Reddit Cofounder Alexis Ohanian To Join Y Combinator - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/reddit-cofounder-alexis-ohanian-to-join-y-combinator/ <comment><USER2> That's awesome news. I've always been impressed with Alexis - particularly his sense of humor and genuine friendliness.

For example, a few years ago I ran into Alexis and Steve in an Italian restaurant when my Mom was visiting me in San Francisco. They were sitting a couple of tables over in the mostly empty restaurant and I took a moment to go over and say hi to them since I recognized them from Startup School. In the conversation I mentioned my Mom was visiting me and when I gestured towards our table Alexis excitedly declares "Hi Mom!!" to her. The funniest and most endearing part was how sincerely pleased he was about meeting my Mom. It was a great bonus to our evening to run into him.

Anyway, great news for a great guy.

<comment><USER3> I'll have you know that is the only time Steve & I have ever been 'spotted' in the wild. We still joke about it because we can't believe it actually happened -- thanks for making _our_ day.

And yes, I'm a big fan of moms. They carry our lazy, parasitic asses around for 9 months, after all ;)

<comment><USER4> Getting that on a shirt

"And yes, I'm a big fan of moms." \-- Alexis Ohanian

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I met Alexis in Thailand. I approached him not knowing who he was because he had a Reddit t-shirt so I assumed it would be cool to chat with him. We didn't chat very long but he sent me a Reddit bobblehead when he arrived back from his trip. He's an unpretentious all-round nice guy.

<comment><USER3> Whoa, I remember you! I rarely get approached while wearing a reddit shirt; leave it to a random encounter in Thailand for me to finally meet a redditor excited about our site.

What you didn't see was that I was actually "backpacking" around the country in a gold-plated helicopter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats Alexis! From my time with you at the Awesome Foundation I know you'll do great things with YC.

</comment><comment><USER7> _which has generated over $150,000 for charities_

Wow, I had no idea. Serious props!

<comment><USER3> I was thrilled that made it into the TC piece ~ 2 years in and things are beyond my wildest expectations for breadpig.com (in fact, I'm announcing my first full-time hire shortly).

We're aiming to be a Newman's Own for Nerds: We sell geeky things (LOLmagnetz, xkcd book, shirts) and donate the profits.

I humbly suggest you sign up for our mailing list & drop our RSS feed into your reader :)

<comment><USER8> _I humbly suggest you sign up for our mailing list & drop our RSS feed into your reader :)_

And I second that opinion, replacing 'humbly suggest' with 'order you to'!

The cultural foundation of Breadpig has motivated me to pursue a small idea I've had for a while, but which was never going to be super profitable - switching into the charitable mindset, however, makes it a much more energising project. So thanks for that inspiration, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very cool - the return of an East Coast presence for YC is a good thing for New York and Boston based early entrepreneurs.

<comment><USER10> Good for the individual entrepreneurs? Sure. Good for the overall East coast tech scene? I doubt it. I could be wrong, but I doubt that pg has changed his stance on startups needing to move to Silicon Valley. More than likely, this will serve as a "funnel" for companies from NYC to SV.

Of course, not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that I doubt this is a good thing for the overall east coast entrepreneur community.

<comment><USER11> Actually we have 3 startups in the current YC batch who plan to move back to NYC now that the YC cycle is over.

I've always emphasized that seed funding isn't a local business in the way VC is. Startups come to YC from all over and can go anywhere they want afterward. I honestly believe the optimal route for founders who want to live in NYC would be to come to the Bay Area for YC, then move back to NYC afterward-- just as a lot of New Yorkers choose to go to Boston for college, then move back to NYC afterward.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if this is what Harjeet meant by the new announcement <http://twitter.com/Harjeet/status/22654064109>

<comment><USER13> I would hope so. Otherwise that tweet is telling Alexis, "you're cool and all, but that thing we're announcing next week is what I'm _really_ excited about", which wouldn't exactly be the warmest welcome.

But I'm sure it is.

<comment><USER12> You're right - <http://twitter.com/Harjeet/status/22722432968>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow, I wonder how big the YC network is now after so many years in operation. Has anybody done any statistical analysis? Like how many cofounders walked out the programme and where their startups are currently located

<comment><USER11> About 450 people. I would guess more than half are in the Bay Area.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the reply pg! We are based in Australia and are putting together an application for the next round of YC. Hopefully we'll join the YC community and broaden its global presence!

<comment><USER11> We like Australians. They seem to make good founders. You may want to talk ask the founders of Omnisio, Adioso, and Whereoscope for advice.

<comment><USER14> Yes we know Tom and Fenn from Adioso, and we are going to the next local HN meetup before the submission deadline - I think the biggest thing that anybody would get out of YC is becoming part of a community of very passionate people, which makes a hell lot of difference!

<comment><USER15> Yeah, having Australian YC founders is awesome for championing our local startup communities too. There was a decent turnout at the the YC Melbourne meetup in February.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I met Alexis at Startup School in... 2006? I can't think of many people better suited to an "ambassador" type role.

</comment><comment><USER17> Alexis is awesome. He flew down from NYC to Boston a week or two ago just to come talk to a bunch of young startups (well, I'm sure he had other reasons too, but it really meant a lot to us).

P.S. Cupcakes are generally a great way to introduce yourself :-)

</comment><comment><USER18> Can't think of a friendlier person to represent YC. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER19> What compensation do these people get? A salary? Equity?

</comment><comment><USER20> Congrats, YCombinator and Alexis! Great news.

</comment><comment><USER21> Very cool news for YCombinator ... met Alexis at a DC Drankkit and he's a ridiculously down-to-earth dude.

</comment><comment><USER22> Welcome to New York City, Alexis (again). We're damn glad to have you back!

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if he'll be listed as a 'co-founder' of Y Combinator?

<comment><USER24> I think he's an employee that's _workin' for the man_ now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Congrats to both Alexis and YC!</comment>


My brother passed away at the age of 23 because of a design choice - <AUTHOR> https://the-pastry-box-project.net/kevin-miller/2014-february-24

<comment><USER2> > he knew that gaming carried with it a risk; but that risk was _exasperated_ > [sic] by someone wanting a strobe effect here or a flashing explosion there.

No, not exasperated, but extended or increased.

<comment><USER3> exacerbated, perhaps?

<comment><USER2> That's the word I was searching for. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps an interesting discussion is whether games should provide options to disable features that might be dangerous.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely, giving users an option to reduce effects or at least bright blinking lights would be a good idea. In the context of games I guess they don't think of blind or even color blind people, but taking into account epileptics may save some lives.

<comment><USER6> More and more games feature color blind modes. I know some of the most played games of the moment have it: League of Legends, Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts.

<comment><USER5> That's good to know, I went ahead to mention color blind out of an assumption though (even though I know even some web sites have them in mind), I haven't read anything about an option for epileptics, I wonder how that would work because making a game safe for epileptics is not only more work but if for some reason someone dies playing your game then you would be to blame, maybe that's because it's not done by big companies?

<comment><USER4> I think they would still include standard disclaimers, just add the options and leave the risk with the gamer.

<comment><USER7> I think there's something to be said for personal responsibility here. Games are known to have bright flashing lights. If you are epileptic, don't play games unless they are specifically designed to be epilepsy-safe (or have someone nearby to help).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A misleading headline if there ever was one.

How has this tragic death got anything to do with how to design websites for ppl with visual disabilities?

<comment><USER9> Yeah, he kind of glosses over the most important personal issue here.

[http://trace.wisc.edu/peat/](http://trace.wisc.edu/peat/)

That's a tool you can use which can analyze whether your website could potentially induce epilepsy. If it could, you can either redesign or simply display a warning.

However I found it interesting that there are some people who induce it on themselves by simply waving their fingers in front of their eyes... I don't think a game would have been to blame for someone's death.</comment></comment>


Askhn.org - shorter way to get to hacker news - <AUTHOR>

I've setup http://askhn.org (just a smaller and easy domain) and forwarded it to news.ycombinator.com <comment><USER2> I would be curious to see how much this actually gets utilized.

My personal approach is always to cut out any "middleman", you never know when someone will decide to NOT redirect traffic anymore, or insert their own ads or whatever.

news.ycombinator.com/new is 2 keystrokes in my browser (firefox). Hit "n", "enter".

It's a nice thing to do, just not sure that it's really solving any problems.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a direct forward to news.ycombinator.com, it was small contribution from me and I'm willing to donate the domain to the ycominator folks if they are interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sir, I, for one, thank you. "news.ycombinator.com" is atrociously long.</comment>


Privacy implications of email tracking - <AUTHOR> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2017/09/28/i-never-signed-up-for-this-privacy-implications-of-email-tracking/ <comment><USER2> Discussed 4 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15363564](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15363564)</comment>


Priceline.com get $1000+ CPM for deceptive links in the checkout process - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/11/18/ben-steins-sleazy-paymasters-cont/

<comment><USER3> The problem is that consumers have given control of their debit cards over to the merchants. When they do this, they (possibly inadvertently) give them a blank checkbook. A credit/debit card should be more like a virtual wallet than a blank checkbook. I would love merchants to have to ask my - _not my banks_ \- permission each time they wanted to charge me.

The system right now relies on the honesty of the merchants. If all charges had to go through the consumer's approval first, then I don't think we'd see much of the free credit report scams anymore. Instead of having to call up a recurring (and unsolicited) biller, just decline all payments to the merchant and let the merchant figure out that they're not getting paid.

If I had the means, I think I would start a Bank 2.0. It would have a killer web interface, charge authentication through cell phones or control panel, and instead of dealing with loans and interest, I would probably make make money through Visa charges.

<comment><USER4> I had the same idea. I figured that VoIP made it cheap enough for a computer to call me whenever someone tried to charge my card, and I would have to enter a PIN on the phone before it authorized it.

If the timeout on POS card terminals is long enough (about 30-60 seconds), it's enough time for a computer to call my cell, read me the amount to be charged, then wait for me to enter a PIN (not necessarily the same PIN you use on an ATM).

A bank could offer a web interface for me to authorize a list of "always allow" merchants and their charge limits so I don't have to re-authorize supermarkets and recurring subscriptions.

And finally, an interface to list "always deny" merchants.

I like the idea of cancelling an unwanted service by shutting off the flow of money, and then calling their customer support to notify them.

In fact, I think that should be a basic human right. I shouldn't have to argue with a Customer Retention Department (something that pisses me off just in the concept alone), I should just inform them (or let my bank inform them), that I'm no longer their customer.

Me: "Hi, I've cancelled my account."

Them: "I'm sorry, I'll have to transfer you to a customer retention representative."

Me: "No, you don't understand. I've already shut off payments, I'm just giving you a courtesy call. Bye."

<comment><USER5> I've done that last thing in the UK, however I had to do it via the fraud dept. I had to report unwanted chargers from an e-tailer I'd "cancelled" my account online with as fraud.

However Barclays did make it a reasonably painless and speedy task (comparatively).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the real problems is that often the card companies make it hard to dispute things.

I used to get billed $1 per month on my PayPal account for something called "YOURSAVINGSCLUB". This went on for like 6 or 7 months. I called their number to "cancel" whatever it was they were charging me for, and they said they required my credit card number to cancel my account. Given I already knew they were dishonest, I wasn't going to give them my number again, just in case they didn't actually have it and relied on a third party for the billing.

Anyway, I tried to resolve it instead through PayPal but to do so involved a Fax machine, and everytime I started the process I gave up because it wasn't worth the time for the one dollar.

Luckily I think PayPal finally figured it out and cut them off, as I haven't been charged in 6 months or so.

<comment><USER7> Paypal may make it hard to deal with, but I've never had issues disputing charges on an actual credit card.

<comment><USER8> the paypal EULA involves waiving rights to dispute paypal charges. i've known people to try, who got punished/billed/fined for trying to do so.

i try and avoid using paypal whenever possible, especially for recurring billing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The actual staff report linked in that article is well worth the read.

These companies are basically running shady private tax schemes. No value- added.

I'm glad the senate report provides a list of the 'partner' commerce companies that have made over $1MM using these schemes. I'll be thinking twice about giving any of them my business. [PDF][http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/111609EXHIBITSTOSTA...](http://commerce.senate.gov/public/_files/111609EXHIBITSTOSTAFFREPORT.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> It is amazing to me how credit card companies allow these scams to exist. If somebody does charges people without their consent, they are bound to get a lot of chargebacks and this is just a headache for the cc companies. Also, it is not in the credit card companies interest to allow the credit cards to be conduits for scams.

My parents used to have a business and even though it was a completely legitimate business they were constantly scared of chargebacks. They knew that even a small percentage of chargebacks can cause them trouble with the CC companies and offerred their customers money back whenever possible to avoid chargebacks. And again this was an honest business selling real tangible things to people that knew they were buying those things, not some online scam.

But now you see some companies use credit card billing for nothing but scams and somehow they are allowed to keep their merchant accounts.

</comment><comment><USER11> The background of the Priceline guy is in using game theory and psychological tricks to maximize the addictiveness of slot machines. That's the whole point of Priceline, to apply these tricks to online shopping to maximize the revenue. This is pretty obvious going in, and maybe the site is deceptive above and beyond that, but is this really a surprise? It seems like they've crossed the line here and this should be fixed, but you really shouldn't be shopping there in the first place.

<comment><USER12> > but you really shouldn't be shopping there in the first place.

What makes you say that? I wanted to rent a small car for a week and not one site quoted under $300. Priceline quote came in at $120 from the exact same car companies. It worked out great for me. Of course, I was very cautious about not signing up for 10 other things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does Adblock Plus hide these offers? I don't remember ever seeing anything like this.

</comment><comment><USER14> As always, the clarion call on the internet remains - Caveat Emptor - <USER2> beware.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is that it's extremely hard to know you are a buyer at all. They put a lot of effort into concealing you'll get charged, and since they silently get your credit card details from the hosting site, you don't get the usual 'enter numbers and agree' page to signal you're entering into a transaction.

<comment><USER15> Is there any legitimate reason for a company to pass your payment information onto another "partner" (aside from a payment processor like PayPal, etc)? I can't think of one.

If there isn't, the simple thing would be to just ban this practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree - the FTC has effecticley banned this 'data pass' practice for tele- marketers since 2003, they should extend it to websites too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Well, I don't trust priceline anymore. I used to recommend them to everyone, but not anymore. I booked hotels and rental cars frequently when I traveled and I need another one soon, but I think I might not use them this time.</comment>


A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/ <comment><USER2> Throwaway here,

Once I dropped acid and smoked weed simultaneously, which created an _uber intense_ trip. I used my smartphone, and the UI controls seemed to manifest as physical buttons. I imagined that when I felt a 2d button, it popped out of the phone and felt like a real button. That extra feedback completely changed my user experience. There was no more 'looking under glass'. I can objectively say that physical feedback really enhances the touchscreen experience.

<comment><USER3> > I can objectively say that physical feedback really enhances the touchscreen > experience.

Well, no. You can _sub_ jectively say that using hallucinogens enhances your touchscreen experience.

Edit: I'll elaborate a bit as I'm not trying to be snarky. Given that you took mind altering substances, it's impossible to separate your memory of the perception of the feedback from the chemical experience you had. However real something seemed - that something being both the haptic feedback in the UI, and your memory of the 'goodness' of it - it's the result of a hallucination. You may remember the UI being really fantastic, but that's because that's what you hallucinated. It's not that different from, say, a pot smoker's paranoia: the scratching outside is the wind blowing leaves against the house, not a SWAT team propping ladders up. Doesn't change what you imagined.

<comment><USER4> And yet, imagination is what haptic feedback and whatnot is all about. Phones vibrate in a way that sorta feels like you're pushing a physical button, which has the same effect in the brain.

I'm seeing a market here. Smartphones that emit a cloud of weed/acid to enhance the experience.

<comment><USER5> >> I'm seeing a market here. Smartphones that emit a cloud of weed/acid to enhance the experience.

I'm pretty sure you won the best comment game today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This really comes down to what we want to do as species. If we want to end up like the fat people cruising on hover pads looking at a tablet all day than this "sliding" future is almost sure to happen. (btw, people are lazy). The major problem is that future work will involve a lot of looking and manipulating things on the screen (in the developed world this is already happening). This makes your body useless, it makes it weak and prone to illness. We were not designed or we didn't evolve (choose your pick) to sit all day in front of screens.

<comment><USER7> You have a poor understanding of natural selection. All you have to do is select for survival those that are apt at looking at and manipulating things on screens, and kill everyone else so they can't reproduce. In a few thousands years, we would be evolved for it.

Also, working hard in the fields is also bad for our health, hence our life expectancies used to be a bit lower; looking and manipulating things would be an improvement from that...we can always hit the gym after our 4 hour workday touching things.

As a species, we really just want to create what will effectively replace us. Given a few more (i.e. 20-40) years of deep learning technology development, we won't even have to look and manipulate anymore. By that time, we hit singularity and hopefully we aren't being exterminated by skynet drones.

<comment><USER6> Who is selecting who for survival? Also, working hard in the fields is not bad for your health. Sitting on your ass for 8 hours is bad for your health - maybe you can compensate by going to the gym, but most don't... anyways, the point i was trying to make is that the future will be shaped the way we want it to be shaped.

<comment><USER8> Nobody is "selecting." His point is that if it is highly advantageous to "look at and manipulate things on screens," within the population genes that makes individuals better-adapted for this behaviour will be favourable/selected for. It's just Biology 101.

<comment><USER9> They'll only be selected for if it affects their reproductive success, no? The problems we're discussing usually only affect people later in life, after they've conceived, so I don't see how could it have any significant impact in the natural selection process.

<comment><USER7> Bingo. Without reproduction pressure it doesn't matter either way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This essay gave me entirely different perspective of things. Great essay! Here's my two cents.

If we were to have a ranking of senses, it is an unsaid fact ever since the beginning, the sense of vision takes the highest preference and touch or feel still remains at the bottom. So, one could say that Technology has evolved along these lines all these years. It might even be possible that technology will not be centered around the things that our hands can feel and it's power to manipulate things in the future unless we change our preferences.

<comment><USER11> Hmm, I don't agree with your ranking. Each sense has a range of tasks that it covers, and although there's some overlap, each sense covers things that simply can't be replaced by the others. Therefore they are all dependent.

Sight allows highly detailed sensing of the nearby environment. Smell gives a longer range detection, plus sensitivity to chemical differences which sight lacks. Taste gives a more specific chemical test to things we're about to eat. Touch provides some sensory information about the environment, but mostly it's a control for our manipulation of the world. It facilitates tool-building. Hearing facilitates high-bandwidth information transfer (language) as well as covering some mid-range distance sensing duties for cases where our smell and sight are lacking.

I think ranking these is futile, since they all cover such manifestly different use-cases.

<comment><USER12> Hearing is high-abstraction, not high-bandwidth (that's why you can transfer voice with so little bandwidth over wires and waves). Other than that, your analysis is spot-on.

You're missing proprioception, often deemed as a sixth sense. Tools like Kinect can be used to convey commands - postural and gestural input are not really dependent on touch, and can nevertheless used for input (and output?).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slide and drag is hitting the technological useability sweet spot, where the mouse was at last 'generation'.

Haptic (force feedback), 3D mouse, a variety of trackballs, are all available, all suffer from missing the spot, either due to expense, unneeded complexity, or just disinterest. Trackballs are an example, the one ongoing use I've seen is for film color correction workstations, but are used for a specific mode in a color wheel where it's natural to nudge on a few axis simultaneously.

Phones also have vibration feedback, I've rarely seen it used, and dare I say, never well (love to seen an example of an app that uses vibration frequently and effectively).

Slide areas on a screen are effective when the domain of attack is narrowed to the standard 3-7 options. Mouse interaction is best with a narrowed selection of areas/icons/corners, love those 4 pixel boxes. And they are both cost effective. As the tech to 'understand' the users domain becomes more sophisticated and 'early' in the interaction cycle, gesture interaction and eye tracking will be more effective, the participant will begin to feel the system knows their needs.

As much as I love thumbing through a book and can imagine a dance interface, the future is probably less and less pointing and more just single tap to "go ahead, just what I want" than elaborate touchable interaction.

</comment><comment><USER14> This essay is what leads me to think about the possibilities of user interfaces that are comprised of real world objects which become "smart" via the projection of augmented reality. For example, your average tennis ball could become a slider, a knob, or even a virtual storage container with a heads up display like that produced by meta.

I wonder if the future of user interfaces are simple but universal real world controls (similar to a meatspace UI toolkit) combined with AR. With AR any surface is a display, and when you consider the fact that the contemporary "pictures under glass" model of UI fundamentally falls out of the limitations of current day display technology (namely, displays are a type of surface, but not all surfaces are displays) then it kind of seems logical that if most flat surfaces become displays (virtual or otherwise) then the space of ideas around user interfaces loses a large coupling and fundamentally new things should be possible.

<comment><USER15> You might find the work coming out of MIT's Fluid Interfaces group fascinating.

The "Smarter Objects" ([http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects/smarter- objects](http://fluid.media.mit.edu/projects/smarter-objects)) project seem to tackle some of the things you're talking about. This article ([http://singularityhub.com/2013/05/20/virtual-and-real- object...](http://singularityhub.com/2013/05/20/virtual-and-real-objects-meet- and-become-smarter-objects-at-mit/)) explains it a bit more.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are already companies making sense projection with electromagnetic fields on the screen. One was in the same building here.

<comment><USER17> Did you have a go? Any good?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I like to think brain is the future of interaction instead of hands.

</comment><comment><USER19> Bret Victor's always spot on.

I see it differently though. Touchscreens are interfaces to something so fundamentally abstract (data presentation/manipulation) that it's hard for it to be less ethereal than images that change on a display. Touchscreens just factored away the mouse/keyboard.

The next information-driven interfaces will, most likely, be something that you don't even interact with your hands (retina image? voice recognition? brain-computer interfaces?) than some sort of screen with tactile feedback. Physical interaction will be limited to tools which map to tasks in the physical realm.

</comment><comment><USER20> I am also an interaction designer and while I can certainly understand the author's concerns, that we have abstracted our physical world into visual, often 2D, data which we can manipulate with minimal effort is the direction "nature" is taking.

We are deciding as a species that what makes us human is mind and our tools will reflect that. To think that we will build specific tools that simulate an archaic contextual experience to preserve an unnecessary tradition just screams waste to me.

<comment><USER21> He's not saying we have to recreate old interaction modes, he's just saying let's use all the capabilities of our hands when creating new ones.

<comment><USER7> Haptics is a fine field to be in. Its like touch 20 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> 40 year vision:

I have in my pocket a wad of clay. I flatten it into a pancake and its face lights up with the book I was reading on the subway. Roll it into a ball, thin it out, maybe a special twist and it forms itself into a screwdriver. Another squeeze and it becomes my house key.

</comment><comment><USER23> Its the reason why I prefer tactile keyboards and gaming mice over these finger pads that apple seems to be trying to force on everyone. You get a more personal feel, rather than a numb rubbing sensation.

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting, I've come across this article before, but now owing to events in my life my perspective on it is completely different.

Up until 2011 I was basically a upper-middle grade computer user. I owned a Macbook and used the trackpad heavily. The responsive gestures and seamless software experience were wonderful compared to Windows Vista. I knew a few keyboard shortcuts, and I'd jigged up a program so I could move between tabs on Firefox with finger swipes (among a few other gesture tricks) which I thought was very clever, but my computer skills didn't go much further - compared to the average user I was skilled though.

Then I injured my hand, and ever since I haven't been able to use a trackpad without my hand stiffening up and getting sore, which basically killed the entire experience. For a while I struggled along with my phone and iPad, until I wound up with some sort of nerve damage in my thumbs from a combination of rapid tapping on hard glass and haptic buzzing on my phone's softkeys. Nasty. Other ergonomic problems have mixed in with that - it amazes me that I could use desktop computers so effortlessly when I was a kid, now I get a stiff neck and my arms hurt from resting on the desk (working on getting a better desk...)

It's been an interesting experience, if at times extremely frustrating (as my appetite to consume information has only grown all throughout despite my deteriorating ability to use the most common computing forms.) Now I look around me and see what looks like a looming ergonomic disaster. I cringe now when I see people tapping away on hard, flat glass surfaces (not to mention all the hunched backs and pitched necks from laptop use - pretty breathtaking once you start looking for it). I wonder how widespread the ergonomic problems from hard/flat surface interactions are - seems like the kind of thing that could be simmering away behind the scenes (given that the worse you have this sort of problem, the harder it gets to remain socially active online, so it effectively silences you.) It seems like a bit of a perfect storm - there's just such a huge gap between the wider public and the media that serves them on the one hand, and people like HN users who actually know and are passionate about computers and usability on the other.

Me, I've been using Vim extensions and trying to make my laptop more keyboard- centric. Until eye-tracking and neural interfaces become available, the keyboard cannot be beaten for direct brain-to-action speed and control. My dream would be a computer environment that combines the beauty of modern touch and web interfaces with a unified universal modal keyboard control system, which reached into the browser. It would be nice if there was some standardisation of keyboard access for websites as well - Vim extensions are nice but limited, hard to fly with something that can't handle a Youtube video...

Anyway. I like to point out the difference between Apple's Magic Mouse and an ergonomic tool like the Handshoemouse. One looks beautiful but is a piece of shit interaction wise. The other looks bizarre but is actually built for a human hand. Unfortunately we're living in a world where the money is in serving the masses, people who for the most part will never understand how fast and powerful computers could be if they are moulded to suit our bodies, and so who think Apple products are perfect. Hopefully though as more people come up on these mass-market products and develop a taste for computing the demand will start to build for a higher grade of computer tools.

</comment><comment><USER24> didn't Google just replace the hands with the eyes? (Google Glass) ?

<comment><USER6> No, it didn't.

<comment><USER24> You mean to say people still use their hands to point / drag at objects while wearing their Google Glass on the head?

<comment><USER25> (The right panel of Glass is a trackpad, and is the primary interaction mechanism.)

<comment><USER24> Thanks! Saw a demo video (knew it was fake but the guy blinked and stuff in order to give 'commands').</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I Don't Know What I'm Doing - <AUTHOR> http://ttimsmith.com/articles/i-dont-know-what-im-doing <comment><USER2> obligatory: <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-have-no-idea-what-im-doing>

<comment><USER3> I hate to jump on the meme wagon but [http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/362056-i-have-no-idea-what- im...](http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/362056-i-have-no-idea-what-im-doing)

<comment><USER4> How can I jump on the meme wagon, too? I don't know how.</comment></comment></comment>


How does 'class-passing' actually work? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/01/poor-americans-poverty-rich-class <comment><USER3> > _In the UK, class consciousness is woven into the national identity. In > America, however, people often like to pretend that a class system doesn't > really exist. But, of course, it does._

This is the most insidious part.

The media in the US has historically been 100% controlled by rich people, and all major media still is.

The evil rich people figured out that if you start a gender and race war among the 99%, you can distract them from the fact that they're all being economically exploited and subjected to wage slavery.

The US has gotten richer and richer, if it functioned properly everyone could have enough without resorting to any radical policies. But as long as 70%+ of Americans are wallowing in economic depression there will be no lasting social progress. Just the way most rich people hope it stays.

The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the class system in the US. People are just waking up to how bad it is. The #MeToo movement only happened because rich people are losing media control, and it's just one of many to come.

<comment><USER4> > The internet will almost certainly spawn a social movement to destroy the > class system in the US.

I'm unconvinced. The class system is, at its core, money. And short of eBay allowing people to sell second hand items peer to peer, I really don't think the internet has enabled economic mobility all that much. A select few in Silicon Valley have gotten very rich, certainly, but an effect on the population at large? Maybe it'll happen one day, but even stuff like Bitcoin has somehow transformed from "the new cash" to "the new speculative investment that promises to make people with disposable income even richer".

<comment><USER5> I think you're undervaluing the impact of the internet on small business. Sure, a few guys at the tippy top of Uber-eats are the only ones getting fabulously wealthy, but I've discovered several wonderful mom and pop restaurants through that service. Sure, only a hand full of people at Google are getting fabulously wealthy, but most of the video content I consume these days are regular-ish people on Youtube who now make their living making those videos without having to go through Hollywood gatekeepers. There's been at least a half dozen small businesses I've hired based solely off their Craigslist ads, businesses I likely would've never heard of and might not have ever existed without the internet/Craigslist. I don't understand why people point to the few fabulously wealthy people and exclaim that because everyone else isn't fabulously wealthy that the system is failing us all. We still have a ways to go, but the internet to me has moved several things further down the democratized spectrum than they ever had been before.

<comment><USER6> Just because you've thrown a few crumbs of business or exposure at these people doesn't mean they've become any richer than their equivalents would have been in the pre-Internet days.

The fact that the technological requirements for small new businesses and cottage content industries have changed shouldn't be confused with an improvement in the opportunity landscape as a whole.

If anything, these "businesses" - especially the content creators - are more like digital feudalisms, as (mostly) low-status low-value workers try to scratch out an existence on territory owned by a single entity they have no democratic influence on.

The reality is that wealth concentration among the hyper-rich is accelerating as they capture an ever-increasing share of global productivity.

If the Internet were likely to fix this, we'd have seen some evidence of this happening by now.

But there is exactly zero evidence for this, and even less reason to believe that it _can_ happen, given where we are today.

The only thing that might change this is total disintermediation - open, distributed, publicly owned, non-corporate hardware and software infrastructure, including search, security, content distribution, storage, and applications.

You only have to think about that for a few moments to see how far we are from that kind of Internet, and just how locked down, siloed, chokepointed, gated, and obsessively monetised the Internet we have today is.

<comment><USER5> >The fact that the technological requirements for small new businesses and cottage content industries have changed shouldn't be confused with an improvement in the opportunity landscape as a whole.

Except cottage content and product industries can now sell to virtually the entire planet. That simply wasn't available before.

>as (mostly) low-status low-value workers

Here you're projecting your own bias against them. I'm not suggesting "the system" is without flaws, but the average joe seems to be doing alright in general, especially if you consider average joe historically and globally.

>The reality is that wealth concentration among the hyper-rich is accelerating as they capture an ever-increasing share of global productivity.

Wealth concentration among the hyper-rich doesn't concern me in the least. Generally speaking wealth is created by providing value, not taking it.

>If the Internet were likely to fix this, we'd have seen some evidence of this happening by now.

The internet is in the process of unseating media monopolies and democratizing information. The poorest of the poor across the world have access to information that was previously only available to the wealthiest who could attend universities in rich countries. The internet has allowed small businesses with basically no infrastructure to reach the entire global market. It's allowed families to keep in touch instantaneously across oceans.

>You only have to think about that for a few moments to see how far we are from that kind of Internet, and just how locked down, siloed, chokepointed, gated, and obsessively monetised the Internet we have today is.

You're comparing the internet to some fantasy you have. I'm comparing the internet to the world before the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I spent a summer in NYC a few years ago. While living in NYC I did get a flavor of higher class living with some roommates of mine. It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it was uncomfortable when I didn't.

However, this is one issue that's hard to put solely on the foot of the rich or a broader system. Passing in many avenues, not just by class, is really deciding you want to be there and what the terms of your presence will be. It felt at times like trying to get into a club, if you look like you want in, you don't get in. If you don't want in, they let you in. You have to learn to look like you don't want it.

I think rather than teach young children how to hold spoons, or castigate the rich for yet another divide they were born into, probably we should just teach improv skills, confidence skills and encourage people to engage in open dialogue with others. Some solutions don't require us dismantling a system.

If the next time a rich person gives you an askance look and you immediately ask them to explain themselves, guess what, you just equalized yourself with them socially without having to learn which fork to use first.

<comment><USER8> > _It really is true that there are unspoken codes and mores to follow, and it > was uncomfortable when I didn 't_

Any examples spring to mind?

<comment><USER9> Not the author of the parent comment, but my family shifted from solidly middle-class to members of the 1% over the course of a few years in the early 2000s (my teenage years) as our family business became significantly more successful. Here are some of the things I've experienced that strike me as examples of that:

\- Talking specifically about money (how much high-ticket items specifically cost, how much anyone specifically makes) is gauche.

\- Depending on the group and the location, there are functionally dress codes - you show up to brunch in sweats and sneakers and everyone else is in polos and boat shoes, you "dress up" in a shirt and khakis, everyone else is wearing a blazer and slacks, you put on a Macy's suit for a formal event and everyone else is wearing Tom Ford or Armani.

\- What you do for leisure can be a fraught discussion - we eventually started traveling more, but I've met people who talked casually about summering in Ibiza or the Hamptons (and who used "summer" as a verb), or who have seasonal homes. "I stayed home and played X-Box" as an explanation for what you did on vacation earns a side-eye.

\- What and how you eat, although that one has relaxed a little bit over the last few years as street food has been gentrified and made trendier.

<comment><USER10> That all sounds so miserable. I think I'd rather stay middle class than deal with that stuff.

<comment><USER11> To my mind, watering and feeding your lawn so that it is nice and green and exactly 1 1/2" tall all year round is a solid middle-class indicator. I find it kind of strange to spend that time and money on doing something that has little to no productive value.

Not throwing daggers or anything, but every strata has things that are a bit strange about them.

Yes, I know that upper class does that too, unless you are in the hills where there really isn't any lawn to take care of, etc.

<comment><USER12> I suppose it varies regionally. To me, merely owning a lawn is something reserved for the upper crust, let alone having the time to maintain one. The middle class lives in small apartments and rents houses (with roommates or extended family).

<comment><USER13> Everyone in the Bay Area was was forced to step down a class so that the tech boom and neighborhood character could coexist. Owning a (modest) suburban home for your nuclear family is baseline middle class everywhere else. Renting (and _especially_ renting with roommates) is for students and the poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We love to talk about how being born a certain gender or a certain race shouldn't hold you back from achieving anything you want in America. But what if you are unlucky enough to be born into a poor family, or in a backwoods, downtrodden region of the country?

My experience aligns with the author's. In movies and feel-good stories shared on social media, we romantically idolize the humble rich person, who came from nothing yet somehow stays "true to their roots". And that is a lovely, inspiring mindset necessary to keep people motivated...in theory.

In practice, in order to get ahead in life and to cross class boundaries, you will have to acknowledge that aspects of your upbringing and former way of life are "backwards". You'll have to reconcile that the rich will scorn you and think of your home as a "shithole", and that you "weren't supposed to" make it to the top. You'll have to see things in a new light, and as the author notes, your social life and identity will take a hit (e.g. old friends who won't come to your wedding, or dating prospects who are afraid of being associated with lower classes).

There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust.

<comment><USER15> > There is a moral failing in our country where the pursuit of money is seen > as the objective optimal thing to do. But it's very reasonable to look at > how money changes people, and to turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust.

It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense of pity or moral absolutism.

One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust" and choose enrich themselves.

I'm also not entirely, or even in the least bit, convinced that our society, institutions, social structures, and general well-being would be better off WITHOUT class distinctions. Going deeper, they seem to me to be an essential component of civilization, one of the many necessary "glues" of social order.

edit: This site is slowly turning into Reddit - contrarian opinions need not apply. Instead of down-votes, why not rebut what I said? It's not like the matter is settled, and the last couple times the populous tried to "abolish" social classes, mass terror followed.

<comment><USER16> >edit: This site is slowly turning into Reddit - contrarian opinions need not apply. Instead of down-votes, why not rebut what I said? It's not like the matter is settled, and the last couple times the populous tried to "abolish" social classes, mass terror followed.

Now now relax. You're in a thread about class and you're saying that class distinctions are good because they glue our society together. You don't think those people who have experienced the bottom are going to have a reaction to that?

>It's also very easy and PC to venerate the poor out of some misguided sense of pity or moral absolutism.

Sure but the veneration is usually weak, it's akin to the 'noble savage' \- the 'hardworking blue-collar.' It's veneration at a distance, contact between the wealthy and the poor is frequently uncomfortable for both.

>One could look at poor communities, and, as you said "turn away from such a lifestyle in disgust" and choose enrich themselves.

You make it sound so easy! But it's not, growing up in a poor community frequently means growing up in poor schools with poor opportunities, no mentors and rare role models.

>I'm also not entirely, or even in the least bit, convinced that our society, institutions, social structures, and general well-being would be better off WITHOUT class distinctions. Going deeper, they seem to me to be an essential component of civilization, one of the many necessary "glues" of social order.

Would you say the same thing about racial distinctions? If not, why?

<comment><USER15> > Now now relax.

We can have a sensible discussion without condescension.

> You're in a thread about class and you're saying that class distinctions are > good......You don't think those people who have experienced the bottom are > going to have a reaction to that?

I've "experienced bottom" and I don't really find what I said to be inflammatory or offensive, if we're willing to be honest with ourselves, it's rather quite self-evident.

>You make it sound so easy! But it's not, growing up in a poor community frequently means growing up in poor schools with poor opportunities, no mentors and rare role models.

I'm familiar with how "easy" or not it is - I've lived it. If you graduate high school and don't have a kid before you are married, you're pretty much guaranteed to enter the middle-class.

> Would you say the same thing about racial distinctions? If not, why?

What exactly do you mean? Do I think that racially homogeneous societies exhibit more social order? I don't know, that to me sounds like a question for a social scientist or sociologist. I don't find it to be analogous to what we're talking about here though, as one cannot change their race, but many are socially mobile.

<comment><USER16> >We can have a sensible discussion without condescension.

Fair.

>I've "experienced bottom" and I don't really find what I said to be inflammatory or offensive, if we're willing to be honest with ourselves, it's rather quite self-evident.

Well no. It may be self-evident when you're honest with yourself but when "we're" honest with "ourselves" it's not at all, hence the downvotes and disagreement in the replies.

>I'm familiar with how "easy" or not it is - I've lived it. If you graduate high school and don't have a kid before you are married, you're pretty much guaranteed to enter the middle-class.

This is the success sequence stuff? Look it's just not very true. Almost the entirety of various 'success sequence' poverty figures can be explained by one thing: maintaining full-time work. Everything else is small or zero. Well maintaining full-time work isn't always easy! There's a variety of circumstances outside ones control which can affect your ability to maintain full-time work.

[http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence- extremely...](http://www.demos.org/blog/8/13/15/success-sequence-extremely- misleading-and-impossible-code)

>What exactly do you mean? Do I think that racially homogeneous societies exhibit more social order? I don't know, that to me sounds like a question for a social scientist or sociologist.

You didn't need a social scientist or sociologist to declare that class distinctions are natural and helpful. Why the trepidation on race?

>I don't find it to be analogous to what we're talking about here though, as one cannot change their race, but many are socially mobile.

Are many mobile in an effortful sense though? Say I have a society where at birth we roll a bingo machine filled with balls 1-5 and we assign you to a quintile. This society would demonstrate perfect intergenerational mobility yet there would be no way to exert effort and change your circumstance - <USER2> as race. Now what if instead of a bingo machine we just had a very large 'luck' component to mobility? It's the same deal. It's not just about how many went from bottom quintile to third quintile or better, it's about how it happened.

<comment><USER15> >This is the success sequence stuff? Look it's just not very true. Almost the entirety of various 'success sequence' poverty figures can be explained by one thing: maintaining full-time work

This isn't true, and a random blog post where the author has difficulty replicating the studies results does not prove it so. There is a mile high pile of literature that shows marriage and high school graduation to be vitally important. It would not surprise me in the least that these two are strongly correlated with full-time employment. The "Success Sequence" has lifted more people from poverty than any social welfare program has to date.

Here is some compiled literature:

 _[https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and- inequality/report/marri...](https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and- inequality/report/marriage-americas-greatest-weapon-against-child-poverty*)

_[http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IFS- Millennial...](http://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/IFS- MillennialSuccessSequence-Final.pdf*)

>You didn't need a social scientist or sociologist to declare that class distinctions are natural and helpful. Why the trepidation on race?

I _genuinely_ still have absolutely no idea what you are asking me to clarify, and I'm taking offense at your insinuation that I'm being coy about some matter regarding race. I will gladly answer your question, but what is it that you are asking or need clarification on? Are you asking me if racial distinctions are natural? Yes, race is hereditary, is this not self-evident?

> Are many mobile in an effortful sense though?

I don't know what you mean by effortful, so the best I can answer you is to say that socially mobility is a very real and recognized phenomena in the United States of America.

>This society would demonstrate perfect intergenerational mobility yet there would be no way to exert effort and change your circumstance

As far as I understand you, your underlying premise here is that social mobility is, like a dice roll, pure luck. I think this premise is completely baseless.

>'luck' component to mobility? It's the same deal

It absolutely isn't the same deal. I don't doubt that race makes it more difficult for some people to succeed, but this is completely tangential and I'm finding it difficult to see what, if anything, this has to do with my original statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article resonates with me on many levels. I went from below $10/hr to 5x that and never experienced anything in between. The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out what "my people" is supposed to mean.

A huge different that's obvious to me is the language we use. I often wonder why no one's mother didn't fill the these people's mouth with dawn liquid soap and slap the child silly, but then I realize that honesty wasn't a life or death situation for them. I'm often called brutally blunt, but really, I'm very tame compared to most people I grew up around.

As a real example, we often get articles on Hacker News that discusses the best way to hire, best way to land a job, best way to self-learn, and so on. It took me years to realize that these articles were all shaded in a heavy fog of bullshit, and it took me many years to realize that the posters who upvote and share these articles are not only aware of the heavy fog, but are able to read though the fog. If I was able to go back in time and tell my autodidact self on thing, it was to learn about bullshit, and it's something I always advise those who trying to self learn.

<comment><USER17> > "The struggle is huge, and I keep having to look inside myself to figure out > what "my people" is supposed to mean."

For me, the weirdest part is the way in which the upper-middle class people I now associate and work with talk about "my people" (i.e. the working-class folks I grew up with). They mythologize them as the noble, hard-working, salt of the earth, when in reality, they clearly don't like most of their habits, their religion, their tastes, their opinions, their language, or much else about them. Poor and working-class people are described in archetypes, stereotypes, and as abstract ideas. But very little said matches what I know about actual poor people. They are always -- always -- praised when spoken of in the abstract. But when the conversation drifts toward the specific, it's pretty clear that they're not really big fans.

I find myself simultaneously defending the behaviors of the working class while also walking upper-class liberals back a few steps on just how _noble_ and _hard-working_ \-- they're _always_ described as _hard-working_ \-- most actual poor people really are. They're just people.

<comment><USER18> I work with plenty of people that may put in a "hard" 2-3 hours of actual work a day. Comparing effort and every poor person I grew up with actually worked really hard.

If anything it's coded language for 'working hard is a great way to end up poor'.

PS: Consider all the "hardworking" people here on HN. Yes, long hours may be expected, but effort has little direct benefit.

<comment><USER19> There's a difference between working hard and working smart. One is the brute force solution. The other uses a heuristic to narrow the solution space.

<comment><USER20> I think the point here is that in white-collar workplaces long hours are mostly an abstract way of signaling that you take the job seriously, not exhausting in the way that long hours in a job demanding physical labor would be.

<comment><USER21> There are different kinds of tired — physically exhausted, brain-fried, and emotionally spent — but I'm not making any sort of comparison between them.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, but the guy who always stays after at work, how much of his time is work and how much of it is browsing Reddit?

<comment><USER21> Fair question. Is that person slacking, projecting, coping, or percolating?

<comment><USER19> They're signaling to management. Plain and simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I disagree its a simple as class & money, there is no such thing as "the rich" or "the workers". Old money vs New Money, West Coast vs East Coast, South Vs North, Coastal vs Midwest, Lawyers vs Tech, USA vs Europe there are a million sub-classes of "Rich" and even more subclasses of working class esp in NYC. Yes I completely agree its very difficult to change your behavior/job/class like the guys in the article. Its also difficult for a middle class Alaskan to make friends in NY or female nerd to enjoy working in tech or a fat lazy MidWesterner to make friends in Malibu.

The more class/religious/language/wealth/cultural/racial/geographic barriers your cross the more difficult it is to change, but the Guardian often reduces this to a class war which is overly simplified.

<comment><USER23> It's simplified, but aside from the subclasses which will exist within any group, isn't it broadly accurate?

<comment><USER22> Yes its true that rich people behave different to poor, but its misleading because its not the whole story. Good example is the second guy who turned up in the bay area from a prestigious East Coast school wearing a suit, and didn't fit in.

Edit - I dont want to trivialize it, Money & Class is a big barrier to overcome if you want to move into high paying jobs. Maybe class matters in some jobs more than others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This article is not really about "class passing." It is about "upper class passing." The fact that it uses the term _class passing_ solely to mean you went up in status and need to fit in there is part of the problem. In this framing, lower classes are negated as legitimate social classes.

My maternal grandmother's maiden name begins with _von._ She came from a low level German noble family. They sold the title when the family fell on hard times.

I was homeless for about a year before I recognized how upper class my mother's expectations were. I didn't think we were upper class. My mother worked as a maid. My father had been a soldier and failed to establish a second career after he left the army. I also didn't think we had money. We weren't millionaires, but when they bought a house when I was 3, my dad had 3/4 of the cost of the house in the bank. They put down such a large down payment that their mortgage payment was about 40 percent of what the neighbors were paying.

I sometimes met people on the street with upper class manners. These were bitter people, failing to adapt to current reality.

I grew up learning to _power dress_. Being homeless taught me something I had not ever been able to figure out before: how to stop intimidating people and stop trying to win the damn pecking order game, a game I loathe but couldn't stop playing. I learned to wear t shirts with cartoons on them and to see that as a good thing, not something I should be ashamed of or embarrassed by or apologize for.

I learned to be approachable, a skill I never had before. That enormous confidence and ego this article talks about? It is obnoxious behavior that sticks out like a sore thumb in a group of not rich folks. It intimidates ordinary people.

It signals you have power they lack. You feel untouchable. You are confident that even if you fuck up, everything will work out okay.

Ordinary people don't feel that way. When it is clear you do, they know they are dealing with an asshole who will not hesitate to fuck up their life, whether due to obliviousness or casual malice.

Learning to class pass runs both ways. The fact that we don't talk or think like it does tells you how much contempt we fundamentally have for the little people.

</comment><comment><USER25> There is a difference between those who actually have money and class vs people desperately trying to project the image of money and class. Anyone concerned about 'class-passing' should be aware that it's not the top that is behaviorally constraining, it is the middle.

The people most obsessed with putting up the act of their high class are those whom aren't there yet. The mid level professional who is working 80hrs a week and making $90k/yr will absolutely put on the whole 1% act. They will buy the luxury car, fancy clothes/watch/jewelry etc... and be in debt up to their eyeballs. They will also be the first to notice/comment on anyone who isn't up to their 'standards' while standing on cliquish etiquette rules.

Conversely working with true high net worth individuals is rarely an exercise in gate keeping. In many cases their standards for behavior are much lower than you would expect because the competitive pressure is off. You'll find that people with millions in the bank are more humble/genuine than those whom are trying to act the part.

<comment><USER26> Read "The millionaire next door" for a book-length explanation of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> As someone who's navigated their way from poor->middle class->upper middle class I can give a bit of perspective that I rarely see mentioned in these articles...

One of the biggest barriers to moving up in class is the people in your starter class. Family, friends, neighbors... almost all of them will start to get very aggressive with you if you seriously try to better yourself. I remember being accused of using too many "five dollar words", being a nerd for spending time learning technology, being a _loser_ for reading books! I found the crab bucket mentality to be very real. I tried to encourage others to have the strength to stand against it, but few did. I don't really talk to anyone I knew from back then anymore.

Going from middle to upper middle was interesting as well. There you also see pressure to stay as you are but it's less overt and more of a second order effect of trying to keep up with the Jones. The amount of debt that I saw the average middle class person bury themselves in just to achieve what they thought represented a slightly higher class than they actually lived was astounding. You can't move up in class when you're living paycheck to paycheck to pay for your car leases, oversized mortgage and credit cards balances that are full from paying for regular international travel.

Every step I've made has meant breaking ties with the people who weren't happy to see me move on. Now I find myself at the glass ceiling and this time there's very real pressure from _above_ to stay where I'm at. Rich people may let you in the door occasionally but it will be on their terms. It's up to you as a person to decide if you're willing to contort yourself to their demands. Yes you can "hit it big" with a startup or something but there's a lot of chance involved in that. At this stage you're best off living below your means and investing since upper middle class people have a pretty meaningful revenue stream. Just not enough to call it quits and retire.

<comment><USER28> birth limits you to upper middle class. you can be fabulously wealthy, but if you did not have the upbringing, you can not claim it.

however, if you are wealthy, you can buy an upper class lifestyle, and your _children_ will be upper class, while you will not be.

in other words, their peers that they grew up with will accept them as upper class (meaning they had an upper-class upbringing), while their parents still consider you to be an up-and-comer, because you did not.

once you realize this, it's a much healthier situation because you stop trying to make that final jump. and once you stop trying to make that jump, both your upper middle and upper class friends will be more comfortable around you.

in other words, once you make it to upper middle, it's not worth worrying over. it's better to just focus on the money to make your family's life comfortable without worrying about social details. money defines everything under upper class; birth and upbringing defines the upper class.

by the time your children's children come around, everyone will have forgotten about you, and the new normal will have taken hold.

that last jump can only be given by birth -- which, if you stop and think about it, is exactly how it works, right?

<comment><USER29> Tom Brady owns a multi-million dollar house next to "The Country Club" (yes, that is exactly how it is referred to, anyone who has to ask which country club does not belong) and he was denied a membership until this year:

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2017/07/13/the-c...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2017/07/13/the- country-club-brookline-finally-admits-gisele- bundchen/D6FedQkhgn9QMsstOSXyNM/story.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you want a quick hack to be seen as high class and authoritative (and you probably do since this is _hacker_ news) in any situation just follow this one simple rule: Don't move your head around so much, keep it straight forward and still. If you must look at things, do so only by moving your eyes, not rotating your whole head. If you need to turn your gaze more, turn your whole body. Look at things with intent, and on your _own_ terms.

Try it today.

</comment><comment><USER31> It is noticeable the resentment in this thread of the arbitrary BS you have to go through when you change classes to not seem awkward. But we should remind ourselves there is a whole bunch of arbitrary BS we common folk _are just used to_. It isn't that the higher classes have more BS, it is just that it is not ingrained to your experience, so it is frustrating that your habits for interaction do not work. I would prefer we get rid of lots of arbitrary BS at every level, but unfortunately you can't fight the system.

<comment><USER32> > "you cant fight the system"

but we can die trying : ).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Like most articles of this type, this article focuses exclusively on the upwardly mobile. And why not? They are usually interesting productive members of society. But downward mobility is a thing too, and you almost never see an article about class mobility talk about that side of it. I guess the idea is that the downwardly mobile aren't interesting, or deserve their fate. The downwardly mobile have children too. Learning to lose the manners of the ghetto when living among the upper class is quite useful , but learning to hide the manners of the upper class when living in the ghetto is often a matter of survival.

<comment><USER34> There might be an aspect of shame where those people are less likely to talk about adjusting to moving down the ladder.

</comment></comment><comment> murph-almighty Intergenerational mobility is a really interesting topic- I played around with a transition matrix for a high school project about Markov chains. I can't dig up the table right now but I believe it was based on data from around 2008 and was split into quintiles- i.e. the table tracked the income jump between you and your parents with bucket sizes set at every 20%.

What I'd _really_ like to see is a similar table with smaller bucket sizes- namely, I'd like to see the intergenerational migration rates on the higher buckets. If we start seeing higher retention rates on the higher buckets and less entry into them from lower buckets, then we might be headed into a more fixed-class situation.

<comment><USER35> I've seen nytimes or fivethirtyeight or one of those visualization shops do interactives on the topic.

Can't find the exact one I'm thinking of, but the visualization halfway down the page here shows expected income quintile as a function of your parents' income and location: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing- incom...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/business/in-climbing-income- ladder-location-matters.html?pagewanted=all)

This youtube video also shows expected income quintiles based on the income quintile you've been born into: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2XFh_tD2RA) (about a minute in)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> My Mom was a immigrant who came from the Philippines. My dad was a polish person. I raised my income and made more than them by a few ways.

1\. Figuring out how to get a degree in Computer Science. (I chose a state school UIC)

2\. Getting a Job in CS (I worked at the school I had classes from and then transitioned to a real job locally).

The way I did it was taking my resume and applying to jobs I believe I was qualified in. I taught myself web development in high school and continued to be interested in it. I went to meetups to network with people.

All of this wouldn't be possible without my mom having a job at the local grocery store. Or my parents supporting me when I was getting my degree.

<comment><USER37> It's still a great accomplishment but I think it's easier for your next generation to jump a class. I think the harder idea is to personally jump a class after being in one.

But then again, it might just be that when someone has a child, they set them up to move up instead of themselves. They sacrifice their chance for their children. Otherwise they would have the capital to do it themselves.

Obviously I'm just thinking out loud. It just seems that it's more common for someone's child to get an education and eventually rise above their parents. If you have children, they might have a chance at an Ivy League school or something like that which they will then have the chance to rise above you.

<comment><USER36> Yea, I mean my parents couldn't really afford to be in the house we were in until I started to have a job. I bought my mom a Minivan.

Sometimes they couldn't pay for heat to get fixed. Or all the times I ate Ramen.

Or the fact that I wanted to be a MCS major but really had to have a CS degree.

But, I know many people that I went to school with who were unable to do so and had the same opportunities that I did. Or had more money than me and couldn't get a job after they graduated. Even the people that I had the same high school weren't able to do that. They had more money than me. They were smarter than me. The only thing I can see that I had more than them was grit and determination. My intelligence wasn't even in their league.

I chose CS because I knew that an average person in CS could get a average job and the demand would be there when I graduated. My life is a constant hedge against the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I suppose it's passe to report like this, but the irony of making this statement, _" Nevertheless, the country remains enamored of these rags-to- riches tales which perpetuate the myth that, in the US, anything is possible if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps."_, in a story where they are talking to someone who did exactly that means it isn't a myth is it? Myths by definition are 'not real', 'imaginary', or 'allegorical'. So this story clearly happened, it is clearly real, so it doesn't qualify as a myth. And yet the author throws out there this narrative that implies it is. Frustrating.

It also focuses on the east coast experience. Anyone who has lived in the US for any length of time knows that "social societies" in the US have a variety of roots, whether it is the bloodlines of the deep south, the money makers of wall street, the entertainment moguls of LA, or the tech whizzes of the North west.

I don't have visibility into other areas but I know that with just Apple, Facebook, and Google they have moved thousands of people from having a negative net worth, to having a net worth in excess of a $1M. You meet them when they go to seminars about diversifying one's wealth, or at events that have been expressly targeted to HNWI[1] types.

And "Class Passing", a reference perhaps to a practice where light skinned blacks would present themselves as white to avoid discrimination? If that is what they were going for its a bit provocative is it not? Especially for what is essentially a story that says "Some of the people we need/want to hang out with for social reasons are really annoying/irritating/offensive." That has nothing to do with 'wealth' or 'class' and everything to do with groups that self identify with offensive traits or values.

An interesting story is one where you are suddenly much wealthier or much less wealthy than people in your current social group that you _like_. How do you keep those relationship vital and alive in the presence of this disparate wealth. I have watched many people struggle with that and some master it effortlessly. I'd love to collect those stories and pull out the essence of how to make that work in an accessible way.

[1] "High Net Worth Individual." You know that this is what the market thinks you are when you get a box of artisan chocolate with a brochure describing a service for providing private air transportation on demand for you and your friends.

<comment><USER23> > _So this story clearly happened, it is clearly real, so it doesn 't qualify > as a myth._

The myth is that of social mobility (upwards and downwards) based on merit, being the primary way that society stratifies itself.

I have seen an _inverse relationship_ between hard work and wealth within people I know, and even periods of my own life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Worldwide) American dream? better say in Europe.

<comment><USER40> *Canada, France, Germany, or the Nordic countries, as determined by a single study from '06 with race (apparently?) not taken into consideration for any of them

<comment><USER41> Race? I'm not sure what that would do here, especially since race usually doesn't change a lot between parents and their children.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This post has a bit of info about what class migrants report of the attitudes of their original classes toward the more privileged classes:

[http://www.andrewlangman.com/articles/class-culture- gap.html](http://www.andrewlangman.com/articles/class-culture-gap.html)

</comment><comment><USER43> The first step to understanding the class system is to differentiate between class and wealth. Class has very little to do with wealth, and it is mostly determined by your upbringing, mannerisms, profession, lifestyle and network.

A high net worth is helpful but insufficient for gaining entry to the higher class. It can also work against you, if you're too visible with your money and spend it frivolously. For example, buying brand name designer clothing is not a traditionally "high class activity", and would mark you as being, at best, nouveau riche.

The modern class structure is very complex, but can more or less be broken down to the following:

1\. The "out of sight upper class", who mostly keep to themselves and stay out of the public eye, especially as a reaction to public perception after the Great Depression. They are typically wealthy but not necessarily billionaires, and they live off of their capital instead of any particular profession. To be in this class, formally speaking, you must have been a part of the upper class for a couple of generations. You accelerate access into this class by elevating your family through e.g. high political achievement.

2\. The upper class, who understand that they are not the true upper class. The nouveau riche with the potential to join the out of sight class also fall in here. Their children or grandchildren might be members of the out of sight class if their upbringing is "correct". They have wealth or status, but have not had it for very long. Depending on their proclivities, they might not ever join the out of sight class because they're too "visible", for lack of a better word. These are traditionally doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and these days, software engineers. They have "respectable" careers and diversify themselves from the majority of their professional peers.

3\. The middle class, who traditionally experience anxiety about their place in the class system, and who are encouraged to raise their status through their professional achievements. They associate high class with high class "things", like brand name furniture, but don't fully internalize the nuances of what makes for a high status individual. By definition, they can't really perceive the true lifestyle of the upper class, which is why they associate it with things that are only externalities of its members.

4\. The lower class, who are mostly incapable of differentiating between wealth and class, even if specifically told about it. They typically lack education and are very nearly always impoverished. But importantly, even a wealthy person can be a member of the lower class if they share its lifestyle and understanding of the class system. Many nouveau riche who earned their wealth through the entertainment industry and who are exceptionally visible are essentially barred from being part of the upper class.

The modern suit is very illustrative of the nuances in the hierarchy. A middle class individual might "splurge" on a suit from Mens Wearhouse. A low class individual will buy a suit from a highly visible fashion brand, like Armani. An upper class individual will buy a suit and have it tailored to fit, probably from a less "loud" designer in Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom. The out of sight class will wear bespoke suits from a tailor on Saville Row, or a similarly understated venue of high prestige.

If this all sounds exceptionally pretentious, that's because it is. The class system does not revolve around money, it revolves around prestige. It is mostly associated with money because that's politically expedient on the national stage. That said, wealth is something of a class multiplier - it is difficult to remain in the middle class once you're wealthy, and more often than not you'll end up in either the lower class or the upper class depending on your lifestyle and spending habits.

<comment><USER20> The article actually profiles one guy who had to acclimate himself twice over, first to the old-money world of the East Coast, then once more over to the new-money world of Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER43> Yes, it's quite fascinating differentiating between the social idiosyncrasies of each.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Marriage is commonly a class conferring activity, I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned by any of the people profiled in the article.

It's something I'm confronting as a mid 20s middle class guy dating a girl from the upper, upper middle class...older folks have a lot of strange expectations for marriage, what it means, and how to make it successful.

</comment><comment><USER45> At first I thought it was an article about dependency injection or something. Talk about programmer bubble...

</comment><comment><USER46> It seems to me that much of the "class" issue is really about pride. I'm higher class than you, so I look down on you. Or, I'm more down-to-earth than you, so I look down on you.

"I'm OK with who I am, and I don't need to look down on anybody to feel OK about myself" sets you free from a lot of the games that are played in the name of "class". (It doesn't make it easier to feel like you _fit_ with other people, but it makes it so that you don't have to try to move to (or stay in) some particular class.)

</comment><comment><USER47> The number one indicator of your class standing is your parents' class standing. There is no American Dream, and "Rags to Riches" is more luck than skill and effort.

<comment><USER20> You think you're rebutting the article, but it says those exact things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I highly recommend checking out the book 'White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America' from your local library! A fantastic read about the historical realities of class in America. It reads quite academically, so I think some here would enjoy that style.

</comment><comment><USER49> > "But if you go to Silicon Valley dressed like that," he explains, "they'll > be like, this guy is a suit, he doesn't dress like a tech person. That > matters. The meeting is over."

Odd how people in suits keep seeming to meet with our CEO then. I guess they all get kicked out? Poor guys.

</comment><comment><USER50> i thought this was about class-pass gym thing.

<comment><USER51> I thought it was about passing variables into a class instead of an object, or some other Object Oriented technique I was unaware of...

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> HN should just change its name to Hate America and Capitalism Knews. Yet another all politics story about how America isn't perfect or capitalists is evil. A daily occurrence on HN.

<comment><USER53> Oh please. You can easily criticize something without hating it. I'm American and believe there are plenty of things to both admire and criticize about our nation. Blind nationalism doesn't do us any favors, and is a lever by which cynical forces may manipulate us. It is therefore instrumental to the health of our republic that we constantly view ourselves with a critical eye.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Why bother?

The so-called high-class are born rich. They never had to work hard for what they have. You can be pretty sure they couldn't. Most poor people do stay poor, after all.

If you made your own fortune, then you're objectively better than most of them. In fact, they do not deserve your time.

<comment><USER20> Well, because to be successful in their world you have to, if not pass for one of them, at least not make them so uncomfortable they don't want to work with you.

<comment><USER54> Yes, that's the one and only reason I can think of.

<comment><USER20> OK, but that's a pretty huge one.

<comment><USER54> Fair enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Growing World of Moneymaking Fantasy Sports - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2015-01-15/the-growing-world-of-moneymaking-fantasy-sports

<comment><USER2> It's like a more socially acceptable dungeons and dragons.</comment>


The TSA's Dumb Air-Security Rules Are Not Based on Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tsa-dumb-security-rules-not-science-based <comment><USER2> I think that the public has moved beyond being comforted by security theater. Now, two other forces are propping up the absurdities: (1) bureaucratic self- preservation, and (2) leadership irrationality along the lines of "man, will I look bad if I support revoking [stupid TSA rule #1039237] and a terrorist then uses the opening in an attack."

<comment><USER3> > leadership irrationality

Narrowly considering the rules of the game, it's not an irrational stance at all.

<comment><USER4> Sounds like the rules of the game are a problem. The desire to stay "in power" outweighs the desire to actually represent constituents accurately.

<comment><USER5> Iron Law of Institutions:

<http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/001705.html> (ignore the partisan aspects)

<comment><USER4> Good read. I wish this kind of thing was taught and discussed in schools, but it seems like that would be "breaking the 4th wall"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If we assume the TSA is a political response, and we consider the statement "Politics is show business for non-pretty people"* then the TSA's policies being referred to as Security Theater seems much more expected.

*yes, I took a liberty to avoid such a negative emotional content word

<comment><USER7> > "Politics is show business for non-pretty people"

It's worse than that, since I'd categorize the TSA as part of the blob of bureaucracy that is one step removed from politics or real political (democratic) accountability.

Voters and politicians panicked after 2001 and acted to do "something". Unfortunately, it's been over a decade since that something was put into place and for at very least half that time we've known that it's a mostly misguided effort.

How long does it take for the US government to undo mistakes like this, if ever?

<comment><USER8> The "War on Drugs" has been going on for over 40 years now, so there's your answer.

<comment><USER7> Yeah... the Constitution should have had some kind of efficacy test and timeout for all legislation.

Maybe now that we know a lot about code refactoring, we could apply the same concepts to legislation.

To connect back to another HN topic today, maybe we need a lot more articles entitled "Write Less Laws".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And did anyone ever think that there would be a sound rational basis for the operations of TSA? Good morning to scientificamerican.com, too.

The TSA is rolling on with its own mandate regardless of science and the opinions of thinkers, and they will do anything that they want and that can superficially be based on increasing "security"; that is, such claims that people are easy to persuade to believe if they're not left to think about it.

I don't know how they fit in the big picture: they represent some fears or some power that people have invited into this world. But I can be pretty sure what the true reason is that compels them to justify their own existence. Follow the money.

</comment><comment><USER10> While we're at it, most fire investigation isnt either. We should change that since it often leads to imprisonment.

<comment><USER11> I was surprised by this. Googling turned up this article from 1998: <http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article9.html>, and of course Wikipedia: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_investigation#The_New_Scie...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_investigation#The_New_Science_of_Post- Flashover_Burning) . Wikipedia makes it sounds like science is making it's way into fire investigation, starting with the 2005 and 2007 experiments by the ATF, but it's not clear how many fire investigators have paid attention to the results. Thanks for pointing this out. I learned something new today.

<comment><USER12> That article is interesting, but extremely violates Wikipedia's editorial policy. The wording is inflammatory and opinionated, not encycopedic:

"The bottom line was "The "old-days" of locating the point of origin of a post-flashover fire by relying on the "lowest burn and deepest char" are OVER![12]

When word of the ATF experiments reached the fire investigation community, people began to examine the data more closely, because an error rate over 90% was simply unimaginable! In fact, the poor results should have surprised nobody. "

<comment><USER13> It appears the page has already been tagged as "It is written like a personal reflection or essay rather than an encyclopedic description of the subject." in 2011, but so far nobody has decided to tidy it up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> TSA's security rules are a mix of deterrents and science. I worked on explosive detection devices for the TSA during my PhD.

The banning of liquids and pastes are logical. There are some extremely volatile liquid and plastic explosives that would take your leg off if you dropped [1][2]. Or if they were used as primary explosives to ignite a more powerful secondary explosive. That could be disastrous if TSA allowed liquids in larger quantities.

As for the detection technologies that are currently out on the market, all I have to say is that every single one of them can be confused and circumvented, which is why they have seemingly arbitrary rules. For example, xray technologies can easily confuse plastic explosives with a piece of cheese, which is why you have to take shit out of your bag. MMW wave technologies are confused by water substances, which is why you have to do a pat down if an anomaly is detected.

My own technology that I worked on was primarily developed as a low-cost surface technique, so if you had explosive residue on your hands or baggage our detector would alarm.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroglycerin> [2]<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa6fcun3kag>

<comment><USER15> I don't think that anyone is denying that liquids can pose a threat. The article stated that by allowing everyone to bring some small amounts of liquides defeats the purpose almost completely. All I would have to do is get 5 of my co-conspirators to carry on 5 little contains each of some volatile liquid and when we get past security we pour them all together to make one big batch of nastiness.

This example, and many more, is why we say the TSA's security rules are useless and arbitrary. About the only way to ensure a risk free flight is to force everyone to fly naked, not allow luggage, remove the cleaning crew, etc... and I don't think there are any airlines that are willing to go that far. :/

<comment><USER16> Or just carry the five containers yourself, by carrying a bottle of shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, suntan lotion, and toothpaste. All non-transparent containers - I've never seen a TSA agent sniff toothpaste to make sure it was actually toothpaste, and not superglue, or cocaine, or strawberry jam.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _For example, according to the TSA, the 11-inch model of the MacBook Air is fine to leave in your bag, but the 13-inch model must be removed._

There's nothing inherently unscientific about this rule. Presumably someone has calculated the volume of explosive that's worth checking for, and then another person has translated that into simple, practical rules that can be quickly taught to a large number of border agents.

<comment><USER18> Sure there is, but not necessarily (only) in the way that was originally implied. Science, generally speaking, involves observation and inference. A scientific approach to airplane security would therefore (to simplify greatly) involve looking at what has happened in the past to inform our decisions for the future.

In the past (2001), terrorists attacked airplanes using tactics and weapons we were unprepared for. It seems reasonable, then, to think that if there is another terrorist attack on an airplane it will follow this pattern: it will use tactics and weapons we are unprepared for.

So checking 13 inch Macbooks more closely than 11 inch Macbooks (assuming taking the thing out of its case _actually_ does anything) just means that terrorists should find ways to put a sufficiently-powerful bomb in an 11 inch Macbook in order to be successful.

Our approach, therefore, is completely unscientific because it assumes that terrorists today will continue to use the tactics they used yesterday, or were planning to use yesterday, when we know from observation and inference ("science") that this is not the case.

Note that there have been several attempted attacks since 2001. None have been successful, and none of them, not a single one, was foiled, even partially or with assistance from, TSA. Each of these attempts exploited a weakness in the TSA processes. Seems like the terrorists are better at "science" than the TSA are.

<comment><USER17> What you're discussing is strategy (the choice of where to deploy resources in a conflict). Some might argue that science can be applied to conflict, but Clausewitz for example makes a convincing argument that strategy is not scientific and will never be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good article, although short and without too much actual research or science. Not a fan of the second page that only contains a few sentences, though.

<comment><USER20> Okay so it wasn't just me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a sneaking suspicion that the TSA's existence _is_ based upon science, although the science in question is sociology and/or mass psychology.

</comment><comment><USER22> Timely. I just cleared security where I was effectively given my choice of magnetometer, backscatter, or groping. I suppose under some reality that is more secure than assigning magnetometer to everyone. They should do it there.

(I'm not saying which airport. I like it this way.)

<comment><USER23> I've been passing through SFO frequently. I take some minor schadenfreude in how uncomfortable some of the agents are when groping me.

If I have to bend over and take their stupid, unconstitutional rules, I'll look them in the eye while they rifle through my pubes, no sense letting them off easy.

<comment><USER16> My fiance will never forgive me if we miss our flight because I tell a TSA agent, "Why won't you look me in the eyes when you make love to me?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Things like the TSA are great illustrations of the pervasiveness of the surveillance-industrial complex at the beginning of this decade.

Security doesn't need to be a motivating factor, merely sufficient justification - after that things like back scatter body scanners, procedures that require more security staff and any other product or innovation the SIC comes up with can be shoehorned in.

They've worked out they can make money off of people's fear, and there's a neat little feedback loop where more security makes people more paranoid, more afraid leading to more security. Good business, if you can get it.

</comment><comment><USER25> I didn't find this article to be very scientific. Although it claims certain rules are arbitrary it doesn't bother to point out what makes them so, which is what I was expecting when I clicked on this.

<comment><USER26> It's kind of difficult to show why something is arbitrary, usually the lack of any evidence to the contrary is good enough. I mean the example of having a certain amount of liquid but as long as you call it baby formula, it is ok, seems to be so clearly arbitrary that only the most pedantic would demand further proof. :)

<comment><USER25> The baby formula is an exception that I'm fairly sure will only work if you have an actual baby with you. Since most terrorists aren't carrying infants it is deemed an acceptable risk. Based on what I know about breastfeeding laws it may actually be illegal to restrict people from carrying these items. So based on what we know I'd say this rule isn't arbitrary at all.

To me the better example of an arbitrary rule is laptop thickness. However we can speculate that someone has determined that objects greater than > 1 inch are more likely to carry explosives. We can argue that it's arbitrary, but aside from the TSA coming out and explaining the reasoning we will never know. And I'm not sure they are obligated to tell us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> In other breaking news, the sky is blue, and water is wet.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Finally, there's the Federal Aviation Administration rule that all electronics, even headphones and e-book readers, have to be turned off during takeoff and landing, allegedly to prevent interference with the plane's navigation systems.

But the scientific evidence for this worry is sketchy. Some devices emit signals that could theoretically affect an aircraft's electronics. Yet "there have never been any reported accidents from these kinds of devices on planes," FAA spokesperson Les Dorr told the New York Times last year. Once again, irrational fear, not solid science, is dictating policy for millions of travelers."

Actually, it is based on science. Cell phones flying by overhead while landing or taking off overload cellular base stations. So as a courtesy to cellular phone carriers, airlines require cell phones to be put into "airplane" mode. Digital Communications 101 son.

<comment><USER29> I'm happy with the devices being turned off as most crashes happen during landing and takeoff. I'd rather people were paying attention to their surroundings, paying attention to the briefings and not having hard metal objects that would seriously hurt people should the plane suddenly decelerate. But if they agree with me then that is the reason they should give.

<comment><USER30> At least as far as situational awareness concerned, a decent book is just as impairing for many people.

Actually, in that case as well as safety, I don't see much difference between a book and a Kindle. But they can't go and whitelist one device without complaints, can they? Sigh.

<comment><USER29> I'd rather be hit on the back of the head by a book than a kindle should there be a rapid deceleration! But yes the correct answer is to do a cost benefit analysis.</comment></comment></comment></comment>