Unix in East Germany (1990) - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.unix.wizards/QX_dxElrVNs <comment><USER2> This is so fascinating. By the time I understood why and how Germany was two separate states, the wall was long gone.

It is weird,actually,because I am glad I did not have to live through those times, but I _do_ get a wave of something nostalgia-like, as I read this.

<comment><USER3> Same here.

My father and his family came from the east (they got thrown out one day) and my mother from the west. I was only 4 years old when the wall fell and didn't have any interest in the topic until I was 13 or something.

<comment><USER4> Man, you guys make me feel old.

<comment><USER5> I was 14 in 1989 when my Dad and I were watching TV and they switched over to show East and West Germans breaking through the wall and hugging each other.

I remember watching for hours because I knew I was watching history being made.

<comment><USER2> Me too. I did not understand fully what was going on, but I remember the excitement and optimism that hung in the air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Non-mobile link: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.unix.wizards/QX...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.unix.wizards/QX_dxElrVNs)

<comment><USER7> Plain HTML version:

[https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=topic%2F...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?_escaped_fragment_=topic%2Fcomp.unix.wizards%2FQX_dxElrVNs)

</comment></comment><comment> maze-le >> We should have been working on the development of a 386 for the past year, but so far it has not been possible for us to turn up even one such machine.

I guess that has been true for everything.

<comment><USER8> No. Basic needs like food, clothing etc. were fully covered. Any kind of electronics (e.g. a color TV) were hard to acquire. You had to wait 10 years to be able to buy a new car. And housing was a big problem. Women in the GDR typically became pregnant at a very young age (18-21) because a family with a child had the right to get its own apartment.

<comment><USER9> > Women in the GDR typically became pregnant at a very young age (18-21) > because a family with a child had the right to get its own apartment.

This is one way to look at it. The other way: free, guaranteed child care (probably mandatory for most as well) for every kid just a few months old. You could easily have a kid and study or work - that was the norm, not the exception.

Disclaimer: I'm the kid of a woman who got her PhD in medicine in east Germany. "Feminism" was a concept I only learned about when the wall fell. In the east, as far as I can see, it was a woman's duty to be productive for society, not about a "right to work while raising kids".

<comment><USER10> In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were far ahead of the West. Not sure how that came about.

<comment><USER11> > In terms of women's participation in the workforce the communist states were > far ahead of the West. Not sure how that came about.

The liberation of women of all social classes in capitalism from the subservient role as an "instrument of production" in "bourgeois marriage" and/or coerced into a system of "prostitution both public and private" was called out as a natural consequence of Communism in the Communist Manifesto.

So, it's quite easy to see why it would be something Communist states would want to demonstrate success at, and when the State directs work, it's not hard to control relative penetration in the workforce to suit the goals of the leadership.

<comment><USER12> Not only that, but feminist Marxism had already taken off by that point, and it's been a present (albeit relatively quiet) topic of discussion ever since Engels. I'm honestly surprised people (especially on HN) don't know about the ideological roots of the liberation of women in Marxism (or Communism generally). Liberation is a fundamental principle; the comment you're replying to makes it seem as though women in the workforce is antithetical to Communism, or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's a really interesting read. Accodring to some reports the Russians had access to 2.9 or 4.2 BSD source code in 1980-1982(?) [http://gunkies.org/wiki/DEMOS](http://gunkies.org/wiki/DEMOS) not sure if they had have to do "translation by hand into another language".

A bit unrelated: Wow, I can barely tell what I've been up to 2 years ago; how do people remember things that happened some 30-40 years ago...

-ss

<comment><USER14> I believe there was a study on how people with different age perceive passing of time differently. I guess, for those people, 30-40 years ago might seem like yesterday. Another wager is that you might be younger than those people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Trivia: the university mentioned in this story was in Karl-Marx-Stadt, a city which had this name in 1953-1990 but is today known as Chemnitz.

<comment><USER16> Trivia is always the best, most salient part of every story, which ironically makes it not trivial at all.

</comment></comment><comment> the-dude Google thinks I need to login to read this.

edit: which is funny, Google won't let me in, East Germany wouldn't let you out.

<comment><USER17> Better alternative link:

[http://article.olduse.net/4737%40ethz.UUCP](http://article.olduse.net/4737%40ethz.UUCP)

 _Yes, I have an Usenet archive in my harddrive so I can search for the message, get its original Message-ID, and present you a link to Joey Hess 's historical Usenet exhibition. Google Groups was originally Deja News, the most complete Usenet history archive at the time. But Google acquired it ~2000, and converted it into to Google's private forum service, instead of a museum that preserves the history. Not only the original raw archive was not available to the public anymore, but they also REMOVED the original message querying and indexing._

 _In Google Groups, you can read historical posts, but cannot find any technical trace of the original history - the whole thing is not indexed in the original way, I didn 't even find a option to show the message header, making it utterly useless for archeology, instead, now the best Usenet archive we have is saved from some old tapes from one or two universities, and far from complete._ This is really bad.

 _And apparently Google Groups as Google 's private forum, is also already irrelevant. A lose-lose._

<comment><USER18> Did you build your archive from Usenet, or through spidering DejaNews/Google groups?

<comment><USER17> > _instead, now the best Usenet archive we have is saved from some old tapes > from one or two universities,_

The archive is online, I just downloaded a copy.

The first major Usenet archive was dumped from the old tape of the University of Toronto's Department of Zoology, it covered the posts their server received from late 80s to 1991. You can download it from here. [https://archive.org/details/utzoo-wiseman-usenet- archive](https://archive.org/details/utzoo-wiseman-usenet-archive). It's ~2 GiB in compressed gzip, ~20 GiB in raw. Another is The Internet Archive's "Usenet Historical Collection", contains post made in the 90s, donated by an anonymous user, around ~200 GiB. [https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical&tab=collection](https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical&tab=collection)

The UTZoo's archive is very handy to have. There are a million posts to read and no spam and low-effort posting at all (by modern standards, even many flame wars seem to be high-quality). The downside is no external resources is accessible, and nobody is going to reply you. Feels like trapping inside the fake 3D Hologram of the Usenet golden age, created by a supercomputer in the abandoned space station, as in the plot of Otomo Katsuhiro's Memories.

Unfortunately, the original archive from DejaNews/Google Groups, the most authoritative and complete source is inaccessible by the public. _Google, a Search Company, Has Made Its Internet Archive Impossible to Search[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-a-search-company- has...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-a-search-company-has-made-its- internet-archive-impossible-to-search) _

<comment><USER19> I can't understand why Google just doesn't release its archives. To what end are they keeping it private? How is it a significant competitive advantage for _anything_ they do?

Google keeping the archive locked up was what (many years ago) made it clear to me that it stopped being the company of "don't be evil". In fact, locking up the archive is about as gratuitously evil as you can get short of actual violence and theft.

<comment><USER20> Because they are building a profile of you to sell your information to advertisers and anyone else interested. If they just GAVE data away, how could they market what you are looking for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Funny my father did computer science and economics at that time at that university. He told me about the US computers that had special keys to make them look different, like an exchanged dollar sign. Now that appears to me just as line noise.</comment>


Show HN: A unique utility that free you from remembering passwords - <AUTHOR> http://sitepassword.azurewebsites.net/ <comment><USER2> This is one of the shittiest password generators out there. Use two consecutive numbers and see how most of the generated password is so same.</comment>


Before Kubrick Wrote Scripts, He Took Photos - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/arts/design/stanley-kubrick-look-magazine-photos-new-york.html <comment><USER2> I wonder if there's a Kubrick biography or documentary coming out soon. There have been several other articles about him recently, including some focusing on his photography:

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/space-odyssey-and-stanley- kubri...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/space-odyssey-and-stanley-kubrick- review-like-nothing-else-on-earth-1523565411) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16840863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16840863)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in- sight/wp/2018/04/13/s...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in- sight/wp/2018/04/13/stanley-kubricks-little-known-life-as-a-still- photographer) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16835720](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16835720)

[https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/01/close- tea...](https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2017/01/close-tears-he- left-intermission-how-stanley-kubrick-upset-arthur-c-clarke) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16781142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16781142)

Or maybe it's just commemoration of the 50 year anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Edit: I see from this article that there's an exhibit opening tomorrow, so that's probably the immediate impetus.

<comment><USER3> Good guess:

[https://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/filmworker/](https://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/filmworker/)

> _Leon Vitali was a rising British television actor when Stanley Kubrick > picked him for the role of Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon. That first > encounter with the famed auteur proved decisive — he swiftly resolved to > devote the rest of his life working for the director, this time behind the > scenes, and took on just about every job available: casting director, acting > coach, location scouter, sound engineer, color corrector, A.D., promoter, > and eventually restorer of Kubrick's films. Tony Zierra's affecting > documentary profiles the devoted "filmworker" — Vitali's preferred job title > — as he enthusiastically recounts his days with the notoriously meticulous, > volatile and obsessive director. The experiences brought both tremendous > sacrifice and glowing pride._

<comment><USER3> There's also this:

[https://www.2001spaceodysseymovie.com/](https://www.2001spaceodysseymovie.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great pics. I didn't know he was a photographer (though it makes sense given the incredible cinematography in his films) but seeing the title reminded me of this brilliant shot from when he was filming The Shining

[https://www.picsofcelebrities.com/celebrity/dar- robinson/pic...](https://www.picsofcelebrities.com/celebrity/dar- robinson/pictures/dar-robinson-scandal.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> The Kubrick exhibit at The Jewish Museum in SF was great! Really showed how his work changed over time and his unmade Napoleon movie would have wild.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great photography involves encapsulating a story in a photograph. A film is doing the same in many moving images; it's a greater challenge.

He was a great photographer so he got into film for a greater challenge.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wish Kubrick had made the movie on Holocaust that he was planning, but changed his mind on watching Schindler's list. Similar thing happened with his Napoleon initiative.

I also wish he had created an epic crime drama like 'Once upon a time in America'.</comment>


Ask HN: Who are on HN? - <AUTHOR> Engineers? Startups? Entrepreneurs? Designers <comment><USER2> All of the above, and more. If you read the discussions for a few months, you'll find out quite a bit about people's backgrounds and interests, which are very diverse. (As for myself, I'm an engineer who has no connection to startups.)</comment>


Tell HN: Make sure you can be contacted as described on your user page - <AUTHOR> I tried this evening to contact a user by the information on his/her user page, and it didn't work. I just wanted to write this as a reminder to all to check your contact information and make sure that others can easily contact you by that information. <comment><USER2> Or, some enterprising Arc programmer could add inboxes to HN and submit the patch to pg. I'm quite fond of using that feature on reddit. Although it is used somewhat rarely, it comes in handy when I do need it.

<comment><USER3> I believe pg has said in the past that not including mailbox features was a design choice rather than a "don't have time to do it" issue.

<comment><USER4> For sites that don't want the overhead of full user-to-user messaging, I've wondered if it would make sense to have a single kind of private form message: "I'd like to talk, here's _my_ contact info."

It'd be a single tick to send to someone, and they'd decide what to do from there -- perhaps just clear the 'contact requested' flag with a single tick of their own.

<comment><USER3> I've noticed formspring is being used for this purpose on some forums that don't offer direct messaging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Also, once again: the email field is _not_ public. Write contact information in the profile field.

<comment><AUTHOR> And please verify that the information in your contact field yields a working email address! That was the point of this post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What makes you think it didn't work ?

If someone does not reply that does not mean your communication was not received. No answer is also an answer...

Your own profile lists an email address but no name, last name, information about you nor any other info.

Maybe give the good example and flesh out your profile a bit ?

<comment><AUTHOR> A RCPT failed from an email address is a good indication.

<comment><USER7> OMG! Is there a way to fake these?

<comment><USER8> why is he being downvoted? not cool. guess what? it's also a tremendous BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.

what is pg's #1 rule? build something SOMEBODY LOVES? don't you think jhrobert would be EXCITED if this was offered a service?

he's getting excited about a cool technical, (business) and social hack

jhrobert, of course it's possible to fake this. do i personally know how? my guess is copy/paste the text and fake the email headers. could you make money offering it as a service? yes.

<comment><USER7> Humm... I am using gmail, I don't think I can that easely forge a fake....

However, I can fake an auto-responder easely...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's plenty of good reasons not to make it easy for random internet strangers to contact you.

It's hacker news, not stalker news.

<comment><USER10> Why would you list wrong contact info? That seems pretty counterproductive.

<comment><USER9> It's probably not malicious. The dude just probably forgot to update it. Or was getting too much spam and started blocking a bunch of stuff. Or made a typo.

I was just saying that not everyone has to let themselves be contacted. I didn't say you should post misinformation.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN:  technical co-founder looking for startup - <AUTHOR>

I am 40+ year old CTO and co-founder of a firm that I sold a couple years ago.  I'm ready to get back into a start up but I don't have any ideas ( I didn't really have an idea for the first company either ).  I do have 20+ years of experience developing software as everything from dev to CTO.  I also have significant capital to contribute as well as lots of time as I am currently retired.  Spare me the lecture about finding an itch to scratch, even if I had that I still need to find a co-founder, CEO type to move forward.  My company was in the ( puts on flame retardant gear ) HFT world but I'm not interested in working in that world.  Most of my hands on development is low latency C/C++ work but in 20 years I've done some of everything.  Any thoughts on how I should proceed? <comment><USER4> Allow me to offer a suggestion: Instead of having the mindset that you always need "to find a co-founder, CEO type to move forward" (a very self-defeating and self-fulfilling idea, in the sense that having this mindset usually means people make no effort to improve themselves in this arena), why don't you try to generate an idea and then take this opportunity to learn sales/marketing/business skills. There's no inherent reason you can't try to improve your skills in those areas. There's no such thing as being to old to learn something new. And even if you find yourself lacking in social skills, many aspects of sales/marketing have nothing to do with sociability - <USER2> marketing, cold-emailing etc.

Also read pg's essay on getting startup ideas, if you haven't already: <http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm building an app to streamline the design process and looking for a co- founder. If you'd like to discuss the idea further, my number's 337-739-2846. Call any time that's convenient. - <USER3>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can contact me at poweredbygingersnaps at yahoo . com. I much prefer email to phone but crawfordcomeaux I will call you tomorrow afternoon. I live in Chicago.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can you provide some contact info?</comment>


Faster internal networks for cars - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/16/business/cars-internal-data-networks.html <comment><USER2> TL:DR HDBaseT does up to 6 Gbps over unshielded copper cables and supporters also believe updated versions will quickly reach speeds of 20 Gbps and 40 Gbps.</comment>


Mifare Classic RFID hacking (slides & video) - <AUTHOR> http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/track/Hacking/2378.en.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Video also available on iTunes [http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcas...](http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=21464865&id=250392145)</comment>


Bad news for iO6 users: Google not planning a maps app - <AUTHOR> http://www.firstpost.com/tech/bad-news-for-io6-users-google-not-planning-a-maps-app-467597.html

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/eric-schmidt-google- hasnt-s...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/25/eric-schmidt-google-hasnt- submitted-a-native-google-maps-app-to-apple/)

</comment><comment><USER2> bad title - he just said they haven't submitted anything. it says nothing about planning.</comment>


Show HN: Shameless plug for my IOT dashboard (open source) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/edfungus/Crouton <comment><AUTHOR> Hello!

A while ago, I made a simple IOT dashboard in Polymer that relies only on a MQTT broker and I figure that I would share it with you all!

The dashboard displays cards which show you data and/or available controls for your devices. The dashboard connects as a MQTT client along with the other IOT devices so this can be easily added to existing MQTT networks. Cards displayed on the dashboard are defined by the devices themselves. The data flow between the dashboard and the devices is bi-directional so the cards will always reflect the state of the device. Also, as the devices go online/offline the cards will appear and disappear too.

Regarding the modularity of the project, each card is an independent polymer component so that more types of cards can be added to fit your needs. There is a handful of cards I have made to fit basic use cases but feel free to add more!

I hope you like it! Let me know what you all think.

Demo: [http://crouton.mybluemix.net](http://crouton.mybluemix.net) *Click the "connect demo for me" button or use default MQTT details and "crouton-demo" as device name

<comment><USER2> How does the in-browser MQTT work? Does this require a WebSockets ready broker?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it requires a ws ready broker. I used the browser version of MQTT.js ([https://github.com/mqttjs/MQTT.js](https://github.com/mqttjs/MQTT.js)) to connect to the broker</comment></comment></comment>


Git – PANICKING - - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/e-conomic/swift-course/issues/60 <comment><USER2> Reminds of a friend jokingly telling another friend on chat that the command they needed was 'rm -rf /' presuming they had more experience than they did. Unfortunately they ran it.</comment>


Tesla cuts car prices by up to $5k - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/27/21271607/tesla-model-3-e-x-price-cuts-north-america-china <comment><USER2> Makes sense. Model Y is picking up steam. I doubt they are selling 100% production of the other models (Y is eating a bit into sales of all 3). S and X are both in need of a refresh, they have worse battery tech than both the 3 and Y and missing some of the cool Y features (heat pump, octovalve).

Current wait is 8-12 weeks on a Y, and only a week or two on the rest.

In line for my first Tesla (a y). It has been a very different car buying experience!!

<comment><USER3> Good luck! Tesla's are marvels of technology, but the lockdown they have on maintenance and repair -- which includes extremely high costs -- is enough to shy me away until we get a 'right-to-repair' law.

<comment><USER4> There is hardly any maintenance on them. I had a minor wind noise issue when I first got it that they took care of in a couple hours. Since then, it's been washer fluid and tires.

The kinds of routine maintenance and repair items you typically don't want to take your car to a dealer for aren't much of a thing on a Tesla. Then there are the big ones where you probably do want the dealer working on it. Like if some significant mechanical problem occurs I want Tesla working on it. Not to mention, a lot of the more expensive repairs are going to be covered by warranty or insurance anyway. Sure, they're expensive, but so is everyone else.

If you bought a new or new-ish Ford and there was a mechanical failure would you want to take it to a Ford shop or a random mechanic? Yes, there's a significant number of people in the latter group, but they're going to feel that way no matter what they drive. Most of them probably don't buy new cars because of it. Many people who buy new cars either don't care or actually prefer to go to the dealer.

<comment><USER5> > but they're going to feel that way no matter what they drive.

The difference is that a "random mechanic" is an option with most manufacturers. And it's not with Tesla.

<comment><USER4> But my point is that most people don't care. Certainly the ones who buy a Tesla don't.

This is like arguing that the iPhone is a bad phone because it doesn't have a removable battery. For some, that's a real issue. It may have been somewhat controversial in the beginning. These days no one cares because it hasn't turned out to be a major issue for most.

A bunch of manufacturers find ways to get owners back to the dealership. Sure, Tesla has more lock in than most, but try taking any other electric car to an independent mechanic. Or a high end import.

<comment><USER6> > But my point is that most people don't care.

Plenty do, they just also want a premium electric car _despite the downsides_ , not because it has none. You just keep oscillating between your point being that "you" don't care, or "most people" don't care.

I think the biggest single disadvantage Tesla has compared to other manufacturers is the service network, either dedicated or partnerships. Even in places where there's no "dealership mafia" like the EU.

Outside of internet discussions where someone needed to convince themselves that everyone shares their point of view I never met a person who said "I don't care how much my personal car costs to repair, how long it takes, or how many hoops I have to jump through to do it". Definitely not after they faced the challenges. Some may afford to absorb the extra costs but this doesn't mean they don't care.

<comment><USER4> Sure, the service network is a weakness, but it's partially mitigated by the fact that there's far less service for which you need to return to Tesla than there is with other cars. In practice, it's just not a major concern because there's no dealer maintenance schedule. You're not taking it in every few months like with a gas car. You fill the wiper fluid, you get the tires rotated and you change the tires once in a while. You can take it almost anywhere for tires. Brakes aren't an issue because you hardly use them in a Tesla. The rest is mostly warranty type stuff you'd go back to the dealer for anyway and collision repair which sucks no matter what you drive. It's just not really as much of an issue as critics want to make it out to be. I've never had a lower maintenance car in my life. People are on here talking about suspension replacements and other high mileage repairs and most people, particularly the ones who buy a Tesla, won't own the car long enough to be concerned about that.

<comment><USER6> > there's far less service for which you need

I'm thinking more like fixing even a minor fender bender. Anecdote but I personally know of someone from an Eastern European country who had to ferry the damaged Tesla Model 3 on a platform to a neighboring country to repair it because that was the closest authorized garage. It took months and the insurance premium exploded. You get a simple cracked headlight? There are no aftermarket parts, and even if you have an original one no garage can "legally" install it. Knowing someone in a Tesla authorized service partner I can confirm the practices are... not great. According to the agreement they signed to become an authorized partner and under the threat of withdrawing said authorization, they have quite a few limitations that make for longer wait times and more expensive repairs. They are not allowed to order extra parts for stock (they have to "tie" them to a car in service) and they are not allowed to use aftermarket replacement parts, only consumables. These are real issues and even if recently I was looking for electrics I just wasn't willing to take the chance. I have to consider the plausible worst case when making a purchase decision.

The yearly maintenance for my car just meant a maximum 45 minute visit to the nearest shop to my office that I did in the morning on my way to work.

> high mileage repairs and most people, particularly the ones who buy a Tesla, > won't own the car long enough to be concerned about that

That's not good advertisement for a car. You're saying it's great as long as you can get rid of it fast enough? I'd really like to have the option to stick with the car without such caveats. I mean every car's maintenance increases with age and perhaps Teslas today involve the same overall effort and expense except distributed differently over the lifecycle (lower than average for the first few years, through your nose when it gets old). This may be ok for expensive cars like an Model X or an MB S-class, but not for something like a Model 3. And it suggests the very same Tesla owners talk out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand they are just trying to be green, on the other they're changing cars every few years? Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking for a justification, just pointing out the dissonance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tesla is going to get a huge amount of free publicity today. First from the SpaceX manned launch today who are going to be driven to the pad in a Model X and then later this evening from Jay Leno's Cybertruck test drive episode.

<comment><USER8> That's a very expensive way to get free publicity.

<comment><USER9> All of Elon's companies give free publicity to one another. They all somehow manage to keep in the active news cycle.

There was an announcement last week about the Boring Company in Vegas that mentioned Tesla's would be used as people movers.

<comment><USER10> _There was an announcement last week about the Boring Company in Vegas that mentioned Tesla 's would be used as people movers. _

This has always been part of the plan for the Boring peoplemover in Vegas...

<comment><USER9> Yes AND every article that I read about completion of the tunnel unnecessarily brought up the fact that they'd be using the EVs as people movers. Because to my point, any news coming out of one Musk company usually has cross marketing for another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In Europe the based model 3 is still €47k. So about $50k. And that's the starting price :(

That's an almost 33% higher price than the US version.

<comment><USER12> VAT accounts for the bulk of the difference here.

<comment><USER9> Would VAT apply to cars coming out of their German Gigafactory?

<comment> blaser-waffle VAT is on everything. So yes.

But it won't have the 10% import duty coming from the US, on top of VAT. And lower transport costs, since they're not being hauled from the US to the EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Much more information here.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-prices/tesla- cuts-p...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-prices/tesla-cuts-prices- by-as-much-as-6-in-north-america-to-boost-demand- idUSKBN2330DP?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews)

Can we update the url?

</comment><comment><USER14> What all media (except Reuters...) failed to report: free Supercharging seems to be gone for S/X.

<comment><USER2> I think someone did the math and you would need to supercharge 100k mikes to pay 5k. The cash is a better deal for almost all.

<comment><USER14> It's a convenience and mental thing. I am more likely to go on long tours/holidays with my S knowing it's free (and bragging about it), so the calculation doesn't really work out.

<comment><USER15> Supercharging just costs a few dollars, and is way cheaper than buying gas. You can still brag about it.

<comment><USER14> I live in a country where people brag about their 1200 Km per tank diesel cars and where diesel is very competitively priced, so free SC still makes a big difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This has always been their stated plan, to pass on cost savings to customers as they get more efficient and profitable. They did some similar cuts last year. Nice to see it continuing.

<comment><USER17> If this is the stated plan then I really do not understand why the stock behaves like this was the next Apple (i.e., a company with massive margins).

<comment><USER18> Because Tesla makes the best electric cars and as they reach economies of scale total cost of ownership will dominate fossil fuel cars. They need to lower prices now because Teslas are still relatively expensive compared to, say, a Toyota; but in the long run they won't need to lower prices further than a certain point. Plus Musk sees angles that few others do and a platform of mobile sensors operating around the planet is inherently comercializable.

<comment><USER19> _a platform of mobile sensors operating around the planet_

That is seriously creepy. Is there any way, as a Tesla owner, to prevent one's vehicle from being used like this?

<comment><USER16> It's opt in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seems pretty obvious that the previous prices were inflated to capture the federal and other subsidies. It's clear those aren't coming back, so they are adjusting to the actual market forces.

</comment><comment><USER21> Besides the economic slowdown I suspect some of this is also the Model Y is eating into sales of the other 3 and this price adjustment is mostly to differentiate them a bit more.

</comment><comment><USER22> People keep talking about batteries getting cheaper, how likely is it that this largely reflects changes in the cost to Tesla to produce these vehicles? On the flip side how likely is it that this is cutting substantially into Tesla's profit margin?

<comment><AUTHOR> pricing rarely has anything to do with cost to produce, especially for goods are aren't perceived as commodities

<comment><USER23> Like how the V8 Mustang is a 10k premium over the turbo four, there's absolutely not a 10k difference in production costs.

<comment><USER24> Check out the top Porsche 911 vs the bottom. There is a six figure difference!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Free supercharging is not on the X or S now. That is a significant change.

Supercharging Max/ Payment Type200 kW max; Pay Per Use

<comment><USER26> I think that's a good thing. Less people charging exclusively at the superchargers due to it being free - less queues. Also they use a lot of the Supercharger money they get to build more Superchargers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If they gave me the 0% financing option like the other auto makers are doing, I'd buy a Tesla today.

</comment><comment><USER28> I hope Musk is still cool once Tesla is a monopoly. Companies have a tendency to turn on their users/customers once they get giant.

<comment><USER29> Tesla has gone from being the number 1 BEV manufacturer in Europe to now being number 3. Soon Hyundai will also overtake them in Europe and Tesla will fall back to 4th:

[https://www.schmidtmatthias.de/post/april-2020-european- elec...](https://www.schmidtmatthias.de/post/april-2020-european-electric-car- market-top-sellers)

So don't worry about Tesla becoming a monopoly. It's not a practical reality.

<comment><USER30> Tesla was amazing and unparalleled from about 2012 to 2018. In the U.S., since the Kona/Niro EVs, I-PACE, e-tron, and Taycan have shipped along with the Electrify America rapid charging network, Tesla no longer has a corner on the EV market. A fully-decked-out Model S costs the same as a base Porsche Taycan 4S. I'd challenge anyone to test drive both cars configured at the ~$115k price point and then come back and tell me you wouldn't chose the Porsche.

<comment><USER31> Cheapest Taycan I could find was $145k. 192 mile range. I'll take the Model S that is faster and nearly double the range at this point.

<comment><USER10> The Taycan is a true luxury performance car. You're not buying it for the range or nominal maximum speed, you're buying it for the creature comforts...and the ability to go 95% as fast as the (current versions of the) Model S for 100x longer, or even faster with the creature comforts removed for racing.

<comment><USER30> To be clear, Taycan has a gearbox and a higher maximum speed. I think the word the poster you're responding to meant was "quicker." Regardless, the 2020 Tesla Model S Performance is neither quicker nor faster than the 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S: [https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images...](https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg- prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/taycanvstesla-graphs- accelerationtest-1581089637.png?resize=980:*)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Flutter looks good, but is painful - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@bernaferrari/from-android-dev-flutter-looks-good-but-is-painful-here-are-my-frustrations-with-it-81b4bbe739f8 <comment><USER2> While this has little relationship to the original article... We really should be trying to use the native GUI toolkit (or cross-platform native UI libraries like libui), not using Flutter-esque libraries that draws everything from scratch.

Coherent UI is a very important point to users IMO. Users can assume that some special feature from App X will also work on App Y.

For example, in macOS Cocoa, textboxes have universal readline-esque keybindings (and is configurable globally) which, as an Emacs user, very, very useful.

Most Mac apps use Cocoa as the GUI toolkit, so basically all kinds of apps can benefit these keybindings.

Another example of this directly benefiting users is the addition of tabs in macOS Sierra.

macOS Sierra added tabs to Cocoa apps, and applications could get the feature without additional modification. I can use tabs in any application, with the same look-and-feel, in all apps.

Stories like these are mostly only macOS; since Windows apps usually just re- invent all kinds of UI elements, while Linux's GUI toolkits are super- fragmented. (GTK vs Qt is one thing, and there are lots of other options!)

Adding Flutter or any other UI library that draws everything from scratch is a _bad_ idea.

<comment><USER3> >Adding Flutter or any other UI library that draws everything from scratch is a bad idea.

Some would say re-writing the same app 5 times (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android) and maintaining 5 codebases is a _bad_ idea.

<comment><USER4> IMO it really depends. There's a lot of big companies that have more than enough resources to be able to pay multiple dev teams to build and maintain apps across operating systems.

From a few years ago, Twitter and Facebook were famous examples. They pushed so hard to try and build their apps using web technology but kept running into performance issues (thanks to infinite scrolling). After spending fuck knows how much they finally admitted that maybe native components are better.

But this is Facebook, who have so much resources they can afford to build their own version of PHP three times over. I just don't understand why they put so much effort into trying to fit a square peg into a round hole instead of just going with native development.

But, I'm not an insider, I don't know the thought processes behind it. Long story short, IMO people overestimate how complex it is to build multiple native apps in parallel.

<comment><USER5> _people overestimate how complex it is to build multiple native apps in parallel._

I agree, although there are now more platforms to deal with than back in the days when it was just Mac and Windows: add iOS, Android, desktop web, mobile web.

I think it also helps when it's easy to share code between platforms, which again, used to be easier when you were just targeting the desktop (just use C or C++).

Now it's a bit harder because there are no great languages that span all platforms easily without a bit of hacking. Most languages are managed and memory-safe now; that's a good thing, but it makes them more heavyweight and less portable. They generally want to drag in their own frameworks (e.g. Flutter, React Native) rather than letting you put your own UI layer on top.

<comment><USER6> I remember the days of Apple II, TSR-80, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, ZX Spectrum, ZX Spectrum 128K, ZX Spectrum 128K +2A, ZX Spectrum 128K +3A, Atari, Atari ST, Amiga 500, Amiga 600, Amiga 1200, PC CGA, PC EGA, PC VGA, PC PS2,.....

Platform fragmentation exists since ever.

<comment><USER5> You're right, of course! It's amazing to think how many 8-bit and 16-bit games got ported to a whole bunch of different computers.

I was thinking mainly of the 90s and early 2000s, I guess, and for desktop apps where the main platform of interest was Windows, followed by a long tail of Mac, X-Windows, BeOS, etc... All those platforms could "easily" (i.e. with effort, but no rocket science required) be handled by a single C/C++ codebase with platform-specific #ifdefs.

I think the equivalent for today's platforms would have to be Javascript. Unlike the C/C++ approach, you lose direct access to platform features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> _-___________-_ > it took them almost a year to add support for 64 bit in APK

While the author's confusion is understandable, because most of the people posting in the linked Github issue have the same confusion, it's always been possible to build a 64-bit APK (and a 32-bit APK). The linked issue is actually about building a single "fat" APK with both 32-bit and 64-bit native libraries in it, which Google Play Store then repackages to have just the needed library for the device it's being downloaded to.

Shipping two separate APKs has always been possible and gives the same end result for just a little more build process work, which is (/should be) automated anyway.

I've been shipping an app like this for some time now, and it's really not a hardship in any way, certainly not one that justifies the amount of hand- wringing in that Github issue.

<comment><USER5> What was the holdup, though? This _should_ have been almost a trivial feature to implement (just make an APK with multiple .so files in separate directories).

It must have been either low priority (except the Play Store has been strongly encouraging fat binaries for some time now) or there were additional complications (which makes me more suspicious about the stability of the framework).

<comment> _-___________-_ Maybe low priority / insufficient resources, or the issue didn't get triaged and brought to the attention of the right person to fix it quickly enough. The fix wasn't complicated at all once it was eventually in, so I don't think it was any deep issue with the framework.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I simply love Flutter for Android and iOS development and have been using it since alpha. I haven't tried the web application part; I'm pretty sure I never will. Here's my opinion. I've created several apps with Flutter and every time I enjoy it. The UI is easy to make beautiful and the resulting code easy to read. It feels like all what the current Android SDK is missing. The current Android SDK is old and quite frankly painfull to work with. You just can't create beautiful apps with ease; it's always a hassle. It's also messy and not easy to read the resulting code. The way the whole way the framework is structured entails ugly code in my opinion. This all becomes evident when you use different apps on Google Play. You get the sense that every app reinvented their UI; there is no real UI continuity. Google became a freeloader after JetBrains created Kotlin and marketed it will. The thing is Kotlin made just a little better; in terms of boilerplate stuff; the framework I still hate compared to Flutter. What I really like about flutter is the framework and "it's all a widget" idea. You can basically do crazy things in UI with ease and on the other hand just use the standard UI components with a great result.

As an example I've created an alternative to Nissan's Connect EV app. It's basically a way to control and monitor your electric vehicle from Nissan. The official app is I'm very disappointed by; it's slow and full of wrong decisions.

My alternative is called "My Leaf" and its available on Google Play and the App Store; [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.kjeldsen.ca...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.kjeldsen.carwingsflutter) [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/my-leaf-for-nissan- ev/id143670...](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/my-leaf-for-nissan- ev/id1436701776) It's completely open source.

<comment><USER8> Those 1-star reviews on the Play Store are infuriating !

<comment><USER7> I agree. It tears on the developer for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am working on 3 Flutter Applications & 2 of them are currently in production. On average we receive 1 major bottleneck a month, which gets resolved with 3rd Party fixes.

Happy to help if you are stuck on any issue with Flutter. Our background is native application development, so far this is the best Cross-Platform Development toolkit available.

Phonegap, Ionic & others are web wrappers. PLEASE let Flutter grow!

<comment><USER10> React Native isn't a web wrapper. It uses a Javascript engine to render native iOS/Android components (unlike Flutter, which doesn't use native components, and instead renders everything from scratch).

<comment><USER11> Because Flutter has it's own rendering engine, it's inherently more consistent in refresh rates and UI components.

Although React Native shows Native elements, they vary slightly across different; devices, platforms, OS's etc.. this can create many weird edge cases, which makes it unreliable in some cases.

<comment><USER12> I'm actually investigating getting some skills on react native, but i've got the suspicion it isn't all sunshine and rainbows. From what i've seen so far, a real-world stack has many more dependencies other that react native itself, and becomes a convoluted mess.

However, i'm surprised that i haven't found a similar post to OP detailing real-world React Native pain points.

Do you have more info ?

<comment><USER13> RN pain points are upgrading more than anything else. Also as a native dev I don't understand why the JS dev ecosystem is full of disjointed tooling instead of just making the process more streamlined.

I have also developed a production flutter app for a client and am now working on a RN app for another. I like RN so much more just because I can create custom native views that use the platform toolkits. You can also share a lot of code with an SPA web app and set up a monorepo for everything pretty easily.

Flutter dev tools are incredible though and much easier to use than react native.

<comment><USER12> how is the view animation / vc transition story on RN ?

Say you'd like to implement a snapchat-like UX with RN, would that be possible without relying heavily on native custom components ?

<comment><USER13> Animation with RN is very good.

Snapchat like UI is definitely possible, but for the performance to be really good youd probably want to do something native. I consider that a good thing though. RN is better if you just treat it as the coordinator on top of native view components IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Flutter is young, and there are bugs, but velocity is high and it is advancing the state of the art. It is a huge leap in accessibility and productivity.

I really don't understand the complaint about setup. If expanding an archive and setting an environment variable are that daunting, wait til you try mobile development...

Snark aside, remember phonegap/cordova? Pine for those glory days of low friction?

<comment><USER15> > it is advancing the state of the art

in what ways?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The question is: if Flutter will not get traction that Google expects, what will happen with the project?

The space of multi-platform mobile apps toolkit is already occupied by several well established players (React Native, Qt, Xamarin and a dozen of other more or less popular tools, sometimes well entrenched in their niches, like Unity for games).

Flutter comes with rather obscure language and is late in the game, so it will have to provide something truly game-changing to succeed and I am not sure if that what it offers now is sufficiently appealing.

<comment><USER17> The strength of Flutter is it's architecture. Nothing comes close. Web is too slow. Xamarin/React Native is too restricted by native layer. Qt is C++.

Popularity of Flutter increases steadily: [https://trends.google.pl/trends/explore?cat=31&date=today%20...](https://trends.google.pl/trends/explore?cat=31&date=today%205-y&q=flutter,react%20native,xamarin)

<comment><USER18> Nativescript is more powerful than React Native because it gives you direct access to the JAVA/Objective C libraries if you need it.

I reviewed Flutter but got put off by the levels of abstraction.

<comment><USER17> How can you be interested in RN if Flutter is too abstract?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like Flutter very much. In some aspects it is much better than native iOS development. But it's far from perfect, so perhaps this post will prompt Google to hire more people to handle issues.

But, it's not like other companies are much better at this. At React Native they just autoclose them after some time. While Apple most likely has more open issues than Flutter but the data is not public.

</comment><comment><USER19> Tip: For anyone trying out Flutter, please remember to evaluate it based on release builds of your app. Scrolling and animations can feel a bit "off" when running the default debug builds. The 60 FPS butter is only really applied when that `--release` flag gets tacked on.

Not using Android Studio, so not sure how easy it is to miss the massive performance difference of optimized vs. debug builds in that workflow.

<comment><USER18> If running in Debug mode means it's running < 60fps I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. Native stuff doesn't do that and React Native/Nativescript don't do that either!

<comment><USER20> The debug mode induces a _seriously huge_ overhead. In return you get stateful hot reloading and high quality error management and tracing, both of which are incredibly valuable while developing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have a couple of android app PoCs in mind but didn't want to go down the Android SDK way which IMO is becoming more and more complicated and verbose with every release.

Just tried Flutter and React-Native yesterday for the first time, and I'm sorry to say both were sorely disappointing.

Flutter was easier to install and get working, but Dart seems to be as verbose as Java with some JavaScript style syntax mixed in. The main dart file was as verbose as a boilerplate native SDK Activity.

RN was worse, though I expected it to be simpler. Something called metro server nearly froze the entire machine on every attempt. Had to power off and restart about 5 times. Then, based on GitHub discussions, built something else called watchman from sources. The official docs don't mention that watchman is critical. That improved it for a while but then the system wide near-freeze came back again. I wasn't even able to display a simple hello world app because of installation and deployment problems.

So far, Kivy seems to be the only alternative that is both simple to code and to deploy. Its file sizes are massive, but given that I already find Android SDK so frustrating to design and implement quickly, I don't want alternatives that are equally frustrating.

<comment><USER22> Yep, React Native has horrible dev experience... this is what drove me to Flutter. Dart may be ugly but after you get used to it it's mostly _" Typescript done right"_ imo ;)

<comment><USER23> I'm pretty sure Typescript is already "Typescript done right"

<comment><USER22> ...ok, tbh TS has a much more powerful and expressive typesystem then Dart, otoh it also works with the constraint of being a superset of JS hence some things are forced to be the way they are since they sit on the foundation they sit.

I don't really like Javascript as a foundation so I'd almost be inclined to throw away a superior type system in order to have the bedrock be something else, opinions might vary though, I know.

And probably we'd all have loved to have Kotlin instead...

<comment><USER24> _> And probably we'd all have loved to have Kotlin instead... _

For what it is, I quite like Kotlin (particularly when placed against Java, of course), but I would not want to give up structural typing for much of anything in 2019. It makes writing obviously-correct code significantly easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Why should someone ever need to offer a bug-fix bounty!?

Author expects bugs in open source projects to get fixed for free, by someone else.

We need to support open source maintainers instead of shaming them. I'm excited about Open Collective and made a monthly donation to a project I use.

</comment><comment><USER26> I tried Flutter a few times to have a play - really like it. Obviously a lot of the packages available hook you into the Google ecosystem (Firebase is ridiculously easy to get working).

There are quite a few things missing, and I personally found it quite hard to get going (but that might just be a general lack of skill at getting tooling set up), but there's an awful lot to like if you want to dive into getting something set up on-device quickly.

</comment><comment><USER11> This seems like a fairly biased post (as he admits himself). Flutter has a lot of problems, but if you've used any other _cross-platform_ system, you know it's a hard problem to solve.

A friend described it to me as _" Unity for apps"_, which I think is pretty positive and accurate.

<comment><USER27> Author here. Yeah, it was supposed to be "here are my frustrations", not like "Flutter is bad, let's burn it".. but of course, the thing grew up beyond control. 38k view so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For those who are looking for an alternative to Flutter/React Native, please check out Nativescript @ [https://docs.nativescript.org](https://docs.nativescript.org)!

It's different in a few key ways:

\- Draws native components (Flutter draws every pixel)

\- Pure JS native (i.e. JNI powered) shim layer (you can write stuff like `const intent = new Intent()`)

\- Typescript as first-class (not quite so with React Native, and IMO Typescript > Dart as far as type systems and ergonomics are concerned)

\- Ability to use both Angular and Vue to structure your app (there's also projects out there like Svelte-Native, which is extremely promising from the performance perspective)

\- More community driven project (with Progress standing behind, following the open-source & extra features business model)

<comment><USER29> They are running JS code on Main thread. Thank's but no.

<comment><USER28> Nativescript has supported the web worker paradigm for multi-threading for a while now[0]. Also, I'd like to point that for a _lot_ of applications (especially the ones that are basically informational without much interaction or client-side work, this actually isn't an issue early in the development process.

I've used Nativescript on client projects, and it is _fantastic_ for prototyping, with well demarcated paths to performance optimization. Since you can easily use native screens/controllers/etc with it, at the _very_ least you can use it for fast prototyping then drop all your custom code in.

Do you know of any hybrid frameworks that are _not_ running JS code on the main thread _by default_? And by JS code I assume you mean display-related code, because Flutter suffers from this same issue, do too much hard work on the main thread and it stalls (as anything would). Even on android itself[1] you need to do some extra work to make sure your UI-related heavy lifting happens off the main thread:

> However, when the main thread's messaging queue contains tasks that are > either too numerous or too long for the main thread to complete the update > fast enough, the app should move this work to a worker thread

[0]: [https://docs.nativescript.org/core- concepts/multithreading-m...](https://docs.nativescript.org/core- concepts/multithreading-model)

[1]: [https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/threads](https://developer.android.com/topic/performance/threads)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've recently done a bit of Flutter development and have enjoyed it quite a bit. The third party Provider API solves all the state management issues, it should become the default.

OP has some valid points for sure, but fact is that any framework is going to have issues. Just part of the game.

<comment><USER31> That sounds interesting. What would be the go to documentation for a good Provider API implementation (i.e. like a best practice guide with an example)?

<comment><USER32> See the official Flutter guide on state management: [https://flutter.dev/docs/development/data-and- backend/state-...](https://flutter.dev/docs/development/data-and- backend/state-mgmt)

It refers to other solutions as well, but the hands-on example is with provider (starting in the "Simple app state management" chapter)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've written one app in flutter and the experience was good. It was very easy to get started, and the dev experience was on par with web development with very fast hot reload.

However I would say where it excels at is in creating a fully custom-branded experience rather than sticking to the native elements. I reckon [https://reflectly.app/](https://reflectly.app/) is the poster child for this.

</comment><comment><USER34> I am not sure if users care about controls being "native". Examples from desktop: Photoshop used non-native controls, and nobody cared. MS Office always had non-native looking menus. DAW (digital audio workstation) apps all look non-native.

<comment><USER35> > Photoshop used non-native controls, and nobody cared.

There's a number of Photoshop alternatives that use native controls that are reasonably popular (they're also generally cheaper, too).

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A solid alternative is Intel's Multi-OS Engine: [https://multi-os- engine.org/](https://multi-os-engine.org/)

All it does is let you write iOS UI code in Java or Kotlin, and target _both_ iOS and Android from a single project.

It uses the actual underlying iOS API, and simply provides Java wrappers for them, that map one-to-one.

I keep wondering, and don't know why it hasn't gained much traction. It is _so much_ better than Flutter, is obviously reliable since it's a simple 1-1 mapping/translation layer. (There _is_ more work involved with it, as you have to write the UI lawyer twice, but that's about it.)

</comment><comment><USER37> Is "one week of electric scooter rental in Bucharest" the new world currency?

<comment><USER38> 'Mobile phone minutes' were a common medium of exchange in parts of Africa (Kenya?) for a while (and maybe still is?)... mobility is also another commonly desirable service, so sure, why not?

<comment><USER39> Yup, it still is. Lots of that in eastern parts of Africa like Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda. I'm sure cell service providers are pretty happy with it since it turned them into banks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Flutter is not that bad. It is a step in the right direction but there are some paradigms that makes simple things hard. Animations are harder than necessary and building non default layouts requires a bit of thinking to get right.

My biggest issue is that there is still this "uncanny valley" feeling when using a flutter app. It feels much better than a react native or Cordova app, but something still feels off.

Right now it seems great for prototyping. For iOS however, I've been playing around a bit with SwiftUI which currently (even in its beta state) provides an astronomically better dev experience and user experience.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't get the part about Scrolling. It doesn't feel not native it feels incredible fluid, smooth as butter.

</comment><comment><USER42> Even though my experience is basically the same as the author's (8y using java/kotlin toolchain), the article still seems to be written by someone with a hammer frustrated with screws for not working properly. His points can be summed up as "Flutter isn't as stable as the java toolchain that has existed for over a decade" and "I want Flutter to work the way I am used to work".

</comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone has a link for the market shares of cross-platform mobile development tech ( react native, phonegap, flutter, etc) vs native ? in terms of apps on the stores, for example.

i know they were considered experimental a few years ago but wonder what's the status today.

</comment><comment><USER43> My experience working with Flutter:

\- Overclomplicated syntax. \- Material Design doesn't look as good as the native. Feels like imitation in many cases. \- no vector drawable, PDF or Lottie support \- I had to create special code for iOS to match certain patterns and components. \- Typopraphy done wrong.

Flutter maybe something good to start with, but once you want to reach good app design/code maintain that would be painfull and you will feel faster and more organized if you do things in their native realms.

<comment><USER44> Are you a native iOS dev? I feel Flutter is a major upgrade over React Native, but perhaps native devs just feel it still falls short on a lot of accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This just reminded me of how horrible doing things with react native was. A reminder I didn't really need.

</comment><comment><USER46> I moved from Flutter to native Android development and found it to be much more pleasant..

</comment><comment><USER6> I still don't see any big advantages over Xamarin Native, Qt or plain C++ with native views, when going through this route.

All of the with the bonus that C#, JavaScript and C++ actually have lots of market demand, Dart remains a possible CoffeScript.

<comment><USER47> Speaking strictly to the Xamarin here... as someone who has worked professionally w/ Xamarin, Xamarin.Forms, and Flutter: Flutter knocks it out of the park. My experience with Xamarin was so buggy as to be nearly unusable (on Stable no less!). The documentation, _especially in Xamarin.Forms_, was sooo lacking! I wanted so hard for it to be "the next great thing", but there were just too many gotchas and pain points. In contrast, Flutter "just works", has great documentation, great community, great tooling. My development in Flutter, especially with the hot reload they support, has sped up immensely. I can pause the debugger, change code on the fly, continue the debugger, no hiccups. It has been nothing short of wonderful. My anecdotal two cents.

<comment><USER6> Hence why explicitly left Forms out.

For me having to deal with Dart, a programming language without any other purpose than Flutter, it rules out any advantage over Xamarin.

With Xamarin I have C# and the whole .NET ecosystem available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> So mostly this is just complaining about bugs. Does he think that native Android doesn't have bugs? One could easily write the same article for _any_ UI framework.

Also it seems like he is complaining that the Flutter team actually uses a public bug tracker. Does he really prefer Android's bug tracker? The place where bug reports go to die. A year or so ago they gave up on it and basically closed every bug as obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER49> I liked the way the UI was built in Flutter and of course Dart > vanilla JS. But with SwiftUI and Jet Pack around the corner there's a bit less appeal, especially since Kotlin & Swift > Dart and a lot of UX niceties come for free in iOS, like rotation / resizing or hiding the keyboard while scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER50> yeah no. i would not bet the farm on this one especially when it comes to developing for Apple devices. Google just doesn't have the track record to inspire confidence that anything they do is going to stick around

</comment><comment><USER51> Last major discussion and conclusions about Flutter:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19853247](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19853247)

</comment><comment><USER52> So.. in summary Flutter is a buggy unfinished and badly designed framework. Nothing new here folks.

<comment><USER53> Not as simple as that. Some people clearly manage to create things effectively with it. Newcomers can see this but understand that there will be difficulties.

The difficulty for newcomers is anticipating where the pain points might be. Detailed articles like this are rare and a huge help with assisting with decisions on whether to invest time into it.</comment></comment>


Volvo admits its self-driving cars are confused by kangaroos - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/01/volvo-admits-its-self-driving-cars-are-confused-by-kangaroos <comment><USER2> The important part:

>"When it's in the air, it actually looks like it's further away, then it lands and it looks closer," he said.</comment>


Chinese DIY Inventions - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2013/05/chinese-diy-inventions/100511?re&utm_source=buffer&&utm_content=buffer3141e <comment><USER2> I think there's something of an ulterior motive behind these stories.

They present Chinese ingenuity in a charmingly harmless way - uneducated but plucky tinkerers, building some madcap machine out of scrap. In doing so, they subtly misrepresent Chinese industry by omission. China is rapidly transitioning away from low-skill, low-margin manufacturing to high-skill, high-margin R&D. The old jokes about Chinese R&D being a photocopier are wearing increasingly thin, as firms like Huawei become global players.

The article opens with the line "One visible sign of China's recent economic growth is the rise in prominence of inventors and entrepreneurs.", as if the photos that follow are in any way representative of invention in China. The real story is that Chinese R&D investment now amounts to over $160bn/yr and is set to surpass that of the US within the decade.

I'm reminded of the aphorism "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." It seems we're still laughing at the 700m Chinese citizens who are uneducated peasants, rather than preparing to fight the 700m who are urbanised and increasingly well-educated.

<comment><USER3> This is Hacker News. And these are some pretty darn impressive hacks.

Why not just appreciate what they've accomplished by their ingenuity, without adding all this geopolitical drama?

<comment><USER4> This is Hacker News. We're critically thinking individuals. When somebody tries to spin a story for geopolitical goals it is fair to call it out.

<comment> mc-lovin What are the geopolitical goals of The Atlantic here?

<comment><USER5> The same geopolitical goals The Atlantic has every night, mc-lovin. World domination.

<comment><USER6> Not quite; the US's goal is world domination, which everyone knows. The Atlantic? Haven't looked closely, but its owner self-identifies closely with US government. (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_G._Bradley>)

The US press tacitly accepts US world domination:

"'Withdraw all foreign forces and withdraw all foreign arms.' That official was Condoleeza Rice and she was not referring to U.S. forces, she was referring to Iranian forces and Iranian arms. And that makes sense, too, on the assumption that we own the world because, since we own the world U.S. forces cannot be foreign forces anywhere. So if we invade Iraq or Canada, say, we are the indigenous forces. It's the Iranians that are foreign forces."

"I waited for a while to see if anyone, at least in the press or journals, would point out that there was something funny about this. I could not find a word. I think everyone regarded that as a perfectly sensible comment." ([http://www.zcommunications.org/we-own-the-world-by-noam- chom...](http://www.zcommunications.org/we-own-the-world-by-noam-chomsky))

<comment><USER7> 'Foreign' is a subjective view, not an objective one.

US forces can never be 'foreign' from an American speaker's point of view, and that makes no claims about whether they are indigenous or not.

That quote is trying to stir up fuss where there isn't any.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There used to be a saying, "only in America". Its starting to feel like maybe we replaced that with "if you see something, say something." How many of these things could you realistically build in your back yard without a come-to-Jesus meeting with homeland security resulting?

There's a little sign up the the tax assessor's office here that says something to the effect of if you're about to do something around your house and you're not sure if you need a permit, you probably do.

So, "only in China" then?

<comment><USER9> I would entirely agree. So many regulations in the US! So many of these things would not be legal. What are we stifling in the US by prioritizing safety and security over freedom?

<comment><USER10> Parent's comment is a little overblown, there are plenty of people in the US who build all sorts of things just like this and have no trouble(helps to be away from populated areas). Regulations aren't necessarily a bad thing. For example, I'd hate to be in the crowd of onlooker when something explodes/comes flying off, or to have my property crashed into by a DIY helicopter or some- such. Note the kids just feet away from the rotor assembly in picture #37.

<comment><USER11> "The local government halted Wu's plan to fly the helicopter out of safety concerns." (#37)

<comment><USER10> Defusing OP's point. There are plenty of other examples of deathtraps in the photos, anyways...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Particularly interesting is #32, Sun Jifa. He couldn't afford prosthesis arms so he built his own. They were apparently so good that others who'd lost their arms requested him to make them prosthesis arms as well, so he made a business out of it, and now sells them at very reasonable prices.

See <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22660393>

<comment><USER8> The caption says that he lost his arms in a _dynamite fishing accident!_ Losing a limb is a terrible thing, but if you have to be handicapped, that is one hell of a back story.

<comment><USER13> Mr. Jifa is obviously very inventive and resourceful, but dynamite fishing is actually quite detrimental to underwater ecosystems, kills more fish than are harvested, and because of this, is illegal in most of the developed world.

 _"Underwater shock waves produced by the explosion stun the fish and cause their swim bladders to rupture. This rupturing causes an abrupt loss of buoyancy; a small number of fish float to the surface, but most sink to the sea floor. The explosions indiscriminately kill large numbers of fish and other marine organisms in the vicinity and can damage or destroy the physical environment, including extensive damage to coral reefs"_ [1]

1\. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_fishing>

<comment><USER14> Yes, that photo of Mr. Jifa should appear in the dictionary under "Karma." Fishing with dynamite is a pretty lame-ass thing to do.

<comment><USER15> I'll tell you what a lame-ass thing to do is: Criticizing the ostensible environmental insensitivity of a guy who, amidst grinding poverty the likes of which you and I cannot properly imagine, lost his arms trying to feed himself and his dependents.

<comment><USER14> ROFL. With dynamite?

Things are tough all over. Now that I apparently have your permission, maybe I'll go camp out in Bill Gates's back yard tonight and spotlight some deer.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, freakin' poor people. If they were decent human beings they'd be living green, sustainable, carbon-neutral lives respectful of Mother Gaia. It'd be nice if they weren't poor, but since they're such greedy anti-environmental jerks, they probably deserve it.

If the fish aren't biting and your children are starving, you're going to do what you have to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't like the look of that helicopter with flimsily attached wooden rotor blades. Even on the ground it would be ridiculously dangerous to run. And everyone on these photos near this contraption are truly Darwin Award candidates.

edit: I actually have some rights to have an opinion, as I'm a licensed pilot and an experimental aircraft owner.

<comment><USER17> I suppose if he was to actually start it up, he would ask people to stay away. He is just sitting in it for the photo shoot.

And wooden blades might not be so crazy. Apparently, the Bell 47 heli uses wooden blades, and the Kaman K-MAX use a wood/fiberglass construction for the rotor: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaman_K-MAX>

Smaller props for airboats and such are sometimes made of wood, but the stresses involved might be different.

I know model RC helis often use wooden blades too, but the difference in scale and safety requirements would make that a moot point, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's always good to see people building stuff - anything! - but many of these are less original, viable inventions and more just plain models. Number 34, for example, is quite obviously not a serious attempt to build a working aircraft. In fact I wonder how he managed to spend so much ($6,400) on such a piece of crap.

Some of the other pictures, like the artificial arms, are far more worthy of merit.

</comment><comment><USER19> It's funny they don't mention the reason why the people in picture #11 wear these weird masks. In China, tanned skin is the distinctive sign of low-status people (farmers who work outside). Paleness is seen on the other hand as a sign of beauty and wealth. The health benefits of protection against UVs are only a side effect.

</comment><comment><USER20> The three primary needs in China appear to be aircrafts, submarines, and... floating spherical homes.

<comment><USER21> Or what the article wants to present by selecting them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Video of Wu Yulu's walking robot and other his invention. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49MoNLYFk_k>

</comment><comment><USER10> It's striking how many of these mention the creator did not complete <some level of education>.

<comment><USER3> In some cases their schooling might have been derailed by the Cultural Revolution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The Chinese seem to have an obsession with submarines. I wonder why

<comment><USER24> Because the water is too polluted to explore via swimming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The designs seem to show an interesting facet of DIY design. It's better to focus on what something should do rather than what it should look like. The most hopeless of the designs are those that try to mimic the appearance of a successful design.

I suspect the hopeless cases are vastly over-represented because they make for an easy news story fluff piece. Actual innovation is frequently subtle and boring unless you look at the detail.

I think jdietrich has a point about the implication that this is a Chinese specific phenomenon. Every country has people working on projects like this. I'm in New Zealand and we got jetpacks and cruise missiles made by guys working in sheds. Neither the crazy people nor the brilliant geniuses are representative of the population as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe they can offer their services to the Spanish Navy: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/spain- submarine-s-8...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/24/spain- submarine-s-81-isaac-peral-cant-float_n_3328683.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> There are a lot of super cool things in there!

However, two remarks:

1) That first plane really does not look like it can fly (and it also says the test flight failed). Thin carboard wings!

2) The riksha pulling robot: What is that between its legs? :)

</comment><comment><USER27> Why are there so many submarines?

<comment><USER28> They're used to harvest sea cucumbers, which I'm guessing is a culinary delicacy.

<comment><USER29> Sea cucumbers are very expensive, and the taste is so-so. As the story goes, an emperor did not have offsprings, and his physicians said he should eat those sea cumcumbers in large amounts, and his chefs managed to make some eatable recipes out of this thing, which became a part of the Chinese Imperial Cuisine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The DIY welding mask is pretty brilliant. However that walking robot looks highly suspicious because there is plenty of research that this is hard problem. It's even harder problem if robot is pulling a taxi while walking. It makes me think if this is some kind of propaganda spread by Chinese govt. This kind of information and photos would not be possible to compile without govt support/contribution in China, right?

</comment><comment><USER31> 3! I think is the best one! I'd be on an elevator all day just to "take the stairs," down :)

Politics aside. DIY still implies the same thing as it would in Popular Mechanics here in the US (something simple that all of us can do, under a budget).

5 reminds me of the Red Bull Flugtag

</comment><comment><USER32> This is state sponsored entrepreneurial propaganda IMO, reflecting the Chinese regime's push towards a more entrepreneurial focused free market. And I love it, I'm hoping Chinese individuals continue inventing products to help all of humanity.

</comment><comment><USER33> #14 would be the least "politically correct" of these as the working robot seems to be modeled with the appearence of a black guy.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's interesting that they have a strong preference for spheres as the basic shape of many larger builds, apparently.

</comment><comment><USER35> Number 17. It's just so funny. Everyone's faces, apart from the rock luncher guy.

</comment><comment><USER36> Some of those gadgets would be right at home at Maker Fair.</comment>


Building Quality Tablet Apps - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.in/2012/10/building-quality-tablet-apps.html

<comment><USER2> There's a certain irony about a 4-hour old story on the front page about building quality tablet apps for Android with zero discussion.

<comment><USER3> Or because this is not a particularly new post, no particularly new content either.</comment></comment>


Apple Pursuit of Samsung Starts Bordering On Farce - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2014/03/31/apple-pursuit-of-samsung-starts-bordering-on-farce/

<comment><USER2> _Apple stock isn 't as high as it should be because Apple can't innovate any more because Apple are too busy fighting a legal battle with Samsung._

Point one is probably true. Point two is probably false which by default makes point three false.

People have such short memories. Apple has never innovated in public, so we don't know what they are trying internally and rejecting. Other companies do so we not only see their innovation — we see their public failures.

There is certainly an interesting article, yet to be written, that could try to make the argument that the market now wants to see constant, open innovation (successful or not) rather than sporadic, closed only-ship-when-we- get-it-right innovation — but this article is not it.

Is the market wanting to see open innovation or are the share prices of Apple and Google unrelated to this entirely?

<comment><USER3> _Apple can 't innovate any more because Apple are too busy fighting a legal battle with Samsung._

I think this statement is the biggest problem with the article. I can't reasonably see how the innovators within Apple would be too bothered by what the legal team are up to.

<comment><USER4> I certainly have a problem with it.

I have a rather firm rule that when a company moves its competition from the marketplace to the courthouse, it's a bad sign, one way or another.

That doesn't mean they weren't justified in doing so, but it's still a bad sign, e.g. consumes management and eventually engineer/designer/the creators of this stuff mind share, tells us they're _really_ worried about competition, etc. And as noted in the article, tends to result in reputational damage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apple's underdog shtick stopped being cute a long time ago.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ugghhh... Forbes. Clicking through four pages and then having to scroll to find my place in TFA makes me uncomfortable about having to upvote the content.</comment>


British Library collection of sounds - <AUTHOR> http://sounds.bl.uk/

<comment><AUTHOR> Related link:

<http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/archival_sounds/></comment>


AppEng 1.1.2:  - <AUTHOR> http://googleappengine.blogspot.com/2008/08/couple-datastore-updates.html batch writes: include entities in different entity groups in one db.put() or db.delete() <comment><USER2> Anyone out there using AppEngine for anything interesting nowadays?

I was originally excited about it, but the performance and limits have kept me from feeling comfortable hosting something substantial there. This feels like maybe an odd bias that stems from it not being as awesome as I wanted it to be, so it'd be great to hear some successful anecdotes from others here.

<comment><USER3> I'm now running a homepage (<http://www.billkatz.com>) on my open-source blog software for App Engine (Bloog). I've included a python shell accessible via your web browser. It's like a limited rails console that lets you mess with your app and datastore in the cloud. (No ssh into App Engine.) Also recently added sharded counters as per some best practices suggested by Google.

I'll report on a more substantial app once it gets some testing.

A good list of apps on App Engine: <http://appgallery.appspot.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Much needed DataStore update. App Engine is slowly but surely becoming an option for serious production apps.</comment>


Glacier National Park to remove all 'glaciers will be gone by 2020' signs - <AUTHOR> https://www.kpax.com/news/local-news/flathead-county/glacier-national-park-to-remove-all-glaciers-will-be-gone-by-2020-signs <comment><USER2> Was hoping for more detail on the predicted vs actual change beyond what the headline could tell me. Or even if they have a new prediction.

Edit: This table is helpful [https://www.usgs.gov/data-tools/area-named- glaciers-glacier-...](https://www.usgs.gov/data-tools/area-named-glaciers- glacier-national-park-gnp-and-flathead-national-forest-fnf-including)

<comment><USER3> Apparently the new date is 2030:

 _The original estimates of the timing of glacier melt were based on two things: modeled projections of the glaciers' response to warming, and direct observations of glacial retreat. A 2003 report was based on modeling a scenario of doubling pre-industrial atmospheric CO2 levels by 2030, which would have melted the park's major glaciers – and presumably the minor ones, too – by 2030._

[https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/fact-check- no...](https://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2019/09/fact-check-no-the- glaciers-are-not-growing-in-glacier-national-park/)

<comment><USER2> Another study from 2010 seems to have given 2080 [https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat- glaciers...](https://www.usgs.gov/centers/norock/science/retreat-glaciers- glacier-national-park?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects)

It seems we may have quite a bit of understanding to gain regarding glaciers. I'm not sure if the 2010 study is more reasonable (I'm no expert) but I think enough time has elapsed in the 2003 study to say that the estimations in it didn't pan out based on the observed values in 2015.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back in 2004 the Pentagon predicted dooooooooooooooom by 2020:

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.t...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2004/feb/22/usnews.theobserver)

"A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega- droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world."

<comment><USER5> "Yes Mr. President, as you can see from this report, we are clearly going to need a much bigger budget!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Beaver Lake in Vancouver's Stanley Park was predicted to fill in and become a meadow in a couple thousand years. Then it was predicted to be filled by 2020. But it's not. It might be soon. In ten years or maybe a hundred years. We're just really bad at predicting such things accurately. In the case of Beaver Lake, it'll probably get dredged and predictions will become moot.

</comment><comment><USER7> Warnings of impending problems serve a real purpose even if they miss the mark. We absolutely want folks thinking about environmental responsibility, and the consequences of their choices. Unfortunately, some of the more doom and gloom predictions can send young people down the wrong path.

I remember listening to 10 in 2010 and imagining that I would never make it to 40. Well here we are in 2020, and somewhere along the way, I had to learn to stop letting the grim predictions of others dictate my life decisions.

I do not think we should stop caring about the future of civil and environmental issues, but we also need become financially secure, get married, and raise a family without worry of what may come.

<comment><USER8> How much research has been done into the _positive_ effects of global warming? More rainfall, warmer waters, more tropical climate. It's hard to believe these things might be bad.

Has no one done this kind of research before?

<comment><USER9> If your fridge warms up, you can use it as a hothouse (with some lighting), and freezer as a fridge. This will work and be good. But not for the frozen produce you already have in there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there an investment fund that is designed to specifically invest in companies that have solid plans in place for mitigating or taking advantage of climate change, or taking short positions against industries or regions that are at risk and totally unprepared?

Examples would be shorting Florida coastal real estate, shorting flood insurance, long on agricultural and real estate investments that depend on moving growing zones and seasons, etc..

The most undeniable evidence for climate change would be if people are making a ton of money from accurately anticipating its results. I'd invest heavily in such a fund, if it existed.

One cool thing about this is that if you don't believe in climate change you would want this too - you should bet against the fund and take the money of people like myself if you are right. Since I believe climate change is real, I would happily put my money on the other side of that bet.

<comment><USER11> The unfortunate consequence of such an attitude is that it creates further economic incentives to not attempt to mitigate the damage from or slow down climate change

<comment><USER10> I'd argue the opposite.

The problem with your position is that you are already describing the status quo of our society - virtually every entrenched interest in our society already gains from climate change denial. Fossil fuel exploitation industries and transportation are a trillion dollar industry already.

On the other hand, the other side of the scale has nothing. A billion dollars in a hedge fund won't be the tipping point when Exxon already has a market cap of 300 billion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> while not a prediction as to an exact date (since it's based on historical information,) these pictures and accompanying article provide some guidance. Also a link to a geospatial model used for two of the glaciers.

[https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting- glaciers.htm](https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm)

</comment><comment><USER13> A National Geographic piece on Glacier National Park. You can see some "before" and "after" pictures of the last hundred-ish years in the first minute of the 3.5 minute video.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur4I8tYnxP4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ur4I8tYnxP4)

Are they gone? No. Are they going? Sure looks like it.

I recommend visiting (in the summer), regardless of the glacier status. It's beautiful.

EDIT: Another site with picture differences, with a slider view window. Care of the National Park Service.

[https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting- glaciers.htm](https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> Per the National Review:

The park is reportedly replacing the sign with a more nebulous and less falsifiable edict: "When [the glaciers] will completely disappear depends on how and when we act. One thing is consistent: the glaciers in the park are shrinking."

</comment><comment><USER15> A more effective sign that would be more enduring would be one featuring a recent photo next to a photo from 40 years ago at each location, to make the change very real.

<comment><USER16> This would be the best. Also maybe a "see how the park looked 10/20/50/100 years ago" exhibit to emphasize the loss.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What was the park's plan for 2020? Close down? Change the name of the park? Without the glaciers, what would be the draw?

<comment><USER13> Glacier or no, it's a beautiful piece of nearly pristine land. I imagine they'd simply find other attractions (there are several possibilities) or focus on the hows and whys of the glacier's disappearance.

If you haven't, I recommend visiting. If you can't visit, have a look at some of the pictures taken by those who have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I guess this is one case where they should've abbreviated the year to '20'.

<comment><USER19> Or in the year 20XX, like an old Megaman game

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Somewhere on Facebook and/or Twitter, climate deniers will use this reporting as a reason why they think it's a "hoax" that we're in a crisis.

</comment><comment><USER12> more information from last summer here. Reference to a geospatial model used for a couple of the glaciers plus historical / modern photos showing physical changes in glaciers.

[https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting- glaciers.htm](https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/nature/melting-glaciers.htm)

</comment><comment><USER20> I imagine this is perfect for climate change deniers. Climate change is very difficult to fight because both undershooting and overshooting your predictions can come back and hurt you.

<comment><USER21> Unfortunately climate change became a political stance more than a science.

It is now extremely difficult to get straight facts from both sides of this debate. Both sides feel like thy need to completely overstate and exaggerate the facts in order to create fear, urgency and hate for the other side.

<comment><USER22> There's not really 2 sides to the debate over on the science side.

<comment><USER23> It's not nearly as clear-cut as one might hope. Cliff Mass, a respected University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, is a noted 'skeptic' of the urgency of climate change, at least the anthropogenic causes thereof. I've heard of others, but he's the one that comes closest to mind.

<comment><USER24> It's really fucking clear-cut from a risk management point of view.

<comment><USER23> I mean, so is Pascal's Wager. I'm no climate scientist, but from what little I've read is that _all_ climate models are terrible at predicting more than 10-20 days out, and are on the same level of accuracy as financial forecasting models (i.e., 'not at all'). In my vast and inky ignorance, I'm just not convinced we need to _drastically revamp the entire economy soup to nuts_ in order to satisfy predictions from inaccurate models populated with bad (or at least 'wildly variable') data.

<comment><USER25> > _I mean, so is Pascal 's Wager._

I agree.

> _climate models are terrible at predicting more than 10-20 days out_

Note that if your weeding is in 30 days at noon, and you want to know if it's going to rain, then you are doomed. There are no good enough models for that precision.

But if you want to estimate the total rainfall during the year the problem gets easier. Not very easy or easy, just easier than predicting which day will rain in approximately a month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Any way I can buy one of those signs?

</comment><comment><USER27> fear-mongering much?

<comment><USER28> Wut?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's impossible for a layman to determine how much climate change is caused by humans.

<comment><USER30> Apparently impossible for scientists, too.</comment></comment>