The Absurdity of Nobel Prizes in Science - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/the-absurdity-of-the-nobel-prizes-in-science/541863/?&single_page=true <comment><USER2> I was a collaborator on the SNO project. I worked with Art McDonald, who co- won the 2015 Nobel prize in physics for the project.

There were hundreds of people involved. We couldn't have done it without the hundreds of people. While Art was a fantastic guy and a tireless worker, a good chunk of his contribution was management.

i.e. A _competent_ manager. He not only understood all of the physics involved, but a good chunk of the engineering, along with having decent managerial skills. No one with skills solely in an MBA, or theoretical physicist, or civil engineer could have done it.

Even if he didn't win based on something he mathematically proved, there's no question he's one of the top physicists around.

If you look at the Nobel prizes as the "best of" awards, and not "the guy who invented something all alone", it becomes a bit more palatable.

On top of that, the Nobel committee is limited by the rules of their foundation. Even assigning Nobels for something done 5 years ago is arguably outside of the directions of the trust.

So yeah, the article isn't theoretically wrong, but it's wrong for practical purposes.

<comment><USER3> > On top of that, the Nobel committee is limited by the rules of their > foundation

The article address this argument though and says that the Foundation has already stretched the rules.

<comment><USER4> > The article address this argument though and says that the Foundation has > already stretched the rules.

That bit of the article is arguably misleading. The foundation is not stretching its rules in awarding it to three people. That stretching (from one to three) was done immediately after Nobel's death as part of the settlement of his Will, and enshrined in the statutes of the foundation ("nor shall it be divided into more than three prizes at most")[0].

Whether it's possible to change it now to allow more than three is a question for someone who knows Swedish Trust law.

[0] [https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundati...](https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_organizations/nobelfoundation/statutes.html)

<comment><USER5> Just to play devils advocate, where should the line be drawn? None of this work could be done if it weren't for the cafeteria staff that provided brain food, or the spouses who shouldered the responsibilities of any parents who worked on the project while providing moral support. It could get messy.

<comment><USER2> When you do your work, do you share awards and raises with the cafeteria staff? Does the cafeteria staff understand the work you do? Do they contribute materially to it? i.e. technical contributions which are meaningful in the field?

No? Then the analogy is false.

The difference with physics (for example) is that when a paper has 160 co- authors (as in my experience) _all_ of those people contributed materially to the result. They are _all_ experts in the field, and they _all_ understand the contents of the paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree with parts of the article, that big breakthroughs are rarely these days individual efforts, and that praising only the ones at the top is misleading and potentially damaging; however, as a member of the LIGO collaboration, I think these three guys really do deserve credit for what they've driven over the past 50 (!) years, and all of the work we've been able to do over the years has only been enabled by their drive. While choosing three from thousands is never fair, it's probably more fair than distributing the award equally among anyone who's ever played a part in gravitational wave science.

The recipients have been at pains to make the collaborative effort clear. One of the first things Rai Weiss (winner this year) said on the phone to the Nobel press conference today was that he saw this as an award for the 1000+ scientists in the (LIGO) collaboration. When a special Breakthrough Prize was awarded to all of us last year, with large prize money being given to Rai, Kip and Ron Drever (who died earlier this year and who otherwise might have been one of the three Nobel laureates today), Rai and other senior scientists spent the money funding grad students and other science activities [1]. They have given ample credit to the people that helped in their success, and they've shared their knowledge and resources with the newer generations.

Today, we're celebrating this as a recognition foremost for the three new Nobel laureates, but also to the other pioneers who didn't make the "final three", the diverse collaboration of scientists past and present who've been involved around the world in gravitational wave physics, and all the technicians and students that did the grunt work building the machines and lab experiments. While our names aren't all stamped on the medals, I for one am deeply satisfied to have played some (tiny) part in it all alongside these greats.

[1] [http://www.ligo.org/magazine/LIGO-magazine- issue-11.pdf#page...](http://www.ligo.org/magazine/LIGO-magazine- issue-11.pdf#page=36)

<comment><USER7> Well done. Your post embodies and expresses how I expected the majority of fellow scientists responded to this news. I don't want to say that's how they/you should respond, but that's how I hoped you'd respond.

To have even played a small part in LIGO must be an awesome feeling of accomplishment and enable a true appreciation for collaboration with genius.

Congratulations on your (tiny) part. The effort that went into the project is mind boggling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I visited Sweden once, during the Nobel Prize award ceremony.

I loved how the ceremony was broadcast on TV, and the scientists, who are famous in their own field, walk the red carpet and are given the (literally) royal treatment for their visit.

I loved the clips where they show the award winners and family visiting places in Sweden - a bit like the background clips they show during the Olympics.

For this brief time, scientists eclipsed actors, athletes, and the other pop culture stars.

'Course that could have been just me. I do like a bit of absurdism.

<comment><USER7> When I was a young child, I used to daydream about winning a Nobel. I didn't daydream about winning an Emmy or a Grammy, but I did dream of winning a Nobel. (And Formula 1 championship races, but that's not important right now.)

Do kids today daydream of getting a Nobel? Science was a Pretty Big Deal when I was young. We were just getting started with space exploration and splitting the atom was pretty new. We kids talked about the breakthroughs we would make, when we weren't seriously considering our future career as baseball stars and how we'd enjoy our flying cars and robots.

My kids are all grown, so I can't really ask them what little kids daydream of. The kids my daughter interacts with are probably a bit too preoccupied to think about winning a Nobel.

<comment><USER9> >>When I was a young child, I used to daydream about winning a Nobel. I didn't daydream about winning an Emmy or a Grammy, but I did dream of winning a Nobel. <<

I suspect that lots of us as kids had the same daydreams, self included, and I'm sure that many kids today with a love for science daydream about the same thing.

<comment><USER10> It could be a feedback loop. Kids may not dream of being a banker etc. because they don't have anything to tie it to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think that there is a similar problem in the software world when it comes to free software projects. Who created Python? Linux? Perl? Wikipedia? If your answer is Guido van Rossum, Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall and Jimmy Wales you are about as wrong as the Nobel Prize committee. But sometimes there are a single guy who is responsible for a lot of the project even if that person is almost never credited, like Tom Lane or Fabricio Bellard.

I don't know about what to do about this unfair distribution of credit. Probably nothing.

<comment><USER12> On the other hand, would we have Python, Linux, Perl, or Wikipedia without those people? They had the vision and they made it happen. Sure many other people could have done it. But those people did do it.

It's much easier to be a contributor, than a founder/leader. The founders/leaders deserve more credit.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, the did something very important for those projects.

But what do we call it?

<comment><USER14> BDFL?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For me Nobel prices in Science are one of the things that work better the way they are that most alternatives.

Nobel prices in peace are ridiculous. Not talking about (fake) Nobel prices of Economy that do not exist but have managed to buy themselves some recognition because the money printing of central bankers.

For me this article is absurd. If you have a better way of giving to science, create your own price with your own money.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. Nobel laureates in peace are basically bullshit. Look at Obama---good president, but how many drone strikes did he order, and Aung San Suu Kyi-- currently accused of genocide. The Nobel laureates in science indisputably pushed forth the frontiers of human understanding.

Frankly, I think the Nobel prizes in the sciences are carrying the name.

<comment><USER17> Perhaps look at it another way - assigning a Nobel peace prize is a way of putting wider attention onto someone, and maybe works as a soft pressure to keep them behaving a little? For half a year or so after you get awarded a peace prize, your profile in the world is a lot higher than normal, perhaps giving you a bit more of a nudge in the right direction.

Also, Aung San Suu Kyi won her Nobel Peace Prize in _1991_ , 26 years ago. How old is that? Well, that was the year that the world-wide-web was born. Kurt Cobain was still alive. George Bush was in office and was just 'George Bush', not 'George Bush Sr' (and the first Bush war against Iraq started in January). The Soviet Union still existed, dissolved only in December of that year. _Street Fighter II_ hit the arcades. The Rodney King beating sparked the LA riots. The war that gave us the term 'ethnic cleansing' started that year in Yugoslavia. Apartheid was still going on in South Africa, with a couple of years left to go. Linus Torvalds announces Linux on comp.os.minix.

Calling the Nobel Peace Prize bullshit because a recipient behaves differently-to-expected _a generation later_ is itself bullshit.

<comment><USER18> Maybe we should only award Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.

<comment><USER19> The rules prevent it other than in exceptional circumstances. See my comment above about the consideration of an award to Gandhi for example. Apart from wanting the candidate to continue to do good, there are also considerations such as practicalities of where the money should go as the money is awarded with the intent of using it to further the purposes of the prize, though the recipient has wide latitude, and so it is not a given that it'd be appropriate to just hand the money to someones estate for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The abstract of the 5,154-author paper that this article mentions:

[https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.11...](https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.191803)

I first thought it was this one

[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008JInst...3S8003A](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008JInst...3S8003A)

which is also by Aad et al., but that one has a mere 2,926 authors (because it includes only the ATLAS collaboration and not the CMS collaboration).

Seeing all of these people listed definitely lends some weight to the "it's kind of unreasonable for only 1-3 people to win a Nobel for this sort of work" view for me.

<comment><USER21> > Seeing all of these people listed definitely lends some weight to the "it's > kind of unreasonable for only 1-3 people to win a Nobel for this sort of > work" view for me.

But what is the alternative? The article doesn't give much detail; it just says, "Why not award the scientific prizes to teams and organizations, just like the Peace Prize can be? The price of reform is low, and the cost of avoiding it is high."

But this is clearly wrong. If you give the Nobel to a collaboration of 5000+ physicists, then you greatly devalue the Nobel prize. Either they are all laureates, including those hundreds of grad students who signed on for just six months, or maybe none of them really are. After the Nobel is devalued it will be nearly impossible to rebuild its status, or to replace it with another prize with equal status in the public consciousness.

The main problem described in the article is that the current system gives a "misleading impression of how a lot of science is actually done." I don't agree with this claim; anyone who has seen a picture or budget for LIGO knows that this isn't a one-man show.

And that is not the point anyway. The prize puts a human face on major scientific accomplishments. This is far more important than the possible downside of slightly misleading some people about how science works.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for presenting this counterpoint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is like open source projects.. Even though hundreds and thousands of people contribute to these projects when you think of Perl you credit Larry wall, linux is Linus, laravel is taylor otwell, etc.

</comment><comment><USER23> It would be interesting to know what the prizes would be awarded for if they considered only individual efforts, no huge projects with decade long collaborations of thousands of people.

The effect would likely just be that a few theoretical advances could be nominated while experiments, even those that confirm the theories in question (Higgs, or this years prize) would go unawarded.

<comment><USER24> It might end up looking like a random "employee of the month". There are thousands of individuals working on their own little puzzle piece of these large cooperations, singling out some individual contributors "down in the trenches" for an award would be a lot more disrespectful to their peers than awarding some shared head figures who implicitly represent their entire extended teams.

<comment><USER23> I was thinking that the prizes would go to smaller individual discoveries, rather than to the major ground breaking discoveries. I.e. either the prize would be basically for theoretical physics, in which case Higgs could get the prize (and no one involved in confirming it would be awarded). This would basically leave experimental physics out of the question because these huge experiments obviously always involve huge amounts of people.

 _Or_ the awards would go to small discoveries that actually were made by individuals or small teams. Basically you'd see the largest and most groundbreaking discoveries go completely unawarded because they are group efforts, and since the price is directed towards the lone genius, it would be awarded for tiny discoveries.

<comment><USER24> But are there even small discoveries in physics? Anything not predicted by current models would be considered huge, and everything else would not be a discovery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the prizes are important as a means of drawing the attention of the general public to certain important discoveries. I do think they should do more to recognize more contributors to various discoveries, even if they have to limit the number of people who receive the monetary award.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a fabulous article. Touches on everything from large groups of people, obviously missing attributions due to death, and even the sexist outcomes.

</comment><comment><USER27> Typical competitive thinking from everyone here. Just see the Nobel Prize as a little gem alongside the road to greater goals. Focus on the work to come instead of arguing about a procedure older than any human alive.

It doesn't matter who gets a shiny medal, the only thing that matters is that we push science to next level. To help our understanding of the world and to help the people.

<comment><USER23> Also: it doesn't matter who picks up the shiny medal, what matters is also that science, like sports or movies, also has a couple of hours of glamour. The Oscars are also a charade, but it makes the whole industry a bit more magical and glamorous. The glamour and attention might attract that next Curie or Einstein to science, in which case it was all worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I keep hoping they'll give one to SciHub.

<comment><USER29> ..or to Alexandra Elbakyan; for a lifetime† achievement (in supporting hundreds of thousands of scientists/researchers around the globe).

†since she has helped so many researchers, affected their lives, it shall count as _well-beyond-lifetime_

<comment><USER27> Or Aaron Swartz who had to die for the very same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If viewed as context of a CEO of company or captain of a sports team (or even solo sports) these nobel prizes seem to make sense. The winners are the face of the organisation.

</comment><comment><USER31> If companies and universities tried to win Nobel Prizes like teams try to win the Super Bowl, the Olympics, America's Cup, etc it would be more useful.

It does give visibility to science, which hopefully, motivates a few more people to grow up to want that achievement.

Personally, I think we need more prizes and "sports" for these endeavors:

[https://www.xprize.org](https://www.xprize.org)

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

</comment><comment><USER32> A heretic thought: Maybe the Nobel Prize only manages to ~"distort our perception of science" because the reporting about it can fill the void created by incredibly bad, superficial science journalism?

</comment><comment><USER33> Alfred Nobel only wanted to reward people for making discoveries. There are many reasons one can argue that this is counterproductive (Like this article points out, science is not a single-person endeavor, but even more importantly is that it invokes a huge survivorship bias: You only get the prize for being _correct_ , so someone else who did just as important work on another theory that showed that it was _not_ correct will never be rewarded.)

But in the end, it was Nobel's prerogative to do what he wanted with his money. We can argue whether it would have been better if he had done something different, but it is what it is. It's not a reward by a government or any community or democratically elected organization where we really have standing to argue that it should be different, it's just a committee trying to follow the century-plus old will of a single person. If we don't like what it does, we don't have to pay attention.

<comment><USER34> Hmm... Should we follow his idea how to reach his goals, or maybe we should follow his goals with our best? Nobel idea how to invest his money is based on the understanding science as it was at XIX century. But now science is different and is changing further constantly. So if we follow Nobel last will, than Nobel Prize would become irrelevant, having zero influence on science, just some tradition from the past to give money for good managers or for respectable elderly scientists choosed from hundreds of other equally respectable and elderly scientists by some qualities having nothing to productivity in science or revolutionary ideas. Alternatively we can try to adapt the Nobel Prize to new reality, allowing it to reflect current state of affairs and to hold its influence on science.

I'm not a lawer, so I don't know is it possible to change Nobel Prize principles. All I want is to point to futility of blind following the old rule.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This seems like less of an issue with the Nobel Prizes and more that the author doesn't like prizes in general. Not everyone that contributes to a movie gets to go up on stage to collect the Oscar. There are always going to be problems with subjective awards in terms of leaving people out, people being overshadowed who would have won in other years, etc. I think the award does a good job of celebrating achievements that otherwise wouldn't be nearly as widely recognized.

<comment><USER36> Sport/Media are ripe with awards and top personalities are paid a salary directly proportional to their recognition.

Science powers the whole world, yet scientist receives a very minimal recognition for it, either in salary or prizes. Nobel Prizes are basically the only way that scientists achieve a bit of that.

<comment><USER37> This is because most people care about pop musicians much more than about scientists, regardless of lip service to the contrary. You can't make them care by creating more awards. There are already an uncountable number of awards in physics (e.g., the Dirac medal, the Sakurai prize, the Wolf prize, the Newton medal, the Breakthrough prize, etc., etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why not start a website where scientific discoveries can be linked to their uses on the one side, and on the other side to their contributors and former discoveries it is based on? Could be a wiki.

<comment><USER39> > _uses_

I am not sure if the discovery of gravitation waves can be of any use to us (other than perhaps stimulate funding for further astrophysics research, that is).

<comment><USER40> That's a rather narrow view.

Can you imagine what went into building the gravitational wave observatories? Don't you think that's advanced the state of the art with respect to the different kinds of technology, manufacturing, and construction techniques involved?

I support biomedical research. We're adopting scientific collaboration tools developed by the high energy physics community and specifically LIGO. These tools make it possible for large-scale, multi-institution, transnational collaborations to readily and securely share data worldwide. I'm really excited about what has become possible.

Admittedly, that has nothing to do with the detection of gravitational waves themselves. Still, these projects (and others) have improved the state of the art, and while it might not lead to something you can buy at Walmart any time soon, it might make a malaria cure happen sooner, or improve the quality of care for tuberculosis patients, or reduce the rate of breast cancer---little stuff that over time adds up to hundreds of thousands of people alive and well who, without all those little things adding up, wouldn't be alive today.

<comment><USER41> any ancillary benefits that occur as side effects of funding a physics project, could almost certainly have been achieved, without the funding of the physics project. for example, direct investment into disease research is much more likely to have short-term impact.

that's not to say ancillary discoveries with impact outside the original domain don't occur- they're just not as cost effective.

<comment><USER42> But then that means you wouldn't have funded the physics project. In the long term, research in fundamental physics is the main thrust for human scientific progress, which is why it is given the importance it is.

Ancillary benefits are, by definition, not the primary thrust of what research is about.

Apologies if I misunderstood your comment.

<comment><USER41> Most of the big expensive physics projects actually have little to no impact on daily life, or really scientific progress they're mainly about confirming theories that were thought up a long time ago. Dollar-for-dollar medical research has a much greater impact than physics

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> What about Nobel prizes in _peace_ , those are plenty absurd too.

</comment><comment><USER44> If European Union got the Nobel peace prize, then so can an organization behind LIGO experiments.

</comment><comment><USER45> The only problem I foresee is that Berkeley will quickly run out of parking spaces.

</comment><comment><USER46> Do people not want to especially reward the small numbers of organisers for their efforts?

<comment><USER46> What's wrong with rewarding the project leaders?

Yes, being _part_ of the team is one achievement, being _leader_ of the team is another achievement on top of that.

Sorry there's not "participation prizes" for everybody, but there are concrete important differences between being _team member_ and _team leader_ , as much as some seem to want to delude themselves otherwise and give themselves the "consolation prize" of feeling good, instead of getting the result (being the PI/project lead and getting the Nobel) they wanted.

Zero sympathy for the people who would want to Nobel, now trying to diminish the achievements of those who won the Nobel, just to console themselves. Everyone knows how science works. There are teams and PIs and projects and project leaders. Instead of crying that the reality is "unfair" if the complainers actually _cared enough_ about winning, they would have tried to position their careers in such a way that they were competitive. To pretend you were disserviced when you know how it works is disempowering your own potential to have done better, and also really disrespectful to diminish the importance of Nobel recognition, to people who contribute to winning those prizes.

TL;DR - Looking at the group complaining about not being recognized, all I see is a bunch of sore losers, inventing disempowering reasons to console themselves, instead of inventing results for themselves. Take personal responsibility, be inspired by the achievements of others, these traits will help you win.

<comment><USER47> I see nothing wrong with recognising the project leaders.

If you think, however, that the "sore losers" want to change the rules of the game solely in order to give themselves a better chance of winning, then there's something missing in your understanding of humans. People like fairness

<comment><USER46> I understand if you feel otherwise, but I see no unfairness in Nobels going _only_ to project leaders and PIs.

I think the sore losers act entitled to something they didn't earn. I don't think that means I'm missing something about humans. Why would you _want_ to suggest that? Your argument ought to stand on its own not by pretending I'm less. That's not nice. Nor kind. But, look, I am missing many many things in my understanding and experience about humans, and life, and every topic, because I don't understand anything completely or nearly so. And I've only experienced what I have in my life. I'm okay with that.

If you think people prefer fairness, then maybe you didn't face what I did, or maybe you just reacted differently (and if you did then you better teach me how!). I learned people prefer themselves, to fairness, and will cooperate or cheat as either pays off.

I'm no better than that. Let me show you: If you don't think the same way as me, then clearly there is something missing about _your_ understanding of humanity, or your experience. See? I like to cheat, too. When it pays off. Or maybe it's fair to give like you get? What do you think, given that you said there's something missing in my understanding, was that comment fair and justified?

My view is both of us are missing many things about understanding and experience, and if we think differently it's just because we had different experiences and reactions. There's not one true way. And I think that's fine. Diversity right?

So if we can put all that nastiness behind us, what's our common ground, how do you think we ought to make the Nobel prizes more fair and still have them be effective? Do you think we ought to preserve, dismantle or alter the hierarchies and institutions that have worked for science? And do you think we can agree that "fairness" is not a universal good, and that in this case we have (possibly competing) interests such as progress, or effectiveness?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Personally I find peace prizes abominable:

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

They just got way too political.

<comment><USER49> How is it _abominable_? And how do you propose advocation of peace to be divorced from politics? It is necessarily intertwined.

<comment><USER50> "Moral revulsion" seems reasonable to feel at Kissinger's win.

Obama's is meaningless, even if you believe he did contribute materially to international peace (he didn't) he hadn't done so yet, with less than a year in office.

Giving it to the EU is just farce, in the same sense as "corporations are people." The EU is the result of the process the prize is supposed to encourage. It should be going to the people responsible for that institution's functioning - but good luck convincing anyone that its leaders have done a particularly good job navigating post-sovereign-debt-crisis, the period the prize would usually be awarding.

(I agree the award is necessarily political. I think it's better to say many recent awards have been _tactical_ \- moves in an attempt to bring about better relations, mostly unsuccessfully, rather than recognizing those who do really encourage them.)

<comment><USER17> The efforts of the EU (and other things, of course) have helped the major powers in Europe avoid war for over half a century now, a rarity in European history. Why wouldn't that be worth recognising?

I mean hell, on this page we have people complaining that the prize "only goes to three people when thousands were involved", and here you're complaining that "a group of people are awarded instead of a few individual". Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

<comment><USER50> I support the EU, but it's not clear to me that they are the primary entity responsible for peace in Europe between 1945 and 1991. And I think they have acted especially parochial and conservative during 2007-2012, the period prior to getting the Nobel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The Absurdity of the Academy Awards in the Arts.

Blah, blah, blah, I disagree with some perceived unfairness so it's all crap.

End of the day nothing is perfect, but encouraging people in awards like these push forwards the areas.

You want to push forward Science the Nobel Prize is amazing to encourage people.

You want your own new age everyone gets a prize award, create one.

</comment><comment><USER52> I think this is what you get when the participation trophy generation wants to rework the Nobel Prize.

Some of his criticisms are valid - e.g. discrimination against female nominees (although perhaps not the number of same) - but for the most part it seems to be a thinly veiled complaint about the concept of prizes in general.

</comment><comment><USER53> They reward some notable people in science, they don't determine what was the best and most worthwhile science. You might as well criticise bananas for not actually being bicycles.

</comment><comment><USER54> Want to briefly hijack this thread to quickly point out that there is no such thing as a Nobel Prize in Economics. Literally a Swiss bank made it upon the 70's and dubiously said their prize was to "honor Alfred Nobel". They were very forceful and never backed down from the prize, ultimately winning the PR battle and forcing the real Nobel org to sort-of acknowledge them.

They did this to originally award distinctions to conservative economists like Milton Friedman, though today they're a little bit sneakier and will every now and then sneak an award to someone like Joseph Stieglitz.

You can read more about it in the somewhat sanitized Wikipedia article which only hints at the dispute that lies beneath: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences)

EDIT: I understand the downvotes for the incorrect factual background. I want my main point to be the issue of economics not doing a great job over the last 30-40 years when these awards were begun / the general retreat of Keynesian economics in favor of Neoliberalism. That being said it's sometimes mentioned that the peak of a scientist's productivity is right before he or she gets the Nobel (Memorial) Prize due to the resulting fame, so perhaps other economists are to blame.

<comment><USER55> > Literally a Swiss bank made it upon the 70's and dubiously said their prize > was to "honor Alfred Nobel". They were very forceful and never backed down > from the prize, ultimately winning the PR battle and forcing the real Nobel > org to sort-of acknowledge them.

1\. Swedish, not Swiss. Both start with "Sw", but, still, completely different countries.

2\. And not just some random Swedish Bank, but the Swedish _central_ bank (equivalent to the US Federal Reserve.)

3\. And the first award was in 1969, which would be hard if it was made up in the 1970s.

4\. The "real Nobel org", as relevant to this discussion (there's actually four different ones) is the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (which awards the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry.) Which don't just sort-of acknowledge the Economics prize, they are the ones who award it.

5\. And, as requested by the bank which both endowed the prize and pays for administrative expenses related to it, the Academy awards it using the same standards as associated with the prizes funded by Nobel's endowment.

6\. While Hayek and Friedman did win the prizes in the 1970s, neither earlier nor later laureates were consistently identify with conservatism.

The idea that you seem to be pushing, that it's a right-wing propaganda tool issued by some other organization unrelated to the prizes endowed by Alfred Nobel that is merely "sort-of acknowledged" by "the real Nobel org" is simply not supported by the facts.

<comment><USER56> > The idea that you seem to be pushing, ...

Interesting, I read it the other way, because of the "sneaked" later.

@Top19 also misspelled Stiglitz.</comment></comment></comment>


Git-deliver is on Indiegogo - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/git-deliver/x/237937

<comment><USER2> is this something like chef/puppet "in" git?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, although the "init-remote" feature could be used this way.

The aim is to provide a more robust version of the custom shell scripts a lot of people use around git push/checkout to deliver their projects to server.</comment></comment>


Samsung Galaxy Back-door - <AUTHOR> http://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/SamsungGalaxyBackdoor <comment><USER2> My understanding is that there's simply filesystem access for the modem, through some Samsung supplied kernel driver. Replicant implies Samsung may have _another_ backdoor in the modem itself, allowing to remotely issue commands accessing the phone's filesystem. That is pure speculation and FUD.

"Samsung Galaxy devices running proprietary Android versions come with a back- door that provides remote access to the data stored on the device. In particular, the proprietary software that is in charge of handling the communications with the modem, using the Samsung IPC protocol, implements a class of requests known as RFS commands, that allows the modem to perform remote I/O operations on the phone's storage. As the modem is running proprietary software, _it is likely that it offers over-the-air remote control_ , that could then be used to issue the incriminated RFS messages and access the phone's file system."

Nothing substantiated there, just speculation.

Edit: This is not even interesting, and I'll explain why: normally, any component that has a kernel driver can already access all your data. The network interface in your PC can already do just the same - it has some proprietary firmware running on it, as well as a privileged OS driver that can see anything the system does; and it's connected to the internet.

Most likely, Samsung placed the driver there for providing a convenient storage area for the modem's firmware, in case it requires one (for logging, updating or whatever).

<comment><USER3> Any thoughts on whether or not this is part of the OTA update infrastructure? Seems like having the modem be able to put data into the file system at a particular place that the boot loader/flasher knows to look for would be a typical sort of "install firmware when the firmware is broken" kind of thing.

<comment><USER4> Typically these services are intended to allow the modem to access factor calibration data, possibly page firmware in, or to store nonvolatile information it needs longer term. They _should_ be restricted to just storing data on behalf of the modem and not providing broader filesystem access (that's at the very least (assuming incompetence rather than malice) a bug).

<comment><USER5> Brian Swetland! Source of great wisdom in the early days of Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reads mostly like an advert for Replicant.

"However, when Replicant is installed on the device, this back-door is not effective: Replicant does not cooperate with back-doors."

I am sure that people who run alternative ROMs/OSes would like to know if they are affected or not, but there doesn't seem to be much mention of that... except this line, which seems to indicate that at least Cyanogen IS affected:

"Alternatively, the kernel could block the incriminated RFS requests and keep a trace of them in the logs for the record. That option would work for CyanogenMod, where the incriminated proprietary blob is still used."

I've heard about Replicant before and am interested in it, but something about a self-serving warning like that turns me off.

EDIT: Okay, my bad. I thought this was like a public announcement, not just a wiki page. That makes the context different, so my comments about reading like an advert are not nearly as applicable.

</comment><comment><USER7> I know this will not be a popular thing to hear, but the scope of the problem has convinced me that this won't end until _everything_ is open. The only trustable stack is one that begins with open hardware and ends with creative commons content in ogg in VLC on linux.

I love open source, but.... it's going to be damn hard to turn a buck.

So, which do we want more: the ability to make money and the right to be paid for our work, or liberty and privacy?

That is one _hell_ of a would-you-rather. Thanks, NSA, for forcing a disgusting thought experiment into the real world.

<comment><USER8> An open stack is not enough because you can't trust any compiled software. In practice, even if we had a completely open stack and no binaries, we can't even begin to write error free code. Defeating the NSA [via software], a billion dollar agency with the power to ruin your life is completely unrealistic. Any real change must come through political action.

<comment><USER9> Political action? How has voting worked for you? My hope is as the dollar starts to inflate away (like every other fiat currency that has ever existed) we all instead turn to a block chain currency. Something that can't be manipulated. Something that can't be stolen from us and used to fund three letter agencies.

<comment><USER10> _used to fund three letter agencies._

I mean apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the [government] ever done for us?

If you really want no tax, go move to Vanuatu. It's a lovely, sunny place, the people are happy, the army and the police are the same thing and only 800 strong, the government is small, it's off the political radar so draws little interest from TLAs, English is an official language... and there is no income tax (with the exception of landlords), nor are there several other taxes on businesses (as it's a tax haven).

You don't want money 'stolen' from you? Then here is a realistic option available to you, one that is entirely achievable rather than pretending that it's possible to turn a country with a major economy into a tax-free zone, and wringing your hands that it obviously can't be done.

<comment><USER11> Property tax could be enough to fund most of the essential things you listed and is still enforceable even if a cryptocurrency is a primary currency. While your currency and income might be hidden, you still need to live in a house on land.

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

Despite the extremely common misinterpretation by the public, ~90% of libertarians are _not_ anarchists who completely oppose taxation. They are "small government" (aka minarchist), not "no government".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So it seems our biggest worry, that the modem firmware could be backdoored was very warranted indeed. We need to push OEMs and modem makers to open source the firmware for their modems.

<comment><USER13> Which doesnt help against silicon-level backdoors, which for all we know, exist and get exploited :/

edit: this includes so called "undocumented features" like maintenance access etc.

<comment><USER14> That's my least concern to be honest. My rice cooker could have a spy device installed without me knowing. I think the first priority is software exploits and backdoors because they are the easiest to implement and the cheapest to operate with.

<comment><USER15> Actually, it's sort of a myth that hardware is fundamentally harder than software. The toolsets simply haven't been as powerful until recently.

Hardware can be thought of as hardcoded software. But it's no longer the case that hardware is hardcoded. Hardware is becoming increasingly sophisticated, especially in their ability to be reprogrammed on the fly.

<comment><USER16> > "Hardware.. ability to be reprogrammed on the fly."

Um.. that's not hardware.

<comment><USER17> FPGAs are pretty much hardware. And they're reprogrammable, as in "re- wireable".

<comment><USER16> Interesting. I did not know that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For those who are saying that this isn't a backdoor, you can actually force execute this command on GSM phones for a few thousand dollars [1] [2].

[1] [http://rangenetworks.com/products/openbts-development- kit](http://rangenetworks.com/products/openbts-development-kit)

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

</comment><comment><USER19> Free Software Foundation & Richard Stallman always warned everyone of the potential dangers of non-free software, even as drivers like these modem drivers.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's not clear to me the important issues: _what_ data can they access (all of it?), who can access it, and under what circumstances?

<comment><USER21> On phones where the IPC driver is running as root, then it can access any file on the device. On phones where it is running as the user, then it can access any file owned by the user. There's a chart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's a Samsung. I find hard to believe that Samsung smartphone users have any concern about privacy and/or security.

<comment><USER23> Care to elaborate?

As a linux user, and (very) amateur kernel hacker I've always bought Samsung phones because they've been pretty forecoming with releasing the source for their android devices: [http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung- galaxy-s4-kernel-sourc...](http://www.androidcentral.com/samsung- galaxy-s4-kernel-source-released)

Obviously this is a GPL compliance thing, but it enables security minded people like myself to root the device, inspect the underlying source, and secure it pretty much like a regular box.

What alternative do you suggest?

<comment><USER17> > releasing the source for their android devices

> it enables security minded people like myself to root the device

Actually, having kernel sources doesn't enable you anything except for, possibly (but not certainly), building (but not installing) your own kernel.

You're able to install customized kernel and/or recovery on most Samsung phones, but that's completely unrelated to any FLOSS source code releases. Actually, this is usually done using proprietary tool (ODIN) communicating with proprietary hardware and firmware. They're just generous to allow you to do so (but they tick a flag stating your firmware is unofficial, and recently they started to blow a fuse to prevent unticking)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In my understanding, it needs operator level access to control the modem, or is it also possible to control the model using a MITM like scenario (off the air interception). If the latter is possible, it can become all the worrisome! Any ideas?

<comment><USER13> Yeah, of course. Calls itself IMSI Catcher (the variant used by police/secret service). You can build one yourself with OsmocomBB and the rest of that open- source GSM network infrastructure stuff.

Voila, there is your operator-level access from the radio side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Samsung Galaxy devices running proprietary Android versions ... > Nexus S

I am confused. The Nexus S does not run a proprietary Android version.

<comment><USER26> I may be misreading the link, but proprietary seems to be using to describe non-open source binary blobs. This is typical of drivers, most chips on cellphones do not have open source software to control them. Typically these pieces of software are modem/radio chips etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder how many individuals right now are working on exploiting this potential hole to steal BTC.

</comment><comment><USER28> NSA approved phone.

</comment><comment><USER29> eli5?

<comment><USER6> This isn't reddit, and if you are five, then you should be in day care.

<comment><USER30> You shouldn't insult people who are curious to learn and/or shun them.

<comment><USER31> I agree that the response was disrespectful. But I also don't think the original post showed much intellectual curiosity.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Developers: Why You May Not Want To Listen To Robert Scoble - <AUTHOR> http://www.manyniches.com/entrepreneurs/developers-why-you-shouldnt-listen-to-robert-scoble/

<comment><USER2> I think Scoble's "The bar is low" is better expressed as the fact that it's an undeveloped market. Whether or not there is a gold-rush for this app store remains to be seen, but his other points still remain valid. By using _the builtin APIs_ it's difficult to get a view to scroll smoothly, whereas with the iPhone it's in every scroll view. And yes, statistically I believe that the type of geeks attracted to Android are stingy, but there are other people on the platform as well (I don't have any actual percentages).

</comment><comment><USER3> If I was head of Windows Phone 7 Developer Relations I wouldn't be writing public blogs critical of Scoble's evangelizing Android development.

People might misinterpret my motivations.

</comment><comment><USER4> Round 2 of the mobile wars will be won in the same way as Round 1, by casting the widest net amongst all the platforms.

People make money by producing many apps on iPhone now. People will make more money producing many apps on many platforms in the near future.

<comment><USER5> Correct. Despite popular belief, most devs don't have an infinite number of well-formed ideas in their head. I'd say do your apps on iOS first. Then do the same apps on the other platforms. It's relatively easy, and gives you time as other ideas formulate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> With phones screen sizes are all fairly similar, 3.5 - 4.? inch screens and developers accommodate for these screen sizes. Tablet's are different, an iPad app is designed to fit that screen real estate and features of that device.

If Apple released their own open OS they wouldn't be able to develop in the way they do. Not that they would but hypothetically.

iMovie for iPad: Editing and viewing video is designed for their custom screen resolution and if Apple made a 16:9 device or allowed the OS to run on many devices they'd need to make a version which fits with many screen sizes meaning they'd skimp on UX and try and make a satisfactory experience on as many devices as possible.

Android devs will have to constantly think about 7", 10" and other sized tablets and if their app will work well on each. Other wise buttons, specific features and controls won't work well with smaller screens.

This won't kill but slow their inovation, Android needs more specs to be developed to how one of these apps should look and feel on multiple resolutions. "This is what an Android tablet app looks like".

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes...except for this: _Getting to focus on your algorithms and overall experience, and not dealing with ridiculous, time consuming, soul sapping optimizations which shouldn't have to be discovered in the first place._

I work in a consulting shop that develops apps for all three platforms. I love my windows phone and I think the development tools and the framework are better than iPhone/Android. That said, there are some serious performance problems on wp7 and it takes a deep knowledge of the platform to avoid them. I've spent way too much time optimizing on wp7 just to get passable performance for a list of items with thumbnails. This is a such a basic scenario and it's extremely hard to get right. The navigation stack isn't good either. I like the back button as a user but dealing with scenarios where a user can jump to the first page of an app or when you need to navigate and avoid putting a page in the back stack and you run out of options.

<comment><AUTHOR> List box perf == top priority

<comment><USER7> I saw Jeff Wilcox tweet a bit about this (don't lose him, he is awesome...so is David Anson). Good to hear. I love the phone and I think you guys are doing a good job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I read Scoble's post, it was clear that he was being sarcastic.

I'm surprised that anyone (and especially a senior Microsoft guy who claims to love Scoble :) would write a long serious response criticizing individual points from that post.

<comment><USER9> I think you're overestimating Scoble's incredulity. From reading him, and seeing him speak, and meeting him in person, my impression is he's nearly incapable of sarcasm.

<comment><USER10> I think I share some of his "quirks." If you see reality from a point of view far enough removed from the mainstream, some of the things you used to see as funny now just seem stupid. Some of the things you used to see as stupid actually have some substance, and there are other things you find painfully hilarious that most others just won't get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you do iOS consulting, partner with someone who does Android development - you can both benefit. Android is not Java, but it helps.

A two-for-one deal (Android + iOS) is a better marketable offering if your clients have to attempt to reach most of the mobile marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER10> _editorial selection from the AppStore tribunal_

Exactly who is being referred to here?

<comment><AUTHOR> Apple - when they put you into a featured listing, sales jump. It has a much more positive impact than a TechCrunch article.

<comment><USER3> IF they put you into a featured listing! First you have to figure out who to sleep with on the App Store team.

<comment><USER10> Someone should put up a parody dating site about this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vayable Is A Marketplace For Unique Travel Experiences - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/22/vayable-is-a-marketplace-for-unique-travel-experiences/

<comment><USER2> AirBnB's first acquisition? Seriously though, this is my new list of San Francisco date ideas: <http://www.vayable.com/bay_area>

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats on the name. Clever without being confusingly obscure.

<comment><USER4> Think so? It's not a word and doesn't mean anything to me. I can't imagine having to tell it to someone in person. Anytime you have to specifically spell out your startup url, I think it's a problem.

Cool site though.

<comment><USER5> In Spanish, "Vaya" translates roughly to commanding someone else to "Go!" Granted, not everyone knows Spanish, but it's not totally out of the blue.

<comment><USER4> Is it the same pronunciation as "viable"? Or is it phonetic "vay-a-ble"?

<comment><AUTHOR> The former is the correct way to pronounce it :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was discussing the exact same idea with a friend a few days ago. We kind of started working on it, but got bored so didn't follow through. I'd definitely use something like this.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is cool.

tourdust.com has been doing this for a while. They have pretty amazing trips and I think slightly lower fees ?

</comment><comment><USER8> Who designed the site?

<comment><AUTHOR> My cofounder Jamie did.</comment></comment>


How Robber Barons hijacked the "Victorian Internet" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/how-the-robber-barons-hijacked-the-victorian-internet.ars <comment><USER2> Interesting bit toward the end:

        But the collapse of the Populists after the election of 1896 and Western Union's enormous political power
        kept this reform movement at bay. Not until 1910 did Congress clearly define both the telephone and telegraph
        as common carriers. By then many newspapers had glommed onto a new service: Marconi's wireless telegraph.

One has to wonder: did the desire to be rid of the Western Union monopoly influence the creation of the radio? Would there have been less pressure to develop alternative methods of communication if WU had been broken up? Or would there have been more, since each competitor would presumably be racing to generate some kind of advantage over the others?

<comment><USER3> Yeah that's a good question. Wireless was popular for maritime use even in the very early days when it was dreadfully expensive and unreliable.

I think it would have continued to develop if only as specialized shipborne equipment until it was cheap and reliable enough to compete with wires on the basis that the network is so much cheaper.

This raises a thought in my mind though: If the battle is lost over network neutrality for the wired internet, I wonder if that will spur the development of more practical satellite-based wireless internet.

PS: I think the "Victorian internet" analogy is hugely overstated. The telegraph network was an electromechanical system that used large amounts of manual labor for very little channel capacity. There were technological limitations that guaranteed it would remain expensive and exclusive.

<comment><USER4> From a strictly technical standpoint, you may be right. But I think name alludes to more than that. Specifically, it encompasses the social impact of sudden, instant, global communication (remember, it wasn't just American - there were trans-Atlantic cables operating at this point too).

It's arguable that the impact of the 'Victorian Internet' was actually greater than that of our actual internet. Of course, it's hard to separate the changes it triggered from the larger cataclysms of the Industrial Revolution, of which it was a deeply embedded part. But this, too, only onderscores the extent to which sudden, massive development in communication technology has a profound effect on nearly every business it touches.

My suspicion is that we'll be another decade into our own communications revolution before we match the scale of the social disruption produced by the onset of the Machine Age.

<comment><USER3> Well, I don't disagree that the telegraph was a major earth-shrinking development. I just disagree with the analogy with the internet.

The telegraph dramatically reduced the latency of communication (from the maximum travel speed of a courier to that of the speed of electrical impulses). It didn't improve channel capacity at all though. In fact, it had less capacity than paper in a courier's satchel.

This restricted the communication to those who can pay. And even they preferred to write crude, abbreviated messages due to cost.

The internet didn't improve latency over the telex or phone networks (in fact, you're almost certain to see more latency on the packet-switched internet than on the circuit-based PSTN). What it did do is dramatically increase channel capacity, driving the cost of communication down to the point where anyone can communicate across the planet for nominal cost -- and can even send information-rich messages in data-hungry formats like video.

The telegraph was the _invention_ of instantaneous global communication. The internet was the _democratization_ of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tom Standage's book "The Victorian Internet" is an entertaining and easy read on the history of the telegraph system. Recommended:

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victorian-Internet-Tom- Standage/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Victorian-Internet-Tom- Standage/dp/0753807033)

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're interested in this, Tim Wu wrote a more general book about the history of information economies from the telegraph/phone through to the internet that's a pretty engaging read:

[http://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Information-Empires- Borz...](http://www.amazon.com/Master-Switch-Information-Empires- Borzoi/dp/0307269930)

He does a great job explaining the interaction of technology, industry titans, markets, and government and how they've influenced media over the past century (and right through to the modern net neutrality debate.)

</comment><comment><USER7> just wait until Comcast/NBC gets going... they'll have us all under their thumb before long.

<comment><USER8> That was my thought. Modern telecoms are chomping at the bit to land us in the same boat. In some ways we are already there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds more like a case of political corruption, rather than unregulated market failure. I'm not saying market failure does not exist, just that this article doesn't seem to prove it.</comment>


Apple now building 2M iPads per month to meet demand  - <AUTHOR> http://iphone.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/03/apple_now_building_2m_ipads_per_month_to_meet_demand.html

<comment><USER2> Quote: 'Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook noted that the iPad is not taking a typical early adopter curve, and already has a "very big" market.' Of course they want to pump out as many as they can while the competition is still trying to come up with an iPad killer. Every iPad sold NOW creates more app- based customer lock-in. iOS is to the 00s what Win32 was to the 90's.</comment>


The Class of 2017 – Raising America's Pay - <AUTHOR> http://www.epi.org/publication/the-class-of-2017/ <comment><USER2> > Raise the minimum wage

> Make it easier for workers to bargain collectively for higher wages

> Make more workers eligible for overtime pay

> Provide earned sick time and paid family leave

Good suggestions. Unfortunately, if you do this, the affected jobs will simply be moved overseas to countries where policies like this don't exist. Unless we get rid of free trade policies and impose taxes on foreign trade, to take the money companies save from this form of cost cutting out of their pockets.

Trump is the first President in a long time to actually seriously consider rolling back globalization. People say it's a good thing, citing Ricardian theory. But it has essentially destroyed entire local economies (my hometown being one of them). Economic theory is all well and good, but theory needs to be tested against the real world. The evidence that globalization causes great harm is simply too obvious for me to ignore.

I'm disappointed Trump is starting to get friendly with Xi, instead of following through on his campaign rhetoric and slapping some taxes on imports.

I'm no xenophobe. As far as I'm concerned, those taxes can go away as soon as China stops crapping all over the environment and starts giving its workers the same rights and wages that we give our workers in the US. That way the playing field would be level, and companies would no longer be able to use free trade to exploit their workers.

<comment><USER3> > I'm no xenophobe. As far as I'm concerned, those taxes can go away as soon > as China stops crapping all over the environment and starts giving its > workers the same rights and wages that we give our workers in the US. That > way the playing field would be level, and companies would no longer be able > to use free trade to exploit their workers.

Its really hard for me to not burn with anger when I see comments like this. The US and the West did the exact same thing that you mention: crap all over their environment and treat workers terribly, to accumulate all the capital in their hands. That capital was re-invested in technology/research and that is the main reason why people in the West have higher standard of living now. And when Europe and US were in the path of industrial development, they DID have high import taxes as well. And now that China is doing essentially the same, you are not OK with that? That's just hypocrisy, plain and simple.

<comment><USER4> What you neglect to mention is that Europe and the US had high import taxes to protect their industries from eachother.

Somehow the US still managed to become a superpower. China will be fine _if_ it can transition to a better system of government. Globalization doesn't seem necessary for a country with a huge domestic market.

Demanding better working conditions for Foxconn employees is called having a conscience not hypocrisy.

<comment><USER5> Ok the historian in me has to say something. The US is only a superpower because we pilfered an incredibly large and resource-rich land mass and had incredibly good geopolitical luck during World War One and Two. And that involved dropping a nuclear weapon on a civilian population. Those circumstances are _NOT_ repeatable.

<comment><USER6> The US is the only superpower because of two reasons:

1 - The Atlantic 2 - The Pacific

Those two present enormous competitive barriers in a fight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Economic Policy Institute is heavily funded by labour unions who dominate the tax money receiving sector of the economy, and thus benefit from the public discrediting of economic theories that endorse the free market.

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by "the tax money receiving sector of the economy"?

<comment><USER7> Those sectors of the economy that receive tax dollars, most prominent among them the public sector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Damn wish I could've gotten someone from CMU to admit there was a recession. Instead everyone just said I wasn't trying hard enough and got angry when I asked for help.

</comment><comment><USER10> \- Raise the minimum wage

If we raise the minimum wage, that would surely increase unemployment. Even a minimum wage job is hard to get for an uneducated, unskilled person, so how would it be easier for them to get a job at a rate employers are even less willing to pay?

<comment><USER11> Raising the minimum wage doesn't necessarily mean an increase in unemployment. Following the introduction of the minimum wage in the UK in 1999, a large body of research (a lot done by the Low Pay Commission) has been carried out which shows that the minimum wage has had a very small or no effect on unemployment. The same has been seen in research carried out in Australia and in the USA.

<comment><USER10> It also doesn't mean a decrease in unemployment, which is what this report claims. I'm also still unclear on _how_ a minimum wage would have no effect on unemployment, which is what the law of supply and demand predicts.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see this a lot here and if you believe there is basically _any_ market where the simple supply and demand model is relevant you're probably mistaken. The other thing is that this graph:

[http://i.investopedia.com/inv/tutorials/site/economics/econo...](http://i.investopedia.com/inv/tutorials/site/economics/economics5.gif)

is not a free market model! Not at all! It is a "perfectly competitive" model and has several very specific assumptions:

      1) All firms sell an identical product

      2) All firms are price takers - they cannot control the market price of their product

      3) All firms have a relatively small market share

      4) Buyers have complete information about the product being sold and the prices charged by each firm

      5) The industry is characterized by freedom of entry and exit.

I'm not sure the labor market actually meets any single one of those criteria.

Furthermore, if you are interested in how minimum wage actually effects employment I would check out the following report(here's a good quote).

 _The employment effect of the minimum wage is one of the most studied topics in all of economics. This report examines the most recent wave of this research – roughly since 2000 – to determine the best current estimates of the impact of increases in the minimum wage on the employment prospects of low- wage workers. The weight of that evidence points to little or no employment response to modest increases in the minimum wage._

[http://cepr.net/documents/publications/min- wage-2013-02.pdf](http://cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf)

<comment><USER12> The argument that because no market is the theoretical, textbook prefect market means we can ignore market forces and supply and demand is dubious.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not what I'm saying. Our understanding of supply and demand is shaped by the model we place them in. In this case if your understanding of supply and demand is that regardless of any of the 5 factors I listed above, supply and demand will converge to a pretty equilibrium like two lines on a graph with only two lines then you're wrong. And if you look at the empirical evidence and it strongly contradicts what your model says should happen then your model needs an update. In this case the perfectly competitive model is absolutely the wrong way to understand the labor market.

The paper I linked mentions a dynamic monopsony model and also 11 different channels through which adjustment is possible. Basically the market is lots and lots of different forces (not just supply and demand) all originating from (not always rational) people, in this case we need a model which more accurately models this.

If you'd like to read more about how the proliferation of the basic supply and demand model has really hurt the layman's understanding of the economy there's a great book that came out recently called "Economism." Here's a short article which can give you a bird's eye view: [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/economi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/01/economism- and-the-minimum-wage/513155/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2770 <comment><USER2> I've been running Windows 7 via VirtualBox for a few months now. It's okay. Better than XP? Marginally. Worth money to upgrade? Not really.

Windows 7 will probably get its "foothold" on the consumer market the same way Vista did: when people buy new computers they get Windows 7. I speculate that the vast majority of Windows users are simply running the same O/S that their computer shipped with, whether that is XP, Vista, or even ME (I've been shocked by how many people I know are still running ME (in a vague sense of the word "running")).

Of course that doesn't apply to techies like us, but when you hold mass market share you have mass market demographics.

As far as businesses upgrading their workstations to Windows 7... no way. Windows XP is pretty stable (they've been improving it for like 8 years, it oughta be) and there are few compelling reason for a business to invest in Windows 7. The only way MS will get Windows 7 into the business market will be to force it (via OEMs or by stopping support for XP/Vista).

I think Microsoft's outlook (pun not intended) is pretty gray in the O/S market.

EDIT: changed "no" reasons to "few" as trezor pointed out at least one reason I was unaware of.

<comment><USER3> Windows 7 has lots of new features which appeals to the corporate market compared to Windows XP. You have more options for locking down workstations with GPOs, you have UAC which improves security. Searching for stuff is miles ahead of Widows XP, which means increased productivty.

Granted, most of those features were added in Vista, but Windows 7 actually runs quite decent on older hardware, something Vista wasn't exactly acclaimed for doing.

Windows 7 also includes lots of features which are handy for portable machines like laptops. Bitlocker anyone? You also have transparent, automatic VPN back into your company's domain, either trough native IPv6 or tunneled connections. In either case IPSec is used to secure communication. In effect, the windows domain model just got network transparent. That's a pretty neat thing in itself.

Again, some things came with Vista, but Windows 7 delivers it all in a much more appealing package.

I'll shut up before I sound like a Microsoft market-droid, but to say Windows 7 adds no features which would make an upgrade worthwhile in the corporate environment is either disingenuous or misinformed.

<comment><USER4> exactly, I'm sick of the "but XP gets the job done"-attitude. Yes, there's no killer feature, that would absolutely demand an upgrade, but all the minor changes and usability improvements add up. I'm kinda annoyed that I have to use a XP machine at work, since I've been spoiled by W7 beta at home for a while now.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that most people just see it as another ~$100 they'll have to spend to upgrade, and that isn't worth it to most.

I think it's worth the upgrade, but 90% of my family doesn't and I'll need to upgrade them with a pirated version once it's released + cracked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> See, even living inside a web browser, there are terribly large difference between Ubuntu and Windows 7.

For example, not too long ago I had a bug which caused firefox to crash due to a flash problem. The fix involved having to download the source, editing the launch file and build it.

While this very thing is what draws many of us to Linux, it is the same thing that would push the majority of consumers away.

<comment><USER7> While I never had to resort to such a bugfix for Firefox, I'd like to point out that with windows/IE you would not even have the option for such a bugfix.

<comment><USER8> Windows/IE runs Flash well (much better than Linux/Firefox), so you'd never need that option.

<comment><USER7> Incidentally that is one of the reasons for disliking closed source software. It is impossible to fix Flash on Linux because it is not open. Once you open that Pandora's Box (using closed source software), all sorts of nasty side effects ensue.

(That said, I think the closed source Flash player has improved on Linux, too, and some people even get by with open source clones).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe the XBox will kill Windows - after all, games have been the only reason for it's existence for a while now.

Edit: I meant to say "justification", not "reason".

<comment><USER9> It sounds like what you meant to say was this:

"Maybe the XBox will relegate Windows to the workplace - after all, games have been the most common justification for its existence in homes for a while now."

It's funny, the first time I read your post, this was the meaning I pulled from your phrasing - despite the exaggerations "kill" and "only". I must have known you were speaking about the home market because I had just read the linked article.

I actually think you're on to something. It seems that Windows is losing its grip on the home. Sure, I've heard tales of a few die-hard Media Center PC enthusiasts, but the vast majority probably only need a web browser, a TCP/IP stack, and some implementation of klondike solitaire.

I wonder what the market share of the Mac would look like if you just looked at the segment of the market where a person buys a computer for themselves and/or their family. They seem to have grown there.

We could be in for a historical irony, depending on how things shake out: the rise of the PC in the days of the mainframe happened because non-IT departments (and, in some cases, individuals) could afford to bring a PC into the workplace, ultimately wresting control of computation from the hands of IT departments, who were failing to provide adequate services. In the cubical farm where I work, there are a half dozen people who have decided to just bring their Mac laptop into work every day. And, yes, for work functions.

<comment><USER7> "I must have known you were speaking about the home market because I had just read the linked article."

Yeah it made more sense in that context and it was also what I was thinking about. I admit I didn't think about workplace use. Not sure if most companies choose Windows because that is what most employees are familiar with.

<comment><USER10> I think most companies chose Windows:

1) because it's what their IT staff is comfortable with and it's what they advise companies to buy.

2) Unix sysadmins are somewhat more expensive than their Windows counterparts

3) Because there are a lot of applications that run only on Windows. The fact several of them are malware is completely ignored ;-)

4) There is a whole lot of documents that are in Word and Excel and that cannot be reliably converted to, say, OpenOffice. Companies must live with their past.

(burn, karma, burn)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I worry the trend is going in the other direction. I've been trying to set up a particular wireless networking device in ubuntu and the only instructions I found that I could get working involved gnome desktop apps.

To reiterate - I need to have a user logged into the desktop environment in order to get wireless networking going. At that moment I lost all enthusiasm for the prospect of desktop linux becoming mainstream.

        Of course there isn't. He lives in a web browser.
        The underlying OS is irrelevant.

What about games? Nethack runs better under unix.

<comment><USER12> I have no idea what 'particular wireless networking device' you're trying to configure, but if you're just trying to get your Wifi card hooked up to a secured router using just a shell, the following thread is gold (substitute vim/nano/whatever for gedit in Step 2):

<http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=202834>

<comment><USER11> Thanks a stack for that link. Having the right doc is everything. I followed it through and everything Just Worked for me. I was at the stage of hunting ebay for good deals on ciscos before this thread, you've saved me money and time.

<comment><USER12> Anytime.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In all honesty, I have been able to use Ubuntu for most everything, but had to keep a Windows XP system going for remote control to access Microsoft-only stuff.

I installed Exchange 2007 with Small Business Server 2008, so accessing Public Folders pretty much requires Outlook or IE. (Evolution only seems to work with Exchange 2003...)

Which brings me to ActiveX. So much of what I do requires ActiveX that I also must have a copy of Windows around to be fully functional, as I haven't gotten WINE or IEs4Linux to support MS's RDP correctly.

Otherwise, I would be running Ubuntu only, as I don't really game much beyond all the games that have been written/ported to Linux.

<comment><USER14> 'scuse (I'm not very MS-Windows literate). Why doesn't rdesktop fit your RDP needs?

<comment><USER13> gRDC seems to work best, as it supports an RDP clipboard.

But when VPN does not work, I then require ActiveX controls (I do not allow RDP directly through my clients' firewalls).

Likewise, ActiveX is the only other way that I know of that allows me to access Public Folders against an Exchange 2007 server with drag and drop support for filing to that system from my personal folders. I am a bit if an organizational nut, so I find this high on me digital "needs" list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's like the boy who cried wolf. I've seen so many of these articles, it hardly means anything to me anymore.

</comment><comment><USER16> If it can be upgraded without reinstall it's a signficant improvement over Ubuntu.

<comment><USER12> Who says you can't upgrade without reinstalling on Ubuntu?

      sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
      sudo do-release-upgrade

<comment><USER16> It's not impossible, just a horrible experience. Most likely your network drivers will break, their new version of X doesn't support your graphics card/drivers, etc. I have never been able to upgrade Ubuntu without using Ctrl+Alt+F1 a lot. I'm not going to give that to my family.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Then he will grow up and start having to do real work. Unless he's a programmer, that (still) pretty much means Windows or Mac OS.

<comment><USER10> Really? Why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> His son is not a gamer.</comment>


Will the UK get its own 'Great Firewall'? - adam-_- http://econsultancy.com/blog/5717-digital-economy-bill-passes-will-the-uk-get-its-own-great-firewall

<comment><AUTHOR> This just means that officials will use copyright to censor information which is embarrassing. For example, if something appears on Wikileaks which they don't approve of they can just claim that the leaked document is under copyright and block the site.

<comment><USER2> They already can do that. Remember when Wikipedia was censored in the UK?

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/dec/08/intern...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/dec/08/internet)

<comment><USER3> That wasn't the government. That was a non-profit organisation consisting of all the ISPs in the country and a few other bodies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The sad thing was the level of ignorance shown in the debate. While I wouldn't expect an MP to be an expert in everything, the least they could do is seek out experts and remember that lobbyists are not impartial experts.

The scary thing is this level of ignorance probably applies in all debates.

<comment><USER5> > the least they could do is seek out experts and remember that lobbyists are > not impartial experts.

Note that experts aren't impartial either. Yes, they may be impartial on some things (such as the appropriate length of packets), but those are rarely the issue in the political sphere.

For example, the 2 degree "threshold" in the AGW debate is completely artificial. There's nothing scientifically significant about 2 degrees warmer (1.5 and 2.5 are more and less of the same) yet look at how the "experts" talk about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems quite likely that most or all of the world is going to have some sort of censorship, if trends are indicative anyway.

<comment><USER7> All of the world already has censorship.

For example, in America today, here are some of the things censored: kiddie pr0n (including fictional text); pirated copyrighted works; works inciting the violation of laws; works describing how to violate laws (e.g., how to make drugs).

Every nation in the world has mandatory censorship. The only variable is what speech is subject to it.

<comment><USER8> And how strict the laws are applied. And what the punishment is for breaking those laws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nevermind, this goverment will be gone soon.

<comment><USER7> But the laws they made will remain in their wake.

Here in the USA, the GOP is learning the same lesson. They didn't mind the power that GWB consolidated in the Executive. But now that the DEMs control that office, the GOP isn't very happy with sleeping in their own bed.

(that's a lot of metaphors I'm mixing in just a short post!)</comment></comment>


Lock Down Your .XXX Domain Before The Land Rush Begins - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/07/lock-down-your-xxx-domain-before-the-land-rush-begins/ <comment><USER2> This is nearly the entire business case for running your own gTLD, trademark owners are compelled to protect their marks. I worked on the .pro registry a few years ago, a motivation for the business to run it (because it wasn't big) was the hope that it would build the experience and infrastructure to support more gTLDs as ICANN opened up the creation process. But that didn't happen nearly as fast as possible and the company I worked for moved develoment offshore, so I sort of doubt I'm giving away anything they're still planning.

Running a small domain registry is an easy job. There are good RFCs for all the technology, your customers are a few dozen tech-savvy registrars, and you have low scaling demands. There are some availability concerns, but the knowledge for doing that right is now common. You hire a coder/support engineer to keep the servers humming and a business guy to create and maintain registrar relationships and otherwise just print money.

I thought about getting into the business in '07 but realized the entire thing depended on ICANN advancing the gTLD expansion and was a bit too risky. Four years later with minimal progress (.xxx isn't one of these, it's been kicking around over a decade) I'm glad I didn't start that business. Though ICANN has moved that along this summer...

</comment><comment><USER3> What a genius move, that is only reason for this domain. No porn provider will use this, because it will be banned on so many places. It didn't make any sense, but now it does.

Super expensive and you don't want your company reputation to be damaged. I bet in the end there are only the venturers who dream from the days of sex.com and the ones who pay to lock their domain down.

<comment><USER4> I believe the larger adult businesses will in fact use it, if just for the branding, and to make a case for their legitimacy by having their site on an easily filtered TLD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I bet all those startups who used their tld as part of their name are all giddy they can't get extorted like this.

<comment><USER6> odd.ly, xxx.ly is still available.

<comment><USER4> I would assume that's because using a .ly domain for pornography is a violation of the terms and conditions, and Libyan law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think we almost have to. If you don't grab your trademark now then someone else might, and you don't want someone squatting on it with dodgy content :/

They are super expensive though, 10x the price of a .com.

<comment><USER7> Trademark does not require you to own every TLD to protect the mark. If someone does something that is confusing with your trademark, you can sue them.

It'd be stupid to waste money on every TLD; there are going to be hundreds of them eventually. There's no reason to voluntarily give your money away for no benefit to you. If someone tries to extort you by abusing your trademark, cross that bridge when you come to it by suing the offender.

<comment><AUTHOR> It can be super costly to legally gain control of a domain that contains your mark (tens of thousands of dollars). And there is no guarantee you will win it back. Trademarks are registered by country/territory, so even though you may have the mark in the US, it doesn't mean that someone else can't use it in another country.

My concern is that many people on HN are building brands, and the last thing you want is someone buying yourbrand.xxx and covering it with porn.

If you have an established brand, you almost have to buy the .xxx.

<comment><USER7> "It can be super costly to legally gain control of a domain that contains your mark (tens of thousands of dollars). And there is no guarantee you will win it back."

Why would you want to "win it back" in the case of yourbrand.xxx? It's worthless to a non-porn brand.

"My concern is that many people on HN are building brands, and the last thing you want is someone buying yourbrand.xxx and covering it with porn."

Why would this be a concern? It's not worth anything to a pornographer to, for example, register virtualmin.xxx and cover it with porn (except maybe for extortion value). I could see "google.xxx" or "twitter.xxx" being a problem, but in those cases, they'd want to sue for trademark infringement. The domain name is irrelevant.

"If you have an established brand, you almost have to buy the .xxx."

If so, it's a license to extort money. I'm just not going to participate in that sort of scam, and I don't think anyone else should, either. All the people that do are funding further efforts in the same direction.

<comment><AUTHOR> Household brands like Twitter, Google, Nike, Zara, Walmart, Ford and KPMG will IMHO pay. This is not binary, it is a continuum. Will TechCrunch buy theirs? Will AirBnb, Path or Zaarly?

It is a risk decision for these businesses.

For a relatively small amount of money companies are removing the potential brand and legal cost risk of not owning their .xxx. The more important your brand the more likely you will be to pay.

I totally agree with you that this is 'extortion', but just because it may not be right, doesn't mean we won't be affected by it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can I get extortion.xxx?</comment>


How To Use Monkey Math To Prove Whatever You Want - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/2011/01/05/how-to-use-monkey-math-to-prove-anything-you-want/

<comment><USER2> The problem is not a lack of revenue, but a lack of restraint on spending. More tax incomes will simply mean comparatively more spending; a drunk will keep on drinking if he suddenly receives a reprieve in the form of a new liver. If we take away the ballooning costs of the wars, foreign bases, surveillance and the bailouts, the US budget would just about have been balanced.

<comment><AUTHOR> We can debate the necessity of war until the end of time, but those bailouts were a definite need.

Agree on the lacking restraint though. The problem is even worse, though: a misrepresentation of the facts. A family that purchases enough gas for 40k miles in travel AND takes a yearly vacation AND spends $10k on "cleaning and house maintenance" isn't excessive--it's divorced from reality.

<comment><USER3> Although I agree with you, I would avoid using phrases such as "trust me on that". Especially when discussing an issue that has generated vigorous debate. It weakens your argument, and only makes me trust you (and your point) less.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. I'd prefer to not reveal why I said that, so I've edited my comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry guys, botched the title. It's called _How To Use Monkey Math To Prove Anything You Want_

My favorite numbers:

1\. $10,000/year on house cleaning and "maintenance," and $450/month on gas and electricity. That mansion won't support itself!

2\. $13k a year on groceries. Are they shopping at Dean & Deluca?

More importantly: these partisan articles are toxic to discourse and friendly debate. If we cannot agree on facts, how can we hope to debate opinions?</comment>


Kexecboot: Linux-As-a-Bootloader implementation based on kexec - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kexecboot/kexecboot/wiki <comment><USER2> Interesting. A kexecboot patch is widely available on Android, it gets used to provide a hackish multi-OS functionality. (The early boot environment brings up a multi-boot GUI, and the user can choose to continue booting or kexec a different kernel and system image.)

<comment><USER3> Still requires installing twrp?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Could anyone familiar with this project comment on how it compares to kboot and petitboot?

[http://kboot.sourceforge.net/](http://kboot.sourceforge.net/)

[https://github.com/open-power/petitboot](https://github.com/open- power/petitboot)

<comment><AUTHOR> From a first glance, kboot seems to be unmaintained since 2007. Petitboot looks pretty good but doesn't do x86.

Edit: [https://www.plop.at/en/plopkexec/download.html](https://www.plop.at/en/plopkexec/download.html) might be a better alternative!

<comment><USER5> Petitboot does do x86 - we're using it on an AMD x86-64 network appliance.

[https://opengear.com/products/om2200-operations- manager/](https://opengear.com/products/om2200-operations-manager/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hi there! I'm one of kexecboot contributors. Just realized it's > 11 years old already! We're not active for last years but we're still alive. Feel free to adopt kexecboot to your device and make PR back! Thank you for raising attention too :)

\-- Jay7x

</comment><comment><USER7> Is there a way to write a kernel directly to a boot sector and boot directly from it?

<comment><USER8> Somewhat; if your system boots through EFI (as opposed to the ancient BIOS boot), then you can compile your kernel with the EFI_STUB option[0]. That kernel can be placed in EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi (or whatever you've configured your EFI to boot), and the EFI boot loader will run it without any other boot loader. IME, this goes very well with a built-in initramfs (INITRAMFS_SOURCE[1]), so you have a single-file kernel and ramfs that boots directly from EFI.

[0] - [https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/efi- stub....](https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/efi-stub.html) [1] - [https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/...](https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/driver- api/early-userspace/early_userspace_support.rst)

<comment><USER9> That's right. I'm using this kind of setup on Arch (including Secure Boot signing of the EFI kernel).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been using _this_ kexec-reboot utility for years.

[https://github.com/error10/kexec-reboot](https://github.com/error10/kexec- reboot)</comment>


Learning to Live with the Voices in Your Head (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/learning-to-live-with-the-voices-in-your-head/382096/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I hear voices, or inserted thoughts as I call them. It's like hearing a thought in your head (not an audible voice), but your brain didn't produce it! Like my Mom said who heard a non threatening inserted thought about a month ago "it's like it's coming from a different spot in my brain"

I have written down some of the inserted thoughts I heard. They are from a couple years ago.

[http://pastebin.com/FdNGwmRJ](http://pastebin.com/FdNGwmRJ) [http://pastebin.com/7f4cTkDW](http://pastebin.com/7f4cTkDW) [http://pastebin.com/BREdSSGb](http://pastebin.com/BREdSSGb) [http://pastebin.com/VLEPLFzJ](http://pastebin.com/VLEPLFzJ) [http://pastebin.com/Zy1JbCTC](http://pastebin.com/Zy1JbCTC)

I'm a member of Intervoice on Facebook. I take Perphenazine, and see a Psychiatrist every 6 months.

<comment><USER3> How do you tell, "your brain didn't produce it"?

I don't really understand by what your voices are different from what I simply call my thoughts. I mean I also hear random thoughts. Just the same kind of thoughts that you wrote down. Often it's a dialog or chatter from multiple different voices. They are different in what they say. Isn't that normal? Do other people have a mute inner voice?

How are your voices different from your thoughts?

<comment><USER2> Here's a good example of when I think my brain didn't produce the inserted thoughts: [http://andytriboletti.tumblr.com/post/32437656234/roger- wate...](http://andytriboletti.tumblr.com/post/32437656234/roger-waters)

"A couple years ago I was reading Incognito where they mention Pink Floyd's lyrics "There's someone in my head but it's not me". Later that night I was lying in bed trying to go to sleep when I thought "Roger Waters" At the time I didn't know who he was but I found his Wikipedia page."

<comment><USER4> Hello. I created an account on this website specifically to reply to your comment despite the fact that I usually only lurk here.

I read your linked blog and honestly, if that's yours, I feel compelled to reach out to you.

The behavior you've documented (helpfully, for both yourself and others) is textbook schizophrenia.

The paranoia, the the voices, the "I could control what showed up on tv" all fits the bill for mental illness.

You have to learn to stop trusting your own head and document with outside sources. In the TV case, film yourself on your phone. Say what's going to show up, then wait for it. Watch it. See if you "remember" being able to control it. Then watch the video back later, then realize nothing you said actually was right.

You've got to use the wonderful technological tools available to you to fight this, and included a trusted healthcare professional.

I'm reaching out in hopes that this helps you, not trying to troll/insult at all. There's no shame in what's happening to you.

The only shame is that science doesn't understand the brain well enough yet to detect/heal these things before they impact our lives.

<comment><USER5> He says above that he is on perphenazine and that he sees are professional every 6 months. Seems like he knows what's up. No need to be concerned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is crap. As someone who has suffered with schizophrenia and heard voices for over 7 months when I was symptomatic and after 1 month of meds became completely "normal" again. It's been over 7 years since then and I'm still just fine. I can tell you that if you hear voices you should go to the emergency room at your nearest hospital. They have mental health workers there that can evaluate you and get you treatment - most likely in the form of a 5150 hold. They will give you meds to stop the voices (if your lucky, some people don't respond to the meds).

The reason you should deal with it immediately is with every "episode" you have you get worse, eventually hitting a baseline where you don't get any worse but you don't get better either. My sister has the same thing and is permanently screwed with the meds barely doing anything for her. If she would have delt with the voices as soon as she heard them and started taking meds for it she may be just fine today - shes not and never will be because of trying to "Learn to live with voices" crap. Just a heads up... maybe this will help someone.

<comment><USER7> Please don't make such a strongly worded blanket judgment of what someone should (or for that matter, shouldn't) do, especially when it concerns mental health.

Our understanding of mental health issues, and especially schizophrenia, is still very rudimentary. For all we know there are multiple forms of schizophrenia that require different approacher. Furthermore, there already _is_ evidence that (some) schizophrenics are best helped not by medication, but by learning to 'deal' with their voices (by not suppressing them, or setting 'limits', etc.).

For my part I have one friend who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and who is, so far, managing okay without medication. He's also talking to a therapist, which I would definitely recommend to anyone suffering from anything (even if just for a while).

My point is not to advocate one approach over the other, but to nuance what you said. I can understand that your experiences play a big role in the strength of your recommendation, and I by no means want to tell you to shut up or anything. I'm also happy to hear medication worked for you.

I'm just asking you to be a little more cautious when telling others how to deal with mental health issues, especially if there's no consensus on how to treat them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone interested in the dynamics of disorders like this and how they can develop, you might want to read "I never promised you a rose garden" by Joanne Greenberg [0].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Never_Promised_You_a_Rose_Ga...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Never_Promised_You_a_Rose_Garden_\(novel\))</comment>