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> From a quick check it seems Twitter is getting better at it. Prices used to be more like in the low $20/k range. Now the low end accounts are $45/k and if you want PVAd/profiled it's up near $90. Compare to Gmail where the price is more like $280/k. Or Facebook EN accounts, $120. Good to see my old colleagues doing such a good job!

Perhaps there's just more demand?

> Nowadays there's suddenly a bout of anti-Russian hysteria. Suddenly bots are in focus again. There are conspiracy theories about botted accounts being used to convince people to change their political positions. Having worked in the industry for years I am deeply skeptical about this. I never once saw bots being used for political ends or anything even approaching it. There is a lot of disinformation out there about Russia right now from western sources, and a lot of paranoia that doesn't seem to be justifiable.

The fact that you've worked for Google on anti-botting and didn't see the technique you were tasked to counter used for political means might be leaving you biased. Without pointing fingers, I just want to state that there's tremendous political opportunity in spreading misinformation via internet (via any media really), it's amazing that in 2017 this isn't clear for everyone.

> 8gb should be the norm even for cheap laptops...

Why? For example, why now, why not two years ago, or in two years time?

I fail to see what you're saying. Are you saying that because a simple neural network could behave the same, such behaviour can't thus be evidence of inner speech?

Though unified virtual memory isn't limited to Pascal -- AMD's GCN architecture has supported it for years already, as do these products.

I don't understand what you mean in this context. Elaborate please?

> because long term, they will be better off.

Because long term, they believe they will be better off.

And really, many people cast their vote as a protest vote for the current politics, rather than as a genuine opposition to EU.

Does this reflect your view regarding development in C++ and Java and is your comment merely a lazy reflection of that?

Link to a paper talking about this: http://pcp.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/4/684.full

Why do you suppose they left it out? Is it merely a matter of "cheap implementation" being purely subjective, and hence they might have thought it as cheap, while you seem to disagree? Or could there be a more pressing reason, but "Oh well, its cheap enough anyway" is more of an excuse?

> Then you don't really support property rights.

Or we simply disagree what rights and liabilities the property owner should have in the context, which I define as business property. I see no problem with this as there are many countries with extensive liabilities and regulations when it comes to property and business practices one is allowed to conduct.

> By protecting customers from "themselves" and thus also protecting owners from customers, you are curtailing rights of both to engage in voluntary contract.

Oh I indeed am, or I at least am not opposing regulation in this matter from any ideological perspective. I don't see such regulation as inherently bad, as it seems that you see.

> It's not at all an "implementation detail," it arises quite organically out of interpersonal exchange.

Many things arise "quite organically" from individual actors acting for their own benefit, but in many cases it can be argued for that there are places and times where regulation (governmental or otherwise) does indeed improve the society and the lives of the people within it.

> You know what I loathe?

I suppose I don't despite having some suspicions, but please, don't assume I care either.

> You provide a case for perceived suboptimal behavior of markets, but then by proposing regulation you completely ignore the prospect of suboptimal government action!

How couldn't you say this exact same about any form of regulation within markets? And if so, to me it seems that you oppose regulation out of a principle -- and really, how you come off as suggests the same.

> You'd do yourself good by reading up on some public choice theory.

Oh, always, though I am almost certain our differing views lie somewhere else completely. I suppose you have recommendations though?

> But you are.

No, I am not. You're seeing binary where there is none. My point is not to abolish the notion of personal responsibility, but to acknowledge that there is more to human behavior and decision making than cold, rational free will.

> When you get to micromanaging such trivialities, there's no limit what a planner's mentality will settle on next.

This is a slippery slope argument.

> It is absolutely not fraud.

And I never claimed it was a fraud, why would you interpret it that way? Or do you feel I communicated my point regarding fraud poorly?

> The property owner may deliberately arrange the environment so as to maximize an expected consumer end.

This is where we disagree at. I do not believe that the property owner may do whatever they wish within their property. I believe there should be laws limiting what and how the property owner may arrange their property -- to defend the customers from themselves, just as there are laws limiting for example gambling, or selling of alcohol and other drugs.

> Taking your logic of needing to regulate any "misleading action" to its conclusion will only entail the abolition of the market economy.

Sure, if you take it to the extreme, and in that case then perhaps and if so, I am personally fine with that. I have no personal stake -- or ideology -- in free market economy. It is a mere implementation detail, not an end in itself.

> (Moreover, expecting that consumers are morons who cannot regulate their own behavior will generally lead to policymakers drafting proposals that assume as such and end up fulfilling the prophecy on their own, since the resulting bureaucracy will be internalized by consumers in their expectations.)

It is about acknowledging that among consumers there are individuals who are vulnerable to various lures (in lack of a better term, but consider alcohol as an example), and that I do personally view exploiting such vulnerabilities as unethical and hence I propose regulation. And I am speaking as someone with social problems due to not having enough control over my own actions regarding certain matters. Thus, I greatly fail to externalize this matter to "them" who "can't control themselves".

(Note that I am not the person you replied to.)

I do honestly feel that there should be a law against that in the society which I live in, since I find such actions taken by the restaurant owner to be manipulative and purposefully deceptive (excuse me for not coming up with better terms, I am not a native English speaker), knowing that many people -- not all of them, but many -- thus end up drinking far more than they would personally intend to.

I see no reason to promote such dishonesty, deception and misleading actions towards customers within a society, especially when the vulnerable ones are not vulnerable to it by choice, but by nature. It's the exact same thing which goes on with say gambling addicts or alcoholics. And no, I am not arguing for giving up the notion of personal responsibility, but I am arguing that these actions exploit vulnerabilities in people, which I see as no different from a ethical point of view than say committing a fraud against someone you know who has a psychological or neurological condition making them vulnerable for excess goodwill (or, someone suffering from e.g. dementia).

Is "Firefox mimicking Chrome" something you have an issue with for some reason, or what are you after?

Not to nitpick, but yet another partial quote. Bravo.

I do agree with you, though as a brief tangent (as if this horse wasn't beat badly enough here in HN during the past almost 30 months...), my personal concern is both political and ethical, and I suspect this same concern applies to many of us who see dragnet surveillance as a problem.

The political aspect is that whatever data there is about an individual can be used against them, selectively, for say political purposes. This is a gross violation of transparency and the principles of a democratic society.

The ethical aspect is that I am being spied upon because of what I am not -- because I am not a US citizen. The talk about whether US constitution protects US citizens from dragnet mass surveillance (and thus whether NSA spying is unconstitutional) outright disgusts me (although I do understand the relevance for US citizens, of course). Telling one to "not use US internet services" is like telling one to opt out from the Internet. It's a "tough cookies" argument with very limited practical applicability.

Collecting information about me to make money out of me by selling me stuff? Honestly, in comparison, that doesn't feel that bad at all. Luckily, browser add-ons like Ghostery and various adblockers mitigate this to an extent.

Aren't the design choices and intended use cases vastly different though? Could this explain some of the difference in traction you perceive?

I suspect it's a mere challenge for the "troll" to see if they can beat the system. If not, they'll try harder until they can. The more challenge the more rewarding it is, thus the harder they try and eventually succeed unless it's impossible (in which case they figure it out and quit trying).

It's really the sincerest form of hacker spirit which manifests itself this way. Why? Because internet^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Hitler.

Edit: Well, I didn't quite address the art part but still.

Do you, or someone, have any data to back this up?

Honest question, I don't use Facebook so I can't tell from experience.

But isn't computer just the medium to access the real addiction-causing substance, whatever it may be?

I mean, if you give person a computer of any kind without internet access, they'll likely feel just as anxious as not having the device in the first place. This, to me, would suggest that what actually causes the addiction is something these online services provide for people. Be it for example some form of self-expression in form of Facebook status updates. They'll be fine for as long as they get to make the update for example (and perhaps see it go live? As in to check their outside appearance like a person checks the mirror after fixing their clothing, despite knowing the clothing is fine. Just need that feedback for the sake of feedback itself, not for any particular practical reason necessarily).

Why do I make the distinction? Because I've had to deal with something related to the subject matter myself. (Acknowledgement of some form/sort of addiction, which isn't computers themselves (though the addiction-causing behavior is mediated through a computer), or "being online", but something more general because the addiction takes its shape and form for as long as the online service provides the easy "dopamine rush" (in lack of a better term), perhaps to relieve some underlying anxiety?)

And I'd follow with creating incentives for people to actually pay for the content. Relying on charity isn't a sustainable source of income in general case.

Have you, or someone else, got a source for this or articles/studies done?

Not questioning it, just curious.

This would benefit who exactly?

Rust provides memory safety without VM to begin with.

Although I do not like the comparison because it's not factually correct, Rust is like the "safe subset of C++". To write actual safe, modern C++ is very close to writing valid Rust. After learning Rust, I became a better C++ programmer.

> and that it's our own fault

Whose fault exactly is it?

Has anybody in HN worked with a company which does this crapware bundling, let alone creating? Or does anybody know anyone who's "in the business"? Because I, quite honestly, can't understand how or why people would be doing this. Is it really that "Well, I know this shit is going to infect thousands of machines with software which nobody would like to have, but hey, it gives me my salary, fuck yeah!"?

It's just sad that there are people scamming others like this, and people who jump into it because hey, paycheck!

I agree. But I'm also convinced that in practice there's absolutely no way to pressure OEMs to allow control over our devices in such way that it would lead to persistent computational opennes and freedom.

Walled gardens and eroded digital/computational liberties are here to stay, and even more so in the future. The trend has been that "hacking the device" has become harder and harder, and devices have became more and more closed and controlled. I don't expect this trend to change any time soon. I sure as hell wish it did, but why would it?

Care to elaborate why do you think so?

I don't know why this was downvoted. I find it relevant for submissions like this, that there are people voicing that they'd appreciate ELI5-like summary which I don't think is hard to reason for, nor can I see how it could be a problem if someone provided one.

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176654

> There will never be a Grothendieck of biology because the mechanisms of life aren't so neat and ordered that they can reduced to first principles.

Let us simulate the universe and let that simulation be the ruleset for the first principles.

Not saying it's going to be neat and ordered, but on the other hand, the idea of it surely is. Whether or not it is ever feasible (or even theoretically possible) to do so doesn't take away from the merits of the idea, I think.