The RIAA and MPAA Have Failed To Understand A Cultural Shift - <AUTHOR> http://www.techi.com/2010/04/the-riaa-and-mpaa-have-failed-to-understand-a-cultural-shift/

<comment><USER2> I used to do some social media consulting for Time Inc. and some of their subsidiaries (HBO etc.) and across the board what I found is quite simply the companies are not setup to be able to handle these shifts, it's not really that they don't have the ability to understand. This is the natural order: they are too big, and too established to be able to respond to this market with agility.

Time itself has moved away from the strategy of distribution and is going full on into content creation because they feel there is still a market for high quality content. I think they are totally correct about that, but wrong about what is considered "high quality" at this point. There will increasingly be a place for "premium information" such as Bloomberg terminals and other professional related information, but entertainment content has no expertise to sell. It's either good or it's not, I don't really care who made it.

So I'm not sure it's that they "just don't get it" it's more just the natural order of things: they are too big to respond quickly.

But I think we also have to think less about convincing people "these companies are going to die" and more about what we do when an industry goes out of business. Even if these companies survive, the only way to do it will be downsizing like crazy (and outsourcing to international stringers), and that wont really be good for anyone.

All they are trying to do is slow down the shift and preserve jobs. So we can sit here and criticize the MPAA etc (I know I do), but is what we really want a sudden collapse of these industries? I'm not convinced.

<comment><USER3> _"entertainment content has no expertise to sell. It's either good or it's not, I don't really care who made it."_

Entertainment is either good or it's not. But I can pretty well count on stuff coming out of Pixar as being good. So if I have limited dollars and/or attention to spend on entertainment and there's a Pixar film and something generic that I don't know if it's good or not, I'm going with Pixar. Clearly they have expertise to sell. There's also music I'll buy (or at least consider) just because of the label.

The challenge for Time or any other entertainment-content providers is cultivating the appropriate quality and expertise, fitting it into an appropriate business model, and cutting away the cruft. This might mean downsizing like crazy and outsourcing, or it might not. Some companies will find a new model that works and survive, while others will struggle and eventually fail. IMO, one big problem for the MPAA and RIAA is that they've made some actively-bad choices in that transition, inconveniencing and alienating consumers while not really protecting what they're trying to protect.

<comment><USER2> The key here is less limited $ and more limited attention span. We simply don't have enough time to consume both our user created content (facebook etc) AND still support pay content as well. Pixar absolutely has expertise over movie making, and I'm not saying they particularly are going anywhere, but the competition they have is NOT with other movie companies, it's with ALL media for attention span.

When you bring the long tail into this, and as it gets easier and easier to create what we would call "quality" media for a smaller, fragmented audience, it's going to be very difficult for consumers to see the value of a Time magazine-like broad, high level view of the world. This IS going to be competition for companies like Pixar because the choice isn't "I have 10 movies to see pick one," it's "how should I spend my day," and it's going to be rarer and rarer that the answer to that is go see the new mass market movie.

Now of course we are years ahead of the curve here. HNers tend to be pushing boundaries on stuff like this. So there are still a few years before places outside of metro America catch up.

I DON'T agree with you about the MPAA and RIAA. Their goal is not to protect long term, it's simply to slow this transition down so they lose fewer jobs and have more time to think about it. They NEED to because they represent the mega companies that need to move this slow. Think of it like a two lane highway, MPAA and RIAA are side to side trucks driving at 5mph. We'll just keep hitting detours and exits and eventually there will simply be no one behind them. So I think their goal is wrong, but I think they've succeeded in carrying out their mission relatively well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On the radio in the UK recently there was an interview with artists in Manchester about how budget cuts might affect the city. What came out in the interview is there are more music artists than ever in the city and many are making albums in their bedroom. I've a few CDs now that artists have persuaded me to buy after the gig.

Not a record label or a pirate in sight. Record companies have more than piracy to contend with. No longer is expensive equipment needed even to produce a physical album.

<comment><USER5> Labels bring to the table the ability to work with experienced audio engineers,etc, but IMO it's debatable how much of that makes its way into the final product since most CDs have no dynamic range.

<comment><USER6> _most CDs have no dynamic range_

I thought that music normalized to -13dBFS was as bad as it could get, but I discovered a new low: some recently-released dance music I examined had an RMS of -7dBFS over the _entire song_ , including silent parts. Highlighting just the active parts of the song showed an RMS of -5 to -6dBFS. ReplayGain scanning says it needed almost 20dB of gain reduction to match reference volume levels.

The sad reality is that music with no dynamic range sounds pretty good on audio systems with no dynamic range and no headroom, which basically describes most car, retail bookshelf, and personal playback (i.e. MP3 player with cheap earbuds) systems. To get a similar volume level but while preserving full dynamic range would require 20dBV (i.e. ten times) more amplifier power, not to mention better speakers, quieter listening environments, etc.

<comment><USER7> I have a friend who's a professional engineer at a local studio and after working on some filler for some vocalists (simple drum/guitar parts quickly banged out so they had something to listen to while recording), I got to hang around and see famous musician X's sibling attempt to record vocal tracks. They were so awful that musician X had to sing along so the vocalist could hear it in the monitor to get close enough to the pitch so the auto tuner could make something that didn't sound like a robot. After seeing that, I am no longer surprised at the state of any recent music recordings or compositions. I first noticed the massive over-use of compression in the mid-90's, and it's only gotten worse since then.

<comment><USER6> There is one area where I don't have a problem with massive compression, duckers, limiting, and so on, and that's in concerts and dance clubs. Using duckers and limiters to "pulse" parts of the audio track between beats simulates the ear's own gain control, and makes music feel a lot louder than it is, so more dancing can be done at safer volume levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> An exec from Sony who spoke at our uni said the labels _know_ and _accept_ music is destined to be free very soon. They just keep charging because there is a portion of population still willing to pay(aka iTunes).

</comment><comment><USER9> Related previous discussion: [http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the- collapse-of-complex...](http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of- complex-business-models/) <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1235153>

</comment><comment><USER10> Those fools. How could they not embrace the cultural shift towards just giving their stuff away!

Both sides of the piracy argument have equally retarded expectations and fantasies for the future.

<comment><USER3> It's not so much a cultural shift towards "just giving stuff away" as it is a shift toward easy access, ease of use, and portability.

The image comparing pirates vs. paying customers is critical. The technology exists to distribute music and video directly to consumers, with a minimum of hassle. Consider examples like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, streaming sports packages like NBA League Pass and ESPN360, justin.tv, and atdhe.net. These have various monetization models, but they all share one thing in common: for me as a consumer, they just plain work. Some of them have short ads, but none of them make me sit through long previews or make it difficult for me to watch from my wife's computer.

Load up any one of those things and start watching or listening. Then start watching something on a DVD, and notice how much more hassle you have to go through in order to skip previews and such. Or put a DRM-free mp3 file you ripped from CD three computers ago onto your wife's ipod, and compare the experience to fighting with DRM-laden files when you replace your device with a new one.

It's not that the industry needs to "just give stuff away". But they need to come up with distribution models that give consumers what they want with a minimum of hassle. Subscription-based streaming services work. Ad-supported streaming works. Paying for non-DRM digital copies works. Trying to install spyware on every PC in the US, sue ISPs, and throttle or filter internet traffic does NOT work, it just further alienates consumers.</comment></comment>


SpaceX introduces fully reusable Falcon 9 concept - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/npc-luncheon-elon-musk.php

<comment><USER2> That's a pretty cool video and a great concept. I'm wondering how the small crew capsule carries enough fuel to brake its fall after entering the atmosphere but I'm sure they've got that figured out.

One item missing from the video is how the service module from the capsule is recovered. When the capsule leaves the ISS, there's another component with it that isn't included when it reenters the atmosphere. Is this piece also "landed" or is it lost?</comment>


Ambient Shipping – a project to allow you to look inside passing cargo ships - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/marcdacosta/ambient-shipping <comment><USER2> Wow... I had no idea this kind of manifest information was publicly available. I'm kind of unreasonably excited by this.

Using the Enigma datadata I was able to figure find at least one major vendor another player in my industry uses. That information isn't publicly disclosed elsewhere. Really interesting stuff.

<comment><USER3> What kind of patterns would be interesting to find out in this dataset? A thought came in to my mind to do some data acrobatics and possibly publish a dashboard based on this data if I can arrange some extra time.. (didnt check any possible terms of use for the data yet)

<comment><USER4> You can make a microsite that publishes only ridiculous shipping facts such as (these use actual Enigma data):

"Over 1K+ imports were refused by the FDA in 2013 for containing a 'filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance'"

or

"Only 23 shipments of McDonalds chicken nuggets came into the US in 2013"

or

"The #1 piece of cargo imported into the U.S. in 2013: empty containers (over 275k of them)"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This could be used for trading I am sure. Proabably already is. Know a company's expected numbers before they are released by correlating ahipments over time.

Very very cool. I am reminded of the parking lot analysis from satellite photos some traders were doing.

<comment><USER6> >> I am reminded of the parking lot analysis from satellite photos some traders were doing.

This has been done for years. The smart companies are forging deliveries and movement to manipulate portfolios.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great tool for pirates yeah?

<comment><USER8> In light of this comment, the sibling comment with the joke link to a space- sim video game cargo scanner seems fitting; pretty sure in-game piracy is the primary use of a cargo scanner in that fictional world, and I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up the same in the real world.

<comment><USER9> Always scan the freighter before you and your catalyst buddies suicide gank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So is this tool meant as a road-map to literal pirates, so they can know what to target and when, or is it to let folks know what pirates know, so they can be taken out by the navies of the world?

Seriously - AIS "provides position, speed, heading and other metadata about its movements" and Enigma public gives "what the ship contains".

<comment><USER11> You could use it as a basis for an AR type 'virtual pirate' game, where you navigate your pirate vessel around the worlds oceans, trying to track and board actual ships. You would get points based on the types of cargo they contain, and success could be determined by statistics on actual piracy, proximity of naval vessels, public information about the owners previous responses to attacks etc. With the money you earn from stealing cargo you can 'buy' a better pirate ship, or 'employ' more virtual pirates to increase success...? Could be a pretty simple Android or iOS app to write?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a marinetraffic.com antenna at home, tried it late last night. The data I get seems a bit out of date (July), so as I understand it, it's US-only at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER13> This would be pretty great as an AR app that queried a live shipping map like marinetraffic.com rather than a local SDR for the AIS info.

<comment><USER14> Nice idea, but scrapping MarineTraffic.com data is against the terms, according to MarineTraffic.com. They provide a premium API for that. There are very few real-time AIS data sources that are freely available to the public unfortunately.

<comment><USER15> I believe LinkedIn just lost a case for trying to disallow that. I'm not sure of the morality of it, but it looks like it is legal to do so.

Citation/info: [https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft- linked...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/15/16148250/microsoft-linkedin- third-party-data-access-judge-ruling)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> What an ingenius way to combine two seemingly 'harmless' datasets to reveal powerful insights! I'm sure there are many other possible/potential ways to combine publicly available data, hmmm...

</comment><comment><USER17> Worth noting that (unless I am mistaken, which I may well be) this probably only works in the US, since the AMS is a U.S. Customs system.

</comment><comment><USER18> I was hoping for screenshots and an app like Flight Radar :-(

Not that I can see any cargo ships from where I am, but it would be cool.

<comment><USER19> MarineTraffic.com, though without the cargo manifests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would be cool to combine with some AR kit - so that it would be possible to look to ships and see it's info in realtime )

<comment><USER21> Start a startup!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Knew about AIS but not this level of information, SDR has more and more interesting uses every day.

<comment><USER23> What' SDR?

<comment><USER24> Software Defined Radio ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software- defined_radio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Readme was a little vague. Found better documentation here: [http://elite- dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Cargo_Scanner](http://elite- dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Cargo_Scanner)

<comment><USER26> This is a link to a cargo scanner for a video game. The op posted a project that displays the cargo for real ships.

<comment><USER27> _whoosh_ would probably not be a very constructive statement here, but I think that was an intentional humorous post...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What about short term contracts instead of FTE for non-entrepreneurs? - <AUTHOR> It seems that full time employment isn't for me, but I don't feel I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur: I don't seem to have a good idea, and I don't think I would be persistent enough if I did.
How about short term contracts? I see positions advertised for 3-6 months, after which the contract and employment ends.
Since I tend to get bored/leave my full time gigs after 6-12 months, why not get short term contracting positions instead? I'm assuming that because it is shorter term, there is a premium built into the compensation for these positions. It's win-win: I get paid more for the same tenure, and I don't get bored as easily.
Are my assumptions correct? Anyone with experience doing this? How did you like it vs FTE? How much more did you ask since you're probably not getting benefits, PTO, nor job stability? This is for Canada, not the US. <comment><USER2> In between consulting/freelancing, where you do small projects, and full time employment, there is the idea of longer term contracting, yes. Repeated 3-6 month contracts. There are specific job boards for this kind of thing, e.g. [https://www.randstadusa.com/](https://www.randstadusa.com/), and [https://www.winterwyman.com/](https://www.winterwyman.com/) in certain geographical areas.

I know someone who does this and loves it. His contract specifies how many hours he works, and he can even make overtime on some jobs.

The downside is that you do have to look for these more often, and you need to make sure you are actually getting paid more than enough to pay for extra taxes, health insurance, etc., plus the added of risk of not being able to find new one.

If you don't like full-time employment you have other options too: short-term consulting, negotiating shorter workweek at normal job, product creation. (For the last one, not having an idea is a plus! See [https://stackingthebricks.com/](https://stackingthebricks.com/)).

I write about all of these paths and their tradeoffs in my book, _The Programmer 's Guide to a Sane Workweek_: [https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure what the equivalent of 1099 is in Canada, but alot of recruiters will offer both options with some kind of minimal increase for 1099(you pay taxes). You basically juts need to ask them. Also, In US you need to pay estimated quarterly taxes.

*Basically, the Canadian T4A and the U.S. Form 1099-MISC are equivalents, and are used for the same purpose when it comes to freelancers. While there are similarities and differences between the forms, they are irrelevant.

[https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ca/resources/taxes/why-your- us...](https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ca/resources/taxes/why-your-us-based- contractors-need-1099-forms-and-how-to-ensure-they-get-them/)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is exactly what I do. I don't like working on other people's things. I like working on my things. So I do a short contract every 1-2 years, and live on a monastic budget. I have not seen any premiums though. Quite the opposite.

</comment><comment><USER5> You can expect to find short term contracts for 2-3x the hourly rate you would get at a regular job. They can be difficult to find on your own though and it's generally easier to work with a recruiter.

In my experience, you are more likely to end up with a bad commute on one of these contracts than you would with a full time job. And if you let your savings run too low you might end up taking a not so great contract out of desperation.

Beside that, all the upsides you mention are certainly amazing :) I don't miss full time employment at all.

</comment><comment><USER6> > after which the contract and employment ends

Is is a contract (you are self-employed, pay income tax etc) or is it employment (company employee, they withhold income tax, standard W2 form)?

Contracts pay more, lot at least they should, because the contractor has a higher risk, less benefits (e.g. no holiday entitlement), more cost (taxes, insurances) and liabilities (as a contractor you need to have insurance in case you screw up while working).

<comment><AUTHOR> I think both options are used. You can either be an employee with a set termination date when starting, or a contractor invoicing for your hours.

Contractor should have a higher hourly rate than employee because taxes, benefits, etc., but doesn't short term employment also carry a premium because it's uncertain compared to regular employees?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7>
        but I don't feel I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

Can you elaborate on that? Serial short-term contracting has a pretty significant sales component as well, unless you're OK with loooooong gaps between contracts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I updated the OP. I don't mind big gaps between contracts, another reason why I'm considering contracts is because I feel like 2-3 weeks of vacation a year is way too little.</comment></comment>


Adventures w/ VC Outside the Valley (Or How to Get Screwed) - <AUTHOR> http://timbull.com/adventures-with-venture-capital-outside-the-v

<comment><USER2> Wow, quite a riveting story.

Frankly, I don't know that the guys did anything particularly wrong along the way. It was a series of small things, and at each one, I'm sure they were telling themselves "well, it's not a major deal, we've come too far..." etc. I've been in similar situations before.

The things I keep in mind when fund-raising:

1\. The deal is not done until the money is in _your_ bank account.

2\. There's no such thing as a "formality". If there's a step in the process, there's a step in the process. It's almost always possible for something to go wrong at any step.

3\. Signed term-sheets are tricky. Once signed, there's usually a "no-shop" clause (so you have to halt conversations with other investors). Along side that, the termsheet is non-binding. So essentially, the investor can back-out if they want.

4\. Not sure how it's done in China, but here, if the first version of a contract does not match the terms in the termsheet, I'd push back hard and fast. That's not the deal that was agreed to.

<comment><USER3> Thanks Darmesh. Its pretty much the approach we took, I guess the only thing is that we should have walked away at your point 4. We discussed it, what stopped us in the end was that even though the deal had now changed, it was still a deal we would have happily done.

In retrospect it was a bigger deal than we made of it and we really should have walked away. Rather than focussing on the terms we should have focused on the signals this was sending - something fishy was going on and internally these guys weren't communicating.</comment></comment>


The Post-Trump Era - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/opinion/the-post-trump-era.html?smid=tw-nytdavidbrooks <comment><USER2> Finally people are starting to get the problem. We don't really know how to run the economy. We have plenty of resources in the US - there's huge manufacturing capacity, lots of workers, a capital glut, an oil glut, and no significant shortages of anything. That's great. But it's not paying off for many Americans.

We just don't need that many people to make all the stuff. As I point out occasionally, the US produces more stuff than ever, but agriculture, mining, construction, and manufacturing only use 13% of the work force. We have no clue how to deal with this. Nor is it over. Computers have replaced many middle-class jobs, with more to come.

(Yes, some of this is cheap imports from China. But not all. US manufacturing value added is about $2 trillion a year. Imports from China are about $400 billion a year. Wages in China are rising to the point that China is losing their cost advantage.)

At least the problem is being recognized at last. For a long time, there was denial about this. Now it's starting to be used politically, but not very effectively.

"Trickle down" didn't work.

Sending more people to college didn't work.

Right now, more Mexicans are leaving the US than are coming in.

Now what?

</comment><comment><USER3> Earlier successful presidential candidates learned to say what they needed to say to get/trick "billionaires" into supporting them.

Donald Trump is already a billionaire, so he has no need to pander to the plutocracy. Instead, he is pandering to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning for the America that the old-money billionaires took away.

Either a different Candidate Trump will emerge post-convention, or...

</comment><comment><USER4> Infuriating: "the rising tide model is no longer working"

What dishonesty! What is a model that's supposed to produce results on the long term and destroys society on the medium term? A lie, that's what it is.

Socialists have been telling as much for decades (centuries?) but the american voter has been easily fooled by a simple marketing campaign (the "american dream") which works by exploiting the basic optimist nature of the human condition.

So, conservatives have not only been selling hot air for a long time, they have destroyed the left and the political discourse in the process.

And now they are planning to "move to the next paradigm", without even recognizing the fact that they have been wrong, utterly wrong all along (actualy, malicious)?

Give me a break!

</comment><comment><USER5> > He represents not only a rejection of the existing Reaganite establishment, > but also a rejection of Reaganite foreign policy

This assumes he knows what a "Reaganite establishment" is. I get the feeling he is more of a bull in a china shop.

An aside: Does anyone else hate the blocking of copying the text? It is totally legal to copy snippets. I have to do ctrl-U and copy from the source. What a pain.

</comment><comment><USER6> The. Democratic. Party. Is. Moving. Left.

WTF?

Nixon was more liberal than Clinton. Maybe even Sanders. He was also a paranoid criminal, but hey ;)

<comment><USER7> Doesn't discount the possibility that it moved right since Nixon and is moving left again.</comment></comment>


Microsoft is building its own Chrome browser to replace Edge - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/4/18125238/microsoft-chrome-browser-windows-10-edge-chromium <comment><USER2> Edge browser render is not bad, the bad thing of Edge is its buggy UI. Migrating to chrome doesn't help for improving this situation.</comment>


The Censorship Dispute That Toppled the Technology Subreddit - <AUTHOR> http://http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-censorship-dispute-that-toppled-the-technology-subreddit

<comment><USER2> An article I may have upvoted, but you didn't link it correctly so I had to fix the URL myself. You might consider deleting this and submitting again with the correct URL.</comment>


When Is It OK to Mine Hacked Emails? - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/when-is-it-ok-to-mine-hacked-emails-1f2081122915#.ose7dp1bz <comment><USER2> This is definitely a knotty issue:

 _Glenn Greenwald vociferously defends journalists who dig into the emails, regardless of what details they unearth. For someone who has been such a strong voice about government violations of email privacy, I would have assumed that Greenwald would express some outrage that a powerful government might have stolen personal emails to promote its agenda._</comment>


Strange Radio Bursts Seen Coming from a Galaxy Far, Far Away - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/fast-radio-bursts-galaxy-frb-121102-black-hole-space-science/ <comment><USER2> This may be the top clickbait headline of 2017 (thus far). Almost every word is misleading and overly dramatic. New phenomenon are not strange, they're new; radio waves can't be seen; all galaxies except our own are far, far away. Sheesh.</comment>


Irish court orders alleged Silk Road admin to be extradited to US - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/irish-court-orders-alleged-silk-road-admin-to-be-extradited-to-us/ <comment><USER2> Ireland. The only country in the world that sucks American dick, harder than Britain does.

Fucking nauseating.</comment>


Benchmarks vs. The World - <AUTHOR> https://llogiq.github.io/2016/12/08/hash.html <comment><AUTHOR> > Change the input data to HashDoS every implementation suspectible to it > until there are no more suspectible implementations .

If you pair this with reporting the worst-case lookup performance among the inputs for each language, it might be pretty effective. Maybe create an index that considers both hash and lookup time. And perhaps instead of crafting specific worst-case inputs knowing the algorithm-under-test, we could just use a wide variety of real world style inputs.</comment>


Münchhausen trilemma - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchhausen_trilemma <comment><USER2> In the situations where Münchhausen trilemma is applicable, people tend to use a version of abductive reasoning, which is finding the simplest narrative or explanation that fits the known facts.

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

It's important to keep the Münchhausen trilemma and abductive reasoning in mind when discussion controversial issues where one side feels they have proof and the other side is ignorant or duped. Often the difference is something like whether emergent behavior or a conspiracy feels like a simpler explanation.

<comment><USER3> Really good point on controversial issues. I think opposing sides of current hot topic issues (take your pick, gun control, abortion, pronouns) start with a different set of axioms. Axiomatic differences can lead of vastly different conclusions, both with sound logical reasoning.

Eg. If you take as axioms that it is always wrong to end life, and life begins at conception, abortion is wrong is a sound logical conclusion.

<comment><USER4> > _Eg. If you take as axioms that it is always wrong to end life, and life > begins at conception, abortion is wrong is a sound logical conclusion._

Do note that often in this kind of controversial topics, the axioms are not held consistently by a given side (or the _actual_ axioms are hidden and differ from the stated ones). For example, "it's always wrong to end a life [except when bombing abortion clinics | except when it's a death row immate]". Then the ad hoc provisions start, "oh, I meant an _innocent_ life" ("but how can a nonsentient being be called innocent in any meaningful way?"), etc, etc. The debate then becomes anything _but_ grounded on well defined axioms.

<comment><USER5> It's not even that they aren't held consistently. Honestly, nobody (outside of philosophy papers) lists out their axioms and derives beliefs. They have beliefs and "reverse engineer" the supporting axioms, and don't particularly care if the axioms required for one position conflict with the ones required for another.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, I don't think people really debate emotionally charged issues from first principles. I think it's an error to think of this as a matter of logical axioms. That's not how people (usually) debate.

<comment><USER6> Its obvious that logic isn't a good model for how people form and change opinions. (I just feel that it isn't)

So... what's the state of the art?

<comment><USER7> It's been out of favor since Derrida, but I think Structuralism is due for another pass in the limelight. An extreme subjectivism about reality, shaped by the stimuli you are exposed to. These external stimuli are what define your axioms, and from there, you use the same (fuzzy, bad, and prone to inducing contradctions) logic as everyone else. It provides a compelling model for why people have difficulty reconciling their opinions; they're not even talking about the same things, just using the same words, the same signs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> To be clear this trilemma is only a problem for rationalists, like Hans Albert. This problem doesn't exist for German Idealists like Kant or Schelling or even the empiricists.

You escape the problem of infinite regression through acknowledging that the only thing real is experience, which lends you to the haven of relative objectivity, which is that of which modern science has become.

You would think that the conjurer of the paradox would have shifted to empiricism or idealism—maybe my faith in people betrays me.

<comment><USER9> Isn't this taking the 'axiomatic' path?

> through acknowledging that the only thing real is experience

This seems like the key axiom for idealists/empiricists. Of course that leads you to many other details and questions (namely, _which_ experiences?)

<comment><USER8> No, Experience is forced upon you, it is neither an assumption or something discovered through reason.

Additionally, words like "real", "exists" or "reality" only have meaning in this way, otherwise it would be impossible to understand them since understanding is only through terms of experience.

However, it's important to note that idealists aren't naive realists, they acknowledge that what they see is created by their own sensory organs. That is, there is the not-object that cannot be discussed or learned about further than the knowledge obtained from the negative predicate of the object—hence why you can only see one side of a coin or why your experience can change through hallucinatory drugs.

The not-object is also necessary for communication between individuals, where the inter-subjective experience must be mapped to do so.

<comment><USER9> > Experience is forced upon you, it is neither an assumption or something > discovered through reason.

Why? _That_ claim must be justified by reference to other truths, or taken itself as an assumption. So doesn't the trilemma still apply, but at one more remove?

Note that 'assumption' does not necessarily mean an arbitrary statement, but includes statements that we consider self-evident, e.g. 'something exists'.

<comment><USER10> It doesn't have to be explained why, it is. The why would be a separate question requiring reasoning. Things can be true without an explanation as to why they happen. It's not an assumption as experience is not a choice, in fact experience is a prerequisite to then be able to assume (as well as to reason).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let the set M = {circular, regressive, axiomatic} to be the set of "unsatisfying" arguments that may be used to prove any truth.

Let the mapping J: powerset(M) -> <schools-of-thought-in-meta-epistemology> to map some subset of M to a theory of justification such that the believers in said theory only find usage of some combination of the said subset to be "acceptable".

Then:

J({}) is in {Skepticism}

J({circular}) is in {Coherentism}

J({axiomatic}) is in {Foundationalism}

J({regressive}) is in {Infinitism}

J({axiomatic, circular}) is in {Foundherentism}

J(M) is in {Quietism}

Is there an x where x is in the powerset of M, such that J(x) is {}? Or literally every possible position can be the foundation of a philosophical paper?

<comment><USER12> J({circular, regressive}) is twoyearoldism. Where they ask why incessantly and don't care if you lead them in a circle.

J({regressive, axiomatic}) seems contradictory, so maybe that's {}.

<comment><USER11> On J({regressive, axiomatic}):

Well, the regular formulation of "Infinitism" is that S is justified to believe P_1 on the basis of P_2 and P_n on the basis of P_n+1. J({regressive, axiomatic}) just defines a limit i.e. S is justified to believe P_1 on the basis of P_2 and P_n on the basis of P_n+1 such that lim_(k->infinity) P_k = P_x where x is not a natural number. You have to say x is not a natural number, because if it were, J's output would have been "foundationalism" and P_x then would be a "self-evident" belief - to use Chisolm's terminology.

P.S. If anyone thinks that this is an abuse of mathematics, I agree. But, its usage is compatible with that of philosophers e.g. Goldman's Causal theory of knowledge literally uses a recursive formulation of belief formation where the base case is "self-evident", I just unwrapped the tail call and wrote it as a loop!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To me, this is a great illustration that there's no other coherent place to start any form of discussion, reasoning, or belief than with axioms (or assumptions). Regressive and circular arguments only shift the problem.

I believe that if one is looking for truth in a big-picture sense (religious or philosophical), the best approach is to evaluate various existing systems of axioms/assumptions and apply a twofold test to each: (1) correspondence to reality and (2) internal consistency. It's a given that applying the first test requires stepping into the subjective, since one must honestly apply it to personal experience.

<comment><USER14> I heavily disagree; axioms are never a good place to _start_ , nor, historically, they ever _were_ a starting place.

Working mathematicians do a lot of mathematics and constructions before stopping to look and say: "OK, we can distill this rich theory down to this small set of _axioms_ ".

Geometry has been quite developed before Euclid's axioms, and number theory took its sweet millenia before Peano's axioms were developed.

On a more modern side, a lot of topology has been produced before people decided to write down a list of axioms for homology, which all the different homology constructions satisfied.

The point is that understanding almost always precedes formal reasoning, language follows ideas, and rigid systems arise on a fertile soil of messy experiments - mental or physical.

If you look at the history of science and mathematics, nothing was ever built up from the formulas and axioms (criminally contrary to the way these subjects are taught).

There is an underappreciated beauty in our ability to argue about, reason with, and make use of concepts that we _haven 't even really defined_. Everyone knew Newton's Calculus was full of holes, and people used it for centuries before coming up with solid definitions of _limits_ , _derivatives_ and _integrals_ \- the most fundamental concepts of the subject!

And on that note, people used real numbers for a long time before having the formal machinery to define them. Zeno didn't have the axioms to resolve his paradox. Didn't stop anyone from using these weird objects in reasoning and practice.

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

TL;DR: never start with axioms, end with them.

<comment><USER13> I'm talking about different sorts of axioms than those that science and math work towards.

For example, any discussion between 2 people depends on mutually accepting basic assumptions such as:

        - I and you are persons. We exist.
        - The words we speak and hear have meaning.
        - The words you hear are the words I spoke, and vice versa.

We can't even have a meaningful, coherent discussion without assuming things like that.

We also can't live a meaningful, coherent life without basic assumptions about origin, meaning, morality, and destiny. Everyone has them, and unless we're careful, they're easy to catch like the cold from folks we hang around.

A coherent, truthful worldview is essential. The test for truth (correspondence to reality and internal consistency) _does_ provide us a way of comparing religions and philosophies (and ruling out the obviously false ones). Once we do arrive at a coherent worldview that best corresponds to reality and is internally consistent, we have to _assume_ it and derive our beliefs and practices from it without proof (i.e. faith). (BTW, we all have a worldview, but we haven't all subjected our worldview to the truth test.)

Everyone has faith: it's required to accept the axioms of one's worldview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder why they argue that way, when it seems obvious that you need some common ground to start reasoning at all.

As we all start living in this world without any knowledge, all knowledge has been formed by the things we experience. And therefore, many of us agree to argue based on our (measurable) experiences (e.g. scientists). Others prefer to add beliefs which are wildly subjective (hard to reproduce) and therefore cause a lot of inconsistencies.

But in the end, it always comes down to the point where you need a common set of truths to start an argument. Otherwise there is no point in arguing at all.

<comment><USER16> It's not as easy as that.

First we don't start from zero. If you would build a robot with all human senses but erased hard drive it wouldn't do anything, ever.

Second, while applied in RL, science might be labeled as "objective" and therefore be superior for, let's say, building a bridge. But on a very basal level, we're subjectively agreeing on what "scientific" is, or rather based on non-proofable paradigms, which is what the article is about

<comment><USER17> > First we don't start from zero.

There is strong evidence that humans, and most animals are born with built in knowledge and expectations about the world.

<comment><USER18> I found it simply fascinating when I learned that Blue Wildebeests are born knowing how to stand within minutes of their birth, and within a day can outrun adult hyenas:

"Extremely precocial species are called "superprecocial". Examples are the Megapode birds, which have full flight feathers and which, in some species, can fly on the same day they hatch from their eggs. Another example is the Blue Wildebeest, whose calves can stand within an average of six minutes from birth and walk within thirty minutes; they can outrun a hyena within a day."

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

<comment><USER19> Very interesting concept, thanks for providing this link!

We could also apply this terminology to startups: precocial startups are profitable and self-sustaining soon after their launch. Superprecocial startups would be so right away.

<comment><USER20> Aside from drug dealers there are few superprecocial businesses. The only reliable way to form such a business is to provide something everyone needs and nobody has, like water in the desert.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Those three options are not "equally" unsatisfactory. In fact, the axiomatic option is almost always entirely satisfactory. The marvel and utility of an axiomatic foundation cannot be categorically compared to the absurdity of regressing _ad infinitum_ or going in circles.

<comment><USER22> Well, depends who you ask. One could argue that axiomatic foundations in geometry made it take much longer to discover hyperbolic geometry.

(One could view the axiomatic approach as a stand-in for truncating all of the required infinite proof below a well-established line.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It recently occurred to me that epistemology is essentially a hermeneutics of experience, which is to say: all of our non-trivial beliefs about ourselves and the world (including this very statement) are simply interpretations of what we perceive. This realization, while surely obvious to some, was very clarifying for me.

Edit: Judging from the downvote I got, I guess some people don't share my interpretation of epistemology. C'est la vie.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm reminded of the chapter "Two-Part Invention" in Douglas Hofstader's "Gödel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_the_Tortoise_Said_to_Achilles)

</comment><comment><USER25> The question "why should claim X be trusted?" indeed runs into infinite regress and has no well-founded answer. But the modified question "why should claim X be trusted by creature Y?" can have a well-founded answer, based on facts about creature Y.

<comment><USER16> Why is that? You would rely on the third option, basing on axioms, no?

<comment><USER25> Axioms accepted by creature Y.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A tangent, how is _Münchhausen_ actually pronounced ? Curious to know.

<comment><USER27> With a sharp 'u' and the au like ou in the English word 'loud'.

<comment><USER26> Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I find the concept of paradigms, as described by Kuhn, to be a much better model for truth and knowledge than axioms or series of "proofs" chained one after the other.

</comment><comment><USER29> I feel like a better, formal proof of this concept is Gödel Incompleteness, given this lemma, if true, would in turn invalidate itself.

<comment><USER30> The problem with using math to address this is that it very subtly ends up begging the question. Math has an answer to the trilemma: Math is based on axioms. The question of whether math corresponds to anything in the real world is a separate question from the mathematics itself. Godel's theorem is thus based on mathematical axioms, but the trilemma questions the axioms themselves. No structure built on the axioms can prove the axiomatic formulation is correct. Godel's incompleteness is an important part of math history about how that was finally proved so hard that modern mathematics now deeply accepts that non-uniqueness of axioms, but again, this is all happening at a level too high to help us with the trilemma.

So no, the trilemma can not be solved or even particularly refined by feeding it to mathematics. "From whence mathematics?", it asks.

If you are going to play philosophical games with the trilemma, a better approach is simply to feed it to itself. If the trilemma is true, then we can't be confident that we've properly read it, because it cuts away the foundation we are using to communicate. If any of us have successfully extracted even a portion of understanding about the trilemma from the reading of this text, we must be sharing a certain very basic amount of rationality to get that far, even if we can't nail down where that rationality came from exactly. You could then proceed to say that this basic shared rationality is _de facto_ usable as a foundation. But that still doesn't answer the question of where it comes from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> That's not a true trilemma. A trilemma is a "choose two out of three". Therefore a trilemma is always depicted as a triangle where the vertices are the things you would like to have and the edges are the possible combinations.

A trilemma is an extension of the concept of a dilemma, which is "choose one out of two" .

Example: [good, fast, cheap]: you can have good and fast, but it's going to be expensive. Or good and cheap, but it's going to take longer. Courtesy of Jason Kottke[0], some more simple trilemmas:

        Elegant, documented, on time.
        Privacy, accuracy, security.
        Have fun, do good, stay out of trouble.
        Study, socialize, sleep.
        Diverse, free, equal.
        Fast, efficient, useful.
        Cheap, healthy, tasty.
        Secure, usable, affordable.
        Short, memorable, unique.
        Cheap, light, strong.

\----

Ultimately the generalization of a trilemma is a (3-)budget. I will show this.

An n-lemma is "choose (n-1) out of (n)". Geometrically/topologically the things you would want in a n-lemma corresponds to the vertices in an (n-1)-simplex. A dilemma is represented as a 1-simplex, i.e. a line segment with each alternative as one end. In this case alternatives are points and so are the choices; in the 3-case alternatives the choices are segments. I'll leave you to imagine 4 and 5-lemmas geometrically.

An n-simplex can be defined in a n-dimensional vector space as the region of points whose coordinates sum to 1. So for example a 2-simplex (a triangle) is the set of points (x,y,z) such that x+y+z = 1. In a n-lemma, only vertices are allowable choices -- i.e. x,y,z must be all either 0 or 1.

In an n-budget, we can have partial allocations -- rather than have to choose two out of study-socialize sleep (i.e. sleep deprivation, loneliness or failing classes), I can spend my finite time as P% study, Q% social, R% sleep. Note: we can still represent budgets as points _inside_ (n-1)-simplices.

Of course, some trilemmas are not _easily_ seen as extremizations of budgets. In some cases this will be because certain alternatives are fully binary (either you have floating exchange rates); in others, it's because we need to think a little more about the trade-offs (cheap, light, strong) -- we need to think harder about how lightness works against strongness.

\---

We can next imagine how to model slightly more complicated decision structures as n-lemmas. For example, I might have to decide between being married or single (each with its delights) and single people might have to decide between intelligence, looks and agreeableness. (This is terribly sexist but presumably very beautiful people don't have the same pressures to be smart and carve a space for themselves; and people who are intelligent _and_ hot are full of themselves. Bear with me please). In this case we've connected a 1-simplex (married or single) to a 2-simplex. This is known as a simplicial complex, and it turns out we can (roughly oversimplifying) rebuild topology from the ground up by chaining simplices like that.

So the choose-one-out-of-three "trilemma" in the OP isn't a trilemma at all. It's some decision structure that arises out of a complex of dilemmas. Possibly because every choice is connected to every choice, it even has the geometric contours of a triangle, but a hollow one, one where the segments are not connected. Therefore it doesn't generalize as a budget. What _is_ the trade-off structure then? What is the finite thing that makes having everything impossible? What are these people talking about?

[0] [https://www.kottke.org/05/04/pick-two](https://www.kottke.org/05/04/pick- two)

<comment><USER32> You're welcome to use the word "trilemma" however you prefer, but it is definitely not _wrong_ to use it to mean "choose one out of three" as here. E.g., here is the OED's definition: "A situation, or (in Logic) a syllogism, of the nature of a dilemma n., but involving three alternatives instead of two." (The OED gives a number of citations, all of which appear to be pick- one-of-three rather than pick-two-of-three.)

The generalization to budgets seems to me to fit better with pick-one-of-three than with pick-two-of-three, too. You're picking p study, q social, r sleep -- and the restriction is p+q+r=1. Picking one out of three corresponds to points like (1,0,0) which are in that simplex. On the face of it, picking two out of three corresponds to points like (1,1,0) which are not. (You could take (1/2,1/2,0) if you like, but that's no longer an extremization; if that, why not (1/3,1/3,1/3)? "X, Y, Z, pick any three.")

Separately, I'm having trouble seeing how your married/single/smart/hot/nice thing actually has the structure of a simplicial complex. In a simplicial complex there are three ways (aha! a trilemma!) in which a 1-simplex can relate to a 2-simplex. They can simply be disjoint; it seems clear you don't intend that. They can share a vertex; that would mean identifying "married" (from the 1-simplex) with _one_ of {smart,hot,nice} (from the 2-simplex), and again surely you don't want that. Or the 1-simplex can be a face of the 2-simplex, so that {single,married} correspond to two of {smart,hot,nice}. Again, surely you can't mean that. But what _do_ you want? It seems like you want to identify one end of your 1-simplex with the whole of your 2-simplex, and the dimensions are wrong.</comment></comment>


Ashley Madison was mostly men - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ashley-madison-almost-no-women-2015-8 <comment><USER2> 1492 women checked messages; 9700 women responded to messages.

<comment><USER3> The article is brief. But for those who don't read it, you need to understand what this comment means. It's "incredible", so you might be reluctant to interpret it the "logical" way. But the simple reading is the correct one.

According to the article, only 1,492 women in the database had ever checked their messages on the site, compared to 20 million men.

According to the article, only 9,700 women ever responded to a message from another person on the site, compared to almost 6 million men.

Put that way, the release of this information was doing the men a favor. There apparently was "no there there". With stats like that, the whole thing seems to be nothing more than a scheme to separate men from their money, offering virtually nothing in return. Approximately 1000:1 ratio of active men to active women!

Edit: don't just read the Business Insider ripoff, click thru to the actual article. It's much better.

<comment><USER4> Yes, the original article is much more informative.

For convenience: [http://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the-ashley- ma...](http://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the-ashley-madison- database-1725558944)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This really shouldn't be a surprise ... and it mirrors leaked data from other "adult" social media sites (e.g. AFF).

</comment><comment><USER6> A fool and his baggy/money will be soon seperated :D

</comment><comment><USER7> Isn't this fraud?</comment>


140,000 Monitors Sold for 15 Dollars, When Dell Epic Fails - <AUTHOR> http://gadgets.softpedia.com/news/140-000-Monitors-Sold-for-15-Dollars-When-Dell-Epic-Fails-3600-01.html

<comment><USER2> I don't understand...Who wants a 19" monitor, at _any_ price, these days? I got rid of a quite high end 19" monitor just a few months ago in a lot of computer junk I sold in Craigslist for $50 (and the monitor was nowhere near the most valuable item in the lot). It was just taking up space.

<comment><AUTHOR> This actually reminds me of people buying stuff, they eventually don't even need, only because it is on sale.</comment></comment>


Xobni Closes $7 Million Series B Financing - <AUTHOR> http://www.xobni.com/blog/2009/01/05/xobni-closes-7-million-series-b-financing-bring-on-2009/

<comment><USER2> Speculation: Cisco wanted to buy Xobni, but Xobni said they wouldn't sell for less than $too_much, so Cisco invested instead and will end up buying them later if they do well.

<comment><USER3> That same logic would seem to apply for Microsoft wanting to invest. Perhaps MSFT had a chance, but they didn't like the valuation at all.

If you read "High Stakes, No Prisoners" (a book that both founders of Xobni recommend), the author recommends getting non-VC Series B investors so that you don't have the same genetic pool (i.e. Series A VCs colluding with Series B).

I think the more likely scenario is that this Series B is strategic for Cisco, wonder what they're cooking up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 11.4mm is an amazing amount of money to raise, congrats. This is one of the applications I think add real value to offline software; I just wonder how they deal with the pressure that Microsoft could duplicate the feature of search or otherh features in the next outlook... and this has to push the price (20mm wasn't enough from microsoft) - how much do they need now to accept the offer? - probably in the 100mm range eh?

<comment><USER5> especially in this market

<comment><USER6> GOOG and MSFT were founded in similar market conditions.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, but they didnt depend on the existance of another product(like Outlook).

<comment><USER8> "the IBM PC", "the consumer internet/www"

<comment><USER2> Is this like an IQ test question?

        Which one doesn't belong in this list?

        1) The IBM PC
        2) The Internet/Web
        3) Outlook

<comment><USER9> None. The poster's point stands: all of the above successful companies built themselves within the ecosystem of yet another product. There's no need to own everything end-to-end, Outlook is a popular enough product that relying on it is not too bad a bet in the short to mid term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Taking money from Cisco is a very smart move. Congrats on the round guys!

<comment><USER11> I wish I knew why that is. Could you please elaborate?

<comment><USER12> I bet the only reason is because it is Cisco...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm generally wary of Cisco, and hope it doesn't end up affecting Xobni negatively in the end. We used to use WebEx until CISCO bought them which bolstered them to jack up prices, fortunately, Citrix updated their GoToMeeting product, which is better and more cost effective solution than WebEx. Hopefully, something like this won't happen to Xobni, I would hate to see a $579 bill for an hour of xobni usage.

<comment><USER14> Yes, that makes perfect sense. Because you don't like the prices of WebEx, Xobni is going to start (somehow) charging you by the hour. And not just by the hour, but for almost $600 an hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> congrats matt and adam (and the entire team)! excited to see what you guys do in 09

</comment><comment><USER16> Just out of curiosity, why does this get modded so high? A tech company takes investor money, great! But is it truly hackerous?

<comment><USER8> A number of users here are YC "alumni" and presumably know the Xobni guys in one way or another. Even non-YC people (myself included) enjoy reading stories like this. It's just nice to follow people's success stories, particularly when you can relate to those people, and in this case, when they're also Hacker News users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats, guys!

</comment><comment><USER18> This seems like kept woman money, like a mash note. I can't imagine what they need with this much money, so it seems to me to just further inflate their evaluation to make them unacquirable by anyone else.

Except MS, of course, with more money than god, but...

Xobni could be reproduced by Microsoft for less than their alleged $20m offer, too. Even with their lumbering corporate inefficiencies.

I don't know about you, but I don't look at massive funding rounds as success. They're not exactly debt, but they're not exactly your money, either.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd so love to try Xobni, but, I am not forking out $110 for Outlook 2k7 for the privilege of doing so. :/

<comment><USER20> building a business on top of a customer base that has proven to open their wallets is a good move. Would you rather be trying to pry money out of people that think email is not worth $110?

I am a mac user, so its not an option for me. But I were still on Windows, I would pay for Outlook as the alternatives are significantly less interesting.

<comment><USER21> Or just do what I do, get a hosted Exchange email service. Then they give you a copy for free. You could cancel after one month and get a copy for $8 if you don't want to keep it.

<comment><USER22> Just to be pedantic, this is normally against the ToS of the hosting company, and violates the license that comes with Outlook.

If you're going to pirate it, so be it, no one is going to stop you, but going through the 1 month registration doesn't really change the moral or legal issues involved.

For instance- [https://www.mailstreet.net/exchange/outlook_order_1.asp?SOUR...](https://www.mailstreet.net/exchange/outlook_order_1.asp?SOURCE=+&RESELLERID=&PROMO_CODE=)

"As a MailStreet account holder in good-standing you may download or order Outlook 2007 media for use with the MailStreet service. You may install the software on each computer that you have MailStreet service with. If you do leave the MailStreet service you must uninstall the Outlook software or purchase a retail version from your regular software vendor. If you have multiple computers, you only need to order one copy of the software. "

<comment><USER21> Yeah, you're right. Just pirate it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alexei Navalny: Doctors say Putin critic can't be moved to Germany - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53857563 <comment><AUTHOR> Another view: "Alexei Navalny doctors refuse to let Putin critic leave Russia – aide" [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/alexei- navalny...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/alexei-navalny- plane-leaves-germany-to-transport-putin-critic-after-suspected-poisoning)</comment>


Terry A. Davis, the schizophrenic author of LoseThos and TempleOS, has died - <AUTHOR> https://www.256kilobytes.com/index.php/content/show/1939/biography-of-terry-a-davis-the-greatest-programmer-to-ever-live <comment><AUTHOR> "A Constructive Look at TempleOS:" [http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at- temp...](http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos) (2015)

HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9681501](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9681501)

</comment><comment><USER2> The original title is "Biography of Terry A. Davis - The greatest programmer to ever live."

He died in August 11, 2018.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I hope that his life has served to educate more people about mental illness.</comment>


Volkswagen projected to be largest EV manufacturer by end of decade - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/volkswagen-electric-vehicle-decade-projection-ae72d124-ddf7-4dbe-88df-2a0caae063ab.html <comment><USER2> The title is somewhat misleading. EV != Electric car, and there are already manufacturers pumping out ebikes at higher rates then VW can hope to accomplish this decade.</comment>


Facebook agrees to pay 500k GBP fine over Cambridge Analytica scandal - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/30/facebook-agrees-to-pay-fine-over-cambridge-analytica-scandal <comment><USER2> Mark Zuckerberg's wealth is measured in billions [0], I think we should measure the fine in billions too.

"Facebook agrees to pay .0005b GBP fine over Cambridge Analytica scandal"

Looks pretty meaningless from this perspective.

[0] [https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark- zuckerberg/?list=billion...](https://www.forbes.com/profile/mark- zuckerberg/?list=billionaires#65f85d5b3e06)

<comment><USER3> To be pedantic, it's 0.0000005b.

0.0005b would be 500M.

But your basic point is correct. I'm sure Zuck is quaking in his boots that he'll soon be bankrupt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> wow, a whole 500k? I'm suuuuuure they'll never consider doing that again with such a steep fine /s</comment>


Analyze your daily workload with RescueTime - <AUTHOR> http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-9903019-12.html

<comment><USER2> I believe this was discussed here before, maybe when it launched.

Has anyone used it?

<comment><USER2> Looks like I* won't be using it.

Only _after_ I go through the sign-up page am I told I have to have a Windows or mac machine.

No love for Ubuntu crowd .... :(

<comment><USER3> Linux version available here: <https://launchpad.net/rescuetime-linux- uploader></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do startups use for office seltzer delivery? - <AUTHOR> I'm interested in how other founders are solving for something like getting seltzer delivered to the office. We're too small to have someone in charge of it so it's on my todo list as a founder, which is fine but would love any services that currently handle this!
Right now using amazon fresh but it sucks for plenty of reasons I'm happy to get in to.
Any feedback or help would be great! <comment><USER2> I think we order from staples....</comment>


Archive.is – DNS Resolution Error - <AUTHOR> http://archive.is <comment><USER2> "Works from my machine." Check out the results of [https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/archive.is](https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/archive.is)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17742457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17742457)</comment>