Nepal bans solo climbers from Mount Everest - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-42521138 <comment><USER2> I can understand a persons willingness to 'push the envelope' and stretch themselves to reach their goals, but I am always mystified by the seeming lack of understanding by those who try and tackle Everest when they are not at peak climbing ability. In almost every case, it is the local Sherpas who will have to then risk their own lives to undertake a rescue or recovery operation if you don't make it.

Plus, I would hate to think that you would become just a nameless waypoint or turning marker on the way to the summit, much as poor 'Green Boots' and others have become. (though I believe 'Green Boots' has been removed now?)

EDIT: It appears that 'Green Boots' is still on the mountain, and has not been removed as previously thought. [0]

[0] - [http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2017/05/27/everest-2017-week...](http://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2017/05/27/everest-2017-weekend- update-may-27/)

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't blame the mountain. It isn't dangerous anymore, not like it once was. Modern climbing is extraordinarily safe. We now have gear that we can actually trust. Ropes are now basically magic. But more importantly, modern communications and weather forecasting mean climbers no longer need step _into the void_. Dangers that were once total unknowns are now calculable. It is much easier to be bold when you know what you are about to face. So I'd say the mountain is exactly as dangerous as those climbing it want it to make it. We are just now realizing that well-informed and equipped people often take risks that previous less-informed generations would never consider. Soloing everest was once crazy, but I wouldn't be surprised if some idiot out there is planning the first free-solo on-sight.

<comment><USER4> Mountaineering above 6000m is never extraordinarily safe. During past 5 years death rate on Everest is 3.4%. That's pretty high if you ask me. If you were sitting in a bus full of climbers, one of them wasn't going back home. Sure, there is always a lot of stupidity but pretty much its just nature. No one is still able to predict weather perfectly, no one can tell who is going to get AMS and people even sitting on basecamp can just die because of avalanche.

<comment><USER5> While I don't want to die from a change in the weather while climbing, to take on Mother Nature and lose seems a bit more acceptable than to die because I was stuck in a human traffic jam caused by a dentist from Akron going through a midlife crisis who is using Everest as a coping mechanism. Once upon a time I had climbing the seven summits as a goal but with the way things are on Everest now, I'd never attempt it regardless the quality of my own skills. There are just too many inexperienced climbers and too many ways they can cause harm beyond themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just hiking to Everest Base Camp and nearby Kala Pattar (8.5 days, ~18,500 ft) was brutal for me -- and that was with porters carrying my heavier gear.

Hopefully this will save the lives of a few Sherpas (who, btw, are an ethnic group; it's not a job title). They're inevitably tasked with attempting to save rich Western idiots doing stupid stuff like climb Everest without support.

I'd just add my personal experience on the mountain: it's hard to describe how brutal Everest is. You're so cold and so tired and so out of it, 99% of us (those without natural-born mountaineering gifts) being up there unaided is just a recipe for disaster.

Next I'd like to see the Nepalese government double the Everest permit fee (currently $11,000) and pass $$ onto Sherpas.

Doubt it will happen, but this is at least a small victory.

<comment><USER7> So your ego was bruised by some trek and your solution is to ruin it for everyone else? "rich Western idiot" logic. Also just fyi - most sherpas die supporting guided climbs not rescuing solo climbers.

<comment><USER8> I don't know what the relevant statistics actually are, but if the death rate for sherpas rescuing solo climbers is higher than that for sherpas supporting guided climbs -- even if the total number of deaths is lower -- this still suggests reducing the number of solo rescues, no? Especially since, as far as I can tell, supporting guided climbs is way more economically important.

<comment><USER7> human lives aren't usually fungible so your accounting method strikes me as a bit strange.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's unfortunate that world-class alpinists such as Kilian Jornet -- who recently summited Everest solo, in 26 hours, without supplemental oxygen, after training his ass off for years [1] -- won't be able to attempt such a challenge again (unless I'm missing something).

There has to be a better solution to the problem mentioned in the article.

[1] [https://www.outsideonline.com/2187266/kilian-jornet- summits-...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2187266/kilian-jornet-summits- everest-fastest-known-time)

<comment><USER10> Seems like there's doubts that Kilian submitted at all. Personally, I think he did, but as of now there's really no proof.

[http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8591724](http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8591724)

Edit: Why downvote this? Is there any evidence Kilian submitted beyond his word?

<comment><USER11> Jornet isn't just some random wahoo. He's won pretty much every major ultra trail race there is, has an unparalleled race ski mountaineering career, and FKTs on other major Seven Summits, including Denali. He's an outlier''s outlier. What then, does he need to prove? What would the reason be for him to lie?

<comment><USER12> > What would the reason be for him to lie?

Just taking a wild stab at it, avoiding embarrassment and maintaining his reputation. I know literally nothing about him, but I presume he's every bit as human as the rest of us.

I'm absolutely not trying to weigh in either way - again, I know literally nothing about him. But also I don't think past accomplishment can be used as such handy proof of subsequent accomplishments.

<comment><USER11> > Just taking a wild stab at it, avoiding embarrassment and maintaining his > reputation.

He's failed many times on the, "Summits of My Life" peaks. It's Alpinism! Failure is part of the game. This wasn't even his first time trying Everest. He's clearly not an egotistical guy.

> but I presume he's every bit as human as the rest of us.

I'd do some research, well worth it. They guy _isn 't_ human.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone with some mountaineering experience in North America, I am really surprised to hear that they ever allowed this in the first place. Of course, one could argue that govt shouldn't have any power over what an individual can do, but the same people who argue for that liberty also ask govt to go search when someone goes missing in the mountains. And you can only search for so many people. I think it is reasonable to expect that those who plan to climb such scary mountains find someone to accompany them.

<comment><USER14> > Of course, one could argue that govt shouldn't have any power over what an > individual can do

If I were in charge (I never will be), my first inclination would be to not restrict high risk climbing. But then I wouldn't be able to shake the feeling that a hands off approach would be that simple. I'd want to understand the drawbacks of people dying on the mountain. I'd be concerned with being responsible for rescue costs, being vilified for not making rescue attempts, the cost of medical treatments, the lives lost in attempting to make rescues, any correlations between deaths & the number of climbing attempts made (is it scaring people away, attracting even more, etc.), how the press coverage affects Nepal's public image, and so on. In the end, banning high risk climbing might simply be a good & conservative decision.

<comment><USER15> I'd say, let them climb how they want, but mandate full insurance coverage for any needed evacuation, medical treatment, and corpse removal. As long as people don't litter or pass costs along to others, the rest could be up to them.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure that's the point though -- once you're up there these things are _dangerous_ rather than just expensive. bhickey has a post further down which explains their experience nicely.

<comment><USER15> I'm aware that rescue and corpse removal is highly dangerous, but that just means the insurance would be extremely expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Everest is an absolute beast of a climb. Even with preparation and a full team, lives can be (and have been) lost. Going it alone, while remarkable, is extremely deadly and Nepal is doing the responsible thing by banning such endeavours. For other teams of climbers also, it's one of the more sinister (and perhaps annoying) things - when you're doing well on your climb, but your good nature makes you abort your effort for some random twit alone and in trouble halfway up a mountain.

<comment><USER18> It has no technical challenge from the standard "tourist" route and mainly presents economic obstacles, in that it costs as much as an SUV. Most people in decent health could train for a year and summit successfully. It is the mountaineering equivalent of reading an entire encyclopedia. Sheer volume of effort is all it takes.

<comment><USER19> That assumes everything goes well. When things start to not go well then the survival outcomes start changing dramatically based on who has more preparation and experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If you haven't read them already, I really recommend the following two books:

"Into Thin Air" by John Krakauer was the first book to critically explore the "Death Zone" and the state of mountaineering on Everest generally- It was written in 1997, but is just as relevant now.

"Dark Shadows Falling" by Joe Simpson is another commentary on the state of mountaineering on Everest in 1997. Simpson was famously left for dead on a high altitude climb (described in "Touching The Void"), so he brings a keen insight into the morals of high-altitude climbing from the point of view of the "one that was left behind".

<comment><USER21> > he brings a keen insight into the morals of high-altitude climbing from the > point of view of the "one that was left behind"

I got curious and read a wikipedia article about the book; from the summary, I don't see any special "morals" about the incident: one mountaineer had a reason to believe another one dead and saved himself, without knowingly leaving anyone behind. Is wikipedia summary incorrect?

<comment><USER22> I think the questionable (in terms of traditional mountaineering ethics, I guess) was that Simon Yates had to cut off his partners rope. It's probably the pragmatic thing to do there, but that was definitely the part that was discussed afterwards. He had to assume that he was dead after that, that part was never questioned.

On the other hand, he stayed at their basecamp for a prolonged time (if I remember it correctly), which in the end helped Joe, who crawled back there through the glacier with his broken bones and almost dead from dehydration. So he still somehow believed in the miracle that happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd rather see Nepal ban fixed ropes and yank the ladder off the Hillary Step, but that'd kill the whole industry.

<comment><USER24> I thought the Hillary Step was gone now.

<comment><USER23> Looks like it: [https://www.outsideonline.com/2191911/american-climbers- conf...](https://www.outsideonline.com/2191911/american-climbers-confirm- hillary-step-gone)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why not sell individual permits and make it so expansive that it covers the rescue?

<comment><USER26> It's hard to put a price on the certain lives of rescuers that will be lost (given enough rescue missions).

<comment><USER27> Just tell the climbers in advance they will not mount rescue missions for people who do not meet a minimum threshold of competence and preparation.

<comment><USER28> How about not mounting publicly funded rescue missions at all? You can pay for insurance if you want someone to risk their life to come get you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Killian Journet just ran to the top twice, solo. No supplemental oxygen. Looks like his record will stand.

<comment><USER10> Did he start on the Nepalese or Chinese side? I haven't seen this mentioned in any articles about him.

<comment><USER29> They discuss base camp a lot, so I believe it was Nepal. Certainly it could be China, but I think they would have highlighted that. Also, he did it without fixed ropes.

<comment><USER30> [http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web17s/newswire-kilian-jornet- ma...](http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web17s/newswire-kilian-jornet-makes-two- rapid-everest-ascents)

north col is tibet

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> On a related note, a team has just set off to attempt a summit of K2 in winter -- a feat thought physically impossible: [https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/K2-mountain- wint...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/12/K2-mountain-winter-climb- poland-spd/)

</comment><comment><USER32> And there goes my cheap cryogenics backup plan...

</comment><comment><USER33> Why ban solo climbing?

If an idiot wants to do something stupid, why interfere with natural selection?

And why waste money looking for them?

<comment><USER34> Why do you call them idiots? Is it because you're a coward, or someone stupid enough to believe death is something that can be avoided?

<comment><USER35> I don't know about you, but I've managed to avoid death by Everest for over 3 decades.

And regarding the "coward" part, surely there must be some ways more productive to society by which they can demonstrate their bravery...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Now ban Denali.

</comment><comment><USER37> Nepal has more basic things to worry about. Sorry. Some rich dude hanging at the edge of some cliff should be problem number 58299 in their or my list.

This is gone crazy. At least have a written note that forbids anyone from saving their life if it comes to it. They put their own life and the rescuers' lives at risk.

Everytime someone proudly says 'i climbed the Everest ' oh cool, I immediately think, who is the sherpa? They get my praise. Not some rich, over priveleged dude who thinks the rest of the world has to bend to their will for whatever sordid privileged game they are interested in playing.

<comment><USER38> Well, banning the practice is the first step towards doing _exactly_ that. The whole world is a lot more understanding of the stance, "Sorry, we cannot go and rescue [person X]," when person X got in trouble because of illegal activity they were performing - and there are few more effective methods of making someone adopt the stance espoused by your proposed note, "I forbid you from rescuing me," than making the practice illegal.

So, essentially, I agree, I just think this is the proper way for Nepal to go about de-prioritizing this particular problem. :)

<comment><USER37> Agreed. Just don't call poor people to come clean up your mess.</comment></comment></comment>


World Map Of Social Networks Shows Facebook's Ever-Increasing Dominance - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/10/world-map-of-social-networks-shows-facebooks-ever-increasing-dominance/

<comment><USER2> Interesting to see LiveJournal still hanging in there at #3 in Russia. Shame it's not doing so well elsewhere, I've never used another site that had functionality to match it.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be cool to have this map animated, so we can visually see the blues slowly encompassing the globe.</comment>


What if Foursquare launched in 2004? The story of Meetro. - <AUTHOR> http://meetro.lefora.com/2008/05/21/meetro-post-mortem/

<comment><USER2> Another problem that the author neglects to mention is that Meetro didn't really seem to solve any specific problem.

Foursquare is so successful for two reasons. It's a game, so people _want_ to check in and leave their mark (solving the persistence problem he mentions). They're solving a problem by providing entertainment. I'm not seeing this as much in Meetro. Second, everybody has smart phones now. Foursquare succeeds where Dodgeball fails because _anybody_ can participate, with almost no effort.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool blog post from 2008!

Right there at the very end in point #3 he ponders the option that just turned into a $80-100m valuation. He was thinking of the idea but didn't have the social proof from the cool kids.

Not being able to pivot to the right model and timeliness seem to be what went wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> yep, the lack of mass market GPS device (iphone) was what killed Meetro more than anything, IMHO. The game mechanic of 4square is an inspired feature that endeared it to early adopters.</comment></comment>


Svpply to retire on August 31st - <AUTHOR> https://svpply.com/sunset

<comment><USER2> "Working with @FictiveCameron and @fictivekin on a new Svpply. Kickstarter coming soon."

Ben Pieratt, Svpply founder: [https://twitter.com/pieratt/status/481524249522216962](https://twitter.com/pieratt/status/481524249522216962)

<comment><USER3> It's true.

<comment><USER4> why not put resources/effort towards gimmebar instead of a new svpply ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a strange feeling to see Svpply finally setting into the sun. Most of us have moved on from ebay and the site has been semi-running itself for the past 6 months.

It's going to be weird saying "I worked on Svpply, a site that _used to be_ about letting people curate and discover products".

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://blog.svpply.com/post/31008753911/ebay-inc-acquires- sv...](http://blog.svpply.com/post/31008753911/ebay-inc-acquires-svpply)

"One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away. We'll continue to bring our users new products each day"

Sounds oh so familiar these days...

<comment><USER7> Meh. That was two years ago.

If you expect a small company to persist for longer than that based on a single statement, it's best to just consider yourself outside the target audience for longevity predictions. There just is not that much certainty in the world for small firms.

<comment><USER8> It's not a prediction, it's a promise. Said for the benefit of the person that said it. That was GP's point.

<comment><USER9> And they kept the promise for two years. How long can you reasonably hold someone to a statement like that? Products come and go all the time.

<comment><USER8> I expect people to keep their promises for as long as they say. If he meant for the next two years, he should have said so. He could fudge it and say "for the foreseeable future" (that might tip his hand, however).

But I don't buy "but's it's just business" as an excuse for bad behavior, and in truth it bothers me that it's becoming more and more acceptable to not hold people socially accountable for their business behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another addition for [http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

<comment><USER11> I'm not so sure. "We regret to announce...", "We appreciate", a factual paragraph about what the team has been doing at ebay, and a way to export your data.

That's far better than the typical "We're excited to announce that we've been acquired, and are immediately shutting down the product", at least in my opinion.

<comment><USER12> [http://blog.svpply.com/post/31008753911/ebay-inc-acquires- sv...](http://blog.svpply.com/post/31008753911/ebay-inc-acquires-svpply)

"One thing we do want to make clear: Svpply is not going away"

Sadly that's exactly what Our Incredible Journey is designed for.

<comment><USER11> Fair enough. I was just looking at the post in question without knowing the context.

If they had ran it a few more years before they shut it down it'd feel less deceptive, since conditions can change and a product might not make sense to continue for financial reasons.

<comment><USER13> How many years? How many internet services do you use that have run for 2 + "a few more" years?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What was SVPPLY?

</comment><comment><USER15> Despite ebay's initial "Svpply is not going away" claim, this took about a year longer than I expected.

Fancy.com is my alternative of choice.

</comment><comment><USER16> [http://www.lyst.com](http://www.lyst.com) is a great alternative to it

<comment><USER17> and if you were there for the name, [http://svbtle.com/](http://svbtle.com/) is a good alternative

<comment><USER18> Well, just make sure you're witty and intelligent enough.

<comment><USER19> www.luvocracy.com another alternative

<comment><USER17> That looks pretty neat. (BTW not a joke like my suggestion was)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Bummer. I still use this to find clothes. Glad to hear they're going to bring back a slightly different version of it.

<comment><USER21> The site died a while ago. It would have been interesting what direction Ben and co would have taken it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Extremely saddened. Svpply was one consumer goods portal I continuously felt like I could rely on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Much of what they post is beyond the price-range of most consumers, but I find Uncrate to be a decent site for that kind of stuff:

[http://uncrate.com/](http://uncrate.com/)

<comment><USER22> Uncrate is curated by a staff, and lacks the grassroots legitimacy that I always saw in Svpply's contributors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Brrr I'll miss my everyday notification from Want, that's a bummer !

</comment><comment><USER24> bummed about this. canopy.co is another alternative - but just for amazon products.</comment>


Show HN: Node Knockout 2015 is complete. 90 Node.js apps launched in 48hrs - <AUTHOR> http://www.nodeknockout.com <comment><USER2> Title is so confusing. There is a popular javascript MVVM front-end framework called Knockout.js.

[http://knockoutjs.com/](http://knockoutjs.com/)</comment>


The Startup Blues - <AUTHOR> I joined an early stage startup after a career as a programmer in the military. Unfortunately I'm having some issues there:<p>• I feel I get "bottom stack" tasks: not really interesting, or I get mostly tedious ones. And in general feel like the technical position I'm in is a downgrade from my prior one.<p>• The organizational culture values significantly the more senior team members (joined a year earlier). They're the ones who influence the product and consulted with, and showcase the product. When I tried to get more involved I got "demoted" to just fulfilling my day job.<p>• Although we are a small startup , (I was from the 10th or so technical employee) I feel that I pretty much came to a 90 percent developed product, and moreover, although I can't read the feature I have a strong sense that I wouldn't have a chance to grow (managerially or technically), as they're 9 more people before me at the top of the food chain.<p>I haven't got any other point of reference for this situation, so I was wandering whether It's a bad situation for me, or maybe I'm in a bad slump (quite a long one) and eventually things will improve?
Have you experienced something similar, and how did you cope? <comment><USER2> Your situation is not unusual. It may or may not get better.

Probably your best bet is to be open about it and be ready to move on when you reach a good point (say when the product is 100% done)</comment>


Shenzhen and Yiwu: Supply Chains and Consumerism - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@hydraulicsheep/window-shopping-in-yiwu-a-tale-of-globalisation-supply-chains-and-throwaway-culture-7b587a4e8aad <comment><USER2> What the man missed, is an absolutely humongous chunk of supply chain dedicated to recycling and remarketing that exists completely out of sight fo

. This is what you don't see nearly at all while living in the West, thanks to efforts of big brands.

Back 12 years ago, Malaysia was a global centre for refurbishment and recycling of electronics, before the crown went to China.

I still have a prehistoric Sony Ericsson w880i, that I bought from a refurbisher in Malaysia for a third of a retail price in the West back in 2007.

I was amazed how quickly goods go through the cycle. That phone was just a 6 months old model, and it being sold for a third of original price meant that somebody in the West must've bought, used, and threw it away in that time...

This is the way how most high value goods are reaching the global south, and big brands are trying hard to keep that side of supply chain out of your (people in the West) sight.

Apple for example wages an unending holy war against refurbishers of Apple laptops and phones, using every trick available. Apple effectively bribed Alibaba to delist their refurbished laptops back in 2010. Sony was also very big on that too.

Luxury brands, and such go even further. Some of them sneakily run operations to scour second hand markets off their goods, and some even destroy them after.

<comment><USER3> Aren't these artificial market manipulations exactly what makes luxurious goods scarce? It's not like they're hiding the fact that they're a luxury product.

It is an interesting perspective on what Luxury goods of the mass manufactured kind may look like in the future.

<comment><USER4> I've read that a luxury bag maker burns unsold products just to maintain the exclusivity. It's like lighting a cigar with a 100 dollar note, sadly even for the super rich they only have 1 planet and they have to share with the rest of us. (Or maybe the 0.01% has other ideas about sharing?)

<comment><USER3> Considering the multitudes of other ways in which the very wealthy wreck the environment, I would say that sustaining the luxury bag industry ranks very lowly. Lets say: the private jet industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that describing Alibaba/AliExpress and the Shenzhen electronics markets as two different things rather hides reality .... Many of those little online stores on AliExpress and the stalls in the Shenzhen markets are just two views of the same thing ... Come 5pm in Shenzhen, all you can hear is the ripping of the beige packing tape as all the stalls pack up their online sales of the day ....

<comment><USER6> That's how the E-markets in Beijing's Zhongguangcun evolved, but eventually the physical stores are becoming redundant and the number of stalls have shrunk dramatically in the last few years.

Honestly, I think you have to go back to Akihabara these days to get the authentic electronic potpourri part experience.

<comment><USER5> I visited Akihabara a year or so ago and (compared with Shenzhen) was quite disappointed - mostly it's Manga glitz, not a lot of electronics at all, you had to hunt to find it.

Huaqiangbei is changing, gentrifying a bit (especially SEG) starting to sell consumer drones rather than cables - partly it's because now that all the subway work in the street outside is done the on-street stores are all consumer electronics stuff which is creeping inwards. But a block over really nothing much has changed.

<comment><USER6> The one thing you can find in Japan that you can't really find in China is used stuff, old stuff, and somethingS that aren't meant for mass production. Akhibara still has that advantage, plus they mix the electronic work stuff with the computer hardware (in China, these things usually exist in separate buildings, if not districts).

<comment><USER7> Interesting.. whereabouts in Japan?

<comment><USER6> Akihabara is in Tokyo, and pretty well known.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm fascinated by the markets of Huaqiangbei (Shenzhen) although my only exposure have been through the YouTube channel Strange Parts. The enormity of the market is shocking and I cannot think of a better place for hardware innovation.

It's somewhere I'd really like to travel one of these days.

<comment><USER9> Yeah Scotty at Strange Parts has shown some amazing things. There are other YouTube channels too that show some of the manufacturing in Shenzhen.

Although many of the people of these channels seemed to have left China due to the big surge is anti-western feelings (either real or made-up).

<comment><USER10> Problem with Scotty is that he paints a rosy picture of all of his adventures. Unlike EEVBlog, he never criticizes Chinese manufacturing practices nor says a single thing that may offend his fan base.

This is a worrying, I'm conspiring that he won't be welcomed in China, perhaps afraid of angering CCP gods. That may not be true but it's hard to imagine otherwise.

Plus, he is sponsored by suppliers in China (PCBWay for e.g.). What good is content without objectivity?

<comment><USER11> Objectivity is a lie. I want to do a video about this at some point, but in learning to make videos, I've learned there's no way to tell an unbiased story.

That being said, I'll be the first to admit my videos are biased.

There's tons of China bashing in the world. Some of it deserved, a lot of it not. There are a lot of very lazy journalists in the world that follow very old narratives about China because they're too lazy and overworked to go find new ones.

I could choose to follow these narratives and give viewers what they expect to hear about China. But I think it's far more interesting and useful to the world to talk about the parts people _haven't_ heard yet. The parts that I think are cool and amazing and exciting. All of that is real and genuine.

I'm also definitely afraid of angering the CCP gods. I'm also careful to not put anyone in harms way because of something I showed in one of my videos. And I don't think it's fair to shit all over a factory who has invited me in as their guest.

I feel like I walk a very fine line with what I show. I think there's more value to be had by continuing to have access to show an authentic view of what China and Chinese factories are like, even if I can't always directly comment on it.

The alternative is potentially showing one or two really critical things that are already being covered well by more traditional outlets, and then never being allowed back. Which seems like a huge waste of an opportunity to create some good in the world.

As for factories sponsoring videos, I turn down far more than I accept. Those videos are intended to be about how things are made and how factories work, not reviews or advertisements of a given factory. I could make that same video at a number of factories. They offer to pay to be the factory in shoot it at because it gets them a lot of useful visibility. I insist on having full creative control over the video. The only input they have is what's confidential that I can't show on camera (usually just customer designs or logos). If a factory is bad, or makes a bad product, I won't accept the sponsorship. But I'm not going to go to a factory, sponsored or not, and then badmouth them. That's rude, and would quickly mean I wouldn't be invited to other factories to make the educational content I'm so excited to make.

<comment><USER10> Scotty, thanks for a honest reply.

> Objectivity is a lie.

Or science wouldn't exist. Truth is objectivity. Scientific method depends on objectivity and being able to criticize. Facts are facts, when it's time to state your opinion, you can preface that that's your opinion.

I'm afraid that you'll spread the message that nothing is objective in the world and nothing can be trusted.

Educational part is great in your videos.

I'm just sad reading your response because I'm was an expat in China and what you show is just one side of the coin. And the fact that you admit that you're afraid of angering CCP members - isn't that terrifying to you?

Can you imagine only making positive videos of America and never being able to criticize? You have a responsibility man... you reach millions.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, I wasn't clear enough here.

Objectivity in storytelling/journalism is a lie.

Stories are ALWAYS biased by what the storyteller chooses to show. It impossible to show everything. So what you choose to show is the bias.

Here's an example: Is Shenzhen an industrial metropolis, or a green leafy jungle? It's both.

I tend to make videos about the industrial side of Shenzhen, so I tend to choose footage to match that.

When I go walk in the park, I sometimes feel guilty I'm not showing how beautiful it is. That by not showing this side of Shenzhen, I'm presenting a very lopsided version.

But that's not what people watch my videos for. They're interested in the industrial side. I'm also not particularly interested in making videos about parks and beautiful landscapes. So I don't.

" And the fact that you admit that you're afraid of angering CCP members - isn't that terrifying to you?" Yes, of course it is. Why do you think I'm so careful about what I say and show? What do you expect me to do? Speak publicly about it and risk never being allowed back to China? What could I possibly say that's not already been said by thousands of others?

Instead, I'm trying to make the most of the opportunity I have to say something unique, that few others are saying, and hopefully bring people closer together, rather than further push them apart. We need more of that in the world right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very little depth to this article.</comment>


Stripe.com – Reviews anyone? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
We use Paypal and Stripe for our online payments. Stripe definately have a better interace is more user friendly , however - Stripe appear to have no seller protection which means we use 3 fraud tools which we inspect before shipping any Stripe.com orders.
We have been using Stripe for a while now and in the last week have received 3 "warning" disputes - from buyers claiming they have not received goods. We have uploaded their tracking numbers to Stripe and now they are waiting on the "banks" to make a decision as to whether or not we lose the money (on the goods we have already shipped).
Is this the way Stripe operates , it's a russian roulette situation. With Paypal, we provide tracking and we are safe from huge losses. With Stripe , it seems even after shipping goods with tracking - the "banks" can still make unfavourable decisions - putting businesses on the line.
Your thoughts? <comment><AUTHOR> We are using 3 fraud tools, for 3 transactions the fraud tool showed it was OK TO SHIP.

So we ship the item , provide tracking - and now we have 3 "warning" disputes from Stripe.com

Why does Stripe not have any seller protection like Paypal ?</comment>


Disney Streaming Service to Feature Marvel and Star Wars Spin-Off Series - <AUTHOR> https://digit.fyi/disney-plus-streaming-service-launch/ <comment><USER2> I'll just sit here praying that they won't ruin them. No hard feelings, it's just that it always makes me nervous when it comes to something really classic and Disney...</comment>


What kernel hackers look like - Kernel Summit 2007 group photo - <AUTHOR> http://lwn.net/Articles/248891/ <comment><USER2> Where can I find the swimsuit edition?

<comment><USER3> <http://lwn.net/Articles/66665/>

<http://lwn.net/Articles/66666/>

Are all those sixes a coincidence?

And the finale, "666" + "69" = CrAzY delicious!

<http://lwn.net/Articles/66669/>

<comment><USER2> Too funny. Maybe I should heed the saying be careful what you wish for.</comment></comment></comment>


Making Bootstrap examples using Sinatra-Haml-Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ghostandthemachine/sinatra-haml-bootstrap-fluid

<comment><USER2> Careful, you committed your private key in the repo.

<http://help.github.com/remove-sensitive-data/> \- I would regenerate the key nonetheless.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> yup, im an idiot! Good news is I had already deleted it and created new ones. Pretty ridiculous none the less. Thanks for the heads up</comment>


PostgreSQL 9.5 RC1 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.postgresql.org/about/news/1631/ <comment><USER2> For the juicy stuff, here's the list of what's new in 9.5:

[https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_...](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What%27s_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.5)

<comment><USER3> I haven't been following super closely but it looks like parallel sequential scan didn't make it in?

<comment><AUTHOR> That was a 9.6 feature all along

<comment><USER4> I think the original ambition was to release it in 9.5 [0], but then it was delayed and rescheduled for 9.6 [1].

[0]: [http://rhaas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/parallel-sequential- scan...](http://rhaas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/parallel-sequential-scan-for- postgresql.html)

[1]: [http://rhaas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/parallel-sequential- scan...](http://rhaas.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/parallel-sequential-scan-is- committed.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes!!

Modification of JSON field values! This makes Postgres a completely functional JSON store.

[1] [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What's_new_in_PostgreSQL_9....](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What's_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.5#JSONB- modifying_operators_and_functions)

<comment><USER6> Minor note: That's for JSONB (with a 'B') field values.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm excited for row level security, it's going to make auth so much easier to work with when using Postgrest

<comment><USER8> Can you tell me more about how you're working with Postgrest? It looks really neat, but I haven't heard from anyone using it.

<comment><USER7> We used it for a small school project where we just needed a database in the cloud but we didn't want to write a backend.

Auth was a pain as you had to write triggers for each table action to check that a user can access a record, but this new row level security will make things easy.

<comment><USER9> The op was making a joke -- people write "PostgreSQL" or "Postgres" , but never "Postgrest"

<comment><USER10> OP was talking about this: [https://github.com/begriffs/postgrest](https://github.com/begriffs/postgrest)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> UPSERT!

<comment><USER12> Yes ! Really looking forward to having native upsert instead of custom functions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Haven't been keeping up to date with the developments lately. Does anyone know what's the status on master-master replication? That's the one feature I need before I can switch over from MySQL.

<comment><USER14> It is being worked on. Good summary of TODO: [http://www.postgresql.org/message- id/CAMsr+YEfTEp35bQ5ia__nD...](http://www.postgresql.org/message- firstname.lastname@example.com)

<comment><USER15> Being worked on as in it won't make it into 9.5? Or being worked on as in they are working out the kinks still

<comment><USER14> 9.5 is frozen. They are just fixing bugs now. 9.6 at the earliest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Neat. The release notes contain a reference to a statement I wasn't aware of - DROP OWNED BY. Usually I place a DROP TABLE IF EXISTS at the top when trying new things out, but that requires a list of all tables which is somewhat tedious to type. DROP OWNED BY solves that elegantly.

<comment><USER17> Even simpler:

        DROP SCHEMA public CASCADE;
        CREATE SCHEMA public;

<comment><USER18> Also, `DROP DATABASE dev_base; CREATE DATABASE dev_base;`

<comment><USER17> The benefit of recreating the schema is that you can do it without killing your connection.

<comment><USER18> Very true. I drop all connections, drop the db with all the schemas and force all clients to reconnect. Should eliminate any transient issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was really hoping for statement level instead of triggers. SQL Server has them and they're extremely useful.

<comment><USER20> I'd love to hear about how you use instead of triggers. I can imagine some useful scenarios for them, but they seem so easily abused ive never really tried them.

<comment><USER21> Row-Level INSTEAD OF triggers are really useful to make views updateable that are otherwise too complicated to be updateable.</comment></comment></comment>


Adult Content Disguised as Kids Videos Is Flooding YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://beebom.com/adult-content-kids-videos-youtube/?ref=ManishShahi_instagram_scribbbblr <comment><USER2> I don't understand what the motivations for this are...does someone really think this will create revenue? Maybe by going viral or just through shock value?

<comment><USER3> > I don't understand what the motivations for this are

"If you're a parent, I'd recommend you set up YouTube Kids for your child to access YouTube videos without worrying about them being exposed to content such as this"

<comment><USER4> Is youtube kids actually moderated/filtered before being available to kids or is 'automatically moderated' like the rest of youtube?

given youtubes absolute lack of attempt to meaningfully moderate most content I'm not sure I'd be comfortable trusting them to moderate content for kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the 19th century anti-pornography activists claimed that perverts would throw pornographic prints over the walls of schoolyards because the perverts supposedly got off on "corrupting" upper-class children.

Sounds a bit implausible.

Perhaps these youtubers are trying to get around internet filters?

<comment><USER6> In the real world this is not a problem when the number of pervs is much lower than the number of schoolyards.

It becomes a problem when YouTube's algorithm can pick something up and amplify a single weirdo into a world-wide phenomenon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone think it's 4chan/8chan-types trolling because they have nothing better to do or malicious competitors/state actors trying to disrupt YT because they want to see it harmed?

</comment><comment><USER8> Cyberpunk hot take: is this YT-funded groups trying to drive people to adopt Kids, or is it a user-upload/streaming rival seeking to discredit YT?</comment>


California Earthquakes Disrupted HF Propagation on West Coast - <AUTHOR> http://www.arrl.org/news/view/report-california-earthquakes-disrupted-hf-propagation-on-west-coast <comment><USER2> >RF Seismograph showed an increase in noise on 80 meters some 13 hours beforehand, as well as some propagation changes on 40 and 30 meters — low before the quake and increasing in its wake.

Hours. Hours beforehand. Having that much preparation would be life-saving. Especially for us living near the Cascadia Subduction Zone.

<comment><USER3> Keep in mind that this report has come about with zero peer reviewing (I think it's a little strange it's been published by the ARRL to be honest), and another thing that is missing is that it needs to be correlated with solar activity, operator activity, local noise, and even thunderstorm activity, among other influences, before one can validate a change in HF propagation is a precursor to earthquakes.

<comment><USER4> All these things sound like stuff which can be controlled for.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely, but it just needs to be done.

Because there are also a million other correlations with the earthquakes which are just coincidences.

<comment><USER6> -Which is all the reason I need to bring up Tyler Vigen's amazing spurious correlations:

[https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious- correlations](https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

<comment><USER7> That's hilarious. Would be cooler if they could limit it to stuff with the same units though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most interesting is that interference began _before_ the earthquakes hit. Is that already a datapoint that is being used in earthquake predictions?

<comment><USER9> Take with a grain of salt. This is pseudoscience at best.

There were some reports of earthquake lights[1][2][3] and earthquake clouds[4][5][6] recently.

There's some online communities dedicated to those, e.g. [https://quakewatch.net/predictioncenter/](https://quakewatch.net/predictioncenter/)

___

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

[2] [https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/men-film-glowing- sn...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/men-film-glowing-snake- like-16506345)

[3] [https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird- news/789760/Colorado-...](https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird- news/789760/Colorado-UFO-plunge-sky-speed-off-mystery-green-plasma-video)

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

[5] [https://weather.com/vertical/video/strange-clouds-seen-in- co...](https://weather.com/vertical/video/strange-clouds-seen-in-co-2)

[6] [https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/20/boulder-rare-helix- clo...](https://www.denverpost.com/2019/06/20/boulder-rare-helix-cloud/)

Edit: I mean accurate forecasting and prediction using this data is pseudoscience.

<comment><USER10> What does that cloud formation have to do with earthquakes? That cloud was filmed in Boulder, not anywhere near southern California. The light thing seems pretty neat and there looks to be a bunch of possible explanations for the source. Although some of the videos I watched looked more like flashes of electricity coming from powerlines snapping or transformers blowing which could definitely happen if the earth was shifting.

<comment><USER11> _> What does that cloud formation have to do with earthquakes?_

Last I read about the alleged phenomena, you're supposedly looking for straight line or ripple clouds that form in seconds. The explanation is that some mechanism (originally friction) is boiling groundwater; but proponents can no longer agree on what mechanism leads to formation of the clouds.

<comment><USER12> Why would earthquakes cause a significant amount of groundwater to boil?

Supposing there were enough water vapor to do that, how would boiling groundwater form clouds at all, much less in seconds? There's still _a lot of earth in the way_ between the fault and the sky.

Ground shaking does not mean that energy is converted into heat. Does the ground feel hot after an earthquake? Warm at all?

Earthquakes, right? Not volcanoes or magma chambers? If this phenomenon were real, wouldn't you expect it to occur right before a volcanic eruption, which actually involves large amounts of magma, near the surface, which could actually vaporize large amounts of groundwater? As far as I can tell, that doesn't happen either. The water vapor erupts with the molten rock, and mainly condenses into volcanic clouds because it has volcanic particles to condense around, not because the water vapor itself is enough to form clouds on its own before dissipating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't see anything like a blackout: [https://pskreporter.info/cgi- bin/pskstats.pl](https://pskreporter.info/cgi-bin/pskstats.pl)

For those who don't know, PSK reporter is a system for logging propagation reports using digital modes like PSK and FT8, mostly on HF amateur bands (incl. 80,40,30m).

You might expect to see some kind of effect on July 4 if this effect were as widespread as described in the article, but to my eye it looks like a normal day.

<comment><USER14> Oh wow, an old school Perl CGI script! I remember doing those about 20 years ago. Neat.

<comment><USER15> Serverless lambdas, before they were cool!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's surprising to read about, but not implausible. You put that much stress on crystalline material over miles and who knows, you could get piezoelectric kinds of effects creating huge EM fields.

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting, this would be a problem for emergency communications set up to run on HF if it did indeed cause a total blackout. I know the VA out here uses HF for emergency communications in the event of a major disaster, I believe 80 meters. This would be a problem if a major earthquake killed propagation.

<comment><USER18> 20m seems to have suffered less, which is good to keep in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> intresting article about the phenomenom: [http://www.ep.sci.hokudai.ac.jp/~heki/pdf/Scientific_America...](http://www.ep.sci.hokudai.ac.jp/~heki/pdf/Scientific_American_Vance2018.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER20> What's HF?

<comment><USER21> High frequency radio band

<comment><USER22> Also known by the public as "shortwave radio" (although only a part of the HF spectrum is used for commercial broadcasting, but HF and shortwave is essentially used interchangeably).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> So if earthquakes do generate "electric field lines", can we tap into that and generate electricity from those field lines? And, if so, since that would be "stealing" energy from the quake, could it diminish the quake intensity? Theoretically.

<comment><USER24> Next in the agenda: stealing energy from lightning.

<comment><USER25> [https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is- there-...](https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is-there-a-way- to-harness-electricity-from-lightning/) TIL a lightening bolt is a nickle's worth of energy.

<comment><USER26> TIL that 1.21 gigawatts is $.05.

<comment><USER24> It's 1.21 gigawatts, but only 0.25KiloWatt/hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Eric Dollard is giving a talk later this week about this, and he's been talking about this stuff for YEARS.

Some people here are excited about hours... but this guy can detect these things DAYS in advance.

Preview: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE3QR3QUUd4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VE3QR3QUUd4)

See also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetotellurics#Earthquake_pr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetotellurics#Earthquake_precursor_prediction_research)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismo- electromagnetics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismo-electromagnetics)

</comment><comment><USER28> It's good that people are observing _anything_ ... even including the moisture content of Yeti skulls, and value of da Vinci paintings ... and trying to correlate it with _anything_ that can't be predicted and kills people. _Some_ day it _will_ pay off.

There was a time not so long ago when sprites, whistlers, jets, starters, ELVs and other TLEs were funny stuff. Today we understand that gammas are produced by thunderstorms. Times change.

[https://physics.unh.edu/events/colloquium/probing- particle-a...](https://physics.unh.edu/events/colloquium/probing-particle- accelerator-lives-thunderstorms)

</comment><comment><USER29> This reminds me of "Earthquake Weather" which I had never heard of until moving to the Bay Area. Some people who grew up here believe this is a real thing despite the total absence of evidence.

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

</comment><comment><USER9> Could this be the cause of all bee deaths?

[https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7220795/Shocking- fo...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7220795/Shocking-footage- shows-thousands-dead-bees-7-1-magnitude-earthquake-struck-California.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> I'm not following does this mean the Earthquakes are connected in Vancouver and Los Angeles?

<comment><USER31> Both are on the edge of the north american plate, where it meets the pacific plate. Everything on the edge of the pacific plate is referred to as the "ring of fire" due to frequency of earthquakes.

<comment><USER32> ... due to the prevalence of volcanoes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If you found this interesting look into getting your ham license it's fun.

</comment><comment><USER34> [https://quakewatch.net](https://quakewatch.net) has a track record of predicting Earthquake risk based on solar activity, space weather, & "blot echos". They successfully forecasted Southern California as a major risk.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's probably related to the earthquake light phenomenon.

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

<comment><USER36> How can it "probably" be related to something that almost certainly doesn't actually exist?

<comment><USER35> Because if you read the above comments, changes in the ionosphere caused by earthquakes are scientifically proven. Ionization of the ionosphere is also what causes auroras. Triboluminescence as another hypothesis is also proven, you can try in your kitchen with sugar!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: GeoScreenshot – Easily test Geo-IP based web pages - <AUTHOR> https://www.geoscreenshot.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I created this quick tool for testing Geo-targeted ads from multiple locations. It is still in its early stage. Excuse any screenshot delays as the scaling feature is still being ironed out.

I appreciate all feedback and suggestions.

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks great! But got an error for Amsterdam location.

Another indirect feature of your service is to browse internet when connected to restricted Wifi hotspots. This is possible because of https protocol you use.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please try again. The servers sometimes time out. Yes, it can be used as a web proxy but it only provides screenshots with no interaction. Should be fine for checking content sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Our screenshots aren't as pretty, but we're in a few locations. [http://shotsherpa.com](http://shotsherpa.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> "View your website around the world without a single customs agent." nice motto. I like your UI and you seem to have a lot of locations, do you use a proxy network?

<comment><AUTHOR> Figured, you are behind WonderProxy

<comment><USER3> We generate the screenshots in each locale rather than routing with a proxy. Which probably results in our much less pretty screenshots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great, but my use case is a little different:

"Is your website up around the world?"

and this is perfect for that!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks</comment></comment>


YouTube isn't for kids, but kids videos are among its most popular - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-07-24/pew-study-youtube-children-content <comment><USER2> I have a friend who specifically makes content for young children. He is an animator but specifically makes content for young children. I asked him why he makes this content and he essentially summed it up as:

1) young children are more likely to incorrectly click an ad or to not skip the ad (because they can't really read or understand that the ads are skippable)

2) young children often do not have ad blocking software installed

3) young children are more likely to watch playlists

The overall effect is that young children demographic is the most profitable demographic on youtube. Also lots of parents are basically using youtube as a form of free babysitting. Next time you go to the grocery store, just look at how many kids are sitting in the cart tapping away on a phone or a tablet.

<comment><USER3> This is what I thought was the case since the "Adpolcalypse". I made the point to my colleagues that what YouTube wanted was slightly predatory in nature. Kids have no spending power, why are we catering to them on that platform? Why can't an adult, who has spending power, watch edgy content if they want to? Kids are exploited while adults are being treated like children.

Then there was the instance, a sort of another soft "Adpocalypse" where all these videos featuring children had creepy comments. This caused a culling of comments on certain videos, but it was ultimately a situation YouTube had fostered.

<comment><USER4> This is a fundamental flaw of advertising. As advertising has increased over my lifetime, I've become so inured to it that I literally no longer register things as advertisements. I just see straight through them. They're everywhere now; ads are shown on McDonalds' menus. Ads are on gas pumps while I'm filling. Ads are placed on seemingly every electronic or physical surface in a desperate arms race for my attention and the more they try, the more my brain just blocks the shit out.

It's just a never ending deluge of spam and bullshit in my brain and it's been there for so long and has increased to such a ludicrous degree as I actually now LAUGH when I see an ad shoved into a new place.

Like, I do not understand why anybody is spending money on advertising. You could be advertising the most amazing product in the history of the world and you would be simply drowned in spam, and no one would ever see it or care.

And to bring this rant back to topic, of course kids are the only ones left. They haven't had their minds assaulted with predatory conniving language for decades yet. They're the only ones who still look at ads as anything other than spam email but in whatever format it's in. But don't worry; at the breakneck pace advertisers are set into now, they'll be getting used to it even sooner, and it will be even LESS effective, until the only people still watching ads are infants crapping their pants. Maybe we can monetize little holograms in diapers and then sell the diapers for 5 cents cheaper. Let's just get to the bottom of this barrel!

<comment><USER5> Obviously you are wrong since literally 100s of billions of $$ are being spent on digital advertising and they are driving downstream conversions. Don't generalize your experience.

Advertisers (especially Direct Response) are some of the more analytical folks you'll meet. They won't spend a cent on a channel if they are not making it back in downstream conversions.

<comment><USER4> I think there's a lot of people making a lot of money pretending it's 1955. That's my theory.

B2B advertising and directed, targeted campaigns probably have good results. The spam shit I'm talking about? The crap you see on YouTube especially? I doubt it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> YouTube the app (or web site) is not great for kids, however, there is an immense amount of content on YouTube that is wonderful for kids.

I curate content for my five year old daughter, and she can easily browse it, without descending into the rabbit hole that is YouTube-at-large. It's easy for me to do, but only because my main project ([https://pianop.ly/](https://pianop.ly/)) involves embedding YouTube videos into web pages, and I have a ton of tools that make it easy (for me, not necessarily for anyone).

I don't understand why there isn't more of this. I wish there was a large community of parents that wanted to curate content -- educational, musical, etc -- that kids could enjoy without parents having to worry so much they'll either stumble into truly awful stuff, or more likely, just spend their time looking at completely inane timewasters. (opening eggs to reveal toys, etc)

A side benefit is that if a video is embedded into a web page, the only ads YouTube ever shows is a banner. (although, I pay $10 a month to have YouTube without ads, so that isn't an issue for me. We don't have Netflix or cable or broadcast TV, by the way)

Incidentally, my daughter and I have friends (another dad and daughter) that are YouTubers, and while this girl is only 8, their content is good (in my opinion) and is a creative outlet for them and they have a lot of fun with it. The dad is an excellent videographer/editor, and the daughter is an excellent skateboarder, and they combine those things and share it with the world. (we met via YouTube and the four of us meet up at skateparks...my daughter is also really good) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrrgcqyvF4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrrgcqyvF4) I just don't see the problem with this.

<comment><USER7> Parent of two kids here, i'm curating videos for them as well. Maybe we could create a tool for group curating videos?

<comment><USER8> Same here. I've started a small thing here: [https://fugu.tv](https://fugu.tv) (piggy backing off this neat little repo [https://github.com/iRaul/podcasts- repo](https://github.com/iRaul/podcasts-repo) )

<comment><USER7> Thanks for this, did you start this alone?

<comment><USER8> Yeah. I live in Tokyo and so my kid needs some English inputs. This is one effort to try to put that together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Youtube should not be allowed to monetize any videos with children in it until they comply with the same conditions that movies that employ child actors have to. That would remove the incentive to make children perform for Youtube videos.

<comment><USER10> How would that work for those Russian toy videos my kid likes so much? Are we going to force American laws on Russia or just segregate the videos?

<comment><USER11> I mean, it is an American company paying out the ad revenue, and deciding which videos can be monetized or not. So yes, if a Russian wants to get paid advertising money by youtube, they would need to follow American laws.

<comment><USER10> All that would achieve is the next popular video sharing website not being American. YouTube has a lot of viewers, advertisers, content providers that aren't Americans.

<comment><USER11> I am not arguing for it, I am just saying that is how the law works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If YouTube isn't for kids, why do they host videos that are clearly and explicitly targeting toddlers? For example: [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=videos+for+todd...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=videos+for+toddlers)

The most egregious thing, in my mind, is that YouTube wraps toddler videos in ads for things like the John Wick movie and local breweries in my area. The fact that this isn't a difficult problem to solve is the strongest indication that A) YouTube knows exactly what's going on, and B) they frankly do not care because they can make a buck off of showing shockingly inappropriate content to children.

<comment><USER13> aren't those ads targeted to the viewer (you) rather than the content of the video? if you watch it in incognito do you see those same types of ads? I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment, just curious. Also, the uploader of the video certainly has made a conscious choice to monetize a video targeted at children. YouTube certainly didn't do anything to help the situation, but some of the blame should probably go toward the uploader of the video.

As an aside: my kids occasionally watch videos in the YouTube Kids app (version of youtube curated for kids). That app certainly never shows wildly inappropriate ads (though it does have ads).

<comment><USER14> YouTube is aware that multiple people watch videos under one account. They are also aware of the nature of the content of the video and should be able to adjust ads based on that as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's easy to blame Youtube but parents are IMO responsible for what their kids do, up to a certain age. Many parents use smartphones and tablets as pacifiers for their kids and that is just wrong.

There is a reason France has banned devices on primary schools.

A recent study found that:

> _Early results revealed that kids who use screens for more than 7 hours per > day show physical changes to the brain in the form of premature thinning of > the cortex._

[https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/screen-time-nih- study-60-min...](https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/screen-time-nih- study-60-minutes)

<comment><USER16> More than 7 hours of screen time per day seems like child abuse. Or as I call it when I do it, "work".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Was watching a nursery rhyme channel with my 1.5 year old son...then an ad comes on for a drug trafficking series on Netflix...drugs, guns, etc

<comment><USER18> I sympathize but wasn't that an advertisement targeted at you specifically? Meaning, the platform didn't know you were with your child. Should targeted ads change their age appropriateness with the content of the viewed material? I imagine not...

<comment><USER17> >Should targeted ads change their age appropriateness with the content of the viewed material?

Yes, they most definitely should. A video that specifically targets babies/children should not have ads that are 18+.

Where else in the world would you view media for children and be shown ads for drug dealing dramas?

<comment><USER19> Because adults sometimes watch children's programming too (yes, really), and as far as they can tell, that's what's going on.

<comment><USER18> This exactly.

But to be honest, maybe this is an opportunity to create some kind of maturity level standard, where content shouldn't be above a set threshold, regardless of source. On YouTube For Kids, it would be lower than regular YouTube, which would be lower than RedTube. Advertising would be compelled to build in functionality that checks a page's threshold and serves ads that match.

I'm not saying I agree with the idea, just putting it out there.

<comment><USER17> See my reply above. Content designed and marketed to children nowhere else has 18+ advertisements. Same standard should (and has to imo) be applied to "new" media.

<comment><USER19> That's because nobody else (in the streaming video space) is trying to serve ads based on who's watching the content. YouTube is in a different advertising market that nobody else has yet attempted to enter.

<comment><USER17> When it comes to children's programming...it shouldn't be based on who's watching, it should be based on if the content itself is designed for children or not and serve ads accordingly.

That's what every advertising platform does...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Don't YouTube have a special kids app for showing videos from YouTube to kids, I've heard they do?

Ah, they do, [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.youtube.kids&hl=en)

Or maybe YouTube isn't a trademark?

<comment><USER21> They do have a YouTube kids app. It's not great & needs heavy supervision.

You have the option to limit videos to only ones you approve but this really prevents finding new videos unless you do a bunch of work. There are some really good videos we've found while letting our kids explore. Most are British.

If you choose to let them search "kid friendly" videos you have the option to block videos but it doesn't alter their algorithm any it seems. For example, some of the most annoying videos are ones where a child & parent are opening & playing with some toy. The video is really just a terrible ad for a product & it seems YouTube is filled with these. I'm curious if the child/parent actors are writing these toys off as business expenses or getting them at discounts for trying to sell them to kids on YouTube.

<comment><USER22> I would hope so, especially if you're raking in $22 million a year reviewing toys:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/ryan-toysreview-7-year- old-m...](https://www.businessinsider.com/ryan-toysreview-7-year-old- makes-22-million-per-year-youtube-2018-12)

With L.O.L. Surprise, they don't even need to buy commercials, Youtube does that for them:

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lol-surprise-hot-new- toy/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/lol-surprise-hot-new-toy/)

<comment><USER21> Wow. Well this makes a lot of sense. I know what will be happening to the YouTube Kids app in our house...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I tried the YouTube Kids app a while back.... it was a terrible experience.

It was either straight merch type stuff "Hey let's play with this very specifically named toy." If I use the account that gets YouTube ads... WAY inappropriate ads.

Or just painfully inane content.

Granted there are channels I liked, anything associated with PBS or Sesame Street... but at the time you couldn't block channels you didn't like, nor could white-list anything so I just deleted the app and my kids don't get to watch YouTube unless I'm actively sitting with them watching, and filtering.

Based on everything else about Youtube, I don't trust YouTube enough to give them another chance.

</comment><comment><USER24> The YouTube + Kids has been an unsolved problem for many years now. It's not easy putting those two together. Google knows that and have been working on it continuously. Very early on, around 2008, they realized that 2+2 is somewhere between 3.9 and 4.1 and with advances in ML and AI they've increased confidence levels significantly. They are now (2019) pretty close to proving that 2+2 comes out 4 (or more precisely 4.001337) regardless of how many hours of video are uploaded every minute. That said, they are also cautious not to raise hopes too high. As with all complex problems, it may take years to solve, if at all.

</comment><comment><USER25> Of course the videos are "among its most popular". You know those inane autoplaying videos after you just watched something where everyone rushes to stop the countdown? Well, kids don't. Lazy parents all over the world park their kids in front of YouTube, and they will happily watch whatever inane crap YouTube throws at them for hours on end. Except for the lack of spending money, they are the perfect viewer. It's disturbing watching young kids "use" YouTube, watching repeats or slight variations of the same mind numbingly stupid video for hours, lulled into an algorithmic trance hitting their brain just right, without the maturity to break the vicious cycle.

</comment><comment><USER26> If kids 'need' TV shows to watch and parents need a source of children's entertainment they can trust, isn't that were we normally expect an organization like PBS to fill the need?

With an organization like PBS, they have a reputation of manually curating what they show, while something like Youtube Kids just has automated systems and manual reports to supplement it. It's hard to believe Google/Youtube could ever provide automated curation as well as PBS. How many media articles that boil down to _" youtube showed this to kids but PBS never would have"_ are we going to have before people get the idea?

<comment><USER27> I think YouTube is avoiding responsibility here - hosting videos for kids with billions of views and running ads on them, while saying "it's not for kids" to save money to actually curate / avoid showing videos not safe for them. YouTube kids is also disingenuous here - no 10+ year old would want to watch that.

Saying "it's the responsibility of parents" is the same PR driven avoiding of responsibility by YouTube.

YouTube themselves make it as easy as possible for kids to use YouTube (preinstalled apps on TVs etc), they should bear some responsibility too.

<comment><USER26> Oh, I completely agree. Youtube should stop pretending they have a service suitable for children. Youtube should be making it clear to consumers that their service is for mature viewers only because they are incapable of vetting content for children with the accuracy consumers rightfully expect from a children's entertainment company.

<comment><USER27> Either go out of their way to prevent kids from using the service or invest and make it safe for kids. I think they will lobby / PR heavily to continue to do neither.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> YouTube keeps sending out weird notices saying that you can't use it if you are under 13 and to send in my driver's license and other information, but then I see all these videos where the people making them are clearly under 13 and targeting kids. Plus, they never do anything when I respond saying that I don't feel comfortable with sending something like that. My daughter has an app called Like and that definitely has a lot of kids uploading videos. I think these companies just need to make it look like they care or are trying to do something about the issue.

<comment><USER29> Lol, you browse YouTube logged in?

<comment><USER28> Does there exist a descent app to create YouTube playlist without logging in?

<comment><USER30> If you use Android, try NewPipe, it can do that and more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Verizon FIOS TV has a YouTube widget that can't be disabled. I was really surprised when we switched from cable. In the past we would let our kids on youtube to watch something on rare occasion but suddenly the TV has youtube built-in with no way to disable. You can set an age restriction but when you try to go to something that is age restricted it prompts you to go to settings to change it. There is no way to just block the widget like you can a channel. I think the work around is to setup a YT account just for this purpose, set age restrictions and then sign-in to it on the FIOS box but we haven't felt like we have had to go there yet. I see discussions and complaints to Verizon for years with customers wanting to block widget or restrict kids from changing the age restriction setting with a pin.

</comment><comment><USER32> > He said that the platform's stated age policy is largely a ploy to avoid > complying with the law, which makes it illegal to collect data on children > under 13 without parental consent.

Getting tired of my at the time 6 year old videos being mixed in with mine, I tried to make an account for her and set the age to 6 and it was shutdown. I had to get out a credit card and jump through hoops to get it back on. I wish I could set an age and language filter on YouTube. For now its you can watch anything in your subscriptions and the off chance you want to watch something new we'll help.

Apparently all kids like to watch the same thing over and over again which is why the view counts are so high but i don't doubt YouTube is the most popular site for kids. Not sure about the ad stuff cause I pay for premium.

</comment><comment><USER33> Isn't for kids? The reems of kid and toddler focused playlist that show up on YouTube say otherwise. They're trying to hook them when they're young.

</comment><comment><USER34> Sometimes if you catch a new video soon after it's been uploaded you can see it's in a state before the recommendations have been generated, the few times I've seen it happen the recommendations were entirely kids videos with vibrant thumbnails and strange names.

I have no idea how youtube gets it's recommendations when this happens, but if it's some sort of randomish fallback list, I can easily believe that cheap, mass produced kids content is a huge fraction of youtube uploads/views.

</comment><comment><USER35> Why doesn't YouTube community-source the content tags? I see a "report" button, but nothing that allows me, as an audience, to decide what category this video belongs in. I see tags such as "gaming" but no other tags to further delineate to sub-groups of "gaming". For such a large platform, I don't see a way to filter content accurately. I wonder if they rely too much on "recommended for you" algorithms.

<comment><USER36> That's actually why we had to come up with our own topic typology in this report - some of the category tags that YouTube provides were too broad to be useful ("TV Shows") and others were way too specific ("Music of Latin America")

<comment><USER37> Music of Latin America seem pretty broad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> My sister in law has kids that are in the 7 - 13 year range. The girl specifically (she's 9 or so) will just put on a youtube video and then just watch whatever it recommends after that endlessly.

To adults, the content is absolute garbage, but to her its entertaining. I noticed that most of the stuff she watches is just some tweens or twenty somethings doing every day life stuff (sitting in a pool, making spaghetti, etc). The only real difference is that they do it with high energy and make a big deal out of everything.

WOOOOAAA noodles feel weird! NO WAAAYY the sauce is RED!! HOLY COW this hot TUB is SO HOT!

I guess it works because these videos often have 400k to millions of views.

<comment><USER19> Sounds exactly the same as anything on the Disney channel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Full report is here, in case it interests anyone: [https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/07/25/a-week-in-the-life- of...](https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/07/25/a-week-in-the-life-of-popular- youtube-channels/)

<comment><USER24> This is a very good report.

Makes me wonder why such data has to be generated by an external "fact tank" when, with some caveats, such could come directly from YouTube.

<comment><USER39> The YouTube Data API is a bit...arbitrarily fussy. (example: [https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1154482894850498561](https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/1154482894850498561))

I'm tempted to revamp my old scraper for it and open source it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I just avoid YouTube altogether for my child. There are some really good TV network apps like Barnkanalen SVT (Sweden), ZDF/KIKA (Deutschland) that make quality content, have no ads and are free. And no risk of watching something I don't want them to.

<comment><USER41> Same here. Also all the big streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu) have kids sections with quality children's programming. I don't understand why parents let loose their kids on YouTube when these alternatives exist.

<comment><USER42> > Also all the big streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu) have > kids sections with quality children's programming.

All of them are absolutely swamped with hypercommercial psychologically manipulative selling-toys-to-kids programming, though it's from big corps so I guess that makes it okay.

> I don't understand why parents let loose their kids on YouTube when these > alternatives exist.

Because YouTube, for all it's real problems, is both cheaper (free with ads) than the others and has a huge trove of excellent kid-appropriate content (including professionally produced stuff like the National Geographic Science 101 series) that isn't (AFAIK) on any of the other platforms and because most people _aren 't_ familiar with the horror stories, or if they are (accurately or not) interpret then as extreme edge cases, not likely events.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The "kid demographic" is Youtube's most profitable demographic. Though the lawsuit may appear as impetus, this has been in the works for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER44> What about YouTube Kids? [https://www.youtube.com/kids/](https://www.youtube.com/kids/)

</comment><comment><USER45> [http://archive.is/Ry0Db](http://archive.is/Ry0Db)

</comment><comment><USER46> Is that a Youtube for Kids competitor with no ads, and only pro-social educational content?

<comment><USER41> PBS Kids? [https://pbskids.org/apps/pbs-kids- video.html](https://pbskids.org/apps/pbs-kids-video.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> They don't discourage children from browsing the site, just from creating accounts.

</comment><comment><USER48> These smear pieces against YouTube keep coming, and YouTube execs seem to think they can help it by appeasing the media; it only alienates their audiences, and paints a target on their back.

<comment><USER49> I agree. Example: Facebook. Journalists keep shitting on Facebook. Facebook doesn't care. Facebook (with WhatsApp and Instagram) keeps winning. Caving to the blackmailing would've probably left them in a worse position, like having to axe features that are popular for their users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's banned in our home. It's awful.

</comment><comment><USER51> Baby Shark, du du du....</comment>


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