14 Revealing Signs You Love Your Startup Job - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/98577/14-Revealing-Signs-You-Love-Your-Startup-Job.aspx

<comment><USER2> That read like one of those "10 Signs that let you know your boyfriend loves you" articles in Cosmopolitan. I will love any startup job as long as they:

\- pay. \- pay on time. \- dont have me meet every 2 hours. \- have reasonable hardware to work with (read: A computer from this millennium, running an OS that did not come out during the Clinton administration).

Anything else, is just gravy.

<comment><USER3> That's a really low bar. The market (at least here in the U.S.) for talent is so competitive that a company has to go well beyond the basics of paying on time and providing great hardware.

<comment><USER2> Well, that does it for me. Like I said, anything else is gravy. In fact, I just moved on from my current contract today, because they were not paying on time. I was their lead engineer, and basically did all of their stack alone. I'm currently accepting offers if anyone is interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice list! I kinda think that these apply to all jobs, not just start-up ones.

I also like how the articles points out that these are signs that you like your job, it's a nice reminder that the onus is on the employee to be in a mindset where they enjoy their work.

<comment><USER3> Indeed, like other relationships, it has to go both ways. No fun being in a relationship where the love is unrequited.</comment></comment>


Ask: Help me decide pricing for my new webapp - <AUTHOR> https://www.wireframes.org/ui/mt.php?pa=wireframe_pricing_4ed7ab47827cd

<comment><AUTHOR> I have the free, plan1 through plan7

Is this too many plans. In actual there are only two plans free and single user. Rest are just multi user packs. Please help me refine this. Thank you so much</comment>


Thinking about CSV - <AUTHOR> https://blog.datacite.org/thinking-about-csv/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/CSV/CSV01.htm](http://www.creativyst.com/Doc/Articles/CSV/CSV01.htm) shows all the problems associated with CSV which looks deceptively simple</comment>


The Family Affair - <AUTHOR> https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/150614/the-family-affair <comment><USER2> Does someone have a Google News alert on the word "hackers" and auto-submits them to HN?

This article is a typical long-form article about an old and very famous murder case, but contains no technology or intellectual points of interest. It _does_ , however, contain the word "hackers".

<comment><USER3> I'm sure 80mph submitted it because it's interesting.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I 3D print my skeleton for research? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
I would like to 3D print my skeleton to observe bone structure/features.
1. What kind of medical scanning would be appropriate for this case? Where can I get such a scan and pay (out of pocket) for it? Are there any dangers, and if serious, is it worth the fun of replicating your own skeleton?
2. What kind of medical scanning hardware would best suit my need? Does it support exporting imaging data for later 3D printing?
3. What's the best 3D printer (or printing service company) and material to print the imaging data from the scanning?
Thanks for your assistance! <comment><USER2> Simply remove your skeleton from its packaging and place it in a 3D scanner.

Seriously, where it gets tricky is that there is a lot of stuff (cartilage) in the gray area between bone and flesh. It shows up dimly in CT scans or other X-ray based imaging. If you omit all of it, the skeleton will seem disjointed. If you include all of it, it'll seem fused together.

BTW, you can buy actual human skeletons for around $5k. [https://www.boneroom.com/store/c46/Human_Skeletons.html](https://www.boneroom.com/store/c46/Human_Skeletons.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the insight!

Although there are readily available skeletons for purchase, I want to print my own skeleton for "profiling and debugging" purposes :)

<comment> crooked-v You could buy a skeleton, scan and print a copy, and then sell the skeleton to someone else.

Of course, if you do that you could get an accurate anatomical model (like those ones that show up in high school bio classrooms) for $200-$400 instead.

<comment><USER3> I wonder if there's a market in medical education for precise models of different body parts with one-click ordering from model->3D production->shipping to your education facility. This is distinct from the efforts of facilities who are using 3D manufacturing to create patient models on site for surgery planning.

<comment><USER4> Why 3D print if it's just going to be for education, not individualized patient models?

<comment><USER3> Ya know, I suppose in an ideal world you drive down the cost of on site manufacturing so you could spit out any model you wanted in the classroom. Want a healthy kidney? Boom, done. Want an organ that has a specific issue for a particular ailment being studied? Out it comes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've 3D printed my brain - I'm a biomedical engineer, and for a while was working for a research institute in France. While there, I had many friends and acquaintances who were doctors or surgeons performing their own research work. I had made noises in the past that I really wanted to print my brain sometime, so one of them referred me to an observational study in the area using fMRI to observe the brain performing visuo-spatial tasks. I went through the study, got paid €50 (score!) and asked for the morphological data in DICOM format, which they happily handed over. The DICOM is essentially a whole bunch of separate images, one for each slice the MRI takes, along with the metadata that helps piece it together. The reconstruction of a 3D model from slice data is usually called segmentation. I'm not overly familiar with the process, but I'm sure someone here can chime in with various segmentation methods. In my case I asked a technical medicine intern to do it for me. Interns can be useful, after all. AFAIK the output is usually a mesh, like an .obj or .stl file, which is thankfully pretty compatible with 3D printing.

To answer your specific points - I would go for MRI over CT - CTs tend to have high radiation doses, especially if you plan to do a full-body scan. I can't recommend it. MRIs are much less harmful. There are private clinics where you can pay for a full body "preventive" MRI - this will set you back a nice sum, >€1000 in the Netherlands, IIRC. Segmenting the resulting DICOM file is difficult. It will require a fair bit of work. Look into ITK / VTK / 3Dslicer. You will absolutely have to clean up and probably remesh any resulting stl/obj, I recommend using meshlab for that. From there, 3D printing can be done with any personal printer that has a large enough volume to not take forever. Using an external service, e.g. shapeways will be very expensive. If you don't have your own printer, you should probably look into an inexpensive FDM printer, I personally use an original prusa i3 Mk2.5.

All in all, it will be a very expensive journey if you're not already in the field and have connections. Maybe try to connect with local universities to find observational studies.

edit because I realised I sound very negative. I actually think you have a really cool idea. Please do go ahead if you have the time and money, and for the love of all that is holy, blog it for posterity!

<comment><USER6> I did the same - participated in an MRI study & asked for a copy of the scan data. They gave it to me on a CD which I promptly lost while moving.

Back up your brains people!

<comment><USER5> Mine lives on my Google drive, so no worries there!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you get an mri or ct scan you can use this package to segment the bones and the convert the image slices to 3D geometry. [https://www.gibboncode.org/](https://www.gibboncode.org/) It's open source, but uses matlab which is not free if you are not at a university. It will also take a while...

<comment><USER8> Could you substitute in octave for matlab? Or does it use something in matlab that is not available in octave?

<comment><USER7> Octave looks really cool, I am not familiar with it. Like I said, gibbon is open source, so you could attempt to port it. I didn't write gibbon, so I have no idea what the dependencies are like. But I imagine it would not be trivial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> MRI may work... I think there's a skeletal MRI. That will be extremely expensive. CT scan probably would work, but I don't think they'll let you dose yourself with that many X-Rays for fun. Most of these scanners give you voxel data, which you can then threshold some way and generate a water-tight surface which can be turned into an STL and 3D printed

The best 3D printer probably uses a stereolithography process. They give the highest detail at the expense of some mechanical properties. An objet might work well, too.

<comment><USER10> > I don't think they'll let you dose yourself with that many X-Rays for fun.

There are companies that will let you get a "baseline" CT scan so that you can compare it with a future scan to see if something has changed. I don't think many doctors recommend this for the general public (because of the high radiation dose), but it does seem to be an available service and not prohibited by the FDA or something.

A CT scan comes with a strikingly high radiation dose, much greater than most people are likely to receive in any other circumstance. [https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)

<comment><USER4> The FDA barely prevents people injecting themselves with snakeoil stem cell treatments...

"Baseline" CT smells like an expensive solution looking for a problem to sell to hypochondriacs. A hefty dose of ionizing radiation for no clear medical benefit gets a thumb down from me.

MRIs are nearly perfectly safe though.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I have the same feeling about the baseline CT service and I'm sorry I wasn't more forthright about it above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Consider building off of the work of this artist who did the same.

[https://www.cnet.com/news/artist-3d-prints-his-own- skeleton/](https://www.cnet.com/news/artist-3d-prints-his-own-skeleton/)

[https://casparberger.nl/skeleton/](https://casparberger.nl/skeleton/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's amazing! I will look into their methodologies more. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> You are very welcome! If it's not too much trouble, consider blogging/documenting your work as it progresses. A rising tide lifts all boats.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> CT scanners usually speak DICOM. You'll have to make a 3D model from those dicom stacks with, e.g., AMIRA[0], then fiddle the facets with Maya or similar, and then you should be able to export to STL from there.

[0][https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/industrial/electron-...](https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/industrial/electron- microscopy/electron-microscopy-instruments-workflow- solutions/3d-visualization-analysis-software/amira-life-sciences- biomedical.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> I mean this as a joke, but only sortof....

For my response to #3, an interesting thought would be to have a metal 3D printer (or at least access to one).

Not long ago, Bugatti made a 3D printed brake caliper out of titanium that was stronger and lighter than their own highly engineered caliper. [0]

Upgrading your skeleton to titanium might not be adamantium, but it sure would be cool if you ever needed the spare parts!

Finally, lest you think I was totally out there, SLM Solutions (who printed the caliper for Bugatti), actually has a medical division! [1]

[0] - [https://www.tctmagazine.com/3d-printing-news/bugatti-slm- sol...](https://www.tctmagazine.com/3d-printing-news/bugatti-slm-solutions- metal-3d-printing/)

[1] - [https://www.slm-solutions.com/industries/medical-and- dental/](https://www.slm-solutions.com/industries/medical-and-dental/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really cool. I did not know it was possible to print metallic structures like this. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER12> If you liked that, you'll love the video of it being speed & heat tested [0]. I watched it after turning up the sound and putting it on a big TV screen - it's gorgeous!

[0] - [https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/21/bugatti-3d-printed- titan...](https://www.autoblog.com/2018/12/21/bugatti-3d-printed-titanium- brake-caliper-testing-video/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's a useful video to see "CT scan segmentation" via DICOM files first hand. [0] The video shows a guy segmenting out the mandible from some CT data (and mentions where to find other, open, CT data).

itk-snap, the imaging software used in the video, is open source. [1]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P44m3MZuv5A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P44m3MZuv5A)

[1] [http://www.itksnap.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php](http://www.itksnap.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php)

</comment><comment><USER14> I would first start our by using CT since soft tissue subtraction is a very easy task. This is because soft tissue has a certain density compared to bone (houndsfield unit [1].) You would maybe need to smooth for a good 3D print, but it's probably an easy starting place. Hell, a quick numpy script could easily do this. I would also poke at radiological scanning softwear (I use Radiant).

As far as data sources, I think you can probably find some open source CT scans to do this [2, 3]. There are PLENTY of chest and abdominal open source CT scans that exist. You may need to "mix and match" some body parts, but it wouldn't be too hard as long as you're using same gendered scans with similar height and anatomical features. Sort of the way they 'interpolate' for dinosaur bones.

Is this for a research project?

Good luck!

[1]. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounsfield_scale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounsfield_scale) [2]. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043884/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043884/) [3]. [https://www.radrounds.com/profiles/blogs/list-of-open- access...](https://www.radrounds.com/profiles/blogs/list-of-open-access- medical-imaging-datasets)

</comment><comment><USER15> You want to spend $10,000+ to "debug" your skeleton, and you're currently stuck on the easiest part of that entire process?

I think a new hobby is probably the best option here...

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate your candid critique. I did not know the cost nor the steps involved in doing this. Also, by "debugging" I meant to find discrepancies or signs of abnormalities (if any) by having a model skeleton on hand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You could also print your brain: [https://www.sculpteo.com/blog/2017/11/08/how-to-3d-print- you...](https://www.sculpteo.com/blog/2017/11/08/how-to-3d-print-your-own- brain-using-mri-or-ct-scans-free-software/)

</comment><comment><USER17> The least expensive option I can think of:

1: Get a 3d model of a skeleton. (One that you can edit in a free 3D modeling application like Blender, etc.)

2: Get a tape measure and a cooperative friend/significant other and measure as many of the skeletal dimensions you can without removing that pesky outer wrapping.

3: Edit the 3D model to match your measurements.

4: Print!

</comment><comment><USER18> A decent and cheap 3d printer with a large build volume would be the Creality CR-10s. You could print it using PETG filament.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I will check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've done quite a bit of 3D modeling using medical imaging working with various MDs for exploratory research projects.

For contrast, you'll want a CT because MRI typically isn't great for bone features but that inherently has radiation exposure which I doubt you'll have an MD sign off on if you're perfectly healthy. I don't recommend this personally but...

Ignoring that, most all radiology/medical imaging, especially anything CT based, uses DICOM as a standard data format. Many applications can read this data (everything from Photoshop, Matlab/Octave to libraries for languages if you want to go that far) but I highly recommend using 3D Slicer for your data processing: [https://www.slicer.org/](https://www.slicer.org/)

It's a fantastic piece of software often used in medical research for computational analysis work. It will allow you to import the DICOM data, read the metadata correctly to adjust/apply transformations on the data, and position the image frames in space correctly. From those frame stacks, you'll be able to do all sorts of things from volumetric viewing (computing interframe voxels), applying pre-mapped imaging specific color maps to the data, 3D volumetric rendering (with stereo support), and slicing/clipping which will all be useful.

There are lots of tutorials and even videos online for extracting 3D surface meshes from the 3D image data using Slicer. Some automatic thresholding will be useful to speed the process but you'll find for ball-and-socket joints, you'll have tediously define these regions on the 2D images frame by frame. From my experience the spine is the absolute worst based on the way the 3D geometries interlock. Assuming you have a high enough spatial resolution CT or series of independent CT scans, you'll likely need to step through the entire spinal column frame-by0frame to produce quality surface meshes. This process took me a good 4-8 hours just to do 4 lumbar vertebrae on a patient manually (constantly checking 3D geometry references to see if what I was doing was correct).

Once you're done with all of that, you'll then need to export all of these individual surface meshes (I'm guessing you'll want them independently segmented to play with/assemble, plus it'll likely be needed for 3D printing), you may need to down-sample/simplify the surface meshes and smooth them for printing. This can be done with a number of 3D modeling tools like Blender but I recommend Meshlab personally. There are a lot of approaches for this, google is your friend.

STL (or other surface mesh formats, say OBJ) will of course lose the DICOM metadata and scaling may become an issue depending on how Slicer exports the data and any additional post-processing you may do, so keep that in mind before printing that scaling may not be 1:1.

I used a cheap online printing service for my vertebrae project and scaled one of the lower lumbar vertebrae to about 1/7th actual scale for printing and that cost me about $30. A full scale lumbar vertebrae from the same service cost nearly $200 (this was about 6 years ago, no clue what prices are now). There may be better options.

You may also need to keep in mind 3D printing limitations during the entire process. Some 3D printers have maximum bounding box sizes (those arms only move so far) so your model can only be so big which may require you to break it into smaller parts and connect back together (glue? IDK, I've never done this). You can also shop around for services that can 3D print larger structures (I'm sure there's plenty) or do it yourself with some hacked out DIY 3D printer.

Most of the projects I worked on did this type of work because physically modeling bone in the real world with correct materials is quite difficult due to a lot of factors (I only 3D printed a scaled down vertebrae from one project as a keepsake for the work I did). Bones, for example, have a lot of smaller internal microstructures you may need to account for which was a critical concern since we were attempting to model bone fractures on a specific patient's vertebrae for a proposed experimental procedure and new process from a neurosurgeon. If you're interested in that sort of modeling, I found voxel based physical modeling techniques that work better than the finite element method/finite element analysis the group mechanical engineers suggested (he was comfortable with FEA/FEM).

The mechanical engineers working with us initially wanted to get cadavers in their lab do various physical stress tests on bone, but that was ruled out early on since we pointed out structural properties of decaying bodies were likely not representative of living bone/cellular structures (besides the "hey, dead bodies/limbs in our lab" fact)--plus, hey, computational science and modeling is cool ;)

<comment><USER20> Thank you so much for your insightful comment, I was looking for a tool like 3D Slicer when I got my brain scanned last year.

I managed to spin a few gifs [1] out of the data but got stuck in the 3D-part.

Looking forward to finally trying it out! :)

[1]([https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/80vkr6/m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/80vkr6/mri_scan_of_the_human_brain_from_different_angles/))

<comment><USER19> 3D Slicer provides a wealth of training tutorials though sometimes there are slight UI variations between versions that aren't covered that you need to interpret for: [https://www.slicer.org/wiki/Documentation/Nightly/Training](https://www.slicer.org/wiki/Documentation/Nightly/Training)

Here are some of the generic renderings for the spinal modeling project I described, if you're interested (renderings created with Avizo--an expensive commercial application--instead of 3D slicer for specific use case reasons for the sake time savings): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkDVeyLLmFM&list=PLZMGw4TBzq...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkDVeyLLmFM&list=PLZMGw4TBzqlv1S57K4FviLhIqZs0n4vWT)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> So CT would be the best way to get a clearer picture of your own skeleton as high-density structures like bones stand out much better (Hounsfield units and all that). Then you'd have to segment the skeletal system and do a surface- extraction. I have a decent writeup on how to do that with Python and VTK under [1].

MRI might cut it, and unlike CT its not as radioactive, but typically in MR the contrast between soft tissue and bones isn't as pronounced so segmentation becomes trickier. I wrote a post on segmenting my own brain from a head MR I had done and as you can see from the pics the bones don't stand out [2]. Honestly, I dunno how easy it'll be to convince a doctor to write you a referral for a full-body CT scan given the potential health hazards.

Then comes the tricky part, no imaging modality or segmentation is perfect and you'll end up with a noisy dataset that won't play well in 3D printing. Prior to the surface extraction you'd have to post-process your segmentation to clean little islands of tissue, possibly even manually, and close holes in the segmented structures. A lot of that can be done automatically but you'll likely have to do some by hand. Medical image processing frameworks like ITK (and SimpleITK in Python) are your friends.

What I've found works very well (large part of my PhD was on medical imaging) is multi-modal imaging where you perform a segmentation on two datasets, e.g., MR and CT, registered to one another so you can best disambiguate between soft tissue and bone [3].

You'd then have to extract the surfaces into something like STL and post- process it in some software like MeshLab [4] to create a smooth mesh which you'll extract in a clean STL. That you can print but that's when you'll have to deal with the quirks of 3D printing. Depending on the filament you use overhangs are gonna become and issue (something about molten plastic and gravity I presume) so you may have to split your model into separate pieces that can be 3D printed (I think the skull will be particularly tricky) and then eg glue them together.

Before you go down that rabbit hole I propose you try and print a 'clean' skull that has already been segmented. I found [5] to be a fantastic resource of anatomical part models! Have a look at [6] on how to configure the interface to get the skull bones.

Good luck!

[1] [https://pyscience.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/surface- extractio...](https://pyscience.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/surface-extraction- creating-a-mesh-from-pixel-data-using-python-and-vtk/) [2] [https://pyscience.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/image- segmentatio...](https://pyscience.wordpress.com/2014/10/19/image-segmentation- with-python-and-simpleitk/) [3] [https://pyscience.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/multi-modal- image...](https://pyscience.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/multi-modal-image- segmentation-with-python-simpleitk/) [4] [http://www.meshlab.net/](http://www.meshlab.net/) [5] [http://lifesciencedb.jp/bp3d/](http://lifesciencedb.jp/bp3d/) [6] [https://imgur.com/a/uGqDA5Y](https://imgur.com/a/uGqDA5Y)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the detailed response! [2] was an interesting read for someone new to medical imaging.

As you mentioned, it seems like it will be hard to get a referral for a full- body CT scan as a healthy person. The costs of scans also look pretty steep to quench a curiosity thirst :/

Nevertheless, I appreciate you sharing this knowledge and will try to print a segmented skull to understand the process better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wow this would be a great thing to try to fix body faults

<comment><USER23> How, exactly?

<comment><USER24> Not OP, but perhaps minor skeletal deformities. Or serious injuries. For example:

> By using a combination of 3D printing and adult stem cells, Dr. John Szivek > hopes this will help injured combat veterans, cancer patients, and victims > of serious injuries.

> "We developed the idea that maybe we could put in a scaffold that > regenerates bone very quickly by adding stem cells from the patient, their > own stem cells and by adding some calcium particles and using a pattern that > would cause the bone to grow really quickly," he says.

> The 3D plastic bone shaped frames called scaffolds are locked in place with > two screws and a rod that can all be easily removed when bone forms over the > scaffold.

> "After about six months your body tends to give up producing new bone and > starts producing scar tissue so if we can cause healing to occur really > quickly we can save the patient from having that problem," Szivek explains.

[https://www.wthr.com/article/rebuilding- bones-3d-printing](https://www.wthr.com/article/rebuilding-bones-3d-printing)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Have we hit peak JavaScript? - <AUTHOR> There was a peak .NET, peak Java, and peak C++. JS adoption has exploded, but the language is nearly mature (with TS unlikely to be merged into TC-39 except as optional extra.) Web-Assembly, Rust, Go, are all new and, as much as I enjoy JS, better languages. Not to mention indomitable C.<p>Is JS as universal platform an idea whose time has come, or whose time has passed? <comment> 52-6F-62 I have to preface by asking if you think C#/.NET and C++ are examples of whose time has passed.

Personally, being an admittedly big fan of C, I still love working with JavaScript — and I love working with TypeScript on top of that even more.

It's not the end of the world, though. It's one solution to a selection of problems. Just the same, there are other solutions, and yet other problems that JavaScript can't solve.

I don't really think it's a question of "peak JavaScript" yet. I think the question is irrelevant, really.

On another note entirely, I've toyed with Go, but I don't care about it. I don't find the learning or development curve any quicker than C for me. C's very pragmatic (admittedly, potentially to a fault)— Go seems to further obfuscate things. I welcome attempts at conversion, however— it's possible I'm missing something there.

Rust seems to introduce a novel approach that I can appreciate, but I haven't done a deep dive. I haven't properly invested in Web Assembly, either, but that's in part due to the fact that I haven't identified an imminent need to do so. Sometime soon, probably.

<comment><USER2> With .NET Core, .NET is seeing more cross-platform adoption - I'm not sure how you could possibly conclude, now of all times, that the time of C# or .NET has passed?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Depends if you define WebAssembly as "JavaScript" or not.

Have the days of hand-writing raw JS peaked? More than likely. Between TypeScript and other transcompilers, and the impending threat of WebAssembly being able to consume other languages and output browser executable code.

A project like Microsoft's Blazor[0] might ultimately fail, but that type of compiled from language to WebAssembly likely is the future. But if you define WebAssembly as "JavaScript" then I guess we haven't hit peak JS.

[0] [https://github.com/aspnet/Blazor](https://github.com/aspnet/Blazor)

<comment><USER4> Until WebAssembly can manipulate DOM, its unlikely to gain any significant amount of adoption. Currently that feature is still in the proposal phase ([https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/1079](https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/1079)) so it seems quite a long way off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I need to ask another couple more questions for which I'll take a try at some answers:

#1 Are you asking because you're deciding if you should invest time it from a general "keeping up with technology perspective" ?

or..

#2 Do you have a _specific project_ in mind, and are worried that other technologies may have eclipsed js, and therefore if you invest in js you would be wasting time and money?

or..

#3 Do you want to impress someone, and want to do it in a tech that will garner a certain wow factor.

If #1, I don't have a clear and concise answer to this -- its effectively FOMO. I've had this urge in the past; I think what's embedded in the original question is you don't want to use js becuase you already have a perception that it's peaked. So just pick something else like Webassembly, Rust, Go or another framework de-jour and enjoy the exercise. Just try to keep the enjoyment level above the FOMO level :)

If #2, I would say js has not peaked ..just like many languages could meet the needs of a specific project. Look at your tools, abilities, team composition (if you have one) and decide on a set of tools that will allow you to meet your project objectives in a short amount of time (a la lean methods)

If #3, pick something exotic to your audience ..and then be able to describe the ups/downs in great detail after you wow them ..or fail to wow them with a big catastrophic fail ..either way, focus on the pyrotechnic show :)

PS. there is no universal platform and NEVER will be :) :) :)

(edit typos/formatting)

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the excitement around using JavaScript as a server runtime has peaked. If you search for node/express on Google Trends, you'll notice the interest leveled off about a year ago. This matches up with my own personal experience - engineers seem more willing to weigh the tradeoffs associated with using JavaScript on the server vs. using other frameworks like Flask, Ruby on Rails, Django, or SAAS offerings like Firebase and Google App Engine. There's a lot more maturity there than there was a few years ago.

I doubt that JavaScript on the web client is going anywhere. While wasm is interesting, it's still not really ready for prime time. These days if you're a frontend web engineer, you're forced to use JavaScript or a transpiles-to- JavaScript language.

The interest in JavaScript as a mobile runtime is still exploding. Searches for React Native have only been increasing over the years and shows no signs of slowing down. Compare this to iOS swift, which is trending down in popularity.

If you're wondering whether the JavaScript ecosystem is still a useful one to learn, I wholeheartedly believe it's not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'd argue that in more ways than not, TypeScript _is_ JavaScript. They're following the spec (plus some proposals, admittedly) _precisely_.

Of course there's some practical differences between writing TS and JS, in terms of stuff like tool support, but it's really the same language. Any architecture or algorithm you'd design in either would turn out the same. Not similar, the same.

</comment><comment><USER8> No peak JS in sight.

But, on a historical note, 2018 will probably go down as the year of "peak WordPress".

All "patch" releases, nothing else: [https://wordpress.org/news/category/releases/](https://wordpress.org/news/category/releases/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Cross-language compilation to web assembly has the problem of needing to distribute runtimes for each language. In that aspect, JavaScript will still be the dominant scripting language of the web.

</comment><comment><USER10> lol.

</comment><comment><USER11> Let's hope so!

</comment><comment><USER12> JavaScript has lost it's monopoly for browsers: [https://medium.com/@velmu/javascript-s-heyday-as-the-only- br...](https://medium.com/@velmu/javascript-s-heyday-as-the-only-browser- language-is-over-8d3c0c995309?source=linkShare-87350e1fddab-1532798690)</comment>


Jordan Peterson Interviews James Damore - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEDuVF7kiPU&t=43s <comment><USER2> I watched this interview just a bit ago, and it gave me a better understanding of what James' was trying to articulate. After like 5 days of confusion about the memo, the outrage, and now the firing - I think I can come to a conclusion that he is firstly, not sexist, and secondly is a proponent of equal treatment of both men an women. And thirdly wanted an honest discussion on this topic.

I do think it will come to pass that Google will lose a unlawful termination lawsuit (or settle)

This engineer was further, exploring the question in what appears to be a very scientific manner based on the latest academic research into these questions, as best as I can discern that appears accurate.

This entire conversation is tainted by so many numerous other items that it is almost impossible to discuss without bringing in emotion, tangential arguments, anecdotes, and just random statements. This really is a category 5 hurricane of our current political/cultural battles brought to light.

I'm coming from a very liberal perspective, and I found it really hard to agree with others on how this is a very sexist memo. It appears that this young man is truly trying to explore the nature of these issues, and how it applied to his former company - who ostensibly wanted to encourage curiosity and a range of discussion.

I often find myself very upset at the fringe right for many of their ideas, but I've usually treated the far left (are they fringe now?) as more just annoying and irrelevant and harmless (the anti-vaxxers(maybe not harmless here), safe space, microaggression proponents) I really think the loose liberal group - that I self select to be a member of - really screwed the pooch on this one. This whole debacle does appear to be a rush to judgement and virtue-signaling. Ugh - I'm not usually on the side of the alt- right/conservatives, but on the merits of this issue - there is a point they are making that is important. HOWEVER and this is important - all the other awful truly sexist and misogynist things that is part of the alt-right is detestable, but as famously said elsewhere - This is not the droid you are looking for.

<comment><USER3> If only he was "exploring the question in what appears to be a very scientific manner based on the latest academic research into these questions". The FIRST warning sign to anyone reading his manifesto should have been how woefully undercited it was. He revealed that he really doesn't understand, much less has read, the science.

[http://www.epi.org/publication/womens-work-and-the-gender- pa...](http://www.epi.org/publication/womens-work-and-the-gender-pay-gap-how- discrimination-societal-norms-and-other-forces-affect-womens-occupational- choices-and-their-pay/)

<comment><USER4> Given how strongly he's had his view misrepresented, I don't think giving references would've helped him. He was very careful to pick his words, to no avail.

It's _the science itself_ that these people don't want to accept, if it doesn't support their idea that people and society are malleable enough to solve all these unequal distributions.

You probably heard of research that shows that the female population clusters towards to the mean in various features, IQ being one: [http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2017/06/why-a...](http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2017/06/why- are-there-so-few-women-in-sciences.html)

If we suppose that being successful in STEM correlates strongly with a high IQ, the mere fact that there exist fewer females with a high IQ would be one reason why there would be fewer females in STEM. That's just an objective, logical conclusion. Another logical conclusion would be that no diversity program could change this discrepancy.

The sound way to challenge this would be to challenge the research here, i.e. the foundation of the argument, instead of persecuting a person making such an argument. In other words: "Don't shoot the messenger".

<comment><USER5> This attempt at summarizing the research is innumerate, disconnected from empirical data, and offensive. Research on gender and IQ does not show that "there exist fewer females with high IQ" \--- even stipulating the validity of the research Damore is leaning on, that's now how the statistics work. And there are an enormous number of women in STEM: the concern is that there are few of them in _computer science_.

Before you attempt to reason from basic principals to a defense of the status quo, you should attempt to fully understand those principles.

<comment><USER4> > This attempt at summarizing the research is innumerate, disconnected from > empirical data, and offensive.

Maybe you should elaborate on _why_ it is innumerate and disconnected. As for calling it "offensive", that's entirely irrelevant. It outs you as somebody who is more interested in silencing people than debating them on more objective merits.

> Research on gender and IQ does not show that "there exist fewer females with > high IQ"

Research _does_ show that there exist fewer females at either ends of the distribution and more towards the center, compared to males.

[http://www.aei.org/publication/statistical-tests-shows- great...](http://www.aei.org/publication/statistical-tests-shows-greater-male- variance/)

This _does_ mean that there exist fewer female individuals with exceptionally high or exceptionally low IQs. That is indeed how statistics work.

If you want to contest that the research is flawed and that the result is wrong, do that. If we suppose the data is valid, then my conclusion is sound.

> And there are an enormous number of women in STEM: the concern is that there > are few of them in computer science.

The broader concern is STEM, not just computer science. Sure, there's an enormous amount of women in STEM, there's also an enormous amount of men in STEM and if you put both in relation, the relative amount of women in STEM is quite low (compared to other fields).

The only real argument here is how much (if any) of that is due to causes that aren't social.

<comment><USER6> > The only real argument here is how much (if any) of that is due to causes > that aren't social.

Negligible, based on the statistics. The differences, if they even exist, are minuscule, while the gender disparity is enormous. It strains credibility to imagine that the root cause of the gender disparity in STEM employment is innate, especially since the disparity varies across cultures and subfields.

<comment><USER5> I think it's also worth pointing out that their argument just changed dramatically, and that what they said in their followup can't readily be reconciled with their original claim that studies showed "fewer high IQ women".

<comment><USER4> How so? You're evading supporting _your_ argument. You just make claims.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure you even realized you changed arguments when you switched from "there aren't as many high-IQ women" to "there is a higher variance in the distribution of male intelligence as there is in women". I'm curious to see how you'll rebut, and, if you do, will use your rebuttal to gauge how detailed my response will be.

(Obviously, there is a [weak] rebuttal that preserves the original claim with the new distributional argument).

<comment><USER7> If M ~ N(u,v_m) and W ~ N(u,v_w) [where N refers to the normal distribution], with v_m > v_w, then P(M > T) > P(W > T) for all T > u. I.e if the trait is approximately normally distributed with equal means among two groups, the group with the higher variance will exhibit more extreme values. Why is this a change in argument?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everyone thinks that in the case of Galileo vs the Church, they would have had the reason to see that Galileo was right and the Church was wrong because they objectively looked at the facts.

The reality is that most people go with the majority opinion even when the facts go against them.

The memo was lambasted in the media and I didn't really read it and I myself thought that it was hair-brained and while it might have some kernels of facts or link to some sources, it was highly opinionated and the screed of a misogynist. I believed this because EVERYONE was saying this.

Watching this video, I was wrong, way wrong. The only way to know for sure was to read the thing. If I had, I would have seen it and had my opinion changed.

So few people actually read the memo. The science used to back it's claims is roughly and mainly solid evidence. It asks for a conversation.

Any time you have people using morality to object to repeatable scientific literature and shut down a conversation even before it can start, you have to notice and question it. The people against even discussing this topic are more like the Anti-Vaxxers than they would like to admit. The see their kids with incurable, terrible afflictions and are looking for something, anything to blame.

Human nature took millions of years to evolve to what we see today in an environment that was far different from our own. We accept that humans sitting and typing all day will get backpain and maybe carpal-tunnel syndrome. Yet, we somehow thing that millions of years of sexual selection for different features between the genders would yield different biology, that could lead to different biases toward occupations and reaction to stimuli?

I don't presume to have an answer but, I think it's a perfectly reasonable line of questioning, especially if there is relevant, well regarded research on the topic. What people are afraid of is the outcome.

Google specifically and tech in general tend to select for the top percentile in specific dimensions. If there is any differences between groups, that top percentile will show it to an extreme degree. It isn't hard to imagine that might be partially the cause of what is going on. Furthermore, societies and social norms form around patterns that are in the environment already. Social norms and competition in the environment that those social norms create can reinforce those social norms to work against outside or atypical competitors in those social environments.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe it's one thing that the more concerning elements of the left are aggregated into certain universities, but it is something else to also exist in the services and companies most everyone relies on (and that has control over their information flow).

I'd like to see more of what Google is learning from this incident from either the 'diversity director' or the CEO directly. Getting employee culture all together and efficiently cooperating is theoretically one of the highest priorities of the top management and why they get paid ridiculous sums of money. Although I guess it's fine they do most of that work out of public eye, the very public perception is a big part of it (and recruiting and customer relations etc).

Also, I was glad to find I was right that James Damore had been listening a lot to Jordan Peterson but I had to wait until the end of the interview just to get my 'I WAS RIGHT!' moment.

<comment><USER4> > Maybe it's one thing that the more concerning elements of the left are > aggregated into certain universities, but it is something else to also exist > in the services and companies most everyone relies on (and that has control > over their information flow).

Well, where do you suppose all these students go to, once they leave college? Many of them end up in leading positions of HR, management, marketing and media. They are a cultural elite.

Meanwhile, the STEM people end up mostly as cogs in the machine. They generally don't become influencers beyond the confines of their particular field.

Ironically, the same people arguing for freedom of enterprise might be the ones needing worker protection laws for freedom of conscience.

<comment><USER9> > Ironically, the same people arguing for freedom of enterprise might be the > ones needing worker protection laws for freedom of conscience.

Can you spell that out for me? I think you mean that the 'keep business free from government' leaning types might need protection from government from those businesses to avoid being punished for their very work-related ideas. I suspect if this was your argument that most of such people would continue to believe that the workplace was where to fight it out, likely by efforts to get themselves into better positions of power or otherwise simply winning.

<comment><USER4> I'm not saying they'd need to change their beliefs, I'm just pointing out the irony.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course Google throws their employees under the bus for the sake of defending their "diversity" facade.

Thanks James, for being the canary in the goldmine.

</comment><comment><USER10> This should be a forced watch before people are allowed to comment on James and the google memo!

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is Google pandering to the social justice left? I thought they were a loud and insane minority. Is fake racism, sexism etc mainstream now on the left? Was Trump's election not a big enough wake up call?</comment>


Ask HN: Is using your real name at HN a noob behaviour? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I vote no (clearly). Here's how I break down the reasoning:

In the HN community, non-constructive commenting is pretty strongly discouraged and moderated, so the urge to say things that normally would make someone want to hide their comments behind an anonymous name is pretty limited already.

So if nefarious activity is already not your goal, it simply becomes a personal preference. Why hide honest questions and discussion?

The only exception I can think of is if you're not well versed in the various knowledge domains that are popular here and don't want to give that fact away. I don't think that's a good reason at all though to be honest. I've felt this community be pretty accepting of honest questions and thoughtful input as long as you are honest _with yourself_ as to what you're area of expertise is and you've done _due diligence_ to the topic. If you're guessing something, you are going to be called out pretty quick. Don't ask for easily searchable facts, it's a waste of everyones time. Ask for opinions, experiences, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not really, or at least not using some abbreviation thereof. Just going off /leaders, look at tptacek, jaquesm, ColinWright, jgrahamc, ChuckMcM, jrockway, cperciva, DanielRibeiro, DanielBMarkham, steveklabnik, and mikeash.

A number of us have screen names because much of the early population of HN came from Reddit, which is almost all pseudonymous (the founders started off with pseudonyms).

</comment><comment><USER4> I took [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html) very much to heart. I'm always surprised that people attach their True Name to controversial viewpoints, not knowing which ones will become career-ending thoughtcrimes. Look what happened to Eich for siding with a majority.

Even on a more mundane level, what happens to you when the industry embraces yet another terrible idea and finds a sourced comment from you criticizing it?

</comment><comment><USER5> No, because:

1\. There are many well known people whose Hacker News user name clearly identifies them.

2\. There are many not well known members with similar names.

3\. Many people with cryptic user names have identifying information in their profiles.

4\. Hacker News is not a community with a meaningful cultural distinction between old timers and new users. The green names seem mostly there to assist in orientation to community norms and spam recognition.

</comment><comment><USER6> I learned my lesson about using real names back in the usenet days, I'm not about to do the same thing twice.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've used my real name on every online forum since I've been online. I never like to hide behind a screen name and don't trust others that try to hide their true identities.

</comment><comment><USER8> Only if you are a troll. If you are a normal user, then I prefer real name.

</comment><comment><USER9> No.</comment>


Go to Trial - Crash the Justice System - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/opinion/sunday/go-to-trial-crash-the-justice-system.html?_r=2&src=tp <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, this isn't really practical.

\- It requires solidarity by criminal defendants, many of whom will go to jail for a long time absent a plea agreement. It is literally, the prisoner's dilemma.

\- Absent posting bail, you stay in jail until you go to trial (which can be a long time in a scenario where everyone is in fact going to trial). The "excessive bail" clause of the 8th Amendment, in practice, has been eviscerated. Bail is routinely set so high that the only way it is affordable is to pay a bondsman. This means that it's easy to punish people prior to a trial for exercising their rights. A stay in jail prior to trial can be as or more destructive than being convicted - you likely lose your job, your housing, possibly custody of your children, all without any process.

The judicial system has ~ a thousand years practice at maintaining control and getting the outcomes (overall) that the State desires. It is not a simple matter to "force" it to do anything.

<comment><USER3> Additionally, this doubts the ability of the US Justice system to keep up if its pushed. Yes, its already pretty slow and inefficient, but most other countries would probably think that it would be impossible to prosecute and detain as many people as the US already does. Just because its hard to imagine scaling the system up even more, doesn't mean they couldn't scale it.

Politics around "we need more jails to keep dangerous criminals away from your children" almost always result in more jails and more prosecution. Logic rarely prevails. I feel confident that the US would just attempt (unfortunately) to double their capacity.

<comment><USER4> "Logic rarely prevails" --> That comment reminded me of a piece on incarceration:

[http://www.pluggd.in/incarceration-the-extreme-end-of- social...](http://www.pluggd.in/incarceration-the-extreme-end-of-social-media- a-worldwide-challenge-297/)

Isn't it surprising that there are so many ideas floating around to disrupt Hollywood, transform other forms of Governance, disrupt traditional business models but no-one talks about forcing change in law/judiciary itself.

At best, a startup would talk about saving a few hundred dollars in legal fees through some free advice/content on Google. Why is this so?

<comment><USER5> I don't know. One of my "frighteningly ambitious startup ideas" would be a product that lets one man fight an army of lawyers and legal red tape. That way the bar to sue competitors out of existence raises dramatically. Dramatically enough to give start-ups a chance of actually defeating entrenched monopolies with large legal teams.

<comment><USER6> That's fascinating... but how?

Short of AI I don't see how automation helps.

It's illegal to practice law without a license, so you can't find some dramatically lower-cost way to do legal advice and advocacy either.

Perhaps insurance against red tape? Like a retainer fee, but built to scale up to zillions of clients.

<comment><USER7> I've read here that there have been studies on Legal AIs:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380043>

Some comments are quite disheartening:

"It seems that we want to think of a world that is logical and populated with verifiable facts. However, the world of the lawyer is fundamentally illogical (as are most humans most of the time) and facts only exist when either agreed to by the parties or determined by judge or jury.

This observation that "legal logic" is not quite the same as traditional rational-thought logic has led to an interesting "legal reasoning" subfield of AI over the past decade or so (with some precursors dating back further) that tries to formalize exactly what logic it is following, and how it differs from traditional rationality. That area develops alternative logics, reasoning procedures, etc., in order to do things like simulate case outcomes, suggest possible arguments to make, evaluate alternative strategies, etc. Until relatively recently many people did think that the right way to make a legal reasoning system was to treat the law as logical rules, and the legal reasoning problem as a problem of rational inference over rules+evidence... which turns out not to be that accurate an account of how law actually operates."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm an attorney. I did some criminal appointments in the federal system before quitting law to get into entrepreneurship full time. It's tough work and it gave me some pretty amazing insights into the the justice system and the human condition.

In many ways--certainly not all--the plea system benefits the accused. It speeds up the trial, when evidence is lacking the accused tend to get a better result and quite honestly if the evidence is really bad the charges can--and do get dropped. We tend to look at the perverse episodes and not the helpful ones.

That said, myself and just about any attorney I know on either side of the bar feels like you'd rather let hundreds of guilty people go free than put one innocent person in jail.

I hate that criminal law is so politicized. (i.e. you have you be "tough on crime" to be electable or "three strikes rules keep 'bad' guys off the streets." If we can find lawmakers that will fight those mentalities, we will be much better off than trying to halt a justice system that's already terrible underfunded and in the process further hurt the accused, judges, juries, attorneys and citizens in the process.

Collateral charges are awful though. (mentioned briefly in the article--strips rights away of those with felony convictions)

When we take away voting rights, public assistance rights, free speech rights, and others, because someone broke the law (in many cases minor or non-violent felonies) that makes the problem worse because we're silencing folks that could give us insights to make our justice system better. And in most cases further complicating or destroying the support system for people who truly need help. Not to be infantalizing because not everyone needs or wants help, but it just doesn't seem "American" or "fair" to me to kick folks while they are down or prevent them from having a voice in our government or the help that could enable them to get on their feet again.

</comment><comment><USER9> Be aware that in a felony plea bargain, you may forever be forfeiting your right to vote. 1 in 40 people in the United States are not allowed to vote because they have lost, either for forever, while in prison, while on parole, or while on probation, their right to vote. Fourteen states (AL, AZ, DE, FL, IA, KY, MD, MS, NE, NV, TN, VA, WA, and WY) eliminate voting for any felony conviction for life. In 31 states, you can't vote while on probation. Only 15 states allow you to vote while on parole. Only Maine and Vermont allow you to vote while a prisoner.

The most comprehensive study on the issue that I'm aware of is still the 1998 Sentencing Project / Human Rights Watch study, but The Sentencing Project provides attention to disenfranchisement issues on their blog.

'98 report: [http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/File/FVR/fd_losingthevo...](http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/File/FVR/fd_losingthevote.pdf)

Voting rights blog: <http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=133>

<comment><USER10> Revoking the right to vote for a felony. What a great democracy you have there!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If there was a sudden dramatic rise in the number of cases approaching trial, the natural response would be to increase the value of plea deals until the number of trials drops to a managable level.

As the supply of plea deals increases, and the demand decreases, their price will drop.

Prosecutors with a large volume of unsold plea deals (a large inventory of pending cases and intense pressure to clear them quickly) will be highly motivated to reduce the sentences offered to criminals.

The net result would likely be smaller sentences, but not a fundamental reform of the justice system.

This is basically a form of strike. Although strikes can improve the wages of workers, they won't fundamentally reform the relationship between a company and it's workers.

No strike by the UAW would ever lead to the creation of something like YCombinator, for example.

The key to fixing problems with our government is to disrupt it. To replace it with something that is "not as good", but "much more accessible" (if you are Exon, the current government is great, because it serves your needs exactly, but if you are a non-violent drug offender it is completely in-accessible to you).

<comment><USER12> Strike is a good analogy. However the modern labour & trade union movement has succeeded in getting some labour reforms over the last 100 years. Workers now have much more rights (e.g. to not be fired for no reason, mandatory holiday pay, employee tribunals to settle disputes, force majeure, maternity & paternity leave etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This completely misses the point. The justice system is already crashing, from being underfunded.

""" "cuts already imposed on the Los Angeles Superior Court, if unabated, will force the closure of over 180 courtrooms and layoffs of more than 1800 employees in the coming years. This is a dramatic reduction in work force and courtrooms. There are approximately 605 courtrooms operating throughout 50 locations in Los Angeles County. The closure of 180 courtrooms includes the closure of nine courthouses. The loss of 1800 employees constitutes a 34 percent reduction in the court's workforce. The cuts in staff and courtrooms/courthouses (along with the priority given to criminal cases) will result in an increase to the already existing backlog of cases, which, in turn, will slow the movement of virtually all civil cases to a snail's pace." """ <http://www.plljlaw.com/CM/Articles/Court-Budget-Cuts.asp>

If you want to crash the justice system, then continue to do what we have been doing: underfund judges, court employees, public defenders, and prosecutors.

<comment><USER14> I don't see how the author is missing the point because of your claim. If the justice system is already crashing, then massively asking to go to trial would crash it even more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is something informally called "trial tax" in the American justice system wherein if you decide to go for trial the punishment on guilty verdict is much higher than on plea bargain.

A famous case was that of Vincent Bogan in late 80s who was given a sentence of 75 years in maximum security for three counts of armed robbery (which is quite high for the crime charged) because he refused plea bargain and went for jury trial.

<comment><USER16> Told on This American Life: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/134/w...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/134/we-didnt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> History repeats itself: the tactic being advocated here worked pretty well for the Industrial Workers of the World in the early 20th century. Their tactic was to provoke authorities into arresting an IWW member (it helped that, then as now, the police are eager to arrest people who are insufficiently deferential, crime or no crime), then bring in hundreds of IWW members and others, flooding the jails. In the jails, they'd have a ready audience of other imprisoned activists to make contact with and could talk about the IWW's goals, tactics, and mission. So they won converts with every round of mass arrests.

</comment><comment><USER18> Wouldn't this be reasonably easy to do if you threw money at the problem?

If a certain person or organisation had a decent chunk of change, they could hire a large law firm to specifically volunteer to take court appointments. Just as most court appointed lawyers advise their clients to plea, the hired lawyers could advise to go to trial and since most people listen to their lawyer, that'd would do it.

Obviously im oversimplifying it here, but surely its just a case of 1) get money, 2) pick a city, 3) hire lawyers, 4) get court appointments, 5) crash the system.

With enough money you could replicate the system elsewhere too.

<comment><USER19> Most clients choose not to go to trial, _despite_ their court-appointed lawyer's advice to take it to trial. In SoCal, only about 1 out of every 100 (or more) criminal cases actually goes to trial because the defendants choose not to assert their rights. What's worse, in more than half of these cases, there is a fatal defect in the prosecution's case (usually non-existent evidence of an element of the charge) that would have gotten the case thrown out before trial if only the defendant had not chosen to plead. Frequently, this is because the type of people who rely on court-appointed lawyers are guilty (and freely admit to being guilty), and simply want to reduce the sentencing as much as possible.

Private criminal defense attorneys usually advise their clients to plead, because (1) they make less money overall if the case goes to trial, and (2) their clients usually have too much at stake to risk tossing the dice on a jury. Thus, such cases only go to trial when the DA refuses to accept a reasonable plea bargain.

Also, your reliance on large law firms is misplaced. Most lawyers in law firms, even in the litigation groups, _have never gone to trial_. Indeed, their closest exposure to trial is usually arguing motions for civil cases, where the procedural and substantive rules are completely different. Life is not like T.V. ( _Good Wife_ , I'm looking at you.) The end result would be a lot of inexperienced lawyers making a lot of rookie mistakes. While this could nuke the system, the more likely effect is that the first few defendants would get thoroughly screwed, and the remaining defendants would opt to plea bargain out of ear of getting one of the inexperienced private lawyers.

Finally, with enough money, i.e., the money that would be used to hire the large law firm, you could simply _fix the system_ , at least at the county level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> not really that interesting, this is a prisoner's dilema which is well studied. because the globally optimal strategy is unstable, the equilibrium state is to defect. She's given no indication of a clever way to shift this equilibrium.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium#Prisoner.27s_d...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium#Prisoner.27s_dilemma)

<comment><USER21> Hypothesis: A relatively small number of relatively well funded defendants could have a huge impact on the system.

EG: Martha Stewart could have done more good if she'd fought her conviction all the way to the supreme court (even if she lost, she wouldn't have gotten more time.)

Thus an organization whose sole purpose is to underwrite (via providing lawyers or funds for outside lawyers) drug defendants who want to fight their charges could shift the equilibrium state.

Maybe only %10 would take this organization up on the offer, but that could be enough to have a big impact. (Again this is a hypothesis).

<comment><USER22> _Thus an organization whose sole purpose is to underwrite (via providing lawyers or funds for outside lawyers) drug defendants who want to fight their charges could shift the equilibrium state._

I'm pretty sure this is already illegal.

<comment><USER23> It's called a "defense fund"--if someone has the right to legal defense, it can't be illegal to contribute to the costs of it.

<comment><USER22> Then there's laws against profiting from it, or taking part in any settlement, or something like that. It's not a free-for-all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The solution lays not with the accused, but their lawyers. The lawyers can simply refuse to defend cases and the system will crash. And no one, no poor defendant, will risk jail. In the 1960's there were "committed" lawyers who took a stand against the Draft, as well as legal organizations that took a stand--the National Lawyers Guild comes to mind. Unfortunately, the idealism of the 1960's turned to drug defense work in the 1970's and by the 1980's the pendulum had swung back and hard. Even if only a small group of lawyers refused to handle cases, such as federal Criminal Justice Act attorneys (18 USC 3006A) the system would not be able to cope. Unfortunately, it's easier to herd cats than to get lawyers to act in unison. But this is a better solution than asking the first few defendants to risk life sentences: no one wants to be the Wildebeest that enters the crocodile-infested river first. But a work stoppage by these lawyers would carry little risk of consequences other than a serious reassessment of the broken US criminal justice system.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is an interesting idea. It's hard to say how probable it is, because that requires certain tipping point actions to occur like we saw in the Arab Spring to get a mass movement going.

The reality is though that our current system is based on the compliance of the people within the system. When you find a pressure point in the system like this, it's very possible that something will come along and really start to push on it.

Maybe the most realistic way to increase capacity if they did this would be to more efficiently process things going to trial and those who deal. From an efficiency point of view there are many things that could be done to make this process happen much faster, the question is whether or not the Justice System would go for it.

Little's Law shows the overall behavior of a System: I = RT

Where inventory is equal to the arrival rate x time in the system. If the Arrival Rate suddenly doubles, inventory or time in the system must go up, often in non-linear ways. The question is always probability, but if the arrival rate went up, it would certainly shock the system. Whether or not it would crash it is a different question that is much harder to predict, it all depends on the scale and suddenness of the system shock.

<comment><USER26> But that "inventory" is you, in prison, awaiting trial.

There's a pressure point. But that pushing that pressure point requires many thousands of people to spend many years, each, in prison, losing everything - their career, their home, their children.

Which is why the pressure point has not been pushed. And will not be pushed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Speaking as someone who was recently a juror on a trial, I can firmly say that the premise of this article is correct. The courts in this country are far, far, far too slow to deal with a mass number of trials. The system would simply collapse if people starting exercising this right.

</comment><comment><USER28> Along these lines, a thought has occurred to me during the whole SOPA/PIPA debate: what if _everyone_ that opposed the bill and has ever shared and/or linked to any copyrighted material went on and confessed the crime, refused to pay any fines and asked to go to jail?

<comment><USER22> What does that have to do with anything? You don't get a jury trial if you confess. I mean, you do, but anybody who trods the path you suggest will likely just take whatever sentence is offered. The story hinges on people being accused, indicted.

<comment><USER28> I understand that. But my point is more along the lines of "crashing the system" by simply having millions of people going to jail just by having their sentence executed, as the law demands.

<comment><USER22> It's the impracticality of so many jury trials (i.e. before a sentence is handed down, or even a conviction) that is the proximate cause, the topic of conversation.

<comment><USER28> Again, I understand that. My thought is about crashing the system by abusing another kind of "impracticality": having so many people going to jail at once would grind it to a halt.

It doesn't have to be just SOPA or copyright stuff. Take the war on drugs. Abortion. Illegal immigration.

Get all women who had an illegal abortion and doctors who performed one, and get them organized to ask to go to jail. Get anyone who used any illegal drug, and organize them to go to jail. Get all illegal immigrants and organize them to demand deportation back to their countries.

In any of these examples, I'd guess that people would simply DoS the system. The laws would have to be revised, and they would get actual change to the system just by following it through.

<comment><USER22> You're pretty much talking suicide here.

Additionally, why incur the personal risk from confession when there are plenty of cases to be had that are already charged? OWS comes to mind.

<comment><USER28> How would that be suicide? I'm not thinking of just getting a few hundred people and telling them to go to some Oz-like prison. And I'm not talking about some organized movement like OWS where people protested over issues related to actions perpetrated by _other people_.

I'm thinking of a situation where a large number of people would be cooperatively going to submit themselves to the penal system related to things _they_ did and believe that is not right to be punished for. Most likely, they would get results even before the actual collective "turning in". Can you imagine what would happen in the US if the good majority of the 7 million undocumented immigrants [1] organized a movement that announced they would turn themselves in?

You say suicide, I say "immigration reform".

[1] [http://www.statemaster.com/graph/peo_est_num_of_ill_imm- peop...](http://www.statemaster.com/graph/peo_est_num_of_ill_imm-people- estimated-number-illegal-immigrants)

<comment><USER22> That sounds a lot more complicated than fostering a movement among people who are already going to be facing the system.

<comment><USER28> Hey, I never said anything about it being easy, let alone possible. I just think that would be one very impressive hack of the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> didn't have access to anti-depressants so she became addicted to crack? That is quite a leap.

</comment><comment><USER19> I worked for the Public Defender during an election year. The local D.A. was trying to divert attention from a sex scandal and instructed the ADAs not to negotiate down on any crimes so that he could "look tough" on crime. The thinking was that most criminal defendants would cave and he would get a boost with the mostly-conservative voters of the county.

So the lawyers of the Public Defender (and a good portion of the private criminal defense bar) banded together and convinced about a quarter of our clients to go to trial (up from 1 in every 100 or so). I worked in a specialty division (mentally "disordered" defendants) where we got to make the decisions for our clients, and we took almost every case to trial.

We also made sure that every defendant going to trial refused to waive his right to a speedy trial, meaning that cases had to go to trial within about 2-3 months or they would get thrown out.

The consequences? (1) To avoid speedy-trial issues, the D.A.'s office had to transfer cases out to the boonies of our county whereever there were available courtrooms for trials, and ADA's unfamiliar with these cases would take them to trial. They either lost these cases at trial or watched them get thrown out when they could not start on time (frequently, because their expert witnesses could not schedule court appearances on such short notice). (2) A backlog of criminal and MD cases that jammed up the court docket, pushing back other cases (i.e., civil lawsuits) 5 years _or more_. 2009 to 2010 was not a good time to file a lawsuit in that county. (3) An enraged judiciary that began throwing out criminal cases with wild abandon, including almost all drug possession cases, nonviolent misdemeanors, and lower-level non-violent felonies. (4) The D.A. lost his reelection campaign, by double-digits.

The nuclear option worked, and the next D.A. rescinded the non-negotiation order.

 _EDIT: I should point out that this worked because massive budget reductions to the court system during this time period artificially reduced the number of courts in the county. Without those budget reductions, we would have needed many more trial-ready cases to nuke the system._

<comment><USER30> Who was the DA?

<comment><USER19> Let's just say that he was the D.A. of a large, conservative county which is more commonly known for being the epicenter of the housing meltdown.

<comment><USER31> I'm having a tough time with this one. From Google, possibilities for "epicenter of the housing meltdown are":

\- Phoenix, AZ (Maricopa County): DA won the 2008 election, resigned in 2010 to run for state AG

\- Cuyahoga County, OH: heavily Democratic

\- San Joaquin County, CA: DA in office since 2006

\- Stanislaus County, CA: female DA, in office since 2006

\- Atlanta, GA: heavily Democratic

\- Las Vegas, NV (Clark County): DA in office from ~2003-2012, then retired

None of them seem to fit (I was surprised it wasn't Maricopa County). A mystery...

<comment><USER32> There are a lot more possibilities than just those six. It could be almost anywhere, really. For example, how about somewhere in Florida? There have been lots of foreclosures there, and it has a large conservative population.

Also, the poster said "conservative" but didn't explicitly say "Republican", so you can't necessarily rule out counties with Democratic DAs. The poster also didn't give a timeframe. It could have been well before the housing bust for all we know. They were obviously being intentionally vague.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Its kinda amazing but this article contains the primary thesis-es of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. This brings up some important questions that I think its worth pondering.

Namely, that government creates crimes to control people, ("There is no way to rule an honest man. The only power government has is over criminals. Thus we create more and more laws until every man is a criminal.")

...and that this control relies on people accepting the easier way out, rather than standing up for their rights. (In Atlas, the alternatives offered the strikers were always easier than striking.)

At the end of the day, the question they both pose is this: If some action really is immoral, is it not immoral for you to support it? If the war on drugs is immoral, is it not immoral for you to pay for it? If you're going to pay your taxes (a practical choice to be sure, even if you feel its immoral) why not match them by supporting organizations working to reform or eliminate the immoral actions those taxes fund? (e.g.: anti-drug war orgs, or a org that underwrites defense attorneys for people charged with drug crimes who want to fight them with a jury trial.)

If you're on a jury, are you going to listen when the judge tells you that you have to convict if you conclude that the person charged did in fact have drugs on them? Or are you going to judge the law (one purpose of the jury) as well as the facts, and stand proud and hang the jury if you're unable to convince them the drug war is immoral? Are you willing to lie on the jury questionnaire in order to get on the jury in the first place (since the questionnaire is designed to weed out people who will be immune to the jury tampering judges regularly engage in with their instructions.)

Or do you recognize this as immoral, but still think that the "justice" system itself _IS_ moral because... its the government?

These are all rhetorical questions. I'm sure my position is obvious by the questions I'm asking, but I'm not looking to debate here, I'm just providing a perspective. And my amusement that the NYT would write a story with such parallels to Atlas Shrugged.

One final parallel is that in Atlas, the system continues to deteriorate, even when most people know its wrong, because most people fool themselves into thinking that injustice is justice. (or are anti-mind, have adopted a philosophy that is against reason.)

So a final question- does an immoral law have any power? Or is it null and void simply because its immoral? (In Maybury v. Madison the supreme court ruled that unconstitutional laws are invalid the day they are signed, no need for supreme court review to invalidate them... yet we had to have a constitutional amendment to create prohibition, but we never had one for the war on drugs...)

If a cop pulls over a driver and then searches his car and finds drugs, and you believe the drug laws are immoral, are you willing to admit that the cop is a criminal? (Or is "just doing your job" an excuse that gets him off the hook?)

If morality is objective, and the "law" he's enforcing is immoral, then the cop is the criminal in this hypothesis. If morality is subjective, then the cop somehow is made moral when doing this, because law somehow conveys morality on otherwise immoral acts. (Again all rhetorical. I'm going to log out now and enjoy my Sunday.)

<comment><USER33> > _Namely, that government creates crimes to control people, ("There is no way > to rule an honest man. The only power government has is over criminals. Thus > we create more and more laws until every man is a criminal.")_

Things like public health directly contravene this concept. There is a collective public good (say vaccination), it only works if some percentage of the population opts in, either through incentive or obligation.

Infants are protected from whooping cough _only_ by our ability to guarantee vaccination of other citizens (since they are protected not by the vaccine itself, but the cocoon effect of having a vaccinated population that is not susceptible to whooping cough).

In other words, governments definitely do have power over honest people.

<comment><USER34> I understand the point you're trying to make, but I don't think there is a single country in the world (free or otherwise) that makes it _illegal_ to abstain from vaccination. If there is such a country, please correct me—I simply couldn't find one after a few minutes of research.

The benefits of vaccination _for the receiver of the vaccine_ are usually enough to entice voluntary vaccination. In fact, I'm sure there are plenty of civic-minded people who get themselves (or their children) vaccinated for the benefit of everyone else, too.

The government would only feel compelled to forcibly vaccinate its citizens if people refused en masse to get vaccinated. And _that_ would likely only happen if the cost/risk benefit ratio for getting vaccinated was (perceived to be) unsatisfactory.

In that case, do you really want to criminalize honest, well-intentioned people who are abstaining? I'd say no—that'll create a bitter backlash, because these people don't feel like they deserve to be criminals. Instead, you'd want to educate those people and explain to them why it _is_ worth it to get vaccinated (alternatively, if the vaccine really is too risky, you'd want to improve the vaccine). When honest, well-intentioned citizens oppose something en masse, simply making them all criminals for the common good is likely to make them oppose you, distrust you, and listen even less to what you have to say.

<comment><USER35> I'm not aware of a country that makes it illegal to abstain from vaccination, but it's bureaucratically difficult in the US once the child reaches school age. I know that the state I grew up in (Virginia) required proof of vaccination upon entering public school. Even my college required proof of vaccination.

Which is something I hadn't thought about when it comes to the anti- vaccination crowd. I wonder what they do when their kids need proof of vaccination for school.

<comment><USER36> In many places I know of, it is as simple as a parent writing a letter claiming to be opposed to vaccination on philosophical and/or religious grounds.

<comment><USER35> How do you know it? Do you know parents who did it, or people who have accepted such letters?

<comment><USER37> My parents were very anti-vaccination and are part of a 'religion' that exempts us from it... all we needed was a note from a 'religious leader' and its done... I'm not vaccinated for anything. The religion is 'The Universal Congregation of Wisdom' (its very chiropractic, my dads a chiropractor... the 'religious doctrine' is pretty entertaining...)

you can join with a letter and like a 200$ donation or soemthing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> "So maybe, just maybe, if we truly want to end this system, some of us will have to risk our lives."

Or you could just elect Ron Paul. The powers that be would have to assassinate him to stop him from legalizing most drug use.

<comment><USER39> _The powers that be would have to assassinate him_

Or just ensure that he doesn't get enough cooperation from Congress to change the law.

<comment><USER40> well there is this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cldRh1SkRok>

but most don't understand that the majority of non-violent drug offenders are not in federal prison. _shrug_</comment></comment></comment>


Understanding Moscow: The Mysteries of the Russian Mindset - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/understanding-moscow-the-mysteries-of-the-russian-mindset-a-1162072.html <comment><USER2> Russian here. I agree with most of this. The majority of people I know in this country have no interest in being an active part of the society. A lot of people have a feeling that they will be betrayed by the others as soon as the chance appears.

This slowly gets improved though, especially in the big cities.

At the same time, I think that Putin and his gang have got all the power to change the society and yet they don't do that and keep stealing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm no expert on Putin but I can't process the narrative about him in this piece:

> And then Konchalovsky said that Putin initially thought like a Westerner

... but then he learned and adapted to exploit the Russians?

To my understanding he was a trained KBG-ist—the most nihilistic kind of person in all of nihilistic Russia—and believes chiefly in making money. To suggest that Putin has ever held beliefs, the kind people in the West might have, rings very naive.

"Бабки надо делать" he is quoted saying as a motto in the early 90s in the movie "Who is Mr. Putin?" That's his only truth, not unlike, generally, the people he rules.

</comment><comment><USER4> Not many revelations there, sadly.

Depressing to read it and have my beliefs confirmed.

On a different note, I wish many journalists who have English as their first language would write as clearly and passionately as Christian Neef does.

<comment><USER5> _On a different note, I wish many journalists who have English as their first language would write as clearly and passionately as Christian Neef does._

Neef is an old-school journalist, from a time when words matter more then eyeballs and click-throughs. And it shows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> >As a toll road, however, it is hardly getting used, despite the relatively low charges. Russia's drivers believe it is a government rip-off and prefer sitting in traffic jams on the old road.

One might find it surprising that many Americans would hold a similar view on toll roads. Maybe.</comment>


Visualizing the US-Mexico Wall - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2016/10/26/best-of-luck-with-the-wall/?comments=1#comments <comment><USER2> Suppose the 60ft high concrete panel Wall is to cost $25 billion. Add $20 billion to condemn a mile buffer back from the border to the wall giving a cleared surveillance zone.

The US imports $300+ billion annually from Mexico.

Trump to Mexico: Pay me $60 billion now and Mexico gets a three year hiatus on the new 35% import tax.

Mexico: Whew, here is the check.</comment>


Windows 10 will be made an automatic "recommended" update early next year - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/10/windows-10-will-be-made-an-automatic-recommended-update-early-next-year/ <comment><USER2> On the computers that I support I now exclude optional and recommended updates, security patches only. Microsoft can no longer be trusted. I had one customer who's computer auto updated to Win10 and it trashed his system and the rollback did not work. He replaced it with an iMac.</comment>


Razing skyscrapers from the inside - <AUTHOR> http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20130108f1.html

<comment><USER2> I probably sound pedantic but it is "Raising", hope to have helped you with this word for the next time you need to use it.</comment>