NY hotels trying to outlaw short-term home sublets (i.e. AirBnB) - <AUTHOR> http://techdirt.com/articles/20100628/0037599977.shtml

<comment><USER3> I think is only going to happen more and more across the country. I understand AirBnB is _disruptive_ to some degree, but you have to consider:

\- Cities that rely on tourism generate revenue from hotel "bed taxes" which are often higher or in addition to sales tax

\- People who are making money on AirBnB by renting out rooms probably aren't paying income tax on it (call it a hunch)

\- All the sublease/short-term laws that exist already. For example, in Shell Beach, CA (near where I'm at) you cannot rent a house/room for less than 1 month. People on VRBO are already sketchy about this when you call.

\- I still see significant liability issues for _both sides_. Seriously, what happens if you rent out a room illegally and the guy/gal slips and falls in your shower? What if your dog bites them?

I want AirBnB to do well, but could enough local/state government regulations threaten their growth/existence?

<comment><USER4> Airbnb didn't invent vacation rentals or sublets. VRBO/Homeaway and Craigslist, the dominant players in the space, have been doing this for years. You bring up good bullet points but if they were real issues, Homeaway probably wouldn't be the $1B company it is today. This is nothing more than hotel lobby groups pushing a bill through their pockets. Occupancy rates are recovering from an all time low (as in lowest in 40 years) and they see cutting off vacation rentals as a strategy for improvement. Mayor Bloomberg even _thanks_ the Hotel lobby groups in his press release <http://bit.ly/9iNt3Q>. Separately, there seems to be a misconception that Airbnb is hands off with taxes, when in fact hosts who meet the appropriate income standards are issued a 1099 form.

Over time, a city like NY will most likely see a drop in tourism if (a) if the vacation rental industry is removed from the playing field, and (b) hotel prices stay the same (or go back up to 2007 standards). There is a large class of travelers who cannot afford NYC on $300/night rates, and will likely still travel, but choose to spend their money elsewhere.

<comment><USER3> First, I wasn't necessarily taking a side–more posing the question "could enough govt pressue hurt AirBnB's business?"

Second, I think the comparison to VRBO/Homeaway only goes so far. Those 2 sites cater primarily to vacation/2nd home owners (i.e. renting out an entire house/condo for week). You don't see many "Rent out my extra bedroom for $60/night" listings on there. Unless I'm mistaken, that's where AirBnB differentiates itself and, IMO, makes it more risky.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Last week I rented a room for a week through airbnb.com at a place that is basically running a commercial hotel operation (as an aside, the place was great) while apartment hunting in NYC.

While there, my girlfriend dug up a bunch of stories about the neighbors complaining about condo unit owners leasing out units to this place. I can understand both sides of the argument; if I'd just bought a condo in a building I wouldn't be happy about a large majority of the other units being rented out every night to tourists.

I got the distinct impression that there had been a problem with crime and people being disruptive in the buildings recently, although the whole time we were there it was quiet.

Apparently the owner of this hotel has approached a bunch of building owners with vacant condos and offered to lease them. The building owners are very happy (as apparently they are getting more then they would to rent them as apartments).

I will say that I stayed in a giant two bedroom loft in Williamsburg for about half the cost of a "regular hotel"; so it's definitely appealing.

After checking out, I actually got an email from the hotel with the number for New York Speaker's office asking us to call them about bill Bill A10008.

<comment><USER6> Having a steady stream of noisy neighbours is no different from having one. The solution is the same; hold whoever rents the apartment accountable. (This would be easier if throwing people out was.)

<comment><USER7> Uh no.

You can have a noisy neighbor, go through a lengthy feud involving building administration and law enforcement, and finally make them reasonably quiet at night. Now, try doing that with the tourists who are in just for a couple of days and don't give a damn.

<comment><USER6> Uh yes.

You can have a neighbour who trough airbnb rents out to noisy tourists, go through a lengthy feud involving building administration and law enforcement, and finally make sure _he_ makes sure it's reasonably quiet at night. If any changes in laws would be necessary to make these processes identical they should be smaller and less disruptive than an outright ban on activities like those of airbnbs lenders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm mostly interested that this doesn't touch on the more basic issue:

AirBNB is illegal not only due to short term hotel law, but also due to sublease law in NYC. You CANNOT sublet an apartment for more than it is worth in New York. I've met and heard of more than a few people who rent apartments and use AirBNB as a primary source of (as OP points out, untaxed) income. I'm surprised NYC landlords aren't more up in arms about this.

I don't agree with making it illegal outright, but I actually am kind of in favor of regulating and taxing this better, for the issues the OP talks about as well as the sublease issues.

Edit: After thinking about this a little more I realize the OP goes 90% of the way but doesn't quite cross the finish line with the argument. AirBNB IS the regulatory institution, and is doing a better job than the govt. My sublease point still stands.

<comment><USER9> NYC is scam central when it comes to subleasing and renting out rooms. There are tons of people in rent controlled apartments who have no moral qualms about making a buck off of their sublettor or roommate. Another reason AirBNB is interesting because they are making it obvious who these people are and where they live...

<comment><USER8> Absolutely. The NYC real estate market is an absolute nightmare in so many ways. Right now it seems most akin to the DeBeers control over the diamond market (ie: an industry based on false scarcity).

<comment><USER10> No, I think apartments really are scarce. It's not like landlords are sitting on vast quantities of inventory to drive up rents.

That said, rent regulation (mostly rent stabilization vs. rent control, these days) does skew the market, creating a small number of lottery winners lucky to have below-market rents and driving up rents for everyone else competing for the unregulated inventory, regardless of their economic status.

<comment><USER9> Sorta true, sorta false. There are not vast quantities of inventory, but there certainly isn't a shortage. There are loads of "luxury rentals" in battery park city, downtown brooklyn and williamsburg that the developers are having a hard time getting people into, even with all sorts of incentives.

The prices are pulled out of thin air. The new developments have to charge usurious rents to recoup their costs, but a lot of individual owners bought their building outright in the 80s for peanuts and just charge whatever they think they can get. Any old building in the LES or east village is basically a mint for the owner.

There may be a shortage of affordable, nice apartments in places where people want to live. Good luck finding a nice place for < $2000 in the LES. However, there is no shortage of expensive, crappy apartments in "uncool" parts of the city. In a weird twist of reality it's now easier to find a good deal in the UES than it is in the LES...

<comment><USER11> _Good luck finding a nice place for < $2000 in the LES._

Fun fact: if an apartment is rented for less than $2000, it becomes subject to rent stabilization.

Many landlords would rather have an apartment go vacant than become subject to rent stabilization. Better to lose a year's worth of rent now than 20 years worth of rent in the future, not to mention loss of flexibility (i.e., you can't sell the apt without permission of the tenant).

<comment><USER12> This isn't actually true. If an apartment rents for more than $2000 it is no longer subject to rent stabilization, and there are various tricks that landlords use to make sure it doesn't fall back under such as issuing rebates or free months and then quoting an effective monthly rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Interesting comment on related article by NYT that offers some insight into what type of behavior this bill may be aimed at curbing ...

[http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/bill-could- make...](http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/bill-could-make- subletting-a-tad-illegal/#comment-700185)

<comment><USER14> I've seriously underestimated the popularity of airbnb if people are purpose building structures (undercover no less) for the sole purpose of marketing them as a place to crash on airbnb.

Also amazed that neighborhood groups have "Illegal Hotels Committee"s

<comment><USER15> Well, try living with me. I live in Ashbury Heights in SF. Our next door neighbor runs a possibly illegal short stay hotel. It sucks ass -- this is a quiet residential neighborhood and he rents to either redneck trash that think it's appropriate to open their car windows, blast country music as loud as their stereos will go, and drink cheap beer on the sidewalk at 2 in the morning or to eurotrash who at least have their loud parties in the house, but tend to party much later. I've had to repeatedly call the police, and finally settled the problem, for the most part, by setting my alarm for 4 AM and ringing the doorbell of the owners / using an air horn to wake the owners up. I made him understand that when I don't sleep, his family doesn't sleep, and he finally cracked down on it.

I still have his drunk assholes peeing on our garden once a month.

<comment><USER16> > _I still have his drunk assholes peeing on our garden once a month._

Get a dog.

<comment><USER17> Running electrified fencing is probably cheaper in the long run.

Although I guess it'll only solve the problem once per guest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When they start trying to outlaw you, you know you've made a big dent in their bottom line.

<comment><USER19> And this is where the startup needs to partner up with other powerful conglomerates. Like YouTube going to Google after being relentlessly sued by Viacom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Someone threatening your business model? They're not innovators, they're criminals!

<comment><USER20> Home cooking is killing the restaurant industry.

<comment><USER6> If they could, they would ... Stringent health/safety standards actually do this already. There isn't anyone running small cafes from their kitchens in Manhattan, wich is a shame.

<comment><USER10> Actually, there are quite a few "underground supper clubs" in NYC. Typically, they're held in private apartments with a prix fixe menu. One article from March on this trend:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/03/going- rogue-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/food/archive/2010/03/going-rogue- americas-underground-chefs/38090/)

<comment><USER17> I cannot fucking wait to live in a city where not only does the concept of "underground supper club" exist, but where newspapers cover them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yes getting legislation on your side and suing people will completely undo fundamental shifts that are happening in the real world. NOT. Hotel Chains should be the ones at the front coming up with services like airbnb or integrating them. The hotel brand can offer as a front to loosely federated room providers and the hotel steps in by doing quality control and enforcing standards. In fact people in the hotel industry should be overjoyed that this model removes two of the big costs of running hotels - hotel staff and realty costs for the property. All the hotels have to do is to be umbrella brands and get "franchise" service providers.

<comment><USER22> The hotel industry has not changed significantly in a thousand years (maybe more). There are few industries I can think of that are more historically defined than the inn with the inn keeper. Aside from the implications of the traditions, it is also a business model that has worked remarkably well for a long time. I doubt they are going to be keen to jump quickly on a major disruption.

<comment><USER23> Actually, I think Conrad Hilton revolutionized the hotel industry - <USER2> creation of business hotels, providing a similar experience around the world, 99 year leases on property etc. His autobiography "Be My Guest" is actually quite good.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the book recommendation, added to the reading list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is the rental contract between the customer and the room provider or between the customer and airbnb?

One way to approach enforcement would to be to set a threshold on the number of units a room provider can offer without being subject to the hotel regulations. AirBnB can easily enforce such restrictions.

<comment><USER25> Imo, it'd be a good idea for AirBnB to independently attempt some sort of threshold like that. I think its strongest niche is rooms or couches rented out by actual people who also live at that location. But there are (esp in NYC) a decent number of listings that are basically hostels / unlicensed hotels, and not all are entirely up-front about the fact that you're renting a room from a commercial operation that manages a bunch of rooms in the property, not from an individual who lives there.

The rise of those kinds of operators has definitely made me warier of using AirBnB now, while I used to be able to assume that most listings on the site were legit individuals renting out rooms/couches in their own homes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Chicago poised to license, regulate vacation-apartment rentals": [http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/ct-biz-0629-vacation- re...](http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/ct-biz-0629-vacation-rental-- 20100628,0,1238267.story)

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder what the maximum occupancy laws are like. Could you get around this by simply putting down on paper that you're subletting for a month when they're just staying overnight?

<comment><USER27> Or perhaps by having no "early termination" penalty in the one month "contract".

<comment><USER28> could this possibly be abused by them refusing to leave?

I guess if you put in the contract how much it costs per night they'd at least legally owe you in full.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Similar initiatives have already be pushed in other cities with vibrant short- term rental markets.

Short term sublets are already outlawed in some neighborhoods of London (e.g. Belgravia, with a potential fine of ~20k pounds). There is also a similar law in Paris since last December, although as a matter of practice it is only enforced after complaints from co-op boards and neighbors who get annoyed at the constant stream of vacation renters. The hotel lobby was behind the law in Paris. Part of the justification was also that owners of short-term rentals, often foreigners themselves, do not declare the rental income on the properties.

</comment><comment><USER25> Does that mean these are actually legal currently? I assumed that they were illegal in most jurisdictions, since most municipalities have _some_ sort of regulation on short-term rentals, at least to the extent of requiring registration and an occupancy tax paid, which most AirBnB 'landlords' aren't complying with. But enforcement is difficult / not a priority when it comes to single individuals renting out a room--- enforcement is usually directed more towards, say, someone who owns an entire apartment complex running an unlicensed hotel out of it.

</comment><comment><USER30> Well, now I know my original post wasn't misplaced! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1471654>

Prior to reading some of the comments from NYC residents, I was vehemently opposed to this kind of government interference, but now I'm not so sure. It would suck to live next to some of these people.

I wonder if entire building communities could vote on whether to allow this individually so either everyone agrees or disagrees and then has to live with it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Nothing is as effective as government when it comes to curbing innovation.

<comment><USER32> Good to find something that government is effective at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's bills like these (when passed) that make me laugh in the face of people who tell me we have a free market economy.

</comment><comment><USER34> Sweet - this can only get more free publicity for AirBnB & similar services.

<comment><USER35> Unless the bill is actually passed, in which case it would have a significant negative impact as well.

<comment><USER36> Yeah, just like how nobody uses illegal drugs anymore.

<comment><USER37> The people who sell illegal drugs don't advertise the fact on the web, at least not for very long.

<comment><USER38> Have you been to craigslist? Seriously, go take a look.

<comment><USER39> [http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared- gen/blogs/aust...](http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared- gen/blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2010/06/23/man_arrested_for_selling_marij.html)

The "not for very long" part still stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I've got an idea. Since the government is probably going to keep on giving existing players legislative help to keep competition out anyway maybe what we should do is pass an "Innovation stiflation act". That is, if you come to the government asking for a law to keep out your competitors then they assign an assessor (the same guy who values my house 40%" above what I could actually get for it) to evaluate how much revenue you're going to get by not having these competitors and we tax _that_ money at, say, 80%.

If we're not going to get the benefit competition would bring at least we should get tax revenue out of it.

<comment><USER41> That assessor will be bribed.

Instead of advocating an idea that attempts to turn two wrongs into a right (tacking more regulation onto a problem you admit is caused by regulation), advocate for something more fundamental: the complete separation of state and economics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Paris apartments and accommodation. Paris short term stays for vacation and holiday rentals accommodation. Self catering, family and group holidays and luxury apartments in Paris France. thanks i like your post <http://www.holiday-velvet.com/paris>

<http://www.holiday-velvet.com/paris>

</comment><comment><USER43> This passed the NY Senate and is now in the Assembly. I wrote to my senator (he co-sponsored the bill and obviously voted for it) and they called me (which was nice). Apparently there is supposed to be an exemption if the owner/renter is present.

</comment><comment><USER44> A similar restriction is in place in Kauai, but the short-term rental industry is somehow still operating.</comment>


Ask HN: REST API for Amazon Redshift - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a tool that will allow me to query my Redshift cluster via a REST API? I'm building some analytics UI and would rather not have to stand up a separate service in order to query my instance.<p>Any suggestions would be much appreciated. <comment><USER2> Try Dreamfactory</comment>


Why is iLike selling out to MySpace for $20 million?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/Reports_Why_is_iLike_selling_out_to_MySpace_for_20_million__53576657.html

<comment><USER2> I'm guessing it was the $20 million.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nowhere in the article does it mention if iLike was you know... making any money. Seems like if it was losing tons of money it might make the sale and price more understandable.

<comment><USER4> Right, and then they say its a deathknell for consumer web companies, as if none of us have a business model.</comment></comment>


Google axes Google+ - <AUTHOR> https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEBoLCLvKq8ize7aRDbdD5XAqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowwOjjAjDp3xswicOyAw?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen <comment><USER2> Not surprising... now if they could just bring Hangouts back to form, instead of a dozen other disconnected platforms that only do a fraction of the job. (sigh)</comment>


60% of French people fear the collapse of our civilization - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/e5xj6l/nearly_6_in_10_french_people_fear_the_collapse_of/ <comment><USER2> This question really involves around what civilization is, and how durable one thinks it is. Depending on viewpoint, there have been countless collapses of civilizations, and it is quite reasonable to consider ours at risk.

What do you view a collapse to be like? It doesnt have to a post apocalyptic wasteland. All we need is for enough base assumptions to break, and then things start to domino out of control. We have lots of triggers, and so far (from my bubble) the stability of the system as a whole has prevented any local collapse from growing too big. But looking at the many localized collapses of my lifetime doesnt really fill me with utter confidence.

Everything is built on trust of the system, but as that trust grows fragile it gets easier for the next problem to grow, and every unanswered problem reduces stress on the system.

I've been reading into the Bronze Age Collapse and...in my uneducated, anecdotal view, it feels painfully possible.

</comment><comment><USER3> They know something. Fascists have discovered how to use modern media to take over governments. The outcome is predictable.

</comment><comment><USER4> Don't you ?

</comment><comment><USER5> They've been protesting for weeks it probably feel that way but it wont

<comment><USER4> Many are protesting to avoid the collapse...</comment></comment>


Sony Launching Youtube Competitor Tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-04-26T102212Z_01_TKU002801_RTRUKOC_0_US-SONY-VIDEOSHARING.xml <comment><USER2> Hmmm, I wonder if this will be as successful as their 'iTunes Killer' <http://connect.com> which I'm sure you all have heard of and use regularly (IE support only) ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> Inherently you cannot be a YouTube competitor until you've SOME comparable reach numbers to YT.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll be 100th person to predict utter suckiness.</comment>


This terrifying moment is our one chance for a new world - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/oct/05/banks.marketturmoil

<comment><USER2> As always, blame the market for a failure of government. Government caused the crisis, and it was aided and abetted by the wealthiest people on Wall Street. And, with the bailout, we've insured none of the people responsible will face negative consequences for bad business practices.

And, to boot, it's being used as an example of a failure of markets. The whole sub-prime fiasco has nothing to do with markets. In a free market, government does not guarantee that a risky investment will be repaid (as has largely been the case in the home lending market since 1999). We're simply not talking about a free market. We're talking about government programs gone horribly (but predictably) awry.

<comment><USER3> This is a familiar tune. Take a heavily regulated market with massive government intervention, watch it get tied in knots, and then declare that the "free market" has failed. The most dramatic historical example is perhaps the U.S. economy leading up to the Great Depression, but we've seen plenty others in recent years: the "deregulated" energy markets in California, "free market" healthcare, and now the subprime meltdown. I'm beginning to suspect people will never learn.

<comment><USER4> The US is going to need to go through a complete meltdown. A Great Depression probably wouldn't make people angry and organized enough to cause the change that we need.

My prediction is that the United States won't stick around for too long (if you take a history textbook perspective on this, which you can see other failed societies have made the same mistakes that we are now repeating).

I think we have a fighting chance to create the desirable society that eliminates corporatocracy. Did you know the planet contains 13,000 zettajoules of geothermal energy? The entire world uses 0.5 zettajoules of energy per year. And we can harvest this, but there are patent wars to suppress this from easily happening.

Let's look at the other resources available, which cost us nothing at all. Wind? 3 states of wind energy can power the entire United States. Water? The UK alone could be powered by water/tide energy alone. Solar? One hour of thermal energy in the day could power the United States for an entire year if we harvested it properly.

Travel by plane? Who does that when you could travel by AT3's mag-lev trains, which can reach speeds up to 4,000 MPH with zero moving parts and zero emissions. Oh, and it uses about 10% of the energy of an airplane. Yes, they work in land and water.

What happens when technology replaces humans? You no longer need to work. In our capitalistic society, it's called unemployment. If you look into the Venus Project, it's called you get bored and start thinking about space exploration.

Once people figure out that we don't really need these corporations, we'll never have this type of problem come up again. The corporations are holding us back and creating scarcity (real or perceived) at every opportunity. Like I said, I don't think the United States is going to get it right, we're in far too deep over our heads. And the attitudes and apathy of the American people never ceases to amaze me (in a bad way) as an undergraduate.

<comment><USER5> It's not like if you outlaw corporations, suddenly a new form of organization will appear where nobody is greedy any more. It's not like "the corporations" are sitting on the secret to infinite wind energy and they're just afraid of change. Corporations are made up of people. They are not perfect because people are not perfect and organizing large groups of people is hard. Outlawing corporations will not solve either of those problems.

<comment><USER6> Yeah. And you can't exactly say that corporations never do good, either. Because an overwhelming amount of the time, they do. Even when they do bad things, they often do it at the whim of the public. (To pick a lesser example: remember that the people really DO like sensationalist news and cheesy, humorless sitcoms.)

Blaming corporations does nothing. Trying to FIX corporations, yes. Trying to REMOVE them is ignorant and short-sighted.

<comment><USER7> A broadcast medium, or a mass producer, makes more money making something a lot of people like a little, than something which polarizes customers into love and apathy.

From this springs every horror and alienation in the 20th century pop culture.

Upside: it's a passing technological phase, and we're nearly all the way through.

<comment><USER6> I wish it was a passing phase. But people love it everywhere. I saw it two years ago on Reddit, and have since seen it flame up into a ridiculous deluge of fringe theories and an absolute death of everything interesting.

People like everything but fair and detailed reporting. News reflects this. Same with culture. People like buying vast amounts of worthless things. It doesn't matter what field it's in. Geeks collect as much as rifle hunters, they just collect different things. That's led to an industry that specializes in creating excess.

<comment><USER7> Reddit is still a mass producer of sorts, and the score stands in for money - the same dynamic occurs. That which titillates the many out-scores that which fascinates the few. (Reddit has tried with limited success to protect enclaves: subreddits. They have created smaller and more elite lowest-common- denominators. Better than nothing, for now.)

I say it's a passing phase because where tech is headed is: auto-generated completely personal everything. The limit of "the few" is "the one", and the mass production dynamic breaks down at that limit.

<comment><USER6> They've been predicting that since, what, the 20s? I've seen every attempt to give personalized information and it never works. In fact, every attempt I've seen is nothing short of laughable.

The problem with that concept is that it assumes we know exactly what it is that we like, and that it's easy to communicate that. Neither assumption is correct. As we learn, we constantly adjust what we like, at a fairly extreme rate, and it tends to be impossible to express in any way other than the extremely specific.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In America these problems are systemic because government has gotten in bed with powerful banks to create a monopoly via the Federal Reserve. We have given all economic power over the issuance of credit to very few with zero oversight. We have centralized (economic) power. "The fundamentals of Keynesian economics are sound" Just keep saying it to yourself, Mr. Hutton.

In Britain they have their own central bank monopolizing their credit issuance, as well, through their confiscatory Bank of England.

We yammer on endlessly about the evils of capitalistic greed and never once consider that governments(i.e., the people with the guns) are the ones controlling this entire system.

Mr. Hutton seems to be suggesting what Mr. Frank Shostak sarcastically suggests: "If central bankers and government bureaucrats can fix things in difficult times, why not in good times too? Why not have a fully controlled economy and all the problems will be fixed forever?" <http://mises.org/story/3131>

</comment><comment><USER9> I am deeply fearful that the current economic problems will lead to the resurgence of the kind of idiotic socialist ideas represented by this Guardian piece.

<comment><USER10> While I'm also fearful of this, I feel like I missed something.

After all the talk about creating a 'fairer' system, it seemed like he just suggested that Britain create its own version of Paulson's plan. What were his suggestions for making things more 'fair'? Did I miss something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just love his proposal:

 _It can require the banks to behave differently – to move from financing casino capitalism to productive enterprise. There can be a new emphasis on relationship building and offering cheap long-term loans to business_

The banks were not financing "casino capitalism". They were providing artificially cheap, long-term loans to unqualified homebuyers. Swap out "unqualified homebuyers" with "unqualified businessowners", and you can see the full extent of this guy's idiocy.

</comment><comment><USER12> >based on fairness instead of naked greed

Would somebody please send that man a copy of "Atlas Shrugged"? And to every school child too.

<comment><USER3> Coincidentally, I started (re)reading _Atlas Shrugged_ a couple months ago. It's been a surreal counterpoint to events in the real world.

<comment><USER6> I reread it every 6 months or so. It's really fascinating not only because each time you read it you become aware of the nitpicky flaws in it, but because you become MUCH more aware of how there are really people who do talk like Rand villains, and it's scary.

<comment><USER13> Rand's number one rule of characterization: if someone says their ought to be a law. They are a bad character.

<comment><USER6> This is what I like least about Rand detractors: they never actually seem to have read the book.

Rand gets very specific about what constitutes a useful law and what doesn't. Mainly, she says that government should protect the people with law enforcement, protect their rights with courtrooms, and protect the nation with a defensive military - all things that private enterprise can't be trusted to do. She believes in government in a limited capacity, but she believes it should exist.

And one thing people don't seem to get while reading Atlas: she's aware that she's writing about a pipe dream. Her story is merely a hypothetical ideal, not an idea of what she actually wants to happen. Her writing worked, too: it made millions of people think about self-reliance and freedom. And that's not a bad thing at all.

<comment><USER13> I am not a Rand detractor I am a card carrying libertarian. FountainHead page 137 supports my claim. You misunderstood me I like her writing and her ideals. Its my fault for making a quick joke anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So much for Disaster Capitalism (<http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine>) then, huh?

<comment><USER15> Didn't the same people just get 850bn dollars more to play with?</comment></comment>


A New Online Commmunity: Hubski - <AUTHOR> http://www.redferret.net/?p=38275 What do you think? Will it be successful? Is there room for another online community to thrive?<p>In terms of Hacker News, will it ever get "too big" like reddit? Will it slowly die like the eternal september of Slashdot? Or will it continue to thrive? <comment><USER2> Hubski is an excellent, if small, aggregator. I buy into the philosophy that following quality users/posters yields better results than following a topic sorted by upvotes en masse. I know there is plenty of debate to be had there for some.

One thing to keep in mind with Hubski is that you do t need to look at it in terms chasing who posts the best links (as you define it). I find a better way can be to follow those that post the better comments, -this can yield a far more satisfying and consistent experience than any social aggregator I've used.

I think "follow user" approach also lends itself to maintaining quality as the site scales, although Hubski is too small right now to declare that to be the case definitively. Im curious to see hiw this pans out as the site continues to grow.

It's also come an impressive distance from a UI standpoint. Coded in arc, it started as a near clone of HN (though with its own mechanics right out of the gate).

It is worth wandering around if you're looking for a general interest community that isn't hellbent on growing at all if if it means sacrificing an ounce of what the founders believe makes the place worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER3> In an age of REST, I'm not sure why sites still insist on hiding behind GET parameters for primary functions of the site.

I think one of the more successful aspects of Reddit is that each section has it's own full URL, making it easy to share and for engines to index.

Witness:

[http://hubski.com/tag?id=askhubski](http://hubski.com/tag?id=askhubski)

[http://reddit.com/r/askreddit](http://reddit.com/r/askreddit)

EDIT: (facepalm) Yeah, I meant GET _parameters_ not requests ... both are obviously GET requests

<comment><USER4> Aren't those GET requests?

<comment><USER5> I think he meant ids or slugs in the url as opposed to query string parameters. You are correct that both are GET request.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It took me far too long to realise that I'm not an idiot and some of the pages[1] are actually broken in my version of Chrome (OSX 26.0.1410.65). So no images are loaded from the linked article.

[1]: [http://hubski.com/pub?id=96613](http://hubski.com/pub?id=96613)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm on OSX Chrome V 29.0.1547.57 and they are loading. Do you want to upload a screenshot and I'll pass it on to the smart programmer guys to see if it can be fixed?

Is it from Hubski or the linked site? ([http://www.astro.uvic.ca/~alexhp/new/figures/starrynight_HST...](http://www.astro.uvic.ca/~alexhp/new/figures/starrynight_HST.001.jpg))

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting: [http://hubski.com/b](http://hubski.com/b)

<comment><USER8> :) The house is a link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just registered and can't get out of the "You are not following anyone yet!" page. clicking on the main logo, feed link, doesn't work. I have to log out to see the normal page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Look below the "You are not following anyone yet" and click a name to follow them.

<comment><USER9> but I don't want to follow anyone at the moment, I want to look at the stories and comments on the main page.

<comment><USER10> If you just want to explore some of the content without following any users or tags you can use the links in the nav bar, in particular the badges[1], tags[2], and community[3] links. You can also use the different hubwheels to see all of the posts with the same number of shares (the dots on the hubwheel, ranging from 0 to 8).

[1] [http://hubski.com/badgesubs](http://hubski.com/badgesubs)

[2] [http://hubski.com/tags_pop](http://hubski.com/tags_pop)

[3] [http://hubski.com/community](http://hubski.com/community)

<comment> mh- I have the same feedback, FWIW.

I signed up a couple weeks ago and was turned off by being asked to follow various users whom I didn't know- in some follow-based communities it almost feels like giving a tacit endorsement.

Given that I didn't yet understand Hubski's dynamics or model, I was just sort of staring at the page as my interest-momentum at moving through the site dwindled.. and I'm currently on the [rather passive] search for a new community-based site. Many of your new users likely will not be as eager.

Somehow the abstraction provided by 'lists' (a la Twitter) that you can follow seems to break some of the psychological barriers.

Perhaps you could provide a few topical, curated lists of 'editor-picked' users to follow and have a brief sampling of what sort of content you're going to end up seeing by choosing to follow it.

anyways, looks really cool and hope my unsolicited advice doesn't come across as discouraging. best of luck!

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the feedback. I'm actually in the midst of a new user flow redesign. We also have some new ideas for non-feed browsing that we will be trying out.

We've tried a few approaches to make the site a bit easier to ease into. Obviously we have room for improvement. I appreciate the advice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 2+ years old and average comment count per post: 2.

I don't think it'll be replacing Reddit anytime soon.

<comment><USER12> 1\. It's not about replacing anybody.

2\. Quality > Quantity. (It's fine if you disagree; see 1.)

3\. You're looking at the wrong page[1], because the frontpage cycles randomly through different lists, because the frontpage is about discovery rather than popularity, because the whole point of the site is to not rank by popularity, because the site is about quality and not quantity.

[1] Here's the closest hubski has to a 'frontpage': [http://hubski.com/global?id=9](http://hubski.com/global?id=9). Average comment count is more than 2.

<comment><USER11> I was going by the headline: "Hubski: the new Reddit?"</comment></comment></comment>


Culture of exclusion (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://old.ryanfunduk.com/culture-of-exclusion/

<comment><USER2> God, you're whiny.

If you want a conference without drinking, organize one without drinking. The vast majority of people clearly enjoy the drinking, and they're the ones that are organizing them.

I live in Alaska, so I can't go to meetups or conferences or such without spending an additional $300+ on a plane ticket. Am I being "excluded" by my choice of location? Sure. Am I writing whiny blog posts insisting people should do meetups up here? No - and they won't happen, because there isn't a demand. Same thing with you and your strange aversion to other people enjoying themselves in the way they see fit.

Don't get me wrong - I personally wouldn't drink as much as seems to be typical at these events. But that's a personal choice, just like your desire not to drink is a personal choice. I actually get better at programming and technical discussion after a beer or two, generally.

If you don't want to go, don't go. But stop whining about it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like this post a lot, thank you for doing such extensive research. I agree with about 60% of it. Yes i think drinking is glorified in the tech industry. Yes the place I work at prides itself on company happy hours and every company event has alcohol (and we even have a new rule, no hard alcohol at large events because well.. you know). Yes it's backwards that a major part of conferences is the party scene, and somewhat disconcerting to hear JSConf was selling party-only tickets. This perpetuates a drinking culture that no industry needs.

However, even with those flaws, but I don't see it as mandatory, exclusive, or a barrier to entry. Maybe it's just where I have worked, but there are people I work with who are teetotallers - lets not kid around though they are in the minority. When my team celebrated a huge event, we had a bottle of champagne accompanied by a nice bottle of non-alcoholic sparking lemonade / beverage. It wasn't about the drinking, it was about sharing the celebration.

I do drink on my own time during the weekends, but I do not drink at the office or at most work events - If I have a drink, it'll be A drink, not multiple. It's mostly because I go to the gym at night and it's a lot harder after drinking. So I avoid it, pour myself a glass of whatever else is available, and haven't had anyone ask me why I'm not drinking alcohol.

</comment><comment><USER4> Drinking beer does not equal binge drinking. Few people I know are truly talented enough to binge drink on purely beer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's what the author picks as his lead off example of how conference culture revolves around binge drinking:

> Graham Lee says that, as a speaker, he doesn't want to be in some private > 'speaker room', he wants to be in the 'attendee room'. He qualifies what he > means by 'attendee room': the bar. Sounds about right.

He cites this tweet of Graham Lee:

> Conferences: don't put me in a speaker room. The speaker room is the > attendee room and is usually also known by the name "bar".

Seriously...a guy preferring to be in the bar than in a "speakers room" indicates binge drinking!?

</comment><comment><USER6> There's also a strange obsession with bacon, which as a vegetarian, I just don't get. But that's alright, I figure I make up in drinks for what I don't eat of the bacon!

But seriously, every conference I've been to has always had 'birds of a feather' or 'gray beard' meetups at night where there's moderate drinking and very good discussions.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's not a culture of exclusion when you choose not to do something...

Also, basically he's complaining because a bunch of 20 somethings drink. Nothing to do with computers. He would find the same "culture" anywhere else (except religious groups, muslims, etc. but you get my meaning).

</comment><comment><USER8> Seems to me this is more an aspect of programming ... especially amongst such trendy topics as JS or Rails, which are full of 20-somethings who have a lot of disposable income and generally small, if any immediate family responsibilities.

Sorry if I'm overly generalizing the field here, but I just got back from DjangoCon where there was one bar night, and one architectural boat tour of Chicago night. So a little of everything, which was awesome.

I think at least part of that is that, at least in my limited experience, Django is not a hot property in the world of web development, and a fair number of people had interests that went beyond undergrad. Again, sincere apologies to folks in all areas of development if I'm being overly general.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think the OP has a point - and its much harder to see when you're a member of the majority. There IS a culture of drinking in the programming profession. And some comments I see here remind me of comments I have seen when when other demographics complain about feeling excluded in this profession: "stop whining," "deal with it," etc. I think that there is some fear that these complaints will somehow "ruin the fun" for everyone else. I do think that the average age of conference attendees has much to do with it (and probably has more than a little to do with some of the other issues i.e. sexist treatment). A little maturity can go a long way towards easing these issues....

<comment><USER10> Is this "culture of drinking in the programming profession" any different than the general culture of drinking in other business environments? It does not seem that way to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't think this is a tech industry specific thing. In a previous career in sales, all the conferences and events ended each night with a boozefest. The most common way to celebrate a sale was... to go out drinking.

Friends that are doctors or lawyers talk about conferences, which as I'm led to believe, are some possibly interesting talks during the day, and then a party/drink-up at night!

(I didn't drink during the sales phase of my life, and generally found there were other people drinking soda or able to handle their liquor and hold a real conversation at most events.)

</comment><comment><USER12> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3788497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3788497)

</comment><comment><USER13> I am completely in agreement with this. I am very tired of the emphasis on drinking. Most of the best engineers i know aren't heavy drinkers and conferences would be way better if the heavy drinkers had to get their fixes off-premises.

</comment><comment><USER14> Other people like doing stuff I don't like, they're excluding me by not doing what I want! Wah!

Bars are far less exclusionary when it comes to gender than the tech industry, so perhaps we have something to learn from alcohol culture.

There's nothing wrong with drinking, if specific people can't not act like sexist assholes while drinking, then _they_ have a problem which _they_ should fix. Watch what happens in a bar when someone disrespects a woman, you get a tweet to the face.

<comment><USER15> I would hardly think bar culture is a good example of gender equality of any sort. As you say, in fact, disrespect a woman in any way and a stranger will probably knock you out. That's barbarism, right down to the preferential treatment and free speech oppression at best.

Even so, why is gender brought up? The author only used it initially as an example of issues in the tech world.

If you want to go there though, bars are the least inclusive (of non- stereotypes) because of the effects of alcohol; promoting our more "savage" traits. Personal experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "What could be more enticing than the insightful conversation being had by 50 drunk introverts telling "that's what she said" jokes?"

That's nice, remember to be inclusive of everyone except introvert beta males.</comment>


Show HN: Eschersket.ch – a symmetry drawing app to design custom wrapping paper - <AUTHOR> https://eschersket.ch <comment><USER2> Very nice and fluid, also great to be able to instantly buy the pattern in wrapping paper.

The only things I would recommend are:

\- The help screen in the beginning, doesn't look like a modal. It took me ages to actually figure out there was an "x" button in the top-right. Maybe add a darken behind the help popup, to show that it can be exited.

\- "Show Grid-lines" should be a first class option. I couldn't easily find out how to show grid-lines and without you're clicking in the dark to find where the pattern begins and ends.

These are just some small UX improvements, overall it's an impressive tool and I wish you all the best!

<comment><USER3> Also, the way the trash can icon works is way non standard. I applaud the attempt of getting rid of a standard confirmation modal, but when introducing novel UI like this you need to be more explicit.

Suggestion: \- make the prompt appear inside the trash button and not outside it. That should be enough to make it more obvious. If not enough, then add a small text to it.

like this maybe:

[(Trash)Reset?]

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What you guys think? [https://www.zazzle.com/api/create/at-238457573239445416?rf=2...](https://www.zazzle.com/api/create/at-238457573239445416?rf=238457573239445416&ax=DesignBlast&sr=250849350115079504&cg=196081129722954021&t__useQpc=false&ed=true&t__smart=false&continueUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zazzle.com%2Feschersketch&tc=&ic=&t_image1_iid=https://eschersket.ch/zazzle/755816bb904e352ba343a319043ea69e.png)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hello nice work but I'm afraid there is a critical bug when varying the grid size. I'm not sure you can output a tile image when using simultaneously two various grid sizes, as the periodic tiled image then should be of size greatest common multiplier of the grids size.

What you see is not what you get. [https://eschersket.ch/s/52e60da7c86c26cecc6b59bb7f9de9ad](https://eschersket.ch/s/52e60da7c86c26cecc6b59bb7f9de9ad)

Try to see the tiled image or exported to zazzle, and lines are no longer continuous :( (By the way I also just notice sharing a zazzle url like : [https://www.zazzle.com/eschersketch_wrapping_paper-256519193...](https://www.zazzle.com/eschersketch_wrapping_paper-256519193363075851) is problematic because it is very tempting for the user to do so, but everyone is sharing the same link, and what is displayed have some caching issues), (Zazzle also gives a warning when the image is too big, Zazzle is also really expensive 33€ for 76cm x 1.80m)

If you can sort the above issues, you can probably easily add some fractals symmetries :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Great software but after clicking buy and seeing that the Zazzle want to charge £37 for a roll of custom wrapping paper? haha. the economics deem this ridiculous!! You can buy great wrapping paper at a craft store for £3 a roll...

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey - author here, that price does seem high - I don't remember it being that much... the only reason I linked to Zazzle at all was that they were the only printer at the time offering a simple API for single-button forwarding of image data. I'm sure there are cheaper services out there, which is why you can download the 'tile' image that should work with any decent printing service, or SVG for more customization, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is lovely, many thanks for sharing. I am having a lot of fun with this & will most likely use this for some art related things in the future. I'd love to be able to export these & have the same view I have via the browser. Seems that exporting picture will give me some extra space on the right with different gray space etc. Still love it, many thanks.

</comment><comment><USER8> Watched most of the demo with my permanent roommate (an architect) before dinner and we both found it interesting. Good work.

<comment><USER9> What is a "Permanent Roommate"?

<comment><USER8> Just a cheeky term for my life partner :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome. Better execution than most web based tools I've seen to do similar. I'm fascinated by Escher's migrating tessellations of recognizable figures[0]. It would be nice to fork this and be able to draw a pair (or more) of figures then use a gradient to base a blending mask to sum them.

[0] [https://mathstat.slu.edu/escher/index.php/Tessellations_by_R...](https://mathstat.slu.edu/escher/index.php/Tessellations_by_Recognizable_Figures)

<comment><USER11> Reproducing one of Escher's works, even approximately, would likely make a killer demo for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is really nice, good work!

I once made a similar thing, but it was more of a creative-play-thing for children (so no way to create tiled graphics, but hopefully easy to use and fun to play with). It is at: [http://kaleidopaint.com/](http://kaleidopaint.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> One of the most enjoyable HN Show and Tells I've clicked in a while, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER14> Does anyone have any recommendations for a better, more economically reasonable printing service than Zazzle? The sheer cost of it is prohibitively expensive, and makes it tough to imagine small businesses or artists being able to afford using their service.

</comment><comment><USER15> This looks neat! Two improvements I'd suggest are icons for the symmetry choices rather than (or as well as) technical names, and pressure sensitivity via Pointer Events.

</comment><comment><USER16> A friend of mine has made [https://patternjs.com/](https://patternjs.com/) but Eschersketch one is way more interactive!

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks great! A fair bit more functionality than similar apps. I'd love to see an option to use orbifold notation as well as crystalographic.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is excellent!

</comment><comment><USER11> Like in a kaleidoscope, almost anything looks much better with symmetry. Doodling on industrial scale. Great job!

</comment><comment><USER19> If I press "Grid Adjust", I think it stops the preset grid choices from applying afterward

</comment><comment><USER20> the autogenerated rolled paper is nice : [https://www.zazzle.com/eschersketch_wrapping_paper-256519193...](https://www.zazzle.com/eschersketch_wrapping_paper-256519193363075851)

</comment><comment><USER21> Great name.

</comment><comment><USER22> thanks so much! my wife is a teacher in ceramics so this is superusefull for her...

</comment><comment><USER23> amazing work! very creative - keep it up :)

</comment><comment><USER24> it's a pleasure to play with it

</comment><comment><USER25> this is super nice :D</comment>


Some fun mathematical puzzles - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/leino/puzzles.html

<comment><USER2> "Age of childen" is fun because at first you stumble over the hint with the oldest child playing piano and wonder how that could have anything to do with the children's ages.

So, there are three kids and the product of their ages is 36. Assuming that ages are integers, this gives us the following possibilities:

        (a) 1 1 36
        (b) 1 2 18
        (c) 1 3 12
        (d) 1 4 9
        (e) 1 6 6
        (f) 2 2 9
        (g) 2 3 6
        (h) 3 3 4

The sum of their ages is the neighbor's house number. So let's see what the above age distributions sum up to:

        (a) 38
        (b) 21
        (c) 16
        (d) 14
        (e) 13
        (f) 13
        (g) 11
        (h) 10

The fact that the insurance agent still doesn't know the answer after returning from the neighbor's house means that it must be either (e) or (f) as those are the only two possibilities that sum up to the same value and thus are ambiguous.

But then the mother mentions that her oldest kid plays the piano, and of course it's not so much the piano that gives us the hint, but the fact that she has one oldest kid: in (e) there would be two oldest kids.

Therefore the answer is (f): two of the kids are 2 and one is 9 years old.

<comment><USER3> Even with twins one is older than the other.

<comment><USER4> but the ages are expressed as integers so in the domain of the problem, twins are exactly as old as each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cutting cheese (start with a 3x3x3 cube of cheese and a knife, how many straight cuts at minimum are needed to turn it into 27 1x1x1 cubes?):

The obvious answer is 6, by cutting it the obvious way (2 parallel slices along each dimension at the appropriate locations), so that seems almost certainly wrong.

If the cheese remains convex, any straight cut can at most double the number of pieces of cheese, so it would be impossible to do in less than 5 cuts (2^4 = 16, which just can't give us enough pieces, whereas 2^5 = 32 does). That holds only if we can assume convexity, but for the purposes of the problem, I assume the cheese isn't bendable or anything like that, in which case any set of straight slices you could do to make cheese non-convex would be "wasting" cuts (to maximize cheese-block count, you should always cut all the way through along a plane, and you'll only end up with convex pieces that way).

We might be tempted to go out on a limb and say that it must take 5 cuts, otherwise the problem isn't very interesting.

Unfortunately, we'd be wrong.

Think about the center piece of cheese in the 3x3x3 block. None of its faces are exposed in the original block, and there are six faces, none of which are coplanar. Unless we cheat pretty seriously (bending cheese), we cannot expose more than one of those faces with each cut, so there's no way to do it in less than six slices.

</comment><comment><USER6> The difficulty of these is all over the map. Possibly the most difficult one is "Opening boxes in a prison courtyard". If you can solve this without any hints or help, and by solving it I mean working out a strategy that gives prisoners at least 30% chance of surviving, then you just may be a genius. Or at least very, _very_ smart.

<comment><USER7> POTENTIAL SPOILER

You only have to think in terms of permutations, which always break up into cycles. How is this especially hard?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know how to do "Catching a spy"? Attempting it with someone I regard as a very good thinker; he is pretty adamant that it doesn't give enough information.

<comment><USER9> It can be done. Imagine a two dimensional array. One dimension corresponds to A and the other to B. Each cell in the array, corresponds to one possibility of the values of A and B.

At a time X, the spy is in a position (A+BX). At each time you pick a cell, and then guess the position associated with the A and B values of that cell. So for example, at time zero, you can pick cell (1, 1) which corresponds to position 1+0x1=1. So you guess 1. Then at time 1 you can pick cell (1,2), which corresponds to position 1+2x1=3. So you guess 3.

Every time you make a wrong guess, you cross out the cell associated with your guess. But you also cross out all cells which would have resulted in the erroneous position you picked. Thus, taking the above example, at time 1, you cross out the cell you tried (cell (1,2)) as well as all other cells that would have resulted in position 3 at time 1. These include cell (2,1), cell (-2, 5), cell (10, -7) etc.

In general, if your guess at time X is Y, you cross out all cells (A,B) such that A+BX=Y.

Every time you make a new guess you just have to make sure that your guess is associated with a cell that you have not crossed out. Since A and B are finite numbers, eventually you will catch the spy.

Now there are a couple of wrinkles. One is, "doesn't the array need to be infinite for this to work?" The answer is not really. You can grow the array as you keep guessing. Eventually you will guess the right number and at that time the array will still be finite, because the A and B you guessed were finite.

The other wrinkle is: "isn't the number of cells you are supposed to cross out each turn infinite?" That can be avoided as well. You can keep a finite array and only cross out the cells in the array. But also store a history of wrong guesses. Whenever you cross out every cell in the array, you grow the array by increasing its bounds. Then you look at your history and cross off any of the new cells in the grown array that are associated with any of your previous wrong guesses.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER10> As I read the problem, what we need is a mapping of the integers (not reals) to guesses that will cover all (A,B) possibilities.

To solve it, we basically need to specify an _ordering_ of guesses, one after another, covering all possibilities. Or equivalently, we want a function that takes the (integer) time and returns a guess, and will return all needed guesses as time goes to infinity.

Orderings are very important when dealing with infinities. If you just start by guessing things of the form 0,T as time goes to infinity, planning to guess 1,T stuff later, you never finish the first part, so you fail. What's needed is something like a methodical way to cover everything that doesn't do infinite back tracking.

As an example, if we wanted to map all integers to positive integers, the ordering for all integers is very important. If you try "all the positive ones first, then all the negative ones" it doesn't work b/c you never run out of positive ones, never get to the second part of the plan. But what you can do is 0,1,-1,2,-2,3,-3,4,-4 etc. Then you cover everything methodically without planning to backtrack after infinite steps have happened.

The above attempted solution does specify an ordering. It basically just says "keep trying stuff until you get it" which doesn't really address the problem. It might help to imagine you had to write a computer program to make the guesses. What would it guess first? Second?

BTW one neat thing about having an ordering, aka a function of time returning the next guess, is that _no storage is needed_ (besides the current time). Or in other words, if you're guessing in a correct pattern you don't have to keep any lists of previous guesses, all you have to do is know what the pattern is and where you are in the pattern so you can figure out the next thing in the sequence.

It's also not clear that the suggestion of crossing out additional stuff (other than the exact thing you guessed) helps anything. We don't care about efficiency when we have infinite guesses, crossing stuff out is only useful if we have an ordering that misses some guesses but we know they can all be crossed out in this way so it fills in the stuff we know we'd never guess directly. If the solution involves something like that, it's pretty tricky, so one would definitely have to say how it works to solve it.

I'm no expert at this. I tried some and found it's hard to make an ordering that works. Try it yourself and see. I won't be surprised if it's trivial for a mathematician though. And I assume it's possible or they wouldn't ask this question.

If anyone does know the solution I'd be interested in reading it or getting a hint.

<comment><USER11> Yes, exactly, and very clearly written! The trick is at the bottom beneath "SPOILER", but unfortunately I can't think of a good hint that gets you partway there.

I learned of the method as part of the proof that the cartesian product of a countable set is still countable. (i.e. that if the integers are countable, then the set of all pairs (Z,Z) is countable, where Z is an integer.) If you're interested, you can look at Cantor's work on the different magnitudes of infinities. For instance, you'll notice that if (Z,Z) is as infinite as Z, then the set of all rational numbers is "as infinite" as the set of all integers, since a rational number is just one integer divided by another. But what about the real numbers? Cantor showed with a cute diagonalization proof that they are "more infinite". Is anything more infinite than the reals? (Yes) Is there some level of infinity between the rationals and the reals? (I forget, but I think this is unanswerable, or rather, can be proved both ways) Those are some of the questions he worked on.

 _SPOILER_ The trick is to think of a big square, with 0,-1,1,-2,2,etc going along the top and 0,-1,1,-2,2,etc going down the left side. Then the ordering is done by infinitely zig-zagging your way down from the top left to the bottom right.

<comment><USER10> Thanks! I worked out a different way, too.

SPOILER

For just positive numbers, have the first number count up to the second number. Then increment the second number and reset the first to 0. Then adjusting for negatives is no big deal. Pretty simple in concept. Here's non- simple ruby code for calculating the pair for any step directly:

      def inefficient(n)
        count = 0
        while n > count
          count += 1
          n -= count
        end
        [n, count]
      end

      def with_negatives(n)
        # wastes some steps trying to get the negative version of 0. whatever.
        tmp = inefficient(n/4)
        if n%4 == 1
          tmp[0] *= -1
        elsif n%4 == 2
          tmp[1] *= -1
        elsif n%4 == 3
          tmp[0] *= -1
          tmp[1] *= -1
        end
        tmp
      end

      50.times {|n| puts "#{n}: " + with_negatives(n).inspect}

<comment><USER10> Worked out the math to get rid of the loop.

      def efficient(x)
        num = (Math.sqrt(2 * x + 0.25) - 0.5).floor
        num2 = (num**2 + num)/2
        [x-num2, num]
      end

Edit: Or:

      def efficient2(x)
        num = (Math.sqrt(2 * x + 0.25) - 0.5)
        num2 = ((num - num.floor) * num).round
        [num2, num.floor]
      end

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Initializing an array in constant time, My sneaky solution:

getting and setting seem very simple - if you know the starting memory address and the size of an element (assuming constantly sized elements), you can implement get(i) as "return the value at memory location: start + (i * size) and similarly for set.

So as the question suggests, it's the initialising that's the problem.

My sneaky solution is not to actually initialise the array.

Instead, init(N,d) performs as follows: Store 'd' in some memory location outside of the array.

Set(i,v) finds memory location: start + (i * size) and sets v and a checkdigit.

Get(i) retrieves the value at memory location start + (i * size) and if the checkdigit isn't present or doesn't match, returns the default as set in init, else returns the value.

I think ( _think_ ) each of those is O(1), but I'm not sure if that's the expected solution.

edit: reading up, I think this won't work as the uninitialised array will be filled with random data and so might 'happen' to pass the checkdigit test :(

<comment><USER9> You are right, this won't work, you do not know what is in the check digit. There is actually a very clever way to do this, which involves using pointers that go back and forth to avoid the random value problem.

I do not have time to explain it, (and since it involves pointers, it would be pretty hard to explain without a white board) but I encourage anyone interested to look into the Knuth book and check it out.

<comment><USER4> yeah I was reading up on a solution which sounds pretty much like what you're talking about.

Trouble with these things is that if you think you've solved it, there's no way to find out without spoiling it if you haven't. (apart from thinking about it longer and harder)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> quite annoying that there's no answer sheet. Some of them seem incredibly simple, so I'd like to know if I'm missing some subtle edge case or if I have actually solved it.

Example: Lemmings on a ledge:

My answer: one minute. Seems to me that we want to maximise the time before collision and the time after collision. So if we start with a lemming at each end heading towards each other, they'll collide in the middle at 30 seconds, change directions and walk back to the end for 30 seconds and then fall off. But that's actually no longer than if we just started with 1 lemming at the far end and he walks uninterrupted to the other side and falls off. Which makes me think I'm missing something because the collision rule adds nothing. A little help here?

edit: (actually 1 minute+planck time, because after 1 minute they'll have gone exactly to the edge but not fallen off, but I think that's not part of the problem. We're also assuming zero-width lemmings)

<comment><USER6> (update: it's amusing how I switched from lemmings to ants in the below without noticing, because I remember this problem told about ants. Won't change it now).

Well, you're almost right. The point of this problem is that many people find it quite difficult because they think an ant may "survive" for quite a while on the ledge, getting reflected by other ants. So maybe it starts near the middle, gets reflected soon, then gets reflected again, and who knows how much time it can survive by reflecting off other ants which it directs to the edge during these reflections.

Your solution doesn't address this because it only looks at two ants and doesn't explain why couldn't many more other ants make it possible for one ant to survive longer. But actually your solution does contain the crucial insight to solving the puzzle, which is

SPOILER SPACE

to notice that the reflection doesn't actually _do_ anything. When two ants collide and reflect, we can pretend that they just walked past each other - the movements will be the same and the identities of ants don't matter. If we look at it that way, after 1 minute all ants are off the ledge trivially, as they just keep walking in the same direction. The reason this problem is interesting is that it looks tough before this one insight, and completely trivial afterwards. So the collision rule _does_ add nothing, but not everybody can see that, and that's kinda the point of this puzzle.

<comment><USER4> I see, yes the first instinct is to think that perhaps a lemming could survive forever by constantly bumping into other lemmings. But that's not possible because a lemming traveling in the same direction as the candidate will never bump into him, and traveling in the opposite direction the maximum survival time after the bump is the 30 seconds I mentioned - which I why I only considered 2 ants.

I hadn't quite got to the conclusion that a bump and change is equivalent to no bump and no change though.

<comment><USER4> > which I why I only considered 2 ants.

dammit now you've got me doing it too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Path On The Surface Of The Earth is a neat one, took a while to realize why there were multiple answers.

SPOILER: Obviously the North Pole is one answer, because if you're 1 km south of the pole then it doesn't matter what longitude you're at, if you go 1 km north you'll be back at the pole.

The other answers are more interesting, though, and involve the south pole. The key observation is that at certain locations fairly close to the south pole, going east by 1 km will bring you back exactly where you started because the longitude circles are very small, so there's a set of latitudes where your 1 km journey will wrap you around the world any number of times. From that observation you can figure out the rest if you care to flex your trig...

</comment><comment><USER12> For Boris and Natasha:

Boris places the ring into the box and locks it with the padlock. He sends the locked box to Natasha and it reaches her unharmed. Natasha receives the box and places her own padlock on it without removing Boris' padlock, so it now has two locks on it. She sends the doubly-locked box back to Boris and it reaches him unharmed. Boris then removes his own padlock, so that the box now only has Natasha's lock and then mails it back to Natasha. Natasha receives the locked box unharmed and removes her own padlock, thus receiving the ring.

</comment><comment><USER13> Multiples of 11: Multiplication with 1-digit number: 11x = 10x + x (Sum of digits=x+x=2x=even) Multiplication with 2-digit number: 11(10x+y) = 110x + 11y = 100x + 10(x+y) + y If x+y<10, Sum of digits = x+x+y+y=2(x+y)=even If x+y>=10, 11(10x+y) = 100x + 10(x+y) + y = 100(x+1) + 10 (x+y-10) +y, Sum = x+1+(x+y-10)+y = 2x+2y-9, which is odd. So, we need to find smallest x+y>=10 where 0<=x,y<10 So, x=1,y=9 and hence the number 11*19=209

</comment><comment><USER10> For Knight, Knave, Commoner, how can this be done?

> Find a strategy for the king where the king can ask only one yes/no question > and only of one suitor.

Seems impossible since the commoner can use the strategy "pretend to be the knight, answer exactly how he would if our places were swapped". Then you won't know if you're talking to the commoner or the knight.

Asking two questions of only one person has the same problem.

<comment><USER14> What's underspecified is that the commoner doesn't answer randomly. He is either truthful or a liar, so if you add enough "what would you say" qualifiers, you can figure it out.

<comment><USER10> Actually you don't need many qualifiers, just "Imagine in your head that I ask you if you're suitable to marry. What do you answer in your head?"

If you speak to a liar, this gets two lies (negations) out of them. So anyone has to tell the truth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's my solution to Poisoned wine.

48 hours, and a prisoner will die 24 hours after drinking from the poisoned wine. you only need one prisoner, and a decent stopwatch. Have him drink from a barrel of wine every 6 minutes, watch the exact moment he dies. Take the time in minutes, divide by 6 and that's the wine barrel that's poisoned (zero indexed).

<comment><USER16> Note that it says the prisoner will die "within 24 hours".

My solution (which looks somewhat correct, so don't read unless you want it spoiled)

Day 0: Where all numbers are base 6 (240 in base 6 == 104)

d0 = last digit of barrel number (in base 6) d1 = second last digit of barrel number (in base 6)

Servant 0: drink if d0 == 0 or d1 == 0 Servant 1: drink if d0 == 1 or d1 == 1 Servant 2: drink if d0 == 2 or d1 == 2 Servant 3: drink if d0 == 3 or d1 == 3 Servant 4: drink if d0 == 4 or d1 == 4

At the end of the day, we will have at least 3 servants alive. (i.e. a maximum of 2 can die)

We now have 3 cases, depending on how many actually died:

\- If no servants die, then d1 == 5, d2 == 5. It is barrel 55 (in base 6)

\- If servant N dies, then d1 == N, d2 == 5 or d1 == 5, d2 == N. (note that the maximum barrel number is 104, so we can't have confusion between 105 and 5). So we have only two possibilities to test, which is easy with 3 servants alive.

\- If servants N1 and N2 die, then d1 == N1, d2 == N2 or d1 == N2, d2 == N1. This gives us at most 4 possible barrels that could be poisoned [1,N1,N2], [1,N2,N1], [0,N1,N2], [0,N2,N1].

So at the end of day 1, we have at least 3 servants, and at most 4 possibilities to test for. Assign possibility 0, 1, 2 to remaining servants. If they all survive, then untested possibility is poisoned. Otherwise, it is obvious.

<comment><USER17> Except 240 in base 10 in 1040 in base 6. (When moving to a lower base the number will always 'look' higher.)

<comment><USER16> Gah. Excellent maths by me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've posted a solution to counting coins here: [http://tech.bluesmoon.info/2010/11/counterfeit-coins- solutio...](http://tech.bluesmoon.info/2010/11/counterfeit-coins- solution.html)

Let me know if you think it's right or wrong.

<comment><USER19> Your solution is not correct. For example, if the counterfeit pile is initially measured with one coin and Delta is -1 (29 modulo 30), you set D1 to 1, but D2 will be 28, 29, or 30. You cannot determine Delta or the counterfeit pile with such values of D1 and D2 using your algorithm.

It's certainly not the case that D{1,2} <= 20 as your comments suggest, and you seem to realize this by checking for D1 >= 25. Also, you ignore the case of 20 < D1 < 25.

Note that Delta is strictly between -5 and 5, so it can't be equal to -5 or 5.

There is actually a really elegant solution to this problem. I'll send you an email so you can let me know if you'd like a hint.

<comment><USER18> Thanks, I see the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm currently having fun at <http://hacker.org>, which features a cool map.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like microsoft have taken down the page.

</comment><comment><USER21> multiples of 11 => you need to get the digits to sum to be odd => you need to find a number with a 2:1 ratio of even:odd digits {odd + odd = even, even + even = even, odd + even = odd, odd + even + even = odd [(odd + even)=odd + even = odd], etc.}.

so 209 is the first number with the appropriate 2:1 ratio (edited).

<comment><USER22> 1+5+4=10 so that's not it. if you meant 154x11=1694

1+6+9+4=20 so that's not it either.

By checking manually, it's 209.

19x11=209 2+0+9=11

The way you are doing doesn't seem correct even if what you said it's true, you aren't multiplying by 11.

I have no idea what the reasoning to prove the negative would be. I'd be interested to read it, if anyone knows.

<comment><USER21> The reason I began my post with "multiples of 11 =>" is because I was addressing that problem.</comment></comment></comment>


Moving to Rails 2.2 Headaches - Vol 1 - <AUTHOR> http://gusg.us/code/ruby/rails-2_2-headaches-1 <comment><USER2> The has_many_polymorphs plugin is also broken in 2.2 as of right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Exactly why the future's so bright for merb...

<comment><USER4> Because an application with a complicated set of external dependencies was ported warning-free to the newest version of Rails in a matter of hours, within days of the new version's release?

<comment><USER3> Yes.

"Merb has an API. You might be wondering why having an API is awesome. Well, the truth is that the Merb Team spent time marking methods public, which are guaranteed to not break until the next major release (any change to the public API will be well documented). There is also a plugin API meaning that plugin developers won't have to worry about upgrades if they stick to the plugin API."

From: <http://merbist.com/2008/11/09/merb-1-0-released/>

<comment><USER3> Update: Dec 23rd - He he, I rest my case ;)

[http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged- in...](http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2008/12/23/merb-gets-merged-into-rails-3)

<http://yehudakatz.com/2008/12/23/rails-and-merb-merge/>

<http://brainspl.at/articles/2008/12/23/merb-is-rails>

<http://rubyonrails.org/merb>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Holy plugins batman!

</comment><comment><USER6> Yeah we're using mercurial, what of it? Did I mention we use mercurial?</comment>