See all your purchases, subscriptions and reservations - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/7673989 <comment><USER2> A very good feature of gmail's extensive "email intelligence" that grew out of Inbox. How did you think the Purchases label worked? How did you think Google Now alerts you on your mobile when your packages are delivered?

If this surprises you you're going to be flabbergasted by how the Trips label works.

Oh yeah also Gmail and Now work together to bring you those reminders to pay your bills.

<comment><USER3> Why can't this be done offline?

<comment><USER4> > Why can't this be done offline?

Where? On every device a user owns?

<comment><USER5> Yes. A better question would be "why does google itself need this information when it's just a client side UI feature?"

<comment><USER6> Because... Google's business model. Your ability to see your purchase history on a Google page is neat, but it seems a safe bet that the real reason they want your purchase history is because their profile about you as a set of eyeballs becomes more valuable allowing them to charge higher rates on ads. Notice that they only claimed to have stopped scraping gmail for ad targeting purposes, not that they stopped scraping period.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always assumed they do this since they've recognized and surfaced flight and event information for years.

I thought about switching my email to iCloud but I'm afraid Apple's going to change the domain yet again. And gmail is hella reliable.

Google of old might have done something cool with this info and annotated the purchases with something like "14,391 people bought this for an average of $1.08 less" or "you pay $7.44 per month more than the average Comcast customer in your area" etc.

<comment><USER8> To counter on the point of "Google of old might have done something cool with this info"

This is very, VERY subjective. Even if Google did something like "you pay $7.44 per month more than the average Comcast customer in your area" there will be very similar posts detailing how 'Google reads your monthly payment data'.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but they're already reading your monthly payment data.

My point was just that Google gets and (probably) analyzes aggregate payment information but the user only gets what they already know. If Google is sucking up all of that data, they could at least give some insights to users too.

Now I'm curious to know if they're using this info to analyze competitor marketshare and/or set prices for competing services.

<comment><USER9> > Now I'm curious to know if they're using this info to analyze competitor > marketshare and/or set prices for competing services.

We already know they do... They'll even milk companies for money, bet against them, etc. It's clearly they should have their company broken up IMO (and I'm typically a libertarian)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18053819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18053819)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you used Inbox, it also categorizes flights, hotels, calendar entries, restaurant reservations, bills, newsletters, forums, social media updates, and a host of other useful functions, extracting out entities. The Finances, Purchases, and Trips bundles are extremely useful.

This information isn't solely surfaceable in Inbox or Gmail UI, go to any Google Search box and type "my purchases" or "my flights" or "my reservations".

</comment><comment><USER11> I kind of like this.

It's already in my email, which they host. I don't see why I should not want this feature, where they aggregate helpful information for me.

<comment><USER12> You can't think up a single reason why you might not want every purchase you've made in your entire life to be logged in a centralized database completely outside of your control and view which will be kept forever and shared with an unknowable amount of unknown powerful entities that do not care about your well-being?

Some people are going to have a very rough time when reality finally strikes them with all of its might. Perhaps it won't be you, but it will happen.

<comment><USER11> They already have my email receipts, what's the difference?

I use venmo - they have it too.

My credit card companies are private companies. Where's the outrage regarding them?

Google does not reveal my identity to partners; What you're spreading is fake news.

<comment><USER12> >Google does not reveal my identity to partners; What you're spreading is fake news. We know for a fact data was at least shared with the NSA in the past. We also know Google complies with legal requests, could have a partial data breach in the future, could change terms or undergo some type of merger or acquisition which would include your data, etc.

The point here is that it is completely outside of your control. If you want to give all of the control in your life to Google because they have treated you (mostly) well (so far), that's up to you. But as for myself and others, we will refrain because we can think up many reasons why it might not be a smart choice in the long run.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but now you're changing the argument from selling data for profit to simply complying with the law.

If Google complying with the law is something someone feels at-risk for, then I understand not choosing to use them. But that's really a lesson that goes for any centralized service.

<comment><USER12> I haven't claimed that Google sells your data for a profit. Other centralized services carry risks as well, but some of them have profit models that are focused on something other than scooping up every bit of data possible, with some even having profit models specifically focused on the opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I first read this was I was troubled, and I am certainly a Google critic, but it seems to specifically say this is for your usage only. It's not being used for their ad network or for them to see behavior. It's used in the same manner as tracking packages, etc. If or when they start using this for their own internal usage to see use purchasing behavior, and telling adwords customers what purchase/products were popular so they could convert, that's when I'd have a major problem with this. As it stands now, I don't see it as a major problem.

<comment><USER14> If a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. So today you don't see a major problem. Even though every single purchase you made in your entire life is being logged in a central database that's out of your control. OK. You are slowly being brought to a boil, and you're not perceiving the danger.

<comment><USER15> The legend of the frog being boiled slowly is actually completely false ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)). The frog will simply jump out when it notices that it gets too hot. Likewise, it's pretty easy to see the distinction between Google using information to help people vs. using information for profit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's also likely that Google buys a copy of your credit card purchase history.

>Google has been able to track your location using Google Maps for a long time. Since 2014, it has used that information to provide advertisers with information on how often people visit their stores. But store visits aren't purchases, so, as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with "third parties" that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases.

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now- tracks-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/607938/google-now-tracks-your- credit-card-purchases-and-connects-them-to-its-online-profile-of-you/)

Finding that tidbit out was my own personal bridge too far.

</comment><comment><USER17> Google reads all Gmail messages, presumably for targeted advertising. In this case it looks like they're giving folks a UI to look at (some of) what they're gathering.

</comment><comment><USER18> Am I overreacting by seriously considering starting the process of migrating from gmail? It's not this singular incident of course, but just the continued pattern of behavior from Google for the last couple years. I really have lost all faith in them respecting their users.

<comment><USER19> What do you mean by respect? Your privacy?

Move to Fastmail if that's what your after. You are using a free service, because you are the product. That's not about respect, it's about your (lack) of understanding of the business relationship you entered. If you aren't comfortable with that, you're going to have to pay actual money.

<comment><USER20> What assurances do you have that those paid services are actually respecting your privacy? It wasn't that long ago that we found out that telecom companies were selling fine location data of all their paying customers.

The reality is that irresponsibility and disrespect for users are rampant in the tech world. That's entirely companies' doing.

<comment><USER21> > What assurances do you have that those paid services are actually respecting > your privacy?

If you use a free service, you basically have assurances that they're _not_ respecting your privacy. The probability of a paid service respecting your privacy is greater than zero, at least.

Also, not all paid services are created equal. You still have to do more due diligence past just throwing money at someone who'll take it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's probably safe to assume Google reads all your emails and can probably target advertising off it one way or another. We can probably thank GDPR for forcing companies to disclose what they know about you.

<comment><USER23> No assumption needed, it's right in the terms of use. I'm surprised to see how surprised people are about this. The fact that they scrape email, for targeted ads and features has been known since 2004.

<comment><USER24> See my post in parent, this is nowhere in the terms of service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is [https://schema.org/](https://schema.org/) data.

</comment><comment><USER26> Just one perspective: When it comes to scraping data and storing in single entity (Google servers), it's more about powering the ecosystem than a single client or the UI.

Google doesn't just live in a single client. As a user (by giving up my privacyto Google), I can ask my Google home how my day is while getting ready for work. I can see the status of my flight tomorrow in my Google app (or Google home screen in Android) without a single search - just because it parsed my email with itinerary. Same way, I can see status for my FedEx package right there just because they violeted my privacy and scraped when I purchased something.

Imagine how much friction it'd require to setup such devices if everything was processed on client side or required explicit opt-in before accessing the info.

Of course as a side effect, I get advertisements of standing desk even a month after buying one, but probably the alternative would be to pay for all these AI and assist?

Again, just a user's perspective.

<comment><USER21> > Imagine how much friction it'd require to setup such devices if everything > was processed on client side or required explicit opt-in before accessing > the info.

Gmail's basically parsing emails, so I don't think it would be that hard to do client-side if there was a community effort to create and maintain the parsers. That's certainly doable, because ad-block lists have some of the same characteristics and are community maintained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is one of my favorite features of Inbox. Sounds like more transparency is required but overall this is pretty nice to have.

<comment><USER28> Its nice data for me to have and creepy data for google to have. In an ideal world it would be processed locally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I appreciate knowing this and I don't fault Google for collecting it; I definitely can see the value in this, both for the customer and Google themselves.

I just wish there's the option to erase the items there, or even better disable the collection entirely.

<comment><USER30> Join Google for Work and it disables most of this. You'll still get things like location data and time to leave, but email features such as Inbox, etc were not scanned at all while I was using them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If they're not doing this for advertising alone, why can I only see my personal purchases and not company ones for G Suite logins? As a small business owner this kind of data would be a fantastic API resource and a significant value-add from Gmail... I suppose I could use the purchases label, but... it's interesting they don't aggregate and display it the same way... thus leading me to conclude that this page is purely to share data used for advertising purposes only, and G Suite accounts don't have Gmail ads...

</comment><comment><USER32> Hasn't gmail done this since their 2004 beta release? There was even opposition to it at the time. [https://www.privacyrights.org/blog/thirty-one- privacy-and-ci...](https://www.privacyrights.org/blog/thirty-one-privacy-and- civil-liberties-organizations-urge-google-suspend-gmail)

</comment><comment><USER33> Why has the title and link of this post changed?

It used to link here: [https://myaccount.google.com/purchases](https://myaccount.google.com/purchases)

The title used to be, "Google reads your Gmail and scrapes your purchases".

It also was #1 on the front page of HN. Now it's gone.

What happened? Conspiracy theories welcome :-)

</comment><comment><USER34> I use PrismCipher to protect sensitive messages. I can't stop Google from reading my email, but I sure can stop them from getting anything out of it. I don't want to switch to another provider because as fitzroy stated, it's "hella reliable."

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm amused by the "Estimated fulfillment by" dates on my DoorDash orders.

</comment><comment><USER36> Duh, they host your email and are easily the best functionality- and reliability-wise email provider. For free, yet the money has to come from somewhere. It's hard to find paying email provider matching the Gmail.

</comment><comment><USER37> Holy shit! It's something to think you know, it's another to see...

</comment><comment><USER38> I really thought this was obvious by now. If the data wasn't being scraped and analysed somewhere how would the categorisation of 'Purchases' work as well as all those payment reminders?

</comment><comment><USER39> > You don't have any purchases

Any idea why I might not see any purchases here?

<comment><USER13> If you're using GSuite, it doesn't display purchases.

<comment><USER39> That's it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Known to anyone using Google inbox...

</comment><comment><USER41> It's not just online purchases either. Any merchant sending an emailed receipt is also scooped up.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is there anything else they scapes from my email but not public yet ?

</comment><comment><USER43> I like this feature. It has always been there on Inbox.

</comment><comment><USER44> Time for Amazon to launch an email service I guess.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was shocked when I stumbled on this. All of my purchases, have been scraped from my emails, including every line item, where I purchased these items from and so on. If they are scraping this from my emails without my permission, what else are they scraping? What else does Google know about me? If everything in my emails is scraped by Google it is possible that they know more about me than I do about myself. Very scary. How will this be misused in the future? Who will have access to this in the future?

<comment><USER19> > If they are scraping this from my emails without my permission, what else > are they scraping?

YOU GAVE THEM YOUR PERMISSION.

Maybe, in the future, read the TOS and Privacy Policies rather than just pressing accept and acting offended when they do EXACTLY what they said they'd do.

Had you done that, you'd also know exactly who has access to that information and, if you read when they notify you of policy updates, who will have access in the future.

Why is this so hard to understand for people? Gmail is not free, you are paying with the information gleaned from it. If you aren't ok with that, start shelling out money.

<comment><USER45> What good paid alternatives are there?

<comment><USER33> There was a whole thread on this recently:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574)

<comment><USER45> Cool, thanks for the pointer!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> News at 11.

</comment><comment><USER47> at first I was disturbed by the title but upon arriving at that page I panicked....

I may be a financially illiterate person....fuck Pokerstars and their $500 spin & gos.

I would've never seen this without having a comprehensive look at all my online purchases....I didn't realize how reckless I was with money....damn it

</comment><comment><USER48> Is there actually anyone on HN that is surprised by this?</comment>


Gatwick Airport: Drone sightings cause delays - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-46623754 <comment><USER2> I'm surprised this isn't higher on HN given the tech nature of the attack. Gatwick is one of the busiest airports in the UK and having flights suspended for 24 hours is major disruption.

A few quotes from the BBC's live incident page at [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england- sussex-46564814](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-sussex-46564814)

"An airline source has told the BBC that flights are currently cancelled until at least 19:00 GMT"

"Police have made a formal request to the MoD for military assistance to deal with the Gatwick incident. A defence source would not go into any detail of what that support would entail."

"The Prime Minister's spokesman said a cross-Whitehall meeting of officials is taking place in response to the drone incident.

The meeting of officials, but not ministers, is taking place in the Cabinet Office and began at 15:00, the spokesman said.

Officials from the Department for Transport, Home Office, the police and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat are among those involved in the meeting."

<comment><USER3> Agreed, I'm surprised at the HN relative silence because there are so many other drone stories that warrant such HN attention.

In this case all flights from Gatwick (the next busiest London airport after Heathrow) have been cancelled for nearly 24 hours.

That's 110k passengers on 760 flights during one of the busiest travel periods of the year!

<comment><USER4> It is apparent by now, that the army's inability to stop those drones means only one thing.. those are not drones. It is UFOs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These big commercial drones have been easily available for, what, 5+ years? And people have been talking about an attack like this for at least as long. It's absolutely mind boggling that we don't have any way of dealing with this other than sending police officers out on the street to see if they can spot a dodgy-looking individual holding a drone controller. Flights have been cancelled for 15 hours and counting now.

I hear some prisons have electronic defences against drones, why not one of the busiest airports in the world?

<comment><USER4> Does drone need back-to-home signal when flying on a pre-defined route? I guess it only needs GPS and that is what might need to be jammed to stop it from following the course.. but how you jam GPS in the sky? hmm..

I also wonder how many drones are actually there as one would only fly for, how long, less than 1 hour? before battery is dead? If it returns to the base, it shouldn't take 10 sherlock holmes to track it?

<comment><USER6> You can jam GPS, but then it'll probably mean planes can't fly, either...

<comment><USER7> Planes already can't fly if the drone is in the air...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If they can't shut this down in ~2 hours, MOD/IC signals services should be fired. You can go for kinetic kills against the drone (shotgun if low, something more expensive if it's larger/higher), but should be able to find/fix/finish the transmitter fairly easily with equipment I'd hope national-level police would have, but certainly could get from the military (along with operators) in something of this severity.

Plus the full range of commercial anti-drone companies, some of which are based in Europe (a couple in UK I think).

<comment><USER9> Per other news reports, kinetic kills were ruled out because of unacceptable risk of bullets/shells hitting something they shouldn't — the whole of South- East England is populated at a density that Americans would call suburbia. (All of England is only one and a half times as large as Greater Los Angeles County: lots of small towns, villages, and homes in the vicinity of Gatwick.)

I'm surprised they don't have specialist anti-drone transmitters, but as Police spending in England and Wales has been cut by over 30% since 2010, maybe it wasn't seen as a priority.

Tracking down the operators should be possible, but this looks like a well- planned attempt to shut down the airport: whoever is behind it probably planned to move around in order to evade the Airport Police.

<comment><USER10> > whoever is behind it probably planned to move around in order to evade the > Airport Police.

If it were me and I wasn't using a preprogrammed route I'd just set up a transceiver that either replays or relays controls. Hide it in a bush and be on the other side of the country while everything is going off.

<comment><USER11> Welcome to MI5's watch list.

<comment><USER10> I hope they enjoy watching me commit atrocities in Rimworld.

<comment><USER8> Making hats is illegal in the UK?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The title feels like a big understatement. Huge damages done with an extremely easily accessible attack surface and cheap means of conducting an attack.

Good times ahead for anti-drone technology manufacturers.

<comment><USER13> Attacking a railroad has been trivially easy for decades and yet so few people do it. It's shocking how non-destructive 99.999% of humans are.

<comment><USER14> Don't give the 0.001% any ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Counter-drones? With nets? Shotguns? Polymer filament glue? Drones on CAP around airports? (I'm thinking cyborg titanium falcons, à la the Rat-Things in Snow Crash.)

Given the cost of delaying operations at a major airport for even an hour, it can't be too long before some legislation promising violent penalties, and allowing drone takedown.

(What happens at Ben Gurion International? They also had to shut down all flight ops. [http://www.thedrive.com/aerial/17918/israels-ben-gurion- airp...](http://www.thedrive.com/aerial/17918/israels-ben-gurion-airport- grounds-all-flights-due-to-intrusive-drone) )

<comment><USER15> So far, up to 3 days of interruption, 650/720 flights cancelled.

Even assuming smaller planes with ~200 passengers, a modest cost per day of $300 (nonrefundable hotel bookings, accom for stuck passengers, taxi fees, etc):

200×650×900 = 117,000,000

And I think this is an underestimate, because those passengers still have to fly eventually, possibly on other carriers. By the time it's done, could be $500M.

I wonder if they have been asked to pay a ransom?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This drone operator has probably created good in the long run, as much as I wouldn't want to be stuck in Gatwick right now. This is going to lead to actual action being taken by the airport operators, one would think.

Almost worth a false-flag operation by MI5 given that (presumably) nobody is going to get hurt this time, and it will almost certainly lead to better defenses.

<comment><USER17> MPs trying to pass a law requiring mandatory backdoors for police control of drones in 3.. 2..

<comment><USER18> Then crims won't buy those drones. But they'll appreciate the backdoors in other people's drones. But yes I can see such a law passing. Aussies can help UK draft it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how they reliably identify something as a drone and not some birds?

Edit: I wouldn't have thought you'd be able to hear a drone (airports being somewhat noisy) and at night it must be pretty tricky to reliably identity one and I haven't seen any pictures or videos?

<comment><USER20> All birds file flight plans with the FAA after the Sully mishap.

<comment><USER21> That doesn't help much at Gatwick though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> You'd think someone could just hop in a Cessna 150 or similar and take the drones out by bashing into them. I learnt to fly in one of those and it would be great fun as long as someone else fixed the dents in the propeller. The minimum speed is about 45mph so it wouldn't do the sort of damage you'd get with a large jet hitting. I guess really you'd want to bash them with the landing gear for minimum plane damage. Or even tow a net.

<comment><USER5> I'd be more inclined to go for something twin-engined, but I guess I must be less of a thrill seeker than you ;)

<comment><USER22> Guess I was thinking of the cost. At a quick glance a C150 is about £99/hr and a twin £350 which is quite a lot to take out a stupid drone. Though I see the police seem to be mucking about in fancy helicopters at the moment.

<comment><USER23> Compared to the amount of cash being lost every hour that _all of Gatwick_ stays nonfunctional these don't seem like significant sums.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Only thing that'll stop a bad guy with a drone is a good guy with a drone.

</comment><comment><USER25> I can understand they're wary of flying any manned aircraft near them to take them out, but I can't understand why they haven't yet deployed a fleet of suicide drones to knock them out of the sky? Is there something we're all missing here?

<comment><USER25> Actually, thinking about this, I'd assumed the drones must be autonomous or controlled via cellular networks, to make them harder to trace or jam.

But now I'm thinking they're being controlled via more standard remote frequencies, and they're being left there while the authorities home in on them. That's the only explanation I can come up with for not having taken them out by now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> For an idea of some of the damage that can be caused to an aircraft hitting a drone, this [0] was just a few days ago.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fts9u5ND24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fts9u5ND24)

</comment><comment><USER27> Maybe deploy a very fast drone that's purpose built to hunt down other drones. It could 'lock' on to the target drone via some combination of image recognition and operator input, and then deploy some kind of netting/arresting functionality when within close range. Sounds like a fun project.

<comment><USER28> There should be at least 2 escort drones just in case the illegal drones attacks back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder if there will be drone hunter jobs in the future. Or are already? Also how do you even shoot down a drone? Netguns? Laser? Frequency jamming?

<comment><USER30> If I'd be asked to develop technology for this, I'd look at a building a directional EMP gun.

Frequency jamming won't work if the drone is flying autonomously (waypoint following is trivial). Netguns have limited range (how do you shoot something up 200m in the air?). Laser is not powerful enough, or, it it is, it's very dangerous to those in vicinity.

Directional EMP pulse that disables the electronics seems the best bet.

<comment><USER31> Or radar. Wouldn't a military-grade radar be able to essentially fry a drone if focused at close range?

<comment><USER32> At least in amateur radio, antennas too close can damage a radio if they're on the same band. I've heard the F-18's radar can kill animals.

AFAIK, most drones use 2.4Ghz radios, or just pure wifi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How has this gone on for so long? AFAIK most drones can't fly for long periods without recharging/refuelling. Makes no sense.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'm imagining a "catch the pidgeon" / keystone cops scenario here.</comment>


CurateKing – the simplest way to manage your social media - <AUTHOR> http://signup.curateking.com

<comment><USER2> Show HN isn't for landing pages or email signups, but for things people can actually play with. Please read the guidelines [1] and post a Show HN when you're ready.

1\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for pointing this out! We're very sorry, we will post when ready!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We developed an app that helps you find, compose, and schedule content to share for your professional social media accounts that is launching on Monday.

All you need to do is..

1\. Add your twitter account

2\. describe your brand and posting habits

3\. approve the posts you want to share</comment>


You Can Make Money with Open Source - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/yes_you_can_make_money_with_op.html

<comment><USER2> Indeed. That's never been in dispute. You can also make money playing violin in the subway.

The thing is, if you want to make money, there are a lot _better_ ways to make money than playing violin in the subway. And if you want to make money with software, there are a lot better ways to do it than to give your product away and hope that some of your users will give you charity or pay you for support.

Wait until we see a case study come through about a company selling a SaaS product who decided to stop charging subscription fees and instead open source it and charge for support, showing how that was the key to how they made their fortune. Then maybe we can talk about this as an option worth recommending over simply selling your software for money.

<comment><USER3> Mmhh how about Automatic with wordpress?? They give their product for free and yet have a SaaS ?

Or how about OnVelocity? They provide a source code repository and have hosted version.

Or SugarCMS ?

Or couchdb with couchbase?

It seems to me that there are plenty of Saas companies that share their products as open source.

<comment><USER4> Automattic venture round [http://gigaom.com/2008/01/22/wordpresscom-creator- raises-29m...](http://gigaom.com/2008/01/22/wordpresscom-creator-raises-29m/)

SugarCRM venture round <http://www.sugarcrm.com/about/sugarcrm-investors>

CouchBase venture round [http://www.venturecapitalupdate.com/funding/08/16/couchbase-...](http://www.venturecapitalupdate.com/funding/08/16/couchbase- raises-14-m-of-series-c-funding.html)

If you raise tens of millions of dollars you can put off the need to become profitable for quite some time ;<).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am just surprised that in 2013 we are still having this discussion.

There are several ways "to make money with OS"; Service-based models (like support), Dual-licensing models (think Qt, MySQL, etc), Community vs "Enterprise" packaging, Extensions to popular packages, Consulting, Platform ownership, etc etc etc. Why such big surprise?!?

<comment><USER6> Hacker News and the Harvard Business Review aren't really the same "we."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know this article is focused on the business level, but I'm finding this to be true on a personal level as well. Contributing to open source not only leads to personal improvement but it essentially creates a public portfolio of your work. This can lead to more exposure which in turn can lead to more opportunities (and better paid ones too).

Open Source might not yield immediate benefits (i.e a paycheck) like say freelancing, but it is an investment in your future.

</comment><comment><USER8> Our[1] entire model is based around open source software. And I mean _real_ open source software... developed in the open, with an open bug tracker, discussion on public mailing lists, etc.

Now, we don't have a lot of outside contributors at the moment, but we're certainly open to them and the code, bugs, etc. are already "out there". And all (or almost all) of our stuff is (or will be) Apache License V2 licensed.

Eventually we'll have a mix of both "productized" versions of existing projects (somewhat akin to the way Red Hat "productize" Linux) and projects that we started and wrote the bulk of the code for from scratch. Our goal is to very much follow the Red Hat model with subscriptions being a major part of our revenue stream, and then complemented by professional services, training and other add-ons.

In the end will we "make money with Open Source"? I don't know, but we're going to try, because A. it's what we believe in, B. it's The Right Thing To Do and C. it makes the world a better place whether we succeed or fail.

[1]: <http://www.fogbeam.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> This story is a bit misleading. If you study the successful companies using open source as a business model you will find they all raised large amounts of venture capital. That was during the window when open source as a business was a brand new idea.

That window has now all but closed and it is exceedingly difficult to find examples of successful companies that bootstrapped their way to success running an open source business.

<comment><USER9> Check out Enthought <http://www.enthought.com/>

They create some of the most used open source scientific computing software, and still manage to make money (also, a great place to work in, lots of really smart people)

While this model might not work for everywhere, its possible, it just takes more effort though.

<comment><USER10> > _Check out Enthought<http://www.enthought.com/> They create some of the most > used open source scientific computing software, and still manage to make > money (also, a great place to work in, lots of really smart people)_

Sounds like an outlier that proves his rule. How many more companies make far more money each with proprietary products in that domain? Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, SPSS, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can you? yes.

But it's going to be very difficult.

Let's say you have a really popular open source project with an enterprise version (which pays your bills). Anybody can start up a competing app with similar features and either give it out for free or charge, making it more difficult for you to make money and stay in business.

The alternative is to have a service-based business. For one or two people, this isn't very scalable.

</comment><comment><USER12> Disclaimer: I work at ActiveState, named in the article.

I'd just like to point out that ActiveState is not VC funded and is profitable. We are able to grow other parts of the business from core products that are enhanced open source (much, but not all, of which is contributed back to the core open source projects). Most of this is in support and services, but we also have highly regarded tools products and a popular IDE (Komodo, of which we fully open sourced the core editor).

Not sure why there are so many negative vibes to this article.

</comment><comment><USER13> Our main product is a desktop application built on top of the Firefox web browser. It is triple licensed GPL/LGPL/MPL. We make money by selling add-ons and a plus version, all of which is also sold under an OSS license (modified BSD). Similar to what Red Hat does, we modified the BSD to prohibit the use of our trade name (International registered wordmark) in any secondary distros of our OSS. In the end, all you have is a brand. Protecting that, protects the revenue stream.

</comment><comment><USER14> Just because you can make money with open source doesn't mean it is a good business model.

<comment><USER8> Open Source _isn't_ a business model anyway, and it never was. It's a development model. Building a business _around_ Open Source implies the need to develop a correspondingly suitable business model, but "open source" per-se is not a business model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Also note that for any thing that relies heavily on art assets, specifically games, open source is largely irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER16> is this a 1994 post?</comment>


Bill to put health warnings on soda and sugary drinks advances in California - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-warning-label-sugary-drinks-advances-20190523-story.html <comment><USER2> They should have a line on the bottle, "the sugar in this bottle goes up to here", because seeing the sugar isolated makes me say, "I'd never eat that much sugar by itself"

<comment><USER3> Do you want such line on fruit juices too? And where does this all end? We all know there is sugar in soda (and fruitjuices)?

<comment><USER4> Yes? Fruit juice is basically candy. It's 100% bad for you, but dressed up like it's good for you,.

<comment><USER5> What about smoothies? Most homemade smoothies retain the fiber by blending the fruit whole. Are those just as good as eating the fruits themselves?

Genuine question, trying to cut out non-fruit based sugars.

<comment><USER6> Smoothies in general are Not Great (TM).

When you eat food, it takes your body time to digest it all, so you get a slow and steady blood sugar flow. However, when you eat smoothies, all of that food is already nearly ready to be absorbed, so your blood sugar spikes and it's a tremendous burden on your liver to handle all of that food value all at once. Needless to say, smoothies are really not for diabetics or athletes! This is the number one issue with smoothies. A slow and steady blood sugar / nutrition delivery is better for everything.

Outside of that is the sugar issue. Sugar and sweeteners are in everything and people naturally gravitate towards recipes with sugar in it, whether they realize it or not; maybe you aren't using fruit juice, but now you're sweetening with a ton of bananas, or now carrots, etc. We're just helplessly addicted to it.

A third, less known issue is that fruit now adays has been so domesticated that it really has very little nutritional value (esp compared with its wild cousins). It's right up there with milk on "why are we telling people to eat this" type of FDA questions. If you google "healthy smoothie", all you will see are yummy fruit-based smoothies which really are hardly healthy.

If you are after fiber, there are much better things to eat. So in general, fruit smoothies are just not healthy at all no matter what. The really gross- tasting cross-fit type smoothies full of wheatgrass, kale, and other vegetables are much better for you, but who's going to subject themselves to that kind of punishment; might as well eat a salad, at least there's some fat from the dressing. Regarding fiber specifically, flaxseed and chiaseed can be mixed into just about anything with very little taste effect. Beans and lentils are high in fiber.

Honestly, even a no-sugar fiber drink mix would probably be better for your body as a whole than a smoothie.

<comment><USER7> I concur with everything you've said.

I will say that I drink a smoothie as a (post workout) meal 1-2x per week and the ingredient that really alters that composition is almond butter (and quite a bit of it - 1/3 cup or more).

Nut butters, yogurt and oats should be primary ingredients and fruits should be sparingly added just for a bit of flavor (I throw in 8-10 blueberries which is plenty).

<comment><USER4> > _Nut butters, yogurt and oats should be primary ingredients_

Non-starchy non-sugary vegetables should be primary ingredients if you're not looking for a calorie bomb, though it sounds like you are. Let's say you're feeling generous and your almond butter edges up to half a cup. That's over 700 calories before any of your other ingredients.

<comment><USER8> This is where heath advice breaks down. A heathy snack for a 6'4" serious power lifter looks very different from what the average American should be eating.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. People who don't lift like a dockside gantry should never base their intake on the diets of people who do. And people who do should refrain from advising others in general spaces based on what they consume, because almost everyone does not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do these warnings actually do anything? In CA almost anything has a cancer warning. I don't even look at them anymore.

To me these warnings are a way to say "we are doing something " but I doubt they really have an effect.

Considering how messed up American eating habits are I have no idea how they could be changed.

<comment><USER10> I agree that blanket warning messages tend to help very little.

However, I do find that actual _data_ does influence my behavior. I've been particularly surprised at how much calorie information published on restaurant menus impacts my decisions.

So, rather than a general warning that will be so widely published that it'll be ignored, give me more data. If you can make the data visual, even better.

For example, you'll note on food labels that the sugar is represented in grams, but there's no associated percentage like there is for the other items on the label. When you show me that this bottle of Coke contains double what I should consume _for an entire day_ I think that will help me and will also incentivize manufactures to think more about the sugar content they add.

<comment><USER11> Yeah if they just replaced grams with teaspoons as was proposed originally in the 70s, the data would be a lot more accessible.

<comment><USER12> This would be incredibly annoying when you actually want to record it. We should be using _more_ metric measurements, not less.

<comment><USER11> This is true, and I'm all for metric, but this isn't a question of imperial vs metric. It's about taking this intentionally obscured data and making it accessible and understandable for people. The food industry lobbied to have it presented in this technical way for a reason.

<comment><USER9> I guess best would be if every can of soda had a picture of the amount of sugar in it. That may illustrate things nicely and understandably. Most people don't really connect numbers and measurements to reality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As long as it also applies to juice. It's usually the same amount of "bad sugar" but since it says "orange" on the bottle, people think it's healthy...

<comment><USER14> Or even some "coffee" drinks.

Black coffee? Pretty healthy, just water and caffeine. 0 calories. 0g sugar. 0g sodium.

A Starbucks "White Chocolate Mocha"? 530 calories, 320mg of sodium, 69g of sugar per 20 oz "Venti" serving. That's twice as many calories as a 20 oz Coke, with twice as much sodium, and higher sugar levels.

Nobody is defending soda here. Just pointing out, this good idea needs to be applied consistently or people will switch from "unhealthy" soda to "healthy" coffee drinks or "healthy" fruit juices both of which can have scary-high sugar too.

I like the "color code" system they have in Europe[0]. You buy a soda and it has a red warning on the sugar/salt levels.

[0] [https://www.nutrition.org.uk/images/cache/537bf3c6516df64581...](https://www.nutrition.org.uk/images/cache/537bf3c6516df645818e2ae91c333456_w800.png)

<comment><USER15> 1 cup of black coffee has <5 cals according to the internet, not 0. it's basically 0 but i think it's important to be precise when it comes to diet.

<comment><USER14> Most sources list it as 0 or 1 calories. Additionally considering that caffeine may increase your RMR ("Resting Metabolic Rate") by 3% or more[0][1], if you want to be "precise" it may be more accurate to say that black coffee contains negative calories.

So how precise do you need it to be? 0, 1, <5, or -1, -5 calories? Or is this just pedantic nitpicking?

[0] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7486839](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7486839)

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2912010](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2912010)

<comment><USER15> >it may be more accurate to say that black coffee contains negative calories.

Calorie has a pretty specific definition. What makes you feel like the scientific definition doesn't work for you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm not sure I agree with this. I'd prefer regulating advertising of sweetened products in general. Health warnings cancer risk notices or labels have so overwhelmed the senses, you take it as a fact of life. But advertising is the big piece of bait that gets us to consume these things.

On a tangential note, these cancer risk warnings should not be binary. They should have a risk value or class. Asbestos class 1, smoking/air pollution 1, new carpet outgassing 3, drinking beer 4, etc. so people have an idea if a risk is tolerable or not. Otherwise it's just a kind of waiver/risk indemnification for the one putting up the warning.

</comment><comment><USER17> _Monning amended the bill to exempt flavored milk drinks_

Why? (By the by, he started his career as a lawyer for a major farmworkers union. Draw your own conclusions.)

<comment><USER18> So something like a McDonalds Milkshake, which has 60g of sugar is exempt?

That's kind of insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As much as I believe that sugar is poison and that obesity and diabetes are some of our biggest health problems in this country, a failed education system has contributed largely to the situation.

The "health advice" I received in school was clearly geared towards the promotion of high carbohydrate foods and sugars while villainizing macronutrients like dietary fat and cholesterol. Every school I attended sold processed snack foods and sugary drinks. My elementary school sold cinnamon rolls floating in a bath of glaze, and they were cheap. Periods of outdoor activity were no more than half an hour, and we were discouraged from running because it was "dangerous". We were never taught how to interpret the Nutrition Facts on food labels, or about net carbs, the insulin response, etc. As I mentioned in a recent thread about skipping breakfast, we actually had industry shills come in and promote breakfast as the "most important meal of the day" while encouraging us to eat plenty of fruits and "slow carbs". Nobody ever told me that, once you gain fat, the fat swells and shrinks but doesn't go away and results in saggy skin if you lose a lot of weight. In fact, consequences to anything were rarely taught, except when it came to passing tests. This was Californian education in a wealthy town.

Education isn't a panacea, but in it's current form, it's a joke. Labels will cause some people to take sugar more seriously, yet we could be doing so much more by admitting that we've _failed_ children for generations. Year after year, it's excuses from politicians, school boards, and parents. Health warnings on food is just _duct tape_.

I've been out of the public education system for 12 years, so maybe things have vastly improved since then? Someone please tell me so. When I bring this up either on HN or offline, my argument is ridiculed for being reductive, and yet nobody denies that the education system badly needs improvement or that education plays a role in the development of young minds.

I want people to be warned about the dangers of sugar intake, but if we're not going to give people the tools to help themselves in the first place, then these warnings serve to infantilize the public for the sake of cost savings.

<comment><USER20> This is a good point. However, labelling might be a good alternative to the sugary drink taxes that many places are currently voting in favor of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Chile applied a similar policy in 2016. Clear warnings are displayed in high fructose / high fat processed food.

According to at least a study, consumption of soft drinks high in sugar decreased by 25% in about 2 years.

The sellers tried to avoid having the warnings so they decreased their sugar levels in their foods as well, or had them replaced them by sweeteners instead.

<comment><USER22> Don't you find any moral issue in the state using its power to modify behavior?

Is the citizen subdued to the state, or does the state work for the citizen?

<comment><USER23> Same question for you, except private corporations. Inundation with advertising is exactly private corporations using their power to modify behavior.

The only difference I see is that the government has your best interest in mind (ostensibly, of course, don't mistake me for thinking it _really_ does). Advertisers do not.

<comment><USER24> I'm free to choose whether or not I do business with a corporation selling sugary drinks which I already know to be bad for me, whose power to modify my behavior rests on its ability to convince they can improve my enjoyment of life.

I'm much less free to choose whether I comply with the government, whose power to modify behavior is ultimately derived from the threat of men with guns coming to lock me in a concrete cell.

Advertising is memetic pollution but I'll still take it any day, every time over government compulsion; the equivocation of the two is ludicrous.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "The beverage known to the state of California to cause cancer and reproductive harm and also obesity"

Great, another thing everyone will ignore. Literally nobody pays attention to these warning labels. And further, the more things get labelled, the less trust and confidence people put in existing labels.

Every single Starbucks in California has a sign somewhere warning you that their coffee causes cancer. Does this make people drink less coffee? Or does it just make people ignore experts when they say things cause cancer?

</comment><comment><USER26> The World will be a much better place once more people recognize how important it is to eat healthy. Not because it has some miraculous effects on the environment, either.

A wholesome and mindful diet _will_ change you as a human being. I'm perplexed as to how a country as big as the USA is living in the "stone age of food".

I've had great success this year to cut out refined sugar entirely. I have stopped adding it to my coffee, too. And let me tell you, the withdrawal symptoms are not nice.

</comment><comment><USER27> When I visited California I chuckled every time I went into a restaurant with

 _blah blah blah_ "known by the state of California to cause cancer" _blah blah blah_

signs above the door...

</comment><comment><USER28> This is actually a good thing, and should be international. A lot of the drinks available in stores are absolutely terrible for you - some people consume such drinks on a daily basis, even multiple times.

<comment><USER14> And unlike food they don't make you feel full or sated. Instead in many cases they actually make you thirstier.

Their addictiveness and dangerousness is under-estimated. It isn't quite smoking tiers bad, but if it was ranked it would likely be the next one down below smoking/vaping in terms of having a negative larger social impact (with drug use being above smoking of course).

<comment><USER29> I'm unfamiliar with the topic. I know that sodas are loaded with sugar, but what about these energy drinks with 0 sugar? Wouldn't the only really bad thing about them is that they corrode your teeth like soda does?

<comment><USER30> Studies lately are showing that artificial sweeteners are just as bad if not worse for you than sugar.

Apparently aside from the nasty chemicals, they still trigger an insulin response which makes your blood glucose crash and makes you crave sweet, fatty foods.

<comment><USER31> I find that exceedingly hard to believe. Sources, please. And I don't want a single study concluding sweeteners might affect gut biome in rats or might provoke some insulin secretion. I want serious, reputable studies claiming sweeteners are _worse_ than sugar, a substance arguably killing more people per year than tobacco.

To provide some real data to the discussion, a study analysing 36000 deaths and 3 million person-years (published by the American Heart Association) found a 21% increase in all cause mortality among those consuming 2 or more sugar sweetened beverages per day. Consuming 2 or more artificially sweetened beverages, on the other hand, was associated with only a 4% increase. And moderate consumtion of artificially sweetened beverages (< 2 per day) was actually, unlike sugar, associated with decreased mortality. [1]

The way sweeteners are discussed in relation to sugar is often fear-mongering and disconnected from reality. It's like equating a sewing needle to a gun because the needle might also theoretically be dangerous in some circumstances.

[1] [https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA....](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.118.037401)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Dentist here - I'm generally for people to do whatever they want - I see every day firsthand what sugar does to people. Both in terms of diabetes, their general health, and especially their teeth. I take it that everything in excess is a poison. The threshold from when sugar becomes a poison is very very low. We eat, as Americans, way too much of the stuff.

<comment><USER33> A few years ago I was talking to friend who lives in Peru. He was finishing his studies in something similar to a Computer Science degree. Despite being a well educated person he did not understand that refined sugar was basically nutritionally superfluous, that it was this pure chemical substance that one regularly obtains (in some sufficiently equivalent form) from all sorts of food. It is hard for people to wrap their head around the fact that a whole powerful industry can exist to produce something so harmful and superfluous (and at the very same time destroy the environment).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Warnings sound nice, like we're doing something, but they do not work.

The only thing that works is increased prices or laws to restrict public use.

We know this from years of alcohol and tobacco policy.

If we want to change people's behaviours we need to tax soda and fruit juices.

<comment><USER35> > Warnings sound nice, like we're doing something, but they do not work.

Oh yes the warnings do indeed work its part. My kids are terrified of the warnings that appear on my wife's cigarettes, and they bully her mercilessly whenever she smokes, to the point that it is reducing her usage a good deal.

Of course, warnings alone are not enough. But they are necessary. I hope in a few years all sugary beverages will have scary warnings with pictures of caries; just as tobacco has today.

<comment><USER22> > My kids are terrified of the warnings that appear on my wife's cigarettes, > and they bully her mercilessly whenever she smokes, to the point that it is > reducing her usage a good deal.

The mark of a successful policy, turning kids against their mother.

<comment><USER35> > The mark of a successful policy, turning kids against their mother.

It's actually the opposite. The kids are very much _for_ the well-being of their mother, and they are honestly worried that she may get ill.

<comment><USER22> > The Junior Spies is an organization of children who monitor adults for > disloyalty to the Party, and frequently succeed in catching them—Mrs. > Parsons herself seems afraid of her zealous children. The children are very > agitated because their mother won't let them go to a public hanging of some > of the Party's political enemies in the park that evening

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Better this than the bloody 'Sugar Tax' levied on drinks with a certain minimum percentage of sugar in them we have here in the UK - all it's done is lead to price increases and swapping out of sugar for artificial sweeteners.

Debates about the negative impact of synthetic sweeteners aside, they taste bloody awful, so now most of my favourite childhood treats are dead to me.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm kind of conflicted. This may help to drink less sugar, but it may desensitise everyone for much more dangerous stuff, like alcohol and cigarettes when they are put on the same level

<comment><USER38> I don't think it's given that dietary failure is less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes.

<comment><USER39> You should take the average human being into consideration.

"heh, they put this ridiculous warning of everything, bunch of p..." will be said very, very often, and then disregarded altogether.

It's a good starting point, at least, but we need more. But I can't figure out a way that will make people do better decisions for their health _AND_ leave it entirely up to them. Both of those conditions can't hold in the same time, as far as I can see.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think what would be better for everyone is highlighting say nutritional density of foods + perhaps how much processing occurred, and perhaps in percentages: steak, as an example and perhaps not correct, would be "100%" nutrient dense with "0%" processed.

</comment><comment><USER41> The correct answer is to remove the subsidies. Stop subsidizing HFCS. Properly price water.

Until then, localities should tax and thwart soda and juice as though they are killing us, just like tobacco and alcohol.

</comment><comment><USER42> Non-spy-walled story on the same topic:

[https://apnews.com/1d52964035a64ff2b7e6583f36408d23](https://apnews.com/1d52964035a64ff2b7e6583f36408d23)

</comment><comment><USER43> I went into a Burger King in Spain the other day and noticed that all sodas are diet with the exception being Coke that was also offered with sugar. I ended up drinking water instead.

</comment><comment><USER44> Soda/cold drinks industry of today is the tobacco industry of 60s and 70s. How can an individual consume daily and voluntarily hundreds of grams of sugars and sweeteners?

<comment><USER14> > How can an individual consume daily and voluntarily hundreds of grams of > sugars and sweeteners?

How can an individual smoke 20 cigarettes a day and voluntarily consume known carcinogens?

\- It is addictive

\- It feels good/gives you a buzz

You compared it to the tobacco industry in the 60s/70s, which I agree with, but then your thought process immediately disconnected the two when you asked why people over-consume: the same exact reasons.

<comment><USER15> add manipulative/psychological marketing techniques to your list as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> People who rely on the government to tell them what is healthy and what is not healthy are idiots. A drink made in an Atlanta Lab is obviously not healthy.

</comment><comment><USER42> I see the bill doesn't cover artificial sweeteners.

If manufacturers start sneaking sweeteners in to avoid the label, this will probably do more harm than good.

<comment><USER31> A study analysing 36000 deaths and 3 million person-years (published by the American Heart Association) found a 21% increase in all cause mortality among those consuming 2 or more sugar sweetened beverages per day. Consuming 2 or more artificially sweetened beverages, on the other hand, was associated with only a 4% increase. And moderate consumtion of artificially sweetened beverages (< 2 per day) was actually, unlike sugar, associated with decreased mortality. [1]

[1] [https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA....](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.118.037401)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Maybe they need to be like Australian cigarettes. You could have a picture of someone who doesn't need the extra calories.

</comment><comment><USER47> I am super anti sugar. I don't eat it except in fruit and I don't give it to my child.

I still don't want the government messing with nutrition. It's track record with that is just awful and there is no reason to think it's going to get better.

Politicians please do it as Hippocrates said: "First do no harm"

Before you ban, label or tax sugar you have to get your house in order: Stop distorting the food market with subsidies and stop giving people wrong information (Food pyramid etc).

<comment><USER48> They haven't used the food pyramid in nearly ten years: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyPlate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyPlate)

Harvard has an even better one: [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy- eating-...](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating- plate/)

Also, the food pyramids and plates are from the USDA, the federal government. Not a state government like sugar warnings are coming from. So you're talking to two different organizations when you say "before you label sugar, fix the food pyramid".

<comment><USER33> I should cite from that Harvard link:

"Generations of Americans are accustomed to the food pyramid design, and it's not going away. In fact, the Healthy Eating Pyramid and the Healthy Eating Plate complement each other."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> "The label on container would say: "STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAFETY WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) may contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay."" Drop the STATE OF CALIFORNIA. Gets to the point. Easier for other states to adopt.

</comment><comment><USER50> From the article:

>"[Sugars] represent the single leading source of increased bad calories that are being promoted in our communities and pushed on communities of color," Monning said during the floor debate, citing a "national epidemic" of diabetes.

>Senate Bill 347, which goes to the Assembly next, would require labels on drinks with added caloric sweeteners that contain 75 calories or more per 12 fluid ounces.

>The label on container would say: "STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAFETY WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) may contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay."

I find the article surprisingly void of substance, just like the refined sugars it was supposed to report on.

Health warnings will achieve absolutely nothing, seeing how the problem lies in understanding how refined sugars impact the body and shape the sense of hunger to power the modern processed food market. In short, people who understand are powerless; people who have the power to do something are clueless; people who understand and have the power are in charge of food companies, making money hand over fist, at the expense of health of the entire nation.

Dr. Robert Lustig explains the danger of distilled and concentrated sugars, fructose in particular, in his "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" lecture [0]. The lecture is packed with chemical formulas but is extremely informative.

Fructose is a poison that disintegrates the liver. In nature, fructose is found in combination with other sugars and nutrients that lessen the impact; in processed foods, fructose is shoveled in to mask manufacturing defects and make the food more "marketable" i.e. addictive.

"Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss [1] goes into greater detail how scientists tweak foods such as cereal to make it as addictive as possible, using whatever chemicals aren't outright banned. The very last chapter of that book features Michael's interview with a IIRC Nestle CEO who says, paraphrased, "We envision the future where there's no other food than the goop we produce, and stomachs of people can't handle anything else because that's what they've been eating since childhood."

FDA helped out the processed food industry by making the definition of sugar [2] the following:

"Sugars shall be defined as the sum of all free mono- and disaccharides (such as glucose, fructose, lactose, and sucrose)"

Notice the trick? By involving fructose with all the other regular sugars, FDA absolved the processed food companies of the need to put sugar intake limits on packaging, which is why sugar is the only category lacking RDV.

"Reward-based stress eating" study [3] states that "treatment with Naloxone, an unspecific opioid antagonist, powerfully suppressed intake of highly palatable food". Sugary food is literally addictive, and yet it's peddled to children exactly to turn them into addicts that gorge until they die.

Slapping a warning label on products does absolutely nothing except appease the average consumer, who sees Something Is Being Done (tm). Unless fructose is controlled like alcohol (Dr. Lustig compares the damage of ethanol and fructose), the diabetes epidemic will become the norm. Fructose is already in nearly every processed product due to HFCS, high fructose corn syrup, gotten from government-subsidized corn.

Trying to reduce the amount of fructose in processed items makes them unpalatable; trying to remove it altogether makes the food taste like cardboard to the average consumer. Attempts to make mainstream processed food healthy will undoubtedly bankrupt large swaths of companies and crash the US economy.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15797397-salt-sugar- fat](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15797397-salt-sugar-fat)

[2] Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 subsection 101.9(c)(6)(ii)

[3] [https://www.medicinasistemica.it/doc/biblioteca/Stress,%20ea...](https://www.medicinasistemica.it/doc/biblioteca/Stress,%20eating%20and%20the%20reward%20system.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER51> They should do the same for coffee.

<comment><USER52> Why? Coffee has no sugar.

<comment><USER53> Ever tried a "default" Dunkin coffee?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Bicycles should have warning labels that disclose the risk of head injuries.

Chairs should have warning labels that overuse could lead to obesity.

Computer OSes should have a mandatory splash screen that overuse could result in obsesity.

Hair dryers should continue to have warnings to not be used in the shower due to electrocution risk.

And, why are sugared milk drinks excerpt? Why are Frappuccinos exempt? Why are candy bars exempt? How about fruit juice? Basically, let's just make a generic warning label encompassing Prop 65 as well and put it on everything. Since everything used to extreme can be unhealthy.

Bathtubs should have warning labels as well: there is a significant drowning risk.

In California, you can't go anywhere without encountering a Prop 65 warning, now food is next? Eventually these messages become meaningless. There is not a single person drinking a Coke that will change behavior because of a warning label just like not a single person avoids a parking garage because of a Prop 65 label.</comment>


Your data has helped keep the internet free. Now what? - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/data-helped-internet-free <comment><USER2> I am old guy... I still remember times when there were ads but no one was tracking you. And everything was still free.

I dont agree with the article, the ads ARE ethnical, but tracking user is not. I wonder how those two guys would feel if I would walk all the time behind them and write down everything what they are doing. And when they would ask what am I doing, i would say "just collecting data for targeted ads". Feels a bit different when you put it into real world, right?

Now the data are "legaly" gone, nothing will change, ads will still be there even without targeting. But after a while, when most of tracking parasites will go out of business, the pages will load much faster. And probably we will have a few clickbait sites less.</comment>


Some Things Good Engineers Do - ____Sash---701_ https://mikemcquaid.com/2019/10/21/some-things-good-engineers-do/ <comment><AUTHOR> Has more to do with good time management and teamwork than with good engineering in my opinion.

<comment><USER2> Good engineers have good time management and teamwork skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure some do, but my point is that those skills are not exclusive to engineers.</comment></comment></comment>


New Financing Values Twitter As High As $7 Billion  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304803104576428020830361278.html

<comment><USER2> There is no reason to assume the value of something is Investment/percentage of ownership.

"Valuations" are so high because there is nothing correlating them to eventual market cap (which is what people act like they are).

This is doubly true with the liquidation preferences, etc that VC/Investors get.</comment>


Vesper, Balls and Marco Arment - <AUTHOR> http://maxt3r.com/blog/vesper

<comment><USER2> It does not take balls, but instead an awareness that people will pay a premium for a brand even when the product itself is feature poor. This may also be referred to as "market savvy".</comment>


From Java to Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://n0tw0rthy.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/from-java-to-node-js/

<comment><USER2> Wow, it's really nice to see an article that isn't a "my language/platform of choice is better than yours" rant. I'm especially surprised to see a Java developer embrace node.js so whole-heartedly.

<comment><USER3> I've come from a Java background to node.js and have enjoyed it. I'd tried a few Java frameworks for web development (Grails to a large extent and lift/spring to a small extent) but was never really happy with them. I dabbled with RoR but found it too alien. I've got no criticism to level at RoR it just didn't feel right to me, possibly if I'd continued I'd either have a strong opinion about why it's wrong or would have learned to love it. Eventually I picked up node and really enjoyed using it to develop my latest site and will probably continue to use it in future if I can and if it makes sense. I'd recommend it to any dev looking for something to new to try out.

<comment><USER4> Just curious, are you using any framework in your Node projects?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great. Nice and concise. No zealotry, just sane practical experience. I'm going through exactly the same thing.. Longtime java dev, surprised and delighted by all the activity around node, seriously considering it for my next project. At least for prototyping it. Never imagined i would embrace end to end javascript! But it seems like a nice balance of productivity and robustness.. And the author is right to emphasize the importance of good frameworks. Too many of these new fangled language HN posts overemphasize language-level details and miss out on the critical role of good frameworks in making you productive. For whatever reason (javascript) the node community is super active in this respect.

</comment><comment><USER6> He says: "There is no shortage of ORM librares for Node.js."

However, I personally don't find any production ready ORM. Especially when you consider what Django, or Rails or Hibernate can offer.

Having said that, Node and MongoDB really get along well.

<comment><AUTHOR> While i did see quite a bit of options for node, i haven't been playing around with ORMs in Node too much. ORMs to me refer to those used with relational databases and I haven't done that yet in Node.js. i've just been using MongoDB (mongoose) and Redis (node_redis) - both of which have good libraries.

Also remember that the very nature of JavaScript might make the classic idea of how an ORM is implemented a little different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He will switch back when the users start complaining about performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a rehash of my comment on the blog which might cover this point:

From my experience, performance is a tough question to answer because you really have to think of the system as a whole. The weakest link (slowest piece) usually dictates the overall system perceived performance. Having a slow DB isn't going to make your choice of Java or Node.js matter that much...

So assuming that everything else is equal (like architecture, data structure choices, database driver quality, database design and queries, etc) it might be that Java is faster.. but it might be a moot point.

Writing asynchronous code in Node.js is much more convenient than Java and helps in doing more at the same time so that you aren't waiting for all those database queries to run one after the other, for example. Check out the Node.js async module for some cool patterns to use (<https://github.com/caolan/async>).

In all, I wouldn't make the choice to move to Node.js because it has better performance or not, but the overall holistic view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Welcome, comrade.</comment>


Show HN: Little Warden, monitoring the tedious things about websites - <AUTHOR> https://littlewarden.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

Little Warden is a tool that my wife and I have been building in our spare time.

We constantly see people who lose domains due to expiration or forget about an SSL certificate renewal so we started building some software for that then it expanded more and more and now it performs loads of the checks you tend to forget about once a site is launched.

LW monitors everything and once a day sends you an email with a summary.

</comment><comment><USER3> When your pricing page says "10 checks per URL" etc what does it mean? I assume it means that more things are checked as you move up the tiers but I couldn't find any table of what things were checked at what pricepoints.

Edit: there's a problem with your payments flow. I signed up, paid, and got another prompt to pay. I reloaded that page and saw that my card was saved, so I hit it again and got another prompt to pay. I signed in using the email confirmation and got a prompt to pay showing my card, which then redirected me /subscriptions which 404s. There's an authorisation sitting on my card for a null amount.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Mabcat,

Sorry about that I've been driving home all day, I'm going to look into that straight away and email you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Minimum £14.99/ month.

Looks like it might be a useful service for some businesses.

<comment><USER5> It seems like the minimum is £6 for a single site actually, and yeah it does seem potentially useful at some scales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looks neat, but it's prohibitively expensive to use for a personal website which doesn't generate revenue. I use CloudFlare (at $5/mo), but close to $17/mo for this service dwarfs my hosting + CDN fees together. I'd love to see a free or low-cost service that just checks SSL cert expiration and sends me an email 30 days before it expires. Would be great for making sure my personal website isn't broken without breaking the bank.

<comment><USER7> Doesn't your SSL provider send you said mail ?

<comment><USER6> Yes, but that's based on their information, it's not "monitoring". Monitoring is an external system not influenced by the others which observes and reports. It'd be nice to be able to monitor this, although for my personal website its not absolutely critical. Do you think your SSL provider is infallible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stick to your guns on pricing, it helps keep away customers you don't want.

</comment><comment><USER9> This seems like a great idea. I would be interested in detecting 404's as well. This would need to be configurable because not all 404's you care about, but some you likely do. Great idea none the less.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Kyle, could you shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com about this, we do detect 404 pages and pages giving 404 response codes but I'd like to know more about your needs

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Shameless plug alert! I made something similar +/\- some features. [https://lnkchk.com](https://lnkchk.com)

</comment><comment><USER11> Would love this if it also checked 404 assets and links.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Pudo, could you shoot me an email email@example.com as to what you would like and I'll look into it

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I would love to see a free version for just one domain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Marco, we have a £60 a year version for one site, I'm sorry but we don't have plans for a free package at the moment

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice idea and execution.

But at £ 15 for the least expensive plan, and no free starter plan for say, just single domain owners, I think this might be prohibitively expensive for most...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks justboxing, I appreciate the feedback, at the moment I wouldn't be able to support hundreds of clients on a free or reduced priced plan for one domain

<comment><USER14> don't listen to anyone who thinks $20/month is 'prohibitively' expensive for anyone who runs a commercial website, i.e. one that shouldn't go down over a small oversite like domain expiration. it's not too much.

<comment><USER13> > don't listen to anyone who thinks $20/month is 'prohibitively' expensive for > anyone who runs a commercial website

I'm telling you from practical experience. I've helped several Indian and Pakistani restaurants in San Francisco register domain names, get hosting and then built their websites. These are the people that need a service like Little Warden, cos routinely an owner would call me and say "Hey my website is not accessible." or worse still "Someone stole my site." \-- cos they let the card expire, or used some obscure AOL account or changed phones etc - <USER2> someone registered their expired domain. Restaurant owners are notoriously disorganized w.r.t. their digital / online presence.

I can also tell you from practical experience that these small business owners don't want to spend 20$ / month = 240$ / year for guarding their site, when the domain registration and hosting is far less than that.

At this pricing range, maybe Little Warden's target user-base is corporate / enterprise clients, the "5000 dollars is a rounding error" companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi justboxing, thanks for your comments. I fully appreciate what you're saying but I'd be unable to scale LW with that many customers paying < £6 a month.

Whilst I'd LOVE a bunch of clients where 5000 dollars is a rounding error, that's not our target client.

Our target client is a small to medium business with multiple domains or a digital agency that is responsible for (but may not control) a domain / website.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The rich old couple and the adopted prodigy (a parable of a tech romance) - <AUTHOR> http://lacquer.fi/pauli/blog/2011/02/a-tech-romance-parable/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my take on a certain tech business alliance announced Feb 11...</comment>


High-Speed Ad Traders Profit by Arbitraging Your Eyeballs - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-07/high-speed-ad-traders-profit-by-arbitraging-your-eyeballs.html <comment><USER2> I got the impression that writer of the article thinks that this arbitraging is supposed to be hurting someone, but it's not clear who.

If the traders are arbitrating prices between different ad exchanges, their net price will be zero and they make the ad market more efficient. Who exactly is hurt?

<comment><USER3> In aggregate? No one. But the people who had been buying ads on the "cheaper" exchanges exclusively either through luck or because they had done research to determine they were cheaper, will now be paying a higher price. Personally, that doesn't bother me, but when discussions about this come up with regard to the financial markets there seems to be some folks who have a moral problem with market participants who "only" act as price arbs between exchanges.

<comment><USER2> Yes, and they miss the fact arbitrageurs actually help most people.

If these arbitrageurs are keeping all the prices in different exchanges in line, it means that your average ad seller/buyer does not need to spend time and money on researching which exchange has best liquidity (although they probably still want to know which one chargers lower comissions).

Of course, there will be an effective fee that the arbitrageurs collect, but competition amongst them will drive that feed down (in principle, to less than what the average person would have spent on research).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> After reading this I took the rest of the article with a very big grain of salt:

"When you open a web page, information such as age, sex, location and search history are zapped to buyers vying for your attention. Bundled with 999 other people, those eyeballs are offered to the highest bidder, usually ad agencies and their clients"

Since the data described is not actually "zapped to buyers" and there is definitely no "bundled with 999 other people" involved in RTB. The whole concept is bidding for a single impression to avoid paying for people you don't want to target to.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm interested in knowing how people can even detect this happening. Anyone? The article didn't really go into detail on that point.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't get it. If you buy an ad, you are the highest bidder. How do you sell it for more? Another exchange?

<comment><USER3> Yes. This is describing classic venue arbitrage.

<comment><USER6> And how do you transfer an ad between exchanges?

<comment><USER7> Supposedly, you'd fire another ad tag or be integrated in some other way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All transactions on ad exchanges are arbitrage, unless the real time bidder is actually selling a product.

</comment><comment><USER9> This kind of thing used to happen in the early days of AdSense and other platforms.

Any time you can take low value ads, and move them to higher value ads, you can make money.

It isn't a great user experience, but people peddling ads at scale don't care about UX a whole lot from what I've seen.</comment>


The Extortion Economy: How Insurance Companies Are Fueling a Rise in Ransomware - <AUTHOR> https://www.propublica.org/article/the-extortion-economy-how-insurance-companies-are-fueling-a-rise-in-ransomware-attacks <comment><USER2> There isn't an economic balance for ransom: if a gang ransomed someone, know that the security issue won't be fixed in the next month, they could sell the name to another gang. Even if it's not in the long-term interest of the gang, members might leak, voluntarily or not.

This means that there will be a surge in activity but the cost will grow in ways that few insurers might expect -- Lloyds excluded, who can draw on their experience of dealing with sea piracy to model self-financing extorsion.

I expect this will rapidly turn into reasonable budgets for OpSec, and enforcement by the insurer's expert: procedural but at least not based on the dual "there was no incident lately, therefore you are useless/there was an incident lately, therefore you are useless".</comment>


Richard Stallman Described Epstein Victims as 'Entirely Willing' - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9ke3ke/famed-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-described-epstein-victims-as-entirely-willing <comment><USER3> RMS has called himself "borderline autistic". I don't disagree. His socially clueless black and white thinking makes it look like he is far in the spectrum. On the other hand it's also his superpower. He does not care about social norms.

RMS is anal about meanings of terms and their use. That's not working well in the current climate where words carry perceived intent. I find myself agreeing with RMS with most of the terminology and it's use in this case.

On the other hand other discussions reveal that RMS has very bad understanding of developmental psychology, sexuality etc. and tries to to figure it out using reasoning which does not work when his model is broken.

The lesson:

If you are figurehead of some big cause, never talk aloud publicly about controversial subjects outside your field. Being a good figurehead means presenting a role to the public. All the stupid and loose talk paints the whole cause.

<comment><USER4> im very similar in that regard (i have ASD myself) socially inept, pedantic about terminology etc, but i learned to shut up and keep my opinions to myself as they often dont go down too well, challenging the social norms really does not sit right with a lot of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > RMS is anal about meanings of terms and their use. That's not working well > in the current climate where words carry perceived intent

That would be well and good, except that he's talking about terms like "sexual assault" which have well-defined legal terms that fit the case at hand.

Instead, he is re-defining legal terms in a way that don't fit the current actual intent of those terms.

<comment><USER6> > That would be well and good, except that he's talking about terms like > "sexual assault" which have well-defined legal terms that fit the case at > hand.

You've got it entirely backwards. The whole point made by RMS is that the accusations do not fit the well-defined legal term, thus he pointed out which crime in fact does fit the accusation: statutory rape.

<comment><USER5> "Many states used the offense of sexual assault to replace conduct formerly defined as rape", ergo, Stallman is wrong.

Here's my citation: [https://caselaw.findlaw.com/nm-court-of- appeals/1866619.html](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/nm-court-of- appeals/1866619.html) (italics added to show the source of the above quote)

> 9\. The entry for "sexual assault" in Black's Law Dictionary provides two > definitions. First, "sexual assault" means "[s]exual intercourse with > another person who does not consent [,]" noting "[s]everal state statutes > have abolished the crime of rape and replaced it with the offense of sexual > assault. "Black's Law Dictionary 138 (10th ed. 2014). Second, "sexual > assault"means "[o]ffensive sexual contact with another person, exclusive of > rape." Id.

> {22} The first entry in the dictionary narrowly defines sexual assault as > intercourse because, as noted, _many states used the offense of sexual > assault to replace conduct formerly defined as rape._ In New Mexico, the > crime of rape was not replaced with the offense of sexual assault. State v. > Keyonnie, 1977-NMSC-097, ¶ 5, 91 N.M. 146, 571 P.2d 413 (explaining that > "[t]he essential elements of the common law crime of rape, from which the > statutory offense of criminal sexual penetration was derived," were carnal > knowledge or intercourse). Rather, the crime of rape was replaced with the > offense of criminal sexual penetration.

Remember, Stallman argues that it is "absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation".

Yet here we see that some jurisdictions use "sexual assault" as a replacement for the term "rape".

And we see jurisdictions (like New Mexico) where "criminal sexual penetration" was used to replace the term "rape". Indeed, here's the law: [https://law.justia.com/codes/new- mexico/2013/chapter-30/arti...](https://law.justia.com/codes/new- mexico/2013/chapter-30/article-9/section-30-9-11/) . But are you seriously (outside of a technical and pointless argument) going to say that "rape" and "sexual assault" aren't illegal in New Mexico?

So Stallman is wrong to say that "statutory rape" is the right legal term. At the very least he has to say that "it is not considered sexual assault in the US Virgin Islands" .. except the US V.I. laws _do_ use the term "sexual assault" so then he has to point to the US V.I. definition of "sexual assault" to show that it's the wrong definition. Which he did not.

As another example, we can look at US military law, which distinguishes between "rape" and "sexual assault", at [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/920](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/920) . In that definition, "rape" involves force, or 'threatening or placing that other person in fear that any person will be subjected to death, grievous bodily harm, or kidnapping' or drugging a person.

While "sexual assault" \- contrary to Stallman's "absolute" views - <USER2> things which does not include force, like "inducing a belief by any artifice, pretense, or concealment that the person is another person" or " without the consent of the other person".

Note that someone under the age of consent (17 in the US V.I., with exceptions for similarity in age and for sex with one's spouse) _cannot consent to sex_ under the law.

In other words, Stallman's definition, which says that sexual assault "presumes that he applied force or violence" is much more aligned with the military's definition of "rape" than the military's definition of "sexual assault."

Making Stallman, again, wrong in saying that "sexual assult" is an "absolutely wrong" term.

<comment><USER6> > Many states used the offense of sexual assault to replace conduct formerly > defined as rape", ergo, Stallman is wrong.

The only jurisdiction which is relevant is that where the accusation was made, and in this case the crime that matches the accusation is statutory rape.

That's the whole point.

Please don't be disingenuous and cherry-pick jurisdictions that are entirely unrelated and irrelevant to the discussion just to fabricate substante for your baseless assertions. If you feel the need to persecute someone, do it based on what he actually said instead of making up excuses.

<comment><USER5> Stallman never made that point.

If I am wrong, please quote how Stallman's writings support your statement.

He wrote:

> I've concluded from various examples of accusation inflation that it is > absolutely wrong to use the term "sexual assault" in an accusation.

This is wrong because there are many jurisdictions where "sexual assault" is the correct accusation, as defined specifically by law.

The best argument he could make is that "sexual assault" doesn't apply here, not that is it "absolutely wrong". (I think he's wrong, which I will get to in a moment.)

That is my point. It is _not_ absolutely wrong. It has a legal definition which is about as well understood as "copyright."

Remember, he specifically rejected your argument that we need to look to a specific jurisdiction:

> "I think it is morally absurd to define "rape" in a way that depends on > minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 > years old or 17."

I have looked for, but failed, to find what "sexual assault" means in the context of US VI law. It is _used_ in the law but not _defined_.

However, it is defined in US law as "any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent." \- [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/34/12291#a_27](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/34/12291#a_27) (34 U.S. Code § 12291 (29)).

Second degree rape with a minor who is under the age of consent is therefore correctly characterized as "sexual assault".

I regard sex with a sex slave to also be sex with someone who cannot consent. However, I have not looked up that law.

For your argument to be true - as I understand it, you mean that Stallman is specifically writing about US VI law - do you not assume that Stallman consulted those legal sources first, before writing his email?

Because I don't believe he did, as what he wrote shows he has no clue about what "sexual assault" means, both in the general US context and specifically in the US VI context.

I believe I have cited my sources, both with respect to Stallman and the relevant US law. Please do the same now and show how your interpretation of Stallman is backed up by his statements.

On top of that, Stallman presumes the 17 year old was "entirely willing". However, the law prohibits willingness from being a consideration when determining some sorts of sexual assault, including second degree rape of a minor.

For his argument to have merit, he must show that the woman was meaningfully able to grant consent, and could grant consent. He did not do that, which supports my belief that he does not understand the relevant law in the way he would have to be able to make the argument you seem to suggest he's making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Earlier submission:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965319](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20965319)</comment>


Political Bias Test: How Biased Are Your Views of the World? - <AUTHOR> https://www.guidedtrack.com/programs/iumboi4/run <comment><USER2> Certainly provides a great view of the biases of the test authors...

<comment><USER3> Some of the questions and their "official" answers raised an eyebrow

"can we store nuclear waste safely" comes to mind. I don't think, realistically we can tell taking into account the longevity of the problem

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Meh

There is no "I don't know" on most of the answers. "We don't know as of yet" is not equivalent. How does me choosing a random answer from a list give an indication of whether I am politically biased?</comment>


The Spanish Liga uses the phone microphone of millions of fans to spy on bars - <AUTHOR> https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=es&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eldiario.es%2Ftecnologia%2FLiga-Futbol-microfono-telefono-aficionados_0_780772124.html&edit-text= <comment><AUTHOR> Submitted the translated version on the original news article published at [https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-microfono- tel...](https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-microfono-telefono- aficionados_0_780772124.html). Google Translate does a pretty good job, however.</comment>


How to do backpropagation in a brain [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxp7eWZa-2M&t=38m13s <comment> white-flame I'm not quite clear on this: Is this a theory of how backpropagation might be constructed using known neural mechanisms as building blocks, or is this actual observation of how the brain really trains neurons?

<comment><AUTHOR> Very much a theory, which is inspired by recent successes in training artificial neural networks. It is consistent with our observations so far but certainly not proven by any means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The title on youtube is simply "Deep Learning - Geoffrey Hinton" and the original url (not the shortened, or time-marked) is:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxp7eWZa-2M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxp7eWZa-2M)

From the above link, it's a recent talk:

> _Published on Jul 29, 2015_

> _Filmed at the University of Cambridge on June 25th, 2015_

<comment><AUTHOR> I linked specifically to this part of the video because it's really a standalone talk, as he says. "How does the brain do backpropagation?" is the title of this talk (as he says it verbally; the slides have a slightly different paraphrasing, "How to do backpropagation in a brain").

The earlier part of the video is on a different topic; mostly explaining the various successes of deep learning over the past several years. Geoff doesn't start talking until about 6 minutes in, so if you want to see that part of the video start here: [https://youtu.be/kxp7eWZa-2M?t=5m55s](https://youtu.be/kxp7eWZa-2M?t=5m55s)

<comment><USER2> The problem is most url shorteners like "youtu.be" are banned on HN due to abuse, so your submission was initially "[dead]" when it was first created. The only reason for putting the right URL and original title in my comment was to help the mods (who have since changed both the url and title).

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, thank you for that. I didn't realize site-specific shorteners like youtu.be were banned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1\. we don't know how the brain does complicated thing X

2\. we have discovered a way to program a computer to do complicated thing X

3\. maybe the brain works like this too

This is faulty reasoning and I see it again and again. This is not how to proceed according to the scientific method

<comment><USER4> No just no.

They've come up with a hypothesis by making observations and guessing. If the hypothesis is also falsifiable, then it is definitely how the scientific method works, since we can now run experiments to determine if the hypothesis is false. The scientific method doesn't say much about how hypotheses are formed, just in how they are evaluated.

Now we can argue about whether this can be falsified or not, and that is legitimate. Bad science would be not taking that step or doing that step badly.

<comment><USER3> yes exactly. My criticism is only if point 2 is used as evidence of point 3. I see this a lot.

If point 2 is used only as a means to generate a hypothesis, which is then tested empirically, then absolutely this is fine

thanks for the clarification

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Keep in mind that artificial neural network are not meant to simulate biological neural networks. They are just inspired by a simplified (and obviously flawed) computational model of the brain from way back in the stone age of neuroscience.

Finding parallels between what ANNs evolved into today and the little we know about the brain may be interesting, but don't think, even for a moment, that you have a model for "backpropagation in the brain".

P.S.: I like the implied criticism of the Human Brain Project at 50:10 - "You need a computational theory (not a billion euros) to recognize what you discovered!". We really need to work on theoretical models of computation before we throw money and hardware at simulations. No emergent behavior is going to jump out and save us that step.</comment>