Tesla Accused of Deception in Promoting Autopilot - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-23/tesla-s-autopilot-promotions-are-deceptive-watchdog-groups-say <comment><USER2> The advertising is clearly deceptive. Read their marketing materials:[1]

 _" Build upon Enhanced Autopilot and order Full Self-Driving Capability on your Tesla. ... All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go. If you don't say anything, the car will look at your calendar and take you there as the assumed destination or just home if nothing is on the calendar. Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed freeways with cars moving at high speed. When you arrive at your destination, simply step out at the entrance and your car will enter park seek mode, automatically search for a spot and park itself. A tap on your phone summons it back to you."_

Tesla does not have that technology. Not even close. Their cars do not have the sensor suite to do it. They did a demo back in 2016 of a limited self- driving capability on quiet roads in Los Altos Hills. They haven't said much since.

[1] [https://www.tesla.com/autopilot](https://www.tesla.com/autopilot)

<comment><USER3> Did you forget the next paragraph, where they clearly state that it is not yet available? Firsts words are even in bold: "Please note that Self-Driving functionality is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary widely by jurisdiction. It is not possible to know exactly when each element of the functionality described above will be available, as this is highly dependent on local regulatory approval. Please note also that using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing and ride hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be released next year."

<comment><USER4> By the way, this was also very offensive to me:

> Please note also that using a self-driving Tesla for car sharing and ride > hailing for friends and family is fine, but doing so for revenue purposes > will only be permissible on the Tesla Network, details of which will be > released next year.

Why does Tesla get to tell me what to do with my car?

<comment><USER5> I guess Tesla believes while under self-drive it is no longer your car. That's going to be an interesting case for the law/layers in the future.

<comment><USER6> Tesla owns their software, not you. Why would they enable other ridesharing companies to profit off of their autopilot work?

If you want to drive your car for Uber, you can. If you want Tesla's software to drive it for Uber for you, that isn't part of the end user license agreement.

<comment><USER7> There will probably be court cases over this.

At one time automakers tried to say if you used third party oil filters or other parts, or if anyone other than the dealer did work, then your warranty was void. That didn't hold up.

Publishers tried to say that you could not re-sell books and recordings and software media after you purchased them. That didn't hold up.

Not sure that this will hold up either.

<comment><USER6> You're referring to physical parts. To my knowledge, no automaker providers their software and related tooling to end users (please correct me if I'm mistake).

You're going to need a copyright law overhaul to change this status quo.

<comment><USER5> And you're referring to what you can physically do with your own vehicle after you buy it. To my knowledge that has absolutely nothing to do with software copyright law. I don't understand your basis for arguing that software's copyright can be used to infringe other rights.

For example can my water heater's manufacturer ban me from washing my dog in the bath because they own copyright on the software in the thermostat micro- controller?

If Tesla were going to provide liability insurance, I could absolutely see them having the ability to limit usage (under that insurance). But software copyright is an unusual argument.

<comment><USER6> To use Tesla FSD (full self driving) with a rideshare network, you will need to hook into the Tesla vehicle onboard software or Tesla's API. Those actions will require Tesla's cooperation. Otherwise, feel free to sit in the car while it drives itself on autopilot, Tesla isn't stopping that, only the use of its full autonomy software (when it arrives) for commercial purposes on rideshare networks other than its own.

Existing law supports this, and I don't foresee policy changing in this regard.

<comment><USER5> > To use Tesla FSD (full self driving) with a rideshare network, you will need > to hook into the Tesla vehicle onboard software or Tesla's API.

If there is an operator in the vehicle, they could just enter the destination the old fashioned way.

> Existing law supports this, and I don't foresee policy changing in this > regard.

It really doesn't. I'm not sure which "law" you're even referring to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am glad people are starting to see the irresponsibility in some of Teslas Marketing. It was clear from day one that Teslas autopilot is a glorified lane assist and therefore should not be sold as some sort of autonomous ready vehicle.

When I first complained about how autopilot was being marketed here on HN, I was down voted and told I don't know what autopilot means.

<comment><USER9> > When I first complained about how autopilot was being marketed here on HN, I > was down voted and told I don't know what autopilot means.

Had the exact same experience "any commercial airline pilot knows autopilot doesn't do everything for you !!!one" (which isn't even true, Cat-IIIc ILS autopilots are basically the equivalent of the car being able to do everything outside of leaving your garage and fully automated flight from takeoff to landing included was a thing in 1947: [https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1947/1947%20-%2...](https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1947/1947%20-%201745.html)).

One could consider it a difference in what people are talking about: Tesla's tech roughly matches plane autopilot _capabilities_ but not _experience_ , because plane autopilot capabilities are nowhere near sufficient for unassisted autonomous driving (autopilots are assisted by automated ground- control systems amongst others).

<comment><USER10> > which isn't even true, Cat-IIIc ILS autopilots are basically the equivalent > of the car being able to do everything outside of leaving your garage and > fully automated flight from takeoff to landing included was a thing in 1947

Only a fraction of the worlds runways have Cat-IIIc capability. You could argue that a reasonable equivalent in the car world is that it can auto-drive between any two places, so long as those places are on major motorways / interstates.

Aircraft autopilots also have no way of avoiding traffic, ATC can't control them directly, and they don't have any automatic ability to do that.

On balance I'd say the abilities of Tesla's autopilot are fairly compared to an aircraft autopilot.

Unfortunately I think you are correct in that Tesla have marketed the system well beyond those abilities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In addition to today's Autopilot, Telsa are charging customers $3,000 for a hypothetical future "Full Self-Driving Capability" feature on the Model 3 and others.

> "All you will need to do is get in and tell your car where to go," Tesla's > ordering page says. "Your Tesla will figure out the optimal route, navigate > urban streets (even without lane markings), manage complex intersections > with traffic lights, stop signs and roundabouts, and handle densely packed > freeways with cars moving at high speed."

This is very likely to be a huge balance sheet liability and probably won't be a real possibility until the cars are really old and near the end of their life. They don't give a real timetable so maybe they can get by with not delivering it for a couple decades, but it seems like that would land them in some kind of class action legal trouble.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's not only deceptive but it puts public at risk.

The other day I was on 101 in the evening heading south (this is one the main highways in San Francisco Bay Area) where I was behind a Tesla on the fast lane. The Tesla in front of me was acting rather erratic. Fast jolt like corrections once in a while, etc. So I got annoyed by the erratic movements and passed the car. As I passed I glanced over. Sure enough, the driver was on his phone doing something and I'm guessing was relying on the auto pilot.

<comment><USER13> Autopilot is generally pretty smooth - what you describe is more characteristic of texting while driving, which idiots can achieve in _any_ car.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but Tesla is giving its owners the false confidence that it is ok to text while driving because the autopilot will drive the car.

<comment><USER14> What above comment is saying is that the guy was probably not on autopilot and steering erratically himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To be clear, the story here is that a couple of consumer groups have written the FTC to complain about Tesla. That might be enough to get something started, but public complaints != formal investigation. That said, the FTC did successfully order VW to pay $1.2 billion for its diesel shenanigans:

[https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2017/05/feder...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2017/05/federal-judge-approves-ftc-order-owners-certain-volkswagen- audi)

I get that people respect and are excited by Musk's vision and work, nevermind the cars, but I feel even Tesla fans should be able to agree that the current Autopilot homepage, which is going to be the main info source for Autopilot for anyone not in possession of the owner's manual.

Someone at Tesla made the deliberate decision to have the page's headline and very first words be, "Full Self-Driving Hardware on All Cars", followed by a paragraph of text about full-self driving, followed by order buttons for Model S/Model X.

The next thing on that page is a video. It's the first and only video on the Autopilot page, and it is a 2016 self-driving demo, that Tesla has (as far as we know) not been able to push to production nor do extensive testing (assuming they test in California, which requires a mileage report).

When you buy a Tesla, aren't the purchase options for Autopilot and (future) full-self driving _separate options_ , at a cost of $5000 and $3000, respectively? Yes, buying AP is required to buy FSD. But my point is that Autopilot exists as its own separate feature completely independent of FSD.

So to belabor the obvious, why is the only visual demo on Tesla Autopilot a _2016 alpha demo_ of _full self driving_? On Youtube I can find plenty of amateur demos of the AP features. What possible reason is there for not creating separate pages for Autopilot and FSD, other than to have consumers conflate the two systems?

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm at probably 2,000 miles in AP on my Model 3, and at this point, I feel like I'm very knowledgeable about where I can trust AP and where I can't. I do fear that people will give it too much trust in the beginning, and not try to learn how it behaves, because then, it's dangerous.

Dying in a Tesla is relatively hard to do, but getting hurt or even just totaling your car because you didn't understand how AP works is bad (and dangerous for others, too!)

I feel like maybe they shouldn't turn on AP until TACC has been active for some period of time, so that you can get used to the car and how it behaves. Even now, I am sometimes surprised (like the odd behavior when stopped traffic is ahead of you a ways, and the car right in front of you changes out of your line - your car doesn't notice the stopped traffic, so you have to stop yourself or you would slam into the stopped cars). I have to assume that, at some point, the front facing camera will supplement the radar and say, "hey, that looks like stopped traffic - I should stop", but I can understand, from a software development perspective, why that's a hard problem.

<comment><USER17> why would that be a hard problem? Shouldn't it be easy for the radar to detect if there are stopped obstacles ahead?

I am not familiar with AP tech. So would appreciate if someone can explain why it's hard to detect stopped objects using radar.

<comment> drunken-serval > Shouldn't it be easy for the radar to detect if there are stopped obstacles > ahead?

No. It's very difficult. Radar reflects off of everything. The only way to get a useful signal is to look for things that are moving at a different speed than you, like something moving relative to the road. So the radar software filters out all signals that have the same speed at the road ahead.

This means the radar won't see anything stopped on the road, because it's filtering out a huge number of returns from the road. This gets even worse because Radar reflects very differently based off the material. It goes right through plastic, water (humans) absorb it.

Even if you could try to read through the noise of the road, Radar doesn't have enough resolution to tell the difference between the road going uphill and a stopped firetruck.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the explanation.

"radar won't see anything stopped on the road, because it's filtering out a huge number of returns from the road"

what does that mean? sorry i am still confused.

Isn't the whole point of radar to detect objects around you?

It shouldn't matter if the object is in the road ahead, or on the side of the road, right? Because they are all obstacles that the car should avoid, no?

Like, a stopped car in front of you, vs a tree next to you on the side of the road, are both things the software should avoid, and NOT filter out, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Tesla seriously jumped the gun in marketing their partial autonomy as "Autopilot" when it's still level 3 autonomy at best (requires a human driver to intervene when necessary). Until we leap over the 'uncanny valley' of partial automation and have level 4 autonomy available it would be disingenuous to call such a feature "autopilot".

<comment><USER19> The frustrating part I find is that autopilot for pilots is actually a reasonably good description. Pilots are paid and trained to be alert all the time that autopilot is on.

It's also well known that an autopilot in a plane is no AI, it's simply following a course.

But I definitely agree it's a disingenuous name. It primarily gives the impression that you can take your hands off. So people will definitely get distracted for up to 6s which from the Uber crash is all it took. Plus beyond that you can have one hand on the steering wheel and be doing anything you want.

It's quite damming that even Uber were humble enough to realise how badly their system had failed with the fatal crash but Tesla is doubling down releasing PR statements that try to spin the statistics. I've seen interviews with Musk discussing the crash where he really seems not to be particularly bothered.

I can see Tesla putting back self driving by years if a legal clamp down comes. They are the company with by far the most miles driven with a level 3 system, but there's nothing at the moment to suggest that there won't be other crashes in Tesla autopilot cars that won't skew the statistics.

I've heard it said that self-driving cars will have to prove they're 10x safer. That takes 1B miles per death to prove. If self-driving is deemed illegal on open roads because of Tesla's recklessness it'll take much longer to prove that it is safer.

<comment><USER20> For me, it comes down to the fact that replicating the functionality does not replicate the experience. Tesla's Autopilot may well replicate the functionality of an aviation autopilot, but a plane will have less factors to consider (such as proximity of other traffic) and if something does go wrong/there is something the autopilot can't handle there, in most cases, is time for a human pilot to take over. Getting the same level of functionality that works in the air _will_ cause a crash on the ground, but calling it by the same name is going to make people think the _experience_ is the same (i.e. that the vehicle is fine left to its own devices for at least some period of time -- which would require a significantly more complex system on the ground).

<comment><USER19> Yeah pilots don't use autopilot when taxiing in an airport.

The equivalent environment of a plane's autopilot for a car is being on an empty race track. I'm sure Autopilot works well there.

<comment><USER21> An empty racetrack that is perfectly mapped out in advance, at that.

Plane autopilot just automates the control inputs/outputs that are needed to follow a predefined flight plan. For anything beyond cruising or following pre-programmed flight patterns like holding loops, it needs guidance from systems on the ground that have no other purpose than telling the plane exactly where the runway is and how to descend to it. There's not a single system involved that uses vision-based methods and/or any form of object detection. Even the most advanced plane autopilot will not be able to land the plane if the airport systems are down.

So in a way, the level of autonomy that Tesla's autopilot provides is not that far from plane autopilot. That's clearly not how Tesla PR sells it though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The advocacy groups say Tesla's promotions of Autopilot suggest otherwise and are deceptive. Among the examples cited in the letter is Tesla's Autopilot website, which proclaims Tesla vehicles have "full self-driving hardware" and contains a video posted that when played begins with text reading "the person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doing anything. The car is driving itself."

</comment><comment><USER22> I agree that deceptive marketing should be punished.

With that out of the way, I am genuinely curious:

Has you or anyone you know ever believed that Tesla's have autopilot?

Anyone I have ever spoken to basically thinks that Teslas have a feature to keep you in the lane -- an advanced cruise control -- and that you must have your hands near the wheel.

Please note that even if nobody thought Teslas have autopilot, I still think deceptive marketing should be punished. I'm simply trying to gather some perspective from others, if this is actually a thought that is out there in the wild.

</comment><comment><USER23> Good, I like most of what Musk did, but always had issues with bringing semi capable drive assist that clearly made some accident possible. Not causing it, enabling irresponsible behavior and coating their product with glitter in the same time. I don't think it's right for companies to sell that sort of things.

</comment><comment><USER24> Frankly I'm surprised it took this long to happen. It's a bit sad that people had to die when we could potentially have prevented it from happening.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is obvious once you use it.

</comment><comment><USER26> what ever happened to that coast to coast demo?

</comment><comment><USER27> I used to admire what Musk did at Tesla; I even put the $1k down for a Model 3 reservation on the first day over two years ago.

Since then I've lost my faith in his honesty. He's been consistently and intentionally misrepresenting what Tesla can deliver and when.

Worse, he is taking a page from Donald Trump's playbook. Faced with negative media coverage, Musk is now attacking the media and wants to build a bubble of alternative truth controlled by himself.

Rather than fix Tesla's communications, he wants to build some kind of website where "the public can rate the core truth of any article" and shame individual journalists:

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999367582271422464](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999367582271422464)

Can he be so naïve that he expects an Internet public to arrive at a consensus on complex issues? Of course not, he hasn't been in a coma for the past twenty years. His proposed "Muskopedia" would just end up controlled by online partisans devoted to embellishing his takes.

(Reminds me that I should probably take my $1k out. The Model 3 ship date for Europe is still a year away.)

<comment><USER28> He's been overestimating deliverables for way longer than 2 years

<comment><USER27> But I wasn't paying enough attention. To my knowledge he also wasn't trying to build a private media bubble until now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Repeat after me: "Autopilot does not mean autonomous".

</comment><comment><USER30> And so it begins, the tearing down of a highly successful company.

<comment><USER31> > And so it begins, the tearing down of a highly successful company.

Alright. I think it's important to be clear what Tesla is. It's certainly a very _promising_ company, but highly successful? That it is not - at least not yet. Tesla is _not_ profitable, and without electric car subsidies it would be in even worse condition. It has a lot of promise, but has yet to deliver on that promise IMHO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I like how the only pro Tesla comment in this entire thread is grayed out at the bottom. Not suspicious at all...

</comment><comment><USER33> Tesla's lawyers would have this covered. It sounds to me like a bunch of shorts who are sweating Telsa's recent moves to cut production costs and raise the price of the Model S. I hope they get their comeuppance.

<comment><USER34> Tesla's lawyers should've advised against marketing a glorified ADAS (and AP 2.0/2.5 was even a pretty bad ADAS for quite a long time) as an autonomous driving solution.

They market it as it could be a RoboTaxi, Musk has been saying "autonomous driving is a solved problem" for 4 years now at every opportunity he gets this isn't really ideal.

Tesla's marketing a side the real problem is the concept of Level 3 autonomy in the first place (on the open roads). Humans can't operate in a "hands off only" mode and it's either all in or all out.

I'm really hoping that we could get to a good real world all conditions L4/5 (these are the same level of autonomy) before level 3 ones kill enough people to push back autonomous driving 3 decades.

Don't get me wrong in controlled, restricted and enclosed environments for example truck yards, ports, large factories, airports, power stations, mines etc. Level 3 makes a lot of sense if you have predictable routes where trained operators know when they can be hands off and when they cannot be.

But this doesn't and will never work on real roads with real people because eventually everyone gets "comfortable" with such a feature especially when it appears much more capable than it actually is and when Musk and many in the Tesla community make it sound like the only reason why your Tesla isn't working for Uber whole you are at work is because of pesky regulation.

<comment><USER2> Tesla only has SAE 2, stay in lane and brake for obstacles (sometimes). They did a few videos of hands-off self-driving in controlled conditions on quiet roads, so they were trying for Level 3, but never really got there.</comment></comment></comment>


The Apache Cassandra battle highlights major problem with open source projects - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/article/the-battle-for-apache-cassandra-highlights-major-problem-with-open-source-projects/ <comment><USER2> This is a curiously vague article. Apparently there were issues with Cassandra's project leadership not addressing trademark issues, causing the Apache Software Foundation to remove Datastax from their leadership position. Um, ok? The author here seems to be sowing FUD about the future of the project, and by relation, all ASF projects. Anyone with knowledge of this situation care to chime in?

<comment><USER3> This is not quite what happened.

Datastax employees were the controlling influence on the PMC, and the PMC failed to police copyright issues (including with Datastax marketing materials), mostly because they did not know this was their duty (and partially, in at least the case of some individuals, because they did not have any desire to participate in this duty on a volunteer basis).

They were also seen to have poorly nurtured other involvement from the wider community.

To some greater or lesser extent these charges were valid, and the community (not just the board, at least on the non-trademark issues) felt improvements would be welcome. But certain members of the board behaved in what _appeared_ to be a very hostile and childish manner, by threatening Datastax with removal of every employee from the project. (I've been in heated arguments with these individuals for their behaviour, and I'll note they disavow any intended hostility, though do not disavow their actions)

The ASF did _not_ remove Datastax from anything, although they were I think involved in Jonathan Ellis (Datastax CTO) being replaced as chair.

Datastax recently posted that they were planning to put much of their new feature development into their commercial version. They claim this all had nothing to do with stepping back from the project, but in all likelihood this is a "rising above it" PR position. That said, it probably is a good business decision, and may have happened sooner or later anyway.

<comment><USER4> Reading this apparently biased article in favor of DataStax, it seems like no one is coming out of this situation looking good. I personally believe that DataStax may have overplayed their hand here since several of the high-powered Silicon Valley companies use Cassandra. If DS' commercial offerings aren't up to snuff, one of them will undoubtedly step in to help steer development of the source in a direction that benefits them.

Cassandra is one of the better big datastore offerings out there, and the doom and gloom narrative played by the article seems a bit disingenuous to say the least.

<comment><USER3> I honestly don't see how companies, that aren't monetising Cassandra, providing resources to the project is a major risk to Datastax. This only improves Cassandra's mindshare in (and share of) the market, while leaving them to corner the large corporate client base as well as target their engineering efforts on things that can directly yield revenue.

Although I think you overestimate the inclination and ability of these corporations to invest - at least to date, only Apple has demonstrated any capacity or willingness to do so, and they are fairly slow about it. Their lawyers and antiquated deployments lead to very few (but quite big) improvements, and so far all of them have needed help from Datastax to be incorporated. This is despite a largeish team of people with direct experience of participating in the project; no other SV company has any such employee at present, and bootstrapping such a team would be non-trivial. Instaclustr claims they intend to do this, but it remains to be seen how successful they will be.

<comment><USER5> I've committed a few Instaclustr patches in the past month - they weren't huge, but they exist (and I appreciate that).

Also some patches coming out of FB/Instagram (with a new committer as well).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious what impact this will have on other ASF projects, specifically Mesos. A number of the features required for a smaller or medium sized organization to actually use Mesos in production are only available in Mesosphere's DC/OS. And whenever those shortcomings are brought up, the answer is "oh well if you really need authentication beyond htpasswd, you can pay for DCOS." Like the article hinted at, I hope the ASF tries to do more to work with vendors to help OSS side of projects flourish rather than just be lip service.

<comment><USER7> > I'm curious what impact this will have on other ASF projects

It might cause those committing the code, building the tests, and writing the doco for other ASF projects to question whether their project is being justly managed. I only watch one ASF project, Apache Groovy, and it has a similar imbalance between fluff managers and grunt workers.

Although all 9 members of its PMC are committers, only 4 of them have ever committed code since Groovy joined the ASF via its incubator 18 months ago. The other 5 (i.e. chairperson Guillaume Laforge, Jim Jagielski, Roman Shaposhnik, Konstantin Boudnik, and Andrew Bayer) are all committers but have _never_ committed any code in that time. I can't find any other technical contributions from them either. All 5 are also ASF members, whereas only 2 of the other 4 PMC members who do grunt work are ASF members.

There's 10 other committers in Groovy, most of whom are more active contributors than those 5 I named, and in my view have far more merit to be on the PMC than them. OCI, the company doing Grails consulting, a few weeks ago enlisted an active PMC member (Paul King) as an OCI consultant "to coordinate contributions to Groovy". If Groovy's governance at ASF doesn't radically change fast to give PMC voices to the people doing the actual work instead of those ASF politicians, OCI might tap into the discontent and "take over" in similar style to DataStax, or even fork it like LibreOffice.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes members of the PMC are on the PMC to help committers do things in the Apache way - Jim (in particular) is a member of the ASF board and likely mentored the project early on (I'd go check to be certain but I'm mobile at the moment).

<comment><USER7> Because it's 18 months since Groovy joined the incubator and 12 months since it became a top-level project, it could be time Jim Jagielski and all ASF members not actually contributing to Groovy leave its PMC so that the proportion of those actually committing code and similar goes up from its present 44%. OCI is ready to pounce if they don't.

<comment><USER5> The PMC can (should) invite active members of the community - there's no fixed size, the PMC can add members at any time.

There's no need to worry about ratios of people committing code - the PMC is about guidance, not about writing code.

<comment><USER7> I believe Apache Groovy implementations should be led by their technical people, so its PMC should only have people in it who can and do code, test, and write docs. Groovy's past problems have been due to managerial sorts running things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a feeling Apache leadership probably did the right thing here. It is after all, their brand. Recently there have been some strange things happening with the Cassandra project. Hopefully not another rethinkdb.

For example, a longstanding Cassandra bug makes it hard to build the database from source if you have a modern version of maven installed. Though Cassandra builds itself using ant (why?), simply having modern maven installed is a big enough incompatibility to break the build. That's weird.

Another recent weirdness is that Cassandra was shipping a non working command interpreter (cqlsh) for at least 3+ months as recently as a few months ago. That's now fixed in v3.9. I have to admit, the first thing I thought upon seeing that brokenness shipping in the binary distribution was - Is this because Datastax needs more sales?

<comment><USER5> Can you link the jira for the mvn/ant bug? Or, if it doesn't exist, can you create it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sharing is hard. Nobody making money can work. Many people making money can work. Just one party making money, that's a mofo.

Full disclosure: I work for Couchbase, and our management tends to describe DataStax as a key competitor.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been a Cassandra user for 5+ years and have been watching the drama unfold on the mailing lists the past few months. I have no business relationship with Datastax and have never paid them money for any of their services (except for attending the Datastax sponsored Cassandra Summit a number of times). I'm not a committer but I have been an active member of the community opening bugs, participating in the user mailing list, Stack Overflow, maintaining a client library, etc.

From my perspective it seemed like the ASF board members had already prejudged the situation before engaging in any public discussions on the Cassandra mailing lists. The first interaction was about why Cassandra doesn't ship with its own client drivers[1]. The board member believed this to be a sign of Datastax "controlling" Cassandra because they have their own high quality open source client libraries. As a user and a former maintainer of a client library, this theory came off as completely ridiculous. The project has never shipped a production ready client driver in tree. It is simply impractical to be able to do that for all the languages for which there are drivers. I've got code in three different languages in production right now and none of them use Datastax drivers. If you read that mailing list thread, that is basically what everyone says on it (including the new Casssandra PMC chair), and yet the conclusion that the ASF board member takes away is that Datastax is controlling the project by having out of tree open source client libraries.

That ASF board member also got upset when a question on the mailing list was answered with a link to Datastax hosted documentation[2]. Again this seemed like an overreaction from the board member over a fixable problem as justification for a Cassandra shakeup.

Then recently there was a new wave of threads about Apache and Datastax[3][4]. Both sides come off looking pretty bad in these threads. Its clear that at this point a lot of people in the Cassandra community have negative feelings toward certain members of the ASF board. It also seems like those board members have become very defensive about what has transpired. Fortunately people have started to calm down and there has been a few reasonable emails from both sides.

From my perspective the ASF came off looking like they care more about the Apache trademarks than they do about the health of the community. I do believe there were some actual issues that were identified as places for improvement for the Cassandra community, but I don't think it was necessary to come in wielding a sledge hammer. It seems that the Cassandra board was not given an opportunity to fix the issues (mostly by increasing the number of project committers) before the board forced the changes. This has resulted in a lot of hurt feelings and a general sense of distrust between the Cassandra community and the ASF.

All that being said, I'm not particularly worried about Cassandra's future. I was sad to see Jonathan Ellis leave as the chair person, but hearing that Nate McCall was stepping into that position put a lot of my concerns at ease.

I hope that the Datastax folks know that the community appreciates all that they have contributed to the open source Cassandra project, even if the ASF doesn't.

[1]: [https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/72a884fa8f35cbed23135c8...](https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/72a884fa8f35cbed23135c8c771da06076d87a5a20ff5a7cd5d24001@%3Cdev.cassandra.apache.org%3E)

[2]: [http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg0914...](http://www.mail- email@example.com/msg09143.html)

[3]: [http://www.mail- email@example.com/msg1003...](http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg10037.html)

[4]: [http://www.mail- email@example.com/msg1002...](http://www.mail- firstname.lastname@example.com/msg10020.html)

<comment><USER5> I feel like I've sent more than enough emails on this subject already, so rather than nit pick tiny things in your comment with which I disagree, I'm just going to say that I agree with your closing sentence.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for your general civility on the lists. I'm glad that you are on the PMC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This isn't a "major problem with open source projects," it's a problem with the governence model of one specific project, and a conflict between the ASF and the company holding a controlling majority on the board.

Other than "governance is hard and politics sucks," I'm not sure what the "major problem" actually _is_

<comment><USER12> > a problem with the governence model of one specific project,

I think multiple (not many, nor all) OS projects have a leading vendor supporting the codebase in various ways. For poorly adopted or niche OS projects, hardware, computer languages, etc, this can be a deathstroke to the project.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but they were saying it was a major flaw with all of OS. It isn't. In fact, if your project isn't incredibly popular, this likely won't effect you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I haven't followed this specific Datastax vs ASF discussion, but have seen similar battles played out in recent years between some popular projects and ASF and even ESF (Eclipse foundation vs Vert.x project for example)

Does anyone here know what value do these foundations bring to projects, in this day of cloud hosting/computing that make these foundations worth for the projects?

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes Open-Source projects can have political issues too. I don't see how this is any different than the politics of closed source software. Why the author wants to disparage Open-Source is beyond me.</comment>


The State of HTML5 Apps - <AUTHOR> http://sixrevisions.com/html/the-state-of-html5-apps/

<comment><USER2> HTML5 is not a replacement for rich media like Siverlight and Flash. The word 'audio' doesn't even appear anywhere in this article.

Yes, you should be at least dipping your toes in HTML5 - but do so with the appropriate expectations.

<comment><USER3> HTML5 is a replacement for Silverlight, and Flash, just because the article doesn't mention audio, audio is capable in HTML5.

Besides that the article states that things like games, ie. intense and immerse applications, aren't possible, but if you think about things like gmail, google maps, are all full applications built with out flash.

And games aren't that far off check out this

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmtQOB_KFzU>

a game engine written in HTML5</comment></comment>


After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site - <AUTHOR> http://www.observer.com/2010/media/after-three-months-only-35-subscriptions-newsdays-web-site <comment><USER2> Take into account that traffic fell from 2.2 Million to 1.5 Million unique users in the 3 months that that paywall has been up.

So out of the 700,000 uniques that stopped reading, they only converted 35 to paying.

</comment><comment><USER3> It looks like newsday has other issues (pun not intended) besides a very lousy conversion rate.

If they make it to next year without going bust or being sold again it would highly surprise me.

Their only saving grace is that they actually provided the figure.

I can't make the numbers work though, 35 subscribers for $20 / month since october works out to 140*$20 maximum, which is a lot less than the $9000 quoted in the article.

<comment><USER4> The article did phrase it as an approximation ("With those 35 people, they've grossed about $9,000.").

If 35 people sign up to pay $260 per year, that's $9100.

<comment><USER3> If they signed up per year, yes.

But their subscription terms are '$5 per week'.

So, unless I'm completely uninformed about consumer law, that means they have to do recurring billing on a weekly schedule charging $5 each time the subscription renews, and customers can cancel at any one point in time.

See here:

[http://www.newsday.com/services/7.387?registration=true&...](http://www.newsday.com/services/7.387?registration=true&online=true)

Any two bit webmaster running a site with a subscription model would be able to tell you some of the downsides of that registration page and why you really don't want to do this (the $5 / week charge) but that's their problem.

So, what they've grossed is the number of subscribers times the number of weeks, once they've figured out their 'life cycle' they can project to future earnings.

People do not as a rule fork over a years subscription in advance, another truth of online recurring billing. That's a great way to have to refund _all_ of the money if the customer is not 100% satisfied during the run of the subscription.

So, the 'middle ground' is monthly billing, with in case of a dispute a maximum 3 month refund.

I also love their 'opt-out' for spam checkbox (check to opt-out, default 'unchecked'), and the fact that they (optionally) ask you to fill out your gender and birth date.

> " Please check this box if you prefer not to be emailed "

The marketing joys of double negatives.

<comment><USER5> Subscriptions in newspaperland are never weekly. They get marketed as $x/week in order to reduce sticker shock, but you pay yearly or twice a year.

<comment><USER3> I can see a few very pissed off users in their future then, and it makes me wonder what would happen if they would simply make it a monthly subscription.

Do you have any proof of this ? The website says very clearly $5 / week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whenever I've gotten a newspaper subscription they've said it would cost $x a week, and then when it was time to settle up they'd either charge for 6 or 12 months in advance.

<comment><USER3> I can't equate 'subscribing to a newspaper' with 'subscribing to a website owned by a newspaper'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a resident locally "served" by Newsday I can only ask: what were those 35 people thinking!

Comparing Newsday to the NY Times does a disservice to the Times. Since being taken over by Cablevision, Newsday can best be described as the New York Knicks of media. It has become a throwaway add-on for Cablevision in its competition with Verizon Fios.

<comment><USER7> In Newsday's geographic target area (Long Island, NY), if a news consumer is the type of reader who mainly reads news online, they'll go with the Times, or even the NY Post or Daily News online, rather than Newsday. Newsday's print readers (even before the Cablevision takeover) are the readers most likely to be still consuming print -- they skew older, less affluent, and less educated.

Newsday's only competitive advantage content-wise, relative to the other NY papers, are hyper-local Long Island politics, culture listings, and classifieds. There just isn't any overlap between people interested in these things and people who consume most of their news online (AND are willing to pay for it).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> the headline is a bit misleading. that is 35 paid online subscriptions from people who don't already have a print subscription (who get online access for free), and/or who don't already have a cablevision account (who get a free account).

i'd be interested in knowing the number of people who are new subs for the print version in that same timeframe, and/or new subs from the cable deal.

<comment><USER9> Even with all the free/bundled subscriptions, they admit that traffic is way down:

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/newsday.com/>

The paywall actually only went up at the end of 10/2009, but even so it's clear that audience loss accelerated, something like a 25% loss in November.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The web site redesign and relaunch cost the Dolans $4 million"

I didn't realise people still spent $4M on what is basically a CMS. They could have bought a news focus and proven CMS like Ellington for less than a fraction of a percent of that. Leaving plenty of change to play for design.

</comment><comment><USER11> Maybe there's never a "good" time to put up a pay wall, but it seems pretty dumb or naive to try to do it now, while so many people are still eliminating recurring expenses and generally trying to save money. If money is tight, switching to a free alternative when one of the sites you hit online puts up a pay wall seems like a no-brainer.

Reminds me of "the penny gap" (see <http://redeye.firstround.com/2007/03/the_first_penny.html>). This is especially true with discretionary items and items that have many competitors and substitutes, especially free ones. That's the situation with newspapers. Sure, some might say each newspaper and writer is unique, which is true, but...

...maybe people aren't looking for _"the best"_ newspaper or writer or web app, maybe they're looking for _"the best free"_ newspaper, writer, or web app. NOTE: "Free" in this case means "ad supported," or at least "no subscription required."

</comment><comment><USER12> "35 people."

I wonder how big the Newsday executive suite is?

</comment><comment><USER13> I think they probably captured everyone that makes reading Newday's website a regular part of their day. I can't imagine ever doing that personally but I guess it's possible. I hope that they just refund those people their money and move on and try something else.

<comment><USER3> > and move on and try something else.

Like what ?

This is their hail-Mary pass, if the subscription model does not work what are they supposed to do next?

If this is an example of what will happen when paywalls rise on 'old media' sites then they're dead in the water.

<comment><USER14> _This is their hail-Mary pass, if the subscription model does not work what are they supposed to do next?_

Put someone competent in charge of the paper and removing quality articles and placing ads in the paper instead. Also, go back to a format that resembles a newspaper that has news in it, rather then tabloid newspapers. I used to read Newsday on a daily basis.

It took approximately a month under the Dolans (current owners) for my subscription to be canceled due to the reasons above. If the problems were fixed, I'd gladly go back to reading Newsday instead of switching between the Times and the Daily News.

Because currently, this isn't a story of a _news_ paper dying. Its a story of the _tabloids_ dying. And good riddance; perez hilton and the ilk don't need syndication.

<comment><USER14> Correction: _and removing quality_ should have been "and _stop_ removing quality"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Summary: if you horribly mismanage a newspaper, you will lose readers.

</comment><comment><USER16> Print pub management is never going to be able to figure out this web thing.

Their egos are too big and they are totally incapable of dragging themselves away from the "Ad Block" business model.

They are never going to be able to see readers as anything but numbers that they deliver to advertisers. I think the whole business will be pretty much gone by 2020 and, in my opinion, all I can say is "Good Riddance".

</comment><comment><USER17> There are so many Internet business models but why is it that the subscription model is the only one they can think of.

Newspaper industry clearly needs a new business model. But the bigger problem is really the management who are incapable of coming up with one, or incapable of executing.

This is really a people problem.

</comment><comment><USER18> [http://trends.google.com/websites?q=newsday.com&geo=all&...](http://trends.google.com/websites?q=newsday.com&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

</comment><comment><USER19> 35 pairs of eyeballs makes me think that they will not make fantastic advertisement deals, I think they are doomed when keeping the paywalls up

</comment><comment><USER20> 5$ a week seems very expensive. Surely they weren't making that much per print subscriber</comment>


Reuters hacked, fake news posted - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/reuters-hacked-fake-news-posted-7000002122/

<comment><USER3> It's not hard to imagine attacks on information dissemination platforms being used for more nefarious purposes than just propaganda - <USER2>

<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/business/09air.html?_r=1>

and imagine it being posted intentionally by someone with a large short position.

<comment><USER4> Of course the real danger is that they will get hacked and their coverage will actually get better :-)

On a more serious note is would probably be worthwhile for news agencies to to at least put a digital fingerprint on their published stories to raise the cost of creating a credible fake story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds like the work of the Syrian Cyber Army, a pro-Assad hacker group.

Some background links:

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21506-assad-masses- syr...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21506-assad-masses-syrian-cyber- army-in-online-crackdown.html)

[http://www.theworld.org/2011/06/syrian-government-takes- the-...](http://www.theworld.org/2011/06/syrian-government-takes-the-battle- online/)</comment>


Volvo CEO: Fully Autonomous Cars Are Worth $10,000 Extra - <AUTHOR> http://blog.caranddriver.com/volvo-ceo-fully-autonomous-cars-are-worth-10000-extra/ <comment><USER2> >But Volvo, which last year became the first car company to proclaim it will accept liability for crashes that occur because of flaws in its autonomous technology,

>allowing motorists to enable self-driving with a switch. When it's activated, the car would operate in fully automated fashion, never asking drivers to remain on guard.

I could go for a "self driving is on, not my fault" model.

If insurance rates are lower for a car with self driving features, then that 10k extra doesn't seem as bad.

I imagine the actual hardware doesn't cost too much so in the long term should be able to be standard in all vehicles.</comment>


Michael Lewis and the parable of the lucky man taking the extra cookie (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://kottke.org/17/06/michael-lewis-and-the-parable-of-the-lucky-man-taking-the-extra-cookie <comment><USER2> If I recall correctly, this isn't quite accurate—with four cookies, no one ate the fourth. So they changed to five cookies, and the group leader then usually took the fourth (with no one taking the fifth).

<comment><USER3> The researcher says it was 4 cookies and the leader nearly always took the 4th (and ate it messily). The researcher attributed it to "power" but I can see that luck was certainly involved.

[https://hbr.org/2016/10/dont-let-power-corrupt- you](https://hbr.org/2016/10/dont-let-power-corrupt-you)

<comment><USER2> I wonder if he's simplifying when describing it, since the aside about no one eating the last cookie when there are only four is kind of beside the point. I can't find the original study. I definitely recall listening to an interview where the researcher mentioned having to add a fifth cookie, but of course I could be mistaken too.

<comment><USER4> I wonder why people are having such a hard time taking this study at face value, given the plain description from the researcher. I'm not saying this is a universal effect, but several comments are doubting that it ever happened.

I think you're misunderstanding the comment about nobody taking the last cookie. He's setting up the situation. Every group left one cookie (at first), and then usually the leader to that cookie.

<comment><USER2> No, I recall a specific comment that they had to tweak the experiment to add a fifth cookie since no one took the fourth, then they saw the effect described here, lip smacking and all, with the fourth cookie.

Ah, here we go—I found where I heard it. It was in an episode of the podcast "Hidden Brain", called "The Perils of Power." It's an interview with the researcher who ran the experiment, Dacher Keltner. He starts describing the experiment at about 16:20, and explicitly discusses why they added a fifth cookie:

"Well this was where it's really interesting because the rules of politeness suggest you should really not be that uncouth person that takes the last cookie off the plate, and so we did pilot testing for the experiment and no one would take that fourth cookie—so that's why we added the fifth cookie: just to free somebody up to take that second-to-last cookie."

[https://www.npr.org/2016/09/06/492305430/the-perils-of- power](https://www.npr.org/2016/09/06/492305430/the-perils-of-power)

<comment><USER3> Ok, I see, thanks for looking it up. That's interesting but seems unrelated to the point of the research and of the Lewis retelling.

<comment><USER2> Totally, yeah, it's beside the point; just thought it was interesting!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes, the story is inaccurate: the study was about how power, not luck, changes perceptions. But the message is still right. It's easy to be a jerk if you are powerful. (And it's easy to be negative when you're just commenting on the Internet.)

If you actually care about the facts, read the original researcher's essay: [https://hbr.org/2016/10/dont-let-power-corrupt- you](https://hbr.org/2016/10/dont-let-power-corrupt-you) And if you want to still believe your success is the exclusive result of your hard work, read about Raj Chetty's work on just how much luck matters. [http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2016/04/12/stanford-study- shed...](http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2016/04/12/stanford-study-sheds-light- on-wealth-zip-code-and-lifespan/)

Edit: I got it wrong, the original study was four people as Lewis reports, not five as some commenters here believe. Lewis is also right about table manners, btw.

<comment><USER6> > Yes, the story is inaccurate: the study was about how power, not luck, > changes perceptions.

I think you misunderstood the situation. The Michael Lewis speech is precisely pointing that power changes perceptions, because we like to believe that we deserve the power you have. He's challenging the students to eschew that altered perception by pointing out that they're in that position of power but, like in the experiment, their power doesn't come from intrinsic worthiness but from sheer dumb luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> We have to be careful throwing around words like "luck" too much. Success is a combination of good choice and luck. Those good choices are very important to emphasize because that's what we have control over.

Given the success, it's also important to try improve others' odds. But good choices should also be respected.

Note that hard work may or may not be a good choice; and if it is, it's one good choice among many.

<comment><USER8> yes, it's important to choose the right country to be born in, the right affluent and wealthy parents, the right ethniticity and of course the right gender.

<comment><USER9> There are tactical choices you can make in life beyond that. Stuff like choosing the right extracurricular activities, choosing "good" majors, hanging out with the "right" people.

Of course the factors you mentioned make a lot of this easier. And perhaps more importantly those factors mean that you're more likely to be forgiven for not doing the "right" thing. While those from less fortunate categories will be berated for ever having spent a single second not hustling

<comment><USER8> sure - choosing the right extracurricular activities if they don't cost too much, are available in Minnesota and can fit in between your 2 jobs.

Sure - choosing good majors is important, if your parents can afford your school.

Sure, hanging out with the right people is important. Too bad they don't live in Minnesota, and too bad you don't have access to them.

<comment><USER9> To be clear: I 100% agree with the sentiment here.

There are things "in your control", but the prerequisites to having any control is based around the factors you've mentioned.

In theory even if your parents are super successful and the stars have aligned, you can still mess your life up. But at least you're given the opportunity to mess it up, instead of just being handed a shitty life from the outset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Luck" has a negative connotation, so it's not symmetrical.

If someone puts a blindfold on and runs across the freeway and doesn't get hurt, they are lucky. If they do get hurt, you wouldn't call them "unlucky".

If someone has balanced investments (in line with mainstream recommendations) and the market crashes right after they retire, they are unlucky. If the market doesn't crash and they have a comfortable retirement, you wouldn't call them "lucky".

<comment><USER10> Based on your examples, the "antisymmetry" of luck has much more to do with the probability of events than it does with the societal connotation of luck. You're more likely to get hit by a car than you are to be safe if you cross a busy road with a blindfold. The market is more likely to be not crashing than crashing in any particular point in time. We don't avoid using the inverse of "unlucky" to describe the inverse set of those scenarios because the inverse is simply likely, not because of a connotation with the word itself. Most events don't model a coin toss.

I don't think people avoid using one word or the other when it's _appropriate_. The words "lucky" and "unlucky" both map to the same positive statement ("This event that happened was unlikely"). But they have respectively opposite normative statements ("This event's occurrence is good" or "This event's occurrence is bad"). When a person does extremely well and it's unlikely to have happened, such a person will (in my experience) be straightforwardly honest and say things like, "I am very lucky", even if they very clearly had a hand in their success (such as by founding a successful company).

This is to say: I don't think people avoid using chance-based terminology to refer to their or others' success because of a profound insight about attribution. I think they avoid it because words such as "lucky" and "unlucky" are more often associated with events that are much closer to random than they are to simply unlikely. Going back to your examples: if I put a blindfold on and run into traffic, I have extremely limited agency with which to force an unlikely event (my safety) to happen. I'll be exceptionally lucky to be safe. But if I found a company and sell it for $10 billion, it's not comparable to assume I had little agency over that occurrence, let alone none at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree with the belief that "to whom much is given, much is expected," but the framing of "luck" bothers me.

Sure, there are some undeserving rich people and their stories are trotted out whenever we talk about someone earning a salary in the top 5%. But what about the doctor at a premier children's hospital who has done nothing but study and sacrifice for their first 30 years on the planet to earn a job that involves telling parents with depressing regularity that their child is going to die despite the best efforts of medical science? Those folks can have all the cookies they want.

Are many high-earners the beneficiaries of unearned privilege? Absolutely. Do the majority of these "lucky" people also work hard and add tremendous value to society? Absolutely. We should always try to help the needy but dismissing the very real efforts of the most successful (of which I'd not count my self a member) is bad practice.

<comment><USER12> " _we talk about someone earning a salary in the top 5%_ "

You seem to be using the word "rich" the way Chris Rock uses the word "wealthy".

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeOUty4SWvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeOUty4SWvI)

I don't know many people who would consider someone at the 96% percentile of income as "rich". Even folks at the 99% are still basically just upper middle class. If you have a high paying job such that you've got 2 homes and and a few nice cars and all your kids are going to expensive private schools then you are simply upper middle class. Being wealthy suggests that you possess such capital that you've never had to work. Work is entirely optional. If you never work, you will still continue to grow more wealthy, because the assets you own continue to accrue profits.

If you look at the Forbes list of richest 400 people, it tends to be a handful of tech people, plus a whole lot of people who inherited their wealth, plus obvious criminals such as the oligarchs who stole much of the wealth of Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of those who inherited their money, then obviously all of their money comes from luck. Of those who are criminals, we can admire their entrepreneurial skills, but remember they are sociopaths who have broken the law and who have sometimes killed people. Also, the collapse of the Soviet Union can be viewed as pure luck, as they had nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER13> >I don't know many people who would consider someone at the 96% percentile of income as "rich".

Hmm? I'm getting $240,000 in household income yearly. I'd call that rich, I think lots of people I know would call that rich. Quarter mil per year is good money.

>Even folks at the 99% are still basically just upper middle class.

Huh? I'm getting $400,000 a year in income. That's rich

This strikes me as the same thing poor people do, to always define poverty as just below themselves but since this community has many people with large salaries, we define rich as just above us, just out of reach enough. If you pull in $400,000 a year you aren't middle class, you're rich. Accept it.

<comment><USER12> " _If you pull in $400,000 a year you aren 't middle class, you're rich._"

This is from the character Gordon Gecko, in the 1987 movie "Wall Street":

" _Wake up, will ya, pal? If you 're not inside, you're outside, okay? And I'm not talking a $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable, I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars, buddy. A player, or nothing. Now, you had what it took to get into my office; the real question is whether you got what it takes to stay._"

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wall_Street_(1987_film)](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Wall_Street_\(1987_film\))

Wealthy people live on capital. That is a traditional definition of what it means to be wealthy. If you have to work, at all, then you are not wealthy.

<comment><USER13> No, that's my point, you're just defining 'rich' as the next step up. If you are earning a 99 percentile income you're rich. Gordon Gecko or not, you may not be uber-wealthy yacht-buying or anything like that but there's no way someone who makes $400,000 can be called middle-class at all.

>Wealthy people live on capital. That is a traditional definition of what it means to be wealthy. If you have to work, at all, then you are not wealthy.

That's not traditional at all. Doctors are traditionally referred to as wealthy and they work. You're saying a CEO (of a smaller company) isn't wealthy? A hedge fund manager isn't wealthy? Of course these people are wealthy and yet they'd all probably still have to work.

It's totally inane to define middle class as everything from 25%-99.5%.

<comment><USER14> Doctors are _rich_. If they have to work to keep their nice car/house/boat/lifestyle then they aren't _wealthy_. Of course, there are wealthy doctors, but the definition of wealth is financial independence, not any set income level.

<comment><USER15> Rich and wealthy are usually synonyms, and seem to match pretty well what you call wealthy. I think what you label "rich" would be better labeled "high income".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "With incredible consistency the person arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie, and ate it. Not only ate it, but ate it with gusto: lips smacking, mouth open, drool at the corners of their mouths. In the end all that was left of the extra cookie were crumbs on the leader's shirt."

Bollocks.

<comment><USER17> Michael Lewis is a "financial journalist". In journalism its called "good storytelling" to portray a cartoonish world of good and evil.

<comment><USER18> While that may be true, in this instance he is quoting (nearly verbatim) from the study author: [https://youtu.be/0vvl46PmCfE?t=1m41s](https://youtu.be/0vvl46PmCfE?t=1m41s)

<comment><USER17> Does this raise any questions for you about the objectivity of the study author?

<comment><USER16> Are you having a laugh?

Soz, I should explain: Allow a speech about something a bit of leeway but if the source is bollocks, then call it out as such.

Science is a thing. The scientific method is a thing. A speech at an event can be a bit wayward and take liberties but the original, quoted, research should be sound.

Is it?

<comment><USER19> Scientists are just people who slept through a few more lectures than the rest of us. Of course they can be full of shit occasionally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Judging by the comments, no one has bothered to listen to the speech. The study is not the point of the speech.

<comment><USER21> But the study _is_ the point of this article.

<comment><USER22> Forest for the trees - the study was used to drive home a point about the position in the world these graduates were in. The study wasn't used to incite curiosity about p-values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is one of those truisms about life. That it is well understood is expressed in the cliche about "having to play the hand you were dealt."

Lewis is making an observation here about the bias of the lucky, which blinds them to the objective reality of their situation.

I like the point.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's curious because these leaders obviously don't care much about nutrition, itself a possible problem variable. They're not athletes, diabetics, or someone else who would refuse one cookie, much less a second. I certainly wouldn't eat two cookies, and that doesn't mean I don't act entitled in other ways. Conversely, what if this leader was extra hungry that moment or has an eating disorder.

I'm sure this social psychology experiment could have been done differently.

</comment><comment><USER25> Replicated study or it didn't happen.

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone know of a write-up for the study?

<comment><USER27> See: "POWER, APPROACH, AND INHIBITION" \-- Keltner et al

PDF: [http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/p...](http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/power_approach_and_inhibition.pdf)

<comment><USER28> [http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/p...](http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/power_approach_and_inhibition.pdf)

From that, here's the actual paper. Little methodology description, no significance testing, no indication of the number of participants or how they were selected. This has significantly diminished my belief in the proposition that power makes people more selfish in the cookie scenario. I still believe it is somewhat more likely to be true because of my priors, but this study didn't contribute much.

<comment><USER27> "From that, here's the actual paper."

I included the paper, the precise link, in my OP.

<comment><USER28> Oops! I only saw the other child, who was replying with links. My apologies. My comment will stand unedited so people don't get confused about your reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wish I'd been in this experiment as a "leader" to see what I'd do, because I can't imagine taking the cookie without at least asking whether anyone else wanted it, or offering to divide it. I can't see any of my friends taking the cookie either. Is not having any manners so common?

</comment><comment><USER30> Really, the psychological study had data about lips smacking and drool? I can't find a link.

<comment><USER31> Someone else posted this link where the author of the study speaks about it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vvl46PmCfE&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vvl46PmCfE&feature=youtu.be&t=1m41s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What an ingenious way to shape a leadership scenario. Have never been nor worked for a leader who ate the 4th cookie. If 5 cookies were given out, most leaders would abstain.

</comment><comment><USER33> Didn't know Michael Lewis lived in Berkeley; that's cool.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why does everyone want to try to belittle the children of rich and well- connected parents as being undeserving of their status? No man is an island. And specifically, children are a continuation of the lives of those who came before them. They carry the genes and often the wisdom of their ancestors. In a deeper, Darwinian sense, no one 'deserves' anything beyond or below what they have, and these 'lucky' people are just members of a different chain of life.

<comment><USER22> Advising young graduates to retain humility seems a far stretch from belittling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> How much luck?

People seem to often use things like this to rationalize any amount of takings. The word "fair" comes up a lot. But who decides what is fair and how you balance out this luck?

Is 50% taxes "fair" and by what standard? How about if person constantly gives to charity? Why should taxes be the preferred way to balance fairness?

Or how about if the person lives miserly, saving every penny as if it's their last? All that money goes into new business and reducing the cost of capital. That helps the entire world.

Trying to balance out luck seems like a fool's game. While individuals should be aware and be decent human that help others, i don't think society or government should be in the position of trying to rebalance the scales fate has given you.

There are too many ways to be wrong, have unintended consequences, or make the world more fair by dragging everybody down.

(Edit: have i been shadow banned or some similar enforcement? It seems comments i post often run to -1 very quickly)

<comment><USER31> You're not hellbanned FWIW.

<comment><USER35> Just voted down to -3 again. /shrug/</comment></comment></comment>


Use GitHub protected branches to only merge PRs that LGTM - <AUTHOR> https://lgtm.co/ <comment><USER2> Is there a way to customize the approval process, for example the number of approvals, or require specific approvals for subdirectories in the codebase?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, if you choose the slightly more complex toml format for your MAINTAINERS file you can define approvers, approver subgroups and tweak a bunch of different variables.

Check out [https://lgtm.co/docs/approvers/](https://lgtm.co/docs/approvers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice - will it work with GH Enterprise?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure if GitHub Enterprise supports protected branches, since the feature is still considered experimental but it should definitely be possible. I'll be posting a Docker image to the index in the coming weeks allowing you to run your own instance, hopefully that will include GHE conntors</comment></comment>


Syria Completely Cut Off From the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/11/29/internet-shut-down-syria/

<comment><USER2> No shit, it's only been covered by two other front-page stories on HN</comment>


Ask HN: Will we ever return to variable residences? - <AUTHOR> ASK HN: Will we ever return to variable residences?
Lately I keep thinking about a world with containerization of houses. This could enable transportation of entire houses and stimulate people to live at multiple locations with the same house.
When people want from their relax weekend spot to their work in a city, they tell their home. The home takes care of the rest and registers itself for transport at for example a train. The house will be loaded automatically on the train and so the travel begins.
Benefits of variable residences are more frictionless travelling and it could also brake the large countryside to city movement of the last few decades.
What would be the challenges for culture, standarization or society if we ever embrace such a way of living? <comment><USER2> So... effectively, a tiny house that you don't have to drive yourself?

Look into mobile tiny houses. I already live in one and travel around at will. It is very freeing, being able to work anywhere and travel on a whim.

There are container houses on the market. They usually run $40k-$95k for a finished home.

A lot of the cost is clearing and disposal of the extremely hazardous materials used to coat the original containers. There is about 1,000 lbs of toxic materials that needs to be stripped off a standard container before it is safe to live in.

<comment><USER3> _extremely hazardous materials used to coat the original containers_

What materials are those, and why is it safe for transporting goods and possibly items for consumption?

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> [http://www.archdaily.com/160892/the-pros-and-cons-of- cargo-c...](http://www.archdaily.com/160892/the-pros-and-cons-of-cargo- container-architecture)

Most of the hazardous materials are safe enough for packaged goods because they offgas slowly. The goods may pick up trace amounts, but not in the quantity needed to become toxic. The hazzard is in living with them over years.

It is all in the dosage.</comment>


How to Start an Online Business: 11,520 Free Resources for the Internet Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://paraschopra.com/business/

<comment><USER2> Information overload. I wish the people who did things like that took the time to find out the best resource, and had 1 resource for everything.

Site to find a good accountant: blahblah.com Site to find a good lawyer: blahblah.com Site to find current loan rates: blahblah.com

<comment><AUTHOR> For that you always have Google. This guide is for people who would want a comprehensive list of all the topics in a subject. And Google wouldn't suffice at that.

<comment><USER2> not really, most of the times you really don't know what phrase to use to find what you are looking for. And a lot of results are crap. Google search now is basically a way to find the site thats best at being found by Google, not necessary the best content. Usually when I search for something that gets spammed I don't find any good links until page 4-5.

If there was one list where the person did the groundwork to find the best links for each category that'd be much better. I mean whatever the category almost all the information is repeated between the links. So there is really no reason to list 10 different links that compare an LLC to a C-Corp.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a HTML version somewhere we can read this online?

Why ask people to download and print PDF? not that you have to, but PDF's are meant for that and there are 40 pages.

40 * number of readers who will print = Lots of paper waste.

Will check out content though.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> People, please let me know how did you find the ebook. This is my first ever ebook. :)</comment>


All Advanced Aliens Are in Happiness Boxes - <AUTHOR> https://omni.media/all-advanced-aliens-are-in-happiness-boxes <comment><USER2> The problem with absolutist solutions to fermi's paradox (like this one) is that they assume all conscious entities are just like us. But that is a big assumption.

What about the sentient species that evolves an abhorrence for artificial experience? What about a sentient species with a radical minority of religious devotees who refuse the happiness boxes? (I can easily imagine that w our own soecies)

In short, it seems to me that all or most of the fermi paradox solutions require a serious lack of imagination</comment>


Barr Tells Prosecutors to Consider Charging Violent Protesters with Sedition - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/barr-tells-prosecutors-to-consider-charging-violent-protesters-with-sedition-11600276683 <comment><USER2> Charging people who are exercising their First Amendment rights, even the ones who get too violent _thinking_ they are exercising those rights, with attempting to overthrow the government is an obvious indicator of fascism.

</comment><comment><USER3> An Act To Enforce The Provisions Of The Fourteenth Ammendment [pdf]:

[https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/42nd- congress...](https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/42nd- congress/session-1/c42s1ch22.pdf)

<comment><USER2> This doesn't mention sedition.

<comment><USER3> From the wiki: "Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward insurrection against the established order." [1]

From Section 3 of the Act: "SEC. 3. That in all cases where insurrection, ..."

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition)</comment></comment></comment>


jQuery Write/See Maths - For Instant MathJax Preview Of Typed TeX - <AUTHOR> http://christianp.github.com/writemaths/

<comment><AUTHOR> Found via: <http://goo.gl/AmJAf></comment>


Ask HN: How do you document long term products - <AUTHOR> What are your tips or advice for creating product documentation which is useful over the long term.
Specifically I'm thinking of something which is well structred and can be used by new team members as a one-stop-shop for information about a product which would encompase design decisions, risk and the output of multiple projects.
What tools do you use and do you have any examples? <comment><USER2> This past week I set up our project's Azure DevOps wiki, uses markdown and allows you to generate graphs using mermaid.js - very nice, especially since it's harder to blackboard ideas remotely. Although we were initially just using a README file, it's faster to contribute to the wiki and is easier to manage more information with it.

But regardless of whether you have a fancy doc site or just a single README, I think it's important to just get information down that's actually important and written as clearly as possible, and then sorting by how commonly that information may be needed. It's also helpful to put yourself in the shoes of a junior developer or someone completely new to the project: does x make sense outside of this context? Oftentimes when we refer to some project-specific concept, we don't realize that there are implicit mental dependencies that someone must have before they can understand what we're talking about. The best documentation makes the fewest assumptions they can get away with about the reader's previous knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER3> The goal of product documentation is that new devs (and future you) are able to get the info they need.

This doesn't mean that it needs to be entirely from a wiki.

In my experience, wikis are rarely up-to-date because 1) shared ownership === no ownership 2) too high expectations --> people publish less

I recently surveyed a bunch of devs on their knowledge sharing and learned that for most devs, private notes are actually more useful than wikis.

Private notes are easier to keep up-to-date because they can be messy and because they have a clear owner. You can then share them as needed.

Working on a product to help devs write better private notes and share as needed. The difference is that you write notes like you're texting yourself. This lets you be fast and loose. But then your notes are modular. Modular notes are easy to organize/share granularly.

[[https://bytebase.io](https://bytebase.io)]

</comment><comment><USER4> 1\. Start With Why -- Make sure you know the audience for anything you write.

2\. For developers, Default to markdown and easily-updatable diagrams (like mermaid.js).

3\. Put docs as close to the Point of Action as you can so that someone can notice if they are out-of-date. Like putting your keys on a hook by the door.

</comment><comment><USER5> For one of my own projects I've just created markdown files in a GIT repo. Super simple but I guess sorta like your own private wiki.</comment>


Granular – Opportunities in UI/Geospatial - <AUTHOR> Disrupting the Agriculture Industry with enterprise web application for farmers.<p>Design and build out our web and mobile UI, creating great user interfaces for customer-driven data analysis and visualization. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.granular.ag/careers/](https://www.granular.ag/careers/)

firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Woman finds lost iPhone- police kick down her door - <AUTHOR> http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20111027/ARTICLES/111029570/1350?Title=Painful-lesson-Don-t-mess-with-a-lost-iPhone

<comment><USER2> It's all about intent. If you find a phone in Kohl's, bring it to the customer service desk. Don't take it out of the store!

It's amazing just how well the "Find my iPhone" service works. I listened to Santa Clara PD chase a purse snatcher in a stolen car all the way into the southeast side of San Jose. Then they followed the actual phone (inside the purse) as one of the suspects made off on foot.

Long story short, arrests were made, and both the purse and the phone were recovered not long after the whole thing started. I'm surprised Apple doesn't use this angle in some way.

<comment><USER3> > I'm surprised Apple doesn't use this angle in some way.

There would probably be privacy implications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "She didn't know how to answer it"

Yeah, I have a lot of trouble understanding "SLIDE TO ANSWER" too.

<comment><USER5> To give her the benefit of the doubt, my mom still fails to answer my iPhone when it's near her about 1 in 2 times. The sliding motion is not as effortless for people who did not grow up on videogames.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So, she took it home instead of returning it to the lost and found, and then ignored incoming calls - which you do not have to unlock the phone in order to answer - and ignored the police when they knocked on her door.

Yeah, I'm sure she and her son were going to track down the owner and return it.</comment>


Show HN: An Easy Programming Language – Built with WebAssembly - <AUTHOR> https://easyprog.online <comment><USER2> The syntax/formatting reminds me of Lingo [0]. But also Logo and Basic.

One of the things I really liked about coding in Lingo (in Director [1]) was the sparse syntax but the code auto-highlighted as you typed. (not common back then) But also auto indented as you typed. It was really easy and fast to program with.

The graphics code reminded me of "hi-res" graphics programming on the Apple computer. Some nostalgia there.

This brings me around to how magical it felt to program things for the first time as a kid, and how there doesn't seem to be an environment for this kind of excitement or discovery anymore.

Maybe just a change of times, like how the first planes and auto-mobiles were created by hobbyists, but those times are mostly gone.

Any notion on what a language like this would be good for? I get the impression maybe similar to my own nostalgia...

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingo_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingo_\(programming_language\))

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

<comment><USER3> How is programming less magical today than it was in the past? if anything it's far more fulfilling now considering how much more one can accomplish.

<comment><USER4> In the past you fired up an editor and the tools were built in and ready to use. Im thinking back to BASIC. Today you have to download and understand a stack of tools and languages before you get anything printing on the screen.

<comment><USER5> open devtools in your browser. (f12 in chrome)

type:

console.log ("hello world")

pretty simple

<comment><USER4> Do people actually use devtools to write code?

<comment><USER6> To be fair, s/he was responding to "Today you have to download and understand a stack of tools and languages before you get anything printing on the screen."

It is true that people don't generally ship code written in devtools, but then most of the programs shipped on the Commodore 64 were not written in basic. (Unless you count hundreds of peeks and pokes as basic.)

I do miss the immediacy of the programming experience, but I also think the correct modern day analog of that is the browser.

<comment><USER4> > but I also think the correct modern day analog of that is the browser.

The browser is exactly what I had in mind when I said "you have to learn a stack of languages". Sure, okay, console.log() gets you "hello world", but so does "echo" so maybe I placed the bar too low. Still, getting into the modern web experience requires you to learn HTML + CSS + Javascript and how they relate and interop.

Fast forward a little bit from the BASIC days to Visual Basic. Back then you could write a desktop application with a GUI, controls, a window, and needed one language and one environment. I don't see how the browser world is easier or more approachable than that.

<comment><USER5> Well," Back then you could write a desktop application with a GUI, controls, a window, and needed one language and one environment. " you still had to learn the different gui frameworks and how they work.

Also, if you want, you can write GUI in the browser without html/css, with the canvas element. There are frameworks for that, not sure how mature they are, though.

<comment><USER4> > you still had to learn the different gui frameworks and how they work.

No you didn't, it was built into the VB editor; you just dragged and dropped elements into a window frame, then edited callback functions. You didn't have to leave VB at all or learn any other language or framework.

<comment><USER5> Ah ok, I never used VB. I experienced that with Delphi ... and much more elaborate with Adobes Flex(or more beautiful, but less clean, with Flash), which is pretty dead nowdays unfortunately and I have not found a replacement. Any tool which tried to do this for HTML has been horrible so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      a = 11
      if a = 10

Great way to set someone up for failure when they switch to any C-like language!

I personally have experienced people finding it easier to grasp a construct such as _a := 1_ or _let a = 1_. The way most programming languages assign values to variables conflicts with the notion of equations, which is familiar to a lot of people by the time they learn to write programs.

<comment><USER8> Perhaps it's C that is weird for confusingly allowing you to assign within a logical expression. At least clang (and possibly other compilers) warn you because they assume you meant to write '=='.

(Dartmouth BASIC required a LET keyword, Kemeny and Kurtz being mathematicians after all. Bill Gates might have made it optional in Microsoft BASIC to save typing and possibly one byte of memory.)

I sort of miss Smalltalk's left-arrow though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> All I see is "Loading ..." and when looking at the console I see things like "Content Security Policy: The page's settings blocked the loading of a resource at [https://easyprog.online/games/easyw.js](https://easyprog.online/games/easyw.js) ("worker-src").".

</comment><comment><USER10> I like it, it is very well made and organized. I jumped to Monte Carlo methods and examples clearly explained what it was. I think this is great layout for teaching. Thank you for making it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really like this. Could you make the page load with the first demo code pre- loaded? I sat there looking at the code and hitting "run", checking the browser console to see if there was any error. Then I realised I had to press "load" first and then "run".

Also, one bit of criticism: if it's not too late I'd also re-think the name. "Easyprog" is going to make any newbies really frustrated when they can't figure something out and the site is just mocking them: "lol, you can't figure it out and it's so EASY!".

Other than that, I think this is a great project - really well done, and it has a lot of potential to me really great learning tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> > if it's not too late I'd also re-think the name

I am also not yet satisfied with the name - so if you had a suggestion ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Pretty cool! Is the source on GitHub? If not, do you plan to put it there under an open source license?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet - I intend it when it reaches a certain spread - I don't want anyone to change that a little and then claim it as his work.

<comment><USER4> This is literally not a concern. There's a very large community of hobbyist programming language designers and I've never heard an instance of someone poaching another's language and running with it as their own.

<comment><USER13> Where does this community of hobbyist language designers gather online?

<comment><USER4> /r/programminglanguages (17.5k subscribers) is a good start. They recently launched a directory of projects (50+) the group is working on: [https://www.proglangdesign.net](https://www.proglangdesign.net) which also links to their IRC and discord servers.

Also there's [https://futureofcoding.org](https://futureofcoding.org) which has a growing community of language and tool designers focused on live-coding languages. There's a good number of projects being developed by members there.

<comment><USER13> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Evokes logo/pilot with turtle graphics; [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PILOT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PILOT) and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_\(programming_language\)) which were both great fun back in the day...</comment>