U.S. Wind Turbine Database Viewer - <AUTHOR> https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/viewer/ <comment><USER2> Interesting how the total installed capacity is pretty respectable at 96GW, even though there are only 5 turbines above 5MW. In Europe the 7,5 MW Enercon onshore turbine is fairly common, and offshore the 8-10MW turbines are very much in fashion. For reference, the EU has 179GW installed as of 2018 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_European_Union)

<comment><USER3> I'm surprised the US is that close to the EU on installed capacity on a population adjusted basis (~148 GW if you adjust the US population up to the EU population). I'd like to see the US do a lot more with its wind power resources. We've done relatively little with offshore for example (that's only just beginning to see a serious push), while having rather epic offshore potential. The US Department of Energy lists the US with a technical offshore potential of 2,000+ GW.[1] Conveniently the US population is of course also concentrated along the coasts.

[1] [https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/computing-america-s- off...](https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/computing-america-s-offshore- wind-energy-potential)

<comment><USER4> The relatively recent political pushback against building turbines on farmland may encourage more of a push to develop offshore turbines. Development there was stopped early on by political resistance to having the gigantic, ugly, bird-killing machines spoiling the scenery.

<comment><USER5> People who complain about turbines killing birds are almost inevitably not interested in any of the other big killers of birds: habitat loss, invasive species, domestic cats, collisions with glass buildings, and so on.

<comment><USER6> Although blade strikes are easy to diagnose as a killer of birds, I'm sure the pollution released by coal/oil/gas power plants kills many birds too, not to mention all the other wildlife and humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This map shows why there's very few turbines in the southeast: [https://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/30m_US_Wind.jpg](https://www.nrel.gov/gis/images/30m_US_Wind.jpg)

It's just not windy here, except for a few spots.

<comment><USER8> Comparing the two I can only marvel at all the untapped opportunity in Wyoming.

<comment><USER9> Wyoming has very low air density, which reduces the power generation potential. It also has a tiny population, limited transmission capacity, difficult terrain, and short building seasons.

That said, there are transmission system upgrades for Wyoming coming in 2020. Because of this PacifiCorp released an RFP for up to 1,270 MW of wind generation on this upgraded system and I believe it is already all spoken for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if/when solar will catch up with or surpass wind? Part of the reason wind got so big in the past decade is cost - it's significantly cheaper now than fossil or nuclear. But solar costs are dropping even more rapidly than wind, and storage tech is improving (storage being more necessary for solar than wind).

<comment><USER11> This[0] says just about now, and you're right that solar has been improving faster than wind (which is probably a function of one being semiconductor technology and the other being generators, where the low-hanging fruits have been harvested a long time ago).

Of course there may well be local factors that may still make wind the better choice, and a mixture helps to even out production. So wind turbines aren't going to go out of fashion any time soon. Unlike coal.

[0]: [https://blog.aee.net/the-numbers-are-in-and-renewables- are-w...](https://blog.aee.net/the-numbers-are-in-and-renewables-are-winning- on-price-alone)

<comment><USER10> Something I expect to see is a lot more highly localized solar installations - namely parking lots. While I don't think it's financially viable at the home level, I think it'd be great at the office or business level, where there's often large outdoor parking lots. A quick solar panel installation (maybe with some local storage) could power the building. It's the sort of thing where the long-term cost factors are so appealing it might become standard with new construction, and certainly appeals to manufacturers to make easy-install products specifically for this market.

<comment><USER11> Something I hope to see a lot less of is parking lots.

Eliminate street-level parking in cities, and density could double (in US cities smaller than, say, Chicago). Average distances could be cut in half, making public transport or even biking or walking possible for far more trips than today.

"We only need cars because others have cars" isn't entirely true, or there would have never been cars in the first place. But it's not entirely untrue, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Really interesting stuff here. The little cluster in North Carolina is "Amazon Wind Farm US East".

I wonder if Amazon announces an electricity play soon, or if it's just related to sustainability efforts? Their use of wind is actually described more here: [https://aws.amazon.com/about- aws/sustainability/](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability/)

<comment><USER13> It is in Amazon's DNA to try not to brag. The US-WEST datacenters are pretty much all hydroelectric, but that says more about the incredibly low costs of hydro power in the area than the environmental benefits of it.

The PR boost is nice, but I think for many organizations the switch to renewables is plain old everyday boring economics: Renewables have become cheap and easy to invest in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Everyone talking about wind turbines and I'm just appreciating how fluid the cluster zooming is...I should add mapbox to my list of things to try. Their free tier looks like a good learning tool, or a good gis portal for small porfolio apps.

</comment><comment><USER15> Unfortunately the site has been HN'd, maybe give it a rest :)

</comment><comment><USER16> It's not very windy in the South. Also, where are the offshore turbines mentioned?

<comment><USER17> Block Island..Here: [https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/viewer/#10.13/41.1282/-71.5...](https://eerscmap.usgs.gov/uswtdb/viewer/#10.13/41.1282/-71.5269)

Also Ørsted has been awarded the right to build New Jersey's first offshore wind farm [https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/24/orsted-set-to-build- new...](https://cleantechnica.com/2019/06/24/orsted-set-to-build-new-jerseys- first-offshore-wind-farm/)

<comment><USER18> Some more in the development pipeline:

Vineyard off of MA: [https://www.iberdrola.com/about-us/lines- business/flagship-p...](https://www.iberdrola.com/about-us/lines- business/flagship-projects/vineyard-wind-offshore-wind-farm)

Empire off of Long Island: [https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we- do/empirewind.html](https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-do/empirewind.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is there a similar page for solar? Would be interesting to compare the two.

</comment><comment><USER20> As a random aside, is it just me or does the logo that the USGS uses for this project look a lot like the Klingon insignia?</comment>


Who Is Hosting This.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.whoishostingthis.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Found via lifehacker: [http://lifehacker.com/5130019/whoishostingthis-reveals- web-s...](http://lifehacker.com/5130019/whoishostingthis-reveals-web-site- hosting-providers)

Just one of those ah-HA ideas for a webapp, I know I've found myself wondering what host various sites use before.

The way internet is so amazing at resolving these little "uber geek I wonder how/why/who/what....." moments gets me so excited about these projects.</comment>


Show HN: Misocoin – A barebones Bitcoin-like protocol implemented in Python 3.6 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kendricktan/misocoin <comment><USER2> FYI, I think I see you using the P-256 curve in this project.

Word of warning, this is not Bitcoin's curve. This is a NIST curve.

The library you're using (fastecdsa) has secp256k1 available to use, if that's what you want to do.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it looks like this (and other differences) is why it's called a "Bitcoin- like" project. It also runs over HTTP instead of plain TCP/IP, so it can't be used as a Bitcoin node anyway (and there are numerous other differences).

But it's a nice example of a Bitcoin-like project, and manages to get the main ideas of Bitcoin in as an educational project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very cool! I've been working on a similar project every so often([https://github.com/lambdanaut/lambdacoin](https://github.com/lambdanaut/lambdacoin)). I'm not as far along as you are, but so far it seems like creating a cryptocurrency from scratch is not really all that big of a project, at least getting it into a prototypical state.

I was delighted to find that much of the math logic is already handled by libraries such as pycrypto.

It's funny to me how similar our codebases look. Especially our classes such as `Block` and `Transaction`. We each have to_json and from_json methods as well, in order to serialize the data for propagation.

<comment><USER5> Just curious as to how you got started into this? Are there any references you'd recommend. I have a typical Web dev background(+ some machine learning from college). Been investing in crypto for a bit and would love to learn and implement some basic blockchain concepts on my own. I've also been looking at Solidity.

<comment><USER4> Really it's just a lot of googling and looking for good tutorials that explain how the Bitcoin protocol works. Whenever you hit a concept you don't understand, google it.

The Bitcoin Developer Documentation is gold: [https://bitcoin.org/en/developer- documentation](https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-documentation)

Start by defining your basic objects, and then begin adding their methods, just like you would any sort of program. The basic objects here are the Blockchain, Transactions, and a Client to interact with the chain. The rest is just implementing rules for how these objects work together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool project. It seems like the only way for nodes to mine on the same chain is for them each to use different ports. I tried to use different IPs on the same port, and it didn't work.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess its because the library I'm using is rpc over HTTP instead of TCP/IP :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome project!

Your cat looks like mine :)

Also, for the JavaScript fans: [http://bcoin.io/](http://bcoin.io/) it's actually a full node implementation that can run in the browser (can if you have time and space for the blockchain).

<comment><USER3> How would that work? The Bitcoin network runs over TCP/IP, and you can't run raw TCP/IP connection over browsers.

I assume there is some kind of bridge server, or supernode, to allow the browser node to connect (via websocket?) to the actual Bitcoin network?

<comment><USER7> > Having a node set-up will allow you to more easily test and query the > RPC/REST API, and begin monitoring new transactions added to the bitcoin > blockchain/mempool.

> The default bcoin HTTP server listens on the standard RPC port (8332 for > main, 18332 for testnet, 48332 for regtest, and 18556 default for simnet). > It exposes a REST json api, as well as a JSON-RPC api.

Seems bcoin doesn't connect you directly, but rather to a node they're running elsewhere.

<comment><USER3> > It exposes a REST json api, as well as a JSON-RPC api.

So a bridge server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sounds a lot like me so horny, mi so coin... just the name already, oozes trust... </sarcasm></comment>


The First-Ever White House Demo Day - <AUTHOR> https://www.whitehouse.gov/demo-day

<comment><USER2> I know I harp on the same topics over and over again, but they're relevant because the VCs are in bed with the Democrats. Just look at the Ellen Pao case - who was she not invited to dinner with? Al Gore. Who did the CEO of my last company advise on his presidential campaign? John Kerry. DeBlasio, a Democrat, just spent $10 million of New Yorker taxpayer money to train workers for tech companies, and Obama just spent $100 million of federal money to do the same. Meanwhile, the VCs start at $500k a year and get promoted to $3 million a year, now that Pao has aired out their dirty laundry in a high profile court case.

I can't help but feel that this may all be a new corporate structure where the financiers are still in charge, but instead of expectations for corporations to offer real benefits, career progression, R&D budgets, and training of entry level people, we have the perfect excuse to avoid all of that - "we're a startup, and we just can't afford it." I'm not sure it's as healthy as it sounds when you just romanticize entrepeneurship for it's own sake, especially when they make no qualms that taking investor money is part of the goal.

<comment><USER3> _we have the perfect excuse to avoid all of that - "we're a startup, and we just can't afford it."_

And if you're a qualified tech worker, you can say "no thank you" and go to a company that does provide all those things. Startups are not the only employer.

<comment><USER2> Yes! Which is what I've done. But can I stop my taxpayer money being used to subsidize flooding the labor market with my supply skills because "startups can't afford to train people" and those poor VCs need highly skilled (but financially naive) employees to fool into building their empires?

<comment><USER3> _But can I stop my taxpayer money being used to subsidize flooding the labor market with my supply skills because "startups can't afford to train people"_

I'm not sure how many people receiving these tech training scholarships will go into startups. A great many will go into other, established tech companies.

<comment><USER2> Billionaire tech execs should also invest in training themselves instead of preaching about the low cost of false negatives right before they say they can't find people. But at least they make fair offers and invest in peoples' career (class action non poaching lawsuit may have helped.) I will note that some of them do have some programs for this already as well, Zuckerberg gave a lot to Newark and others have some programs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ugg, this is hard to read. Politics and startups don't mix. I know I can't really make any logical argument about it's negative qualities without being downvoted. I'll just say hopefully some people get a trip to DC to meet the prez.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a good use of influence, hopefully it's not only for a bulletin point.

<comment><USER6> An all points bulletin point?</comment></comment>


Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language (1981) - <AUTHOR> http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-on-pascal.html <comment><USER2> I was already familiar with this rant back in the day.

It complains about the first Pascal version, not the later Extend Pascal standard.

All the Pascal compilers target to professional developers had a common set of extensions mainly from USCD Pascal and Object Pascal (Apple), with Turbo Pascal being the one most compilers tried to be the most compatible with.

C was also a mess outside UNIX with compilers only partially supporting parts of it.

Worse, thanks to C lack of proper strings, arrays decaying into pointers and lack of reference parameters we have the current security situation that needs to fixed with tons of external tools.

<comment><USER3> Some criticism about Pascal is kind of unfair, the one-pass compiler nature of the original language for example made Pascal compilers so much faster.

When I tried to learn how to program I had played around with C, C++ and Basic without understanding much, but when I finally found a Pascal book and got a copy of FreePascal I really learned and understood how it works.

Nowadays I am not using Pascal any more (I am not too sad about it), but the Borland / FreePascal Dialects offer some serious benefits. For one thing the unit system is still better than what C/C++ have to offer (text-include header files, nah) ;)

Also it is worth remembering that C back then was not what it became with ANSI C and then C99. I would not like to write in that dialect, seriously.

Thinking back I think Pascal was a nice intermediate level programming language between C and Basic that was implemented in its ways for proper reasons. The text provided has very valid points on Pascal, but the arguments that C is better are only partially convincing. C is different and I would argue that it has prevailed because it is more closer to the metal.

<comment><USER4> Can you provide an example of how C is supposedly "closer to the metal" than pascal ? Both are native compiled language, and at least windows used to have its api coded in pascal rather than c before that language became dominant.

<comment><USER3> C does not semantically separate arrays from pointers, Pascal does this.

C uses indexes starting from 0, Pascal does not.

Pascal usually does not come with strong memory layout guarantees that one knows from C (packing of structs, unions, etc.)

Typecasting in Pascal is a matter of dialect.

There are probably more but I cannot remember them because I have not used Pascal in a very long while.

<comment><USER2> None of those points are "closer to the metal".

Only ANSI/ISO C11 does provide strong memory guarantees. Back then there wasn't even a C standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I joined Apple in 1987 it was a Pascal shop that had just started moving to C. The Pascal they were using had been developed and was maintained in- house and had a number of extensions, and with the exception of a few things like different semantics for pointer arithmetic and the presence of nested procedures it felt in practice nearly the same as C, just with different keywords. I wrote a ton of code in it, and I really didn't think about the difference much.

But in college I had to use unextended Pascal, and it sucked pretty hard. Maybe that's the point of a teaching language; make it stink to the point that students are encouraged to move to better languages. Maybe the current vocational approach of teaching a "Real Language" \-- ahem, Java -- to beginning programmers is flawed because they're less likely to get experience with other, better languages. [I'm not sure how serious I am about this. I know that I hate Java, at least how it was circa 2001].

<comment><USER6> I learned programming with Pascal in high school, and it definitely didn't stink. It's way easier than C and lets you focus on the actual programming, not the idiosyncrasies of the language. It's very much like Python in this regard, but I think it's even better as a first languge. It's more explicit and to someone completely new to programming, that really pays off IMO.

<comment><USER7> Pascal was my 2nd language after Apple IIe BASIC. I also found it to be a great language to learn. I have some bad memories involving Delphi, though...

<comment><USER8> Without a compiler BASIC was absolutely terrible performance wise, so assembler was kind of a must (at least to me).

When I was trying to learn object orient programming with Turbo Pascal, it felt rally hard till I saw the exact compiled code. But I liked Pascal very much... and Delphi even more. Actually I liked everything about Delphi, compared to Visual Basic it was absolutely amazing and it came with the source code of its libraries! What was your bad experience with?

<comment><USER9> Does anyone use Lazarus and Free Pascal for anything? I only tinkered with Delphi when it used to come on PC Plus cover CDs back in the day, before using C++ Builder at work. I know that C++ Builder lost significant (!) market share after the name changes to Inprise and being bought by Embercarado, although those things weren't necessarily the real reasons for this market share loss.

I was pleasantly surprised to come across Lazarus and Free Pascal and thought it might be a way for my brother to do some programming, instead of C++ (which I use, but he doesn't know).

<comment><USER10> I studied TP many years ago, and have fond memories of it. I looked into using Free Pascal for a system level project involving networking, threading, and concurrency (here I mean things like synchronized collections). In particular the threading and concurrency libraries seemed to be limited, and not as 'nice' as alternatives in other languages (boost, or java concurrent utils). Also the language is sufficiently complex that I decided I may as well use c or c++.

<comment><USER9> I thought that Lazarus looked easy enough to get my brother started with programming, due to the easy nature of "controls" that you drag + drop from the palette, but such a hope hasn't materialised yet. Good to know someone else looked into it though.

I note that on Mac it is still built using Carbon; not sure if Cocoa is in the works?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Funny how things change. Two of the deficiencies:

      - the absence of global state
      - array dimensions part of the type

may have been considered defects back then, but are currently seen as a good thing.

[For example, in Haskell, they consider it fancy that you can add dimensions to your type signature so the compiler can check if you're not doing something silly.]

Also, I programmed extensively in Pascal using the Borland IDE in the early 90s and it was one of the best IDEs I ever encountered.

As troll bait, let me just throw in this: the compiler had better inline assembly than what gcc provides 20 years down the road.

<comment><USER12> C also has arrays with dimensions as part of the type. The trick is that the dimension must be determined statically. This is different than vectors in Haskell which allow the size of the vector to be determined (and even vary) dynamically, yet still guarantee memory safety statically (I.e. no runtime cost for bounds checking).

You can think of an array with a static size of 10 as being like shorthand notation for a struct with ten fields (sans padding). It really is no more complicated than that.

<comment><USER2> Try to use those arrays as function arguments.

<comment><USER12> I believe that works fine (at least in C). You have to statically put the array size into the function signature, so it will only work on arrays of that size. I was simply pointing out the difference between dependently typed vectors which have the type checker prove you use the vector correctly, and arrays in c and pascal whose sizes are known at compile time. I am agreeing with the author that this makes it hard to create generic array bounds if you don't have the ability to make unbounded arrays (as c does). I was disagreeing with the gp, who was conflating these two different sorts of types.

<comment><USER2> So I guess you aren't confortable with the C standard.

Functions don't take arrays size statically in arguments. Whatever you write is ignored.

<comment><USER12> It's been a few years since I've written a lot of C. ufo's sibling comment reminded me of how it acts (the last dimension is ignored).

Anyway, this is completely beside the point of what I was talking about. The point is that a static size is a very different level of type system machinery from a dynamic size.

<comment><USER2> My point is that although they are static allocated, the moment you pass them as arguments, they are just another pointer.

Which leads to those beautifull security exploits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 33 years later, none of this is true of FreePascal, Delphi, or any modern variant. Except maybe the cosmetics. If you think {!@#$} is easier on the eyes than begin end; well that's like your opinion, man.

<comment><USER14> I never understood all the Pascal-bashing. It's a pretty decent procedural language.

</comment></comment><comment> V-2 [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/114846/why- ha...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/114846/why-has-c- prevailed-over-pascal) \- some interested insights in a discussion initiated by yours truly

<comment> V-2 I meant "interesting" of course ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I remember first learning Pascal and hated it. It felt very restricted and difficult to get real work done. The type checks that are worshiped nowadays felt like a straitjacket in Pascal. C was a totally different experience. It was so open and free of restriction that I could hack anything with it. Pascal was a beginner learning language but C was hacker's language.

<comment><USER8> TurboPascal had great inline asm, so you could hack in any way you please.

<comment><USER16> I wonder how many people learned graphics programming because of Pascal and inline asm. I wrote many a phong shader, raytracer, and other 3d graphic things back in the day using that. There was a cool Demo tutorial series by a guy called Denthor floating around on BBS's back then.

<comment><USER17> [http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/listed82.html?c...](http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/reference/listed82.html?categoryid=130)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Very nostalgic :-). I learnt the concept of pointers in Pascal. I think it was taught for two semesters at Mysore and Bangalore university colleges. We however quickly moved on to C as that came during the final year of graduation. Fortran -> Pascal -> C was sort of general trajectory couple of decades ago in engineering colleges in India. And in all this there was Cobol; I wonder whether it's even taught now a days!

</comment><comment><USER19> Pascal and C are very much the same, and basically parents of C#. (both by Anders Hejlsberg, currently making TypeScript)

Also if you are a Pascal/Delphi guy/gal and need to build web applications, check out the smart fellows at [http://smartmobilestudio.com/](http://smartmobilestudio.com/)

<comment><USER20> Anders Hejlsberg made TurboPascal. Pascal itself was created by Niklaus Wirth.

<comment><USER21> Wirth also created successors to Pascal and co-created an operating system and the hardware it ran/runs on.

<comment><USER2> I am a big fan of the Oberon family of languages.

It showed me workstation OS are pretty doable in GC enabled systems programming languages.

Sadly the industry hasn't yet decided to bet on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Please, would you read that new News ?

[http://wiki.freepascal.org/Why_Pascal_is_Not_My_Favorite_Pro...](http://wiki.freepascal.org/Why_Pascal_is_Not_My_Favorite_Programming_Language)

</comment><comment><USER23> Learjet vs piper cub? There are plenty of jets designed for training and small prop planes designed to "get things done".</comment>


Android devices outselling iOS by 2:1 in US (q3) - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9194278/Android_phones_outsell_iPhone_2_to_1_says_research_firm

<comment><USER2> I find it a bit disappointing that posts like this frequently turn into some kind of 'android vs iphone' fight. I appreciate everyone has their own favourite technologies but a comment with well reasoned analysis makes far better reading in my humble opinion.

</comment><comment><USER3> To all those complaining about the article title:

a) Yes, you are correct that the article itself only talks about iPhones, not all iOS devices. The title here is wrong and should be corrected.

b) A quick Google search found Apple sold 14.1m iPhones, 9m iPods, 4.19m iPads in Q4 2010[1]. If Android Phones (devices?) outsold iPod 2:1, then Android still outsold iOS - although one might argue that ~1 million difference is possibly within the error bounds of the research.

The only thing that is unclear is if things like the Dell Streak and Samsung Tab are counted as "smartphones" for the purposes of this research. If they aren't then the lead Android has in Q4 shipped units increases slightly. Either way, I'm not sure these devices are shipping in significant enough numbers to move the results much.

[1] [http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/apple-q4-2010...](http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/apple-q4-2010-14.1m-iphones-9m-ipods-4.19m-ipads- sold/)

</comment><comment><USER4> The title of the link is mis-leading, it isn't Android devices, but Android handsets (smartphones) that are outselling iPhone devices (smartphones).

These statistics do not cover, iPod Touches, iPads, Android Tablets, Android TV devices etc etc etc etc. Adjust your reality filter accordingly.

<comment><USER5> Do they even factor in that you can get the iPhone one place and Android in a thousand?

<comment><USER4> I'm curious what that tells you? Or at least what information you looking to derive.

If I was a carrier, I may care how which handset is more profitable to sell, which once is in more demand, etc, based on what my network and my competitors sell. As an application developer you may care about how well the various Android market systems perform compare to the iPhone market place. Additionally as a developer you may care about the install base, or target demographics of that install base.

I don't understand what factoring the number of sales channels (?) compared to sale volumes will give you statistically. (I'm always willing to be enlightened, I'm a developer by trade, so stats/biz dev is not my primary focus)

[edit:]

Additional thought, the rate of introduction of new smartphones on the Android vs rate of new iPhone releases. Conversely the iPhone introduced June 24th, will primarily show up on the Q3 sales figures (in the US).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> HN article title is wrong - article mentions only the iPhone numbers, not those for all iOS devices (iPhone+iPod Touch+iPad).

<comment><USER7> But the iPod touch and iPad are not phones, and only a subet of the iPads have the ability access 3G cellular networks. And i doubt any statistically significant number of iPad 3G users are using the device in place of a phone.

<comment><USER8> Er, what? The title reads "Android devices outselling iOS 2:1 in the US", but that's not what the linked article claims and supports. iPhones, which is what the article talks about, are a subset of iOS devices.

According to the article, Android phones are outselling iPhones, but there is no data in the article to support the claim that all Android devices are outselling iOS as a whole. The title here on HN is incorrect.

<comment><USER9> The title is even doubly wrong. Not only does the article only talk about iPhones, it also only compares them to Android phones (not Android tablets or Android devices in general).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This will be a curious trend to look at next year after the iPhone is available on Verizon in the US.

The iPhone also seems targeted toward a tech-savvy buyer who is not price averse. I see Android handsets on outdated software being offered as free phones, and of course available on multiple carriers.

The underlying tone of all these comparison stories is (I think) about the leading platform in terms of development and market share. Which user is likely to spend more on apps over time? The user who had no problems laying down hundreds of dollars for a premium handset (and likely upgrading multiple times), or the user who got into a much cheaper handset on a lower budget carrier? You could argue it both ways, does saving money on the handset equal more budget for apps? Or are users who won't pony up for the premium phone also unwilling to pay 2 or 3 bucks for some games and fart apps?

Does anyone know the numbers on 'premium' Android handset sales figures?

<comment><USER4> What is your definition of "premium"?

<comment><USER7> HTC Incredible, Droid 2/X, etc. Android devices running, or with an upgrade path to 2.2 and beyond, a rough example.

<comment><USER10> Latest figures I saw (recorded Google I/O presentation on Android game development, the "redux" speech by Chris Pruett) 30% ran 2.2 back in June.

They went from zero to 30% in 10 months:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-62tRHLcHk>

I watch the mobile industry religiously; my biases are firmly with the cross- platform side of things. I want Palm, Google and MS to compete shoulder to shoulder so that we (developers) may win; I hate Fascism with a vengeance!

But so far, nothing even comes close to the R2D2 look-alike. The green robot is just gorgeous, it doesn't hurt that it's Free (as in speech.)

Android, like I said before, is as open to you as your mother's arms. Grok it! Fork it! Code for it! It's all yours :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For some people who don't want an expensive cell contract, or for some reason need to carry a different phone, the iPod Touch is a great way to get in on a modern mobile OS. Those have to count big to developers, since iPod Touch owners are just as likely to use and buy apps (if not maybe more so since they're likely offline more, so the browser and webapps are less useful).

What's really amazing is that there's no <$200 Android powered iPod Touch competitor. There's a market gap there in my opinion ... I think every smartphone OS should have a non-cellular device as well.

</comment><comment><USER12> For something as personal as a mobile phone. I am not surprised.

For a start, not everyone wants a phone everyone else have. And since Apple only come out with one model of iPhone every year, well...

</comment><comment><USER13> Are people surprised by this? I mean I'm wondering why this is news. iOS is locked to first-party hardware, rather than the Android route, so I'm curious as to what's so surprising about this. Perhaps I'm missing something (would not be the first time on HN).

</comment><comment><USER14> All the android phones on all the carriers outsell 1 phone on 1 carrier....what a surprise.

I want to see the updated data on what % of app dollars are spent on what OS today.

<comment><USER15> I hate the 'dick waving' that goes on with this stuff from either side of the aisle:

\---

Apple fans (now): Quantity ensures quality. You can't have a decent AppStore without X million apps.

Android fans (now): Quality over quantity! It's better to have an AppStore with quality apps than it is to have one with a large number of apps that aren't quality!

\---

Apple fans (when Android's AppStore has more apps than Apple's AppStore): Quality over quantity! It's not quantity that matters, it's the quality of the apps!

Android fans (when Android's AppStore has more apps than Apple's AppStore): Quantity over quality! Because our App store has more apps than yours it ensures that there are more quality apps!

\---

Apple fans (when iPhones outsell Android phones): Android phones will _never_ outsell iPhones. The iPhone is much more intuitive, and the 'mendicants' could never figure out an Android phone it's just too complex. Normal people will _never_ go for a phone that has font kerning that is off by 2 pixels! Besides, just look at the iPhone sales numbers!

Android fans (when iPhones outsell Android phones): But we're not offered on enough networks yet! And our phone is more quality!

\---

Apple fans (when Android phones outsell iPhones): But the iPhone is only sold from a single carrier! It's not fair to compare numbers! Besides, the iPhone is a better quality product!

Android fans (when Android phones outsell iPhones): Look at the numbers! We beat you! Nah-nah! Android phones outsell iPhones!

<comment><USER14> I was dick waving? I was underwhelmed with the title of the post, acting like it was surprising that 1 phone was being outsold by 24.

<comment><USER15> Sorry, that wasn't directed at you, but your post spawn my thought, so I made it a reply.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Selling twice as many piles of low quality, poorly designed phones as premium ones is still selling twice as much garbage. At the end of the day, just because you sell more doesn't mean your product is better. This is proof of that.

From a business perspective, Android manufacturers need to sell many, many more devices in order to even come close to Apple's profitability.

Look at how well Apple is able to not just manufacture their devices, but also design chips, main boards, visual and function design, create excellent software with profoundly amazing developer frameworks, and run meaningful marketing campaigns... all while turning an incredible profit margin.

Google and its manufacturing partners are simply not producing high grade and thoughtful products. So until they do, who really cares about it "outselling iOS 2:1".

<comment><USER10> You are sorely mistaken, my friend.

You and I will never be in a position to sell a successful mobile handset[1], so let's just focus on the app development and sales.

In terms of ease of use, we can use whatever tool we're most comfortable with to develop for Android: C, C++, Java, Flash, C#, Python, Scheme, Ruby, etc. and we have guaranteed approval. Neither Google nor other alleged gatekeepers can dick with our right to publish software. Even if we choose to give it away for free, users can download our apps and install on their Android phones without anybody knowing about it, getting a cut or messing with them. "adb install MyApp.apk" is a birth right on Android, bless the beautiful platform!

For a developer, Android is multitasking, garbage collected, and modern, almost to a fault. You can tweak it to your liking, as much as you want. And should you choose to, you can build it from sources and deploy it on your new exotic board that nobody has ever heard of.

At this point, Android is bigger than the efforts of all the carriers and handset creators, combined. What Android can do is only limited by your imagination, skill, and budget. Nothing is stopping you from developing a new mobile handset that puts the iPhone to shame (and many have done this) and loading Android with it.

Instead of finding fault in specific Android deployments or handsets, ask yourself: what do I want to do with Android?

This thing is bigger than a movement, it's a tsunami wave standing a mile tall: I want to ride it, I want _you_ to ride it. Let's put our creativity together and make use of this thundering power. Or stand in its way to be crushed.

\--

[1] Unless we use Android or Maemo, which are Free Software :-)

<comment><USER16> I never said I wanted to be in the handset business.

And frankly, there's not much money to be made in making Android apps. Android's "openness" lends to users thinking apps are not worthy of purchasing, so few paid apps are actually doing well on the Android Market. In most cases, it costs more to build an Android app than it's worth.

I get that Android is huge. It's a nice second rung. But it suffers from countless flaws (UX and UI, market profitability for devs, device fragmentation, etc).</comment></comment></comment>


How a Frozen Neutrino Observatory Grapples with Staggering Amounts of Data - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-a-frozen-neutrino-observatory-grapples-with-staggering-amounts-of-data <comment><USER2> CERN and the synoptic telescopes have identical issues. They collect petabytes a year and re-analyze it later. CERN only saves about one in billion "interesting" events. A physicist might suggest a new decay model. Then a grad student might search for its signature in the recorded billions of events.

</comment><comment><USER3> _[...] Gonzalo Merino, the IceCube computing facilities manager at UW-Madison, wrote in an unencrypted email._

What an odd thing to say in such an article.</comment>


How I built the best-selling BlackBerry app - <AUTHOR> https://www.neilwithdata.com/how-i-built-bbsmart <comment><USER3> It's ironic to think that one of the main selling points of Blackberry was end-to-end security (the devices talked to an on-premises server via a dedicated mobile APN which had to comply with a number of requirements), and yet its on-device security model allowed an app to take over such critical functionality _by design_.

I have a number of fun stories about RIM (I was one of the BB product managers at a telco), and this post reminded me that it might be a good time to record them for posterity... :)

<comment><USER4> > It's ironic to think that one of the main selling points of Blackberry was > end-to-end security (the devices talked to an on-premises server via a > dedicated mobile APN which had to comply with a number of requirements), and > yet its on-device security model allowed an app to take over such critical > functionality _by design_.

While true, the initial versions of iOS and Android represented a step down in security. (BlackBerry at least encrypted the phone, by default - maybe even required?)

I was always baffled that the tech media would never mention how insecure Android or iOS were.

<comment><USER5> Maybe because Android and iOS came out at the same time as people were learning that Blackberry's "security" was a pastiche.

In order to operate in some countries, all Blackberry traffic had to be routed through that country's government servers.

It's been a long while, but I'm pretty sure that India was one such country. And at least one Middle Eastern country.

<comment><USER4> > Maybe because Android and iOS came out at the same time as people were > learning that Blackberry's "security" was a pastiche.

> In order to operate in some countries, all Blackberry traffic had to be > routed through that country's government servers.

> It's been a long while, but I'm pretty sure that India was one such country. > And at least one Middle Eastern country.

This was only related to the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), and even then only on the standard consumer phones. The corporate servers had their own keys, IIRC. Plus, it was only for messages traversing Indian or Pakistani networks, and my memory was that BlackBerry did not hand the keys over, just answered all of their requests.

Even at that, this level of encrypted communications was not otherwise widely available for consumers. The actual migration from BBM to whatever iPhone and Android were offering were downgrades.

I'm not aware that BlackBerry devices were ever rooted, and they were default encrypted with 128-bit AES. The OS required users to grant permission for apps to access resources, such as GPS. This took something close to a decade to be installed and enabled by default in iOS and Android.

There was a big story where 3rd-party apps installed by providers contained malware. It was a huge story run everywhere and headlines made it sound as if every single phone had this vulnerability. However, they didn't mention the vulnerability could not affect BlackBerry devices because BlackBerry had a contract with all providers that the provider could not install any software to the device.

Not security-related, but a big complaint from devs at the time was that BlackBerry had so many different devices that it was very expensive to develop for. Apple, for sure, and maybe Android promised this would never happen on their platforms. Only the truly naive could believe this.

My takeaway was that BlackBerry somehow pissed-off all of the tech journos and suffered appropriately. That's why they got nothing but bad press.

The other thing they suffered from was this "co-CEO" nonsense. For whatever reason, it seems nearly universal that if more than one person is in charge, nobody is accountable.

Edit:

And something even I forget about is that prior to the Snowden releases, concerns over government snooping were only for the tin-foil hat donned black- helicopter dodging conspiracy theorists. It just wasn't on the public's radar.

<comment><USER6> >it was only for messages traversing Indian or Pakistani networks, and my memory was that BlackBerry did not hand the keys over, just answered all of their requests

They handed over their "global encryption key" to the RCMP, see [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160414/10482434186/canad...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160414/10482434186/canadian- law-enforcement-can-intercept-decrypt-blackberry-messages.shtml)

They jumped from "most secure" to "least secure" effectively immediately once they did that.

<comment><USER4> > >it was only for messages traversing Indian or Pakistani networks, and my > memory was that BlackBerry did not hand the keys over, just answered all of > their requests

> They handed over their "global encryption key" to the RCMP, see > [https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160414/10482434186/canad...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20160414/10482434186/canad..).

> They jumped from "most secure" to "least secure" effectively immediately > once they did that.

That article is an absolutely fantastic example of how the press treated BlackBerry (average consumers might come away thinking that BlackBerry devices are insecure).

It is after BlackBerry was dead from a market share perspective, so this isn't really applicable to the period I am referring to, which was from iPhone launch to maybe as late as 2012, when BlackBerry went from hero to zero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Critically, from that handler, it was then possible to get a reference to > the current UI stack via the call to UiApplication.getUiApplication() - <USER2> > you had that reference, you could do whatever you want with any screens in > the current display stack. You could pop screens from the stack, push new > screens on the stack, and grab any screen in the stack and dig in and modify > any of the UI components on any screen (deleting them, replacing them, > etc.).

Give people extensibility and they can do things you'd never imagine: just take a look at the early jailbreaking community, who had neither APIs nor support from Apple but were able to do quite a bit just by being able to inject code into system applications to augment them. (I like to think that a faint echo lives on today in Mail plugins for macOS.) Sadly, we seem to be moving away from this for reasons that are touted to be for security…

<comment><USER8> The security issue is very real. Ultimately the distinction between a useful capability-adding hack and an exploit is whether the end user wanted it to do what it does. And there's a big supply of what are euphemistically called "potentially unwanted programs" (PUPs) which trick the user into installing keyloggers, etc.

<comment><USER9> I think the Android model is perfectly good here. You get the option to load unsigned apps or unlock the bootloader, etc, but those options are all off by default and full of warnings to the user.

<comment><USER10> And "warnings" like UAC worked _really_ well to keep Windows secure and to keep ransomware and malware from infecting Windows computers.

It's also not working too well to keep Android devices secure.

<comment><USER9> I don't think you understand how this works.

The analog to UAC on Android is permissions, which work pretty similarly to ios. You could argue that the user gets used to just clicking agree and that not much is gained for the average user.

Sideloading apps and unlocking the bootloader is much different. It requires the user to actively go through the settings to enable the options, which would only happen if the user knew what they were doing in the first place. And after you try to enable the settings, you are bombarded with warnings before the settings actually apply.

An app can't trick you into flipping these switches. Most of them are actually hidden in developer mode anyway.

I challenge you to prove these have ever been a vector for attack. It's just not practical.

The security lost is zero, and the freedom gained is immense.

<comment><USER10> _I challenge you to prove these have ever been a vector for attack. It 's just not practical._

[https://www.cnet.com/news/fortnites-battle-royale-with- andro...](https://www.cnet.com/news/fortnites-battle-royale-with-android- security-problems-is-just-getting-started/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Perhaps it's just nostalgia, but I miss my BlackBerry Bold.

A buzz in the pocket, email symbol on the screen, main button to open the email, right-click button to forward, physical scroll to a recent colleague and select, lock & back in pocket.

All that before 3G. Easy, quick and no fuss, muscle memory took care of most of it.

<comment><USER12> I was watching the movie "Up in the Air" last night. There is a scene where George Clooney's character is chatting on his blackberry, and the buzzing sound made me feel super nostalgic. RIP BBM.

I often still wish phones had physical keyboards.

<comment><USER13> I would love if someone would revive the HTC G1/HTC Dream.

That was my first smartphone and I loved the dual use with the sliding keyboard in landscape mode.

Should be possible to make something like this with all the improvements we had along the way... Anyone listening here? Please make it happen! :-)

<comment><USER14> The FxTec Pro 1 is a landscape KB-based Android phone with an unlocked bootloader and support for Sailfish and LineageOS. It's made by a small company, so while the phone is available and shipping, production batches are small, and you might have to wait a bit to receive your order.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, I saw that other comment just after I posted. Checked out their website and I got a somewhat strange feeling about their fake product image where they run GMail and a browser window in desktop mode in split-view mode. Somewhat fishy.

<comment><USER15> I must agree, the images on their website do look slightly staged, but being a new Pro1 user (since my order finally arrived in January) I can honestly say its the best phone I have every had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> blackberry was the case of 'not knowing any better'.

i never had to use one for work but blackberry was my first smart phone, it came with a truly unlimited plan from verizon.

here are some fond memories of it:

\- i got notification that new OS was available, i did an over the air update and it wiped 90% of my contacts. i came from dumbphones and remember i had to re-enter 100 or so contacts by hand, i don't think i ever upgraded the SW on it again.

\- went out to HH with some friends and getting ready to go home i thought of using the internet on my fancy BB to look up the bus schedule, i pulled up the cttransit website and it would not open the .pdf with the bus time natively, it pointed me to buying some pdf viewer for something like $25. at the same time, my co-workers iphone 3G or whatever it was, opened the pdf without any additional apps.

so much for a "computer" in your pocket and being all about "business and not play", the stereotypical mantra of old crackberry.com. i think the next year on valentines verizon got the iphone 4 and that was the end of blackberry for me.

i can't believe people have nostalgia for this garbage phone.

</comment><comment><USER17> I love these stories, Neil was basically able to create a business on what essentially amounts to hack.

<comment><USER18> There are so many reasons why I wouldn't have done this nowadays:

\- Don't implement a feature

\- Don't rely on a hack that could change

... in the end, it worked for him. Great write up indeed.

<comment><USER19> > _Don 't implement a feature_

This obviously requires contextualization and I naturally assume it was stated with that context implicit, but I'm not entirely sure what the connotation is. Don't implement OS-level features, so when the OS (re)does them (potentially better, notwithstanding incompetence) you die?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I see it also had basic emojis or "smiley" support, heh. I like the simplicity of it all, ignoring all of the obvious security issues.

[https://i.imgur.com/ho3XV6q.png](https://i.imgur.com/ho3XV6q.png)

</comment><comment><USER21> Ha, snap! We did the same with the PhoneListener(?) class and our PBX client. Allowed us to cancel and make calls, send DTMF for call-back and call-through. I also had my own app which sent calls straight to speakerphone.

I look back on BB with alot of nostalgia, you really had to work to make things look good. If you didn't want your Views (widgets) black, white and blue then you were making them from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER22> This was such a fun walk down nostalgia lane. The mountain of hacks both available and required on BlackBerry was incredible.

I worked at a startup that built a BlackBerry app in 2007. I wrote up my experience here: [https://schlu.org/2014/05/29/Things-Are- Better.html](https://schlu.org/2014/05/29/Things-Are-Better.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> That's a cool write-up.

Interesting how one small piece of technical knowledge changed someone's life

</comment><comment><USER24> But how much did it make? :D

<comment><USER25> I guess it would be hard to really measure the impact with 100% certainty.

There's the sales part, but there's also the "got a job at blackberry" part which might or might not have happened without the app.

And by the sounds of it, a good job as well!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> BB10 and Windows Phone 8 were the victims of the apple Google duopoly but both were individually far ahead of them. I still have hope Microsoft would make a comeback. I could hope that BB open sources BB10 but that is not going to happen.

<comment><USER27> I mean, no. BlackBerry was a victim of having a terrible product going head to head with the iPhone. As a development platform it was garbage. I vividly remember the inaugural BlackBerry developer conference where one of the sessions devolved into a revolt. People had written apps for the iPhone and they were not pleased with the APIs on the BB. Every attendee at that conference was supposed to receive a 9000 but they shipped a year late. RIM needed no duopoly to kill them. They died of natural causes.

<comment><USER28> Yep, I think people tend to forget how bad the blackberry line up was compared to the iPhones and even androids they were competing against. Their flagship in ~2011 was the Bold, which could barely browse the internet, had a horrible camera and an extremely dated UI. Going up against the iPhone 4s which is still functional to this day.

Sometimes some companies just deserve to fail. The current duopoly formed because the competition just couldn't keep up, and that's on them

<comment><USER27> The API for BB app development allowed you to have UI elements like text labels or buttons, stacked vertically on the screen. That was the whole thing. If you wanted a table you were on your own. The web browser was very similar to MSIE 3, or NetPositive: it laid everything out vertically, didn't support tables or CSS. When the iPhone came out with a real web browser it was like it came from another galaxy.

<comment><USER19> I get the vertical UI was because the system had initially gone all-in on a scrollwheel, and never fundamentally moved on beyond that point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


FCC's Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/fcc-raid/ <comment><USER2> Pirate radio stations have been operating for a while and people are rarely charged with a crime. This guy from Corpus Christi handled it like hell. When he talked to the FCC agent he admitted that he was running the CB station. The agent never had to enter the house to prove it, this guy was free and clear until he said 'yup, that's mine alright'.

As far as I can tell the article is saying that this could turn sour. The FCC is reserving this right and it could have disastrous consequences. If the EFF is really worried about it I'm sure they'd be glad to defend someone and hopefully set a positive precedent. (If not the EFF, possibly the ACLU.)

In short: avoid talking to cops. When you do, don't say much.

<comment><USER3> never, ever, ever, ever talk to the cops.

this video may have been linked here earlier but please watch it in its entirety. very important to know your right (us citizens).

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865>

<comment><USER4> Agreed, I've seen that video and I sent it around like crazy. It's important to know what you're up against especially when your innocent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the exeptions to the "gotta get a warrant" rule in US constitutional law is the "plain view" exception--if the cops see a marijuana plant through your front window, they don't need a warrant to go busting in and seizing it. So if the FCC's monitoring equipment indicates that radio transmissions powerful enough to require a license are coming out of your house, would the transmitter count as being in "plain view"?

<comment><USER6> Certainly not. You use eyes to view.

<comment><USER5> You may be right... Some of the pages I found from Googling claimed that the "plain view" exemption also applies to hearing, smell, etc., but I'm having trouble finding an actual citation. The closest thing I can find is _Kyllo v. US_ , where the Supremes said that you need a warrant to use thermal imaging to look for the heat of marijuana-growing lamps, even if you never step onto the suspect's property to use the imager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wait. Is there some actual case at hand where the FCC abused this power against a private citizen, or does EFF just want to pick a fight here?

<comment><USER8> Does it matter? What if instead of searches, the FCC was granted the right to kill people? Wouldn't you want someone, anyone to get a judicial review of this right immediately? It doesn't matter to me that no private citizens have been affected by this yet. Why should we wait? If it is unconstitutional, which it seems to be, then they shouldn't be able to do it, period.

<comment><USER7> Well, there's a pick your battles thing here. Every municipality has some law like "the commissioner may inspect the premises at any time for violations of code", etc. Those provisions are unconstitutional but _as a practical matter_ are not the genesis of a police state.

There are a lot of bugs in the law, so we should probably prioritize the most severe runtime errors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Parsing this headline could have been easier. Who are the alarm experts? How about: "FCC searching households without warrants, with debatable legality?"</comment>


5 Things That Only Desktop Analytics Can Do For You (And Web Analytics Can't) - <AUTHOR> http://deskmetrics.com/blog/2011/five-things-only-desktop-analytics-can-do-you-and-/

<comment><USER2> .NET is not a "VM".</comment>


Tsunami carried a million sea creatures from Japan to US west coast - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/29/tsunami-carried-million-sea-creatures-from-japan-to-us-west-coast <comment><USER2> Waves are oscillations, and thus do not move matter over long distances. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER3> You're right, but the tsunami released a lot of debris to the sea near Japan, and the sea creatures where slowly transported for thousands of miles, on that debris:

"Between June 2012 and February this year 289 Japanese species attached to 600 pieces of debris washed up on beaches in the states of Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii, as well as in the Canadian province of British Columbia, according to the study."

<comment><USER2> Maybe I should RTFA instead of the (misleading) headline :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is really interesting because many of these new species will be considered invasive species, however, because they arrived by natural means should the invasion be stopped?

<comment><USER5> Since they came over almost entirely an manmade debris that had been 'freed' by the tsunami, I think it can be argued that this was not entirely natural. If Japan was unpopulated, we'd get a few logs that would made the journey, not complete manmade structures which could house many different species at once.

<comment><USER6> I really have difficultly seeing how this could be considered anything other than natural. We, our actions and our impacts on the rest of the environment are, after all, born of the very same nature.

<comment><USER5> Well, by that loose definition, there is absolutely nothing that is not 'natural.'

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I agree with that!

<comment><USER7> "Natural" is defined as: existing in or caused by nature; not made or caused by humankind.

So by definition, there are things that are natural, such as other galaxies, and all things a million years ago.

<comment><USER8> Things that are natural : all galaxies, including ours.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The New York Times - Innovation Portfolio - <AUTHOR> http://innovate.whsites.net/

<comment><USER2> Nice.

      6 Virtual Features
     11 Multimedia Features
      6 Personal Tools
      6 Interactive Graphics
      8 User Submitted
      5 Applications

Some of them are _too_ good. For those of us online all the time, it's pretty hard for us to justify a subscription to the Times Reader after we see how good the "article skimmer" is (And the article skimmer includes Tables, unlike the Times Reader)

<http://www.nytimes.com/gst/articleSkimmer/>

I'm willing to wager that the "Article Skimmer" will turn out to be a premier feature of the MacTablet when it comes out in January - It's perfectly designed for that form factor.</comment>


Quebec doctors can now prescribe exercise - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-doctors-can-now-prescribe-exercise-1.3215821 <comment><USER3> My dad's doctor once told him to lose the spare tire, and sent him to a nutritionist, who gave him a diet plan.

Some months later, he went back to the nutritionist for a checkup, and the nutritionist was shocked that he'd actually followed her plan. He became one of those unicorns who kept the weight off until he passed away 30 years later, though he complained that he was always hungry.

<comment><USER4> > nutritionist, who gave him a diet plan.

> Some months later, he went back to the nutritionist for a checkup, and the > nutritionist was shocked that he'd actually followed her plan

"I didn't _mean_ it! You know usually it's just a formality. But, uh, keep up the good work."

<comment><USER5> The password policy includes not sharing it at the drop of a hat.

<comment><USER4> yeah sorry, I deleted that part.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's so obvious it's amazing this hasn't already been a thing since the beginning of the obesity epidemic. Specific exercise instructions are more likely to be followed than a vague admonition to "exercise more". I wonder if gym memberships will be covered as care by health insurance plans? They're certainly a lot cheaper that hospital stays!

<comment><USER7> > "It's so obvious it's amazing this hasn't already been a thing since the > beginning of the obesity epidemic."

Why is that obvious? Because you think there's a link between being overweight and exercise?

Exercise does not promote weight loss. (You can do a quick google search if you don't believe it.)

The most important thing to influence weight loss is the nutrition.

On a related note, I find it borderline sadistic that we make fat people believe they are fat because they are lazy and don't exercise enough.

<comment><USER8> Exactly this.

Fat people are generally fat because of excess caloric intake. The amount of physical (aerobic) exercise needed to even burn off a can of Coke is incredible.

<comment><USER9> A can of coke contains about 155 calories. An average person can do practically anything which is reasonably considered exercise for 30 minutes and burn that off: [http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight- loss/calories-...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight- loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities)

Hardly "incredible".

Research has shown that diet is more critical than activity in the occurrence of obesity, but that doesn't been that activity doesn't matter at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In 2014, doctors in Boston were able to begin prescribing a Hubway bike share membership: [https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/27/new-program- wil...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/27/new-program-will-allow- boston-medical-center-doctors-prescribe-bike-sharing- program/zjwfLfCEtAEGfWYxVn4CiN/story.html)

In Boston's case, it's a mutually beneficial arrangement for the city: healthier citizens and less traffic on the roads by converting drivers to bikers.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure -- is the increased health contraindicated by the increased chance of injury or death from unobservant car drivers?

<comment><USER12> The health benefits outweigh the risks [1], if measured by increased life span. This is a relatively common question about cycling.

[1] [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920084/)

\---

Edit for clarity.

<comment><USER11> "For deriving the relative risks comparing car driving and cycling, we specified a hypothetical scenario based on statistics in the Netherlands."

YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm not entirely sure who wins here. The prescription doesn't mean much aside from that insurance will pay fitness-related bills. But exercise doesn't have to cost anything. Even in the most unwalkable cities there's some place you can go to just walk around in.

And who wouldn't doctors prescribe exercise to. If someone comes asking their doctor for an exercise prescription so that they can get a free gym membership, there's no reason for the doctor to say no (save for cases where the patient has a heart disease or similar where regular exercise is inadvisable). Not only will it not _hurt_ the patient, it'll in fact help them. It will also help the doctor as it will help present them as someone who listens to patients and it helps fill appointments.

If this becomes widespread, the result will be more expensive insurance (or in Quebec, higher taxes) and more expensive fitness programs.

<comment><USER14> It helps a lot to have a trainer. In fact we should be paying for gym and fitness trainers for pretty much anyone who wants it. The benefits are extraordinary especially in Canada where we all pay for everyone's healthcare.

Yes exercise costs nothing. But it is often repetitive and boring. And in Canada it's cold 1/2 the year so having some place indoors is very helpful and having it paid for is even more encouraging.

We need to make exercise free, fun, and with trainers that work with people. It needs to be like gym in school on days where the gym teacher didn't have a stick up his/her ass... for anyone at any age.

<comment><USER15> > It helps a lot to have a trainer. In fact we should be paying for gym and > fitness trainers for pretty much anyone who wants it. The benefits are > extraordinary especially in Canada where we all pay for everyone's > healthcare.

This mindset that the government should be spending tax revenue on _anything beneficial_ is bizarre.

<comment><USER14> Yes the government should only be spending it to bail out distressed financial institutions, bankrupt individuals, etc.

<comment><USER16> No, clearly the government's only job is to enforce property rights and suppress anyone who is discontented with the condition of their society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any doctor can prescribe exercise, including doctors in the US. You don't really need a lot of equipment, you don't really need gym membership. The issue is whether or not the patient will be compliant with an exercise regimen, and educating them on the importance of exercise and physical activity in general.

If the purpose of this is to allow exercise during the actual work day - <USER2> would be interesting, but would require the cooperation of employers or some type of federal regulation - in the US, maybe thrown under FMLA.

</comment><comment><USER18> All that is missing now are doctors to give the prescription. (seeing a family doctor in Quebec is really difficult)

</comment><comment><USER19> Thats great. Yeah, there is a huge difference between saying, go exercise, and giving a prescripted regimen. Hopefully they can start having funded exercise programs in the community or based on the general prescriptions the doctors are giving.

</comment><comment><USER20> [http://theshrug.com/this-is-the-best-drug-commercial-you- wil...](http://theshrug.com/this-is-the-best-drug-commercial-you-will-ever- see/#VupduoDRE4TDYBPz.01)

</comment><comment><USER21> Considering all the problems the Quebec medical industry has at the moment, I still wouldn't trust Quebec with the care of myself or my family. It's such an abusive system.

<comment><USER22> In Ontario it's not that much better sadly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder how well this meshes with the fact that a lot of cities aren't built for walking. Walking is in general good, but is it responsible for your doctor to prescribe you an activity that is actually illegal in the area where you live, due to there being no sidewalks and walking on the street being illegal.

<comment><USER24> Can you name some cities where walking is illegal? Or even areas of cities where walking is illegal?

<comment><USER25> I'm not certain about the illegal part, but plenty of urban development is very unpleasant to walk in. A lot of suburbs and a lot of city centers ravaged by urban renewal are plain repulsive, and even dangerous due to all the high speed traffic, to walk around in. It's easy to say for a doctor to "go walk outside", but not everybody can exit their front door in an area that's welcoming to walking or cycling.

<comment><USER26> Most suburbs are incredibly easy to walk in. As newish development almost all have sidewalks and are on residential streets.

Are you going to walk to a grocery store? Probably not. But if your goal is walking there is no problem.

<comment><USER27> A lot of the ticky-tacky McMansion cul-de-sac developments constructed from about 2000 to the end of the last housing boom in the United States don't have sidewalks. However, in my experience, the streets become de facto multiple use pathways for walking, bicycling, driving, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I imagine that goes down well at an appointment. Someone you might see once a decade or less giving you lifestyle advice.

<comment><USER29> Once a decade? Everyone in my family gets annual checkups from our family doctor.

<comment><USER30> [https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/re-thinking-the- annual-...](https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/re-thinking-the-annual- physical/)</comment></comment></comment>


Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/04/02/709131281/electric-cars-hit-record-in-norway-making-up-nearly-60-of-sales-in-march?t=1554317167022 <comment><USER2> While the data is accurate, it's a bit misleading. Tesla started Model 3 deliveries to Europe in March from pre-orders that began three years ago. We're seeing the impact of these pre-orders all coming in at once and the number of vehicles registered last month is very anomalous.

In total there were 18,375 cars registered in March compared to 11,106 in February '19 and 14,401 in March '18\. If you back out the Tesla Model 3 impact (-5,300), you're left with 13,075 vehicles registered last month.

[1] Data source: [https://ofv.no/bilsalget/bilsalget-i- mars-2019-1](https://ofv.no/bilsalget/bilsalget-i-mars-2019-1)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not surprising given that they don't tax electric cars and that normal petrol cars have taxes that can be around 100%, doubling their value.

Also, electric cars in Norway have lots of other incentives: reduced road tolls, registration fees, and petrol is heavily taxed.

<comment><USER4> Are you saying that there's some kind of externalities at play here?

Because I can think of a few other externalities that help non-EV far more than the ones you mentioned (not taxing them for ruining our health and climate, for a start).

This all seems an overdue correction to me. But I'd go further and support non-individual transportation more, too.

<comment><USER5> Whether the taxes are just or not is irrelevant here; pretending people are buying EVs just because they like them better (which is what I get from the headline) is deceptive.

<comment><USER6> "Electric Cars Hit Record in Norway Making Up Nearly 60 Percent of Sales in March"

Where does the headline suggest that? It simply states the makeup of sales.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, it doesn't. But to me it sounds like that % of sales is organic. I mean, that's why it's news, no?

I think it's much more newsworthy that 40% of cars sold use petrol, when they cost DOUBLE because of taxes.

<comment><USER7> They don't cost double. In many cases petrol cars are still cheaper than their electric counterparts in Norway. Hyundai Kona petrol, for example, is slightly cheaper than Hyundai Kona electric.

But because of their tax exempt status, the price premium for electrics is much smaller in Norway than in most other countries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd be interested how well electric cars faired in Norway as I would expect the colder months would impact the battery performance (reduce range). Which makes me wonder if manufacturers do any country adaptations for the local climate.

<comment><USER9> [https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-superowner-arctic- circle](https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-superowner-arctic-circle)

The temperature dropped to -40 degrees Celsius. It was so cold that the trains couldn't operate and the diesel in the buses froze. But the Model S was just fine.

<comment><USER10> Money quote:

"We found out that it's a super winter car," says Jens. "It's so fantastic. It's much easier and better than an ordinary car." He likes that you can heat the Model S remotely via an app, so that there's no ice or snow on the car when you're ready to drive it. He also says the winter range is almost the same as the summer range. In December, he and Røsnes took the Model S to an ice hotel in Sweden, 200km from Narvik. The temperature dropped to -40 degrees Celsius. It was so cold that the trains couldn't operate and the diesel in the buses froze. But the Model S was just fine."

<comment><USER11> In an old book about the development of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field in Alaska, it was called Alaska Crude if memory serves, they described having to burn fires beneath the oil pans of their trucks to unseize the moving parts because the oil had _frozen_ solid.

EVs seem obviously superior in this department, at least when it comes to cold enough temperatures to freeze engine oil.

<comment><USER12> Charcoal briquettes in a roaster pan can be useful there too, if you're ever in that situation. You get the radiative warmth without the flame (once it's burned down).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The really interesting stats will come when the affordable (Standard Range) Model 3 will be available in Europe in a few months. I'm sure a lot of people in Norway are waiting for it.

<comment><USER14> Half of the electrical cars delivered in March were Tesla Model 3.

<comment><USER13> I meant Standard Range (the affordable version of Model 3). I updated my comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Its basically just a tax trick to make us look and feel better about all these oil fields we're harvesting at full speed

<comment><USER11> This is irrelevant.

The potential value is in an entire nation demonstrating it's possible to function perfectly well at a high quality of life on an electrified transportation system.

Whatever means were used to compel its citizens to cooperate with pivoting energy sources is moot. Every nation will have to figure that out for itself.

Edit: added "potential" qualifier

<comment><USER15> It matters how you pay for your your clean vehicles. If your money is from burning lots og oil, which is partially the case here, you may not eventually be saving any CO2 from the atmosphere. Which is the whole point of electric vehicles. I would love to see some numbers on these things.

<comment><USER11> There is no realistic scenario where all the remaining oil stays in the ground.

The _best_ practical case is that it gets applied towards transitioning to renewables ASAP.

What seems more likely right now is that most of it gets burned gratuitously on Business As Usual; frivolously flying around the planet and driving archaic gas-guzzling machines without even preparing ourselves for when it runs out.

Actually stopping CO2 emissions and not burning most of the remaining oil is a ridiculous fantasy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> EVs being popular in Norway is interesting for a couple of reasons mainly because they counter popular arguments against EV .

1) Lots of people are worried about EV performance in cold weather. Well, if you can drive an EV in Narvik (well within the polar circle), that means this is pretty much a solved problem. I don't think many people realize just how dangerous can be to operate a vehicle in arctic temperatures in a remote area where the weather can kill you in no time at all. E.g. heating your car is not optional when it is minus 40 and you have to be prepared for the car breaking down. The cold can kill you in no time at all if you get stuck in the middle of nowhere. Yet, EVs are both common and popular across Norway (not just the south). That means Norwegians consider them safe and practical enough to drive around some of the harshest places in the world.

2) Range anxiety in a huge, sparsely populated country with a harsh climate like Norway is ... not a thing. There are charging points all over the place. Better still, in much of the country it is common to plugin petrol cars as well to keep them warm. This is not optional when temperatures regularly drop well below the point where the car would even start. If you are plugging the car in anyway, you might as well charge the car. And of course electricity is dirt cheap in Norway because they have hydro-power.

There are of course many other reasons why EVs in Norway (and elsewhere) are interesting. But I thought these were worth highlighting.

</comment><comment><USER17> The tax breaks used to encourage electric vehicles is almost entirely paid for through fossil fuel exports.

While I appreciate any move towards better sustainability, let's not forget that Norway is effectively exporting its emissions.

</comment><comment><USER18> Electric cars are a lot of fun to drive, but ultimately I think the incentives are the biggest factor here. I was thinking about getting a pure battery electric car (BEV) but the risk that worried me was how long the range would be in 8-10 years in the cold. I have a short commute now but I did not know where I would be living and working in 8-10 years!

<comment><USER19> The cheapest Tesla right now has an over 200+ range. In 10 years it will be much longer. I hope your future commute is not 100 miles each way.

<comment><USER18> I was thinking more a Nissan Leaf as a Model 3 is a bit above my price range right now sadly. I recently had an 80 mile/day commute through a large valley/hill which would have been impossible in a used Leaf unless I could charge at work.

<comment><USER20> Leaf+ is a little over 200 now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Recent electric car record in Norway thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18806930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18806930)

</comment><comment><USER22> You can also pretty much drive across the whole country in an EV. That is huge. A 300 mile range in the US isn't spectacular.

<comment><USER23> :/ That is a bit disingenuous in a narrow but long country. Norway is only 6km at its narrowest (Tysfjord) but is 2,500km long (and 25,000km of coastline).

Of course, the USA is enormous in comparison, especially width wise.

[https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size- comparison/unit...](https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size- comparison/united-states/norway)

 _(Trying to find facts I binged into a few odd pages. Not that relevant to EVs or geography but this was an interesting comparison:[https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/NO](https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/US/NO)) _

<comment><USER22> Check out a population density map. Almost the entire country is in the EV range blob in the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Really they are like 90% tesla and a little bit of other cars.

</comment><comment><USER25> "That's impossible!", say a whole lot of people who prefer their beliefs to measurable, objective reality.

<comment><USER26> It is indeed impossible assuming the competition between gas cars and electric cars is fair.

<comment><USER27> How do you make it fair if one type of car is guaranteed to wreck the planet? Hard to level that playing field. But Norway seems to have done a decent job of it.

<comment><USER28> Norway (population 5.3 million) is the 14th largest exporter of crude oil in the world.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_expor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_exports)

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the non sequitur.

<comment><USER29> It's amusing to see people frantically clutching at straws in this thread. And downvoting to establish their version of truth.

<comment><USER25> I am _so_ used to getting downvoted for saying true things that don't fit the HN groupthink.

<comment><USER26> I am actually surprised I even have 300+ karma points in first place given my opinions.

The weird part is I haven't really said anything that is even remotely indicative that I do not care about the planet or I hate electric cars etc. (The holy values that invoke the pitchfork mob of HN).

The reason why most people are skeptical of electric cars in todays market is because a second hand $5000 corolla beats that $40K Tesla any day it terms of affordability. Sure we can all speed up the adoption of electric cars saying the households that own only electric cars need not pay taxes at all for next 5 years. USA might soon have 100% electric cars.

I merely pointed out that the cost of electric cars in Norway is being paid through taxes and hence 60% sales is not impossible but fully predictable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Then there is the issue of electricity shortage. Sweden for instance doesn't have enough electricity to supply electric cars if everyone should have it. And then there is solar storm / EMP vulnerabilities with all electric infrastructure. And then there is cobolt shortage issues and production issues. No, I vote for E100 or gasdriven cars for the future.

<comment><USER31> because everyone will switch to electric cars tomorrow. Supply will accommodate the demand. There wasn't enough gas to go around when cars came out. Solar storm / EMP vulnerabilities? Are you fucking kidding me? How about OPEC as a tried and tested vulnerability? How about shortage of oil as finite resource as a vulnerability?

<comment><USER30> Ethanol and gas is not finite resources. Electricity is hard to produce in a enbironmental friendly way at the amount required for electric cars.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A Game for Falling in Love (Part II) + ThanksHN - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/a-game-for-falling-in-love/x/571421

<comment><AUTHOR> ____THANKS HACKERNEWS __ __

A few weeks ago I woke up and the top story on HackerNews was a NYTimes article about a woman who fell in love after answering 36 questions from a 20 yr old research study.

I was inspired and spent the next 12 hours building a web app version and around 1am the next day posted it on HN. Then things got really wild.

1] Before sunrise it hit the front page and hovered around #3 all day and there were over 200 comments.

2] Over 200,000 people visited the site, including Mark Zuckerberg who "Liked" us on his personal facebook page in the first 36 hours.

3] hundreds shared it on twitter

4] we hit the top 3 on Product Hunt.

5] editors of very big publications reached out about (now pending) exclusives

6] we had about 3,000 double confirmed opt ins to a mailing list

7] People wrote me saying they "said I love you" to each other for the first time while playing the game

8] the original author of the study emailed me with tips on how I might improve the questions

This was all just so fun and exciting, and felt so aligned with my core beliefs around love & relationship. As a transformational coach, I believe falling in love can be the fastest path to self actualization - if done with the right context and tools.

 __I decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign ! __

I designed a deck of physical cards that could be used on a first date or with a lover; found a manufacturing partner; wrote the copy; shot the video with my macbook pro retina; figured out premier; and got it live. We are almost at 20% of the goal after the first day and a half and I have commitments from some big "relationship gurus" with list of hundreds of thousands who are going to promote it.

I would LOVE your help in spreading the word further, since it all started here on HackerNews.

I set up an inner circle share link here. If you spread the word, it would mean the world to me. >> [http://PlayTheLoveGame.com/crowdfund](http://PlayTheLoveGame.com/crowdfund)

Also, if you back the project and mention HACKERNEWS I will include an extra special unlisted prize just for HN backers.

I am so grateful for the outpouring of support and encouragement and inspiration the web app received here and for how great this community has been in general.

\- Anthony David Adams</comment>


World's Thinnest House is only 4 ft wide - <AUTHOR> http://www.archdaily.com/152505/keret-house-centrala/ <comment><USER2> This reminds me of the Richardson Spite House, which was 5 feet wide and built to block the windows of another property.

<http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON005.htm>

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of Flatland

<comment><USER4> It personally reminds me of 2d side-view games (like later castlevanias) where you can't walk around objects like tables or boxes (you have to jump over them to progress). Perhaps level designers for these sorts of games will become architectural consultants when super-thin houses start springing up in other places?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "The house upon completion shall become the narrowest house in Warsaw, measuring an interior that will vary between 122 centimeters and 72 centimeters in its narrowest spot."

Key phrase: "In Warsaw." Was there any discussion of it being the narrowest in the world? Or did I miss something?

<comment><USER6> For "in the world" it may be between Vancouver's Sam Kee building <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Kee_Building> and Pittsburgh's Skinny Building. <http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04151/322795.stm>

Vancouver's building is thinner at the first floor, but has overhangs on the second which increases its width.

Edit: Hmm this is for "commercial" properties so there may be thinner houses.

<comment><USER6> Vancouver Chinatown buildings are pretty interesting. There's also a number of buildings with 1/2 floors. [http://scoutmagazine.ca/2011/07/21/secret-city-on- buildings-...](http://scoutmagazine.ca/2011/07/21/secret-city-on-buildings- being-john-malkovich-in-chinatown/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why is it a triangle? that'd be a lot of wasted space if these were being stacked vertically.

<comment><USER8> It lets each room get at least some natural light. This is an art project, not civil engineering.

<comment><USER9> Also rain and snow runoff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like that Etgar Keret is going to be the first resident.

One of his stories is called Malffunction, it's about a keyboard with a stuck "F" key.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=un6rKAjevT4C&pg=PA87...](http://books.google.com/books?id=un6rKAjevT4C&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=etgar+keret+keyboard&source=bl&ots=UitLj9T_Ec&sig=Ol7Y89vMNQiFXS1wjQrrj- AzsLw&hl=en&ei=HMcwTq6bNOLiiAKix- iPBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

<comment><USER11> He never mentioned the width. I ffound this house in the paper, it looks ffine, it looked good. Now I have a broken keyboard and a ffour ffoot house.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not clear to me how one is meant to reach that beanbag.

<comment><USER13> Easy, the stairs pull up.

[http://cdn.archdaily.net/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/13112565...](http://cdn.archdaily.net/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/1311256554-dom-kereta-jakub-szczdwaegsny-wersja-z- zamknidwaegtymi-schodami-czerwiec-2011-707x1000.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> ... and just a proposal/graphics render at this stage?

</comment><comment><USER15> I once considered building a lakefront house limited to 6 feet wide by zoning restrictions. I'm delighted to see someone is implementing such a design.

</comment><comment><USER16> I love seeing things like this. It's too bad it's just a concept for now.

It reminds me of the Boeing 727 house (<http://www.costaverde.com/727.html>) or the modular apartment in Japan ([http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/garden/15hongkong.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/garden/15hongkong.html?_r=1))

<comment><USER17> That house makes me think of this movie: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/> ;p

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I love creativity like this. The whole stairs into the bottom with a ladder between floors is pretty cool too. Presumably you could make a one-motorcycle garage underneath.

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel claustrophobic just looking at the rendering!

</comment><comment><USER20> The ladder in the house reminds me of Super Mario. Great concept, but I would go insane living in such a 2D world over time.

</comment><comment><USER21> Not 1 closet. That's not a house.

<comment><USER22> Not everyone needs a closet

<comment><USER21> I am genuinely curious about this statement. Who doesn't need a closet? (I mean, theoretically I can imagine someone who only wears 1 outfit in perpetuity... but that's hard to imagine.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If you lined a number of these up, how would the noise be?

<comment><USER22> No different than a usual apartment building? As long as the walls are insulated enough, I would guess.

<comment><USER23> Insulation takes space, though. I'm not sure those walls will be thick enough, and the space inside the house still comfortable and livable.</comment></comment></comment>