would have been a fair compromise to tell the owner "Sorry, all we can do is ban the unit from the Amazon network." But that's not what happened in this story.

<comment><USER18> The bottom line is that it's not the customer service reps place to get involved. Giving private user information out every time it is requested would be reckless. For every stolen device, there's at least one that was lost, given away, or sold.

A car that costs thousands of dollars is a little different. That's why cars have titles. You don't officially transfer anything when you sell a phone or a Kindle, other than a bit of cash and the device itself.

You're also confusing the situation by brining up LoJack or OnStar. A major part of those services is providing location data. Similar to Find my iPhone. If you want to argue why doesn't Amazon have a "Find my Kindle" feature, then I wouldn't disagree. If you're arguing that Amazon should trust anyone who asks for private user information with a compelling story, well...

<comment><USER3> _A car that costs thousands of dollars is a little different. That's why cars have titles. You don't officially transfer anything when you sell a phone or a Kindle, other than a bit of cash and the device itself._

You would hand your American-style locked-to-a-carrier cell phone, that you're paying a monthly service contract on, to another person for a sum of cash? Without wiping your address book, without de-registering the device from the provider account, etc.? Really? And you'd keep paying the contract for the cell phone you don't have anymore?

I can see why you'd imagine that cars are different because of their high value. That's not what I was getting at, though.

I chose cars as an example because of the _registration_. Even the lowest value cars are tied to an elaborate network of rules - tax laws, operation and licensing laws, environmental laws, financing and insurance contracts, and property rights. A cell phone is a lot like that; without those ties to the network, the cell phone is worthless. A Kindle is a lot like that too.

I'm not arguing that Amazon should necessarily get involved or that they should necessarily have a "find my Kindle" feature. But if law enforcement requests information _that Amazon has already promised to hand over to law enforcement_ I can't see any excuse for not making good on that promise.

Even if you think requiring a warrant is the best policy, the story here is that Amazon now claims the information is lost, permanently beyond the reach of a warrant or anything else.

I don't think Amazon needs amateur defenders and in this case I don't think they even deserve them. Do you think that if the FBI knocks on Amazon's door and demands account information for all customers who read certain books (on doing chemistry at home, on radical fundamentalist religions, etc.) that they will chase the FBI away, or is it more likely they'll cave instantly, without even asking about a warrant? I find it far-fetched that Amazon is refusing to help with petty thefts as a way of looking out for our privacy. They're just doing what most businesses do: the easy thing.

<comment><USER18> I'm afraid I don't understand your point. I never said anything about wiping data or canceling a contract because that's totally and completely irrelevant. The point is a car title shows proof of ownership. Beyond paying a bill, you don't have that proof of ownership for a cell phone. But even last month's Verizon bill isn't proof to Verizon or Apple that I didn't just sell my iPhone today. You certainly don't have anywhere near that proof of ownership with a Kindle.

Amazon isn't doing the easy thing. Amazon is doing the thing that isn't going to make them liable. If they don't hand over personal information, it's going to piss off an internet commenter. If they hand over information (not required by law), they are opening themselves up to liabilities as a result of releasing private information.

If law enforcement follows the proper channels, it's a non-issue. If we're arguing that an Amazon rep provided the wrong information to the customer, well, then there's nothing to argue about.

I find it mildly humorous that we jump from an individual claiming their Kindle was stolen to the FBI requesting information from Amazon. I'm not arguing what Amazon should or shouldn't do. I'm simply sharing my perspective on why they don't do it for everyone that comes asking.

<comment><USER3> _I'm afraid I don't understand your point. I never said anything about wiping data or canceling a contract..._

You said:

 _You don't officially transfer anything when you sell a phone or a Kindle..._

But that's not really true. That's my point. You would follow some procedures, involving the phone company officials (not government officials) to avoid paying the buyer's phone bills or Kindle bills. In this way, the phone and the Kindle are like a car. The transfer of ownership requires official help because the Kindle, the phone, and the car are in a sense just nodes on a network. Other goods, from pencils to diamond rings, are fundamentally different, and don't require the involvement of officialdom when they change hands.

You believe that you can cleave the car example off as a special category of property, different because it's encumbered by government papers. My point is that a lot of electronic gadgetry is already encumbered in the same way. The papers don't have to be government ones.

I don't see the problem as one of proof of ownership. Information that could have helped an investigation supposedly existed, was offered, then the offer was rescinded, then the information was "lost." If a police department had behaved this way, the readers of HN would call it corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would have hoped when i got my kindle stolen to have a way to declare it stolen at amazon and block it maybe ? after all it's paid with my account and my credit card, it's quite easy to find out.

<comment><USER20> And when you sell the device but then later attempt to extort the new owner by reporting it stolen?

<comment><USER21> How is that "extortion"?

<comment><USER20> "That's a nice e-reader you have there ... it'd be a shame if someone reported it stolen and it stopped working. Maybe you should send me another fifty bucks."

<comment><USER21> Ah, well, ownership should be reliably transferable. This crap happens with cellphones (I had it happen to me with an eBayed Galaxy S3 last week...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If thieves take your car for a joyride, do you email Ford to complain?

<comment><USER23> You would if Ford had information about the current status of your car.

E.g. - If your car was a Tesla, then I guess that turning to Tesla would be just the thing to do.

When your cell phone get stolen, your mobile provider(s) are the right people to turn to.

Or what exactly would you do?

<comment><USER24> If it was a $50,000 car, I'd expect the police to put in a fair bit more effort to recovering it than a $50 kindle.

When your cell phone gets stolen, the police are the right people to turn to, not your network provider.

<comment><USER15> In the UK there was a problem of people reporting their phones stolen so they could break the contract.

One police station I walked into had a sign saying that they investigate all reported phone theft, and would vigorously prosecute anyone making a false report.

In general you report the phone to your service provider (so they can block the IMEI (and there's a potential 5 year prison sentence for people who change that) and then the police to get a crime reference number and then whoever has insured the phone (sometimes the provider) to give them the reference number.

Perhaps this is a niche for a specialist to enter. Create some tool that gives law enforcement and phone providers easy to use data-mining to allow them to track stolen phones and catch thieves. (I haven't described it well, but this would be something with tight integration between law enforcement and providers; it'd have some kind of auditing to ensure correct legal documentation; it would allow data on many phones to be displayed so you could heat map where phones are stolen from or where stolen phones are ending up, etc.)

<comment><USER14> how were people "legally" breaking contract doing this? It would seem more like an insurance scam.

Unless mobile contracts have since changed, of course.

<comment><USER15> It isn't legal. They weren't interested in the insurance, they just wanted to use that phone on a different provider or to get a new phone.

<comment><USER14> I just don't understand how reporting the phone as stolen would allow them to break the contract without having to pay the fee, or allow them to get a new phone without paying full price ( without going through the insurance).

I know little about IMEI resetting (which is a good thing I guess), but I thought it was a separate thing from phone unlocking?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Amazon should have a way to mark Kindles as stolen, just as a purely commercial decision -- it makes people more willing to buy Kindles, and thus Amazon will make more money on books. Really, anyone selling expensive portable property which connects to a central registry as part of normal operation should want to do so, without being pushed by the government. It does reduce some replacement purchases, and might cut back on the secondhand market, but it's going to make people more willing to carry/use their devices, so it's probably a net win. I'd also be WAY more likely to buy used devices if there were a simple check for "has not yet been reported stolen" and then wait some days to finalize a purchase and "still has not been reported stolen", than I am now (where you can safely assume that almost any recent model device being sold used is stolen)

(I suspect I buy enough Kindle books that if I reported one of my Kindles as stolen or unrecoverable-and-damaged, I'd get a free replacement, but I've probably got >$5k in Kindle books since I stopped buying paper books when the first Kindle came out. The irony is I pretty much use my iPad with kindle app as reader, now, because I really like backlighting and reading in a dark room.)

<comment><USER26> So you think amazon would send you a free kindle if you reported the kindle that you are not using was stolen?

<comment><USER25> Probably, because I use the _account_ a lot. Just not the devices (I probably have...12?) I use the DXes a fair bit, and use kindles when I'm outdoors, but I prefer to remain indoors generally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The issue is surely that the police are asking for data without the owners permission (and which isn't the original owner's data - the device yes, the data now on it, no).

Are we saying that a third party should hand over data to the police without the owner of that data giving permission based solely on an allegation? Personally I'm not wild about that idea, it feels like something that could be very easily abused.

We're very quick to demand full legal due process when someone wants access to private data held by a third party and we don't feel it should be surrendered it, but a consequence of that is that it pretty much becomes necessary to follow legal process in all instances because very few of them (including this one) are completely clear.

</comment><comment><USER28> People are talking about getting a warrant. Would police go to so much bother for such a low value device?

Especially considering how the new owner of the device probably brought it off the thief at a market or something. It is unlikely the thief is actually using the device.

</comment><comment><USER29> Before modern day phones where you had direct control of GPS (circa 2004ish), I had my phone stolen and filed a police report. I called my phone company at the time (Sprint) and they would not lift a finger to use the built in GPS to find where it was despite the police standing in front of me at the time after I had filed the report. The police were willing to do something, but Sprint said they couldn't.

Such things always made me question why they bothered mandating having GPS in "dumb phones" in the first place. Obviously there's other reasons, but none that seem to help consumers.

<comment><USER30> >Such things always made me question why they bothered mandating having GPS in "dumb phones" in the first place. Obviously there's other reasons, but none that seem to help consumers.

The main purpose of GPS in dumbphones (and one which clearly is intended to help consumers) was to fulfill the enhanced 911 mandate so your geographic location can be transmitted to dispatchers when you dial 911.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm not sure Amazon can give away your personal information without a court order. I think it breaks their terms and conditions and could get them in legal trouble. Unfortunate but really not Amazon's fault.

<comment><USER32> It depends on the country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I have exactly same story. Had spent a week struggling with Indian Police, and amazon did not help at all.

Twice this has happened and I have not bought a third kindle although I desperately want it.

<comment><USER34> You sent in a court order and Amazon failed to comply?

<comment><USER33> no, i sent them a scanned copy of the police document, in which i registered my kindle as lost device.

<comment><USER34> That's meaningless. I wish I could be more sympathetic, but the reality is, you're expecting them to open up loopholes in their system that could be easily exploited.

<comment><USER33> how? I am just asking them to track kindle which is registered with me. how is this a loophole?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> maybe the thief is buying more books than you...[just kidding] xD

<comment><USER36> Almost happened to Wil Wheaton and his stolen Kindle:

[http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/20411186024/to-the- person-...](http://wilwheaton.tumblr.com/post/20411186024/to-the-person-who- found-my-kindle)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Why would you count on Amazon's help?!

</comment><comment><USER13> And there's no real reason why you should count on Amazon's help. There are all sorts of risks providing this information, what if the request comes from a corrupt policeman working for a private detective (it happens). Requiring a warrant creates a paper trail.

In the real world, if your stuff gets stolen, you're responsible, not the company you bought the product from.

<comment><USER38> "You're responsible" is a terrible thing to say. In "the real world"? So assuming you mean with non-digital/electronic goods? If someone steals my bag they don't go and register it with some central bag authority, so of course I don't go calling my bag's manufacturer. Of course I'm responsible. Unless it's on CCTV. I expect /those/ guys to be sane, to help me and to show the CCTV to the police. They have clear evidence of a crime sitting right in front of them - if I flag it up to them, it should be damn near their /duty/ to give that evidence to the police.

Surely Amazon have pretty clear evidence in front of them. Someone's reported their kindle stolen, they see the kindle registered in someone else's name shortly after that report, the police have contacted them. Amazon can surely create their own paper trail - verifying the identity of the police first.

Besides, the other post implies that they're saying there's no hard link between the kindle and the account. That's probably front-line support failing to get a message higher than their lazy supervisor.

Anyway, I disagree with the sentiments here and in other replies. There are privacy warriors - quite rightly so - but there's also blatant common sense. Amazon should be applying that here. Putting on a tin-foil hat and saying "but what if..." isn't always a sensible thing to do.

If you commit a crime and submit evidence of it to my web service, you can be damn sure I'm passing your details to the police, so long as it's legal for me to do so.

<comment><USER8> _"Surely Amazon have pretty clear evidence in front of them. Someone's reported their kindle stolen, they see the kindle registered in someone else's name shortly after that report, the police have contacted them. Amazon can surely create their own paper trail - verifying the identity of the police first."_

The contents of a police report are allegations not facts. The evidence is ambiguous. Persons sell items and then report them stolen. It is quite reasonable for Amazon to refuse to adjudicate disputed ownership of $100 worth of hardware.

Amazon's responsibilities differ with respect to the digital goods in their care. Those are tied to an individual in a way that a physical device is not.

<comment><USER32> The police are the official investigative arm. It's their job to be doing this. The position that amazon should not cooperate with the police because _the police may be wrong_ is ridiculous. They are not adjudicating anything, they are being asked by a law enforcement officer to provide information they said they would provide to law enforcement.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Question and answer - <AUTHOR> http://www.kwerii.com <comment><USER2> Posting 3 comments here will not make your post more interesting. Moreover, it will make it more prone to get a flag.

And why are all the questions about sex? Do you have any filter to avoid trolls and spamers?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If i advertise it on the socials media will be able to able massive users?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Kwerii is the question and answer website that you can post your question and get direct answer

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Join our platform and benefit from our experts waiting to answer your questions</comment>


Aiven statement on license changes for the Confluent Platform - <AUTHOR> https://aiven.io/blog/aiven-statement-on-kafka-license/ <comment><AUTHOR> _" For the time being, we will continue operate your clusters and make available Aiven services with the Apache License version 2.0 licensed versions of the components as necessary. We are committed and ready to maintain and possibly address bugs and/or security issues with the versions that we utilize._

 _Aiven is committed to providing a data platform based on open source software. We are in the process of formulating our longer term plan and actions with respect to the recent changes, and will communicate the plan in January. "_</comment>


SEC's Action Against Decentralized Exchange Raises Constitutional Questions - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/02/secs-action-against-decentralized-exchange-raises-constitutional-questions <comment><USER2> Basically, the SEC said that if you write open-source code, you can be held liable for how other people use that code in the future. That's insane and would have sweeping consequences if broadly applied. Really appreciate the EFF's efforts here to call this out and fight it.</comment>


PHP Components & Tutorials for Everyday Projects - <AUTHOR> http://www.noupe.com/php/20-useful-php-components-tutorials-for-everyday-project.html

<comment><USER2> I'm beginning to think I'm the only person who dislikes these sites that regurgitate other people's content into a list.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the links from the article: <http://davidwalsh.name/backup-database- xml-php>

Umm, seriously? All these years I've been using mysqldump (sometimes even with --xml!) I could have just been using a script that string concats XML fragments together. That's a waaaay better backup procedure. </sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER4> Most of these can be replaced by a good framework. May I suggest CodeIgniter?

<comment><USER5> May I suggest Kohana? Based on PHP 5, cleaner, and very familiar to folks who know and love CodeIgniter.

(That said, the guys in charge aren't terribly tactful. They do know their stuff, though.)

<comment><USER6> I've done CodeIgniter and Kohana, and I've moved to Recess <http://recessframework.org/> . New project website coming Any Day Now, or stop by #recess on freenode if you want to see what we're about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Error establishing a database connection"

Site is down</comment>


Spa Capsule Massage and De-stress - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacapsule.com

<comment><USER2> also see how they integrated ipod and iphone into the machine. It's simplistic but functional: <http://www.spacapsule.com/home.php?page=SpaCapsule_iPod></comment>


50 shades of grey in Google Chrome – no, really - <AUTHOR> https://i.imgur.com/5QH5YYI.png <comment><AUTHOR> I was frustrated by all grey low-contrast Google Chrome palette and estimated 4-5 grey colours at first sight. But then I decided to be precise in my frustration and counted how many colours designer chose intentionally (picked from palette).

I found 11 shades of grey including white and excluding gradient content (only boundary counted).

No, Google, really, WTF?</comment>


Collection: Design Patterns - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe/collections/72157600001823120/ <comment><USER2> I almost skipped clicking the link, i thought it was yet another article/blog on code design patterns. Really nice collection.

<comment><USER3> I actually want more code links ... there have been depressingly few of them lately. Currently only one of the top ten is about code (talking about code community or drama of the moment isn't code ...)

<comment><USER2> agreed, though i am bored of code design patterns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find this hard to navigate, and it seems to mix good examples with bad. I wish that it were organized in some better way. What about this do others find useful?

<comment><USER5> I think flickr is probably the worst way to navigate through all of these. Is there any way to put each section into a slideshow or something? There's got to be a better way

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Peter Morville (Author of Oreilly's "Ambient Findability") has a great collection of search UI patterns here: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/morville/collections/7215760378...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/morville/collections/72157603785835882/)

</comment><comment><USER7> factoryjoe's UI-Pattern collection is one of my secret UI weapons.</comment>


Analyst: The bullish case for Tesla has been debunked - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/analyst-the-bullish-case-for-tesla-has-been-debunked-2015-2

<comment><USER2> Because "analysts" have a long track record of accurate predictions, and banks never lied to their own clients trading against them.

And it's not like everyone has said Tesla will be a success story.. Remember the countdown, and the jumping monkeys on TV predicting the company's collapse?

Here's what I want: Every "analyst" who says something must have an exhaustive list of all the predictions he has made in the past, and the outcomes of those predictions. Displayed to the watchers as he babbles (Like Steve, his picture, and his percentage: 80% correct).

If they're better at picking stocks than flipping a coin is, I won't call Paul the Octopus[0]

The whole "Market Analyst" profession thing doesn't make sense: If someone's as good at picking stocks (and as cocky about their prediction), they should be wealthy. I don't think I'm the only one to be able to link a cause to a seemingly natural consequence. After all, it's not like being good at another profession where making money doesn't "naturally" follow (say painters, for example. It's not being a great painter that'll make your rich, Van Gogh used to paint for food)... Their profession "is" the very act of accumulating capital, so if they're as good as they claim, they should have plenty.

When I look at some of the jumping creatures on Bloomberg and co, saying "Oh, it's definitely going down." with all the gesticulating, I want to tell them "Then short it for $10 million". You know, that'd be just someone putting their money where their mouth is.

There's no incentive to make correct predictions as long as:

\- They don't have money at stake when doing prediction/divination.

\- People don't have access to the track record of the analyst (is he as good as tossing a coin?).

[0]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Octopus)</comment>


Ask HN: Mechanical Turk the job hunt? - <AUTHOR>

Just had a thought afterthe article regarding zynga, goog and fb hiring like mad:
What would the results be to exploit mechanical turk to hunt for jobs for you and pay based on leads/interviews.
You have your resume and cover letter and have them seek and submit on your behalf.
I am thinking about changing jobs, I might try this approach to see what type of results I can get. <comment><USER2> I don't think this will be very effective and could potentially hurt your chances if not done well by your "agents".

Rather than a spray and pray approach, I'd recommend a rather old fashioned approach: List out the companies you'd like to work at, tailor your resume and highlight relevant experiences, find someone you know who works there (or linkedin to find common connections)

I find that I need to change my cover letter a little bit for every company and expecting to pay 10 cents an hour to someone who can do this on my behalf is not going to cut it.

OR you could try this : [http://technology.newsplurk.com/2010/05/how-to-land- job-with...](http://technology.newsplurk.com/2010/05/how-to-land-job- with-6-and-adwords.html)</comment>


Interview with Scott Aaronson about philosophy and quantum computing [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uX5t8EivCaM <comment><USER2> Lex Fridman's "AI Podcast" has quickly grown to have one of the best list of guests on any show ever [1] - extremely impressive!

[1]: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuK...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4)

<comment><USER3> His quest list is awesome. Stephen Kotkin interview was really good.

His problem is the clear lack of preparation in several interviews. He gets thrown off and loses track just when the interview gets interesting. The momentum dies because he has no good followup questions and no idea where to go form there.

Instead of playing ignorant for the sake of the conversation like good host does, it seems that he tries genuinely to learn stuff during the interview. His backup strategy is to direct interview into the same set of overly generic questions where the quest has nothing interesting to say. It's kind of irritating.

If you compare Lex Friedman to Sean Carrol (they have had same quests in their program) its' clear that Carrol is better prepared and better host.

[https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/](https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/)

<comment><USER4> Lex is on HN and from a prior thread [1], seems very thoughtful and receptive to constructive feedback. While I've only recently started watching his interviews, I think that reflects one of his main strengths as an interviewer --it seems he thinks both broadly and deeply about AI, physics, and a wide range of interesting topics, which is no small feat. Of course, I'm in awe of his guest list too--kudos to him for building this series. Though I've only seen a few so far, I do sort of share the feeling that the questions can tend toward too general, at least at the outset of the interviews. Like a slow- starting book, this sometimes makes it difficult for me to get hooked right away. But I think this reflects my personal preferences, and many others may prefer his style. In any case, I imagine it takes a tremendous amount of work to run something like this, and there are some great exchanges with world- class guests. It's amazing that everyone has access to interview series like this. On that note, thanks for the tip about Sean Carroll's podcast, I'll check it out.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22047661)

<comment><USER3> There is nothing wrong being broad and philosophical.

The problem is when he repeatedly pushes it to quests that have nothing to say about the matter or are clearly not interested discussing the subject. You get back only platitudes. He does well every time he adjusts to the guests frame of mind and stops doing his own thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case you did not know yet: there are transcripts for some of videos on Youtube.

The transcript is time-stamped, the video will jump to the correct position when clicking a sentence and it loads completely at once, so you can use the in-browser search on it.

Open the three-dot-menu below the video content and open the transcript from there.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice video lecture series by scot

[https://video.ethz.ch/speakers/bernays/2019/7b11b50e-f813-4d...](https://video.ethz.ch/speakers/bernays/2019/7b11b50e-f813-4d26-95e0-616cc350708c.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> RSS link for the audio version: [https://lexfridman.com/category/ai/feed/](https://lexfridman.com/category/ai/feed/)

</comment><comment><USER8> slightly related to this, I read somewhere recently that deep reinforcement learning doesn't really work. Has there been any progress on that front since?

<comment><USER9> Well - all I can say is that it works for me!

More seriously, I think that it can be challenging to define the "game" or simulation that a DRL system (or any RL) system depends on. Clearly for things like go the game is preset, for the real world, perhaps less so. People have used it vs physical systems like robot hands though.

Also, one of the charms of DRL is the cheating that the agents discover, for example catapulting each other over barriers or blocking doors. But in real world scenarios scams that break the rules of the game (imposed by law or physics) are useless, so you have to rewrite your simulators to remove them, and start again.

<comment><USER10> What applications do you use DRL for ?

<comment><USER9> Training a chatbot; we thought of a wrinkle that would let us use DRL to improve performance over pure data trained ones. It was hard to get it going, but once we figured out the code it did add vs pure supervised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> We changed the URL from [https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4616](https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4616), which points to this.</comment>


JITWatch: Log analyser and visualiser for the HotSpot JIT compiler - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/AdoptOpenJDK/jitwatch <comment><AUTHOR> src: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTeDaM3CC1I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTeDaM3CC1I) @inline and @specialized: What do they do? Should I be using them? - by Chris Birchall</comment>


The Rare Disease Search Engine That Outperforms Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512606/the-rare-disease-search-engine-that-outperforms-google/#.UUcEWTTfZe8.hackernews <comment><USER2> I guess I'm not surprised that a purpose built search engine built over a curated database outperforms a generic search engine using a completely unstructured and dynamic dataset.</comment>


Best Programming Jokes - <AUTHOR> http://www.devtopics.com/best-programming-jokes/

<comment><USER2> _A man is smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke rings into the air. His girlfriend becomes irritated with the smoke and says, "Can't you see the warning on the cigarette pack? Smoking is hazardous to your health!"

To which the man replies, "I am a programmer. We don't worry about warnings; we only worry about errors."_

Haha, it's funny because programmers don't have girlfriends!

<comment><USER3> so true, at least for me ... :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My favorite 2:

How many programers dose it take to change a light bulb?

None - It's a hardare problem

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

A programmer finds himself in front of a committee that decides whether he should go to Heaven or Hell. The committee tells the programmer he has a say in the matter and asks him if he wants to see either Heaven or Hell before stating his preference.

"Sure," the programmer replies. "I have a pretty good idea what Heaven is like, so let's see Hell." So an angel takes the programmer to a sunny beach, full of beautiful women in skimpy bikinis playing volleyball, listening to music and having a great time. "Wow!" he exclaims, "Hell looks great! I'll take Hell!"

Instantly the programmer finds himself in red-hot lava with demons tearing at his flesh. "Where's the beach? The music? The women?" he screams frantically to the angel.

"That was the demo," the angel replies as she vanishes.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>---

</comment><comment><USER5> There aren't any good programming jokes.

</comment><comment><USER6> "All programmers are playwrights, and all computers are lousy actors."

How can they be lousy actors if they do exactly what's in the script? I think the playwrights are to blame actually.

<comment><USER2> I mentally replaced "computers" with "browsers" in that one, as it definitely fits more.

</comment></comment><comment> a-priori _Woltman's Law: Never program and drink beer at the same time._

Well, that's a load of crap.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A planeful of programmers went down and there was nothing left to identify except body parts.

An official held up an arm and a woman cried, "That's my husband, John, the php programmer! I can tell from the watch I bought him for his birthday."

Then he held up a leg and another woman cried, "That's my husband Bill, the C++ programmer! I can tell from the shoe I bought him for his birthday."

Then he held up a head and a third woman cried, "That looks like my husband Joe, the Java programmer, but he was much taller than that."</comment>


Facebook needs a new CEO? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2012/07/26/facebook-needs-a-new-ceo/

<comment><USER2> Wow, this reporter really doesn't know what he's talking about. He thinks Evan Williams is working on product at Twitter now.</comment>


Loving Common Lisp - <AUTHOR> https://leanpub.com/lovinglisp/read <comment><USER2> > My wife and I recently watched a two-night 7-hour PBS special "Joseph > Campbell, and the Power of Myths." Campbell, a college professor for almost > 40 years, said that he always advised his students to "follow their bliss" > and not to settle for jobs and avocations that are not what they truly want > to do.

Follow your bliss -- Such a succint and delightful advice!</comment>


U.S. Can't Make Weapons Fast Enough to Meet Demand - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2015/12/04/us-weapons-demand/ <comment><USER4> "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. … Is there no other way the world may live?"

<comment><USER5> For those who aren't familiar with it, the parent is quoting from Eisenhower's 1953 Chance for Peace speech [1].

There's an interesting piece from the NY Times in 2013 about what a bomber would buy today [2]. The situation has become considerably worse.

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

[2] [http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/what-would-a- fight...](http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/what-would-a-fighter-jet- buy-60-years-after-eisenhowers-speech/)

<comment><USER6> "Software saved the aerospace industry. Every other way of adding cost to an airplane also adds weight."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Side note: I wish discussion boards had a feature where you could upvote literature or some basic articles relating the to topics covered in the OP. This way people who are not familiar with the matter, or perhaps just curious about alternative interpretations could see other sources that the community deems worthy.

For the article above, it would likely be an intersection of "War on ISIS", "Military Industrial Complex" and some less relevant, smaller topics, e.g. Weapons Manufacturing.

Having a mechanism for storing background knowledge would be quite a bit nicer than just saying "I recommend 'War is a racket'. Especially since communities will downvote comments they think are prosaic, but are still helpful for newcomers.

<comment><USER8> Awesome I'd never heard of 'war is a racket', thanks! In return let me reccomend "the ruses for war" by john quigley and confessions of an economic hitman (and others) by john quigley as well as "a game as old as empire" with foreward by the same.

<comment><USER7> Thank you in return: judging from google it seems like Quigley can teach the nontrivial stuff.

<comment><USER8> Indeed! And once you're through with that check out Modern Money Theory by Randall Wray which puts the whole shitfight into a solid economical context!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because there's no other way around this but to be political, can't we sort out our crumbling infrastructure, education, and healthcare systems before worrying about blowing up a middle-age, middle eastern cult? Can we not let them get the better of us? Or have we entirely sold out to the arms industry?

<comment><USER10> They've already launched direct attacks on our allies, and more recently inspired attacks on US soil. They are holding territory, are self funded (generously), and are recruiting around the globe. Arguably they are more dangerous than Al-Qaeda ever was.

Doesn't this merit a military response? If not, what on earth would?

<comment><USER11> If you want to cut off the snake at its head, cut the money supply. Its not like we live in some great era of terrorism - there's always been deranged people who wish to destroy and whom get a few followers. The difference between that phenomenon and ISIS is they've secured some land that produces oil, and have a buyer - Turkey. This suggests hard-nosed diplomacy before military intervention, especially as the result of the latter 10 years ago is literally the reason we have this current mess.

<comment><USER12> Islamic State needs oil money to sustain its military, not the terrorists that it sends into Europe. The most expensive cost there is airfare and weapons/munitions.

Additionally, cutting off funding doesn't solve the issue of homegrown terrorism, a la Sayed Farook who is a salaried employee and set up an IED factory in his home. He probably paid for that himself.

<comment><USER11> First, I'd bet that ISIS money is spent on a lot more than military - <USER2> about providing a cushy experience for previously recruited western radicals, so that they tell others back home how great it is? Can't find the link, but varieties in accommodations for recently recruited western radicals vs others is causing some internal strife. If you came over to ISIS from some nice first world place like London, only to find yourself in a very uncomfortable, foreign desert environment eating crap food, you probably wouldn't send message back that everything's great. That costs money.

Second, you assume the cost of propaganda is 0, which it is not. ISIS has gone so far as to publish a very high production value magazine [0] and high quality recruitment videos. You can bet that there are tons of people on message boards and other corners of the net that are on ISIS payroll out there trying to radicalize as many people as possible, offering a (twisted) sense of purpose and meaning in their lives. And people collecting and disseminating content on how best to make IEDs, kill people, etc. They undoubtedly have many social media managers.

In my first comment I was going to add another point which was that if we were able to completely wipe out ISIS that will not all of a sudden stop people from being radicalized, it will only stop those being radicalized by ISIS. ISIS happens to recruit better than most (due to their money), but there will always be people, often marginalized, who will fall prey to radicalization - and some who seek it out. Sayed seems like he was that kind of guy, ISIS or no.

Everyone's all up in arms about ISIS because we're being blanketed by news about them, which is not proportional to the threat they actually pose to us. Paris was a manifestation of longstanding troubles with european countries integrating muslim immigrants which likely created necessary conditions for radicalization by [insert crazy people]; San Bernardino was very likely a manifestation of mental health issues and cultural marginalization/domestic political climate. These issues are unlikely to go away when ISIS does - <USER3> latter we have an example of from just the week prior with the Planned Parenthood shooter.

[0] [http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis- isil-p...](http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis-isil- propaganda-magazine-dabiq)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a feedback loop. It will not slow or reverse without systemic intervention.

</comment><comment><USER14> That's what happens when you supply both sides of a conflict.

</comment><comment><USER15> The military industrial complex in action.

 _This_ is the real motivation behind these conflicts.

</comment><comment><USER16> I see opportunity. US arms industry needs DevOps methodologies to increase velocity.

<comment><USER17> As a person in that industry...what do you mean by "DevOps methodologies"? And what do you mean by increasing velocity?

Are you saying, "The US arms industry needs to be more agile in responding to the needs of its customers by producing better weapons in shorter periods of time"? If so, then your real problem is not with the industry.

Some black projects and other less sensitive but desperately needed projects can be "short-circuited" by being done without the usual oversight and red tape. You will only find out about those years after they are fielded, if ever. But most programs are subject to this process: [http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wal...](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wall_chart.jpg)

Do you understand everything that's going on in this chart? I don't either, and I was forced to attend several weeks worth of classroom training plus more online training in the nuances of this process. Anyone who wishes to develop a major weapons system must work through this process, which is mandated by US federal law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Honestly I'd like to verify these numbers because I can't believe them. 5bn $ in 2 days? That can't be!!!</comment>


Chinese farmer 'studies law for 16 years' to defeat dumping of hazardous waste - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinese-farmer-wang-englin-study-law-16-years-chemicals-corporation-qinghua-group-dump-chemical-a7566911.html <comment><USER2> I think it's really fucked up that people have to _study law_. I'm expected to live by a complex set of rules that only a few understand well enough to reliably navigate, where any transgression might ruin the rest of my life?

Almost nobody I know has even _read_ any law. Whenever I have, it has been a frustrating exercise in deciphering jargon and ridiculously long sentences. It leaves me a modest degree of terrified to do anything, because everything is probably illegal by some interpretation of some corner of some strange grammar used in some paragraph or other somewhere.

<comment><USER3> Don't kill, lie, cheat or steal. That will pretty much cover most of it. You don't need to be a lawyer to function in society.

<comment><USER4> Or, you know, ship a lobster in the wrong kind of container.

[https://www.nacdl.org/Document/OvercriminalizationVictimAbne...](https://www.nacdl.org/Document/OvercriminalizationVictimAbnerSchoenwetter- CaseSum)

<comment><USER5> Or buy a book an Amazon. UK people where prosecuted for having 'The Anarchist Cookbook'

[https://theintercept.com/2017/10/28/josh-walker-anarchist- co...](https://theintercept.com/2017/10/28/josh-walker-anarchist-cookbook- terrorism-act-uk/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading the linked report by the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims [1], it's clear that the problem was not with the law being so complex it took 16 years to understand, but that the agencies tasked with enforcing the law were trying very hard to shirk their duty and stalling him at every opportunity. The People's Daily article [2] recounts a nice anecdote about getting rebuffed when requesting land use maps from the responsible agency, which he countered by quoting the law granting him access from memory, which apparently scared the agency employee enough to hand him the maps.

[1] [http://www.clapv.org/english_lvshi/ZhiChiAnJian_Content.asp?...](http://www.clapv.org/english_lvshi/ZhiChiAnJian_Content.asp?id=61&title=Support%20cases&titlecontent=PD_zhichianjian&lei1=20)

[2] [http://jx.people.com.cn/n2/2017/0203/c355185-29659118.html](http://jx.people.com.cn/n2/2017/0203/c355185-29659118.html)

<comment><USER7> Honestly, a good amount of law and politics is knowing what you can or cannot do. It's not that law is complex it's that dealing with people who know law, or people that know that you don't know about law is complex.

You can see it when people with the basic understanding of police interactions can avoid so much illegal stuff happening if they just know when to say no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> both my father and a dear friend gave me some great advice... "if you can, go to law school. even if you're not a practicing lawyer, it's very useful to know how they think."

one friend commented "law school teaches you about the operating system of society"

<comment><USER9> Operating systems are suppose to assist the user. In this and most cases the law is a system of oppression. 16 years is a travesty. Economics and science are the true operating systems of society.

You go to law school to learn security exploits.

<comment><USER10> Using security exploits is non-coercive. Law is coercive.

You go to law school to learn how people convince other people to force other people to do things.

<comment><USER9> Why people follow law is not part of what you learn in law school. That is an anthropological phenomenon that has to do with culture, society and biology.

What you learn in law school is less fundamental and more specific to the system at hand. You learn contracts, property, criminal law, constitutional law, legal methods, civil procerude... torts...

You learn the specifics so that the system can be exploited.

If you think people who study law have some deep insight on the true nature of civilizations and the rules that humans operate under you are completely wrong.

Questions like which system is better? Communism or capitalism? Dictatorship or Democracy? Are not what you study in law school.

Remember law school is about security exploits.

<comment><USER11> Putting aside the question of what they do and don't teach in law school - over in my part of the world, where, as is normal in the British Commonwealth, law is normally studied at an undergraduate level, it's fairly standard for law students to double major in the humanities or social sciences, where those questions do indeed get asked from a non-legal and more anthropological and cultural perspective.

<comment><USER9> Well double majoring is different right? I'm sure if someone wanted to double major in physics and law they wouldn't be getting the social science part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is fake news....

Not hard to see, you can even read the original article in google translate, which seems to be their only source and they still messed it up.

The case was 16 years start to finish, not him studying law.

He used a lawyer..... "Wang Enlin began work to protect his rights in 2006 and received assistance from the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV) in 2007" [1]

Sure you just want a meme to make you happy, but Reddit did this story years ago. And they have new memes that are untrue and fun there now.

The more real story here is still kinda cool [2]. But this isn't close to the truth.

[1] [https://ipen.org/sites/default/files/documents/Case%20Study%...](https://ipen.org/sites/default/files/documents/Case%20Study%20Report%20Qihua%202015r.pdf) [2] [http://www.clapv.org/english_lvshi/ZhiChiAnJian_Content.asp?...](http://www.clapv.org/english_lvshi/ZhiChiAnJian_Content.asp?id=61&title=Support%20cases&titlecontent=PD_zhichianjian&lei1=20)

<comment><USER13> Why was this comment was marked dead? I am "vouch"ing it for now because I have read Wang Enlin's story a long time ago, and though a cool story, I have doubts about this version of the story by the Independent to be a good representation.

<comment><USER6> The account was banned in 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15691778](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15691778)

If a comment is marked as [dead] but not [flagged] it was killed automatically, usually for reasons related to the account, not the specific comment in question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm genuinely surprised you can take a Chinese state-owned corporation to court. Does China really have environmental laws which regular people can sue over?

<comment><USER15> So, you would be surprised, Chinese law itself is actually extremely comprehensive and large. I would argue that Chinese law is nearly identical in scope to most Western law. There are laws on the books enshrining freedoms, and many which allow the people to hold the state accountable. All this with the humongous caveat that courts and judges will often not enforce laws as they are written, so just because China might have stringent environmental protections on its books, getting a judge who will actually allow such cases is difficult.

The law is structured in such a way that the judges and courts have a great deal of freedom and discretion about which laws to enforce when, and can decide not to enforce laws at specific times. This is seen as a strength of the system, in that it prevents a lot of obtuse bickering over minor details of legal interpretation. The judge can do maneuvers like saying "The spirit and intent of the law was this, doesn't matter what it actually says" and this is legal. So yes the Chinese state probably does have protections for this sort of thing, but they probably never enforce any of them because of rampant abuse.

<comment><USER16> >and many which allow the people to hold the state accountable

The thing is, if you try to use your right to petition Beijing, for example, you will be harassed and may be arrested.

I followed the story on weibo of a parent who petitioned Beijing for better discipline in schools after bullies took out her son's eye. She was followed by agents, prevented from taking her son to hospital appointments in the city and forced to sign a "confession" that she was a dissident.

So yes, you have the right, but if you use it, you will be targeted. So stop spreading this "China is not so bad, it has the same freedoms as in the west!" bs.

<comment><USER6> Right after the part you quoted:

> All this with the humongous caveat that courts and judges will often not > enforce laws as they are written

Please don't use selective quotations to misrepresent the viewpoints of other commenters.

<comment><USER16> Harassment and arbitrary arrest are not quite the same as "judges will often not enforce laws as they are written"

Seems like you've deliberately misinterpreted my comment

<comment><USER6> No, I'm just disagreeing with the parts of it directed at the commenter you were responding to. (Edit: basically just _So stop spreading this "China is not so bad, it has the same freedoms as in the west!" bs. _)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Serious question: is there any publicly available place I can go and simply read all the laws? Obviously knowing the letter of the law won't let me know how to apply it in all situations, but I literally have no idea how to discover what laws I'm supposed to follow, besides asking a lawyer.

<comment><USER18> The Cornell Law College has the entire US Code published on its website: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text)

<comment><USER17> Neat, thanks! Curious though, where does Cornell get the source material / wording from? When something changes, how are they informed? Does the government keep a master copy somewhere?

<comment><USER19> They subscribe to the US government's gazette: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Register](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Register) Each US state also has a corresponding gazette.

<comment><USER17> Cool, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've asked before, but never got a good idea. How should a lay person best understand law without becoming a lawyer? What do we read? Where is a good course?

<comment><USER21> The Legal Analyst by Ward Farnsworth is an enjoyable introduction. [https://www.amazon.com/Legal-Analyst-Toolkit-Thinking- about/...](https://www.amazon.com/Legal-Analyst-Toolkit-Thinking- about/dp/0226238350)

The Law Student's Toolkit class on Coursera from Yale's Ian Ayers covers some similar ground. [https://www.coursera.org/learn/law- student/](https://www.coursera.org/learn/law-student/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is a great story. If only AdChoices would stop dumping all over the site, so I could read it to the end.

</comment><comment><USER23> Off-topic, but that time lapse of Beijing smog makes me angry.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not a lawyer, in any country, but I assume _chinese law_ is whatever the government feel likes at that time. Can't imagine their law is like anything in the west.</comment>


Silicon Valley Censorship – Facebook, Reddit, Twitter Are Editorializing News - <AUTHOR> https://www.allthink.com/1254355 <comment><USER2> These are private companies so its NOT censorship. Only the govt can censor and the distinction is important because govt's can fine or jail you unlike private companies.

</comment><comment><USER3> Editorializing news can incline more for the good of the users. Until, the crux of the content is not removed.</comment>


One of my worst mistakes at my day job - <AUTHOR> http://reinventingsquares.com/2014/03/27/one-of-my-worst-mistakes-at-my-day-job/

<comment><USER2> >You just rewrote the app from C++ to Ruby on Rails

Unless the C++ app was poorly written (and thus some kind of maintenance nightmare) this seems a little backwards... I normally see CPU performance bound Ruby turning into C/C++,Go,C#,Java not the other way around.

Also, I'm trying to understand the moral of this story, is it:

Executing only matters if it furthers your bosses goals; furthermore, sometimes you need to explain how something you have done furthers said goals? (Surely this should happen before not after?)

Seems like common sense, but maybe I am missing something here..

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello, Thanks for commenting. The C++ to Ruby on Rails was just a joke. Something to make an example. Maybe I didn't explained myself well. What I wanted to say was that what you should do must align to your company, product or team goal. Thanks again for the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't think you explained it well from the boss's perspective. Why didn't he want you to rewrite the app from C++ to Ruby? Maybe it's not just that you did too much work, but that you're making things tougher for everyone else. Do you have other ruby developers on staff? Does the support staff know how to support a ruby app? Maybe he wants you to take a weekend off so that you can be fresh on Monday.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Thanks a lot for the comment. The C++ to Ruby on Rails was just a joke. Thanks for the feedback.

Regards, Daniel</comment></comment>


Hybrid Cars May Include Fake Vroom for Safety - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/automobiles/14hybrid.html <comment><USER2> _"One possibility is choosing your own noise," said Nathalie Bauters, a spokeswoman for BMW's Mini division._

I sooo look forward to hearing hybrids rolling down the street broadcasting horrible pop tunes in the form of simulated engine noise.

And of course I also await with bated breath the automobile version of the Camera Phone Predator Act: [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR00414:@@@L...](http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi- bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR00414:@@@L&summ2=m&);

</comment><comment><USER3> Or you could just actually pay attention while driving, and, if walking, look both ways before crossing the street.

When will people realize that responsibility is more important than safety features? There's a great quote from House: "If you want people to drive safer, take out the airbag and attach a machete pointed at their neck." No sane person would ever drive such a vehicle in any way that even resembled dangerous. No one would likely exceed 5 mph, and no one would be killed in car accidents (except accidents involving the machetes of course). Almost all car accidents are preventable. The only ones that aren't are probably those that involve mechanical failure. If your brakes go out, you're pretty much screwed, but almost everything else is in your control. You can't control what other drivers do, but they should be taking responsibility too.

Just the other day, there was a 5 car pileup on the interstate near where I live. The only way that can possibly happen on a 3 lane interstate is if someone was following too closely to the person in front of them. Simple rule: If you aren't at least three seconds behind the person in front of you on the interstate, you are endangering their life and your own. If everyone was obeying that simple rule, there is no way the accident would have happened. Almost all accidents at intersections are either the result of someone not knowing the rules of right of way or not caring / paying attention. These accidents are also completely preventable.

<comment><USER4> > Or you could just actually pay attention while driving, and, if walking, > look both ways before crossing the street.

Yeah, tell that to the blind people who have almost no chance of knowing that a hybrid car is sitting at a corner waiting to make a left turn...

I do pay attention and watch what is happening around me and the closest I have ever come to getting hit by a car was when walking through a parking lot and having a Prius back out of a spot and almost run me over. I had passed the car and noticed the driver but did not hear an engine noise that normally lets me know I need to remember that car once I am past it. The driver of the Prius was not paying attention at all. The only thing that prevented me from getting hit was the fact that the car cleared the space it was backing out of just as it tapped my legs and before I realized what had happened they were driving away.

There is no excuse for a car in motion to be silent. None.

<comment><USER3> Deaf people can't hear cars coming, but that doesn't mean they should have bright flashing lights which are on all the time. Disabled people can't cross the street as fast, but that doesn't mean cars should be limited to 5 mph to ensure they can cross.

Aside from the fact that blind people are a small minority of the population (blind meaning people who could not tell visually whether a car was on the road; plenty of people who are legally blind could still make this distinction), there are already other measures in place to prevent cars from hitting blind people. Guide animals are available which can see hybrid cars coming just as well as they can see gasoline-powered cars coming. Signs are posted as warnings in neighborhoods where blind or deaf children are known to live.

Furthermore, there are other solutions available. Crossings where this is a concern can have small grooves cut in the road leading up to the crossing so ALL cars make noise when coming through (ever hear a car going over a drawbridge?). It is important to note that crossings where this is a concern are a subset of all crossings and that crossings make up only a small fraction of the surface area of the world's road systems. Maybe 1% of road surface is crossings where blind people need to hear cars coming, but this suggestion would add noise pollution to 100% of road surface traveled by hybrid or electric cars.

In your parking lot example, I would add the rule that you should assume every car with a driver in it is running and preparing to move in much the same way that you should assume every gun is loaded and treat it as if it were _even if you know it's not_. Also, I frequently walk behind cars I know to be running. I am cautious but I am also somewhat relying on the driver seeing me. No amount of safety measures will stop stupid people (like the driver you encountered) from being dangerous. A driver can just as easily gun it going backwards (thus giving people no time to react) in a gasoline car.

Finally, there are edge cases where cars making noise makes them more dangerous. Noise draws attention. If you're driving through a particularly bad part of town, you may not want to draw attention. Passing through without making a sound may increase your safety. If you leave your hybrid running (accidentally or intentionally) for a short time, a potential thief might not know it and therefore might not try to steal your car. With a gasoline powered car, they will always know it. The point is that edge cases are just that: edge cases.

There is no inherent reason why cars should make noise. None.

<comment><USER5> The traffic and pedestrian system has grown organically into what it is now. That includes cars that make noise, and that fact is taken into account when we learn to be pedestrians in the traffic system.

So we have a system with noise as part of an evolved safety system, and now we're going to randomly sprinkle ninja juggernauts into the mix.

No, cars don't have to make noise. Unless they're going to coexist with the current system and its users. I certainly don't think municipalities should have to cut (and maintain) grooves in crossings, and blind people should have to get dogs when none were needed, merely so cool kids can go "whoosh!"

I'm not blind, but I'm sure going to feel endangered when most cars are silent and we still mix pedestrians and cars the way we do now.

Not only should cars be required to make noise, but the noise should conform to traffic safety regulations, similar to how headlights and brakelights must conform in their way.

Edit: I don't think unregulated "ring tones" should be allowed, but if they were, man I would feel so cool going down the road as my car cried out "Bring out your dead! <clang> Bring out your dead! <clang>"

<comment><USER3> You make some good points, but the purpose (if it can even be called that, since it's more an absence of noise than a presence of silence) of silent cars is not just so "cool kids can go 'whoosh'". Noise pollution is a serious problem. Not as serious as transportation system safety, but still serious.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>