Future Timeline - <AUTHOR> http://www.futuretimeline.net/

<comment><USER2> Psych research is starting to suggest that the organization of the human brain makes it especially bad at predicting the future. That is, we make more mistakes building timelines like this than can be explained by a simple lack of information. You could call it the Eloi-Morlock bias:

 _Regarding distant futures, however, we'll be too confident, focus too much on unlikely global events, rely too much on trends, theories, and loose abstractions, while neglecting details and variation. We'll assume the main events take place far away (e.g., space), and uniformly across large regions. We'll focus on untrustworthy consistently-behaving globally-organized social- others. And we'll neglect feasibility, taking chances to achieve core grand symbolic values, rather than ordinary muddled values. Sound familiar?

More bluntly, we seem primed to confidently see history as an inevitable march toward a theory-predicted global conflict with an alien united them determined to oppose our core symbolic values, making infeasible overly-risky overconfident plans to oppose them. We seem primed to neglect the value and prospect of trillions of quirky future creatures not fundamentally that different from us, focused on their simple day-to-day pleasures, mostly getting along peacefully in vastly-varied uncoordinated and hard-to-predict local cultures and life-styles. _

The original paper in _Science_ : <http://www.sciencemag.org/content/322/5905/1201.full.pdf>

The quote is from here, with more explanation: <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/11/abstractdistant.html>

And here's more on the implications for evolutionary game theory: [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/a-tale-of-two- tradeoff...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/01/a-tale-of-two- tradeoffs.html)

The last two are great reads, with one caveat. The author specializes in asking uncomfortable questions, so it's best to take them as a challenge to your sense of open-mindedness. If you find yourself getting angry or thinking "this can't possibly be true," you might want to think about it some more.

<comment><USER3> In case someone doesn't know, Eloi and Morlock are two races descended from man in H.G. Wells' classic 1895 novel 'The Time Machine'.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine>

PS: Stephen Baxter has a new sequel novel based TTT called 'The Time Ships', I just started reading it, it's great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _diverging paths for humans and transhumans_

lol, try replacing _humans_ with _middle-class_ and _transhumans_ with _ultra- wealthy_

sometime in the 22nd century the USA will pass the 10 percent mark for it's population in jail/prison as government prisons are defunded, private-prisons become even more profitable as inmates are forced to pay for their incarceration with labor for pennies per hour, and lawmakers are paid by prison-industry lobbyists to make more offenders - the supreme court rules that judges may own stock in prisons, etc. - TSA will be allowed to collect DNA samples during random roadblocks, etc.

 _Humanity spreads throughout the local stellar neighbourhood, as Earth is restored to its former beauty_

Wouldn't a better name for this site have been "future fantasy" ?

I mean I love the ideas but it's complete fantasy. The earth is going to be a pile of people trying to climb over each other economically, only to feed the ultra-weathly on top. Law-enforcement is going to be a multi-trillion dollar a year industry because it will be the only way to keep the masses at their jobs and not protesting.

<comment><USER5> A prediction like that based on current social fears as as accurate as the prediction that by 2000 the world would be destroyed by The (nucelar) Bomb

<comment><USER6> Given how close we came to all our nuclear war on at least two occasions I don't think that was necessarily a bad prediction.

Edit: the two occasions:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis>

<comment><USER7> Indeed. Nuclear proliferation is an increasing problem, and while we now lack the superpower standoff where a war could destroy most of humanity, many states are now capable of blowing up a large chunk of the world.

It's probably only a matter of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love this kind of thing, and I'm going to disagree with this one:

2016, Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD) replaces Blu-Ray

This isn't going to happen. In fact Blu-Ray will never even replace the DVD. DVDs will be replaced by digital downloads and streaming. Consumers are driven by convenience, and the most convenient way to move bits to your home is not via a disc.

In 2000, Super Audio CD was in a format war with DVD-audio. Who won? The MP3 did. It completely baffles me that the movie industry goes ahead to repeat history with HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray. Neither of them will win.

<comment><USER9> But Blu-ray did win.

I understand your point, however, I'm sure the introduction of Blu-ray HD-DVD made sense from a business standpoint for the entertainment industry, it will take a while before bandwidth/storage makes them irrelevant on a worldwide basis. So while HVDs might be made irrelevant before they even reach the public on a wide scale, I doubt you can say the same for Blu-ray.

<comment><USER10>
      > But Blu-ray did win.

For interesting values of "win." It's the format that's being distributed (as opposed to HD-DVD), but DVDs are still the more common format. (No statistics, just comparisons of DVD and Blu-ray sections at local retailers. DVD's always bigger.)

Meanwhile, the only people I know who've bought _any_ Blu-ray discs are those who own a PS3 and essentially got the player for free with the game console they were buying.

<comment><USER9> Sure, I agree with you. (When I say win, I was referring to HD-DVD vs Blu- ray). But what I'm saying is that it's too early to call Blu-ray a failure. It may well serve it's purpose quite well before streaming HD video inevitably becomes ubiquitous throughout the world.

I think the difference of opinion here is that some posters are evaluating Blu-ray against DVD, whereas I'm mainly viewing it as a transition format until bandwidth catches up, rather than the jump which was VHS->DVD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those who did not get the xkcd reference either:

<http://xkcd.com/887/>

</comment><comment><USER12> The environment has been steadily improving for the last 40 years. Less vehicle pollution, less industrial pollution, more conscientious consumers. Why not extrapolate in that direction?

<comment><USER13> Extrapolate in any old direction you like, it's equally likely to be true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > 2013 - Iran carries out its first nuclear test

Then...

> This nuclear test is viewed in the West as the most significant world event > since 9/11

Yet this is the last time in the 21st century that Iran is mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER15> I suggest everyone move to the hi quality stuff and start reading some Greg Egan, Vernor Vinge, or Charles Stross rather than this piddle.

</comment><comment><USER16> EDIT: I find it extremely ignorant that people believe conditions on earth will significantly deteriorate in the next century. Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years. It's appealing to say that humans are destroying the Earth, but it also incredibly arrogant. We have been a a flicker in the bigger picture. Disease or weaponry will kill us long before climate change does.

That doesn't mean I don't enjoy this timeline!

<comment><USER17> Timewise, we have been a flicker. But nothing else in Earth's history has become industrialized like humans have in the past ~100 years.

You can't say that a handful of volcanoes and dinosaur farts 70 million years ago is anything close to the CO2 we put out every day from 7 billion people, billions of cars, millions of factories, etc etc.

<comment><USER16> Too be honest. I just don't know that industrial carbon emissions rival those of a super-volcanoes or that of an apocalyptic asteroid slamming into Earth. 100 years isn't a lot of time to measure our affect on the grander scheme. Not saying our recent environmental efforts are for naught, but I do believe that when all is said and done and humans are extinct, our impact on Earth will have been negligible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If anyone cares, I imported a bunch of the futuretimeline.net predictions into <http://predictionbook.com/> which lets you register your own probabilities and tracks expirations: [http://www.google.com/search?q=futuretimeline.net%20site%3Ap...](http://www.google.com/search?q=futuretimeline.net%20site%3Apredictionbook.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> I love how the emergence of human-like AI, something I wouldn't expect my great-grandchildren to see, is placed _before_ the USA declining as a world power, something which is happening since the beginning of the century and will probably accelerate during the next decade (I mean the 2010s). Also, I hope I won't have to wait 30 years to see the end of the EU.

<comment><USER20> What don't you like about the EU?

<comment><USER19> It's making my country poor, it allowed its industries to be outsourced, and it is now robbing people from their sovereignty. It's not providing any kind of protection against the outside world, but it is destroying all of its members previous protection (such as tolls). I don't think it's the cause of all the problems in Europe, but it certainly prevents its members from solving them.

<comment><USER21> We're definitely going off-topic here but I just have to ask: I heard that there is a strong anti-EU sentiment in many member states precisely because people feel the same way you do about EU. But obviously, EU worked out quite well for the majority of citizens of those countries.

Why am I saying that? Well, it seems to me that if the majority was genuinely dissatisfied with their country being a part of the union, they'd petition for a referendum, the government would be obliged to hold the referendum if enough people petitioned for it (certainly if the majority wanted it), then once the referendum is held, the people would vote against staying in the union and presto - they're no longer a member.

So why didn't something like this happen in any of the member countries? There are countries trying desperately to get into the union, but I don't know of any country that desparately wants to get out.

<comment><USER19> Not yet at least. The dissatisfaction is growing, but it's not yet the opinion of the majority. Unless there are drastic changes, it will be. The last treaty (TCE and its ersatz), was rejected by all the referendums. None of the countries who ratified them used referendum.

But it's a bit naïve to say that petitioning the government for a referendum would oblige the government to hold it.

 _But obviously, EU worked out quite well for the majority of citizens of those countries._

As a matter of fact, it's still working out well for the newcomers. But for founding members, especially France, my country, it hasn't been the case for the past twenty years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> They clearly don't understand teleportation!

Real teleportation in the style of quantum controlled dynamics is the transportation of the state of a particle. By definition it is impossible to "transport" more than a single qubit.

</comment><comment><USER23> It would be nice if this were more web 2.0. With commenting, voting, and collective stupidity, who knows what time lines would bubble up? The site would also warrant a return visit.

</comment><comment><USER24> There goes my morning. 15 minutes in and I'm barely at the 2020s.

<comment><USER24> Quick reply to myself, just finished reading the whole thing. So yeah, morning gone.

<comment><USER17> I avoided this problem by skimming the headlines then only reading 3 or 4 articles per section.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> GO HUMANS.</comment>


Elle or Marina? - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/GX2qDJY <comment><AUTHOR> So recently I search for Elle Kaye images on Bing. To the surprise, I got Marina Kaye as related search suggestion instead.</comment>


U.S. Wildfire Causes 1980-2016 - <AUTHOR> http://www.jillhubley.com/project/wildfires/map/ <comment><USER2> This is very interesting but I think there is a bigger context too. My understanding (though I'm not an expert) is that wildfires are a normal, regular, naturally-occurring phenomenon. When humans artificially prevent forest fires from taking their natural course, this causes dead wood to continue building up significantly more, which causes the fires to be much more destructive when they do happen.

So if these fires are essentially inevitable, maybe there should be less emphasis on the thing that happened to kick it off and more on preventing the conditions for it to become huge and destructive.

<comment><USER3> This. There are studies supporting this conclusion [0]: "Without adequate prevention measures, forest debris can build up, fueling a bigger, more devastating fire the next time around."

And this [1]: "This leaves authorities with a difficult problem. After decades of successful wildfire suppression, we can now expect fires to be far worse when they finally happen."

[0] [http://news.mit.edu/2013/forest-fire- management-1120](http://news.mit.edu/2013/forest-fire-management-1120)

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160722-why-we-should-let- ra...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160722-why-we-should-let-raging- wildfires-burn)

<comment><USER4> Some articles worth reading if you're interested in this topic:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14318646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14318646)

[https://priceonomics.com/does-using-airplanes-to-put-out- for...](https://priceonomics.com/does-using-airplanes-to-put-out-forest- fires/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a very cool visualization. Weirdly, though, the visually apparent proportion of natural vs. human causes seems to change depending on my zoom level.

Plotting this much data presents several challenges. I recently discovered a good guide on the subject of "Plotting Pitfalls" from the Bokeh project:

[https://bokeh.github.io/datashader- docs/user_guide/1_Plottin...](https://bokeh.github.io/datashader- docs/user_guide/1_Plotting_Pitfalls.html)

I think this visualization suffers a bit from "overplotting".

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a huge amount of data, and an interesting way to visualize. An incredible number of these appear to be started by lightning.

A set of filtering tools would be nice - to sort by year and type.

<comment><USER7> Before humans, lightning was THE primary way to start fire on Earth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> almost all of the land in the Western US that has been encouraged to overgrow is held by a government.

the fires on the coast will be nothing compared to the soon-inevitable mega- fire that will reset the Federal land holdings in the Sierra range

if more of the Sierra range had been allocated for productive use, we probably would not be in this situation. the Federal government is an absentee landlord

<comment><USER9> Where I live in Colorado, we see active preventive measures on pubic, government owned lands as opposed to very little mitigation on large swaths of private lands.

<comment><USER8> In the Sierra range the government is now funding a very expensive clear- cutting campaign to try to rid the forest of the 60 million estimated dead trees that have created a perpetual autumn-like landscape of golden trees. If the forests been subjected to well-regulated and sustainable harvesting, not only would the trees have been cut down as needed, but the state of California would have collected tax receipts. Instead, clear cutting is now a cost to government.</comment></comment></comment>


Syndicate Wars Port - <AUTHOR> http://swars.vexillium.org/ <comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in a modern successor to Syndicate, there's a game called Satellite Reign:

[http://satellitereign.com/the-game/](http://satellitereign.com/the-game/)

Which is a quite decent updated version of the concept. Has one or more of the original Syndicate guys working on it and was quite fun to play.

<comment><USER3> I've got quite opposite reaction. I regret spending any money on it. It's super slow and annoying at the beginning, because there are very large no-save areas and anything that brings guards attention gets you killed in there. (so it's only stealth game) On the other hand there's lots of comments saying (didn't get to that stage) that once you get through lots of missions, you raise an army of tanks that can kill anything in the way without stopping. I had really high hopes for this game, but it's just not Syndicate.

<comment><USER4> Didn't original Syndicate have exactly that - no saving during (sometimes long) missions, and a single mistake often screwing up the entire thing?

<comment><USER3> I don't remember about the saves actually, but the feeling is completely different. While on most Syndicate missions you could actually exchange fire and back off / reevaluate, in this game any action causes more people to hear you and join in. That means you need to either sneak around the whole time, or be prepared to take 10 enemies at once. And even sneaking around is hard because of cameras.

It wouldn't even be that bad if you could replay the whole mission in 5-10 minutes like I remember from Syndicate. But in SR even walking around feels super slow. It's just not the same kind of action. You sneak around for 15 minutes, take out guards one-by-one, then suddenly you're spotted by the last remaining one and reinforcements come out from the building right next to you. You lose the whole squad, try again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd love to read the blog posts describing how they disassembled and reassembled the game, those details are more interesting to me than playing the game :)

<comment><USER6> It's not about Syndicate Wars, but this guy spent years reversing the Outrun arcade ROM and blogging about it. It's a fascinating read: [http://reassembler.blogspot.com/](http://reassembler.blogspot.com/)

<comment><USER7> ... and I spent more than an hour reading his blog from the last few years. Man, what an interesting set of projects. I'm seriously jealous of his ability to restore and emulate hardware!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Github: [https://github.com/mefistotelis/swars](https://github.com/mefistotelis/swars)

<comment><USER9> Incredibly impressive!

I solved this. The center required all of my soldiers to be maxed out, and all of them carrying lasers. Iirc... it feels like several lifetimes ago...

I'd give it a go but after moving about 15 times there's no way I have that CD.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.gog.com/game/syndicate_wars](https://www.gog.com/game/syndicate_wars) if you want it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the difference with Freesynd?

<comment><USER12> Freesynd looks like its for 'Syndicate' \- this is for 'Syndicate Wars' which was the sequel to Syndicate. As a player, they were quite different games and engines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how up to date [https://github.com/mefistotelis/swars/blob/master/doc/TODO](https://github.com/mefistotelis/swars/blob/master/doc/TODO) is.

</comment><comment><USER13> I loved this game when I was a kid.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice, but why force a conversion to a lossy audio format?</comment>


Being a Dad and working on a startup. - <AUTHOR> http://shinekits.com/blogs/news/14496497-on-being-a-startup-dad-on-fathers-day?ref=hn

<comment><AUTHOR> Just some thoughts for Father's day on what it means to be a dad trying to get a startup off the ground.</comment>


Ask HN: Server crashed, services don't start due to lock files. What do you do? - <AUTHOR>

This weekend one of our servers was restarted unexpectedly (reviewing why at the moment), and because of this MongoDB had a stale lock file in place that prevented it from starting up. Since I have monitoring in place I was aware of the issue and was able to remedy the situation quickly, but ideally MongoDB should have started back up on it's own when the server came back up.
So how do other admin's handle the possibility of stale lock files? It's been such a rare occurance for me that I never thought of looking in to this before, but there has to be some solution to allow for this...
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> Store the lock files in a ram disk, or on some other partition that is wiped on boot?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow - that was actually way too obvious - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> does your operating system not wipe out /tmp and /var/run on startup?</comment>


Can Sobriety Tests Weed Out Drivers Who've Smoked Too Much Weed? - happy-go-lucky http://www.npr.org/2017/01/25/511595978/can-sobriety-tests-weed-out-drivers-whove-smoked-too-much-weed <comment><AUTHOR> If they cannot detect a difference in behavior, is there a need to detect what isnt causing it?

I.e. there are so many different psychoactive substances, that effect, rather than presence, seems to be the only 'fair' way to discriminate in a world where most people take at least 1 medication a week or more.

</comment><comment><USER2> Serious questions: What are the actual dangers of driving while high? If we can somehow normalize the amounts, which is more dangerous to driving: Smoking weed or drinking alcohol?

<comment><USER3> We know that cannabis use prior to driving increases the risk of an accident.

Alcohol is probably worse.

Allowing people to research cannabis would let us know what the risk is.

<comment><AUTHOR> How do we know that?

(I expect it is higher, but that seems hard to produce meaningful data. Self reported? Subject to a blood test? A piss test that detects 2 months use?)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do I find electronic engineers who'll join a startup? - <AUTHOR> I'm a web/software developer by trade, and I'm intending on starting a company that will involve building electronic devices, mainly focused on the IoT industry.<p>I live in the West Midlands area of the UK, so I'm far from the startup bustle in the US. What would be the best way to meet people who would be interested in joining a startup company in this part of the world? <comment><USER2> I took a graduate course on IoT development with a concentration on Bluetooth Mesh. My professor happened to be very enthusiastic and passionate about bluetooth. Apparently he started a meetup on IoT and IIoT. The meetup now has received alot of attention. Therefore, maybe take a class, attend a lecture, or search for a meetup. Perhaps reaching out to a university professor would be helpful in getting their perspective. Sounds like you need to grow your network.

<comment><AUTHOR> My network is definitely lacking; I suppose that's part of what I'm wondering, is where to start to meet more people; honestly most people I meet aren't exactly looking to get involved in building a new company while also being skilled.

Contacting professors and attending lectures are not something I would've considered, so thank you for that suggestion.</comment></comment>


Sleaze: The Dirty Business of Paid iPhone App Reviews - <AUTHOR> http://crashdev.blogspot.com/2010/01/more-on-sleaze-dirty-business-of-paid.html

<comment><USER2> Assuming you provide full-disclosure for the review, why is this sleazy?

He's looking for exposure, not artificial 5-star ratings.

Yes he was a jerk and you are well within your right to decline offers like this, but I don't understand why this is sleazy.

<comment><USER3> A link in the post update indicates that he doesn't pay the money he promises for reviews: <http://www.jon-atherton-wobble.com/tag/jon-atherton/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Somebody ought, if they haven't already, post a link to this in reviews on the App Store for every one of his apps. Just to help karma out.</comment>


Open source is dead. The cloud has killed it - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-amazon-lambda-could-be-the-worst-thing-to-happen-to-open-source/ <comment><USER2> Please don't editorialize submission titles, especially not to make them more click-baity.</comment>


Make Me - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1368-make-me <comment><USER2> "This machine is a server. Do not power it down."

Reminds me of the notes I would leave to make sure my Mom didn't turn the computer off (or make a phone call and thus cut the dial-up connection) when I was doing something as I left for school. /backinthegoodoledays

Really impressed at this hack, but I think the coolest part of these Github blog posts is just how useful and powerful something as simple (relatively) as Hubot can be when connected to a communication medium like Campfire.

Food for thought for more hacks, I suppose.

<comment><USER3> The inspiration for the sign, outside the obvious purpose, was the note on the first web server:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Web_Server.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 3D printer with a MacBook Air server at GitHub HQ... I think my hipster detector was just overloaded.

<comment><USER5> Can of Pabst wearing a trucker hat while listening to The Rapture... Oh wait, that's 2003...

Fixed gear bicycle wearing an ironic Christmas sweater waiting in line for a fried catfish sandwich under the Williamsburg bridge... Sorry, that's 2007...

Chambray shirt drinking a cocktail made with hand picked elderberries reading MissionMission on an iPad... Nuts, that's 2011...

Can we all agree that the term hipster doesn't mean anything?

Seriously, I've seen the term bandied about for a decade now and its definition changes every 9 months.

<comment><USER6> It's basically a way for those who don't have an interest in cultural changes around them to deride others. Fads and trends are actually fun; they bring new music, culture, and experiences to our lives. Deriding people for collectively discovering new angles on life is dumb as shit.

<comment><USER7> It's basically a way for those who are secure in their own identity to inform others of the essential pointlessness of their existence. Fads and trends are actually a con-trick; they bring new cults of personality to our lives. Deriding people for not buying into your neurotic bullshit is dumb as shit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >We've been using make-me to power all of our 3D printing needs including decorating our office with various prints and making useful trinkets.

Pardon my ignorance, but is this really necessary? It seems like an office toy.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, but you sound like a real wet towel to be around. Shall we take away the coffee makers, too, since those are unnecessary?

Let them have a bit of fun at the office.

<comment><USER10> It may be that they are not against fun at all, but just didn't follow that the use of the word "necessary" was meant tongue-in-cheek, and were asking out of sincere confusion.

<comment><USER9> Fair. The second sentence hurts that suggestion, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So cool, makes me wanna work there..

<comment><USER12> Makerbot Replicators only cost $2.2k. Not nearly impulse purchase range, but affordable for most engineers (well, assuming metro/urban USA), especially if you go in on it with a couple of other local hackers. I'm somewhat surprised 3D printer co-oping isn't more of a "thing" since the price is right for that and for most people they aren't something you need physical access to on a daily basis.

And of course there are even cheaper options, down to about $500 though obviously YMMV on quality/materials/etc.

<comment><USER13> In my experience, most major North American cities have a hackerspace or two, and they nearly always have 3D printers.

I'd say that's a "thing", as much as one would expect, given the limited quality and utility of them as of now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's what books are used for nowadays.

</comment><comment><USER15> Ah, so that's why it took so long to get github back up last time it was down ...

</comment><comment><USER16> I work for a mechanical engineering firm that has a 3D printer. It is used for the engineers to prototype mechanical designs (you'd be amazed just how much easier it is to design even simple mechanisms with a model in your hands), and also for creating promotional items: scale models of the company's physical products.

Therefore I was confused by why Github wanted one. Were they going to prototype their software in realspace, or start selling people 3D models of their repositories?

Turns out it is just for fun, which is cool in itself, and a real sign of how the cost of these things is coming down. Think ours came in at about $20k.

</comment><comment><USER17> What about using a Raspberry Pi to be the server? Thought about doing this hack at a hackathon but it was during the weekend of Art Basel in Miami. Make me/print me over the cloud but I love the hunt integration

<comment><USER18> A raspberry pi wouldn't be a bad idea! We'd need to hook up some web cams though and print an enclosure for it :)</comment></comment>


Show HN: "Intro to Bluetooth Low Energy" book - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KTDG6KG <comment><AUTHOR> You could also learn more about the book here: [https://www.novelbits.io/introduction-to-bluetooth-low- energ...](https://www.novelbits.io/introduction-to-bluetooth-low-energy-book)</comment>


Uber Makes Its Pain New Yorkers' Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/nyregion/uber-makes-its-pain-new-yorkers-problem.html <comment><USER2> FTA: "In the late 1930s, there were just under 12,000 medallions in circulation; more than 75 years later, in a city larger by one million people and benefiting from far greater prosperity, there are only 13,000."

Population growth alone would require another 600 medallions. But remember: in the 1930s, we were just coming out (or on the upswing) of the Great Recession; so affluence would dictate a much larger number. So why is the number so low?

> Instead, arcane aspects of state and local law and, crucially, the power > wielded by wealthy and politically generous fleet owners — _who don't want > to see the creation of more medallions lest the value of theirs decline_ — > make that [more medallions] virtually impossible.

There you have it. It is, for the lack of a better word, greed. When you have hedgefunds owning medallions[1], you know it's a bad sign. Essential services for the general populace should _not_ be a vehicle for hedge funds.

An ideal (or, a better) system would be responsive. It would look at how busy cabs are, and accordingly change the number of medallions in circulation. Every year (or every _n_ th year, take your pick), have a Dutch auction[2] of the desired number of medallions. Disallow renting of medallions (only the owner gets to drive the cab), which will kill speculation. Put an app around the whole system, so users can hail cabs from their mobile devices. Pain eased.

[1] [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023036530045792143...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303653004579214314123978606)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_auction)

<comment><USER3> >An ideal (or, a better) system would be responsive.

Like a situation of economic freedom where millions of individual actors and entrepreneurs can dynamically change the landscape of city transportation instead of imposing a one size fits all scheme?

<comment><USER4> Well, that would work in a perfect system. In our current system, however, roads are "free". So, if you make driving a cab free and unlimited on those free roads, you just end up with a tragedy of the commons. Medallions solve that, but so would an appropriate gas tax (hint, many times higher than it is now) or some other kind of per-mile payment for road use.

<comment><USER5> Roads are not free, they are paid for via gas taxes. To support your claim that an appropriate gas tax would be large, do you have numbers suggesting how much road spending costs compared to revenue raised from gas taxes?

Medallions don't come close to solving the issue of people free-riding on roads - most of the cars on NYC roads are neither taxis nor ubers.

<comment><USER4> > do you have numbers suggesting how much road spending costs compared to > revenue raised from gas taxes?

[http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/debunking-the-myth- th...](http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/05/debunking-the-myth-that-only- drivers-pay-for-roads/393134/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "A cabdriver on average will make about $17 or $18 an hour over shifts that can last 12 hours. That is little more than the $15 an hour fast-food workers are scheduled to get"

Minimum wage in NY is currently $8.75 per hour. So, according to the article, taxi drivers are earning more than twice that. And that's after they've paid to rent a $1MM medallion.

<comment><USER7> For context, EMT workers in NYC earn just a bit over $15 an hour when they start out.

<comment><USER8> So fast food workers and EMT workers get the same wages? Wow, I hope the EMTs at least get significant raises fairly fast.

<comment><USER7> They don't now. But they would make basically the same thing if the bill to raise fast food workers' (and no one else's) wages goes through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People support Uber because they support the logic of the free market, which is that the government should redistribute wealth, but not fix prices, including wages. Yes it's tough being a taxi driver, but the real problem is that it's tough being a person who for whatever reason can't get a high paying job. Fixing high wages for taxi drivers doesn't solve this problem, because it doesn't provide jobs for those who don't get to be taxi drivers.

<comment><USER10> Society has decided that certain jobs should come with certain minimum standards attached to them, that's true of caterers, hotels, surgeons, airline pilots... and taxi drivers.

<comment><USER9> "Society has decided" is not a good substitute for an actual reason for a policy. I'm not arguing against democracy here. I also think you are confusing minimum pay with minimum qualifications. A medallion is not a qualification, it is an arbitrary limit (yes there are other reasons for the limit like congestion, but the article discuses pay)

<comment><USER11> Not being able to get a "high paying job" is not really the problem.

The problem is that the "market" has so far failed to distribute enough wealth to satisfy everyone's needs and for most of those that you can argue that market has been able to satisfy, they are essentially slaves to that market, with little to no mobility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Limiting medallions creates market inefficiencies which is no good to anyone _except_ the medallion owners. With $1 million medallions drivers have to pay a significant portion of their gross receipts for renting the artificially expensive taxi.

One taxi driver claims to gross $250-$300 for a 12 hour shift, but he pays $150 of that to lease the taxi (with medallion).

[http://www.yellowcabnyctaxi.com/nyc-taxi/shift-life-cab- driv...](http://www.yellowcabnyctaxi.com/nyc-taxi/shift-life-cab-driver)

Thus, about half of our fares plus tips go to paying for the taxi with medallion, before paying for gas.

<comment><USER8> The story opens with retelling the reasons the medallion system was created... it's probably not a good idea to completely ignore the historical events:

"There were too many drivers going after too few passengers — fares were slashed, tensions between fleets escalated, violence erupted"

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, a person born on the day in 1937 when the limit was put in effect would have been retired at age 65 13 years ago (age 78). As the economy improved, e.g., post WW II in 1945, 70 years ago, this limit should have been revisited.

All this limit has served to do is to make taxis in NYC far more expensive than they should be (in Manhattan not many own cars) and taxi drivers making far less money than they should be.

<comment><USER8> If you meant to say that the limits should be revised, may I suggest using wording that actually carries that meaning? I find it hard to see an argument about revising limits in the statement: "limiting medallions creates market inefficiencies which is no good to anyone"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm very skeptical of Uber, but I don't think limiting the number of cars is any type of solution.

<comment><USER13> It's a fairly traditional one, because "too many taxis clogging up the roads" is a common complaint of residents. The first taxi-regulation law in 17th- century London was passed to limit the number of hackney carriages (along with requiring minimum maintenance standards of the vehicles). Of course preferences vary; people who want to take taxis will tend to prefer there be more, while drivers of private vehicles will tend to prefer there be fewer. Residents typically also prefer fewer, unless their own use of taxis overrides that preference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If there's one thing gov need to do against Uber/Lyft, that's set a high bar for drivers' capability, not limit their numbers.

<comment><USER15> In the face of higher requirements, Uber would likely let anyone drive and then cast the appropriate narrative (in other words, their current gameplan)

<comment><USER16> Since they don't currently respect the law, it doesn't make any difference how you decide to change the law because they're still not going to respect it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is it just me, or does the photo in this piece quite obviously show protesting Uber tech/marketing employees, not drivers?

If that's the case, and in fact Uber mainly services the relatively affluent, and not typical Bronx residents, then this is a pretty disgusting and disingenuous piece of marketing/lobbying on Uber's part.</comment>


Grave-robbing DARPA satellite to form new orbiters from dead equipment - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/101125-frankensteinian-grave-robbing-satellite-to-form-new-orbiters-from-dead-equipment

<comment><USER2> How does satellite tracking work? Does a country like Russia or US track every single one of its satellite and each others' satellites?

Imagine if Russia or China just launched a satellite that showed the capability to grab and take apart & examine American satellites while in orbit.

They can clearly destroy them but having the ability to examine them would be a bit of a game-changer, since it is assumed satellite with latest super- secret techs are safe after the launch?

Do some fancy satellites have proximity sensors and self-destruct mechanisms...?

I know Russians have built one of their manned spy sats ( Almaz?) with an anti-aircraft gun designed to be used if American satellites would approach it.

<comment><USER3> >Do some fancy satellites have proximity sensors and self-destruct mechanisms.

If the opposition had just spent $XXXBn on a reusable space shuttle to retrieve satellites and you were a paranoid cold war enemy wouldn't you?

<comment><USER2> Would. Except for the ones I already launched...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this sounds like a lot of fun if it works. Might provide consultancy jobs for elderly space scientists as well - they would remember what was really in the circuits, and all about those quick undocumented fixes to the software....

</comment><comment><USER5> I have always thought that ground based lasers were the best solution to the kessler syndrome. I wonder if the benefits of this system would make it more cost-effective.

<comment><USER6> What would you do with the lasers? Heat 'em evenly so that they vapourise smoothly instead of falling apart and forming lots of little bits?

<comment><USER7> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_broom>

In short, you use it to heat one side if the debris, causing it to ablate, resulting in thrust that knocks it out of orbit.

<comment><USER8> Since satellites aren't designed with that sort of ablation effect in mind, I think hugh3's point that it would fall apart as various connecting bits burned through early would be much more likely.

<comment><USER7> The article states that it's designed to be used for bits from 1 to 10 cm, which mostly means stuff that has already fallen apart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It sounds all very intriguing from a technical point of view, but how much less would it cost than putting up a whole new satellite into orbit?

<comment><USER8> The most expensive part of the whole process is getting stuff into orbit. The main reason satellites have to be super-reliable is that even getting such levels of reliability is cheaper than sending up a replacement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So apart from the tricky business of grabbing a bit of space junk going past you at Mach33 and changing it's delta-V so you can grab it and attach it to your satelite.

And the tricky business of dismantling a satelite and somehow re-wiring a dead 1970s TV broadcast sat into being a new earth resources bird.

It's then going to presumably reach down into the Silicon lattice structure of the panels and remove all the defects that 10years in space has introduced.

\- You know all those secret DARPA/CIA projects on mind control drugs in the 60s the conspiracy nuts talk about? I think we have found their stockpile - and I suspect they might have a leak!

<comment><USER6> _So apart from the tricky business of grabbing a bit of space junk going past you at Mach33 and changing it's delta-V so you can grab it and attach it to your satelite_

It'll be in (essentially) the same orbit, so it'll be drifting past the other satellites nice and slowly.

 _And the tricky business of dismantling a satelite and somehow re-wiring a dead 1970s TV broadcast sat into being a new earth resources bird_

This is tricky. But mostly they just seem to be salvaging the dish antennas, which should be pretty interchangeable.

 _It's then going to presumably reach down into the Silicon lattice structure of the panels and remove all the defects that 10years in space has introduced._

They don't seem to be salvaging solar panels.

<comment> eric-hu _It'll be in (essentially) the same orbit, so it'll be drifting past the other satellites nice and slowly._

What are the range of velocities of objects in graveyard orbit? I wasn't able to find these numbers directly on a quick google search

<comment><USER10> The orbit you are in is directly dependent on your velocity. So if your orbit is similar to another objects, you'll be going at a similar velocity as well.

Put another way, if you are in the same orbit as another object, your velocity must be the same.

This illustrates itself in space docking procedures. If two objects are in the same orbit, one thrusting towards another in the direction of the orbit puts the first at a higher orbit and it'll rise with respect to second object. The converse holds true; thrust against the orbit and you'll fall with respect to the other object.

Thus, to dock, you have both crafts at slightly different orbits and the lower orbit will slowly gain on the higher orbit. In this way, one can control how fast the approach is. This will be how the satellite approaches debris most likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Andy Griffith, with a little help from Isaac Asimov, has already solved this problem.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvage_1>

</comment><comment><USER12> I smell a disaster in the making. What if it goes into the wrong orbit? It could cut into the ISS! Also, wouldn't a giant magnet make more sense?</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone interested in meeting other HNers? - <AUTHOR>

I created a website that lets HN-ers post their lunch plans and allows others to join in. I submitted it to HN a week ago but it did not get much attention, so I'm submitting it again hoping that it'll fare better this time.
The website is http://www.hackerlunch.com
You can basically post a lunch plan, where you introduce yourself, mention your location, and write something interesting about yourself, and other HN-ers who find you interesting will be able to contact you and maybe join you for lunch.
This is essentially my first project (I'm a designer and I just learned PHP enough to build this), so it would be really motivating to get some feedback on this. Regardless of whether you would be using it or not, what do you think of the site? Should I spend more time on it? <comment><USER2> I joined the Hacker News LinkedIn group a while back and reached out to a few guys from Kansas City. We had a nice lunch and chatted about projects, work, HN, and kids. I jokingly called it the first official meeting of the Kansas City Hacker News Group. We should really do that again, it was pretty cool. Not that there's anything wrong with a niche website for coordinating those lunches, but for me it's easier to just keep it simple.

<comment><AUTHOR> Group meetups are great but I envisioned the site to help one-one meetups.

Since only two people are involved, less time is spent on planning and deciding on a date. At least so I thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Every couple of weeks something like this shows up: a map with HN users, a Linkedin or Facebook group, a website with various twists, ... Did any of them every get any traction? This fragmentation is hurting all attempts at facilitating more interaction between readers (in as far as it's necessary...)

<comment><USER4> _a map with HN users_

Start here. All you need to do is match up HN usernames with their geo- cooredinates, and dump the coordinates into a Google map.

Then at least you'd have an idea where the clusters are, and can work from there on how to setup a meeting (maybe via Meetup.com which is pretty good for this task btw).

<comment><USER5> how would you get the geocoordinates of hacker news users? I don't see it in the about profile, do you mean asking them for it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In the grand scheme of things, the user base of HN is relatively small. Now, divide that into a much smaller number and that's the potential user base for your site. My point with this is that targeting only HN users for something like this will result in what you're seeing - not much attention.

I say this because HN (and online forums, message boards, etc, in general), in my opinion, helps to solve a problem that existed prior to its existence. That problem being that there are a lot of people with the knowledge and ability to help each other with tech and business, but they're all spread out so it's difficult to meet in person. Message boards like Stack Overflow, Quora and HN help bridge that separation. Your site, on the other hand, is attempting to tackle that issue head on by providing a way to help people setup in person meetups, except that you have an added difficulty in the fact that you're pitching it to a crowd of people using a service that allowed them to come together because they're all spread apart in the first place! (whew)

Now, obviously your idea works elsewhere - meetup.com. They're focusing on a much broader target market, though. Perhaps for your idea to work you could include ways to help HNers make it possible to meet up in person? Perhaps locate cheap plane ticket pricing, or groupon-esque deals for restaurants and let them make reservations. Those are just some less informal ideas, but I think something along those lines might be helpful to your service.

<comment><AUTHOR> Targeting HN only was just because the crowd here are much more civil and polite, and seem to be responsible and smart people who I would actually be interested in meeting. And also because I have seen a lot of people expressing a desire to meet others on many threads here.

About the idea of helping people meet by allowing them to find deals, etc. That's a good idea and I did think of that, but the current version of hackerlunch.com is just an MVP. I launched it not so that people use it, but more to find out if people are even interested in meeting "strangers from the internet". If I find that there is an interest, then I'll be working on a more full-fledged website with more advanced features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> You really need to add searching capabilities or categorize listings by country/state to avoid scrolling every post to find something in my area that interests me.

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting project. A few of the immediate problems I see:

1) It looks far more like people just posting an introduction about themselves. Let's say that a month from now you have 200 posts on it, and I'm looking to see if anyone wants to get lunch in Santa Monica. This doesn't appear terribly easy, and being lazy I'm not going to spend more than about 1 minute trying to find people.

2) I don't see that any of these expires. If I post for lunch in an hour and a half or so, it will live on forever. This is much more an event and time-based thing, yet the records live on more like a blog/news/announcement section.

Dates, times, and locations should be displayed well, a search by city would be most useful as well.

<comment><USER9> If you are really looking for lunch in Santa Monica, there was talk of two LA- based groups of interest to HNers mentioned in the past that I remember (and never be able to attend, which saddens me but my schedule is what it is...)

<http://promenade.thursdaylunch.com/> \- exactly a lunch in santa monica :)

<http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angeles-Hacker-News/> \- a broader meetup group

And if you're ever up for Tuesday evening dinners with Cocoa developers (any level of knowledge/experience, but devs only please, no headhunting and marketing stuff), there's NSCoder Night in Santa Monica that I regularly attend, feel free to contact me for details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would be nice to add location info to each entry rather than expecting the person to mention it in the content. This could also be helpful to create a tag cloud or location based filters in the future.

<comment><USER11> I would suggest having folks enter their city, geocoding it, and then saving that lat/long into the database so it can be visualized as a map later.

Here's some HTML/JS code for a form + map: <http://pastebin.com/57nw4awx>

And then you can follow this tutorial to create the map showing all the submissions: <http://www.hackerlunch.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.hackerlunch.com/>

</comment><comment><USER12> I end up meeting other HNers when I go to user group meetups, Barcamps, StartupCamps, etc... In most large cities I imagine the same thing happens.

But about your site - it looks fine to me, although I would make the 'cards' smaller and over a couple of columns because it takes a lot of space this way. Also, I'd make the "Location" a field rather than something you put in the description because it's going to get difficult to find a relevant entry very quickly.

If the hacker lunch idea doesn't work out, you can turn it into a hacker friendly cooking/food site for lunch ideas. :D

</comment><comment><USER13> Hacker News DC Meetup has had a lot of success bringing the community together. I'd encourage anybody in the DC area to check it out - <http://meetup.hackernewsdc.org/>. I see no reason why people shouldn't do it in other cities as well. Having a happy hour once every month or two is a great way to meet new people and talk about current issues in person.

</comment><comment><USER14> Most of us aren't interested:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722>

</comment><comment><USER15> Just a thought, why not just use <http://www.meetup.com/> ?

<comment><USER7> This is not really a valid use case for meetup.com, which is good for recurring, topical meetings.

Plus, its not free to start a new meetup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ha - I remember seeing something similar for Reddit a few days ago. Did you make that too?

</comment><comment><USER17> Good idea, but it seems you already got some trolls..

</comment><comment><USER18> Would love to but not many HN'rs in Copenhagen!

<comment><USER19> A few pop up now and then, actually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> anybody in or near tampa?

</comment><comment><USER21> Anyone in NYC want to meet?</comment>


Maybe it's time for personal servers? - <AUTHOR> http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/11/15/maybeItsTimeForPersonalSer.html

<comment><USER3> Here are a few issues that come to mind:

\- Nobody wants to be a sysadmin. Being a sysadmin sucks, and taking care of servers is hard. Sure, your content _may_ disappear if the startup goes offline, but it _will_ disappear if you have a hard drive crash, are hacked, lose power, or any of the million other issues that can happen.

\- People have come to expect fairly good reliability. Having everyone host their own content will be a big step backwards in this regard. Dave's picture? They've been inaccessible for a week... Guess I can't check them out.

\- Most broadband connections in the US are not symmetrical in bandwidth: They have much more download than upload bandwidth. That means that most connections do not have enough bandwidth to serve even a moderately popular image, let alone a popular video.

\- Last but not least, the vast, vast majority of people are not even close to technical enough to take even the most basic steps involved. For this vision to become reality, the process would need to get much, much easier.

<comment><USER4> In the long run, I think that people might be better off with some sort of customized hosting plan that has the following things:

\- Some sort of social-networking software that uses some sort of (xml?) standard protocol to communicate with others' instances of the software. Basically everyone runs their own Facebook profile page/wall and comments/posts are pushed between instances.

\- some sort of OpenID-ish thing that integrates PGP/GPG keys for improved security

\- ready to go software for running automated backups from the user's home computer (this could easily support all OSes)

If this was some sort of 'cloud server' or shared hosting plan that cost users maybe $10 or so it could work out pretty well. Though I'm not sure how the existence of current 'free' options would affect things. But I feel that such an option would be the _best_ option for people in the long run. They would retain their own backups of their data, so it's not locked away on some company's server where they can't extract it (and the company will say 'tough luck' if all your data is lost).

<comment><USER5> I think you forgot one of the most important aspects: personal media hosting, being able to watch your movies or listen to your music from anywhere in the world.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that's something that most home connections could handle (at least not video, or high-quality video). And I doubt that someone would be willing to setup hosting for you for $10/month that allows you to stream your music/movies/tv shows to you over the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Getting a vps for $8-$20/mo from linode, slicehost, prgmr, webbynode, rackspace cloud or any other vps provider is so much easier than dealing with a machine at your home.

<comment><USER7> Still, at $20/month I use a small $100 plug computer (such as <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug>) as a home server instead. Your use case may be different to mine but that is more than I'm willing to pay within a student budget.

<comment><USER8> How about $25 per _year_?

<http://www.asmallorange.com/hosting/shared/>

<comment><USER9> That's yet another overselling shared host running cPanel. Pretty much the stark opposite of what this article is talking about.

<comment><USER8> Oh, I'm not in any way suggesting that this is what the article is talking about. I'm specifically curious about how cheap shared hosting delivers (or fails to deliver) in a price / performance comparison to one of those "plug on the wall" servers. Not trying to be snarky here; I'm actually hoping for a legitimate response, as I have no experience with them (but they sound kind of interesting).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think that most developers have a "personal server" (or two!)

I keep MongoDB, CouchDB, Sesame, PostgreSQL+PostGIS, etc. "always on" for my personal and research projects - keeping my stuff separate and using customer's VPSs or EC2 instances, etc. for their work.

Would I want to have all of this stuff running all the time on my laptop? I don't think so.

I used to keep at least one server running on our home network but now I mostly use a really cheap VPS, and a small "3 year pay in advance" EC2 instance. Running a server or two in my house is something that I only do for special needs.

Anyway, I live with the network latency hit for the convenience of (usually) not having to run servers in my home.

<comment><USER11> i don't, other than my linode virtual servers (i definitely have a non-work personal one for experiementing with).

i consider myself a developer along the lines of programmer and maker, even software engineer at times. i love extensible code. i love making things that work, are useful and have code that i can be proud.

code is TOTALLY different than configuration files and installing things. i only do system administration because i have to, and even then i consider it the worst "waste" of time (it's not actually a waste because yeah, it's nice to have a webserver and cron jobs, etc).

i'd much rather be writing documentation or even better, designing and diagramming how some neat pieces of code are going to work together.

i feel like people who figured out how to make allen wrenches keeping thinking it'd be cool if everyone else made allen wrenches. i just want to make bikes, including choppers and tall bikes and elegant fixies. other people just want to ride bikes, and that suits me fine because maybe i can sell my bikes to them, just as i don't mind buying allen wrenches.

maybe we each of us have a maker inside, but luckily we don't all want to make the same things. don't fight the business model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A few weeks ago, I searched a bit for "appliances" that would run on GoogleApps and found basically nothing. One would think that, given 5M free pageview/month, there would be much interest in semi-private forums, poor- man's http proxy (to circumvent The Man) and the like.

My wife participates on a semi-private forum of mommies, and it concerns me that none of them have strong control over the data they generate.

<comment><USER9> [http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/search?category...](http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/search?categoryId=1&orderBy=rating)

There's some pretty good stuff in there, and it's dead simple to enable if you're using Google Apps for your domain.

<comment><USER12> I realized after it was too late to edit that I typed "Google Apps" instead of "App Engine." However, I'll check out the Google Apps add-ons as well given that my wife and I are now a "company" and share Google calendars on our Android phones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had to double check this was written in 2009. In the last four years I've moved _away_ from having a personal server at home to The Cloud(TM), and life is much, much easier. There's certainly a class of people for whom a personal server at home is a great idea, but I don't think it's the tech-savvy mainstream in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a branding and marketing issue and not a tech issue. The word "server" is scary to the mainstream audience that would adopt it. The tech is there whether it's windows home server or ubuntu with Samba. Making it easy and how you market it to the digital home is the real key. More and more media is being created+consumed in the digital home. A digital home looks something like a multi-computer household with a wireless network + at least one HDTV. There's certainly a very big need for this, now more than ever.

<comment><USER15> My "digital home" uses FreeNAS on a old 400mhz beater box. <http://www.freenas.org/>

<comment><USER14> FreeNAS is really great, especially for using older spare parts,etc.

<comment><USER15> I have to give that project some major props. It was the most painless install I have ever done and it is simple to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was rambling on about this in 2001. You use Gnutella to search the 'transient web', which is just a bunch of home webservers serving up people's pages. Gnutella would link them all together and perform searches, as it does for MP3s now. Note: not searching filenames, but - like Google - a list of words in a HTML document.

I tried to get Gnucleus (John Marshall's Gnutella project) to incorporate full-text searches. He said he'd help but my code ended up - disabled - <USER2> Morpheus Preview Edition [itself based on Gnucleus] which was downloaded over 100,000,000 times (!). If anyone can be described as blowing a chance, that was me with MPE.

Then I tried Limewire, and wrote the code to interface with Lucene (a Java full text search engine), and they blew me off too.

Since then I've given up, but I did at least get a poster paper at HT03 about it!

<comment><USER17> I've thought that kademlia or some other DHT would be the ideal solution to this.

Think newsgroup/forum style conversational threading, with a separate data channel for large transfers, and landgrab DNS based on popularity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Doesn't Opera unite fit the bill here?

<http://unite.opera.com/>

<comment><USER19> Hell, Apache fits the bill here. I think that the author was more concerned that more people aren't hosting their own content. Which is a pain, evenw ith Opera Unite. So, it's no surprise why most services are still based on corporate servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> AT ~$20/month why not have both?

One can setup dynamic DNS to map one's physical home server into the cloud. This gives you all the advantages of a legitimate POP whilst also providing the security, redundancy, and local audit-ability of your own hardware.

</comment><comment><USER21> I completely agree, however I dont think broadband is going to be good enough for the next X years for "personal" to mean quite the same thing, not to mention the issues of backups, power saving and such.

I expect to see something like myopera / couchdb / ubuntu one type system where your personal machines are mirrored for full uptime, services like flickr should integrate with these machines instead of actually owning your content outright. I havent thought about how this would work too much but glad to see people like couchdb / ubuntu and mozilla try to attack it it

<comment><USER4> > _however I dont think broadband is going to be good enough for the next X > years for "personal" to mean quite the same thing_

Not to mention that most ISP agreements forbid you from running a home server unless you upgrade to 'business level.'

<comment><USER22> This is something that really irritates me. Clearly what they mean is that if you are going to run a commercial server (with the attendant increase in outgoing traffic), you should buy a business account. But that is not what is stated in the contract. As it stands, the Verizon FIOS contract disallows running sshd and logging in to your own computer from outside your home network. Now, they don't block this, and won't, yet the contract language disallows such a personal and reasonable use.

I have tried writing to Verizon, politicians, the FCC, and the BBB on this issue. The only one that bothered to reply is the FCC to say, basically, "not our problem." I would appreciate any ideas as to who else I can contact to try to improve Verizon's language.

<comment><USER23> Once network neutrality kicks in we could try to convince the FCC that prohibiting servers is a form of non-neutral discrimination.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Isn't this the exact opposite of our favorite over-hyped buzzword: "The Cloud"? Instead of accessing all your data via freemium 3rd party hosts, you keep your own data, and those 3rd parties pubsub to/from your server. I like this idea since it's an elegant solution to our current web mess of walled gardens, multiple accounts, vendor lock-in, privacy, and the low quality of content on the web in general.

But I think we're 10 years away from having this because the hardware just isn't there yet. The idea will have traction when our cell phones can run as this "universal personal server". Then it can actually have the mass-scale adoption required for it to work. But the majority of end-users can barely operate an OS, they don't even know what the difference is between a browser and an app, and almost nobody understands what the Internet actually is. From the common point of view, the Internet might as well represent the highest achievement of magick rather than science. So until it's as ubiquitous as having a cell phone, personal servers will remain in the domain of geeks who will hack up, tweak and preen their own solutions.

It's interesting how the software industry is utterly craptastic at anticipating how the plummeting cost of better and better hardware changes the kind of software services which people will use. In short time spans too. Amazon, Google et. al. have spent billions going long on the bet that 12 years out, everything will be served from global super-computer clusters distributed across mega-datacenters around the world. It is interesting to ask if Amazon, Google and everyone else are about to get blind sided, and not only miss the boat, but fail to even see it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Run Tonido in your desktop. That will solve this issue.

</comment><comment><USER26> In the interest of "truth in advertising", the author should add an "h" to his last name. His blog makes a lot more sense then.</comment>


Show HN: ROPE Estimates (Realistic Optimistic Pessimistic Equilibristic) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/rope_estimates <comment><AUTHOR> ROPE estimates are a new quick project management planning technique, proving successful with my work.

I'm the author and I'm seeking feeback. Thanks!</comment>


NASA's 'Impossible' Space Engine Tested - <AUTHOR> https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/nasa-emdrive-impossible-physics-independent-tests-magnetic-space-science/ <comment><USER2> It is at least science, in that sense that they've _repeated the experiment faithfully_ and obtained results at least as useful as the original Eagleworks experiment.

Unsurprisingly and anticlimactically, they obtained the same results.

This simply underscores the need for high power testing.

Additionally, they need to also test in orbit/microgravity.

Just my 0.02$US :)

Disclaimer: I am only an armchair rocket scientist :)</comment>


Class of 2019: artists and writers whose works have entered the public domain - <AUTHOR> https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/class-of-2019/ <comment><USER2> I was talking to a very intelligent Chinese friend of mine who was struggling to describe scenes in English. My first thought was "Gee, maybe he should memorise passages from Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy, since that has some of the best scene descriptions I have ever read".

No shortage of students like that. You can imagine my hopeful start at seeing Peake's name on the list at the start of this article, then my slump on discovering that that was for death+50 years countries, and Australia/US are death+70.

This stuff kills culture. I can't even propagandise great English literature to someone trying to learn English. He'll have to go with Jane Austin like every body else, and he can chuse something more modern if he's got more money than sense. Thank goodness she died 200 years ago, or I don't know what I'd do. Maybe learn how to read Chaucer.

<comment><USER3> So if you are in a death+70 country and happen to find it in a website from a death+50 country, you are not allowed to read it? The problem, I think, is redistribution. And the website already has the permission to redistribute it so it should be fair game to read it from there.

What happens if I travel to a death+50 country and buy a cheaper version there and return? Isn't it the same?

<comment><USER4> > The problem, I think (...)

This makes me sad. We're discussing something as simple as "do I still need to worry about copyright on books whose author has been dead for half a century".

The mere fact that you had to quality this with statement with "I think", and that I genuinely don't know if I agree with your interpretation might actually be the absolute worst part of all of this.</comment></comment></comment>


Why We Need Storytellers at the Heart of Product Development - <AUTHOR> http://uxmag.com/strategy/why-we-need-storytellers-at-the-heart-of-product-development

<comment><USER2> As someone who fits this skillset and aspires to fill this kind of role at a web startup, can someone tell me what the qualifications are to actually be this person?

I think the article makes valid points, but it seems to me that if anyone ever proposed to fill this kind of role, they'd be roundly ridiculed as the stereotypical "ideas" douchebag who has no real skills to offer (as is often the case on HN).

How do you legitimately lay claim to this skillset and set of responsibilities?

<comment><USER3> People need ideas in every job. In order to get paid and be legitimate you need to execute on those ideas. As a product storyteller, you need to help the group align their individual ideas and execute on a grander scale.

Honestly, I am in the same position trying to find my value at a small startup.

The article did a great job describing the overall value of the job, but lacked any specific ways to contribute. However, a small company needs a lot of help. I think first try to understand your strengths align with the goals of the company, especially how you can help your peers.

Then contribute what you can whether its writing, code, art, or whatever. Use the means of communication that helps you and your team succeed.</comment></comment>


Embedded Linux Keeps Growing Amid IoT Disruption - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/mobile-linux/818011-embedded-linux-keeps-growing-amid-iot-disruption-says-study

<comment><USER2> I am the only one who had to google what IoT is?</comment>


Micro Focus Survey Finds COBOL Modernization at Center of Business Change - <AUTHOR> https://www.microfocus.com/en-us/press-room/press-releases/micro-focus-survey-finds-cobol-modernization-at-center-of-strategic-business-change <comment><USER2> I find the headline misleading. The linked item offers a summary including

"70% of enterprises favor modernization as an approach for implementing strategic change as compared to the replacing/retiring of key COBOL applications"</comment>


Reddit CEO Yishan Wong on Giving Stock to Users: "We Have a Crazy Plan." - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/30/reddit-fundraising/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=FaceBook <comment><USER2> A relevant post arguing for Reddit to implement this on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain: [https://medium.com/@barisser/an-open-letter-to-reddit-why- yo...](https://medium.com/@barisser/an-open-letter-to-reddit-why-you-should- build-on-bitcoin-e52705bc87c5)

</comment><comment><USER3> The plan sounds bizarre. He is basically going to cater to x% of Reddit that's into Bitcoins, etc.

Makes little sense when Reddit was created for 'all', prior to Bitcoin.

<comment><USER4> It has nothing to do with bitcoins as the currency is backed by reddit stock, they are not the standard alt-cryptocoin idea.

They will be 100% premined, with all coins given to a pool which then is distributed to people who contribute to reddit. So people won't have to build bitcoin farms or the like(nor would it help them get any redditcoins).

There is absolute nothing prevents somebody who is not into bitcoin from taking part in redditcoins(or whatever they are going to call them), it is just a way to:

* Allocate a fraction of reddit stock to be converted into discrete sub-stock-unit chunks

* Allow the distribution of said reddit stock to reddit contributors

* Allow redditors to transfer said stock

* Do all above without any financial transactions.

<comment><USER3> It does not matter if they were pre-mined. The point still stands, this does not appeal to most of the Reddit users who can care less about digital currency.

How are you going to cash it out? Is Reddit going to be focusing on all of this bullshit? Trading? Cashing out? Safe guards? Etc?

Come on. That sounds like a disaster.

<comment><USER5> except reddit wasn't exactly created for the mainstream community either. it just turned out that way. the reddit admins don't exactly have an incentive to cater to everyone, I mean help their giving away stock because they want to not because someone's telling them to or cause it'll profit them (although it might in the long run with PR and all)

<comment><USER3> If you think they will be giving away stock then I have a bridge to sell you.

I never said anything about 'mainstream', catering to one of the most recent group of Reddit users (crypto-currency) .vs catering to the original groups makes no sense to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So stock is going to be used to back to something in the reddit community, and related to cryptocurrency.

Karma: no

Reputation: no

Dogecoin: no

Reddit Gold: hmmm not mentioned...

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, it's like the Green Bay Packers stock sale but in reverse.</comment>