Bank robber demands $1 from teller in order to get free healthcare in prison - <AUTHOR> http://www.gastongazette.com/news/bank-58397-richard-hailed.html

<comment><USER2> Don't let anyone tell you that universal health care is "not viable", especially in one of the world's wealthiest countries. Such statements are really just political manoeuvrings of a disreputable kind.

In the UK universal health care has been viable since the NHS was founded over half a century ago. There is always controversy over exactly what services are available where, but at least everyone has access to it.

<comment><USER3> _There is always controversy over exactly what services are available where, but at least everyone has access to it._

This is a pretty confusing statement. What does it mean for everyone to have access to a service that isn't available?

<comment><USER4> In rich countries, for the most part, everyone has access to food. Most don't have the means to buy expensive caviar though. In countries with national health care systems everyone has access to basic care. Not all high tech services are available to everyone though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another interpretation: Prison inmates have an easier life than the poor and free.

Of course, the potential for violence from other inmates is always there, but I suspect that is not a serious problem in most prisons. And the potential for violence from a random citizen in the street is relatively high in poorer areas.

Overall, prison may be a better alternative to severe urban poverty. This may be another reason why the poor are much more likely to face incarceration. Not only does their plight cause them to suffer a lack of alternatives, but the punishment for crime doesn't look so bad to them.

<comment><USER6> Funny you should say that. Marginal revolution cited a paper ([http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/demography/summary/v047/47.3.pa...](http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/demography/summary/v047/47.3.patterson.html)) the other day, that supports your point, from the abstract:

 _Using data from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics and Census Bureau, I estimate death rates of working-age prisoners and nonprisoners by sex and race. Incarceration was more detrimental to females in comparison to their male counterparts in the period covered by this study. White male prisoners had higher death rates than white males who were not in prison. Black male prisoners, however, consistently exhibited lower death rates than black male nonprisoners did._

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Except he won't get medical attention in a city/county jail until he is near comatose.

Maybe in federal prison he would only get the bare necessities and certainly not anything serious to deal with pain.

Plus as a felon you just gave up a whole bunch of rights you took for granted.

It's far from ideal but if he was willing to go this far he should have sought a city with a medical college and teaching hospital. There would still be a bunch of hassle and compromise but it has to be better than being at the mercy of the city/state's apathy while you are locked in a 6x8 cell.

I cannot believe we are nearly three years into the big insurance reform (remember when it was going to be healthcare reform?) and yet the changes are meaningless for most people. I think we need to keep changing "leadership" every election year until the politicians get the point.

</comment><comment><USER8> What I find almost more scary is that instead of anybody in the system using a little common sense and human decency when processing this guy, they right away threw him in jail. Couldn't the police have, when they found him in the bank, seen his situation and tried to resolve things on a human level instead immediately calling down the full force of the system and throwing him in jail and before a judge for what is clearly more of a desperate cry for help than a crime?

A crime is a crime, but we're all people too. Sometimes doing everything precisely by the book isn't what's appropriate, and a little common sense and understanding is called for instead.

I hate the criminalization of everything in America almost as much as I hate our backwards healthcare system.

Edit: unless even the police thought they were doing the humane and common- sense thing by putting him in jail to get health care--in which case I don't know what to do but hang my head.

<comment><USER9> What you are suggesting is exactly the circumvention of a system designed to take into account mitigating factors (this is why there is a mitigation section of sentencing).

You suggest that the responding officers at the scene of a crime (no matter that yes, this was not a violent crime or one committed with malice) become the judge.

That's an incredibly slippery slope.

And in this case, whats the officer to do? He can't just magically arrange free or reduced cost medical treatment for the man he was just called to arrest for attempting to rob a bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This isn't a particularly new idea - the term 'three hots and a cot' goes back a long time. I've heard that a lot of the homeless people here in Boston commit petty crimes to deliberately get caught to escape the cold outdoors during the winter, or to receive dental care (although I should mention that I have not personally confirmed this). This is also mentioned, though without citation, in the Wikipedia article on homelessness: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Homelessness#...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Homelessness#Income_sources)

<comment><USER11> I have heard of that as well. Many have gotten "good" and they know based on their prior convictions, just the type of crime to commit to get into prison for a the winter then get released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder what would happen if a few dozen (few hundred?) health care advocates coordinated a series of "heists" like this in a single city.

If nothing else, the police dispatchers would have quite the WTF moment.

<comment><USER13> I'd like to believe that this would be a great protest gesture for the increasingly strained middle and working classes. It would garner a great deal of attention and the narrative is powerful: It is easier to receive medical attention as a prisoner than as a honest hard working blue-collar/service industry worker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well, that was dumb. Hospitals will treat people who are unable to pay. The hospital will arrange either lowering your bill or getting a charitable organization to help. When you have absolutely nothing left to lose, there is also always bankruptcy. Since he sold every last thing, that would have been a similar fate.

The people that really get screwed are those who have enough that they don't qualify for assistance, but still have some to lose in bankruptcy. This man could have found many other avenues.

<comment><USER7> Hospitals will usually only treat uninsured who walk into the emergency room with an immediate life threatening condition.

You cannot for example walk in with cancer and demand treatment.

In the USA you cannot walk into a hospital and ask to see a doctor without insurance or some other way to pay right then, unless you find a private doctor who is willing to negotiate with you on payments (but without credit or being able to prove any income, good luck with that).

Even state assistance programs right now are so badly defunded that they will usually only help people who already have a disability status, being below the poverty level is not enough of a qualifier.

Very related: remember that unemployment numbers are a huge lie because the government doesn't count people who no longer qualify because their time was up. There are a massive number of people in a really bad situation right now.

In fact having SOME income puts you in a worse situation in the USA than having no income. But even no income without a disability right now just makes you part of the crowd and you'll rarely get help.

<comment><USER14> The thrust of what you are saying is true, but it's not quite as bad as you make it out to be.

Last summer my girlfriend was between jobs. She had a non-life threatening but potentially dangerous condition. She went to the hospital and was treated. During the period of time between jobs she had purchased a temporary health insurance policy. That policy declined to pay for the treatment. The hospital presented us with a couple of options, renegotiate the bill, accept some charity, etc. We chose to fight the insurance company and ultimately had them pay it (because it was a valid claim). But one of our options always hovering around was bankruptcy. Do you want to do that? Of course not. We would have rather cleaned out our savings and maxed out the credit cards before doing that, but it was an option.

So there is an obvious path here, get a temporary policy and use the card to get into the hospital. You will probably get denied by the insurance company for a pre-existing condition, but you can then declare bankruptcy.

Now, that is a pretty terrible way to go about it and speaks of how screwed our system is. But I would say bankruptcy is preferable to prison. And since there is that path available, I would think that this guy is mostly an activist. I think he is making a good point (about how prisoners have a right to healthcare, but not the rest of us), but the problem is that it is too easy to punch a hole in his story. Critics will focus on him instead of the underlying message.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Every health care system must ration care. There are not enough doctors, nurses, drugs, equipment, money, etc. in order to provide everyone with the best possible care in every situation. The question becomes how to best ration care. What is the most equitable way of providing health care to the populace?

I submit that the U.S. has one of the worst methods of rationing health care. It is also the most expensive in terms of cost as a percent of GDP. What has been labeled "Obamacare" in the United States was, for the most part, insurance reform. It will turn a very bad system into a bad system.

Going to prison, despite popular belief, is not a way to get good health care. The idea that prisoners watch cable TV, have great health care, and are well fed in the U.S. is mostly myth. The strategy of robbing a bank to get health care is not a good one.

</comment><comment><USER15> Moral of the story: Universal Health Care is cheaper than incarceration.

<comment><USER16> I don't want to debate this very much, but I felt I should share my opinion/experience:

I'm in Canada. My dad waited 4 months to be contacted, in order to book an appointment for a knee surgery that he drastically needs. After those four months, I flipped and asked a friend for a favor.

I also thought I had an ear problem. I waited 6 months before someone called me to book an appointment to get it checked out.

When I went to the emergency room with a 41 degree (C) fever, I waited 4 hours before someone gave me acetaminophen and told me to wait longer.

Yes, with universal health care, I'm able to gain access to all of this. Yet, how effective is it? I'm sure everyone has a different experience, but there are many people who have had similar experiences to me.

<comment><USER13> I am unsure of how your healthcare system works. Is it possible to pay for more timely service from a private hospital or private doctor?

If it is possible but not feasible because of cost, then an American, speaking practically, experiences the same thing. Not enough money to pay for medical service. However there is an important difference.

An American must pay something out of pocket. The financial burden may lead to bankruptcy and ultimately no medical care at all. I've noticed that you did not raise concerns about bankruptcy but instead your concern was over slow medical service.

<comment><USER17> You cannot pay to "jump the queue" in Canada if the health care procedure is covered by public health insurance which includes most things you'd expect a doctor to do or prescribe.

You can only pay to jump the queue by leaving the country, such as going to the United States or India for medical treatment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The NHS in the UK was designed to be a healthcare system free at the point of delivery. It has become such a part of British life that I would say it is now part of British culture. However, it has grown into something that cannot be sustained in the long term and now people cannot imagine ever paying for healthcare. I am now living in the US and have very good insurance and have access to far superior facilities when I was in the UK, but if I had to choose between the 2 systems I would choose the NHS every time. Access to basic healthcare should not be a privilege, but a right. I know the costs may seem prohibitive, but how can anyone justify not providing it whilst spending billions on defense? Surely spending money to save lives is better than spending money to take them.

<comment><USER19> The NHS is the closest thing modern UK has to a religion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> And the prison-industrial-complex smiles and takes our tax dollars while actively lobbying against health insurance reform and medicare expansion.

Felons get medical security while we get "austerity". This is a twisted world in which we live.

<comment><USER21> You drastically overestimate the quality of the "medical care" inmates receive. Just last month, for example, the SCOTUS held that California must reduce its prison population by 33,000 inmates because of the inability to provide them adequate medical care. In fact, in its ruling, it said the system produced, "needless suffering and death."[1]

Americans are woefully under- or misinformed about the state of the U.S. prison system. Going to prison is hardly, "medical security." In fact, according to some sources, it accelerates the aging process, thereby increasing the need for the very medical services that, by their absence, aid along this accelerated aging process.[2]

Hyperbole such as that found in the parent post is not only totally useless, it actually does harm to both sides of the argument.

1 <http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24scotus.html> 2 [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1308374...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130837434&ft=1&f=5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was just wondering when someone would pull off something like that when I read [http://www.news.com.au/world/indias-oldest-prisoner-free- at-...](http://www.news.com.au/world/indias-oldest-prisoner-free- at-108/story-e6frfkyi-1226077909027) a couple of days ago.

In a gist, the article is about India freeing her oldest prisoner because of the authorities "who found it difficult to provide medical treatment"

</comment><comment><USER23> It'll be more interesting to see if he goes in the second time after he's had his idealized misconceptions about prison knocked out of his head.

<comment><USER24> If you read the article, he already has no intention of becoming a repeat offender, once he is treated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't believe universal health care is a viable long term solution. However, this is a man who put 20 years of work and taxes into the system and never got to use what he put in.

Alternatively, someone who has never had a job in his life and who doesn't mind living off the system enjoys the full benefits that this man paid for. Health care, food, and housing.

That is also not viable.

<comment><USER26> It's quite viable in my country, The Netherlands. Sure we pay high taxes, but we aren't left on the street like dogs when life fucks us over. There are other disadvantages to our system of course, like the parasitic behavior you described.

<comment><USER27> The problem is that the parasitic behaviour the grandparent post described, occurs even without universal health care.

By the way, I guess for ethical reasons basic universal health care is inevitable. (Even the US has rules that require giving emergency care.)

<comment><USER28> Personally I think that universal health care is undesirable for ethical reasons. How are we supposed to evolve if we don't let our species' least capable members get weeded out by natural selection?

There's nothing "ethical" about allowing folks who can't pay for their own health care to get it at someone else's expense.

<comment><USER29> So presumably you don't take antibiotics, insulin, an inhaler, use any reproductive aids etc... for the same logic?

<comment><USER30> Not that I necessarily agree with this but...:

If an individual has otherwise flourished in a society to the point where they can afford to have other members of a society provide them those services, then they are (despite medical appearances) apparently fairly well adapted.

The issues arise when they are not using _their_ money to give themselves these advantages. (Perhaps it is inherited money, or perhaps it is provided by the society itself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So this is what it has come to... I'm glad I live in Canada.

<comment><USER32> Canada has been borrowing money for healthcare for a few years. A 30% increase in cost is slated for the next 5 years. I have NO idea how it's going to be paid for.

Other than that, yeah, love it.

<comment><USER33> Um, no -- Canada has been borrowing to offset a shortfall in general revenue for years. We _were_ under an austerity program when we needed to be, but rather than going back to normal business when the deficit crisis passed, we inexplicably decided to lower taxes and return to a deficit condition. Health care isn't the problem; the idea that we can get services (of any kind -- health care isn't all that the government provides) without paying for them is.

<comment><USER32> I'm not asking for any services. They're being shoved down my throat, whether I like it or not. I'd gladly pay for alternative providers if I had the ability.

If people don't want higher taxes, then reduce services. It's simple, but not politically viable.

Don't say that you should raise taxes just because there is a revenue shortfall. That only encourages the bastards.

Edit: It's not inexplicable to lower taxes. The average tax rate in Canada is 40% including all taxes. That is insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

_On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them._

In conclusion, flaggity flag flag flag.

<comment><USER34> Would you not describe someone willfully and knowingly committing a felony, simply because it's the best alternative he can see to obtain the health care he needs as an "interesting new phenomenon"? (NB: I'm not saying it _is_ the best alternative; just that it's clearly the best one this guy thought was available to him.)

<comment><USER30> No, because it's not new, and therefore not very interesting either.</comment></comment></comment>


Twitter's Official Analytics Product Has Arrived - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/11/17/twitter-analytics/ <comment><USER2> And the muffled gasp of ten thousand analytics startups dying is heard across the valley.

</comment><comment><USER3> This could be considered bad timing for Crowdbooster. Or maybe not.

Does this deter others from building businesses that are dependent on a third party app/API? Or does competition provide validation that the idea has merit?

<comment><USER4> If I was pg my first question to the Crowdbooster guys would have been "What happens if twitter builds this?". And if I was the Crowdbooster guys my answer would have been "Could twitter do this?" and shown plans to integrate with a gambit of other platforms creating a central SNS hub with Twitter as just the beginning.

When building on a platform you should always have plans for what happens if the platform (or someone else for that matter) creates a offering similar to your own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> So who does this directly compete with?

I can think of:

<http://backtype.com>

and of course

<http://bit.ly>

Any word from the above companies regarding this announcement?

The packaged response is usually "we work with more platforms" but when Twitter represents 90% of the status update ecosphere, does that response really cut it anymore?

<comment><USER6> <http://crowdbooster.com/> which just launched... today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I released <http://twitya.com> in March 2009 and quickly (and slowly) saw features from it become Twitter's interface. Twitya had a client interface operating for a while until basic Auth ceased. Even today it has a bunch of stats sites linked from it - those links will be less attractive to click now.

From this point-of-view, Twitter is like a system of organized theft with plausible deniability. Nuturing the eco-system - but only so they can harvest it. Like farmers preparing their fields, where you plant your seed, and then they eat/sell the best ones when mature. The older/higher devouring the younger/lower.

</comment><comment><USER8> I understand it all about the MVP(minimal viable product), but honestly what does their product offer that 100's of other companies don't? I mean, based on what I saw, the functionality is going to very basic, basic stats, nothing special, no sentiment analysis, nothing. I don't mean to bash them, I was just expecting something more elegant.

</comment><comment><USER9> Let's hope this isn't Twitter's only monetisation strategy.

<comment><USER4> Doubtful, they're certainly not finished with advertising for a start. Then there are plenty more premium features they can provide to businesses looking get the most out of twitter.

Any one of the startups build around twitter is fair game, and they're certainly not going to think twice about eating some startup's lunch.

<comment><USER10> …until they look too hungry and startups become scared to build on top of a platform controlled by Twitter. Look at all the Twitter clients that vanished when they bought Tweetie and released it for free.

<comment><USER4> But that is the point really. Does Twitter need them anymore? Just like Facebook did, slowly cutting down the avenues that developers can access users will increase Twitter's revenue. Developers want an audience so they will jump through Twitter's hoops, just like they do for Apple.

From Twitter's the point of view they're looking to monetize their massive user base, not sustain a startup ecosystem. They won't become overtly hostile to developers or anything but if there is a choice between profit and developers the developers will lose every time.

Anyone who thought this was ever going to be another way once Twitter was established is a bit naive I'm afraid.

<comment><USER10> That's a good question, "Does Twitter need developers anymore?".

I don't have an answer to this, but alienating your developers, who are among your most fervent users, is risky. Besides games, what's left for developers anyways, since Twitter reigns over url shortening, mobile Twitter clients, stats, geolocation, recommendations, advertising …

edit: added advertising (through T&C) to the list

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if Avi Bryant had anything to do with this?

</comment><comment><USER12> Glad to hear this capability is finally going to be available from Twitter. In order to successfully run your Social Media Campaign, you've got to know what is and is not working.

When can we try it?

Brett Miller <http://www.customsoftwarebypreston.com/technologies></comment>


Why Anti-Corruption Strategies May Backfire - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/blog/why-anti_corruption-strategies-may-backfire <comment><USER2> One of my US high school history teachers once taught us that bureaucracy and endless mounds of red tape were the natural consequence of Americans valuing fairness over efficiency, and in the end getting neither.

We want a system that is:

1\. fair, and Americans immediately suspect that humans tend to favor their friends

2\. based on clear, written rules, so everyone can compete on an even playing field

3\. good enough to handle any edge case, so that 'exceptions' to rules via human override (and potential corruption) can be avoided

Implementing 1-3 means building a giant, inflexible bureaucracy, where responsibility is widely distributed (so nobody can be corrupt) and an immense book of rules and red tape (so it can handle every edge case).

Unfortunately Americans don't even really get fairness in practice.

The cost of following all the rules to the letter is _so incredibly expensive and inefficient_ that obviously government agencies and their favored contract bidders have back channels with one another so that they know exactly how to structure their bids to win.

This is why conservatives sometimes have a point - many regulations not only do _not_ do anything for the public good, but they actually help entrenched interests.

<comment><USER3> I suspect if you think that U.S. is too bureaucratic or unfair, you have never been to other countries, really. There is only a handful of countries that can be said to do better in one of those respects.

It seems to me that you claim that there is a trade-off between bureaucracy and corruption. I disagree, to me it seems (although I cannot readily prove it) that these are more often correlated than not.

<comment><USER2> > U.S. is too bureaucratic or unfair

Not so much at the local level where a citizen deals with the bureaucracy, but certainly at the level where _lots of money gets allocated and spent_ , such as military procurement.

Just look at what SpaceX has managed to achieve largely _outside_ the world of government cost-plus contracting at a small fraction of the budget of its competitors.

Large parts of the military-industrial complex are jobs programs for underserved portions of the country disguised as 'defense'. The inefficiency is purposeful. It keeps mounds of people employed in states where there otherwise wouldn't be much investment.

It requires an army of federal bureaucrats who spend years writing detailed waterfall-style calls for bids, then an army of engineers at the large firms that craft bids that are happen to be perfectly suited to the government's needs. A clique of politicians from those states that will provide unwavering support to make sure the jobs remain in their states

A small town worth of lawyers, accountants, inspectors, to make sure that the entire process is 'fair' and 'transparent', and to produce thousands of pages of documentation to a public that will never read (but is always available to defend against charges of corruption).

This is still 'corruption', but legally, done at a massive, industrial scale and with more steps.

But note that much of this is simply make-work, the equivalent of digging holes and filling them again. The country would probably be safer and have a better military if we were just honest with ourselves, made those industries efficient, and then pay off the existing beneficiaries with direct transfers and massive investments in health care and education.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The conclusion/title seems a bit obvious but also wrong at the same time.

In society when corruption is not punished and you combine that with full transparency, what you get is open crime. Prohibition comes to mind, and I am pretty sure no one has thought since then that prohibition would have worked if we just shone enough sunlight on the lawbreakers. That said, more transparency on the bribery and political corruption could have led to further reduced trust in the police and political system until the breaking point where civil war breaks out and the system gets replaced.

The researchers' experiment did not allow for total replacement of the system and leaders. It can show the obvious that transparency can reduce trust when it demonstrates corruption and a failure to punish it, but what happens next is left unanswered.

</comment><comment><USER5> Let me disagree. Corruption is corruption but not cooperation. The same as cancer is a decease but not your new living form. The "bribery game" is bad corruption model because corruption often occurs when you don't have a choice and you have to accept the corruption risk (which can cost you infinite money). "The public pool is multiplied and divided equally among the players" – they modeled Denmark but not Kenya to learn corruption, didn't they? "Corruption is largely inevitable" – they should learn about blockchain. Lastly, I grown up in corrupt country (Russia) and I do not only think that bribes are acceptable but also think that anyone who does this should donate the same money to anticorruption agencies to treat this disease.

<comment><USER6> Anticorruption agencies can essentialy be neutered by corrupt leadership. They're subject to public funding. This is what happens as we speak in Eastern Europe (notably Poland and Romania). Bad economic conditions, lack of infrastructure and education only make it worse. This is why the Marshall Plan did wonders to post-war GDR. And this is why halting EU funds to corrupt Eastern Europe states will only make matters worse and reutrn these countries 90s cleptocracies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is such bullshit. Corruption is not cooperation, it's more like a leech on public resources.

I work with one of the big consultancy corps which got hired by one of the indian state governments to help put in place the eGovernance initiative. Well it turns out a lot of the civil servants involved have made it their goal to make sure that the system is as incompetent as possible so that people are forced to fall-back to the old systems where it'll be easier for them take bribes.

It infuriates me to no end that progress (which is supported by the elected government) in a country is being blocked by corrupt numbskulls who just wish to make sure they can fill their pockets.

<comment><USER2> I think you missed the entire point of the article

> What we call "corruption" is a smaller scale of cooperation undermining a > larger-scale.

The vast majority of people don't work for some abstract social good. They work for specific concrete goods: helping themselves, helping their loved ones, helping their friends first and foremost.

People also believe in reciprocity and fairness. Sometimes that means that if someone 'helps you out', you do the same back... even if that interaction wasn't completely 100% sanctioned by the rest of society.

Corruption is not people ignoring their moral instincts and choosing to be evil. It is them weighing _one_ set of moral instincts more strongly than _another_ set of moral instincts (egalitarianism, not breaking rules).

The struggle is to _align the incentives properly_ so that 'helping yourself' also means to help society. Unlike what many libertarians and pure free- marketeers seem to believe, _this doesn 't just happen magically_, but requires careful thought and planning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Corruption is not only present with relation to government officials.

It's not uncommon that small companies bribe employees of large companies so they award them contracts for services.

Bribes are whenever person has decision power larger then income from making correct decissions. Then he can be bribed to make incorrect ones but beneficial to the one who bribes.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think the article's point would be more convincing if they related that study to real-world examples.

Personally I cannot imagine how corruption makes the world any better?

<comment><USER6> It doesn't. I fell like this article is a summary to a game theory study.

<comment><USER10> I'm glad you say that because I had the same thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder for a long time now: what are _underlying_ factors for societies to be less corrupt than others? How come that many western states fare better than other countries?

It's gotta be related to what's mentioned in the article: people valuing a larger-scale cooperation higher than a smaller-scale/immediate one. By why? Ideas/hints anyone?

<comment><USER2> Social trust and cohesion, a unified set of values that every member of society agrees with.

> How come that many western states fare better than other countries

Because Western societies are by and large the product of 19th-century nationalism. The ideal has always been: one nation, one people, one language, one state. If you steal from the public, you are also stealing from members of your own 'group'.

If you don't view other members of your country to be part if your own social group, then of course it's much easier to be corrupt. You can see this happening in India in particular -- everything is drawn along lines of religion, ethnicity, and caste. The same thing is happening to the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I dispute that corruption is inevitable and propose that its origins lie the violation of a foundational moral at the heart of most religions:

In Christianity, this is the commandment: Thou shall not steal. In Buddhism, the precept is more explicit: Do not take that which has not been freely given.

If we live in a society where the majority of people are willing to violate this rule by directing the state to steal from those who have more and redistribute to those who have less, those who are being robbed will naturally seek to find a means to defend themselves and their families from the predation of the majority.

Being outnumbered, they do not have the votes to defend themselves at the polls. Naturally, they will use the resources they do have. They can bribe those who are tasked with committing the theft. This is entirely rational. No matter how many prohibitions against corruption are erected, those who are being preyed upon will seek to defend themselves and there will always be people willing to help them, especially in exchange for cash.

The origin of corruption lies in the decision to violate the prohibition against theft. The violation of the prohibition against theft creates a need for bribery which would not otherwise exist. When a need is created, market forces will move to ensure the need is met.

One way to create a society free of corruption is for the majority to voluntarily commit to the prohibition against theft and to enforce the prohibition against those who choose to violate it.

I would further propose that this could lead to a more general replacement of zero sum games with positive sum games. This, in turn, would serve to further accelerate the rate of innovation and thus speed the rate at which all,human needs are met. When trust is strengthened, instead of seeking to meet our needs at the expense of each other, we are naturally more willing to work together to solve the larger problems which afflict us all.

<comment><USER13> > If we live in a society where the majority of people are willing to violate > this rule by directing the state to steal from those who have more and > redistribute to those who have less

I don't know about your ancestors, but we've lived the past millennia in societies where the regents rule over the masses in various forms. Mostly, those in power over those lacking that power, and who _want to keep it that way_. Money grants power. Therefore, the rich are powerful. More powerful than the poor. An example where you can see all of this in practice is Europe's colonial history. Furthermore, wealth is currently vastly unfair distributed. So what I quote from you, those tax laws you're likely referring to, don't make up for that. They don't fix that, not in the slightest; it isn't their goal either.

> Being outnumbered, they do not have the votes to defend themselves at the > polls.

Outnumbered? Where exactly? On the contrary, right-wing Christians & liberals (European definition, not United States definition) together apparently defined as conservatives are steadily in control in the United States, United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Germany. Occasionally a party like the Democrats (US), Labour (UK), PvdA (NL), or SPD (DE) get in control but they're quite on the right end of the left-wing spectrum. The only exception is the far right- wing nationalism which is on the rise. Examples are Trump (US), UKIP (UK), PVV (NL), AfD (DE). You can draw many examples for other countries & parties, such as France, Austria, Belgium, and many, many more.

If you speak about absolute numbers then see my comment about unfair distribution of wealth.

My explanation of corruption is far more simple: it is white collar crime. With crime in general, if people get away with being selfish (risk of getting caught), get no or low punishment when caught (lack of repercussions), and they're unhappy with their possessions & wage (equality, happiness) then it will occur more often. White collar crime, or corruption are no exception to this.

<comment><USER12> "unfair distribution of wealth"? What is wealth? If you offer me something that meets my needs, I will feel grateful and offer you something in exchange for it. You have _earned_ that wealth. If you are really good at meeting the needs of others, then you will be better at earning wealth. There is nothing unfair about that. You do not deserve to be looted and I would defend you from the looters.

It is true, that amongst the looters some are significantly more successful in their looting than others. They attain power and use that power to further their looting. There is no disputing that. I agree with you.

I am simply suggesting that generalized looting is not a solution which will ever yield a corruption free system because looting itself is the problem. There is plenty of evidence from the past hundred years to support that conclusion.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pion WebRTC Pure Go Implementation of WebRTC (v2.0.* Is Stable) - Sean-Der https://github.com/pion/webrtc <comment> Sean-Der If you are new to WebRTC it is a really amazing technology, and lots of powerful things can be built with it. It isn't just a technology for conferencing, you can build powerful P2P software that works on all platforms (including your browser!)

You can see it in use in places like IPFS[0] so come check out the examples[1] and build something cool.

We also would love to chat! You can find us on Slack[2], while this channel was started for Pion there is a lot of interesting general WebRTC conversation going on.

\----

I am excited to announce that v2.0.* has officially landed and stabilized! Multiple large production users have migrated to it and we fixed all the bugs we found along the way.

This was a really big release, you can see the full release notes[3] are some exciting parts though.

* Unified Plan and Plan-B support

* QUIC Support

* WebAssembly Support

* ICE Regular Nomination (better support for NATs)

* Massive SCTP performance and reliability improvements

* API Cleanup to better match the WebRTC Spec

We are also starting work on v2.1.* which so far will include the following. If you have a feature that you think is important we would love to hear!

* TURN Support

* User configurable JitterBuffer

* Re-negotiation (allow multiple Offer/Answer)

[0] [https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p-webrtc- direct](https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p-webrtc-direct)

[1] [https://github.com/pion/webrtc/tree/master/examples](https://github.com/pion/webrtc/tree/master/examples)

[2] [https://pion.ly/slack](https://pion.ly/slack)

[3] [https://pion.ly/knowledge-base/release- notes/webrtc-v2.0.0/](https://pion.ly/knowledge-base/release- notes/webrtc-v2.0.0/)</comment>


Crowdsourced ISEE-3 Engineering and the Collective Mind of the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://spacecollege.org/isee3/we-are-borg-crowdsourced-isee-3-engineering-and-the-collective-mind-of-the-internet.html <comment><AUTHOR> If they are actually able to rescue this space probe and get it doing science again, a week after a front page NY Times article reporting that it's hopeless [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/science/space/space- probe-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/science/space/space-probe-might- lack-nitrogen-to-push-it-home.html) , this will make a better movie than Apollo 13.</comment>


Ask HN: Which android phone to buy? - <AUTHOR>

I am thinking about buying an android phone, but deciding which is a surprisingly difficult task right now (to someone to knows little about the history/future of the phones). I have seen this come up on HN here in the past, but since the Android market changes so quickly, I think it is appropriate to rediscuss.
Points I am considering:
-I prefer Verizon, would settle for AT&T, and I may be able to make an argument for T-mobile if the monthly rates are significantly less (for Nexus One only)
-Don't like physical keyboards
-Must be upgradeable to android 2.2 today. Also, how will phones today deal with upgrade to 3.0 in the future?
I don't need this phone in the next week if you think waiting another 1-3 months will make a big difference. <comment><USER2> The Samsung Galaxy S is the new kid on the block. After purchasing the Galaxy Tab and seeing the craftsmanship that went into it, I would say that the S would be my phone of choice, but it lack one feature that I want and that is a physical keyboard. I am a big guy with broad fingers the onscreen keyboard is a pain for me on small devices. But I would say if the quality of the S is a good as the Tab it is probably the highest quality Android phone on the market. It is already at 2.1 and they say it will be upgradable to at least the next two versions of Android.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't want to sound like a broken record (see my other comments) but really happy with the Dell Streak, and it's huge 5 inch screen.

Does everything that you ask, though 2.2 will be out this year, so 1.6 at the moment (2.1 here in the UK).

It meets the min specs of the 3.0 (or 2.3 if you believe the latest rumours) but not had the word from Dell that is will def get this update yet (same for nearly all current phones).

Any questions let me know - but in all I am really happy with it, and barely use my home PC any more.

</comment><comment><USER4> I got the Desire HD earlier this week on T-Mobile in the UK and it is AMAZING!

</comment><comment><USER5> The 'Nexus S' is rumored to be unveiled this month, Gingerbread Android (2.3) Samsung device.</comment>


Show HN: Elfbox – Personalized developmental toys delivered to your door - <AUTHOR> https://www.elfbox.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello folks, I'm the Co-Founder of Elfbox and I just wanted to share what Elfbox is and the backstory of why we started it.

At Elfbox, we deliver monthly boxes of developmental toys for children at home on a rotational basis. Parents tell us about their child's preferences and developmental requirements and we partner with child development experts and use AI to individually curate toys for each child. Families use the toys for a month and return them when they receive their next box (with the option of purchasing toys at a discounted price that they want to keep longer).

Why did we start Elfbox? I was looking to buy toys for my nephew for his 1st birthday last year. I went to Toys R Us (before they decided to shut down :P), thinking that this is where people buy toys. After spending several hours walking their aisles, I walked out of the store with a sensory overload of lights and sounds. I realized that I didn't want to get anything for my nephew from there. It took me several days of online research to find appropriate toys for my nephew that I knew were made of safe materials & would aid in skill development.

After speaking to my cousins and friends about this issue, I realized that when it comes to toys, parents struggle with the following issues on a regular basis -

1) It is really difficult to find good quality, engaging toys for children on an ongoing basis. Parents often don't know what the right toy for their child's developmental stage is. Providing kids with the right set of toys for their developmental stage is critical since children learn most of their foundational skills (cognitive, physical, social, emotional) through play.

2) Clutter. Parents have to deal with clutter every day because kids outgrow toys very fast. There is no easy, frictionless way to reuse or recycle toys. Families end up hoarding them for years. This problem is even more acute for millennial parents who live in space constrained urban settings.

This provided us the motivation to start Elfbox. Our aim is to give parents access to a highly personalized selection of high-quality developmental toys for their kids without having to own them.

If there are any parents here, we would love to hear your stories about how you manage your toy collection!</comment>


Ask HN: Maintaining Privacy While Job Hunting - <AUTHOR> Sometimes admitting that you're looking for a job sounds embarrassing in public (at least online it doesn't feel so lonely), but being poor at networking means the alternative is looking online for work. I used to let headhunters bug me, but I keep getting emails from strange foreign headhunters (Akhmed wants my private details) who I've never sent my info to (and don't want to). The alternative is either searching company sites one-by-one (the hard way) or going to sites like Monster and posting a resume hoping to be detected by someone actually looking to hire and not merely harvest (which is what happened). At what point do you say "no" to info grabbing? When do you stop filling out a form and ask yourself what's too much? And finally, if you have a private website, how do you make yourself look interesting (esp. to those HR types who are looking for a "culture fit" when their job ad calls for a techie) without giving away intimate details? Or am I really just asking for an oxy-moron... (probably) (And please, no-one suggest LinkedIn. I deleted my account as it was being used as a spy tool for unwanted parties.) <comment><USER2> What a good question. If I was not in the position that I'm currently in, I would have been struggling with the same issue.

My conclusion which may not be applicable to your situation is trying to start something yourself so that I can be on the other side of the table hiring people instead. It may be a bit too high to achieve but comes with a lot of benefits including protecting your privacy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd definitely like to start a biz, but to start a business you need to fill a need in the market. Where else to get ideas but working for someone else? Oppsdaily is good source, although it'd be nice to find more sources of need. There'd probably be more indies if that was the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you consider your resume "private" information? If so, why? Is there a way you can edit it to make a "public" version and a "private" version?

<comment><AUTHOR> No. I do post my resume on places, but some places ask for info I'm not comfortable giving, and I've been made aware of the fact that one's resume is a relatively boring piece of paper that isn't going to get your foot in the door. From what I've read, it seems HR - if they take any interest in you - starts looking beyond the resume and wants to see more of who you are. It's not that I don't see the sense in it - they're people-people, that's why they're in Human Relations - just that their metric requires an increasing exposure of more personally-identifying information, which, as you know, these days is pretty easy to steal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've also been struggling with this. I decided against putting my full name on any of my projects or social media, but I was still able to link those things to my resume. I guess I figure with enough work people could probably DOX me, but that is a risk I'm willing to take in order to be able to take credit for my projects and show them off to employers

</comment><comment><USER5> Random advice from the internet:

 _being poor at networking means the alternative is looking online for work_

That's one alternative. The other alternative is developing a better network. Talking to recruiters is developing a network, just not necessarily a good one. Meetups, open source projects, blogs, conferences, Tweetergrambook, etc. are other ways of building a network ranging from personal contact to personal branding.

Consider building a network as research. Maybe you hear about a great place to work at the price of effort outside your comfort zone.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I did stretch out alittle at a meetup I regularly attend and dropped the word and I got passed the word about a job offer, so it seems to be paying off.</comment></comment>


Massive solar storm: Seattle, Portland, even N. Calif. may see auroras - <AUTHOR> http://m.sfgate.com/local/science/article/Massive-solar-storm-Seattle-Portland-even-N-12175415.php <comment><USER2> No, Portland can't see Auroras because of the freaking smoke! We can't even see the sun...

<comment><USER3> Even in Denver it looked like perpetual sunset on Monday & Tuesday afternoons. Today is slightly better, but I still wonder if it would obscure any potential aurora.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> NOAA 30 minute aurora forecast: [http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute- forecast](http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seattle has safety advisory for outdoor air quality and it is dense hazy. We would not be able to see anything.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can't wait! The smoke won't be that bad. No views from Rainier though :(</comment>


How to Grow Quickly and Never Turn a Profit - <AUTHOR> https://mtlynch.io/keep-growing-never-profit/ <comment><USER2> You obviously spent way more time analysing all this than I did, so pardon my naivety, but it seems to me that shelving this project is an over-reaction. If the site's growth is limited by search engines, well, scale down your involvement (post less, cut costs), but don't give up on it entirely.

If Amazon doesn't fit, try other partners. We have businesses here that will do the shopping for you, and deliver everything to the door; and I'm not even in the USA. Perhaps integrating with those is a better idea than Amazon. Individual transactions will still be small, of course, but hopefully you'll get more of them, increasing profits.

Best of luck with your next idea, and consider not giving up on this one either. It's obviously valuable to people, but it might take a few years to grow to a level where it makes sense to dedicate more effort to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading!

I agree that it still has room to grow and maybe even produce positive returns. It's just that if I ask myself whether this has the best chance of making money of anything else I could be working on, I feel like it's probably not.

Good point about integrating with food delivery services. I applied to be an Instacart affiliate a few months ago but they declined my application and then I forgot about it, but I should revisit that. I suspect they rejected me because Is It Keto isn't very "browseable" since it requires the user to type in the food they want, but it would be easy for me to throw together some "browse by category" pages to show that I've got lots of content.

I haven't shut the door on it entirely. I would love to keep growing it in the background, so I'm keeping an eye on revenue. If it reaches ~$500/month or so, I think it gives me room to hire back my writer and continue to grow the site.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Happy to answer any questions or hear any feedback about this post.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some of your secret development weapons - <AUTHOR> What are some of your secret development weapons? For instance, before Python became mega-popular (late 90's/early 2000's) it was a tool I used whenever I needed a miracle and it felt like a secret weapon to me since I was the only one in the company using it. What are the secret weapons of today? Those lesser known products/tools (open source or not) that you reach for in a crisis. <comment><USER2> If I told you then it wouldn't be a secret.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha good point. I guess I should have phrased this question differently. Stuff that you use that really helps and you feel should be more widely known

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> ummmm .... still Python?</comment>


TLS scan results for October 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://securitypitfalls.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/october-2014-results-big-changes/

<comment><AUTHOR> "SSLv3 support has taken a blow, its use has fallen by over 26%, bringing its support to 69.5% [of sites]"

That's not enough! Administrators still don't pay enough attention to their crypto configurations. We try to make this easier in Mozilla's guidelines [1], but it still is a complex and mostly misunderstood topic.

[1] [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Server_Side_TLS)</comment>


The Push Train (2017) - <AUTHOR> http://pushtrain.club <comment><USER2> Seeing a Code as Craft talk at Etsy 10 years ago, or however long ago it was, changed how I develop web services completely. It was truly a revelation. Continuous deployment is fairly common now, but back then it was still radical enough that I thought "this can never work!" I never went all the way to feature flags instead of branches, but maybe I should give that a shot too.

</comment><comment><USER3> The name of the post (The Push Train) made me think it's about some strange train set up where the locomotive is at the end, rather than start, of the train. It made me wonder what could be the possible advantages.

I am disappointed.

<comment><USER4> Trains with locomotives that push are rather common: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push%E2%80%93pull_train](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push%E2%80%93pull_train)</comment></comment>


Top Secret -cleared SOCOM staff in 11Gb Govt contractor breach - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/03/top_secret_cleared_socom_staff_in_11gb_govt_contractor_breach/ <comment><USER2> Interesting story, but I think the researcher who found the flaw probably doesn't have much experience with large organizations, he says they didn't take it seriously because it "shouldn't take over an hour to contact your IT guy and kill an rsync daemon." After he called the CEO. I'd say an hour is an unreasonably aggressive timeline if you're contacting the CEO... it likely takes some time just to figure out who needs to shut off the service.

</comment><comment><USER3> These stories are always disconcerting, especially, after having been a victim of a data breach myself, although covertly, in 2015.

ref: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Personnel_Management_data_breach)</comment>


Should API-restricting licenses qualify as open source? - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.com/article/20/6/api-copyright <comment><AUTHOR> This quote nails the overall concern for me. What's the point of OSS if the API isn't also protected?

> Oracle v. Google-influenced interpretations of existing open source licenses > would similarly extend familiar open source license conditions to activities > merely involving APIs. Such reinterpretations would transform these licenses > into ones that fail to provide software freedom and advance the goals of > open source ...</comment>


Xkcd: 26-Second Pulse - <AUTHOR> https://xkcd.com/2344/ <comment><USER2> The 28 second pulse near this island in the Gulf of Guinea has a good explanation. If you look at it, it's right at the focal point of a perfect ellipse. So the waves wreck havoc there, like a huge antenna. Should be explored by surfers. Could be better than Nazare.

But the 26 second pulse from Cameroon was the so called "footquake" from football fans stomping down.

> Euler wandered into the field of seismic noise in 2007 when he found > consistent spikes in noise from one of 32 different seismic stations in > Cameroon. The spikes turned out to correspond with joyous, celebratory foot- > stomping of Cameroon's avid soccer fans at various cities after goals were > scored or key plays made during the African Cup of Nations games in 2006.

[https://phys.org/news/2011-01-seismometer-noise-south- atlant...](https://phys.org/news/2011-01-seismometer-noise-south-atlantic- storms.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't suppose this is a NULL issue that combines all the signals that get incorrectly positioned at lat:0, long:0?

<comment><USER4> You may be on to something: there's a Kosovan car factory and a fruit and veg shop out there too according to google maps.

<comment><USER5> There's also a data collection buoy moored there:

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its a completely real thing [https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2006...](https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2006GL027010)

<comment><USER7> Thanks for posting this, repeated Google searches resulted in absolutely useless results! Especially as all I had to search on was '26 second pulse' and 'gulf of guinea'.

Google is becoming worthless for 'serious' search queries. :(

<comment><USER8> you can see also explain xkcd, there's another link to PhysOrg.com

[https://phys.org/news/2011-01-seismometer-noise-south- atlant...](https://phys.org/news/2011-01-seismometer-noise-south-atlantic- storms.html)

[https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2344:_26-Second_P...](https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2344:_26-Second_Pulse)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Godzilla?</comment>


Ask HN: review my startup: www.kojai.tv - <AUTHOR>

I just launched my very first production website and would appreciate any feedback on it. <comment><USER2> I can't see how it differs from any other streaming web site. Why would any particular person upload her video to your site and not to YouTube? How does it differ?

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting website, but it needs more content.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, there's nothing on there now :(

<comment><USER4> looks nice though</comment></comment></comment>


College students think they learn less with an effective teaching method - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/college-students-think-they-learn-less-with-an-effective-teaching-method/ <comment><USER2> Raising mean score less than 10% is "an extremely effective teaching technique"? Hmm, maybe it is.

But what if the one "pulling the cart" in the group has the score raised say 30% and the rest have their score actually lowered? Would be interesting to see detailed statistics.

<comment><USER3> In that case, the variance of the test score would increase, but the error bars on the graph indicate that it didn't. If that doesn't convince you, the paper linked at the end of the article has more details.</comment></comment>


Why Atom was created - <AUTHOR> http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/atom/WhyAtomWasCreated <comment><USER2> Atom exists because everything Dave Winer touches becomes a clusterfuck, overwhelmed with problems both technical (<http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/02/04/incompatible-rss>) and social ([http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/04/21/whats_your_winer...](http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/04/21/whats_your_winer_number)). The rest of us needed a format free from his influence or control, one with comprehensive specifications that he couldn't silently edit ('frozen' doesn't apply to him).

Please stop producing any flavor of RSS. Absolutely stop producing the same content in multiple formats, that's just inane. I am not not aware of any software not written by and for Dave that cannot parse Atom (iTunes does handle Atom podcast feeds, but they must be valid to work). If you really care about ancient clients, run your Atom feeds through Feedburner, they can take care of it for you: [http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?hl=en...](http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=78971)

<comment><USER3> 1\. There are only really 4 versions of RSS, and Winer wrote two of them. There were 3 different groups involved, which was the problem - the problem isn't having newer versions.

2\. You could say the same of Mark Pilgrim's social problems. He is very difficult to get along with, is very arrogant and lead a crusade against Winer for years. He on one hand argued that RSS was fragmented and incompatible, but his solution to that was to start yet another syndication format.

You are forgetting that what made syndication popular was the simplicity of RSS. There were other formats before it, and there have been formats since - but the ease of implementation and simplicity of RSS ushered in a whole new era of services and nothing less than blogging itself, podcasting and all the services since that have built on that foundation (ie. 'the social web').

<comment><USER2> There may ideally be only 4 versions of RSS, but Winer was responsible for 6 of them :)

Mark may be an asshole, but he's nearly always correct (save for his recent Apple II fixation), and he follows up instead of trying to edit his mistakes from the record. He has a lot of company in hating Winer, basically everyone Dave's ever worked on anything with.

Here's some examples of classic Dave: <http://www.metafilter.com/26701/> <http://www.metafilter.com/33699/> <http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/2881/> (note that rcade, the author of the last link, was Dave's sole defender in the earlier ones). Here's some freshly curated ridiculousness: <http://eyeonwiner.org/> <http://davewinerscrazytrain.tumblr.com/>

RSS is no simpler than Atom, not even when used naïvely — it's just easier to break. It was successful because Winer was at one time successful, but after he managed to attack and alienate everyone else in the field, they moved on and started over with a clean slate.

<comment><USER3> urgh.. I have no idea how this turned into me defending Winer since I only wanted to respond to the Pilgrim posts which were FUD (the two examples you originally posted).

You don't have to convince me that either of these guys are nutters - I know it all too well.

My point is that there are two sides to this story (well, 4 really) - that RSS popularized feeds and that in the past 10 years despite all the effort nothing has been made easier for devs, if anything it is even more complicated (esp with the namespace extensions from iTunes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ATTN: realize that the StackOverflow question dates back to 2008.

Also, iTunes has supported Atom feeds since iTunes 6 (October 2005) if not earlier so the linked stackoverflow comment was wrong even as it was posted, two years ago. If iTunes refuses to consume your Atom feed, it's likely because your feed is broken and doesn't validate.

</comment><comment><USER5> Beginning to read that story, the only Atom I could think of was the processor... which I quickly realized was not what they were talking about. It seems this is a case of failing to see your post like your readers will, without some preexisting context...

</comment><comment><USER6> So is the "davewiner" account here a sockpuppet? It wouldn't seem to make much sense for the real Dave Winer to post this here.

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted it here because the author wanted to post it on my blog, and I didn't want to host yet another of these angst-fests about who was right or wrong about stuff that mostly never actually happened.

I once called Mark Pilgrim an asshole, that was the extent of my crime against him. He had it coming, he was being an asshole. But if I had known it would lead to the kind of jihad he led, I would have let it go.

Anyway, to answer your question -- yes this is me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, I'm going to stick with this account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't see why anybody should bother with Atom anymore. Are there any applications that exclusively support Atom over RSS?

<comment><USER8> Ever tried to include an ampersand in an entry title in an RSS feed? The RSS 2.0 spec still doesn't specify if the title should be HTML encoded or not, and the implementations tend to disagree as a result. This is why my apps always produce Atom, never RSS.

Edit: Here's an article that illustrates the problem: [http://www.xn-- 8ws00zhy3a.com/blog/2006/06/encoding-rss-titl...](http://www.xn-- 8ws00zhy3a.com/blog/2006/06/encoding-rss-titles) \- this kind of unresolved ambiguity in the RSS spec is one of the main reasons Atom was needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> XML tells you what to do there.

It says it very plainly in the RSS 2.0 spec.

"RSS is a dialect of XML. All RSS files must conform to the XML 1.0 specification, as published on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website."

Pretty sure the W3C tells you how to encode an ampersand in XML. If not, your quarrel is with them, not RSS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why did this get moderated down?

It's a serious point. The complaint isn't even a nitpick, it's covered. It's like saying every program has to define arithmetic if it's going to add two numbers together. No, it doesn't. That's the job of the processor.

<comment><USER2> How do you still not understand this, 7 years later? The RSS specs you defined do not allow the author to specify the type of text contained within an element — the processor has to guess whether it was plain text or HTML based on how many levels of escaping were applied.

<comment><AUTHOR> So you can happily use Atom, which allows you to say whether your title has markup or not.

What alternative was there? Would you have been happy with just adding an attribute to title? What if people didn't use it? What would you have solved then?

And would you have been happy with jsut that one change? THen why is Atom so different from RSS? Why did the name for <item> change to <entry>? I don't recall anyone offering a reason why item was such a bad name.

Another question -- when was the last time you saw a title that had markup in it? I've never seen one, and my code has parsed a lot of feeds over a lot of years. Perhaps people followed the doctor's advice. If it hurts when you do it, don't do it.

Try a thought experiment, suppose we had changed the spec. What else would you have wanted to change? Juding from the Atom spec, quite a bit. How many RSS's would we have then?

And who would this have been good for? We all would have had to stop making RSS apps and convene and working group and hash it all out. So instead of having 50 people on the Atom mail list, we would have had 800 people on the "Let's Completely Redesign RSS" mail list.

Did you observe what happened with SOAP when the WG was formed? And you think that would have been worth it, just to get an attribute on the title element?

You have to look at the actual problems people are having writing apps.

That you guys could only find this and the number-of-enclosures issue says that RSS 2.0 is pretty damned good. And it works for what it was designed to do. And things we didn't expect when it was developed. That's the sign of "pretty good" technology. No it's not perfect. Anything you ship will not be. Atom is not perfect either.

It's amazing to me that after 7 years, and the lack of impact that Atom has had, that you still don't get this. I would never have said it this way in normal discourse, but I think you should have the experience of someone lecturing you in public, as you have lectured me.

<comment><USER9> Yes, you were (in hindsight) right in standing fast against correcting these problems in RSS 2.0, no-one would have been satisfied with the result.

Atom started around the discussion of "An Anatomy of a Well Formed Blog Entry", not any specification text. We didn't start with a copy of RSS 2.0 and XML/RPC and rewrite bits and pieces until it became Atom. The Atom community went further back than that, we examined how RSS was being used at that time, and considered how it might be used in the future, and defined several use cases or problem statements, and built up a specification format based on that. As far as I remember, we never started with the RSS 2.0 spec text.

The Atom Syndication fomat (the XML part) and the Atom Publishing format (the REST part) started as one and then later ran separately in parallel. Both fed requirements into each other.

In RSS2.0 the item element was always inside a channel, so there was always a parent context of it's meaning beyond it's namespaced definition. With Atom publishing format, we have blog entries as stand alone documents outside of a feed (so they can be created, retrieved, and updated as a single document). In that context, a top-level element name of entry is an improvement over item. And it was important to us to use the same vocabulary across both the syndication and publishing formats so the element became entry on both.

Atom started from a clean slate, as you point out, there was going to be no way of fixing those problems with the RSS2.0 specification without significantly breaking existing implementations and backwards compatibility, and if somehow these were avoided, the RSS2.0 specification would probably have ended up in an absolute mess.

<comment><AUTHOR> So there's an inconsistency betw your post and this comment.

Maybe you'd like to review your post and see which parts you really believe and which parts are just hyperbole.

Seems like a good time to figure out what actually happened there, as opposed to just re-reciting the same tired myths yet again.

That's what I liked about the comment on Stack Overflow. He learned something from the way things turned out. This comment also shows that you've learned something, but your post is the same old same old.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bezos says 'country in trouble' if big tech turns its back on the Pentagon - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/07/bezos-says-country-in-trouble-if-big-tech-turns-its-back-on-the-pentagon.html <comment><USER2> It's hard to believe his want for big tech to support the Pentagon is genuine when he's actively fighting to steal a Pentagon business deal away from Microsoft. If he really cares about national defense he can put his money where his mouth is and just undercut Microsoft's costs by making up the difference with a donation of his own.

<comment><USER3> Amazon is complaining that they were denied a contract for political reasons, because Trump dislikes the Washington Post, owned by Bezos. This does sound like something Trump and his appointees might do.

<comment><USER4> Broken clock.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> He has a point. If Chinese computer scientists work with the Chinese military and Americans do not, the U.S. military will be disadvantaged. It should be noted that "smart" U.S. weapons may kill fewer civilians than the weapons they replaced, because they are better targeted.

<comment><USER5> The problem with smart weapons is that we only seem to use them against goat herders. Hardly a pressing need for a big tech and Pentagon meetup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not just the Pentagon though. Other government agencies that get the shaft from big tech run the risk of outsourcing their needs to other countries. I don't understand how contracts for other government agencies work or what rules/limits they have. But if a Palantir type company decides to back out of helping DHS for moral reasons, would it be feasible for DHS to turn to a Palantir based out of Eastern Europe or India if such a company existed? I think that's a bigger risk to outsource tech to foreign nations to manage our nations government agencies.

<comment><USER7> _would it be feasible for DHS to turn to a Palantir based out of Eastern Europe or India if such a company existed?_

The answer is almost always no.

The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation, along with executive orders and other lower level orders, places explicit limitations on the source of technologies that will be used in Defense.

The mundane result of modern tech companies not working with the DoD, or other federal agencies, is simply that the average serviceman or woman will continue to have to use terrible software and generally default to the "Microsoft Weapons System" (Powerpoint, Excel, Word, Sharepoint). You wouldn't believe some of the amazing Macros built by innovative Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines.

There are efforts to remedy this by building modern software natively by service members, but we're still in early days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Businesses have gotten larger and more powerful than the governments that are supposed to regulate them. Moreover, infested the relevant regulatory agencies.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best music service available. - <AUTHOR>

I've been dancing around various music online music services (Spotify, Rdio, Google Music, Grooveshark, Deezer,etc) but I haven't found yet something that fulfills my needs. Google music need to be always on and doesn't have a desktop client. Spotify doesn't have a nice view for albums and it's "hard" to upload my own music. Rdio mobile client is painfully slow.<p>So, how do you manage your music? what service do you use and why? <comment><USER2> I have been using Nokia's music store in my Lumia phone.Its pretty basic.If you are looking for a decent library at a low cost it is worthwhile.Some people are using it like a ipod instead of a phone.Of course, you would be locked down to MS.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you pay for a shared office/startup space? What would it need? - <AUTHOR>

I've got some entrepreneurial friends who have been discussing opening a shared office space–hoping to eventually expand it into a chain.
The idea would be, a small biz/soho/startup type pays a monthly fee (say $100-$300/mo) for access to a large, comfortable office/workspace with internet, printers, monitors, file server, coffee, etc. A receptionist attends the space during business hours and can answer the phone. Members can access the space 24/7 via key-card. No walk-ins/non members so that it builds a sense of community among those who share it.
They're thinking of starting in Seattle and possible Portland or SF/valley.
I'm sure things like this already exist, but:
- Would you ever use such a facility?
- What would you pay?
- What services/features would be great and set it apart?
- Could it turn a profit? <comment><USER2> We paid $420/mo. for shared office space at the heart of Toronto's tech centre, courtesy the great guys at Lyricfind Inc. We had more than enough amenities wise. In fact all we needed was wireless Internet, 2 desks and 2 chairs and a bathroom.

It was VERY nice to have access to a meeting room and kitchen, and great location. I didn't even think of having a communal printer or fax. I just did all the printing from home. We also used a very 1.0 key system that was fine.

With regards to this turning a profit, the same idea was tried a couple of years ago in Toronto and it was actually making a profit. I believe it was called something like 'Indoor playground' or 'Digital Playground' but I can't find a website or link. The last I heard was that it was closed down due to a problem with the landlord being a dick, not running out of money. The founder also went on to do greater things.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use Cubespace <http://cubespacepdx.com/> in Portland.

The amenities I use regularly: cube, printers, kitchen, coffee, snacks.

Amenities I appreciate having available: meeting rooms, private phone rooms.

The community is good to have around. Entrepreneurial, networking events, other users in interesting non-technical fields.

</comment><comment><USER4> In LA -- <http://www.blankspaces.com/>

I heard the founder of this speak. He said he is turning a much higher profit than typical brick-and-mortar businesses. He rents out some of the space very creatively for non-office things as well, such as birthday parties. He is also very active in the community, for instance he hosts freelancer meetups.

Also, note that the neighbors of BlankSpaces "include FedEx Kinko's, Wells Fargo, Starbucks and Staples."

</comment><comment><USER5> You may already be aware of this, but the current buzzword for what you are talking about is "co-working".

It is gaining quite a bit of traction here in nyc.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coworking> <http://www.nwcny.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> I know in Melbourne, Monash University has a sort of similar service, but they call it an "incubator" though. [http://www.monashincubator.com.au/Content/Pub/ContentDetail....](http://www.monashincubator.com.au/Content/Pub/ContentDetail.asp?lngContentID=4)

I think it's making a profit, it's packed!

</comment><comment><USER7> I would pay $100 / mo. I would like a desk, bathroom, and internet, but I don't need the receptionist. There should be a server closet where a member can leave a low-powered server, like an ordinary desktop, running, but pay extra for that of course. I am less interested in having a good location and conference rooms, than the basic desk with a bit of shelf space.

I might go up on the price, but not much. Office space is getting pretty cheap were I am (Austin, Texas).

</comment><comment><USER8> There is one in #phx called <http://gangplankhq.com>. I haven't been yet but it is a fun group of people. I think co-working spaces will begin to take off as more people contract and are in service on demand. This is actually taking off as of late in many states and cities.

</comment><comment><USER9> i've always wished for a live/work space in walkable cities/neighborhoods (maybe san francisco, london, new york, amsterdam). i just needed a small closet type single bedroom like i stayed in in europe, an additional, separate work area with maybe a monitor to hook up my laptop and, of course, good internet access. it would be great if they were all connected so that i could pay a consistent fee with a contract to one company and move between them as i need/desire.

it would also be good if it was cheap for startups or maybe allowed to get discounts for startup stock.

</comment><comment><USER10> $1 Bob.

</comment><comment><USER11> Another current one is Regus HQ. <http://www.regus.com/officesolutions> The company I work for used to rent some space in their Mountain View, CA office. That was several years ago and I don't know the current prices.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's one in Denver that I've heard good things about:

<http://hivecoop.pbwiki.com/>

Despite having an 8-5 job already, at $100/mo. I would be tempted to sign up just for a place to work on side projects.

<comment><USER13> The Hive are doing a good thing, too...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> SF/Valley has something like that specifically for tech startups: <http://www.plugandplaytechcenter.com/>

I think they charge ~$1500 per person, and I think its a total waste of money. I rather work out of my own apartment or house at the early stages.

<comment><USER15> It's much cheaper than that if I remember correctly.

I think somewhere around $300/month for one person in their Sunnyvale office, but I might be mistaken.

<comment><USER16> We were quoted $600 for a 2-person cubicle, plus around $100 for connectivity and IT services, and a $100 one-time setup fee. They offer more than just office space, though: Regularly, angels and VCs come in that you can pitch to, and (for additional fees) they offer recruiting services, lawyers, a datacenter etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a place called WorkSpace here in Vancouver that's similar to this. Check it out: <http://www.abetterplacetowork.com/>

<comment><USER18> There's also <http://thenetworkhub.ca> in Vancouver. They provide a workspace but also funding for startups.

<comment><USER19> Know of anything similar in Calgary?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> As a freelancer working at home, I would love such a space. Working at home is boring and lonely. and coffeeshops are distracting and have poor internet connectivity. I know coworking spaces exist, but there are none currently that really fill all of my needs.

An affordable space where I could work surrounded by hackers would be very nice. Definitely interested.

<comment><USER21> Libraries with Wi Fi are a great place to work unless you need to take a lot of calls.

<comment><USER22> That's actually a good idea which I did some research into around south east London (I live near Canada Water/Surrey Quays)

Southwark council to have a list of libraries that offer WiFi:

[http://www.southwark.gov.uk/YourServices/LibrariesSection/fr...](http://www.southwark.gov.uk/YourServices/LibrariesSection/freewifihotspotsinlibraries.html)

I haven't tried them yet, as I haven't begun my work-at-home stint, but will definitely look into them for a change of scenery once in a while.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> $100-$300 is about what I would pay, $100 being an easy pick and $300 is something I would really think about. I don't care about printers and file servers, I care about WiFi, kitchen, small locker (for my own tea etc) and a whiteboard. Not sure about monitors, these may turn out handy.

Check out <http://www.seattle20.com/> for other shared work spaces in the area, this will give you an idea where you stand, e.g. here are 4: [http://www.seattle20.com/blog/The-Ultimate-Guide-for-the- New...](http://www.seattle20.com/blog/The-Ultimate-Guide-for-the-New- Entrepreneur-in-Seattle.aspx)

I'm in Seattle, on the east side. There is no way I am coming over to the west side - the bridges are clogged. Also consider that other shared paces are on the west side, so there is a bit of a vacuum here.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks. We were discussing Seattle locations over dinner tonight.

So ... do you think Bellevue/Kirkland area could be just as desirable as west side?

Also, I'm not in Seattle, so west side == downtown ?

<comment><USER23> I call "West Side" anything west of the Lake Washington including Seatlle downtown as well as North Seattle and West Seattle (Alki). "East Side" is east of the lake: [http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=47.621438,-122.218437...](http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=47.621438,-122.218437&spn=0.137688,0.268478&z=12)

The problem is that bridges and Seattle downtown highways get clogged for hours each day, effectively rendering east and west side distant cities. On the east side only Bellevue downtown gets clogged and even then it's fairly small and easy to avoid.

East side (Redmond, Bellevue, Kirklnad, Woodinville, Sammamish) are better for me and right about anyone else who lives on the east side. Microsoft has its offices in Redmond so you are likely to find a lot of customers. In fact you should become friends with some softies and ask them to hang your posters in the kitchens within the buildings. Nintendo offices are also nearby, fwiw.

The other thing in favor of the East side is that most exisitng shared spaces are on the west side, except I think one which is sort of expensive.

Well, I could be a bit selfish here so you will need to do a bit of your own research too. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My local example: <http://www.itstheoffice.com/>

<comment><USER24> And here's a space in my area: <http://www.bdcdevelopment.com/sbcenter.htm>

We looked into it, but found it too expensive so we got together and rented a large open-plan office that now holds five desks. Each share of rent is proportionate to the amount of space we're using and we share internet and a common lounge area. Works for us, but good group dynamics are very important!</comment></comment>


"I'm done with consensus decisionmaking." - <AUTHOR> http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-ctte/2014/debian-ctte.2014-10-30-17.00.log.html

<comment><USER2> Can anyone "in the loop" provide some context as to what this is all about?

It seems to be related to the systemd situation, but I don't really follow Debian/Linux development to know more about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the IRC channel used by the Debian Technical Committee for meetings. The mappings between IRC nicks and names appear near the top of the log. In particular, "Diziet" is Ian Jackson, who has been the primary instigator of most recent technical committee actions lately, most notably the ongoing init system debacle. (As well as the initiator of the current project-wide General Resolution.)

See the top of [https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/10/msg00431.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/10/msg00431.html) for what prompted this. The comments in that mail came up in a more recent thread, in which someone suggested to assume good faith ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith)). In response ([https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/11/msg00111.html](https://lists.debian.org/debian- vote/2014/11/msg00111.html)), someone provided this link, saying "I have a hard time assuming good faith from people who are at war."

In particular, see 17:34:28, 17:34:32, 17:35:34, and 17:37:17 for "highlights". Direct link: [http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-ctte/2014/debian- ctte.2014-...](http://meetbot.debian.net/debian-ctte/2014/debian- ctte.2014-10-30-17.00.log.html#l-222) . (In hindsight, I should have linked to that anchor specifically.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Isn't Google an example of commercialized research? - <AUTHOR>

This is in reference to the discussion during office hours today at TC disrupt.  The exchange was something like.
PG: So this is commercialized research?
Entrepreneur: Yes
PG: Ouch!
I am currently flirting with academic research that I believe has commercial potential, but a solid market has not been identified yet.
I think academic research often inspires commercial endeavors.  Is the issue in this case just that a business is actually being pursued before a customer who cares has been identified? <comment><AUTHOR> Office Hours video: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2989239>

Earlier HN discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2988407>

</comment><comment><USER2> Medical device research at my school (university of utah) is huge business. Every year research at our school is commercialized and it starts 10's of new businesses and generates billions in revenue. In fact a little know secret is that the University of Utah is second to only MIT in research commercialized. We also do it with about the 1/10th of the budget! So look for funding from a technology commercialization office if you want to do something like that. <http://www.tco.utah.edu/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Why do you believe it has commercial potential if a market has not been identified yet?

If an activity is being pursued before an interested customer has been identified, I'd have a hard time calling that activity a 'business'.

That does not mean it is a waste of time. If it is an activity that creates value, as you seem to think it is, it is probably worth perusing, perhaps even worth monetizing but don't get ahead of yourself or place an irrecoverable bet on mere hope.</comment>


Laws banning cellphone use while driving don't reduce crashes - <AUTHOR> http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/29/study-finds-that-reduced-phone-use-does-not-cut-crashes/ <comment><USER2> Didn't see this coming...

I actually thought about it long and hard. I've never felt distracted by calling my mom whilendriving home... anymore than anything else.

More importantly: If this holds true across the studies that will doubtless follow, will there be a move to remove such statutes from the books?</comment>


Ask HN: Good, cheap web hosting? - <AUTHOR> Any recommendations for web hosting?  Not trying to do anything fancy, just looking for something cheap and reliable to host a couple static sites. <comment><USER2> If it's just static hosting you're after Amazon's S3 is worth looking at: [http://aws.amazon.com/s3/](http://aws.amazon.com/s3/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you looking for managed hosting? If so, [http://www.namecheap.com](http://www.namecheap.com) might be what you're looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's managed hosting? I was already looking at namecheap, so I'm glad someone brought them up.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How has virtual onboarding been? - <AUTHOR> I'm guessing that some companies have still been hiring.  If you've started recently at a company that wasn't previously remote, how has your onboarding process been?  I'm really curious. <comment><USER2> I was onboarded virtually as a junior software engineer in April. They basically scheduled Zoom meetings with key people across the first week to help me understand their processes. After that, they assigned me my tasks and I was on my own.

It definitely feels tougher to approach someone on Slack for help. You can't tell whether someone's busy or not when deciding if you should interrupt them. You can't read facial cues. The tone of texts can easily be misinterpreted. If they miss your message and reply a few hours later/don't reply, you can't help but wonder if they dislike you. Zoom has that 40 minute time limit which makes meetings feel rushed because it's a bother to restart so I feel that people are reluctant to use it if it's not urgent.

I think this paints a picture of a toxic work environment but it definitely is not. This is just a product of a company and myself trying to adapt to unprecedented circumstances and I'm sure it will improve in the future.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was on-boarded virtually as Lead Engineer in April. They started with WebEx meetings scheduled for a couple of days and after that I was on my own. I missed the human touch that joining a new company has. Apart from that, it was pretty smooth.</comment>


X Æ A-12: Elon Musk and Grimes confirm baby name - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52557291 <comment><USER2> Why do celebrities and others think it's a great, smart idea to saddle their kids with crap names?

Other dumb names:

Mr Lear of LearJet named his daughter Shanda.

I grew up knowing a girl called Robin Banks.

There was another girl in my town called Ophelia Dickie.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unbelievable, this means that at least two people think this is a good idea.

<comment><USER4> Just wait a year. I have a feeling there's a few hundred thousand more, but I don't know how many of them are breeding in pairs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Obligatory xkcd?

[https://xkcd.com/327/](https://xkcd.com/327/)</comment>