pemulis

"Local newspapers hold their governments accountable. We examine the effect of local newspaper closures on public finance for local governments. Following a newspaper closure, we find municipal borrowing costs increase by 5 to 11 basis points in the long run. Identification tests illustrate that these results are not being driven by deteriorating local economic conditions. The loss of monitoring that results from newspaper closures is associated with increased government inefficiencies, including higher likelihoods of costly advance refundings and negotiated issues, and higher government wages, employees, and tax revenues."

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Murphy-...

https://www.cjr.org/local_news/american-news-deserts-donuts-...

Mass market news allowed for the professionalization of journalism, with a set of ethics that demanded (attempts at) objectivity. With mass market news dying, there isn't enough money to support a large professional journalism class. In its absence, we are left with propagandists that publish publicly for free or at discounted rates and consultants that publish objective information privately at high rates that only businesses, politicians, or the wealthy can afford.

Eventually, I made the switch to full-time freelance investigative reporting. It was hugely rewarding at a personal level and made a positive impact on people's lives, but it was also a financial catastrophe that I'm still paying for. I could no longer justify as I was approaching my 30s and planning to get married.

I switched back to programming, eventually landed my current full-time job doing blockchain stuff, and really enjoy it. I miss investigative reporting, but still do a bit of research for activist friends in my free time. Eventually I'd like to make enough from my technology work to become the publisher of a small investigative outlet where I could pay other people to research and write. Given the dire economics of journalism, making a bunch of tech money to subsidize a publication would be more impactful than slogging away in poverty on my own.

There's a lot of evidence that the costs of government go up as local journalism recedes, because there is no one to objectively report on waste, corruption, and inefficiency. I think that tax dollars should be set aside to fund journalism, since journalism ultimately saves money for everyone. I don't see any other big solutions that would solve this systemic problem. We're moving to a state where only the rich can afford good information and everyone else is in the dark.

I'm on board with everyone saying that you need to talk to a lawyer sooner rather than later, and should work with someone who knows the area.

Hi, HN! I'm a full-stack web developer, looking to take on interesting freelance projects. I enjoy using Ruby, Rails, PostgreSQL, SASS, RSpec, and CoffeeScript/jQuery, but I always try to find the best tools for the job at hand. Recent projects of mine include a GitHub recommendations service and a rewrite of the Open Library gem.

GitHub: https://github.com/pemulis

E-mail: [email protected]

1) People trying to make the price of bitcoins drop, so that they can buy low and sell high. (This possibility is called out in the article.)

2. Criminals trying to extract a ransom from Mt. Gox, which is losing a lot of revenue and trust every minute their site is down.

Is that honestly all you took away from the stories about him? The only way I could see someone forming this opinion is if they had read only the lede of a piece about him before closing the tab.

A) Worked with Aaron Swartz to fight SOPA,

B) Sits on the House Judiciary Committee, and

C) Has a history of hauling the Justice Department before Congress.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren and Rep. Jared Polis are also on the House Judiciary Committee, and could potentially lend bipartisan support to any investigation.

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KE...

The prefilled text is about the CFAA, but you can change it to say whatever you want before sending it. Don't feel apathetic, or think that you can't make a difference. One thing Aaron Swartz showed us is that Congress can be made to listen to the public, if we are loud enough.

Dear Representative Polis,

Two days ago, as I'm sure you are aware, brilliant programmer, writer, and activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide. At the time of his death, he was being threatened with a 35-year federal prison sentence and millions of dollars in fines for allegedly downloading academic articles with the plan to distribute them freely to scholars everywhere.

Even though the alleged victim, JSTOR, did not wish to press any charges, U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann pressed forward aggressively, treating Mr. Swartz the same as a bank robber, phishing artist, or hacker of military secrets. Mr. Swartz's family believes that this overzealous and unreasonable prosecution contributed to his suicide.

Rep. Polis, as an Internet entrepreneur and investor, you understand the issues at hand better than most. And as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, you are well positioned to investigate the circumstances of this prosecution, and revisit the decades-old laws that made it possible.

I never knew Aaron Swartz, but like many others, I was a great admirer of his work and felt his loss deeply. I beg you to look into this case.

Thank you,

[my name]

Is there any evidence that this is the best way to improve schools? Honestly curious.

I think it's a mistake to compare specific devices from different eras, like a 2007 desktop and a 2012 desktop. In order to find total computing power, you need to add your phone, tablet, desktop, laptop, and cloud services together. When you do that, you see that we all have far more computing power than we did in the past, but we've chosen to spread that power over a variety of different devices.

I think this has to be a prank. The website was generated with a GoDaddy website builder, filled with laughable plagiarized boilerplate, and doesn't include any information that would identify a particular company. All of the photos are stock photos. They include 'Adoption' and 'Personal Injury' under their list of services. I think someone is seeing if they can get Google to take down obviously legitimate websites when an obviously illegitimate source asks them to.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party#National_Pirate_Pa...