FillardMillmore

I wouldn't begin to claim I have a solution, but I think there's steps Twitter can take to show they are acting in good faith. I believe often times, Twitter flags accounts for suspicious activity - for accounts to be reactivated, a phone number has to be provided. If Twitter wanted to, are they not capable of deploying an algorithm that serves as a dragnet to catch accounts that tick off multiple check-boxes for bot activity and flag them? This would not mean that the account would immediately be banned or shadow-banned, but they could provide some kind of visual indicator to other users that the account in question has recently been flagged for bot-like activity (on the account's comments, retweets, etc.).

Not to be too pedantic, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think "The Russian Hoax" more specifically refers to the beliefs/claims by some that Trump or his campaign was colluding with Russia directly to interfere with the election rather than simply the belief/claim/fact that Russia (or Russians) interfered in the election of their own volition.

I'm a subscriber to and weekly reader of the Economist and I am more than happy to pay for the quality of reporting that I receive. That said, I wish there was some way that HN could indicate (on the article link on site's feed) that content is paywalled.

I obviously cant speak for the OP, but theres something to be said for putting yourself in a situation that requires discipline and resistance of temptation (though you're absolutely correct, in this case, most certainly not a good idea for everyone). Completely tangential, but I've come to think of Gandhi's celibacy tests with naked women in this way.

Granted, Java was one of the first programming languages I seriously learned (in university no less). The camelCase syntax became somewhat of a second nature to me, and indeed, I even internalized the idea that it simply looked better that way. I understand that syntax preferences and capitalization are mostly just preference, but are there strong arguments against the use of camelCase, or rather, in favor of something different?

I'm completely ignorant in the legal texts/contracts area, but they don't use parenthesis and lists? That seems hard to believe - or is it that they just don't use it to indicate precedence and order?

I even look to Reddit when I am looking to buy something, because as pointed out above, Reddit often presents people with a more objective view on a product in contrast to the results you'd get simply from a generic Google query on the product.

Thanks for all the responses everyone - I understood this concept but failed to apply it here (where it most certainly does apply).

Dont know if anyone is still keeping tabs on this thread, but apparently Trump's "CDC budget cuts" are a falsehood. He proposed cuts but was overruled by congress. In fact, CDC received an increase in funding. See the following link:

https://apnews.com/49de80242dd8b58bd34af7cb19f1323a

> MIKE BLOOMBERG: “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded — he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.” — Democratic presidential debate Tuesday.

JOE BIDEN, comparing the Obama-Biden administration with now: “We increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget. ... He’s wiped all that out. ... He cut the funding for the entire effort.”

THE FACTS: They’re both wrong to say the agencies have seen their money cut. Bloomberg is repeating the false allegation in a new ad that states the U.S. is unprepared for the virus because of “reckless cuts” to the CDC. Trump’s budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there’s strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH. Instead, financing has increased.

You're certainly correct, a solution does not require a benefit to the manufacturer. I suppose I was thinking about it from more of a laissez-faire point of view - that is essentially, how can we have our cake and eat it too (or in this case, our cheap soda)?

If the government passed laws/regulation that mandated certain packaging requirements for companies like Coca Cola, that would be a top-down solution and Coca Cola would have to comply, lest they wish to face steep fines and litigation.

In regards to soda, you're right - consumption taxes have proven effective. I believe cigarette taxes have proven effective in the same way. But an environmentally effective top-down solution would of course apply to many more consumables that just soda, sugar cakes and other generally unhealthy items. It's possible that top down regulation could push costs higher for smaller companies that offer healthy options in environmentally unfriendly packages. If costs are too high for smaller companies like these, then there may be fewer healthy alternative options (because we know Little Debbie and Coca Cola aren't going anywhere, regulations or not). This is obviously a very generalized example - in reality, many of the healthy/organic foods items already come in environmentally-friendly packaging.

> Maybe as more people become aware of recycling inefficiencies, we'll start diverting dollars go businesses that focus on longevity and reusability of their products?

Sounds good to me in theory, but the confusion for me has always been: how do you overhaul the packaging of all these small consumable items (like Pepsi and Coke) so they're either more easily recyclable or reusable and also benefit the manufacturer at the same time? I'm sure the government can create incentives but will that be enough? Will people be willing to pay more money for a more environmentally friendly option if a less environmentally friendly but more affordable option exists?

So widespread in fact that it's even hitting those with high positions in the Iranian government. The most recent example being Mohammad Mir-Mohammadi, an adviser to the Ayatollah.

https://www.businessinsider.com/iran-supreme-leader-khamenei...

> But where are the dozens of indie hits that helped bolster the libraries of Sony's PlayStation 4, Microsoft's Xbox One, and Nintendo's Switch? Where are the games like "Bloodstained," "Shovel Knight," "Dead Cells," and "Untitled Goose Game" — the blockbuster indie games that sell millions of copies and inspire sequels?

I think this points to a somewhat more important problem for Google. As the article points out, to incentivize developers and their studios to do the work to move their games to the Stadia platform, Google would need to offer to them the benefit of a base of dedicated users. If we consider that many prospective users may already be using Steam or home gaming consoles, the question becomes: how does Google attract these users to their platform? In my opinion, as someone who has played games from an early age, the best way to do that would be to either develop a game for the platform themselves (however feasible that may be) or hire a studio to produce a game for the platform with at least a temporary exclusivity deal. I've known many young kids throughout my childhood who were inspired to go out and get a game system simply because there's that one game that can't be played anywhere else. Whether it's Mario on Nintendo, Halo on Microsoft, or Uncharted on Sony, every gaming platform has historically had exclusive games that can't be played anywhere else. Imagine if Google Stadia had secured Fortnite as an exclusive game - Fortnite would probably have not been as successful as it is now, but Stadia may likely have received a serious boost in consumer attention, all things staying the same.

Im going to assume this is tongue-in-cheek, but if you happen to find a way to copy Mario 64 to a stone tablet, I'd love to hear about it.

It does make you wonder though, how interested is the general public in figures like Assange and Snowden? How much interest and knowledge does the general public have in them compared to pop culture figures?

Just to be clear, I don't think Assange would be considered "problematic" for anything like xenophobia, but rather his history of aiding and facilitating the release of information that governments find to be inconvenient.

Coming from someone who does not use Twitter and knows little about it, what do you think constitutes a 'public figure' in Twitter's view? Someone who can sell out an arena? Someone who writes a blog read by tens of thousands of people? A Youtuber with 2000 subscribers?

Can Congress vote to provide emergency funding to the CDC to make up for the cuts?

Both probably play a role in the equation of how China and the PRC has acted thus far in the wake of the disease. I certainly don't think China is acting with some far greater knowledge of the virus than other affected states/countries. The virus genome has been mapped and the world is working on developing a vaccine (I believe I read a recent story that Hong Kong claims they developed one). Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), any kind of vaccine will need to go through phases of testing and validation to ensure its efficacy and this process will inevitably take time. That time will regrettably see more people fall victim to Covid-19.

Of course, China was also probably worried about the economic and political repercussions of appearing to the world as not being strong or proactive enough in its response. So much of the global supply chain relies on China that even having the resemblance of not being in control of the situation would have produced a far greater economic bloodbath than we've seen thus far.

Opinions are obviously split here among HNers about the merits of Brave and what it's actually trying to achieve.

I can only speak for myself but I find that Brave as a daily driver is a wonderful browser. Since it's built on Chromium, it has all the common extensions I use with Chrome (Dark Reader, uBlock Origin, etc.). It has built-in Tor and a rich set of default privacy features. The ads it provides are opt-in and the way that it allows the user to choose which website/content creators to reward allows a level of freedom to users that other browsers typically don't.

I don't know about the ethics behind everything Brave is doing - but this built in functionality of 404 redirects with the help of the IA/Wayback Machine is, to me, an interesting and welcome feature. I did not know, before reading this thread, that other browsers had plugins/extensions available for this. The fact that Brave is simply building it in natively seems to be a bold move. If other browsers adopt similar functionality natively, we'll know that it was a winning move. When all is said and done, despite any missteps Brave may be making, it is trying a different approach, and I think that in the end, whether or not Brave succeeds, that's healthy for a competitive browser ecosystem.

Edit: One thing I'd really like to see for Brave's mobile browser in the future is the ability to use Chrome extensions - it seems completely strange to me that this hasn't been implemented yet (if I'm slow on the uptake and this capability has been added, please correct me)

Fraud detection is comprised of a lot of interesting data science and pattern recognition (example being utilization of graph databases like Neo4j and its advantages over traditional RDBMSs of index free adjacency) not to mention the leveraging of ML. If the business paying me to implement this sort of thing is 'stupid' and 'boring' (whatever your definition of that is in the context of a business), why would that make the act of working and implementing fraud prevention any less of an interesting endeavor?

http://we-yun.com/book/%E5%9B%BE%E6%95%B0%E6%8D%AE%E5%BA%93%...

I like Perl, but it's had a bit of an identity crisis since Perl 6. I believe late last year, they renamed it to Raku as a 'solution' to this identity crisis. I still think Perl can get the job done in a lot of different circumstances and, despite the fact that it's not really used as widely for web tooling as it was in the late '90s, it's still an invaluable scripting tool for sysadmins still willing to dip their toes in and learn it. As others have noted, the 'shiny new toy' effect has made Perl less attractive, but I think Perl has unfairly gotten a bad rap, especially in regards to opinions of how 'ugly' the language is - I tend to think it's more elegant than ugly. And of course, any programming language can be ugly - all depends on how clever the programmer in question wants to be.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raku_(programming_language)

So are you implying that you're not filled with the spirit of the proletariat when you program in PHP?

I'm definitely going to check it out.

And slavery, you say? How does this manifest? Are we talking about Somalian pirates conscripting poor people in third world countries or something? I have read that following the collapse of Libya after Qaddafi's overthrow, things degenerated so badly that slaves began to be bought and sold and are even sold there today - but I suppose I've never dug too deep into who's buying them and for what purpose.

And I love a good memoir, especially of a seafarer! That'll be going straight on my Amazon wishlist, thanks!

Thanks a lot for taking the time to share your experience. There's probably not many better ways to learn about the realities of a foreign country than by chatting with someone who actually lived there and can tell stories from first-hand experience. It's also somewhat curious that the ties of our professions (programming, development, IT) can serve as the channel by which this information is shared - as always, my appreciation of HN in this regard is immense.

> Good and enlightening Soviet science shows were replaced with gross shows showing nudity and all kinds of fake science (psychics, UFO freaks, etc). Academics running the old shows said that they were closed specifically by request from the very top. Same for education: it was deliberately destroyed by direct guidance of US advisers.

This bit in particular intrigued me. What would be the point of steering science and public academia in this way? To lower the level of public discourse to the advantage of the US? I did not realize such things were so tightly guided by US advisers after the collapse, though I hold no illusions that Boris Yeltsin was lobbied for and supported by the US (it might more accurately be described as 'election meddling' - which made it ironic during the investigation into Russian meddling in US elections that very few news outlets were brave enough to address the actions of the US in other countries' elections and in Russia's in particular).

> Everybody just reinforces the same old meme how "repressive" was Soviet society and how everybody was happy to become free (just conveniently omit the ending: "free from education, free from having work, free from having enough food, free from having self-esteem").

Many here in the US claim that Gorbachev's policies of Glasnost and Perestroika contributed to the momentum of the collapse. I've heard it said before that while many here in the US hail Gorbachev as a kind of unwitting hero (due to this contribution and his affectations and coordination with Reagan), many who lived through his time in power view him more as the one who ruined everything his forebears had worked to build and achieve. Just for my own edification and curiosity, can you speak to how he's commonly viewed by former citizens of the Soviet Union?

Your take on news consumption is cogent and refreshing. Many of us probably pay more attention to it than necessary. As for social media, if you use it responsibly, it can be a net benefit rather than a net detriment. I've personally excised myself from social media because I don't agree with their data privacy practices. I don't know what social media you use, but Facebook has a feature I believe where you can deactivate your account - for 30 days (or so), you can log back in and reactivate your account without losing anything. At the very least, it could be useful for a trial run if you simply want to attempt to get rid of it without the risk of losing everything if you decide you want to keep it two weeks later.

That book does sound interesting, thanks for the recommendation. Though the global shipping industry is not usually what I read about in my leisure time, this sounds like a worthwhile venture.

I definitely don't think this is legal (disclaimer though: I am not a lawyer), unless your manager is also a MD, but even then, I don't think it's legal unless he's acting in that capacity.

If, as you note, you are no longer working there, I wouldn't worry yourself too much about it unless you think that you do have focus issues. If that's the case, I would try correcting the problem in non-medical ways first. There's a number of things you can try - keep a tidy workspace, listen to soothing music if possible, try meditation, keep a low sugar diet, etc. If you feel that you've expended your options, consult your doctor.

Interesting idea, it sounds like it would certainly be technically possible. But what about the legality? If an owner can't be readily identified, would there be any legal problem with a foreign government placing a GPS beacon on a derelict ship? As others have pointed out, maritime law can be somewhat antiquated in ways, perhaps this is a legal grey zone?

I see the ignorance of my question now - essentially the question was borne out of a lack of knowledge about how common the name 'Svetlana' is. The only 'Svetlana' I knew about was Stalin's daughter. My brain made a connection where one didn't exist.

You are most certainly correct about the lack of understanding in the West about Russian/Soviet realities. Do you have any books you'd recommend to aid in an understanding of this? I recently picked up 'Everyday Stalinism' by Sheila Fitzpatrick - focusing on the lives of the average person during Stalin's time in power but it certainly casts a more negative light on this time than positive. With that said, I'd be more than interested in reading accounts that cast a more positive light on things. I've also read 'Khrushchev Lied' by Grover Furr - this book focuses more on half-truths and omissions of truth made in Khrushchev's secret speech about Stalin. Reading about Grover's history, it would seem he is not entirely unbiased but there were details in there that gave pause for thought.

As for whether there was anything positive published in the West about the USSR, have you heard about Walter Duranty's writing for the New York Times and the subsequent Pulitzer Prize? That is, of course, a somewhat facetious example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

There were certainly positive things written about the USSR during the war (as they became allies with Western forces), with Stalin being affectionately called 'Uncle Joe' - things of course got less positive during the Cold War and the Red Scare.

Are there no news sources you trust? Aren't there news reports that cite primary evidence that you would deem as trustworthy? And if you don't get your current info from news sources, where do you get it from?

Yes, it would appear it is a common name in Russia. Though, in the late '70s (and perhaps even now), I believe Stalin's daughter was still the most famous person bearing the name. And me being ignorant of both this particular factory and its origins couldn't help but wonder (knowing the Soviet propensity for naming things in honor of the leaders - e.g. Stalingrad, Leningrad, etc.) if there happened to be any relation.

D'oh!

I must have used too many search terms in my query. Thanks for providing the link. Appears the company was founded in the late 1800s, so certainly not named after Stalin's daughter.