Facebook Asks Users If They'll Pay For Vanity URLs - <AUTHOR> http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/04/facebook-vanity-urls/ <comment><USER2> Quote: _This could theoretically be a huge business in that URLs could go through a bidding process. Want to get the URL<http://www.facebook.com/shoes>? You better be willing to bid against companies like Zappos, who I'm sure would be willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars._

shoes.com, sure, several hundred thousand dollars... but how would you EVER justify that for a URL on Facebook? Is there some hithertofore unknown population of users who are breaking up with their boyfriend one day and then say "You know, I want to console myself with a shoe purchase. I wonder what happens if I highlight the last portion of that thingee in the box thingee, and then type shoes and hit enter. Hmm, Zappos, haven't ever heard of them before or else I would have just Googled but hey, I'm so going to buy a shoe from them."

<comment><USER3> maybe the solution, then, would be to only allow this for personal profiles?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would this have an effect on SEO? Would <http://facebook.com/shoes> be more likely to rank well for a search for "shoes"?

<comment><USER5> it probably would. watch has hundreds of 5-letter words are horded by SEO marketing firms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Anyone know <http://profile.to> ?

</comment><comment><USER7> How would this be a sustainable revenue stream? I mean, if you pay for a vanity URL, it would surely be a one-time cost, no? Especially after going through a bid.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you own a personal domain, why not just setup a redirection for yourdomain.com/facebook to your Facebook profile. It's vanity, and it's free.

</comment><comment><USER9> MySpace had "vanity" URLs from day one. For free.

</comment><comment><USER10> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... is on top of numerous search results, so I do think facebook.com/... is viable.</comment>


8-char Windows NTLM password can be cracked in under 2.5hrs - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/14/password_length/ <comment><USER2> tl;dr 8-char NTLM protocol can be easily cracked, but has been replaced. Passwords should be passphrases not 8 character minimums.</comment>


The Tyranny of the U.S. Dollar - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/the-tyranny-of-the-u-s-dollar <comment><USER2> The article from Bloomberg states the US dollar is "inaccurately" portrayed as "becoming a risky instrument in international settlements" I think this is partly true.

\- US Dollars are the first thing frozen by US Banks in an RIAA/MPAA dispute. that such a small lobby has such a critical control over a world currency is shocking.

\- Arbitrary domestic political pandering can, and has, frozen a number of assets for countries with literally no other enemy but the US

\- We can and do deny credit processing and financial transactions using broad-stroke legislation without real due process (wikileaks) other than a senator suggesting we should.

\- Republicans shut down the US Government four times under the last president. our credit rating was lowered and government debts could not be serviced. the only thing that was immediately resolved was most airlines abilities to ferry senators home for the weekend.

<comment><USER3> >\- Republicans shut down the US Government four times under the last president. our credit rating was lowered and government debts could not be serviced. the only thing that was immediately resolved was most airlines abilities to ferry senators home for the weekend.

The shutdowns during Obama's term as just as much the Democrats fault as the Republicans. Regardless, the US paid its debt. There have only been two federal defaults, one in 1790 and one in 1933.

<comment><USER4> 1861 and 1979.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Something I recently started to appreciate, as it relates to the dollar's attractiveness, is America's track record with peaceful leadership transitions.

Reserve currencies must be freely exchangeable. Free capital flows imply giving up control over exchange rates (and/or monetary policy) [1]. That means an idiot government halfway across the world can mess with your currency, credit and export markets at any time. Including around leadership transitions. For countries with a history of violent leadership transitions, where such transitions are tightly controlled, that is terrifying.

Now I'm sure the Congress would love to control the dollar in the months preceding an election. But there are powerful (read: wealthy) interests opposing that. Those people have this power because America is a country where the state is balanced against private interests, specifically, private property rights.

One thus gets a currency which can be trusted to remain freely convertible. Because its powerful private interests, unafraid of a currency crisis triggering violent insurrection, are aligned in maintaining it.

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

</comment><comment><USER6> It seems to me, from the article, that the USD has a net-neutral effect on the US and a fairly positive effect on the rest of the world. Banks don't want to deal with volatile currency, even Russian banks make out mortgage loans in USDs. The world just needs one currency that everyone can depend on. Thankfully, given the US's general stability and investment into their military, the USD fits the bill quite nicely.

<comment><USER7> There's really 3 things going on, none of which have anything to do with the military.

1) convenient defaults. People trade in dollars for the same reason they speak English - because it's mutually convenient between two different countries with their own language and currency. This is partly due to sheer size and partly due to successful cultural export.

2) clearing and settlment. This is not well developed globally, so in practice a lot of smaller countries, foreign banks, and multinationals keep US bank accounts so they can more easily handle payments. This system plays by US rules, which is why the EU is constructing a parallel one to trade with Iran.

3) "eurodollars". I don't fully understand this aspect but apparently this market is coming under regulatory pressure.

<comment><USER6> The reason I bring up the military has to do with external influence. The US has a solid internal system of governance (as per other comments), but it would be worth nothing if other countries could intimidate it through military power.

<comment><USER8> It goes further than that. The US is quite able to intimidate (or outright depose) governments it perceives as hostile to its interests. Even in friendly countries the presence of its military gives something of a check on internal politics, before we even get to outright cloak-and-dagger stuff (which has been influential on the political course of numerous US allies).

One of the more comical illustrations of this is that the US passed a law during the Bush administraron authorizing invasion of the Hague if US officials were to be tried in the ICC. Less amusing is story after story of US-authorized violence to depose governments perceived as hostile to US business interests and slaughter supporters of the deposed governments.

<comment><USER9> > One of the more comical illustrations of this is that the US passed a law > during the Bush administraron authorizing invasion of the Hague if US > officials were to be tried in the ICC.

You might find this comical, but many dutchmen find it absolutely abhorrent that the US is willing to enact suchs an aggresive policy into law, especially as the dutch have been close allies with the US for a very long time.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, that was a poor choice of words. It's just such an over-the-top form of strong-arming (and so seemingly unnecessary; what were the risks that the ICC was really going to go after US officials in the first place?) that it seems cartoonish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If someone came up with a more stable store of convertible value, then it will likely gain traction; however, alternatives like the Yen, Renminbi, and Euro have so far failed to become international currencies for trade due to various reasons, but primarily stability and being relatively more free of manipulation.

The article is mostly a scareticle warning that americans focusing on america endangers the "special perch" thd dollar enjoys as international currency.

</comment><comment><USER11> The US Dollar reserve currency/petro dollar is the biggest weapon in the US arsenal, and the US has by far the largest army on the planet to enforce with [https://www.amazon.com/New-Confessions-Economic-Hit- Man/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/New-Confessions-Economic-Hit- Man/dp/1626566747/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)

<comment><USER5> > _petro dollar_

Petrodollar hypotheses get the dollar's hegemony in international trade backwards. Petrodollars (i.e. oil producers' surplus revenues invested in U.S. dollar denominated instruments [1]) don't cause the hegemony. The United States being (a) the only advanced economy not bombed to the 19th century post-WWII and (b) the world's largest single consumer market [2] created and create international holders of U.S. dollars. (In the initial case, thanks to Bretton Woods. In the recurring case, since Americans pay with U.S. dollars.) Those holders, in turn, drive demand for dollar-denominated investments.

The interaction between these processes, international consumption by Americans and the reinvestment of international dollars, drives economies of scale in the American financial system. (It is why, until very recently, it was cheaper and faster to send U.S. dollars between two European capitals than initiate a Euro-denominated transfer.)

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_marke...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_markets)

<comment><USER11> Since oil is traded in dollars I was referring to petrodollars in that context.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_recycling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_recycling) The USA attacked Iraq in the S Hussien era the moment they attempted to formally trade oil in euros for example. [http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/](http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/10/30/iraq.un.euro.reut/)

<comment><USER5> > _Since oil is traded in dollars I was referring to petrodollars_

Oil is quoted and traded in all kinds of currencies. It tends to be exchanged in dollars for the same reason that when Lufthansa bought Airbus jets in the last decade, they did the deal in dollars: Fedwire was, until very recently, the world's only international real-time high-volume electronic money transfer system. (Now Europe has a competitor.)

The Hussein euro thing is a conspiracy. In what currency do you think British North Sea oil being shipped to Europe is paid for?

<comment><USER11> What do you mean by 'conspiracy?" Oil bourses trade in dollars

<comment><USER5> > _What do you mean by 'conspiracy?"_

The United States did not invade Iraq because it was threatening to switch to Euros. If anything, American banks would have been thrilled at the prospect of new FX revenues.

> _Oil bourses trade in dollars_

Oil bourses? Oil _futures_ are mostly traded on exchanges, but oil _the commodity_ is mostly traded over the counter. It's privately negotiated. Those private negotiations reference whatever they want to, whether Brent in USD, Brent in EUR, WTI in USD, COM in JPY, _et cetera_.

<comment><USER11> Right. 'In the case of crude oil, the main futures exchanges are the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) where West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and North Sea Brent crude oil are traded respectively.

These exchanges trade what is referred to as 'light- sweet' crude oil and a single contract, or 'lot', calls for the purchase or sale of 1,000 barrels of oil. Traders can buy and sell oil for delivery several months or years ahead'

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/2790...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/2790647/Oil- price-QandA-What-are-oil-futures-and-how-are-they-traded.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems to be that a currency is a commodity that most countries have to earn in order to use it.

A better way to look at this is let's imagine a world where copper was currency. Today, US copper has the following characteristics:

\- Most efficient electric conduction

\- Most widely available

\- Most widely accepted outside US

\- Fair and just producers

Suddenly, a new CEO of US copper Inc comes in and says, we are losing coppers to other countries (disregarding that they bartered something for it).

New CEO implements policies that reduce external supply of US copper. That changes the characteristic of US copper to:

\- Still most efficient electric conductor but only locally

\- Not as widely available outside the US

\- Slowly, causing US copper to not be as widely acceptable outside the US since there's no use for it outside US (vicious cycle of fewer people wanting US dollars and availability of dollars)

\- Unfair and unjust producers who use US copper as a threatening and bargaining chip, causing entire countries to starve. This is perhaps the biggest threat to that commodity being valuable.

Would any buyer buy US copper if it risks their populace? Sterling used to be a major reserve a hundred years ago. Its colonialism and world wars went too far and it has eroded so much now. What makes anyone think the US will remain the same?

</comment><comment><USER13> There are only 2 alternatives to the US Dollar as the reserve currency of the world, the Euro and the Renminbi. With respect to the Euro, how sure are you that the European Union will be around 50 years from now as a political entity? With regards to China, their transparency needs to get a lot better before it becomes the reserve currency.

<comment><USER4> The SDR is also an option.

<comment><USER14> Not only an option, but I would bet that within 10 years SDRs will partially or wholly have replaced the US dollar. Of course, the largest component of SDRs would be the US dollar so this would be transitional, not an abrupt change. Anyway, just my opinion...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not as complicated as people are making it.

Look at the history of civilization and the history of reserve currencies. When Britain had the reserve currency, how did we describe that? It was called the British Empire. When Spain had the reserve currency, what did we call that? It was called the Spanish Empire. Go back for thousands of years, the history of reserve currencies is the history of empires.

Until, supposedly, we get to this great break in history with America's dominance. Which supposedly is not an empire but is based on some superior ideology or system. Is it not remarkable that up until now history was one way, and now the age of empires has gone away. And only America's luck, or ideology, or democracy, or some technical economic bullshit has supposedly created the massive advantages for America and American citizens.

There has not been a break with history. The United States is the most dominant, powerful, and yes brutal Empire the world has ever seen. Reserve currency status has been maintained by rigorous continuous ongoing military campaigns involving both overt, covert and financial means. Libya is one extremely obvious example.

The question is not something like, are we being nice enough, or are we 'leading the world'. The question is can and will any group really take geopolitical action against this domination by force? If and when they think that it is safe enough to do so then they will.

<comment><USER13> > and yes brutal Empire the world has ever seen

More brutal than the Assyrian Empire and the Mongol Empire? 5% of the world's population is estimated to have been killed by the Mongol conquests. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_E...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_Empire) and even in absolute numbers, the Mongol Conquest is only behind WWII in absolute numbers of people killed.

The United States has its moral issues, but being the most brutal empire in history is not one of them. In fact, of all the global empires in the history of the world, the United States "Empire" has probably been the most benign and benefited the most people.

Also remember, at the end of WWII, the United States was the sole possessor of the atomic bomb and had the best developed long range bomber fleet. They could have easily used that advantage to outright conquer a massive empire, but they did not.

<comment><USER15> > sole possessor of the atomic bomb

which they did use to kill more people at one time then ever before in history

<comment><USER16> That is factually incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Complain about US exceptionalism as you wish... but about 84% of the over 5 trillion daily FX market volume is USD trades. Why? Because literally no other market (country) has the liquidity, transparency, stability, and asset base carry this level of risk (or trust).

<comment><USER18> Isn't this really just a first mover advantage though? After world war 2, the US was really the only country still in the position to _advance_ rather than just rebuild. Combine that with the fact that we helped fund a lot of rebuilding with the USD. The United States has really lucked out in a lot of ways

<comment><USER17> No. The US legal system, a free press, a long-standing calvinist work ethic, its asset base and continued financial infrastructure investment are much more than luck. These things have proven impossible to reproduce - in aggregate - anywhere else.

<comment><USER19> I think it is mostly inertia. The EUR probably has all the qualities required to be used where USD is used. But conventions and traditions die hard. For FX trading for instance, if you start quoting products against EUR instead of USD, you split the market, reduce liquidity, etc. For planes, I have absolutely no idea why a european manufacturer would sell a european made plane to a european airline in USD...

<comment><USER5> > _EUR probably has all the qualities required to be used where USD is used_

The U.S. doesn't have perennial debates about breaking up or bits breaking off. If your Euro bank deposits are at risk of suddenly turning into drachma or lira, that's a problem.

<comment><USER20> Never been to Texas, eh?

Hell, the break-California-up initiative made it to the ballot this year, was removed for this year by the CA Sup Ct, and has a non-zero chance of being back on in 2020. E.g., [https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_9,_Three_Stat...](https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_9,_Three_States_Initiative_\(2018\))

One of the questions I was asked in a State Attorney General Office interview in 2009 was: "What state would you kick out of the union and why?" (The secession debates were raging in certain circles after Obama was elected, and I guess some AGs wanted to know if incoming lawyers were inclined that way?)

Will Texas ever secede? Will CA ever actually break up? I have no idea, and I doubt it. But the debate and even the effort is there.

<comment><USER5> > _the effort is there_

The United States set a precedent for insolubility in the Civil War. Secession is not an option. The EU, on other hand, has an official exit mechanism. Texas talks about it in the same way New York and California talk about it; it's punchy, funny and rallies a crowd pissed off at whoever is in power.

Breaking up is not a realistic medium-term risk for the United States. It is for the EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This might be something we look back on like the move away from the pound, or Nixon taking the USA off the gold standard. Hard to say at this time if it has any real possibility of being a huge shift in power structure. It could just as easily be a fizzle as the world breaks apart from the last 50 years of consistent policy choices...

</comment><comment><USER22> If dollars are immediately exchangeable for the fair value of your currency of choice, and it doesn't cost anything to change one currency to another, does it matter what currency the transaction happens in? (I know we don't live in this world)

<comment><USER8> It matters if you don't want to comply with some request of the government issuing the currency.

<comment><USER22> Can you expand your reasoning a bit further? I believe what you are implying that the issuer of the currency has some control over how the currency is exchanged between third parties.

<comment><USER8> The US can, and does, use its control of the US payment system to punish anyone who deals with states it wants to sanction, such as Iran.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/iran-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national- security/iran-plans-to-use-other-currencies-to-get-around-us- sanctions/2018/09/29/230df8e4-d4a3-4429-94be-4dbb90ece08e_story.html)

> The power of U.S. sanctions lies in the use of the U.S. dollar in most > international transactions. A foreign company that sends its proceeds from > trade with Iran through an international bank would likely face sanctions > because part of it would be conducted in dollars. An international company > with an American employee who has something to do with a transaction, no > matter how inconsequential, could also run afoul of U.S. sanctions.

> Only a handful of countries agree with the U.S. decision to abandon the > nuclear deal. The European Union said Monday that its member countries would > establish a system to allow oil companies and private businesses to keep > trading with Iran. But many international corporations have already stopped > doing business with Iran because so much international business is conducted > partially in U.S. dollars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The funny part I see is that the US dollar appears to be two currencies in practice - clean and dirty and the distinction only comes up when attempting to use them in a clean market. Despite the terms and concepts being underworld there is no value judgement attached - clean only means legal and unsanctioned to US currently and there is nothing technically stopping them from doing something erratic like sanctioning Switzerland for being too neutral except good sense. Paper currency is almost always useful among the dirty as there is nothing to stop its use among even pirates and drug lords, and other sanctioned governments trade in US dollars independent of the fact they aren't supposed to be dealt with. Within the dirty economy it doesn't matter they are still stabilized, clean monet can come in if via illicit means and laundering allows for an effective conversion through many means including cash retail endpoints as the ultimate theoretical security at the cost of efficiency. (It isn't a crime for a legitimate businessman to accept a $250 cash payment for a bar tab from known gangsters - the opposite in fact. However adding it to the tills and cooking the books is.)

If the US wanted to maximize their fiscal gain above all else they would essentially give up sanctioning as peak stable currency. Whether they would want to or it would be separate questions.

It also points out why China would fail at their endeavor of replacing long term. Not even their own officials want to be in fiscal strangling reach. Nobody would believe they can reference Taiwan as a country and still remain part of their banking system let alone whatever else could draw their wrath.

</comment><comment><USER24> U.S. dollar allows US to extract neo-colonial tax from the rest of the world. US has a huge trade deficit because US simply prints more dollars to buy everything they need.

</comment><comment><USER25> Summing up the discussions, it seems to me that US is the capital lending source for the world. Every country loans, saves and invests in US dollars to improve their economy. Previously this role was played by Gold but gold source is limited while US can ensure(theoretically) unlimited supply of dollars. So, in effect, all the growth that we saw from 1971 was due to this switch from Gold. This arrangement works well for everyone. The other issue about US sanctions will push the rest of the world towards searching for an alternative, is not true.The reality is, the rest of the world adapts and tries to compromise with US. May be it is first mover or luck or strength of US economy, but this role played by US is not likely to be replicated or substituted. But, interestingly, this role of US dollar is very beneficial for capital or investments in US. And by the same corollary, is very bad for US labor, since they are competing not just against the other countries, but against US dollar. May be this is also the reason for the unrest and social protests?

</comment><comment><USER26> I was a computer science major, not an economic major so just asking. Couldn't so form of crypto currency perhaps become the worlds one and only currency? This seems to me an easy way to monitor and adjust in/for real time as needed.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't know much about montary theory but from what I do know it seems unlikely that in my lifetime the US dollar will be threatened as the world's reserve currency.

I can only think of the euro, yen, renminbi, rupee and perhaps the pound as currencies that are backed by strong enough political forces to be considered as reserve. But there are many threats which each of these routes, do you trust the Chinese central bank? Is India stable enough? Is the EU stable enough? They are losing a prominent member in March 2019, will the UK recover post-brexit for the pound to be attractive??

Even then, as stated other nations have deep ties with the US which increases the risk of moving from the dollar. We provide for Japan's defense, we are the biggest funder of NATO, etc. While Trump has moved the US away from international institutions during his term I have no doubt that the US will continue to dictate global economic policy after his term is complete.

In many ways, while it's fun to speculate, I don't see the rest of the world having the will or options to move away from the dollar as a reserve currency.

<comment><USER28> Just trying to imagine what would be the equivalent to a Brexit in the US shows how much more stable it is. Can you imagine if Texas was actually Amerexiting (Texsiting?) the Union next year? lol

China's black box central banking is a complete sham.

<comment><USER9> Brexit has little to do with the EU's stability, and more with the stability of the UK political system.

Let's not forget that the EU is not a nation-state on the same level as the US, but a supranational type of goverment. (and currently being the only one at that).

Brexit is a lot easier to achieve politically compared to texas seceding because the US is an inherently far "stricter" type of political entity.

<comment><USER29> > the EU is not a nation-state on the same level as the US

That's the point.

The reality of brexit suggests neither the Euro nor the GB-Pound is a stable substitute for the dollar as a reserve currency.

The Yuan (with China's exchange rate manipulation and general economic manipulation)?

The Yen (with Japan's 10-20 year malaise)?

Crypto? (how much volatility and market manipulation are you willing to accept?)

Gold/silver standard? (It has certainly had a tiny fraction of the inflation of the US dollar, but there are other challenges)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> America will go the way of the once mighty U.K. if the dollar no longer retains it's status as the global reserve currency.

That is, America would shrink rapidly just like the U.K. did when it happened to them.

It is what fuels American growth.

Whether that is a good thing is whether you want the U.S. to be a global superpower or not.

</comment><comment><USER31> Iran can quit OPEC and sell Oil in Yuan/Rupee to CHINDIA

<comment><USER32> You say that as if those currencies have no risk...

Provided you don't buy into the conspiracy theory that the US won't allow countries to price oil in other currencies, you have to ask _why_ Iran doesn't do what you say. Perhaps it's because the dollar is bigger and more powerful than the political rhetoric that comes out of Washington.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> There is currently no alternative. I for one would love a global currency that was untethered from government corruption (printing), and manipulation. It would also be devoid of regulation where no actor gets to say if one person can use it or not. We aren't ready to empower individuals on that level though. Manipulating currency markets is ingrained in our political structures.

<comment><USER34> >> "...a global currency that was untethered from government corruption (printing)..."

This is your friendly weekly reminder that _the government does not print money_ in almost all countries, with a very few interesting exceptions.

Money is instead created by ordinary privately-owned commercial banks, or by consortiums of privately-owned commercial banks aka the owners of central banks [0].

The spirit of the parent's point stands, which is of course that somebody is ripping you off. But that somebody is manifestly not a government.

[0] [https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-...](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly- bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf)

See the key quote in bold on the first page: _" Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower's bank account, thereby creating new money._"

<comment><USER35> Well, the government is controlling the money supply. The main way you get ripped off is when the monetary authority decides that inflation should be higher, and that devalues your money. Calling that process "printing money" seems like a reasonable metaphor.

<comment><USER7> Inflation is fundamentally a price level problem. I don't understand why libertarians seem to think the price level of goods and services should be fixed forever.

<comment><USER36> Inflation can indeed be caused by supply and demand, which is what you're referring to. However, if an open market is allowed (no price controls), generally supply will rise to meet demand and price will fall back.

Unfortunately, inflation can also occur when too much money floods a system. We see this in the case of college tuition. Giving college loans to anybody with a heartbeat floods the system with money, causing tuition price inflation.

This does happen with countries as well. Every dollar that a government borrows and then spends, is money creation. The act of selling the treasury notes allows them to obtain money today for the promise of paying it back with interest in the future. That new money is spent into the system and much of it takes the form of bank deposits which can then be inflated 10:1.

<comment><USER12> > Every dollar that a government borrows and then spends, is money creation.

So is every dollar repayed back to the FED money destruction?

<comment><USER37> Yes.

<comment><USER12> Wow. What a crazy system. It is so so easy to manipulate this with fiscal policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> >> "now President Trump is retreating from the American chief executive's traditional role as Leader of the Free World"

Citation? He may not be some people's ideal of the leader of the free world but I wouldn't say he has retreated.

<comment><USER39> He has been very vocal about a "US-first", isolationist policy. You can't be the leader of the free world by saying "I only care about my country" and expect others to follow you.

<comment><USER40> Indeed, and requesting that countries part of NATO fulfill their voluntarily agreed to commitments shouldn't be considered outrageous.

<comment><USER18> If that was the only controversial thing he's done on the world stage, you might have a point

<comment><USER40> Why is it controversial?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sookie Stackhouse author signs up for 3 more books - <AUTHOR> http://www.keepingthedoor.com/2009/08/20/three-more-sookie-stackhouse-novels-planned/

<comment><USER2> Is that series any good? Never heard of it before. Does it compare to Harry Potter or The Eyre Affair?

<comment><USER3> Haven't read the books though so I couldn't say. The show is decent, although at times it feels like watching a soap opera. Nowhere near Dexter, Breaking Bad, or Mad Men for example.

So stoked to finally be starting the next season of Mad Men! :)

<comment><USER2> Don't know any of these shows, but it's nice to have some new things to check out ;-)</comment></comment></comment>


A great tool for writing desktop applications - <AUTHOR> http://www.getlazarus.org/learn/tutorials/intro/ <comment><USER2> Could be great if it didn't use Pascal. How would anybody pick this language over, for example, Ada? Even dozen years ago, when Lazarus was first publicly released.

<comment><AUTHOR> Submitter/site creator here. The thing is it's Free Pascal, a fully object oriented version of Pascal geared up for visual applications. Language features include intrinsic events types (delegates in C#), run time type information (what makes live components possible), managed types (such as string, array, interface, and variant types), generics, operator overloading, implicit/explicit type convert plus a whole lot more.

That and it's based off Turbo Pascal and Delphi (it supports the full D7 dialect and many of the newer Delphi features as well). As such people have created a wonderful cross platform OS and widget set agnostic visual library called the LCL.</comment></comment>


Gozer – A Rework and Gulp.js Based CSS Preprocessor - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/trlllst/gozer

<comment><AUTHOR> Basically a collection of Rework plugins configured to process pure CSS with next-gen features. Syntax is closer to proposed specs and mixins are written in JavaScript. I learned a lot while building it. Hope someone finds it useful.</comment>


The Slow Winter – James Mickens (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mickens/files/theslowwinter.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This was submitted a while ago, but hasn't picked up much discussion in the past.

Resubmitting now in relation to the discussion on the 737-MAX8: Using software to stabilize hardware isn't easy. ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19509618](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19509618) )

More Mickens: [https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james- mickens](https://mickens.seas.harvard.edu/wisdom-james-mickens)

</comment><comment><USER2> I love articles by James Mickens</comment>


Ask HN: The most valuable question no one asks - <AUTHOR>

I bumped again recently onto the following quote by Voltaire: "Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers."
This got me thinking when I visited the ask page in HN: what's the most valuable question one could ever ask?
The answer might be: "why?" But in some situations, like social gatherings, asking why can be a recipe for disaster. Are there no other questions that can be equally revealing?
What kind of questions do you like to ask? <comment><USER2> This is of dear interest of me. So much that I actually keep a list of questions in Evernote.

from the book "change your questions, change your life":

      - What do I want?
      - What are my choices?
      - What assumptions am I making?
      - What am I responsible for?
      - how else can I think about this?
      - What is the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting?
      - What am I missing or avoiding?
      - What can I learn?
      - ... from this person or situation?
      - ... from this mistake or failure?
      - ... from this success?
      - What action steps make the most sense?
      - What questions should I ask (myself or others)?
      - How can I turn this into a win-win?
      - What's possible?

Questions from "no more mr nice guy":

      - what do I want?
      - what feels right for me?
      - what would make me happy?

from forgotten source:

      - if there were no limits on your life...
      - ... where would you live?
      - ... what would you be doing in your leisure time?
      - ...  what kind of work would you be engaged in?
      - ... what would your home and surrounding look like?
      - what do you really want in life? (write down 3 things) what prevents you from making it happen?

from sebastian marshall:

      - what am I doing?
      - why am I doing it?
      - what are the results?
      - what are the highest value activities I'm  not doing?
      - what can I cut?
      - What hard questions am I avoiding?

</comment><comment><USER3> "What part of what I'm doing is responsible for my successes?" Credit to Less Wrong for this one.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for this one. I think it ties in nicely with the idea of "goal factoring" (also from LW) where you ask yourself "why am I doing what I do? Is there a more direct way of achieving this?" This can be helpful when working with habits and maintaining harmony between your goals and emotions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure if it's the _most_ valuable, but it's definitely one of the questions that gave me a lot of valuable insights and changed my world view dramatically:

"Which of my beliefs are false?" Or "What, among the things I believe in, is not true?"

This question seems very obvious for any intelligent person to ask, but as I put more and more attention to it - I discover more and more shocking things about myself and the world. I have SO much more false beliefs than I've expected.

Because I think of myself as skeptic and atheist, as a rational and "scientific" person, I had no idea that me, and other sceptics/atheists still hold so much beliefs that turn out to be ridiculous and made up when you look at them closely.

And I have no idea how much more is left to discover.

The book that really taught me to ask this question, by the way, is Jed McKenna's enlightenment trilogy. I disagree with a lot of it's new-age'y ideas, but I got a lot of value out of it because of this question, highly recommend it.

To put it shortly "put as much of value and attention into _un_ learning things and identifying the false knowledge as you put into learning and knowledge"

</comment><comment><USER6> What is the root of human behavior? What are all people striving for? And how does the ensemble of individuals striving for the same thing(s) produce the systems we live in today? These questions are some of the most fundamental questions you can ask, and answering them is tantamount to solving one of the deeper meta-puzzles that life presents to you. You are your biology, psychology, and environment, and understanding how these all influence each other is incredibly useful.

</comment><comment><USER7> There are many great questions here! And some great ones about questioning what you know and your beliefs, and ensuring for everything else, you apply the same logic or reasoning while analyzing the facts and whether or not those have somehow been distorted by a social "telephone game", or manipulated to fill a talking point, before you make a judgement. It's really nice to see others asking the same questions as that.

I have one question to add. I learned this while studying philosophy, from Emmanuel Kant on ethics, kantian ethics. Something along the lines of:

"Is what I'm about to do right now, something that I would want everybody else in the world to do?". For ethical and moral self or organizational regulation. Should I throw this wrapper out of the window. Should I yell at this barista for screwing up my venti caramel frappuccino. Should we disclose this... you get the idea.

</comment><comment><USER8> > what's the most valuable question one could ever ask?

 _" How can I best help you?"_ Asked with the sincere intention to be of some assistance.

Incidentally, great book recommendation, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success. [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16158498-give-and- take](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16158498-give-and-take)

</comment><comment><USER9> What matters most is what you do for free -- John Gorka

What would you do if nobody paid you to do it?

</comment><comment><USER10> At social gatherings, when people are talking about what they do for a living or what they spend their energy on, I like to ask them: "What is your drive?" or "what drives you to do that?"

</comment><comment><USER11> "How do you know what you know?"

Don't be afraid to cross-examine your own beliefs!

</comment><comment><USER12> _What routines am I slipping into?_

For example, _why am I still reading HN?_ I don't mean to imply all routines are bad, but awareness is ~60%. _Why am I reading more lately?_ , etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> What are you deliberate about not doing?

</comment><comment><USER14> "If you are wrong, how would you know?"

What evidence would convince you your opinion should change?

</comment><comment><USER15> What do you really care about?

When is the last time you felt you were lucky? (in the non-sexual sense)

</comment><comment><USER16> Depends on context, but I like variations of the ole

 _" If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about (your life | your job | this situation | your marriage | whatever), what would you change?"_

Another good one, is this - after asking a series of questions, ask

 _" Is there anything I should have asked you, that I didn't?"_

This seems more appropriate for business conversations than casual smalltalk / social situations, but you might be able to riff on it and come up with some useful variations.

Also, for when talking to doctors:

 _" What's the worst thing that could be causing my symptoms?"_

 _" Could I have multiple problems contributing to these symptoms?"_

 _" If this diagnosis were to turn out wrong, what would the correct diagnosis then probably turn out to be?"_

Credit to "How Doctors Think" for the above three (not necessarily word for word, but the spirit of them anyway).

</comment><comment><USER17> what do you want? what is the one thing u want it very badly?</comment>


Show HN: Mazetec – Create text-based adventures with a timer and points - <AUTHOR> https://www.mazetec.org <comment><USER2> I played through a few of the scenarios, this is quite interesting.

The failure states seem quite harsh though when I'm trying to explore the paths. For example, while playing through the "How a Bill Becomes a Law" example, if I make the mistake of introducing the bill to the house before a committee, I get a warning "WHAT BILL ARE YOU INTRODUCING? What could you possibly be introducing?". The all caps part is a font choice, so it doesn't look like users could disable it which might scare some players. I would have expected a much calmer explanation of the problem.

The other thing I would have liked is an easy link to a study guide or external resources. I know the whole point is to learn by exploring the decision tree, but I would have liked to stop and read more about what a committee is, or to learn what a "rule" is that I'm assigning to a bill (I still don't know). It seems like it's easy to get a rough overview of a process, but not to dive deeper than that.

<comment><AUTHOR> We made how a bill becomes a law in collaboration with political science professor from Colorado State University she really wanted to capture her student's attention. But the decision tree and how it's displayed is anything that you want it to be I felt nice that is a platform so users can sign up create your own scenarios generate a link and send it out so students can explore.

As far as linking to study guide or external resources we built a hint node to offer additional information to students exploring that allows students to pause the timer.

We are capturing a tremendous amount of analytics like for example we can see when the student leaves the tab during play.

We capture every decision the amount of time on that decision the sequence and the number of tries as well as abandonments and the abandonment nodes.

In the future we're planning an app resource guide.

Thank you for your comment. Give it a try and share it with a teacher!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Driving Questions

How do you teach someone something they think they already know or who is ADHD and can't focus?

You make them do it, but what if doing it is dangerous or puts someone else at risk?

You create a safe environment for them to do it and practice.

Overview

The original goal of Mazetec was to make online learning more engaging. Rather than telling the learner what to do, create a scenario and let them try it for themselves.

For example, you're a knight, do you fight the dragon or run from the dragon? What are the consequences of each decision? Give points for different choices.

Application Features

Build branching scenarios in the visual editor that people can play with a link.

Ability to limit the time, thus creating a race against the clock and time pressure.

Pressure changes the way people make decisions, give ppl 5 seconds to make a decision or 50 seconds or no timer at all.

Create your own points you can have prefix and suffix on your scenario credits and you can start a user with 100 and only subtract and fail them when they reach 0.

e.g. points can be

50 Latnum

10 knuts

$5.00

100 Points

Life force 100%

Node types

Scene - branching node

Warning - sends the user back and subtracts points or time.

Hint - can pause the timer if enabled, sends the user back to the previous node. This is meant to serve as a point of reflection.

Form - collect data using a survey or form at any point

Fail - Fails the user, but encourages them to restart.

Finish - The user finished the scenario successfully.

Scenario player try an example below. You can have custom branding.

Collaboration, Roles, and Permissions - invite other users to your account and share your scenarios or keep them private or invite others to edit.

Privacy controls - on the links, set a password, set expiration dates, add tags, require name and email.

Analytics - build your own visualizations and add them to a custom dashboard.

Individual decisions or aggregate basis, time it took, bonus and penalty

Device type, region, plays, etc....

Here are a few examples:

Player tester: [https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=04f42f51-d295-4a53-a909-...](https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=04f42f51-d295-4a53-a909-75ae87fd0c7e)

How a bill becomes a law: [https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=1c852406-8570-4af9-9afe-...](https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=1c852406-8570-4af9-9afe-90b2edf89ef9)

Slow the spread of COVID: [https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=007a7134-168d-4eb8-87f6-...](https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=007a7134-168d-4eb8-87f6-d9d3989951ee)

Trout Fly Fishing Recognition Challenge: [https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=a73f2afa-51bf-498d-98db-...](https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=a73f2afa-51bf-498d-98db- eaeea495298c)

Courtesy of a beta tester: Malware Disaster Recovery Scenario: [https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=acf5b1e6-e298-4a9b-92c5-...](https://app.mazetec.org/player?uuid=acf5b1e6-e298-4a9b-92c5-748eba8b69a2)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm also happy to discuss any of the technical details. Mazetec is the result of my Master's in computer science. I've made a lot of updates since last sharing on Reddit but you are welcome to see the post there: [https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/hgugsj/after_4_year...](https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/hgugsj/after_4_years_and_a_masters_degree_in_cs_i_give/)</comment></comment>


The Antarctic Ice Sheet Has Started to Collapse and Nothing Can Stop It - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/the-antarctic-ice-sheet-has-started-to-collapse-and-not-1575164209

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Here's the abstract from the Joghin-Smith-Medley paper[1] in _Science_ (the text of the paper itself is behind a paywall -- boo!):

> Resting atop a deep marine basin, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has long been > considered prone to instability. Using a numerical model, we investigate the > sensitivity of Thwaites Glacier to ocean melt and whether unstable retreat > is already underway. Our model reproduces observed losses when forced with > ocean melt comparable to estimates. Simulated losses are moderate (<0.25 mm > per year sea level) over the 21st Century, but generally increase > thereafter. Except possibly for the lowest-melt scenario, the simulations > indicate early-stage collapse has begun. Less certain is the timescale, with > onset of rapid (> 1 mm per year of sea-level rise) collapse for the > different simulations within the range of two to nine centuries.

[1] [https://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/05/12/science....](https://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/05/12/science.1249055)</comment>


When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents? - <AUTHOR> http://mentalfloss.com/article/29761/when-did-americans-lose-their-british-accents <comment><USER3> Slightly related to this.. much study has been done into the pronunciation at the time when Shakespeare's plays were originally performed (in the 1600s) principally so that the effect can be recreated.

You can check out what it sounded like at <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s> and various other videos. (Jump to 2m50s for the actual speech.)

The odd thing about this to my English ear is that the 1600s English pronunciation has a lot of similarities to that of the South West of England today, but perhaps this shouldn't be too surprising given this map of rhoticism in modern British English: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RhoticEngland2.png>

<comment><USER4> Just for future reference, if you right click on a video on youtube, you can click copy link at current time to lazy link to 2m50s so you don't have to say "jump to this time."

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gPlpphT7n9s#t=178s)

<comment><USER5> you can also just add &t=2m50s to the query string

<comment><USER6> You can also just right click on the marker and click "Copy video URL at current time."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The fascinating tl;dr: The British lost their English accents around the turn of the 19th century. As far as rhotic r's go, Americans still mostly speak the way Brits and Americans did in the 18th century.

<comment><USER8> A Brit' here, most British dialects are heavy on the R's. Whether that's the rural accents ranging from the Cornish (south west) to Norfolk (south east). Then you have the harsher sounding dialects of the north east - who also seem quite rhotic (or at least, the thicker accents are). Then you have the Welsh and -as mentioned in the article- the Scottish and Irish who all also emphasise their R's (it's quite amusing when I hang out with some of my Scottish friends as they can't pronounce "Karl", so every time they call his name, my other friend "Carol" answers!)

The ironic thing is, the way the English are perceived to speak isn't the way how 99% of English (let alone British) people speak. Even in London and it's overspills (the neighbouring counties), which is where our dialects are the least rhotic, most people don't pronounce themselves in the same way as they do in American TV. But I can understand why the stereotyped accent is used; it's a slower and more clearly spoken - which is ideal for broadcasting where the actor needs to be heard and understood by the audience. Many of the northern accents are spoken with such speed that it can be difficult for an untrained ear; even for some of us English! It's also a sexier dialect (few sane people would fall in love with a Geordie accent, Brummie or even Cockney, if they weren't already brought up in that area.

If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to find youtube videos for some of the more distinct dialects.

[edit]

Just been chatting to my wife about this. She's from the north east of England, I'm from the south. It seems I've overstated the amount of emphasis the north east places on their R's.

I'm not sure if I'm alone about this, but the funny thing about pronunciation is the moment you're asked to think about the way you pronounce a word, you've instantly forgotten how you normally talk!

<comment><USER9> Something that fascinated me while in the UK - subtitling accents. I mainly saw this (heard this?) with the Scottish, but other strong accents had this done also. It was the BBC I noticed this with.

<comment><USER10> This is very rare, I cannot recall seeing it in the last few years. Occasionally on news programmes. Most of the Scottish programmes are only shown there is BBC output is quite regional. You can get them online though now.

Welsh is subtitled but that's a different language...

<comment><USER9> It was 2000 a 2001 that I saw this, so things may well have changed in that time frame.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Informative article, but slightly inaccurate. General American is not "considered generally confined to a small section of the Midwest." This is a myth that I've heard a lot of Midwesterners propagate. Prior to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, the most identifiable broadcaster accent was probably the Inland North dialect, which is spoken mostly in western New York, northern Ohio, Michigan, northern Illinois, and Wisconsin. That's presumably the source of the myth. But today, that accent sounds very different from most other dialects of American English (for example, their short 'o' as in "block" sounds almost like most American's short 'a' in "black" and their short 'a' sounds like the non-rhotic diphthong that speakers of RP use for "air"). I've heard Iowans claim that their accent is the most standard, but that couldn't be further from the truth, as most Iowans have backed 'o's and 'u's a la Minnesota, in addition to subscribing to the cot/caught merger, etc. The reality is that there are seven or so dialect regions in the U.S. with lots of variation from place to place within those regions. Some metropolitan areas have their own distinct accents. In my experience, broadcasters tend to use features from their native accent as long as they aren't from the South or a region heavily affected by the aforementioned Northern Cities Vowel Shift.

One other inaccuracy is the article's claim that the British elite had much less influence in manufacturing hubs in the Mid Atlantic where Scots-Irish immigrants and nothern English speakers of rhotic dialects predominated. One specific example they give is New York. In reality, New York English was non- rhotic up until recently, and even now, a sizeable number of speakers either have a non-rhotic accent or drop their 'r's in certain environments. I don't know the history of the New York dialect or whether it become non-rhotic at the same time the Boston dialect did, but I'm assuming New York English was influenced more by Dutch, Italian, and Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants than by Scots-Irish and northern English immigrants, which would explain why it didn't follow the rhotic trend of the other Mid Atlantic cities that the article talks about.

<comment><USER12> I'm to understand that the accent used in the area around Omaha, Nebraska is most likely to be perceived as "accentless" by most Americans, so the standard broadcast English accent for American TV is closest to Nebraskan.

<comment><USER13> Most of the people in California speak in this "newscaster" version also. I don't think of it as a midwest accent at all, unless by "midwest" you include the entire West Coast.

As a great portion of entertainment and news is made on this side of the country I'd say it is the dominant accent wherever there isn't already a strong regional accent, i.e. the older cities in the east.

<comment><USER14> I think Southern California has a distinctive accent. I'm not a linguist and can't place exactly what it is, but I can definitely hear it very clearly. I think there's a hard "a" and dragging out syllables at the end of a sentence like a question - "surfer dude", "valley girl" etc are definitely a thing.

But you're right that so much broadcast comes from socal that nobody would notice it, as its definitely become broadcast standard for anything that's not the news (reality TV etc)...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I didn't know that the British originally spoke with an rhotic accent. The General American accent is supposedly how the British used to sound. Perhaps the title should be "When did the British lose their original accents?" as the Americans are the ones who (apparently) retained their original British accents.

<comment><USER16> The whole notion is nebulous because _both nations_ lost their original accents. Just watch videos of Americans speaking from a few decades ago and you'll see how much "General American" has changed in such a short period.

Secondly, given the abundance of regional accents in the UK, I doubt there was even a dominant accent in the American colonies at the time unless you're only counting the upper class.

<comment><USER17> If you are referring to TV and movies, those were adopted 'TransAtlantic' accents. It was never an organic accent, rather a made up one which would seem acceptable to everyone for TV, Movies, reportage, etc. It was cultivated via the Ivy league and such. In other words, that accent wasn't representative of any particular locale. It was adopted by the speaker.

If you watch really old interviews of ball players from the early part of the 20th C. They pretty much sound like today's vernacular English (ball players being from lower strate would not be exposed to the accent in boarding schools/college/uni). They don't sund like Gore Vidal or Cary Grant.

It was seen as 'cultured' as well.

<comment><USER18> Cary Grant was born British and lived in England until he was 16.

<comment><USER17> That very well may be, but he did not sound 'British' either. But we can reference FDR, if you like.

Here is a recording (performance) from 1908 [http://www.authentichistory.com/1898-1913/3-consume- leisure/...](http://www.authentichistory.com/1898-1913/3-consume- leisure/5-Baseball/19080000_Uncle_Josh_at_a_Ball_Game.html)

Ty Cobb interview 1930 <http://archive.org/details/Coca-Cola_Top_Notchers> (go to 11:20 mark)

More ball player clips from '40s or so. <http://archive.org/details/FiveOldMajorLeaguers>

Sounds a bit country, but not very unlike what one might hear in the country today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A bit OT but hopefully interesting nevertheless. This is apparently the original pronunciation for the works of Shakespeare <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlpphT7n9s> The entire video has some nice information but if you want to skip to an example of the original pronunciation, you can jump to 2:50.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've always thought this kind of analysis doesn't look closely enough at the impact of non-English-native speakers on the dominant accent of American English.

In other words, the vast majority of Americans are not from English-speaking countries, and the immigrants learned English when they arrived.

Thus the English spoken in the key port/immigrant destinations, plus the impact of all those immigrants' accents, should massively impact modern American English.

One theory I've come to is based on the fact that modern Dutch-speakers of English tend to have a very American (rather than Britsh) style accent. I propose that early New York, being Dutch and the most important immigrant gateway later on, probably had a bizarre Duthified English which had a scaled impact on generations of immigrants who came through New York.

Similar stories are probably found elsewhere.

<comment><USER21> The number of Dutch in early New York was pretty much insignificant for influencing the pronunciation of English, especially since there are many similar phonemes.

In regards to Dutch sounded more American, this a noticeable trend in a lot of younger Europeans (from my personal experience). Most Europeans learn British grammar and spelling, but get most of their audio from American movies, television, and songs. Therefore they end up having a 'Canadian' accent - speak similar to American English while spelling closer to British English.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting subject. As an avid traveler (from California) I've run into a few Brits and Aussies who (jokingly) looked down their noses at American pronunciation and spelling.

I didn't know much about it at the time. The more I've read however, it turns out that most of these "Americanisms" came from Britain, and are in most cases were dominant before the split. It was (mostly) the British who changed (though some regions still do it the "old" way).

The subject is a lot more complicated, and in a few cases the people I met were wrong. For example:

* -ize (Greek, Oxford), -ise French!

* Rhotic (R) pronunciation (Southwest Br., American, Irish, Scottish English, etc.)

* RP took hold in the 19th century. (see the Shakespeare in OP video link on this page.)

</comment><comment><USER22> it's a common question on r/linguistics and r/askhistorians:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k8t7s/when_did_am...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/k8t7s/when_did_americans_lose_their_british_accent/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/l1z1b/did_the_f...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/l1z1b/did_the_founding_fathers_have_american_accents/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/vr14o/can_someo...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/vr14o/can_someone_from_rlinguistic_form_a_comprehensive/)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/rlv3j/would_a...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/rlv3j/would_americans_at_the_time_of_the_revolution)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/t9frm/differe...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/t9frm/differences_in_american_and_british_english)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/d82bv/did_americans...](http://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/d82bv/did_americans_in_1776_have_british_accents/)

although how is this hacker news?

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm always fascinated by the general obliviousness displayed by questions like these. I realize the headline is just a simplified way to introduce the topic, but there really are a lot of people out there who think that we all spoke like the Brits at some point before, and Americans "lost" the accent. The number of people who don't realize that there's no such thing as "no accent" always astounds me.

</comment><comment><USER24> Surprises me when I've seen this question that nobody brings up the topic of non-native English speakers.

The Scandinavian, German, Italian, Polish, Gaelic, etc eventually stopped speaking their own language and took up English. Presumably there was a result from this inheritance?

<comment><USER25> Also Irish people, who mostly spoke English but obviously with an Irish accent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> In West Virginia, they really didn't. If you want to know how high-class Englishmen sounded during the Glorious Revolution of the 1680s, go to backcountry WV.

Varmint is the corruption of the upper-class pronunciation of vermin, as one example.

The so-called mid-atlantic accent of modern Brits is a different phenomenon that is more often discussed, and its downfall can be traced to the collapse of the three broadcast networks. Individuals adopted the accent to come across as more trustworthy, similar to the Baskerville font trustworthiness: [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all- ye-...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/hear-all-ye-people- hearken-o-earth/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I have a friend from Hong Kong, and she has an English accent, having being educated in British schools.

For fun, I asked her to talk in an American accent, and what fascinated me, is that she talked with an almost exactly Southern accent. So maybe the Southern accent is a vestigial accent leftover from the transition from British to American accent.

<comment><USER28> Did you enquire further about it. I can probably, with effort, muster 3 distinct USA accents that I'd label Southern, New York and West-Coast - <USER2> they'd be based on mass media.

I'd say people can often do several USA accents because they're used to hearing a lot en_US speakers from Hollywood movies.

What always freaks me out a little is when you visit some out of the way place, Gambia say, and they talk in USA accents because they've learnt English either from films or Voice of America.

<comment><USER29> Non-native English speakers _attempting_ a general American accent they've picked up from media or US teachers is the rule rather than the exception. You know Britain has left behind a strong colonial legacy when they don't. What freaked _me_ out was a Burmese English teacher speaking with the sort of Cockney accent that's only ever heard in low budget British gangster films.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> On the same note, I find it equally intriguing how Dutch and South African languages are similar. Afrikaans is a lot like 17th century Dutch, which is a lot different than modern Dutch. Unlike English, which changed to a much lesser extend. But I don't have to try hard to follow Afrikaans.

<comment><USER31> Afrikaans is basically 17-century Dutch, though.

<comment><USER30> Parts of it are, but there's a good portion of loan words from other 'occupying countries' such as Portuguese, but also Malay (from the Dutch slave trade era) and some native African languages such as Khoisan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> We had a girl at school whos family left for america when she was in the 2nd year at high school, she returned for a visit 2 years later and had a american accent. Two factors I believe that influence accents:

1) Climate - humidity mostly influencial - Manchester having a more nasal accent and also more rain than most parts of the UK being one important factor.

2) What we hear - more so younger age and I would say upto the age of 25 you are still influenced, maybe later or maybe younger for some people. But certianly what you hear when growing up, upto a point has a influence upon you. Call it the memeaccenting if you like, younger you are the more influenced you are.

So even if they all had the same accents, the enviroment would be a factor and over time and influences external (America is not just legacy British people, germanic and others I'm sure above and beyond natives at the start).

So can see over time it more a factor than anything for the changes, but in a World which has reduced travel from years, to months to weeks to days and hours, we have a more blured line ahead of us when it comes to accents in the not too distant future.

Beyond spelling though, how would you define the differences between an American and a British accent as in some parts of America the difference is not that much in comparision to some parts of Britian.

But I'm sure somebody will just say it is all down to dental care and as a British person I too will laugh at that one :).

</comment><comment><USER33> Related thread from a couple years ago: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1486017>

And the follow-up: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1489723>

</comment><comment><USER34> This might be an interesting video (<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIZgw09CG9E>) - its a video of Tangier, VA where they still speak English from when the town was settled in 1600s.

<comment><USER35> The notion that some areas still speak the original language was debunked in the linked article.

<comment><USER36> The original article doesn't debunk it, it states without giving a single citation that "claims about the accents of the Appalachian Mountains, the Outer Banks, the Tidewater region and Virginia's Tangier Island sounding like an uncorrupted Elizabethan-era English accent have been busted as myths by linguists."

Most likely his source is a single linguist, Dr. Michael Montgomery, who is from Knoxville and has written several articles on "Appalachian English", but which articles actually pertain only to East Tennessee rural english, and not other parts of the Appalachians.

Here are all his articles on the topic:

<http://artsandsciences.sc.edu/engl/dictionary/articles.html>

He does a good summary of the language of that region and can be reasonably considered an expert. He makes a convincing argument that much of the novel vocabulary is Scotch-Irish vocabulary from the early settlers of the area. He makes a less convincing argument that since the mountain people of the region are not familiar with idioms of Shakespeare, their speech is not related in any way to Elizabethan English. Elizabethan era people did not speak exactly the way Shakespeare wrote though. Pilgrims so desperate from religious oppression by the Church of England at the time to would not necessarily be experts in Shakespearean idioms.

Dr. Montgomery's articles are certainly worth a read and make many reasonable arguments about the dialects he is familiar with. The notion that the idea that any archaic language dialects have influenced certain dialect pockets that have survived to the present has been debunked, and such an opinion is held by all linguists is not established, cited or proven by the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't mind it so much when British English speakers take out the 'r' in words. What bugs the hell out of me is when they add the 'r' in places where it doesn't belong. Why they do this, I have no idear.

<comment><USER38> Americans do that too, if you count New Englanders. :) I find it funny that Bostonians pronounce "Korea" and "career" close to swapped from the way I do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> There's an 8 hour BBC documentary about the History of English if you're interested

<http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/story-of-english/>

I found it pretty fascinating like spelling use to be all over the place but in the UK the most successful publisher of the King James Bible is basically what became the standard way. In the USA it was a textbook that was used in pretty much all schools for most if its history.

</comment><comment><USER40> What amazes me is that in a couple of generations the accents of all the regions change (including England itself with the hard _r_ , apparently). In the case of the US I'm curious if accents stay the same once geographically stable. Once we became more mobile in the early-mid 20th century, are accents changing faster with the influx of diversity as folks move around?

<comment><USER41> Mobility is something of a linguistic equalizer, especially at a young age. If children travel around the country (or the world) being exposed to many different accents, the dialect features start to blend together.

See also: Radio and television.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This sort of thing is much easier to understand if you think of languages as living, changing organisms rather than as static constructs. They actually change rather quickly, from generation to generation. Large human migrations tend to homogenize in the sense that they result in a single dialect propagating over a large land mass. But then they continue to diverge regionally over time in rather random ways, to the point where every city in a given country, or even every neighborhood in every city in the country, will develop its own distinct dialect. London is a good example--it's a city that's been inhabited mostly by the same ethnic group for many centuries, and their language tree has branched to the point where people of different districts and social classes there use very different-sounding pronunciation.

</comment><comment><USER43> A quick visit to Harkers Island, NC would have shown the author that not ALL Americans have lost their British accents. There's a perfectly thick Elizabethan British twang applied to American language by most of the inhabitants there.

</comment><comment><USER44> We used to do boomer patrols out of Holy Loch, we were there for a two week turnover period. By the end of the two weeks, half the crew had at least a slightly noticeable Scottish accent. Every time.

</comment><comment><USER45> This article discusses Dialects of America English in terms of relation to British migration between (1607-1775): [http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/Amer...](http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects.htm)

Interesting that drawl in South of US came from drawl in South England. Also, interesting that Britain has more dialects than any US, Canada, Australia, combined. But I guess their dialect had more time to evolve before mass communication

</comment><comment><USER46> This is like asking when humans stopped being monkeys.

<comment><USER47> Not quite, because people are still monkeys. :) I'd say we lost our British accent when we stopped being British.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> when british english was transplanted to north america, a separate geographic context was created for one and the same language. a relative isolation was imposed by an ocean between them, and each continued to change over time. british and american english descend from a common ancestor.

</comment><comment><USER49> I've noticed that the Aborigines in Australia sound a lot like other Australians.

No doubt these groups influenced each other. And that probably happened in the US too. And now they are being shaped by asian and Mexican immigrants too.</comment>


Chuck Schumer's No-Fly-Zone Rule for Drones Won't Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/08/chuck-schumer-no-fly-zone-drones/119389/?oref=d-channelriver <comment><USER2> I doubt the geofencing is intended to thwart DEFCON attendees who intentionally wish to update the onboard geofencing database. What it will probably be largely effective for is the other 99% of drone fliers, some of whom fly their drones too close to airports likely because they are completely ignorant and oblivious of the rules and inherent danger in what they are doing.</comment>


North Carolina Voting Law Targeted African-Americans "With Surgical Precision" - <AUTHOR> http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/07/circuit-court-north-carolina-law-targeted-african-americans-surgical-precision <comment><USER2> What's amazing to me is that people who bill themselves as "protectors of our liberty" have the audacity to blatantly subvert the democratic process that they claim to hold dear. Changing the voting rules to remove the ability of people to vote, it's madness. I find it repugnant. We (the US) should guard the right to vote for all people by making voting days mandatory time off. We should also relax the voting ID laws. Fraud has never been an issue, NEVER.

<comment><USER3> >voting days mandatory time off.

Think about that for a minute. If it were a full mandatory day off, then basically no retail could possibly be open. And people who are paid hourly are often those who can't afford to take a day off at all. Maybe a mandatory paid two hours?

Making it trivial to vote by mail, on the other hand, means that people can vote whenever. Like they do in Colorado: Universal vote-by-mail packages are sent to every registered voter. [1]

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/23/colorado-all- mail-e...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/23/colorado-all-mail- election_n_6037028.html)

<comment><USER2> You know, some small cities in Europe (thinking of Germany) shut down for "quiet time" after lunch. Guess what happens? Nothing bad, life goes on. You know what would happen in America, we couldn't buy stuff for an hour or two. You know what else would happen? The voices of the people that make this country run would be heard.

Make it half days for two days. You can easily identify "critical" services like medical/fire/police and stagger them or have early voting. Things like this work, and they work well. Doesn't matter how long, two hours would likely be fine. I've had problems getting to vote in that amount of time. I've waited in a line at a Texas polling station for more than that (which is why I said a day).

These voting laws are only half the problem. Maybe via mail would fix the issue. I doubt people who decry "voter fraud" would trust mail-in ballots.

<comment><USER4> Mail-in ballots are wonderful. They have them in Oregon (I used to live there), it's great:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by- mail_in_Oregon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vote-by-mail_in_Oregon)

And fraud is negligible (tl;dr, 13 cases of confirmed voter fraud since 2000):

[http://www.ktvz.com/news/early-look-how-prevalent-is- voter-f...](http://www.ktvz.com/news/early-look-how-prevalent-is-voter-fraud- in-oregon/38043382)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can read the oral arguments in the Supreme Court case that struck down the preclearance part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965: [https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf)

Under that rule, the federal government had the power to prevent changes to voting rules.

To me, the most interesting part of the oral arguments was this exchange:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: General, is it -- is it the government's submission that the citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North?

GENERAL VERRILLI: It is not

</comment><comment><USER6> As bad as this looks, what are the black lawmakers in NC doing? What's the democratic leadership in the NC congress doing?

Don't they know how to put up a fight?

<comment><USER7> > the black lawmakers in NC

There are none. The system has been rigged against them for so long that they have zero representation even though they're a decent portion of the population.

See: [https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/NC#representatives](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/NC#representatives)

There's not a single non-white member of NC's representation.

NC is also one of the most gerrymandered states there is, so it's almost impossible for change to happen.

Also, there's hardly any democratic representation, again due to historical gerrymandering.

Please don't accuse those that are being oppressed while not being present. It's bad enough they're getting screwed over, it doesn't help for someone who doesn't understand the situation to accuse them for "letting it happen".

<comment><USER8> You linked to the US congress and US senate instead of the NC house of representatives and senate.

[http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChambe...](http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=senate)

[http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChambe...](http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/members/memberList.pl?sChamber=House)

There are 10 black senators and 20 representatives, by my count, out of 50 and 120, respectively.</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook execs getting destroyed after botching handling a massive data breach - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-data-breach-reactions-executives-response-twitter-2018-3 <comment><USER2> It's ironic that facebook uses its apps (VPN, instagram, messages, fb, fb.com) and position to collect user data on users in a similar way to these people did. Tons of apps and integrations built on facebook shovel data back to facebook. It's kind of funny that they are upset someone used an app to take some of their data out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bad title.</comment>


Amazon building its own overnight airfreight operation, sources say - <AUTHOR> http://cargofacts.com/exclusive-e-commerce-giant-amazon-is-building-its-own-overnight-airfreight-operation-sources-say/ <comment><USER2> Amazon handling its own logistics is going to be a big problem for UPS. I have a friend who works for the AP and recently visited a large distribution facility for a story. He said UPS does over 1M packages a day and anecdotally he said it seemed like every other package was Amazon or Zappos (an Amazon company). I wonder how UPS will react.

I was in awe hearing about the incredible efficiency of the operation. Apparently the delivery of 1M packages happens between the hours of 1am and 4am and over 300 planes fly in to be loaded before heading out later that morning.

<comment><USER3> Having lived in Louisville, KY (location of UPS Worldport, where much of this shipping takes place) I can attest to the nightly takeoffs/landings every 30-60 seconds or so

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good for them. There's no real competition between Fedex and UPS. Both raise their rates around 5% every year, even with fuel costs dropping dramatically. The claims process is specifically designed to be difficult.

Might be more interesting if Amazon decides to open up to outside customers and re-instates real competition. Both UPS and Fedex had better rates and service when DHL was still competing with intra-US shipments.

<comment><USER5> Fuel costs have an incredibly low short (or even medium) term impact on overall costs. It is a major expense and absolute necessity for these companies to even operate, they are probably incredibly hedged. It would take years of low prices (with confidence that they will stay low) for it to have a large impact.

<comment><USER4> So, it's a major expense, but would require "years of low prices" to have an impact? Huh?

Fuel and "Purchased Transportation" (also indexed to fuel costs) are their two largest cost categories.

They pass hedging costs directly via fuel surcharges, which is unrelated to rate hikes.

"Both FedEx and UPS reported that fuel costs were down about 35% from the year earlier in their most recent quarter"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it interesting that the Google, Apple and especially Amazon have become very successful by going against the orthodoxy of the last few decades which was outsourcing everything that wasn't a core business because you can't possibly do it efficiently.

If these companies followed prevailing MBA business thinking, their products and services would be as mediocre as many other large but floundering fortune 500s.

<comment><USER7> Interesting, but consider that, in general, they probably _did_ outsource some aspects early on, and learned the lessons needed. In most cases, the example you give are just too large for anything they do to be outsourced to anyone else - few other companies operate on Amazon scale.

The "outsource everything" mantra may also be fueled in part by VC firms who also just happen to be funding a bunch of other companies that... look at that... provide some of the services you should outsource. Many years ago, on a small scale, I had discussions with a small VC firm. In exchange for their investment, we were also expected to use some of the other companies in their network whenever possible (media/marketing/other tech/etc). That seems a bit of an extreme scenario, but i can't imagine this doesn't ever happen at all.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps most interestingly, Amazon appears to be in negotiations to purchase 20 brand new 767 freighters directly from Boeing.

<comment><USER8> That is odd. Don't most airlines work through a 3rd party that actually purchases and owns the planes?

<comment><USER9> Notably, Amazon and Boeing are both based in Seattle. The executives probably golf together. It's also possible that the two companies might receive some sort of Washington State tax subsidy for the deal.

Edit: I stand corrected... Although I still wouldn't be surprised if the execs golf together. :)

<comment><USER10> Its not even the Chicago thing; Amazon execs don't golf.

<comment><USER11> Yes, they just order golf ball on Amazon and set it to be delivered to a hole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As companies grow bigger, the de-modularization of the economy increases. Not something to be very excited about.

<comment><USER13> What does this mean in layman terms? (I'm genuinely asking for a simpler explanation.)

<comment><USER14> High modularity refers to when a system's components can be cleanly separated and recombined.

If I were to guess, I'd say that amelius is saying that it becomes increasingly common as companies grow for them to expand into functions that were originally outside their core function. Framed this way, "selling stuff online" may have once set an effective upper bound on what Amazon does, but now they appear to be expanding into "moving stuff from place to place."

This concept is related to vertical integration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would love to see the financial analysis of this move. Paying for the leases on 20 737-300Fs is not going to be cheap, but it must be letting them cut costs somewhere important.

<comment><USER16> You can lease those class of aircraft for about 100-150K per year, might be even cheaper for cargo configurations. A 20 year old 737-300 today would cost around 4-5M these days, so a fleet of 20 would cost Amazon around 100M which while is allot of money is some pretty much pocket change for them.

<comment><USER17> I'm pretty sure Amazon is not going to invest in a fleet of 20 year old airplanes.

<comment><USER18> 20 years is _young_ for a cargo fleet. Passenger airlines in developed countries often aim to have an average fleet age younger than that, but the planes are built to fly for 20, 30, 40 years and sometimes more.

And remember that the maintenance procedures, mandated by law, for commercial aircraft are kind of insane. The analogy to a car (since everything has to have an analogy to a car) would be:

Every time you're about to get in the car and drive somewhere, first you do a full walk-around inspection of the exterior, then inspect all the lights, vents, wipers, horn, and so on. If anything is in less than perfect condition, you don't drive the car until it's been fixed.

Every ten days, you drop the car off overnight at a garage. They do a full fluid check, tire check and rotation, alignment, lubricate everything, and if they find anything less than perfect it gets fixed before driving again.

Once a month, oil change, filters replaced, new battery. If there's visible wear on the tires, replace them.

Every two years or so, you pull out the engine and replace it.

Every five years, you have the car completely disassembled and reassembled, replacing any part that's even the slightest bit worn or fatigued or shows any detectable amount of corrosion.

If you maintained a car this way, the car would last damn near forever. This _is_ how planes are maintained, and is why they last as long as they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you're really interested in looking more at this, look at the flightaware stats for the flights going out of KILN -- Wilmington, Ohio.

Outside of a Corporate Jet going to New Orleans (R&L Carriers), it's all ABX Air traffic...and it's going to airports near major Amazon Warehouses (Lehigh Valley/Allentown was the biggest one that came to mind when I was looking at the flights).

Atlas (ABX Air Competitor) doesn't have a lot of wiggle room -- they're doing freight contracts for DHL and PAX contracts for the Oil and Gas companies to Africa right now.

I think what Amazon's doing right now is moving or rebalancing the freight -- something that they've traditionally done via semi -- in order to get it in place for the holiday season. It will be interesting to me to see if these flights continue to keep up during the slower months in the beginning of the year.

</comment><comment><USER20> Amazon Air ® .... They will probably buy the planes and lease excess capacity to FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, et al.

</comment><comment><USER21> I just wrote a post about Amazon's air freight operation and how it may affect UPS and FedEx

[https://www.flexport.com/blog/amazons-new-fleet-of- jets/](https://www.flexport.com/blog/amazons-new-fleet-of-jets/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Lately, I've been getting my Amazon deliveries by street-clothed people driving around in rental vans. (in NJ)

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder how this reflects on the corporate-state relationship between USPS and Amazon?

<comment><USER24> That is what I was thinking and then I realized how UPS offloads delivery to USPS. It could be because they are overloaded.

Further, there is too much risk and loss of power when UPS's biggest customer is just one company. UPS probably doesn't want that risk and it would rather stay moderately sized than put all of its eggs in one basket.

But more importantly, it is Amazon that is taking these steps and I predict, because they have been hiring large swaths of people that many years ago they would not have even thought of, Amazon is beginning to think about doing business over the course of the next hundred years. It is preparing for those hundred years now, knowing that airplanes will be integral to continue meeting demand. These airplanes will most likely run side by side with their partner delivery companies.

<comment><USER25> The USPS stuff was historically corporate welfare that let UPS and Fedex have a third party handle unprofitable delivery.

USPS is beefing up its parcel operations and is getting more competitive. Generally speaking, in my city the post office performs better for most ground scenarios, mostly because they are separating parcel delivery from the standard routes.

<comment><USER23> That is the exact opposite experience in my part of the world. The local post offices have become fiefdoms.

I could not find any accountability without having to go through Amazon. And the USPS claims poverty with what's left of their 5 billion dollars surplus still sitting in their pension fund.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I believe logistics has become a weakness for Amazon. Other retailers seem to handle most of their warehousing and logistics on their own (?). Amazon reduced the need for warehousing but seemed to have become totally dependent on other companies for logistics. For long time they benefited from tax breaks and users willingness to wait few days for packages to get delivered. With price matching offered by several other retail stores, and Amazon thinking of starting their own retail stores, it makes sense to invest in their own logistics as well. I guess they would like to differentiate themselves in the long run as a ship-to-door retail company with excellent customer experience.

</comment><comment><USER27> This article and the comments here seem to focus on the cargo flight portion of delivery, but how are they planning on getting it to the door?

<comment><USER28> That's sort of a different project. They are already building up infrastructure for local delivery via amazonfresh and their same day delivery services, but can also still use UPS or FedEx for to ship from their local terminal.

<comment><USER27> It'll be interesting if there's any guarantees. UPS and Fedex use the USPS for last mile, and all guarantees go out the window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm wondering if Apple will start doing the same.

<comment><USER4> Apple doesn't ever seem interested in providing something that's a commodity. If they did get into it, I assume it would only be for some premium, same-day type service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting! Maybe the plan is to launch drones directly from the flying 767 the same way military planes drop vehicles!

<comment><USER31> I'm not sure if that makes a lot of sense... how would they recover the drones? Drones have a pretty short range.

<comment><USER16> If they can solve launching a drone from altitude from an aircraft without a rear cargo door at 250MPH without shredding it to pieces finding an efficient means of collecting them would be an easy task.</comment></comment></comment>


SecondMarket's 2012 Year in Review - <AUTHOR> https://www.secondmarket.com/education/uncategorized/secondmarkets-2012-year-in-review-report

<comment><AUTHOR> Not surprising that employees made up 66% of private stock sellers.</comment>