We're saying goodbye to Google trip - <AUTHOR> https://get.google.com/trips/ <comment><USER2> If google couldn't make this work with all their assets (email, calendar, search, location, phone OS, photos, travel images, ads etc) then it would seem this is an impossible application to build at scale.</comment>


Show HN: Zehefyu93 Scheme^2 Quad Store for collaborative structured data - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/amirouche/zehefyu93 <comment><AUTHOR> Here is a screen cast showing some features [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMYh6f_jODg&t=6s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMYh6f_jODg&t=6s)</comment>


New York state wants both renewables and nuclear energy (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2016/8/2/12345572/new-york-nuclear-wind-solar <comment><USER3> Unpopular opinion (though getting less so): the politicization of nuclear energy in the 1960s and the resulting lack of investment & R&D advances may go down as one of the biggest blunders in human history.

Even with some modest ongoing investments, we'd have designs that are FAR safer than systems currently in operation.

<comment><USER4> People got scared (somewhat legitimately) and we regulated them to death. It became so risky and so expensive to invest in nuclear that nobody, not even the big companies with nuclear divisions like GE did it.

People talk about failures of the market all the time, and there are many. This was one of the failures of regulation.

I think we're starting to see a small revival here finally, but is it too late? Renewables are driving down the cost of electricity so any nuclear companies not only have to find a way to be profitable today, but 1, 2, 3 decades from now.

<comment><USER5> I agree that it seems like a massive wasted opportunity, but the most compelling argument I've heard against nuclear power is that it creates a vulnerability. If a nuclear power plant in New York City had been successfully attacked 18 years ago, what would the damage have been? We may need to focus on the security of existing infrastructure before we begin to build the next generation of power.

<comment><USER6> In US anyway, my understanding is that most of our containment structures should be sufficient to survive a plane impact without loss of containment. [1]

[1] [https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/proceedings- abstr...](https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/proceedings- abstract/PVP2003/1694X/289/291668)

<comment><USER7> Yes. Rather famously, the US tested this with a jet smashed directly into a concrete wall, resulting in the video in this article about it. [https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear- react...](https://interestingengineering.com/crashed-jet-nuclear-reactor-test)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is old. Cuomo is forcing Entergy to close Indian Point 2 and 3 in 2020/2021, which were the only financially viable plants mentioned in the article.

The governor's desire to prolong their relicensing process made it more cost effective for Entergy to just agree to close them in 4/5 years, which is a shame because nuclear plants are all about the sunk capital costs.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why don't we build these reactors deep underground? Doesn't the United States use an old abandoned mine to store spent nuclear rods while they decay?

Is it extremely cost prohibitive to dig down into existing abandoned mines (or even quarries)? and retrofit them with nuclear reactors?

Even if something catastrophic happens, if it's geologically separated by thousands of tons of rocks/dirt/sediment and is away from a water table, it wouldn't be a problem, no?

<comment><USER10> Cooling can be a problem. Reactors usually have access to large amounts of water (cheap) to expel excess heat so you would need to pump the heat over a long distance to somewhere cool enough to dump the heat to. Or you would need to surround everything in TEGs to convert the excess heat (expensive).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is from 2016.

A lot of states have been giving carbon credits to nuclear plants for a long time. There are several where it makes good sense to implement subsidies of that nature. So this is not a terribly new idea, nor is it as controversial as the article attempts to make it out to be..

</comment><comment><USER12> 2016\. I wondered why there was no mention of the debacle that is Illinois.

<comment><USER13> care to elaborate?

<comment><USER12> Sorry, it was Ohio: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20552675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20552675)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Correct title: Nuclear power and renewables don't have to be enemies. New York just showed how (2016)

</comment><comment><USER15> Nukes makes it sound like they want nuclear missiles but this is about nuclear energy...

<comment><USER16> Yes... is this an American phrasing? I (from UK) would definitely write this as "renewables and nuclear".

<comment><USER17> I've never heard an American refer to nuclear power as "nukes". This wording is pure clickbait.

<comment><USER18> Nuclear powered submarines are commonly called "nukes".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > renewables _and_ nukes

 _and?_ Nuclear power is just as "renewable" as wind, solar & hydro in _every_ sense of the word.

<comment><USER20> It's not renewable in _any_ sense of the word! Renewable doesn't mean "clean" (and there's an argument to be made that nuclear isn't even clean, but I digress).

Renewable means an energy source that literally renews itself. To avoid breaking the second law of thermos that implies there is an energy source (Sun) that recharges the renewable energy source with energy that would otherwise be wasted, therefore, you cannot net consume the resource.

In the case of wind and sunlight there is no net consumption of the resource because they'd otherwise be wasted (assuming you put solar over a parking lot and not over fertile land).

Nuclear cannot be renewable because fissile elements don't renew themselves (well, not without a supernova). We can _extend_ the usefulness of the fuel with advanced reactors, but eventually all nuclear fuels, be they fast, thermal, fission or fusion end up with the most stable isotope of Fe - <USER2> most stable isotope.

In fact, fossil fuels are _infinitely_ more renewable than nuclear fuels since eventually the biosphere dies, decays and some of material gets geologically captured to become fossil fuels (in geological timeframes).

There are (at least) two energy sources that are definitely not renewable: \- Nuclear \- Tidal (when we extract energy from a tide, the moon looses potential energy)

<comment><USER19> Sun is powered by nuclear power.

<comment><USER20> And it isn't renewable either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's weird to me how many advocates there are for nuclear power on HN. Years ago, I would've been one of them. Now? I don't think I can trust people with nuclear power.

People aren't capable of having a sufficiently long term view. People make short term decisions that are bad in the long term all the time. You see accident after accident caused by people making short term decisions that have a low probability of failure but where failure has disproportionately bad consequences. Just look at unsafe and drunk driving.

So the problems with fission power are:

1\. We have no good way of disposing with the waste. This includes the waste produced in enriching Uranium (eg what to do with all the UrF6) as well as reactor waste.

2\. As much as coal and other fossil fuels have negative health effects and probably cause deaths, there is only so much damage a single coal plant can do. A single nuclear plant on the other hand can make an area of thousands of miles uninhabitable for generations.

3\. Storage and transportation of fissile material (ie reactor fuel) presents a bunch of environmental and security issues.

Renewable (specifically solar and wind) really are the solution here.</comment>


How to prevent a meritocracy entrenching itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21571417-how-prevent-virtuous-meritocracy-entrenching-itself-top-repairing-rungs <comment><USER2> Given the audience of this site, it's interesting that this topic has even floated toward the top. And, it's also interesting (but hardly surprising) that most of the comments are blindly for meritocracy.

Yeah - meritocracy sounds great in principle. And, we can agree that it's leagues better than aristocracy. But, over generational scales, aristocracy and meritocracy are very closely aligned.

Meritocracy begins first with a wave of smart, risk-taking, hard-working, uncompromising, (perhaps immoral) people who usurp the establishment. And, we certainly celebrate that. It brings a shift, and usually rewards many others.

But, it's when those same people put their children and grandchildren in positions where risks nearly vanish that we worry about. They naturally give their descendents their connections, secret knowledge, wealth, safety and other benefits. And, they unconsciously change the rules to favor themselves. And, they seem to dismiss all those elements when their spawns happen to reach similar heights. And, slowly, they begin to believe that it's some genetic component, or something innate in them, that has caused it. And, then the new aristocracy is born.

I think the article is bringing attention to this, and it's good to do so. The new rich should be allowed to let their children and grandchildren live great lives. But, those descendents should not become the gatekeepers of the rest of the world's amazing talent. There are just to many brilliant, hard-working people in the world, who aren't connected, who need a chance.

<comment><USER3> "meritocracy sounds great in principle. And, we can agree that it's leagues better than aristocracy"

Meritocracy is a form of aristocracy. The word "aristocracy" comes from the Greek words for "best" and "power," or in other words a system where those who are most fit to rule will be the leaders of society. It sounds great in principle, the only problem is the definition of "best."

<comment><USER4> This may be true of the greek words, but language shifts. Now the word aristocracy refers to a system by which a class of people is in charge, and in which membership of said class is almost completely dependent on parentage. It is also of note that in this class system, membership and genetics are more important than any other factors such as wealth, intelligence, "merit" (as we generally use the term: displaying high ability and accomplishment in tasks).

<comment><USER5> Except that parentage was a critical concept in the Greek notion of the "best". The necessity of membership was less important, but it was still important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "For instance, standardised tests were supposed to favour the brainy, but the $4.5 billion test-prep industry, which disproportionately caters to the rich, indicates that this is being gamed. Intelligence tests should be more widely used."

As if intelligence tests weren't gameable and didn't favor the prepared. What's worse is that they test a very narrow definition of intelligence. That cure would be worse than the disease.

<comment><USER7> The author might respond "They are less gameable than the 'standardised' tests, and the 'standardised' tests are even narrower than the intelligence tests".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This, yet again, reinforces my view that funding schools through property taxes is a perverse and ultimately damaging idea. I understand the ideals behind it (schools are funded locally, playing into the strange american fixation with avoiding distributing tax revenues). Affirmative action is mentioned as outdated, but perhaps it is a sign that american society still feels guilty over the fact that not sixty years ago large swathes were still arguing against the integration of schools.

(As an aside, isn't there a thing where the titles of links are changed when they don't match the content that everyone keeps complaining about? Wouldn't this be a prime example of a link whose title should be changed to match the article within?)

<comment><USER9> Definitely! This was the most line of reasoning in the article with the most impact. Property taxes are often progressive, disproportionally affecting the relatively wealthy. That's good. But when the benefits are collected and spent too locally, it means areas with higher property values also get better services. It takes away the progressive quality of property taxes.

Continue this to an extreme: property taxes that I pay are only spent on my household. The city/county maintains my property, educates my children. There's no more progressive distribution.

<comment><USER8> I think you've gotten your definition of progressive muddled. Property taxes are considered to be progressive because property values are widely considered to correlate strongly with income and wealth. Spending those taxes locally (or apportioning funds for local amenaties based on local tax revenue) is regressive, because increased benefit is then therefore correlated strongly with increased wealth and income. Therefore, your example represents a most regressive distribution of tax distribution.

<comment><USER10> They originate from small New England towns where they would have been progressive. Now that the rich and the poor don't live near each other they're regressive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> An "entrenched meritocracy" is a contradiction. It's not a true meritocracy. Instead, it's an aristocracy claiming to be one, which is a bit tautological, since every such class claims it deserves its privileged position. People in other times and places believed they deserved their privileges just as sincerely as you do right now. Of course, the situation is different because we're smarter than they are ;)

<comment><USER12> I disagree. Except for the ultra-wealthy 0.0001%ers, it is as close to a true meritocracy it has ever been because the ones with merit rise to the top. A good surgeon can make 3-4x a poor surgeon. A good programmer can make 2-3x a poor programmer. If you are a fantastic programmer and you make $50k/yr in US, it means either (1) you don't care about money (2) you don't know how to negotiate. There is no way a fantastic programmer is going to be stuck at 50k in the US today. A poor programmer can end up with a 100k salary through connections/seniority etc. but more often than not, most of them are in the 35k-65k range.

It is entrenched because only those on the top can afford to pay for good education for their children so they can become good in their professions. Doctors can afford to send their kids to top tier private-schools and Ivy League universities, which means their kids have a better shot at being a good doctor or engineer learning under Nobel Laureates compared to the kids of auto-mechanics and park rangers, whose teachers might not have the best credentials.

What I would agree with you on, is that this isn't too different from the past when children of top ranking military generals got better training and ended up being better soldiers and generals than the children of farmers and blacksmiths. Nobody's saying children of farmers or auto-mechanics are any less able. They just don't get the best training.

<comment><USER13> >...it is as close to a true meritocracy it has ever been because the ones with merit rise to the top.

And then;

>Nobody's saying children of farmers or auto-mechanics are any less able. They just don't get the best training.

So it's a meritocracy but the training isn't available to all? Doesn't sound like a meritocracy to me.

<comment><USER9> I think the article did a poor job of representing the recent efforts by elite universities to open up access to the children of farmers and auto-mechanics. <http://npc.fas.harvard.edu/> There's still more to be done, sure, but it's important to mention that this isn't as bad as it was even 10 years ago.

<comment><USER14> Interesting. I'm the daughter of an electrician. I was admitted to Harvard in 2002, and at that time I believe they wanted my parents to pay about $12,000 for my first year. My parents couldn't afford it, and I did not attend. If that calculator is to be believed, Harvard would now expect less than $3000 from my parents. I probably would have attended had that been the case back then.

<comment><USER9> I think things changed a lot around 2009? I'm just going by memory... but I think that's when a lot of the ivies drastically changed tuition assistance based on income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Outdated affirmative-action programmes should give way to schemes to help students based on the poverty of the applicant rather than the colour of his skin."

Tell that to Harvard and look at Caltech's Asian student enrollment numbers: [http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/339778/racial- quotas-...](http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/339778/racial-quotas- harvard-and-legacy-ibakkei-ron-unz)

Race should be left out of the qualifications for getting into university, but be prepared for those universities' Asian student populations to grow significantly, probably whether they are rich or poor. That's fine with me (I dislike racial quotas), but it wasn't mentioned.

<comment><USER16> If this distribution were considered problematic, controlling for family immigration history could correct it -- a sort of perfect anti-aristocracy.

<comment><USER15> Discrimination based on immigration history sounds extremely unjust. At that point you may as well base it on height.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It seems some of us are missing the implication of the article.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that there _really were_ a way to negate all advantages a person could be born into. No social networks, no additional wealth, no additional opportunities, etc. A place where everyone is born at 25 at the exact same moment: no friends, no past, no parents, no money. We can call this place 'Equalistan', population 1 million. Now, in Equalistan, there is still random genetic mutation. Some people are taller, some people have working memories that store more information, some have long-term memories that store more information, some solve problems by simple heuristics, some follow bodily signals for cues, etc. There's no such thing as 'smarter' or 'better' at birth in Equalistan, however, because these only make sense in hindsight. Each person in Equalistan just has a _different_ , inherited strategy at living. Everyone just showed up at the same moment, 25 years old, no history, no buddies, but just an inherited genetic toolset.

Now, in Equalistan, there's a test to decide who gets the most resources. However, no one in Equalistan designed this test because, remember, we are making sure no one has any advantage; each person only has an inherited, random strategies from birth. So everyone takes this test and there is then a distribution of resource possession. But here is the upshot. Every person completely _deserves_ the outcome they receive on the test. After all, the only thing being tested was each person's 'merits'. Now the question is, does it ever matter whether people "deserve" the amount of resources they possess?

The article isn't saying so much that meritocracy begets old-school elitism after assortative mating as much as it's saying that meritocracy _itself_ is a terrifying thing. That it may be 100% the truth that people deserve the outcome they receive in life, but, who cares?

<comment><USER4> There are many strange and not necessarily good assumptions in this post.

1) How is it "merit" is strictly about genetic variation, rather than a combination of said genetic ability _and_ a record of the use of it (achievement).

2) How is it that equality is strictly about starting position, rather than starting position resource allocation protection? One can have a meritocracy in which resource allocation is not about more-to better. It can in fact be about responsibility and accountability being greater. Not saying I agree with this, it is just a hole in the argument.

3) Resource distribution need not be 0-sum. There can in fact be more than 2 categories of "mine" and "not mine". There can be categories such as "available to everyone", "available to no one", and variations on "available to some". [1]

4) deserves is always and strictly a moral argument. There is no justification of deserves that doesn't at some point refer directly to axioms (morals). Therefore we again get to assumptions that need be discussed.

[1] Here in lies all the interesting stuff. Interplay between "some people get access" and "mine" categories of resources are where all discussions like this are really happening. How you define "some people get access" really can change the end result of "mine" for various actors. Similarly, "everyone gets access", in reality, is very tricky. For instance you could claim, and be mostly right, that everyone gets access to computers (via public libraries etc). Yet, not everyone gets access to training in effective computer use - that is reserved for "some people get access", where the rules are 'has enough money for proper training' (aka defining access rules on how much is already in your "mine" resoures). It is a complicated interplay.

<comment><USER17> Whoops, let me unpack.

1) That 'merit' is based on genetic variation was purely for the sake of illustration. Of course this is not the case in reality. Yet to boil down the problem to where we artificially limit the factors can help expose the real issue. In Equalistan, the fictitious illustration, everyone showed up at 25 with no history or connections. They immediately took a test. The genetic variation is just to show that random mutations can produce very varied outcomes. In the real world, the situation is inconceivable worse. You have genetic ability, mentorship, poetical power, network connections, wealth, random physical events, etc, that all affect outcomes.

2) Although, again, the example given was purely artificial, it is not so clear that personal 'accountability' or 'responsibility' is something that someone can help. A person with a super-charged frontal cortex will be very 'accountable' or 'responsible' with their abilities. The knock-on effects of stewardship of traits are very much the cause of other traits, whether inherited genetically or contextually (via parents or social structures). But I might be missing what you're saying here.

3) Resource distribution, you're right, is not zero-sum. In fact, on an absolute basis, there is no reason why anyone should ever write an article about injustice of outcomes given that overall standards of living are unbelievable high for people at large, and relative to past ages, although still very far form optimal. But this isn't the point of the article. Relative distribution of resources is the issue. But here 'resources' isn't necessarily physical things, it's anything limited. Power is zero sum, no matter what, and is still a resource to be distributed.

4) Yes, 'deserves' is fully-loaded, and that was the point of mentioning it. We somehow, for some bizarre reason feel that some people 'deserve' things and others do not and we should try to make sure people only have what they 'deserve'. But, you're right, this is nuts, at what point could we possible say that someone can really claim they did something independent of chance to have some moral justification to some resource, power or otherwise? Never. If you are hardworking--how can you separate that from genes plus context. If you are smart, how are you anything other than your inborn ability plus instruction. So I'm not saying some people don't deserve stuff, I'm saying this _whole notion_ of deserving anything is ridiculous. Justification of outcomes as anything other than randomness is just what elitism _is_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This article isn't really about railing against meritocracy so much as it is about promoting equality of opportunity. I ended up agreeing with much of it, but based on the title I sure didn't expect to.

</comment><comment><USER19> _"Using one-generation measures of social mobility—how much a father's relative income influences that of his adult son—America does half as well as Nordic countries, and about the same as Britain and Italy, Europe's least- mobile places."_

Good, because _of course_ I would want my income to influence that of my children. Yes, yes, I would want them to work hard and be curious and chart their own path, etc., but because I'm their _father_ I'm going to try and stack the deck in their favor as high as I can possibly stack it.

And let's not kid ourselves - everybody who cares about their children, no matter what their political inclination or relative level of wealth, tries to do exactly the same thing. From the hedge-fund billionaire to the immigrant janitor.

<comment><USER20> I don't think anyone thinks that it's wrong to try and give your children a better position in life than they would be able to achieve through their ability alone, just that it's beneficial to society as a whole to minimize this effect. Prisoner's dilemma and all that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Most of the arguments over our meritocracy come down to a matter of semantics. People seem to have wildly different definitions of a meritocracy. If you define (as I do) a meritocracy as a society in which power is given according to ability, then a society in which there are educational disadvantages for the poor is nonetheless still a meritocracy, albeit an educationally-unequal meritocracy. A society can be both a meritocracy and have poor social mobility. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive (though in some cases they can be).

Yes, it is true that today's society is by no means a pure meritocracy. Connections matter. That is unlikely to ever change. The problem of "who you know matters" is a problem of information - people would rather hire a slightly-below-competent friend than a supposedly-competent stranger because their friend is a known quantity.

</comment><comment><USER22> There are two parts to both "merit" and "cracy". Merit can be thought of as your abilities and talents or as your willingness to work hard. "Kratein" means to rule (i.e. have responsibilities, make decisions), but in this context it's often seen as earning money (i.e. having a comfortable life style).

I would say that in an ideal meritocracy, the people with the most knowledge, abilities and intelligence should be the ones making the decisions and carrying the responsibilities. The willingness to work hard, however, should determine income, luxury and comfort.

The problem, of course, is that the powerful usually try to make themselves and their friends wealthy, but maybe this separation of the idea of meritocracy into (knowledge/ability = power/decisions) and (hard work = wealth/comfort) is what we as a society should strife for.

Thoughts?

<comment> shawn-butler I would consider spending some time with Plato's Socratic dialogue The Republic if you haven't already.

The tension of a timocracy devolving into an oligarchy depends greatly on the concept of justice in play at the time. I often hear in the valley "work hard, play hard" as a justification of oligarchic excess, when it should actually be "work hard, work harder" or "work hard, play less".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is really strange in my opinion. We should make it harder for rich children to get a good eduction and easier for poor children? Really? Why not make it harder for bright students to get good grades and easy for dumb students to get good grades? That would lead to greater "equality" too.

<comment><USER24> The fact that someone on a site like hacker news (which I like consider are on the more intelligent side) would make a comparison like this, deeply disturbs me. We clearly have fundamentally different world views. (edit: I don't want this to sound like davidirch shouldn't have that opinion, just that it's easy to assume people will share your opinion)

I don't understand how you can be against what seems to be a completely reasonable proposition to me, that everyone should get a fair chance, regardless of where they start from.

I don't see any of this as making it harder for rich children to get a good education, except to remove situations where they currently have an (in my opinion) unfair advantage, like expensive tutoring aimed towards helping them pass exams, which is not available to many.

In fact, the precise aim here is to help bright students get good grades, and dumb ones get bad grades, which is the exact opposite of the comparison you seem to be making!

<comment><USER23> 1\. Tutoring does not make a dumb person smart. Your IQ does not grow because you have a good teacher.

2\. Complaining about people not having a fair chance in an age where everybody has access to the internet (which is pretty much all human knowledge) is just wrong.

3\. You don't need college to rise to the top - that's just a myth (check out Thiel Fellowship website, they have lot's of materials on this topic).

4\. The fact that you don't agree with someone doesn't mean they lack intelligence.

<comment><USER25> 2\. How many students aged 6-12 do you know that are willing to voluntarily spend time learning and studying? Zero?

Don't kid yourself. Just because knowledge and information is out there and accessible for free doesn't mean a child will have the ability and motivation to seek it out on their own. They're children, after all. What and how they learn will largely depend on parents and school.

3\. You don't need a plane to get from New York to London. There are ships. You can even sail across the Atlantic! (there must be a fancy Latin term for this fallacy?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> While this article makes many good points:

"The other great unfairness has to do with the preferences that elite American universities give to well-connected children, either because their parents went to the university themselves or because they have given money."

"An educational institution should focus on attracting the best people, and then work out how to finance the poorer people in that category."

====

Legacy admissions usually come with legacy donations. These donations can be in the millions each year for an organization like Harvard, which in turn pays the tuition of the poorer people in the category.

The issues of legacy admissions and affirmative action are pretty closely linked. So to address one part of the issue without looking at the other is not quite fair.

</comment><comment><USER27> The premise of the article is faulty, and the problem overstated.

First, the author has to sleight-of-hand his way into his argument. He's worried that the "elite" will use their money to ensure that their children get such a leg-up on the non-elite children that the non-elite children won't be able to compete and will become (I guess?) the modern equivalent of feudal peasants. Of course, he doesn't present any evidence that this is happening. He states that "the top 1% have seen their incomes soar", but this isn't a statement of a problem.[1]

While it seems intuitive that privileged children will do better than non- privileged children, and even that a cadre of privileged children could keep the non-privileged children non-privileged for eternity, this just doesn't jibe with reality.

For example, across just three generations, the complete loss of inherited wealth is nearly 90%. That means the great-grand children of nearly every founder who had a big exit will never see any of that money. (Note that this same argument is often made with respect to corporations as a basis for stringent anti-trust regulation. But, pick any 50 year increment of the DJIA and see how many companies on the list in the starting year were on the list at the end.) The "problem" of perpetual wealth a specter.

Sure, you can point to the Rothschilds as an example of dynastic wealth. But (conspiracy theories aside) how many "wealthy" Rothschilds are there? Do they wield any real power? What about some of the other richest people in history? If dynastic wealth is a true problem, why aren't the Hugheses, the Gettys, the Rockafeller's the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Mellons, and the Fords dominating world politics, finance or culture? (Interesting aside: many of these titans were actually dirt poor themselves before building their own fortunes.)

It's easy to take a small, 30-year slice of history and claim that, if things continue this way, surely the world will be hell in just a few more short years. Fortunately, it almost never works out that way.

[1] See pg's article re "money is not wealth" here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>)

</comment><comment><USER28> My first thought on the subject, as someone writing a history book on part of China's borderlands was the (still-current) ancient Confucian government- meritocracy's simple anti-entrenchment practice of forcibly posting leaders to areas in which they were neither native nor had family, and shifting them periodically. To this day, it's how China continues to operate. Totally effective? No. But pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER9> So I love this topic. This is a big deal now, and looking at trends in demography, incomes, and wealth, it's going to be a yet bigger deal for many years to come. But is there something that can be done? Is there a tech/business solution that helps alleviate the mutual exclusive quality that bingobangobongo mentions? If you could crack that, you could probably be make a big impact for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER29> This article seems to misunderstand the definition of merit as something related to education or money. In a true meritocracy your standing is based on your value to others. If you do valuable work, the market rewards you. If not, then not. In capitalism, the market decides what is valuable; it seems to be pretty efficient at it.

</comment><comment><USER30> As long as money and power give a leg up to the dumber children of smart people, it's not really a meritocracy.

Exhibit A: George W. Bush

<comment><USER16> Was HW notably smarter? W wasn't an academic, but that is diffferent from dumb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> From other comment threads, I've come up with "A Modest Proposal" of my own, largely derived from Aldous Huxley. I can eliminate all contradiction of "meritocracy entrenching itself."

Meritocracies tend to lose their purity due to our propensity for passing on advantages to our friends and relatives. Over time, this yields something less like a meritocracy and more like aristocracy -- though it will perniciously continue to identify as a "meritocracy." Eventually, the contractions give rise to social upheaval. This is generally chaotic and bad, but the good news is that we can now have both the technology and social engineering know-how completely prevent this.

Simply engineer humans and human society such that the ruling classes really are smarter, fitter, and in every way superior to the lower classes. Relocate sources of fresh, nutritious food to big box stores in newly developed neighborhoods only accessible by car. Re-price food generally, such that once normal essentials like fresh produce are now luxury items. Furthermore, use subsidies to flood the market with empty calories in the form of synthetic starch, fat, and sugar, making it a concerted effort and additional expense over market norms to afford nutritious food conducive to intellectual development. (Not to mention subtle and complex gustatory stimulation.) In fact, make it economically advantageous in the short term for a household to buy food that makes its members sicker, fatter, and stupider. Use the media and market forces, such that companies are motivated by higher margins to aggressively market food -- both that of poorer quality to the less affluent and that of higher quality to the more affluent -- so that market forces directly reinforce the goals of the program, greatly leveraging (by orders of magnitude) the government subsidy of raw ingredients with private money.

While doing this, flood the media with trash, to cut off lower classes from excessive intellectual stimulation. Promulgate an ideology that attaches attractiveness and desirability with anti-intellectual attitudes, with the goal of raising the value of subconscious and tribal signaling over actual intellectual accomplishment. Close libraries, eliminating them as a source of unregulated intellectual stimulation. Also put additional pressure on the remaining libraries as locations for ad-hoc social work by eliminating funding for alternative places for underclass adults and children. Grant de-facto (but deniable) media monopolies to create market forces conducive to more trash content produced for the biggest audience at the lowest cost while discouraging the production of competing intellectually stimulating content. Certainly suppress, where it is possible to do so deniably, any media which is not subject to the above market forces. (Public radio and television, for example.)

Also recognize that such a program will succeed in suppressing a large proportion of the population, but additional measures will be needed to suppress the excess population of dangerous intellectually competent persons which will still crop up. Again, market forces can be leveraged with the aid of the right societal manipulations. Push a "nerd-culture" which is misunderstood by (and therefore isolated from) the mainstream, but which (outwardly) welcomes intellectuals. Manipulate this nerd culture, such that its population either largely discounts politics, or is attracted to fringe politics of no consequence. Also attach "coolness" in this segment of the populace with obsessive attention to technical and otherwise misunderstood esoteric pursuits which take up time and energy and act to distance this group from the mainstream. Realize also, that such persons are economically valuable, and further harness their economic potential by promulgating workaholic tendencies in the form of a "work hard, play hard" ideology. Create a norm of long hours, and provide on-site facilities to encourage this. Also promulgate the idea of "side projects" with the idea that the only worthy programmers are passionate enough to have such, and so create social pressures to dissipate yet more time and energy. Market forces can again be harnessed through the mechanism of a "startup scene" which keeps the youngest and most energetic intellectuals working long hours. Synergistic to such a scene and to the overall meritocratic ideology, also establish a nerd underclass sharing the same outward cultural trappings, but stuck in underpaid dead-end jobs or overpaid corporate dead-end jobs.

Note also that the promulgation of a nerd underclass means that many of the nerd/mainstream bifurcation strategies can also be applied within the nerd segment itself, further increasing the control of dangerous excess intelligence. Do this by also promulgating anti-intellectual attitudes within the nerd segment itself. Glorify the unquestioned parroting of memes from certain nodes on the Internet as indicators of cleverness and coolness. For whichever segment of the nerd populace that will buy it, place greater status to faster access to such memes over true skepticism and creativity. Also promulgate ideologies which elevate unquestioned ridicule as a kind of magical ultimate good, so long as it's funny, and which are easily applicable to suppressing complex and controversial topics through noise. Similar effects can be attained with the notion of the intellectual transcendence erroneously placed on a hazy notion of "irony," thereby causing susceptible persons to insulate themselves from reality and issues of social consequence in a bubble of their own smugness.

By throwing up so many dietary and socially engineered cultural barriers/traps working against actual personal development, the overall effect will be twofold. On one hand, the moneyed elites will have the resources to easily escape and side-step most of these traps, resulting in their population actually being largely superior, thereby placing the truth on their side. On the other hand, any individuals who manage to escape all of the above traps are likely to be superior individuals as well, making it easy for the existing elite to co-opt their talents, additionally bolstering the truth of the meritocratic ideology.

I think I have shown that the above scheme is not only extremely robust, but possesses other striking beneficial qualities, some of which may be unprecedented in human history. The scheme can be thought of as a disguised aristocracy which maintains the trappings of meritocracy through the use of numerous disguised and subliminal barriers to personal and intellectual advancement. Most uncontrolled intellectual and personal advancement is handily suppressed, and the remaining advancement is channeled in ways which produce considerable economic gain for the good of society as a whole. For the proportion of the population for which these barriers to personal advancement fail, absorption into the elite diffuses any potential for social upheaval while bolstering the power of the elite and its strength within its stated meritocratic ideology. In particular, this scheme has considerable advantages over a naive meritocracy, in that it successfully suppresses most social mobility while avoiding the ideological and actual contradictions that arise in following generations. By deliberately but deniably engineering the actual inferiority of the lower classes, ideological contradictions are eliminated. In this way, it's "the best of both worlds" -- achieving the social stability of aristocracy while avoiding its long term diffusion of talent and sustaining the ideological cover of "meritocracy" indefinitely. I hope the "merits" of such a system are self evident, and that such a system is adopted by our society in the near future.

(Addendum - This system is not without flaws. For one thing, it can be easily distinguished from a true meritocracy from its lack of social mobility. However, dissent resulting from this information can be readily suppressed by the same mechanisms outlined above.)

</comment><comment><USER31> Every elite in history has called itself a "meritocracy". Who defines "merit"? The elite. They will always look out for themselves in doing so.

If anything, the "dumb", brutal aristocracy of medieval Europe had more of a claim of innate superiority ("merit") than the current elite. Because of superior nutrition and better working conditions, they were half a foot taller, probably 20 IQ points smarter, and overall more physically, aesthetically, and intellectually fit than the peasants.

If you're "in the know" about these sorts of things, you realize that raw intelligence isn't what's valued by our society. It's still about connections. More specifically, it's about adopting the behavioral patterns and attitudes of well-connected people.

What we actually have in the US is some degree of social mobility within the middle class. The parasitic upper class is still a problem, and resistant to improvement. The lower class (which is about half) is still screwed. But it's relatively easy to move from the 50th percentile to the 95th percentile either through unusual talent or extreme sacrifice.

<comment><USER32> Also: merit is not one-dimensional. Which merit is being measured? Merit at what?

I've noted for a while that a significant fraction of those successful in business, especially in certain sectors, are basically glorified street hustlers. They're very good at rapidly building social networks, smoke and mirrors, and shell games that create the illusion of value. The game they play could be called "lie, leverage, flip."

Is this the merit that we want?

I would argue that all societies are meritocracies for some value of "merit." Defining merit in any objective sense is not easy. In fact, it's probably capital-H Hard and reduces to the same effectively-infinite-dimensional search problem solved by evolution itself.

I think meritocracy is a great example of a simple idea that is incredibly appealing but wrong in a way that creates pathologies. Economics and biology are just chock full of that stuff.

<comment><USER33> _I've noted for a while that a significant fraction of those successful in business, especially in certain sectors, are basically glorified street hustlers._

Exactly. The Economist article lost me at the point where it said this:

 _The top 1% have seen their incomes soar because of the premium that a globalised high-tech economy places on brainy people._

No, the top 1% have seen their incomes soar because they have been allowed to game the system in order to siphon wealth from other people's pockets into their own. Exhibit A: Wall Street investment banks.

<comment><USER34> The top level comment mentioned extreme sacrifice as a way to move to the 95th percentile. I argue that investment bankers also make extreme sacrifice to stay where they are, in the form of 80 hour weeks, horrible family life, etc.

Anger and jealousy toward the "1%" is a dangerous road for a country to go down. Besides, without investment banks and private equity firms, an essential part of the economy -- namely, buying and selling companies -- would be missing and we would be worse off.

The place where you should direct your ire is toward corrupt government policymakers who allow corporate interests to override the basis of our civil society, which is equal protection under the law. Corporations do not want free markets; they want government-sponsored monopolies. We the people should hold our government responsible for succumbing to corporate special interests instead of blaming the companies once they are granted such privilege.

<comment><USER35> You cannot simply blame the government policymakers. Civil servants make the policies based on Congressional direction. Congress develops laws due to public pressure which is often led by lobby efforts. Who funds the the lobbyists?

The entire society is guilty for the current state of economic affairs as civil servants don't stand up to Congress, Congress wants to get re-elected, the public is easily distracted, and the 1% or .001% fund the lobbies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> When I first read the title I thought this would be an article about governments impeding meritocracy not a screed against it. I guess we are running out of problems if meritocracy is one. Lots of immigrants come here work hard and are very successful. Virtually anyone willing to work hard will succeed but people have different priorities. As for always comparing the US to Nordic countries, if you compare them to Massachusetts they look bad, if you compare them to California they look insignificant and then of course there is the rest of the country.

<comment><USER37> Meritocracy is not a problem with government, it is the solution. This badmouthing of Meritocracy is a way for the ones who are in power but don't deserve to be there as a way of maintaining that power.

On the other hand, if you make it too easy for a young person to climb the ladder (working like a dog), than what's the point of getting to the top? There are no benefits to being there except you will be living a life with more hours at the office than ever before. The reason people work to climb the latter is because there is a reward where you can work less and tell others what to do, and they can't dethrone you.

Remove that reward, and you may find a population regarding climbing the career latter as foolishness. Why would you want to take on a second job, for no extra pay, where the workload increases exponentially with the new upstarts out of college, and the right to take it easy is gone. Like a second job at McDonalds, the moment you take it easy, you are replaced. Why strive to get that?

<comment><USER11> Merit == effort? I don't think so.

<comment><USER29> Merit == Value to others. Most of the time, that will require effort though.

<comment><USER11> Effort is a multiplier. It's not a term. That's why "merit == effort" is a very bad idea without more elaboration. As mentioned in the recent Bitcoin thread, getting 1000 people together to dig a hole is costly, but not necessarily that valuable. The real trick is, exactly which hole, where and when. Depending on those factors, the hole could literally be worth nothing or worth millions.

All things being equal, effort can well be a deciding multiplier, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Good academic training/education used to be inaccessible to the poor. This is no longer true. The internet is busy changing all of that. Home schooling at any level has now become feasible. The difference that remains, however, is the difference in outcome for children due to family breakdown. That has, however, nothing to do with income, and everything with the views on marriage with which the person was educated. To the extent that keeping children away from the often rampant depravity prevalent in the government-run education system will preserve their home-instilled views on marriage, NOT expanding the school system will contribute to improving the outcome for the demographic that has less trouble with marriage breakdown and other social ills. In my opinion, it is about time to remove the control of the depravity-encouraging politicians from anything related to education.</comment>


Nordstrom installs Kinect interactive window display - <AUTHOR> http://dock-of-bay.blogspot.com/2011/04/nordstrom-installs-kinect-interactive.html <comment><USER2> Interesting concept, but I call BS on the cursive handwriting they showed in the video. Practically no one writes that nice with a pen, and they've got people writing like that with their hands in the air?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the password management tool you are using at your startup? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A combination of pass (or QtPass) to securely manage credential files from multi-platform desktop systems, Password Store for Android to securely manage credential files from a smartphone, Dropbox for multi-platform access to the credential files, two redundant YubiKey 4's with a USB OTG adapter (or YubiKey NEO's for NFC access) to securely store your OpenPGP private keys, and OpenKeychain for Android to manage your OpenPGP public keys and securely utilize the OpenPGP private keys on your YubiKeys. This is relatively inexpensive at ~$80 per user with no hardware expiry or recurring costs other than support. It works best with a tech-savvy user base. Otherwise, training and adoption may be a nightmare and not worth your time.

</comment><comment><USER3> We're using 1Password. Sharing various passwords, documents, and licenses between different groups is built-in, so it works well for our needs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Both Okta and 1Password are officially supported tools at Buffer

</comment><comment><USER5> to piggyback on this question, does anyone use passbolt [0]? I am considering giving it a look and wanted to know if anyone has experience with it, good or bad.

[0] [https://www.passbolt.com/](https://www.passbolt.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> We found Okta to be pretty decent.</comment>


Ask HN: Is the Signup Captcha to hard? - <AUTHOR>

I can't seem to do it right.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newslogin?whence=news <comment><USER2> VERY hard indeed. My friend tried to sign up and failed :)</comment>


Show HN: 8Yet? An iOS app to find lunch buddies - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1031452258?pt=117277253&ct=HackerNews&mt=8 <comment><USER2> Okay we're going to sit down and talk about the interface for this.

Tinder is a dating app, we judge quickly based on pictures and meet people solo. It's awkward but physical attraction is largely the criteria we judge love interests by. Currently it's effectively a dating app but we aren't encouraged to go outside of our comfort zones (new is interesting when it comes to dating). It's competing with tinder directly even if that's unintentional. Plus you are forced to meet people immediately one-on-one; some people never meet anyone they meet on tinder and are perfectly happy with that. Why bother with this when everyone else already uses Tinder? It just doesn't fill a niche.

But it feels like this app wants to solve a completely different problem: meeting people as friends in a casual manner. I think it would be much more successful as a sort of pick-up group deal (for a buffer against all that uncomfortable). Don't even bother showing people's faces until after they've joined the group, shopping for friends isn't as much about looks. Keep related interests, food they like and such. Maybe build in an icebreaker kind of question that displays below them. If you want to stick with the food thing, getting people little group deals at restaurants would be epic. Hell, it might be handy to have a friends only feature so I can plan food dates with my existing buds.

Edit: To differentiate from say meetups, limit group sizes and make it really easy to just have it be a thing you can say, I'm gonna do Chinese today here (or in some general area); come join me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with what you said in your second paragragh and the edit section 100%. That's almost exactly what I was planning to do next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why do I see one of these apps appear every month.

Are they solving a real problem ?

I find it weird you don't want to interact with someone enough to ask them to lunch, but then have to interact with them over lunch ...

<comment><USER4> > Are they solving a real problem ?

I think they are. There are a lot of people in big cities who don't have a lot of friends or don't have friends who match up on the same schedule, so it'd be nice to find someone else who wants to get a bite.

The only problem is that to solve the problem, any app needs to have a large userbase in the same areas.

> I find it weird you don't want to interact with someone enough to ask them > to lunch, but then have to interact with them over lunch ...

That's not the issue, though -- the issue is finding someone who's available in your area at the same time you are.

Edit to add:

> Why do I see one of these apps appear every month.

Because this is a problem that nobody's been able to solve in a dominatingly satisfactory way, yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> that's exactly my problem right now... finding enough users that are within foot distance

<comment><USER5> ...and on top of that, users who relish being rated and pre-judged by people looking at their photo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So many of these apps it's unreal. All have a similar idea. To meet new people. Honestly saying its for lunch doesn't really change anything. It's still meeting new people.

</comment><comment><USER7> A bit late, but I read somewhere that you can't order a single dish in Korean restaurants. If you're alone you have to order two minimum.

This could help?

</comment><comment><USER8> The fb requirement is a bummer.

<comment><USER9> Yep I deleted it the moment I saw that I couldn't sign up another way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Finally, an app to solve the considerable problem of world hunger.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nothing different to tinder really..</comment>


Harvard Team Loses to Debaters from New York Prison - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2015/10/07/446499529/harvard-team-loses-to-debaters-from-new-york-prison <comment><USER2> Out of curiosity was this a traditional debate or these[1][2] kinds of debates.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZeDq90Ar4k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZeDq90Ar4k)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmO- ziHU_D8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmO-ziHU_D8)</comment>


Ask HN: Should I sell my side project? - <AUTHOR>

Hello Everyone,
I'm currently in a very bad situation and I'm not sure what to do.  I thought maybe someone could help me find a solution.
About two months ago I got in touch with someone who wanted to pay me about 5 grands to develop a software client which gathers ingame statistics of a game called "League of Legends" and eventually hire me later for developing a website to present some of those statistics. ( there was no payment in advance )
After working about 4 weeks fulltime, almost around the clock, I finally developed a client which does all the magic the customer asked for.
Well the client was working but the customer wasn't a programmer, therefore he paid only half of it and wanted an additional evalutation period ( about 2 weeks ) just to be sure everything works fine.
4 weeks later he still didn't payed the rest and I really got pissed off  ( you know I really had to pay my bills and worked very hard to develop the client at a low price )
With those anger feelings I started to build my own statistics site ( www.lolstatistics.com ), it went Ok the first days but really took off within last 3 days. ( from 5k to 80k pageviews per day )
Okay now to my problems.
The guy who asked me to develop the software client responded finally
I showed him the website ( which just had 5k views at that time ) and he finally agreed to buy the site for 6 grands ( splitted into 3 rounds ) and pay the rest of the client
Now my pain is. I still haven't seen any money yet and he's already spamming on boards and communities to get "more" visitors.
I didn't gave him the site yet and he's already starting to ruin the sites reputation.
I also realized that I probably sold my first real successful site, underpriced
I worked hard on it, bootstrapped it out of nothing, I created the client, designed the website, did the marketing and took and still take all the risk  ( as the site may be shut down by the vendor of the game )
A platform architect from the vendor recently sended me also a email and wrote "I recently dropped by your awesome new site and it certainly looks great" and he wanted to talk with me with me.
So what should I do ?
Should I cancel the deal with the customer and take the risk to keep the site running on my own  ( I still need to pay my bills  )
or should I sell it and take the money for the website and maybe also some maintenance work ?
And what about the risk that Riot Games ( the vendor ) could take legal actions ?
Can someone give me an advice please ? <comment><AUTHOR> Riot Games just send us an email again, selling this product to someone who might spam around with this site,

is out of question now; especially after they contacted me directly and know me personally now.

Anyway thanks for putting my mind together.

</comment><comment><USER2> Your client sounds like an insensitive scumbag, and you sound like a pushover.

I suggest you squeeze hard for the money owed to you and tell him you're going to keep the site.

Is he going to like you? No. Will he at least have a shred of respect for you? Yes.

</comment><comment><USER3> First question, probably the most relevant: what do you have on paper?

<comment><AUTHOR> no contract; just an invoice and half of the payment for the client

Bests max

<comment><USER3> Well, the good news is you're pretty much free to run this yourself, slap some ads on it and bring in the bacon.

Bad news is: you're going to have a hard time collecting due from your client.</comment></comment></comment>


An overview of the parasitic plant Langsdorffia - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-08-overview-parasitic-langsdorffia.html <comment><USER2> >The researchers suggest the biology of the plant is so unique that it challenges the notion of plants and what they are. They conclude by suggesting Langsdorffia is unlike any other plant in existence, and because so very little is known about it, more work is required

But what is unique and different about it? Maybe it's my ignorance of biology but I feel the article didn't explain that. I mean, the article did describe the plant but not which of its characteristics are unique.

<comment><USER3> Only a casual acquaintance with parasitic plants, but the paper says

> All species of Langsdorffia are highly modified parasites comprising just a > series of tubers and inflorescences, and lack an ordinary stem structure and > all trace of functional apical meristems. The Balanophoraceae more broadly > feature a particularly complicated host-parasite vascular interface, in > which the parasitic tuber appears to engulf the host plant's roots the > vascular tissues of which infiltrate the parasite tissue extensively. > Interestingly, all Balanophoraceae appear to lack stomata entirely, which is > highly unusual in the plant kingdom beyond submerged aquatics.

Additionally, they can parasitize a wide range of hosts. Most parasites are very host specific.

Another interesting genus along similar lines is Pholisma, which is also not present in conservation collections and native to a very threatened environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reads like some of the plants are male and some female. I know most have male and female _parts_ , but is it common in the plant kingdom to have separate genders?

Edit: also S. America, Madagascar and Papua New Guinea is an incredibly wide but sparse distribution.

<comment><USER5> The topic to look into is dioecy. Most plants have individuals with both male and female reproductive organs, but there are exceptions. Also, it's worth noting that the terms "male" and "female" are used differently for plants than for animals.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> No leaves? Brings to mind private equity firms ... and other vampire squids.

</comment><comment><USER7> Learning that it's one of a kind and so unique makes me want to eat it and know how it tastes.

<comment><USER8> And that's why there are no dodos.

<comment><USER7> That's actually a common misconception, there's no evidence that they were eaten to extinction and there is some evidence that suggests early settlers thought they weren't worth eating because they aren't tasty.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: what makes Node.js hip? - <AUTHOR>

When RoR became a big thing, I could pretty easily catch up with the events, even as an outsider. I was able to pin it down in one sentence: "RoR implements a popular pattern, MVC, in a language which makes it possible to do it with ease & dynamism at a level that was not seen before". It's a clear selling point, from that I could understand why people jump on the RoR bandwagon.
However, now Node.js seems to be the next big thing, and I'm just scratching my head. I have the respective one-sentence summary at hand -- "Node.js is an asynchronous event-based server side javascipt framework", but that does not let the bulbs go up in my head. "asynch event-based" in itself is not a novel thing, and I don't see why doing it in javascript takes it to the next level, or if not js is the big deal here, then what particular aspect makes it cooler than other similar beasts. (I have nothing against javascript, I just don't see the kind of advantage (over what?) which I could spot with Ruby vs. the
"standard" MVC language, Java.)
Can someone give a better compact summary which reveals the trick more aptly, or point out how the above cited one is a selling point, or explain it in a "What it fixes"[http://paulgraham.com/fix.html] style...
Or maybe there is no point in trying to make it into a silver bullet, it's just simply written well and marketed well? <comment><USER2> The only thing that makes node.js hip is people who call it hip.

Using node.js isn't about being hip or cool, or whatever else you want to call it. It's about solving a problem you have.

Personally node.js has solved a problem I was having with a recent project that needed a Comet server, and since node is all async I got this server up and running in a few minutes. I was never successful with Apache or Nginx.

I recommend taking a look at this Stackoverflow answer as it outlines the benefits of node.js: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1884724/what-is-node- js/1...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1884724/what-is-node- js/1902991#1902991)

Also I recommend watching Ryan's Introduction to node.js talk: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_B4LTHi3I>

</comment><comment><USER3> Back in the day I used this product called ZXTM which was written by Zeus. ZXTM was/is a layer 4/7 load balancer, with the ability to write control code in what felt like JavaScript, but wasn't. It was exceedingly frustrating to implement some use cases with it and hideously expensive, but I used it anyway because my app needed it.

With Node.js, I have pretty much all the functionality I had in ZXTM and more. Because I can write in JavaScript and have access to load balancer-like functionality inside the app, it gives me a ton of control. It's also free and there is a great amount of support and code coming in from the community which helps me get ideas off the ground faster.

The guys at Joyent have certainly done a GREAT job of making something that is stable, fast, easy to use, and enables easy adoption by the masses. If you want to call that marketing, then they've done a great job at it. I'd counter with their actual marketing materials around the product could be a bit better, but that will probably improve over time.

Hands down, it's my favorite programming framework.

</comment><comment><USER4> To paraphrase your own statement, Node makes it easy to develop an increasingly popular type of app, highly concurrent, scalable, realtime streaming applications, in a popular, widely used language, with ease at a level that has not seen before.

Really, its the same trajectory as Rails, but targeted at a different problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Node.js allows you to write code on the server in the same language you're already writing it on the client."

As for that, who cares what's hip, or cool? Node.js definitely isn't a silver bullet, and introduces its own set of problems. But while it has its ups and downs, simplifying your development methodology and shrinking your technology stack is generally a good thing.

Also, it enables people to write code on the server who only knew JavaScript before. I guess. I don't know how valid that is as a use case.

<comment><USER6> For my current project, a multiplayer game that runs in the browser, its essential to be able to run the same code on the server as in the client. This is how FPS games such as Unreal do it with C++.

Basically the game simulation needs to run on the server and be the authorative game state to distribute to the clients that does their own prediction of the game state.

To do this with Java or PHP on the server would mean to implement the game simulation twice.

Keeping in mind that social network sites, etc resembles multiplayer games more and more (realtime feedback etc), node.js really helps out here.</comment></comment>


Morphdom – fast and lightweight DOM diffing/patching (without the virtual part) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/patrick-steele-idem/morphdom <comment><USER2> The usual problem with this kind of thing is actually events. The modifications may, or may not, add elements that need listeners attached to them. It looks like as this is now, after any update you'd have to query all such elements and see if they need a listener attached.

React has its own "Event System" to try to deal with that issue.

<comment><USER3> Using event delegation makes that a non issue.

<comment><USER2> Sort of. You'd have to listen at the top level of wherever you're using this, so you'll have to write your own mini event library to figure out which component got clicked on, and grab any associated data.</comment></comment></comment>


Multiplayer Snake Game built in Node and GoInstant - <AUTHOR> http://piwh1000.github.io/GoSnake/

<comment><USER2> Do other guest players automatically join the game? I played alone for about 2 minutes with nobody joining. I see that I can invite a friend.

Bug: Pressing two direction keys simultaneously almost always allows me to 'double back' on the same path, essentially pulling a 180. Try it: When traveling to the right, press DOWN and LEFT simultaneously, and your snake turns around without crashing into itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> My high score is 31 - beat that!</comment>


Too easy to get down-voted in comments - <AUTHOR> A problem with commenting on this site is that it is too easy to get down-voted if people disagree or you are wrong. The assumption is, the up-votes from agreement will cancel out the down-votes from disagreement, but there is still negative Brownian drift. The reason is, people are psychologically more inclined to act on things they oppose than agree with. Someone who gets a bad product on Amazon is more likely to leave a negative review than leave a positive review if they are satisfied. There are so many times where people may want to comment on something but fear getting a barrage of down-votes. One solution  I have thought of to counteract the negative drift to to only assign a 1/2 - 3/4 point karma deduction from down-votes. <comment><USER2> It is absolutely the case that I have chosen to not offer a comment for fear of protecting my precious internet points.

I'm not sure that this the way a healthy discussion should work. I feel that people with opposing views should be allowed to conduct civil debate without either side being vote-bombed for wrong-think.

It seems really odd that one could lose privileges to participate in this forum for having posted a civil yet unpopular (with some faction) comment. Particularly when the same comment offered as a new post would (could?) not result in the same punishment. Unless of course posts can also be downvoted and I just lack the rep to see that option.

<comment><USER3> Does it help to remember the points are made up and have no value?

<comment><USER2> I realize that the points are rather arbitrary, but they can have value particularly for newer users and user who may not have contributed much.

For example, the ability to downvote happens at around 500-ish rep, so users in that point range might potentially see their privileges come and go based on comment down and up votes. While users with more than 4k rep like yourself might never see a change in permissions.

In the end, I accept the rules and workings of this site and gladly participate.

Without focusing on point hoarding (as you say that becomes arbitrary and ultimately meaningless), I think that potentially removing someones privileges with respect to this site should they fall in a critical point range and comment something about OSS that a vocal group on this site disagrees with seems wrong to me.

I think Hacker News participation and the community should be able to have a healthy debate/exchange on tech issues without needing to worry about "points" in any capacity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> hn has one of the highest Signal to Noise ratios on the internet. The fact that we have to put up with occasional dings on downvotes, is made up by the great good of reduced time spent on the site wading through bad information, and trolling comments. The fact that the whole thing is run without ads is the really amazing factor here.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a community, it's susceptible to community effects.

You can say what you want (within community standards), but that doesn't mean you can say what you want without reaction from the community.

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22794857](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22794857)</comment>


A Battle Plan for a War on Rare Diseases: Conversation with Matt Might - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/health/matthew-might-rare-diseases.html <comment><USER2> This has a touching backstory on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8050106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8050106)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4038113](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4038113)

I didn't realize that he had switched fields and moved. That info is here:

[https://www.uab.edu/medicine/news/latest/item/1411-white- hou...](https://www.uab.edu/medicine/news/latest/item/1411-white-house- strategist-to-lead-uab-s-personalized-medicine-institute)

and [http://www.pl-enthusiast.net/2016/03/24/interview-matt- might...](http://www.pl-enthusiast.net/2016/03/24/interview-matt-might/), via [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11366150](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11366150)

</comment><comment><USER3> Matt Might (the subject of this article) gave a jaw-dropping talk a year ago, named "Winning the War on Error - Solving the Halting Problem and Curing Cancer" [1]. At least you can't blame him for the lack of ambition! But the best part is he's really getting it done. His security research led to developing very successful static analysis tools that exposed security bugs in real code. And he did manage to find a treatment for his own son's rare genetic disorder.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdmQUlD7P40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdmQUlD7P40)

<comment><USER4> Off topic, but he also gave a great talk on parsing with derivatives [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzsK8Am6dKU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzsK8Am6dKU) which was used by the clojure team [https://paperswelove.org/2016/video/david- nolen-parsing-with...](https://paperswelove.org/2016/video/david-nolen- parsing-with-derivatives/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rare family diseases tend to be genetic diseases with a relatively simple genetic cause that can be found by comparing family members.

This article is about treating rare diseases, but there is a simpler way - having identified the genes for the disease, we could screen for them, and then advise people carrying them to reproduce only via selective IVF. That way, the next generation of that family can be free of carriers, eliminating the disease in the long term even if a treatment isn't found. (This is not an either or with finding a treatment)

The above approach is much cheaper, effective, but raises important moral questions we need to think hard about. At what point does a disease become bad enough that it needs to be excluded like this? Slippery slope, etc.

<comment><USER6> Perspective from a US physician:

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (or PGD, what you described as 'selective IVF') is not cheap. It costs upwards of US$100,000 and no commercial or government insurance will cover it.

Genetic screening is also not cheap. An exome (essentially looks at all ~22,000 _known_ exons, or the genes that directly contribute to protein formation) costs US$6,000 - $8,000 and most insurances will fight tooth and nail not to have to cover it even when it is ordered by a geneticist. You might think "but there are much cheaper genetic tests besides an exome" which is true, but remember we are talking about rare diseases. Exome testing is still imperfect but it is essentially the only realistic option if your goal is to rule out as many known genetic diseases as possible, or if you know there is a high pretest probability of a genetic disease but less exhaustive testing was negative or inconclusive.

Actually, current PGD doesn't use exome testing but much more selective testing often based on the parents. One technique is FISH which can essentially only tell you if there are any "large" genetic abnormalities, like (micro-) duplications or deletions, which are large relative to, say, a point mutation. As an example, FISH testing would not reveal cystic fibrosis. The other is PCR, which is currently the technological limit for PGD testing because of the small number of cells and minimal amount of genetic material available for testing. There are several PCR assays available for _specific conditions_ in the setting of PGD, which is where the parents fit in. We will probably see more and more assays becoming available, but it is unlikely that anything resembling an exome will be feasible for PGD in the foreseeable future.

Disclaimer: I am not a geneticist or reproductive specialist. If you can find sources by physicians in these fields, I would defer to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > he's begun to create a road map for other families facing rare diseases — as > much as 10 percent of the population, or 30 million Americans.

10% of our families are effected by "rare" diseases.

September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month: 100% of Pediatric Cancer is classified as "rare." It is used to give so little in research and most money is used to help the families financially. 4% of the US Cancer Grant is allocated to Pediatric Cancer research.

      Lost a sister at 15 to brain cancer and a son at 12 to bone cancer. The worst thing to do is to call it rare. How many thousands didn't start school this year? How many thousands of families have lost

<comment><USER8> Well it is rare, though. More kids are killed by automobiles than die of pediatric cancer.

That doesn't make it any easier for those families dealing with pediatric cancer. But it is rare, and if your goal is saving the most lives with a limited amount of money, there is lower-hanging fruit.

<comment><USER9> I really appreciate level-headed moralism like this. Many of our problems today are because we get painted into corners by people making emotional arguments and winning because the other side is unwilling to appear uncaring in the implied false dichotomy.

<comment><USER7> Forget that. How is that a win. I make a statement and then he can say only a few thousands kids die so tough. Sure I'm emotional but I can give some good reasons why Pediatric Cancer Research needs more funding.

Pediatric Cancer went over 20 years without a single chemo? How is that reasonable? [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/our- dispr...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/our- disproportionate-focus-on-adult-over-pediatric-cancer-research/266684/)

1) Pediatric Cancer Treatments are beneficial to adult cancers. They have less side effects and are usually more effective due to the fact that children's bodies and cells are all growing. Most adult treatments are too harsh and attack all the cells.

2) Treat a 60 year old smoker for lung cancer and you gain maybe 10 years. Treat a 10 year old and you have 60+ years saved. Most adults get cancer because of poor life choices.

3) Save your own life as a full grown adult or save a child. MOST of us would choice to save the kid. [https://phys.org/news/2014-08-driverless-car-child- life.html](https://phys.org/news/2014-08-driverless-car-child-life.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> These rare diseases are interesting in their utility. Previously one would think ignore them budgetwise - not out of callousness but because of compassion for others affected by more common diseases. However their oddball effects also boost understanding of otherwise obscure effects. Sonic hedgehog was named for the protein shape - and then it turned out defects in the linked gene can lead to horrifying birth defects and well SHH is a less frivolous term for it.

<comment><USER11> "Sonic hedgehog was named for the protein shape"

FWIW, Shh was named for the phenotype in Drosophila. It makes their bristles spiky.

I can't find a pic of Shh off the top of my head, but here's a gene with a similar phenotype in flies: [https://twitter.com/kirkmmaxey/status/577886323912015872](https://twitter.com/kirkmmaxey/status/577886323912015872)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I appreciate the intensity and urgency of this attempt, but surely there is a way to frame the work without resorting to militaristic metaphors. Surely there are other forms of expressing an effort than "the war on ..."?

<comment><USER13> If there's one thing worth waging war on, I think it's all these diseases since they have a "common enemy" position against mankind as a whole.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I worked with Matt at the US Digital Service. Amazing stand up guy!

</comment><comment><USER15> Dr. Matt Might is one of the few people that I remember from high school [0]. He's the only one from that school whom I've communicated with post- graduation. [edit: one other, actually...]

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11366288](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11366288)

I think it important to put medicine's lack of progress in adequately treating many conditions in context, and only consider genetic factors as one consideration in the web of causality. Too often doctors make a diagnosis and treat the diagnosis. Much more work needs to be made in respecting the complexity of even the simplest of diagnoses.

Consider the simple ear infection. Sometimes children have regular ear infections, but these usually go away as the person grows up. I started having chronic ear infections in college, well after the usual age that one experiences chronic ear infections. The prescribed antibiotics took care of the problem for a few weeks before the infection returned. After a year of this I figured out how to take care of my ears myself with non-prescription interventions, and after maybe 6 years I figured out how to treat the causes behind my ears' poor drainage.

The GQ story "Sperm Count Zero" was recently discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942744](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17942744)

GQ didn't really drill down into the causes behind the male population's shrinking sperm counts, because the experts themselves aren't at all sure about the causes behind the symptom. While the causes of an individual man's low sperm count are unique in every case, it is a combination of factors that causes our society's shrinking sperm counts. The causes that I suspect include evolutionary-inappropriate modifications to our diet, mass exposure to endocrine disruptors (xeno-estrogens), etc. The Mayo Clinic's page about this condition [1] shows there's a few known simple causes for a man's low sperm count, but there is no effort to put society's condition in context.

[1] [https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/low-sperm- cou...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/low-sperm- count/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20374591)

Women are having similar responses to the causes behind men's shrinking sperm counts. Because women are supposed to release one egg a month rather than millions, their condition gets a label (PCOS/Endometriosis/anovulation/etc) and standardized treatments. Women are often subjected to palliative treatments for their diagnosis -- frequently this is some form of birth control. While some women find their condition to be helped with these prescriptions, medicine has failed to 'cure' their problem. They've just shut down the symptoms enough to make the patient's life a little more tolerable.

Sometimes women think they have "polycystic ovaries" [PCOS] because their mother had symptoms of polycystic ovaries, and think their own condition "must" be genetic. But habits get passed down too, and "stress" is a major factor in many women's conditions. Poverty is not genetic, but it usually gets passed down with all the other habits we learn from our parents.

Treating a woman's diagnosis of PCOS with birth control is using hormone analogues to suppress the normal functioning of the reproductive system. The use of these drugs for PCOS is a 'palliative' rather than 'curative' treatment.

There are certainly 'rare diseases' with genetic causes, but an effort also needs to be made to clear obsolete and harmful treatments from medicine's tool chest. Sometimes "war" is appropriate, but war can also be prevented with good diplomacy.

<comment><USER10> By definition obsolete treatments get removed only when something better comes along or it is proven lack of treatment leads to better outcomes. The least aggressive forms of prostate cancer defy conventional wisdom and are left untreated - putting aside quality of life treating it is more likely to kill the patient who would probably die of something else before it becomes a problem.

The place of doctors is to treat with today's proven means - experimenting is usually left to researchers unless there is little to lose. Medicine is a conservative field in the roll out. Given how many "advances" of newly discovered aspects don't work quite as expected like megadosing antioxidants it is pretty prudent.</comment></comment>


Lamar Smith trying to quietly revive SOPA - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2012/07/10/sopa-is-back-lamar-smith-tryi.html

<comment><USER2> Pedantic --

This link to boingboing is a re-post of techdirt [1] who did the research after reading it on politico [2]

[1] [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120709/12574819634/lamar-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120709/12574819634/lamar- smith-looking-to-sneak-through-sopa-bits-pieces-starting-with-expanding- hollywoods-global-police-force.shtml)

[2] <http://www.politico.com/morningtech/0712/morningtech506.html>

<comment><USER3> And the full text of the bill: [http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/Markups%202012/PDF/Mark%...](http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/Markups%202012/PDF/Mark%2007102012/SMITTX_084_xml.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I read this bill earlier today, and it most certainly is NOT an attempt to "revive SOPA." Both BoingBoing and TechDirt sensationalize what this is.

Rep. Smith's new bill is basically an agency shuffle of the already- established IP attache program, which is currently under the US Patent and Trademark office. Smith's bill would move this office to the Department of Commerce, and turn it into a full agency. That likely means beefing up efforts to expand the promotion of US IP laws around the world. But it is not even close to establishing DNS blocking, or any of the other truly problematic parts of SOPA.

</comment><comment><USER5> This was my prediction [1] back around the time that SOPA died. Not that it isn't obvious or anything.

All the pieces of SOPA/PIPA/whatever will turn up somewhere. They know they can't cram the whole thing through at once, so it's fairly likely that the bits will just turn up in other bills -- I can see last-minute amendments to big spending bills as a great way to get this stuff pushed through before there can be much outcry. Once they're passed, they'll be _really_ hard to undo.

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3884959>

<comment><USER6> It's almost impossible to undo them later, because people care a lot less for some reason, after it's already passed, and because even the new politicians that replaced the old ones won't bother to look into it.

Basically, we already have a "SOPA" that was passed in 2008. It's called the Pro-IP ACT, and they use it to take down hundreds of .com, .org or .net sites. SOPA was just the foreign version of Pro-IP Act, meaning it targeted foreign domains as well.

Still, you don't see many people talking about the Pro IP Act. Heck, we can't even undo the Patriot Act, and that one has been a lot more controversial, let alone "Internet bills" like these that don't interest that many people outside outside the online tech communities.

<comment><USER7> The Patriot Act didn't need to get 'undone.' It came with a time limit, and Congress has been basically hitting the snooze button every time it comes up for renewal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish we could vote this guy out of office. Unfortunately, with his big money backers, I doubt he'll be leaving anytime soon.

<comment><USER9> It might be kind of interesting to form an internet hit squad. Identify politicians we want voted out of office, and analyze their constituency and potential people to replace them, and then descend upon their district en masse to convince the voters to back someone else.

I don't know if it's feasible, but I think it would be interesting to at least see what it would take.

<comment><USER8> I would donate money to the "anti-Lamar-Smith" fund. Perhaps we could fund a couple billboards in his area.

Would be very nice as a way to send a clear message to other politicians stupid enough to pull these stunts.

<comment><USER6> It's been already done by <http://www.reddit.com/r/rpac>. They still lost. A couple of billboards are not enough to change the minds of the people who have been voting for him term after term. Plus, most probably weren't even aware of what he did/or didn't care.

<comment><USER3> >They still lost.

FWIW it was only the primary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Instead of encouraging folks write to their congressmen, let's write write to the constituents living in his district (Texas's 21st congressional district). Or better, let's crowd fund a campaign against him there. Congress needs a good example of what happens if the internet gets crossed.

I'm just an idea guy.

<comment><USER11>
       When I first started getting involved with [grass roots
       politics], I didn't understand the concept of no leaders.
       I thought I did; but I didn't. And I'd go up to the
       nearest alpha male or alpha female and say, "Here's what
       you should do - Why don't you do this - It'd be great if
       you all did this - And when are you going to do this?"
       And they'd give you this look, that I never understood,
       which was kind of ...

       I think, "Weird". And I'd go up to the next alpha, "When
       are you going to do this - It'd be great if you did this
       - Why haven't you done this yet - Why don't you do this
       - It'd be wonderful if you did this?" And again, they'd
       give me this look, like ...

       And after a year, the penny dropped, and I finally
       realised what that look meant, because they won't tell
       you, because that would be hierarchical, right? What this
       look meant was, "Yes, good Idea, why don't you do it
       yourself? You print the leaflets, I'll distribute them;
       you call a meeting, I'll attend; you organise an action,
       we'll come along".

       And from that moment, I realised that, my whole
       philosophical outlook changed. And from then on, instead
       of suggesting things other people could do, I stopped
       suggesting things all-together, in-case they expected me
       to do them..." - Robert Newman

[<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5267640865741878159> and [http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/robert-newmans- history-o...](http://www.peakprosperity.com/forum/robert-newmans-history- oil/15804)]

<comment><USER12> I love Robert Newman's History of Oil! It is a brilliant stand-up mockumentary! "An American plan for democracy in the middle east..."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Unfortunately, this is only a larger symptom of the role money plays in congress. I don't see bills like this stopping any time soon. _sigh_

<comment><USER14> The role money plays in congress is only a larger symptom of the overreaching power of the Federal Government, which in turn is a larger symptom of an apathetic, uninformed, and not-too-bright population of voters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'll all for punishing politicians that do stupid things. I believe the best punishment is booting them out during their primaries, but let's not split hairs.

And I'm hell on wheels about personal freedoms and liberty. We live in a terrible security state. We need to stand up and take action.

But at times I start feeling like I'm having my chain yanked -- that in my obedience to and love of freedom, other people use my passion as a way to manipulate me. BoingBoing is stepping over the line between simply trying to inform me and actively trying to manipulate me. Perhaps they're doing that for good reasons instead of ratings. I don't mean to smear them in any way. I just think you can tell me Congressman X is working on Bill Y without making it sound like Nazis building death camps in downtown Washington, DC. Sounds like a modern witch hunt. Jiminy Cricket, folks, politicians come up with ideas for bills all of the time. It's a healthy thing to have a Congress with all kinds of diverse personalities and opinions proposing all kinds of things. We don't need to start chasing them down the street with torches and pitchforks.

If he starts getting co-signers? If the bill looks likely to move out of committee? Much different story.

It's starting to feel more like "Lamar Smith is the devil! Let's all attack!" and less like "A bill was introduced that could dramatically change internet freedoms...."

I don't like that. People do things I disagree with all of the time. That does not make them my enemy. We are not all 15-year-olds and having to determine which person is part of the cool group or not. We do not have to make people into our enemies who just have a different opinion than we do, even if that opinion is heinous.

Not only is most of this material lifted, it doesn't cross my personal threshold as being important. Certainly not as important as the cell phone carriers saying they're getting over a million requests from law enforcement for tracking/surveillance data (A follow-up on that story would have been great). There's a great deal of hand-waving and vitriol here and very little reporting or providing unique value. Simply, it's lazy and manipulative.

This is the second time this week a BoingBoing story has hit the front of HN and it's been, well, sub-optimal. Here's hoping their luck changes.

ADD: And, if other commenters here are to believed, the freaking story isn't even accurate. Geesh.

<comment><USER3> I guess you started feeling manipulated with this line:

>Lamar Smith, the powerful committee chairman and corporatist archvillain who tried to ram through SOPA last year is now bent on reviving his slain monster and unleash it upon the earth.

Keep in mind that Cory is a novelist after all.

<comment><USER16> I've been reading BoingBoing for years, and i really appreciate the battles Cory Doctorow fights... but I'm not fond of his hyperbolic reporting style, which diminishes his credibility.

I suppose he considers to be preaching to the choir and is trying to whip us up into action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> China, Russia, India and _Canada_ are going to be _thrilled_ to have more U.S. influence thust upon them, I'm sure. These are all on the U.S. "watchlist" of countries who have Problematic Intellectual Property. [1]

The axis of IP awesome actually. A pity that Australia's not on it.

1\. _2011 Special 301 Report_. Section II, Country Reports; pp.19-43. URL: <http://www.washingtontradereport.com/Special301-2011.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER18> After the rejection of ACTA, SOPA, and the Uber amendment reversal, the internet has done a good job tracking and stoping bad political decisions. I expect politicians will be on a short leash going forward.

</comment><comment><USER19> It really upsets me that this guy is from Texas, which the media generally makes sure to highlight (fortunately this article does not).

I assure you, he does not represent the majority.</comment>


Review please - <AUTHOR> http://www.o-r-c-p.com <comment><USER2> Loading... Loading.... fails the 2 second test.

</comment><comment><USER3> This has been submitted before, and my comment now is the same as the comment that was made by someone else last time - I have no idea what this is about, and there is nothing about it that makes me think I would ever care.</comment>