Google Circles is high work and low return - <AUTHOR> http://garry.posterous.com/google-circles-is-high-work-and-low-return-wh

<comment><USER2> I fail to see how Circles is "high work". You make a simple decision about which circle(s) to put someone in. It's not multi-variable calculus.

<comment><USER3> It would probably be too much work if "circling" were done after following a person, but since circling is merely part of the process of following someone, it doesn't seem like that much of a burden.

<comment><USER4> You only have a finite amount of decisions you can make in a day. Do you really want to spend them putting labels on people?

Also you should remember that "putting labels on people" is generally considered kind of a bad thing to do. It certainly isn't something we openly brag about in the real world ...

Personally I only have one circle and everyone goes in.

<comment><USER5> No need to downvote someone who has a differing opinion. Last thing we need is for HN to be an echo chamber of people we agree with

<comment><USER6> This person's post was bizarre and potentially offensive. They're basically saying that people are using circles to stereotype (wtf!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So my Circles won't grow organically out of my control? Good. That's the point. Don't use the screwdriver to hammer nails.

<comment><USER8> Being able to control your connections is a good thing, and eventually becomes very important. But enabling a "don't make me think" approach by default would lower the barrier to entry. 99% of non-geeks hate to consciously categorize stuff in general, and people in particular.

That being said, this could be easily fixed: add a special "all my contacts" circle which contains everyone I've ever added: people can be in the all-my- contacts circle without being into any other normal circles, but as soon as they're in a normal circle they also go into all-my-contacts. Then I can opt into circle categorization when it becomes necessary, rather than before I've decided whether G+ is nerdier and more cumbersome to use than FB.

<comment><USER9> I disagree. I think asking people to organize their friends gives a very personal touch, and the interface is so intuitive it's hard to be confused. I think people will actually like how they can have control their friends and will fiddle about with it. It would be interesting for google to release statistics on how much time people spend organizing their circles.

<comment><USER8> I believe you base your estimation on the kind of people you typically frequent; they are representative of neither the average population, nor the population targeted by social network sites, nor the kind of people advertisers (those putting money in all this, a.k.a "the Customers") value most.

That's fine: my friends aren't representative of anything relevant here, nor are most of HN people's, nor are Googlers'; but I don't think G+ could be considered successful if it ends up catering mostly to overeducated uber- geeks. I think there's still a risk that Google will be known to have created Orkut for Brazilians, and G+ for nerds.

I partially agree with you, though: the feature offered by circle is very useful, very well executed, and very accessible; not having it in FB greatly limits what I post on it, and plenty of people can end up loving it, if it's introduced to them properly (not only geeks). Still, it ought to be easier to start using G+ the way one used FB, and introduce circle control more progressively, as people become conscious of the need. Not for me: for the couple of non-geeks I occasionally socialize with, and whom I want to have in my social network.

<comment><USER7> I think fine-tuning levels of intimacy and deciding which contexts different people should be included and excluded in is something that everyone does a little bit and some people spend much of their waking lives obsessing over. It will feel natural to invest time and effort into managing their Circles in Google. You can think of it as something to do with your hands while you think about your social relationships, or as a ceremonial way to mark changes in your social graph.

<comment><USER8> I'm sure 90% of G+ers will do it and enjoy it.

My point was only that figuring out how to organize your graph into circles shouldn't have to be the first thing you've to do before discovering G+. This question (how to organize one's social graph, even roughly) is not trivial at all; if the very first thing G+ demands from you is to figure out a very personal and non-trivial question, it will negatively affect people's perception of the product.

Think of how annoying it is to enter a serial number when installing a new software: it's not a big deal, it's not difficult, and you'll hopefully only do it once. However, that's your software bugging you before your first real contact, and before it earned your respect. Highly irritating for many people. We want our first contact with stuff to start by some instant gratification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This guy seems to be missing the _entire_ point of Circles. So you can determine what stuff you post goes out to what people. If I post a link that I don't want my mom to see, I won't include the Family circle in it. That's a pretty high return for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm pretty sure I'd prefer to use a private family group for this. If my mom wants to post something to the group, I will have already created it and she won't have to re-make the circle.

Can you even imagine having your mom make circles?

<comment><USER11> My Mom has already made circles and found the drag and drop feature to be dead easy. She loves it.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, the Google drag-and-drop thing works pretty well and is quite innovative. That's certainly a direct way for them to mitigate the circle- creation problem. Arguably that's actually a critical piece of making Google+ work even though Circles is an n^2 operation.

<comment><USER12> EDIT: Derp, I'd read "n^2" as "n^n" both in a comment above and here, and even typed "n^2" while thinking it said "n^n". Sorry, garry.

\---

Even if you're making a circle for every person, and putting every person in every circle, it's not n^n, it's just n * n.

      75×75 = 5,625
      75^75 = 4.26 × 10^140

But I don't see why you'd make a circle for every person, when you can add arbitrary individuals to Post or Share permissions.

<comment><USER13> n^2 is the same as n*n.

<comment><USER14> Except that in many programming languages, ^ means xor, so they do very different things. As a result in programming discussions I use n __2 instead of n^2 to avoid the possibility of confusion if someone tries to cut and paste formulas into code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I understand the criticism and while G+ may be able to benefit from something like public circles, I think the post misses the core concept that circles are _my_ cataloging of the people I know. Nobody else has shares or even understands the weight of edges on my social graph. It looks like google's goal is to give user's ownership over their circles rather than making them a shared resource, it gives the user ultimate control over who sees what they post.

A shared group relies on the assumption that all the members' social connections create the same graph such that that group X is good for their collective Xing purposes. Other than tight-nit cliques that doesn't work well. Even then, once one person wants a "group X minus Y" or another wants "group X plus Z" the utility of the group is severely diminished.

Shared control also has downsides, for example I don't need people who have access to my drunk pictures able to add people to the drunk picture viewer's list. While there are ways of sharing the pictures out-of-band that is a risk and different than the self-censoring that could follow an unwelcome addition to a circle.

</comment><comment><USER16> Me, I really love this "Circles" feature. How I organize my contacts is (and should be) entirely up to me.

Others can't see my groups? It can't get any better than that, and I really mean it.

But hey, of course I might be wrong.

<comment><USER17> Exactly. I don't want the people I was forced to add out of workplace social norms to know they're in a "Work - Others" group that gets to hardly see anything I do.

These are MY social circles, why should they have to be relevant to anyone other than me.

<comment><USER18> You know, it didn't dawn on me until just now where the name circles come from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it's wrong for the author to compare the functionality of G+ circles with Facebook's group feature, as the two are not the same. Circles are more directly comparable with Facebook's "lists" feature, which can also be said to have a high amount of work (significantly more than G+'s circles, in my opinion) for a low amount of "return".

<comment><AUTHOR> Nobody uses Facebook lists. That's the main reason I didn't bother mentioning it.

<comment><USER20> Perhaps your next post should argue that Facebook's one-to-one video calling is a better mode of communication than Google+ group text discussion (or vice versa).

You would even have strengthened your argument if you noted how Facebook lists were underused compared to Groups, and extrapolate it to Circles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Google circles was based on that real social network paper by Paul Adams. In the real world, there aren't 1000 "friends" to categorise. The oft-quoted figure of 150 friends come to mind. Not really high work to move 150 friends. It matches your mental model so well, that it's hard _not_ to move people into groups

<comment><USER22> Exactly. You have family and very close friends who might as well be family, but beyond that you typically have groups of friends in some particular context. Friends through work, friends from school, friends through a particular hobby, professional acquintances, etc, etc. Often times it's not appropriate to dump all of these people into one big bucket, to imagine that the level of intimacy you share with a friend you would donate an organ to and some one you like to spend time with at work should be even remotely the same. As social networking sites become mature it's critical that they engage the full spectrum of communication, not merely the lowest common denominator that's suitable or meaningful to all of your extended acquintances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Low social return. High personal return.

</comment><comment><USER24> The author doesn't seem to be taking into account the fact that the "work" involved is front-loaded at the moment, because everyone's joining G+ simultaneously. Once a certain equilibrium is reached, our circles won't change that rapidly over time and the work will (should?) be minimal.

</comment><comment><USER25> I think the big picture people are missing is that the average facebook and twitter user has put so many hours into their account. Adding friends. Following people. It's been a cumulative process over the last 5 years. Trying to cram that into a week is clearly going to seem overwhelming. What is most impressive is that many (myself included) find Google+ and Circles to be quite friction free.

</comment><comment><USER26> Circles seems like the Google+ equivalent of labels in Gmail or tags in Reader. You can easily tag a thread or user with one or more descriptive labels. I don't find that a lot of work. Facebook, in comparison (last time I checked), makes you go to the group to add/remove people. Major pain to manage groups in FB.

</comment><comment> al-king I don't think he gets what makes Circles good. Their privacy and asymmetry is exactly why I like them. You don't want other people knowing 'how you classify' them, and it doesn't matter to them, really, unless they're being neurotic. Circles is an unobtrusive way to show the people you want precisely the things you want them to see; this would become an awkward tug-of-war if they had to agree on what you did.

EDIT: After a little consideration, being able to designate Circles as public does seem reasonable, though. I follow games industry, comics, and Uni club people and have them in groups saying as much. I'd feel perfectly comfortable publishing those for people who're interested, and would like to find those people.

</comment><comment><USER27> In my opinion, social networking has always been low return, regardless of where it occurs.

<comment><USER28> Obviously your frame of reference is for a very limited use case. Three examples of social networking working in the last couple weeks (just from my limited perspective):

1\. My mom rediscovering someone she hadn't seen in over 20 years through Facebook. 2\. Two musicians chatting on each others' music profiles and figuring out how to collaborate on music online. 3\. An engineering student from Africa reaching out to me to comment on his project.

Given Garry Tan's work at Posterous, there is some vested interest in the space, but at the same time I don't think his claims are any less valid. I haven't tried Google+ yet, so I don't know if I agree or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Minor nitpick, but I'm not also not sure I buy the argument that a group that any member can add other members to, automatically and always gets better over time. I don't have any data one way or another, but it seems entirely plausible to me that a group could morph and change with new additions until it becomes something you don't want to be a member of any more.

But basically this comes down to what other people have already noted: Google+ Circles != Facebook Groups

</comment><comment><USER30> I dunno, I was able to follow some leaders in tech with only a few clicks and taps on the keyboard.

/not a social media power user.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 There's a simple fix to this, isn't there? Add a user option to define a default group to place new contacts into.

I think a part of the perceived "high work" is treating what G+ would like you to think of as "your friends" as "random people I want to follow" a la Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm getting tired of self-righteous posts about how the way Circles works is a problem. It might be a problem for you, but it might be a feature for others. It's exactly what I want, to be honest. If that doesn't work for you, stick to Facebook and Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER32> this is wrong... for many people, this is fun and worth while in it's own right. Organizing your friends into groups could be a facebook app (so in otherwords, people would do it without any other reason than just to do it and maybe share it)

</comment><comment><USER33> I haven't got a G+ account, but is G+ circle grouped friends data exportable?

It seems like a form of technical debt otherwise as n of friends approach infinity.

</comment><comment><USER34> To help others discover new people, Google could simply allow you to make some of your lists public.

</comment><comment><USER9> I agree with that and think they need to implement an obvious extension: shared circles.

<comment><USER35> Nested circles would be nice, too. I'd like to be able to have an "everyone" circle, put "acquaintances" in it, and put "work" in "acquaintances".

<comment><USER36> There is already an "everyone" circle, it's called public post.

<comment><USER37> There's a difference between "everyone" and "public". Everyone includes every person you've added to a circle - it's equivalent to "friends only" on LiveJournal. Public is that _plus_ anyone who happens to run across your Google+ profile, which is publicly accessible on the Internet.

I find I share to "All your circles" a lot more than I share to "Public", because I like knowing who's reading my stuff.

<comment><USER36> I stand (belatedly) corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Forget Circles. It's all about showcasing our narcissism and ego. Where can people see our long friend list? Where can they see our favorite quotations? Our favorite movies? Our huge photo album collection with all our social events and vacations? Where can they see our "Notes"? Where can they see the witty comments we've made on other status messages?</comment>


Apple Buys UK Startup Behind Musicmetric to Add Analytics to Beats - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/21/apple-musicmetric/

<comment><USER2> Apple has a reasonable track record with selective acquisitions like this, but they bought App search company Chomp* back in 2012. Over 2 years later the App Store search and navigation system is still painfully bad, so I'll believe this will make a difference when I see it.

* [http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/apple-acquires-app-sear...](http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/apple-acquires-app-search-company-chomp-3339992/)

<comment><USER3> They did actually integrate Chomp into the App Store. Just turned out everyone hated it.

[http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/30/apple-adds-chomp- styled-...](http://www.macrumors.com/2012/08/30/apple-adds-chomp-styled-app- store-search-results-and-more-in-ios-6/)

<comment><USER4> Chomp was much more than the results interface though. There were filters and suggested alternatives to make your queries more specific. The closes the official App Store has come to this is the Trending Apps section in iOS 8, which still doesn't help me find apps I'm specifically looking for but don't come up in the first half dozen results of a search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Good idea considering Spotify has a deal in place with Next Big Sound (although it also gives stats on how your social media accounts are performing).

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm still not sold on this whole Beats acquisition. It seems like a mid-1990s Microsoft play.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "I'm still not sold on this whole Beats acquisition."

Why not? They need a streaming service (iTunes Radio isn't good enough) and Beats is IMO the best one out there. Plus if the streaming service doesn't work out they're still covered as they've purchased an incredibly successful hardware company and brand. They'll make the acquisition cost back in sales pretty quickly.

<comment><USER6> Beats is alright, but the user experience is absolutely awful. Music is poorly organized. The sentence thing in the app is kind of a gimmick. It's great if you're fine with just turning on some sort of music that's somewhat similar to what you're wanting to listen to, and then forgetting about it. If you want to amass a collection of specific songs you like, spotify is the way to go. Beats' web interface is terrible. I logged in with Twitter, and I had to login every single time I went to the site. I tried it for a month, and I missed having the desktop application that spotify offers.

<comment> k-mcgrady Beats web app definitely sucks, I agree with that. However the iOS app is fantastic. Music is organized much better than Spotify. You can search for an artist then easily browse by Albums, Singles, EP's, Songs. You can save to your library (something Spotify only introduced recently) or a playlist. The sentence thing is a gimmick but the homepage in the app always recommends me great stuff I haven't heard or haven't listened to in a while. The highlights section also regularly turns up good stuff for me. This is where Spotify lacks in my opinion. I was browsing through some playlists today and they're exactly the same ones they were recommending to me a year ago. I've also never found a playlist I truly enjoy on Spotify whereas on Beats I've got dozens saved. I'm guessing this is due to the fact that people with taste in music curate the Beats playlists.

NB: I use both Spotify, Beats, and iTunes. I purchase music I love in iTunes, use Beats for discovery or when I just want to listen to music and do nothing else. Spotify I use when I have something specific in mind or want something playing in the background.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wondered when this news would break. Congrats to everyone at Semetric :)</comment>


Late Night Coding Session Munchies Are Not What They Seem - <AUTHOR> http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=7EC06D27B1A945BE85E7DA8483025962

<comment><USER2> Blah. Autoplaying video. It does have a transcript below that you can read instead, though.</comment>


Front end API generation from GraphQL schema - <AUTHOR> Hi I just want to let you know we added frontend( TypeScript ) to our graphqleditor.com service -  it is available right now on demo.graphqleditor.com so you can:
1. import your own schema
2. click typescript
3. click copy and copy it to your ts project
This way you have full intellisense on frontend tou your graphql queries. and you can construct them type safe. You need at least typescript 3.1 to make this work in your project.
Functions are defined as array of props and returners
This is complicated but you have 100% type safe query, return and response API.
This is much experimental but works for me! Feel free to ask questions report issues etc. I will post this on GrahphQL subreddit and Javascript subreddits to gather more lang experts <comment><USER2> Cool, but please make clickable links next time :) Will be a lot easier :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I dunno how to do it :|. Anybody?</comment></comment>


Why Apple's move from Intel to ARM means we should stop buying Macs - <AUTHOR> https://www.pcworld.com/article/3563892/why-apples-move-from-intel-to-arm-means-we-should-stop-buying-macs.html <comment><USER2> Dude, when they come out with a 20 hour battery life laptop that does everything macOS does now - who won't buy one?

If you're a student/professional that uses Lightroom/Photoshop, etc there'll be no question that you'll get the laptop with the better battery life for the same performance.

<comment><USER3> It competes on battery life on idle time, not when in use, doesn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great news! All of those Intel Macs will become scrap, sold at a loss or given away to someone who can install Linux on it!

</comment><comment><USER5> After 5 years Apple can't get parts for your computer, so I don't think running the latest compatible software is the problem. For most laptops the battery or keyboard will be pretty reduced I would have thought.

So I don't think the situation materially changes enough to stop buying Macs, unless of course you already stopped buying macs for these reasons, so this article is in my opinion misleading.

It might help justify people who have left the Mac ecosystem feel better, judging by the target audience.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm mainly just worried about how this will affect my development environment and ability to compile linux libraries and things like homebrew apps on the command line.

I can only imagine that changing the CPU architecture will mean pretty much every tool I use is going to break and have to be fixed (or abandoned) by random open source developers slowly over the coming years.

Or am I wrong? Will this all be seamless?

<comment><USER7> I expect this to be really painful initially, but longer term I look forward to this breaking the stranglehold that Intel currently has over our tooling as de facto standard for workstation processors.

I'm optimistic that we'll start to see higher quality support for ARM on open source packages, which means we can deploy to RaspPis easier, ARM servers, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We have been discussing this and it is somewhat problematic, although it depends on how long the intel macs last. The Mac Pro Range are the most expensive things ever and owners will want to sweat them. It could be that security fixes will continue for longer than OS releases, which is the biggest concern. Failing that, my six month old maxed-out MBP 16 might be running Linux this time in 2026.

<comment><USER9> > It could be that security fixes will continue for longer than OS releases

There is no need for speculation here because we already know how Apple is treating Mac Pro owners. I have two of these machines (3.1), they are wonderful powerhorses with two Xeons and 64 GB of RAM, but for Apple they're not worth being supported. I need to use a popular hack in order to install a newer OS and get updates.

<comment><USER9> To the downvoters: as another person pointed out, the latest version of Windows would work perfectly on these machines - if I choose to install it, that is. But I prefer macOS and the apps I had bought. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I second this. Start focusing on improving battery life on Windows laptops already.

I'm sort of happy this is going to push processor manufacturers to get the best power efficient general computing out there, but developer productivity is key.

</comment><comment><USER11> The author claims to know many people who happily run five year old machines. I guess I might know a few too, but I know many _many_ more who jump on every new generation just as soon as they can. This is _especially_ true in the Apple world, where in pre-COVID times people literally slept on the sidewalk to get in the store first on launch day. The number of people who actually care about Apple support for a five year old product is probably pretty small.

There are reasonably-debatable reasons why people should stop buying Macs. A shift to ARM is not one of them.

<comment><USER12> I'm very satisfied with a fully maxed-out 2012 Mac Mini (quad i7, 32GB RAM, 2x 1TB SATA SSDs). It's plenty powerful for my needs (productivity, and occasional use of _Mathematica_ ) and at any rate over the past ten years or so I've migrated progressively towards using iPads (having been almost compulsive in my upgrading _every single generation_ from the very first back in 2010 to the latest iPad Pro 2020).

When yesterday I saw the news of the new ARM mac, I thought "aha, OK, I want it".

Keep in mind that at one point I had a quad-G5 PowerMac. I really like power, flexibility, and expandability. I'm not much of a laptop believer either.

But what I'm trying to say is that over the course of the past decade or so the Mac has been sufficiently stagnant that a 2012 Mac Mini, albeit one that is highly upgraded, is an entirely workable platform. I was thinking to myself last night (or this morning, depending on one's perspective): "What will Apple's _Intel Epoch_ be known for?" and I had an instant answer for myself: "It will be remembered for _stagnation_. There was a switch and things were better for five years and then nothing really happened for a decade,."

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What will people think about the new laptops?

Personally this kind of vertical integration from a company that isn't shy about imposing it's opinion would be a worry.

I doubt I will want such a device unless it is very open and can run alternate OSs etc, even if I never will.

</comment><comment><USER14> pcworld lol

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm actually thinking of getting a 2019 MacBook Pro. I like the butterfly keyboard and mostly believe the outrage was fake news like a lot of things nowadays with outrage culture. Not to mention it's 3rd gen, failure probability would be lower.

I'm also aware that at most I'd have 4-5 years, BUT if you take Windows into consideration, then you can definitely double that time. There's just no premium laptop manufacturer like Apple, all competition just looks like an attempt to be like them. I'd get a great trackpad, design, screen (most important to me) and somewhat both of OS worlds. Doesn't seem like a bad buy.

<comment><USER16> This is what I did, keyboard is fine, I like the short travel. Maxed out CPU and memory and saved nearly 40% while buying brand new old stock. Very happy overall upgrading from a maxed out late 2013 Macbook Pro 15".</comment></comment>


The dark side of 'sharing economy' jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/catherine-rampell-the-dark-side-of-sharing-economy-jobs/2015/01/26/4e05daec-a59f-11e4-a7c2-03d37af98440_story.html <comment><USER2> Uber is another example of "machines should think, people should work". The previous example I used was Amazon's fulfillment operation, where the planning and deciding is done by computers, which run the robots and give orders to the serfs to take things out of one bin and put them in another.

Uber is similar. All the planning and deciding is done by computers. Failure to serve on demand three times costs them their jobs. The computer gives the orders and the serfs must obey.

It's not even a market system. Serfs can't bid on requests for rides. Uber sets the price.

<comment><USER3> I'm not as worked up about this as you are ("serfs" c'mon). The "machines" are mostly doing mind numbing clerical work which they are relatively better at performing after considering costs. And they are doing it at the direction of non-driver company employees.

These drivers will likely eventually be replaced by driverless cars when their cost declines below the cost of employing drivers. Will that that be better or worse?

Unlike real serfs Uber drivers can set themselves free at anytime (i.e. quit). Instead 40,000 more signed up last month alone[1].

[1] [http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/22/inside-ubers- staggering-u-...](http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/22/inside-ubers-staggering-u- s-growth-40000-drivers-joined-in-december-and-average-19-per-hour/)

<comment><USER4> > _" Unlike real serfs Uber drivers can set themselves free at anytime (i.e. > quit)."_

I'm certainly not on the Uber-hating bandwagon that's been doing laps around HN lately, but this isn't always true. Some people drive an Uber car because they need a paycheck and a flexible schedule, not because they want to. There may not be many (or any) other opportunities ready available.

A serf could quit too, as long as he was willing to abandon everything he knew and set out on the road going far away from his old master. But he knew he'd probably end up destitute and serving a new master in a strange place, so he stayed.

People are risk averse. Some people do jobs that pay bills because they need them, not because they want them. Freedom to walk away from something doesn't imply a desire for that something.

<comment><USER5> The question to ask is, if Uber disappeared off the face of the earth one day, would these drivers be better off, or worse off? I claim they'd be worse off -- if there was a better job available, they'd already be doing that instead of driving for Uber.

In other words, Uber is a _positive force_ in their lives, an employer who made them a better offer than any other, and they've getting shit for not making the drivers an _even better_ offer?

<comment><USER6> They'd be better off. The existence of Uber is what causes these other "better jobs" to disappear.

<comment><USER7> and the evidence for that is?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One issue, about Uber specifically, I thought this article would touch on is legal liability. Unfortunately, the only legal liability mentioned is AirBnB guest turning a rental into a brothel.

The reality is in many jurisdictions Uber drivers are violating criminal law [1], and Uber drivers have been arrested. I was personally informed by a driver in Houston that Uber actually pays for a driver's lawyer when arrested. Maybe that is a start-up itself...connect Uber drivers with Uber lawyers paid for by Uber; however, my prediction is there will eventually be a major class- action by drivers who have been arrested while a contract driver for Uber. While corporations will continue shifting from employees to contractors in their own interest, it is a matter of time before someone realizes Uber is liable for contracting people and paying them specifically for acts deemed criminal.

[1] I am not taking a position as to the morality of such laws or whether they are just, simply stating many jurisdictions have laws in place criminalizing operating taxi's without permits

</comment><comment><USER9> Unfortunately, this is how capitalism works. Currently the world wage median is $9733 ([http://www.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median- household...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/166211/worldwide-median-household- income-000.aspx))

If you make more than that, you're being squeezed down to it. Below that wage, machines don't make sense, yet. And with the squeeze happening with all of the 'sharing' economy, your wages will go even lower.

In effect, capitalism has failed us, as a country and as a world. Do I know the answer? Nope. Some will say communism, socialism, anarchism, or some -ism. But something will need to be set up differently. Lest we will see the US come out as a 3rd world country. And I'm not entirely sure it's not a good way there.

<comment><USER4> You've just treated the entire world economy as if every individual is fungible, all tasks are identical, and transaction costs are completely negligible.

The only thing that's failed here is your perspective. The world is a very complex place and the last thing it needs more of are people pondering half- thought "solutions" to problems they haven't given an iota of thought to.

<comment><USER9> Youre right. The world economy is a humongous place. However, what happens when there is 10% unemployment? What about 20 percent unemployment? Or what happens when the screws capitalism are turned and you see 90 percent unemployment? That is is the intended result of capitalism, is it not? To me that was a fail system. And communism and socialism have both proven to be failures.

now, what do we do about this? Honestly, I have no clue.

<comment><USER10> Employment is a fairly broad solution. More fundamentally, if you don't give people something to do (i.e. purpose) they will probably just riot and start a revolution of some sort.

Where is the market for a driverless taxi if nobody can afford to catch one?

If you're an optimist, there will always be meaningful work to be done (for some kind of credit), supported by a government that knows to placate a society, they need to feel useful.

A pessimist on the other hand might subscribe to the cyclical nature of the rise and fall of civilisations. They catalyst this time being technological development moving faster than our ability to mentally and socially digest it.

We have only got about a billions years left. Let's make them count.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting that this is the exact same article with Uber replacing the house cleaning service we had before. Basically the story is 'if you aren't an employee you don't get employee like protections'.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/10/a...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/09/10/at- the-uber-for-home-cleaning-workers-pay-a-price-for-convenience/)

<comment><USER12> It's a big story that is being replicated all across the economy. There are many parts to it, and many different aspects. So, you should be seeing a number of stories with some overlap.

This is a story about income inequality, and the forced assumption of liability by the weaker parties to an employment contract. It's also about the abject failure of regulators in the face of politically connected companies. It's about tilted playing fields where startups that work within the existing system fail; and startups that act like robber barons succeed.

It's about the psychopathic cult of "success" that says that making more money is always a supreme good; no matter the economic externalities you create for the rest of us.

We're on a path to becoming a third-world planet where the rich live lives of robot-pampered luxury and everyone else starves in favelas trying desperately to make a living by bartering on craigslist with their smartphones.

Oh, and do you think you're good enough and psychopathic enough to be living in a mansion in Atherton? The odds are against you. And that type of self- delusion is part of the story too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if "sharing economy" should really be called "sweatshop economy."</comment>


Archive.org moves into single Sun shipping container - <AUTHOR> http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Data-Storage/Internet-Archive-Gets-a-Place-in-the-Sun-Portable-Data-Center-299563/

<comment><USER2> This story was posted on March 26th, 2009.</comment>


Ask HNs: Is javascript going to be the next big thing? - <AUTHOR>

It seems like the internet went from php->python->rails<p>With node and all its frameworks starting up, will javascript be the next big thing, or will it still be rails or is there some other technology popping up? <comment><USER2> Javascript already is the big thing.

And if you're wondering this because you're trying to decide whether to learn Javascript, the answer is Yes. Learn Javascript, because wherever the trends go, knowledge of Javascript is still crucial for web development.

<comment><AUTHOR> I already know JavaScript, but is it worth learning it on the server side and what are the best frameworks to learn.

<comment><USER2> I can't give you a good answer to this because things are so volatile right now. It's always good to play with what's on the landscape, though. However, I do see a ton of node.js and backbone.js when I am out and about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Javascript is the most popular scripting language. It's not about being next, but now, in the past and the only scripting language running in a user browser, all around the world.

* Ruby is popular, but Php is still the most used and now there's Laravel - that's a big thing in the php community - you'll like it, if you work with rails. Not sure why you mentioned php, python and then..rails :T

Use whatever you like and create the next big thing.

A few other big things... \- MeteorJs \- PhantomJs \- Your idea here, using whatever you like ?

</comment><comment><USER4> Node is interesting, and frameworks like Meteor are similarly interesting, but Rails is still dominant and it does not look like Rails will decline greatly any time soon.

Obviously, though, any web developer is going to need to know Javascript. On the client side, use of Javascript frameworks like Ember/Angular are clearly the future.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just use the right tech for the job. Javascript is not new cool, its already cool.. its just the pitch you're getting.

</comment><comment><USER6> I guess HTML5 is on the path of replacing javascript, although its still no way near to javascript but not sure what magic it can do.

If javascript would be next big thing then surely can't reach there without HTML5.

</comment><comment><USER7> JavaScript is (sort of) what Visual Basic used to be back in the 90s...</comment>


Thousands of Apps Secretly Run Ads That Users Can't See - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-23/thousands-of-apps-secretly-run-ads-that-users-can-t-see

<comment><USER2> The actual study is [http://forensiq.com/download/Forensiq- MobileDeviceHijacking-...](http://forensiq.com/download/Forensiq- MobileDeviceHijacking-201507.pdf)

Highlights:

* For each suspect app, they took a factory-reset device or emulator, installed it, then observed packet captures

* They estimated advertisers lose 13% of ad spend to fraud

* They captured a script that simulated random clicks on advertisers' landing pages

* They observed evidence of malicious apps spoofing the IDs of legitimate apps that don't show adds

* Malicious apps would "establish on average 1100 connections per minute and communicate with 320 ad networks, ad servers, exchanges and data providers in the course of an hour"

</comment><comment><USER3> I mean, I'm sure this is happening, but are they sure this isn't just sloppy prefetching? I've seen a lot of ad sdk's do this poorly, for example if you drop in five ad sdks with a sloppy mediation layer on it, all of them could just prefetch a bunch of ads when you first launch the app. Are they sure these apps are actually reporting forged impressions?

</comment><comment><USER4> Developers protecting the user experience, while finding some way to make revenue.

I'm not saying it's right. But revenue is a puzzle. People hate ads in apps.

<comment><USER5> Is finding that an app used 2 gigs of data when it is supposed to be an offline experience considered "protecting the user experience"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ad partners are going to notice a horrible CTR. This is a kind of fraud that doesn't last long.

</comment><comment><USER7> Android and iOS have /etc/hosts, which you can edit if you jailbreak. I dont know about Windows phone, they run something from Nokia.

Some but not all Android devices permit you to install firmware you build yourself. Drivers for undocumented chips can be a problem

You can block IPs at your firewall. I havent actually tried it but I understand you can install a VPS client so you could use a firewall even when you're at a wifi spot.</comment>


Crowdfunding is the new MVP - <AUTHOR> http://fr.anc.is/2012/07/16/crowdfunding-is-the-new-mvp/

<comment><USER2> Crowd funding is certainly an interesting way to validate your value proposition, but I am not sure I would call it a _minimal_ viable product considering the amount of work a crowd funding effort requires.</comment>


What happens when a newspaper disappears? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14082998 <comment><USER2> By coincidence, I just watched this lecture by David Simon on the same topic. David Simon is the creator of the TV series _The Wire_ and a former print journalist.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8E8xBXFLKE>

He discusses a recurring theme on _The Wire_ about the decline of a town's main newspaper, and how this results in blatant corruption going unnoticed. Simon doesn't think bloggers offer a true replacement. Personally I'm more optimistic about the Internet, but his opinion is worth your time.

<comment><USER3> Simon's testimony before congress a few months back was easily one of the most powerful speeches I have heard in a long time. They will chronicle it in future editions of "Great American Speeches".

[http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/7/david_simon_creator_of_...](http://www.democracynow.org/2009/5/7/david_simon_creator_of_acclaimed_hbo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nicely written article, but no deep insights here.

Basically points out that older folks will suffer most from the loss of local newspapers, but that people can find another way to spread information if they need to.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's time to bring back the town crier: <http://www.londontowncrier.com/> :)

<comment><USER6> Newspaper's time has come (and gone) - its not the concept that's going away, its just the media it appears on. There will always be news 'organizations' - they might morph into a much more diverse and distributed form, but that's just progress. Any sufficiently complex system evolves. Think of this as de- urbanization. Rather than central metropolitan news organizations the news is going rural.

There is a school of thought (that I don't disagree with) that says that a free press is a tenet of democracy, so if that's true there will always be free news reporting. It just wont come to us on dead trees.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are chances of winning the lottery really that small? - <AUTHOR>

Yesterday afternoon I went to play the lottery card that my mother gave me while I was heading for the gym. While returning home I searched for a lottery play point on the street. She seldomly asks for it and I seldomly do this. I played it, paid around $5 (I'm in Turkey, 9 liras) and headed back home.
This morning we found out that she got 5 out of 6 numbers right. She won around $1500. I thought, what are the chances?
In Turkey its simple, there are 6 numbers that you need to get right, numbers 1 to 49 for each 6 slots. So the chance of getting 5 numbers right should be 1/49 * 1/49 ... which is 1/49^5 right? and that makes 1 in 282,475,249. That is one in 282 million 475 thousand 249th.
I find this to be a very low number. Even 1 in 1000 is very low. Now, I know that my Aunt, 10 years ago had hit 5 out of 6 numbers, too.
So what does this make, the chances are 1/282 millionth, yet every now and then someone in my close family hits it? It feels like there is some other forces of nature than pure chances in this. From Mr. Murphy: "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong" or the way I like to phrase it "If something can happen, it will happen". <comment><USER2> You've defined the number of permutations if each number can be picked more than once not the number of combinations. Unless the numbers need to be picked in order:

49 * 48 * 47 * 46 * 45 * 44 (each time you pick, there is one fewer item in the pool)

But, since the order in which the items are picked isn't important:

10068347520 (product above) / (6 * 5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1)

or

1:13983816

Your odds for winning five out of six would be calculated the same way:

49 * 48 * 47 * 46 * 45 / (5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1)

or

1:1906884 - roughly 1 in 2 million.

However, since she picked those numbers and won, do you know what the odds are that those numbers will win again?

1:1906884 - roughly 1 in 2 million. Like a coin toss, yesterday's results have no influence on today's results.

I consider those wins to be lucky, but, I certainly wouldn't start throwing cash at the lottery expecting similar wins.

</comment><comment><USER3> Consider selection bias: You'll only hear about the people who won. Those who bought a ticket and lost say nothing, because everyone knows that the chances of winning a lottery are dismal to say the least. So you only hear about winners!</comment>


I'm traveling to China with my laptop/cellphone, how I keep them secure? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/technology/electronic-security-a-worry-in-an-age-of-digital-espionage.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm traveling to China next week for tourism. The flight is 14h long so I was thinking to bring my devices. However, I came across some articles that suggest wiping out devices after coming back to the US. What's real about Chinese hacking? How can my iOS devices/laptop get infected by just connecting to Wi-fi?

From the article: > He leaves his cellphone and laptop at home and instead brings "loaner" devices, which he erases before he leaves the United States and wipes clean the minute he returns. In China, he disables Bluetooth and Wi- Fi, never lets his phone out of his sight and, in meetings, not only turns off his phone but also removes the battery, for fear his microphone could be turned on remotely. He connects to the Internet only through an encrypted, password-protected channel, and copies and pastes his password from a USB thumb drive. He never types in a password directly, because, he said, "the Chinese are very good at installing key-logging software on your laptop."</comment>


Function types in Go - <AUTHOR> http://jordanorelli.tumblr.com/post/42369331748/function-types-in-go-golang

<comment><USER2> Go's support for first-class functions definitely sparked my interest in the language. But one thing that Javascript, Python and Ruby programmers would expect of higher order function support is the ability to use the general collection methods such as map, reduce, filter (or inject, collect, fold - whatever they are called in your language). So far as I can tell, generalized functions of these types are not really possible. You could write some that were typed interface{} and then did explicit casts in the closures you passed, but that would not be nearly as elegant as what other languages provide. I believe in a static type system without generics this is not really possible, and this is really (to me) the most painful cost from the lack of generic support.

<comment><USER3> Go is an opinionated language. Go people would just tell you to write the loop; that's what it's there for.

<comment><USER4> The loop was a trivial example. Less trivial examples are not possible either. For instance, I'd like to write a function that takes in a channel and returns a (directional) channel that has been turned asynchronous, by running a goroutine that manages a queue and doing some other things above and beyond what a merely buffered channel does (emulating Erlang's way of managing async messages with backoff timeouts), but I can't do that correctly and safely. I haven't completely written this function in fact but it's certainly at least 20 lines.

I'm making a list of the things that I tried to do in the language, then couldn't; I'm up to four right now, each of which are not trivial examples, but are instances of code that I must repeat because I can not refactor it. This is not a plus. (My list is at home and I'm not, and I'm sort of saving it for a blog post anyhow, but this is representative; not _killer_ , but the issues compound as the program gets large.)

Mind you, I know the language is young, etc etc, and I support the idea of doing it right rather than doing it sooner, nor am I attached to "generics" as the only possible solution. However, there is a real problem here for refactorability, and I would not want the Go community to build too much of a metaphorical callous around this issue and get to the point where they just reflexively respond with annoyance. There _is_ a problem here.

<comment><USER5> What you're after here is called parametric polymorphism (commonly known as "generics"). Go does not have it. Debates still rage on the ML about whether to have it or not, but nobody has yet come up with an implementation makes most happy.

Go does have polymorphism though, in the form of subtype polymorphism. In Go, it is achieved using interfaces.

Subtype polymorphism typically has more programmer overhead than parametric polymorphism, so it is not used for simpler things like a generic map, fold, etc. However, it can be used to reduce code duplication in other cases, like sorting (among many other things).

<comment><USER6> I almost missed your ML pun. To the uninitiated, ML was the first language supporting parametric polymorphism around 1976.

What is interesting about Go's subtype polymorphism is that it is structurally subtyped.. so A is a subtype of B if it fits the description of B, it does not need to explicitly declare that it "supports" or "implements" B.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really liked this treatment of first-class functions. It started off slow, with a lot of trivial, contrived examples that should be obvious to anyone who has ever seen first-class functions in any language. But then there were some very pragmatic patterns, with standard library examples, that used recursive function types and methods on function types to build some very neat APIs. Building a lexer out of a recursive function type actually sounds like a really cool thing to try, if I find some free time I want to try it without looking at Go's standard library `text/template` lexer and see how it compares.

<comment><USER8> > Building a lexer out of a recursive function type actually sounds like a > really cool thing to try

Rob Pike did just that for Go's text/template package (<http://golang.org/pkg/text/template/>).

See the source lexer source code at <http://golang.org/src/pkg/text/template/parse/lex.go> and note that _stateFn_ is defined recursively.

There's a video by Pike describing how he built the parser at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxaD_trXwRE>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Function types in Go can also have methods."

Wow, blew my mind... this has never occurred to me but, of course, why not?

Not sure yet how I am going to abuse that feature, but already looking forward to it.

<comment><USER10> The HandlerFunc type in net/http (<http://golang.org/pkg/net/http/#HandlerFunc>) does this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Probably my favourite thing about Go. The ability to create a DSL with a systems level language is kind of amazing.

</comment><comment><USER12> I never really noticed how similar Go's function expressions are to JavaScript's before, but I'm now pretty certain they were one of the (subconscious) factors that got me into Go.

</comment><comment><USER13> Anonymous functions as an expression do have their purpose, unlike the author has stated, especially when you want to isolate different blocks of code from each other by putting them each in a different scope.

</comment><comment><USER14> Always fun to see examples of first-class functions; thank you for the read!</comment>


What Is Bayesian/Frequentist Inference? - <AUTHOR> https://normaldeviate.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/what-is-bayesianfrequentist-inference/ <comment><USER2> I don't think this guy understands the debate. A quick summary:

If you think statistics is a big toolbox, some of the tools give different answers that are better or worse in various ways, and you can just take out whatever tool you like, you're a frequentist.

If you think that there's such a thing as a correct probability estimate, and all coherent reasoning is required to come up with consistent answers regardless of which different path was taken to arrive at the same destination, you're a Bayesian. From this perspective, a "confidence interval" isn't a tool that's useful on some occasions, it's just plain crazy and wrong, like a weather forecaster who only tells you the probability that it's raining here _xor_ in Narnia. Sure, the forecast is generated by a process that's sorta related to the correct answer, but by manipulating the imaginary land of Narnia you can make the forecast be basically anything. With Bayesianism there are no degrees of freedom in the likelihood ratio you report. See <http://xkcd.com/1132/>.

It doesn't do any good to appeal to the idea that Bayesian methods are just one tool in the toolbox. Only frequentists think in terms of toolboxes in the first place.

Also Bayes's Rule is tautologically equivalent to Bayes's Theorem. There's more wrong, but meanwhile, color me unimpressed.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't want to go up against Eliezer Yudkowsky casually, but here goes: the guy is basically correct. (Although I also didn't follow his statement that Bayes Theorem != Bayes Rule.)

You can see my essay here, where I express a similar view: [http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between- Bayesian...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Bayesian-and- frequentist-statisticians)

Confidence intervals and credibility intervals are both mathematical objects that have well-specified (and different) properties. Confidence intervals are a worst-case technique and posterior probabilities are a sort of average-case technique. It's not "wrong" to say that the worst-case runtime of QuickSort is O(n^2) and it's not wrong to say that, given a uniform probability distribution over inputs, the expected runtime is O(n log n).

Which statement is useful to make depends on your requirements. They're both true.

In my "100 independent robots" example, for instance, the credibility interval or posterior probability produces answers that are not helpful for the application (and not particularly intuitive either -- the 70% credibility interval is "wrong" 80% of the time, given a certain value of the parameter). This can be a question of engineering and there's no need to be dogmatic about it.

It is perverse and incorrect to say that "Only frequentists think in terms of toolboxes"! All mathematicians and engineers have access to the whole world of theorems and algorithms and techniques, all of them true, or meeting their specifications. No mathematician would argue that the Chinese remainder theorem is wrong because they are a Galois theorist! And no practitioner of Bayesian methods should argue that confidence intervals that meet their worst- case coverage guarantee are "wrong" because the person uses posterior probabilities.

(My quibble here is with dogmatism, not with Bayesians, because the dogmatic frequentists are just as bad. They just don't hang out on Hacker News.)

<comment><USER4> I would hesitate a great deal before entering an argument with either Larry Wasserman _or_ Eliezer Yudkowsky, but here goes.

You're right that if, for whatever reason, someone is fascinated by "coverage" then confidence intervals will answer their questions better than Bayesian posteriors. But I think Eliezer's right that there's something _very wrong_ with thinking that "coverage" in this sense is what matters.

Let's consider your example again. In what circumstances is the following actually a useful problem to solve? "Given an observation of one thing from a box, tell me a set of box-types in such a way that for each box-type you'll choose a set including the right one at least 70% of the time."

I can think of some. For example: a mad scientist starts sending you boxes, with instructions to start guessing; he's going to monitor your results on each box-type and if he sees you getting any type of box wrong more than about 30% of the time he'll kill you. Otherwise he'll reward you for nominating fewer box-types each time. But (1) that's a desperately contrived situation and (2) the most diehard Bayesian, in that situation, will produce something like "confidence intervals" because that's what Bayesian decision theory says to do.

Is there any not-so-contrived situation where the problem solved by confidence intervals is actually an important one?

By the way, my best guess about the Rule / Theorem thing is that he's distinguishing between a theorem about conditional probabilities, and a normative rule saying "when you get new information, update your beliefs like so".

<comment><USER3> > the most diehard Bayesian, in that situation, will produce something like > "confidence intervals" because that's what Bayesian decision theory says to > do.

I disagree that this is what "Bayesian" decision theory says to do. It's what decision theory says to do, and it's what math says to do, and it's what the constraints require. It's not particularly "Bayesian" -- it's just what you have to do.

If everything that happens to be the correct answer (including frequentist confidence intervals when called for) is now described as Bayesian, then the term has no meaning and we are all Bayesians. :-)

> Is there any not-so-contrived situation where the problem solved by > confidence intervals is actually an important one?

What would you do in the case of my 100 robots, where you want 70 of them to come to the correct decision, and they have to make their decisions independently? Having them all calculate a posterior independently works terribly (as I showed, 80% of them come to the wrong conclusion with >73% belief). Confidence intervals work a heck of a lot better.

The optimal approach would consider what single algorithm works best when run independently. Finding these solutions (on, e.g., a decentralized POMDP) is an open problem.

<comment><USER4> I called it Bayesian because it describes what Bayesians will do. It does indeed also describe what anyone else sane will do. The point is that in order to make confidence intervals the right answer you need a situation weird enough to make even Bayesians use confidence intervals.

In the case of your 100 robots, _why_ am I supposed to want 70 of them to come to the correct decision? This seems just like my mad-scientist example: contrived to force confidence intervals (or something very like them) to be the right answer. Can you explain in what sort of situation this would be a sensible thing to care about?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _The Goal of Bayesian Inference: Quantify and manipulate your degrees of beliefs. In other words, Bayesian inference is the Analysis of Beliefs._

Bayesian inference is no more about beliefs than logic is (or any scientific inference, really). "M(G) AND C(M) => C(G)" can be rendered as "If you believe that glass is a metal, and you believe that metals are good conductors, then you should also believe that glass is a good conductor". Scientists omit the "if you believe" out of conciseness.

Some subjective Bayesians will tell you that their job is to produce the above. Then they're done. "You said you believe that glass is a metal, so I put that into my Bayesian inference procedure, and it says that you should also believe that glass is a good conductor."

But this is not what science is about! Obviously, "glass is a conductor" strongly contradicts empirical data. We have to challenge every assumption, and possibly change models!

This is why smart Bayesians check the fit of their model, and I would strongly recommend Gelman's Induction and Deduction in Bayesian Data Analysis to any statistician interested in that perspective. It places Bayesianism squarely in the paradigm of traditional scientific analysis.

<http://www.rmm-journal.de/downloads/Article_Gelman.pdf>

<comment> loup-vaillant "Metal" only refer to a set of kinds of matter. A set _we_ shaped because it helps us make useful inferences without using too much brain power. Like the fast rules: "Most metals are good conductors", "Most metals are strong", "Most metals are hard", "Most metals are heavy".

Then someone comes and shows you that new material called "glass" that is heavy, hard, and strong (this one is bullet proof). You'd be quick to infer that it is a metal, and therefore probably a good conductor. But didn't we tell you that most metals are opaque?

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_insid...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_inside/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree with much of this, and tend to be fairly ecumenical/pragmatic in my own choice of tools, but there are two things that lead to the "identity statistics" that are only briefly covered here, I think.

One is the entire philosophical debate, e.g. at least some Bayesians think arguments against the coherence of frequentist statistics are damning enough to make it questionable whether the methods should be considered rigorous statistics at all (admittedly this is basically the hardline view) [1].

The other is that it's not always agreed when it's appropriate to look for coverage versus to analyze beliefs, partly due to the philosophical debate, and partly because often what you ultimately want is a _decision_ , and there are arguments for whether you should base decisions on frequentist-coverage machinery, or on belief-update machinery. For example, to move slightly afield from bounding a parameter, let's say we want an estimate of the region in which bombs are likely to fall. This can be formulated in frequentist statistics as a tolerance interval, with two decision thresholds, one for how many bombs we want to bound, and one for how confident we want to be in the bound: we want an interval that includes at least x% of the population with y% confidence, e.g. that with 99% confidence we'll bound 99% of bombs [2]. On the other hand, it can be formulated as a question about belief: essentially, we want to find the range in which we believe (for some suitably conservative definition of belief) we are going to find falling bombs, which Bayesian predictive statistics looks at.

[1] One famous/infamous such argument: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likelihood_principle>

[2] I wrote a bit on why tolerance intervals should really be a more prominent part of the frequentist toolbox: <http://www.kmjn.org/notes/tolerance_intervals.html>

<comment><USER7> >let's say we want an estimate of the region in which bombs are likely to fall.

That seems like fundamentally the wrong sort of question. You never actually care directly about something like -- the point of statistics is to inform some decision-making process. And it almost always becomes more obvious how to proceed when you keep in mind what you're actually using the stats for.

<comment><USER8> _the point of statistics is to inform some decision-making process._

An estimate of the region in which bombs are likely to fall would directly inform your decision-making process ("Don't go over there!") so I don't understand your objection.

<comment><USER9> I don't know what shardling intended, but here's my take on it: the kind of estimate you want depends on the question you want to answer. I live in California, so the analysis I'm doing on the rockets coming out of Gaza is likely very different from the one being performed by the people living in Tel Aviv. And both of those analyses are different from the ones being performed by Hamas. So there is no such thing as a reliable "estimate of the region in which bombs are likely to fall" independent of the particular question you want to answer.

Another example, from the original article:

"a weather forecaster is good if it rains 95 percent of the times he says there is a 95 percent chance of rain"

It's not clear whether or not there's something special about the number 95, or whether the intent is that a forecaster is good if it rains X% of the time he says there's an X% chance of rain for any X. So consider a 100 day period during which it rains 10 days, and a forecaster who every day predicts a 10% chance of rain. Is that a "good" forecast? If you're a farmer, it might be. If you're planning a picnic, not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _sigh_ Here we go again. Inferential statistics is unified by a field called decision theory, which is the mathematical formulation of how you choose a "good" mapping from the set of possible outcomes from your experiments to a set of possible decisions.

Bayesian and frequentist are interpretations of probability theory, nor are they the only ones (nor are all interpretations even concerned with a formalization of a notion of "chance"). They are not necessary to statistics.

<comment> loup-vaillant You mean _causal_ decision theory?

 _Omega comes to you and presents two boxes. One is transparent and contains $1000. The other is opaque. Then Omega says "I give you 2 choices: either you take the two boxes, or you take only the opaque one. I have studied your brain, and have predicted your choice. If I have predicted that you will take only the opaque box, I have put $1M in it. If I have predicted you will take both boxes, I put nothing in it." Note that when Omega comes to you, the content of the opaque box is already fixed. So. What do you chose?_

Decision theory is not solved yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> <http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes_theorem#Bayes.27s_rule>

What is the difference between Bayes Rule and Bayes Theorem?

<comment><USER12> Also from that Wikipedia article, "The application of Bayes's theorem to update beliefs is called Bayesian inference."

While this guy says,

"Bayesian Inference {\neq} Using Bayes Theorem"

If this guy is correct, he should update the wiki...

<comment><USER5> Bayes' theorem and Bayes' rule are essentially the same equation. Most people will use the two interchangeably.

Bayesianism is a perspective on how to do modelling under uncertainty. It doesn't reduce to "use Bayes' theorem", even though all Bayesian inference will do that in some fashion.

<comment><USER12> Hm, I guess the point of contention would be the "to update beliefs"?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


An Immune Disorder at the Root of Autism - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/opinion/sunday/immune-disorders-and-autism.html <comment><USER2> The autoimmune hypothesis is yet another autism hypothesis that is advanced primarily by parents, because it offers more hope than a neurological etiology. A lot of people hold strongly to the hope that autism is just a set of symptoms that are triggered by something tangible and readily treatable like a nutritional deficiency or a food allergy, rather than a permanent difference in brain structure. The available evidence points very clearly in one direction - genetics.

It also bears repeating that what we call "severe autism" is really "some amount of autism comorbid with very low IQ". Autism is routinely overdiagnosed in preference to a more accurate diagnosis of intellectual disability because parents prefer it, again because it offers more hope, largely due to the popular trope of the autistic savant.

Parents of severely disabled children naturally hold out for any source of hope and I don't judge them for that in any way, but we can't let that get in the way of the science that really is their child's best hope. There is no evidence for the hygiene hypothesis.

<comment><USER3> Do you have any basis for saying the autoimmune hypothesis is "advanced primarily by parents?"

I ask because I have a son with autism, and I have met leading immunologists in famous medical schools who subscribe to this hypothesis. That doesn't make the hypothesis right, but it is taken far more seriously than your comment would imply.

Second, "severe autism is really some amount of autism with very low IQ" part is also wrong in my opinion. Autism can be so severe that it makes IQ irrelevant (even in cases where it can be demonstrated to be high). The analogy here is with other mental illnesses like schizophrenia - when it is severe enough, it masks every other trait of that person, including IQ. That does not mean "severe schizophrenia is really some amount of schizophrenia combined with very low IQ". There are many severely autistic individuals who also demonstrate high IQ in specific areas (but still cannot lead anything close to a normal life), directly contradicting your statement.

I expect a little more thoughtfulness on a top comment in HN.

<comment><USER2> The basis for my comment on the autoimmune is relatively poorly documented, because by definition it happened outside of academic literature. A bit of intelligent Googling will turn up a great deal of lay discussion that substantially pre-dates the earliest peer-reviewed publications on the subject. It is clear from perusing the relevant discussion forums that there are a great many parents who are advocating the autoimmune hypothesis; While this of course has no bearing on the validity of the theory itself, it is highly pertinent when considering the theory's prominence in the mainstream media.

As regards autism and IQ, your analogy to schizophrenia is completely inaccurate. Someone with high IQ can develop strategies to ameliorate essentially every aspect of their autistic symptoms - learning social and communication skills, structuring their life to deal with overstimulation, participating in behavioural therapy to minimise repetitive and autostimulative behaviours etc. Schizophrenics are by definition unaware that their delusional beliefs are delusional, whereas any intelligent autistic can be made aware of their social deficits and behavioural quirks and can learn to adapt around them.

As you said, some autistic people have high IQ in some areas but are still unable to live a normal life, but this is because their cognitive problems render them unable to overcome their autism symptoms. A specific cognitive impairment is still a cognitive impairment - strong arms do not nullify paraplegia.

While it may be the case that there are some individuals that have high IQ but severe levels of impairment, they are very much outliers. There is no generally-accepted classification for the severity of autism symptoms, but it is worth noting that those systems which simply use IQ are not obviously less useful than more complex schemes; IQ correlates as strongly with functional impairment as any other factor.

<comment><USER4> > Schizophrenics are by definition unaware that their delusional beliefs are > delusional

delusions are not necessary for a schizophrenia diagnosis

also, during periods of convalescence, on hallucinations: "they may learn to ignore them, or treat them as benign accompaniments of everyday living" --<http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/delusions.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have references to studies regarding this? The author has a long history of advocating a link between parasite load and auto-immune disease (c.f. [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29wwln- essay-t.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/magazine/29wwln- essay-t.html?_r=1) from 2008), and since the Wakefield scandal I'm generally skeptical of non-journal articles attempting to link autism and inflammation.

The article is advertisement for the author's book, and I can't find any indication that the author has an educational background in biology. Based on his book's Amazon page, he's a journalist.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Does anyone have references to studies regarding this?_

Thank you for asking that essential follow-up question for most submissions on HN. Some of the references that turn up in a Google Scholar search

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2008&q=autism+a...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2008&q=autism+autoimmune)

include free full-text download links, so we can follow up on this.

 _The author has a long history of advocating a link between parasite load and auto-immune disease_

Yes, I also checked out the author as I submitted this article. He has postgraduate training in science writing, has worked for The Christian Science Monitor (a dodgy publication for medical reporting), and has been published in other professionally edited publications for his freelance science reporting. I thought the submitted article had enough caution of statement and names of actual researchers to be worth discussing here. The article is certainly far from the last word on the subject, but may point to a line of research that will be helpful in SOME (but certainly not all) efforts to reduce the incidence of autism in the future and to help children after they develop autism.

AFTER EDIT:

Some readers here may be interested in looking at the original case report by Leo Kanner that first described autism.

<http://www.neurodiversity.com/library_kanner_1943.html>

An author who I think provides a helpful intercultural perspective on autism and its diagnosis is Roy Grinker,

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan- june11/grinkerext_...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan- june11/grinkerext_04-19.html)

who has studied autism in cultural contexts outside the United States.

<comment><USER6> Why is CSM dodgy for medical reporting?

<comment><AUTHOR> A fair question. It's my understanding that the Christian Science Monitor attempts to be phenomenological and "objective" in all of its reporting, and some readers have long prized that publication for precisely those characteristics. But it's important to note that the Christian Science Monitor is the house publication of the Christian Science religious denomination, and that the denomination has a view of health and disease that is not mainstream and not evidence-based. (I write this as someone who has visited the Mother Church in Boston and has heard about both the denomination and the newspaper at their headquarters offices as an interpreter for officials from China who were studying religious diversity in the United States.) Thus, on this story I was much more inclined to submit a link from the New York Times (different editorial tendencies) than I would be to submit an article by the same author from the Christian Science Monitor. Most journalists benefit from submitting their work to an editor.

<comment><USER6> The CSM is not an organ for the Christian Science church. Is there some reason we believe the guy who wrote this post is a Christian Scientist?

You called this piece into question in part because of a _past affiliation_ with the CSM. The CSM is a credible journalism venue; it's not fair to attribute fundamentalist Christian Science beliefs on people who happened to have worked there.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.csmonitor.com/About/The-Monitor-difference>

<comment><USER6> Right; this is a lengthier restatement of what I just said. The CSM isn't _L'Osservatore Romano_. It's a serious (if lately diminished) news venue.

Anyways, my point is simple: fundamentalist Christian Science devotees might lack credibility in medical debates. But people who have merely at some point in their careers affiliated with the CSM do not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If the immune-response hypothesis pans out (it's only a correlation at the moment), it would lead to an irony of modern times -- a modern household's level of cleanliness can cause:

* Asthma

* Autism

* Allergies

* Immune system dysfunctions

All these conditions are now "linked" to the "hygiene hypothesis," the idea that we're not doing ourselves any favors by creating near-sterile living environments. A quote from the article:

"Scientists have repeatedly observed that people living in environments that resemble our evolutionary past, full of microbes and parasites, don't suffer from inflammatory diseases as frequently as we do."

I emphasize about the linked article that it represents a correlation, not a cause-effect relationship. We won't be able to say with any certainly what causes autism until we can trace its evolution step by step, from a specific environmental stimulus to a biological mechanism, with all the steps fully described. We're not yet close to that goal.

<comment><USER8> Yeah but we are also much less likely to die at 6 months due to chronic diarrhea caused by cholera.

<comment><USER7> You're posing a false choice -- between well-understood public health threats on one hand, and sterile environments on the other. There's a large, unexplored territory between the two.

<comment><USER9> The unexplored territory might be better, or it might not. Still, cleanliness has far more I think it's favor than the previous state of the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The TL:DR; I get from this is: "we're clean freaks, and thus our immune systems go wonky and start attacking good things because they lack bad things to go after, including unborn children that get autism as a result"

This totally validates my need to go play in the mud and eat sketchy food from carts on the street.

<comment><USER8> We're "clean freaks" because we've learned that there are harmful microbes and parasites in the world. Millions die/have died of disease such as cholera and typhoid that are spread chiefly by poor hygiene. The parasites we don't get as a result of having clean water and sanitary sewers are on balance harmful to us.

I'm not sure I buy the "hygiene is harmful" argument or that we've gone overboard with it. I think a lot of other factors that have changed in the past 60 years might factor in, including a misguided government/agribusiness lead food pyramid that is way out of balance with our pre-civilization diets, as well as the introduction of highly processed and sweetened food that for many of us forms the majority of our diets.

<comment><USER11> > I'm not sure I buy the "hygiene is harmful" argument or that we've gone > overboard with it.

You can be hygienic and still cultivate behaviors that increase your exposure to safe levels of microbes. For instance, I always wash my hands after using the toilet but I'm less concerned than most about the use-by dates on food products and prefer to make decisions based on my sense of smell and taste. Not sure if that's a good example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Without getting into too much detail, my wife had complications during her pregnancies. My older son (3) is autistic. My younger son might be as well. I'm not sure of the science behind what is being discussed here, but the specific elements it discusses match up with certain things that occurred during the pregnancy.

Oddly off-topic and yet on-topic for HN, I'm working on a startup idea to assist families with special needs. I've been trying to go it alone, but not having a partner is tough. No one to speak with, no one to work with. If anyone is interested, even if it's just to chat, email me (found in my profile). I'm bad at asking for help. =/

<comment><USER13> Would you like some anecdotal encouragement?

My mom had a serious liver infection during her second trimester while carrying my older brother. He turned out autistic. After years of dressing down people about vaccines and other snake-oil causes of autism, she forwarded this article to me with one line, "This must be the reason." FWIW.

Anyway, I came two years later without complications. I also exhibited many odd behaviors that worried my parents at first, but wound up not being autistic.

Hang in there and keep your chin up. Your younger son might be fine.

<comment><USER12> > Hang in there and keep your chin up. Your younger son might be fine.

He is fine. I know that's not what you mean, but regardless of the diagnosis, he is a wonderful child, and I would not have him any other way. My worry isn't for my children, but for the way society treats those with autism.

It's hard to explain. Thanks though. =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would like to remind HN that autism being a syndrome, it is likely to be several distinct illnesses with different genetic and environmental factors.

<comment><USER15> That's not correct. If something is a syndrome it is _more_ likely to be a single distinct illness rather than multiple distinct ones.

I.e., suppose 50% of people suffer headaches, 50% suffer nausea, and 50% suffer aching back. Further, suppose 12.5% (= 50% x 50% x 50%) of people suffer all three symptoms - in this case, the three symptoms put together are NOT a syndrome.

On the other hand, suppose 40% of people suffered headaches, nausea and aching back _together_. In that case the three symptoms together are a syndrome.

A syndrome is probabilistic evidence that there is an underlying cause of multiple co-occurring symptoms.

<comment><USER14> You are right, I should have written more explanations. Autism is quite special in that the symptoms are behavioral: impairments in social interaction and communication, restricted interests and repetitive behavior (this list is on Wikipedia). These are very different from aches and other simple physical manifestations. In fact, when we try to look for simpler symptoms, the set of symptoms becomes blur, in that no other symptom can be found always present together with to those core behavioral ones. The variety of more physical manifestations of autism hints at a variety of root causes. E.g., gastrointestinal issues are common but not always there. Cerebellar anomalies too. etc...

Sorry, I wrote that up fast, if you are interested you can write a reply, I'll try answering tomorrow, it's late for me now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just last week I read that it could be caused by an older father: [http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-older- fath...](http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-older-fathers-- genetic-mutations-autism-schizophrenia20120822,0,4956716.story)

<comment><USER17> Greg Cochrane mentions that here, <http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/paternal-age/> , in the context of the influence of paternal age on mutation rates, and excessive numbers of mutations having negative influences on fitness and health.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A story on This American Life about a guy who got hookworms intentionally to deal with his immune disorder: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/404/e...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/404/enemy-camp-2010?act=3)

<comment><USER19> I have a friend who did the same.

It worked. He has now gone a year and a half without medication, and is in massively better shape than he was on the (expensive and only marginally effective) medications.

<comment><USER20> Here's my anecdote.

I suffer from psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. For the most part the psoriasis is not a big deal, it's disfiguring, but only on my legs, and it itches to the point that I'm perfectly capable of scratching long past the point that I'm bleeding. The psoriatic arthritis is another matter, untreated I live somewhere between 5-7 on the pain scale, shaking hands is nerve- wracking (please, no bone crusher handshakes - I do suffer from hand squeezy death) and I can barely walk.

On meds I'm basically fine. I use Humira which if I understand correctly is a human monoclonal antibody glued to a receptor that interferes with something to do with T-cells. I.e. it causes a specific immune suppression that massively reduces the process that causes the psoriasis and arthritis symptoms - oh and I'm 100x more likely to get skin cancer.

I've been off meds for over 6 months now with very limited impact on my life. All I did was cut out refined sugars and grain from my diet.

I discovered this by accident (too lazy to refill my prescription, then realized that I hadn't refilled in ages and yet wasn't in pain)

I think that there's a huge load we don't understand in the relationship between inflammation and autoimmune conditions; there are many things that are involved

Just my 2¢, I love science so please disregard my anecdotal ramblings

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's worth mentioning the GAPS diet here I think: <http://www.gaps.me/>. It seems that autoimmune/inflammatory problems are being associated with more and more diseases.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have multiple sclerosis and acquired hookworms about 3 years ago as an attempt to prevent further relapses. HN isn't exactly the place for this, but if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer.

</comment><comment><USER23> If the hygiene hypothesis is correct, then month of birth/conception should have an effect on the risk of autism. Here is a report about a study which found that autism is most likely in children conceived in winter: [http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/05/news/la-heb- autism-w...](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/05/news/la-heb-autism- winter-conception-20110505). There was another study which "debunks" the month of birth claim, but I cannot find a link to it.

<comment><USER9> On the other hand, perhaps due to school schedules in the US, or perhaps highly intelligent people having less sex in the summer time due to other correlations, winter conceptions correlate to higher academic success as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What I find most interesting about this article is that it offers a way to diagnose autism with something more than behavioral symptoms. I don't know if it will be reliable, but it might be something parent with kids on the fringes of autistic spectrum would want to try. There's always advice floating around that their kid is fine, just a little slow etc. If we can do brain scans and find out if their levels of inflammation are above normal, there would be more certainty.

</comment><comment><USER25> _> And yet, a trial is under way at the Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine testing a medicalized parasite called Trichuris suis in autistic adults._

Montefiore representin'! (Too bad they failed to mention the names of any of the people involved at Montefiore/Einstein so I could walk over to their lab and look at their posters or talk to them.)

</comment><comment><USER26> Pre-birth genetic testing (e.g. <http://www.lineagen.com/>) seems like a pretty effective way to end autism. It works effectively with Down's Syndrome.

<comment><USER27> > Pre-birth genetic testing

What exactly will that do? Unless it is fragile-X or something that can be proven using genetic testing, it won't help at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If this is true, then it makes sense that vaccines could trigger the symptoms of autism. Looks like the Internet owes Jenny McCarthy an apology.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your comment is untrue. As the author of the submitted article notes about a related proposed explanation for autism incidence, "First, in the broadest sense, the epidemiology doesn't jibe." And that has always been the problem with the lawyer-profit-motivated hypothesis about vaccines and autism: it never matched the epidemiological evidence.

<http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism/index.html>

<http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10997>

<http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/cc-mmr.htm>

<http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm>

[http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/08/04/andrew- wakefiel...](http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/08/04/andrew-wakefield- dismissed/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/jenny- mccarthy...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/jenny-mccarthy-jim- carrey-and-green-our-vaccines-anti-vaccine-not-pro-safe-vaccine/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/dr-google- and-...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/dr-google-and-mr-hyde/)

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/an- antivaccine...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/an-antivaccine- tale-of-two-legal-actions/)

<comment><USER28> I'm merely arguing that vaccines could possibly bring out or affect the severity of the symptoms of autism. None of the studies seem to study the severeness of autisms... just the rates, which would be unaffected if autism is already determined by a different factor (apparently age of the father may be one).

It's so scary to see how many people refuse to open their minds to possibilities outside their preconceived notions. The responses in this thread are a prime example.

<comment><USER17> "You should have an open mind, but not so open all your brains run out."

In fact, the "hygiene hypothesis" is almost the diametric opposite; vaccines, by challenging our immune systems, would reduce the risk of autism. Not that it does that either, studies have repeatedly found no correlation between vaccination and autism.

<comment><USER29> Question: What of the chemical load that a vaccine or schedule of vaccines might carry? What if immune dysregulation has a tipping point? The tipping point could be a variety of things, including a vaccine. A second question: What if we need the full blown disease, along with the fever to properly train our immune systems? Mr. Manoff's article may have been well-written and fascinating and short on citations but it will raise important questions that need to be asked and answered without fear that everybody will skip their vaccines and we will all die of polio. I am certainly NOT directing this last sentence at you Mr. Swift. I am generally noting with a view to the entire discussion above that sometimes the scientific guild, like all of us, has allowed fear of what might happen to shape their answers to important questions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>