Gambling Is Not a Retirement Plan - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-02/gambling-is-not-a-retirement-plan <comment><USER2> " _In addition to my views about financial literacy, I have argued in the past that good financial regulation would divide investments into normal ones and dumb ones. Normal ones would be, like, index funds or whatever, and anyone could buy them. Dumb ones would be penny stocks and private investments and, good lord, leveraged ETNs on mortgage REITs, and also anyone could buy them. But you'd have to get a Certificate of Dumb Investment before buying the dumb ones. I spelled out the application process once:_

" _To get that certificate, you sign a form. The form is one page with a lot of white space. It says in very large letters: "I want to buy a dumb investment. I understand that the person selling it will almost certainly steal all my money, and that I would almost certainly be better off just buying index funds, but I want to do this dumb thing anyway. I agree that I will never, under any circumstances, complain to anyone when this investment inevitably goes wrong. I understand that violating this agreement is a felony."_

" _Then you take the form to an SEC employee, who slaps you hard across the face and says "really???" And if you reply "yes really" then she gives you the certificate. …_

" _If an article ever appears in the Wall Street Journal in which you (or your lawyer) are quoted saying that you were just a simple dentist, didn't understand what you were buying and were swindled by the seller's flashy sales pitch, then you go to prison._ "

I so wish that were the procedure.

<comment><USER3> It's already the case in EU, it's called MiFID II. [https://www.esma.europa.eu/policy-rules/mifid-ii-and- mifir](https://www.esma.europa.eu/policy-rules/mifid-ii-and-mifir)

<comment><USER2> Including the slapping?

<comment><USER3> I've never tried filling a MiFID II form in person at a bank counter, but I definitely felt slapped by some of the online quizzes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > I have long argued that the most important lesson of "financial literacy," > one that is never taught in any "financial literacy" classes, is: If I offer > you a 20% annual risk-free return, am I lying? The answer is yes, of course. > UBS was not actually offering a 20% annual risk-free return—the ETN "often > yielded 20% or more" but didn't advertise any fixed interest rate, and it > said right on the front page that it was risky—but just knowing that single > core fact of financial literacy would be sufficient to guide your investment > decision here. "Ooh fun gamble, 20% return, maybe I'll take a chance on it": > Fine, great, whatever. "Hmm this seems to offer monthly income, and a 20% > return would help my retirement, guess I should put all my savings into it": > No, bad, wrong.

Brilliant! So much misery would be avoided if people could be taught that simple rule.

<comment><USER5> Yes. It is time dependent, of course - you could get 11% on German Bundesanleihen in the early 80s. Having said that, Levine's rule is sound.

<comment><USER6> At the time there was a very real risk that a Soviet invasion could wipe out your investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My state government has adjacent billboards telling me to play the lottery (odds of winning, 1 in 7000000) on the basis that I'll be able to do really cool things with all that money, and that I should wear a mask and maintain distance from other people to stay safe from a virus (odds of contracting, 1 in 350, odds of dying, 1 in 7000).

Is it any wonder that people make poor choices? We're training them to be bad at math.

<comment><USER5> 1\. Not sure where you see the bad math - your state government encourages you to do something with good (though unlikely) consequences, and encourages you to avoid something with bad (though unlikely) consequences.

2\. It's not only about you. Lottery proceeds are used for all sorts of good things. Being part of an infection chain could infect and kill many people.

3\. Note that absent measures, the odds of contracting and dying would rise up enormously.

4\. At any rate, that's not what Levine's excellent column is about.

<comment><USER8> I'm sorry but lotteries are an evil hidden tax on the poor and uneducated. Can't let that slide.

<comment><USER9> I was not happy when the District of Columbia instituted its lottery about 1980. I already knew people who played the numbers, one at least who thought about what objects in her dreams meant for that. The lottery seemed to me a regressive tax, falling mostly on those who can spare the money least.

About that time, some journal reported that a certain state lottery offered worse odds than the old-time illegal numbers. Whether that is so, I don't know.

The good news for legislators is that people pay that regressive tax willingly. They will beef if you put up the taxes on property or gasoline, but not about lottery tickets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think legal realism as Matt Levine states it this time is not quite right. Whether a law is meaningful depends not just on what officials do, it's about what _most people_ do.

An example is a curfew. If the government announces a curfew and most people stay home, then this supports the curfew, and the authorities have a better chance of enforcing the curfew. If nobody obeyed it then it wouldn't work at all. (At best it would give the police a justification for selective enforcement.)

The same is true of health orders. We have seen quite a bit of cooperation, partly due to people agreeing with the general principle of wanting to avoid spreading the virus, and partially because many people will obey the law even if they don't agree with it. But, this cooperation is only partial and has seemed rather tenuous lately, due to fatigue and fairly obvious lack of enforcement.

There are different ways people obey laws. Most people outside government have fairly vague understandings of law and only follow the general principles. For the _specifics_ of a law to matter, ultimately it depends on most people accepting the authority of the courts in settling disputes. In particular, the police accepting the courts' authority and enforcing decisions is key.

</comment><comment><USER11> (I assume this is posted because of the preamble on legal realism and George Floyd, which I'm addressing.)

I just finished _Team of Rivals_, an excellent history of Lincoln and the Civil War. Specifically, the political and administrative side of the war, with a lot less focus on the military aspects.

Something that really popped out at me from the book is how often public opinion is in a feedback loop with the law. Both the formal bits and the realist bits.

I think Levine is right when he says that the law is, more-or-less, what the people with tear gas do. But what the people with tear gas can get away with is partly determined by where public opinion is. And even if the laws about restricting police and military actions are often worthless, other laws matter. Like budgets, and procurement rules. Police can't fire tear gas if they can't buy it.

There's no shortcut, but not all is hopeless. Don't give up.

<comment><USER12> _But what the people with tear gas can get away with is partly determined by where public opinion is. And even if the laws about restricting police and military actions are often worthless, other laws matter. Like budgets, and procurement rules. Police can 't fire tear gas if they can't buy it._

The logic here goes something like: The citizens are unhappy -> The unhappiness translates into different politicians -> Those politicians will de-fund what made the citizens unhappy.

That logic only works if you take politicians at their word. But politics is a sticky thing. It seems a game of musical chairs, where the last one sitting is voted out, but the rest are sitting pretty. And there are so many chairs to fill.

To be blunt: We don't have power. And the protests are merely a reflection of that fact. Why would the politicians do anything but tell us what we want to hear, and then continue to do the same things? There's no benefit, political or otherwise, in giving us what we want.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs) is a nice refresher on some of the issues.

<comment><USER13> Because you vote them out. The nra is powerful because they have voted people out.

The truth is most people don't really care about what they say they care about, so politicians can get away with not doing as they say. They are careful to do what they say when they have reason to believe voters actually care.

This week, without riots we cn get police reform through because they are afraid if they don't will remember and vote them out. Next week if we forget they won't. There is a reasonable conspiracy theory that the riots are sponsored by those who want police reforms to fail, but making the police the good guys (better than the increasing mob riot) laws won't pass. Might be unfounded, but it is reasonable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think another core problem that's hinted at, but not addressed directly in the article is understanding risk. Many people are fine with "this is a risky investment" without really comprehending what the risk is, or even what the ballpark of the risk is. After all, the big advertisement page says "up to N% return" and that's what matters.

Similar to financial advisor disclaimers, it should be mandatory for every investment instrument to come with a clearly visible warning: "N% of retail investors trading this asset lose money".

Risk and reward are correlated, thus it shouldn't be legal to advertise the rewards without highlighting the risk.

</comment><comment><USER15> I disagree.

The structure of financial malfeasance in the presence of the limited liability corporation is as follows:

1) become a corporation. 2) borrow a lot of money. 3) bet it on red. 4) If lose, have the limited liability shell declare bankruptcy, no personal loss. If win, pay back the loans and dissolve the company.

There are many laws trying to prevent this exact scenario, but there is no way to characterize the pattern well enough to catch all of the instances of it. Furthermore, the incentive to find such a pattern _always_ exists, so long as the liability limiting financial instrument (LLC) does.

The pattern is, in a modern context, streamlined through insurers. Insurers, as a rule, are businesses which lie about the applicability of the central limit theorem to investments. Insurers are only interested in increasing the number of policies that they cover. In the lie of the central limit theorem, more policies is less risk. But since a lot of risk is actually correlated, more policies is more correlated risk. Correctly identifying correlated risk is hard, in general, and furthermore, identifying correlated risk is explicitly against the insurance companies interest, as selling policies that they know they can't cover is fraud, but otherwise profitable.

<comment><USER16> No one lends uncollateralized money to a shell corp

<comment><USER15> I think you're missing the point. This is the _structure_ of malfeasance. It is the goal of every borrower to create a scenario which is, for lack of a better word, homomorphic to this one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> You beat me to it, but perhaps that's for the better – I tried to submit with the title _" Matt Levine on George Floyd Protests"_ which to me is a more accurate description of the first piece which seemed quite thought provoking.

Editorializing, maybe, but I'd say pertinent too.

</comment><comment><USER18> Podcast link - [https://anchor.fm/talking-money-stuff/episodes/Gambling- Is-N...](https://anchor.fm/talking-money-stuff/episodes/Gambling-Is-Not-a- Retirement-Plan-eethks)

</comment><comment><USER19> A wealth researcher, the late Thomas J. Stanley, found that the biggest single correlating behavior to wealth was not purchasing of lottery tickets. This makes sense because of external locus-of-control (lack of agency), self- control, lack of goal-setting/planning, and magical/wishful thinking.

Furthermore, other researchers found delayed gratification social experiments with children involving more rewards later discovered those children who waited for more rewards later were wealthier later in life. [0](Economic background was found to be just as influential in later studies.)

Gambling (risking money with an expectation less than zero), in all forms, is a losing behavior. It doesn't matter if its lottery tickets, slot machines, three card monte, or financial instruments (without data).

0\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experimen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment)

<comment><USER20> Sounds incredibly simplistic. You have to assume everyone starts from the same spot and has equal opportunities, which is definitely not true. External locus-of-control may very well be an accurate assessment. There are probably people who are also "dumb", but even those are likely a product of their environment.

So really the solution isn't "don't buy lottery tickets", it's "solve systemic issues that lead to poor goal planning and wishful thinking, rather than goal planning and realistic thinking with achievable goals that result in better quality of life". That is a lot harder than just calling lotto players stupid.

<comment><USER21> Not buying lottery tickets seems like a good place to start though.

<comment><USER22> It depends if you think people are making their own choices in the first place, and then that they are capable of making different ones. The "systemic" view of the world says people aren't making choices, the system is coercing them to make choices. Therefore individuals aren't responsible and should not be coached to make different choices. Both views taken fundamentally seem short sighted. You need both.

<comment><USER20> >Therefore individuals aren't responsible and should not be coached to make different choices.

No that's not the point either. Most people do make their own choices, but the ways in which they come to those choices are influenced by their past experiences. Past experience can have a drastic effect on the choices you make in the future. Abuse/neglect/malnourishment during childhood and/or traumatic brain injury can have profound effects on someone's decision-making abilities later in life.

People should be held accountable for their poor choices, but with the understanding that not all lives have had equal opportunity, and there needs to be actual coaching available, not a bunch of finger wagging. Simply telling someone what's wrong with their life is that they "buy too many lotto tickets" is likely ignorant of the actual underlying problems that person may be facing or had to deal with in the past.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Comments On: 'The Downside of Believing in Apple' - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/11/01/bjarnason-macbook-pros <comment><USER2> Gruber is an apple fan boy and apologist above everything. if they released a macbook pro with only 4gb RAM and no trackpad he'd find a way to defend it</comment>


The Books We Talk About (and Those We Don't) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/oct/01/books-we-talk-about/ <comment><USER2> one of the most interesting points, though the writer didn't spend much time on it, was how the serialised nature of some of the famous older novels meant everyone was much more likely to be reading them at the same time, and how serialised television fiction plays the same role today. i'd add to that novel series like harry potter - it wasn't just that the first book was wildly popular, but that as the series progressed it swept up more and more fans who were waiting together for the next book. standalone novels don't have that sort of forcing function, and it doesn't seem to work for multiple books by the same author (e.g. no one talked about dan brown's novels after 'the da vinci code')

<comment><USER3> Two thoughts:

1\. Certain standalone authors had that strength. Stephen King certainly did in the 80s-90s.

2\. I think this is why certain fiction series tend to have very strong followings. Regardless of the HBO Series, people were hungry for "Dance with Dragons" when it came out.

The internet certainly helps with TV series. Much of the popularity of "LOST" was the skillful manipulation of that popularity by the production. Compare "LOST" with "Heroes" (poor quality rapidly squandered popularity) and "Firefly" (utter failure to leverage the growing fandom.)

<comment><USER4> Also, related to series you have a few film directors who command some of that strength. Tarantino comes to mind, though it's an interesting example because there's a sort of common universe underlying the movies. However as you go more niche/cult you'll probably find small communities who wait dearly on the author's next work, be it a film or a book.

<comment><USER2> and don't forget webcomics! they're an episodic medium with, in some cases, a surprisingly strong following.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A side effect of using books to explore the shared ground between people is that it needs to start with some name dropping, which I have felt is really disliked by Americans in general. As a French, I see name dropping as a quick way to find which books can be talked about with some people you don't know well, but it is perceived as snobbish and may trigger some inferiority complex. Not sure why: it is ok to not read books, it is ok to not have read Proust or Celine, it is ok to be very picky. Having different tastes and cultural background is what makes discussion interesting (but it helps if some common ground can be found).

</comment><comment><USER6> Tangentially - I consistently find myself wanting to discuss a book I've read, but unable to do so for lack of others who're in the same position.

Are there places on the internet for good discussion around individual books?

<comment><USER7> Would you pay for this? Like a couple of bucks per discussion or something?

I've thought about the same thing before but can't figure out how economics would work. Everyone expects things to be _free free free_ nowadays.

I think it could grow into something really cool where you could have authors & other respected thought-leaders participate and have very deep, insightful conversations.

<comment><USER2> i think, psychologically, i wouldn't value something i had to pay for. i'd feel more like a "consumer" than a participant. (and from an economic standpoint, the users would be generating a lot of the value but capturing none of it)

<comment><USER7> How does paying for a service hinder you from capturing its value?

Do you not value your house or car because you have to pay for it?

<comment><USER2> it's just a psychological thing. i'm sure different people have different psychologies around it. (and yes, i'd probably value my house more if i were not paying rent on it)

as for capturing value, i'm referring specifically to the monetary aspect of things - assuming the company adds value by providing the platform and gets paid for it and the users add value by providing the content but do not get paid for it, the explicit introduction of money into the ecosystem has introduced a situation where one party is seen to be asymmetrically rewarded for the overall success of the ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I for one would like to see IRC based book clubs flourish. Real time conversation without being limited to 140 characters

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I've read too many Paul Graham essays, but this felt like a book-centric explanation of "Make something people want".

<comment><USER10> It rather seems like "Make something people like to argue about", which I guess leads to the same thing in the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> NSFW.

</comment><comment><USER12> So the title starts "The books ...", and reading the article shows that by _books_ they mean just fictional novels. but, the books we talk about on HN have included:

Knuth, _The Art of Computer Programming_.

Thomas H. Cormen, Charles E. Leiserson, Ronald L. Rivest, and Clifford Stein, _Introduction to Algorithms_.

Jeffrey D. Ullman, _Principles of Database Systems_.

Jacques Neveu, _Mathematical Foundations of the Calculus of Probability_.

David G. Luenberger, _Optimization by Vector Space Methods_.

Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie, _The C Programming Language_.

Robert Sedgewick and Kevin Wayne, _Algorithms_.

Sorry, _NYR_ , my house, nearly every room, is awash in books in mathematics, science, engineering, music, none of which would be of interest to the _NYR_ , and a few others but likely less than 2% are fictional novels.

So, the claim of the title "the books we talk about" appears not to apply very well to HN and the same or much less so to me. That is, the title is presumptive.

Why do I say this? Maybe not everyone at HN will agree with me, but in grades 1-12 and the first two years of college, I felt force fed like a Strasbourg goose with books that were fiction. It wasn't until the last two years of college that I got to concentrate on what I really cared about, _non-fiction_ , that is, science, mathematics, engineering, etc.

So I remain torqued: For years and years I was force fed with I didn't want and largely blocked from what I did want.

And, now that I have more understanding of _fiction_ , I have to conclude, with this force feeding and blocking, some of my best years for learning were seriously wasted. Thus, I'm torqued.

I have to be reminded of C. P. Snow, _The Two Cultures_ and find, (with irony) with that favorite word of the literary set, irony, a post in the culture of engineering, math, and science by the culture of fictional novels, _belle lettre_ , literary art, etc.

<comment><USER13> The original article was about books people discuss with friends in real life, not online. How many of these books do you actually talk about?

Although it's commonly recommended, I can't remember ever actually talking with someone else who's also read *The C Programming Language" about the contents of that book, though if they're a programmer we might discuss something about C if it comes up.

<comment><USER12> By _talking about_ , I was including on HN, and all of those books so qualify.

For K&R, sure, I've talked about it, yes, orally. E.g., for that book, what's with the _idiosyncratic syntax_? And why the case of x+++++y? And some cases of declare statements can be real puzzles that can need talking about -- there is even a sparse, too sparse, discussion in the book. And to talk, should mention why the language was designed to run in about 8 K bytes on a DEC machine (helps explain y =+ x). And, in one discussion, I got led to where in K&R actually can find the actual memory allocation technique used by MALLOC and FREE. We should talk about what we are paying now, when we use C (or really C++ which was originally just a preprocessor to C), due to the original 8 KB constraint when now main memory goes for about $10/GB and motherboards commonly support 32 GB of ECC main memory. So, yes, we do still talk about C and K&R.

C stands to be around for a long time, and I'm sure that students new to programming will do a lot of talking about K&R. While in college, they may do the talking in person at some social gatherings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> More generally we could come up with other kinds of conversation starters:

Games: Minecraft

Products: anything from Apple, new Windows releases

Among programmers, programming languages are a pretty reliable topic.</comment>


How To: Taste Whisky - <AUTHOR> http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Taste_Whisky

<comment><USER2> Good article. I agree about the glass and water. But for smelling it, saying put your nose and sniff, he has it all wrong.

Try this instead and I believe you will be convinced it is the superior method.

Place nose over edge of the sherry glass. Then breath in gently through mouth, which is not above glass at all. Mouth breathing always brings a little into the nose. Rather than suck the vapors into your lungs, they are pulled through suction action into your actual tasting parts in your nose. You will really be able to detect a lot more of the subtle parts of the whiskey there. I would be very surprised if anyone tries his method and mine and doesn't find this one superior.

<comment><USER3> The reason water is added is because it brings out the aroma in the spirit. Putting one's nose in to sniff can cause irritation if not done right.

The following is a very comprehensive writeup as far as tasting whisky goes.

<http://www.whiskymag.com/nosing_course/>

<comment><USER2> There's every chance that article has been written by the world's greatest whiskey expert. He still gets it wrong. He says to sniff. Don't sniff. You don't breath through your nose. As I said before, place your nose above the glass and then gently breath in with your mouth. Your mouth will just breath in normal air, but it will create a draft through your nose that pulls in the vapours that are evaporating into your nose without creating eddies in the glass, and without quickly sucking the most delicate and lightest of the vapours past your nose's sensing cells and into your lungs, which misses the most interesting parts.

Don't take my word for it, try it instead. Seriously, try the expert's "sniff with nose" method and compare to the two-orifice with nose close to the glass edge method I have described. You will detect much more of the bouquet with the two-orifice method. Perhaps I have invented it, I don't know, that seems unlikely, but for some reason the so-called experts don't know about this and aren't doing it right. Just try. You'll see, it will be really clear. You can use the direct sniff too if you like to get the heavier vapours.

<comment><USER4> It's odd that it's not mentioned explicitly in either article, but I have certainly had it stressed before that when smelling wine, or whisk(e)y, or coffee that you should have your mouth open. Also, the "sniff" is not as if you had the sniffles, but a gentle inhalation. So, even if they are not saying so in the articles, I suspect the experts are doing something rather similar to what you describe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eh. Also, "how to get made fun of at a bar". I think a better bet: get a half pour of a cheap/decent single malt (ask for a Macallan, everyone will have it), a half pour of a decent bourbon (Makers Mark is fine), and a half pour of rye. Compare. The distinctions are impossible to miss.

The water thing is important though. Even with single malt. If all you taste is fire, you're not really tasting the spirit.

<comment><USER3> That's when one is comparing different styles of whiskies. If one is tasting 3-4 of the same type (single malts or blends etc.), sometimes the differences are subtle. Also, the aroma of the whisky (or whiskey depending on the heritage) do give out different notes. That's the reason water's added. Not to dilute the spirit but enhance the aroma.

<comment><USER5> I totally believe that water opens up whiskey, but I think the real reason to do it is that whiskey is just too strong to taste --- especially early in the evenings.

If you're new to whiskey, taste scotch, bourbon, and rye together first; then taste different single malts. You won't need all the ritual.

<comment><USER6> It's actually not that rare they don't have rye. Often you ask for rye and just get a canadian whiskey.

<comment><USER7> What do Canadians put in that stuff anyway? I've yet to see a bottle that mentioned what goes in it. And it seems like most places only have cheap and/or blended Canadian whiskey.

Does Canada produce a top-shelf whiskey?

<comment><USER8> Canadian whiskey can be made from any grain or blend of grains, but historically rye was popular. Canadian law allows a whiskey to be labelled as rye even if it contains very little or no rye, as long as it has the aroma and character of rye whiskey. U.S. labeling laws require a "straight rye whiskey" to be distilled from a mash of 51% or more rye.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> He's wrong about one thing (sort of) ice doesn't mask flavors in small quantities. In fact it technically doesn't mask flavor in any quantity. Test buds operate independent of temperature. Something hot tastes no different than it does cold, (ssuming in both cases that the temperature is not extreme enough to injure your tongue, it merely feels different.

When a drink gets very cold though, the volatile compounds that give it scent separate from the liquid more slowly. Scent and taste get all jumbled up together in your brain, of course, so enough ice will be noticeable.

Small amounts of ice won't be enough to perceptibly cause this, they'll merely add the water he suggested slowly and create the pleasant sensation of a cool beverage. I use 1-2 small cubes for this reason in scotch. I don't drink any that need cut down though. If you'drinking J&B you may need a slab of dry ice.

<comment><USER10> I dont know about that.

For example if you have a curry which uses butter - eating it at cold temperatures means solidified butter which tastes different to me. It may not be applicable in the whisky case since there is no change in the state of matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone who is not a whiskey fan but is considering taking up the hobby should read this first: [http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/2004-March/000700...](http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/2004-March/000700.html)

I'm a Scotch man myself but reading that again is almost enough to make me switch to Bourbon.

</comment><comment><USER11> this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

For a start, the traditional whisky glass doesn't have a stem.

'preparing the glass' waste of time and whisky, just swirl the glass before you sniff.

Try a Speyside if it's your first whisky - they have the most broadly liked flavours. If you want something with some kick, go for a highland malt or an Islay, my favorite commercial bottle is probably one of the Lagavulins.

But then this guy works for Whyte and Mackay. Whyte and Mackay is pig swill.

</comment><comment><USER12> tl;dr

However, the Clint Eastwood's old movies style of "tasting" whiskey is much more appealing to my manhood than this Sherry Cupita approach</comment>


Steve Bannon Wants Facebook and Google Regulated Like Utilities - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2017/07/27/steve-bannon-wants-facebook-and-google-regulated-like-utilities/ <comment><USER2> If we could regulate ISPs as utilities first, that would be great.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't mean the idea itself is wrong, even if the author is a hypocrite. I don't care really about American politics, but Google and Facebook are dangerously big. I believe Europe should have some protectionism mechanism like China or some other countries to make sure social networks and search engines emerge from Europe. But where do you draw the line between that and censorship? The internet has given a new meaning to national borders or the lack of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find it ironic that while he wants Facebook and Google regulated like utilities, he also supports getting rid of Net Neutrality.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am guessing that part of the regulation would be requiring that Google and Facebook promote Christianity. If you think I'm wrong, take a look at this talk where Bannon lays out his basic worldview

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve- banno...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees- the-entire-world?utm_term=.ulAaBbz2ye#.hlrq1j370W)

</comment><comment><USER6> I suspect he sees Google and Facebook as a threat to his breitbart empire, since there's calls to remove ads from fictitious news articles.

</comment><comment><USER7> If only we had an executive branch focused on removing government regulation of business, and the deconstruction of the administrative state...

</comment><comment><USER8> So, broken up or regulated like utilities...

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree, especially seeing how google interfered in the syrian war, and worked with prism to spy on europeans.</comment>


Android's Overblown Fragmentation Problem Revisited - <AUTHOR> http://nickbradbury.com/2014/03/28/androids-overblown-fragmentation-problem-revisited/

<comment><USER3> I've found that the much more annoying and difficult to deal with fragmentation bugs are carrier specific. You will find things like Samsung has changed how you launch the default browser from your app or HTC doesn't follow the spec for getting an image from the camera. These are the kind of bugs that drive me crazy.

My current project runs a test suite (as well as some light adhoc testing) on 6-7 devices (across screen densities and carriers) and that seems to catch most of the issues without spending $20k on a device lab. (We use the excellent Spoon library by Square: [http://square.github.io/spoon/](http://square.github.io/spoon/))

Screen sizes are not an issue for anyone that's shipped a non-toy app. API levels are not so bad - though you will find yourself using the Support Libraries even in cases when they shouldn't be needed.

BTW: Android provides a weekly report of OS/screen sizes etc that access the Play Store: [http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html](http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html) Use this (not a random blog post) to make informed decisions for your clients on your minSdkVersion.

Now if you want to talk about a real headache for Android developers, let's talk about Fragments - not fragmentation :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Many comments here can be summed to "I am frustrated because Android is fragmented and I may not be able to target all one+ billion android devices if I code for a week".

No problem here though, if you think 1+ billion users don't deserve a few dev hours, you may as well code for another platform. Same goes if you think targeting anything less that 1+ billion users is problematic.

</comment><comment><USER5> As far as OS version fragmentation, iOS 6 and Android 2.x are both running on approximately 20% of their respective ecosystems. But for some reason iOS developers are more ruthless in cutting off older devices. I recently convinced a very insistent company to drop Android 2.x support after I pointed out that they had already dropped iOS 6 support without giving it a second thought.

<comment><USER6> So, now you support one version on each platform?

<comment><USER5> One major version with several minor versions. iOS 7.0 and 7.1, and Android 4.0 through 4.4.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _I still maintain that fragmentation is less of an issue than is commonly believed...I think the biggest problem is that unless your app is relatively new, you probably have to continue supporting Android 2.3. Making sure your app works on that ugly, buggy OS is a massive pain._

I gripe about having to support an OS that Apple shipped in Q3 2012. Semi- mandatory Android 2.3 support _is_ a fragmentation problem, especially when you mix in all the crazy shit some handset makers and carriers have done to 'improve' Android.

See, for instance, [http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/02/android-qa-testing- quality-...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/02/android-qa-testing-quality- assurance/)

<comment><USER8> >Semi-mandatory Android 2.3 support is a fragmentation problem

Only for spoiled iOS developers.

I used to develop for Windows, starting in pre-1995. Want to talk about fragmentation? With dozens of video cards, each with their own custom APIs for doing anything that standard VGA couldn't handle, dozens of sound cards with varying levels of support for the de facto standard(s), memory configurations from 128k through multiple megabytes, BIOS variations, and even CPU bugs in AMD or other non-Intel chips...and then tons of software that might be running on top of your app (drivers and such)? THAT was fragmentation.

Windows 95 and later (specifically after DirectX was introduced) reduced THOSE problems significantly, but new ones surfaced, anti-virus and firewall packages being the worst, though some video cards still have bugs that break things randomly.

You think having to support 2.3 qualifies as a problem? JUST having to support 2.3 is a _dream_ compared to what we used to have to deal with. The compatibility libraries -- especially the latest versions -- do a great job of making apps work everywhere. And if you're using OpenGL, you have even fewer compatibility issues to worry about.

Get off my lawn. ;)

<comment><USER9> Spoiled by having lower costs and so being able to devote more resources to the product for their customers?

<comment><USER9> Isn't that simply a logical consequence of the GP comment? Presumably the downvotes indicate a dislike of the state of affairs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The people who point out "90% of Apple iPhone users are on the latest OS version! Android sucks because not everyone is on the latest OS!" don't realize (or care) that Apple just bundles up a bunch of userland components and calls it an OS update. Nearly everything but the kernel is auto-updated to the latest version on all Android devices, even if they're several OS versions behind.

The discussion should be around "What is it that people without the latest hardware / OS version can't do?" not "What number does your phone say under OS version?"

<comment><USER11> _Nearly everything but the kernel is auto-updated to the latest version on all Android devices, even if they 're several OS versions behind._

This benefits users, but not developers. Developers still need to code and test against old API levels.

<comment><USER12> This is only partially true. Google has started distributing some APIs automatic updates as well via Google Play Services.

[http://developer.android.com/google/play- services/index.html](http://developer.android.com/google/play- services/index.html)

These features are made available on older releases of Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Around our shop (we have several PhoneGap projects) we frequently refer to Android browser as the IE of mobile. (and we're referring to IE6-8). Its crazy how many really key parts of HTML & CSS don't work on various versions of Android browser that are still very much alive and well, including some that worked on 2.3 and stopped working on 4.0 or 4.1. We basically have to turn our apps into static pages for anything < Android 4.2.

<comment><USER14> For me it's Mobile Safari. Everyone on the platform is forced to use it and it's many, many horrible bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think a subtle problem with the android fragmentation is that it is not going to get any better. As time goes on there will be more devices running more android versions.

While Google's cheap handset initiative embodied in Nexus 5 will ameliorate problem a bit by giving people incentive to upgrade, it is not nearly enough. I would like to see Google do more to address growing complexity of fragmentation.

<comment><USER16> We manage fragmentation between computer systems since the dawn of computing.

I really don't get why some people make a huge fuss about it on Android.

<comment><USER15> I do not dispute that. I agree that it is a manageable situation. What I was pointing out is sheer scale of it. Given enough effort it is certainly possible to make any app to work on all android platforms. However, there are millions of apps in the play store and it is not possible to make them all to work on every device. I just think Google should be actively working to make that task easier on developers. For example getting cloud emulators or even physical devices available to developers for testing their apps against with automated framework.

<comment><USER16> How is that any different to make it work on the hardware configurations of all PCs ?

<comment><USER17> It's not. Except Windows has 95% of the market and the Mac had 5% of the market. So even though it's easier and cheaper to support a Mac app, the market is so much smaller it's still not really worth it.

Compare to mobile where iOS market place was leading, it didn't make a lot of sense to spend more effort on the smaller market.

Now the Android market is about equal, you are still spending more effort to make the same money.

<comment><USER16> > Except Windows has 95% of the market and the Mac had 5% of the market.

Except you are forgetting, screen resolution, processor speed, graphics card, sound card, co-processor, printer type, scanner type, microphone, webcam, harddisk, network card, modem, ...

<comment><USER18> Way back in the day it was pretty common for people to swap out pieces of a system (not too much today except for gamers).

Your system needs a bigger screen? Get a bigger monitor and/or graphics card. Need a faster modem? Buy one. Need a camera? Add it.

Go upgrade the graphics chip in your Android 2.3 handset. Oh wait...

<comment><USER16> That doesn't have anything to do with the complaint about Android's fragmentation.

<comment><USER18> you're pointing out 'fragmentation' in the windows market because of all the varying hardware, and it seemed you were saying it was equivalent to the android world. it's not, because you generally could change hardware on a windows system, but not on an android device.

<comment><USER16> Quite the contrary.

I am pointing out that fragmentation in the COMPUTER HARDWARE and SOFTWARE is normal and exists since computers are among us. Windows market is a tiny spot of the COMPUTER HARDWARE and SOFTWARE around the world.

Any good developer learns to deal with it instead of writing posts whining about it.

Plus iOS which is oversold as not being fragmented has different set of API support depending on iOS/handset/tablet pair set.

<comment><USER18> But... it wasn't ('a tiny spot') at the time. And good developers didn't 'deal with it' so much as people simply upgraded their hardware - computer stores routinely upgraded people's modems, graphics cards, sound cards, monitors, etc. Of course, some software would run with lower quality hardware, or try to run without certain features, but people mostly upgraded components (or entire systems) to be able to run newer software. We do that today somewhat - <USER2> new systems - but no one reasonably tries to upgrade the CPU in their android smartphone - they just get a new one.

We're either talking past each other or have a vastly different sense of the issue we're talking about (or both).

<comment><USER16> > We're either talking past each other or have a vastly different sense of the > issue we're talking about (or both).

My point is that developers always had zero control over the hardware/software configuration of the systems being targeted, it has nothing to do with the ability to upgrade.

Lets say one is coding an application for Amigas. There are 500, 600, 1000, 1200, .... series.

There is zero control over which type of monitor/TV and external devices the respective users have attached to their systems.

There is no concept of device drivers as of today systems, most need to be provided by the application writers themselves.

Again, zero to do with upgrade capability rather with the diversity of the installed base.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you have used Android's Camera APIs, you would know how bad the fragmentation is. Had to fix various framerate/preview size issues on many Samsung S3/S2 variants because Samsung have their own private camera parameters when you don't use the default MediaRecorder and just try to process the frames yourself. (I work on recording for Vine)

</comment><comment><USER20> I still haven't popped my mobile development cherry because of how fragmented the development experience is on a few levels. One, the pain of having to develop twice for iOS and Android and Blackberry (if someone requests it). Two, the pain that comes with fragmentation in each specific platform with Android being the worst.

Because the app store is a race to the bottom, I don't want to create an Android app that works well only on the latest devices and have someone else copy it and make it available for all other platforms. This fear is enough to keep me from executing any ideas on the mobile platform.

I still focus on web applications and HTML5 because eventually everyone will be on a phone powerful enough to use it.

<comment><USER8> Cross-platform development of games is trivial (C/C++ and OpenGL work on all of them).

Cross-platform development with PhoneGap or similar is also trivial, and isn't hard to make work on (almost) all devices.

<comment><USER20> I have been looking at Intel XDK, I think it hits my pain points.

PhoneGap I'm not so sure about because people seem to be walking away from it and writing native applications instead because they were frustrated by performance. Now, I'm sure there's success story.</comment></comment></comment>


Study: Elite scientists can hold back science - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2015/12/15/10219330/elite-scientists-hold-back-progress?utm_campaign=vox&utm_content=article%3Afixed&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> The paper can be found here: [http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/papers/downloads/1498.pdf](http://www.econ.upf.edu/docs/papers/downloads/1498.pdf)</comment>


Fun abstract image generator using SVG and hashes - <AUTHOR> http://blotbot.co/

<comment><USER2> <http://blotbot.co/#0ar00k00>

Whois thebatman.com

<comment><USER3> <http://blotbot.co/#28622622>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is sick. I wish it had a "Print to T-shirt" or "Buy Stickers" feature. I would definitely rock a couple big, blocky tees from this site.

It would be cool if you generated red, green, and blue layers and then mixed them for color results, too.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://blotbot.co/#1bfac680>

By the way, "innate" is misspelled on the front page.

<comment><USER6> Thank-you! Corrected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's quite a 'stache! <http://blotbot.co/#15ea44f5>

<comment><USER8> Your above link plus <http://twitter.com/#!/wycats/status/11252825233293312> inspired me to make: <http://chris.smeder.com/logos/Handlebars-logo-small.png> <http://chris.smeder.com/logos/Handlebars.js.png>

<comment><USER7> That is nothing short of _awesome_. I love the way the S becomes a monocle. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Liked this one: <http://blotbot.co/#74f9a42b>

Clearly Elvis lives: [http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/04_02/elvis11004_468x3...](http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/04_02/elvis11004_468x320.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm getting the error: "Error: K style not defined" in a pop-up. However, the page seems to be functioning normally. What could be causing this?

<comment><USER6> A quick Google search is less than definitive. Can anyone confirm what browser coughs this up?

<comment><USER10> Firefox 3.6.12

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A space woman? <http://blotbot.co/#da1c1268>

</comment><comment><USER11> Storm Trooper! <http://blotbot.co/#def172ac>

<comment><USER12> looks like a girl flashing her tits to me.

<comment><USER3> I find your lack of faith disturbing. - <http://blotbot.co/#7222df47>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Made by my good friend at <http://ollicle.com/>

</comment><comment><USER14> This is great, I wish there was an easy way to save the SVG - theres a nice nodebox/shoebot script that can take an svg and recolour randomly I want to try with these.

</comment><comment><USER7> kissing pigs <http://blotbot.co/#a550e34e>

<comment><USER3> More like rhinoceroses :D</comment></comment>


Do Not Use Euronet ATM's - <AUTHOR> https://travellingclaus.com/not-use-euronet-atms-travel/ <comment><USER2> True for near all free standing ATMs at airports

Where possible try to make it away from airport without drawing cash</comment>


Tips for Optimizing Slow Code in Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://strongloop.com/strongblog/tips-optimizing-slow-code-in-nodejs/ <comment><USER2> Seems like these tools are still evolving, wondering how long it will take for these to really be adopted in enterprise orgs (thus fueling more growth).</comment>


Was Cleopatra Beautiful? (1997) - <AUTHOR> http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/bust.html <comment><USER2> AFAIK, there's considerable debate whether she was physically exceptionally beautiful or not, but to me the important bit about her is this (from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Cleopatra_VII](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_life_of_Cleopatra_VII)):

In contrast, Cleopatra could understand and speak multiple languages by adulthood, including Egyptian, Ethiopian, Trogodyte, Hebrew (or Aramaic), Arabic, the Syrian language (perhaps Syriac), Median, Parthian, and Latin, although her Roman colleagues would have preferred to speak with her in her native Koine Greek.

She was the first (only?) Ptolemic ruler who bothered to learn Egyptian. In my book that makes her _incredibly_ attractive!

And consider this: Julius Caesar was no inexperienced youth when it came to women (some details here: [https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-might- not-know-abo...](https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-might-not-know- about-julius-caesar)). Mere beauty would not have been enough to impress him that quickly.

<comment><USER3> Aren't all those languages, except Latin, are similar and are in fact arabic dialects?

<comment><USER4> No, not at all.

Egyptian is its own branch of the Afro-Asiatic languages, not particularly close to any Semitic language and today preserved in the form of Coptic as a liturgical language.

Ethiopian (presumably referring to Ge'ez) is a Semitic language but not particularly close to Arabic, and certainly not an Arabic dialect.

I don't think anyone knows what Trogodyte was. It may have been related to one of these other languages or it may have been totally different.

Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic (of which Syriac is a dialect) are all somewhat close but not mutually intelligible (they're more different than the Romance languages).

Median and Parthian are both Northwestern Iranian (Indo-European) languages, but it's not clear how similar they would've been at the time. Regardless, they're far from "arabic dialects", not sharing any common ancestors with Arabic within the last ten thousand years or so.

I don't know if you missed that she also spoke Koine Greek, but I think you probably know it's not an Arabic dialect.

<comment><USER5> Plutarch apparently corrected "Trogodyte" to "Troglodyte." [1] Which piques my interest even more -- she spoke "cave dweller" language? Looks like Herodotus uses the term to refer to a group who lived on the shores of the Red Sea, so that would make sense geographically.

[1] [http://languagehat.com/polyglot- cleopatra/](http://languagehat.com/polyglot-cleopatra/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was a recent topic [0] on the "Our Fake History" podcast [1] too. Worth a listen if you're looking for something new.

Wonder if that inspired the OP?

[0] [http://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/episodes/episode-62-what...](http://ourfakehistory.com/index.php/episodes/episode-62-what- should-we-believe-about-cleopatra-part-i/)

[1] [http://ourfakehistory.com/](http://ourfakehistory.com/)

<comment><USER7> Probably not, as the linked page is from 1997 ;)

<comment><USER6> I really meant if the OP had listened to the Podcast and sought out more information.

Additionally, the article can't completely be from 1997, as it references 2010 and 2013 sources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The piece itself seems to contradict its own raison d'etre:

"Rather than ask whether Cleopatra was beautiful, a question that cannot be answered in any event, one should ask whether she was desirable."

Clearly, due to the legacy of her charmingness and communicative powers, the answer to that is yes. Since "beauty" is a social construct that is somewhat impervious to even objective analyses, I doubt that any analysis of ancient sources such as busts or anecdotal accounts could be accurate. We know that eye-witness testimony is inaccurate and unreliable today, therefore why should we trust it from ancient times? Well, it's the only source available, which is both a good and bad excuse. In the end, I think it's sufficient to say: Cleoparta certainly had a profound effect, whether or not that was due to her beauty, her charisma, or if mythologized. She has entered the public consciousness and is unlikely to leave it.

<comment><USER9> _Since "beauty" is a social construct..._

When did that happen?

<comment><USER10> There are elements of beauty that are universally shared across the human species, such as facial symmetry, and there are components that are socially constructed.

At the risk of saying something slightly controversial, I'd say the universally shared elements tend to top out relatively early, in the sense that once one has a symmetrical face and "reasonable" proportions, it's not like you can just tweak a nose slightly and suddenly you've got someone head and shoulders above the rest on appearance alone. Or, to put it another way, there's a very large range of "the best looking people" by sheer appearance alone and not a lot of objective distinction amongst them. Legendary beauty pretty much has to contain significant elements above and beyond literal appearance. Nowadays those elements are "three hours in the makeup chair and a hefty dollop of expensive CGI", but even within my living memory someone who desired to be famous for their beauty would still expect to need some other skills to cut through the crowd, like musical ability or something.

<comment><USER9> _There are elements of beauty that are universally shared across the human species, such as facial symmetry, and there are components that are socially constructed._

Don't forget the eye of the beholder or, to avoid misunderstandings, individual taste.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What a co-incidence I crossed this question when I am reading "Titans of History" by Simon Sebag Montefiore.

Here's how he describes her at one point -

"She was probably not beautiful-her nose was aquiline, her chin pointed-but she possessed a ruthless aura like Caesar himself and shared a taste for sexual theater and adventurous politics"

</comment><comment><USER12> I guess we could speculate that she wasn't bad looking at all, but not drop dead gorgeous, either.

But I think it's true that in general, personality can make a huge difference for both men and women. A captivating, engaging personality, combined with intelligence is a powerful thing.

</comment><comment><USER13> Was G. J. Caesar beautiful? Was he also strong, smart, cunning, wise, etc.?

<comment> daniel-cussen There's statues of him for you to judge for yourself. He looked alright in my opinion. Notably, however, he was self-conscious about his baldness. According to Suetonius, combed his remaining hair all the way forwards sometimes, perhaps the original "combover."

He also wrote a book called "The Conquest of Gaul" which should give a good idea about his character.

<comment><USER14> I think the OPs implication is "why do we care about if Cleopatra was beautiful, do we likewise care if a male emperor was attractive?"

<comment><USER15> Because we never signed any contract that said that in society both sexes will be interested in the same things, including being interested in the same attributes of the other sex.

<comment><USER13> so, sexism is still a thing

<comment><USER15> So, "sexism" is meaningless as a catch-all accusation. It's a throught stopper.

Viewing others as sexual objects, for example, is fine when looking for a sexual encounter (whether you're a man or a woman or non-binary or whatever). Not every relation has to be "meaningful" or a long-term commitment. This is something young people revolted to earn in the 50s and 60s, and apparently our neo-puritan 80s and onwards breathen forgot.

On the other hand, viewing others as sexual objects, is not fine on e.g. a job interview -- but that's another case altogether.

People of different sexes having different preferences is also a statistical reality (statistical meaning it's not some property that holds for absolutely every member of a respective set). We can say they shouldn't, but we can't finger point and accuse a girl because she reads Cosmopolitan, or to a boy because he reads some bodybuilding website. Their tastes might be cliche, but they are what they are. And nobody can objectively measure what's a legitimate preference and what's not, except by having some non-verified prior that men and women should absolutely have the same tastes in aggregate, and if they're not, that's some social distortion right there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Isn't the concept of beauty different in each culture and time period and even the person who perceives?

This was also a time where media had not set standards for what "beautiful" should look like

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting subject. We can try to know if Cleopatra was beautiful by investigating what we mean by "beautiful" today. I think that we are not talking about beauty but about attractiveness. Or we may say that these words are synonymes.

So the first thing we notice is that beauty has nothing to do with facial features. So, Cleopatra's bust shown in the article, even if it's her likeness, is hot much help. Unless a woman has grotesques features as if she came out of a Goya drawing, any woman can be made bautiful by make up and by what she wears regardless of the shape of her nose or her lips or her eyes. This is a given. We know this because there is no standard of beauty as in Greek sculptures. Such a woman does not exist. Beauty is not a question of perfect proportions. Look at the pictures of Marie-Antoinette. She had an army of maids who cared for her hair, her make up, her nails... she was the most maintenence-extensive woman in the world. Her dresses alone supported many tailors in Paris. Her perfumes, her jewelry... she was a fashion industry on her own. But all other women on the land, except other royals and semi royals, looked like peasants.

And now look at women today. There is a beauty and maintenance industry serving all women. French revolution democratized beauty industry. Real slogan of the revolution must have been: Liberté, égalité, fraternité, beauté. What was only available to Marie-Antoinette is available to every woman today. They say that French peasant women were the initiary and sole beneficiary of the French revolution. (Peasant women were in front lines of the crowd who stormed Bastille.) There is some truth to this. Because women were jealous of Marie- Antoinette not because she said "let them eat cake" but because she was so well maintained.

Before Marie-Antoinette there was the oldest certified beauty, the so- called Knidos Afrodite who was famous for covering her front with her hand in the most suggestive way. She was the initiator of women's art of revealing by hiding. So Marie-Antoinette was beautiful in most expensive and expansive way but Knidos Afrodite was beautiful in her nakedness. Therefore, a woman can be beautiful in myriad ways.

Also a woman you are courting may appear so beautiful and attractive and irresistible but a year after you got married she may lose all of her attractiveness and became the Mommy. As they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.

Now I am not sure if Cleopatra used make up. Probably she did. But I'm sure she used theatrical outfits and made grand entrances. She must have used exotic perfumes. So in her case too her facial features are not relevant. She knew how to show herself as attractive.

Furthermore, as much as powerful men are attractive to women, powerful women are attractive to men. And she was an Egytian queen! You cannot get more powerful than that?

More importantly perhaps, royals of those times were experts in propaganda. After all these kings and queens sold themselves to the people as representatives of Gods on earth. Or they even claimed to be Gods themselves. Alexander the Great marketed himself as a powerful God destined to conquer the entire world and he was so succesful that most cities surrendered just by hearing his name. Similarly, Cleopatra must have marketed herself as the most beautiful woman on earth. And when men lucky enough to have her intimate presence no doubt saw Cleopatra the myth rather than an ordinary woman.

Another mystery is that some women have something called "sex appeal." We don't know what this is or how it is obtained. Some women have it, others don't. Sophia Loren had it. Maybe Cleopatra had it too, who knows.

Also women at Clopatra's time were slaves. They were literally men's slaves. They were not even allowed to leave the house. They cooked, they cleaned and gave birth for the man to continue his line. So women were dirty. Their prime was probably between the age of 14 and 18 after that they were old and ugly. Don't forget that they didn't have dentists then. Even kings and queens had missing teeth. Women did not wear bras. So women at home, even royal woman at home in Rome, might not be as well-maintened and attractive as Cleopatra.

Don't underestimate also the exoticness factor. Consider Matisse's odalisque paintings. They were exotic. For Europeans the idea of a harem was exotic. Therefore, many European men made trips to the east imagining that women there looked like odalisques in a Matisse paintings. Of course they were disappointed. Cleopatra was exotic for European men she aimed at. She must have emphisized her exoticness.

So what about naked Cleopatra? Was she beautiful? Does it matter that she was or was not beautiful at that stage, in the bedroom? She was -I am sorry to put it in a slangy way- nothing more than a huge conquest for Ceasar or Mark Anthony. So beauty appears to be irrelavant. What is relevant is to package oneself -as a woman- as a prize most difficult to conquer. It's really marketing, as all women know. Because women know that, when naked they are more or less the same. They need to differentiate themselves by creating a story irresistable to men they target. I'm sure Cleopatra was a master of manipulation and knew how to use her self-promotion and marketing powers to get what she wanted.

So, what I'm trying to say is that this is a very complicated subject. But I believe that attractiveness has nothing to do with facial features. And some women do not want to be called beautiful or attractive and may be offended if you call them beautiful.

<comment><USER18> > Also women at Clopatra's time were slaves. They were literally men's slaves. > They were not even allowed to leave the house.

Only in the Roman and Greek culture, probably also the Semites, but certainly not in Germany, and I doubt in Egyptian and related cultures.

Just read Tacitus account of German women being equal to men. Bachofen did the studies on the history of the decline of the female power in the greek cultures, related to the downfall of the importance of agriculture. Also Egypt and Carthage had a lot of female rulers and queens, which didn't happen in Greece or Rome.

<comment><USER17> Thanks, I didn't make that distinction. You are right I was considering Roman and Greek societies. Wikipedia corroborates what you are saying [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Egypt](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_ancient_Egypt)

Still, I think royals enjoyed a higher level of personal hygene and self indulgence.</comment></comment></comment>


Galaxy Nexus On The Verge Of Release In US - <AUTHOR> http://www.techieinsider.com/news/13433

<comment><USER2> It's really unfortunate how Google & Samsung handled the release of the Galaxy Nexus. It's been over a month since they announced it and still no official release date.

I'm an Android fan but I wish Google/Samsung should take its cues from Apple and not announce a product with no definite release date in sight.

My guess is that Verizon has something to do with the delay. The phone has been released in other countries.

</comment><comment><USER3> Only now?

I have been critical of Android's responsiveness in the past (saying that I wanted to throw every Android phone I tried at the wall after a short time) but that's definitly no longer the case with the Galaxy Nexus. I just had a chance to play around with it and the experience is very smooth.

There was only a little lag on the homescreen with one of those useless animated wallpapers but if you turn it off it's smooth. I didn't see any lag at all in the webbrowser and scrolling as well as zooming seemed (finally!) 1:1. Scrolling on the homescreen is for some weird reason still not 1:1, but that seems to be a bug or weird design decision and not performance related.

The aesthetics of ICS are very nice (though some UI decisions are still weird) and I finally feel ready to wholeheartedly recommend an Android phone. No more throwing at walls.

(The only thing that annoyed me was the damn screen. I can reach every point on it but it's so freaking uncomfortable).

</comment><comment><USER4> Google Nexus phones have horribly inefficient release cycle. It happened with Nexus One, Nexus S and is happening with Galaxy Nexus: \- Announce a flagship device superior to iPhone late in the late fall, make it big, get everyone excited \- Loose all the steam by dragging wide availability into Jan/Feb, until most people don't care anymore. \- by the time people start buying it in the spring, get trumped by the rumors of the upcoming iPhone update.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yet, we still have no official word from Verizon. They announced the RAZR for tomorrow, but still nothing about the Nexus.

[http://www.droid-life.com/2011/12/14/verizons-announces- shin...](http://www.droid-life.com/2011/12/14/verizons-announces-shiny- new-4g-lte-phone-for-december-15-and-its-not-the-galaxy-nexus-white-droid- razr-incoming/)

I wonder how pissed Samsung is

<comment><USER6> This is all par for the course in the industry. The big players all hate each other. Carriers mess up handset OEMs who muck up the OS vendors configuration who collide with carrier lock-in and exclusivity requirements.

The reason we care this time is that this is the new flagship Android phone. But there are dozens of handsets every year that find themselves in the same mess.

<comment><USER7> Android is undoing all the work Apple started against the carriers with the iPhone...</comment></comment></comment>


The Internet's Clearly Not Ready to Stream Big TV Events - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/internets-clearly-not-ready-stream-big-tv-events/ <comment><USER2> I agree with the basic sentiment expressed here. I don't currently have a TV subscription but am looking into getting one to watch the local news, HBO and some basketball and hockey.

The current streaming services don't seem to be very competitive comparatively, with a basketball/hockey streams charging $150 per year each alone for what could be a low quality, spotty service.

I _hope_ streaming drastically improves in the near future. It's pretty frustrating to want a relatively small set of programming and yet be forced to pay for tens of channels you'll never look at through basic cable + add on premium packages.

With that being said, I did see something recently about cable changing here in Canada soon to cap basic cable at $25 per month and other channels have to be available separately and not in packages, which could make streaming even less competitive.

</comment><comment><USER3> The difference is the delivery model. Internet streaming is unicast, and (correct me if I'm wrong!) Cable TV viewers are receiving multicast feeds to their neighborhoods.

OTA broadcast is also best described as multicast.

Satellite -- I don't have the fine details of how this works, but I think it's basically multicast streams your receiver is tuning into.

The fact is that internet streaming is much more convenient for users, but each user puts a measurable load on the system.

edit: I know that they're not literally multicast unless they're an IP network, but it's a good comparison

edit2: ISPs bringing CDN servers/equipment in-house is a good way to mimic other forms of TV distribution, but it is expensive as it requires bandwidth upgrades to support the constant stream of data coming into their network which their users may not ever request.

<comment><USER4> IPv6 has multicast built in, lets hope the ISP's leave it switched on, as it will help their interconnects and create a new set of application innovations.

I for one would like to see a p2p multicast protocol for super fast file delivery, no more queuing for a download, you just get whichever part is being sent out at that time.

Or Dropbox/Google Drive uploads that automatically send to the different geographical endpoints rather than wait for the data centre to replicate it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why don't modern devices take advantage of free OTA braodcasts? FCC regs? Power requirements? I remember reading about Japanese devices that could receive UHF/VHF TV back in the day, and I always thought it was neat. Seems like a lot of freely available content that is being ignored in favor of more complicated, lower quality, and high bandwidth delivery methods.

<comment><USER6> The US and EU finalized DVB-H in the early 2000s. Digital broadcast television with a transmission standard that was good for battery life on mobile receivers. The current US broadcast standard ATSC-8VSB doesn't work well with a receiver in motion and needs a lot more receiver power.

I worked on a number of prototype devices with this technology. Qualcomm even launched a service in the USA using their DVB-H variant called MediaFLO. Target and Best Buy sold MediaFLO player units!

We were ready to go. Test transmissions were happening all over the world...and then the iPhone launched. People could watch YouTube on their phones and the desire for mobile broadcast TV evaporated, literally, overnight. MediaFLO shut down about a year after launch.

(ATSC-8VSB eventually adapted to the technical needs for mobile, but nobody cares anymore).</comment></comment>


iPhone SE and the Commodification of the Pocket Computer - <AUTHOR> https://nadim.computer/posts/2020-04-25-iphonese.html <comment><USER2> The SE is Apple's way of cutting off the oxygen supply to competing me-too mid and high end Android smartphones, for the many people that really don't care about the brand. It's a no-compromises smartphone with the fastest internals you can get, plenty of longevity and competitive screen and camera at a midrange price. If we hadn't already got XRs for my teenage kids, this SE would have been the obvious choice.

<comment><USER3> > with the fastest internals you can get, plenty of longevity and competitive > screen and camera at a midrange price

So improved CPU which most people do not car about, old design and not great camera.

<comment><USER4> Most compelling thing versus similarly priced Android offerings from my point of view is the guarantee of software support far into the future. Hardware is roughly the same as the 11, so, based on Apple's past behavior, one can expect that this will be supported for roughly as long as the 11 will.

I'm definitely not aware of many Android phones at this price point that one can expect to get security updates, much less feature updates, 4-5 years into the future.

<comment><USER5> On Android, a much bigger part of the OS gets updated through the Play store and Play services, you certainly do get access to new features 5 years into the future.

<comment><USER2> That's true, Play Services has proved a great way to get useful feature updates out without being beholden to the carriers and manufacturers, but it doesn't really help much on the security side.

<comment><USER5> It's not perfect and Google should definitely figure out a way to push low- level security fixes, but it does help on the security side as well.

A lot of the attack surface (the Play store itself, messaging apps, browser, system webview, ...) keeps getting updates for many years after the end of system upgrades delivered by the OEM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not sure I agree. Despite $400 being the entry level price for new iPhone and that is quite affordable and offers amazing performance. It is by no means _commoditising_. In 2017 the ASP of Xiaomi Smartphone was barely over $100. In the world of Smartphone that is inclusive of China and India, $400 is considered as premium segment. Even if you took out China and India and only look at Android, $400 is still considered as mainstream / premium.

And judging from Apple's past experience and strategy, they are unlikely to lower the price any further. The iPhone SE was $399 in 2016, $399 in 2020, and likely still be $399 in 2024.

The true commodity Smartphone segment still has a long way to go before reaching iPhone SE quality. And unlike Cars which has comparatively minimal advance, you can still use your car from 2000s, your 3G phone will likely not be getting much bandwidth due to Spectrum reframing.

<comment><USER7> >Even if you took out China and India and only look at Android, $400 is still considered as mainstream / premium.

But there are plenty of other developing countries other than china/india, which means the number is still being dragged down. You'd need to get ASP for android phones in US or western europe only.

<comment><USER6> For US specifically, $400 will likely still be considered Mainstream. Vast Majority of the Phone sold in are through carriers, and prices are mostly masked behind a monthly contract up to 30 months. So most of the phones are actually $500+.

But there are a substantial and growing market of non-contract and prepaid that are under $300.

I dont have Data from Western Europe, but in terms of iPhone usage it is considered to be low compared to US, and they have official access to Chinese Brands from Huawei, Xiaomi, BBK. Would not be surprised if the actual distribution ( excluding tax ) would be even lower.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've gone from the old SE to the new SE. I like it. Feels fine for one hand use. I think the debate about FaceID vs. TouchID is people exaggerating their beliefs. I've got FaceID on a work phone, and have Touch ID now. On my old one, the button broke so I just used the assistive touch virtual button and input my 8+ digit code every time to unlock it. Didn't phase me at all after an hour.

As someone who hasn't cared at all about any of the iphone tech advances of the recent past, a relatively cheap phone with 64GB of space and a hand held size is great.

<comment><USER9> It feels ironic that at a time where I want to use contactless payment as much as possible my Face ID has stopped working because I'm wearing a mask. I'd take Touch ID back in a heartbeat!

<comment><USER10> > my Face ID has stopped working because I'm wearing a mask

I have started thinking pretty strongly about buying an SE (2020) and trading back my 11 Pro Max based solely on Touch ID. I've missed having Touch ID for a while but I like the much better screen and cameras on my 11...but considering masks in public are very likely to be a thing in North America for a while, it's worth my considering.

My hope is that Apple figures out how to do multiple faces on Face ID, like fingerprints on Touch ID, so I can tell it "this is me" and "this is me with a mask."

<comment><USER11> Settings -> Face ID —> Set Up an Alternative Appearance

<comment><USER4> Will this work reliably for teaching it to recognize you with a mask on? Seems like using different masks or having some wrinkle in your mask would throw it off.

Additionally, would it lower the amount of information the sensor can gather to the point where someone else's face with a mask would trick it into unlocking?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Computers used to exist in some far away place and take up a room. There were very few in the world. Computers eventually shrunk and moved into the home- occupying a desk in the house. Computers shrunk further into laptops, then to tablets and mobile phones. The computers are now constantly pressed against our skin. Soon we will wear them on our face. The implantation of computers under our skin or inside our skulls has been a story happening in slow motion over the course of 60 or so years. This is the inevitable conclusion.

<comment><USER13> So I'm going to have to go to the apple store for major surgery every 12-24 months? No thanks.

Seriously though, we long ago reached the limits of audio and stopped innovating there. We're close to that for 2d screen visuals (8K, full visible colour spectrum, etc).

It is neat to think about what being able to reproduce media at the limits of perception might be.

<comment><USER14> We haven't reached the limits of audio yet. People still complain about noisy neighbors, or roads or airports they live close to. They still have to wear earphones.

One thing which I think might happen in the next 30 years is advanced cochlear implants or maybe something that directly stimulates the auditory nerve, while disabling the borne with hearing machinery. This sounds a bit cruel, but think of it: running everything through a digital layer of noise filtering would make so many things easier. Society wouldn't have to care how loud something is. The people not opting for the technology will have a hard time enduring all the noise...

The stapediuus regulation capacities are quite limited, and we already constantly wear headphones.

<comment><USER15> the "analogous" physical structure of hearing serves many functions not replicated by cochlear implant. Focusing on one signal during noise is in fact much more difficult with an implant.

<comment><USER14> Of course current implants are really bad compared to natural hearing, and only implanted to people whose alternatives are even worse. The technology I'm talking about doesn't exist yet.

I arrived at this view because humans are a visual species. Even if you can build a digital camera that's as good as the eye or better (currently you can't, at least not at the size of the eye), the task of processing the data so that it can be used for nerve stimulation would be beyond any computers at reasonable sizes. On the other hand, we can build really good microphones that are more sensitive than human ears and can do a ton of processing that makes such a device worthwhile.

The optic nerve has 770k-1.5M axons while the cochlear nerve has only 30k. Over a magnitude of a difference.

So I believe that a augmented reality kind of experience with devices built under your skin will be limited to ears first, simply because it's easier to pull off technically. Everything else would still have to travel through your pupils in some fashion. 2OEH8eoCRo0 was talking about technology under your skin. Google glass, vr glasses, or even lcd screen contact lenses wouldn't fall under that definition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Do internals actually matter when it comes to performance?

iphone 6s vs xs speed comparison is only about 5% slower in actual usage and often is actually faster. Not very compelling.

[https://youtu.be/uN4JoIeRojg](https://youtu.be/uN4JoIeRojg)

[https://youtu.be/a1dWINdNGl8](https://youtu.be/a1dWINdNGl8)

[https://youtu.be/uN4JoIeRojg](https://youtu.be/uN4JoIeRojg)

<comment><USER7> >is only about 5% slower in actual usage and often is actually faster

Think about that for a second. The 6s has a slower cpu, gpu, disk, wifi than the xs, yet it often performs _faster_? Maybe this means there's something wrong with the benchmark. Does 6s some sort of secret sauce that they forgot to add in the xs? Maybe there's something that they're not accounting for? Maybe the 6s running with a hot cache and not the xs? Maybe the xs was recently used and was hot?

Also, I don't get the popularity of this style of benchmarks. They're not representative of _actual_ usage. Cold app launches account for maybe 1% of my smartphone time.

<comment><USER16> Some of those videos also do wifi website loading comparisons and the 6s is about the same speed.

What do you spend time waiting for on your phone? I dont spend much time waiting fo my phone on my SE daily driver, do you? App loading time is still the most common thing I can think of. What else would you suggest they test?

<comment><USER7> >Some of those videos also do wifi website loading comparisons and the 6s is about the same speed.

That's not surprising as 80% of the time the phone's waiting for the network, so the benchmark basically turns into a latency/speed test and any performance difference gets buried.

>What do you spend time waiting for on your phone? I dont spend much time waiting fo my phone on my SE daily driver, do you? App loading time is still the most common thing I can think of. What else would you suggest they test?

Maybe it isn't an area that we should be concerned about? I mean, you don't see this type of benchmarks in laptop/desktop reviews. You might see it in SSD reviews, but that's because there's literally nothing else to test in terms of real life workloads. Of all the reasons to pick one phone over the other, shaving 15s off each day isn't one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> it's puzzling that the central reason for SE iphones to exist wasn't spelled out with respect to commoditization: apple shifted to a focus on services, first with ipod and apple music, and now with everything else, apps, files/backups, video, news, games, iot, AR/VR, etc.

the hardware is commoditized and sold at lower price points specifically so that the addressable market for services is expanded and revenue can be harvested from those offerings.

note that services and secondary devices are the parts of apple's business that's driving its growth, not hardware.

<comment><USER18> Save $350 buying an iPhone SE instead of an iPhone 11, maybe get an Apple Watch or iPad to go along with it with the money saved. Oh, now I have multiple devices and Apple services are so convenient.

It's a model only Apple can really pull off right now with their wide product range, vertical integration of services, etc.

<comment><USER4> > Save $350 buying an iPhone SE instead of an iPhone 11, maybe get an Apple > Watch or iPad to go along with it with the money saved.

I'm not sure this is what Apple's going for. What I've heard from family and friends about the SE is that they'd buy it in order to save some money while still getting modern hardware with long-term software support. I kind of doubt that the market of people looking for a $400 phone are too interested in spending another few hundred on an Apple Watch or an iPad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _putting its latest and greatest processor, camera, operating system (and > almost its display) into a form factor that can sell for under $400_

The camera is not as good as the 11 or 11 Pro. Very good, yes — and even better using third-party camera apps that let you bokeh non-faces. But still not the latest and greatest.

</comment><comment><USER20> I get it: Apple placed their fastest SoC on a phone 1/3 of the price of their other phone. And currently that seems to be faster than any android device... But, what is the big deal? Chips always get faster/cheaper. "Pocket computers" have been commoditized for many years now. iPhone is a fine device, but does not seem any more revolutionary than anything else.

Plus, is it really a computer if you don't get to install and manipulate the file system however you want?

</comment><comment><USER21> It's an interesting (if quite long overdue) strategic move on Apple's part, as moving into the mid-range drastically increases their addressable market. Their biggest rivals can afford to compete on specs in the high-end, but likely don't have the vertical integration to do so at a $400 price point (especially when Google captures most of the software ecosystem revenue via the Play Store).

<comment><USER22> > Google captures most of the software ecosystem revenue via the Play Store

My impression is that the opposite is actually the case. Google has about 4x the users but the App Store takes in almost twice as much revenue.

I don't have any good sources to cite, that's just my impression. The first few google results for "ios vs android software revenue" seem to support it.

edit: maybe you meant Google captures the majority of Android software revenue. I forgot there were alternative Android app stores.

<comment><USER23> It's worth highlighting that in the iOS ecosystem, Apple makes money on the hardware, apps, and in-app-purchases, with few exceptions.

On Android, Google makes money on the apps, and some in-app-purchases, but the OEM makes money on the device.

I think that, in addition to underlying architectural flaws, helps explain why OEMs are so disinterested in supporting phones for more than 1-2 years. LG only makes money when you upgrade, whereas Google and Apple make money every time you buy an app. It's in LG's interest to sell you a $300 phone every two years, whereas it may be in Apple's interest to sell a $400 phone every 5 years and make up the difference on software and services, and hope enough people are enticed by the new shiny to upgrade more often.

<comment><USER24> Hardly any OEMs makes money on Android devices.

[https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-continues-lead- gl...](https://www.counterpointresearch.com/apple-continues-lead-global- handset-industry-profit-share/)

<comment><USER25> That's not what that report say.

Apple takes most of the profit in the sector, but the other companies are profitable, at lower levels. Eg, even the low end Chinese manufactures: _Chinese smartphone brands operate at low-profit margins, but better than in previous years, even though they are expanding outside China and also penetrating high-tier price bands._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I really like not having a Physical Home button on my iPhone 11 Pro. Going back to a physical button and less possible screen size seems like a backward move to me.

<comment> ezequiel-garzon It's market segmentation, they have to make it uglier. If Apple gave their "affordable" model the same internals _and_ looks of their flagship, which costs about three times as much, they would effectively kill their premium line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Some folks here gripe about FaceID not working with a mask, TouchID not working with gloves.

I wonder if Apple has given thought to something like VoiceID. You see this in Star Trek when an officer gives an access code, and in many other sci-fi shows.

Or, RetinaID which goes based on a scan of your eyeball.

Or even some combination of these in case one is obstructed.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have been using a series of lg g5s for a while now. Its dual sim n the battery is replaceable. And the screen can be easily replaced yourself (less than 30usd on aliexpress). And years ago I'd stopped trying to run pc game emulators on my phone so the spec is plenty enough..

<comment><USER29> Once I started using one normal and one eSIM on my iPhone I found the lack of dual SIM slots a lot less annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> So, the Model 3 of smartphones?

</comment><comment><USER31> Apple has such a great lead with their processor line I can't help but wonder if at some point Qualcomm will swallow their pride and hire the same engineer who buffed AMD's and Apple's chips: Jim Keller.

</comment><comment><USER32> Using the same CPU as more expensive phones eases the supply chain and end- user support, plain and simple. Now they don't have to support different CPUs for different phones and make iOS backwards compatible.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hmm... commoditization vs commodification?

</comment><comment><USER34> Got my SE on Friday and haven't yet bothered to open it (upgrading from 6s). In a way that's evidence of how much of a "commodity" phones have become.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think the iPhone se is a response to the economic downturn. Apple needs to sell phones, this phone is too good of a deal. They normally wouldn't release a product like this.

Edit:

Dumbfounded that people don't think the most valuable company in the world doesn't have a plan for economic downturns. This model reuses parts already made. Somehow it's coincidental it shows up right as the downturn does?

<comment><USER36> I disagree. They've released an iPhone SE before, at the same price point. And the development of this surely has been in the works for some time, likely before the coronavirus took a hit to the economy.

The iPhone SE seems to be a way for Apple to make the most out of the existing supply chains from older devices (same body as the iPhone 6S, 7, and 8 for the most part). They did it for the previous SE (iPhone 4, 4s, 5, 5s models were very similar). They just slap some updated components from the newer models into it and it's a perfectly capable smartphone. It is also probably relatively cheap for them to create an iPhone using older parts compared to the R&D involved for entirely new devices and components.

It just so happened that the release of a budget iPhone coincided with a global crisis impacting the economy.

<comment><USER37> It's also the same pricing strategy Apple did with the iPod, whereby they find a point of entry by price they're comfortable offering, then they go up from there, presenting loads of increments. The latest iPhones—to say nothing of old models still available nor refurbs—present these prices:

iPhone SE: $399/$449/$549

iPhone 11: $699/$749/$849

iPhone 11 Pro: $999/$1149/$1349

iPhone 11 Pro Max: $1099/$1249/$1449

That's four models from $399–$1449 with 8 price points within that $1050 range. If a customer is set on some feature that's at an undesirable price with current models, prior generations of phones are there to offer alternative compromises.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Black bar is confusing make it clickable to person's death - <AUTHOR> Also, Nancy Grace Roman 'has died' on front page, but I'm guessing that the black bar is not for her... <comment><USER2> Please e-mail the mods (link is in the footer) instead of posting if you want to tell/suggest them something, they don't see all posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, thanks, will do next time. I see they've already removed the black bar so good for now I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another good option would be to use the alt="" popover to display the person's name.

<comment><USER4> Can't popover on mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was also under the impression that the black bar was for Nancy Grace Roman.

<comment><USER5> It was probably for Larry Roberts, one of the designers of Arpanet (the precursor of today's internet):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18791540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18791540)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I cleaned browser cache to fix it. didn't work.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure that will be much better, sometimes more than 1 person dies. I'd vote to stop the black bar practice anyway, who decides who "deserves" to get it?</comment>


SBA Spent $30M on Digital Service-Built App That Doesn't Work - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/08/sba-spent-30m-digital-service-built-app-doesnt-work/167419/ <comment><AUTHOR> Big USDS fan here, but this seems shocking since it sounds like they developed the app that didn't work. I recently read something about theri defense team in Dept of Defense in the NY Times and things didn't sound positive, I guess the whole team sent a letter to the media about the toxic work environment at US Digital.[1] I wonder if this is the effect of things under the current administration.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/us/politics/esper- trump-d...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/us/politics/esper-trump- defense-military.html)</comment>


GAO report on the Library of Congress (2015) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/669367.pdf <comment><USER2> Really interesting to read over the highlights:

[http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-315](http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-15-315)

The LoC is a HUGE organization but reading this example makes me wonder what's happening there... " For example, while the inventory identifies over 18,000 computers currently in use, officials stated that the Library has fewer than 6,500. Until the Library addresses these weaknesses, its ability to make informed decisions will be impaired."

<comment><USER3> > The LoC is a HUGE organization

That's an interesting observation. From inside the federal government, the LoC seems also embarrassingly small. I'm guessing that between 18,000 and 6,500, the 6,500 number comes from the number of actual employees, and they have gone through 2 tech refreshes without de-accessioning the old computers.

6,500 is not that big for a government org. It's problem about average, maybe a bit on the big side if they're all under one roof, but not all-caps HUGE.

<comment><USER2> I guess I'm thinking about libraries here. The LoC is a HUGE library.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wait a minute... Debbie Wasserman Schultz? The same DWS that the Sanders campaign is ostensibly at odds with?</comment>


The half-life of code and the ship of Theseus (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://erikbern.com/2016/12/05/the-half-life-of-code.html <comment><AUTHOR> Previous discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13112449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13112449)</comment>


How most IT job interviews are done - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP0sqRMzkwo

<comment><USER2> s/IT/""</comment>