How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/4457110/internet-trolls/ <comment><USER2> I guess we have what, 10 years until they carve a "trolling" or "hate speech" exception out of the first amendment? Such already exists everywhere else except for U.S.

It's interesting. It used to be that the average American's 5-6 hours of daily media consumption was produced entirely by what 4-5 corporations? Thats literally ~400 million people's media coming from maybe a couple thousand people. How is that good? If "trolling" [which I think is really just a code word for "exposure to interpretations of reality with which I disagree"] is the price of more diverse, more informative media, then so what?

<comment><USER3> Shhh...don't make the people think about, like, complicated stuff or accept the presence of ideas or opinions they may not agree with. Because that's what is happening. A person who floats a "controversial" opinion that goes against or challenges "accepted" (i.e. imposed) orthodoxy is considered barely more acceptable than a bitter asshole with issues who threatens to rape or kill his ex-girlfriend.

Simply asking how encouraging perpetual victimhood empowers women and ethnic minorities is more often than not met with incredulous outrage and accusations. There is no room for debate - one either is with them or against them. Nuance and honest debate are for privileged people dontcha know. Only POC, LGBTQ who buy into victim culture and "womyn" are allowed to express their opinions without interference. Check your privege buddy or GTFO!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's hard to say that Trolls are ruining the internet. They have been a part of the internet since the first BBS.

Sensitivity to them is what's causing this current push back (and emboldening them). I'm not defending them as some of them go way out of line, but I feel like language policing is a large step in the wrong direction.

<comment><USER5> Yes, obviously it's everyone else that's at fault, not the vocal toxic minority.

<comment><USER4> I'm not really blaming anyone (or intending to). All i am saying is that there should be a logical disconnect between someone calling someone an asshole on a forum, and someone Doxxing a 14 year old girl because she made the mistake of showing her boobs on the internet.

"Trolling" means different things to different people(just as what people find offensive), and legislating that is dangerous IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _Trolling is, overtly, a political fight. Liberals do indeed troll–sex- > advice columnist Dan Savage used his followers to make Googling former > Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum's last name a blunt lesson in the > hygienic challenges of anal sex; the hunter who killed Cecil the lion got it > really bad._

> _The alt-right's favorite insult is to call men who don't hate feminism > "cucks," as in "cuckold." <snip> Trolling is the alt-right's version of > political activism, and its ranks view any attempt to take it away as a > denial of democracy._

I honestly don't like this burden of trolling to be placed on the right, because both sides consist of people with emotional issues and incapability to handle them. And to be honest, such people don't deserve online access.

The 90's and early 2000's were refreshing where you had to be a certain geek to get to the web, which was a filter enough.

[edit] To clarify, my impression of the article is that it's not balanced between both sides. Might have something to do that "troll" doesn't necessarily mean the same, as user Fifer82 suggested in his comment "I don't mind trolls. There is a difference between a troll, a bully, a wanker and a psycho"[1].

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12321968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12321968)

<comment><USER7> This is an odd bit of false equivalence. Santorum got what he had coming, because he's a galactic-scale asshole. Making up a funny joke about an ignorant reactionary seeking to impose theocracy in America makes perfect sense when that person has been elevated to a position of rare power.

On the other hand making up a name for people who fail to hate women doesn't have quite the same logic.

<comment><USER8> The _logic_ may well be the same. The _moral axioms_ on which that logic applies obviously differs between the people who support one and oppose the other and those who either see them as equivalent or who have the reverse support/oppose position.

<comment><USER7> I can't tell what you meant.

Mocking a powerful politician is fair game. Indeed, mocking the powerful is a necessary function in a republic or democracy, and should be practiced in direct proportion to the hypocrisy openly demonstrated by the target.

Mocking random members of the public (calling them cucks or faggots in threads on reddit) serves no function.

<comment><USER9> That was exactly the original point. The article is weasely in its cherry- picking of examples. The veneer of civility is very thin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's unfortunate that the word "troll" is starting to define someone who bullies, threatens, and harasses people. There's plenty of ways to goad a reaction out of someone without being an asshole or threatening their safety.

</comment><comment><USER11> Honestly, if you really think "trolls" are ruining the internet, you have no idea what the internet is capable of, about the amazing things it brings us and about the communities that are built around the internet that has adopted to these trolls. Yes trolls make things harder, but they are not able to "ruin" the internet.

Garbage journalism on the other-hand might actually have the power to do it.

Just like anything in life when it comes to the internet I think you have to use it for sometime before you can somewhat manage to spot whats right and wrong on the internet.

The author also mentions something about how the internet is eager to help with technical details and is bad for medical advice? Seriously? I mean, I once saw someone advice a guy to place his router higher than his computer, so that gravity will make the internet faster :) and I have seen complete strangers on places like reddit come together to help people who were having trouble with something, genuinely helping and making a better change in people's lives.

The damn internet doesn't care about trolls or there's no ruining these trolls can do to the internet. People are always going to be people, you are going to have to use some common sense when you are living your normal life and when you are on the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER12> Time, as a print magazine assumes it role to pontificate on the lower class of publishing medium. In it's knowed position of media, they point out surface level and uncontroversial annoyances. Trolls are easy to spot, but it's a distraction from what Time isn't going after: the under-informed and sensationalized media assaulting the public non-stop from every direction.

Time, as a print magazine, doesn't dare acknowledge this fact. They're in the same exact business as tabloids, just at different rungs on the respectability ladder. So they're both going to go after the trolls. The fact Milo works for Breitbart only gets a parenthetical mention. They don't stop to question the quality of Breitbart's content, just play a bit of guilt by association towards it's board.

Of course it only gives more power to Weev and Milo's actions. But Time needs the trolls to be powerful, because if they weren't Time couldn't teach you to hate them.

</comment><comment><USER13> I posted this in a previous discussion about NPR getting rid of their comments. [http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2016/08/17/489516952/n...](http://www.npr.org/sections/ombudsman/2016/08/17/489516952/npr- website-to-get-rid-of-comments)

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm concerned. Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point.

<comment><USER14> The whole appeal about reddit is it's not just one "community," it's multiple subreddits with different rules and different types of comments. If a subreddit becomes too negative, just hit the unsubscribe button and find a better one.

<comment><USER13> I understand what Reddit is about. Here was my response to someone making a similar comment in the previous thread.

You know, I get this response every time I talk about this topic. I really dislike the "well no one is making you use / buy / watch / listen" to something. People can be critical of something they want to succeed. It happens a lot in certain game communities. What if I WANT to talk about politics, in a civil manner? Any sufficiently popular subreddit, just devolves into complete trash.

<comment><USER15> Well that's part of the problem, stick to less popular subreddits, and you'll get less of the 'riff raff', to quote Basil Fawlty. And when they start getting popular find an even less popular one.

I've been a part of many forums and internet communities and chat rooms, and they always tend to go the same way:

The people who have been around for awhile get increasingly annoyed by the newcomers and their lack of decorum or 'idiotic statements' or whatever, so that segment of the group starts posting in a new more secluded place and use the other place less and less.

Eventually more and more people find out about the 'secluded place' and it becomes more and more cluttered with 'undesirables', (often a few people from the previous group are now part of the old farts, or have become the new old farts), so a chunk of them break off from that community or forum and start posting somewhere even more secluded. And eventually it happens again. And again. And it's turtles all the way down.

I saw the same exact shit happening in real life too with Meetup.com. People stopped posting stuff to meetup groups because they didn't want certain people to come, then there's a smaller group that's secret from the others, then either some people find out about it that shouldn't or one of the people in the secret group starts acting in a way that the other people don't want to deal with them anymore (for example, one time it was because they started dating someone who was a real jerk), so a new, smaller secreter group is formed, and so on...turtles all the way down again.

<comment><USER13> Do you think it's right that the good standing users, have to go out of their way to find alternative routes to use the product? Start at the source, and clean up the problem. All you're doing is letting the trash take over, and the current system encourages it.

The Meetup scenario is depressing. Thankfully the one Tech Meetup I attend every so often is positive.

<comment><USER15> When you get the admins to clamp down, they're probably going to clamp down on some people or behavior that was tolerated or used by even the 'good' people because of some positive thing, and then those people start another group and take a bunch of those people with them, and it effectively becomes the same thing as before. I think it only works if you always had the rules in place, and even then, there will be some well liked people that will see how much they get away with, get removed, post a fit "I was ONLY doing blah and blah" and everyone else in the group gets mad and demands you let them back in, and blah, and blech.

The meetup thing started innocently enough a couple times (with a couple people I was told explicitly they didn't want certain people to come), it's like 'we found some people we like hanging out with now thanks to meetup and now we're just inviting them over to our place', but eventually they stop posting their normal stuff on meetup and it gets harder and harder to keep the group going.

I was a forum admin for way too long. Kinda glad I'm out of that now. Although now I'm an organizer for a meetup group, and it's not much different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another word that had an intelligent meaning and now just means "bad behavior or something ...".

Unfortunately pg was one of the first who started this when throwing the t-word at arc critics. Really sad.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm really curious - I've heard no one mention the concept of "hell-banning". Basically, instead of outright banning destructive users, you make all of their content only visible to themselves. It reminds me of the phrase "in space, no one can hear you scream". Eventually, after a while they stop posting. If they don't notice this for a while, they waste efforts posting content that no one will ever see. It's a bit like an automatic cold shoulder from the community.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is a great article in a lot of ways, but tells lies by omission about Andrew Aurenheimer (who is, by the way, a neo-nazi asshole).

> He served just over a year in prison for identity fraud and conspiracy.

This refers to his sentence for revealing AT&T's ridiculously lax security practices to a journalist. This sentence was overturned.

Using this as some sort of anecdote to illustrate weev's untrustworthiness without mentioning what it was for, or that it was overturned is the epitome of lazy and dishonest reporting.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't mind trolls. There is a difference between a troll, a bully, a wanker and a psycho.

<comment><USER20> That sounds like the opening to a funny joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you want to see a site that starts off with noble ambitions but descends into a swamp of thinly-veiled trolling masked in good intentions...I present Nextdoor.com. Brigading, a tactic employed to great effect on Twitter, is just as present in these so-called community discussions.

Righteous, uptight, indignant, spiteful, entitled...I never knew how much I despised my neighbors until I joined my local Nextdoor.

<comment><USER22> I am pretty neighbors have always been like that, with gossip and shit talking. It just was never in a place where you could see it all at once, and where as before people would only say those things to people in their confidence, now they can say it to everyone anonymously on a forum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Finally found out what "cuck" meant.

</comment><comment><USER24> I finally understand what the IoT is! :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I know it's not a popular position to take but I still think if the worst trolls were starved of oxygen they would crawl back under their bridge and die. An ignored troll is a defeated troll. Nasty people will always exist of course online and in the material world and thankfully even the meanest, nastiest button pushing trolls very rarely act on their threats to harm or kill the people they target.

A more important question is what drives so many people to attack non-white people and women online? Is it simply a reaction to a drop in status as traditionally oppressed groups assert themselves or is there more to this? We likely won't know anytime soon as the trend today is to dissect and discuss symptoms to the point of absurdity but talking about the causes or possible causes is almost taboo. E.g. Trump. Endless articles and opinion pieces bullshitting about how "evil" and "fascist" he is but serious discussions asking if, say, widespread economic disenfranchisement and the Democrats alienating the white working class in favor of identity politics has something to do with it.

The culture of outrage that identity politics has morphs into treats words as the fotemost evil in our world. "OMG Drumpf SAYS he's going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it and HE SAYS he will "ban" Muslims from entering the US!! He must be stopped!" Meanwhile Obama is deporting so many illegal immigrants he earned another nickname from it (Depoter in Chief) and firing Hellfire missiles on wedding parties and other funny acting Muslim civilians. Thousands have been killed or injured by "mistakes". But never mind about that because Trump. And don't ask if the economic lot of black people has improved during Obama's eight years in office or what he has done to stop the deaths of young black men at the hands of police. That would destroy the fantasy of America's first black president as a hip, progressive dude who really cares...and we can't have that.

Back to trolls "ruining" the Internet. Instead of cutting off their oxygen (the only proven way to kill trolls) Time gives them a massive infusion of the stuff and a hysterical headline to go with it. Of course possible root causes won't be explored and government surveillance, censorship etc. of the Internet in conjunction with business interests (the MPAA and RIAA to name two very prominent ones) that sends American LEA to foreign lands to violate the liberies of people suspected of...sharing links to pirated movies/music and running a cloud storage service that may have been used to store and share the aforementioned files.

It does sometimes feel like the world has gone over a cliff and the media, the establishment political parties and their wealthy owners/donors have glumped together into a mass of crazy that is stealth infecting people around the world.

</comment><comment><USER25> ...Or how people learned to ignore online, what they long have been forced to ignore offline.

<comment><USER26> I don't think that trolls are something that comes up often in real life. I can't imagine people acting like that in person unless they were middle schoolers. For example when I played soccer with people in real life I never had people tell me that I suck and to kill myself but people do it all the time in some video games.

<comment><USER25> I would argue that the 2016 race has been characterized primarily, by trolling.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think would be the next cool API just waiting to be built. - <AUTHOR>

Who's gonna be the next Twilio, mailgun, etc. <comment><USER2> The API that returns predictions for the next cool API just waiting to be built.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally I'd love to see local product search.</comment>


Steve Job's Perspective on Focus - windy-topology https://twitter.com/todo_whiz/status/1270113114038710274 <comment><AUTHOR> "A thousand no's for every yes" is also how they put it at Apple

</comment><comment><USER2> Warren Buffet said it better as "two lists"

[https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus](https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus)

</comment><comment> windy-topology Using this perspective, I constantly ask myself: "what 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 ideas can I drop today so I can focus on the 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 ones?"

<comment><USER3> Are you @todo_whiz?

<comment> windy-topology yepp

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the source of this quote? If it was from an interview, is the full version available somewhere?

<comment><USER5> Only just now looking it up, but it looks like it points back to an interview with Fortune:

> "Apple is a $30 billion company yet we've got less than 30 major products. I > don't know if that's ever been done before," Steve Jobs told Fortune > magazine in 2008. He added:

>

> > ... People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus > on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred > other good ideas that there are ...

[https://www.fastcompany.com/1693832/steve-jobss-strategy- get...](https://www.fastcompany.com/1693832/steve-jobss-strategy-get-rid- crappy-stuff)

[https://archive.fortune.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gall...](https://archive.fortune.com/galleries/2008/fortune/0803/gallery.jobsqna.fortune/6.html)</comment></comment>


Space firm founded by billionaire Paul Allen closing operations - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-space-exploration-stratolaunch-exclus/exclusive-space-firm-founded-by-billionaire-paul-allen-closing-operations-sources-idUSKCN1T12FD <comment><USER2> This is on the heels of Stratolaunch deciding not to pursue the design and development of their own launch vehicle in January of this year.(1)

Instead they pivoted to customizing their massive airframe to launching Norththrop's Pegasus XL rockets.

Editorializing I'd guess that Paul Allen's estate pushed the company to figure out if there was a short term commercialization opportunity with Northrop, found there wasn't, and is cutting their losses.

Tough to be a space faring startup without a billionaire sponsor bankrolling you as a passion project.

(1) [https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch- vehicle-p...](https://spacenews.com/stratolaunch-abandons-launch-vehicle- program/)

<comment><USER3> We definitely need more billionaires interested in space. We need to inspire with space the "next" (heavily overlapping) generation, so those who'd succeed may have a chance to advance the space activities.

<comment><USER4> Ultimately we need to get off this rock as a species; the Earth is fairly overdue (statistically as I understand it) for a major asteroid hit.

We seem to have this hubris that we'll be able to "detect and deflect" \- both of which are unlikely with our current technology for any size dire enough to care about.

We don't even have the "detect" part in place - not in the way it needs to be. As more than a few recent incidents have shown, we're currently blind and a sitting duck, so to speak.

Even a relatively small strike, depending on where it landed, could potentially trigger a nuclear launch depending on the political climate and such at the time. We need better eyes, if for nothing else than the avert that kind of "misunderstanding" which could lead to an existential crisis.

<comment><USER5> >the Earth is fairly overdue (statistically as I understand it) for a major asteroid hit.

What does this mean? Wouldn't the distribution of asteroid hits be essentially memoryless? That is, the fact that we have not had one in recent history has almost zero bearing on the probability of one happening in the future.

<comment><USER6> If you're interested, the terminology is "independent" events, and you're correct.

<comment><USER5> Independence is not exactly the same as memoryless. In this case I was referring to something like a Poisson process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> They are denying it. Time will tell..

[https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/the-worlds- largest-a...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/the-worlds-largest- aircraft-may-never-launch-rockets-nor-even-fly-again/)

<comment><USER8> "We don't have any news or announcements to share at this time. Stratolaunch remains operational" is not an emphatic denial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was excited to follow the original scaled composite work with Burt and spaceship one (winning the X Prize) but time has passed and stage reusability appears to be a better long term solution than a carrier solution. I think space ship 2 will meet a similar fate against blue origins approach with new Shepard and of SpaceX decides to sell space tourist spots in dragon 2. You need to try different approaches to find what works and the industry should be thankful for these experiments!

</comment><comment><USER10> Figured this was going to happen when Paul died. Really too bad they didn't have another year or two.

</comment><comment><USER11> And right after they got the big plane flying.

Maybe the museum up near Portland that has the Spruce Goose will take it.

<comment><USER12> That's the Evergreen Aviation museum in McMinnville, about an hour south of Portland. They have an SR-71, too. I make a pilgrimage once a year just to touch it :D

[https://www.evergreenmuseum.org](https://www.evergreenmuseum.org)

<comment><USER13> First time I saw it was surreal.

I was on a wine tour and on the way back to the hotel looked out the window and was gobsmacked. "Woah... that's the Spruce Goose! The Spruce Goose is here!?!"

Cancelled the next day's tour and hit up the museum instead.

Highly recommended.

<comment><USER14> > The Spruce Goose is here!?!"

And a 747 on the roof.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Paul's sister Jody running the joint now. She's probably more pragmatic than Paul was. Letting the craft go airborne was her homage to him and the team. But we have many players in this space doing better. Time to refocus

<comment><USER16> spoken like a true bureaucrat

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For a while I was convinced this project was actually a cover along the lines of the Howard Hughes Glomar Explorer. Maybe for deploying a variant of the X-37 to be able to launch/retrieve/bug satellites undetected. I guess that wasn't actually the case.

More about the Glomar Explorer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian)

</comment><comment><USER18> It was a very interesting design, and I'm sad to see _any_ space company go, but stratolaunch was honestly not a great idea for larger launch vehicles. The drag penalty reduction was most useful for smaller launch vehicles.

</comment><comment><USER19> 'The Dream never dies, just the dreamer'... Allen was that rarest of all Unicorn fathers - no need for commercial justification - to a point. It was very saddening to see him pass. There may be a substantial tax hit? so his sister has to bring the dream to earth as well as make something carry on. Do a good job Jody, we all support you.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've just added Stratolaunch plane to the scheme with other giant planes so that it is easier to compare, see:

[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_planes_compari...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_planes_comparison_- _Updated_-_2019.svg)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's interesting that Russia (Soviet Union) produced a couple of big space rockets which flew very few times (N1 - four unsuccessful liftoffs, Energiya - two successful flights), and USA made a couple of big planes (Spruce Goose, Stratolaunch) which flew very few times (once each).

</comment><comment><USER21> Interesting parallel to Howard Hughes and the Spruce Goose. An ambitious aircraft legacy. I hope the plane is not destroyed, it is a remarkable achievement.

</comment><comment><USER22> Learning: Don't wait with your dreams until you die (or short before that).

<comment><USER23> I've found it easier to just not have dreams.

<comment> D-Coder I've found it easier to just not die.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe we should all of our pollutant industries over to Io so at least it'll be warm by the time we need it.

</comment><comment><USER25> That's what happens when someone's pouring their resources/time into a project without an existing business model. That does not need to be money or the space launch business. I have seen this with FOSS projects as well when the project lead/driving force left.

I'm a bit afraid that this might be Blue Origin's fate if Bezos suddenly died.

SpaceX would maybe be no longer be as ambitious anymore as it used to be if Musk went away but at least they're actually selling things and have a working business model. (TSLAQ hate crew objections incoming in 3..2..1.. ;)</comment>


Zone.vision (Inspect DNS zones like a superhero) - <AUTHOR> http://zone.vision <comment><AUTHOR> Cute little tool, definitley one of the nicest designed Zone lookup tools I've seen.</comment>


Jeff Rothschild (On the Metal: Episode 1) - <AUTHOR> https://oxide.computer/blog/on-the-metal-1-jeff-rothschild/ <comment><AUTHOR> > Jeff has had a fascinating journey solving all sorts of fun problems at > various levels of the stack. He is most widely known as being a co-founder > of Veritas Software and the first VP of Engineering at Facebook, but his > story does not start there. Join us as we hear Jeff's stories from his > impressive technical endeavors including disassembling MS-DOS, editing > machine code in an octal editor, trolling coworkers in error messages, the > origin story of `ftruncate`, and more.</comment>


The Ocean Cleanup - <AUTHOR> http://www.theoceancleanup.com/ <comment><USER3> I don't know enough about the subject to have the pretence to judge whether it can work, what I do know is that: 1\. It seems the naysayers are doing nothing to try and change the situation, but then again, history books aren't populated with names of critics... 2\. A partial solution is better than no solution. It doesn't solve the problem of microscopic plastic parts ? So what ? It also doesn't solve world hunger and global warming, but having more people with the attitude and vision of this young entrepreneur just might.

<comment><USER4> >It seems the naysayers are doing nothing to try and change the situation

You can thank the naysayers for serious research, otherwise people would just come up with stupid abstract ideas since no one would be skeptical or pessimistic.

I agree with your second point, but I also think we shouldn't rush for a temporary solution that would give people a feeling of "we have at least done something about this, now let's stop worrying about it". Startup culture shouldn't apply to public- or crowd-funded solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good idea. Is this a scam? Does not look like that. Can this be harmful? Probably not at least in this scale. Ok, here's my money. Test this and let me know if it worked.

In general it is good to be sceptical, but sometimes it can also prevent good things from happening. I think it is better to just throw them some money (or ignore this) than spend time trying to find reasons why this would not work. It's not like we would need to pick either this solution or something else. We can try this, and that and five other ideas and see which one works best.

<comment><USER6> As one of over 100 volunteers for this project, I can say with confidence it's not a scam, but a passionate team trying a crazy but by now well-researched idea.

Totally agreed - it's not a full solution, but definitely one worth trying.

<comment><USER7> I had a question in case you might happen to know -- why does the site _require_ email addresses?

<comment><USER6> I haven't been involved in the website itself, sorry!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm skeptical. Most of the plastics in his/her photos are visible. In the actual gyres, most plastics are microplastics, i.e. particles from cosmetics and clothes washing that have gone down the drain. There's a pinkie fingernail sized piece every couple of cubic metres or so. Definitely not visible. They also harbour life. How to remove the life and give it somewhere to live without upsetting the ecosystem?

<comment><USER9> Do you have a reference for the main sources of microplastics? My understanding is that they are the result of larger chunks of plastic that just decompose in the oceans. By removing large plastic items we'd make a strong leap forward.

<comment><USER10> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microplastics)

It's even in toothpastes!

<comment><USER11> This is just ridiculous... We need a marketing campaign to shame companies that use these. We ban it or legally enforce labeling of products that use microplastics and create a negative sentiment towards it. Otherwise, this is going to spiral out of control. If we can manage to stop it like ozone depleting CFCs then we'll have a chance to fix this, despite the immense energy cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This idea is already very criticized.

French article about it: [http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2014/06/19/boyan-slat- machine-a-n...](http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2014/06/19/boyan-slat-machine-a- nettoyer-les-oceans-faut-rever-253027)

<comment><USER13> I didn't see many good counterpoints in the article.

1\. They argue the majority of the waste is small particles, and they refer to it as a 'plastic soup'. Are these particles not just larger plastic debris that has decomposed? Wouldn't keeping up with the larger debris help prevent the 'plastic soup' in the first place?

2\. Second point, they say the project is too big of a challenge but believe it might work on a smaller scale. I don't think this is a situation where you should think small.

3\. Thirdly, they say this will be in the way for boats, and wildlife. The site addresses most of the wildlife concerns because there's nothing to capture wildlife, and it's basically a floating wall. The wildlife can swim under it, or away from it. I'm sure some jellyfish would be floating into it, but it seems like a big improvement over nets. Also, it says their large scale operational test will be 10km wide. That's not exactly disrupting the shipping lanes in the middle of the ocean.

4\. Their last points are awful. They say the plastic waste can't be recycled, so it's worthless to pick up, and they close with saying 'cleaning the oceans will never be a solution', and we should instead just reduce the use of plastic.

In short, I have no idea if this thing will work, but watching the videos, it seems like a decent solution that's worth exploring. They seem motivated, and a couple of million dollars isn't much to invest on such a project and team.

<comment><USER14> rue89 is a far left French news site so it isn't surprising that their solution is anti-consumerism and their skepticism directed at a private initiative is also not surprising as they tend to favor initiatives that come from the State only.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone who has routinely ridden a bike along the rivers of Los Angeles I can tell you there is nothing being done to stop the flow of trash from streets, through storm drains, to rivers straight into the ocean. Targeting rivers like these in major population areas seems like the cheapest, easiest, most effective first step to stopping this problem.

</comment><comment><USER16> There's a skeptoid episode about the Pacific Garbage Patch: [http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4132](http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4132)

 _" In 1988, Robert Day, David Shaw, and Steven Ignell submitted a report to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) detailing the results of four years of sample collection and analysis of plastic fragments found floating in the Pacific Ocean. They found concentrations highest in the North Pacific Gyre. The authors cited wind and currents as the primary force driving the higher concentrations to the center of the Gyre. Concentrations of what? Number one, monofilament fishing line fragments; and number two, something called neuston plastic. Neuston plastic refers to particles that have been broken down to a small size and are now floating just at or below the surface of the water. Most plastic floating in the open ocean degrades quite quickly, due primarily to ultraviolet radiation. It becomes brittle and crumbles. When it reaches microscopic size, it competes with phytoplankton as a food source for zooplankton, and enters the food chain. That's not good for anyone. The authors used 203 sample stations, each about 450 square meters in size. 52.2% of these contained plastic fragments.

Got that? Only half of NOAA's football-field sized sample areas, in the center of the densest part of the Pacific "Garbage Patch", contain even detectable levels of microscopic plastic. Unacceptable to be sure; but hardly a solid island."_

<comment><USER17> No one ever said it was a "solid island of plastic" except some uninformed members of the public. You're taking an urban legend to criticize a valid concern. That is like saying hackers can be stopped by banning ski masks because everyone knows a hacker is someone in a ski mask.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since the majority of plastics are produced from petroleum, I wonder when it may become viable to mine the plastics that have ended up in landfill and the oceans - most of them are thermoplastics like polyethylene, which can be easily remelted and recycled.

</comment><comment><USER19> It kills me when I say title tags on the front page as Home. I shared this one Facebook and it comes up as Home as the title: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kw9fie59eg6m2w/Screenshot%202014-...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/2kw9fie59eg6m2w/Screenshot%202014-06-21%2009.19.29.png)

</comment><comment><USER20> One thing worth mentioning is the recent MIT work that can turn non- recycleable plastics back into crude oil.

[http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/pk-clean-solving-worlds- plast...](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/pk-clean-solving-worlds-plastic- problem-0620)

</comment><comment><USER21> We already started cleaning the oceans, of their fishes that is: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/03/t...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/06/03/the- end-of-fish/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Great project. I do wonder , why are 100 people involved ? is it very complicated ? or just the fact they volunteer so they can't give their 100% attention to this?

<comment><USER6> The short answer is, both. There's a smaller core team that works more or less full time on this, and a lot of other part time volunteers. Personally, I volunteered temporarily on one of their research trips only (I'm unsure if I'm counted in the "over 100 volunteers" figure, though).

Edit: I forgot to respond to the second part. It is also very complicated - <USER2> has already required a lot of research that hasn't been done before, and a lot of angles need to be considered, not just in various fields of physics and chemistry but also biology, economics and law to mention a few.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is there anyway to buy their The Feasibility Study book? I'd love to help them and get one copy.

<comment><USER6> There's only two physical copies of it right now, while they're extending the peer review. The only way (as far as I can see) to get a physical copy is to pledge at least $750 (see the crowdfunding page).

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> worth trying...

</comment><comment><USER7> If they could only make the email address optional, then I'd consider... there _really_ is no good reason whatsoever to require an email address here for someone who isn't asking for a reward.

<comment><USER25> That strikes me as a pretty extreme reaction. If it's an issue you care about and you think it's a viable approach, you'd really withhold your contribution on the basis of a required email address?

<comment><USER26> It smells bad. If I'm not explicitly asking them to send me stuff, what are they going to do with it except send me stuff I didn't ask for, AKA spam. This particular project may well be an exception, but on today's internet that's a healthy reflex.</comment></comment></comment>


Who Will Suffer Most from Climate Change? (Hint: Not You) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/Who-Will-Suffer-Most-From-Climate-Change <comment><USER2> Although true, I think headlines like this give a lot of people an impression that the First World won't suffer. Climate change over +2C will hit the U.S. hard, and the fact that other places are worse off won't be consolation. At the rate we're going, that's not future generations, it's many of today's working people at retirement age.

(For details, an excellent source is _Six Degrees_ by Mark Lynas, who read 3000 peer-reviewed papers on the effects of climate change and summarized them, with extensive references.)

<comment><USER3> > Climate change over +2C will hit the U.S. hard, and the fact that other > places are worse off won't be consolation.

Care to elaborate? I don't see how that would be a problem. Agricultural areas would shift, and maybe we'd have to move some stuff further inland/build dikes/turn cities into Venice. Anything I'm missing?

I don't see how that stuff is worse than energy controls (people have no idea how important energy is for the economy), plus even if we change, other countries won't.

<comment><USER4> I feel bad for the state of discussion on HN that you were downvoted for asking an honest, polite request for more information.

<comment><USER5> Asking why it is a problem to move cites honestly sounds more like trolling than a honest question.

<comment><USER4> Moving or converting cities does seem like an incredible undertaking. However, it also looks like making the world reign in its carbon emissions sufficiently has been tried and is not yet successful; maybe it's actually impossible as opposed to just difficult. At least changing the world to adapt to climate change doesn't have the tragedy of the commons working against it, because when a local government works to prepare for whatever is going to happen, the benefit accrues locally to the people making the sacrifice.

I read several of javert's posts, and I don't get the impression of a troll.

<comment><USER6> The issue at hand, isn't the people in the first world.

how would you move a city like Mumbai? Or how about any of the villages in the hinterlands, like Waynard Kerala, Nagpur Maharashtra, random village in Bihar.

There is _very_ strong regional centrism when CC gets discussed on the web (for obvious reasons). Local government has a hard time getting by _now_ , in the places that have it at all.

Moving a city? Building infrastructure to manage water shortages?

I do not see how those human beings, with those resources, are going to achieve that.

Only a few groups can talk about adapting to climate change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _The rice farmers I met in Bihar, for instance, are now growing a new variety of flood-tolerant rice—nicknamed "scuba" rice—that can survive two weeks underwater._

Found this extremely interesting. Probably because, I was surprised by the thought that, this could be done

</comment><comment><USER8> Pros and cons? CO2 is of course the primary carbon source for plants. Not the merest hint here of the enormous degree of planet-greening with record crop yields equivalent to millions of dollars that's taken place as a result of the increase in atmospheric CO2.

When discussing the results of this increase, typically, articles like this and hundreds more [http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/co2-production- inte...](http://www.planetseed.com/relatedarticle/co2-production- international-perspective) take pains not to mention it.

According to CSIRO" "CO2 fertilisation correlated with an 11 per cent increase in foliage cover from 1982-2010 across parts of the arid areas studied in Australia, North America, the Middle East and Africa." This means that arid regions across the world would have not greened if CO2 levels had not increased.".

Hardly worth mentioning I guess.

<comment><USER9> Interesting, it almost acts like a natural defense mechanism for the planet. The problem is, it's not enough.

It's great if the CO2 increase has led to greater food production, but that increased foliage hasn't stopped or slowed the CO2 increase. So yes, it's probably "hardly worth mentioning".

<comment><USER10> Eh, if you are talking about impact of climate change on agriculture, _of course_ this is worth mentioning, and most sane sources do.

For example, quoting IPCC report "Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability" chapter 7, "Evidence confirms the stimulatory effects of carbon dioxide (CO2) in most cases on crop yields (high confidence)".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's see: Event A will cause event B. Event B will will be really bad. So, let's go on and on about how bad event B will be, all the direct effects and all the indirect effects. On and on.

So, get people all up on their hind legs based on how bad event B will be.

But event A, what about event A?

How do we know that event A will happen?

When do we get solid information about the chances of event A?

Event B: Gigantic flocks of pigs flying over our largest cities and dropping huge piles of pig poop. Let's talk about all the really horrible problems all those flying pigs will cause. Let's get the EPA, USDA, CDC, etc. working really hard on the problem. Let's pass a lot of new laws restricting and taxing pigs. Let's have the NIH doing genetic studies on how to do genetic engineering to throttle the flying pigs. We need a UN effort to constrain all those flying pigs with some treaties with some severe sanctions to protect the world, including the poorest people who will be hurt the _worst_ , from all those flying pigs.

In all of this, what is the chance of event A, the chances of the gigantic flocks of flying pigs?

So, since event B with those pigs would be so bad, we get to neglect talking about event A that the pigs will fly at all?

I smell the faint whiff of propaganda pig poop.

<comment><USER12> Look, I respect you greatly, but this is not something to be cavalier about just because the environmentalists act like it's the Great Revival and throw up too many hosannas for our liking. Ocean acidification is real, greenhouse and ocean thermal effects can't be explained away by sunspots and yes Virginia, there is such a thing as phenomenology in science, despite what people like Koonin might say.

<comment><USER11> Sure, significant and massively destructive "ocean acidification" would be really bad.

<comment><USER12> Not would be, is. It's happening now.

[http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/disaster-weve-wrought- wor...](http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/11/disaster-weve-wrought-worlds- oceans-may-be-irrevocable-256962.html)

<comment><USER11> _Newsweek_? Gee, I remember _Newsweek_ , 1975 and their prediction of horrible, destructive, massive, life killing, earth ruining, devastating, hideous, humongous, drum roll, please, "global cooling", with a scan of their cover story in

[http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf](http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf)

Right, _Newsweek_ , that is, _newsies_ looking to grab people, by the heart, the gut, below the belt, always below the shoulders, never between the ears, to get eyeballs for ads and ad revenue.

They are in the ad business. Their _content_ is just smelly bait to catch eyeballs for their ad business.

Their stuff is garbage, as low as it can go, no higher than necessary, for their ad revenue, in the short term. Their _reputation_? They assume their target audience doesn't care and, thus, they don't care.

Their _content_ is really from the literary fiction tradition of _drama_ and _art_ as in _communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion_. So, they want to concentrate on the _drama_ of the human experiences, the horrible things that will happen to humans.

They like to play on fears, the threats of both nature and society, as in E. Fromm, _The Art of Loving_ , the main sources of human anxiety.

The newsies won't do any better as long as people keep reading them and they keep getting ad revenue.

You should not have taken the newsies seriously in 1975, and you should not today.

Again, emphasize all the horrible things that would happen with massive global cooling. Like emphasizing all the horrible things that would happen with gigantic flocks of flying pigs over our cities dropping thousands of tons of pig poop a day. It would be really bad. There would be disease, death, gigantic economic losses. What are going to do about this gigantic pig poop problem?

To see more of how this goes, watch the now classic movie _The Music Man_ talking about the terrible threat of a pool table in town and, thus, the need for a boy's band -- that will be $19.95 import fee.

For more, review some of how the old English morality plays went and how much of Christian religion went in those days and nearly to the present -- terrible threats from sin and the Devil, now we will pass the offering plate, sing the Doxology, and see the 10%.

Got some spectacular stuff that way -- look up the Bishop's Residence in Munich. Build something like that for yourself and it would really set you back.

The good thing about the movie was Shirley Jones -- we're talking drop dead gorgeous, just what you want next to you under piles of blankets on those long, cold nights from the "global cooling".

It wasn't just Western Civilization; parts of the New World did much the same: Indeed the ancient Mayans had some such thoughts and responded by killing people and pouring their blood on a rock as at

[http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA...](http://books.google.com/books?id=DgqLplWtGPgC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=Mayan+blood+sun+moving+sacrifice&source=web&ots=Do6njWN5M9&sig=FxTeclIiqggqIH5Ws_oENCek1uI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA76,M1)

from page 76 of

Susan Milbrath, 'Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)', ISBN-13 978-0292752269, University of Texas Press, 2000.

They didn't have enough solid science to know that (A) their blood would have no effect on the sun and (B) there was no danger that the sun would stop moving across the sky.

Ah, where can we get some of that massive, hideous, life-ending global cooling? I was counting on it, getting under the covers with Shirley Jones!

That _global cooling_ scare was never about science, the earth, or temperature -- those were all just _misdirections_ , as in a magic show, to hide what was really going on. E.g., standard advice: "Always look for the hidden agenda.".

What was really going on? Sure, just obvious, just from common sense and People 101, the usual suspects: A flim-flam, fraud, scam to get money and power. Right, the two, usual biggies -- money and power.

<comment><USER12> I'm not in the business of the sky is falling, but I can happily cite peer reviewed, more respectable (in the scientific community) _observations_ and measurements on ocean acidification, as opposed to the prognostications in the seventies you are referring to.

Or, for example, if you want to drill down more into this clathrates issue, I can put you in personal touch with some experts at Stony Brook and you can ask all the detailed questions you like via email.

<comment><USER11> Okay, from your urging, I looked up _ocean acidification_ and found

[http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=165564&pt=2&p=150429](http://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=165564&pt=2&p=150429)

with _Ocean Acidification_. They have a lot of seemingly serious organizations with their logos at the bottom, e.g., NOAA. Of course, nearly all those organizations (the IAEA is there and I can't guess why) are in the business of screaming about CO2 from humans -- so objectivity is in question.

They had their chance, and they blew it; they just didn't make a convincing case at all. About all they really said was that if I go swimming in the ocean and exhale into the water, then my CO2 will make the water more acidic. I agree. Obviously both true and trivial.

But that's also right where they blew it: They never got to how much CO2 and how much more acidic. So, in principle nearly everything they said would also hold for my case of blowing bubbles at the beach -- literally. They had a chance -- they blew it.

Why? Incompetence or just covering up that so far the CO2 is nowhere nearly enough to do much to the oceans anytime soon, and I don't know which, but in either case they didn't turn me into a CO2 and _ocean acidification alarmist_.

Early on they said that the atmospheric CO2 makes the surface water more acidic. I thought, "Sure, but so darned what?" It's just the surface water, and there's a _lot_ more water out there and a lot of mixing. So, now, the whole ocean, human CO2 is going to make the whole ocean a lot more acidic? When? How? Via how darned much CO2 and how much more acidic? No answer.

The whole ocean? In another context, I'd take that as a thigh slapping joke from Donald Duck or Bugs Bunny.

Next I think, significantly harmful CO2 in the ocean? _Gotta_ be kidding because of sea floor _smokers_ , volcanoes, e.g., think Hawaii, and sea floor spreading and associated volcanic activity from plate tectonics, e.g., the line from Iceland south through the central Atlantic and around much of the planet.

Next, especially in the top layers of the ocean are Phytoplankton, that is plankton that are plants and, thus, suck up CO2. They mentioned some means of the oceans getting rid of the CO2 but didn't mention plants. Gads.

My objections are not solid science, but their PDF didn't address even my simple, obvious, first-cut points. So, their PDF fails both the sniff test and the giggle test.

Maybe their worst was their

"16 Full recovery of the oceans will require tens to hundreds of millennia. Over decades to centuries, neither weathering of continental rocks, deep ocean mixing, or dissolution of calcium carbonate minerals in marine sediments can occur fast enough to reverse OA over the next two centuries."

The first problem, grade F on the giggle test, is "hundreds of millennia". That's hundreds of thousands of years, just to do something about CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution? This is from Bugs Bunny?

In hundreds of thousands of years the oceans would routinely handle the CO2 from hundreds of thousands of years of volcanic activity but would struggle with the industrial output of CO2 from, say, 200 years? Grade F on the sniff test.

This statement needs at least some support from actual numerical estimates of the quantities involved; just that statement in that PDF document is at least incompetent as writing if not science.

Yes, they did mention pH:

"4 Average global surface ocean pH has already fallen from a pre-industrial value of 8.2 to 8.1, corresponding to an increase in acidity of about 30%."

Boy, does that scream out for a reference, some supporting arguments (e.g., just how much CO2 would that take, even if none of it was taken up by plants), and the significance of that much change in pH.

Without getting out a chemistry book, maybe I see how their change from pH 8.2 to 8.1 is "an increase in acidity of about 30%." Gee, 30%; that sounds big, dangerous, etc. Wow! 30%! Gads.

So, 8.2 is not _acidic_ but _basic_. pH is essentially hydrogen ion concentration. So, in a basic solution, expect nearly no hydrogen ions. So, if pH 8.2 has nearly no hydrogen ions, then 30% more hydrogen ions to pH 8.1 is 30% of nearly nothing and, thus, nearly no change. Sorry, I have to get up and turn off my screaming, loud BS meter that just went off ....

They blew it.

This PDF is from Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, Goofy, The Three Stooges, Groucho Marx, George Carlin, NOAA, or all of those?

It that's even roughly the best argument they can make, then they added evidence of no serious problem from "ocean acidification".

Tell you what: Next time to the beach, I'll bring a roll of Tums and drop a few into the ocean. For what's in the PDF, that should solve any problem.

For that PDF, there's a much better explanation than a significant threat to the oceans: They want to _fit in_ with the CO2 alarmists and, thus, get grant money.

I'm all for good research, but first they need to learn how to write. I would not approve their grant request.

Gotta quit reading this stuff or unplug my BS meter ....

<comment><USER11> Let's see: For their pH 8.2, they have

"4 Average global surface ocean pH has already fallen from a pre-industrial value of 8.2 to 8.1, corresponding to an increase in acidity of about 30%."

So, the 8.2 was "average", "surface", and "pre-industrial".

Hmm .... Where'd they get that number? How the heck was that known then, i.e., "pre-industrial"? And it was just "surface" which is already suspect.

For the 8.1, is that really comparable? That is, measured in the same places, at the same times of year? For the 8.1, was there some recent high sea state for a lot of mixing or a big rain storm with fresh water?

We can't just accept those numbers; we need references.

In general, for that PDF, we need references. Just due to the lack of references, the PDF gets a grade of F due to failing to meet just common high school term paper writing standards.

That PDF is junk.

The authors of the PDF are attempting a flim-flam, fraud, scam. That PDF is about money and politics, not science or pH.

<comment><USER12> Here's their references: [http://www.whoi.edu/OCB- OA/page.do?pid=112616](http://www.whoi.edu/OCB-OA/page.do?pid=112616)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >The world's poorest farmers show up for work each day for the most part empty-handed. That's why of all the people who will suffer from climate change, they are likely to suffer the most.

So, these poor farmers will demand low-cost solutions to manage these problems. Entrepreneurs would sense this(Bill already did) and start building these tools. It's just how capitalism works.

Unless, there's a crony global economy where corporations buy up government and hold illegitimate monopolies.

As consequence, they are unproductive and unable to keep up with innovation. The world doesn't get what it needs. Bill would also be a good example.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't blame this on governments/corporations. I would blame it on people choosing to have children they can't necessarily support.

I think people should have the right to do that, but they should have to face the consequences.

<comment><USER14> > I would blame it on people choosing to have children they can't necessarily > support.

It's not like that they perceive to have a choice: If one lives from day to day (or here harvest to harvest) and has never heard of pensions nor any chance to ever receive one, children are the only security one has for old age.

<comment><USER15> In all likelihood, they also don't have access to education or birth control.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mozilla Installs Scheduled Telemetry Task on Windows with Firefox 75 - <AUTHOR> https://www.ghacks.net/2020/04/09/mozilla-installs-scheduled-telemetry-task-on-windows-with-firefox-75/ <comment><USER2> Mozilla have posted about it:

[https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2020/03/16/understanding- defau...](https://blog.mozilla.org/data/2020/03/16/understanding-default- browser-trends/)

And it's disabled if you have disabled browser telemetry. Personally I'm OK with this, it doesn't feel particularly sneaky.

</comment><comment><USER3> A quick reminder how to maintain your privacy while using Firefox (Windows pathnames):

1\. Install Firefox with Internet disconnected. Do not install the Maintenance Service. Run once and then close it completely (Ctrl-Shift-Esc to check no processes are running).

2\. Create and edit the file:

"%APPDATA%\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\\*.default\user.js"

Use the following as a template: [https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js/blob/master/user.js](https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js/blob/master/user.js)

Best to read through the whole contents and edit it by hand as some of the settings might be too restrictive (there's a "relaxed" version too in another repository by the same author).

3\. Create and edit the file:

"%ProgramFiles%\Mozilla Firefox\distribution\policies.json"

With the following contents:

        {
         "policies": {
          "DisableAppUpdate": true
         }
        }

Note: This file and directory are being deleted every time you update Firefox, so be prepared to re-create them afterwards. Alternatively, it might also work to revoke the write permission to that directory but this could break the whole update process (I have yet to test it).

4\. Update Firefox manually whenever a new version is released but wait for a while first, so that all the new anti-features such as this one come to light.

<comment><USER4> Related:

[https://www.ghacks.net/2020/01/06/please-mozilla-dont- touch-...](https://www.ghacks.net/2020/01/06/please-mozilla-dont-touch-the- user-js-functionality-in-firefox/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every time I scroll down on this page in iOS Safari it just automatically refreshes bringing me back to the top. If I recall correctly this was blogged about on Mozilla's blog already.</comment>


Ask YC: What would you put on a hacker's bookshelf? - <AUTHOR> I'll start it off:<p>- O'Reilly's Python in a Nutshell<p>- A 12" PB (I use my old PB as a more capable "kimble" and for quick SSHing into my servers)<p>- And to preempt the half-dozen comments suggesting them: Founders at Work & Hackers and Painters <comment><USER2> Hmmm, here's a list of books I really like:

Memory as a Programming Concept in C and C++ by Frenck

The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System by McKusick/Neville-Neil

Learning GNU Emacs by Cameron, et al.

Practical Common Lisp by Seibel

The C Programming Language by K&R

The C++ Programming Language Stroustrup

The Design and Analysis of Algorithms by Leviten

Assembly Language Programming for the IBM PC Family by Jones

Essays/Collections:

Hackers & Painters by PG

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman by Feynman

What Do You Care What Other People Think by Feynman

The Cathedral & The Bazaar by Raymond

Novels:

The Soul of a New Machine by Kidder

Where Wizards Stay up Late by Hafner

<comment><USER3> Another vote for "Surely You're Joking Mr.Feynman" by Feynman

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Harry Potter, Goosebumps, choose your own adventure stories...

Oh, wait, I have to look like I'm really smart. Um, Knuth.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Feynman Lectures on Physics

The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

A Latin/English dictionary for new company names

</comment><comment><USER6> Made to Stick

I've won several marketing competitions, an elevator pitch contest, and made countless connections with others, using ideas from this book.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Lord of the Rings" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", because seriously... you need to read something fun every once in a while.

</comment><comment><USER8> Make friends and influence people -- will help you understand why people react as strange as they do.

<comment><USER9> I skimmed that book and it all seemed to boil down to "be nice". Am I the only one who finds that ironic?

<comment><USER10> One of the most interesting parts of the book is that it claims you should "never criticize" another person. It says that every person can always justify their actions in their own mind and all criticism is taken negatively. As an example, even mass murderers have been interviewed justifying their actions. I tend to agree with this philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War (for thoughts on competition)

Managing Gigabytes (if you are doing anything related to search)

Writing Solid Code (especially if you are using C/C++)

Most of the research papers that come out of OSDI/SOSP: Dynamo, BigTable, Sawzall, GFS, Chubby, etc

<comment><USER12> I second the Boyd suggestion. One of the best books I've ever read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Code by Charles Petzold is an awesome hacking book. It takes you from flipping a light switch, thru simple circuits up to assembly language. It's beautiful!

</comment><comment><USER14> It really depends what sort of hacker they are. There's a sort of hacker you buy a copy of "Pro JavaScript Techniques" for, a sort you buy the Dragon Book for, and another sort who you give a copy of TAOCP.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised no one mentioned SICP.

I would also add:

      - The Little Schemer
      - Linux in a Nutshell
      - Unix power tools

</comment><comment><USER16> The Design of Everyday Things - Don Norman

I know he's gotten some flak lately for ripping on 37signals, but this book seriously changed how I look at the world... especially doors.

Freakonomics - Steven Levitt

Good for understanding the value of taking another perspective.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Becoming a Technical Leader" by Gerald Weinberg

Unconventional perspective on management

"How Buildings Learn" by Stewart Brand

One of the best books about designing long-term architectures. Excellent coffee table book

"Envisioning Information" by Edward Tufte

"Walt Disney" by Neal Gabler

Excellent biography of maybe the greatest imagineer ever

"The Art of Software Testing" by Glenford J. Myers

~100 page classic. The central premise is that the successful test is one that _finds_ bugs/issues not one that doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER18> \- Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson

\- Copywriting (Teach Yourself series), by J. Jonathan Gabay

\- The Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz

<comment><USER9> Schwartz gave a Google talk on the book:

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6127548813950043200>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Introduction to Algorithms - Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein (CLRS)

<comment><USER20> But if you're old school, you'll have already had the old version (CLR) on your bookshelf collecting dust. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Principia Discordia; or How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her

</comment><comment><USER22> Upcoming:

"High Performance MySQL" (O'Reilly) (New Edition)

"Advanced PHP Programming: Developing Large-scale Web Applications With PHP 5" (Developer's Library) by George Schlossnagle

Released:

"Building Scalable Websites" (O'Reilly) by Cal Henderson

"Scalable Internet Architectures" (Developer's Library) by Theo Schlossnagle

</comment><comment><USER23> "First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently". I know it has a cheap title but it there is plenty of merit in it. The Gallup organization carried out a massive survey of various business units in an attempt to discover commonalities between the successful units. The results showed that there are essentially 12 things that must be true about a unit in order for it to be successful.

Its a fun read if nothing else. It contains a lot of counter convention logic that would be right at home in one of PG's essays.

</comment><comment><USER24> Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston

Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham

I am NOT recommending these because I am an avid hacker.news participant.

I became an avid hacker.news participant AFTER reading these books.

</comment><comment><USER25> Programming Collective Intelligence - O'Reilly Media Toby Segaran

Art of the start - Guy Kawasaki

The art of war - Sun Tzu

<comment><USER26> Huh! Currently I have Programming Collective Intelligence and Art of the start on mine. Just started reading Prog Coll Intell. So far, I am impressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> * "Applied Cryptography" by Bruce Schneier. The first chapters are a great introduction to cryptography, but I found the few following chapters presenting cryptographic protocols mind-blowing. Some of them are so simple yet very clever.

* Political economy essays by Frédéric Bastiat ( <http://bastiat.org> ) were truly enlightening for me.

</comment><comment><USER28> [http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2325563013_d62ca9cde5.jp...](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2325563013_d62ca9cde5.jpg?v=0)

I'm a fan of "The Pragmatic Programmer".

Other books I thought were a good read: getting things done, 4 hour work week, and founders at work.

I've also got all 6 seasons of 24 on my bookshelf =/, probably not the most productive times of my life.

<comment><USER29> Ha ha, finally a 24 fan! Yeah I have all the 6 seasons with me too :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Some plants for better air quality.

</comment><comment><USER31> \- New Hacker's Dictionary (print version is nice for browsing)

\- The Little Schemer (or the whole series, if you really like them)

\- The Art of Computer Programming

</comment><comment><USER32> I haven't gotten through all of it, but I really like the New Turing Omnibus, by A.K. Dewdney. It's about computer science, not how to program, so it would be interesting to non-hackers, too. Even if you are familiar with all of its topics, it can serve as a reference and clarifying tool for CS concepts.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow, surprised nobody mentioned this:

       GEB.

Overrated in some circles, but definitely should be "on your bookshelf". Hofstadter's other books, also:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Hofstadter#Books>

</comment><comment><USER33> Getting Real (37 Signals)

Programming Ruby (Pragmatic Programmers)

Agile Web Development with Rails (Pragmatic Programmers)

Javascript: The Definitive Guide (O'Reilly)

a good text on database design & normalization, performance issues, and SQL

something to teach *nix basics, which I don't have but could have used

</comment><comment><USER34> Off the top of my head:

\- Soul of a New Machine

\- The Cuckoo's Egg

\- Revolution in the Valley

\- Fire in the Valley

\- Compilers by Sethi, Ullman, Aho

\- Masters of Doom

\- iWoz

\- Steve Jobs & the NeXT Big Thing

\- Crypto

\- Code

\- The Man Who Loved Only Numbers

\- The Man Who Knew Infinity

\- ANSI Common LISP

Most of the books above are recommended because once reading them you will have an uncontrollable urge to immediately create something brilliant. You will not be able to stop yourself.

-m

</comment><comment><USER35> Getting Things Done, by David Allen

anything by Edward Tufte

The Singularity Is Near, by Ray Kurzweil

Dip, by Seth Godin

</comment><comment><USER36> Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp by Peter Norvig

(an excellent book even if you don't want to become a Lisp programmer)

</comment><comment><USER37> -Showstopper by G. Pascal Zachary

-The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

-UNIX in a Nutshell (O'Reilly book written by Arnold Robbins)

</comment><comment><USER38> DeMarco & Lister (yes, the Peopleware guys) - Waltzing With Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects

</comment><comment><USER39> Programmers at Work, by Susan Lammers.

It opened up many many ideas to me, including flying, writing software for _people_ , why simple software is harder to write than complicated software, and gave me some indication of what 'being smart' really means.

I really highly recommend this book.

</comment><comment><USER40> designing the obvious - a common sense approach to web application design by Robert Hoekman Jr

The New New Thing

Masters of Doom (story of id software, great story)

Smart Start-ups: How Entrepreneurs and Corporations Can Profit by Starting Online Communities

steven levy's Hackers and crypto also for the history.

<comment><USER41> I love Designing the Obvious - it's a great book on interface design and usability, and focuses on web applications. Very relevant to this community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

Build to Last by James C. Collins , Jerry I. Porras

<comment><USER43> I've not read Peopleware but I've read Why Does Software Cost So Much? by Tom DeMarco and Slack by Tom DeMarco. The former focuses on technical issues and the sunken cost of software. The latter focuses on the agility of organisations. Tom DeMarco started as a programmer and subsequently became a consultant increasingly focusing less on technical issues and more on business issues. Therefore, reading his books in order would be most relevant as your start-up develops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Steve McConnell's Code Complete (2nd Ed is the copy I have) -- it seems like every second page I've read lays to rest some tiny unanswered question I've had in the back of my head since I started programming.

</comment><comment><USER45> Of course there is: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html)

</comment><comment><USER46> Recommended:

* Everyware: Dawning of the age of ubiquitous computing

* Never Eat Alone

A few biographies of people you admire too. My favourite is "Buckminster Fuller's Universe".

Has anyone got a recommendation for a good biography on Walt Disney?

</comment><comment><USER47> I would add "Getting Real" by 37Signals, for starters.

<comment><USER48> It's not bad, but it's free on the web. And in terms of "getting real", they could stand to make a real book out of it by getting an ISBN number for it with all the money they made off of people throwing their money at them.

And of course I'll add the obligatory mention of Squeezed Books, which is more or less based on business books I've bought and enjoyed (although there are also others like Good to Great that I wouldn't recommend).

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "Silence on the Wire" by Michal Zalewski

<comment><USER27> Yes. Some ideas expressed in this book are really creative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> O' Reilly's "Dynamic HTML" is probably my most well-used book.

</comment><comment><USER51> The 4-Hour Work Week

</comment><comment><USER52> Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson.

Drive it Forever by Robert Sikorsky.

</comment><comment><USER53> SNOWCRASH for heavens sake.

</comment><comment><USER54> what's a 'book'?

<comment><USER55> An early form of web site where all pages were static, and hyperlinks had to be operated manually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> The Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch

Godel, Escher, Bach - Douglas Hoftstadter

Karl Popper's books (too many to list)

The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand

</comment><comment><USER57> I would just put a thumb drive and a sticky that says isohunt.com

<comment><USER25> Call me old fashioned but I like my dead-tree products, it's an entirely different feeling to read a physical book than a PDF.

Although I usually have soft copies of all my favorite books, so I can search them quickly.</comment></comment>


Python 2.7.18, the End of an Era - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/message/OFCIETIXLX34X7FVK5B5WPZH22HXV342/ <comment><USER2> "I'm eudaemonic to announce the immediate availability of Python 2.7.18.

Python 2.7.18 is a special release. I refer, of course, to the fact that "2.7.18" is the closest any Python version number will ever approximate e, Euler's number. Simply exquisite!"</comment>


Pinfinder: iOS Restrictions Passcode Recovery - <AUTHOR> https://pinfinder.net <comment><USER2> It's stored hashed with 1000 iterations of PBKDF1: [https://github.com/gwatts/pinfinder/blob/a3e1d1b709ad6c9a109...](https://github.com/gwatts/pinfinder/blob/a3e1d1b709ad6c9a109795c0e711317f8f2089fc/pinfinder.go#L323)

Note that this tool extracts the hash from a decrypted iTunes backup. That contains (nearly) all the device data, so by the time an attacker has that, they aren't going to need much else.

Apple could bind it to the hardware if they wanted to, but that's going above and beyond, which I'm not sure is any use here.

</comment><comment><USER3> Worked like a charm for me, after a little tweaking of the source code. (My use case was a 70-year-old who couldn't remember which code she used on her phone.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Arguably a better link, which explains how the process actually works: [https://nbalkota.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/recover-your- forgo...](https://nbalkota.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/recover-your-forgotten- ios-7-restrictions-pin-code/)

</comment><comment> yoz-y In the past I have successfully used [http://ios7hash.derson.us](http://ios7hash.derson.us) for iOS 11 restrictions code cracking. I use restrictions to remove some features I don't use and as a fool I have not set the code to 0000 for this one device.

It would be actually quite useful if one could remove the restrictions from the Apple Id page or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is cool, but seems like a big security flaw on Apple's part. Most people likely use the same passcode for their device and the restrictions passcode. I imagine this security risk can be mitigated by encrypting the backup, but I still think it's a flaw in need of fixing.

<comment><USER6> Restrictions aren't really a security feature.

<comment><USER7> They're not, but if someone does use the same passcode, it could open up a vulnerability.

That said, using the same passcode would defeat the purpose for what I believe is the primary use case (I want to loan you my device, so I have to give you the unlock passcode, but I don't want to give you unfettered access). So I really think having the passcodes match is an edge case. I can see it happening in other use cases, though (e.g. kiosks).

<comment><USER8> Pretty sure the primary use case is kids, not loaning your device to a friend.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The WannaCry hacker hero was spending big in Vegas before his arrest - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/2054/the-wannacry-hacker-hero-was-spending-big-in-vegas-before-his-arrest?utm_source=TW <comment><USER2> Seems pretty dishonest to only mention that he was splitting that "lavish" rental house with 7 other people in a paragraph near the end of the article. Paying under $300/night in Vegas during defcon seems pretty reasonable.

<comment><USER3> Additionally, I'm pretty sure rooms at Caesar's were more than that for some of the nights.</comment></comment>


Revision and Revisioning of Psychology by Stanislav Grof - <AUTHOR> http://www.gaiamedia.org/english/2012/09/25/revision-and-revisioning-of-psychology/

<comment><USER3> A typical, modern psychology research paper. After over 14,000 words, Doctor Grof concludes thus: "In my present understanding, archetypal astrology is the long-sought Rosetta stone of consciousness research ..."

So astrology is the answer? If I were a psychologist, I would ask Doctor Grof not to be on my side.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well have you ever independently verified any of his claims through your own experiential work? You might be (less) skeptical had you done so, although healthy skepticism is never a bad thing. I guess you missed the part where Grof said he was a materialist monoist Freudian prior to the use of therapeutic LSD in his practice.

It was experiential evidence that caused Grof to revise his views of the world - what makes you change your mind?

<comment><USER3> > Well have you ever independently verified any of his claims through your own > experiential work?

Let's say that I believe Bigfoot exists. Have you ever independently falsified my belief yourself, personally? No? Then you have failed to meet your burden of evidence and Bigfoot really does exist.

What is wrong with the above claim? Apart from unfairly shifting the burden of evidence, the problem is that it contradicts the central posture of science toward evidence -- the _null hypothesis_ , the precept that an idea is _assumed to be false in the absence of positive evidence_.

Using the null hypothesis as a logical basis, Grof's claims have no meaning until they are supported by positive scientific evidence (not merely the absence of contradicting evidence).

Without the null hypothesis, anything anyone cares to assert is accepted as true. I say that Bigfoot exists, and because you cannot disprove my claim by looking under every rock in the universe, my claim is true. The problem with my claim and posture is that disproof would require _proof of a negative_ , an impossible evidentiary burden, for reasons given here:

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

A quote: "Russell's teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others ..."

> I guess you missed the part where Grof said he was a materialist monoist > Freudian prior to the use of therapeutic LSD in his practice.

Oh, well, that makes it all right then. I'm glad you cleared that up.

Meanwhile, on Planet Earth, to assert the central role of astrology in human affairs _requires evidence_.

> It was experiential evidence ...

"Experiential evidence" is not evidence, it is anecdote. Calling this "experiential evidence" is to string together terms that contradict each other.

> ... that caused Grof to revise his views of the world - what makes you > change your mind?

The other kind of evidence -- the real kind. The kind of evidence on which two or more independent, dispassionate observers can agree. The kind of evidence that favors vaccines over dried gourds and witch doctors. The kind of evidence that dispassionately falsifies racism and sexism. The kind of evidence that keeps Creationism out of public classrooms.

Science is not merely a set of rules for identifying and processing evidence, for crafting and testing theories. It is also a way to undermine some really stupid ideas that appear spontaneously from time to time. Ideas like astrology.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't wish for anything I say to be read in a harsh or trollish tone. I really want to engage in a productive dialog.

I'll start from the top down with your post and explain how I feel and think:

Well I don't think Bigfoot exists either. But falsifying that claim would require very careful investigation of the whole Maine landscape(or wherever Bigfoot supposedly lives). In contrast, you could investigate your mind by taking high doses of tryptamines([http://countyourculture.com/2012/03/10/n-alkylated- tryptamin...](http://countyourculture.com/2012/03/10/n-alkylated- tryptamines/)) in a safe space and seeing if your experiences jived with anything Grof claims, or not. By the way the above url is very focused on quantitative information and the chemistry of some psychoactive compounds - <USER2> woo there don't worry. So Bigfoot is not a good analogy because investigating Grof's claims is an obtainable goal, not an impossibility.

I don't intend this to come off as snarky or rude, but I've been reading rationality literature myself for many years. Dawkins, Dennett, Russel, some Hume, LessWrong, etc. I've actually used Russell's teapot myself as a conceptual metaphor while arguing with naive religious people. I'm also a math major so I'm not exactly immune to logical thought. So please hear me out.

It seems like you are being triggered by the word astrology, this is very understandable and I normally associate astrology with bullshit myself. Let me shift my attention to some of the other things you wrote about experiential evidence.

Here is my take on experiential evidence. All evidence is experiential in the sense that we must use our sensory organs to use any machine or observe the world 'directly' but of course we really experience only what our brains construe from sensory bombardment of light, sound, etc. All this is quite orthodox so far as I hope you'll agree.

So, with various methods, high doses of tryptamines being the easiest and most reliable, humans can experience a variety of states that feel just as real, indeed often "realer than real" as everyday sensory reality. So by what basis except gut level feeling do we disbelieve in the reality of dreams and believe in the absolute existence of waking sensation? It's really only that dreams feel vague and are hard to hold on to mentally and the real world is bold and seemingly objective because other people agree they experience it in similar ways. So much for the reality of the world and the unreality of dreams.

But there is a third category of experience available to humans and that is a visionary state. In such non ordinary states of consciousness people often have experiences that correlate with the experiences of others. So in this way it is similar to the situation with waking reality - independent verification of a 'territory' except that one is material and one is experiential/internal.

Secondly, as I've said before, often these experiences feel realer than real. Thus there is no reason to dismiss them out of hand, but rather treat reports and self-investigation as evidence of the same class as evidence from the material world. That said, we must be careful to avoid mistakes and confusion and make false theories based on evidence regardless of its kind.

Grof has taken large doses of LSD with sensory isolation hundreds of times and he has observed, for the full duration of the experience, over 5000 therapeutic sessions where LSD was used. He also had colleagues that did similar work and had access to their notes. In addition, many of the things Grof claims are compatible to a large degree with other researches who have used visionary plants and chemicals.

I myself have had several experiences that led me to find some of Grof's ideas credible. Specifically Grof thinks humans can undergo a state of 'cosmic consciousness', or identification with the Godhead, unitive experience, there are many names for it. I know for a fact this can happen because it happened to me.

Back to astrology. I admit I'd call bullshit in almost every instance I see the term 'astrology' but I give Grof a bit of benefit of the doubt. For one thing I believe he probably does not mean that the actual planets materially influence human affairs. But rather that some sort of periodic system that is analogous to the movements of the planets influences the internal world of our minds. I have no idea if this is true or not.

I think it's quite likely that Grof, as a modern pioneer of this type of research, has gotten some things wrong. I also think that he's on the right track to a much greater degree than conventional psychotherapists and psychologists with regards to the inner workings of the mind.

Why do I think this? Because of my lived experience both in normal waking life and in NOSC. Also conversations with friends. Why does Grof think this? Because of his own extensive experience with NOSC and his work with thousands of therapy clients.

If that's not empirical then I don't know what is.

However, I would have completely rejected my own argument and taken your position years ago before I had sufficient experience with NOSC. So I can sympathize if even this post does not convince you.

Edit: To use one of the standard atheist stories for my own benefit, consider the whole telescope and Galileo and the Church incident. Supposedly some thought that they mustn't look at the sky through the telescope and thus could dismiss any claims made by those who chose to look. Clearly in that case those who used the telescope had a privileged position, more accurate, and indeed incomprehensible by non-lookers. So I submit to you: NOSC are telescopes/microscopes for our interior world and if you only use your rational/cognitive mind you're essentially missing half of the picture of what it means to be human.

<comment><USER3> > Well I don't think Bigfoot exists either. But falsifying that claim would > require very careful investigation of the whole Maine landscape(or wherever > Bigfoot supposedly lives).

This is your primary logical error, one that runs thorough your entire essay. No one can possibly falsify the idea that Bigfoot exists, because it would require proof of a negative, and proof of a negative is _an impossible evidentiary burden_. This is why scientists have adopted the null hypothesis as the core posture toward unresolved questions -- it saves huge amounts of pointless effort.

On that topic, you very clearly didn't bother to read the Russell's Teapot Wikipedia entry, so here it is again:

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

> Here is my take on experiential evidence ...

Don't bother. "Experiential evidence" is not evidence, any more than a horse chestnut is a chestnut horse -- meaning that the words we choose can't change the identity of the thing being described.

> I myself have had several experiences that led me to find some of Grof's > ideas credible.

Where is your evidence? Subjective experiences are not evidence. Anyone can report personal experiences, but this doesn't turn them into scientific evidence.

Let's say that my "personal experience" is that women are dumber than men. Does this personal experience stand as an argument against gender equality and justify a change in public policy? Not in a society that either respects the scientific method or is able to think logically.

For a dozen reasons, science is not steered by anecdotes. If this were not true, I could claim to have cured the common cold, and here's how: I shake a dried gourd over the sufferer until he gets better. It might take a week but the patient always gets better. So, based on my personal experience, I deserve a Nobel Prize for curing the common cold, isn't that right?

> So I can sympathize if even this post does not convince you.

Want to persuade me? Locate some evidence. Evidence by its very nature is objective and repeatable. Personal experiences are neither.

You've chosen to live in a world ruled by belief, and you have every right to do so. But I think you may want to try to imagine how your defense of these beliefs looks to an educated person.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Healthcare Pricing in America – Costs, Portfolio Theory and Pricing Models - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@shankha_45506/healthcare-pricing-in-america-costs-portfolio-theory-and-pricing-models-accc3ce8321c <comment><AUTHOR> First post on HN. Would welcome other perspectives on the phenomenon of obscenely high healthcare costs in this country.</comment>


China's stock market bubble: A goring concern - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21652337-economic-dangers-chinas-manic-bull-market-goring-concern <comment><USER2> > Kemian Wood Industry, which used to boast of the quality of its composite > floorboards, took radical steps to deal with the downturn. It switched its > focus to online gaming and changed its name.

> A hotel group rebranded itself as a high-speed rail company, a fireworks > maker as a peer-to-peer lender and a ceramics specialist as a clean-energy > group.

I've heard of pivoting, but this goes way beyond that. Doing a complete 180 on what you're producing/selling and changing your name? That's both fascinating and scary at the same time. As a customer, how do you know whether the company you're buying from will still be around?

<comment><USER3> It makes you wonder what the determinants of success are for a Chinese business. Would you trust cars made by Nike, if they suddenly started making them, or a airline run by the Hilton Group?

<comment><USER4> How about an airline run my a record label?

<comment><USER3> Virgin is a bit of an exception. At the beginning it merely chartered aircraft run by others; it was a branding exercise rather than managing and running aircraft.

Conglomerates like GE do anything and everything, but the companies cited in the article appears to be relatively small, e.g.from making only floorboards to online gaming is quite a shift in operational requirements.

<comment><USER5> Nokia used to make a big deal about their background in paper mills, rubber boots etc.

[http://company.nokia.com/en/about-us/our-company/our- story](http://company.nokia.com/en/about-us/our-company/our-story)

<comment><USER6> Nokia had a natural progression though. Rubber, rubber-coated cables and wires, analog telephone switches full of wiring, digital telephone switches full of software, mobile phones that talk to those switches! And this took about a hundred years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> kenny-log_ins I find myself noticing that a lot of the solutions that The Economist proposes are very similar - opening markets, decreasing regulation - make everything more "liberal". They always make compelling arguments for their suggestions but I also find myself wondering whether they ever argue for any alternative

<comment><USER7> The Economist has always been "The answer is free markets! What was the question?".

I always find it a reassuring read, in the sense that well-written, well- researched, persuasive articles that I disagree with are a sign that I haven't been completely engulfed by my own little information bubble, but take it with a pinch of salt.

<comment><USER8> Actually having lived in China for a significant period of time I can say that the answer is to remove capital controls on Chinese citizens and allow them to invest anywhere else.

This will deflate the Chinese market bubble(and property bubble) almost immediately, you'll see this happen however when pigs are flying to the moon.

<comment><USER9> The answer to what question? The policy has to be to defer the bubble collapse as much as possible in hope of the mythical "soft landing". Far more than western countries they depend on continuous economic growth as the tradeoff for lack of political freedom.

<comment><USER10> Deferring bubble collapses doesn't work so good as they just pop later and bigger.

<comment><USER11> Problem for the next Party leader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Global investors are not buying into the mania: the shares of companies > listed in both Hong Kong and Shanghai are now 30% more expensive in the > latter.

I'm quite confused by this statement -- if the shares on both exchanges are equivalent, this seems like an insanely good arbitrage opportunity. Are China's capital controls really tight enough to prevent Chinese nationals from finding a way to invest in the same stocks on the HK index for a 30% discount? And even if they are, I'm not clear _why_ the Chinese government would do this -- it's like charging a 30% premium to domestic investors just for being Chinese.

<comment><USER9> _Are China 's capital controls really tight enough to prevent Chinese nationals from finding a way to invest in the same stocks on the HK index for a 30% discount?_

The answer has to be yes - otherwise, as you say, it would be arbitraged away. It's still a bit leaky, but when it leaks it seems that investors much prefer to diversify into ownership of overseas property.

Why capital controls? Because China is more nationalist than globalist. It's also critical to keeping the industrial policy working by forcing local re- investment and preventing capital flight. Chinese growth depends on cheap money, which in turn relies on forcing people not to charge a risk premium for the percieved confiscation and rule-of-law risks in China.

<comment><USER13> China follows a nasty policy of financial repression ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_repression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_repression)) in which the interests of "the people" is an afterthought at best.

ADDED: combine that with little to no social safety net, and the One Child policy which most? often results in 4 grandparents supported by 2 children supported by 1 grandchild (not quite so bad in the rural areas, but still inadequate, especially if a child dies), and you have the worst social planning mess outside of outright genocide (which the PRC did a lot of through the Cultural Revolution) that I'm aware of.

<comment><USER14> This, incidentally, is why people in China riot about inflation from time to time: if you have to support yourself and several family members, you'd better have yourself a lot of savings, but it's _really hard_ when your bank pays negative real interest rates. (And what's your alternative to the bank? Invest in the property bubble? Ha!)

Then the banks loan out this savings to the party's preferred business partners (still at negative real interest rates) which can be incredibly profitable (cheaper-than-free money will do that) and spend their wealth on a privileged few.

Some day it's all going to come crashing down (and if push comes to shove, the property rights of foreign investors will probably be pretty low on the priority list).

<comment><USER13> _and if push comes to shove, the property rights of foreign investors will probably be pretty low on the priority list_

Then I suppose it's good they don't let us invest very much in the country!

This makes it unlike e.g. Greece, where we're told there are a number of European banks outside with dangerous exposure, although there's been plenty of time to mitigate that. So conventional contagion might not be such a problem, I myself am worried about various goods and raw materials that the PRC has a current lock on. E.g. lots of pharmaceutical precursors.

<comment><USER15> I feel like there's 2 sides to the story : 1st, as you mentioned, external investors would have money in the country that they couldn't get back because of the low position on the priority list. On the other side, I feel like china investing in your business makes you own them money. And i their economy comes crashing down, what prevents them from asking for their money back, which you might not have in full, or that you need for planned investments. Is there anything I'm missing ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I may be completely off about this, but isn't it the term suppose to be "going concern"? I thought I had discovered a phrase I didn't know, but then I did a Google search and the only occurance is this article.

That said, if China's market goes under it may be pretty gory. :)

<comment><USER17> While we're on the subject, when you say "isn't the term suppose to be", you actually need to say "isn't the term supposed to be". I've noticed that people have started pronouncing this wrong (they now say "suppoes" rather than "suppozed") and that's spread into the written form.

Similarly, people are also replacing the correct "used to" with "use to".

<comment><USER18> "Use to" can be correct, e.g. "Didn't we use to go to the same school?" The tense of "use" should match the tense of the predicate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > A shift to monetary easing and fiscal stimulus—and expectations of more to > come—help explain why the rally began. But the longer it continues, the more > it looks like irrational exuberance.

The spark that started it all?

This is crazy:

> Credit Suisse estimates that 6-9% of China's market capitalisation is funded > by credit, nearly five times the average in the rich world.

<comment><USER20> Not to bad if you stand back and consider the entire US economy reflated only on the bullshit of the Fed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If companies are worth more than what they make in revenue, stock-holders should be penalized for illegal gambling.

<comment><USER22> Ok, I'll bite. Why illegal gambling? Wouldn't it be _legal_ gambling, if anything, since it's condoned (and encouraged) by the government?</comment></comment>