China rates its own citizens – including online behaviour - <AUTHOR> http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/china-rates-its-own-citizens-including-online-behaviour~a3979668/ <comment><USER2> This is madness. I thought I was reading a fake article.

> _the system is 'very ambitious in both depth and scope, including > scrutinizing individual behavior and what books people read. It's Amazon's > consumer tracking with an Orwellian political twist.'_

What a coincidence. Recently I had to decide whether to buy books on politics for kindle. I didn't like the fact that it tracks everything I buy, what sentences I highlight, the notes I keep... I bet my libertarian books would make my score very low in future China.

> _This score is not only determined by one 's lending behavior, but also by > hobbies and friends. If friends have a poor lending reputation, this > reflects badly on the person, just as prolonged playing of video games. > Buying diapers indicates responsibility and scores therefore well._

This detail was hidden in the article, yet it's one of the most important. It's not about external control, but also _self-control_. This is what a true Orwellian society promotes. The score acts as feedback to everything we do.

It's funny to imagine social hackers buying tons of diapers to get on top of the rankings.

<comment><USER3> > _Recently I had to decide whether to buy books on politics for kindle. I > didn 't like the fact that it tracks everything I buy, what sentences I > highlight, the notes I keep... I bet my libertarian books would make my > score very low in future China._

This is why I keep "pirating" and hoarding books. I know it's bad for the common good and bad for the authors but I feel paranoid about corporations and national security agencies collecting and later, perhaps, analyzing what I read, including how long I linger over a page, what I underline, when I take screenshot excerpts, etc.

I started innocently enough, by scanning all my physical books (and downloading the epubs or pirated pdfs of books I already paid for in physical form whenever available) just to lighten my steps, so to speak. Then I came upon a passage in 1984 where books were altered, entire passages excised and rewritten to suit whatever powers that be. It was completely unrealistic when 1984 was written, of course, but in 2013 (when I read it), this hit a little bit too close to home. With all our devices constantly itching to phone the mothership, this is not a fantasy anymore but a possibility. All that stands between Orwell's dark vision and reality is, in fact, political will and our collective memory of times when this was not possible. Perhaps future generations who do not remember physical books will more easily acquiesce to such intrusions for the sake of "mental hygiene" and, you know, the children and stuff.

Anyhow, today I look at a 16K+ Bibdesk database which, of course, _includes_ the files/ebooks on my airgapped machine and feel curiously satisfied. Not in a lifetime will I be able to read all this but I know that I _could_ spend my remaining days reading freely, no matter the external circumstances. Freedom of thought! (Also, a very neat and nifty system for me personally I admit... :)

<comment><USER4> > It was completely unrealistic when 1984 was written, of course, but in 2013 > (when I read it), this hit a little bit too close to home.

Ironically enough, Amazon has already once erased _1984_ from users' Kindle devices: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0&gwh=9DBB06F69CE8B5EFB82DA08693631A15)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is bad. But before judging China, people need to ask themselves if the hold their own government to the same standard of criticism. As an American, I feel if the US government had similar plans and someone had leaked them on Wikileaks, there would be more conversation about the leaker's girlfriend than outrage about the plans themselves.

<comment><USER6> I don't know a single person that doesn't have a very low, highly critical opinion of the US Government already. That includes essentially universal skepticism of Congress.

So yes, I think Americans criticize their government almost as a professional sport. Non-stop 24/7, everywhere. Even for things the government isn't responsible for.

I'd argue the only thing Americans are guilty of is too much complaining and criticizing of their government, and not enough _doing_ to change it as a follow-through.

<comment><USER7> You must not know a lot of people ;)

That was a mostly joking jab ... but seriously, have you looked at a demographics map of the US? In between just about every blue city/urban center, there are broad swaths of rural red. Many of these folks are of the opinion that what the government does is right, and we shouldn't question cause they know best. Which is ironic given their love of "small government" ... but when the police, military, or otherwise "security" related organization is concerned, it's all yes all day.

<comment><USER8> If you view us politics through a red blue lens you've already been brainwashed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What are the odds that something like this is already in place on global scale by some American spooks? To "fight the war on terrorism" or something. Surely it's not that difficult to do considering internet megacorps already do behaviour analysis and payment processors already keep track of what goes where, including credit scoring.

<comment> guard-of-terra I doubt it. To make it work, you need leverage. Make citizen's life slightly easier or slightly worse based on his score.

Worse access to credit, withholding from top universities, preventing from starting a business - not easy to do anything like that on a grand scale in market society. So you won't exactly be making a new citizen.

<comment><USER10> This sounds exactly what Experian does. They are used by most (all?) UK banks to validate your credit score and they also provide an "identity protection" service. If your score is too low with them you don't get any credit anywhere.

<comment> guard-of-terra Still it is very hard to link credit score with citizen activity, with gradual punishment of undesirable ones.

Once it would dismarry from financial reality, many banks will start to skip it, because it will become profitable.

<comment><USER11> Here's one method of implementing it.

1\. Require that all banks have insurance for accounts that are unable to be FDIC insured but are under $200,000.

2\. Legislate that credit scores take into account a score determined by Homeland Security, under the premise that homeland knows more about a person (e.g. do they gamble in monaco off books a lot? are they involved in a radical movement and likely to lose or give their jobs? are they a likely to be arrested?). If the public needs more sell on this use the canned like "Do you really want your bank to lend money to terrorists?".

3\. Drop FDIC insurance for any bank that operates outside of #2. #1 will force these banks to buy insurance, lowering their profitability. At this point, the system self-regulates and is hard to dismantle.

<comment> guard-of-terra Score is still "go" vs. "no go". You can only shut off so many people because parallel "grey" finance market arises.

More finesse is needed. You can try banks to offer different deals to identical (finance-wise) people based on their HS score, but they're probably sue.

<comment><USER12> True, also with the rise of P2P lending the oligopoly of these credit rating agencies will be broken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What I wonder about when I read things like this:

How did they get to this point?

What goes on in the mind of the person sitting in the "idea room" when they first thought of this?

Are they just the product of an already oppressive government and therefore see this as completely and totally fine?

Or do they know that it is oppressive, but since they're already a cog in the machine, they pitch the idea up and get praised for it?

<comment><USER14> I've read enough articles over the years that this move on China's part is not surprising to me at all. I think the average person in China is quite fed up with the lack of morality and social compassion in the general public - due to news articles like the ones I am about to link you.

Extreme lack of good samaritan behavior: [http://www.chinasmack.com/2015/stories/old-chinese-woman- aba...](http://www.chinasmack.com/2015/stories/old-chinese-woman-abandoned-in- field-netizens-point-fingers.html) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue) [http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/videos/shanghai-pudong- airpor...](http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/videos/shanghai-pudong-airport- stabbing-only-a-foreigner-helped.html)

Chinese tourist behavior: [http://www.chinasmack.com/2015/videos/thai-model- rants-about...](http://www.chinasmack.com/2015/videos/thai-model-rants-about- chinese-tourists-at-korean-airport.html) [http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/videos/thai-flight-turned- bac...](http://www.chinasmack.com/2014/videos/thai-flight-turned-back-due-to- unruly-chinese-couple-reactions.html) [http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/stories/mainland-chinese- tour...](http://www.chinasmack.com/2012/stories/mainland-chinese-tourists- deface-plants-in-taitung-taiwan.html)

I think the majority of the West believes that the government is behind everything. But the truth is that most of these kinds of changes in China are actually reflected in the people's opinion. In this case, the PEOPLE in China are really sick and tired of seeing news articles like few I have linked. The government has just decided that this seems like the best method to achieve what the people want.

I know it sounds kind of crazy, but you have to remember that almost nobody in China has ever read 1984. They don't share your values.

<comment><USER13> No, that doesn't sound crazy at all. I don't sit around with the myopic viewpoint that everyone in the world shares my same ideas, ideals and values.

What I meant by my original post was that I try to put myself into their thought process when they arrive at such decisions. I know however that I cannot, based on my own bias and brainwashing.

It is a worthy thought exercise nonetheless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From a Salon article on US data mining, [http://www.salon.com/2015/04/26/big_datas_big_libertarian_li...](http://www.salon.com/2015/04/26/big_datas_big_libertarian_lie_facebook_google_and_the_silicon_valley_ethical_overhaul_we_need/)

 _" All of this is part of what I call the informational appetite. It's our total faith in raw data, in the ability to extract empirical certainties about life's greatest mysteries, if only one can deduce the proper connections. When the informational appetite is layered over social media, we get the messianic digital humanitarianism of Mark Zuckerberg. Connectivity becomes a human right; Facebook, we are told, can help stop terrorism and promote peace. (Check out Facebook.com/peace to see this hopeless naïveté in action.)"_

</comment><comment><USER16> It's amazing how different the mentality is in Liberal Democracies versus, say, Communist or Islamic regimes. Personally, I think the evidence is clear that concentration of power, especially a "rating" like this, is a prelude to about the worst tools of oppression one can imagine.

But even back here at home, little by little, we are on the way to being enslaved by the machines. If something can be more efficient (for consumers, say) it will be made more efficient and put pressure on all the humans (workers). Already our attention span is not what it used to be because as humans we have to deal with a huge volume of things being thrown at us. Already demand for human labor is decreasing. But what's next is much more efficient ways to punish people for certain behavior, and make them conform. The hive mind dominates the individual, with better and better tools. China rates its citizens, not the other way around. All the "soviet russia" joke formulas come true. The assumption is: one is permanent, the other is not.

I wrote a piece on this. _The genie is out of the bottle: welcome to the Big Data revolution_ : [http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=169)

<comment><USER17> Consumer credit rating agencies already essentially do this, and a number of subprime lenders only make credit decisions if they can connect to social media accounts. There are specialists in "connecting the dots" of all your various life activities right here in the West. Already certain sectors require a clean credit score to get a job. It's really not very different from this Chinese scheme, since this dot-joining will inevitably profile your political and social leanings, your secrets, your very personality and its inevitable flaws. China will do centrally what we do in a distributed fashion, but the end result is the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> That sounds basically like a Credit Rating System, similar systems exists in probably every first world country. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating)

<comment><USER19> Right, a mixture of that, and a few others:

\- Criminal records / record of conduct \- Tracking by various advertising companies, market research, etc. \- Whatever records NSA, FBI etc. keep on you. This doesn't even have to be a file-per-person, but they have your metadata, and if you stick out, you might come under closer scrutinty.

The difference is that these sources are not pulled together. Also as a sibling post noted, there is no feedback to the citizens. I don't know whether I have a bad or a good score with the police. I hope I have a good score :-). But if you want to consciously change citizens behavior, you'd have to tell them their scores. (Well, what we do right now changes citizens behavior by scaring them, but thats a different issue.)

One thing I find curious is that there is apparently no sensitivity among the inventors of this scheme towards how dystopian it sounds like. That's why you can have big posters in China saying things like "Friends! Be virtuous and vigilant!" or a Hong Kong official saying something in earnest like "if the brain is sick, it must be washed" with regards to school textbooks. There are PSAs and government posters in the US, too, and people try to push their agendas in school curriculums there, too... but for one they would not go quite as far in the US, and especially such manipulation is attempted much more tastefully.

<comment><USER20> > That's why you can have big posters in China saying things like "Friends! Be > virtuous and vigilant!"

I'm not sure what you want to imply, but i just got back from London where each and every public transport facility (bus, tube, train) kept repeating over the PA that "any suspicious people or parcels" should be reported to a member of staff. Or something like that.

We're not really that different -- i would be surprised if the US is.

<comment><USER21> here (Vancouver Canada) we have similar security ads all over out transit system

[https://imgur.com/bYVXi7x,DQticJw#0](https://imgur.com/bYVXi7x,DQticJw#0) [https://imgur.com/bYVXi7x,DQticJw#1](https://imgur.com/bYVXi7x,DQticJw#1)

We also have ones promoting considerate social behavior:

[http://imgur.com/Rqv5hLr,Zh7k1Qf#0](http://imgur.com/Rqv5hLr,Zh7k1Qf#0) [http://imgur.com/Rqv5hLr,Zh7k1Qf#1](http://imgur.com/Rqv5hLr,Zh7k1Qf#1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The interesting truth is that the majority of Chinese society agrees with and supports such policies. Misunderstanding that and possibly trying to save them is pointless and counter productive. In my experience there is a surprising lack of individual social responsibility (or ethical behaviour) in China unless they are aware that they are under surveillance.

</comment><comment><USER23> The wet dream of all governments everywhere - the perfectly controlled citizen.

<comment><USER24> This is just the initial phase - finding out the _traits_ of the perfectly controlled citizen. Next is actually creating such citizens. I wouldn't be surprised if within 3 decades China _regulates_ how parents design their children at birth (as in they'll all have to design them to be compliant to the government in adulthood).

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/designer-babies-on-the-way-in- ch...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/designer-babies-on-the-way-in-china- scientists-attempt-to-unravel-human-intelligence/)

<comment><USER25> See, the thing about this comment isn't that I believe it couldn't happen. It's that I for damn sure don't think it will _only_ be done by China.

The designing will be regulated in all countries, some attributes will be ruled unsafe to alter, or only allowed to be altered in specific fashions. The appropriate medical council variant will explain rationally that it's unsafe to do otherwise for such and such reasons. The line between medical justification and political meddling is pretty easy to blur with a bit of pressure and some good relationships.

<comment><USER26> Completely agree but I see it much worse.

The general public will have access to change certain genes/or be required to make these changes for the 'good' of the population. These Genes will be to make the working class less disruptive (reducing conflict by reducing genes that generate anger/or narrowing the emotional band of people to a much more narrow scope (think gene changes that have the same result as anti depression medication)) while stating that these genes need to be changed to get rid of medical issues such as ADHD For example Think about removing the ability to have their own children, got to pay extra if you want your child to be able to have their own.

The top will be able to change a lot of other things. They will be able to boost intelligent (do you really think the governments of the world want a super smart population? no, they will kept that for themselves)

All in all we are getting to the stage where there will be 2 classes of humans. The working class will become completely inferior to the uppers and thanks to the gene changes very few if any will ever raise above their station

Seems like we trying 1984 in US n Euro. And Brave new world in China

If you try and counter this with "people wont stand for it" they will, none of the China population will stop it, and once its standard there they were be breeding super humans. The rest of the world will either have to do it to keep up, or accept our Chinese overlords

So glad I have no plans to bring a child in to this future we all building for them

<comment> guard-of-terra "working class"

I actually doubt you need much working class in the society capable of large- scale gene editing.

Working class is only profitable when produced by pre-industrial society on its own ("village").

<comment><USER26> Valid point

lets go with instead

Alpha ("the upper class") Beta ("the second upper class") Gamma ("the middle class") Delta ("the second lower class") Epsilon ("the lower class") Double- Plus ("the superior subdivision among Alphas") Plus ("the superior subdivision among Alphas, Betas, Gammas or Deltas, but inferior to Double-Plus") Minus ("the inferior subdivision among Alphas, Betas, Gammas or Deltas") savage ("a person outside the integrated portions of society, and therefore separate from all classes")

Your point about a society capable of large scale gene editing would not need a working class is legit. it will be used to thin the populations out to 'manageable' numbers. Then class split based on parentage.

A perfect system and within 3-4 generations completely normal

<comment> guard-of-terra Gamma is not "the middle class", it's "blue collar".

You don't really need deltas and epsilons in the long run. Unless they are very cheap to have, robots are going to replace them.

<comment><USER27> In the really long run, why would you need anything other than Alphas?

<comment><USER28> Because it's the hierarchy that defines you. An Alpha, alone, is indistinguishable from an Epsilon. See Veblen Good; if nobody looks at your rolex it's just a heavy timex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There was a good talk back in 2012 from ex NSA that laid out some of the details for how the US surveillance keeps track of online behavior too[1]. I think (as awful as it is) we can expect most governments major governments to do this if it's within their technical capacity.

To get out from under this, I think we'll need 100% encryption of everything, open source devices, and ways for companies to make money without ads or data brokering. Basically, this will stop when hell freezes over.

[1] [http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2012/29c3-5338-en- enemie...](http://media.ccc.de/browse/congress/2012/29c3-5338-en- enemies_of_the_state_h264.html#video&t=4584)

 _speed up to 1:14 for the good stuff_

<comment><USER30> Have you been following the news with regard to the Defense Department and Silicon Valley?

There is a concerted effort now, through government compulsion and money, to funnel venture capitol towards start-ups with cyber security (offensive and defensive) and away from those offering encryption and privacy services and communications solutions.

<comment><USER31> Could you elaborate or provide links?

<comment><USER30> The sum total of the following links: DoD will be investing, through parterships with executives of companies that acquire technology from startups, like Facebook, and with partnerships with Silicon Valley Venture Capital Firms to invest in companies that increase the national cybersecurity posture of the US (attack and defense) and to limit funding to technology that it thought to harm the national security of the US (E2E encryption solutions are specifically mentioned). The past few months have seen many defense officials making their way through silicon valley to meet with executives and VC firms, including the Admirial and soon-to-be-representative of the State Department.

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/24/department-of-defense- cre...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/24/department-of-defense-creates-new- cyberunit-in-silicon-valley/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/us/white-house-takes- cyber...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/27/us/white-house-takes- cybersecurity-pitch-to-silicon-valley.html)

[http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27974832/defense- secr...](http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_27974832/defense-secretary- calls-rebuilding-ties-silicon-valley)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/science/pentagon- looking-f...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/science/pentagon-looking-for- edge-in-the-future-checks-in-with-silicon-valley.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/technology/the-pentagon- as...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/technology/the-pentagon-as-start-up- incubator.html)

[http://www.hngn.com/articles/87223/20150424/secretary- defens...](http://www.hngn.com/articles/87223/20150424/secretary-defense-lays- out-new-cyberwar-strategy-silicon-valley-help.htm)

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/23/defense-department- sili...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/23/defense-department-silicon- valley/)

[http://cryptome.org/2015/04/dod-cyber- strategy-2015.pdf](http://cryptome.org/2015/04/dod-cyber-strategy-2015.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My gut reaction ( being an anglo, American, redneck, privileged, don't tread on me kind of person ) is that this is horrible.

But thinking deeper on it I wonder if this is what Chinese Democracy looks like. The goal being maximal harmony, rather than maximal personal freedom. The method being a constant polling of all participants by all participants rather than occasional polling of those who can be bothered to vote.

It looks alien to us because it is alien to us.

<comment><USER33> It looks alien to you because you haven't come to terms with the fundamental shift in technology (all the data that is created, collected and analyzed) and politics in western society (using said data in the name of security).

The current trend is to gather all data and to use it in any way possible, regardless if you're in China or if you have a Confederate flag on your truck.

<comment><USER32> Just an FYI a confederate flag is as offensive to most thinking Americans as a Swastika flag would be to most thinking Germans. For various reasons we don't currently ban their display. But it is and should be a quick route to political irrelevance to claim it as your own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> 119 comments but not a single one drawing the parallels between this and the NSA's X-KeyScore program.

</comment><comment><USER35> _The Solution (Bertolt Brecht)_

After the uprising of the 17th of June

The Secretary of the Writers' Union

Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee

Stating that the people

Had forfeited the confidence of the government

And could win it back only

By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?

</comment><comment><USER36> I was working on a voluntary, p2p version of this: [https://github.com/neyer/respect](https://github.com/neyer/respect)

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't think China is the only country that does this.

I love the 'respecting the elderly' bit, as in: respect the party bosses.

<comment><USER38> Indeed, private companies in the United States already do this. The question is what will the data be used for?

<comment><USER39> This might show my European perspective, but I'd rather have my government collect such data than some unaccountable private entity. Even better if no one does it of course.

<comment> squeaky-clean One difference to me is that a private entity is (hopefully) restricted to only capturing data through their own channels. i.e. Google can track everything I search, all of my emails within gmail, etc. But they cannot track a hotmail account, they can't read my text messages, etc. If I'm not OK with the tracking, I have other alternatives, or can choose not to use any of them. But there's nothing stopping the government from intercepting anything I do.

Of course in reality right now, every single channel I go through is a Google channel. I'm writing this comment within Google Chrome, while an Android phone sits arms length from me. Heck, I even route all my non-gmail accounts into gmail. So while it feels different, I guess it really isn't.

And this might show my American perspective, but I trust Google with my data more than the US government (not saying I trust Google, just that I trust the government less). Google is an organization founded on technology, and have shown that they care about pushing forward in innovation in digital security. The US Gov didn't originate because of the internet and haven't really demonstrated a mastery of it.

<comment><USER37> > The US Gov didn't originate because of the internet and haven't really > demonstrated a mastery of it.

I think they've shown plenty of mastery of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Soviet Union tried to create a new citizen.

You won't easily find creature more miserable than their result. Alcohol consumption spiked and life expectancy actually plummeted.

<comment><USER40> The Soviet Union was run by increasingly aging and increasingly paranoid revolutionaries (literally, people who had fought a coup) who were generally unconcerned with science.

The PRC is run by technocrats educated in the West.

It's very nice to think that it's impossible to "create a new citizen," but the West has been doing that pretty effectively over the last few decades. I don't doubt the Chinese will be successful.

There is no inherent good in the universe. There is no particle or fundamental force for morality. There are truly no constraints. It is nice to believe that good will win and evil will fail, but that doesn't always happen. There's no law of the universe preventing the PRC from creating a new citizen, a perpetually controllable citizen, held in check by pervasive surveillance of a very similar form to the one experienced in the West, only with the results visible, and leveraged against the people openly, rather than covertly and without opportunity to improve your score (try getting off the no-fly list).

There is no law of the universe that totalitarianism loses and democracy wins. Maybe the PRC will be successful and create a permanently stable capitalist totalitarian state.

I wonder who's writing their software?

<comment> guard-of-terra "who were generally unconcerned with science"

That one is far from truth. Soviet society was hugely concerned with science. They didn't lack in science in their ways; it just turned out that scientifically-sound methods often conflict with social reality and what people like.

For example: while it is sound to build your cities as arrays of concrete blocks with wide roads served by public transportations, living in such environment is no picnic. When you relocate someone who used to have their garden, their garage with tools, etc - into a flat in concrete block, they usually begin to drink for the lack of activities they are used to.

<comment><USER40> What do you mean by "sound"? Obviously it can't mean "effective" because as you point out these plans weren't the case.

<comment> guard-of-terra I mean that as far as science is concerned (disregarding humanitarian sciences because they were viewed not scientific enough) this sounds like a good, efficient plan and downside takes some time to notice when you have already invested much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Let's face it: we are not going to avoid mass data collection and scoring in the west either. The technology is just too cheap to not get people tempted to do it.

The least bad defense probably is to subvert this into a kind of peer to peer panopticon as much as possible. Everyone sees and rates all kinds of aspects of everyone else explicitly and publicly.

<comment><USER36> I started working on the p2p version already:[https://github.com/neyer/respect](https://github.com/neyer/respect)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This is simply product recommendation software for the government instead of a corporation like Amazon. Same software; recommends people instead of products!

I also see an isolationist aspect: A citizen who spends significant time abroad would likely have a lower score and more trouble staying a part of Chinese society.

Fun read that this article reminded me of: Harmony – July 20, 2010 by Project Itoh (Author), Alexander O. Smith (Translator)

"In a world where human life is a precious global resource that must be protected at all costs, everything about a person -- choices, emotions, biochemistry, cell metabolism -- is monitored and assessed by computer systems, 24/7\. A variety of complex feedback loops are in place to ensure optimum conservation of that resource, including everything from good old- fashioned peer pressure to mandatory inpatient psychiatric treatment." ( M. Garrison, Amazon Review)

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm glad China does this so we can see real world examples of why we don't fuck with freedom. This will implode eventually just like our money driven political system bullshit in America.

<comment><USER30> It's funny that when very analogous things happen in America I am accosted by people defending the principle that the West is still a stalwart of 'freedom' because we can still choose and have the freedom to take actions that would hurt us (lower our scores).

If one were to apply the same sort of simplistic argument in the China case, they have as much freedom as anyone else has.

IMO we would also be fools if we don't think there is a scoring system to help sort the millions of Americans with profiles in the American intelligence apparatus.

This is our brave new world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I know this isn't a particularly constructive comment, or even a constructive comment at all, but reality really blows my mind sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER45> Can you say Acxiom? I knew you could.

</comment><comment><USER46> does somebody has a link to some Chinese press news about that ?

</comment><comment><USER47> China has an authoritarian government that produces pollution that threatens the entire world, uses the great firewall to attack tech companies in other countries, ignores human rights and free speech, and supports dictators in Russia and Africa. If China gets anymore powerful, the world is doomed. We need to curb commerce with China.

<comment><USER48> Is this a joke?

<comment><USER30> Probably not.

The US superpower status has been hollowing out and China has begun to be able to project power in very impressive ways. The US sees China as its major threat right now. What the US government would like to do is 'contain' China by keeping it a regional force - so that it can't complete as a global power.

In anticipation of future conflict there has already been a large amount of anti-China sentiment creeping in America - suddenly all of the news about China has a negative spin. If they land on the moon its portrayed as scary rather than impressive. If they build islands in the middle of the Ocean (legally) it's a 'great mound of sand' rather than an incredibly impressive engineering feat. China's selling of air defense systems that thwart the US and the collisions of and mutual reconnaissance of our naval vessels aren't covered much - basically few real facts but lots of spin.

The US doesn't know whether it will be able to beat back China without having to resort to violence. If you watch the presidential speeches between candidates and Washington thinktanks they all have a stance on how they will deal with 'the China problem' (China is ambitious and there ain't room enough for the both of us). Jeb Bush basically said military might - Clinton wants to follow in line with (her) TPP.

There will be more anti-China slant. The interests of China and the US are at odds and becoming ever more so.

This poster is either part of a spin machine or has fallen for the naive and simplistic narrative of good-versus-evil.

All in all though, by all accounts, China and the US are set to butt heads and already have been.

<comment><USER49> The China boogieman is already disappearing. They will have their hands full with domestic problems as their population demands a more Western lifestyle. As long as the current allies remain together The West is nigh untouchable, sorry.

<comment><USER30> It is interesting you think the China boogieman is disappearing. Luckily for us the relatively near future will inform us who is right so we don't need to hash out the principles.

It's also interesting to see that what I'm doing in the prior comment is laying out the case made by Washington and the defense contractors and of global strategy reports of allies - i.e. I'm merely mirroring official standings and policies in my comment. Washington is wrong often, let's see if they are wrong again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Wow... how many more sick and oppressive policies does the Chinese government have to churn out (and so brazenly too) before the people of China say something? Where's the social unrest.. where's their sense of responsibility towards their future generations to nip a thing like this in the bud before it becomes the norm... what, nothing??

<comment><USER51> You might ask the same thing about the spying programs in our own back yard.</comment></comment>


Sribe: Copy anything from your Mac to your iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://usescribe.com

<comment><USER2> Website is broken in my Firefox 26 config. (Not due to NoScript. Might be one of the anti-tracking-cookie utils I use ...)

NB: My complaint isn't that it's not working, but that it doesn't degrade gracefully to (at least) a brief textual description.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why the share button running away from my cursor?

</comment><comment><USER4> I use simplenote app, whenever I have to.</comment>


We Can Have Nice Things - <AUTHOR> http://wecanhavenicethings.com <comment><USER2> Seriously?

"Because the US government issues its own currency, it can't "run out of money" or go bankrupt. That means "We the People" can — and should — spend what we need to spend on what we want and need without worrying about "how to pay for it.""

Garbage. See hyperinflation in Zimbabwe or Venezuela for trivial counter examples.</comment>


Datapath.io: Provider-Independent Elastic IP Addresses - <AUTHOR> http://www.datapath.io/#availability <comment><USER2> I'd suggest you scrap your "fancy" website and replace it with two paragraphs of text that explain what you are trying to sell and how it works.

The "vague bullshit in between cute animations" approach really doesn't work at all for this type of product.

<comment><USER3> When I first saw the page (opened along with a bunch of other tabs from HN links), with its "Timeout error!" balloon and "Service disruption" headline, I thought it was a fancy error page and hit reload. Oops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Their twitter feed has a diagram describing the process on AWS: [https://twitter.com/datapath_io/status/560027255188250625/ph...](https://twitter.com/datapath_io/status/560027255188250625/photo/1)

EDIT another: [https://twitter.com/datapath_io/status/559741202342625280/ph...](https://twitter.com/datapath_io/status/559741202342625280/photo/1)

<comment><USER5> This is a clever architecture; I never thought about using VPC direct connect to get out to the Internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doesn't every CDN already accomplish the same functionality with multiple origins and failover detection, while accelerating static content by caching it at the edge? Given how cost competitive CDNs already are, I don't see how they can charge a low enough cost in comparison to be compelling, while still incurring bandwidth costs and at least some network infrastructure which make it almost as expensive to run, minus some caching nodes. And if for whatever reason, there does happen to be some use case for anycasting the IP that's advantageous, any CDN could add this feature overnight while having a much more established footprint and infrastructure in place.

</comment><comment><USER7> > If your application goes down, all you want is to get it back up. What if > your cloud provider is down? Use DATAPATH.IO to route your users to a > healthy location while keeping your IP addresses.

But... what happens if datapath.io goes down?

<comment><USER8> I think the idea is that datapath only functions when you go down. ie: if only you go down, datapath will fix it via BGP magic. If datapath is down and you are up, stuff continues to work.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt- ts=1422411861&feature=pla...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt- ts=1422411861&feature=player_embedded&x-yt-cl=84924572&v=tsXpQHi7Udo)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I assume this is BGP routing as a service (which sounds cool).

But, would this not break the internet if everyone used it? routing individual IPs (rather than large blocks) sounds like it would end in chaos?

<comment><USER10> In general, most ISPs will drop any routes more specific than a /24\. Presumably datapath has negotiated with some specific providers to allow /32s; it's up to that ISP to scale their routers to handle it; other ISPs will only see the /24 aggregate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > What if your cloud provider is down? Use DATAPATH.IO to route your users to > a healthy location while keeping your IP addresses.

Call me crazy, but I'm not sure I really _care_ about keeping my IPs. Route 53 seems as close to bulletproof as we're going to find with DNS, and it's got cloud-independent failover routing built in. Point the primary record at your nice little EC2 server, and have the secondary record pointing as Azure or Google Cloud or your mom's laptop, whatever, and it'll do what Datapath is doing without futzing with your routing. ...right?

<comment><AUTHOR> You cannot do graceful failovers with Route 53. This is, because DNS is a system of many dependend caching layers and the TTL value is not realiable.

<comment><USER2> _the TTL value is not realiable._

How is the TTL not reliable?

In my personal experience DNS cut-overs have never been a problem. Is there any major OS or ISP doing DNS wrong?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have seen providers set the TTL value to 300 seconds no matter what. Chrome has been caching names forever while running...just two examples

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Do you have to pay for your traffic twice?

<comment><USER12> ... and does this add hops?

<comment><AUTHOR> Id adds one hop (our appliance) to the path. It tries to increase performance of your path by taking non-standard BGP metrics into account: congestion and latency

<comment><USER2> Does that mean all traffic passes through your appliance?

Where is it physically located, what about congestion of the appliance itself, what are your peerings?

<comment><AUTHOR> Traffic passes the appliance at the edge of the hosting provider. It takes congestion at all links and the appliance itself into account and re-routes accordingly. Depending on the characteristics of the location, at least three very unsimilar transit connections are used.

<comment><USER2> _at least three very unsimilar transit connections are used._

What does transit mean in this context; like between my VPC and your appliance? Can you give an example for e.g. an AWS region?

How is the appliance implemented, is it physical hardware, EC2 instances? Is it redundant, how do you scale it in terms of bandwidth?

<comment><AUTHOR> Transit providers sell access to the whole internet to us. We are in negotitations with them, but we will be more specific, once we have the commitments. Technically, we choose at least three different providers, so our appliance has a good basis of decision-making. For the connection between your VPC and our appliance, we use the regular AWS DC API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thats very cool</comment>


Valve Suggesting Windows Users to Try Ubuntu and Steam Linux Beta - <AUTHOR> http://www.ubuntuvibes.com/2013/01/valve-suggesting-windows-users-to-try.html

<comment><USER2> I noticed this weekend that some of my Steam games are now supported on Linux (Crusader Kings 2 from Paradox to be specific). Despite being out of the Ubuntu desktop scene for a while, I can't begin to say how much joy this brings me.

I'd love to know what cross platform tools Paradox may be using to achieve this.

<comment><USER3> i would like to hope that valve (via the associated steamworks related SDK they provide) creates a set of tools that make porting to linux a breeze for developers. I don't care if they have to target a specific distribution of linux, and or only support a specific set of video cards. I m sure if they take the first step, build the momentum, they can get a snowball effect going.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's nice that this is happening, a lot of indie games already have mac/linux support. I just hope it'll get even better (even on mac there are a lot of games that aren't supported yet)</comment>


We need a startup to fix online dating - <AUTHOR> http://techbyproducts.com/we-need-a-startup-to-fix-online-dating/ <comment><USER2> Try Grouper (<https://www.joingrouper.com>). [Full disclosure: I'm a co- founder].

The "browse-and-message" paradigm is fundamentally broken, not to mention a little dehumanizing (you're kind of shopping for people, which, let's face it, is pretty weird).

Our take is that the biggest problems with online dating are both the online part and the dating part --- it's hard to gauge chemistry online and it's cumbersome (and for women, potentially dangerous) to arrange a meeting. Meanwhile, labeling it as dating increases the pressure and the awkwardness for everyone.

Grouper Social Club sets up drinks between 2 groups of friends: 3 guys and 3 girls (or 3 guys, etc.).

There are no profiles or messages on our site. We match the groups together ourselves using Facebook info (which overcomes a lot of biases), then take care of all the coordination. Members pre-pay for their drink and the experience (the only fee), confirm a time, then we give them the place to meet.

We don't like labels, and don't think of Groupers as dates. To some they're similar, but the expectations are importantly different. Worst case: you're out with your friends and experience a funny story together, the average case is a super fun night out where there are some sparks between at least a pair of you, and the best case is, well, sky's the limit. Also, there's safety (and less awkwardness and more variety) in numbers.

We're live in 13 major cities in the US and Canada and growing quickly. 93% of members who go on a Grouper say they want to go on another one, and about half already have.

Our mission isn't to fix online dating, it's to end loneliness. Specifically, we want to help people get out from behind the blue glow of their computer screens and actually connect with people.

Social networks and online dating sites can be more isolating than social. But they don't have to be.

Shoot me an email at Michael [at] joingrouper.com if you have any questions.

<comment><USER3> Do you guys do mixed groups (2 guys, 1 girl -- etc)? In the future? Your messaging tries really hard not to label Grouper as a dating service but (3 girls) and (3 guys) is pretty transparent about what the intentions are for the two groups.

Lot's of growth avenues, looking forward to seeing this grow.

<comment><USER4> If they adopt the Japanese approach then it works just fine.

Basically they aim for equal numbers of guys and girls but the protocol is that you spend equal amounts of time with each opposite.

So it doesn't just become an awkward pair off situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'A' startup? As the article notes, there have been several attempts already and no clear winner.

Some observations about the online dating industry. There's a market opportunity - money has traditionally been made from dating/introduction services. They seem very suitable to move online. And they would seem to scale: in most services people match themselves, or an algorithm matches them, without involvement from the site staff. You would also expect network effects to be strong (customers want access to all the candidates in their geographical location) therefore rapid growth and huge revenue seems a possibility in a winner takes all kind of way.

So tell me: why has the online dating market not been locked up (pace occasional disruption) since 1999? My suspicion is the existing sites just don't have any way to differentiate themselves from the competition that actually makes a difference.

Online dating, if it can be 'fixed', will be fixed when someone has an insight into the underlying social question and manages to implement something unique.

<comment><USER6> One possible reason the market hasn't been locked up is mentioned in the article. Each of the services he tried had a different type of members.

I think if there's an opportunity it's not one of one-service-conquers-all. Small niche dating services may be more effective. The main advantage is that members start with things in common, depending on the niche. A disadvantage is that unless the gender mix is fairly even it will die. However, you could combine different, but compatible, communities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you weren't able to get a date from any of those sites then maybe the problem is you?

<comment><USER8> This. A thousand times, this. Every time I read a post about someone who can't get a date on OKCupid I roll my eyes. Then again, I live in New York so the high population density makes it a usable site. Sure, men outnumber women and women get more messages than men — but that's how the real world works as well. I've approached far more women in bars than have approached me. I imagine this is true for everybody except for rock stars, celebrities, gorgeous people, (and introverts whose only experience would be the few times they are approached).

The only thing that online dating gets you is an opportunity to introduce yourself and, if it's a good service, to introduce yourself to someone who is likelier to be what you are looking for. It's not a magic get-a-date thing, just joining up doesn't guarantee a date, just like going out to a bar doesn't guarantee that you're going to walk out of it with a girl or a phone number.

Attractive people get more messages? Yes, of course.

The only girls on dating sites have baggage? No more than any other single girls (or guys) of their age. At least that's been my experience for the last year or so that I've been single again and dating.

<comment><AUTHOR> It can also be based on age range, the younger you are, the less likely you are to find success on a dating site, beings that there's a smaller dating population in your age range

<comment><USER8> This goes for dating in general, it's not peculiar to dating sites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just limit the number of first contact outbound messages a user can send per day to something ridiculous(like one). Response rates on free sites are abysmally low because its not hard to write a generic message and send it out to every person you see, poisoning the well for every poor guy writing a well thought out message and waiting patiently at his inbox.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm pretty familiar with the online dating industry both through business and my own personal involvement. While I agree with the issues that you raise (POF, for instance, has 6.6 guys per girls the last time I checked 6 years ago), I don't see how a new business model will really address this. Attractive women are being wooed all the time and that's not going to change.

I think an online speed dating service for business professionals, however, would do well. I believe that there are services like this out there but none of them have achieved a true following I would argue.

Imagine logging onto a site where with use of full audio and video you meet 10 eligible bachelors or bachelorettes over the course of 30 mins.

<comment><AUTHOR> You could limit who can contact each user based on the requirement of filling out a "dating checklist" this means that women won't get inundated with messages and will actually respond to those who fit her requirements.

Hey, there's your startup...video speed dating! lol

<comment><AUTHOR> POF doesn't make it a requirement, probably because it would create friction in the signup process. eHarmony on the other hand, that's too many questions and no one is going to fill that damn thing out.

<comment><USER11> It can be done gradually:

Let people sign up without filling in much to just browse. But at each and every step, show them some possible candidates that will be unavailable to them unless they fill in a bit more information.

"This pretty woman? She won't let you message her unless you fill in your birth date and it matches her preferred age range. Guy over here? Cares deeply about your music taste".

It's no different from how a lot of these services will suddenly hit you with paywalls to do various things. Get you fired up about contacting someone first, and then demand just a bit more.

<comment><USER12> OKCupid does this to some degree - you need to fill in basic info, but it nags you to complete your profile as you message more people.

Out of all the online dating sites I've seen/used I think they are the best by far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An unmarried woman with a child isn't necessarily carrying "massive baggage." What a rude and borderline misogynistic sentiment.

<comment><USER14> In the dating world, yes she is.

It is not fair, of course, but it is the truth. Just as short guys like me are at a disadvantage, so a women with children, people with disabilities, ugly people, people who live at home with their parents, people who are unemployed, old people (but this bias is mostly against women), people who are addicted to drugs, people who have STDs, etc.

Again not fair, but the dating world is a market -- we all try to sell ourself for the best possible offer.

<comment><USER15> You have conflated "dating" with "picking up".

Single parent status is not baggage, it's a perk!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I agree that the issues the OP brings up are problems -- at least from the perspective of a single man -- but I'm not sure these are problems with online dating so much as dating itself, or the world. The male:female ratio is a problem in most dating settings, for example.

In terms of whether online dating needs "fixed", I'd be interested in knowing how the success rates for online dating are better or worse than current offline methods (going clubbing, dating co-workers, whatever). My own worthless anecdotal experience shows a much _higher_ rate of success in online dating than trying to meet people IRL. ("Worthless" because I met my wife online, and we naturally hang out with people who tend to spend lots of time on computers.)

Also, from the OP: _I had average success on this service, but the reason it probably wasn't better had to do with the fact that the Q &A section tended to expose character flaws that turned me off._

I think it's interesting that the OP was getting _too much_ information about his potential partners... or at least, too much too early. Most people have flaws, and one advantage of traditional dating is that you learn about their flaws more slowly and have time to learn good things that mitigate them before getting scared off.

However, I think it's more likely that people are going to have to adjust to knowing more, rather than using services that expose less: more and more we live our lives online, and it's very easy to learn "too much" about someone just by using Google. We're either going to have to accept that people are flawed, or it's going to get even harder to find partners...

</comment><comment><USER17> We are in the middle of working on a solution that would bring quality to the experience of dating. We are using creative ways to first have people learn about themselves, discover and understand their own patterns in relationships, and what they are really looking for in a partner (besides the obvious). Then it provides relationship guidance and advice, through an interactive dialogue with an A.I. built for this purpose. The matching is also different. It will not only suggest interesting matches, but also how you may interact with the other, and why; i.e. the different possible dynamics and the likely reasons behind it. The method is based on solid psychology, applied in a creative way, for the purpose of self-discovery, self-understanding in the context of relationships. The main idea is that whoever you strongly like (or dislike) reflects undiscovered aspects of your own self that you are working on developing a relationship with. It also deals with issues of communication and emotional intelligence. All in all it will provide a continuous guiding service for people in order to find and experience fulfilling relationships. Obviously not everyone will be attracted to the service, since it will require some introspection and honest self-reflection, but again we are focused on quality rather than quantity, and from our research it looks like it will attract more women then men – which is not a bad thing :) . We've got most of the self-discovery, relationship-guiding, and matching technology – with working prototypes. We are bootstrapping at the moment, looking for help with the back-end infrastructure, web/mobile front-end, marketing, and of course funding. If interested, please get in touch: <http://technosophics.com/home/contact/> Or take this survey: <http://technosophics.com/home/survey/>

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm the lead developer for Set For Marriage (<https://www.setformarriage.com>), and we've thought a LOT about these issues.

We do charge people a subscription fee to be able to start conversations, but it does seem pretty unfair for people to have to pay to reply so we don't require a subscription to reply to messages.

I agree with waxman that the "browse-and-message" thing is kind of played out (winks are too), so we're working on some ideas to help people find partners and interact without requiring them to fill out a giant questionnaire or spend hours copy and pasting a message to every potential partner on the site.

</comment><comment><USER19> We need a startup to fix online dating: agreed. Part of the problem is the overwhelming volume of attention that women receive: agreed. However....

 _But even though I received the highest response rate, I was still almost never able to get second or third replies. Once I got a response that I replied to, the exchange pretty much stopped dead in its tracks._

Women get tons of messages every day, as the article points out, and they don't bother to reply unless they're really interested. I got very few replies on dating sites when I used them, but almost every reply turned into a date. They had already made up their minds before they messaged me. Dating sites are not great and I would love to see something better, but the OP's experience suggests some failure of communication peculiar to his situation, not something from which to draw general lessons.

For what it's worth, in my experience, the women who wanted to meet me agreed after only one or two messages. They made up their minds before they messaged me. The women who wanted to chat back and forth were only there to chat; they weren't actually interested in me. Rich online interaction doesn't facilitate meeting in person. It competes with it. When it comes to efficiently deciding whether to invest time in getting to know somebody, meeting them for coffee or a drink risks less than an hour of your time and yields much more useful information much more quickly than trying to get to know someone online. Women follow the same logic men do: if they just want to chat, they chat. If they actually think you have some potential, they want to meet you ASAP so they can find out what you're like in person.

If I were trying to make money from an online dating site, I could certainly convince people of the opposite. It's so dangerous to meet someone in person before you _really_ know them... why go out and meet one guy who's probably a dud when you could be talking with a whole bunch of cool people from the convenience of your own apartment... and when you finally meet someone in person, they should be a real person you have a relationship with, not an anonymous profile. I'd do everything I could to keep them on the site, making me money, instead of out in the world meeting people. For myself, I want exactly the opposite. I think once I've skimmed an expressive profile and seen a few pictures, I've already learned 90% of what is possible to learn online, and I want to proceed as quickly as possible to an in-person meeting where I'll learn more in twenty minutes than I'd learn in a week of chatting.

I'm not sure how a site could do better at that than Match or OkCupid, but I can't wait to find out.

<comment><USER20> Video chat?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hard to judge baggage or anything of someone's character based on an online profile... especially when you're creating an image that you want to be seen as. When I was single I went on PoF to test the waters (pun intended) and it was easy to meet women and I had a few fun experiences.

I haven't tried any of them in years, but I don't know how you evolve the model from where it is. There are few social situations where you find a favorable girl to guy ratio except for a college campus.

</comment><comment><USER22> A friend of mine wrote a good series of blog posts about the issues with current online dating sites, many of which you mentioned.

<http://gobigorgoho.me/post/5834417671/online-meeting>

His startup aims to solve these problems and is set to relaunch in early 2013!

<http://blog.acquaintable.com/>

</comment><comment><USER23> There are always services like tastebuds.fm. Online dating via the medium of your music profile. Obviously it suits a particular demographic, but that's probably the best way for dating sites to work.

</comment><comment><USER24> I haven't used it myself, but hin.ge (<http://hin.ge>) went through the same incubator the startup I work for did and seems like an interesting concept.

</comment><comment><USER25> What's easier to do? Change the world or change yourself?

<comment><USER14> Based on what people attempt, the world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Try youlookgoodtogether.com. It's crowdsourced matchmaking...very interesting idea if I do say so myself.

</comment><comment><USER27> There's some fundamental dysfunction that needs to be addressed in online dating:

\- Why the heck do folks use a service built by people who might not have been successful in love? Would I use an operating system programmed by doctors?

\- How do dating sites overcome the personality shortcomings of having a hard enough time connecting in real life, let alone the computer. In the end the relationship is in real life.

\- People are nickels trying to get dimes instead of improving themselves. (Analogy can be read here: [http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/why- wont-anyone-be...](http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/why-wont-anyone- be-honest-with-you/)).

\- How do you set the bar of the mindset you want to attract? Should dating sites be encouraging and attracting people, "Love me to validate myself and my worth of receiving love", or "I'm happy, work at being the best I can and would be even happier with someone"?

\- People who come on a site, find love, and leave might not be profitable customers. It's like the startup stuff out there, does much of it keep you in a startup phase instead of moving into more?

\- In some cases, the socially challenged geeks that build it who may have underdeveloped personalities themselves trying to help others connect. geeks compensate for in person skills by being behind a keyboard. ie., what does Facebook have that isn't transactional and is transformative, say, like a successful dating match might be?

As a society, too many folks don't work on connecting to ourselves, and through that to others. Too many don't know how to be a friend to ourselves, have a healthy inner dialogue, and instead want someone else to know them and love them more than they do themselves.

Maybe dating itself is the problem. Statistically fails 99% of the time. To some it's emotional baggage collection. Some people even display their emotional baggage in the large overpriced bags they carry. Not enough time spent on developing one's self into their best self.

Maybe dating sites should be about dating yourself to find and become your best self so you can connect with others doing the same and let the love happen as soon as you learn to remove the barriers to receiving and giving love yourself.

What do you think?

<comment><USER12> That got heavy fast. I completely agree that the way we do dating as a society is fundamentally broken and needs to be fixed (and I think that in some parts of society it already is, it just depends who you surround yourself with). However a startup can't give people emotional and introspective depth (prove me wrong!)

<comment><USER27> Haha, I don't know about heavy.

There seems to be a certain amount of self-effort, self-learning, self- development that is necessary to understanding and relating .. to yourself, and through it to others in a relationship.

What if a startup focused on development of one's self that in some way let those emotional and introspective sparks happen?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, good luck to you on your search, my friend!

</comment><comment><USER28> Try beggarscantbechoosers.com</comment>


How many fake books are sold on Amazon? - <AUTHOR> A quick search on Amazon for Gerardus Blokdyk will reaveal an amazing author. He managed to publish hundreds of obviously fake books. I purchased one by clicking (mistake) buy on a his book on zero knowledge proof but to my horror I have discovered that he has 400 pages with fake books on many interesting topics. Amazons seems to refund a sucker but this practice could probably hide money loundering or other shady practices... <comment><AUTHOR> who is Gerardus Blokdyk ?</comment>


How to Read Mathematics - <AUTHOR> http://web.stonehill.edu/compsci//History_Math/math-read.htm <comment><USER3> I took a history of mathematics course at the University of Virginia. One of the I interesting things I learned was that people used to write out equations as sentences before symbolic notation was invented. And so you would realize that a single moderately large equation (such as the quadratic equation) might be equivalent to a full paragraph or more of text. So if you ever get discouraged at how long it takes you to read mathematics, remember that equations can be as information-dense as entire paragraphs, or even more so, and just because it is presented in a spatially compact format doesn't necessarily mean that it shouldn't take you at least as long as a text paragraph to read and comprehend.

<comment><USER4> Happen to remember the text you used?

<comment><USER5> I've read a couple of texts on the history of math. Most of them were dry, a few were very entertaining like Crowe's on Vector Analysis. But I haven't found anything that beats mac tutor. I used to read it nearly everyday many years back.

The section on Al-Khwarizmi, a key innovator in algebra shows how laborious the task was (site down linking cache):

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nOT6h0c...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:nOT6h0c7J2oJ:www- history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Al- Khwarizmi.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

 _a square and 10 roots are equal to 39 units. The question therefore in this type of equation is about as follows: what is the square which combined with ten of its roots will give a sum total of 39? The manner of solving this type of equation is to take one-half of the roots just mentioned. Now the roots in the problem before us are 10. Therefore take 5, which multiplied by itself gives 25, an amount which you add to 39 giving 64. Having taken then the square root of this which is 8, subtract from it half the roots, 5 leaving 3. The number three therefore represents one root of this square, which itself, of course is 9. Nine therefore gives the square._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It can also be helpful to find others who are interested in reading the same bit of math, and talk through it with them. They don't have to be particularly better at it than you, they just have to have a similar level of interest and curiosity. In grad school we read recently published papers in a small group setting we called "journal club".

This process helps in a number of ways. It keeps you from reading too fast or too passively because you're constantly asking and answering questions. It makes you less likely to get stuck in a dead end for very long, because others will see alternatives. It gives you an opportunity to ask about notation or background concepts you aren't familiar with. It helps you keep track of the big picture, because while some people are bogged down in a particular detail (like "how do they get from equation A to equation B?") others will be trying to tie it back to the big picture ("how does equation B fit into our overall goal?") And it allows you to see the even bigger picture as others bring in relevant knowledge or experience; it was pretty common to be working through a paper and have someone mention how it tied in to their current research project.

</comment><comment><USER7> A very nice article.

>A particular notorious example is the use of "It follows easily that" and equivalent constructs. It means something like this:

>One can now check that the next statement is true with a certain amount of essentially mechanical, though perhaps laborious, checking. I, the author, could do it, but it would use up a large amount of space and perhaps not accomplish much, since it'd be best for you to go ahead and do the computation to clarify for yourself what's going on here. I promise that no new ideas are involved, though of course you might need to think a little in order to find just the right combination of good ideas to apply.

Even knowing this ahead of time, this kind of thing can be maddening. Namely, when the meaning of the assertion is be sensitive to little sign changes, index shifts and the like these are quite likely to end up in the computation.

<comment><USER8> My Basic Concepts of Mathematics teacher was notorious for getting about halfway through a problem before announcing "and from here it's trivial to show...". One day he walks into class one day and addressed us:

"I've been told by the head of the department that I can no longer say 'it's trivial'. You have to understand when I say 'it's trivial', I just mean that I can do it"

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article is by Shai Simonson, one of the instructors at ArsDigita University (<http://aduni.org/>).

This was part of the reading material for ADU Course 0: "Mathematics for Computer Science" (<http://aduni.org/courses/math/index.php?view=cw>), but unfortunately the video lectures aren't available, whereas they are available for all the other courses.

<comment><USER9> Shai is an incredible teacher; his video lectures on theory of computation were a major part of what made me understand the beauty of CS theory (automata, CFG's etc). It was sad to see that they had to shut down ADU; but I guess it was an unsustainable model; if I recall correctly, there was absolutely no tuition charged to the students.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "The same half hour in a math article buys you 0-10 lines depending on the article and how experienced you are at reading mathematics"

I'm still reading though the article, but this might be the most important bit of information for anyone getting started reading papers that rely on maths. I wish someone had told me this when I started in with the more complex comp-sci papers because it's hard not to feel dense when you have to go over the same 3 or 4 pages of text time and time again to get the concepts.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, especially if you're already a fast reader, it's frustrating at first to have to drop to what feels like a snail's pace to properly understand everything. But the information density is a real life-saver once you're more experienced, because it lets you readily experiment with things at that high level, unencumbered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> During college, in order to plan my time, I used to measure my studying time on more mathematically intense texts. I took 30-60mins per page on average. It is a hard read, at least for me, but intensely gratifying too.

</comment><comment><USER13>
      > The way to really understand the idea is to re-create what the author left out.

If reading mathematics requires re-creating what the author left out, why not leave it in?

Sure, it will be longer, but if the purpose is communication, wouldn't that be better? The reasons I can think of are not beneficial for communicating knowledge: that's how the game is played (tradition); it excludes the uninitiated/untalented; it's neater to leave out the truth of discovery; it makes the author seem superhuman; there's satisfaction for the reader in understanding the puzzle.

 _EDIT_ the reader can skip explanations he can work out himself (or use them as a check); papers are already structured with details in deeper, skip-able sections. One can have a summary that excludes details altogether (like an abstract, or equivalent to a present maths paper). In the article, the parts left out are not "known", but steps that the author could work out themselves, perhaps after many dead-ends to find the right combination. To avoid repetition of known specific concepts (like vocab), one could explicitly reference them, or assume them for a given audience.

Perhaps the essential problem is that the omitted steps are not a single concept (like a well-known term), but many concepts, combined according to other concepts (like a complex expression), so they can't be easily be referenced, nor assumed. Someone, somewhere will have to work out the combination - I'm suggesting it is more efficient for it to be the one writer than the many readers.

<comment><USER14> One of my university lecturers gave what we all thought were dreadful lectures. Muddled, unclear, chaotic, with no discernible thread. It took ages to reconstruct and rework the material to a point where we could attack the problems and old exam questions.

I got nearly full marks on that exam.

Other lecturers were brilliant. Clear, lucid, entertaining. I didn't get full marks on their exams, because I found it hard to do the problems, even though I thought I understood the material from the lectures.

Math is not a spectator sport. You need to get involved, otherwise you're in the situation of someone who has watched a lot of tennis, but never played.

I used to mock the "it is clear that" phrase when it would take two or three pages to show the result, but having done the work to show it, I was then equipped to handle the next stage of the work. Having the explanation given to me as to why it was "clear" would not have done that, my understanding would be meagre, and unsatisfactory, and I would gradually fall behind and not understand what was missing.

So no, it's not because:

* that's how the game is played (tradition);

* it excludes the uninitiated/untalented;

* it's neater to leave out the truth of discovery;

* it makes the author seem superhuman;

* there's satisfaction for the reader in understanding the puzzle.

When done properly it's genuinely for more effective communication. I'm not saying it's always done well - not every writes equally well - and I'm not saying that everyone always has the best motives, but working on what you see as gaps in the presentation really is the best way to understand the material.

 _Added in edit:_

You said:

      > Someone, somewhere will have to work out the combination -
      > I'm suggesting it is more efficient for it to be the one writer
      > than the many readers.

If your purpose is to have it written down, then yes. If your purpose is to communicate effectively to the readers, then no. The "doing" is an essential part of the eventual "understanding".

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Slightly off-topic but I will forever remember a math professor of mine, Bryan Snare, declaring that 'You read Mathematics with a pencil!'.

True then, true today, true for eternity.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi,

that's exactly the kind of problem that was going on through my mind for about 2 weeks now. We've never learned howto analyze whitepapers or dissertations. Let alone howto convert an unknown mathematical formula into usable code. I see this as one of the most essential skills we never learned. Could someone please teach that skill? =))

I'd be very grateful if someone could help me and others understand how to dissect and codify the main point of a whitepaper.

This is a very interesting paper for example, that I've tried to understand, but I still only have a vague idea of it: <http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~jyc/papers/fibonacci.pdf>

Here <http://groups.csail.mit.edu/netmit/sFFT/> is another very interesting algorithm I knew for a long time, but even though I understand the principle. And tried to put it into code, I wasn't able to identify what the important part of their whitepaper is. They even provided some pseudo-code which I've seen in many other papers, but I've never seen where and how they standardized the pseudo-code notation. The pseudo-code looks ambiguous to me. (NOTE: They provide the code now, but that wasn't the case when the paper was published first).

This kind of thing makes me feel stupid.

</comment><comment><USER17> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1576969>

</comment><comment><USER18> I agree that typical math writing must be absorbed _very_ slowly and carefully to be understood well.

Unfortunately, in the world of mathematicians, this isn't what really happens most of the time. In grad school classes (for math), students don't have time to absorb the material this carefully - they must 'learn' too much too quickly (or at least this was the case at my grad school), so that reading math becomes learning just enough to pass exams. Writing a dissertation involves a lot of talking to people and skimming papers to hopefully grab relevant bits. Reviewing papers, for professors, involves handing papers to their grad students and asking them to read it. Even writing a paper for journal submission feels primarily about satisfying reviewers and getting in to the best possible journal - being readable becomes a lower priority than space constraints and the quibbles of a particular reviewer.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here's the PDF (from Hacker Monthly) if anyone wants to print out in nice magazine format: <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/48613464/How%20To%20Read%20Math.pdf>

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh cool, it was in issue #5 (<http://hackermonthly.com/issue-5.html>).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Off-topic, but who uses an IE document icon as a favicon? got freaked out here in the office thinking IE managed to crawl back anywhere I can mistakenly open it somehow.

<comment><USER21> The site was made using Word.

</comment></comment><comment> mck- Great article. I think it can very well extend to reading code as well, which may seem daunting at first.

<comment><USER22> Except that (good) code is written to be read, and to be understood - and not be terse and cryptic, just so that people writing it have less to do. That's essentially what most math texts do. I don't want math to be prose, but often, a little more verbosity or communication of intent would be nice. Just like good comments and documentation. In CS, this is universally accepted as good style, and for very good reasons - and for the same reasons, it should be in math, as well.

<comment><USER23> I think you're misunderstanding the purpose of the terseness of mathematics. The point is to convey the important concepts as cleanly as possible, assuming your reader has a certain level of prerequisite knowledge. The same can be said about code: you assume your reader has a certain level of understanding of the domain that you're modelling through code. The terseness is a virtue, in the sense that only the critical bits of new information need be conveyed. All the prerequisite knowledge is hidden behind abstractions that the reader should be familiar with. Math, and code, is cryptic if one doesn't have the prerequisite knowledge, but this is by design.

<comment><USER22> _> The same can be said about code: you assume your reader has a certain level of understanding of the domain that you're modelling through code._

No, this is not at all the same. Code can be read without understanding everything if it is well documented. Yes, code should be short and simple, too. But not terse and cryptic - and that's what so many math texts do. So yea, cool, you can compress half a page of written English into half a line of mumbo-jumbo. Great. You have gained nothing.

I'm not saying that the half page of written English is better. Not at all. But there's something somewhere between those two where math should be. And not at the cryptic end of the scale.

Take just simple things such as _meaningful variable naming_. There are tons of good reasons why we do this in programming. I can't count the number of times I've tried to decipher math texts and had to look up over and over and over again what some x or f or lambda or phi is actually supposed to represent. It gets worse when they start making distinctions based on the bloody way a symbol is typeset (x vs _x_ ).

It's perfectly fine to do this in quick calculations on paper (just as it is fine to use one character variables in quick one-off scripts). But if you are writing a prolonged mathematical text, then take the time to give variables meaningful names. It's not that hard, and would go a long way for improving readability.

<comment><USER23> I don't think descriptive variable names would be useful in math. The thing in math is that "x" you see can be repeated 20 times in a set of equations. Having to read "running_total" 20 times instead is a hindrance here rather than a benefit.

The difference between math and code is the number of variables. A piece of code can have an order of magnitude more variables than a set of math equations. But in math, a few variables will usually be repeated many times. You're simply optimizing different usage profiles.

So the benefit in descriptive names in code is being able to distinguish easily the many different variables. The benefit in single letter variable names in math is that you're able to write the information in a more compact, digestible manner.

The reason this latter point is important is for the same reason short, compact programming languages are a boon to comprehension. The faster you can read a set of related items, the more of it is in your working memory at any given time and thus the better you're able to understand it. I fully believe the time it takes to input a chunk of information through your visual system is inversely related to one's understanding of it. To put it another way, working memory's decay function is parameterized by time.

<comment><USER22> _> The benefit in single letter variable names in math is that you're able to write the information in a more compact, digestible manner._

You missed my point entirely. I said that you should not optimize for _writing_ math, you should optimize for _reading_ math. And that's where the same argument as for code holds true as well: It doesn't matter if it takes longer to write, it will be read magnitudes more often, and that is what matters most.

Again, if you're just doing quick calculations on paper or hacking something into your shell/REPL, I really don't care if you use cryptic variable names. I do, too. But I don't want to ever see this in a good program, and I think that it doesn't belong into a good math text, either.

 _> The reason this latter point is important is for the same reason short, compact programming languages are a boon to comprehension._

And again you missed what I explicitly stated: it's good to write in a concise way, but only as long as it doesn't become cryptic. And I disagree with your belief about information processing. It's better to build semantic relations by having meaningful names than it is to process a lot of information in a short time. It really doesn't matter how fast you are able read something - <USER2> it doesn't make sense, you won't understand it.

<comment><USER23> >You missed my point entirely. I said that you should not optimize for writing math, you should optimize for reading math.

 _My_ point is that these goals are nearly one in the same when you get to the high level. Many mathematical relationships are very complex, usually not the step-by-step procedures that is common in code. Thus being able to hold the entire relationship in your head at once is crucial. Single letter names for variables and functions are critical here (for the previously mentioned reason working-memory-decay).

I basically have a bachelors in math, and I could not imagine reading complex equations with full variable names. The hard part is understanding the whole, not remembering what x or i means. If you find an equation cryptic, that just means you don't have the requisite knowledge to really understand it.

<comment><USER22> Sorry, if all you have left is the (very typical) argument of "if you think that way you just don't understand it", then I'll consider this discussion over. I have no interest in hearing endless appeals to tradition. I'm sure people made similar arguments for GOTO back in the day. Good thing we moved on.

<comment><USER23> I would like to think my argument is far more nuanced than you're giving it credit. This isn't an appeal to tradition; I'm making an argument that explains why traditionally math has stayed with the "cryptic" notation rather than descriptive variable names.

You're completely ignoring the working memory argument I'm making. A large part of math is pattern matching: recognizing a common relationship between variables (a common pattern or "theme") and investigating that relationship further. This ability is critical to mathematical ability. Visual compactness is crucial here. Using descriptive names will completely bog down your visual system with reading words rather than identifying patterns.

Pattern matching is a critical skill when one becomes an expert in any field; in math its of utmost importance. Math is optimized for reading by other experts who have those same visual patterns committed to memory. This is the optimal approach for the work's target audience. Yes, it makes advanced math largely inaccessible to outsiders, but that's a part of the trade off.

<comment><USER22> _> You're completely ignoring the working memory argument I'm making._

I'm not ignoring it. I said I don't buy it. I generally don't believe that you need visual compactness to to point of being cryptic to make use of pattern matching. I'm not saying this is necessarily easy. Neither is choosing good variable names in programming, especially at high abstraction levels. But that's no excuse for not doing it.

The other thing is that mathematicians will finally have to accept that _they aren't the only ones who need math_. It's not, for the most part, a "field for experts" (to paraphrase you) which only those who are willing to become experts at it are allowed to understand. It's a beautiful science with lots of appliance in almost every other field. But it's inaccessible as hell in large parts due to mathematicians with your attitude.

I strongly believe that math can be made more accessible and more "user- friendly" for people who aren't experts at it. It will be hard to do that without sacrificing its tremendous power and flexibility (which I am totally against in software, as well). But it must (and will) eventually be done.

Take note, by the way, that the accessibility problem is less and less important the more specialized the math you are doing becomes. I don't really care if some hyper-abstract field of math that a few dozen people in the world are even able to grasp the basics of is arcane and cryptic. That's something only experts will care for and if they are fine with their niche field being overly cryptic, so be it. What I'm concerned about is math in general.

I firmly agree with the position that math should not be taught as an appliance, because that is missing the point. However, it's downright fatuous to ignore the fact that math _has_ appliances, and that therefore, a lot of people will have to learn a subset of it. To excuse bad practices which have survived by virtue of no one questioning them with nothing but "it's optimized for edge cases (experts)" is a cop-out. It ignores the problem.

I also find it funny that I already met with such vehement opposition for just proposing meaningful variable and function names. That was just an example. There are a lot more problems to be solved. Stuff like "this is trivial" or "left as an exercise" as a way to avoid writing out cumbersome, but nonetheless important (for non-experts) parts, the general terseness of mathematical texts, including the parts in plain English. I could probably find more.

Let me conclude with this: Math as a whole has accessibility problems, just like a lot of CS and computer stuff. Flat out ignoring them or even asserting "it must be this way" is incredibly ignorant. And we need dialogue to do this - not condescending "there is no problem" rebuttals.

<comment><USER23> You make a lot of points that I agree with. I just don't think your solution is the right one. Math, when it comes to writing proofs and peer review, should absolutely be optimized for other experts. Whatever makes communicating ideas precisely among themselves is what's important here. I don't see the benefit of changing this process so those of us as outsiders can take a peek.

But as you said, there is a very large part of math that deals with applying these concepts and communicating them to non-mathematicians. The way we go about this is definitely in need of a do-over. Finding more intuitive ways to communicate these ideas is critical a critical part of this (possibly including more descriptive variable names). But, I think there will always be an inherent chasm between the math experts and those who are using the results they discover. An example is the difference between the calculus track of courses that every science major takes, and say, abstract algebra. The math that mathematicians do and the math that the rest of us learn will always be vastly different. It's just the nature of the beast.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How can I track down what is making my laptop to send weird DNS requests - <AUTHOR> while looking through some logs I noticed a bunch of these...
abvcbpwbzutphn.local
jvwrdtrdiyxv.local
usquupcpnhm.local
usquupcpnhm.local
awweajjclers.local
and more
anyone have recommendations on how I can track down what is going on here? <comment><USER2> Wireshark could shed some more light on it but it won't link to a process ID. This thread talks about some alternatives [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1339691/filter-by- proces...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1339691/filter-by-process-pid- in-wireshark)</comment>