How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this? - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:tip_guidelines+mahalo&hl=en&filter=0

<comment><USER2> Contrary to what these initial comments are suggesting, Mahalo isn't duplicating content across all of these sites. These sites are each targeted at specific verticals, and (are intended to) only have questions and answers related to that vertical. It's a strategy that worked for Calacanis at Weblogs, Inc. (to a degree--eventually a lot of superniche blogs were shuttered or consolidated into the higher-profile brands) and I suspect it'll work again.

As for Google's rankings, I don't think these sites are any worse off than the Stack Exchange sites, which all share the same basic design and markup and many of the same boilerplate About, etc. pages.

Is it great for users, i.e. people actually trying to find answers? Well, that's an open question. I think ultimately it is because someone looking for FarmVille answers (yes, Mahalo has such a site, and yes, an incredible number of people have FarmVille questions) is going to get more relevant results than they'll find on Mahalo Answers proper. If these sites didn't exist would they find better, or faster, answers to their questions? I think sometimes they would, sometimes they wouldn't. Generally answers on Mahalo Answers are higher-quality than, say, Yahoo! Answers, which I see showing up in the results for many of my Google searches.

I don't blame anyone for disliking the practice--it does have a bit of a smell --but I do think it's a good business decision for Calacanis et al.

(Disclosure: I used to work for Jason Calacanis at Weblogs, Inc. and Propeller (nee Netscape.com) and enjoyed the experience. I haven't talked to him in a couple years but I bet if I called him up he'd do me a solid. Oh, I was also an early Mahalo beta-tester and use Mahalo Answers once every couple of months.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think calling these these kinds of practices "Search Engine Optimisation" is a little perverse. "Search Engine Deception" would be a better term. This is precisely the sort of thing that makes SEO such as shady business nowadays. It might work for now, but it's still a hack based on the current implementation of search engines that will likely be punished later on.

<comment><USER4> Personally this kind of practice doesn't bother me, but if it bothers you then you can probably send Matt Cutts an email about it - his entire job role is to eliminate this kind of noise out of Google's rankings.

<comment><USER5> Matt Cutts is completely aware of everything Mahalo does, if from nothing else than the constant threads on HN.

<comment><USER6> Ain't that the truth! I've got 10 or so SEOs who watch everything we do and send complaint letters by the dozens to Matt.

Keeps us on our toes to an absurd level.

<comment><USER7> The question is, do you feel you deserve such exposure? How did you manage to earn it? Was it what you were hoping for?

I hope your search traffic is up, in spite of what third party metrics tools are showing ;)

I will give you this... nfl-answers.com was (almost) a great Hail Mary strategy ;)

<comment><USER6> If you want to obsess about me please continue... all your doing is making yourself look bad. It's silly to obsess to this level about one person. The Hacker News community is now looking at the account AaronWall as a spammer-- way to go!

In terms of traffic we took a little hit when we removed the shorter pages, and we actually have a higher benchmark than anyone in the content space about what we index--and the search engines know this. We only rank stuff--on average--when it's 300 words or more. This means we have a much higher benchmark than About.com, Wikipedia and Google Knol.

we got this suggestion from you and it's actually concentrated our page rank to the high-quality, higher CPM pages.... the end result? When we removed the low quality pages our revenue grew 2.5x!!!

You are responsible for, literally, millions of dollars in revenue for Mahalo.... for that I think your tollish ways!

Sidenote: I've apologized to the SEO community a million times for saying SEO is BS. you're the one who won't get over it. Keep wasting everyone's time with your non-sense while I create more companies, invest in more companies and getting more stacks.

My life is unfairly epic, and your life is spent obsessing about that fact..... sad dude. really. The most attention and achievement you'll have in your sad little life is when you're throwing rocks at me. Sad.

<comment><USER7> As long as you _feel_ important I suppose that is all that matters. Self- aggrandizing for the win.

The funny thing about your presumption is that you don't realize how much web traffic I control, or that I was able to grow a similar sized traffic stream without bilking investors & without looting third party content without permission or opt out & without cybersquatting.

You take the low road & I'll take the high one.

No matter how many times you use the word _troll_ it won't change _the facts_. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is autoblogging. This won't work. Google will see the blog theme fingerprint and will either lessen the index or de-index. Also, the dupe content is another factor that gets you de-indexed.

Now if they used a generic, common theme, and different themes; and then if they used unique, synonymized content -- these things would perhaps get past the Google filter unless of course something triggers a manual review at Google and a human checks it.

A site has flags at Google (that's the theory) and if you throw enough flags, then it sometimes triggers an automatic de-index or PR lessening. In some cases, and again this is all theory, it triggers a manual review and they have a human review what's going on to see if they need to alert the core team on a search engine tweak.

<comment><USER9> It's lame, but what they are doing is not exactly auto-blogging. They are driving traffic (eventually) to Mahalo.

<comment><USER6> Actually, we're not trying to drive folks to Mahalo with these sites. We're actually happier if they stay on the vertical sites--which have higher CPMs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Jason sits here and tries to claim there is nothing wrong with registering trademarks in domains when about a month ago, Mahalo lost a domain to StateFarm because Mahalo had violated their trademark.

<http://domains.adrforum.com/domains/decisions/1317317.htm>

So Jason, did you not know you had lost a domain or are you flat out lying about your knowledge of how trademarks and domains work?

<comment><USER7> At some point, doesn't a person who consistently ends up on the wrong side of _the truth_ end up losing the benefit of the doubt?

My guess is Jason was hoping nobody would find that. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there actually a benefit from doing this for Mahalo? Wouldn't google just recognize that their content is duped all over the place?

<comment><USER12> mahalo seems to be reasonably smart with their SEO trickery. i'd guess that they tested it and found benefits.

<comment><USER13> No no, you have it all wrong. Jason said he doesn't know anything about SEO and just happens to accidentally stumble on all the techniques (then apologizes but doesn't stop using them).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can someone explain what exactly this is and why it is bad? I am not very well-versed in the Google-fu.

<comment><USER15> Mahalo registered hundreds of domain names that are actual search queries to improve their search ranking. For example, when Mahalo discovered that people searched for "Car Repair" enough times, Mahalo registered "CarRepair.com" and ended up the first result in google search from that point onward, because google regards the domains that match the query very highly.

Then they repeated this for hundreds of other queries.

This is considered bad form because these shell websites are all indistinguishable in terms of substance, and duplicate content already offered by the main site.

<comment><USER6> Some updates for folks on SEO:

1\. Domain names are not counted toward SEO. Links and quality content are what drives SEO. That is what you should really focus on.

2\. Having more than one domain name doesn't help SEO--especially if they are all on the same group of servers. Google knows when one person owns all the same domain names and when they are all on the same servers. If you wanted to try and fool google you might be able to have 500 servers in 500 different locations running 500 different software profiles, etc. However, the amount of time to do that is greater than just making good content.

3\. Putting keyword in a domain just makes it easier to remember. Which is worthwhile...

<comment><USER16> Jason - I think the data would beg to differ. Correlation of exact match domains and even of domains that simply include the keywords with high rankings on both Google and Bing are quite pronounced - [http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation- analys...](http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analysis-of- ranking-elements) \- particularly for algorithms that supposedly contain 200+ ranking elements.

I agree with Aaron that a keyword-rich domain can be a great asset and benefit from an SEO perspective, but I find it hard to believe that you approved/initiated this strategy without some knowledge of the SEO benefits and intention to reap the rewards. Either way, glad to see you helping to spread the concepts and success SEO can bring rather than bash it - that's certainly a welcome change :-)

I don't have any type of legal background, so don't feel qualified to speak to the legalities of employing trademarks in domain names.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> based on the age of my random selection of those domain names, they started doing it early this year.

</comment><comment><USER17> There are two things going on here.

1\. Generating domains that match exact search terms is very common and can be quite effective. This is not 'bad' in google ethics - think of how there is no search bar in chrome - when i type 'hacker news' into chrome, hackernews.com is #3; the line between a search and almost typing in an exact domain name makes these domains valuable, and uneducated users who don't know the difference between a search and a domain mean this won't change anytime soon.

2\. Mahalo could be auto-generating content that should be penalized because it is duplicate or spammy. This is, within the terms of the googleverse, 'bad' and can be penalized. However it's not clear that all of those sites are exactly the same (i didn't click through each one) - they may be different enough but just share a similar URL structure, which if the content is different, is not really an issue.

</comment><comment><USER18> So not only are they content thieves, they are also cybersquatters with names like:

      starwarsanswers.com
      iphoneqna.com
      facebook-questions.com
      nfl-questions.com
      squarespaceanswer.scom
      astonmartinanswers.com
      volkswagenanswers.com

And that's just the first 2 pages of results.

<comment><USER7> Buying great domain names is just a great/smart/effective strategy.

But cybersquatting isn't something where a person is operating in the gray area of the terms of service, it is something which is clearly ___illegal_ __.

Now that is something you might expect some low end affiliate to do, or maybe an innocent technique by a person ignorant to what they are doing (if they are doing it on just 1 name)...but to raise venture capital and then deploy it on illegal marketing strategies is a bit extreme.

It would have been nearly as helpful/beneficial to do something like footballquestions.com (instead of nfl-questions.com), and it wouldn't have been illegal.

The curious question is why take VC money if you want to take the low road? Do the investors realize the latent risk embedded in this activity?

Jason claimed that the Youtube founders should have handed their sales money to the original content creators. I wonder if he thinks the same way about money made from JASON cybersquatting on someone else's brand?

And I would love to here Jason explain how/why he feels the 2 are in any way different from each other.

<comment><USER6> Actually Aaron, you can use a domain name with a brand in it.... take a look at wipo and you'll see dozens of examples of this. I've posted one below.

That being said, if someone had a problem with our Toyota Answers site or iPad Answers site we would discuss it with them.

Not sure that you understand what the term Cybersquatting means. Cybersquatting is when you sit on a domain name that is the same as someone's brandname and you try to sell it back to them.

What we are doing is creating a forum for the public to discuss a product or service. We also take the time to do a popup to keep people from being confused.

There are many internet companies that do this including the publicly traded Internet Brands which runs sites like corvetteforum.com.

Here's the Wipo link for you to get caught up...

best jcal

[http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2000/d2000...](http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2000/d2000-1015.html) Based on the foregoing discussion, the Panel denies the Complaint under the Policy 4 (i) and the Rules 15. Complainant, Lockheed Martin Corporation, failed to show that the disputed domain names were confusingly similar to its trademarks. Therefore, the Panel orders that the disputed domain names <lockheedsucks.com> and <lockheedmartinsucks.com> remain registered in the name of the Respondent, Dan Parisi.

<comment><USER8> I recently googled ugg boots and found that the lawyers for UGG told Google to de-index some sites that had ugg in the domain name. That's uncool.

I knew a guy who had "timex" somewhere in his domain name and the lawyers for Timex did a cease-and-desist on him.

These trademark and IP lawyers are crossing the line because they know they can go after small-time operators who can't afford the legal team to fight them. And then that sets a legal precedent of a long series of wins that gives trademark and IP lawyers more ammo to use on even more cases, like a snowball.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Disclaimer: I worked for Mahalo last year.

You guys are over estimating the value of the domain names. They is a reason they were able to mass register these domains for just the base registration fee and not have to haggle with any private owners for a transfer. ____ answers is not a popular search query. I doubt any of domains are queries that generate more tha 500 searches a month. These domains have no value unless niche communities form around them and long tail content is generated as a result.

<comment><USER20> If your domain is costing you $10/year or less, and your content is a one-off, automated or crowdsourced, you only need a few cents/day to cover costs or edge into a tiny profit.

If you rank top for that keyword, 70% or so may click through. Most ads will pay at least a couple of cents, but could be higher. (I have a couple of static, set-and-forget sites where the domain registration for the year is paid by the first few ad clicks to arrive.)

When you have 500 searches/month plus some longer tail stuff, it will do better than many suspect.

In my experience, the 'ideas' suffix is also underrated (less competition for domains, decent niche to tackle) as incoming traffic is seeking a result and will often click an ad to get that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> that's pretty scummy</comment>


What Happened in 2014? - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2014/12/what-just-happened/ <comment><USER2> _" 8/ we finally got rid of files. dropbox, google drive, soundcloud, spotify, netflix, hbogo, youtube, wattpad, kindle, and a host of other cloud based services finally killed off three letter filenames"_

This is amazing and I guess I'll need to meditate over this fact (as I still like those files on my computer, feels as if I own them).

For now I'd still recommend holding on to your important stuff and considering the nature of the relationship between you and your cloud provider.

<comment><USER3> Don't dropbox and google drive simply mirror files in the cloud? The other things eliminate files but I'm not sure what those two contribute to the file genocide.

<comment><USER4> They only do this to the extent that your local mirror is a physical copy of the latest version of the datastore in the cloud. So if someone deletes something in the cloud, it is removed from your local datastore. Additionally, if someone deletes something in their local copy, that local copy is mirrored to the cloud, which subsequently deletes that data from your local copy.

They are not mirroring your data, you are mirroring their data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love hating on VCs as much as the other guy, but I must admit I'm envious of the ability of Fred Wilson (and VCs in general) to zoom out and see the bigger picture. I wonder if that's a skill that can be learned/taught.

<comment><USER6> It is a skill, and is often trained or realised by people in a leadership position: stop doing, start reflecting. Spend your working time reflecting about what's going around you (and the hope is, answers will flow). That doesn't mean meditating in your office, but making the time and having the freedom to think (and, sometimes, experiment, sometimes wildly).

This is harder to so in some environments, but often, the more one goes up a ladder of influence, the easier it becomes (self efficiency, delegation, understanding of employer or sponsor).

I have no idea regarding VCs, but in large companies a common formula is: Managers: 10% of time for reflection Managers of managers: 20-30% of time Managers of managers of managers and further through the tree: 60% of time

This power of reflection increases clarity in decision, communication, and impact, whatever the field. Contrast this with the need to constantly fight fires with no time to think about the big picture.

Often, it doesn't work out this way. Lack of delegation, filling more than one role at the same time ('stretch goals' that really mean the organisation is under resourced), desire for immediate impact stop this from working.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've always admired Fred's way of laying things out without any nonsense and seemingly quite transparently. I'm _very_ keen to found out what he thinks 2015 will bring tomorrow (and anyone else in the know, really..)

<comment><USER8> Hopefully 2015 will be the year of capitalizing the first letter of the first word in a new sentence.

<comment><USER9> ha! that's great. i don't think i'm going to do that though.

<comment><USER8> You did it![0]

0 - [http://avc.com/2015/01/what-is-going-to- happen/](http://avc.com/2015/01/what-is-going-to-happen/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> People will only know what really happened in 2014 when it's 2017. It's too soon to say whether something is just a fad or an actual paradigm shifting trend.

<comment><USER9> correct

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _" 7/ youtube became a monster. it always has been. but in 2014 youtube emerged as the place for entertainment consumption for anyone under 16"_

This seems so huge to me - maybe it's because I have kids and saw it happen firsthand over the course of this year.

<comment><USER12> I still have videos on Youtube I can't get off. This was after Google bought Youtube, and couldn't leave their medling hands(if it works--leave it alone?) off a good site. Yea, I changed accounts. Yea, I tried to do what others, and Youtube suggested, but there was an error somewhere; and I have Youtube videos I can't get to unless I comment on my video--which I disabled originally. One video got enough hits that Google put up advertising on it? I emailed Google and the person emailed me back, "Check the Tips on the Youtube help board?"

<comment><USER13> If the account isn't clearly linked to you and you own to content, send them a DCMA takedown notice?</comment></comment></comment>


Focals by North - <AUTHOR> https://bynorth.com <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who doesn't want

\- Digital Glasses, Google Glass

\- Smart assistants

\- IOT devices

\- Smart door locks

\- Internet enabled washing machines, refrigerators, ovens, etc.

\- Push to order dash buttons

\- Smart watch

\- Smart cameras/webcams

These devices are solutions looking for a problem. The value proposition is overshadowed by loss of privacy, interruptions by social media, potential for security flaws, and loss of control by the end user, loss of repairability, amongst many other issues. They provide little benefit at the expense of aforementioned disadvantages.

Apparently, the general public loves these and Alexa devices sell like hotcakes, Apple watch is a huge success and Google assistant is getting smarter everyday.

I honestly am satisfied without smart things in life. I understand this might come across as a kind of anti-technology view of life, but I love technology! I just don't resonate with the IOT/Smart devices.

This trend is everywhere from my label marker to John Deere tractors. What happens when Focal goes bankrupt and the device cannot connect to their cloud for security updates? Yep, they become normal glasses with thick frame with dead batteries. I want longevity, reliability and durability from my devices. Dieter Rams has a great view on this issue: [https://www.hustwit.com/rams/](https://www.hustwit.com/rams/)

<comment><USER3> I don't want a lot of those things, but I really want a couple of them in a different form than currently available:

\- Smart _driving_ (sun|eye)glasses.

\- Smart plant waterers for when I'm out of town.

\- Something that does what Apple Watch does without displacing my real watch.

It seems I'm unlikely to see the second two -- AFAICT plant watering is stuck in DIY mode, and it looks like the Apple Watch business is booming so everybody will pile onto that design.

But I could imagine smart driving glasses actually happening, and I think the road from "neat tool" to "annoying but required car UI" would be plenty long.

<comment><USER4> It seems like there are a tonne of smart plant watering things... [https://www.postscapes.com/wireless-plant- sensors/](https://www.postscapes.com/wireless-plant-sensors/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that link! I keep getting stuck on the "needs a dedicated tap" problem but I will investigate further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They pose their models in such a way to hide it, but the temples of those glasses (where all the tech lives, presumably) are huge. Which feel like they'd both be distracting to wear and to look at someone else wearing. (Although this is certainly an improvement over the Google Glasses design.)

I would believe that some people would like a little heads-up display in their glasses. Not everyone. But some people. But I also would believe that the glasses would need to look almost identical to normal glasses for such a thing to take off. People don't want weird bulky shit strapped to their faces. Dark and moody photos that hide the actual size of the things won't be enough.

<comment><USER6> Sometime at parties I wish for a HUD that would show me people's name and the last time I saw them. On the other hand I dislike wearing glasses at social events, since I don't really need them.

<comment><USER7> I really don't look forward to trying to politely explain why I don't like having my face uploaded into the facial recognition/person-tracking system that will involve.

<comment><USER8> I _do_ look forward to our cyberpunk future where to "opt out" of certain systems, you have to paint a certain mark on your face, or put a little QRCode sticker on your cheek.

"Sorry, I'm only opted into Google Facemind and FacebookFace; I don't want to be indexed by Amazon Visage."

<comment><USER9> People have begun studying makeup and hair styles that foil today's face recognition in general: [https://cvdazzle.com/](https://cvdazzle.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If the Thalmic Labs name doesn't ring a bell, they're the former makers of the Myo gesture control armband (which was just discontinued).

By all customer accounts I've seen it was an expensive gadget that never worked reliably enough to be useful for anything, so hopefully they do better with glasses.

<comment><USER11> I've tried the Myo a bunch of times, at hackathons and such. I think it was a good product.

It actually worked.

The thing is that it wasn't _that_ useful and they never found product-market fit. Yet, it was an avenue worth exploring.

If you are curious you can find used Myos on eBay, see for yourself. There is a world between them a leap motion for example.

<comment><USER12> I had one and every single person that tried it had issues with it in the first few minutes. A hackathon is one thing, but it didn't work even close to well enough to be a mainstream consumer product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The thesis of this product seems to be that Google glass failed due to poor design. I think that's an idea worth exploring and the execution here does look promising, but I'll hold off on judgement until other people can review the device. Here are my immediate, unsolicited, uncollected thoughts:

There are many issues that I worry about with this kind of device, but battery safety and battery life are most important to me. Since you are strapping lithium ion batteries to your head, it could be fatal if there is a manufacturing defect or someone can remotely exploit the device. Getting the battery right is likely going to make or break this product.

Social acceptance is yet another large hurdle. People do not take kindly to surreptitious film making. We already have enough problems with people glued to their phones and those are at least stored out of sight.

I would try my best to ditch the ring. This is the palm pilot stylus all over again.

I was waiting for someone to do this, because I'd run the idea through my head and was uncertain of the outcome. I'm not sure if you will succeed, but I think you've made a decent product which is commendable. Good luck.

<comment><USER14> I've read not too long ago that Google glass version 2.0, or enterprise edition, was actually having some decent success/traction among workers.

<comment><USER15> Here's the Wired article about it: [https://www.wired.com/story/google- glass-2-is-here/](https://www.wired.com/story/google-glass-2-is-here/)

Seems to give a huge productivity boost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> These may be great. I see a number of _immediate_ uses for these, if I had them.

Reading books or emails while on a train, without having to hold anything in my hands. Maybe even watching videos that I never have time to watch.

Walking with a map in my FOV, without having to consult a phone.

Taking phone calls, since it has a mic.

It has a remote control, though a limited one, it seemingly allows for operation without taking your hand to your face; you can keep your hands in your pockets in cold weather.

<comment><USER17> Besides video, all of your use cases are already functional with an audio interface with AirPods for example.

<comment><USER16> Do airpods put a screen before my eyes? Can they show a text, or line art?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't care about the glasses.

The ring controller though - I have been looking for something like that for a while. I want something small and hands-free to control the slides while giving presentations. I had a Creative Ring Presenter but it died and I just really need "next slide / previous slide" buttons.

</comment><comment><USER19> Useful specs are here: [http://www.bynorth.com/tech](http://www.bynorth.com/tech)

<comment><USER20> They mention Qualcomm MSM8909w processor. [https://www.qualcomm.com/products/msm8909w](https://www.qualcomm.com/products/msm8909w) According to its specs it supports resolution of up to 640x480 at 60fps. Kinda sucks if you ask me.

<comment><USER8> Seems good enough for the kind of data they want to display; you're not going to be playing Battlefield on these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm curious where the display actually shows up in your eye line. One of the nice parts of Glass was the notifications never showed up directly in your line of sight, but up and to the right. Glass was a little too far out of the way, but I'm not sure I want them interfering with what I'm looking at.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think before we tackle "smart glasses" from technical and social acceptance perspectives, we should explore "smart headphones". Perhaps it already exists, but while I'm walking around with my cordless Bose headphones I wonder why someone hasn't already made headphones that have dual-cameras in both ear pieces, gyroscopes, and accelerators built in. I think a lot of people would be interested in being able to take photos or motion stabilised videos from their perspective with the tap of a button. There have been times where I saw something interesting, took my phone out of my pocket to take a photo/video, but the moment had already passed. Walking around with camera enabled headphones would allow me to capture the moment instantly. I just need to look and shoot.

But maybe I should just enjoy the moment for what it is, and let it pass, without feeling the need to record it...

</comment><comment><USER23> I guess I've fallen to the other side of the chasm (to use Geoffrey Moore terminology), because my initial reaction to this was disinterest and like it wasn't for me. Thank god for early adopters.

</comment><comment><USER24> Anyone has any leaks or something regarding what's the pixel resolution of the display? I'm curious if it would be theoretically possible to display vim in some 8x8 font on this...

<comment><USER25> 300x300px as per Verge[1]

[1]:[https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/10/23/18010468/...](https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/10/23/18010468/north- focals-glasses-thalmic-labs)

<comment><USER24> Cool, so seems not worse than a CGA at 320x200, if that shows up to be true! :) That's something I'm totally looking forward to hopefully be able to use at some point in future. Will probably take some time however till it trickles down to people with my levels of financial affordance. Also, till somebody hacks the software open for installing some kind of FOSS firmware. And finally, I have a sneaky suspicion, that the 3-sec-per-notification display time limit is there mainly to make the batteries last long enough on one charge to call it "a day" ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The biggest issue for me is that I hate wearing glasses, and "wearing" tech in general. I _hate_ carrying things around. I much prefer tech that is integrated into my environment (ex. Google Home, smart screens, etc.). Once we get to brain implants that can display artificial information in our visual field, I may reconsider.

</comment><comment><USER26> Apparently these will have a $1k pricetag.

Unfortunately, this product has already failed out of the gate just like Google Glass did: it was never the hokey backwards bulky design of the glasses that mattered... it was the price.

Charge me, say, $200 to add this to frames that aren't thick plastic "hipster" glasses, then I'd buy it.

<comment><USER27> The price isn't that important in the first round. $1k is not too much for some people to buy them and see if they're useful.

If they're useful, the design will get reworked and the price could come down. It's not very reasonable to expect this to work with any pair of glasses, it's apparently projecting onto the lenses so geometry is important. $200 is probably a stretch for the non-glasses part of the deal too.

Google glasses were expensive, a strange design, not very useful, and fairly creepy. But most of the software became Android Wear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't wear glasses or contacts, so can't see myself ever buying these. I really like that finger ring controller though, pretty innovative.

Slightly-off topic: Does anyone know what percentage of the population has vision that is impaired to the point where they require aids such as contacts or glasses?

<comment><USER29> About 75% according to this: [https://www.essilorusa.com/newsroom/vision- impact-institute-...](https://www.essilorusa.com/newsroom/vision-impact- institute-releases-study-on-corrective-lens-wearers-in-the-u-s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Anyone notice how every single model has long hair. It looks like cool tech, but I can pretty much guarantee the large branches will look really really terrible on short haired/no hair folks...

Maybe in a few years the tech will have gotten small enough to have normal looking branches

</comment><comment><USER31> A 28nm SoC in a severely battery-limited wearable including video output and speech-to-text screams "poor battery life with moderate to heavy use".

I'm going to wait for the next-gen device built on a more modern manufacturing node (like TSMC N7/N7+).

<comment><USER32> Can you please explain what you mean by "built on a more modern manufacturing node"?

<comment><USER31> By "more modern manufacturing node", I mean anything more energy-efficient than the 28nm process node used to build the SoC in this device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not sure what's more annoying:

A) People looking at their phone/smart watch while I'm talking to them.

B) People looking through me while fiddling with a ring on their finger.

At least I can call people out on A...

</comment><comment><USER34> Who here is pre-ordering these, and why?

<comment><USER35> I haven't yet pulled the trigger on this but I'm tempted. My memory is pretty bad and I tend to forget what I'm meant to be doing or what I had planned for the day. This would be a great help for keeping me on track throughout the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder if there's going to be a cheaper, 'ad-supported' version.

</comment><comment><USER37> looks like no camera on the glasses? Guessing a camera will show up soon, or maybe on the loop device? (which might work ok you could preview the pic in the glasses)

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't see these things going anywhere without AR.

<comment><USER39> I disagree. They got rid of all the features that were creepy about Google Glass, focused the marketing on fashion, and narrowed the functionality to an easily usable UX. I suspect there are plenty of people that would pay $1k for these.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Will SMS work with iPhones?

</comment><comment><USER41> No SDK as of yet.

Also, no price anywhere.

<comment><USER42> They're $999 a pair AFAIK

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> 'information ... so you can have peace of mind" Piss off with this manipulative marking crap. Saying this sort of thing hurts people's mental health.</comment>


The Silicon Oligarchy - <AUTHOR> https://themargins.substack.com/p/the-silicon-oligarchy?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxMDYwNDE2NCwicG9zdF9pZCI6NTQzOTE1LCJfIjoieFFrWkoiLCJpYXQiOjE1OTI1NTU0NzcsImV4cCI6MTU5MjU1OTA3NywiaXNzIjoicHViLTY2ODMiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.LnUmkJ5oBydiuAjz5ljbHGRHeqaIezIo8S4oni7nHMo <comment><USER3> I love this new narrative that allowing the president of the USA to communicate on the largest platform in the world is siding with him or being in alliance with him.

At least be honest and say that you want Zuckerberg to censor and police trump. That's the truth. But don't pretend that somehow it's immoral to allow the US President to post on your platform. He's the president, whether you like it or not.

<comment><USER4> The president didn't post a video making cupcakes. He explicitly reused a racist phrase to suggest the black protesters should be shot down. Anyone else making this comment would have been flagged but not the president.

Zuckerberg is not the kid in the social network movie who's "not an asshole, you're just trying really hard to be one." No one has ever said a single good thing about him, or his partner Sandberg, in a long time. By all measures they seem to be selfish people who have nothing else in their minds other than keeping and growing the power they have now. The only other thing they are now famous for is how they manipulate good founders of great products with false promises and then kick them out to consolidate even more power. At least that's all you can tell from what little we know of these billionaire oligarchs lives.

In the end, I'm going to hypothesize that America became a great country because for a while some of its leaders and rich people at least tried to do _some_ good things to its people and try to be the better person now and then. Given the degree to which every single rich person and politician in power seems self-obsessed if not overtly corrupt, it doesn't bode too well for the life of the common man in America or anywhere else for the matter.

I'm not particularly worried about WW3 though, because I don't see any good country left behind to fight every totalitarian nation that's getting created now.

<comment><USER5> I may be a bit out of context of American politics, so an honest question here: how a threat to looters, who actively commit a crime, without any reference to skin color, can be racist?

Seeing how violent these riots can get, that phrase is exactly what I would love to hear from authorities as black business owner, for example.

<comment><USER6> Trump used the the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" as part of a longer series of Tweets about the riots. The same phrase was also said at least once before, by an obscure racist 70 years ago whom no-one had heard of before the Tweet. Some have drawn the conclusion that Trump was in fact making a deliberate reference to this obscure racist.

<comment><USER5> > The same phrase was also said at least once before, by an obscure racist 70 > years ago

I have to come clean: I haven't been completely intellectually honest in asking the question above. I have already known about it.

The point is, I have a problem with the way present-day american political life has a way with meanings of words. You guys seem to put so much importance on imaginary dog-whistels and connotations, and are willing to interpret the original phrases in such bizzare and far-fetched ways.

And if we continue to play this game, the only ones who win are the people that are willingly interpret anything in the most offensive and divisive way.

<comment><USER7> speaking of interpretations, this is what I read in the local paper: "Facebook removes Trump Ad due to Nazi symbol" [https://www.srf.ch/news/international/wegen-nazi-symbol- face...](https://www.srf.ch/news/international/wegen-nazi-symbol-facebook- loescht-trump-werbung)

<comment><USER7> found in english: [https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-facebook-trump/facebook- ta...](https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-facebook-trump/facebook-takes-down- trump-ads-over-organized-hate-policy-idUKKBN23P3AJ)

As you all point out, this could simply be highly unfortunate coincidence. I would advise the white house to try internally circulating campaigns for feedback _before_ running them.

(a flight of fancy: the infamous Antifa agent Max Isayev, as part of a highly structured plot —supported not only by the FBI, but also by Thurn und Taxis and the Trans Scouts of America— to prevent Trump's reelection, has gone deep undercover at Fox under the name of Seymour Buttz, and has been both circulating memes with unfortunate connotations among the Base and flashing subliminal emoji during programming, confident that in the US things that happened in WW2 are even less part of common knowledge than things that Ancient Astronaut theorists believe, making it more likely his nefarious "suggestions" will intermittently seep into campaign material with the innocents none the wiser.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I assume the US has always been an oligarchy and never truly a democracy at the federal level. The American people just get to vote from either the two parties that desire whoever to be elected and where hundreds of millions are spent with a lot of nonsense that's off-topic.

Understandably tech is arguably in infancy but nothing like the decades before today. So the tech monopolies of today weren't a thing before but people had so much opportunity in the earliest years; that resulted in money being easy to be made with little concern of whatever outcome. Nowadays platforms control most of the market and people are now starting to notice an oligarchy in tech. Resulting in concern propagating in recent years.

It's well known a lot of people in society don't have a voice and when they're wronged by the system(s) of society; whether it be authoritarian or not. I'm unsure if we can really prove current day is worse or better than previously in history regarding to having a voice/impact when being wronged. My question is how do we justly blame a worse outcome on a tech oligarchy and when we cannot know the foregoing being worse or better than the past?

<comment><USER7> The pre-internet saying was "freedom of the press is for those who own one." (journalists like to think of themselves as professionals, but publishers are not journalists. These days I guess we have to mention that random people with a truck and vlog are "journalists" in the same sense that random people with headphones and an open incognito tab are "scientists")

For your amusement, WASP self-parody: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTU2He2BIc0) "haters like to ???? ?? our ivy league education / but they're just jealous 'cause our families run the nation"

(as far as I can tell, this commerical was only aired in New England. That's OK, the P-word is their word, they can use it. "Sloane Ranger" for our brit friends, I suppose. It's "Goldküstenmilieu" here. What is the term in your countries?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> s/Silicon/Tech/

I thought this was going to be about Intel/TSMC/Samsung/GlobalFoundries. There's barely any Silicon in the valley anymore.

</comment><comment><USER10> >a Chinese president gets first dibs on naming Zuckerberg's kids.

That's pretty bizarre even by Zuck's standards

<comment><USER11> Think of it as a diplomatic move against straight up invasion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Bully's once they grow up have to adopt a veneer facade of goodness to hide that plain fact that they are still the same. In such cases it's usually the actions that speak the truth because the words are always meant to hide greed and sadism.

</comment><comment><USER13> Please remove what looks like a tracking token from the URL.

Untracked URL [https://themargins.substack.com/p/the-silicon- oligarchy](https://themargins.substack.com/p/the-silicon-oligarchy)

</comment><comment><USER14> Tools of the national security™ apparatus and its profiteers repurposed for domestic use[0]:

2014 CFR discussion[1]: "… What about Twitter? I have no idea what Twitter is good for. But if it flips out every tyrant in the Middle East, I'm interested." \- Michael Rogers, Founder, Practical Futurist; Futurist-in- Residence, New York Times Company

[0][1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15623278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15623278)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is why it's so important to avoid closed software and especially avoid software that depends on network services run by individual companies.

<comment><USER6> I agree, but how? Everyone I know uses WhatsApp. If I close my Facebook account I lose my only method of contacting a great deal of people who I used to know and don't want to lose touch with. How do I get off these platforms when no-one else will?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > As the Black Lives Matter demonstrations gained momentum and the police > response became increasingly violent, I found myself reliving what Turkey > has gone through, but in English.

In some cases in these US protests/revolts the authorities stepped completely back allowing looters and vandals complete reign over some areas. That's the complete opposite of what happened in Turkey.

<comment><USER17> And in many, many places, there's no looting etc. Its a protest, and the public responds positively. But not news-worthy I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not convinced at all that Mark Zuckerberg likes Trump. He just did it to play "good cop bad cop".

I've seen this kind of "good cop bad cop" charade a lot recently. Not just in the news but also in real life at my last company. You have one person acting like the bad guy using extreme arguments and another person acting like the good guy using less extreme arguments (though also undesirable) - <USER2> encourages people to side with the less extreme position instead of recognizing that they are both undesirable options.

IMO the 'employee walkout' by FB was just a charade in this good cop bad cop game. In a highly divided society, this is the most effective way to persuade people to do what you want. It creates a slow but predictable decline. Within a decade, people will think of the once extreme position as being totally reasonable.

Then they will keep playing the game; it's going to get a point that the good cop will be offering people to take huge salary cuts while the bad cop will be offering to abolish salaries altogether and provide food vouchers instead. There will be some overhanging narrative that we have limited resources and each one of us should do our bit to conserve those resources.

</comment><comment><USER19> I had hoped it would be about how there are so very few top-tier fabs.

</comment><comment><USER20> VECTORALISTS

<comment><USER21> Would you care to elaborate?

How am I doing so far?

> According to McKenzie Wark when information becomes a commodity it means we > will only be able to see the information produced by the vectoral class. > This is because they are the ones whose profits depend on the scarcity of > information. So when information becomes intellectual property we are bound > to repeat the same commodity form, because this is what the market decrees. > She states that the "hack" which monetizes information introduces the > "vectoralist" class.

> It is the hacker class that produces new information, free from the > restrictions of a property form. This however is then used by the vectoral > class, who own and control the means of production of information on an > industrial scale and mediates connections and access to information (Paolo > Pedercini, the founder of the radical games project Molleindustria cites > companies like Google, Uber or Airbnb as typical representatives of the > vectoral class). The hacker and the vectoral class aren't always at odds > with each other. They can compromise on the free flow of information and the > extraction of wealth from this information to fund its development. Think of > the open source movement, Reddit and Wikipedia. McKenzie Wark believes that > the hacker class should ally themselves with the other producing classes so > that they together don't have to answer to the vectoral class anymore.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> tl;dr: I'm from Turkey and "orange man bad"

So boring and unoriginal, missing one side completely and spinning it as unbiased, when it's borderline propaganda. C'mon.

<comment><USER23> It turns out that the orange man _is_ bad, in many of the same ways that Erdogan is bad.

<comment><USER22> Nah. It's more true everybody is brainwashed because people are scared to think for themselves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> >One of my new grand theories is that America lags 5-7 years behind emerging markets when it comes to the impact of American companies on society. And now, whatever heaven and hell tech companies have wrought upon the emerging markets is now on our doorstep.

This dovetails quite nicely with my conviction that whatever fortune or misfortune that's allowed to visit American blacks will eventually hit the rest of the country. Widespread housing insecurity? Check. Drug epidemic? Check. Voting rights crisis? See you in November.

<comment><USER23> > quite nicely with my conviction that whatever fortune or misfortune that's > allowed to visit American blacks will eventually hit the rest of the country

One of my wilder observations is that, while the conspiracy theorists are wrong, they're "exactly wrong": the unevidenced thing looks a bit like something that actually happened but with completely different details.

The thing they're worried about is the US doing to white people what it's already done to nonwhite people. Illegal medical experiments? Tuskeegee. "FEMA camps"? The post-Katrina mess. COINTELPRO? Already deployed against civil rights leaders in the 60s and 70s.

<comment><USER25> It kind of makes sense, actually.

We're extremely good pattern matchers, much more than we are aware of, but it stand to reason that as our more complex survival mechanisms seems to have close ties to how we perceive ourselves and maybe our "group", we become really terrible at correctly matching what we intuit, if "we" can be considered the perpetrator.

Hypothesizing that we are part of the victims is also a much more effective strategy for the group if we're in a fear/survival mode, as an erroneous attribution often only presents a post-facto moral dilemma for a few individuals, a dilemma we can shield our ego from by saying we didn't know.

That we didn't know is also often objectively true as long as we disregard the uncanny notion that research on social interaction has let us understand exists, that our brain doesn't always let (most of) us know everything that it is going on if it will harm the social interaction.

Most of the above is not much of a problem when that group is a group of people in the middle of a forest, but becomes very much a problem if it is almost the entire population of a country, and when we as in the current day and time is obsessed with polishing our ego.</comment></comment></comment>


The Thirty Million Word Gap - <AUTHOR> http://literacy.rice.edu/thirty-million-word-gap <comment><USER2> _Follow-up studies showed that these differences in language and interaction experiences have lasting effects on a child's performance later in life._

That's quite a leap to say "this caused that," rather than them both just being a side-effect/characteristic of something else.

It is the height of shoddy science to look at correlated data points and proclaim a conclusion. But of course, much of what falls under 'social science' especially these days is shoddy.

<comment><USER3> [http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459](http://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459)

>>> Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials

Abstract Objectives To determine whether parachutes are effective in preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge.

Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials.

...

Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using a parachute during free fall.

Results: We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention.

Conclusions: As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute. <<<

<comment><USER2> Not sure what your point is...

If mine wasn't clear to you, the article starts with a claim that this 'word gap' is the _cause_ of effects observed later in life. It's easy to see the attraction of this, simply talk to kids more, then better adults right?

This is hardly cutting edge research, this has been floating around for some time, long enough for people to do some 'interventions,' of talking to kids more and the like, what did they find? Not much difference.

Back to the drawing board then right? Nope, not in social science, in social science if the results don't match our desires, we keep trying to beat the square peg into the round hole until they do!

What makes this shoddy science is that they assert the 'word gap' to be the cause with no evidence of it being so, and ignore other explanations, things like perhaps there are heritable 'psychological proclivities' that lead to parents raising a child in a particular way, the child inherits some portion and arrangement of these 'psychological proclivities' from the parent, these same 'psychological proclivities' then have an effect on the things observed later in life.

So if the social scientists want to do something productive instead of ignoring or bemoaning the fact that there are genuine differences among people, they could explore ways of structuring societies and institutions such that better results for people of all 'psychological proclivities' can be achieved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How much of this gap is explained by the fact that low-income earners have to work harder and thus have both less time to interact with their children, and less money to hire other humans to interact with them?

Consider a wealthy "Leave it to Beaver" one-income family: dad works, mom stays at home and drags the tots to an endless series of carefully selected enrichment activites, maybe drops them off at a Montessori day care a few days a week.

While at the other end of the social scale, single mom works two jobs to make ends meet and is barely ever home, so kids are left with a relative who's taking care of a whole brood of children, or plunked down in front of the TV and told to keep quiet.

<comment><USER5> Read the Experimental Method section. The experimenters conducted monthly hour-long observations of families.

We don't know how often these parents conversed with their kids outside these observation periods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shameless plug. My fiancee's company is working to solve this. Check out their wearable device:

[http://www.versame.com/](http://www.versame.com/)

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/starling-a-child-s- wearab...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/starling-a-child-s-wearable- that-can-boost-iq)

<comment><USER7> I think the kind of people (socio-economically speaking) who would actually buy this are not the ones that actually need it. I would be more worried about attaching an RF transmitter to my kids hearing enough words.

<comment><USER8> Hi schd - I'm one of the creators of the Starling. We've designed the Starling for every family, including gadget distracted parents (like me). We're also working with a non-profit called Literacy Lab in Oakland to get Starlings into low income homes and have had a number of devices donated through our campaign.

On RF, the Starling uses Bluetooth LE, which uses about 1500 times less energy than a smartphone. We've also designed it so parents can tell it to only sync with their phones when they place it in its charging dock.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Podcast and book on the same topic, both recommended: [http://freakonomics.com/2015/11/19/does-early-education- come...](http://freakonomics.com/2015/11/19/does-early-education-come-way-too- late-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Million-Words-Building- Childs/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Million-Words-Building- Childs/dp/0525954872)

</comment><comment><USER10> This number struck me as unbelievably large when I first heard it, so I looked into it here: [http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/20139/do-poor- ch...](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/20139/do-poor-children- hear-30-million-fewer-words-by-age-3)

tl;dr I think 30 million is an overestimate.

</comment><comment><USER11> Sensationalist title. I don't think the difference between people with rich and poor backgrounds is the size of the word gap.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why is Terry Davis' comment [dead]? It's a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless. IQ's heritability is well-known. So is correlation of IQ with income (although it is much weaker)

That said, if the word gap was smaller, the poorer children would be better off. The effects described above are statistic and only apply to most cases for a certain definition of most.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Income)

<comment><USER13> I wonder, though, how much of IQ's heritability is cultural.

It would work like this: My parents were poor, and had lower IQs. They didn't have time to read to me or talk a lot to me or spend a lot of time with me. They were too tired, just trying to make enough money to keep us all fed.

Now I've got kids, and I'm repeating the same pattern, partly because I'm tired from working too hard, and partly because that's the pattern I saw growing up, and so it's the default behavior for me.

Note well: This account is fictional, not my actual experience. It's not even anecdotal evidence for my position. It's a hypothetical explanation of how cultural baggage could be inherited between generations in a way that could affect IQ.

<comment><USER2> The scenario you describe is really one more common to the modern world of just the past couple generations.

Intelligence has been evolving and subject to inheritance far longer than that.

Believe it or not, the scenario you describe has occurred to researchers as an avenue of study, and they found it didn't amount to much(i.e. nature over nurture), see 'twin studies.'

This subject, intelligence, is really one of the triumphs of 20th century science, in that it has come to be quite well understood. It's understandable that you and so many others seem unaware of this, however, because to quote Steven Pinker, 'people hate the message.' [https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/645301814955388930](https://twitter.com/sapinker/status/645301814955388930)

Also, you may consider abandoning this notion of genetics and culture being in an uncorrelated relationship.

Cultures are simply people, that is they are emergent from the interactions of people, and since there are high IQ people and low IQ people, there are high IQ cultures and low IQ cultures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe so. I believe in evolution. I believe that IQ is inherited.

<comment><USER15> Why can't it be both?</comment></comment>


Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand - <AUTHOR> https://bitcoin.co.th/trading-suspended-due-to-bank-of-thailand-advisement/?bettertitle <comment><USER2> Bitcoin was _not_ ruled illegal. The Bank of Thailand has no legal power. A few senior members of the bank saying something is illegal does not make it illegal. The Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department are merely departments of the bank, not branches of the legislative government.

In other words the title "Bitcoin ruled illegal in Thailand" should be changed to "Bank of Thailand wishes Bitcoin to be illegal", or "Trading suspended due to Bank of Thailand advisement" which is the original title.

<comment><USER3> Indeed.. upon closer inspection all that happened is this guy approached the Bank of Thailand and (foolishly) deferred to their authority to ask if he could trade coins using their bank. This always results in bankers telling you no, and no surprise they said no, but doesn't mean you can't use cash on the streets, just so long as no banks are used. Thai parliament hasn't passed any laws declaring virtual currencies illegal.

<comment><USER4> Why would you even go to the BoT?

The only reason I can think of is so that they say no, and you get some free publicity?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The key factor to the success of any currency is liquidity. You are only willing to put money in if you can take money out. If the government of Thailand says it is illegal to transfer money in or out - that will effect liquidity in Thailand. How will this be enforced? First, banks and reputable institutions doing business in Thailand will not be allowed to trade with companies involved in bitcoin exchange. Of course, this will not completely stop currency conversions, but it will act to decrease liquidity which will act to discourage people from putting money into bitcoins – further decreasing liquidity.

This is definitely bad news for bitcoins.

[Edit] Will a down-voter kindly explain to me how this is good news for bitcoins? Maybe liquidity is not important for a currency?

<comment><USER6> To the point of your edit, you see identical behavior on Gold investor boards in the typical sites (Motley Food, Seeking Alpha, et al). Everything is good news for gold. If "A" is good for gold, so is "!A". This money flowing in to ETF, inventory levels, chart technicals... almost anything. In the event that something is difficult to justify immediately as good news, it is the product of a malicious conspiracy (market makers, central banks).

I'm only comparing the group dynamic and the hostile reaction to any suggestion that triggers cognitive dissonance. I haven't checked the chart on Mt Gox in ages, last I saw 1 BTC was ~ 125 USD. As a disinterested observer, this Thailand development doesn't seem very important one way or the other, but it's hard to interpret as positive.

<comment><USER7> For what it's worth, I see identical behavior with stock market enthusiasts as well. Good job numbers? Market goes up. Bad job numbers? Market goes up -- clearly Ben Bernanke must keep printing until employment stabilizes. "A" is good for the stock market and so is "!A." It really is a crazy time we live in. Cognitive dissonance everywhere you look.

<comment><USER8> There's nothing _necessarily_ crazy about what you describe. The markets reaction to news that everyone knows is going to be released (that is, we know job numbers will be published at this time on that day, but not what the numbers will be) won't necessarily track the good-ness or bad-ness of the news, because the market will have moved in advance based on the best estimates of those playing that game, and they might have overshot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thailand's "Foreign Exchange Administration and Policy Department" has advised that, quoting from the OP: _" the following Bitcoin activities are illegal in Thailand: buying Bitcoins; selling Bitcoins; buying any goods or services in exchange for Bitcoins; selling any goods or services for Bitcoins; sending Bitcoins to anyone located outside of Thailand; receiving Bitcoins from anyone located outside of Thailand."_

We can get a sense of how successful and lasting this edict will be with a simple mental experiment: replace "Bitcoin" with "US Dollar." The edict thus becomes: _" the following US Dollar activities are illegal in Thailand: buying US Dollars; selling US Dollars; buying any goods or services in exchange for US Dollars; selling any goods or services for US Dollars; sending US Dollars to anyone located outside of Thailand; receiving US Dollars from anyone located outside of Thailand."_ How successful could _that edict_ be, and how long could it last, realistically?

Foreign exchange controls are normally difficult to implement and enforce. Control of Bitcoin -- a decentralized, optionally anonymous, virtual commodity -- should be even more difficult.

I suspect a lot of Bitcoin trading volume in Thailand will simply go underground.

<comment><USER10> They may indeed go underground. That means that legitimate businesses will have a hard time dealing with them if they deal with them at all.

Make no mistake, even if governments can't stop people trading bitcoin, they can stop it becoming mainstream in the way many BTC enthusiasts seem to want.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure it is in their long term strategic interest to push bitcoin underground since that will make bitcoin far harder to tax (declining tax revenues -> increasing taxes and decreasing State power -> more people hiding income = the Greek Syndrome).

<comment><USER12> It doesn't necessarily matter if it's harder to tax. If the only way to exchange Bitcoins for currency is via face-to-face transactions, 90% of what usefulness it has is eliminated. The remaining use, exchange of a virtual currency for virtual goods and services, is only useful with an easy way to get ahold of a sum of said virtual currency to begin with.

Which is to say, with a sufficiently low volume of BTC being passed around, taxing it becomes as important as making sure you tax cash transactions by roadside fruit vendors or lemonade stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
        - Buying Bitcoins
        - Selling Bitcoins
        - Buying any goods or services in exchange for Bitcoins
        - Selling any goods or services for Bitcoins
        - Sending Bitcoins to anyone located outside of Thailand
        - Receiving Bitcoins from anyone located outside of Thailand

I think what they mean is that its impossible for a company to do any of the above things legally. Its not possible to enforce this on the individual level.

<comment><USER10> >> Its not possible to enforce this on the individual level.

Why not? From what little I understand it's pretty easy to spot bitcoin related traffic on a network, transactions in particular. Thailand already has some sort of national filtering/porn censorship set up IIRC.

<comment><USER14> If the person in question is running a Bitcoin wallet, that is. Receiving and sending via blockchain.info online wallets would require masking website traffic only, and there are lots of ways to do this.

Receiving via offline wallet would be completely untraceable, unless the addresses were know a priori by the authorities. Checking the balance on a web-based blockchain viewer could tip off the watchers, but the same precautions apply here as for the above case.

<comment><USER10> Receiving via an offline wallet... You mean effectively a savings account that is inbound only? Sure, no traffic needs to come to you then.

I'm sure there are ways to secure the traffic. As it stands, however, running your own node, mining, and sending BTC is pretty detectable.

<comment><USER14> Of course.

The important thing here is that the receive-only scheme provides a way around two of the six points mentioned by dreen above: selling goods/services for Bitcoin and receiving Bitcoin from anyone outside the country.

Actually, from that list it looks like running a node and mining would not be illegal. And if you're mining with a pool, make sure the payout is added as part of the generation transaction, not sent as another transaction later.

<comment><USER10> Actually this brings up a very interesting question I hadn't even considered before:

In terms of bitcoin crossing borders and for the purposes of international commerce - where is a bitcoin?

If someone in the US pays someone in thailand you would (or I would) immediately think a cross border transaction has taken place. But Bitcoins only really exist on the blockchain, right? You don't somehow store them on your own machine, only the means of accessing them (keys in your wallet). And the block chain is everywhere. A transaction is a mathematical change of ownership from one key to another, a wallet merely a collection of keys and previous transaction records (the latter probably able to be rebuilt from the blockchain anyway)...

So did any bitcoin cross a border?

<comment><USER13> I think this is grey area and I have personally used bitcoin mostly for bypassing international transfer fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Maybe they got tired of all those bitcoin users abusing the Thai baht symbol.

</comment><comment><USER16> It will be interesting to see how actively they enforce this new ruling. Given that paedo-tourists are effectively given a free pass in Thailand I find it odd that Bitcoin would work it's way to the top of the agenda.

<comment><USER17> > Given that paedo-tourists are effectively given a free pass in Thailand

Really necessary to drag that in to the discussion?

<comment><USER18> What's a pseudo-tourist?

edit: why the downvote? It's a simple question!

<comment><USER19> A pseudo-tourist is your misreading of the word paedo-tourist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have a different explanation. Like many corrupt Asian governments (and I have lived in Asia for 10y+) they usually abide to this principle: if you discover some new way to make money, we either have to make money too out of it and without doing anything, or you have to stop. So in this case my theory is that they looked at it and like most computer illiterate governments they thought to stop it until they understand how the game works and start making money out of it themselves. I mean personally. Expect pretty soon to see some new Bitcoin service to appear in Thailand, with some weird license from the government, and founded (probably indirectly) by some corrupted member of the government or someone from their relatives.

<comment><USER21> I think it is safe to say this is universal

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bitcoin is more than a virtual currency or miners running rigs. It's the first self-sufficient, decentralized, monetary system that renders 3rd party entities like banks obsolete.

At the very least it's an intriguing concept in relation to sociology, economy, and new forms of governance. It's a paradigm shift, and as such, it will meet a lot of misunderstanding and opposition. Particularly from those whose power is at stake - banks and governments.

As once, the idea of equality and democracy shook the kingdoms during the Enlightenment, the idea of Bitcoin, if you look closely, is not far from it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yeah, well, prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand too.

</comment><comment><USER24> Riddle me this.

How does banning bits in any way shape or form, prevent their transmission and storage?

<comment><USER25> Child porn is bits too. People seem to be okay with making those bits illegal.

<comment><USER8> I'm not.

<comment><USER25> Me either. I don't believe in information ownership.

<comment><USER8> I don't see how the issues are linked. Do they simply stem from a common philosophy, or does a disbelief in information ownership somehow entail inability to punish for possession?

<comment><USER25> The way I see it, information possession and ownership are the same thing, and neither concept should be recognized by the law.

What does it mean to possess bits? Do they have to be on a physical media on my property? What if I have a network drive? Do they have to be on a server that I have access to? Does that mean that we're all in possession of everything that is made public on the Internet?

There are ways to answer these questions, but I'm not convinced that we have anything to gain from the government doing so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it applies to any nation that the government always retains the monopoly of "issuing" a currency.

EDIT: ...which probably means that sooner or later, bitcoin will probably be outlawed everywhere.

<comment><USER27> They haven't outlawed chuck e cheese coins, or any other arcade that uses its own currency instead of dollars. Why would bit coin be any different?

<comment><USER26> As far as I remember, the country sets a limit for this. Once a "pseudo" currency reaches that amount (in circulation), it is required to be "authorized" (or not) by the country.

Now that was before bicoin existed. So, probably the laws will soon be re- written to take that into account.

<comment><USER28> Is there a Mt.Gox for Chuck E Cheese token? Perhaps Mt.Swiss[cheese]?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> No problem. Start an Okpay exchanger in Thailand and ppl can use it to buy coins.

Thailand is already so corrupt laws are basically meaningless there. If you get caught somehow trading coins then just bribe the cop $100 and walk away.

<comment><USER21> It's a problem for businesses though

<comment><USER3> Bitcoin is the least of your problems if doing business in Thailand. Also they didn't ban zerocoin, or litecoin :P.

What about Thaicoin a currency backed by bitcoin?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Bitcoin is a tool. It is useful for some things, and it is not useful for others.

Any country who prohibits, like any country who prohibits any tool, it is putting their residents at a disadvantage. By definition. In those situations where the nail is a Bitcoin, Thai people will have no hammer, but a wrench with which to bang the nail in.

The beauty of Bitcoin is it only needs to thrive in one of the 200+ countries in the world for it to achieve Proof of Concept status. And once it does that, other countries will follow, and eventually any countries who prohibit it will need to allow it to stay competitive.

</comment><comment><USER30> And so it begins. Thailand is a drop in the ocean, once the US and other countries get on-board then the success of Bitcoin is only going to be further propelled. I presume most Bitcoin transactions will go underground and given their anonymous and decentralised nature, good luck enforcing laws like this or even being able to draw conclusive proof of Bitcoin usage to a particular entity (unless you find other proof like receipts, emails or having the Bitcoin client on your computer).

</comment><comment><USER31> How will this work in practice?

<comment><USER32> The phrase "this is Thailand" comes to mind - individual use will slip through the gaps, institutional users'll work this into their standard relationships with the various organs of government; and general apathy will reign in the end - the various arms of government are still probably embroiled in the omnipresent issues of either (a) a general political amnesty or (b) politically-motivated point-scoring.

No campaign exists, and there exists no space to whip one up considering how thoroughly split the various arms of government are between political allegiances (unless Yingluck's dealt with the judiciary already.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I am not 100% sure, but this could have a lot to do with the Asian currency crisis of the 1990's.

Thailand might be more sensitive to currency issues than other countries.

They were told to float their currency on the international market and it backfired horribly in the 1990's.

I can see why they would want to be worried about currency manipulations again.

</comment><comment><USER34> This will not last. Why? Because by making Bitcoin illegal, Thailand will detach itself from a market worth $1bn+.

And I agree with the other comments on here which say that this will drive trade (in Thailand at least) underground.

Disclaimer: I'm bullish on bitcoin.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra I wonder why isn't there even one _cool_ country government in the whole world. We only see _lame_ ones.

Switz might be an exception, or Iceland perhaps, but both too constrained by neighbours and political bonds.

</comment><comment><USER35> Maybe _another government_ called in a favor for Thailand to be the first to ban the currency? (Wild speculation.) If so, I wouldn't imagine that other nations will be long behind.

</comment><comment><USER36> aha, so mining bitcoins in Thailand was not mentioned!

</comment><comment><USER37> How about litecoin?</comment>


Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? Usually Not - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/upshot/do-workplace-wellness-programs-work-usually-not.html?abt=0002&abg=0&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Just give me decent office space, flextime, and a sensible allowance for vacation, (self-directed) training and sabbaticals -- and, if you don't mind, a solid health insurance that doesn't deduct from my salary base in order to cover beyond the bare minimum -- please. That's all I need for "wellness."

<comment><USER3> Quit giving staff delicious unhealthy food.

<comment><USER2> Yeah. It's amazing how many companies with "wellness" polices also happen to have the most cafeterias and kitchens (when they have them).

<comment><USER4> Can we agree that it's not the having of a kitchen or cafeteria, but what they stock it with that is the problem?

I would relish a kitchen or cafeteria stocked with delicious and wholesome food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Medium-to-large employers spent an average of $521 per employee on wellness > programs last year, double the amount they spent five years ago . . .

The question from me wouldn't be whether or not they work, but are they worth the time, money and effort that is put into these programs?

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if the PepsiCo Healthy Living program directed people to consume fewer PepsiCo products. It seems awkward for them to either address or ignore.

<comment><USER7> Not directly. It promotes exercise, quitting smoking, etc. The extent of their healthy product endeavor is reducing salt, sugar, trans fats, pushing naked juice, bottled water, an flavored water products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've always been told that wellness programs existed to obtain discounts from the insurance providers, akin to "honor roll" discounts with car insurance. As long as you have the bare minimum to qualify, you get a nice chunk of $$$ chopped off your rate.

I get that plenty of rate modifiers have strong links to driving safety like age and marriage status. However, in my limited opinion, there's no way "honor roll" has anything but the weakest link to safe driving as the barrier to achievement varies drastically on a school-to-school basis. Insurance companies are data driven but data (especially healthcare data) lags so long that I wouldn't be surprised if discounts for running a wellness program were founded purely in speculation. This article seems to back that assumption with hard proof as well.

<comment><USER9> Large employers are generally self-funded, meaning that they pay their healthcare claims dollar-for-dollar. Blue Cross (or whomever) serves as a claims administrator and takes a premium for the service, but may not provide any actual "insurance" with respect to the company (some have maximum per-year and maximum per-employee caps to the company but they aren't usually triggered by the sorts of things that wellness programs address).

Big companies hope that wellness programs really will decrease healthcare spend and increase morale --- chronic conditions like diabetes and smoking do have a disproportionate impact on the healthcare bottom line. That said, once- off specialty conditions (cancer, heart surgery, etc.) have an even bigger impact and aren't addressed by this.

<comment><USER10> The big items are also probabilistic events likely related to a lot of underlying health circumstances. If cancer or heart surgery can be merely delayed a year through the wellness program, then that may just be the year the employee retires or switches jobs and goes onto a different health insurer.

These things are so incredibly expensive that even a small shift in them could be worth a considerable amount of dollars per worker. And that's not even considering productivity benefits (which are in turn so hard to quantify we'll almost always be talking about gut feelings on this issue.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> this article seems to confirm my pet theory that most programs promoting "wellness" are rarely effective because it doesn't involve true intrinsic motivation (it talks about extrinsic carrots and sticks). you need to want to do something that has a side effect of wellness. for example, i started playing basketball again after i could find no other activity that would keep me at a healthy weight. i keep playing because i'm competitive, both with myself and with others. this is similar to how viral loops work - get people active by allowing them to 'level up' and feel good about themselves.

</comment><comment><USER12> Previously [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260)

</comment><comment><USER13> What about employee happiness, productivity and stress levels?

<comment><USER14> Anecdotally my coworkers and I find it hyper creepy and don't participate. Very few people do. I don't actually know anybody who does, despite extremely heavy promotion such as nearly weekly spam and even physical paper spam sent to our homes. I'm one of the few people I work with who would auto-qualify because I exercise during my lunch hour, sorta reasonably healthy, great diet, but even I won't sign up.

A program like this is almost the definition of a violation of work-life balance. Way too creepy, big brother is monitoring you. The last thing I want is an awkward metric on my annual review to verify my prostate is getting a regular workout and what my employer can do to help out and hows my stamina now and whatever other totally inappropriate freakishness they think up. The whole concept is just offensive. Just too many crossed boundaries. I find the sex analogy to be highly relevant. A happy employee is a productive employee so we should all be required to document and track our sexual activity with our boss and have a performance improvement plan as part of our reviews to make sure we're getting some. Next we can add religion! Ugh.

They offer a wellness clinic in the lunch room about twice a year, free screenings and free vaccinations. Many people participate, including myself, the primary reason this isn't creepy is this doesn't involve my boss or HR or payroll getting involved, no big brother garbage. At least not in public (maybe there is a secret file on me for each flu vaccination I've gotten, donno).

<comment><USER15> Here's the dilemma. How do employers control medical expenses? And then as an employee, why don't i get incentives for having healthy blood pressure levels, perfect cholesterol levels, a normal BMI? Our society is increasing becoming obese and our health care spending is spiring out of control. Something has to give. We have a really weird system where employers pay for our healthcare which is why see these wellness programs which people deem creepy.

<comment><USER16> Why are employers linked to healthcare? The idea is clearly insane, if you consider the recent court cases about _christian_ companies (an oxymoron in itself) denying to pay for contraception (as part of the health plan, which contents are increasingly regulated).

This isn't how it works in countries with functioning public healthcare systems.

<comment><USER17> > Why are employers linked to healthcare? The idea is clearly insane

Because socialism is evil: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States#The_rise_of_employer- sponsored_coverage)

I mean, it's trite but that's what it boiled down to. Truman had the idea of a an optional, government-backed health plan. Someone trots the magic "socialism" trigger word, and labor unions settled for employer-provided health insurance instead. (Though I wonder how Truman's plan would be self- sustaining if it were optional. We have enough problems financing not-optional plans.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Won and done? Sportsbooks banning the smart money - <AUTHOR> http://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/24425026/gambling-bookmakers-growing-us-legal-betting-market-allowed-ban-bettors <comment><USER2> This has pretty much always been standard, and barring some sort of change in regulation, very likely always will be. As a bettor, your recourse is likely cutting down your bets/farming smaller bets out to your employees, finding a bookie with some gamble/opinion to them, or finding bets with less edge but more volume.

The basic idea with bookmaking without risk is that you want your books balanced - since you get a percentage of the total amount wagered, if your bets on both sides are approximately equal, you can't lose. The risk the "sharps" represent is that they may come in with a large bet on a small market which won't have enough volume to take the other side. Historically it's always been possible to get an edge on these small markets - the canonical example I've always heard is lower division college basketball in the US. The problem is that these lines are so thinly bet than even low 4-figure bets are out of the ordinary, and you need to make an awful lot of them at a single digit percentage advantage to make any real money. Maybe you can come in one day to bet $1000 on Middlebury to beat Lebanon Valley, but good luck coming the next day with a sudden interest in laying down similar amounts of money on Whitman vs. Claremont/Mudd/Scripps. Basically, in general the beatable lines are in areas that nobody really cares about. If you want to come in every week and bet $10k on every NFL point spread, you'll have no problem getting action.

> "I had bet $8,400 to win $4,000 on a tennis match and $2,000 on a [first- > five-innings] total on baseball..."

I'm not sure about the baseball bet, but depending on the level of the tennis match, this seems almost guaranteed to raise red flags. Tennis has a somewhat sordid history of suspected fixed matches in lower level competition, and short of major events like Grand Slam late round matches, I'd guess that this kind of action is wildly anomalous.

<comment><USER3> > _This has pretty much always been standard_

As someone who has worked in the industry, I agree with one caveat:

> _The basic idea with bookmaking without risk is that you want your books > balanced_

This is not the business model of every bookie. In the UK the standard retail bookies will set wide spreads and aggressively ban accounts that appear savvy (or appear to be automated.)

The big betting venue in Europe (at least back when I knew things) is an exchange, though. They take no outcome risk and make money either way, though typically more if the underdog wins.

In Asia some of the top bookies have yet another business model: they are really just institutional gamblers whose business is to know the outcome statistics better than anyone else. They employ shitloads of data scientists and they will take large bets from smart punters. They run gambling websites because it's better to gamble "on their own terms". When they want to bet against another large gambling shop, they move the odds so the spreads overlap the right way and wait for arbitrageurs to match-make.

<comment><USER4> > and aggressively ban accounts that appear savvy (or appear to be automated.)

Isn't this literally saying "We cheat, if you bet with us you are guaranteed to lose money?"

Why would anyone bet with a firm like that? By the very fact that they took your bet you know that your bet was a losing one.

It's something I've never understood - how they can publicly say that, and yet still have customers.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't consider it cheating. It's refusing to play against good players.

It doesn't sound like they'll cancel a bet that you make because it's good. It sounds like they'll see you make a good bet, then ban you any future bets, while still fulfilling that good bet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Several years ago, I went to a data science Meetup where one of the speakers was working for a company which entire goal was to beat the bookies at soccer. They had people watching games, recording every detail, and a host of machine learning and statistical experts on payroll to make predictions.

No shit the bookies don't wanna take their bets.

<comment><USER7> _> No shit the bookies don't wanna take their bets._

Why doesn't the bookmaker watch how these guys bet then adjust the odds accordingly?

As long as the books are balanced, they'll make money.

And if the data science guys have better probabilities, then the new odds should make more money for the bookies on the other side.

<comment><USER8> This is _exactly_ what happens at the sportsbooks that take sharp customers.

<comment><USER9> And moreover, if you attract the smart money... and see statistically relevant better patterns... why not lay down your own bets at competitors?

As the book who accepts smart money and has non-anonymous customers, you have a more accurate idea of the actual odds than anyone else.

<comment><USER10> > why not lay down your own bets at competitors?

It's not worth it. Even if they don't ban you outright, the stakes/winnings are very limited for that kind of thing to make sense. And then there are odds data services like Betradar which provide every subscribing bookmaker with enough near-live data to instantly improve their prices so as to make any arbitrage very hard. (source: worked at several bookmakers)

<comment><USER9> Gotcha. I figured it was too obvious of an idea for people to not already have optimized it.

Interesting about bookmakers being subscribed to a common line feed. I didn't know that, but it makes sense in a borderless-money, networked world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "The hilariousness of it," Donoughue added, "is that they restricted one of > my member's accounts, and he's a Lord."

Maybe there's something about British class relations that I'm missing (I'm not British) -- can anyone explain why it's particularly hilarious or even unexpected that they would have restricted a "Lord"'s account, as opposed to anyone else's?

(Tangential question: does "Lord" here mean a member of the House of Lords? Or anyone with an aristocratic title? Or something else?)

<comment><USER12> I'm not British, but I would take it to mean "They placed limitations on some rich guy's account." when those limitations are ostensibly intended for deadbeats.

<comment><USER13> Not deadbeats, sharps, an entirely different thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They should just do gambling like predictit. Sell contracts for a Buck a piece and only return .90 (or some other fraction). If big analyst come in and buys one way or another the casino doesn't care.

<comment><USER15> That's more or less how a sportsbook operates. However if the action doesn't balance out, the book has considerable exposure if the team with more bets on it wins.

<comment><USER16> >However if the action doesn't balance out, the book has considerable exposure if the team with more bets on it wins.

isn't that only an issue if the counterparty to each bet is the sportsbook? why can't a sportsbook operate like an exchange, with a bid/ask orderbook and take a % off each trade?

<comment><USER17> There are book exchanges.

Historically that was leaving money on the table though as squares outnumber sharps.

<comment><USER3> It's not either-or, really. If you run an exchange you can bet on it (maybe depending on jurisdiction.) Then you get the commission or the winnings. IIRC matchbook.com do that though I may have been misinformed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I had several arbitrage bots betting in several bookmakers. There is nothing illegal with that. Most of them either banned me or limited my account to $1 to seem more legit.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've actually been building a tennis model to beat the bookies for around a year or so and am now beating them by ~6% overall. About to launch a public site in next few weeks. In the mean time, if you'd like to follow picks for free for the US Open just drop me a line and I'll add you to my group.

</comment><comment><USER20> 404 or something</comment>


Gov. Rick Snyder (Michigan) Signs 'anti-Tesla' Bill into Law - <AUTHOR> http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2014/10/gov_rick_snyder_signs_anti-tes.html

<comment><USER2> Sent the following to Gov. Snyder ...

Hi,

Just thought I'd drop you a line from Australia (hence the ZIP and phone, mine are actually XXXX and +61 XXXX).

Anyhow, hope you and the other Michigan legislators are enjoying whatever kickbacks you're getting from the car dealer lobbyists to ban Tesla from operating in Michigan. If I were you, I'd be demanding at _least_ a free car and a cushy 'consulting' job after you retire from politics.

The thing that surprises me the most is that I thought prostitution was illegal in Michigan.

Yours in amused contempt,

Duncan Bayne</comment>


No alcohol, no coffee for 15 months. This is what happened - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/desk-of-van-schneider/no-alcohol-no-coffee-for-15-months-this-is-what-happened-1a2d052be9e7#.8j43wvt7i <comment><AUTHOR> > Coffee always made me stressed out.

Does coffee really increase stress?

<comment><USER2> It does for me if I have it in excess; say, more than 30 ounces of coffee in one morning. If I drink coffee or other caffeine sources too late in the evening and then can't get to sleep when I want to, that's stressful too.</comment></comment>