How the Asians Became White - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/05/29/how-the-asians-became-white/ <comment><USER2> I think his point is that "white" is becoming synonymous with "privileged", and that people are responding by grouping Asians with "whites" because they are increasingly enjoying the same systematic privilege that whites do.

The whole privilege debate has always bothered me a bit. I don't doubt that having a particular ethnic background helps in certain situations, but "privilege" suggests a certain binary-ness that doesn't accurately capture all the nuances of race and ethnicity in America.

For instance, there's a large amount of variation among different Asian groups. There is a world of difference between the socioeconomic status of the Hmong community in Michigan and the Taiwanese community in the Bay Area. Or even between the Chinese immigrants who came in the 1800s and the latter wave of immigration in the last few decades. And while it may be fair say that, all else equal, being to a particular ethnic group grants certain advantages relative to belonging to other groups, that advantage isn't uniform. For example, being Chinese or Indian is probably a net plus if you want to be a software engineer in the valley; it's probably a net minus if you want to be an actor in Hollywood.

That said, I don't think the answer is to be color-blind. Race and ethnicity clearly matter in America -- it's just not as simple as privileged / not- privileged or majority / minority.

<comment><USER3> It's the escalation of an agenda of class warfare that some sides of the political spectrum push non-stop as their particular flavor of system abuse, power seeking, and greed.

It's going to get a lot worse. We're in the early stages of a huge revival in populism, and a lot of it is targeting the rich.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Enforcing racial hiring quotas is probably the worst way to address inequalities amongst minority groups. It enforces the stereotype that minorities are inferior and don't deserve the jobs their appearance has given them.

If you look at, for example, blacks in the U.S., two things stand out rather starkly: Poverty and incarceration rates. On average, kids in wealthy, stable, two-parent families do better than kids in poor single-parent households. Poverty and incarceration rates for blacks in the U.S. are significantly higher than for whites or asians. To compound matters, schools/teachers in poor areas are often of poorer quality than schools in rich areas.

The U.S. has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world. The for- profit prison system and complicit judges/politicians have created this sad state of affairs. This needs to change. One way to accomplish this might be for state and federal governments to take control of the prison system. More public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now.

In general, children are an investment in the future and the U.S. has not been investing in all children equally.

Edit: Note that I am Canadian. Disproportionate incarceration, poverty, and inferior schooling are all problems faced by (many) first nations communities up here, only with the added difficulty that acting to change any of these is guaranteed to turn into a political fecal-storm. The feds recently tried to improve the education system, but it basically blew up in their faces and undermined the AFN (assembly of first nations) in the process.

<comment><USER5> Bringing up things like poverty or parental education is a red herring. An Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math score than a black student from a family earning $70k+.

(Data was leaked from the college board in 1995. I'm not aware of more current data - anyone else? Specifically, I'm looking for a data set which slices some sort of outcome score by (race, income) pairs.)

[http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black- suits-...](http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.in/2013/10/black-suits-gowns- skin-sat-scores-by.html)

I'm not sure what you mean by "easing poverty" or "desperation...their families experience". Could you explicitly list what good/services poor children lack which cause them to underperform?

<comment><USER6> > An Asian student from a family earning $0-10k has a higher average SAT math > score than a black student from a family earning $70k+.

This is true but heres something to consider, my feeling is that Asian Americans are what I consider _newer_ immigrants to America. My understanding is that they actually started to come here in large numbers after 1965 when the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments eliminated racial/nationality- based discrimination in immigration quotas.

Why is this important?

I think that you'll find that if you compare the SAT scores of Asian Americans to recent black immigrants to the United States (Nigerians, Ghanaians and jamaicans for example), you might find that their scores are much closer than your initial comparison.

The reason for that is what I call the immigrant effect ... explained by this quote from a David Brooks NY Times article

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what- drives...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/26/opinion/sunday/what-drives- success.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=2&referrer=&assetType=nyt_now)

"Group success in America often tends to dissipate after two generations. Thus while Asian-American kids overall had SAT scores 143 points above average in 2012 — including a 63-point edge over whites — a 2005 study of over 20,000 adolescents found that third-generation Asian-American students performed no better academically than white students"

<comment><USER5> My only point is that parental income is not driving force behind racial achievement gaps.

Perhaps immigrant status is the driving force behind the Asian/Black and Asian/White gaps. But then what causes the Asian/Mexican gap? Also, if you have data showing Nigerian/Ghanaian/Jamaican immigrants do as well as Asians, or the original source for Amy Chua's data, I'd love to see it.

<comment><USER6> > My only point is that parental income is not driving force behind racial > achievement gaps

I wish I had more data for you, but how could it not be? Better incomes means better homes, in better neighorhoods, betters schools and access to the kind of environments suitable for realizing full educational potential of a child. With the notable exception of blacks who as noted in the American Life episode 'house rules'

"The average African-American household making $75,000 a year or more, that family lives in a poorer neighborhood than the average white family making less than $40,000 a year. That is, a black family making twice as much money as a white family probably still lives in a poorer neighborhood. That's according to a study from Brown University."

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/512/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/512/transcript)

which means that the access to better education of what I said above, probably doesn't apply to the same degree for blacks as it does for others.

> Also, if you have data showing Nigerian/Ghanaian/Jamaican immigrants do as > well as Asians, or the original source for Amy Chua's data, I'd love to see > it.

I wish I did, but I don't. I took an African American Studies class years ago with a source, but I didn't save it :\

> But then what causes the Asian/Mexican gap?

That I'm not sure of. Definitely plan to do a bit more reading around that

<comment><USER5> _...how could it not be?_

You suggest one possible way it could be true - black families with money choose not to spend it on things that you believe improve outcomes, and asians spend their money on these things even more. This seems unlikely since the curve relating black outcomes to black income is upward sloping just like all the other curves.

Another possibility: "better homes, better neighborhoods, better schools" don't actually improve outcomes. Some hidden factor X might be causing both higher income, better homes, better schools, and better outcomes.

<comment><USER6> > You suggest one possible way it could be true - black families with money > choose not to spend it on things that you believe improve outcomes

Then you missed my point entirely. The point of the quote and the podcast (you really should listen to it) is that black people with money were unable to move into nicer neighborhoods, because of persistent racism.

Asians carry the "model minority" tag and as such have fewer problems moving into nicer neighborhoods because people aren't intimidated by them or worry that they'll be difficult to control.

> Some hidden factor X might be causing both higher income, better homes, > better schools, and better outcomes.

Yeah. A lack of racism directed against said groups :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "White has stopped meaning Caucasian, imprecise as this term has always been, and has started to mean "those racial groups that have made it.""

I wonder how much it'd shock Eugene if someone pointed it out to him that, in American racial discourse, Irish and Italian folk were once considered "not white." Even _Germans_ were once considered not-white: as recently as WW1, much of the anti-German propaganda up-played the idea that they were somehow more Asiatic than good Anglo-Saxons and Frenchmen.

Before a strong sense of minority ethnicities was forged in the mid-20th century, whiteness was the word applied to the demographic categories that had made it; if they hadn't, they simply wouldn't be considered white. Now we feel it's pretty ridiculous to say that Asians are white, and for good reason. But it's silly for Volokh to pretend that whiteness-as-pale-skin is anything but a pretty recent innovation; in a way, pulling Asians (at least, the successful subgroups, the Chinese and Japanese, and to a lesser extent Koreans) into whiteness is the conservative, traditional approach, and his idea that there's a real "whiteness" that people either do or don't fall into is the kind of ethnic studies navel gazing he'd usually vociferously denounce.

<comment><USER8> > I wonder how much it'd shock Eugene if someone pointed it out to him that, > in American racial discourse, Irish and Italian folk were once considered > "not white."

Why would that shock him? That's perfectly in line with his claim.

<comment><USER9> Indeed, this is referenced explicitly in the piece that he quotes:

 _As with the experience of the American Irish, Italians, Jews, and many other groups, the Asian experience shows that racial divisions and hostilities can subside over time._

But regarding that piece, I found the following passage problematic:

 _And it's evidence of the essential fairness of the American capitalist system, which has rewarded this hard work even though many people, including many government officials, tried to penalize it._

I submit that the phenomenon in question describes the essential _unfairness_ of the American system, capitalist or otherwise. If people can be "rewarded" for their "hard work" in _spite_ of their race only when that racial identity is subsumed by whiteness, it only reinforces the existing power structure. Or, the author might argue, it was this success and recognition that led to the change in racial perception. Either way, it's not what I call fair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Of course, it would be appalling for Google to fire Asians...

> I think it would be equally appalling for it to fire, stop hiring, or hire > fewer whites as well.

You _think_ it would be? How have we got to the point where racism has to be rhetorically hedged in?

In the UK, not only is it illegal to hire on the basis of race, but it's also deeply taboo. I like to think that a UK company would not have the racial data on their employees to compile such statistics.

I hear a lot about "white males" from supposed leftists, and frankly it disgusts me. There is a large amount of casual racism that oozes from the American left under the guise of "equality".

<comment><USER11> Crypto-racism from the left is a problem, but in fairness the legacy of slavery and civil rights abridgement is _much_ more recent here in the US than it is in European countries. Slavery hasn't been institutionalized to the same degree in mainland Europe as it was in the US since Roman times - of course it wasn't absent because of colonialism, but nor was it ever so prevalent as to dominate local economies the way it did in the US. Class, gender, and property ownership were greater legal barriers to suffrage in most European countries than ethnic origin, and over a much longer timeframe - the Third Reich being the major exception to this trend.

By contrast, in the US you had people systematically excluded from exercising the vote within the last 50 years, which is comparatively recent. I think the politicization of race has resulted in a great many misconceptions all across the political spectrum, but that doesn't mean you can just pay it some lip service and call the problem solved.

I can find you equally obnoxious casual racism from the right, or you could just read the comments on American newspaper articles. I read a story this morning about some tourists visiting Chicago's Willis Tower who were frightened by superficial-but-not-obviously-so cracks in the building's observation deck, which is famous for having a glass floor. More than half the comments on the article consisted of suggestions that the tourists in question being Latinos from California, the cracks must have been caused by weapons in their pockets. WTF.

<comment><USER12> >>Crypto-racism from the left is a problem

"Crypto"??

<comment><USER13> I think it means "latent" in this context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why should this even matter in the first place?

How can we be a supposedly post-racial society and yet have this level of scrutiny on the racial makeup of a company that is clearly not actively discriminating based on race? I don't mean to be hyperbolic, but this isn't far off from having political overseers at production facilities in the former Soviet Union.

<comment><USER15> Because if there are large systemic racial inequalities (not that I think employment at Google is worthy of the title, compared to things like education and incarceration rates), then we manifestly aren't in a post racial society.

Given the history of legal and social discrimination in the US, the impetus is on the people claiming we live in a post-racial society to back that fact up.

<comment><USER16> One then has to ask what does it mean that there are racial inequality? It is not in general, it has to be constrained to a particular domain.

Say look at customers in a store and notice there is inequality, more people of a certain race visit it. What does it mean? Should something be done about it? Then, there is like you said, prisons. There is something disturbing going on, and something has to be done there, more urgently, than say figure out why there is racial misrepresentation at that one mall or store.

Ok two extremes. What about Google? There is racial inequality at Google. What does it mean? Should something be done about it? Should Google hire based on racial profiles. Minority X gets Y slots based on some weighted criteria. Will that solve anything? Will it make things worse. Should anything be done at all at Google? Is that a big priority. Should we be looking at prisons instead...

<comment><USER17> Google is looking to address inequality in the tech sector, because that's where its expertise and experience lies. Its is not doing this by hiring based on racial profiles. It is doing this by trying to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to a) enter the field in the first place and b) actually apply for jobs at Google.

<comment><USER16> > It is doing this by trying to encourage people from diverse backgrounds to > a) enter the field in the first place and b) actually apply for jobs at > Google.

Is there anything in the data (I haven't looked too much in dept) about the application pool. Because it seems to me, b) kind of sidesteps deeper issues and kind of says (figuratively) "Minorities just don't know to apply to Google. If that is the sentiment I am not sure I agree with it.

(Unless of course Google and just then turn around and implement racial quota hiring decision and then in effect we back to that. As "just apply, we'll make sure you get in").

I have seen companies do that. One company I worked for hired a minority into upper management. Her skill set, experience and competence was not up to par. Compared to the rest of the managers. The belief was that she was there as a token "minority" person. Not necessarily disagreeing with that. Maybe those kind of steps are needed. But just saying companies do that.

Now on a) I know Google does some good work. They have good programs for Women in tech. But not familiar too much with their program geared for racial minorities. Can you point me to some?

<comment><USER17> My understanding is that we have analysed our hiring process and found that the diversity of candidates is ~equivalent to the diversity of hires. In other words, there isn't bias in our hiring processes. The problem is we don't have enough candidates from diverse backgrounds applying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a South Asian Indian, I am puzzled by ethnicity questionnaires which never have an option that seems appropriate. "White" seems wrong as does "Caucasian", even if we are supposedly anthropologically related. "Asian" seems to refer to Asians except for persons of the Indian sub-continent. And "Indian" refers to American Indians.

Sigh...

<comment><USER17> Woah woah! "Indian" should not be used refer to Native Americans in a questionnaire!

<comment><USER19> Nor should "Indian" be used to refer to South Asians. Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Nepalis are not Indians.

<comment><USER20> True! I prefer the more geo-neutral term: _desi_ !!!

<comment><USER21> Desi is bit of a strange term for some. As a person of Sri Lankan origin, I don't know any other Sri Lankans who refer to themselves as desi. I didn't hear the term myself until college. I don't know why we need a new term when "South Asian" is perfectly adequate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone interested in this topic should read "The History of White People" by Nell Irvin Painter, who shows how in America the very definition of "white" has changed to include a widening circle of people. For example, in the 18th century, German Americans weren't considered white. In the 19th century, Irish Americans weren't considered white.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the recommendation and the information. I didn't know any of that, looking forward to getting through the book!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Asians account for 1.8% of Fortune 500 CEO's, despite being 6% of the overall population and 20-25% of the enrollment at places like Harvard or Stanford business schools. Not quite white yet by my estimation.

<comment><USER24> Since the 1970s the Asian population as a percentage has grown more than 5x (greater multiple than all other demographics) You would expect that if the median age of a CEO is in the 50s the enrollment numbers of Asians back then (1970-80) weren't expressed nearly as significantly. So still sounds 'white' any estimation.

</comment></comment><comment> vezzy-fnord Asians are in an interesting position from a sociological perspective. They're "white" in the sense that they're largely implicit and they mostly blend in, but they have the (misfortune?) of being largely ignored, even by those concerned with social justice, in favor of other minorities. This is also evident in discussions about diversity in tech.

On the other hand, white people are white people. They're always at the center of controversy and just about everything else, as is usual for a majority.

<comment><USER22> Is it possible that Asians are so successful in America precisely _because_ they have been largely ignored in the pursuance of social justice?

<comment><USER25> Not in a passive sense. Majority of Asians chose to pursue personal development over fighting for social justice.

<comment><USER2> > Majority of Asians chose to pursue personal development over fighting for > social justice.

That might be technically true, but I'm pretty sure a majority of all ethnic groups spend most of their time engaged in things other than civil rights activism.

Nor would I suggest that Asian civil rights activism is somehow less active than that of other ethnic groups. There's a pretty rich history of Asian- American civil rights activism dating back to the 1860s (e.g. Yick Wo v. Hopkins was a landmark civil rights case decided in the 1886) and dealing with issues ranging from internment in the 1940s (look up Fred Korematsu), hate crimes (look up Vincent Chin), and general xenophobia (the whole debacle around Wen Ho Lee). If Asian Americans seem less prevalent than, e.g., African Americans, I'd suggest it has more to do with making up a smaller portion of the population than any cultural distinction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Volokh here is decrying the same kinds of policies that I decry, for many of the same reasons. Forcing people into Procrustean categories more narrow than "citizen" for the people of one country builds division in the country and keeps people from treating their neighbors humanely as their fellow human beings. That kind of categorization was wrong and a moral outrage in the days of Jim Crow legally enforced segregation and it is still a bad idea today, even to correct the previous wrong.

I care about this issue deeply. I'm a baby boomer, which is another way of saying that I'm a good bit older than most people who post on Hacker News. I distinctly remember the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated-- the most memorable day of early childhood for many people in my generation-- and I remember the "long hot summer" and other events of the 1960s civil rights movement.

One early memory I have is of a second grade classmate (I still remember his name, which alas is just common enough that it is hard to Google him up) who moved back to Minnesota with his northern "white" parents after spending his early years in Alabama. He told me frightening stories about Ku Klux Klan violence to black people (the polite term in those days was "Negroes"), including killing babies, and I was very upset to hear about that kind of terrorism happening in the United States. He made me aware of a society in which people didn't all treat one another with decency and human compassion, unlike the only kind of society I was initially aware of from growing up where I did. So I followed subsequent news about the civil rights movement, including the activities of Martin Luther King, Jr. up to his assassination, with great interest.

It happens that I had a fifth-grade teacher, a typically pale, tall, and blonde Norwegian-American, who was a civil rights activist and who spent her summers in the south as a freedom rider. She used to tell our class about how she had to modify her car (by removing the dome light and adding a locking gas cap) so that Klan snipers couldn't shoot her as she opened her car door at night or put foreign substances into her gas tank. She has been a civil rights activist all her life, and when I Googled her a few years ago and regained acquaintance with her, I was not at all surprised to find that she is a member of the civil rights commission of the town where I grew up.

One day in fifth grade we had a guest speaker in our class, a young man who was then studying at St. Olaf College through the A Better Chance (ABC) affirmative action program. (To me, the term "affirmative action" still means active recruitment of underrepresented minority students, as it did in those days, and I have always thought that such programs are a very good idea, as some people have family connections to selective colleges, but many other people don't.) During that school year (1968-1969), there was a current controversy in the United States about whether the term "Negro" or "Afro- American" or "black" was most polite. So a girl in my class asked our visitor, "What do you want to be called, 'black' or 'Afro-American'?" His answer was, "I'd rather be called Henry." Henry's answer to my classmate's innocent question really got me thinking. Why not treat all of my neighbors as individuals, one at a time?

And anyway I've seen this issue go wrong for people in other countries. Also in my childhood, in the other state I lived in growing up, I had a classmate in the early 1970s who would get on the school bus each day wearing a button that said "Serb Power." I thought that was very strange, because I knew my history well enough to know that Serbia hadn't been an independent country since Yugoslavia was formed after World War I. And, anyway, he was living in the United States and had been born here, so why was he so concerned about Serb power? We all found out during the early 1990s how crazy many people in Yugoslavia were about former historical grievances, which made that country disintegrate and killed many innocent people born long after the grievances should have been forgotten.

Most reporting to the federal government about "race" and "ethnicity" is based on the U.S. Census bureau definitions for ethnicity and race categories, which in turn are based on regulations from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which were announced on 30 October 1997

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards](http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fedreg_1997standards)

to take effect no later than 1 January 2003 for data collection by all federal agencies. You can look up the detailed category definitions on the website of the United States Bureau of the Census. As the Census Bureau itself notes,

"U.S. federal government agencies must adhere to standards issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in October 1997, which specify that race and Hispanic origin (also known as ethnicity) are two separate and distinct concepts. These standards generally reflect a social definition of race and ethnicity recognized in this country and they do not conform to any biological, anthropological, or genetic criteria. The standards include five minimum categories for data on race: "American Indian or Alaska Native," "Asian," "Black or African American," "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander," and "White." There are two minimum categories for data on ethnicity: "Hispanic or Latino" and "Not Hispanic or Latino." The concept of race reflects self-identification by people according to the race or races with which they most closely identify. Persons who report themselves as Hispanic can be of any race and are identified as such in our data tables."

[https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqId=191](https://ask.census.gov/faq.php?id=5000&faqId=191)

It's politics all the way down. I'd be happy to see the United States move in the direction of treating individuals like individuals, equal before the law and all deserving full legal protection of civil rights, period.

</comment><comment><USER27> I doubt Asians have integrated into "white" society the way American Jews, Irish and Italians have. E.g., their example of interracial marriage is heavily imbalanced by gender.

<comment><USER28> > their example of interracial marriage is heavily imbalanced by gender.

I read somewhere Asian women is most desired by men of other races while Asian men is least desired by women of other races. Read that somewhere...

No, Asian is not white.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Asia is goddamn massive, encompassing thousands of significant and distinct cultures. "Asian" is, to my mind, therefore a pretty pointless adjective when applied to migrants from this huge region who have moved in to western societies, and merely reflects the ignorance of the west toward the earth- shatteringly different cultures of Asia. Shame on the west.

</comment><comment><USER30> For me, the interesting thing is how this was overlooked by almost everyone that read the statistics. People just saw large amounts of white people and of men in the data, and jumped to the "obvious" usual conclusion about overrepresentation. The data vaguely fits the narrative, so people quickly moved past the data and fell into the usual talking points.

Instead, the interesting thing in the data is the large amount of overrepresentation of Asian people. There's nothing wrong with that, but perhaps the sense that overrepresentation is a sign of wrongness that is the cause of people being afraid to mention it or focus on it.

Overall, the group most overrepresented in tech (judging from google's numbers and others) are Asian men. Yet, because the overall political narrative is focused elsewhere, that will remain un-remarked upon.

<comment><USER31> As someone pointed out above, the hiring pool for google is global. Especially focused on the population of graduate students in CS and related courses in US colleges. If you look at the data from that perspective, you'd find that Asians are in fact under-represented in Google's (US) work-force :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> As a Korean, I don't think I've ever been called white - the article does mention some good points, but I don't think its mention about asians being mistaken for whites is well-articulated.

<comment><USER25> Surely nobody's going to call an Asian a white -- I think he just meant to say that it's becoming less meaningful to group Asians among minorities in demographic analysis, perhaps because Asians are showing similar pattern as "whites".

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> From the Google NY Times article ( [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases- emp...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/google-releases-employee- data-illustrating-techs-diversity-challenge) ) > Thirty percent of Googles 46,170 employees worldwide are women, the company said, and 17 percent of its technical employees are women....Of its United States employees... 2 percent are black ... Of Googles technical staff, 60 percent are white, 1 percent are black...Though Google did not specifically say how it planned to change the numbers, it said that it hoped releasing them would start a dialogue. The company had made changes in the past to recruit and retain women...

Then it goes on and on about women. If 30% overall and 17% technical are women, compared to 2% and 1% for black, it sounds like women have it relatively good.

Many of my CS classes had more black guys than women of any color. Yet there is almost no discussion of this. It's Jesse Jackson who prompted that this data be released.

While this is about Google, they've been the most open and forthright about it in releasing the data. The situation is widespread through the Valley.

I hear happy horseshit about Watsi and other nonsense in the Valley. Begin at the source - with the LPs of VC's exploiting mostly young talent in the various startups - startups where 1% of the hired technical workers are black, if that.

</comment><comment><USER34> As horrible as it sounds, I think racism is a social problem in need of a technological solution.

If people could change their physical appearance as easily and as cheaply as their clothes, this problem would disappear overnight. If everyone could choose their gender, race, height, etc, there would be no point in discriminating based on those traits. To quote Dr. Seuss, people could change their appearance...

> until neither the Plain nor the Star-Bellies knew

> whether this one was that one... or that one was this one

> or which one was what one... or what one was who.

(Minus being scammed by Mr. McBean.)

Sadly, that sort of technology won't be around for centuries, if ever. But I think we can get most of the way there with present-day tech. More and more jobs allow remote work, and on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. With the right blinding in the hiring process, we could make discrimination impossible. Even if the job isn't remote, the hiring evaluation could be done without meeting in person. Once a person is shown to be intelligent, mindful, productive, kind, etc... it's very hard to maintain a prejudice against any trait they may have been born with.

This wouldn't solve the problem of a bias in applicants, but it would eliminate any implicit or unconscious discrimination.

<comment><USER35> > With the right blinding in the hiring process, we could make discrimination > impossible. Even if the job isn't remote, the hiring evaluation could be > done without meeting in person.

I've been suggesting for a while someone build a blind hiring website. I'm imagining you'd have a service to help cleanse gender, race, age, etc. information from the application materials. Even if you have phone or in- person late-stage interviews, this could radically change the makeup of the candidate pool at the final step.

I agree that meeting might never be necessary. I know an academic department that doesn't meet faculty candidates because they find the application materials are a better predictor of the kind of academic success they're looking for. I'm inclined to think this is true more often, but I have no data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I live in SV and my son competes in math and robotics competitions. I have never seen an African American at a competition. Robotics has more caucasians. Still below 50% but Bay Area skews Asian so hard to tell.

Elementary School Math competitions are almost completely SE Asian and South Asian. Maybe 2% Caucasian. Girls/boys are about 50/50 across Asians. Fewer Caucasian girls than boys but small sample size.

Just random observations.

</comment><comment><USER37> You gotta think global. Han Chinese make up almost 20% of the world's population. Calling us the 'minorities' seems pretty laughable.

<comment><USER38> Well, disadvantaged minorities also exist in China; e.g. Uighurs in Guangzhou.

<comment><USER37> I more surprised at the fact that people are touting the high number of Asians at Google as some sort of success story about us Asians and our culture. Google hires people from around the world, not just the US.

I'm more inclined to believe that there are high number of Asians simply because there are more Asians in the world, period.

<comment><USER38> Well, I know plenty of poor Chinese...but then again I live in China. From that perspective, this discussion is all very American biased anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I guess most people are not aware of California SCA5 [1]

That's basically an idea to brutally "reflect the demographics of the country". And that's actually racist.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Constitutional_Amendmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Constitutional_Amendment_No.5)

</comment><comment><USER40> This article seems to think that White will turn into the "winner's category", but historically this _is_ what that meant.

"White" as a racial definition only exists to allow opposition to the "colored" races (for things like slavery, colonialization,etc).

</comment><comment><USER41> This has a creepy precedence. During South Africa Apartheid, Japan was one of their main commercial partners. South Africa primary goods were essential for the japanese miracle. A law suddenly declared all Japanese white, giving them the same rights.

</comment><comment><USER42> Should there be a distinction between white Asians and colored Asians?

The more we mix the harder is to make this classifications.

Also, immigrants who come from far a way are usually better off. So may be they should not be considered a minority in the traditional sense.

<comment><USER38> > Also, immigrants who come from far a way are usually better off.

What!? There were plenty of Chinese and Vietnamese (+ Hmong and so on) who came over during the Vietnam and Chinese-Vietnam wars as refuges who, like most displaced peoples, had (and still have) many social and economic problems; e.g. gang violence that you normally wouldn't associate with upper class Asians.

<comment><USER43> Recent Chinese and Indian immigrants (probably true for other Asian countries too) tend to be either wealthy or highly educated, due to stability of the region and changes in immigration policy.

<comment><USER38> We are still taking in Asian refugees from where there are still many conflicts and instability. According to [1], we took in 19,000 refugees from East Asia (I'm betting mostly southeast), 35,000 refugees from the Near East/South Asia, 2,000 from Europe and Central Asia (why they clump those together...weird).

[1] [http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/o...](http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ois_rfa_fr_2011.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Maybe this also comes to Europe one day. But from the current perspectives I don't know any German who considers the Asians here as white. Therefore it seems to be quite the US thing from my perspective.

</comment><comment><USER45> > My point is simply that, if one thinks that the problem is lack of > "reflecti[on of] the demographics of the country," "white[s]" aren't the > problem.

I don't think anyone is saying that white men are a "problem". There's so much defensiveness in these counter-articles coming out as though this is some specific attack on white males. I don't think Google was trying to shame itself over its own white male percentages, it was just exposing its own racial breakdown data instead of previously keeping it a secret.

<comment><USER46> People get defensive because the image presented is precisely that there's a problem with demographics being "too white" and "too male". For instance, today CNN presented this:

[http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/29/technology/google-white- male...](http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/29/technology/google-white- males/index.html?iid=EL) ("Google: Overwhelmingly white and male")

> I don't think Google was trying to shame itself over its own white male > percentages

I'm not sure what other conclusion you can draw when Google says "we're not where we want to be" and the giant pie chart slices are 70% male, 61% white. They were apologizing and acting contrite about _something_, don't you think? The implicit message is "we did a bad thing hiring too many white males."

It absolutely is an attack -- not by Google directly, but by our culture which strives to make whites feel ashamed about who they are. I don't blame Google, they're looking out for their best interests. They don't want to get slammed for having too many white dudes in their ranks.

<comment><USER45> > The implicit message is "we did a bad thing hiring too many white males."

By interpreting this purely as an attack on white males ONLY you're ignoring the "attack" perceived by minorities who see things like 1% black tech employment rates and see mainly systemic bias. It has the appearance of avoiding the issue experienced by minorities.

<comment> a-t-shirt > By interpreting this purely as an attack on white males ONLY

Come on, man! He's not doing that! He was responding to this claim you made just two posts above:

> I don't think anyone is saying that white men are a "problem". There's so > much defensiveness in these counter-articles coming out as though this is > some specific attack on white males.

Despite Asian people being overrepresented and White people being underrepresented—in fact, despite Asian men being the most overrepresented of the demographics listed by Google (honestly: congrats!)—CNN and other media go for the fashionable target: White men.

It's interesting: When Asian people succeed, White people admire their hard work and determination. When White people succeed, White people feel shame and guilt.

<comment><USER45> > When White people succeed, White people feel shame and guilt.

I think that's an exaggeration. When's the last time whites felt shame about Buffett's or Gate's success?

The problem for minorities or women is that it seems like every time race or gender is brought up in tech, the majority comes out _in droves_ to steer the conversation into a discussion of white male hardship _while also_ completely avoiding or the dismissing the original issues brought up about minorities and women in the workforce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> When is race going to be replaced by meaningful (more quantitative) properties for grouping people?

</comment><comment><USER12> Google is pre-empting the coming Silicon Valley shakedown by civil rights groups.

</comment><comment><USER48> For those who insist on ignoring race, here's some racial food for thought that I hope you will take a moment to consider.

Why is it that we can categorize people by age, sex, disability, income, etc., but when it comes to race, race is all of a sudden some sort of taboo, something "we need to finally move on from" in a supposed post-racial society? Sure all these categorizations of people are "human," regardless of race or income or any sort of background -- but their experiences and situations growing up are not all the same, and that's the key point.

That statistical correlations exist with race across the spectrum in so many vital facets of American life means that it's a meaningful idea. To deny the existence of race as it affects people's everyday experience and situations denies that race is a factor that actually matters. And that's a problem, because it does matter. And it's more than just data, as meaningful as data is. You can simply ask a minority about their personal experiences growing up in America to learn about some of the things a minority may go through.

Also consider that there is an inherent bias here in HN since it's reasonable to say that _most_ of us come from privileged backgrounds, regardless of race. Always consider the background of any minority who dismisses race as an issue. They only speak to their personal experience and it may not be indicative of the mounds of minorities who organize and find common ground in their situations and experiences.

And I'm not here to argue necessarily over what "race" means, its definition or its construction and meaning over time, because that's not the issue I'm trying to bring up. It's clear to anyone with common sense that this construction of "race" that we perceive still matters, and it has always mattered for centuries in countless civilizations and societies, though how it plays out may not be universal.

I understand that it's not easy. If we could ignore race completely somehow, _in theory_ , perhaps we really _could_ whisk away many of the problems that it brings. In some sense, race is unique from other categorizations of people because of how fluid its definition is, how subjective race really is. Yet, it amazes me how with something as complex an issue as poverty or economic growth, we can take great measures to study it and analyze its history and come up with all sorts of policies to tackle its many dimensions... but when it comes to race or racism, we think we can solve the issue by dismissing it. "Let's just forget about race, it will go away!" Does that simple diagnosis really make sense for one of our oldest social ills?

Many of us don't want big brother meddling with affairs they need not stick their noses in, but even if you hate the government, I think we could all agree that if the government were to disappear tomorrow, the world would collapse. I say this again to point to the complexity of race issues, that you simply just can't throw the idea away and expect the issues to fix themselves. At the very least, it's something that deserves to be treated with seriousness, whose intricacies need to be appreciated to be understood. The ability to simply ignore an issue or approach it shallowly because it may not affect you is what _real privilege_ is, not the petty term that it is unfortunately so often thrown towards white males or whichever privileged group is in question.

One last word, which truly applies to issues beyond race: If you feel uncomfortable talking about race in this post-racial world you envision, then I'm sorry but it's not about your personal feelings towards race, when there are people out there facing real problems that deal with race. And it's great if you "personally don't see race," but unfortunately that's not the experience of many others, or the people born into a situation that is a product of systematic racism.

I encourage you to step away from those personal feelings and your worldview and to instead consider the lives of others, at least for a moment.</comment>


Fork you very much: Gist brings revision tracking to pastes - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/11/06/hunting-the-perfect-paste <comment><USER2> Gist, like GitHub, is quite useful. Unfortunately, I've gotten into the habit of just typing in a random paste site I happen to know anytime I need the service. He forgot LodgeIt! (paste.pocoo.org) -- it even has vim and emacs integration ;)

<comment><USER3> gist.el is available on GitHub</comment></comment>


My favorite Raspberry Pi distro - <AUTHOR> https://pipplware.pplware.pt/ <comment><AUTHOR> An all-in-one, ready-to-use distro. What 99% of RPi home would like to have. (I'm not affiliated to the project)</comment>


Pijul 0.3 release: a VCS using patch theory - <AUTHOR> https://pijul.org/2017/03/16/pijul-0.3.html <comment><USER2> Interesting undertaking. A simpler git with a integrated web server.

I do wonder about the choice of Rust:

Was it that the syntax was higher level at times?

Or the safety net?

If it's the latter, I hope that they don't forget that truly safe parsing in Rust is still a difficult task, and won't prevent you from doing something stupid.

<comment><USER3> It's that, plus a number of other things:

\- Rust is low-level enough to write sanakirja, which is pijul's database backend, in a clean way, without having to decode/re-encode tons of things from disk all the time.

\- Types! A sane (as in "mathematically sound") type system. That sentence is easy to misinterpret if you've not written actual programs (of more than ten lines) in functionnal programming, but types are essential for a program several dozens of thousands of lines long, in total. It basically means that we could refactor our code many times without fear.

\- Rust's community is awesome. I had never seen anything like that before.

\- Support for threads, both low-level and easy.

That said, Turing-complete programming languages won't prevent anyone from doing stupid things, by definition. I'm not sure about the particular focus on parsing: non-parsing tasks also required a bit of thinking.</comment></comment>


What The Beatles can teach us about Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://www.ridinginshoppingcarts.com/post/37985541106/what-the-beatles-can-teach-us-about-entrepreneurship

<comment><USER2> As sambeau said, there's no mention of Epstein, nor is there a mention of George Martin. The production values he brought added a nuanced yet immeasurable quality to their output.

Perhaps another lesson is no matter how awesome your raw product is, you can improve things by delegating to specialists.

Interestingly, though, Epstein was really _not_ a business specialist, and lost the Beatles millions.

Somewhat unrelated, but interesting collection of beatles money stuff: <http://www.beatlemoney.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Any discussion of The Beatles & Entrepreneurship that does not mention Brian Epstein will have completely missed the most important point.

One that also fails to mention Apple and Neil Aspinall clearly has no point. Unless, maybe, it was discussing HandMade Films.</comment>


When You Lose 99.9%, You've Lost More Than Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-you-lose-99-9-youve-lost-more-than-money-1536333684 <comment><AUTHOR> "Good things happened to bad people, and bad things happened to good people. Executives who contributed to the crisis retain enormous wealth, while many of those who trusted them have suffered life-altering losses."

The breakdown of trust in our institutions slowly chipped away.</comment>


Show HN: SproutUp is for you to discover, tryout and geek out emerging products - <AUTHOR> http://www.sproutup.co

<comment><AUTHOR> We built SproutUp with one mission - to help emerging products grow. We believe the best products grow by letting the most enthusiastic users experience it in person, providing feedback, and telling others. Hope to see you guys on SproutUp!</comment>


Embedding an HTTP Web Server in Firefox OS - <AUTHOR> https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/02/embedding-an-http-web-server-in-firefox-os/

<comment><USER2> This is cool !!

I've had this idea for a while now -- I do not like FB because I do not trust them, same is true of G+ ..etc. but my 'network' prefers them and that's how content is shared and propagated for a while now. So, I've been thinking what I would like is a 'client-side' social network platform where sharing of status, photos, messages ...what-have-you would be from /within/ the client. Basically, you add a set of friends and create a network of your own, pretty much like FB/twitter..etc but the main difference being that you (ie: your browser) 'hosts' all of the content out of your hard disk. If my friends run the same client, content is served out of their hard disks as well seamlessly and travels to the network without first going thru' someone else's server ...like you know ..p2p. The operative word of course being seamlessly[1].

This way content could be 'shared' beyond your friends through the extended network based strictly on privacy settings that you can control.

I thought I'd implement this as a browser extension but then the design hits into hacky workaround territory when it comes to implementing the transfer.

This barrier of entry is now low if/when such a http server becomes part of FireFox OS. With this functionality, I could in theory server my phone (or whatever device Firefox OS runs on) with all its pics, music, videos, etc through my network who only need a browser and an address that'll point to my app.

Interesing. I might just revive my efforts to build this.

[1] Yeah, I know I just re-invented the web/self-hosted domains/dnydns+webserver -- but the idea here is, it would all be 'built-in' into an app/extension.

<comment><USER3> You don't necessarily need to wait if/when Firefox OS includes an HTTP server out-of-the-box. The fxos-web-server library can actually just be included in any packaged FxOS app today. The only limitation would be that you'd have to have the app running for the server to be operational, which may be problematic for the sort of "walking social network" concept you're describing. (which is a really cool idea, BTW!)</comment></comment>


The Loongson-2 MIPS Lemote Yeeloong Netbook - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/21530/The_Loongson-2_MIPS_Lemote_Yeeloong_Netbook

<comment><USER2> Fast, cheap, long battery life -- pick zero. Or did I miss something?

<comment><USER3> Windows incompatibility? That's probably the major reason for Joe Q Public to pass on it, even before they notice the rest. It also doesn't (yet?) do suspend and resume, which is a bit of a buzz-kill.

Personally I applaud experiments on how low you can go with processing power and still have a usable (for some definition of usable) laptop/netbook. I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I can get done on my iPhone. And this seems driven by some real needs within China.

It also seems notable that it's being actively marketed as fully free software compliant from the BIOS up. I've been checking out ARM stuff and the upcoming netbooks all seem (from speculation/guesswork) to have various proprietary blobs in them, particularly for graphics, which will hinder Linux getting the most out of them.

<comment><USER2> I agree that low-power computing is an interesting topic and free turtles all the way down are worth having -- however, the XO had free firmware and low power consumption years ago (and a sunlight-friendly display and mesh networking etc...), so I'm seriously unimpressed by this machine.</comment></comment></comment>


A game developer's guide to sales - <AUTHOR> http://www.binpress.com/blog/2015/01/26/game-developers-guide-to-sales/

<comment><AUTHOR> Writer of the article here. If you've got any input/experience/questions/etc. on how discounts affect sales, let me know! The post is intended to be a living guide, so I'll updated it as I come across more useful information.

<comment><USER2> Great post. Random question: do the game storefronts offer much help with (or indeed, exert much control over) how to get value out of sales? I'm reminded of the famous "Dark side of Indie PR" article[1], where the author suggested (2nd comment) that devs selling through Steam don't necessarily control when or how much their games are discounted. Though your account of Jason Rohrer's game obviously tells a different story. Or is it something you can comment on?

[1] [http://www.puppygames.net/blog/?p=1574](http://www.puppygames.net/blog/?p=1574)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Hmm. That's something I hadn't considered. It's clear you have the option of whether or not your game is included in a sales promotion, but I'm not sure how much influence Valve has when it comes to price. I'll reach out to the indie devs I wrote about and see what the word is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another angle to sales that I'd love to hear more about is how sales affect multiplayer games through their communities. When I'm considering purchasing an multiplayer game that has been out for a while I'll try to get a sense for the size and 'health' of the community. If the player base is small I know I'll only get in the occasional game and be learning to swim around hyper- experienced sharks. If the player base is larger I'll expect learning the game is more fun / less punishing.

Both as a newcomer to a older game and as an 'established' player my perception is that sales tend to bring in a bunch of new players juicing the number of active players/servers for a time (good thing). Because of network effects in MP games, I'd imagine that injecting some fresh new blood into a community is a good way to attract more players even after the sale is over.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. The Castle Doctrine used sales promotions to build its initial player base, but not for injecting some fresh blood down the line. I'll do some digging!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Edmund McMillen (of The Binding of Isaac) surprised me by stating quite clearly that it isn't all roses!

> i have personally noticed a decline of sales and $ of both smb and isaac in > the years we did humble bundles. > for both games the next years sales were > a lot higher than the year we put them in bundles.. so i do think for more > well known games that bundles can actually hurt sales a bit.. other devs > might find different numbers but for us this was the case

[http://edmundm.com/post/93053340820/as-an-answer-to-a- previo...](http://edmundm.com/post/93053340820/as-an-answer-to-a-previous- question-you-said)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think he hit the nail on the head: for games that already have plenty of exposure, promotions/discounts are more likely to cannibalize sales. Thanks for putting that on my radar!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is why Nintendo rarely has sales. You completely destroy your brand when you say it's really only worth X percent of what you're normally charging. The same could be stated for anything, really. It's all in perceived value. Sounds a little crude, but we apply the same theories in dating that we do to IP. If something is more easily available we're not always willing to go out of our way to get it - or something to that effect. My coffee is still brewing.</comment>


How the JVM compares strings on x86 - <AUTHOR> http://jcdav.is/2016/09/01/How-the-JVM-compares-your-strings/ <comment><USER2> Am I seriously the only person on HN who doesn't know x86 backwards and forwards? Because it seems from the comments like I'm the only one here that didn't know this.

This was a good article, though.

<comment><USER3> rule #1 about Hacker News:

ALWAYS make sure you comment to let people know how smart you are. This is IMPERATIVE.

...even if you have to Google it a bit to brush up, always come back to let people know that you are knowledgeable.

<comment><USER4> You might say this facetiously, but this is would lead to some very informative comments, right?

<comment><USER2> I disagree. If you never reveal a lack of knowledge, than you'll never learn anything from the conversation: some of my best experiences on HN were times I was totally wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I saw "the x86 instruction you've never heard of" and thought, hey, it's probably the SSE strcmp instructions. So, the title is clickbait.

Nonetheless, interesting article. I had no idea it could handle UTF-16!

<comment><USER6> "Compare strings faster with this one weird x86 instruction!"

<comment><USER7> "ARM CPU vendors HATE HIM!"

<comment><USER8> At some point, someone is going to write the most popular plug-in ever that rewrites all titles in clear language and does a quick fetch of the page to answer the questions posed by the title. That's the kind of expert system I'm looking for.

<comment><USER9> But then what happens when somebody writes a clickbait title about said expert system?

<comment><USER10> I HATE MYSELF! Bzz.. whirr click... Destroy all humans!

<comment><USER8> Clearly your programming team needs this manager [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70OfGfMtIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d70OfGfMtIA) if you're thinking of releasing software that goes into "Destroy all humans!" mode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For awhile, CISC architectures (basically, just "architectures" before RISC came around) kept accumulating features. I took a VAX assembly language ("VAX Macro") class, and I remember that there was a string compare command in VAX Macro that was about as full featured as what you'd expect in some kind of standard library.

So I'm not surprised to learn that there's something in an Intel architecture like this: Intel is just showing its CISC roots. Since it's associated with SSE, there's probably something advantageously parallel about it.

<comment><USER12> It's really more about SIMD than about CISC or RISC. The pcmpxstrx family of instructions aren't like classical CISC string-compare instructions (though note that those are there too—"repe cmps"). Rather, they take 16-byte registers and perform operations (find first byte matching X, etc) on the bytes in them. I imagine that they can take advantage of effectively map- reduce style techniques for this (which is what you would do in software too if you were using simpler SIMD instructions).

Note that pcmpxstrx isn't really that fast in many cases compared to just doing ordinary SIMD operations.

<comment><USER11> The string compare operations built into old CISC architectures also weren't that fast. It's more like they were designed as bullet points for the salesmen. (Who were talking to execs who remember managing people who wrote things in assembly.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Let me spoil the title - it's the SSE4.2 instruction dedicated to comparing C strings. Also, I had actually heard of it.

<comment><USER14> Not only C strings; this code uses the Pascal string variant:

 _" This monster of an instruction takes in 4 registers of input: the 2 strings themselves as parameters, plus their lengths in %rax and %rdx ('e' meaning explicit length - pcmpistri & pcmpistrm instead look for terminating nulls"_

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You ever been hacked ? or You wanna hack someone or anything? You wanna test the protection strength of your website, computer or network ? Do you wanna hack into a computer, website or network? Social Media Threats Has your Facebook, Twitter or Google+ account .He can help get it restored and track the person who did it in many cases. Computer Spying and Surveillance. Do you want to install spyware on a cellphone or computer? Do you want to know if you have spyware on your computer? Bank account transfer to all Banks.......Hack and upgrade or change university grades Bank accounts hackErase criminal records hack Facebook, hack Any social media account, hack Android & iPhone Hack.....Text message interception.. hack email interception, hack Untraceable IpTwitters, hack email accounts, hack (Grade Changes), restore crashed Website, hack servers, hack Skype, hack Databases, hack Word Press & Blogs, hack Individual computers, hack Control devices remotely, hack Burner Numbers, hack Verified Paypal Accounts. I am a hacker looking for some one who got old bank account in usa and i wil load it with 4k to 40 k we share 5050 no upfront fee. I need BOA, USA navy chase, welsfargo, retirement account old bank account asap no upfront fee 5050......emaIL ME email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm actually wondering why they do not compare the lengths first, anyone know? To me that would seem like the first obvious optimization, do not run the character compare at all if the lengths are different.

<comment><USER17> If the strings are not equal, they still need to say which string is "smaller" (eg. comes first alphabetically).

<comment><USER16> Well, that explains it! :)

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</comment><comment><USER18> Just doing simple SIMD compares is as fast on most microarchitectures, and faster on Haswell+. You need to be doing something more involved than simple equality testing for the SSE4.2 instructions to be beneficial.

<comment><USER19> this does lexicographical comparison, not just equality

<comment><USER20> It can do more than just string equality too (the first operand can be treated as a character sequence, a character set, a substring needle or a union of character ranges)

Though for all that it's still limited to simplistic comparisons of non- textual strings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> And not just string compare. There are many operations where general purpose CPUs have problems for giving optimum results when operating with elements of 1 or 2 bytes at once with dependencies between them. E.g. UTF-8 string search implemented in hardware using the Rabin-Karp algorithm with a simple enough reversible hash window guarantying O(n) time could outperform current string search optimal O(n) implementations by e.g. 16x on CPUs with 128 bit / cycle load capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER22> I would be interested to see speed comparisons to know how much this instruction helps. My gut would be that it helps. A lot.

<comment><USER23> For short strings, it basically doesn't help. For longer strings, it's a bit faster, it depends how bad what you were doing before was.

Straight string comparison is not a great application for this in part because it's to intel's advantage to make string compare loops work fast without it.

But you can be sure it speeds some customer's serious workload up significantly. That said, it all depends.

It's great for "figure out if there is newline in the next 16 characters".

But again, compared to basic SSE compares, it often falls down for random string comparison.

See, e.g, [https://www.strchr.com/strcmp_and_strlen_using_sse_4.2](https://www.strchr.com/strcmp_and_strlen_using_sse_4.2) which has timings on core i5.

it's of course, likely possible to find processors where it is faster/slower.

<comment><USER12> Edit: I'm stupid and this comment was totally wrong; see below.

<comment><USER23> FWIW: it actually does. i measured it in clang :)

Why, i have no idea. My expectation would have been the same as yours

(also, it's pcmp* and tzcnt)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Definitely a clickbait title... dang, can you edit this down to "How the JVM compares strings" or possibly "Comparing strings using the x86 SSE4.2 pcmpestri instruction"?

<comment><USER25> Thanks, we've updated the title.</comment></comment>


Midnight Commander 4.7.3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.midnight-commander.org/wiki/NEWS-4.7.3

<comment><USER2> Man, Midnight Commander is still going after all these years? It certainly made it easier for me to transition from DOS to Linux, but I was quickly seduced by the power of bash for all my file-management needs.

Oh, a context link for people unfamiliar with Midnight Commander:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_mana...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_manager#Orthodox_file_managers)</comment>


Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine Clinical Study Protocol [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.modernatx.com/sites/default/files/mRNA-1273-P301-Protocol.pdf <comment><USER2> Clinical study protocols are usually confidential and not publicly available. I see a lot of discussion on HN about clinical trials, so this is a good opportunity to dig into the details if people are interested.

In terms of measuring efficacy, it's explicitly spelled out.

\- All participants may have up to 7 scheduled clinic visits, including Screening, Day 1, Day 29, Day 57, Day 209, Day 394, and Day 759.

\- Surveillance for COVID-19 will be performed through weekly contacts with the participant via a combination of telephone calls and completion of an eDiary starting at Day 1 through the end of the study. Participants with symptoms of COVID-19 lasting at least 48 hours (except for fever and/or respiratory symptoms) will return to the clinic or will be visited at home by medically qualified site staff within 72 hours (an "Illness Visit") to collect an NP swab sample for RT-PCR testing for SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory pathogens, or alternatively, if a clinic or home visit is not possible, will submit a saliva (or nasal swab) sample for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing.

\- In the event that success criteria are met either at the time of the interim analyses or when the total number of cases toward the primary endpoint have accrued, participants will continue to be followed in a blinded fashion until Month 25.</comment>


Jobs, automation, Engels' pause and the limits of history - <AUTHOR> http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/03/09/2120134/jobs-automation-engels-pause-and-the-limits-of-history/

<comment><USER2> You can draw a different lesson from the 20th century history.

 _[...] generally speaking, when you look at the 20th century, it 's the era of the masses, mass politics, mass economics. Every human being has value, has political, economic, and military value, simply because he or she is a human being, and this goes back to the structures of the military and of the economy, where every human being is valuable as a soldier in the trenches and as a worker in the factory._

 _But in the 21st century, there is a good chance that most humans will lose, they are losing, their military and economic value. This is true for the military, it 's done, it's over. The age of the masses is over. We are no longer in the First World War, where you take millions of soldiers, give each one a rifle and have them run forward. And the same thing perhaps is happening in the economy. Maybe the biggest question of 21st century economics is what will be the need in the economy for most people in the year 2050._

[http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari- daniel_kahnem...](http://edge.org/conversation/yuval_noah_harari- daniel_kahneman-death-is-optional)

<comment><USER3> We are entering a where people have huge potentials. It's not that everybody adds some value, but that anybody could add a huge amount of value, and we have no means of knowing who.

It may end before it fully starts, if computers do replace us. If not, things may get quite interesting (in a good way).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's an interesting but interlocutory piece. Nobody is wrong but nobody is right either, and it all turns out for the best... except it really doesn't. The author seriously downplays the huge political effort that was required to change living standard and grow wages; among other things, modern representative democracy was "invented" and violently forced upon the ruling classes, but it doesn't really get a mention (whereas slavery and socialism do -- probably because they feel like they've been dealt with for good).

It feels like the author is trying to sweep hard truths under the carpet of the last few paragraphs: "the problems [...] will naturally involve the issue of wealth distribution" and "such a world is likely to demand more than [...] incremental reform". Coupled with "Best to be prepared", it sounds like a call to batter up for an upcoming political storm, but it doesn't really suggest which "not-incremental reform" should be attempted, nor does it say anything about who should ask for such reforms and how.

<comment><USER5> It's yet another in a LONG long line of articles that tries to shift the blame for stagnating wages on to:

* technological progress

instead of:

* steady de-unionization and

* obfuscated trade policies designed to fuck normal people (NAFTA, CAFTA and now TTIP AND TPP).

tl;dr - "dem robots took 'er jerbs" and "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain writing trade policy".

<comment><USER6> Correct. Just sweeping under the rug the labour history that made the mid 20th century so egalitarian with respect to wealth.

If we want a more egalitarian distribution of wealth, we have to demand it.

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

<comment><USER7> While I'm fully supportive of unionization and organized labour, that doesn't seem like a particularly good example. What exactly did they gain from the march, besides getting shot at?

The 1941 Rouge River strike it mentions in passing seems like a much better example.

<comment><USER6> Fair enough. There are hundreds of episodes to pick from in labour history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting thought: what if it's the effeciency of technology rather than the automation that is the real problem to old school economics?

In order for me to be able to pay rent and eat food, and still have money left over, means that I'm "making a profit" in the business of me. In perfect competition, companies don't make any money. Technology is taking us closer to perfect competition between laborers. Everyone is now in competition with everyone and isn't this what we would expect in perfect competition: no one saves any money, you only get paid enough to eat and live.

Software engineers are fine for now, but look at the competition between soft skill positions, it's so fierce that people are barely making it.

My point is that it isn't automation, it's the lowering of friction between different laborers, and the commoditization of knowledge workers.

</comment><comment><USER9> Growing up in a developing nation, it's somewhat weird to see these discussions. Many 'techstarts' never had to see real poverty, so their arguments on automation become somewhat limited. Some American entrepreneurs dislike horizontal growth, but it might have much more impact(socially and even financially).

</comment><comment><USER10> 10 years ago, if you were able to watch high quality TV and use the commode at the same time, odds are you were in a household with an income in the top 98% of any given developed economy.

Today, I know inner-city kids that can do this with Netflix and a tablet.

So I absolutely agree that we can't predict what kind of change is coming, which is why I disagree with this statement:

 _Creativity, subjective cultural judgment and empathy would still be there, but we can't all become entertainers, art critics and psychologists._

Entertainers and therapists have historically only had the affluent as their clients, but distribution technology and efficiencies in other realms makes hiring these professionals more accessible all the time. Seeing a therapist or discovering a new pop star is no longer something relegated to the wealthy.

And I've always made my biggest earnings gains by making entrepreneurial moves. Automation and globalization absolutely benefit the entrepreneur. A person flipping burgers for $8/hr could buy a grill and 5x their income and easily run the administrative part of their new venture from a smart phone. If you're living in an economy that gives an advantage to the owners of the means of production, then the means of production is a good investment.

Plus you could also use it to watch TV on the commode.

<comment><USER11> _A person flipping burgers for $8 /hr could buy a grill and 5x their income and easily run the administrative part of their new venture from a smart phone._

Umm. Yes. All those stupid burger flippers, why don't they just buy grills...

Oh, maybe it's because McDonalds can leverage automation and globalization a lot better than your entrepreneurial burger flipper. There's a _tiny_ bit more to a Burger venue than buying a grill. "Running the administrative part from your smartphone" doesn't exactly tip the scale.

<comment><USER10> You're probably right. Big businesses like McDonald's and Hilton and Hertz could never be overcome by the little guy.

On a completely unrelated note, if you ever find yourself in North East Ohio, I have some nice apartments you can stay at that are much cheaper than the local hotels:

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2235649](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/2235649)

The airports are a bit of hike to here, though, so you may want to use Uber.

<comment><USER11> _could never be overcome by the little guy [...] airbnb [...] Uber_

Yep. These two companies, valued at $13B and $40B respectively, employing 800 and 2000 people respectively, are the definition of "little guy". It doesn't get more underdog than that. /s

<comment><USER10> Ugh.

I'm the little guy. Airbnb and Uber are the automation that enables my apartments to compete with the Holiday Inn and Marriott less than a mile away.

<comment><USER11> _I 'm the little guy._

Just the average 'little guy' with 3 spare apartments...

I'd wager the guess most $8/hr burger flippers (or $12/hr Uber drivers) might disagree with your self-assessment.

<comment><USER10> Well I was making $9/hr as a telemarketer 5 years ago. If you want to discuss via email, I'd be happy to explain how I went from being a little guy to a marginally bigger little guy.

In the end, I'm simply advocating for the decisions that got me from there to here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This reads like a CGP Grey video.

> the terrifying scenario in which half of all jobs are quickly lost to > automation

This completely ignores the very long development that such advances will take and the fact that most jobs won't just be displaced over night. For years we've been able to replace toll collectors with baskets and yet there are still toll collectors employed. Change will happen but it won't be sudden and there will be plenty of time to adapt.

Anyone who believes we're going to have fully self driving cars in the next 7 years is living at the "peak of inflated expectations" on the Gartner hype cycle.

<comment><USER3> What, do you consider 7 years as "long term" for social evolution?

And yes, count me along the people that expect fully self driving cars to be available in 7 years. I also expect truck driving to be an extinct profession by about there (10 years at most). City driving will probably live longer, and people'll probably keep driving their own cars.

<comment><USER13> But Google's cars can't even merge on the freeway yet, and they need vastly detailed maps which must be kept 100% up to date. (The existing car companies are trying to avoid the latter drawback, but there's no proof that they will be able to achieve this any time soon - it's just an ambition.)

<comment><USER3> Do you know what'll make the task of maintaining maps much easier? Self driving cars.

Yes, they can't merge on the freeway now. People keep not understanding the behaviour of exponential growth, and keep getting surprized once only in a single doubling things grow from "only half there" to "completely done".

(And I'll be among the first to call the end of Moore's law. But altough our electronics are not in exponential growth anymore, it's still growing increasingly fast.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The main problem in the US is that we are no longer getting our money's worth from the elites.

The deal has always been...you run things and get the most rewards, but everyone does better over time. They need to uphold their side of the bargain.

<comment><USER15> The deal? What deal? What side of what bargain?

Sorry, this point of view is delusional at best.

<comment><USER14> The US has always been a society run by elites. First it was the landed gentry. Since then it has been a political and financial elite. Keeping in mind that times when they were actually fulfilling their role of stewarding the country well...it wasn't done in a way that was good for everyone...but it was a type of social compact where the elites were granted a great deal of autonomy in running the country and everyone's situations improved.

That being said, since the late seventies they have been accumulating wealth at an ever increasing rate and not raising the wages of their employees, investing in education of their employees children, or investing in infrastructure. Instead of raising wages as profits rose they started offering cheap credit.

At some point that trend has to be reversed and the people that run this place will have to care about the people that live in it. There's an upper boundary on how much suffering people are willing to put up with.

Also, I love how you think I'm delusional even though you didn't seem to understand what I was saying. I'm really tempted to be rude to you. Seriously. But I'm trying to tone down my online responses to match what I would say in real life. People need to remember that in the end they are speaking to another person.

<comment><USER15> No, no. What is delusional (and there might be a better word but I'll stick to that one for now) is proposing or promulgating the idea that there was or is a "deal". No such thing. Rich people never got together to work out a "deal" or be granted a "deal". That is purely a fabrication. And mind you, I am not attacking you but rather the ideology that you and others have subscribed to. It's utter nonsense. Sorry.

Feel free to be rude if you need to get it out of your system. The beauty of reality is that it doesn't change based on emotion, yelling or screaming. A circle is still a circle. My position is factually correct and shooting the messenger will not change reality. I could literally stop right now, tell you "you are right; we are run by a bunch of evil elites" and that would not change the facts of the matter. A circle, is still a circle.

"when they were actually fulfilling their role of stewarding the country"

Again, this is delusional. What role? Who gave them that role? Did they accept that role? Sorry brother, your choice of words might just be a bit misguided. Again, you are not delusional, the ideas you are putting forth through your choice of words are. Maybe this ideology would like them to have had this role (or have it now). Did they sign-up for it at some secret meeting?

"a type of social compact where the elites were granted a great deal of autonomy in running the country"

One more time. What grant? Who granted it? Was there a contract? Did all the "elites" from east to west coast circulate a secret telegram agreeing to some kind of a deal in order to be granted privileges? And, did these contracts get ratified on a yearly basis for over 200 years in order to reach today's elite?

Please think. You are probably repeating something you were taught. And, if it was taught by a liberal leaning institution it is likely that they also told you that the US is evil and we all deserve to die. It's OK to listen to all points of view. That's how we learn. What isn't OK is to do so and not use critical thinking to evaluate the validity of what is being proposed.

"and the people that run this place will have to care about the people that live in it."

We agree on that one 100%. However, it isn't the elites, it's the hordes of crooked and incompetent politicians who are destroying this nation from the inside out. And the hordes of ignorant voters who let them get away with it. Their only motivation is to stay in office and enjoy the ride on the taxpayer's back. They don't care about you, me or our children. That's the problem.

"accumulating wealth at an ever increasing rate and not raising the wages of their employees"

One thing has nothing whatsoever to do with the other. Executive compensation and employee wages are controlled by different variables and different market forces. Nobody is going to pay a welder $100 per hour because it would be a violation of fiduciary responsibility to do so when the market does not support such a wage due to either local forces or the fact that in a global economy you can get a welder in China (or wherever) for $5 per hour. The executives running that company are paid based on the performance of the enterprise, investor or stockholder returns, etc. Different metrics.

It's like proposing that you should pay your gardener twice as much as prevailing market rates because you got a new job and your salary doubled. And, BTW, not to be an evil elite, you ought to also call your cable company and ask them to charge you twice as much. And your electricity rate should be twice as much. In fact, you should pay twice as much for everything or you are evil. Why? Because it isn't fair that you are accumulating more wealth now and the employees who service you directly or indirection won't see their salaries improved.

Of course this is a flawed and ridiculous exampled but it does illustrate the point about the ends of the scale not being drive by the same variables. Making such a connection is nothing short of nonsense.

Any entrepreneur knows this. If you are running a business, large or small, one of your goals is to not pay more than the lowest possible market rate for anything you need. Why? Because your customers will get on Amazon and look to pay the lowest possible price for the widget you and a hundred other manufacturers make. And so, it's a closed feedback loop where you, the entrepreneur or executive, are controlled by a range of market variables in your decision making. You simply can't pay your welders twice as much because sales improved. That is not how the real world works.

Many years ago Apple was nearly out of business. Today they are one of the richest (if not the richest) companies in the world. Was Steve Jobs evil elite for not doubling or tripling his programmer's wages as the company skyrocketed and he got filthy rich? No. Of course not. Nobody would propose that when it comes to Steve Jobs but most of the same people would crucify executives running companies like GE, Ford, GM and others under much lesser growth scenarios. This is due to three things: 1- Ignorance of the business process; 2- Academic indoctrination; 3- Attacking the "elites" as a tool for political alignment and gains.

I could go on but I'll stop here. All I ask is that you try to reason through some of what you are saying. Show me ONE, just ONE country run by poor people. And, if you find one, show me the degree of economic, educational, industrial, scientific, health and standard-of-living success they've had. Now compare it to any other society where, yes, if you have financial resources you can move in circles often denied to the masses. Not under some "grant", "deal" or "plan" but simply because that's the way it works. Obama does not invite you or me to the White House. He invites actors, singers, entertainers, industry leaders and political heavy-weights. Why? Because he is par of the "elite" now and that's the way it works. Yes, there's a side of society most of us will never see or experience. It's the people buying $250K cars when we might struggle buying a $250K house. Get over it. That does not make them evil and it does not create a secret society of evil-doers under some equally secret pact to act with the goal to oppress the little guy. That, my friend, is delusional.

Going back to the grind brother...

<comment><USER14> By elites, I meant politicians and wealthy people. You seem really invested in the idea that there isn't a class aspect to our situation. I never said elites were evil. I said that they were the elites. Simply, they were the people that were running things and have ran things...whether they inherited their position or worked their way into it.

It was an implicit social contract. I never said or implied that people got together in a smoky room.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your either a conservative or a libertarian with the smug way that you are telling me "how the world works".

If you look at rising wages and corporate profits...they both rose at roughly the same rate until the advent of cheap credit lines in the mid to late seventies. At that point, business stopped giving larger shares of the profits to employees and started loaning it to them. By that I mean businesses banked the profits, didn't issue raises in the same way, and then the banks made credit cards available with the surplus deposits to people that, until then, didn't have them. I don't know how you could look at the divergence of profits and wages around '75 in any other way. It's obviously a better situation from a financial standpoint if you are running a business or are an "entrepreneur", but it had deleterious effects as well.

I never implied this was evil. I don't really use the word "evil" a lot in writing or language. It smacks of magical thinking. I think that most of this stuff is largely amoral.

So, lets see. You've called me delusional. You've essentially made my argument out to be some laughable conspiracy theory...while not really rebutting what I actually said. You've insinuated that somehow I don't love my country because I'm an unthinking liberal idiot? You've lectured me on business. You're kind of a dick.

How bout you just leave me alone?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>