Julian Assange jailed over bail breach - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48118908 <comment><USER2> He'll serve about 6 months.

Advice on sentencing for failure to surrender to bail is here: [https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates- co...](https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/magistrates- court/item/failure-to-surrender-to-bail/)

He's seen as culpability A and category 1. He has some factors that aggravate (rape and sexual offences are very serious crime and his hiding from justice meant his alledged victims were not able to see justice); and he doesn't have any mitigating factors.

The maximum sentence in crown court is one year. He got a bit less than that. He'll be out in 6 months if he's not an idiot.

[https://www.gov.uk/types-of-prison-sentence/determinate- pris...](https://www.gov.uk/types-of-prison-sentence/determinate-prison- sentences-fixed-length-of-time)

> For prison sentences under 12 months, the person's normally released > automatically halfway through.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wouldn't wish jail on anyone, incarceration is horrible by design. Assange made terribly selfish decisions and broke bail, irrespective of his status as a journalist (I have doubts on several grounds but I'd rather be charitable, and he undoubtedly has acted believing he is a journalist) a belief in the rule of law really demanded he be punished.

Those who would seek to justify his avoidance of punishment for bail breach typically claim a higher cause. You can certainly build a model of ends justify means facing his proto-journalism, amazing things have come from Wikileaks.

Personally I cannot go past his auto self destruction. The decision to repudiate his own sexual behaviour, deny it has cause to be questioned, to ask rich friends to stand bail and then loose it on his own cognizance of risk, his constant cult of personality if-you-are-not-for-me-you-are-against-me posture.. this is not worthy. This is base.

Sorry.. not sorry. Learn to work smarter, man up, and talk to the Swedes on their terms not your own.</comment>


Shelly Farnham on What Makes Facebook Apps Work - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/03/shelly-farnham-on-what-makes-f.html

<comment><USER2> The large "Enhanced communication" pie chart slice has got to be a gussied-up term that covers SuperWall/FunWall type applications</comment>


'Quake III Arena' Bots Reportedly Stop Fighting After 4-Year Match - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/07/02/quake-iii-arena-bots-reportedly-stop-fighting-after-4-year-match/

<comment><USER2> This is simply not true. From John Carmack's Twitter: "Stock Quake 3 bots don't use neural networks, folks" ([https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/352192259418103809](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/352192259418103809))

</comment><comment><USER3> From John Carmack himself: the stock bots don't use neural nets [1]. It would be interesting to see what sort of emergent behaviour arises from bots that can adapt though.

[1] : [https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/352192259418103809](https://twitter.com/id_aa_carmack/status/352192259418103809)

</comment><comment><USER4> it's ridiculous what kind of pseudo journalism makes it into forbes these days.

</comment><comment><USER5> "The story is based on a screenshot[0] taken from a forum and tweeted out by Mat Murray on Twitter."

Yeah, it feels nice that a media company like Forbes is basing their stories on something like a screenshot from 4chan.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/dx7sVXj.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/dx7sVXj.jpg)

<comment><USER6> The guy that wrote this is a contributor to Forbes. Anyone can be a contributor to the site as long as they write a few stories that sound like they know what they're talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even if it's not true, in some sense it doesn't matter. It makes for a lovely modern-day parable, and also a round-the-campfire sci-fi story.

</comment><comment><USER8> They stop fighting because some counter overflows, and there's no guard for it causing the application to crash. I'm sure there's smart people - or even Carmack himself - that can find the relevant code (actually, is the bot code open source or just the Quake 3 engine)?

</comment><comment><USER9> This is obviously a joke, but the people at RAND used to run into this when doing war simulations for the US Military.

</comment><comment><USER10> The only winning move is not to play.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd like to see what's inside that 512MB file, though.

</comment><comment><USER12> Another epic troll brought to you by 4chan.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good god is that stupid. This originated on _4chan_ and has been thorougly debunked, because Quake 3 bots don't work like that. Fucking ridiculous.</comment>


Is Naming Your Startup "Hipster" Genius Or Terrible? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/11/hipster/

<comment><USER2> it's genius enough to use such a name to get free publicity on techcrunch, but at the same time the company name has no innovation at all, maybe it's the whole reverse psychology thing. I just hope their __something __that is coming to SF is cooler than their name.</comment>


In Escape Rooms, Video Games Meet Real Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/04/arts/video-games/in-escape-rooms-video-games-meet-real-life.html

<comment><USER2> I did the two permanent room escapes run by Real Escape Game/SCRAP in San Francisco (in the New People mall in Japantown), namely Escape from the Mysterious Room and Escape from the Time Travel Lab. They were great fun. (My teams didn't manage to escape from either of them.)

I also did their Escape from the Bank (themed after the aftermath of a bank robbery), where I think my team was the only one to make it out. That event is possibly less awesome because you're seated at a table in a big hall with a lot of other teams around you, rather than exploring small room all by yourselves.

Now I'm looking forward to trying the games in New York City!

<comment><USER3> I did Escape from the Mysterious Room as well, and really enjoyed it. We probably needed another 15 minutes to complete because we got hung up on one of the puzzles that needed a piece we hadn't found yet.

I'd like to do it again but would like to go with people who have actually have played escape games (esp. Japanese) before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting how much LARP ideas are beginning to diffuse into general culture. Lastly I was talking to someone who basically organized themed mini- LARPs for corporate teams. Since these are audiences who generally aren't familiar with the medium, they're always amazed.

I think as our natural environment continues to become safer and more virtualized, these immersive adventures and ARGs will become more popular and mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER5> These are really popular in China Mainland as well since about 2 years ago. People just create rooms at their own places and put ads on WeiBo to get people to come.

</comment><comment><USER6> Are they the same every time or is there an element of randomness in the puzzles and codes?

It'd be interesting if they could be random enough that someone couldn't spoil it for others, and people could use AR or just wi-fi to research clues?

<comment><USER7> I don't think many people are paying money to go to these just to "cheat". Unless... there are competitions.

<comment><USER6> If there was randomness, you could offer "Free if you can escape in an hour!"

Otherwise someone could get the full experience by going in with the instructions written down and pull it out of their pocket in the last five minutes if they'd failed to escape.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> These are awesome. I did a couple in Warsaw, one in Budapest and now one in Prague.

I use it mostly as a 2nd/3rd date to find out how people handle stress/cooperate, but they're really fun too.

</comment><comment><USER9> We've been working with "escape room" game event organizers like SCRAP for a while now. They're incredibly popular on our "Netflix for Events" service. I've done a handful and can certainly attest to this "video games in real life" trend in events from traditional scavenger hunts to a maze that you have to solve from the third person. I love this intersection of technology and real life entertainment. Folsom Street Foundry in SoMA has even started hosting weekly social game nights on Tuesdays

</comment><comment><USER10> There's an entertaining Spanish film called La Habitación de Fermat (Fermat's Room) which deals with this.

"Four mathematicians who do not know each other are invited by a mysterious host on the pretext of resolving a great enigma. The room in which they find themselves turns out to be a shrinking room..."

Here's the trailer (w/ subs) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fS74Y-qBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fS74Y-qBs)

</comment><comment><USER11> This escape the room as a live event started in Hong kong a few years ago. Glad to see it finally come here.

</comment><comment><USER12> These are popular here in Taiwan, I think there's like 1 every day - held by many different organizations. The concept's the same - solve puzzles before the time runs outs.

Different organizations go to different lengths to make the activity feel more immersive, some are great, some are meh. Sometimes the group is so big, it can get very chaotic with everyone running around looking for clues.

The only downside is once they reveal the clues/answers, it can be frustrating if they were impossible to solve in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was at the Escape from the Moon Base [1] in SF two weeks ago and it was a lot of fun. I went with some coworkers, but I'd also recommend going with friends, and would definitely participate again.

The puzzles are fairly challenging (no one in my session of 30 teams/180 people) finished with an entirely correct solution, so it's satisfying when your team solves certain parts.

[1] [http://realescapegame.com/sf07_mb/](http://realescapegame.com/sf07_mb/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I played the Escape from Time Travel Lab as a team building exercise and it was an awesome experience - I totally recommend it. I just wish they would put out more games!

</comment><comment><USER15> Sounds somewhat like murder mystery dinner parties. Also: why does NYT hijack the left and right arrows to take me away to another article?

</comment><comment><USER16> One of the hardest things about these "escape from the room" games is keeping all the puzzles and clues organized, and sharing progress across the whole team. It's a pretty great exercise in project mgmt and teamwork.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's not exactly the same, but TrueDungeon has a similar premise of "a small group of people attempts to figure out puzzles together to get through something".

</comment><comment><USER18> For a zombie themed escape, check out:

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

<comment><USER19> I did this a couple weeks ago. The puzzles are a bit contrived but it is challenging and fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This reminds me of a popular visual novel game, "9 Hours 9 Persons 9 Doors".

</comment><comment><USER21> Boring, in "In Shadows" (www.inshadows.asia) video games meet real life.</comment>


Stack Overflow Channels - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.com/channels <comment><USER2> Is it going to have everything I hate about stack overflow also? Considering some of the places I've worked I bet the answer is yes.</comment>


Andy Grove: How America Can Create Jobs - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_28/b4186048358596.htm

<comment><USER2> Great article explaining the issue but his solution is basically protectionist which would instantly create million of jobs in the US.

Why is China allowed to tack on a 15-30% premium on imported foreign goods but we aren't allowed to do the same?

<comment><USER3> Many of those foreign goods were made for US corporations. It would hurt those company's profit margins and they would whine to congress loudly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There were suicides at Foxconn because the jobs were HELL. US workers would not put up with such working conditions. So, China used slave labor to take our jobs? There are several points: (1) In a sense, if they want to do the work for wildly little money and sell the results to use, then we get to buy cheap at their loss. (2) But we lose the jobs. (3) As Grove points out, they build an 'industrial base' and we lose ours so that later they can raise their prices and we won't be able to do anything about it. Net, as Grove suggests, they have an 'economic strategy' and we don't.

Grove omits a big, huge point: Why is China 'open'? Because the US worked to make it 'open' -- remember, "Nixon went to China.". Why? Foreign policy: Get China doing international trade, make them 'addicted' to it, and then lean back and tell ourselves that now we have China where in their foreign policy they have to behave. So, if they misbehave, then we won't buy their computers and then we won't have computers. Hmm???

Part of the idea was that if we let China, or some such, sell us labor intensive goods, then they would get the cash to buy our high tech goods from Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, etc. Of course, soon enough China took apart a Cisco router and saw how to build their own. For Microsoft software, they copy, cheat, and don't pay. For Intel? Actually, Taiwan can make chips, and, really, also design them, Maybe Intel is ahead in the design, a little.

Looks like we have China just where they want us.

Likely the US economy is the only significant one that exposes its workers to slave labor competition via 'national economic policy' attacks from overseas.

That we believe so much how 'free enterprise' and 'competition' will protect us is foolish: Around 1890 in the US we saw how various 'deals' could grab a market, create a monopoly, and hold it. Eventually we passed various anti- trust acts to make such things illegal. Of course those anti-trust acts don't apply to China! So, for that 1890 stuff, they can use it against us, and they are. E.g., the pick an industry, attack it, lose money if necessary, or just use slave labor, run all other companies out of business, and then raise prices. So, they 'take' a market. Once they have it, it will be tough for us to take it back. They know that. The econ profs like Blinder don't count the 'asset' of 'market position'; so they are eager to see the asset thrown away. Try to get the market position back and will see how valuable that asset was.

Net, a few people in the US are doing well and like what is going on. Many others have their careers ruined and just drink 'free enterprise' Kool Aid.</comment>


What is the most complicated C code ever written? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-complicated-C-code/answer/Saquib-Rais?share=1 <comment><USER2> Welcome, but don't spam your posts from other sites here please.</comment>


How to write a WordPress job description - <AUTHOR> http://www.woothemes.com/2013/09/how-to-write-a-wordpress-job-description/

<comment><USER2> Nice article, with must see advice for anyone hiring a developer.

</comment><comment><USER3> pretty cool. A good job description is always helpful for both the client and the contractor. It saves time, less confusion and faster turn around.</comment>


Support for DNSSEC in the GNU C Library - <AUTHOR> https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/DNSSEC <comment><USER2> Great to see this support added to the GNU C Library. Thanks for sharing the link!</comment>


Nearby Friends: New Cyber-Stalking App for Tracking Facebook Places Check-Ins - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/nearby_friends_new_cyber-stalking_app_for_tracking_facebook_places_checkins.php

<comment><AUTHOR> Nearby Friends is no more cyber stalkerish in 2010 than Facebook was in 2005. Don't you agree?</comment>


Venture Capital's Elders Say Think Small - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/venture-capitals-elders-say-think-small/?hp <comment><USER2> Well, they clearly should have talked to pg.

The first comment to the article by Aly-Khan Satchu is about as jargon-filled VC speak as I have seen.</comment>


Can I use css-hypens - <AUTHOR> http://caniuse.com/css-hyphens

<comment><AUTHOR> I just noticed this on the recent story on [https://www.masteringemacs.org/](https://www.masteringemacs.org/) \-- there were proper word-wraps and hyphenation on resize in Firefox (eg: wrapping "terminal emulator" to "terminal emu- lator" \-- avoiding a "ragged right").

Sadly it appears chrome is a hold-out here.</comment>


Cops Are Giving Amazon's Ring Real-Time 911 Data - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/cops-are-giving-amazons-ring-your-real-time-911-data-1836883867 <comment><USER2> The title is kind of clickbait.

Amazon is requesting live crime data so they can push it to an app they made that ties into your ring doorbell and alerts you to crime.

It's related to an option you have to share video from your doorbell back to the cops if it caught any activity on camera.

<comment><AUTHOR> This data isn't yet commonly disseminated by police departments. At least, not in the way restaurant inspection data is standardized and made available thanks to Yelp's LIVES [0]. In the case of Yelp/inspection data, cities generally have a public API or URL, accessible to both Yelp and anyone else.

[0] [https://www.yelp.com/healthscores](https://www.yelp.com/healthscores)

<comment><USER3> Seattle, Hood River County and many other places have had public dispach and incident trackers available for at least a decade.

You can listen to radio traffic with an SDR or XTS5000 and shortly thereafter a pin will appear on a map marking the incident location, typr of incident, police report and other data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why shouldn't police be providing a real-time feed of 911 data? It's in the public interest, and arguably the data belongs to the public. The only issue is why not everyone has access to this data feed.

<comment><USER5> What makes distress calls public data?

<comment><USER4> Acceptance and processing by a government system.

If dispatch systems don't provide the data, you can always pull it from radio over the air. More troublesome in my opinion.

<comment><USER6> > you can always pull it from radio over the air

and with Project 25 radio systems being implemented, that is becoming much more difficult.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "Our in-house news team monitors every alert that comes through our system > and determines if they are relevant crime & safety incidents to send out to > impacted neighborhoods," Ring says in one a document provided exclusively to > law enforcement officials.

Of all things, doesn't this sound like something that would be pretty easy to automate? The data points sound straightforward (crime type, time, location, investigation status, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, theoretically it should be easy. Though I'm guessing every jurisdiction has a different way of categorizing things, and having human editors have the final OK will prevent situations where, say, a domestic dispute incident is pushed because it was misclassified by the police/emergency services.

Though the list [0] of CAD categories that Amazon Ring says it will publish, versus what they won't, makes absolutely no sense. For example, "Categories we cover" includes "Shootings" and "Stabbing". But "Categories we don't cover" include "Assault".

[0] [https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s-- b8xmxPE...](https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s-- b8xmxPEh--/c_fit,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/vgy2hfycyhnyxhjn0xxi.png)</comment></comment>


Boxopus: download torrents directly to DropBox - <AUTHOR> http://www.boxopus.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it just me or is this entire product and its users fraught with danger?

<comment><USER2> Legal or data privacy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Both really. The two concepts, in this case, are linked.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you wish you could invest in Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, etc.? - <AUTHOR> With some big company IPOs on the horizon, do you get sad that only "sophisticated investors" got in on the ride up? I keep thinking that the 100x return was captured by VC's, and now the public will get the leftovers. I am happy for the employees with options, but the common man is left out with tech companies waiting until they are massive to IPO.<p>Can Congress change regulations, so people that aren't worth $2MM or don't make >$200,000/yr aren't left out of tech investing? <comment><USER2> AirBnB has a real business.

It is not clear to me how Uber or Lyft can make a profit and they admit it in their filings.

I might want to invest in AirBnB but not the other two.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a caveat, we only see the winners, so this perspective is biased. But sure, we have casinos as well, so I guess we totally should allow all people to invest in startups.</comment>


Show HN: Cheatjs – lookup the JavaScript APIs with an in browser suite of tests - <AUTHOR> https://cheatjs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I built this as I wanted a quickly navigate the JavaScript API documentation and also leverage tests. It is an interactive cheat sheet where you can find methods easily and can play around with them in a test environment.

It is not complete as I still have more APIs to add but I was keen to get some feedback! Thank you</comment>


über vs. Uber - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/opinion/joe-nocera-uber-vs-uber.html <comment><USER2> It seems to me that this article is conflating two issues that aren't necessarily related in a kind of strange way:

First, the understandable misfortune of the naming conflict, which appears to go beyond just the calling issue (for example the listed suing of the wrong party).

Second, it uses this as a strange segue way to criticize Uber for not having phone support. Now if you believe that Uber should have phone support that's fine -- but its kind of unrelated to this person's troubles. By that I mean, had she happened to not name her company uber, then this wouldn't all of a sudden make their lack of phone support OK right? So if what you want to do is say Uber should have phone support, then this seems like a really strange primary point.

As an aside -- their email support has always been stellar to me, and I actually have the opposite complaint of other companies: I'd PAY to be able to get a prompt < 1 hour email reply from comcast vs. the "intimate interaction" of wanting to break my table when I'm on the phone with a real life person from their team.

<comment><USER3> If she hadn't named her company über, then we wouldn't have the convenient source of data about people who want to call. Since that data exists, it seems reasonable to write an article about it, and briefly explain at the top how it came to be that we have so many people trying to reach Uber instead reaching the same phone.

<comment><USER2> But this data is actually useless without context. I actually have no clue if 500 calls since August is a lot -- to be honest my first reaction was that it sounded low compared to my (completely possibly incorrect) notion of how many uber rides must be taking place in New York (Uber's biggest market?). It would have been nice for him to have done some analysis with this supposedly indicative number, for example saying how that represents x% of all rides or something. Instead he focuses on really strange parts of this story. I suppose its an op ed so excusable, but I think there was an insightful possibility here that instead just comes off as some guy who's kind of angry and snarky.

<comment><USER4> Especially since it sounds like most of the calls were for people who didn't understand how uber works and wanted to pre-book a ride. I'm not sure that it would ever be worth having a listed phone number just so someone could answer and say "actually you can't pre-book, you'll have to buy a smartphone and download the app".

<comment><USER3> You could set up an automated phone tree for this. I've seen multiple large organizations have phone trees where several paths down the tree leads to an automated answer at the leaf (sometimes you can't even get to a representative once you reach some leaves).

<comment><USER4> Sure. You could. But there's a big step between it being possible, and being (what the author implies) a moral obligation. In fact, there's probably a big step between it being possible and it being worth it.

If Uber actually got big enough that it became one of the only transportation options, then they might have some kind of moral obligation to setup a phone tree to help people who don't have any other options. But I don't think they're anywhere close to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If she got calls like "I'll pay someone $1000 for a ride to the airport right now", that might justify Uber hiring people to answer phones. But she doesn't, she gets calls from angry harassed customers and people who don't know they can't schedule future rides. Guess what, Uber doesn't want or need to hear from these people. They've optimized to reach people who make them profit, not who are a time and money sink. Adding a phone number is only down-side for them and they clearly know it.

<comment><USER6> I'm guessing you don't spend much time talking to customers in your organization.

This is a very shortsighted view. Today's angry or confused customer is potentially tomorrow's evangelist.

<comment><USER7> I work in customer service (telco) and let me say, you could sort the wheat from the chaff, but there is a _lot_ of chaff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lyft should sponsor her voicemail.

<comment><USER9> Much like domains that live off of mis-spellings, is there a model for grabbing these customers and offering them another service?

What if these ladies started pushing customers elsewhere?

<comment><USER10> > What if these ladies started pushing customers elsewhere?

I imagine no-umlaut-Uber would retaliate in some kind of distasteful, barely- within-the-bounds-of-the-law way and HN would have its anti-Uber story for next week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting tidbit: it looks like the über folks acquired the [http://www.uber.nyc](http://www.uber.nyc) domain recently. The .nyc domain actually started registering this year and the auction for uber.nyc (which I was a part of) ended at $3,200. I was surprised that Uber (the taxi company) didn't try to get it.

<comment><USER12> It makes sense to me that a Manhattan-based company (über) would want a .nyc domain and a global company like Uber would not. Wouldn't it be confusing for Uber to have different domains in different cities?

<comment><USER13> Sort of. Uber's profits are extremely lopsided, almost all revenues are generated from just 5 cities with NY heading the list with twice as much revenue as the next city.

Given that it makes some sense to try to brand a particular presence in NY. A bit like how a fashion store might want to have a strong presence in Paris. And given NYC alone has a runrate of more than $300m alone, it's not strange to approach this as its own market, just like a company might have a US, UK, JP, DE etc domain for those country markets. Only Uber is more city-segmented than country-segmented right now, each city has its own taxi ecosystem and legislation.

In any case, it'd be an easy redirect and for a company worth tens of billions, outspending a $3k bid to get a branded domain for your company's largest market makes sense. Even if you don't use it, grabbing it and redirecting may be useful. Who knows if its worth much in the future.

So I wouldn't say that grabbing a uber.nyc domain name is the best move ever but it's not strange given the context. I'd have done it.

<comment><USER14> Except that Uber's current funding and valuation depends on them taking over the taxi market globally, not just in NYC. Branding themselves as an NYC taxi firm wouldn't give the right message to investors and the media at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The essay writer really doesn't seem to comprehend the decision Uber is making, or the reasons behind it. It's the model Google used to build Adwords, scalability by refusing to implement anything that requires massive call centers, not the Comcast model of trying to minimize the cost of having hundreds of thousands of employees.

Uber should work with this woman to take action to avoid an externality of their business model: the harm of her getting spammed by Uber customers. But that has nothing to do with implementing phone support.

(Maybe a number for Uber support that leads to an automated prompt, "We don't have phone support, please email us?")

<comment><USER16> For uber the car company, press 1?

<comment><USER17> _1_ "We're sorry, Uber the car company does not take calls. Please email us or give up in frustration."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Lyft should register a phone number for über in every city they compete with Uber in, and offer their services. It's the sort of sharp elbows competition that Uber would certainly do.

</comment><comment><USER19> An Uber competitor should make a deal with the owner of the phone number.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've had similar via a Google Voice phone number and people thinking they were calling some ride service; I wasn't able to figure out if it was an airport share-shuttle, a towncar service, or what.

Every so often it'd ring: "Hi, you're supposed to pick me up from the airport?" or similar.

I ended up not needing that particular Google Voice number as I had thought, so... to whoever has that phone number now, I've been there.

</comment><comment><USER21> I don't understand why this is an opinion piece. What exactly is the point? That companies somehow have a moral obligation to provide phone support (you'll find many people who disagree)?

If the author personally wants to phone support, he can stick to companies which provide it. Let the market decide (hint: phone support won't win).

<comment><USER22> _" I don't understand why this is an opinion piece."_

 _" you'll find many people who disagree"_

It almost is an opinion piece because you will find many people who disagree. [http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/opinion...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/opinion- piece):

 _" Opinion piece: An article in which the writer expresses their personal opinion, typically one which is controversial or provocative, about a particular issue or item of news"_

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's funny that the article mentions that the Amazon phone number "isn't hard to find"; I remember that they used to be the poster child (poster company?) for obscurantism in that respect. See, for example, [http://amazoncustomerservice.blogspot.com/2007/12/8.html](http://amazoncustomerservice.blogspot.com/2007/12/8.html). (Actually, although I agree that it's not hard to _Google_ , a few idle clicks on the Amazon page—including to Help > Contact Us—didn't immediately turn it up there.)

<comment><USER24> When I click "contact us", it gives me a page that says:

"How would you like to contact us?" and gives me 3 options:

1) E-mail

2) Phone

3) Chat

If you choose phone, you can have them call you, or you can call their number. It may seem convoluted, but since you are able to choose your order and issue you would like to discuss, the amazon representative calling you doesn't have to go through all the verification nonsense and looking up orders and such silly steps.

<comment><USER23> > It may seem convoluted, but since you are able to choose your order and > issue you would like to discuss, the amazon representative calling you > doesn't have to go through all the verification nonsense and looking up > orders and such silly steps.

You are right that these are advantages, and I'm OK with it; but notice that you have to be logged in (or enter your password) to see these options. It seems to me that requiring you to be logged in to find the phone number is still at least a bit ridiculous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am not exactly sure what the lesson is here. It's just another negative piece about the impersonal and cutthroat business practices of Uber. Yet in spite of all the negative press the company is valued at $40 billion and continues to grow. In the presence of alternatives like Lyft and even just regular cabs which are almost always cheaper than Uber why do people continue to use Uber?

<comment><USER3> Because the market is so inefficient and taxis are so terrible that a company somewhat more efficient and somewhat less terrible can make lots of money and have only one real competitor.

If a market is ripe for disruption, we shouldn't believe that the first company that comes along is efficient and running well. Quite the opposite, since it has so much room not to be and still be successful.

<comment><USER26> I think that we have a case of 'silent majority' at work (of which I'm a part of).

Chattering classes may yap all day about how Uber is bad - while millions of customers are extremely happy with the service they receive.

However our level of motivation is starkly different. I am happy using the service - and don't really care enough to write letters / articles defending them. Journalists / taxi lobbyists are vastly more motivated to push a different narrative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The solution is simple - make a deal with Lyft and redirect the customers to them for a fee.

</comment><comment><USER28> > It conveys, she told me recently, both a European sensibility

What?

<comment><USER7> Now that the Germans have been firmly put in their place as the footstools of the Anglo-Saxons, it's safe and trendy to orientalise aspects of their culture and language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Here's a suggestion: Hire some people who will answer the phone.

Lucky a $40 billion company has some hack at the NYT to give them advice.

Pet hate: When a company specifically doesn't want people X as customers, X thinks it's because said company is dumb. A great example of 'unconscious incompetence'.</comment>


Outsourcing Is High Tech's Subprime-Mortgage Fiasco - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/hbr/restoring-american-competitiveness/2009/10/outsourcing-is-high-techs-subprime.html

<comment><USER2> I agree the article title is misleading.

My 2 cents on outsourcing:

I have been working for 2 years now on 2 projects that were brought back from outsourcing. I must say what a disaster. It has taken us almost the entire 2 years to get the project code maintainable. From what I have seen from outsourced code is a fundamental lack of understanding of programming the languages (one project C++, the other Java).

I fail to understand the reasons that most companies choose to outsource. The company I work for was paying $3.7million per year to outsource these projects. After bringing the projects back in they are spending less than $800k per year to maintain 6 developers. Since insourcing the product has become more stable and feature rich. In my opinion outsourcing is the kiss of death for a software project.

</comment><comment><USER3> >>"Fundamental lack of understanding of programming the languages (one project C++, the other Java)"

99.9% of the time , I doubt if engineering has a say - who takes the project. The failure of the project according to me , is when biz guys decide which firm/person gets the project depending on the cost !

<comment><USER2> I agree, I think that the problem is the Corp VP's making uninformed decisions.

But when you see Java code like this:

StringBuffer buffer = new StringBuffer();

if(buffer == null){

       //do something, in most cases i have seen return;

}

The problem here is in Java new will never return null. One of the worst ones I saw was a point system for exception handling that most of the time crashed the entire app. This is only a simple example of what I have seen. When the entire application is spattered with code like that performance takes a major hit.

My assumption is that the outsourcing company took a programmer that knew C++ and said you now write JAVA. Further reinforcing your point!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The title is misleading, implying something to the high-tech arena , rather it is generalized article.</comment>


Is democracy a failure? (1861) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/1861/03/14/news/is-democracy-a-failure.html <comment><USER3> Democracy is interesting because it requires you to step outside your own head, understand that there are people who hold different values and different experiences from you, and then mentally engage with them, holding your own doubt and revulsion at bay, until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone. It's a thoroughly unnatural and uncomfortable experience that can be both fatiguing and time-consuming. No wonder everybody predicts that it will fail - by definition, a democracy requires occasional subjugation to points of view that are alien to your way of life, and _which point of view is often unpredictable and changeable_.

But I'd much rather have it than any system of forced social roles, where there is one person or small cabal of people who make the decisions and everyone else knows their job is simply to obey.

<comment><USER4> "...until you can come to a consensus that's acceptable to everyone."

In my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, democracy rarely seeems to come to any consensus that is acceptable to everyone, but rather serves as little more than a moral battering ram that the 51% can use to impose their will on the 49%. Perhaps one day people will realize that democracy, given its cultish appeals (e.g. "but don't you know other systems are worse!?") is simply barbaric.

Maybe technology will render nation-states obsolete within my lifetime. I can only hope.

<comment><USER5> its solvable by using consensus democracy rather than majority democracy.

The literal consent of the governed is necessary for government to be legitimate.

<comment><USER6> I've participated in such structures before. Honestly, very few people have the time to go to 5-hour-long meetings on a weekly basis.

<comment><USER5> sounds like you were in the majority.

i have been in it also, and it works just fine. i certainly do not like to be in a minority where the majority gets what it wants and the minority is steamrolled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Under the relentless thrust of accelerating over-population and increasing over-organization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind- manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms—elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest—will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial—but Democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit."

 _Aldous Huxley_ , _Brave New World Revisited_ (1958)

<comment><USER8> I am faving this comment. Huxley was a true visionary.

However I dont agree with the "...new kind of non-violent totalitarianism..." Our democracies are non-violent only if you obey. Otherwise they use violence and force to lock you up. Most people in prisons are there for victimless crimes like drugs. That is not a non-violent system in my opinion.

<comment><USER9> It is often said that Huxley's Brave New World prediction was more accurate than Orwell's 1984, but Orwell actually got the boot-stomping-your-face prediction right: even peaceful protests are met with full riot gear and ends being peaceful as soon as that first baton-swing hits someone's skull. Police murdering unarmed citizens with their arms raised. The mass imprisonment of citizens who's only committed what most people consider a minor offense.

<comment><USER10> Are you saying that peaceful protests in the US are met with baton-swings to the skull? That seems veritably untrue; there have been a large number of protests recently that have not ended in any violence.

<comment><USER11> The Dakota Pipeline protestors have been getting maced and tear gassed this past week. There are also reports of protestors being locked in dog cages[1].

[1]: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2016/11/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning- mix/wp/2016/11/01/dakota-access-protesters-accuse-police-of-putting-them-in- dog-kennels-marking-them-with-numbers/)

<comment><USER12> The Dakota Pipeline protesters were actually _shooting at cops_ , and committed millions of dollars worth of arson.

<comment><USER11> The Sioux tribe and other protestors claim he was a plant by the oil company to intentionally turn public opinion against the protestors[1].

[1]: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dakota-access- pipeline-s...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dakota-access-pipeline- shooting_us_5813b711e4b064e1b4b28f41)

That, and the other incidences of protestors using firearms is something _anyone_ managing a protest of this scale cannot control. As long as the leadership involved condemns the gun violence, and the protestors do what they can to stop people from escalating the situation, they cannot be themselves in the wrong.

It is a very common tactic to plant radicals in peaceful protests who will use violence as an attempt to ruin the reputation of the movement, mainly by distraction - "oh, someone shot at the police, they are all violent monstrous scum now, and nobody should listen to their grievances anymore" was used _constantly_ during the occupy protests, and _many_ of those offenders were later found to be plants by either private or even police agencies to break up the protests and destroy their message.

<comment><USER13> Sadly you have to have been a protester at least once to know that, otherwise you just cannot believe how prevalent (and effective) this tactic is.

<comment><USER12> It sure is odd how these evil tools of the Man are never identified and flushed out by the noble, gentle, peaceful protesters _before_ they start committing arson and shooting cops. Nobody noticed that these agents provocateurs were carrying guns? Nobody went up to them while they were getting ready to burn millions of dollars of equipment -- something which requires a lot more effort than just tossing a match -- and said "hey, don't do that, we're all about peace"? The pipeline protesters knew damn well they had bad apples, and they did nothing about it.

<comment><USER13> This is indeed not how it works. Provocateurs, not perpetrators.

<comment><USER12> "Mom, he made me do it!" isn't going to save you in a court of law. Actual non-violent protesters, whom these people are not, would have taken someone advocating arson and murder and flung them out the door.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really think the movie Idiocracy nailed the scary potential future of democracy. If elections continue and build on this trend of featuring reality tv show style candidates and media that lives off hyperbole, eventually we'll just start electing the most popular celebrities.

<comment><USER15> I don't think it's a trend. Besides Trump, who else would be part of this trend?

<comment><USER16> Ronald Reagan, Jesse Ventura, Arnold...

<comment><USER17> Al Franken, Sonny Bono, Fred Thompson, Jerry Springer (though in reverse)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I believe that democracy in theory is excellent, but in practice is a failure, not because of democracy per-se, but because a gut-feeling vote and a properly-researched vote count the same.

I'm in no way suggesting that one vote should be valued more than another one, but that people should be doing their homework and researching properly the benefits and consequences of their decisions...

Having a majority of the population voting with the gut can lead us to disastrous results...

<comment><USER19> The uneducated who cannot properly express their gut feelings in an intelligent manner have one day where they are equal to everyone and where they can escape from the tyranny of the experts and of the well researched individuals, who mistakenly think that they themselves act always within reason when that couldn't be further from the truth.

This election shows more than any other that people will bend the facts to fit their feelings. The well educated just have more tools at their disposal to lie to themselves about it. Everyone works primarily by their gut feelings and everyone rationalizes it after they've made their decisions internally and unconsciously.

If after this election you can't step back and see this then this is further proof to me that the system works and works well, because it keeps tyrannical well researched experts in check from their own irrationality. It's not an accident that an overwhelming majority of well educated experts who write the policies that drive a country support free trade and globalization, while real people who are not disconnected from the real world and who actually feel the effects of those policies do not.

<comment><USER20> The best argument against rule by 'experts' is the USSR's attempt to have academic and intellectual 'experts' set 21 million prices before the New Economic Policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are two perspectives on democracy. You can compare it to some ideal world that has never been, and easily see it falls short, by a lot.

Or you can look back on history, and look at countries who have done things differently, and realize it is by far the best system we have had.

If you want to live a full lifetime in peace and security and health. Be born in a democratic and capitalist country somewhere in the past 70 years, and you maximize that chance. Any other time and place and the chance of a good life drops quickly.

To other commenters in this thread, describing democracy or capitalism with words like "disastrous" or "complete failure" or "elite rule", please some perspective.

<comment><USER22> When encountering a shortcoming of the world, there are two responses:

You can compare it to what has happened before and console yourself that of observed past histories, this situation ain't so bad.

Or you can imagine what has never been, and try to create a society better than has ever existed before.

There was once a time when democracy of modern form had never been tried, outside of some rugged mountain towns in the Alps, and yet those in the face of tyranny had the gall to try something new. Isn't _that_ an example we should emulate?

<comment><USER21> We do not have democracies because people had the "gall to try something new". We slowly grew into it because people demanded better and used opportunities to move us closer.

And this is what we should continue doing. In no way did my comment indicate we should just be quiet and think it is not so bad.

But at the same time, this is the best we ever had. Calling it a failure is like calling an olympic gold medallist the worst athlete in history. Even if this is the 1920 olympics and the times set there will be a laugh when compared to the 2020 olympics.

Someone with so little perspective will not be able to change the world for the better. "Imagine what has never been" does not do much unless it is well grounded in reality. (edit: "Someone" here was not directed at @kobeya, but to those refer to democracy/capitalism as failure)

<comment><USER22> Failure does not mean "worst in history."

Failure simply means "my standards are higher than this."

There's nothing wrong with being so audacious as to have standards unmeetable by any past accomplishment. I call that a progress-oriented mindset.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We haven't yet found a decision making process that works better than democracy, and a lot of people have tried. At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average voter, or it is a minority group. If it is a minority group, they are in a position of extreme moral hazard to funnel societies resources to their benefit and lock out change.

It is worth reflecting that, although a lot of people complain that people are 'voting for a slogan' or similar, there is evidence (mainly the outrageous success of democracies vs. non-democracies) that the average voter does actually have some idea what is going on.

It is also a subtle and interesting fact that if a large group of people are voting essentially randomly, then they will cancel out. In this way, a person voting with no thought for policy will probably cancel out another person voting with little thought. A 52-48 type margin can mean that 96% of the population had no idea, and the 4% that knew what was going on voted unanimously in favour. The point being that a vote can be sliced up theoretically so that ignorant voters have less influence than might be expected - and again, the practice of democracies suggests this tends to happen more often than intuition suggests.

Democracies throw out some cruel decisions, but that usually means the interests of the voters are being served rather than democracy failing.

<comment><USER24> > At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being > made by the political apparatus are. Either that person is the average > voter, or it is a minority group.

You're quietly assuming a lot there. Let's stop after the first sentence -- "At some point, someone has to evaluate how good or bad the decisions being made by the political apparatus are." Ah! So you're proposing monarchy?

But no, you're not, because you then introduce the fictional "average voter", thereby fitting democracy into the "someone" framework.

I think this is a bad way of looking at it. Democracy isn't a "someone". Democracy is an _aggregation mechanism_. You contrast having everyone vote with only having a subset vote; but you don't question the assumption that the only aggregation mechanism is the standard sort of voting.

If you ask me, there's one aggregation mechanism that looks like it could actually improve upon democracy, and that's futarchy. Of course, it's untried. But the point is that there are more degrees of freedom here than you seem to realize.

<comment><USER25> Well, that futarchy replaces hired experts with a panel of future bets. Future bets aren't very reliable, but well, it's something that could be tried - <USER2> knows, it may work.

Anyway, on this context you are just begging the question. There's no novelty in there for the democratic process, just for the technocratical one.

<comment><USER24> I mean, the point is that it's a different sort of aggregation mechanism. It's not one that makes sense for everything, though, so yes there is still a democratic component. Regardless, like I said, it's just an illustration -- there are other sorts of aggregation mechanisms one could use, that are more universally applicable. For instance, there's quadratic voting (not something I actually endorse, but an interesting idea). Again, this is just an illustration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The part that struck me the most:

> We have been so accustomed to hear from infancy eulogies of the wisdom which > shaped our Constitution, praises of its perfection, hymns to its symmetry > and strength, that to doubt its fullness of all excellence has come to sound > like sacrilege.

Some things never change.

<comment><USER27> This, which is also ironic considering what happened in the late 1700's. No Government should ever program itself to be resilient to change. Such a thing is a virus, not a Government.

"Ok kids, we're going to play a game called 'I get a unique power but you can never take it away no matter what!' starting now!"

<comment><USER25> > Such a thing is a virus

A badly adapted one. Every virus that gives us real trouble does that because it changes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This was published less than a month before the Civil War started.

<comment><USER29> add some more context, this NYT editorial was written a couple days before Abraham Lincoln was sworn into office (March 4th, 1861).

The states had already voted to secede (or not to) earlier in the year. The Confederates had even provisionally elected a president, Jefferson Davis, on February 18th. The secession crisis started after Abraham Lincoln was elected in November of 1860.

The nation really was falling apart, hence the lamentation of the republic being just a collection of states in the editorial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The author speaks about the "provincial" partisans that exist between states, cities, and areas of the Union as if it's the byproduct of a failing Democracy. He or she points specifically to the different ways laws are written and enforced, as one example.

This is, to me, perhaps one the strongest strengths of our Republic. Different ideas and values can be thrive in different areas at the same time, and we can test and experiment with what's true and right.

<comment><USER31> The house has me concerned though. It seems too easy for a minority to overrule basic governmental functions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Yes. Consider that attractive candidates get two and a half times as many votes as unattractive ones. Consider that most voters have very little or no knowledge of most policy and issues. Most voters can't name their representatives even. Most just blindly vote for one party or issue.

It's still better than nondemocratic systems I guess. But that's a terribly low bar to pass. That's not something to be proud of.

Everyone always says that it's the best system of government that has been tried. Well maybe we aren't trying hard enough! There are other systems, and here are a few that are my personal favorites.

My ideal system of government has no politicians. It forms a parliament or congress just like normal, but the representatives are sampled randomly from the population. Ideally they would be filtered for IQ or education, but this is optional. And then they would debate and vote on issues, without having party loyalty, and without having to pander to the general population. It's sort of like direct democracy, but the random sampling lets it scale to much larger populations.

I also really like the model of the supreme court. I have to say that every supreme court decision I've looked into, they seem remarkably rational and competent. They aren't perfect of course, but it seems so much better than congress. Statistics show that even biased judges tend to become much less biased by the time they retire.

I'm not sure how they accomplish this. My guess is the lifetime appointments, and the structure of the court being to debate issues extensively, and for the judges to at least try to weigh them objectively. I would love to try a system of government modelled after something like the Supreme court.

There is futarchy, proposed by Robin Hanson. The idea is to use prediction markets to make predictions about the future, like whether policies will actually work. Then voters can vote on values ('I approve of Brexit, conditional on it being predicted to increase median wages.') But they bet on beliefs.

Another idea I like is the "Ideological Turing Test". In this case representatives can vote on policy just like normal. But they have to pass a test that proves they fully understand the other side's point of view. By writing arguments for the other side of the argument, and blinded reviewers not being able to tell if it's authentic or not. This would be complicated to implement without people gaming the system, but I think it's worth a try.

There is also alternative voting systems. These are just small modifications of regular democracy. They modify the voting system so you can vote for third parties without being punished for splitting the vote.

<comment><USER20> _Statistics show that even biased judges tend to become much less biased by the time they retire._

Citation needed.

If judges were so great and neutral then why does the US have a collective fit any time one needs to be replaced? It's taken for granted that the judges are all extremely biased and the decision making of the court can be (and _should_ be) swayed by selection of appointees.

<comment><USER32> [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/supreme-court- justices-g...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/supreme-court-justices-get- more-liberal-as-they-get-older/)

I never said that judges were perfectly unbiased, just that they tend to the same opinions over time. Republican nominated judges tend to look indistinguishable from democrat nominated judges by the time they retire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "51% of people want spin-up, 49% of people want spin-down, therefore we are going to be a spin-up only society". That right there is the problem with Democracy. Democracy finds controversy, but it does absolutely nothing about it. Since the majority side is always favored, there's no incentive to actually get past the disagreements; there's no incentive to grow. It's just about mindlessly acquiring votes.

Democracy provides useful data: which topics society agrees on, which topics they disagree on. For the ~51/49 (controversial) cases, instead of enlightening ourselves, we just blindly take the majority choice. This is not the way a scientific society should be approaching government.

<comment><USER33> couldn't up vote enough. Also almost all decisions are voted into without proper deliberations. If you don't like to deliberate, you are incompetent to be elected in the first place. Governments have been turning into for profit entities. And checks and balances being systematically side stepped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Yes it is a failure, but everything else is even more of a failure. So we settled for a lesser failure.

Also "democracy as a failure" is a common trope that is used by those who perceive the election isn't going according to how they planned. "They are not voting the way I like, therefore democracy has failed" or if the election or polls go the expected way then "democracy and clear minds prevailed again!".

One interesting thing I found about the current election is the role the media plays. To control people in a dictatorship is easier, you just make criticism and dissent punishable, nationalize all the media and it is all simple and easy. In a Democracy controlling is a bit harder, but is still done over the media using sophisticated and not-so-sophisticated methods. Related to that my favorite quote so far comes from CNN's Chris Cuomo talking about the emails: "it's illegal to possess these stolen documents. It's different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you're learning from us." It is as if, there was a tiny crack in the matrix and the underlying code was exposed for a moment.

<comment><USER35> About controlling people in a democracy, there's a great documentary, "Manufacturing consent" featuring Noam Chomsky.

See [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_Chomsky_and_the_Media\]\(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_Noam_Chomsky_and_the_Media\))

Seems to be available full-length on YouTube: [[http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y](http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y)](http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y\]\(http://youtu.be/YHa6NflkW3Y\))

<comment><USER34> Good reference. I have the book as well!

The other book I like is "Age of Propaganda: The Everyday Use and Abuse of Persuasion" by Elliot Aronson and Anthony Pratkanis

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Democracy isn't a failure. Capitalism is. Now before you dismiss me, I'm not defending socialist states, they are far far worse than liberal democracies, however liberal democracies are run by money. Politicians are bought and sold, and we see an undemocratic group of very powerful individuals influencing legislation and pushing around politicians and manipulating public opinion. How can we claim to live in a democracy if the people we trust with developing legislation must filter everything they develop through the approval filter of an undemocratic, and unfairly powerful minority?

Fortunately we have options that aren't the failed states of the 20th century, we need a democratic economy and a democratic workforce. Those are the only solutions to this problem, and if you spend enough time looking at the problems and their causes, it becomes readily apparent why this is so.

Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure. The problem is the structure on which modern democracy has been built.

<comment><USER37> >Democracy is not a failure, if you believe democracy is a failure, you're saying that your ability to control your own life is a failure.

Interesting, I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life; the ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority.

<comment><USER36> >I would interpret democracy as the ability for others to control my life

Interesting, I'd disagree though. Say you live in a fascist society or a feudalist society, you get absolutely no say. Democracy allows us to make decisions that influence our own life, however we must obviously respect the fact that we live in a society with other people, and they must be respected. Beyond living in a vacuum, we have no real way to ensure absolute individual freedom, however a completely democratic society is one way of reconciling the thirst for individual freedom with the necessity of cooperation with others.

>The ability for the majority to gang up on a smaller group and impose laws which benefit the majority in lieu of the minority.

This is absolutely a valid concern, which is why I believe in a rigid groundset of rules on which all laws and rules must comply (consitutions/bill of rights) which respect the rights and liberties of individuals to ensure they have maximum freedom with respect to other individuals in society. This isn't a groundbreaking idea, but I do believe we need to re-evaluate these approaches in a modern context, as most countries were established in a time before progressivism was dominant.

<comment><USER37> I've really become more and more for states' rights as time goes on. It's very clear that most states (especially rural states) fundamentally disagree with California, New York, and the other blue strongholds.

I want to preserve the culture I grew up in. I want everyone to contribute to society. I want a culture where what you get is what you worked for. I don't want "diversity" or a bunch of people from other countries to move to the town I grew up in.

Having moved to California from Iowa, I can totally understand how Californians value diversity and equality (not necessarily equal opportunity) above all else. But where I'm from, people value equal opportunity and hard work. It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other.

In my mind, it would be an absolute travesty to allow the distant majority to vote for the destruction of the culture I grew up in.

<comment><USER38> >> I don't want "diversity" or a bunch of people from other countries to move to the town I grew up in.

Yet you have moved to California? Can you hear the irony?

>> It's very hard to see the merit in one culture, being from the other.

You don't have. You just have to accept other people think differently and want different things to you.

<comment><USER37> Yes, I accept that other people think differently than me. But that should not give the right for Californians to overthrow my community and my culture which exists thousands of miles away from California.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> (For clarity: I'm against Trump and voted against Brexit)

I'm so tired of this kind of thinking. It seems to come from people who don't have much contact with a good cross-section of society, such that they can maintain the illusion that things are fine, that (for example) Brexit or Trump was a stupid decision.

These decisions are actually democracy at work, in a positive sense. A large raft of society in the UK and the USA have been neglected, trod upon, bullied, and exploited for decades. And they have finally had the opportunity to kick back and they have taken that opportunity. It's destructive in one sense, but you have to consider that without precisely this kind of upset, no-one would pause to think about these people for a moment, and things would continue to get worse for them.

These people aren't racist (well, no more than those who voted the other way), they're not idiots, they're not some sort of cesspool of poorly educated fools, they are making an informed rational decision to kick back. They're furious. They want to be heard.

I think so many of my friends don't get it, because they don't realise that the vote for Brexit turned out that way precisely because it was designed to annoy them. If you don't get Trump, you don't get Brexit, chances are you are exactly the beneficiary of decades of globalisation and free trade, widening inequality, that have crushed the people below you. Try trading places with them and see how you feel then.

If you're not grasped this by now, you should definitely make an effort to broaden your social circles.

If you watch this video and think "wow, Michael Moore's lost it", then you have a long way to go:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMp_363B2c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMp_363B2c)

</comment><comment><USER40> In democracy it's your vote that counts; In feudalism it's your count that votes. [http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/democracy/](http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/democracy/)

</comment><comment><USER41> Democracy isn't a failure, you just need a better voting system.

If people could rank their preferences then people like Bernie and Bloomberg would actually run without fear that they might "take away votes from Hillary" and therefore help Trump. In fact, the two-party syste would give way to something better. Only the party elites would NOT want this... but after this election, even they probably do.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant- runoff_voting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting)

</comment><comment><USER42> It's not a failure but democracy is about to be tested like no time before. With the ability for everyone to have a voice via social media single minded groups are easier than ever to create. As we have seen many of these groups are unwilling to compromise their ideas which makes it likely for chaos to erupt over any hot issues. We saw an example with the Arab spring and Occupy Wall Street. They erupted but yet have had no real results. Primarily because there was no real leadership behind it to move it forward. In many ways you can say that the revolution made matters worse.

When everyone is upset and there are many points of view there is no common way to move forward but there are many hot heads that are willing to shoot first and ask questions later. Imagine a million hot heads without a common goal but the willingness to fight and we can see chaos with out results.

People get upset at the "do nothing congress" because they can't get X done but people aren't willing to admit that the reason is that voters have sent individuals with very diverse ideas to try to get things done. Voters are the ones that are pushing them to not compromise any idea or be punished by being voted out. I can see a future where one person that can use social media very well can push people to vote in ways that we consider distasteful now. What will happen then? Groups will erupt with opposing view and many will be ready to fight.

We've heard allegations that the voting system is rigged but that's very unlikely. We have laws and watch dogs that prevent that in any significant way. We don't have the same for social media but we know that it's possible to manipulate it, even by foreign powers, and that's not illegal worse yet it's hard to impossible to prevent. It's hard to even contemplate how that effects a democratic system.

The founding father created a representative government because they knew that rule by majority can be as distasteful as government by a monarchy or emperor. They thought a functioning government needs representatives that can sort out what's needed. With everyone having a voice that's going to get extremely difficult. Social media is about to let the US test out its governmental system, lets hope it can pass the trouble ahead. Can the US stay together as a nation?

</comment><comment><USER43> _Centralized_ democracy is _indeed_ a complete failure.

I really hate an idea that minorities must live as majority wants. The assumption that majority is always smart and able to make wise decisions is completely wrong.

Unlike others, I actually think that some form of democracy exist even in authoritarian countries. I lived 22 years in Uzbekistan, then 9 years in Russia. I can say for sure that almost every dictator appeals to _masses_. Mediocre people (masses) is always their primary audience. For example, in Russia, tzar Putin perfectly represents mentality of majority of people in Russia. People actually love the style he speaks and acts. Dictator won't last long if he looses support from majority. I wrote about this here:

[https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in- totalitarian-s...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-living-in-totalitarian- states-love-their-dictators-1/answer/Eldar-Gaynetdinov)

(I was surprised this answer got a lot of upvotes)

Also, I noted that even when masses don't like their current government's ideology, they jump to _another mediocre_ idea.

For example, the mob in Uzbekistan is attracted to radical islam as opposition to current secular dictatorship. So if current secular regime in Uzbekistan will fall, then masses choose to go back to 15th century as an alternative. The mob in Uzbekistan certainly won't choose liberal market economy with highly developed technology sector attracting international capital. The backward silly ideas of islamic clerics are much, much, much closer to the mob.

Another example, next after Putin'ism in the priority queue of ideologies in Russia are: communism, and right next after communism is national-socialism. So there are a lot of people who oppose Putin because he is not true communist or do not fully support national-socialism. Again, there is no "liberal market economy with highly developed technology sector attracting international capital" in their queue of ideas.

I can't even imagine the masses go to the streets demanding relaxing regulations for businesses, reducing government spending, attracting international capital.

I guess in US republican party is relatively popular because of religion. Remove strong support of religion in the GOP and after that their popularity will probably drop 10 times.

In Europe, masses a bit smarter than in Uzbekistan and Russia but still they are demanding nanny state, taking money from high earners.

I spent a lot of time and effort to escape poor government policies supported by masses. I born and lived in Uzbekistan, then moved to Russia, then to Sweden, then to the Netherlands. So I'm not afraid to say to entire society - "f __k off, you are all wrong, I 'm leaving!". I already did it 3 times!

For example, I left Sweden because of ridiculously high taxes and really big nanny state.

I see _decentralized_ democracy as a solution. For example, I would support an idea of small federal government and pretty independent states. So that voters can vote for laws only in their states (with rare but inevitable exceptions). It would be competition between states and eventually people with certain ideas would concentrate in particular states. Some states would be more socialist, some more capitalist. Head of federal government should not be a single person but rather a group of persons from each party.

I think Switzerland is closest example to this.

In such country, you can easily move between states with different laws, taxes, ideologies. It's far easier than moving between countries if you are disagree with prevailing political sentiment (what I'm doing right now).

<comment><USER8> +1 for decentralization

Switzerland is a working example [https://fee.org/articles/the-secret-of- swiss-success-is-dece...](https://fee.org/articles/the-secret-of-swiss- success-is-decentralization/)

What I hope will take of is Seasteading [http://www.seasteading.org/](http://www.seasteading.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Maybe we should ask,

\- is representative democracy a failure (in contrast with direct democracy[1])

\- is a two-party system a failure (in contrast with a multiparty system[2])

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy)

[2] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi- party_system](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-party_system)

</comment><comment><USER45> The success of democracy and its creations have stabilized dictatorships- a constant even small surplus in a economy where the human individual matters near nothing, keeps societys with a frozzen over public relatively stable for a long time.

Dictatorship is what came most natural to our animal ancestors, so we tend to rationalize it while condemning the "Zumutung der Komplexität".

But are they stable? Dictatorships tend to embrace the conservative point of view, which produces usually overpopulation, raging nationalists (the bottled up anger redirected against the guys next door) and religious fanatics. So if this economic surplus, aka innovation is not imported (or even more dangerous constantly produced)theey unravel rather fast, usually by the forces they called upon to stabilize.

There is no inbuilt re-juvenation without weapons. So every new App - any new product or production methode, disturbing the equilibrium, can blow up such a social powder keg.

The seperate problem usually associated with democracys, is that the fullfillment of all wishes in the wests way of life, is rather self- destructive on society. <Anecdata Begin> I have several couples i know who really looked forward to having grandkids, after raising (quite large) familys. And in the west this just doesent happen any more. Nothing more depressing then seeing those baby-boomers and there bottles all in tears about "What went wrong with there kids?" <Anecdata End> It doesent make the situation better, that democracys have a tendency to import large swaths of people from dictatorships - mostly for economic and sociological reasons.

</comment><comment><USER38> "Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

Winston Churchill

</comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon It's interesting to see that back then (I now checked that even before the Civil War period) the term United States of _North_ America was used. To the history aficionados, was USNA more commonplace than USA? If so, when did USA become prevalent?

<comment><USER46> USA since at 1776, no contest:

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=United+States+...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=United+States+of+North+America%2CUnited+States+of+America&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1750&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2CUnited%20States%20of%20North%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BUnited%20States%20of%20North%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUNITED%20STATES%20OF%20NORTH%20AMERICA%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2CUnited%20States%20of%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BUnited%20States%20of%20America%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BUNITED%20STATES%20OF%20AMERICA%3B%2Cc0)

<comment> ezequiel-garzon Thanks, that's what I always thought, having found it always puzzling as "an American from Argentina" :) That's why I always surprised this usage in a NYT piece, and before: [https://books.google.es/books?id=pVdDAQAAIAAJ](https://books.google.es/books?id=pVdDAQAAIAAJ) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The problem isn't democracy, it is the republic.

We have the technology to make congress obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER47> According "Democracy, god that failed" from Hans Herman Hoppe, it is failed miserably. He sees it even inferior to aristocratic monarchies with good reasons.

</comment><comment><USER48> It never fails logging into a Hacker News thread near election season but to find commenters yearning for literacy tests.

</comment><comment><USER49> Democracy and Capitalism are not a failure because they don't have better alternatives.

</comment><comment> happy-go-lucky Is there a system of government that enjoys the most success? Just curious.

<comment><USER46> The bureaucratic dynasties under the Mandate of Heaven ruled for ~3,000 years in China, ~2100 BCE until 1912. Individual dynasties lasted for 100s of years, the longest, the Zhou, for 790 years from 1046 BC to 256 BC.

The English royal system has persisted with relatively little discontinuity from 1066 AD to present, some 950 years.

Unless you've other criteria for "success", in which case you might care to consider what those might be.

<comment><USER50> I'm not sure it is really accurate to lump 3000 years of Chinese history under a single political system. That would be roughly analogous to saying the the Egyptian political system was continuous from Thutmose to Cleopatra, because the ruler still called themselves Pharaoh. Or perhaps saying that the Western Roman Empire was continuous with the Franko-German Holy Roman Empire that followed it.

There are extensive periods of discontinuity intermixed there, whether it be fracture and civil war, invasion and synthesis with various steppe peoples, the taking on of Buddhist Chakravartin mantles, etc.

<comment><USER46> Actually, Egypt did come up when I was researching that question as another instance.

The Ship of Theseus is a profound question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The bond holders seem to like it, so it'll probably stick around.

</comment><comment><USER52> At least not in creating the illusion of choice for the individual.

</comment><comment><USER53> Who wrote this?

<comment><USER54> By the editors of the New York Times, according to the 2013 book, "New York Times: Disunion".

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> does anyone know who the author of this is? I couldn't seem to find it on the article?

</comment><comment><USER56> So article asks if the fundamental idea of democracy and republics are flawed, and concludes that we must impose a singular republic, without addressing those initial concerns. Good to know that the mentality of the North Eastern liberal hasn't changed since the civil war.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best way to create a web app the first time? - <AUTHOR> I have a confession. I feel like I am cheating. I have been slaving away at this web app concept I have for the last few weeks, but haven't been making as much progress as I want to.
I did CS in college, and am familiar with the web, but I have never built a web-app from scratch. I can understand most programming languages, and most markups, but since I never went into a programming job right out of college (and never really had much motivation to do it on the side) I don't know how to build something from scratch completely.
I have been trying to 'tried and true' way of just sitting down and struggling and it has been very, very difficult to stay motivated. Whenever I come across a problem that Google doesn't help me solve, I post a question to some tech help site (like stackoverflow) and that helps me much. Sometimes I read through reference files and figure out the problem.
When I do figure it out, it feels like I scored a winning touchdown in the superbowl (especially if I have been struggling with that one problem for days).
I am tempted to use jQuery plugins to help me do what I need to do, but to be honest I feel like I am cheating.
Maybe it is the college mentality that is forcing me to not want to re-use any code from anyone else (it took me about 2 weeks to convince myself that using jQuery was fine). It sounds stupid I know...but I guess I have just always done all of my work from scratch and so doing it any other way right now is so hard.
So my question is, do you have any tips about how I can go about building my web app (given that it is the first time).
The UI functionality I am trying to build is like a hybrid of many functionalities I have seen in many places (popular sites as well as not so popular ones), but I feel like by viewing their source and taking bits and pieces I am stealing :(
Do I just continue doing what I am doing, but how do I stop myself from feeling like I am annoying people with always asking questions...because I have ALOT of questions.
I am feeling very conflicted right now, and discouraged to be honest...but I KNOW that if I can get this thing to be the way I want it to be, it will solve a very specific pain problem that many people face.
By the way, everything I am talking about is just getting it to some form of a minimum viable product. But I am still struggling :(
Help! <comment><USER2> Don't feel bad about using jQuery or any other library. These libraries have been built for re-use. Once you get more familiar with the basics and build a few apps, you can start looking into the actual libraries and figuring out how they work.

Think about it this way, you're driving a car but you have no idea how the engine works and that's OK!

As for asking questions on the various tech sites, you shouldn't feel bad about asking questions - these sites were created for that specific purpose. You're actually helping other programmers that might search for the same issue later on.

My only advice would be to hone your search techniques to be able to find answers faster. Mostly everything that involves basic web apps has been answered in one form or another. If you run into a problem with something, just note the issue and move on to the next part of the web app!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thnx for the encouragement fhirzall.

The truth is, a funny thing has started happening. The more I used jQuery and the more I solved some problems, is the more I understood javascript better - which was a bit strange at first. I have had a few 'epiphany' moments.

Your analogy about the car makes total sense, especially for what I am trying to do.

Your point about my questions helping other programmers is also very true and prescient.

This is why I love HN, because I can get good, heartfelt feedback about issues I am dealing with in the moment.

Thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're mixing multiple concepts into a single thing, and that's probably a large portion of why you're running into difficulties. There's fundamentally two pieces to a web-based application. The user interface and the server that runs it. The server piece is critical for accomplishing the tasks while the user interface is critical for triggering those actions.

Now, since this is your first, and you're in over your head (not a bad thing, we've all been there before!), you need to decide which is more important:

1) Interface turns out how you want - You don't care how sloppy the back end is, or it's trivial and you care about user experience above all else

2) Back end functionality - What the server does is critical, it holds the important pieces and the user interface can be simple at first and expanded later

3) Getting something, anything working - You want a product that just needs improvement, it can be a mess for the UI and the backend, but it's functional

4) Increasing your knowledge of how these systems are built - You recognize this project might not succeed, and you would like to learn enough so that you know how to choose and utilize existing tools in the future

5) Be able to churn out multiple applications at a quick pace - You want to be able to kick out multiple applications quickly to see which will stick better as a concept, and then move to improve the one that has the best chances

Now, there's multiple ways to address each one, and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive, I simply chose this list so that you can pick the direction you go.

If #1 is the most important, get a simple backend and live on w3schools/specifications pages for ECMAscript/other resources (unfortunately, I don't primarily do UI work and typically use the w3c recommendations/w3schools for any references I need, there are likely good communities out there around CSS/ECMAScript).

If #2 is most important, choose the language and platform and use just quick, thrown together UI to be improved later. A lot of frameworks prefer convention over configuration, so which one you choose likely won't matter to you since there aren't any "preferred" methods yet. One with an active community is best, IRC channels are your friend when the documentation fails you.

If #3 is the most important, reuse everyone elses code as much as possible, duct taping things together. There won't be much knowledge gain here, but you'll have a product that's a pain to maintain and extend (I suggest against this being your priority if you're inexperienced).

If #4 is most important, don't use anyone elses code at all. Only use built in language features and common libraries (don't use web frameworks, don't use high level libraries such as jQuery). You will most likely never launch the web app, or even get halfway done, but you will learn a LOT. A couple of failed attempts such as this and you'll be able to pick the right frameworks for your project based on capabilities and easily work around short comings of those frameworks as you hit them. This is an educational route, and not one to base a business idea on (not saying it won't work, just that it's not likely).

If #5 is most important, follow the steps for #4, then #3, then repeat as necessary until you can do #5.

A lot of people will probably disagree, but I'm a firm believer that understanding the capabilities of the underlying system and what is possible and how makes using the abstracted systems a lot easier and faster. You understand how much time you're saving, how they likely did it and you aren't completely lost the instant there isn't an existing solution to what you want to do. The idea is not to think that you're going to build a new framework that you'll use everywhere, but instead you actually understand what it's doing when you type "gimme_a_new_controller --named MyMagicStuff --with_table MyMagicStuffTable --with_fields secretIngredient,specialSauce".

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow...thanks for taking the time to go through all of this ismarc. Definitely gives me a lot to think about and helps me 'segment' my decision-making better.

I guess if I had a co-founder or someone else working with it would be easier, but you are absolutely right. I am trying to do everything at once, although I did try to segment them it seems I am not doing that properly.

In my case, the UI is very important and even though I am no graphics person, I think I will likely go with your #1. Then once I am done with that, cross that bridge.</comment></comment>


Ask YC: How to prevent email spoofing in web app? - <AUTHOR>

I am creating a web application that accepts submissions via email from users.  I use the From: line in the email header to pull up the user information in the database, but this can easily be spoofed.  Can anyone offer advice, links, anything, etc.. for a way to fix this problem?<p>Thanks very much in advance. <comment><USER2> The standard way to do this is to use a randomly generated destination address which can be reset by the user.

If you want greater security than that you could have the user include their 'secret word' in the subject line or body of the message; which will work as long as they can reset that too.

Do not use this for anything where a single spoofed message could have dire financial consequences.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks - I ended up using something like this

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> a quick, simple (hopefully temporary) solution would be to have them submit some sort of password with the email (not the same one they use to log in).

it isn't very secure, but its a level or two of security higher than what you're creating now without any protections.

</comment><comment><USER4> i'm also interested in the solution of this question. i'm looking for more like a posterous.com kind of email submission. no password or secret word, and email is sent to a common email address. suggestions? pointers?

<comment><AUTHOR> my friend actually just posted to my posterous blog (as me) with a simple one- line php script

<comment><USER5> Would love to investigate this for you -- please contact me directly -- garry [at] posterous.com.

Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: examples of good library documentation? (or bad...) - <AUTHOR>

I have been working for a while on a tiny Ruby gem that I extracted from some of my projects. I am quite happy with its code and its features, but before announcing it publicly I would like to write good documentation to it.
Having documented most of the methods of the main class I now understand that writing good documentation is hard. First of all it is hard to maintain a constant style in describing what a method do and what its parameters are when you are not a native English speaker. Then there are many little details that I keep changing daily because I feel that are not "right" (e.g., how to refer to the instance on which the method is running? "this instance"? "the current instance" "this"?). In general, the key problem is to understand exactly what needs explanation and which explanations should be avoided because they are state the obvious and only add weight to the prose.
So my question is: have you got examples of good library documentation? Documentation that you do not curse when you have to refer to it :), documentation that make really understand what you were looking for. Or, alternatively, have you got examples of documentation styles that should not be used?
(My library is at <https://github.com/gioele/filepath> and the live docs are at <http://rubydoc.info/github/gioele/filepath/frames>. Suggestions and patches are welcome.) <comment><USER2> Sqlite has good documentation. It starts with intro code, follows with a few good tutorials, then finishes with an Ok reference. It even has documentation to help you decide when it is the right tool for the job.

Rake has some pretty bad documentation. It was obviously written by someone who is familiar with the project and is a bit blind to the newbie perspective. The tutorial contains obvious mistakes(look at tutorial one build.sh for an example.)</comment>