Oroville Dam: Feds and state officials ignored warnings 12 years ago - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/02/12/oroville-dam-feds-and-state-officials-ignored-warnings-12-years-ago/ <comment><USER2> "It is important to recognize that during a rare event with the emergency spillway flowing at its design capacity, spillway operations would not affect reservoir control or endanger the dam," wrote John Onderdonk, a senior civil engineer with FERC, in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's San Francisco Office, in a July 27, 2006, memo to his managers.

"The emergency spillway meets FERC's engineering guidelines for an emergency spillway," he added. "The guidelines specify that during a rare flood event, it is acceptable for the emergency spillway to sustain significant damage."

tl;dr: in case of flood, anything goes so long as the main dam wall remains functional?

<comment><USER3> You can't just pave a lake, engineers _have_ to be calculating the dirt spillways as ablative. Water is powerful stuff.

<comment><USER4> what does ablative mean in this context?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk/topics/river_e...](http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk/topics/river_erosion.html):

 _" Rivers erode in four ways:

Abrasion or corrasion - This is when large pieces of bedload material wear away the river banks and bed.

Attrition - This is when the bed load itself is eroded when sediment particles knock against the bed or each other and break, becoming more rounded and smaller.

Hydraulic Action - This is when the force of water erodes softer rock.

Solution or corrosion - This is when acidic water erodes rock."_

So, there will be larger pieces of rock intake water that hit the bank of the spillway, slowly destroying it.

When engineering the spillway, you have to take that into account.

That means we have to accept that it will need repairs after use, just as a fire extinguisher needs it after use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was just wondering about it the other day while researching the topic: why are there so many dam failures in the states?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure#List_of_major_dam_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam_failure#List_of_major_dam_failures)

Since 19th century US has the most (well, at least a lot) dam failures.

Is it because there are so many? Are they privately owned and the owners just count on declaring bankruptcy if it fails? Is it the engineering, the geology, the maintenance?

EDIT: Even such a major project like Hoover Dam was not done properly (it seems grouting curtains were not often used elsewhere) [http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/hoover_dam/Grout%20Curtain%20Fa...](http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/hoover_dam/Grout%20Curtain%20Failure- Hoover%20Dam.pdf)

<comment><USER7> > _I was just wondering about it the other day while researching the topic: > why are there so many dam failures in the states?_

Given that, anybody want to bet on the safety of nuclear reactors?

<comment><USER8> I'll take that bet.

<comment><USER7> Well, it's always "different this time", because "newer designs".

Meanwhile countless tones of toxic waster from said reactors are also transported through regular highways and roads en route to disposal and/or are dumped in the sea by governments and "cheapest offer" subcontractors (including the mafia [3]).

[1] [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ministers-admit-nuclear- wa...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ministers-admit-nuclear-waste-was- dumped-in-sea-1248343.html)

[2] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304773104579268...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304773104579268563658319196)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_'Nd...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_waste_dumping_by_the_'Ndrangheta)

<comment><USER8> As I understand it, coal-fired power plants emit more radiation than nuclear power plants:

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is- more-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-ash-is-more- radioactive-than-nuclear-waste/)

Until sufficient solar and wind power generation comes online, I would rather we use nuclear and gas-fired power plants, and in that order. I think that on the balance nuclear power is cleaner. The sooner we get off fossil fuels, the better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As of midnight, the reservoir level was at 899.77 feet, and flow over the emergency spillway has stopped. If the level is above about 900 feet, the excess goes over the emergency spillway. Peak was around 902 feet. Data feed from dam sensors here: [1] Google Maps view of emergency spillway under normal conditions here: [2] Compare with drone footage from yesterday.[3] Main spillway (which has gates) is back in use.

Things look a bit better than a few hours ago.

[1] [http://rdcfeeds.redding.com/lakelevels/oro.cfm](http://rdcfeeds.redding.com/lakelevels/oro.cfm) [2] [https://goo.gl/maps/mzwyXvRvZAv](https://goo.gl/maps/mzwyXvRvZAv) [3] [http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article132154774.html](http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article132154774.html)

<comment><USER10> The outflow hasn't changed so I'm not convinced that the flow over the lip has stopped. #armchairanalysis

<comment><USER11> The outflow seems to be the ~100000 cfs from the main spillway draining at full capacity, which they opened to 100% early in the evening to relieve the emergency spillway, in spite of the existing damage to the main spillway.

<comment><USER10> Thank you.

By the way there's an amazing book that has a very gripping account of the Glen Canyon Dam incident and Grand Canyon in general.

[http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15803144-the-emerald- mile](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15803144-the-emerald-mile)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From what I gathered the main spillway is quite damaged with a ~ 200' x 30' eroded hole in the center, potentially eroding into the supporting hill. It was a problem even before they doubled the outflow to 100,000cfs yesterday which I believe is still the current flow.

They want to get the lake down 50' to shutoff the spillway and assess repairs, but even at the current (high) release rate it appears they can only lower max ~8'/day, which is a problem because heavy rains return on Wednesday.

Let alone the emergency spillway, the main one's at risk too.

<comment><USER13> I get the feeling the dam is likely doomed and they're trying to drain the lake as much as possible to decrease the force of a break

<comment><USER14> Indeed, 13 times more dams than France (who prides itself for 12% hydroelectricity), while USA is only 5 times bigger in population. China has the most number of large dams in the world: More than twice the USA, for 4x population.

[http://www.icold- cigb.org/article/GB/world_register/general_...](http://www.icold- cigb.org/article/GB/world_register/general_synthesis/number-of-dams-by- country-members)

<comment><USER15> That's... Quite impressive...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is what California always does. We forget about what happens in a drought as soon as the rain comes, and as soon as the rain comes, we realize we forgot about what happened the last time it flooded. After the catastrophe is already upon us, recriminations fly, trillions of pixels are wasted on heavy-handed think pieces, and we forget again, only to wonder why an entirely preventable tragedy managed to find us the next time one comes.

<comment><USER17> Outrage and complaining is much easier than action.

During the drought, the best thing we got for legislation to 'fix' it, was preventing people from getting water without explicitly asking at restaurants. As idiotic at this was (this accounts for approximately 0.0% of water use in California), activists rejoiced over how they were fixing the problem by having everyone 'chip in'. Meanwhile farmers continued on not even paying for the water they use (farming is >50% of water usage).

<comment><USER18> One almond requires over a gallon of water, and you can buy a pound of raw almonds for $8 or so at my grocery store. But that 1/16 gallon glass of water is gonna save the day.

Meanwhile, our state capital is -- wait for it! -- building out water meters so they can tell how much each house is using. They're trying to get 80% of households by 2025.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It reads like they designed the spillway to withstand this much water, provided that the ground it rests on doesn't move. Was it a sink-hole under the spillway or the force of water broke the concrete and then created the hole?

<comment><USER20> My understanding from this accident and the Glen canyon dam accident, is that they are not very good at concrete in contact with rushing water.

In this last instance, the rushing water is eroding the dirt under the emergency spillway so it will end up forming a bridge. the emergency spillway is a mini-dam, it will just fall if it's not supported. And if it falls, the rushing water will erode the rest of the dirt, lower and lower. The worst case scenario is a complete dam accident (uncontrolled drainage of the lake) that would not even involve the actual dam.

<comment><USER19> Ah thank you, makes it much clearer.

They were dropping rocks with helicopters to slow down the eroding I heard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Do we know if this has the potential to flood the old ICBM complex at Sutter Buttes?

<comment><USER22> Sutter Buttes are a couple thousand feet in elevation, well out of danger even if the whole dam collapsed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Current Storage vs Capacity Levels:

[https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/dee79515](https://apps.axibase.com/chartlab/dee79515)

The overflow lasted for 45 hours.

</comment><comment><USER24> > with flows of only 6,000 to 12,000 cubic feet per second

In case anyone needs something to put that into perspective, an Olympic-size swimming pool holds around 35,000 cubic feet (1 megalitre) of water.

<comment><USER25> And the 100000cfs on the main spillway is 5 million lbs/sec.

Edit: oops. Off an order of magnitude.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Does this mean that a lawsuit after a catastrophe would much more likely succeed?

<comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_God)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's rather surreal that Yuba City (where much of my family lives) is making national news. Not sure how to process it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Holy shit look at the pictures. Both the regular and emergency spillway are heavily damaged and even more rain is expected Tuesday and in the coming weeks.

They shut the main spillway off because of damage and now they're running it at maximum flow because the emergency spillway is even more damaged. This feels every bit like a hail Mary pass to drain the lake as much as possible before the dam breaks. In another day or two they won't have any spillway left.

This dam is doomed, it seems like one of the rare times media is downplaying the risk... Probably because a lot of people are going to die :(

<comment><USER29> Why does the damage on the spillway matter? Is it fear of erosion if it does not go down the spillway?

Twitter says it's below the emergency spillway level now anyways so that damage shoukd not matter from what i understand.

<comment><USER22> If the emergency spillway goes, that's 30ish lake-feet of water that would drain uncontrolled. That would likely wipe out a few towns down the river.

I think gp was getting to the fact that the main spillway is eroding as well, and it could reach a point where it was unusable. In that case, with significant rainfall expected in the next week and a good deal of snow melt to follow, there could be huge amount of water coming into the basin with no way to control the outflow, which could result in much worse flooding.

Hopefully that all can still be avoided. It's a bit dramatic to say it's inevitable. It's a possible scenario, but it's also possible the right plan avoids it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This whole emergency evacuation makes no sense to me. They cut the flow on the main spillway from 100,000 to 50,000 cubic feet per second to push water to the emergency spillway and it immediately started dangerously eroding at only 6,000 to 12,000 cfps. So they cranked the main spillway back up to 100,000 cfps and as I type this the water level has dropped back down well below the top and the erosion danger has passed. The damage on the main spillway looks severe but not at immediate emergency levels. But in the mean time they have unnecessarily caused panic among 180,000 people with no warning and generated national headlines. It just seems like a lot of overreaction.

<comment><USER13> The damage to the main spillway is extreme. Look at the pictures, it's more of a semi controlled waterfall at this point. If erosion moves upstream on the spillway, which it eventually will, once it reaches the gates they will need to stop the spillway or risk the dam itself.

Their emergency spillway is already unusable, so this means just get everyone out and wait for the dam to blow once the main spillway erodes too far back</comment></comment>


Government Allowed a Pizza Cook to Enter the U.S. On an H-1B Visa - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/wwwCISorg/status/927893290036416512 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://cis.org/North/Government-Allowed-Pizza-Cook-Enter- US...](https://cis.org/North/Government-Allowed-Pizza-Cook-Enter-US-H1B-Visa)</comment>


The Story of Send - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/green/storyofsend/desktop/#/it-starts-with-send <comment><USER2> That animation is just a sales pitch for their cloud services.</comment>


Is Microsoft in trouble? - <AUTHOR> http://www.fernstrategy.com/2010/10/18/is-microsoft-in-trouble/ <comment><USER2> > _"In video game consoles, the Xbox 360 is trailing far behind the Nintendo > Wii in market share, despite the fact that the Wii is using older generation > technology (VGChartz, 2010)."_

I was with them until here. The Xbox 360 has claimed a _gigantic_ share of the market starting from _nothing_ just a few short years ago.

Compared to Nintendo, whose sales of the Wii have slowed to a relative crawl, and whose mobile gaming market is being relentlessly gutted by smartphones.

The Xbox is also enjoying an attach rate that is the envy of the industry (simplified: number of games bought per console), as well as being the only one able to get away with _charging_ for online services. They're also about to launch a device that (having tried it myself) makes the Wii's #1 selling point an also-ran.

If anything, the Xbox is stronger than ever before, and one of the few examples of markets where MS is doing just about everything right.

I'm convinced that J Allard's departure was a gigantic blow to Microsoft; in fact, IMHO the secret to MS's success in the consumer products space lies in the Xbox team.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points, but let me offer a few counterpoints:

\- All three consoles started from nothing just a few short years ago, and in fact the XBox 360 had a year head start on the PS3 and the Wii (launching at the end of 2005 versus end of 2006 for the PS3 and Wii.)

\- According to VG Chartz, the Wii has sold 8.97 million consoles from Jan-Oct 2010, while the Xbox 360 has sold 6.8 million and the PS3 has sold 7.1 million. Yes, XBox 360 sales faired much better over the summer, but we will have to wait and see if this indicates a sustainable trend or a blip.

\- Yes, Xbox 360 is doing well from the standpoint of attach rates, with an 8.9 versus around a 7ish for the Wii. It appears the PS3 has been gaining significant ground lately with its attach rate.

\- In the fiscal year 2010, Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division (which includes the Xbox 360) generated $8.5 billion in revenues and just $679 million in operating income. Considering Microsoft's consolidated operating income in 2010 was $24 billion, this $679 million represents only about 3% of Microsoft's profits.

\- Ultimately, the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the Wii may be irrelevant given the emergence of connected televisions, thin devices, and cloud-based gaming.

<comment><USER3> _Ultimately, the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the Wii may be irrelevant given the emergence of connected televisions, thin devices, and cloud-based gaming._

This doesn't make sense. Why would they become irrelevant? I presume we're also talking about future generations of said consoles. Even if, by some magical miracle, computational needs of those consoles push onto the cloud (like Gaikai and OnLive), they'll still be a platform, and developers and publishers will still make games for them - and player will buy games for them because games are on those platforms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who works on Windows Azure, this got under my skin a bit :). In particular, I thought this was slightly lazy writing

(W.r.t Azure) "I suspect it's not performing well" and "Put simply, it's hard to imagine that Microsoft is aggressively developing or marketing Azure, since cloud computing offerings directly threaten Microsoft's revenues and profitability in the PC market, especially its Windows and Office products. "

From Ballmer mentioning "we're all in" in pretty much every speech he has done recently all the way to Azure being all over the financial analyst meeting [1][2], I sometimes think there's not a day that goes by when I don't hear about Azure in some way from MSFT :)

[1] [http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100729/liveblogging- microsofts-...](http://kara.allthingsd.com/20100729/liveblogging-microsofts- financial-analyst-meeting-its-a-beautiful-day/) [2] [http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/Microsoft-Pushes- Cl...](http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Cloud-Computing/Microsoft-Pushes-Cloud-at- Financial-Analyst-Meeting-675840/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, that wasn't my attention. I tried to research Azure online, looking for hard numbers on its performance in the cloud computing market (e.g., # of companies using Azure, adoption rates, etc.), but I was unable to find any concrete data. In fact, I struggled to even find a thorough review of Azure. Can you please point me to some data and/or reviews so I can incorporate this information properly into any future posts? Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Some quick links

\- Back in June, we announced 10K paying customers (6 months post launch)[1]. If you're looking for some 'big names', eBay, Dell, Fujitsu and HP are going to be using the Azure Appliance [2]. This is of course apart from internal teams like the Bing Twitter stuff. There's a neat Pivot visualization of case studies and partners here [3]

\- Review - I'm not sure what you're looking for. Searching for 'Windows Azure review' brings up a lot of hits. I've written a book on it and so have others. There are tons of blogs dedicated to it (azurejournal.com for example). What exactly are you looking for?

My intent with this isn't to sound like some marketing droid.:)

[1] [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-passes- the-100...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-passes- the-10000-customer-milestone-with-azure/6433) [2] [http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/07/microsoft_cloud_com...](http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/07/microsoft_cloud_computing_appliance_to_be_tested_by_ebay.html) [3] <http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/evidence/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So Microsoft is failing because Apple, Google and Nintendo is performing better in seperate markets ? What about the Nintendo Office Suite, the Apple SQL Server or the Google Zune ?

<comment><USER6> The Apple SQL Server is MySQL or Postgres. The Google Zune is Android. Lots of people still pay the premium price for Microsoft Office but they don't need to. I haven't used it in years. Instead I use Google Docs and OpenOffice.

<comment><USER7> How is this an argument? You personally don't use a product, ergo it's dying?

<comment><USER6> That clearly wasn't my point.

[http://blog.rescuetime.com/2010/06/17/google-is-eating- micro...](http://blog.rescuetime.com/2010/06/17/google-is-eating-microsofts- lunch-one-tasty-bite-at-a-time/)

<comment><USER8> Those numbers look highly improbable, especially coming from such a small subset.

This article shows the number of Office online users in just the first 100 days after launch as 20 million, compared to 25 million for Google Apps.

[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/20130869...](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoftpri0/2013086938_microsoftofficewebappssays20millionhaveusedit.html)

<comment><USER9> Besides those 20M, MSFT recently announced 30 million active Windows Live Spaces users:

[http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Microsoft- Windows-...](http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/article/Microsoft-Windows-Live- Spaces-already-dead-WordPresscom-will-only-get-1-of-30M-users/1285781027)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article completely drops the ball on the Xbox. The XBox is Microsoft at it's best and it shows. I understand trying to prove a point, but lets not be disingenuous.

It feels like Microsoft is 1 winning product away from turning the tide, or 1 loosing product from sealing it's irrelevance. I can't help but think how this article would've been written if Windows Phone 7 turns out to be a huge success 2 years from now. It's easy to paint a gloomy picture.

The only trouble I see for Microsoft, is one where they are not seen as a leader. One where reactionary product after reactionary product renders them as a technology company seen by the outside world as chasing technology and not laying it's bricks.

</comment><comment><USER11> What?

a) XBOX usage destroys Wii in usage, games purchased, and subscription fees all of which are better indicators of the platform' success than hardware units sold which are traditionally a loss leader. And oh yah, XBOX is wildy profitable. Meanwhile Wii sales are down 45% since last September!

b) They are JUST launching their mobile platform which has gotten fair to begrundgingly good reviews and is opening in 30 markets supported by HTC, DELL, LG, AT&T, Verizon, etc. You can expect MSFT to be AT WORST the #3 player in an insanely huge and growing market.

c) BING just signed an innovative deal with Facebook, Google's copying features from them, and they're gaining traction while Google has been stagnant and slightly down year to date.

And that's ignoring that Windows 7 is on a tear, and a great product to boot.

2010 has been a huge year for MSFT, if they manage to keep executing at this level they are going to win a couple of these markets.

Microsoft plays loooonnnnng ball and they've got tens of billions in the bank, I certainly wouldn't say they're in trouble.

DATA:

[http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/10/15/uh-oh-september-wii- sal...](http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/10/15/uh-oh-september-wii-sales- down-45-from-last-year/)

[http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/halo3untitledodstgame...](http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/halo3untitledodstgame/news.html?sid=6237794)

[http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-announces- ten-w...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/11/microsoft-announces-ten-windows- phone-7-handsets-for-30-countrie/)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-total- cash-a...](http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-total-cash-and-st- investments-of-tech-companies-2010-2)

<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/bing.com/>

[http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/10/...](http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/10/comScore_Releases_September_2010_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings)

[http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/6/c...](http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/6/comScore_Releases_May_2010_U.S._Search_Engine_Rankings)

<comment><AUTHOR> To your points above:

a) In Microsoft's 2010 fiscal year (which has ended), its Entertainment and Devices Division (which includes the Xbox 360) generated $8.5 billion in revenues and just $679 million in operating income. Considering Microsoft's consolidated operating income in 2010 was $24 billion, this $679 million only accounts for about 3% of Microsoft's profits. And in any event the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the Wii may be irrelevant given the emergence of connected televisions, thin devices, and cloud-based gaming.

b) I am moderately pessimistic about Microsoft's prospects with its Windows Phone 7 OS. There are definitely some promising signs, such as WP7's distinctive and innovative user interface and Microsoft's extensive partnerships with smartphone OEMs, application developers, and carriers. But there are also some definite warning signs: WP7 isn't market ready, and it's already mid-October; Microsoft is making it difficult for developers to convert existing iOS and Android applications over to WP7; Microsoft's brand is weak with consumers and the developer community, especially in the smartphone market; and WP7 comes with a price tag, while the competition is free, at least on a variable cost basis. There's also the fundamental issue of competition, which includes several ambitious and innovative companies, especially Google and Apple, that have established platforms and abundant application markets. Here are some more thoughts on WP7: [http://www.fernstrategy.com/2010/10/13/the-windows- phone-7-c...](http://www.fernstrategy.com/2010/10/13/the-windows- phone-7-challenge/).

c) Bing has made some inroads in search, but laregely at the expense of Yahoo. For the year, I don't believe Bing has gained at all on Google. There are powerful network effects and learning curves in search, and tremendous scale economies. It will be very difficult for Bing to grow its share in search, much less overtake Google, unless Bing releases a game changing protectable innovation, or Google makes some kind of fatal mistake.

<comment><USER8> Regarding point a, the Entertainment and Devices division included Live, which they are heavily investing in, thus giving out a loss. The true profit of the XBox is much higher than $679 million.

And what do you mean by 'Windows Phone 7 is not market ready, and it's already mid-October' ? They're launching in 2 days in Europe and in 3 weeks in the US.

Also, from your linked article you write that Verizon won't be bringing out a WP7 phone in 2010 or 2011. Source?

<comment><USER12> > And what do you mean by 'Windows Phone 7 is not market ready, and it's > already mid-October' ?

I'm not sure what the OP meant by that, but here are some guesses:

1\. If your friend emails you his address and you want to see the Bing Map to the location, you have to find a _pen and paper_ to write it down. Then you have to open the Maps application and _manually type it in_.

This is because there's no copy+paste.

2\. The web browser is IE7 + bits of IE8. This means very slow JavaScript, no HTML5, and a MS-locked-in web experience.

3\. App developers cannot use sockets to access the internet, so most cool apps will be near-impossible to develop.

<comment><USER8> 1 is patently false. See here [http://www.mykindofphone.com/bring-on-bing-for- windows-phone...](http://www.mykindofphone.com/bring-on-bing-for-windows- phone-7)

>For example, if someone sends you an address in an email, the phone will pick that up and turn it into a link. Click on that and you are in Bing maps

Also, Copy paste in coming at the beginning of next year.

2\. JavaScript is fast enough. See <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgvphQx9MY8> There's no HTML5 though but I fail to see how it creates a 'MS locked-in web experience'.

<comment><USER13> The "no HTML5" is a biggie. A lot of websites have come to rely on having WebKit based browsers on smart phones, and so their mobile content uses HTML5 features that Windows Phone 7 does not support. So you have to fall back to a _really_ crappy experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Microsoft makes a lot of money. Sure, its not "sexy", but it has a solid hold on the enterprise. Nothing seems to be taking any significant market share away from Office. People just seem to expect one company to own 90% of the market and that really isn't going to happen with cellphones. Heck, the iPod, probably one of the more dominant devices in a consumer market, didn't get above 75%.

Microsoft, like DEC with the mini to micro transition, is having a tad bit of trouble jumping from PCs driven by corporate sales to mobile devices driven by consumer sales. This is being mitigated by their experience with the XBox line in the consumer market. They make a lot of cash and probably will be one of the big cellphone / portable device operating systems. They also have a very large chest of patents to help with positioning.

</comment><comment><USER15> Microsoft is not in trouble yet. They still make huge amounts of cash so they can keep trying to gain share in these "disruptive" markets. Though they have failed time and again they have the money to keep trying and they just need to be successful once and that cash and brand can solidify their postion.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have no idea why you think that (paid, subscription-based) cloud computing offerings threaten Microsoft's revenues. In fact they've been trying to get people to move to a subscription model for like a decade now - which is understandable, since competition with their own previous versions and keeping people on the upgrade cycle has always been one of their biggest problems - and they are definitely aggressively promoting it (considering that this year's and the last two years' PDCs are largely focused around it).

They are threatened in the consumer space by the trend towards web applications, they're not threatened in the enterprise space by the trend towards subscription-based cloud services (which is overhyped - including by Microsoft! anyway, but that's another story) - they welcome it. I guess people are conflating the two.

(Since you posted a version of this article in another HN thread, I've reposted my response from that thread here.)

</comment><comment><USER17> Three and a half years ago: <http://paulgraham.com/microsoft.html>

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not sure I follow the logic of the article that Microsoft _has_ to develop these other segments of its business to be a leader in the future. What's going to touch Windows and Office?

</comment><comment><USER19> If you put it this way, yes they are in trouble. But the thing is.. they are in trouble for some years, and they still make awesome revenue. Turns out it's not only about the bleeding edge technology, it's about keeping the current user group, about marketing, lobbying, etc...

</comment><comment><USER20> Microsoft in the recent decade, has tried to indulge itself on different domains of IT. Obviously, it has failed on all of them, as stated by the author of this article.

IMO, on contrary to the author, MS should stick to desktop/laptop Operating Systems. Desktop usage might have decreased but laptop is not going anywhere. There is so much market untapped in the world, I can't see the end of desktop OS.

I don't see not using my laptop fo at least a decade. And yes, I don't want to use iOS or Android on my laptop. I like the old school Linux, Windows or OSX.

Microsoft is not in trouble until they make products like Windows 7.

<comment><USER21> >Microsoft in the recent decade, has tried to indulge itself on different domains of IT. Obviously, it has failed on all of them,

I thought Sharepoint and SQL Server were huge hits - no?

<comment><USER22> They are. Sharepoint in particular has been a surprise breakout hit. But even SQL Server has done very well and their recent BI push has been a pretty incredible success. Their online services, via BPOS, have also done very well.

The issue is that in more consumer targeted areas MS is in trouble. But in the enterprise they're probably stronger now than in any time in recent memory.

<comment><USER23> > Sharepoint in particular has been a surprise breakout hit.

Indeed. Tech historians will scratch their heads about that for generations. It's such a horrid product to use that one can only wonder how bad its competition is.

<comment><USER22> We disagree about a lot, but this is one thing that I do agree with. On both counts... Sharepoint doesn't seem to be very good software. But the competition is even worse. If some bright YC company that gets enterprise could come and do stellar document management, they'd easily have a $100M company. With potential for a $1B+ company.

<comment><USER23> I think it's only the _perceived_ competition that's worse. I have deployed and helped deploy a great deal of intranets and websites based on Plone (I worked with "bare" Zope before) and it's delightful to use, manage, develop for and operate. True it doesn't have a billion+ dollar company behind it like Sharepoint, Documentum, Oracle's whatever-it's-called, but I think it's a feature rather than a bug.

> If some bright YC company (...)

As soon as this founder visa thing gets sorted out, I'm in.

<comment><USER22> Plone 3 was horrible, but I've heard better things about Plone 4. Post when you get started on it. I have a list of features that you'll need to get in the door of most enterprises, and a list of new features that will get you $10M in licenses your first year, virtually guaranteed.

<comment><USER23> While I agree Plone 3 was not as simple and elegant as I would like it to be, it's much better than most "corporate" CMSs. For the developer, the learning curve is steep, specially for those unwilling to unlearn bad habits, but for end users, it's easy to use and fairly complete.

What problems did you experience with it? I may be able to help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The biggest threat to Microsoft is their lack of a clear vision and message about where Office is going. I guess there's some strange service at officelive.com where I can maybe store, maybe edit documents online, but possibly I need a license for Office to do so, and I still get the impression that its meant to be supplementary to the desktop offering. The lack of an actual full-on web-based product - whether Silverlight or HTML - seems like a huge failure on their part. They need to create something real here and then market it in a clear and direct way.

</comment><comment><USER25> I stayed in MS research for a little while. Their research department is really really strong and they have a lot of cool stuff. If they can better transfer them into products, things will be different.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yes. They've been in trouble for years.

There are several key points in the growth (or lack thereof) of a company. There is the initial inflection point where the rate of growth is positive (the company begins growing at a faster than linear pace). There is the inflection point where the rate of growth becomes negative (the company may still be growing, but slower and slower). Then there is the point where the effects of that 2nd inflection point become readily apparent, the peak, when growth stops and then begins to reverse. Then there is the point where the company has shrunk to a shell of what it once was.

MS has passed that 2nd inflection point, but the peak and the fall are still ahead of them. With the amount of marketshare, locked in business, and cash- on-hand they have they'll be a long time falling but the writing is on the wall, unless something changes.

</comment><comment><USER27> Microsoft isn't dead yet, and its future depends upon how effectively it can leave its traditional revenue stream behind (Windows and Office). So far it has been lacklustre in the mobile and search markets, but done well in games.

Despite setbacks (Vista) Microsoft held its own in terms of operating systems and office productivity software over the previous decade, but in the next decade I think it's going to be more than overtaken in these areas.

</comment><comment><USER28> They're obviously way too robust and have too much momentum to be in trouble any time soon.

That being said, visit any college campus and most people are using Apples. The younger generations are growing up with the perception that Microsoft is for old people in suits and Apple is creative and classy.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think the problem is that MS used to sell everyone Windows for $300 and Office for $300. Then everyone had to buy them again at work. I'm not sure how they can make this up licensing a phone OS. What can they charge? Ten dollars?

</comment><comment><USER30> I'll never bet against a company with huge, established, consistent revenues and a strong research culture. That combination gives a large chance of being able to bring breakthrough technology to market.

<comment><USER31> Why can they not finish projects like the Courier tablet they were showing around? Or, even better, release something innovative _before_ someone else has proven the market.

It's been years, and they are just barely getting around to addressing the iPhone. They let Apple take off running with the iPad, and Microsoft still offers no comparable hardware or software... and it's not clear at all when they will.

<comment><USER32> 1\. They weren't showing a tablet, they were showing an idea. Nobody can build that thing at a reasonable price with technology that is available in the next two years.

2\. IMO, they are making a long bet on C# and .Net that may pay of huge. C# in particular is a bit to programming languages what Apple is to computing devices: nothing really new, but really nicely packaged. Having said that, their focus on backwards compatibility doesn't help in keeping things nice. For example, .Net has how at least 3 XML serialization technologies, all with their own set of problems.

<comment><USER31> Well, while they were showing an idea, Apple was selling 5 million tablets. I don't see why the idea is impractical, though - it was basically two iPads stuck together with a hinge.

They have done well with their version of Java. It's generally well regarded.

<comment><USER32> I do not see how one would combine 'two iPads with a hinge' with 'for a reasonable price', even if it were 7" iPads. That hinge complicates the engineering a lot; the easy choice would be to have batteries in one half and CPU in the other, but I fear that might lead to asymmetry in weight and/or volume of the device.

<comment><USER31> So, who is going to be the first to make a device like that? I have no doubt we'll be seeing them within 5 years.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What do we need 4GB RAM smartphones for? - <AUTHOR>

I've been looking to replace my Nexus 4, a 2012 android handset with 2GB RAM. It has always been swift, but more recently with software updates - buggy. I don't feel like the bugs are down to exceeding the 2GB of RAM.
Phones like the Oneplus2 are now shipping with 4GB DDR4 RAM. Beyond the obvious marketing gimmick - is there software waiting for more RAM that are yet to see on our phones?
Curious to know if anyone has anything to share on this. <comment><USER2> You need them, because people want to write text editors in JavaScript. It is basically like fashion. The customer does not want highly optimized and functioning things but new shiny stuff.

A less cynical man would say, that performance gains in the lower levels frees the developer to optimize the UI/UX.

<comment><USER3> Android has maximum heap sizes that are vastly smaller than total RAM. They can be as small as 16MB. 32MB is common. Browsers do get special treatment in some configurations. But, still, Android is designed to keep many runtime instances happy together in memory. Large in-memory data models don't work well in Android.

Therefore the value of large RAM is limited. Samsung makes their maximum heap sizes extraordinarily large, but that just makes bloatware bloatier.

If you want a big, complex software system on Android, break it up into multiple runtime instances, e.g. a shared data model in a ContentProvider component, and a suite of apps built around it. It you have a gigantic app and you are trying to do a straight port from iOS, you're going to have a bad time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My desktop has 32GB, and if I could I would have more. Why? Because RAM is always useful. Caching in RAM is such a nice feature, speeding up your daily work-flow.

Same thing applies in the phone. IMO, the biggest RAM increase drive is graphics and UI. With 1080p screens things are getting big: textures, icons, UI elements, photos, videos, etc...

And why would we artificially constrain ourselves? If the current manufacturing process makes 4GB feasible or even cost efficient, than it makes sense to use this size.

</comment><comment><USER5> 2,097,152K ought to be enough for anybody?

[http://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/operating- syste...](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2534312/operating-systems/the-- 640k--quote-won-t-go-away----but-did-gates-really-say-it-.html)

Exceeding 2gb of ram in your desktop 10 years ago had limited benefits, now that's about a minimum computers ship with and even 4gb can be insufficient.

More memory and better processors makes phones more useful to the extent they are now trending towards becoming full-featured desktop computers themselves, the extra ram isn't for "today's app ecosystem" it's breathing space against a more demanding generation of apps and usage.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm kind of with you on this. 6-8GB RAM for modern development has been more than enough for most requirements for at least 5 years. From my point of view, 2GB on an android smartphone seems to be a similar amount.

Some interesting points raised above about heaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought it was for keeping multiple apps and web history in memory.

</comment><comment><USER7> Something that annoys me about my iPhone 4S is the almost constant app- refreshes for anything that isn't a really simple app. Safari will even close in the background, stopping streaming music, if I open another resource- hogging app. I think I read this is due to the phone only 1GB RAM, anyone know if this is correct? The iPhone 6 still only has 1GB.

Is this, or something similar, also a problem on Android?

<comment><AUTHOR> Android is real multi-tasking, iOS isn't quite the same as there are background services for apps.

It's also how Apple get away with much less RAM.</comment></comment>


WIP Website Creation Guide for Entrepreneurs. Rate My Progress? - <AUTHOR> I'm creating a website creation guide for beginners b/c my friend was recently quoted $35k for a website I knew he could make himself.
In the process of helping him, I realized there was a need for a guide like this for other entreprenuers starting up so I've started creating one.
Let me know how I'm doing so far and what I can do to improve?
http://smcmarketing.org/learn/how-to-make-a-website/ <comment><USER2> Not bad. I like the screenshots + videos approach. Really hand-holdy which can be good for someone starting out.

Wordpress is probably the best choice for beginners to get a presence on the web, but the MySQL configuration could be an issue if they have to set it up manually.

You should probably recommend a specific theme, or have a shortlist of WP themes for people to use because otherwise the configurations/customizations for each theme will be different.

BTW, little layout bug on your page: [http://imgur.com/a/wBQu4](http://imgur.com/a/wBQu4)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you document services and systems? - <AUTHOR> We currently get by with self-documenting code, google docs and mark down files, but are curious how other teams do this. Are there some fantastic tools we're missing out on? <comment><USER2> Good docs are more about the practice than the tools or medium. I think that's why there is no free lunch ;]</comment>


How to Silence Vuvuzela Horns in World Cup Broadcasts - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5564085/how-to-silence-vuvuzela-horns-with-an-eq-filter <comment><USER2> There was a thread at a music production forum I frequent on a specific Audio Unit plugin (Mac only, I think) from Prosoniq that does more than just a band pass, but performs some kind of heuristics to isolate the specific sound and remove it without cutting other sounds that overlap that frequency (such as announcer voices).

I haven't tried it, but it has its own site: <http://www.vuvux.com/>

It's free; it appears to be a rather clever "vuvuzela only" demo of their full de-mixing package.

<comment><USER3> There's also these Waves presets for anyone owning waves plugins

<http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=5798>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a cultural studies paper for anyone who wants it in software programmers versus throngs of Africans with 5 cent plastic noisemakers. "Subjugation By Software: How Tech-Savvy Westerners Wrote Africans Out Of The World Cup In Real Time" would pick up plenty of citations.

<comment><USER5> More like: "How Tech-Savvy Westerners found a way to satisfy their complete cultural ignorance and inability to accept or understand cultures other than their own"

<comment><USER6> Speaking of "complete cultural ignorance", you might want to do a little research into South Africa's long, splendid history of singing at public events, which at the football at least, the vuvuzela has largely destroyed.

<comment><USER5> No need to do research. I am South African, I live in Johannesburg. I was at a world cup game on Monday (Netherlands vs Denmark at Soccer City). The atmosphere was amazing, partly because of the vuvuzelas. I don't care about the history, they are part and parcel of South African soccer at present, and makes this world cup unique.

<comment><USER7> It's possible that live the vuvuzelas are amazing, but on my TV it sounds like a group of angry bees are flying around, probably because the sound is reduced to two channels (left, right). But I must say, in the Netherlands vs Denmark match, the vuvuzelas weren't that awful.

<comment><USER8> Having been to one game so far, I can confirm that the experience is very different live vs. on-tv.

Then again, I don't find them annoying on tv - so there may be personal bias.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I absolutely LOVE the sound of these Vuvuzelas - I don't understand why there is such a fuss over them.

I find the drone puts me into an almost trance-like state where my focus and concentration abilities increase dramatically. I imagine I'd quite like having these things blaring while playing on such a grand stage as the World Cup.

<comment><USER10> I love stadium sounds and I usually hate when broadcasters cut out all the crowd singing, etc. BUT the vuvuzelas are in such number than instead of making single horn sounds it's just a 100% BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzz all the game. When you watch one game, it's ok, when you watch more, or all the games, it's annoying as hell, rly.

<comment><USER11> It's very different when you're at the game - the vuvuzelas near you are distinguishable and you can hear people singing.

Obviously that's not ideal for watching it on tv - the vuvuzelas tend to drown everything else out when it's all recorded - but I'm not sure what the ideal solution is, because there's no way that anyone here in South Africa would accept a ban.

<comment><USER12> The obvious - and implemented - solution is to adjust the audio signal for TV viewers.

Everyone wins.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The unfortunate monotonous sound that is heard via the broadcast is nothing like what it sounds like in the stadium. I was at the Italy - Paraguay game and it was a very different, awesome, experience.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am surprise no broadcaster is still offering a vuvuzela filtered match yet. edit: ah ok: they are actually doing that. [http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world- cup/story/_/id/5287552/ce...](http://soccernet.espn.go.com/world- cup/story/_/id/5287552/ce/us/bbc-mulls-vuvuzela-free-option- viewers?cc=5739&ver=global)

</comment><comment><USER15> If you ask google for mplayer sinesuppress you get a whole page of command lines that remove vuvuzela sounds from broadcasts, for example: <http://verbo.se/open-source-vuvuzela-killers>

[edit: fixed link, this supid cell phone doesn't support copy&paste]

</comment><comment><USER16> I understand that fans that excited but for those who are not in the stadium and watching on tv, I am even ready to pay my broadcaster if there is a way out to mute the honking sound or atleast keep it away when the commentators are talking!

</comment><comment><USER17> What, people don't like the sound of the swarms of killer 15 foot bees? Seriously, they should filter that mess out - it's headache-inducing. Maybe put the with-vuvuzela sounds on the SAP audio channel.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's also this -- antivuvuzelafilter.com -- a noise canceling MP3 for ~$4.00.

EDIT: Yup, you're right. Wasn't until I read more into the details did I notice what they were doing. Killing the hyperlink to post <http://isophonics.net/content/whats-all-about-vuvuzela> instead.

<comment><USER19> Any evidence this isn't a scam? I thought antinoise had to be in close sync with the source -- requiring an actively adjusting system, rather than a static MP3.

<comment><USER20> Well, you sort of could use a static MP3, as long as you had some way of adjusting the phase - i.e. pause/unpause it for a moment, randomly till you get it to match.

<comment><USER21> That will work for an absolutely rigidly pure sine wave of identical frequency, and even then produces a cancellation moire pattern like this: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two-point-interference- rip...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two-point-interference-ripple- tank.JPG) , not universal cancellation. Any frequency deviation whatsoever will produce something different. Trying to use this technique to "cancel" things that aren't sine waves and aren't even constant frequencies won't have any cancellation effect, it'll simply be two sounds instead of one.

(Record yourself saying something. Record yourself saying it again. Flip the phase of one of them and add them to each other. You can do this until the sun goes out, you'll never get a "cancellation", you'll just get two voices. A nice effect in some cases, it's one of my favorite things about 60s pop music even if it got overdone to the point of cliche, but not cancellation.)

Or, to say it another way, that won't work.

It is not possible to universally cancel one wave with another not in the same position. Noise-cancelling headphones work by, with great effort and with some fast processing, creating a small zone where frequencies human ears can hear are dampened to a significant degree where the eardrum is. This comes at the cost of making it louder in places where the ear drum isn't (which we don't care about), and IIRC at the cost of some very high frequency noise well above what we can hear (which we also don't care about). In a way, it's fair to say they barely work; not in the sense that they are poorly manufactured or anything, but that it takes great cleverness to get something that works even as well as they do. There's a reason why they only came to be very recently; it isn't anywhere near as easy as sticking a microphone on the outside, inverting the signal, and playing the inverted signal on a headphone speaker, which could have been done decades ago. That, too, will produce some exciting acoustic effects, but will only cancel a very small and effectively random suite of frequencies, and you won't find it useful in general. Noise cancellation is _just shy_ of impossible, and only works with some heavy caveats, like having the cancellation equipment extremely proximal to the audio receiver (ears in our case).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems odd that broadcasters wouldn't do this given its such an easy EQ hack.

<comment><USER23> I can see the future: TVs will come with a Safari Reader-like "Watchability" option that wipes out background images and noise and flattens out imperfections in faces and bodies.

<comment><USER24> Adblock for billboards within video streams would be amazing.

<comment><USER25> In many retransmissions, the billboards are digitally replaced with local ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286912/WORLD- CUP-20...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286912/WORLD- CUP-2010-Vuvuzelas-selling-out.html)

<comment><USER27> I know this is totally unrelated, but this is a sports thread, and you recently recommended _Inner Game of Tennis_ to me. I just wanted to let you know that I read it and loved it. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1435488>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a south african having grown up with vuvzela's present at every sport match, the present worldwide 'outcry' is quite entertaining.

Don't you just love the smell of globalization in the morning?

<comment><USER28> What's the point? I mean, why blow on one of those things all match long? I go to American football games and make a lot of noise, but only when the opposing offense is lined up to try to get them offside. Otherwise the stadium is silent. What is the point of constant noise during the entire game?

<comment><USER29> Questioning the purpose of things never seems to go well when the topic is sports -- the purpose of the whole thing is fun.

<comment><USER28> I guess I just wonder why laying on a one-note horn for 2 hours is fun.

<comment><USER30> I don't think anyone does, it's just the additive effect of 30,000 people blowing them at random intervals is a constant buzz (particularly on TV, when there's no direction to the audio).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> My wife told me I was the most annoying person she'd ever known..I almost choked on my vuvuzela.

</comment><comment><USER32> There's something rather poignant about this, both funny and sad.

The world could choose any "negative" aspect of the modern South African situation to complain about and to try to develop nifty hacks for suppressing; like crime, violence, poverty, the brain drain, etc etc.

But the one that's getting all the attention is that "annoying buzz on the world's TV sets."

<comment><USER32> Re the downvotes -- I guess this really just goes to show again that either (a) people really fundamentally care more about a 235Hz buzz on their TVs during soccer, than they do about _real_ (by comparison) suffering as long as its someone else who's suffering; or (b) people would just far rather apply their brainpower to attenuating (or discussing the attenuation of) vuvuzelas, than to trying to solve actual issues that matter and would be of lasting value.</comment></comment>


Life of a BigQuery Streaming insert - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/blog/big-data/2017/06/life-of-a-bigquery-streaming-insert <comment><USER2> I do a big data steamy insert every Saturday evening.

<comment><USER3> Let's please not do this here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Building Quake Live : John Carmack - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3946/building_quake_live_carmack_speaks.php?print=1 <comment><USER2> I wonder if there is any hope that they will open the plugin up to other developers. Even more, I wish they would have used Unity3d, but for entirely selfish reasons.. granted, porting their assets might have been a bigger challenge than turning their rendering engine into a browser plugin, but I digress.

We are seeing a trend towards in-browser 3d experiences. The built-in 3d accelerator cards are widespread and "good enough" now in ubiquitous computing that the time is coming where Adobe will have to buy or build their own solution.

<comment><USER3> _The built-in 3d accelerator cards are widespread and "good enough" now in ubiquitous computing that the time is coming where Adobe will have to buy or build their own solution._

Hopefully, the next generation of "browser plugins" (like Flash) will be completely Free Software. Flash has been a nightmare, because it generally works well -- except it crashes a lot, and Adobe won't release it on "unpopular" platforms. We can't keep doing things like that, we need the web to stay open. Otherwise the web is going to become AOL 2.0, 20 years too late.

<comment><USER4> I'll take a closed, consistent deployment experience (flash), over an open and free,yet inconsistently implemented one (the _real_ nightmare that is css) any day.

<comment><USER3> Except with 4 official versions of Flash out in the wild, combined with the open source versions to support platforms Adobe neglects, there is no consistency that you can rely on.

Welcome to the web. If you want users to have a consistent experience, write a desktop app.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Start Building Your Own SaaS Platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.devteam.space/how-to-start-building-your-own-saas-platform/ <comment><USER2> The link is: [https://www.devteam.space/blog/how-to-start-building-your- ow...](https://www.devteam.space/blog/how-to-start-building-your-own-saas- platform/)

After reading half of the post, and skimming the rest of it, it seems to be a very VERY generalized version of the process. The article starts off as teaching you how to build a SaaS Platform, and concludes with how to build a SaaS Product. Both are very different things.</comment>


How the police behaves in Spain for the Pope's visit. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zJCgUu5mtE#t=78s

<comment><USER2> You can see how tough that cop was that he needed his buddies to get her off him after he sucker punched her. It's a shame that Spain can barely pay its bills yet has no problem hosting a papal visit with all the expenses that it incurs and simultaneously sending out the goon squad after those who protest the waste. From the other side, protesters have been disrupting life in Madrid for the past couple of months and I'm pretty sure that the residents are quite tired of it by now, but that never justifies lawless violence at the hands of the state. It's hypocritical to ask for the resignation of Gaddafi and Assad while you're beating your own people in the streets.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best books on low-level programming - <AUTHOR> <comment> le-mark "Programming from the Ground Up" is a really fantastic book that starts with some architecture, assembler and executable file format. Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702025](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702025)

</comment><comment><USER3> Peter Norton and John Socha - Peter Norton's Assembly Language for the IBM PC.

Hideously outdated, and has practically no real world application any more, but is conversely an incredibly lucid, explanatory, and beatifully written as a guide to 16-bit Assembly language on the IBM (and compatible) PC - <USER2> you through first examinations of registers and memory through to creating a low-level hard disk editor.

Pop open DosBox, download MASM, and see what you can break!

Currently going for $3 on Amazon - worth a pop for that price if only for a cursory look!

[https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Brady- programming-l...](https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Brady-programming- library/dp/1566860164/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499163399&sr=8-2&keywords=Norton+assembly)

</comment><comment><USER4> Can't get more low level than ASM

[http://www.agner.org/optimize/](http://www.agner.org/optimize/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book. He's also got a few "Zen of ..." books:

[http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/graphics-programming- black-b...](http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/graphics-programming-black- book/184404919)

</comment><comment><USER6> _The Art of Computer Programming_ , perhaps?</comment>


Show HN: Golden Ratio Tester - <AUTHOR> http://golden-ratio.club/ <comment><USER2> Looks good. I was expecting for an automated detection for the golden ratio on the uploaded image.</comment>


What do you think of my app's splash page? - <AUTHOR> http://getxau.com/splash

<comment><USER2> DESIGN: It's cool and awesome for minimalist design nerds like myself, but I'm not sure if it will convert well. That's speculation, so you might want to get a more authoritative view point on that.

COPY: I think you need to get a little more niche on your target and add one more layer of benefits to your copy.

1.) Working in a small team? -- Of what? Of programmers? Of elephant trainers? Of baristas? You'd be surprise how good people feel when you call them out specifically.

2.) Use Xau to stay connected and task-focused. So what? I don't think anyone cares about staying task-focused. They want to stay task-focused so they can make money, or build a great product but staying task-focused for the sake of staying task-focused doesn't sound very compelling. I would personally change it to: Use Xau to stay connected and task-focused so you can...[insert benefit your clients care about most]

Hope that helped!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to comment!

Your point about listing benefits rather than features is excellent - I will definitely be amending the copy.

The app's theme is one of being sufficiently simple that it's sector agnostic and I was thinking of people who would appreciate this as its market - but I think you're actually more correct: its better to have a specific group feel the app is for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Congrats, you made a splash page! :P

<comment><AUTHOR> I did. I've also coded 90% of my app and I'm trying to find out whether I'm even going about marketing it the right way. I actually have another Internet business but since its aimed at a decidedly non-tech audience I'm new to the business of launching a web app aimed at a more tech savvy market.

I see from your comment threads you'd rather people didn't post till their apps were finished. I think asking for feedback from HN about how you're marketing your app is as valid as asking for feedback about the app itself.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Demo website layout on paper? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I'd like to find a tool with which to generate a printable flowchart of indexed thumbnails that represents a website design, where any index number corresponds to a closer look at any given page printed on its own sheet.
How do people present site layout on handouts in meetings? <comment><USER2> Why do you need handouts?

<comment><USER3> Paper is easy to reason with, annotate, and so on.

While I love my display-based technology, sometimes I just want something I can spread out and think about in a different way. I'm tactile.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do robotic startups fail - <AUTHOR> High initial capital/investment? Technology not there yet? Public appeal? More focus on SaaS? General thoughts <comment><USER2> Mainly because people are cheaper and assemble new humans... Any particular mechanical action by a robot can be done by a discrete mechanism. Trying to assemble all of these into a frame that has the visual appearance of a human being is not yet possible. We have all seen the mechanical clowns that are the best to date - and then there is the brain! Try to fit that in 3/4 gallon space. I suppose they can put the brain in the basement and use WiFi? As for sentience. We are figuring out all the ways in which human brains function - all the feedbacks, control loops etc. Content addressable memory for example. Ask an army sergeant if 'private Smith' is present and he will shout SMITH, and Smith will say 'here'. A machine would have to inspect every person to see if they were Smith. Computers are around 4 gigahertz, and getting faster, in clock speed so they can work around this, but it is a barrier to sentience in a machine. One by one they will solve all these disparate subcomponents that make up a human mind and hook them together to make a new born with a 4 Ghz clock. Unless they have pre-stuffed the memory with recollections etc Blade Runner style, they will have to educate this child and hope it is not a crazy child - no matter, in 20 years or less it will be done. Is this 'child' a slave, property? An entity? Will it follow orders? Will it see it is alone and want fellowship of it's own kind? A novel in the past created such a machine, and it was asked 'is there a God?' \- 'There is NOW', was the answer.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I prepare for PM interview? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
For software development position I passed technical interview. Next step is project manager interview. I know that I missed different opportunities because I fail this part of interviews. Technical part is piece of cake but this kind of interview is my soft spot. How can I prepare this interview ?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I'm guessing the answers to every question is one of the following:

1) I give regular status updates to the PM 2) I communicate problems as early as possible 3) I estimate work based upon past experience with similar tasks 4) I always think not just about estimates but also risk 5) I am constantly looking to provide trade-off suggestions to maximize project ROI

Source: I'm a PM

<comment><USER3> 7) Ensure my superiors are kept aware of project status. 8) Remain available to vet marketing or other presentation documents on short order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Come with your own questions for the interviewer.

This should be a two-way dialogue. You want to understand the Hiring Execs biggest priorities and specific challenges. What does success look like to him?

Ask: Imagine we're having a review meeting 12-18 months from now. It has been a really successful year. What would be the top 2-3 things that we accomplished together?

His answers will open up the conversation, full of insights.

</comment><comment><USER5> Read Microsoft Zen of PM: [http://microsoftjobsblog.com/zen-of- pm/](http://microsoftjobsblog.com/zen-of-pm/)

Source: Was a Microsoft PM

<comment><USER6> Note Program Manager != Project Manager != Product Manager

IMO Program Manager < Project Manager < Product Manager.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Assess your chances of being hired before writing a proposal on Upwork - <AUTHOR> http://upmatch.me <comment><USER2> It doesnt work when trying to go through OAuth.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, could you name your browser and OS?</comment></comment>


Advanced Mac Substitute: API-level reimplementation of classic Mac OS - <AUTHOR> https://www.v68k.org/advanced-mac-substitute/ <comment><USER2> Hi, I'm the author of Advanced Mac Substitute. Proof: <[https://github.com/jjuran>](https://github.com/jjuran>), <[https://twitter.com/joshuajuran/status/1087557797200433153>](https://twitter.com/joshuajuran/status/1087557797200433153>)

It's nice to see such interest in my humble project. :-)

<comment><USER3> Aren't you fearing of infringing Apple's IP since you have reimplemented their API, or you haven't reverse engineered their API (incl. private & internal) so it is actually a clean room design?

<comment><USER2> I would be very afraid if Apple had been acquired by Sun in the 1990s, for what should be obvious reasons.

But Apple has demonstrated zero interest even in going after ROM bootlegging — I don't expect them to build a case against API reimplementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of ARDI Executor, which felt incredible in its day.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executor_(software)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executor_\(software\))

<comment><USER5> Thank you for the compliment. I wrote the beginning of it (B&W graphics (QuickDraw), filesystem, port to Sun3/60, port to NeXT), although people smarter than I did some of the heavy lifting (port to DOS, port to Windows, color graphics (QuickDraw), synthetic CPU.

<comment><USER6> What an amazing project! It seems almost like a path to madness, trying to reverse engineer the platform, but there were applications even very early on that were mac only that were desirable on PCs.

<comment><USER7> I tried to resell it at my PC Shop but could not get any buyers. 68K Macs sold for $100 on eBay like the Mac SE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's so good to see more movement in the realm of classic Mac compatibility! Mac OS emulation/simulation has received astonishingly little attention given the immense body of software that exists for the platform.

That said, while this is a great start, what would _really_ excite me is something along the same lines with PPC support, OS 9.x API simulation, and ideally proper FPU and GPU support. SheepShaver and QEMU are too incomplete and hacky to run the majority of apps that interest me.

<comment><USER9> Have you tried QEMU in the last 3 months? They've really ironed out a lot of things, and you can now run Mac OS 9.2.2 with sound and networking. I run it to play a few old games and open old ClarisWorks documents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Emulators are always cool. I've been a Mac guy since Day 1. I had a 128k Mac and a Lisa. The Lisa was required for development, which I did in assembly and Pascal. This is great to see.

Emulators seem usually to have a target app, or a few of them, that are no longer available and are wanted, hence the impetus for the emulator. Game console apps, of course, are motivated by this in spades, as many good games are abandoned, and there's always a nostalgia factor.

I haven't seen such a clear such target app or set of apps mentioned for this project yet. Is this just a nostalgia thing, or is there something this is letting people run that can't be had otherwise? If so, I'm curious what the top contenders are. Are there people dying to actually use Hypercard?

<comment><USER11> HyperCard

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lovers of the 1-bit "dither-punk" aesthetic must give "Obra Dinn" a play. Lucas Pope's dev diary on TIG forums is an epic, legendary document describing the painstaking process of recreating the mood of classic MacOS gameplay ;)

[http://dukope.com/](http://dukope.com/)

<comment><USER13> Not to mention that the game itself is a masterpiece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's great! Its use of a 680x0 emulator with a re-implementation of the Mac OS API reminds me a bit of how DOSBox emulates an x86 but provides a host re- implementation of BIOS and DOS APIs.

Is the name a reference to "advanced tea substitute" from the 1984 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy computer game?

<comment><USER2> More so the novel, but yes — it's a reference to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and to Douglas Adams' fondness for the Macintosh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks like work on this began at the latest in 2014, with regular work up to the present. I'm not sure how it fits in with the author's other projects but it seems like there's a lot of integration.

[https://github.com/jjuran/metamage_1/commits/master/v68k](https://github.com/jjuran/metamage_1/commits/master/v68k)

<comment><USER2> Initial work on v68k itself began in 2011. Early on I added a limited system call bridge so it could run command-line tools that produced diagnostics on stdout. I reused the same infrastructure that built 68K tools (as code resources) for MacRelix.

I was able to just skip over the trap calls in the Metrowerks runtime code for very the simplest programs, but in 2012 I added a real trap dispatcher and NewPtr/DisposePtr to implement malloc(). Virtual screen hardware and basic rectangle drawing appeared in 2013. But yeah, 2014 is when things started to get interesting.

Virtually all of my major projects are involved somehow: the Mac frontends are MacRelix. Freemount is used to serve files over a socket pair (since emulated code can't access the native file system). And the launch script is V code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought this was a nice idea from the same author:

FORGE: A File-Oriented Reflective Graphical Environment

[https://www.fornaxis.org/forge/](https://www.fornaxis.org/forge/)

<comment><USER17> That is neat but it's so similar to how Plan 9 did it that I can't understand why he doesn't have an acknowledgment on the page.

<comment><USER18> He does acknowledge it, but it is in the screencast. The screencast is worth watching. It isn't too long and is well done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can you run hypercard? :-)

<comment><USER2> Yes, but not in Advanced Mac Substitute. :-P

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _The front end requires 32-bit support and definitely doesn't build on 10.14._

Well... poop. That's what I get for staying up to date.

I've wanted to run Mac OS 8 on my current Macs for a while now, but the current batch of emulators have been far too complicated for my casual uses. This will hopefully be the key, once it's brought up to 64 bits.

<comment><USER21> You may wish to try out SheepSaver if you haven't already. There are some tutorials that make the process relatively simple, booting to Finder in a few minutes.

<comment><USER20> _You may wish to try out SheepSaver if you haven 't already_

I have. I lost half a day trying to make it work and gave up. This was while ago. Maybe it's better now.

<comment><USER22> There are some really great self contained pre-built SheepShaver OS9 appliances. I don't suggest building your own unless you need to.

Columbia University offers this one: [http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html](http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html)

Direct download: [http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/Mac%20OS%209.zip](http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/Mac%20OS%209.zip)

You can have an OS9 VM up and running in minutes.

These support networking: [https://www.macintoshrepository.org/7751-sheepshaver-ppc- emu...](https://www.macintoshrepository.org/7751-sheepshaver-ppc-emulator-for- windows-mac-os-x-) [https://www.macintoshrepository.org/15339-sheepshaver- packag...](https://www.macintoshrepository.org/15339-sheepshaver-package-by- jamesfriend-com)

<comment><USER20> I'll try the Columbia one. Macintosh Repository doesn't allow those files to be downloaded without signing up for an account, and I'm not all that interested in signing up for yet another account unless I know it's worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why does when I scroll my eye perceives the background pattern as flashing different colors like purple (?)

Is this a perceived effect, or something generated by my monitor framerate/refresh, or intentional?

How is this possible, if/when the pattern is purely grey when standing still/static?

<comment><USER24> Was wondering the same thing and just used a screen recorder to try and find out. Still can't answer _why_ it happens, but in the recorder, if I flip from one frame to the next, the flash happens and it's impossible to freeze frame "mid-flash."

This means its either an optical illusion or something with the monitor refresh rate. My money is on the monitor.

<comment><USER25> I think it's a Moire effect from the patterned background being resized and no longer 1:1 with actual device pixels. Changing zoom level and then scrolling on my iPad changes the appearance of the flashing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The emulation that will impress me is one that supports printing emulation (to PDF, or other printer) as well as disk-file network emulation. Ive got some programs that I'd like to run but without printing support for network connectivity they aren't usable.

<comment><USER27> File sharing is something that's actually handled fairly well by SheepShaver; it provides a "Unix" "disk" that shows up on your desktop and makes working with files from the host machine pretty easy.

Network connectivity can work (occasionally with some fiddling), but it's not too useful these days. On the web browsing end of things, no one's really made browsers for classic Mac OS in years, and browsers from the classic era (like IE 5 for Mac) aren't modern enough to even connect to many sites, and, when they can connect, aren't standards-compliant enough to render them. And if you're looking to use network services built into applications, most of those were shut down years ago.

(Can't say anything about printing support, though-- never tried that.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Nice. It reminds me a bit of GEOS Warp [http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/archive/geoswarp/](http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/archive/geoswarp/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Semi-related to this is Darwin/MacOS emulation layer: Darling.

[https://github.com/darlinghq/darling](https://github.com/darlinghq/darling)

</comment><comment><USER30> Cool!</comment>


A Cartoon Intro to Redux - <AUTHOR> https://code-cartoons.com/a-cartoon-intro-to-redux-3afb775501a6 <comment><USER2> Very nice! Redux is really great and simple but visual aids like these can help understand the data flow to someone not used to it the idea.</comment>


.tv domains are sinking - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-burdick/godaddy-wants-you-to-know_b_194077.html

<comment><USER2> Completely misleading title.

The island of Tuvali isn't 'sinking'. The ocean is rising, and it has been destroying it. The domain has nothing at all to do with this, other than GoDaddy choosing to tell everyone who looks into a .tv domain about this fact.</comment>


PayPal: It may be your account, but you aren't going to use it - <AUTHOR> http://ayende.com/Blog/archive/2009/05/15/paypal-it-may-be-your-account-but-you-arenrsquot-going.aspx <comment><USER2> If you call Paypal with a US phone number and a foreign IP number, especially when the IP number is linked to a country with loose money laundering rules, you are going to have problems.</comment>


Six high-tech foods that are changing the way we eat and drink - <AUTHOR> https://www.salon.com/2018/04/14/this-is-how-the-future-will-taste-six-high-tech-foods-that-are-changing-the-way-we-eat-and-drink_partner/ <comment><USER2> s/changing/will change</comment>


How hackers learn to speed read - <AUTHOR> http://www.haluvibe.com/

<comment><USER2> This thing is trash; speed reading involves learning to take in groups of words at once, not reading words one at a time. Perhaps the authors may want to learn about speed reading before attempting to write an app that promotes the skill.</comment>


"Patterns of Conflict" – a techno-industrial "Art of War" (1976) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.projectwhitehorse.com/pdfs/boyd/patterns%20of%20conflict.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This is the definitive presentation (transferred into PowerPoint by Colonel Boyd's acolytes) that quite literally changed the United States Military. Concepts like Energy-Maneuverability in air combat, and the OODA-loop came through and out of this presentation. It is very long, and very technical in terms of military context, but well worth it at the macro-strategic level. HUGE implications for the future of war and society.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you're interested in a summary of Col. Boyd's thinking written for a non- military audience, I took a crack at writing one two years ago here: [http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/how-winners-win-john- boyd-...](http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/03/how-winners-win-john-boyd-and-the- four-qualities-of-victorious-organizations/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Jason, great article, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER3> z</comment>


Show HN: Gitignore.xyz – Get .gitignore files on the fly - <AUTHOR> Hi, I built a little service to fetch .gitignore file on terminal. I built this to avoid finding gitignore files while working without a github repo. I wanted to keep the size as small as possible ( 2.2kb ) and the UI simple. I would love to hear your feedback on this.
https://gitignore.xyz
P.S this is my first fully completed app in production. I would love to hear your feedback on this.
edit: I'm running this on scaleway node in Paris, that's why the 100ms+ latency <comment><USER2> I'm slightly confused by the premise. Why do you need to 'fetch' .gitignore files?

Do you not simply add the files you wish to ignore, to the file in your project?

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, you can add the dir or files to the .gitignore directly however for these are generalized .gitignore's for each language. For example if you get the python .gitignore there are already some rules to ignore the cache/internal files for most of the packages.

edit : The .gitignore files that are served are from [https://github.com/github/gitignore](https://github.com/github/gitignore)</comment></comment>


Too Much Food in the Wrong Places - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2020/04/03/826006362/food-shortages-nope-too-much-food-in-the-wrong-places <comment><USER3> The closure of big distributors such as restaurants means that big orders get cancelled. These cancelations cause a glut at the point of production.

However, the article fails to mention the role that agricultural subsidies play in the oversupply. Regarding dairy in particular, consider:

> "... in 2015, the support granted to U.S dairy producers represented > approximately C$35.02/hectolitre - the equivalent of 73% of the farmers' > marketplace revenue. USDA data also reveals that US dairy farmers operate at > a loss, and have a cost of production that is higher than what they earn > from the marketplace."

[https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/american- dai...](https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/american-dairy- farmers-depend-on-government-subsidies-1015126442)

This has been happening for decades, leading to artificially suppressed food prices and market distortions across many categories.

<comment><USER4> Historically, one of the main purported justifications for agricultural subsidies has been to ensure that insert-country-name-here can be more nearly self-sufficient if some crisis comes along to make importing food difficult.

That doesn't sound too silly today.

<comment><USER5> It does sound silly if the food is left to rot on fields.

Maybe we should also subsidize food transportation and storage or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> It has to be harvested first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Its 2020 and we still have farmers destroying crops rather than having some sensible state backed cost floor price guarantee to just buy excess and distribute it freely. You can definitely guard against exploitation by doing the math on what the maxima is between the volatility of pegging it to market prices vs the delay in using historical means.

I'd much rather get a quart of state milk once or twice a year for free while paying .2% more sales tax than having usable food destroyed.

<comment><USER7> They're destroying crops because there's a surplus due to changes on the demand side. What they do with crops isn't all that important right now, as long as there's government support so that they replant next season.

> I'd much rather get a quart of state milk once or twice a year for free > while paying .2% more sales tax than having usable food destroyed.

Once you realize wasting food isn't bad and a surplus actually implies resiliency, that statement is just confusing to read. Governments subsidizing farmers to overproduce so that shocks to the system don't cause famines is a _good_ thing. That just means there's either waste or obesity.

<comment><USER8> Except here the demand for food didn't disappear, it shifted from HoReCa (hotels/restaurants/catering) to groceries. People don't suddenly need less food during a pandemic, so the food that rots on the field now is that much less food in peoples's bellies.

<comment><USER9> > the demand for food didn't disappear, it shifted from HoReCa > (hotels/restaurants/catering) to groceries

The demand for food didn't change but the kind of food changed a lot.

I'm a heavy purchaser of fresh produce. I've completely stopped purchasing most produce because these are in open bins at the market and I see people with grey skin who are obviously infected staggering around and coughing and sneezing on everything. I'm not convinced I can sufficiently sterilize things like lettuce and broccoli. I'm still buying carrots but remove it from its bag, destroy the bag, thoroughly wash, and only eat as cooked. Avocados I wash in soapy water, then spray with 90% alcohol. Lettuce though needs to go in the fridge, at which temperature any virus sneezed on it lives indefinitely. So for me no lettuce, no premade salads, no deli products. No problem, I have about 200 sq ft of garden with lettuce and many other things at present, and am adding about 200 sq ft per week to this, and will continue until I have about a quarter acre. this should be enough for me and for the neighbors that otherwise might attack and raid should things get that bad. I've got 30 tomato seedlings staged of 3 different species and these will go in the ground soon. In the past 3 tomato plants have given me huge numbers of tomatoes all summer long. This year I'm going for 10x that. I also have a greenhouse under construction, for managing next year.

Now what if some others are like me? They maybe aren't eating that lettuce, demand is down. Looking around, everyone I know is planting gardens right now. Baking bread is the new thing since there were actual bread shortages here in the US of all places. Not the Soviet Union. At present yeast can't be found. So everyone has their own sourdough starter and is basically manufacturing their own yeast.

The pattern of what people buy has _dramatically_ changed.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are planning to be self sufficient, might I suggest that you also consider growing millets.(if your growing zone allows it)...growing grain is tricky but a hundred foot row of millet is a worthy experiment for this year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There might not be food shortages, but something hinky is definitely going on with the paper product supply chain. I have not seen a single roll of TP or paper towels on a shelf anywhere in my area (San Francisco Peninsula) since we went on lockdown on March 16.

<comment><USER11> Hoarding is an interesting phenomena... you start with some people panic buying supplies unreasonably. That runs supplies low... now, a person that otherwise might not hoard at the first sign of crisis rationally must do at least a little so since they may not be able to get their supplies as usual... which in turns amplifies it all. If you went to the store and they happened to have TP would you take the opportunity to buy it, need now or not? I probably would unless I already had few weeks on hand.

I live in the bay area, too... and I have a Target who's front door is about 200' from my front door. I have seen TP and paper towels... but it goes very fast when it's there. Of course, I called our close by friends as soon as I saw the stock and I'm sure others did as well. It was gone very quickly. If that's happening everywhere. Reductions in logistics capacity will also contribute to the slowness of getting some of this stuff to store shelves regardless of production capacity.

Until you start seeing "shelter in place" orders lifting, I think this is only the start of the consumable goods problem.

<comment><USER12> I did something similar with flour yesterday. I was in a grocery store getting mostly dairy and some other perishables I was starting to run a bit low on. But I saw a solitary 5# bag of King Arthur flour and grabbed it. I wasn't out at home but I was down to a few pounds of all-purpose flour so it seemed sensible to grab some more while I had the opportunity. I'm sure a lot of people are acting that way.

<comment><USER13> This is exactly how people act during normal times, isn't it? Or are people really running on such thin margins that they have to shop every few days?

<comment><USER12> I think most people normally run on thinner margins. Personally, I probably end up with more food etc. in the house than I need during normal times. Even so, I've definitely picked up some things that happened to be available which weren't really at my usual informal restock level yet. I'm talking about things that I probably have a good 2-3 week supply of and getting some more anyway.

ADDED: Part of it is that a lot of people in cities don't have a lot of storage space. Furthermore, a lot of people also can't really afford to lay in large quantities of products rather than picking up enough to last a week or so when they run out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My mom, who's from a town in the Appalachian mountains in NC, was just telling me about how she and her sisters would can tons of vegetables in the summer because there were times in the winter when they would get snowed in for weeks because the roads weren't safe. That surprised me because she didn't even grow up that long ago, she was a kid in the late 70s and early 80s.

I had always pictured canning as a thing people did in the twenties, not in modern era (unless they were hipsters), or just something that had to be done in a factory. But now I'm sitting here wondering, if it's so easy a bunch of kids could do it without poisoning themselves - why can't farms can the excess food themselves? I get that some stuff (canned powdered milk from the article) is harder to do locally, but we still did it with worse technology for many years.

Is it a regulation problem, are they not allowed to? Is it economics - <USER2> human-canned goods worth less than the cost of paying people to pick+can? Is it too hard to get canning supplies / train people to can on short notice? Do the grocery stores have deals with certain brands of canned foods that would prevent them from introducing locally canned items?

It's just interesting because while I've only been out shopping twice in the past month, both times the canned good aisle was hit much harder than the fresh produce section. I know this is a temporary thing, but it just feels like preserving food is something that has been done effectively on a local scale for so many years - it seems weird to let good food rot because large- scale canning factories can't keep up with demand.

<comment><USER7> Your story halfway answered your own question. You preserve food because you need it later (say, for the winter), not because you have a surplus. As long as production keeps up (and governments will try hard to make that happen) and food processing isn't severely impacted by social distancing, no one will ever want all that canned food. If food production does break down, the concerns are staples, not squash, tomatoes, and peppers.

<comment><USER8> If food production does break down, all that surplus of canned goods would mean cheaper food and healthier meals for everyone. There's argument to be made for canning the surplus on the grounds of derisking. Doubly so, given that the calamity isn't hypothetical - we're right in the middle of it.

<comment><USER7> > that surplus of canned goods would mean...healthier meals for everyone

Canning tends to use lots of sugar or salt.

> There's argument to be made for canning the surplus on the grounds of > derisking

You need staples in this scenario, not pickles.

<comment><USER8> > _Canning tends to use lots of sugar or salt._

Extra sugar = lots of extra calories = good in times of food shortage.

> _You need staples in this scenario, not pickles._

Canned veggies _in addition to_ staples would ensure more calories are around, as well as access to wider range of nutrients and more taste variety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there a robust but economical alternative to our current supply chain?

I've been looking at local CSAs and most seem to be doing fine right now, but the pricing is way higher than in the supermarket (even comparing it to organic, grass fed to grass feed, etc.).

Are the economies of scale so large, or is it more of a segmentation issue? If CSAs weren't such a niche would it be feasible to bring costs closer to supermarket levels?

<comment><AUTHOR> Co-operatives or farm hubs with reliable stream of income.

It is not that CSAs are expensive. It's that most people pay less for industrially grown food.

Supermarket tomatoes are uniform, thick skins, picked when green and gassed them red, grown in thousands of acres, mechanically harvested, grown broadacre with chemicals and trucked thousands of miles by palletfuls.

How can you compare that to food grown in ten acres, harvested by hand and has the shortest distance from soil to kitchen and usually done by hand because true mechanization, automation tech and economies of scale hasn't reached small farms.

The consumer has to make a stand and be willing to pay what food is worth. That our food is cheap is what fuels many of the woes of the world.

<comment><USER16> _> The consumer has to make a stand and be willing to pay what food is worth._

Most consumers can't afford to. The solution is not to make everyone pay a lot more for food; it's to figure out how to produce healthier food cheaply enough that most consumers can afford it.

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as population increases, production from fixed resources that are dwindling should cost more.

Ag depends on labour. Right now cheap food doesn't come from better production but from economies of scale to a certain extent but mostly by hedging and importing from poorer countries where labour is cheaper.

Such a supply chain is unstable and unreliable. We will see food shortages in places like America as imports will fall short and labour dries up. The farm workers are the most vulnerable population. Most will likely be infected during this crisis and will contribute to community spread. Because there is no one willing to work as hard as them at such low wages, ag is going to come to a screeching halt in the coming seasons.

<comment><USER16> _> production from fixed resources_

 _> Ag depends on labour._

Labor is not a fixed resource. Also, ag does not _have_ to depend on labor. It does now because, as you say, the supply chain is currently set up to take advantage of the cheap labor which is available in many places. But it doesn't have to be set up that way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Less Wrong is a Cult - <AUTHOR>

LESS WRONG IS A CULT. REALLY listen to what Yudkowsky says. Just because he has a 50 cent vocabulary doesn't mean that what he's saying makes sense.
* Live forever as a transhuman. * The singularity is sure to come. * Only listen to your rational mind. * Be a vegetarian so the vegan basilisk won't punish you. * Bayes Theorem is the way. <comment><USER2> No links, no evidence ... citation needed. Evidence is how we decide whether something is an idea or a cult.

> Just because he has a 50 cent vocabulary doesn't mean that what he's saying > makes sense.

Yes, that's true. It also doesn't mean the opposite of that -- not without evidence.</comment>


Nathan Myhrvold's cookbook on the science of cooking - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/10/nathan_myhrvolds_cookbook.html?ana=from_rss

<comment><USER2> One of my favourite articles combining science and cooking: The man who unboiled an egg: [http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/futureoffood/stor...](http://observer.guardian.co.uk/foodmonthly/futureoffood/story/0,,1969723,00.html)

Found again thanks to this wikipedia page: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_gastronomy>

</comment><comment><USER3> Did he remember to patent his recipes?

Sorry, couldn't help it.</comment>


Why HN Titles Are Awful And How You're Doing It Wrong. Bitcoin. - <AUTHOR>

There is a theme of HN titles that seem to crop up from time to time, so much so over the past couple of years it's been a running joke between myself and my coworkers. Thought I'd see if anyone else noticed. <comment><USER2> You might enjoy this story/thread from three months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6815282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6815282)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is brilliant, and in large supports my argument :) thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This.

Titles like that tend to be fluff, and frequently misleading. Feels like people are more concerned with up votes than quality of content.

Dramatic titles always win.</comment>