Show HN: VSCode extension to identify tech debt and pay it back - <AUTHOR> https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Stepsize.tech-debt-tracker <comment><USER2> I like the approach. I'm curious—how do you define debt tech?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We've reworked the classic 'every line of code is a liability' to reflect the fact that prioritization is key when dealing with tech debt. Check out this post where we explain it: [https://blog.stepsize.com/broader- definition-of-technical-de...](https://blog.stepsize.com/broader-definition- of-technical-debt/). What do you think?'</comment></comment>


Gnome in GuixSD - <AUTHOR> https://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=8491 <comment><USER2> Congratulations on pulling off this incredible hacking!</comment>


Who owns a company? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2015/speech833.pdf

<comment><USER2> For a speech centered on UK banks, I found this article surprisingly interesting. Especially two concepts it discussed: 1) The possibility of structuring CEO compensation to be aligned with debt-to-equity ratio instead of stock option grants, and 2) "proxy access" \- granting longer-term shareholders more governance rights.</comment>


How to Choose Side Projects That Won't Burn You Out - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/_elergy_/how-to-choose-side-projects-that-won-t-burn-you-out-3aam <comment><USER2> My best side projects have been ones that I can walk away from at weeks at a time and pick back up when I'm interested with no ill effect.

Projects that require constant attention always burn me out after the initial building enthusiasm ends. It basically becomes a 'job' at that point, but with no real upside.

<comment><USER3> Likewise. I venture to say that a Side Project can only be defined as a Side Project if you _are able to_ walk away from it for weeks at a time.</comment></comment>


How to test async Ocaml code - <AUTHOR> http://andreas.github.io/2014/09/18/how-to-test-async-ocaml-code/

<comment><USER2> Good illustration of the power of functors.</comment>


Put Things Off for iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://putthingsoff.com Put Things Off, the laid-back to-do list I built for iPhone, has been developed in my spare time for the last year.
The 'Web Tasks' backend is built on Google App Engine. I'm using Manic Messenger (http://www.manicnetworks.com/ ) as a proxy for the push notifications.
Would love to hear your thoughts if you have them. <comment><AUTHOR> Put Things Off, the laid-back to-do list for iPhone, was built in my spare time over the 9 months or so.

The 'web tasks' feature is backed by Google App Engine, and the push notification system uses the C++ based Manic Messenger ( <http://www.manicnetworks.com/> ) as a proxy.

I've learned a lot building it and welcome your feedback if you'd like to share it.</comment>


Scientific Stagnation - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/the-long-stagnation <comment><USER2> Comment on drug discovery:

Drug industry have been criticized for exaggerating their R&D numbers. Critics also claim that private funding is directed towards drugs that contain active moieties that are same or closely related to active moieties in products that have been previously approved by FDA and that wast majority of important breakthrough drugs are the result of publicly funded research. If someone discovers drug that already works and makes billions, it justifies pushing new molecule that has same functionality but is covered with different patents.

FDA approves typically less than new 30 NCE:s per year. Some are classified as NCE:s just for administrative purposes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Comment on the lengthening "time to PhD" and "time in postdoc" measures:

Those don't indicate a declining marginal productivity of scientific labor, but a declining marginal _demand for it_. PhDs and post-docs take longer nowadays because it takes more publications and more experience to get a "real job" (defined as some combination of a permanent paid research position _and_ the ability to win grants for oneself) (due to the exponential growth of university-going student populations leveling off starting in the late '70s). Most of the claims and measures about academic science actually show much less trend towards stagnation when this trend in scientific employment is considered as an independent explanation.

<comment><USER4> Exactly - and the declining demand explanation doesn't even necessarily imply a general societal-level lack of demand. Simply that the academic system is now weighted to favor increasing funding for administrators rather than the professoriate, which creates a lack of opportunities for early-career researchers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> We typically have a very hard time predicting the path of technological development, primarily because we have a hard time understanding when there will be inflection points that will utterly obliterate the previous status quo.

One great example is the Malthusian check/catastrophe, the idea that agricultural development would not be able to keep up with population growth and that without a plague or other substantial check on population, there would be millions of people starving.

Malthus posited this in the late-1700s and probably would have been right if the Industrial Revolution and the associated massive shifts in the technological landscape hadn't changed everything.

We can see similar ideas when we think about the various "Peak" energy scares over the last 50 years ago.

While it is absolutely true that technological stagnation occurs and possibly is occurring right now, I think we are always better off recognizing that thinking linearly about how technology develops and will develop can be a fools errand.

That's my two bitcoins.

</comment><comment><USER6> My hypothesis is that high end math talent from which scientists are historically recruited simply has other avenues of making money.Wall street and Silicon valley basically milks them away.

</comment><comment><USER7> In every generation there have been great minds that could reshape the world. Tesla & Edison gave the world electricity, Von Braun & Goddard brought us to space, and Oppenheimer unleashed the atom bomb. The question has always been will society support what these people can offer us. The answer is 'not always'. Take genetic engineering for example. Recombinant Genetic Engineering has been around since the 70's but society never fully embraced its applications. The current generation seems to be more preoccupied with social media and video games and less with pushing the boundaries of scientific and technological achievement (in my personal opinion).

<comment><USER8> _The current generation seems to be more preoccupied with social media and video games and less with pushing the boundaries of scientific and technological achievement "_

This is because the current generation has been dealt the worst deck since the Great Depression. Education, housing and healthcare costs have skyrocketed while wages have remained stagnant. Social trust has been eroded by corrupt public institutions and markets (big banking, big law, big corp and big politics all in bed).

This generation has dealt with their realities quite calmly in my opinion. Any other would've been rioting in the streets by now.

<comment><USER9> > Any other would've been rioting in the streets by now.

This seems likely because is absolute terms the current situation is a relatively comfortable one. While being underemployed, having a huge debt load, high cost of living and observing corruption clearly sucks, if you are still housed clothed and fed, if you still have general liberty and democratic enfranchisement (albeit perhaps seemingly with less impact) you are in a generally good shape by any historical standard. The costs of civil unrest are high. Direct injustice needs to occur (outside of a mob situation), social injustices just don't seem sufficient.

<comment><USER3> The levels of homelessness and malnutrition are actually at historic highs for the post-WW2 Western world.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A new shape called the scutoid has been discovered in our cells - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/the-scutoid-is-geometrys-newest-shape-and-it-could-be-1827924643 <comment><USER2> Original paper is at:

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05376-1](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05376-1)

Related question on Math Stack Exchange:

[https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2864794/the- scutoid...](https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/2864794/the-scutoid-a- new-shape)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait, so we do not yet know which shape the cells in our body have? It reads like we only have assumptions...

<comment><USER4> It turns out it's somewhat difficult to preserve three dimensional shape when making slides for microscopes

<comment><USER5> Reminds me of the growing realization -- in concert with the growing ability to model and image -- that DNA has significant function "in the third" (and, I'd say, fourth) dimension.

How it's positioned influences how it behaves -- not just how it is constructed in terms of traditional direct chemical/molecular bonds.

And now, for the mind / nervous system, scientists are hypothesizing quantum mechanical functional components or aspects.

Whenever a problem or physical model is "understood"... well, personal, anecdotal, experience has taught me to... not view any such thing as "done", beyond immediate, practical, and -- within exactly that context -- sufficient applications.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Relevant and probably off topic, but this conversation about the scutoid was posted on reddit and made me crack up, laughing out loud.

[https://i.imgur.com/8Z0f6fk.png](https://i.imgur.com/8Z0f6fk.png)

</comment><comment><USER7> It looks like a pint of rice. Are we going to see a redesign of those containers now?

</comment><comment><USER8> Multidimensional Penrose Tiles - is a name i would give to this.

<comment><USER9> A critical characteristc of Penrose tiles is that they are aperiodic. These space filling prisms do not have that property. Look up the Schmitt-Conway- Danzer tile for an example of one that does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is difficult to take a maths/science article that links out to clickhole seriously.

<comment><USER11> It's just a harmless joke. [https://twitter.com/RyanFMandelbaum/status/10229322346203504...](https://twitter.com/RyanFMandelbaum/status/1022932234620350464)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure how this is more efficient then hexagon columns

<comment><USER13> So imagine sheet constructed of up right hexagonal prisms. Now imagine a ray going from the centroid of the bottom hexagon through the centroid of the of the top hexagon. Now flex the sheet along an axis as if you were wrapping it around a cylinder. The rays now project out radially from the center of the cylinder. Now consider the shapes on the surface if we replaced the stretched hexagons with a Voronoi diagram based on the points where the rays come through the surface.

Remarkably the surface shapes are no longer hexagons, and the column are neither hexagonal prisms or frustums of a hexagonal pyramid, but something else entirely.

<comment><USER12> Im confused with last part "a Voronoi diagram based on the points where the rays come through the surface."

can you draw it</comment></comment></comment>


How Did the Bush White House Generate 234,042 Emails Per Day? - <AUTHOR> http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct2=us%2F0_0_s_0_0_t&usg=AFQjCNEjIbWxdQQQZjJx0eEfRcwD0oofcQ&sig2=o-M3HGlYbEbFCwTsoqeDYg&cid=1489427616&ei=fispS5j0KoGoNtuBrMYB&rt=SEARCH&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgawker.com%2F5426535%2Fhow-did-the-bush-white-house-generate-234042-emails-per-day

<comment><USER2> The article mentions this figure includes messages received.

Perhaps a numeric breakdown such as below would be more helpful:

Sent x

Received y (legitimate)

Received y1 (spam)

<comment><USER3> They also seem to have no concept of mailing lists over there at gawker.com. I mean, im subscribed to quite a few -dev lists which I rarely read in depth, just a quick topic scan to know what to search for later. I also get lots of pointless internal email that I am cced on. This adds up to a lot of email a day. (today I'm at over 400 across my work and personal accounts, and I'm not very important).

Now, depending on what they have, perhaps this internal email also includes certain public facing addreses, such as email@example.com -- if so I'm almost suprised that there isn't more, with the spam and whatnot.</comment></comment>


How to identify unicorn employees within your startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/talk/5-ways-identify-unicorn-employees <comment><USER2> You are looking for an employee with the same temperament and grit that it takes to be a founder.

The reason they are hard to find is because most aren't willing to be paid under market value for the small chance that your startup will succeed. If a unicorn employee is smart, they will found their own company.

I don't know if I would consider myself a 'unicorn employee', but I made many other people rich over the years because I was able to easily switch hats and get the job done.

The reward was sacrifice and hard work for a salary that was beneath the current market value and having to switch jobs every few years when either the company folded or was bought out and the employees were replaced.

At one company, the stock I received in exchange for the lower salary was devalued to nothing a few months later when the company owner created a brand new LLC and dumped all the stock that had been given out to employees.</comment>


Huntsville, AL Is Serious About Google Fiber - <AUTHOR> http://www.hsvcity.com/

<comment><USER2> I dunno. I still think Google, Kansas is the ballsiest move yet.

I hope the city that does get Google fiber actually manages to make good use of it and develop some friggin brilliant ideas. All I can think of are gaming ideas...

</comment><comment><USER3> Not a huge surprise. Huntsville is actually a fairly technically-minded city, with both NASA and DoD contractors.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. I live in Birmingham, AL and there are far more 'tech job' listings for Huntsville than is the case in Birmingham - despite Birmingham being exponentially larger than Huntsville.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would be nice to see Ann Arbor get it. There is support from the city and the University of Michigan.

Maybe Larry Page could influence this decision and give back to the state and university where he started.

I think it would be good choice for Google and something positive for the area.

</comment><comment><USER6> This whole Google Fiber thing is looking more and more like absolutely genius marketing.

</comment><comment><USER7> Boulder, CO (my hometown) is apparently making a big push for it as well.

<comment><USER8> Ooh. I'd be tempted to move from Denver to Boulder for Fiber Internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Both Winston-Salem and Greensboro NC are going for it. Google already has a facility in the area (a major data center, I believe) and Apple is building a major data center near by.

</comment><comment><USER10> This would be awesome...although I wonder how far out the fiber would go since I actually live in Limestone County.

</comment><comment><USER11> So is Philly: <http://gigabitphilly.com/>

</comment><comment><USER12> AHH YES! Maybe they will bring it to Athens too!</comment>


How Big Data Became So Big - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/business/how-big-data-became-so-big-unboxed.html?_r=1&hpw&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> The buzz around big data, let's not forget, is partly fuelled by bullshit generated by vendors of big data solutions and analytic firms.

It probably does not really need to be repeated, but I guess it cannot hurt. Data being big rarely causes it to be much more interesting. There can be much more actionable information in a few hundred records than in billions, depending on context, proper experimental design, and so on.

Also, an often overlooked point is that precision of statistical estimators (e.g. width of confidence intervals) typically scales with the square root of sample size; yet the cost of processing an additional observation is typically constant (e.g. with distributed systems like hadoop). So in many cases there are decreasing returns to data size.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good look at the history of the marketing term big data. I think this fits squarely in the realm of big data hype, or at least a review of why it is big data hype (something I've blogged about here [http://www.klaviyo.com/blog/2012/07/16/the-curse- analytics-b...](http://www.klaviyo.com/blog/2012/07/16/the-curse-analytics- big-data-hype/)). The SAS discussion makes it especially clear that it's viewed as a trend.

But - posts like these frequently jump to the top of hacker news, and there's clearly a feeling that access to new analyses and more data is going to change the world. I think this is probably right. I'd love to hear more discussion of how big data has already started this process.

Examples I can think of (and I'd love to hear more): \- weather analysis for farmers (weatherbill / the climate corporation) \- marketing (the target pregnancy example - [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping- habits.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping- habits.html?pagewanted=all))

More examples?

<comment><USER4> CB Insights (<http://www.cbinsights.com/mosaic/>) is assessing the health of private companies using public data.

B2B sales teams, supply chain/procurement professionals and investors use CBI's private company analytics to sell more, purchase smarter and invest more intelligently.

disclosure: I'm the founder so I'm very biased. We're hiring btw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Painful reading an HN front page article like this. An entire article around use of two-word (marketing) nomenclature with no informative value in the article at all...

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm already getting allergic to the term. Every couple of months there is a new term for the same thing to fuel a new hype cycle (machine learning, computational intelligence, data mining,...).

Not that it isn't an important thing, and certainly more and more data is becoming available. Now lets get back to work.</comment>


Wikipedia: Size in volumes - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_in_volumes <comment><USER2> Here's a comparison of all the versions of Wikipedia

[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias#All_Wikipe...](http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias#All_Wikipedias_ordered_by_number_of_articles)

Take a look at the "depth" column. Dutch and Swedish used to be your average Wikipedias, with article counts somewhere in the ~500k. They both decided that it was more important to have a higher article count so they now employ bots to create new articles with the bare minimum of data (sentence or two, pulled from other language Wikipedias). It usually becomes more extreme when there's some sort of milestone ahead. There's even worse offenders, for example Waray- Waray.

I'm genuinely wondering whether Wikipedia should have a policy of deleting all such articles and disabling their creation. I don't think it's in the spirit of an encyclopedia.

<comment><USER3> What's the incentive of artificially inflating the article count? Is it just a stupid race to be "on top"?

<comment><USER4> Once the article is created, it can appear in Google. Once it's in Google, it's more likely to have visitors and some of them might improve the article.

I have no idea whether this was the rationale or even whether it's a good idea, but there might be more to their strategy than article count.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sometimes when you look at similar graphics to this one, you go: "Wow, that's big."

Somehow, this wasn't one of those times. This one was: [http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_greek/debt_gree...](http://demonocracy.info/infographics/eu/debt_greek/debt_greek.html)

<comment><USER6> That is a really cool link, i especially like the page about gold.. crazy so much ( ~50% ) of the worlds gold is in jewelry..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Latest what-if is relevant here;

Updating a Printed Wikipedia - [http://what-if.xkcd.com/59/](http://what- if.xkcd.com/59/)

<comment><USER8> What's scaring me is to imagine how many offices do run many printers continuously. And I thought investing in good LCD / software was expensive ..

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> That's actually.. smaller than I would have thought.

<comment><USER10> Well it completely ignores formatting (lists, tables, headings etc.) and images, so if you were to account for those it would inflate a fair bit I would imagine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe the importance of Wikipedia is not so of how big it is, but how easily it's accessible (with no cost) and that the articles can be updated and be available almost instantly (in comparison with a hard copy encyclopedia).

</comment><comment><USER12> Can we do measurements in "library of congresses" yet?

It used to be a joke but if you can compare like this, you should be able to do a rough estimate of LoC ?

<comment><USER13> According to Wikipedia, the physical holdings of the Library of Congress total 33 million distinct books worth about 15 terabytes.

So quite a way to go from ~2k volumes.

<comment><USER14> It would be more useful to compare the LoC with the combined text, graphics, and other applicable media of every Wikimedia site.

<comment><USER13> I feel like the text is the most important part for an encyclopedia. Some images are needed, but not a huge number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It seems strange to estimate when you could download Wikipedia's database dump, reformat the content in the same style as the Encyclopedia Britannica, and count how many pages/volumes you end up with.

<comment><USER16> I think it's strange (as in, unexpected) that the entirety of Wikipedia could fit on a set of shelves in one row at an average library. I would have thought it would be larger than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I downloaded the entire English Wikipedia for offline use. There is some software available to render it, but it doesn't do images or a lot of the formatting. However it's still readable and when the internet is down, it's useful to have.

<comment><USER18> How big is it, in terms of file size?

<comment><USER19> From [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#En...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#English- language_Wikipedia)

 _pages-articles.xml.bz2 – Current revisions only, no talk or user pages. (This is probably the one you want. The size of the 4 April 2013 dump is approximately 9.06 GB compressed, 42 GB uncompressed)_

bzip can be decompressed in chunks, can't it? I wonder if there's an app to read a compressed wikipedia xml archive on an ios or android tablet. Even better would be if it fetches missing resources (like embedded images) from the real wikipedia if there's internet access.

<comment><USER17> There seems to be a few [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_App](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_App) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ah, but that's answering quantitatively and most people would probably want any value question answered qualitatively.</comment>


Microsoft Word for Android has been installed more than 1B times - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/14/20693632/microsoft-android-word-excel-1-billion-installs-google-play-store-milestone <comment><USER2> I find all of the negativity related to this very strange. Microsoft Word on Android is incredible (and the other MS Office apps for that matter). The ability to not only view, but even _edit_ documents on my phone has come in handy many times. Google Docs is good for what it is, but it is not 100% compatible, and round tripping documents that contain complex formatting is risky.

Overall Microsoft's Android apps are of very high quality. I'm pretty certain that these 1 billion installs are not just bundling deals. The vast majority of businesses and governments rely upon Microsoft Office, so is it really that surprising that employees of these organizations would install these apps on their mobile devices?

<comment><USER3> The app may be great. I have no opinion on that. But the number (1 billion installed!) is rather meaningless, if many manufacturers are installing it by default. Active monthly users would be a more meaningful statistic (and would allow comparison with total android user base [1]).

All that said, I find it entertaining that the ability to do word processing on mobile is seen as "incredible". I would think word processing is a simple task that demonstrates a device to be a real general purpose computer - I've done word processing on a computer since I was a child.

[1] about 2.5 billion devices active monthly. [https://twitter.com/Android/status/1125822326183014401](https://twitter.com/Android/status/1125822326183014401)

<comment><USER2> I'm not saying that just doing word processing on my phone is incredible. Microsoft Word is one of the most powerful word processors and I just find it incredible how many features from the traditional desktop version are supported on a mobile device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It came pre-installed on my Samsung phone. I'm sure I count towards that number, even though I uninstalled or disabled it as soon as I got the phone.

<comment><USER4> Seriously, after seeing all the spyware "analytics" they tie in to Windows 10, I wouldn't trust anything from Microsoft to be on my phone. Google is also pretty invasive, but at least they're not malicious.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised you consider Microsoft's data collection practices to be worse than Google's. Would you be willing to elaborate on that at all?

<comment><USER6> Not OP. Microsoft gave away windows 10 for free and then added tracking to everything you do. I believe they even started showing ads on the start menu. It's free no longer but the practices continue. You'd probably have to upgrade to business or enterprise to remove it.

<comment><USER7> >Not OP. Microsoft gave away windows 10 for free

Correction: Windows 10 _upgrade_ for free. If it's a new system, you still need to buy a license, and OEMs still have to pay.

<comment><USER8> Google gives Chrome, Android, Gmail, Search,.. away for free so that they can track and show you ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very tangentially related:

Back in the Windows Mobile / PocketPC days (2003), I'd just written my first mobile app, an HTML editor [0], using the .NET Compact Framework 1.0 and C#. Windows Mobile's API was a subset of the Win32 API, and the Compact Framework was a _very_ limited subset of the full .NET 1.0 Framework.

.NET CF exposed a TextBox control, but no rich text edit control. There was a "Pocket Word" app that shipped with the OS, and it _did_ have rich editing capabilities (bold/italic/underline/highlight, bullets, fonts). Sadly, that wasn't exposed as a reusable control anywhere. This was annoying, because A) it would have been neat to use that in my own app, and B) lots of folks kept asking in the newsgroups if a rich edit control existed for the PocketPC.

I ran across a mention somewhere of a couple Win32 messages that supposedly allowed interaction with the rich edit control that Pocket Word was built on, and spent a few weeks trying to reverse engineer the interactions. I finally was able to figure out what most of the bytes in the control structure were used for, and wrote a long newsgroup post documenting my findings [1].

I never did get around to making use of those capabilities in an actual app, but it was a fun exercise.

Looking at the formatting capabilities in Word for Android, it's so much more powerful. Amazing to see how far mobile app capabilities have come since then.

(I also experimented for a while with trying to port the Scintilla code editor widget to Windows Mobile. And then there was the time I tried to use a .NET 2D scenegraph lib in a PocketPC app, but the .NET CF didn't support enough System.Drawing APIs, so I wound up hacking together an almost-working solution using Mono's System.Drawing implementation backed by a fork of Cairo from Mozilla Firefox for Windows Mobile. Ah, fun times :) )

[0] [http://www.isquaredsoftware.com/pockethtml.php?page=Descript...](http://www.isquaredsoftware.com/pockethtml.php?page=Description)

[1] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/microsoft.public.dotne...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.compactframework/MOk776gh5Fs/9VUDZhFJTokJ)

<comment><USER10> > Looking at the formatting capabilities in Word for Android, it's so much > more powerful. Amazing to see how far mobile app capabilities have come > since then.

I'm in the business of making a powerful Google Docs alternative, Zoho Writer ([https://writer.zoho.com](https://writer.zoho.com)). Our mobile versions were (are still) using native TextBox APIs to build the mobile word processor.

But interestingly, even with all the recent improvements, the native APIs to model complex formattings like background-color, tables and selections across multiple text-views are pretty tricky.

On the plus side, mobile OS's these days allow us to draw directly over a canvas which means we can get to those complex features by rewriting the app to render directly over a canvas. So yeah, we have come a long way indeed.

Also hey, you've helped me out with understanding some Redux stuff from time to time. Is there anything you haven't done? ;)

Thank you for all the effort you put in for the open source community.

<comment><USER9> Hah, there's _so_ much I've never touched at all. And really, these last few years that I've been focusing on Redux, I haven't had time to go off and play around with other things.

> Thank you for all the effort you put in for the open source community.

You're welcome! Glad to know I've been able to help out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> uninstall and reinstall is the new 'have you turned it off and on again'

</comment><comment><USER8> Despite many of the negative comments here I find Word on Android pretty awesome. I wonder if the comments are more "historical" anti Microsoft and less objectively focused on the product.

I also think OneNote is great on my phone, as is Excel!

</comment><comment><USER12> I installed it and never used it as I have moved over to Google docs.</comment>


Show HN: Boundless – accessible, battle-tested, composable React components - <AUTHOR> http://boundless.js.org/ <comment><USER2> There are several accessibility concerns with this. There are focus issues with the modals, the images don't provide a proper textual alternative, and more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there, primary developer here. Please feel free to make recommendations in the form of github issues or a pull request if you're versed in this area!</comment></comment>


In-Stream Facebook Commerce Is Here - <AUTHOR> https://chirpify.com/news/in-stream-facebook-commerce/

<comment><USER2> "like" it... bringing the buy to the FB "like".</comment>


A reCAPTCHA is more than a CAPTCHA, it also helps to digitize old books. - <AUTHOR> http://bmaurer.blogspot.com/2007/05/recaptcha-new-way-to-fight-spam.html <comment><USER2> Just a quick warning regarding this service. After playing with this, I've noticed that about 20% of the words that were displayed were completely unreadable. If you're a startup that doesn't want to lose any potential users, I'd advise against using this service. If you're an established company that is getting hammered with spam, well, maybe you can afford to use this.

<comment><USER3> The ones that are unreadable are likely the words from the texts. Those words do not count against you. You only have to get the real captcha correctly, which happens to be the clearest word. Try experimenting by entering just one of the words.

I had no difficulty with these, while I usually have a LOT of difficulty searching vBulletin forums I am not a member of.

I would write "If you're having difficulty, enter one of these words" at the top. The user will likely enter the clearest.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> IMO, human computation is a field with enormous potential. But strangely, there are few publications on the topic. It's not taken seriously in computer science yet.

Or maybe it requires a different sort of thinking than what most computer scientists are accustomed to?

Or perhaps most computer scientists feel that human computation is cheating? For them, maybe there is no reward in this sort of research. They are more interested in something technically difficult, even if the results are much worse.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> BTW, in terms of cleverness in human computation, <http://listengame.org> is a must-see.

You can use the approach behind listengame.org to build a service that gives first impressions on all sorts of things.

In fact, you can apply the listengame.org approach to online advertising to encourage people to look at online ads very carefully. Moreover, advertisers would get feedback on their ads.

</comment><comment><USER4> who's to say the user will not enter an incorrect word or mis-type? To get reasonably accurate results, you would have to take a handful of samples for each word and take the one with the highest frequency. And even then, users will figure out that they really only need to enter one word and random crap for the other one (it will always look different). Not a bad notion but too much room for error and randomness to be reliable.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you know it will always look different? Maybe the look could be faked reasonably well so that both words would look similar.

<comment><USER4> _Maybe is the key word there. It would be challenging since you would have to apply some sort of noise filter to each of the fakes to simulate a scanned image. You would also have to consider fonts</comment></comment></comment>


Untangling the mechanics of knots - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2015/untangling-mechanics-knots-0908 <comment><USER3> MIT has been confusing me to no end. Over the past year i've seen them act like the worst scum of PR by using clickbait tiles, and weird actions like disabling the fullscreen button so you don't leave their blog page. Somehow that doesn't gel with my image of them actually doing good research.

<comment><USER4> It's pretty simple, they're not the same people. The news/PR arm is the one making all those "worst scum of PR" decisions and the research is separate. Science press has always been hyperbolic compared to the papers actually put out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" For example, a granny knot is much easier to undo, as its configuration of twists creates weaker forces within the knot. For centuries, sailors have observed such distinctions, choosing certain knots over others to secure vessels — largely by intuition and tradition."_

This author does not know knots. Granny knots are weaker, but are generally harder to undo than a reef as they pinch themselves up, whereas a reef can be undone by holding both lines securely with their tails and just pushing, and it is the combination of how easy they are to undo after being under strain and the fact they lie flat, that makes the reef generally the preferred knot to the granny.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. In fact Ashley (definitive work: the Ashley book of Knots) requires a knot to be easy (or at least possible) to un-do.

<comment><USER7> Well, you get my upvote just for mentioning that massive tome .. but do they not recognise knots which just cannot be undone? I can't check as my copy is in storage but I'm thinking specifically of the fishermans blood knot, or knots like a monkeys fist which aren't designed to be undone though perhaps they are considered something else? I have a turks head on a pole on my boat which I made some years ago, I'm pretty sure it could be undone, but not easily as I think the end is tucked in to hide it.

<comment><USER8> Yes, the constrictor knot comes to mind, for example. I am surprised there isn't any discussion of the weakening of the line caused by the knot - <USER2> fact, the 10 knots requiring 1,000 times the force makes me wonder why that doesn't cause the line to fail (though I suppose the initial amount needed is very small). I am also a little nonplussed by their dismissal of sailors' knowledge as mere 'tradition', which seems like saying that the builders of Notre Dame didn't really understand their engineering, but were just part of a tradition of building...

<comment><USER6> Glad you mentioned the 'constrictor' \- one of two knots invented in the 1900s (all others of course documented in the 1800s and before) and by Ashley himself (as I'm sure you already knew). What is the other knot?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can they also find out why a t-shirt I throw in the dryer comes out completely inside out? Because that's really impressive.</comment>


Has Your Startup Been Screwed Yet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/startups-screwed

<comment><USER2> Really dumb title.

The best part of the article is the spam comment advertising an anti-floor- squeak device.

</comment><comment><USER3> silly - Allen Stern must be desperate for content.</comment>


New iPhone app identifies trees from photos of their leaves - <AUTHOR> http://leafsnap.com

<comment><USER3> This is my project =)

Leafsnap is a project I've been working on for about 2 years and we finally launched this week! It's a free app for the iPhone (with an iPad version coming next week and an Android version later in the summer) that contains very high-quality images and descriptions of the tree species of the Northeast US. It also has an automatic-recognition feature that uses computer vision to help users identify trees by taking a photo of a leaf.

This project is a joint collaboration between the computer science departments at Columbia University and the University of Maryland, and botanists at the Smithsonian Institution.

Please let me know what you think! Also, I'd be happy to answer any questions about the app or the recognition technology behind it.

<comment><USER4> Congratulations and well done. I'm just downloading it now. My first thoughts were if it was able to identify the 320+ species of native trees we have here in NZ. My second thought was to wonder if it can be trained by the users to learn new species? (I'm still waiting for the app to finish downloading so have not tried it yet). It would be great to expand your knowledge base by having user contributions, perhaps in a curated or weighted submission process.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! We currently have coverage of about 200 species from the northeast US. We're focusing on expanding the coverage to the rest of the US (~500 more species)...and then the world!

We definitely want to take advantage of user contributions in some way, but we're still trying to figure out the best thing to do. Also, the app contains several very high-quality images of each species taken in a particular way by a talented group called FindingSpecies, and to keep the visual integrity of the app, we would want very similar photos for all species that we add. This might be difficult to outsource to the crowd.

<comment><USER5> It's not something that can be readily outsourced to "the crowd" in general but it is something that can achieved using a hierarchy of interested/invested self checking power users.

It's a similar problem to that faced by, say, open source projects that aim to maintain a certain level of code quality and style matching in contributed source code.

Addendum: the image collections of the Australian National Botanic Gardens and the Australian National Herbarium might be of interest to you down the track: <http://www.anbg.gov.au/anbg/photo-collection/index.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having surpassed Star Trek's communicator, we seem to be well on our way towards the tricorder.

<comment><USER7> Nah, I think we'll have that as soon as someone wires up a camera to Mechanical Turk.

"Looks like cancer." "Definitely Athlete's Foot." "It's not a tumor!" "Please state the nature of the medical emergency."

Repeat 1000x, pull out the winners, and diagnose!

<comment><USER8> _Repeat 1000x, pull out the winners, and diagnose!_

1\. If consistent winners can be identified, I'd expect them to demand much higher then average pay.

2\. Everyone of your turks might have to be licensed to practice medicine, or the government might put at least some of you in jail.

I know of at least a few melanoma identification, using software, efforts which died due to regulation and the shocking resistance of doctors.

But I wonder how free apps, good at diagnosing all kind of things, would do? With cellphone CPUs and cameras getting better you could catch quite a few things...

<comment><USER9> similar to already working scheme in the pathology - the hi-def microscope scans are send to India, analyzed by real professionals there, and the results are signed off by professional here

>I know of at least a few melanoma identification, using software, efforts which died due to regulation and the shocking resistance of doctors.

Just make sure that "For entertainment only" is clearly visible on the product label :)

>But I wonder how free apps, good at diagnosing all kind of things, would do? With cellphone CPUs and cameras getting better you could catch quite a few things...

and with portable ECG, EEG, ultrasound devices, DNA chips, etc easy available and connectable ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's funny I wanted something similar to determine it based on the trunk of each tree. In Canada there are no leafs on trees half of the year and you can make some interesting edible syrups with certain trees.

<comment><USER4> Being into woodworking (lutherie specifically), I would kill for something that could identify species by samples of wood. I think this is a very different task and extremely difficult to achieve though. Sometimes even 2 experts disagree on the pedigree of a given piece of wood - visual inspection is simply not enough and nothing short of a detailed lab analysis can confirm some identifications. Variation of the wood from tree to tree of exactly the same species is large, at least you are dealing with relative consistency in the leaves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Awesome app. I can't wait to use it on our next hike.

I really wish there were more apps like this (and Shazam). Just off of the top of my head, i'd pay a reasonable amount of money to identify: bugs, fish, seashells, animal footprints, mushrooms, and I'm sure a whole lot more.

Being part of a hiking family with two small kids, the questions are endless and even if it were crowdsourced in some way (e.g. please identify this bug for karma), it could be handy learning tool for kids, getting them more excited about science at an early age.

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe a stupid question:

      Why isn't it open source?

</comment><comment><USER13> A NYT article during development in 2009:

<https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10novel.html>

</comment><comment><USER14> Love the About page. Nice personal connection.

<http://leafsnap.com/about/>

Ah memories of my 10th grade biology class (bug or leaf collection). The trusty Audubon Guide to North American Trees. It is really shocking that the HGTTG is coming true...

</comment><comment><USER15> Superb -- fun app while hiking with my kid. I grew up in another country, so a lot of trees where I live are unknown to me.

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER16> Very nice to see a good computer vision app make it to the market. This has certainly brought the future closer to us :)

</comment><comment><USER17> I really adore your about page with all of the photos of your team with leaves. Very fun and personal. :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Does this use any type of location lookup? I wonder how beneficial that would be, either look at the persons location if they use the cam or grab it out of the exif data, so that you can better determine the tree by where it of could be grown.

<comment><USER3> Not right now, but we store the GPS with all images. Once we expand our coverage to more of the world, we will probably start using the GPS to help narrow down the list of possibilities.

However, the app does let you filter the list of species shown to "New York" or "Washington DC" or "The Northeast".

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a fairly technical crowd, can you tell us more about how the algorithm works?

<comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2522523>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wow, I was just thinking about how to accomplish this idea yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER21> I can't seem to get to the site. Requests are timing out. HN effect?

<comment><USER3> I wish -- but it was actually a Guardian article and an intomobile article that knocked us out. We're back now!

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/may/06/iphon...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/may/06/iphone- app-wildlife-species-recognition)

[http://www.intomobile.com/2011/05/06/leafsnap-iphone-app- let...](http://www.intomobile.com/2011/05/06/leafsnap-iphone-app-lets-you-id- trees-camera/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It would be great if you could take a pic of a tree leaf, and i will capture the geoloc of the pic as well and plot where that tree is on the map - <USER2> start tracking where all types of trees live.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly what we are doing. We're working with botanists at the Smithsonian Institution in DC who are very interested in this kind of data.

<comment><USER23> Great app. Next week I'm releasing a project for the Isle of Man which crowdsources the recording of location and health of Elm trees (via iPhone and Android app). The Island is one of the very few locations in the UK which still have a healthy population but has recently suffered funding cuts meaning Gov. surveys are no longer being done, and hence the need for a public solution.

If the app could recognise more species of elm (English and American seem to be there, but no Wych or Dutch for example), would be a valuable tool for users trying to contribute to the project.

The source for the Django app and PhoneGap-based mobile app will be up on GitHub next week, and the data is publicly available via our CouchOne instance (<http://redrobot.couchone.com/_utils/database.html?openelm>) – the project isn't live yet so there's only a small amount of data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm just happy you didn't make one for insects. Just imagine an app that doesn't recognize a running bug and the owner of the iPhone kills it after 3rd try to get a better result ..</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with multi-tenancy (in k8s)? - <AUTHOR> Curious how people deal with multi-tenancy in general and within Kubernetes in particular.
We run a B2B SaaS and have found configuration management to be an increasing pain, especially the fact that the resources that we dedicate to a single customer is a result of that configuration.
Right now we have clear separation between each tenant in the storage layer but share "compute resources" (yup, our service does some ML on behalf of our customers).
Since we already run on Kubernetes we are thinking of achieving that isolation through namespaces and maybe even through a custom resource/operator. <comment><USER2> IMO, theoretically, it can be done. In practice, the consensus seems to gravitate to no, do not do that.

My experience is limited to on premises deployments, but here it goes: it's way better to isolate with different clusters, not only for different clients or business units, but several per user (think, for instance, infrastructure upgrades).

I think that standing up clusters these days is better a much better proposition than just a year ago. For instance, at $WORK, we extensively use rke and we can set things up in minutes in a fairly automated way (Terraform & Ansible.)

Edit: forgot one bit: I know about namespaces, RBAC, network policies, etc. I still think, in this point in time, that multiple smaller dedicated clusters are better than one huge beast. Maybe the story will get better over time.</comment>


Gary McKinnon saved from extradition to the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19962844

<comment><USER2> I have been following this for many years. Nobody in England wanted him to be extradited. Most Americans seemed to be against extradition. The rest of the world didn't want it either.

I am surprised this went on for so long.

EDIT: My bad. UK, not England!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not. They had to make sure they could get some terrorists and bankers extradited before they could cave on this and change the rules.

<comment><USER3> Alleged 'terrorists'. The extradition treaty means we never got to see the evidence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, I was being slightly sarcastic, they were indeed only alleged criminals . The bankers were proven bankers, which isn't usually a crime (though at times perhaps should be), and also hadn't been found guilty in a court of law.

Edit: Apologies to bankers everywhere and their supporters, sarcasm turned off for the rest of the day.

<comment><USER4> Look some bankers have made some mistakes. I'm sure you were lovely to the one that offered you a mortgage. What about the one that sold that mortgage as part of a pool to another so they could offer your neighbour a mortgage? We need bankers...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I was being sarcastic and generalising for effect.

That said, I was pretty harsh to the one that sold me a mortgage, her incompetence at completing the paperwork and delays nearly cost me the chance to buy my house. In general most of my interactions with bank staff have been poor or at least just adequate. I've never had a particularly "good" experience with one. I keep using them, because as you say, we need them. Well, we need bankers. Just perhaps not the ones we've got.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hooray. Ignoring his mental illness, he committed a crime under UK law on UK soil and should be prosecuted in the UK for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> His "victim" was in the US and he knew that, so I don't think its so simple.

The problem I, and I think most people, have is twofold : 1 - There was and is no clear legal framework for intro-jurisdictional crimes like this. The law should be settled and clear before it is applied, otherwise people cannot asses whether their actions will break a law. 2 - The US criminal charges and punishments with which he is threatened appear to be grossly disproportionate to his actual actions. This wouldn't be an issue if he were guaranteed a fair trial, but the connection between the "victim" and the "prosecutor" (ie. both US gov) and statements made by the prosecution and US Government suggest that he may not get a fair trial.

<comment><USER4> The location of his victim is irrelevant IMHO. He was using a computer in the UK. Under the Computer Misuse Act, one must not use a computer to access another computer without prior authorisation of the owner, which he did not have. Therefore, he has committed a crime under said act in the UK.

I feel quite strongly about this, because if I were to ever commit such a crime for whatever reason, I would want to be prosecuted in the UK. Therefore, I should expect the UK to prosecute people in a similar situation.

There was a number of UK online gambling website owners arrested in the US for "selling" their services to US citizens. They were providing a service to UK citizens on UK (or at least non-US) servers and, at the time, didn't prevent people from signing up based on their IP (or other geographical information). The US felt it was their right to step in...

* I am not making an assertions on anyone's guilt, since they've never actually been proved in court.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I would want to be prosecuted in the UK.

The proper place to be prosecuted is the one in which the wider interests of justice and society are served. To that end the location of the victim and/or the perpetrator are both irrelevant.

It is a very nuanced question and perhaps varies a lot depending on the (alleged) crime. Garry's case is different to the gambling one you cite, he specifically chose and targeted a "victim" he knew to be in the US, the gambling websites didn't.

A parallel case may be where scammers in one country where the law doesn't prohibit it specifically target victims in another, remotely. In that case there would be no re-dress for the victims and justice and society would not benefit from your jurisdictional preference.

Until all countries have equal and fair laws, or there are definite and settled frameworks for jurisdiction, the cases will have to be judged on a case by case basis. Which is no good and leads to travesties like Garry's case. If you read my other comments, I am in favour of todays decision. But it's not a cut and dried case either way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not only was he silly enough to commit the crime, he left sarcastic messages behind, I understand? This begs the question how sensitive was the material? If McKinnon could access it, lets face so could anyone who wanted a look.

So..has there ever been any reprisals for the lack of security with the machines he hacked? My understanding was that he used 'off-the-shelf' tools to gain access because the servers weren't patched? In my mind that as negligent as the illegal access.

<comment><USER6> Blaming the victim is _never_ the right thing to do. In a well-ordered society, people are expected to obey the law.

I can't even imagine how awful a world that expected punished victims for their crimes would be.

<comment><USER7> No-one's blaming the victim. They're blaming the security team who were supposed to be protecting the victim.

They don't get to be appallingly incompetent at their jobs _because_ someone took advantage of it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> off-topic:

That House of Commons seems like a really funny business. Why are those people standing up after someone has spoken. Is it something like a +1 mechanism? Is anyone recording it? The whole scene seems like something out of Alice in Wonderland.

<comment><USER9> I had a Russian lecturer at my (British) university, who was fond of telling us that Russian lectures are like the British parliament -- people standing up and shouting all the time -- while British lectures are like the Russian parliament -- everybody sitting in cowed silence.

<comment><AUTHOR> The character of debates in the British parliament changed when it was Televised. Prior to that, it wasn't usual to see MPs having a nap, a bit like during many lectures I went to...

<comment><USER10> If I remember correctly the legislation allowing televising of the HoC, HoL and Committee chambers state that they are not allowed to show napping members.

In general they are more on their toes but you do occasionally catch a long distance shot (from above the main lobby entrance) of someone waking up particularly at the stupid late night debates they have.

It's the same law that doesn't allow the footage to be used for parody.

<comment><USER11> So if I, as an American use the footage for parody, will they try to extradite me to the UK?

<comment><USER10> There is, somewhere on the internet, a Daily Show episode where even they respect the law and don't use the footage.

I imagine they would have to sign a contract to get the footage and would be bound by the draconian idea that men and women sitting two swords length apart across a chamber guarded by men in tights are not to be laughed at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Now can we have the same for Richard O'Dwyer please.

<comment><USER13> Amen to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Theresa May had partially and only partially redeemed herself in my eyes. I was so disappointed by the Richard O'Dwyer case that I didn't think her capable of any moral decision. One more move Mrs May, and I, and many more will believe you are a thinking human being.

<comment><USER14> Her hands were probably tied at the time, due to Abu Hamza etc which has now been dealt with. I fully expect her to clarify the position for Richard O'Dwyer soon and can't see him ever being extradited.

<comment><USER13> I hope this is the case. It does make sense considering we're Post-Hamza now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> unix-dude Im glad it turned out this way. He committed a crime, yes, but I can't help but think the US would have handed him a far too harsh sentence.

</comment><comment><USER15> Whilst I agree this is the correct decision, I'm having trouble reconciling how someone who has admitted to accessing a US government network illegally won't be extradited, whereas someone denying an accusation of domestic crime was to be extradited to Sweden?

EDIT: Apologies, forgot the part about Assange not being a British citizen.

<comment><USER16> Presuming that you're talking about Assange, there are hugely different considerations when Assange isn't a British citizen.

<comment><USER15> Ah yes, I stand corrected.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't actually affect the decisions too much in these particular cases. The cases for and against extradition are invariably fought over issues of human rights, and the law is quite clear that British and EU statutes apply equally to everyone regardless of nationality, at least in considering most of these issues. While the person is in the UK/EU, the national governments cannot use their nationality to overrule any HR arguments against extradition, unless the law specifically prescribes a difference course of action based on nationality, which must not unduly remove any of their human rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The right decision. I'm frankly surprised and pleased.

What happens now?

<comment><USER18> Now a political debate hopefully starts around the subject of extraditions from the UK. Hopefully, things like this, the Assange extradition, and other high publicity cases will put some political pressure on the process, and improves them.

<comment><USER19> Assange is completely different - it's a totally separate legal process / thing. Not all extraditions are the same.

What this will trigger is a discussion around the UK/US extradition treaty, but that's got nothing to do with Assange _right now_. If the US had actually issued an extradition request then it would be important.

The European Arrest Warrant process, which is what Assange is wanted under, is rather different and really not subject to the same kind of political wrangling, mainly because it's part of a raft of EU measures to ensure free trade and borders (if it helps you can think of the EAW as part of a trade: EU citizens get to live and work in any EU country without a permit or visa, but to balance that there needs to be a system to allow swift repatriation of criminal suspects).

There is very little scope for political wrangling with regards to European Arrest Warrants - the same can't be said for individual extradition treaties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Given that he supposedly cracked secure computers, which I would hope was no simple matter, the US shouldn't be extraditing him to face prison. They should give him a job.

<comment><USER21> He claims a Perl script that found computers with default or blank passwords.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon#Statements_to_th...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_McKinnon#Statements_to_the_media)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting to hear that even government voices is critical to the view to have a mutually respect for every other countries laws.

<comment><USER22> What do you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if this will sour relations between the UK and the USA.

<comment><USER24> The BBC reported that in a recent meeting between Obama and Cameron this was discussed. This suggests that US interest in extraditing him had cooled and that they wouldn't be too upset with this outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Honest question: Why is this a good thing?

<comment><USER7> Since no-one else has replied, I'll give it a shot...

I think there's a general impression in the UK -- no doubt fueled by US TV shows -- that the American prison system is utterly barbaric and you might as well extradite someone to North Korea as the USA. It could well be a misapprehension, but I've not seen any American claim differently, so... what do you think?

Also, there was a feeling that there would be pressure brought to bear on the court by the US military, to find him guilty and impose a harsh sentence, in order to distract attention from their incompetence in securing their systems.

<comment><USER25> Thanks, I appreciate your reply!

Regarding the American prison system: Doing some light searching, I've come up with dozens of articles detailing prisoner abuse in the UK (for instance: <http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/pris-j15.shtml>). Frankly, I think a lot of the issues with American prisons are common in such institutions. Prison in America is no treat (just like it isn't in most nations), but I think the comparison to North Korea or any other 3rd world nation is kind of laughable to me (100% personal opinion).

I don't get the "distract attention from their incompetence". I know that the public is beginning to become keen to the idea of network security breaches as problems of national defense, and even just aware to the idea of computer security threats in general, but this really wasn't that big of a story here in the US. If they prosecuted this man right now, nobody but hardcore techies would really be paying attention. We're focused on other issues in America right now (see: election 2012) and they're taking up all the oxygen in the room.

It's not like the US military and this case of hacking have made the US military the butt of all jokes. In fact, the only articles about penetration of government servers that get real ink are related to: China, Anonymous/Lulzsec/Antisec/*sec and Iran.

Furthermore, the US military doesn't need to motivate anyone in this hacking case. The prosecutes for the government don't need to be leaned on, they are dogged enough in their own right.

My thought for why this thing is confusing to me:

I just feel like I am missing something here. A man who had full knowledge that the actions they were executing were serious crimes, left aggressive messages of a political nature on the servers he trespassed on, is some kind of cult hero? Why? What did he do? Is it because his antagonistic stance against US foreign policy matches with the politics of the IT community? Is it because there is great sympathy in the IT community for people who fall somewhere on the Autism spectrum?

His crime attacked the United States. Why -shouldn't- he be extradited? If an American circumvented security measures against servers on Downing Street and deleted information, would the US not extradite him for prosecution in the UK?

I don't know... every time the United States wants to extradite a hacker the only impetus can be pure Machiavellian evil?

Isn't it possible, or even likely, that someone committed a crime and the prosecutors want that person punished? Because it's the law? And because that is what happens when you commit a crime?

<comment><USER7> Of course UK prisons aren't holiday camps. But there's no chance of McKinnon ending up in one of those prisons. I meant that the _impression_ given of US prisons is like: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px2kTQKZaSU&noredirect=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px2kTQKZaSU&noredirect=1)

...and McKinnon did get the impression he might end up somewhere like that. If you stand a good chance of being beaten, raped, tortured and eventually killed, then how exactly is it less bad than being sent to a third world country? Better food? ;)

As for "cult hero", I've no idea where you got that from. People generally think he's a slightly pathetic character who did something a bit stupid by poking about in unsecured computer systems. A crime that possibly merits a £2000 fine and some community service (and firing the people responsible for securing those systems).

Instead, it's "extradite a hacker" to meet with Justice (American Style!). Can you not see why people would object to that?

[edit for spelling, and forgot a bit]

<comment><USER25> >>> "A crime that possibly merits a £2000 fine and some community service (and firing the people responsible for securing those systems)."

I guess this is probably the rub. When you trespass into your neighbors backyard to jump in their pool at night and you get caught, that could be a fine and community service. When you trespass on military property, let's say you hop a fence or sneak your way into a government building... That's kind of a big deal.

When you work your way into government servers and delete data... That's not just community service. That's kind of a big deal.

<comment><USER7> >When you trespass on military property, let's say you hop a fence or sneak your way into a government building... That's kind of a big deal.

No, it's really not. If someone wandered onto an unsecured Government facility in the UK, they'd probably be picked up and questioned...and then released with a stern warning not to do it again.

> When you work your way into government servers and delete data

Did he delete data? I though he just poked around and left some messages? Anyway, he hardly _worked_ his way into them; they were wide open. I just don't see it as a big deal.

Here's what I don't get about you though...you're a US taxpayer, right? That means you paid some people to secure those machines. And they completely failed in their job, right?

If you hire someone who then completely fails to do what you hired them to do, why don't you want them fired?

[edit: I missed this question before...]

> If an American circumvented security measures against servers on Downing > Street and deleted information, would the US not extradite him for > prosecution in the UK?

Nope, the extradition treaty is one-way. That's another thing that sticks in people's craw...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> demand for more on the news seems to have killed the guardian. bbc now down (or very slow) too.

<comment><USER27> Both are working fine for me (UK).

<comment><USER26> ok for me too now (was offline the last 30m). maybe it was something else, but other sites seemed ok. anyway, thanks for the report.

<comment><USER28> Rather off topic by now, but <http://www.isup.me> is useful in situations like this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Slow and Painful Death of Freedom in Canada - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/adam-kingsmith/the-slow-and-painful-deat_b_2946418.html <comment><USER2> There may be a lot wrong in Canada, but I don't think the Press Freedom Index is any kind of valid indication.

Exactly the same as described in the article is happening in the Netherlands (or worse, like wiretapping on a massive scale), our freedom of information acts is systematically and openly sabotaged, and we've always had the strict limitations on public protests Canada has introduced. And for some reason we rank #2.

There's a coronation this tuesday and people who may possible be disruptive are being pre-emptively locked up and their lawyers muzzled. So much for liberal freedoms.

The Press Freedom index is about how much the government kisses up to traditional media, and, given how much media are in bed with the powers that be, no indication of actual freedoms.

That correlation has been broken a long time ago, and accelerated by the internet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also, you can go to prison for thoughtcrimes. They don't mention that. Of course, that's also the case in the #1 "freest" country, Finland, so I guess they don't take that into account.

<comment><USER4> How can you go to prison for thoughtcrimes? To my knowledge, mind reading technology is still in its infancy.

<comment><USER5> Sentence enhancement for hate crimes is essentially a form of thought crime, since "proving" you had certain thoughts in your head changes your sentence. There are interesting arguments both ways on hate crime sentencing, but make no mistake, it is sentencing you to (more) prison for your thoughts, not your actions.

<comment><USER4> Ah, so murder in the first degree is also a form of thought crime, as compared to manslaughter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The state is the enemy of freedom? Big news!

Journalists don't look further than their noses. The truth is that vast majority of governments restrict freedom on much much larger scale. It is stupid to expect that government in your country is any different.

<comment><USER7> National exceptionalism leads many to believe that their country is in fact different than all of those _others_. Its always useful to be reminded that your own country isn't so special and that your dealing with exactly the same garbage as every one else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know the Huffington Post is trying hard to make it in Canada, but this is painted with a pretty harsh brush. By reading this article, I would have no choice but to conclude that Canada is in a dire state. Good thing I'm Canadian.

> Speaking of our "protection," Bill C-30, or the Lawful Access Act -- > proposed by the Harper government in February of last year, attempted to > grant authorities the power to monitor and track the digital activities of > all Canadians in real-time.

Yeah. _Attempted_ being the key word. Like any government in the Internet age, our government tries to get as much access as they can.

In cases where our privacy or civil freedom is concerned, Canada has a pretty good battle cry. People like Michael Geist help vocalize these movements – and unlike this article would like you to believe – the movements generally work.

Consider that, like any country, Canada's media is feeling the "if it bleeds, it leads" heat. Rest assured, if Canada becomes a "left vs. right", "you vs. the government", "who can you trust?" narrative, the only one who stands to (temporarily) benefit is the struggling media infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER9> This article doesn't mention the fake terrorist busts we have from time to time in order to pass security legislation.

<comment><USER10> Evidence?

<comment><USER9> The recent Via rail plotters as well as the Toronto 18. Both fake in that anyone involved with real capability works for the government. Just like so many in the US. And the busts happen conveniently before voting on security legislation. I write on a cell phone sorry for no links. google Canadian terror bust bill 7 or toronto 18.

<comment><USER11> The Canadian officials at least don't have the same penchant for the dramatic that the US officials do at least (e.g. the whole Portland terrorist thing; the Via Rail plotters weren't infiltrated and then setup to press a fake 'button').

<comment><USER9> Is infiltrated really the appropriate word to describe these police activities? I think not.

<comment><USER11> Getting an undercover official into a position of trust counts as 'infiltrated.' In the Portland bomber example, it was only a single guy, so it's rather weak form of 'infiltration.' I don't think that the Canadian examples count as infiltration. My point is that if these happened in the US, then they would have sent in undercover officers, and helped them execute their plan right to the point of 'pushing the button,' then swooping into to arrest them.

<comment><USER9> In a lot of these cases what's happening is that police "informants" are "infiltrating" groups with no serious means or ambition to carry out an act of terrorism. The informants, who are sometimes convicted criminals, are supplying all the plans, money, and weapons.

In the wake of 9/11 Canada passed the Anti-Terrorism Act. It's basically the Canadian version of the PATRIOT Act. The most controversial provisions of the law were given a 5 year sunset clause. That is, unless a future parliament extended them, they would be automatically repealed.

And wouldn't you know, just before those provisions expired the RCMP busts a huge terror plot in Canada. In this case the police had two moles: Shaikh and Elsohemy. Shaikh supplied the only weapon the so-called terrorists ever had... a single Glock pistol, which he let members of the group fire in the woods in between trips to Tim Hortons for coffee and to use bathroom. Elsohemy supplied the ammonium nitrate, which was stored in a warehouse a few blocks from the RCMP. None of the "terrorists" involved made any effort to obtain anything dangerous themselves. Of course, both informants were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for their services by the government.

In spite of all this drama, the government failed to pass the extensions.

Now we have this alleged railway bombing plot in the news right on time for Bill S-7. What's bill S-7? I'll give you one guess.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Anti-Terrorism_Act>

<comment><USER12> You paint a pretty convincing picture, but all you have is circumstantial evidence.

<comment><USER9> Yes, it would be nice to have all the internal communication inside of the RCMP, CSIS, and other government departments concerning that case. Then we would know if it was just a coincidence or if the entire investigation was motivated by a desire for expanded law enforcement powers.

Either way, we should be skeptical of claims that we've been saved from murderous terrorists whenever all of the funds, weapons, explosives, and so on are provided by the government itself.

We should be extremely skeptical when politicians use such incidents to convince us that we should be afraid and that in order to be safe we just need to give the government more power to spy on us, detain and interrogate us without the right of habeas corpus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Huffington Post writing about _freedom_? Uh-oh.

<comment><USER14> Could you elaborate on this?

I haven't been exposed to Huffington Post much, aside from seeing some hyperbolic sensational posts back during the Bush Administration days which just made me doubt their commitment to any type of journalistic integrity. I've kind of avoided them since.

<comment><USER13> HP is obviously left-wing (socialist) blog & rant site, and socialism is a road to slavery as opposite to freedom. What is in that to explain?

<comment><USER15> The HN community tries to avoid this sort of political/economic trolling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think that it's worth mentioning that even though Jamaica was ahead of Canada in the "2013 World Press Freedom Index," there is a generally anti-gay sentiment there[1].

[1] It's worth noting that they don't hate gay people, but there were apparently some issues with young men/boys selling themselves for money in the recent past, so the general reaction to this was that gay sex should be limited/regulated (or something to that effect). I don't remember it imparting a 'liberal mindset' to me.

<comment><USER16> There is nothing inherently freedom-giving or preserving within the modern liberal movement/mindset.

For example, modern liberals would take away guns from people who have done nothing to earn that distrust.

<comment><USER17> _For example, modern liberals would take away guns from people who have done nothing to earn that distrust._

You have to draw the line somewhere: Should you be allowed to own rocket launchers? Nerve gas? Anthrax?

As owning a gun isn't really a basic human right (feel free to disagree, but if you do so, I'll feel free to consider you a nut case), it's a matter of social contract: If the majority decides guns should be banned or only available after a mandatory psych eval, tough luck for gun owners. If the majority decides that everyone should be able to own a gun, tough luck for anti-gun activists.

<comment><USER18> " _As_ effective self-defense _isn't really a basic human right (feel free to disagree, but if you do so, I'll feel free to consider you a nut case)_ "

Fixed it for you.

And echoing DuskStar, I'm damned glad I live in real constitutional republic that has multiple restraints on mob rule, AKA " _the majority decides_ ".

<comment><USER17> It's not as clear-cut as you make it sound.

Holding a loaded gun is equivalent to having strapped explosives around everyone in your line of sight and holding the trigger.

You have the right for effective self-defense, but I have the right of not having explosives strapped around myself.

Which right weighs greater, and who should decide if not the majority (or their elected representatives)? Some dudes a few centuries ago when circumstances where vastly different and firearms far less effective?

<comment><USER18> That's an amazingly bogus analogy:

First of all, guns are directed energy weapons in a loose sense of that phrase. Else we wouldn't have gun safety rules 2 and 4, "Never let your muzzle cover something you're not willing to destroy", and "Be sure of your target and what's behind it."

Second, in the context of self-defense (vs. hunting, which is ... safer than golf as I recall), no one is "holding" a loaded gun unless they're in a self- defense situation where the use of lethal force is justified. At that point we, or at least the vast majority of the US including most anti-gun states, have decided the possible increased danger to innocent parties is an acceptable tradeoff.

The only time I hold my concealed carry gun is when I put it in my holster before leaving my dwelling (with thumb firmly over the hammer to prevent an accidental discharge) and then the reverse when I return. Anyone out in public "holding" a gun, loaded or not, for any period of time outside of a self- defense situation is going to get arrested.

<comment><USER17> _First of all, guns are directed energy weapons in a loose sense of that phrase._

So limit the signal of the remote trigger.

The analogy is still basically sounds, ie only as flawed as any other analogy.

My point stands: Guns can make heads explode, and it's for society to decide who should hold that power.

I'm not arguing for or against banning guns, I'm arguing for the right to make that decision.

 _Anyone out in public "holding" a gun, loaded or not, for any period of time outside of a self-defense situation is going to get arrested._

That'll be a big comfort to anyone who got shot before the police arrived.

I'll stop here - I'm getting cranky, and if I don't I'll start calling people ugly and stupid ;)

<comment><USER18> " _My main point stands: Guns can make heads explode, and it's for society to decide who should hold that power._ "

Maybe that's true where you live, but I live in a constitutional republic where the "right to keep and bear arms" is enumerated in said constitution, and therefore it _isn't_ up to "society" to decide who should hold that power.

Rather, "society" decides who shouldn't hold it (e.g. felons, the severely mentally ill, unsupervised children, and they have to have serious reasons for such bans), everyone else by default can.

<comment><USER17> Must... resist... Dammit!

To quote myself:

 _who should decide if not the majority (or their elected representatives)? Some dudes a few centuries ago when circumstances were vastly different and firearms far less effective?_

Circumstances change. Stopping to adapt is normally not a winning strategy.

And I promise to stop trying to slaughter your sacred cow - at least for now ;)

<comment><USER19> >who should decide if not the majority (or their elected representatives)?

How about 2/3 of congress and 3/4 of states, which is the standard for amending the constitution, not a simple majority? If you really think what the constitution says is outdated, that's what you should be advocating, not that we simply ignore it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't know what drugs reporters without borders are on but the UK and Australia, both rated worse for freedom of the press than Canada and better tham the US both have crippling libel laws where truth, public interest, and good faith are insufficient defenses against libel. The consequences of libel laws alone on freedom of the press are enormous.

<comment><USER21> What exactly does that have to do with the erosion of civil liberties in Canada?

<comment><USER20> The comparison was based on freedom of the press according to reporters without borders. My point is that the reporters without borders ranking is nuts, so the starting point of the article is bankrupt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > And I have the sinking suspicion that whichever party is in power, these > rights will continue to decompose unless the citizenry is willing to > vocalise this as a major election issue.

Our first-past-the-post voting system all but guarantees this erosion of civil rights will continue.

<comment> dylan-m I don't think the voting system is particularly relevant, here. The erosion of civil rights will continue for as long as Canadians put up with their elected members of parliament representing their parties, first, instead of their constituents. Preferential ballot is great, to an extent, but there are also several other alternatives that I think would make the situation worse, to the point that I question whether it's worth opening that can of worms. As I see it, the problem is mostly cultural, anyway.

With the current system, every Canadian has a particular MP who depends on him to be elected again, and that MP can theoretically side with his constituents over his party without destroying his career. If MPs depend on their parties to elect _them_ , for example, we lose that and we're basically picking an emperor (albeit in a way closer aligned with the popular vote) along with the number of lackeys he has.

The thing we really need is parties to stop treating their MPs like liabilities. On that note, there _is_ a promising discussion going on about MPs' freedom to speak: <http://openparliament.ca/search/?q=standing+order+31>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Passed last May by the National Assembly of Quebec in the midst of the student upheaval, Bill 78 requires organisers of assemblies involving 50 or more people to register the details of any demonstration with the police at least eight hours before it begins. Anyone who does not comply with the law faces a fine from $1000 up to $125,000 depending on his or her involvement and leadership in the protest._

That's creepy. Would that pass a legal challenge in Canada's higher courts? The right to assemble is a constitutional right in the US. How does that work in Canada?

I looked up Canadian freedom of speech laws and came across

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

specifically: _"Limits on speech were incorporated in the criminal code in relation to treason, sedition, blasphemous and defamatory libel, disruption of religious worship, hate propaganda, spreading false news, public mischief, obscenity, indecency and other forms."[3]_

That generality is pretty ominous sounding.

<comment><USER24> Freedom of peaceful assembly is protected under section 2 of the Charter. I am unsure of whether or not Bill 78 would hold up to a charter challenge, but it is already on its way through the courts.

It kind of bothers me that Canada as a whole gets crapped on for one province's shady law. It is kind of like condemning the whole of the USA for Texas allowing capital punishment.

<comment><USER25> Please correct me if I am wrong but I understand that, since Quebec is the only province that doesn't endorse the Charter of Rights, it is probably a moot point if Bill 78 holds up such challenge.

Not that I support the Bill, far from it. What I support is Quebec signing the Charter.

<comment><USER26> All Canadians have these rights, regardless of the provinces endorsement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Adam Kingsmith makes no mention of Canada's far more threatening hate speech laws. This article should have been titled "The Slow and Selectively Outrageous Death of Journalism at the Huffington Post."

<comment><USER28> HuffPo is itself a reflection of the death of journalism and has been since inception.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A number of posts here have mentioned "thought crime" and hate crime legislation as supposed indicators of lack of freedom.

This makes me wonder about what exactly it is that the opponents of hate crimes want to be free to do, were their actions not criminalized?

For many conservative opponents of hate crime legislation, their intent is pretty clear: they want to commit violent acts against gays, blacks, and other minorities with minimal reprecussions. They are afraid of and opposed to a vision of society that respects minorities and other traditionally oppressed groups, and that (and not some purported ideal of "freedom") is the real reason they fight hate crimes legislation.

David Neiwert[1], has made some excellent rebuttals[2][3][4] to the "thought crime" and anti-hate crime legislation arguments, from which I'll quote below. I encourage you to read the posts in full, because they make many other excellent, relevant points from which I'll have to refrain from quoting in the interests of not making this post too long.

      Do hate-crimes laws create thought crimes? The issue has certainly
      been addressed in the courts, notably in the definitive Supreme Court
      case, Wisconsin v. Mitchell:

        Mitchell argues [via the First Amendment] that the Wisconsin
        penalty-enhancement statute is invalid because it punishes the
        defendant's discriminatory motive, or reason, for acting. But motive
        plays the same role under the Wisconsin statute as it does under
        federal and state antidiscrimination laws, which we have previously
        upheld against constitutional challenge. … Title VII, of the Civil
        Rights Act of 1964, for example, makes it unlawful for an employer
        to discriminate against an employee "because of such individual's
        race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." … In Hishon, we
        rejected the argument that Title VII infringed employers' First
        Amendment rights. And more recently, in R.A.V. v.  St. Paul, 505
        U.S. at 389-390, we cited Title VII (as well as 18 U.S.C. 242 and 42
        U.S.C. 1981 and 1982) as an example of a permissible content-neutral
        regulation of conduct.

        Nothing in our decision last Term in R.A.V. compels a different
        result here. That case involved a First Amendment challenge to a
        municipal ordinance prohibiting the use of "`fighting words' that
        insult, or provoke violence, `on the basis of race, color, creed,
        religion or gender.'" … But whereas the ordinance struck down in
        R.A.V. was explicitly directed at expression (i.e., "speech" or
        "messages"), … the statute in this case is aimed at conduct
        unprotected by the First Amendment.

        Moreover, the Wisconsin statute singles out for enhancement
        bias-inspired conduct because this conduct is thought [508 U.S.
        476, 488] to inflict greater individual and societal harm. For
        example, according to the State and its amici, bias-motivated crimes
        are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct
        emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest. … The
        State's desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate
        explanation for its penalty-enhancement provision over and above
        mere disagreement with offenders' beliefs or biases. As Blackstone
        said long ago, "it is but reasonable that, among crimes of different
        natures, those should be most severely punished which are the most
        destructive of the public safety and happiness."

      Of course, this is William Rehnquist, but the ruling was unanimous.
      Nonetheless, I think Matt Singer puts more or less the same argument
      much more elegantly in his first post on the matter:

        [T]he real answer is that hate crimes laws don't punish individuals
        for their thoughts. They punish individuals for acting on their
        thoughts in unacceptable ways, by targeting a community for
        violence.

      Frankly, I've always found the argument that these laws are "thought
      crimes" to be a little creepy, since it is echoed in the claims of the
      Christian Right that hate-crimes laws that include sexual orientation
      are an attempt to impinge upon their freedom of speech.  But gay-bashing
      is no more a free-speech right than is lynching or even, say,
      assassinating the president. Political thought may motivate all of
      them, but that doesn't mean the Constitution protects any of them.

[1] - <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_neiwert>

[2] - [http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_dneiwert_archive.htm...](http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003_06_08_dneiwert_archive.html#200406177)

[3] - [http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/12/thought-crimes- newspeak...](http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/12/thought-crimes-newspeak- and-2004.html)

[4] - [http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/06/hate-crimes- response.ht...](http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2003/06/hate-crimes- response.html)

<comment><USER30> > they want to commit violent acts against gays, blacks, and other minorities > with minimal reprecussions

Actually this is incorrect. The hate speechs laws were recently tested in the Supreme court [1] and they are not simply based on threats of violence in speech against discriminated groups (that is already covered by many federal laws)

The provincial level speech laws are intended to criminalize (via fines) speech containing prejudice in order to promote _social equality_. For example, the intended objective in Saskatchewan hate speech laws:

> "tackling causes of discriminatory activity to reduce the harmful effects > and social costs of discrimination."

> "appropriately balances the fundamental values underlying freedom of > expression with competing Charter rights and other values essential to a > free and democratic society, in this case a commitment to equality and > respect for group identity and the inherent dignity owed to all human > beings," wrote Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein for the court.

[1] [http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/27/supreme-court- uphold...](http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/27/supreme-court-upholds- canadas-hate-speech-laws-in-case-involving-anti-gay-crusader/)

So it's not a simple as just targeting people who promote genocide or deny the holocaust.

These broad hate speech laws have the potential of causing "chilling effects":

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect_(law)>

But what's worse is that they are trialed in special tribunals and the defendants don't have access to the standard legal defence rights.

> Mary Agnes Welch, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists > stated that Human rights commissions "were never meant to act as language > nannies. The current system allows complainants to chill the speech of those > they disagree with by entangling targets in a human rights bureaucracy that > doesn't have to operate under the same strict rules of defence as a court."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Commissio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Human_Rights_Commission_free_speech_controversies#Criticism)

<comment><USER11> A few years ago, there was a book where the general implication was that Muslims in Europe would gain power/majority just through sheer "out-breeding" of other ethnicities/religious groups. This was deemed to be 'hate speech' because it might incite people to commit hate crimes against Muslims.

Note: I did not read the book, so I don't know how inflammatory it was. Just adding an anecdote.

<comment><USER18> That's ... odd, or based on outdated statistics per David "Spengler" Goldman, in his writings that include titles like "The Closing of the Muslim Womb" (one of the things freaking out the rulers of Turkey and Iran). About the only place where it might be playing out that way the last time I checked is the U.K.</comment></comment></comment></comment>