Japan's 7-11, Lawson to discount foods close to expiration in bid to cut waste - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/05/17/business/corporate-business/japans-seven-eleven-lawson-discount-foods-close-expiration-bid-cut-waste/ <comment><USER2> Really? "Marking down products to sell them rather than throwing them out" is news now? The bigger story here would be that a company hasn't been doing this for the last X number of decades.</comment>


Democrats &Republicans Planning Corporate Giveaway–to the Tune of $400B - <AUTHOR> http://billmoyers.com/story/democrats-and-republicans-are-quietly-planning-a-corporate-giveaway-to-the-tune-of-400-billion/ <comment><AUTHOR> And some have the gall to ask Bernie Sanders how he would find the money to pay for free college education ($80 billion). The American government DOES NOT represent the American people. They ONLY represent corporations who financed their campaigns.</comment>


"Research has shown that modal dialogs that cannot be closed perform the best" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-design-for-the-web-in-2019-a0be4d6702e2 <comment><USER2> Entertaining, but ironic that I got no less than 3 pop ups from Medium to read this post.

<comment><USER3> Medium has reached a new high today. My phone screen is completely filled by these modals, nothing of the post is visible

> To make Medium work, we log user data and share it with processors. > I > agree

> To use Medium, you must agree to our Privacy Policy, including cookie > policy.

> Extend your stay.

> Sign up with Google

> Sign up with Facebook

> Already have an account?

> To make Medium work, we log user data and share it with service providers. > Click "Sign Up" above to accept Medium's Terms of Service & Privacy Policy.

Luckily Firefox reader mode displays the post they hide without having to use uBlock Origin and hide those elements individually.

We had a post about why Medium is bad yesterday. Medium is actively contributing to the discussion (sarcasm.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess we've finally fully optimized the modal dialog. Now the only way to make further gains is to explore other form factors to deliver our message in, such as a convenient suppository.

</comment><comment><USER5> This reads like an ad for Brave.

</comment><comment><USER6> "How to piss off everyone"</comment>


Lavabit DarkMail kickstarter successfully funded - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ladar/lavabits-dark-mail-initiative/posts

<comment><USER2> Well I'm a bit sad as I was a Lababit customer and this was the first time I heard about it. I'm also happy of course that they succeeded!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> To my total surprise. Considering the complete lack of marketing, updates and comments on the Kickstarter page, I was certain it was going to fail.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hopefully it will be worth it. I'm looking forward to see what the DarkMail protocol is about at least.</comment>


Ghost Only Cars Can Perceive - <AUTHOR> http://www.bldgblog.com/2019/07/ghosts-only-cars-can-perceive/ <comment><USER2> If only _that_ were the worst issue plaguing self-driving vehicles...</comment>


How to not suck at design, a 5 minute guide for the non-designer - happy-go-lucky https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-to-not-suck-at-design-a-5-minute-guide-for-the-non-designer-291efac43037 <comment><AUTHOR> The word design/designer alone is useless. You should always mention design of what.</comment>


Airbus pilot tries Microsoft Flight Simulator [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jchxsSdBRLo <comment><USER3> Imagine putting this much work into every detail of your simulation, and then getting negative reviews on Steam because there's background music during the initial download.

<comment><USER4> tbf, the initial download screen is so bad I can't believe it was actually coded by a microsoft studio. It's a 120GB download, so I thought ok, I'll just play some other game in the meantime, right? Nope, they forgot to check if the application is in the foreground and check for button presses even when the download window is minimized, meaning that when I play something else pressing "A" on the controller presses the "help" link on the download screen, opening a new browser window and microsoft help page. So....nope, I can't play something else while Flight Simulator is downloading its data, because whoever coded it doesn't know basic principles of input capture on MS platforms.

<comment><USER5> The downloader itself also just doesn't meet the level of quality I'd expect Microsoft would want before putting their name to something. Microsoft is meant to be all about cloud, and this seems to be a single threaded downloader, pulling one file at a time, then decompressing it. Once it's decompressed fully, it moves into the next file.

It's not a deal breaker for me - I just left it running for a couple of hours, but the process seems sufficiently fragile that many people had quite serious problems getting it to download.

I'm not a game dev, but it feels to me like there's a few areas where FS falls short of what I'd be expecting as Microsoft. I'd want it to be responsive and start quickly (at least presenting something on the screen), and I wouldn't want it to be using full GPU in the menus. Teething issues are to be expected, but the downloader is critical and it's the first experience people have. A shame they didn't use some more reliable file transfer tech (or even just thread it!) The general lack of multi core use on the sim is definitely quite disappointing though for a 2020 release that's doing lots of general calculations and other tasks that benefit from threading.

<comment><USER4> I am a gamedev and that's one of the reasons why this screen is so annoying :-) It's just basic stuff. Not to offend anybody(we were all there at some point) but it feels like it was coded by an intern or a team who had nothing to do with the main project. For whatever technical reason they had to have a download screen separate from the main game, so someone quickly added a single threaded downloader with basic input - still, I have no idea why it's using so much GPU just displaying some text.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I can understand wanting the downloader to exist outside of the game (so they can update a broken game out-of-band) - that's all reasonable.

The issue is, as you say, a single-threaded "download-extract-next" flow... It's 2020 and that's what we'd expect from a 90s game launcher. Steam and other game launchers/downloaders can all saturate an arbitrarily fast network connection. Heck, even Windows Update (BITS?) can do this well. A shame Asobo wasn't able to leverage any of this.

The amount of GPU is indeed strange - I think there's more than meets the eye here. There seems to be a lot of HTML/JS type stuff in the UI here, and I wonder if they are doing some kind of GPU-based full-screen rendered surface, rather than just having a simple oldskool Windows Forms app that does the downloading without GPU acceleration.

<comment><USER4> As I said in my other comment just now - the GPU usage is completely broken. When in foreground, the downloader uses about 15% of my GPU, but in the background it takes over 60%. It's just written very very poorly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just yesterday I watched a few "real X pilot flies X in a simulator" videos. One of my favorites was a real Rafale pilot flying a Mirage 2000C in a dogfight in DCS [1]. Amazing instincts and skill.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlM53d9g9q4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlM53d9g9q4)

<comment><USER7> Are there any good videos like this where the dogfights are many-on-many instead of just one-on-one?

I'm not a pilot, and my knowledge of dogfighting is next to non-existent, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd expect that it would be much harder to utterly dominate one's opponents when there are a lot of planes in the air, any one of which could take you out when you think you've got an advantage on someone else.

A busy dogfight would probably be more exciting to watch, too.

<comment><USER8> > Are there any good videos like this where the dogfights are many-on-many > instead of just one-on-one?

Tons, yes, here's one to get your started:

Superior Dogfight: 4 x Navy F-18 vs 4 x Air Force F-15 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80rDX3pANeE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80rDX3pANeE)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Passenger[0] lands King Air, with his family aboard, when pilot died shortly after take-off:

[https://youtu.be/aqPvVxxIDr0](https://youtu.be/aqPvVxxIDr0)

The video is a reconstruction from the radio recordings. I learned that air traffic controllers are rarely themselves pilots and that finding someone with King Air experience during an emergency isn't easy. This video is recent, but the incident happened in 2009. News story from that year:

[https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all- news/2009/april/14/u...](https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all- news/2009/april/14/unintentional-king-air-pilot-an-interview-with-doug-white)

[0] He'd earned a private pilot's license 18 years prior, but had quit flying shortly after with only 80 hours total time logged.

<comment><USER10> 80 hours decades earlier is probably enough to have the fundamentals down. Even just knowing how to use the radio puts you quite far ahead.

It's kind of the argument for basic first aid training and other things like that.

<comment><USER9> He only knew how to use the radio because he'd had the pilot show him before take off. He described the King Air as being so different from the plane he'd learned on that it might as well be the space shuttle.

One of the controllers who helped get him down realized she had to simplify the plane for him. He had been struggling with the autopilot and she got him to turn it off and fly it manually. He was fortunate to have some great controllers to help him and a clear day with no wind.

After the incident, he started flying again and went on to become a rescue pilot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There was a similar recording 2 years ago: retired soviet military pilot (no piloting experience in 20yrs) is trying simulator of MiG 29 (with VR helmet). He did some maneuvers and even land the plane.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEGH965Dvp8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEGH965Dvp8), [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjDhZ2Qx2bw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjDhZ2Qx2bw)

<comment><USER6> Don't speak Russian but this was awesome to watch. I guess like driving a bicycle, you don't forget how to fly a plane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have GamePass, so I thought: "I'll give this a go. How hard can it be? I'm really good in Elite Dangerous."

Turns out: Quite hard. I have a newfound respect for airline pilots.

On a related note, even my RAF cadet experience 20 years ago counted for naught. Whilst I could keep the plane in the air, landing proved the most difficult, and I crashed and bounced and would not have survived without invulnerability switched on.

<comment><USER13> Private pilot here -

It's not that difficult to land; especially in a sim where you can experiment without worry.

It's all in the setup - as you line up on your final approach, make sure you are at a prescribed speed and rate of descent; generally in a small plane (172 etc), you're aiming for around 300-500ft/m at 70-80kts, and the plane is pointing to hit the runway at the threshold (piano keys / white lines).

Counter intuitive: Throttle controls rate of descent, elevators control speed. Mess around until you feel these two things clicking.

When you're around 20-30ft above the threshold, reduce power to idle, keep the aircraft straight and level or the nose just slightly high and just let the plane drop on to the runway!

Whatever you do - don't force it, take your time and you'll have far more fun actually going to places and stopping there!

<comment><USER5> These are good tips for flying GA and getting started in the sim. Older versions of FS used to teach more of the ground school theory than the current version. I did the tutorial just out of curiosity but it didn't really teach enough to have an understanding of flight in the way the FS2004 lessons did.

For flying jets though (assuming this is what the GP means when mentioning the respect for airline pilots), you'll have some higher numbers, and you'll use the thrust for speed rather than the "counter intuitive" approach you'd use in a smaller aircraft.

The things to remember at first are that you're moving faster than you think in the air, so you need to take a longer final approach than you may think as a newcomer, as you're "consuming" that distance rapidly. You'll also need to get used to lining up with the runway (assuming you're doing VFR approaches, which isn't how airlines do it in reality) and find a reference in the cockpit. And chances are you'll be coming in far too high as well - you will feel lower down when you get the view from up front (compared with a side window) and often end up too high. If this happens, go around and try again - if you dive down to compensate, you'll end up gaining too much speed and miss your touchdown zone on the runway.

A good way to learn and practice landings is to wait until ILS and autopilots in FS get their bugs fixed, and learn enough to configure them to fly the landing. If they're accurate replicas, the A320 neo should be able to land itself from ILS. Learn what the approach looks like, and get used to the height and view of the descent. Then try some ILS approaches with flight director on, but autopilot off, so you're flying the approach yourself, but with guidance. This can be tricky if you're not used to the auto throttles on an Airbus though.

<comment><USER13> > For flying jets though (assuming this is what the GP means when mentioning > the respect for airline pilots), you'll have some higher numbers, and you'll > use the thrust for speed rather than the "counter intuitive" approach you'd > use in a smaller aircraft.

Minor point - fairly certain power applications are used regardless of the size of aircraft to control the rate of descent.

Pitch + Power = Performance

You're essentially trying to get back on your landing descent profile.

Too low? Add power, pitch up slightly to maintain speed, reduce rate of descent. Too high? Remove power, pitch down slightly to maintain speed, increase rate of descent.

It is somewhat counter intuitive, but power does not have a "direct" relation with speed, but certainly impacts it.

Even if you fly straight and level, and start adding power - the increase airflow over the wings/elevators will cause a pitch up / lift, your speed will decrease which will need counteracting by a slight downwards pitch to maintain straight / level, and only then would you see a speed increase. There will always be a point where the aircraft just settles into a given configuration of power and pitch/attitude, giving you a specific horizontal/vertical speed.

You yourself mention pointing the aircraft down (pitch), thus gaining speed (without touching the power), which is exactly the counter-intuitive approach to power/speed.

I may not be explaining it well but here's a decent article:

[http://txtopaviation.com/pitch-power- performance/](http://txtopaviation.com/pitch-power-performance/)

And you'll find quite a few more if you go searching.

I also highly recommend looking up the pilot owner manuals, they give you performance tables for given configurations (rpm, power, density, altitude, fuel, temp etc), and of course what power settings to use and numbers to hit for various stages of flight.

I do concur with all your other points though, it's an absolute blast - especially in VR. And of course, I can't encourage folks enough to try out the real thing, I find it easier than driving a car! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I feel like learning to safely land whatever plane I'm flying in is just due diligence. I wish each seat had a simulator for the current aircraft available as an entertainment option, for me to brush up on in case everyone else who could fly it chooses the wrong entree for dinner. You know the toy steering wheels that children play with in cars? Like that.

<comment><USER15> >in case everyone else who could fly it chooses the wrong entree for dinner.

I thought modern airliners can auto-land? All you need is someone to walk you through dialing in the numbers.

<comment><USER16> First you need to know how to use the radio to ask for that help. Just putting the headset on isn't enough; finding the microphone button is half the battle, and then you need to know what frequency to tune to, and how. Then you need to follow along with those instructions.

Even assuming everything goes perfectly up to that point, the plane can only /land/ itself -- assuming you're approaching an ILS autoland-capable runway, in a plane with autoland equipment installed. You still have to idle the engines on touchdown and engage reverse thrust. You may have to keep the aircraft on the runway centreline after touchdown. Then you need to shut down the engines so emergency vehicles can approach and passengers can evacuate safely.

It's not as simple as "dialling in the numbers".

<comment><USER17> In addition to that, you also need to know how to:

Read the instruments. This is non-trivial with modern glass cockpits as the readings on the screen don't necessarily have labels.

Set the flaps at the right time. Too soon and you'll tear the wings off or run out of fuel before you make it to the runway. Too late and you will be flying too fast to land.

Lower the gear, again at the right time to prevent them being torn off by airflow or not being down when you hit the runway.

Know that, once on the ground, the nose gear is steered with the footpedals and not the sidestick (Airbus) or yolk (Boeing).

Set the autobrake so you don't need to brake manually at touchdown. If you get this right, you don't need to mess with reverse thrust.

It would be helpful to know how to turn off the cabin pressurization system so no one is blown out the doors when they are opened.

Even if you're lucky enough to get all this right, you're only going to make a smoking hole somewhere near the runway if there's any significant crosswind.

<comment><USER16> Right, my assumption up to the landing point was that the radio help included the instructions for all of that.

Note it's called a yoke. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> His voice is unbelievably recognizable a pilot voice. Is this something (commercial?) British pilots learn during their training?

<comment><USER19> It is often said that many pilots emulate Chuck Yeager's voice.[1] Yeager was a US test pilot and jet flying ace.

Tom Wolfe has a great novel about Yeager and other test pilots called "The Right Stuff."

[1] [https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/silky-smooth-chuck- ye...](https://www.wearethemighty.com/history/silky-smooth-chuck-yeager- voice?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np272lmVRkU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np272lmVRkU)

<comment><USER20> The Right Stuff is non-fiction, not a novel.

<comment> frosted-flakes Some non-fiction books can read very much like novels, even if the term technically doesn't apply to them. These are sometimes called "non-fiction novels".

A great example is _Endurance_ by Alfred Lansing, which tells the story of Shackleton's incredible expedition to Antarctica in 1914. It is apparently a very accurate re-telling, and a book that I highly recommend. Even though I knew the outcome of the expedition, the book was suspenseful to the very end, and surprisingly character-driven.

<comment><USER19> This reminds me of reading Maya Angelou's _I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings_ in high school.

I asked our teacher (who also made us memorize the opening to beouwouf) how Angelou could remember some of the quotes. I recall the teacher's response being something like, "this is what she remembers"

Looking at that book now in the context of this thread I found this:

>Reviewers often categorize Caged Bird as autobiographical fiction because Angelou uses thematic development and other techniques common to fiction, but the prevailing critical view characterizes it as an autobiography, a genre she attempts to critique, change, and expand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Does anyone have any insights regarding licensing?

Is MS opening a big wallet or is it the other way around where these companies want their newest planes in these type of games? In the video you see "unbeatable fuel efficieny" and I remember seeing Iberia on one of the boeings in the launch trailer, seems like adverts to me.

<comment><USER22> Waiting for Boeing 737MAX to show up without the optional equipment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I usually fail miserably at driving simulators because I drive by the "seat of the pants" feeling, and you get none of that with the driving simulators. It's similar to how badly I do with flight simulators, as I constantly overcontrol it because there's no feedback to my body.

<comment><USER24> I'm guessing you're not a pilot, then, because the first thing you learn is to absolutely NOT trust your body (by which I mean your vestibular system) - <USER2> have to rely on your instruments - your body will always lie to you and get you killed.

<comment><USER23> I presume you're right about that, but up to a point. My father was a fighter pilot, and he said you live and die by how tight you can turn without stalling out ('cuz then you'll fly right into the crosshairs of the guy behind you trying to line up on you). This is done by feeling in your seat and the control column the minute trembling of the wings as they reach the stall point, and that's exactly where you need to place the airplane.

I took a class in performance driving once. They say to cinch the belt down as tight as you can so that your seat feels every nuance of the road. And it does, and it works. With some practice you can feel when the tires are right at the limit of their grip. It's just like reaching the stall point in an airplane when the wings lose their grip.

Also, airplanes have a "feel" in the control column, and they definitely fly by that pushback. It's so essential that Boeing jets have a "feel computer" to push back on the stick to simulate what the pilot would feel if he were directly controlling the surfaces. There's none of that in the flight simulator games.

<comment><USER25> Amazingly force feedback has actually been a thing for a while although no recent joysticks seem to support it. People horde the old MS Force Feedback 2 sticks. It does add a lot in particular to things like setting trim to feel the weight on the controls.

<comment><USER26> Thanks, patents! I think they just expired, finally. FF steering wheels were still being made, but the lower volume stuff like flight joysticks hadn't been willing to pay the licensing cost

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> To compare, here's a real A320 landing in Nice France during the day.

It kind of has the same over the water coastline approach.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjWG3WRM5yk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjWG3WRM5yk)

</comment><comment><USER28> I love his reference to feeling the texture of the seat just by looking at it. Pretty relatable

</comment><comment><USER29> What's the use case of Flight Simulator? If it's meant to be a practice testbed for pilots, how does using (playing) it on laptop/xbox give you the real flight experience?

<comment><USER30> I use it to do a practice flight before I do a real world trip to a new airport. That gives me a much better idea of terrain and what to expect than just looking at charts.

It's also a huge amount fun and let's you do things that would be unsafe in IRL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I can only imagine what the features to implement spec sheet looks like for creating a flight sim.

<comment><USER32> I certainly didn't think about that they would have to re-implement the entire (or at least most of the) computer system the pilot is interacting with as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> That was unexpectedly interesting.

<comment><USER34> The best kind of interesting!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Wow, after playing Microsoft Flight Simulator and flying the Airbus myself this was incredibly informative. A lot of crucial things outlined here, like for example I didn't know you could control the autopilot like that.

</comment><comment><USER22> :50 into the video. "I don't think this word means what you think it means."

</comment><comment><USER36> made my day really</comment>


Millennials are keeping libraries alive - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1039294/millennials-are-the-ones-keeping-libraries-alive/ <comment><USER3> I believe it! I'm under 30, have a good sized apartment, and I also rent co- working office space in 2 places so I can always escape somewhere dedicated to getting work done. Still, I'm _excited_ by the thought of the library system in my city, and long to go revisit to the big reference library downtown.

To me libraries hold a romantic idea of being halls of knowledge, or even the place in which studying and teaching is done. It's a temple of learning - <USER2> no matter what you're studying, writing, or reading about - being in a place surrounded by so many other excited, eager learners is a big rush.

I went to the public library near one of the universities and every surface was filled with a laptop, with an energized student starting at it getting work done. It was amazing.

I don't really check out books, but I'm hoping maybe the library could be a future venue for me to teach free classes to people - it does seem like they have educational classes running almost every day of the week.

How could a library not excite you? :D

<comment><USER4> Libraries are amazing and should be more celebrated and funded to expand their core mission.

But cities like LA utilize libraries as refugees for homeless people which completely destroys the purpose. It should be a refuge for people working hard and trying to excel in life, not a place for people who have given up on life. I'm happy that the homeless have a place to go but as a society, it seems like we're doing everything wrong trying to fix the problem.

<comment><USER5> What is your proposed solution? How does one limit a free, public resource to only people with homes? A literal smell test?

How do people without homes "completely destroy the purpose"? Are they stealing books? Breaking computers? Barricading the doors?

Do you really believe that all people without homes have "given up on life"? Not a single one is "working hard and trying to excel in life"? Have you heard of working people without homes? Particularly in LA, SF, et al. where the cost of a home vastly exceeds the income of many people?

Do you think education could be a productive method for reducing the number of people without homes?

<comment><USER6> I go to the SF library frequently and it is a gorgeous library, but it is absolutely full of homeless. I have seen needles on multiple occasions, almost always you will people hear screaming obscenities or just gibberish, and you guaranteed will at least smell some pretty nasty stuff on any trip in there.

A couple days ago one of them threw themselves from the 5th story and landed in the atrium. He could very easily have killed someone in addition to himself. I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely uncontrollable people. They definitely are not there to read. A few have developed the skill set necessary to direct the free access computers to porn sites.

That being said I agree that homeless is not effective as a blanket term to describe anyone without a home, huge difference between someone living out of their car and showering at the gym, and a schizophrenic who hasn't bathed in 6 months.

<comment><USER7> > I have trouble rationalizing this romantic view of the homeless as these > poor downtrodden, down on their luck people who just need a hand up, with > the realities I see everyday of mentally ill, dangerous, and completely > uncontrollable people.

That is because this "romantic view" is a straw man you came up with so that you can rationalize writing a comment attacking the homeless and the mentally ill, instead of doing something constructive. Do you participate in the San Francisco Tenants Union? Are you doing anything to help SB562 (single-payer in California)? When was the last time you gave a homeless person change?

You can whine about homeless people all you want on HN but that says more about your inadequacies as a person than about the homeless. Until the lack of affordable access to housing and mental health services is resolved the homeless population in California will keep growing.

<comment><USER8> Affordable housing will do absolutely nothing for the type of homeless people OP is talking about (drug addicts and the mentally ill). They are homeless because they have no stability in their life and would not be able to hold a job to pay rent regardless of the cost.

The class of homeless you are referring to is people pushed out of their homes due to rising prices and their limited income. These people (in my experience) are not the ones going around screaming at people an not bathing for months. You would most likely not even know they are homeless.

You are not talking about the same groups of people so you are talking past each other and nothing productive will come of your exchange.

<comment><USER9> But what's the point of the distinction here? Are we really going to argue that the best thing we can do with mentally unstable people who are unable to hold a job is throw them on the streets?

<comment><USER10> I don't think anyone is arguing that. "Throwing them on the streets" and "discouraging them from hanging out in the library unless they are actually using it" are two different things entirely.

<comment><USER11> No,I don't want homeless kids from being discouraged from hanging out in the library just because they stink and make rich people uncomfortable. Just because some folks don't acknowledge the dark side of the USA, where is little/no support for your fellow citizens who fall off the train, doesn't mean you can grind them down even more.

<comment><USER10> Only "rich people" are bothered by smelly, loud, violent people, and only "kids" are homeless?

Uh-huh.

Can the histrionic rhetoric, dude. It's not working.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps not only, but i'm guessing there's a strong correlation there.

<comment><USER10> You're totally wrong. And I'm not guessing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Libraries have adopted technology in more ways than the obvious - my local library is part of a system wherein I can order books from 70-some-odd other libraries (for free!) and return them back to my local library. I can also physically go to those other libraries, take out items, and return them at any other library, all with the same card. The collection is fully searchable online, with gobs of metadata on each item and the location and status of every single copy (out or available), plus e-books. It's amazing.

Recently I ordered Minecraft for PS4 from another library to play with my cousin (again, free) and when I went to pick it up I also went to the shelves and took out _Discourse on the Method & Meditations_.

As a result of the system, the selection of media is... beyond compare. I could not be happier that my tax dollars are going to my library.

<comment><USER14> I had this at home in Australia! I could order books from countless libraries. In the Bay Area, my own local library unfortunately doesn't have anything like this but the San Francisco library does. I recall having a book brought in from Sacramento.

<comment><USER15> I'm served by the Santa Clara County library system and I believe any thing of which they have physical possession (DVD/book/tape/etc) can be transferred between any branch for your convenience. Where exactly are you?

<comment><USER14> Alameda County. As far as I know, my library doesn't have this, at least exposed in through the online catalogue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't think you can draw any kinds of conclusions about who is "keeping libraries alive" based on the data presented. The question is who has visited a library ( at least once ) in the previous 12 months, and even with that extremely broad question millennials only had 8% more people say yes then the next oldest grouping. I imagine if you were to control for children and proximity to a library you might see that margin shrink.

I think there is a case to be made that modern libraries are driving more use with younger generations then previous generations, with my own family being a frequent visitor of our local system. I think there is a social case to be made that modern libraries are fulfilling a broad mission and provide a great return on tax payer investment. Having a question of have you gone to a library in the past year doesn't really show that.

<comment><USER17> I think it's more supposed to be a riff and a counter to the bs "Millennials are killing X" articles that are so popular lately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> To anyone who's old enough, has the media always been focused on the latest generation? Like did the newspapers write about Gen X'ers being this and that back at the time?

<comment><USER19> I'm in my early 30s, but I've seen similar things happen with previous generations, yes.

However, not all generations are labelled as strongly. I think I'm part of a 'missing' generation. Technically I'm a millennial, but according to the top definition here (I'm aware Urban Dictionary isn't always the most reliable reference)... [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Millennial](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Millennial) ... I'd be a Generation Y Millennial. I do think there's a difference between Generation Y and Generation Z, not in the way where one is superior to the other, but in terms of the differences in the childhood and young adult experiences that shaped us. When I read articles about millennials they're almost always targetted at the Generation Z Millennials. I'm not complaining, I'm grateful I avoided the type of pigeonholing that Generation Z has unfortunately had to go through.

As for why this media focus on the next generation happens, I think part of it is adults trying to make sense of an unfamiliar culture. Perhaps it's a natural reaction when you have kids to try to make sense of the world they're growing up in (when they're not with you). There's often an undercurrent of negativity, though this can run in both directions (the baby boomer generation is widely seen as greedy, for example, though of course such generalisations don't really hold up to much scrutiny).

In short, yes.

<comment><USER20> I feel similarly. I think the best dividing line between Gen Y and Gen Z is "Can you remember a time before internet access was ubiquitous?"

The terminology you link to is interesting, I had not previously seen Gen Y and Gen Z combined with "Millennial" in this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I keep forgetting to return my library books, and wind up paying huge library fees, over and over again. I'm sure the library appreciates it, and I only have myself to blame, but I wish there was a better way.

I don't use any of the "extra services" like computers (except for the catalog), meeting rooms, etc. 90% of the time I just read physical books. Occasionally I get a DVD or audiobook CD.

It's nice that libraries have ebooks available these days, but I never check those out because they require me to use DRM readers. If they were plain PDF's I'd definitely use them.

<comment><USER22> Huge fees? The late fees at my library are $0.10 a day...

<comment><USER23> If you check out multiple books at once, they add up quick. 20 books, a week late and you're looking @ $14 fine :)

Also, our local library system charges $1/day for CDs and DVD's....

I've made my fair share of "forced" monetary contributions to our local library, but it's money well spent.

<comment><USER24> Well if you forget to return 20 books I can't say i'm hugely sympathetic to your need for them.

<comment><USER25> Two parents, two kids, a few books each.. Fees at my local library growing up were $0.25 per item per day

<comment><USER26> Some libraries don't have late fees for kids books (when rented on child's library card), or at least much longer borrow times...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I desperately miss the time when I had access to an academic library membership. The depth and breadth of materials you have access to is truly staggering. I remember when I first learned that I could order art exhibition catalogues from other institutions all over the world, free of charge, I almost cried.

The myth that everything is out there on the web is really belied by a few hours spent in a subject-oriented academic library.

<comment><USER28> Depending on where you live, some academic libraries give membership (possibly for a fee) to people living within a certain distance, as a kind of local outreach/PR gesture. May be worth a look at a few universities near you to see if that's the case.

One extreme example is that anyone who lives in Texas can apply for access to any library in the "TexShare" system of public libraries, which includes the state university libraries. You first get a library card from your local public library, and then apply through the TexShare program for access to the university library you want: [https://www.tsl.texas.gov/texshare/card](https://www.tsl.texas.gov/texshare/card)

Generally none of these programs allow you to use the interlibrary loan service though, only resources the library itself has.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm always surprised more libraries are not coupled with good coffee shops. Seems a perfect match.

There is a bookstore in Austin that has a great coffee shop inside, and it certainly attracts folks to come in and browse.

<comment><USER30>
      Seems a perfect match.

A sure moneymaker of a business model. You could call it _Borders_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm going to have to say that _older_ people(seniors) are keeping libraries alive.

I've seen programs at libraries to help the Elderly learn basic computing skills, or have activities together(knitting clubs, boardgames, etc), to get them out of their homes/retirement communities and to a new place.

<comment><USER32> probably depends on the community. The library I usually visited were mostly kids and their parents. the librarians are probably the only older people. Another one, I did not notice many kids in the libraries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> We chose our place in part because it was two blocks from the regional library. You can go on the website and order books from the central lib downtown as well so just about anything can be at our fingertips within a few days.

We really need it to keep our daughter entertained as well because we "cut the cord" many years ago. She's an avid reader now, and I'm a proud dad. We're reading the Never Ending Story currently, and it really is never-ending!

<comment><USER34> Cut the cord?

<comment><USER35> It's a common phrase that typically means getting rid of cable and/or television.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> My local library has a 3d printer accessable to everyone. You just have to pay for filament cost really. It has laptops for borrowing, quiet spaces for coding or studying. I don't know of anywhere else I could casually use a 3d printer and have it printed out to me. Even the local hackerspaces around me require you to get certified or something.

<comment><USER37> Where do you live? That is awesome!

<comment><USER38> I don't know about OP, but the Toronto Public Library system has this as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> So apparently millenials love the public library for anything but the books. "Many public reference centers have shifted their focus from offering things to browse and borrow to providing services and being a social space." How this represents a _library_ in any sense escapes me.

I'm old enough to have been taught to use the paper card catalog in school, and I was a library aide from middle school through high school. I always thought of them as temples of knowledge, but temples in which the relics could be borrowed by anyone. This along with the concept of borrowing and returning always seemed to be a cornerstone of the ideal of an egalitarian society. So it breaks my heart to walk into literally any of the local public libraries and see what has become of their collections. They all now compete at offering the most salubrious lounge experience, to facilitate which they have in some cases removed as much as half of their former floor collection.

I do believe that in the 21st century the library has an important function to serve in providing a place to access the Net for people who cannot otherwise do so. Making space for this is justifiable in my view. Making space for someone to drink a latte in a taxpayer-funded place of access to information is not. There are many, many places that will provide such services far better than the public library.

<comment><USER15> Didn't realize they got rid of card catalogs - I learned that, too! I go to the public library for the extensive DVD collection and quiet air conditioned space to work in away from the office/home. I live in Santa Clara County so a lot of older apartments/homes don't have air conditioning. They have a different selection than Netflix DVD or streaming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wish it were a "thing" for libraries to take on the goal of also hosting non-profit hackerspaces or makerlabs within their facilities. The for-profit makerspaces are just too cost-burdensome for me to interact with. Ironically, in a way, this is why I've got a fairly decent electronics lab in my study. I see the pricetag for a single day pass at the local for-profit makerspace, and balk at the cost, then just settle on buying the equipment myself. The only times this hasn't been an exorbitant affair is when I need to use the CNC mill or a high-quality 3D printer, for which a day pass at a local for-profit shop is the only real option. Even then, about half of the for-profit maker shops seem to not have high quality equipment. Like a 3D printer that allows them to check the "3D printer" block on advertising for a day-pass, but actually is not a good 3D printer. I feel like libraries and non-profit hackerspaces or makerlabs come from the same sort of intellectual genesis, and would make easy partners.

</comment><comment><USER41> In my sabbatical 2014 I went to libraries quiet much.

Cheaper than coffee shops and especially quieter than coffee shops...

But they got a big construction site on one library here now and the other one isn't so nice... it looks like a prison for books :\

[https://www.baunetzwissen.de/imgs/1/2/8/4/6/0/5/6272648125_1...](https://www.baunetzwissen.de/imgs/1/2/8/4/6/0/5/6272648125_19210bc63d_o-9dfecbd3230f1953.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER42> I love the library and will frequently check out books. I much prefer physical books to digital books. There's something satisfying about holding a book, opening up the cover, flipping the page, etc.

A few areas for improvement:

\- Most of the libraries I frequent have very slow wifi, but this may be on purpose.

\- Most digital library catalogs have terrible UIs (broken back buttons, poor search results, etc.) They work, but they're not fun to use.

<comment><USER43> > \- Most digital library catalogs have terrible UIs (broken back buttons, > poor search results, etc.) They work, but they're not fun to use.

Talk to your librarians! In my experience, they welcome feedback, including of this sort. Sometimes the response is "all the systems suck, and this one is the best compromise we could find between suckiness and cost" (it always has been for me), but it's also a good way to get involved in efforts to fix it (for example, UI tests for proposed new systems).

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I recently checked out the local library for the first time and was surprised at how modern and alive it was. Aside from the expected books and magazines were DVDs for borrowing, multiple computer centers for browsing or study, workrooms and mini classrooms that were available for reservation, and a simple self checkout.

</comment><comment><USER45> I work at a university so getting books hasn't been too big an issue for me, but the public libraries near me have been pretty good about offering classes to a broad group of people, and pushing their makerspace & 3-D printers. I know my craftier friends are there frequently for the 3-D printers.

</comment><comment><USER46> _Many public reference centers offer targeted classes for emerging adults in particular, teaching everything from car repair and financial literacy to job hunting and general adulting. "Things that used to be taught in schools," Clarke notes._

Sad. Really sad.

<comment><USER47> Isn't it a good thing that these skills are disconnected from formal education so they can be made available to people of all backgrounds and ages?

<comment><USER46> The right to education was loosely actualized in America but remains low quality if people exit without skills in personal finance, for example. Unfortunately, there is no "right" to a library, let alone one that offers such enrichment. I'm all for programs in libraries that also help adults learn how to read at an 8th grade level, but the need for that in the first place I see it as symptomatic of how badly our schools would be doing, not as a positive thing in and of itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> as a gen-x person, I love my library. I don't know how much of this is "San Francisco, tech stuff" or how much is broadly available, but I'm able to get books online via amazon (with a 3 week borrow period), quite a few comic books (via hoopla), and quite a few audiobooks (both amazon and hoopla) through their digital services.

I can also, of course, get books in paper form, requesting them online to be delivered to my nearby branch, or just going to a branch and browsing. My wife has read over 110 books this calendar year, the vast majority of which were gotten via the SFPL.

</comment><comment><USER49> The LA public library system is great. Has saved me a lot of money on books over the years plus the have video streaming platforms as well as let you access (for free) places like Lynda.com. I've been going to the library since I was a kid (34 now) and used to hide out in the stacks at college. It feels like a comforting place to me.

</comment><comment><USER50> I think I've not visited a public library since I first used Amazon in 2001.

While studying I've used the university ones a few times, but I've also always preferred to buy my books if they were important enough to be read thoroughly and repeatedly.

On the one hand I'm kinda sad about this, on the other hand I like to own and revisit the books I read.

<comment><USER51> Libraries can be a great source of finding books to later order on Amazon.

<comment><USER52> Funny, I do the opposite. When I find a book on Amazon, I'll see if it's at my local library and if not put in a request to have it shipped from another library in the same system (in my case, that system covers a number of nearby cities and towns).

If I can't get it for free from the library then I'll consider ordering it from Amazon.

Another advantage of the library is you don't accumulate more and more books over time, unlike if you buy them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> One thing I think libraries really need to get on is digital preservation. Look at what the Internet Archive has done and think about how important and how expensive it will be in the future. Public libraries collectively have the funding but perhaps not the expertise.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think this is great but I also found the headline 'weird' since in the very real sense that 'millenials' are the majority of the adult population of working age they keep _everything_ 'alive.'

<comment><USER54> It makes more sense in the context of all the arrticles talking about the things that "millennials" are killing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Millennials are keeping libraries alive because we can't afford to buy books.

<comment><USER56> Books have always been expensive. My mother ran a bookstore, and in the early 90s there was a new form of sales tax (Australia's GST) where books would no longer be exempt - it was a real concern that this minor increase in price might kill the business, taking books to just that little bit too much for everyone.

The price of books over the years has been pretty stable, in adjusted dollars: [https://theawl.com/how-much-more-do-books-cost- today-28fea1a...](https://theawl.com/how-much-more-do-books-cost- today-28fea1a7fcf8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Libraries are about the worship of information. All media should be welcome and the needs of educating and providing the public access to that high quality information in formats useful to them should be the focus.

</comment><comment><USER58> If by 'keeping libraries alive' you mean 'still using them' then millenials may be just like any other person who doesn't want to spend their own money for temporary access to varied information sources.

US Libraries in the 1970s, 80s and 90s were still logical places to do research and work. I don't believe they are anymore. They are mainly archives and public resources for those that can't afford information access privately.

I remember very fondly visiting the library in the 70's and reading for hours there as a child but much prefer private access now.</comment>


Foreign holders of U.S. Treasury securities - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/infographic/news/economy/who-we-owe/index.html <comment><USER3> Meanwhile, at the end of 2011, 54% of US T-bills were still held by domestic entities: [http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/longterm/debt/ownership.html](http://www.gao.gov/special.pubs/longterm/debt/ownership.html)

edit: and it appears that China holds 22.6% of 46%, or (unless my math is horribly wrong) only about 10% of total US debt. Which, in the grand scheme of things, really isn't that much.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Though the CNN chart looks super cereal[1], China only owns about 8% of the US debt as of 2011[2]. Of course, that's not to say we don't have an addiction to cheap credit in this country[3].

EDIT: The parent post was edited to add the China info, making this one largely moot. Leaving here for the links (sorry about the first one ;-)

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05YfP_8UsU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05YfP_8UsU)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_Sta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#Foreign_holdings)

[3] [http://www.usdebtclock.org/](http://www.usdebtclock.org/)

<comment><USER5> And while everybody is arguing about China nobody notices the small little island called Japan owning almost as much as China while allegedly having a very unhealthy economy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" United Kingdom includes Channel Islands and Isle of Man"_

Well, I'm glad they specified that!

Though I am left wondering if the total for France includes New Caledonia... and of course, it's something of a travesty that they didn't indicate whether or not the total for Russia includes the Kaliningrad oblast.

<comment><USER7> Yes, strange and inconsistent indeed. They also didn't specify wether 'The Netherlands' included the Dutch Caribbean or not. On a side note, I think that 80% of the Dutch don't know the difference between 'England' and 'UK'. I hear 'Im flying to Edinburgh tomorrow. England rocks!' all the time.

<comment><USER8> 80%? Are you sure it's not 60%, the percentage that's not in Holland?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand why China (and Japan) did get into this so lightheartedly. I mean, the devaluation strategy applied by the US has been obvious for so long now. I'm actually surprised to not see some kind of "bank run".

<comment><USER10> Where's a better place for they to put their money/all those dollars coming in from exporting to the US?

<comment><USER11> The real reason is that China has, for a long time (not any more... sort of), had a policy of pegging the Yuan to the Dollar. In order to do this, they needed to buy a lot of Treasuries.

<comment><USER12> Even if they didn't peg to the dollar....where else are they going to put all that cash? They already own as much of the other commodities as they can get their hands on.

Ultimately, they want to protect the surpluses they have accumulated. What better way to do that than put it in the safest security in the world - <USER2> to date anyway.

Sucks to be them though....they have no choice but to keep buying Treasuries.

This is the point that many people miss. Yes...America is indebted to China...but it's really China that is more at the mercy of America.

If they leave their cash in cash, inflation will kill them over the long term. They can't realistically own 100% of all the commodities...and if they did that would be self-defeating because the price would plummet over time because people would find something else to replace the scarce commodities so their holdings would become worthless.

So their prudent management of their economy has given them a cash pile that no one else can rival, and has put them at the mercy of the largest debtor nation on the planet.

<comment><USER13> Its the old "if you owe the bank $10,000 you've got a problem...if you owe the bank $10 million the bank has a problem".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The title is incredibly misleading and relies on understanding what "foreign holders of U.S. Treasury securities" in the description means and placing it in context: it's a small subset to the national debt.

The vast majority of the national debt is actually "owed" to Americans: individual and institutional American investors, the Federal Reserve, the Social Security trust fund, and federal pensions. Only about 37% of the national debt is held by foreign investors.

<comment><USER14> Er, rather, the original title, "Who we owe" was misleading. Apparently I can't edit or delete my comment anymore, even though it was only posted 6 minutes ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Monthly data from the treasury: [http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data- chart-center/ti...](http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt)

Foreign net purchases of US long-term debt: [http://www.treasury.gov/resource- center/data-chart-center/ti...](http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data- chart-center/tic/Documents/snetus.txt)

More info: [http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/ti...](http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/tic/Pages/ticsec.aspx)

Debt held by public is $11.918T.

China owns 10.7% of all treasury debt, Japan 9.5%, and all foreigners hold 46.9%. I imagine we're making the world a little nervous right now.

</comment><comment><USER16> According to Wikipedia, the combined total public debt is $16.805 trillion:

\- Debt held by the public: $11.959 trillion. $5.6 trillion or approximately 47% of the debt held by the public is owned by foreign investors (the discussed article)

\- Intragovernmental holdings: $4.846 trillion

</comment><comment><USER17> isn't "we" in the title a bit US-centric? (realize it's the original page's title, but probably deserves an edit when submitted to an external site like HN)

edit: original title of submission was "Who we owe"

<comment><USER18> Given the cnn.com domain name, I think it's pretty clear who "we" refers to.

<comment><USER19> I honestly assumed that it was an article about who CNN owes money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> When government pays the debt with paper issued as a result of issuing more debt, it's like AAPL paying dividends per share in newly issued shares. In other words, it's de-facto _default_. De-jure it's not because in this case there is no court over U.S. government to proclaim its default.

</comment><comment><USER21> And that's what bankrupcy looks like..:

<comment><USER22> No, bankruptcy would be if we default. Having debt != being bankrupt.

<comment><USER21> This is from last year, but:

The government has an "official" debt of $15.8 trillion and mounting. But wait, there's more. This doesn't include the liability from Social Security and Medicare. When you factor these in, the amount according to some, exceeds $120 trillion. With U.S. Federal tax revenue of just over $2.3 trillion, that puts our debt-to-income ratio somewhere around 5,082%.

<comment><USER23> I don't think that changes the fact that having debt != default.

I have a mortgage for a multiple of my current income, that doesn't mean I'm bankrupt because I'm unable to pay it off right now if demanded by the lender. Same thing with Social Security, if we had to suddenly pay out the entire amount tomorrow to everyone, yes we would be bankrupt but that's not how Social Security (or I would guess 90% or more of our debt securities) work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Conservative economists are constantly wrong but somehow people keep believing them. Where's that runaway inflation that they've been predicting over and over again for years?

In any case, the US cannot default on its debt because it is denominated in US dollars, and we can always print more dollars. That is unless Tea Party extremists force us to jump off that cliff.

<comment> grey-area _In any case, the US cannot default on its debt because it is denominated in US dollars and we can always print more dollars._

There's a name for that solution - it's called a soft default, and it's not a new idea. Clearly there is a limit to this, or politicians wouldn't bother with a budget or taxes at all - they'd just print money as required. It dilutes the value of existing currency and is a dangerous game which is not sustainable. Kingdoms and empires which have devalued their currency (and many have tried) have always paid for it in the end, with interest. It also punishes the poor disproportionately with inflation - which doesn't have to be hyperinflation to be damaging if it is sustained.

So anyone suggesting it should also be suggesting a way to balance the budget and get back to a sane monetary policy. That's not hard though - the US spends a lot on military budgets (much more than any other country in the case of the military), pensions and healthcare. You might argue how to cut and how fast, but there is a lot which could be done if necessary. Printing money is not a solution, it's just a stop-gap to avoid a hard default.

<comment><USER25> Inflation doesn't punish the poor. It punishes the savers.

Balanced budget/deficit/surplus are tools and not goals. When the business don't/can't spend it is the government job to pick up the slack (deficit). And when business is investing it makes sense for the government to not compete for the same capital and labor with the private sector (balanced/surplus).

<comment> grey-area There are different kinds of inflation of course, and if you have high wage inflation then the poor won't really be punished more than others, but asset inflation and the early stages of inflation (as we have seen in this particular crisis) do punish the poor, who in general don't have:

savings in assets other than cash

the flexibility to switch between asset classes to avoid inflation

large assets

large debts secured on assets

On top of that, too much inflation (asset or wage) does hurt everyone just as deflation does, so it is a balancing act, and simply printing more money whenever it is required is not a balanced policy. I don't agree with the current shutdown or manufactured crisis, but that's not an excuse to present money-printing as the magic solution to all government funding problems.

 _Balanced budget /deficit/surplus are tools and not goals_

I disagree with that. It's fine to act in a counter-cyclical way as you have laid out above, and naively aiming for a balanced budget at all times would of course be damaging, but I do think a balanced budget and low inflation should be the explicit long-term goal of governments - otherwise the temptation is always to inflate their way out of difficulty, to start endless wars and never to pay down debts. If a crisis is required to borrow more, they'll invent one to do so.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


FlapIt: A physical counter for all your social accounts - <AUTHOR> https://www.flapit.com/ <comment><USER2> $449.00 are you fucking kidding me

you can build this shit with rapsberry pi and cheap lcd display for under 40 bucks

</comment><comment><USER3> If they made it hackable or released an SDK with a published spec at launch (instead of waiting for the community to reverse engineer it), I would be way more interested and I think a lot of others would too. Prefab digitally addressable flipboards aren't something I've seen.

</comment><comment><USER4> It'd be great to instead get a set of custom icons for the first flap, then you could use it to track anything, like weight loss, 'days since X', consecutive coin flip results, etc

<comment><USER5> there is blank flap especially for that :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.flapit.com/en/api.html](https://www.flapit.com/en/api.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Replicating this idea with a raspberry PI would be a fun project.

</comment><comment><USER7> You could buy an old tablet and do this so much cheaper</comment>


Ask HN: What's the best book on the early history of the Internet and/or Web? - <AUTHOR> Whereby "best" I mean "most pleasing combination of readability, insight, and accuracy" <comment><USER2> The Dream Machine is a good read about the vision of J.C.R. Licklider, a man who instigated the work that led to the internet. It's a very well written book and gives great insight into the pre-web era of networking

Amazon link (non affiliate): [https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732265119](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732265119)

<comment><USER3> Reading this now and agree that it's very well-written.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Where wizards stay up late by katie hafner

Highly readable, don't know about insight, don't know about accuracy.

</comment><comment><USER5> 'Innovators' by Walter Isaacson is pretty great when combined with 'The dream machine' as suggested by others.

</comment><comment><USER6> Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet By Katie Hafner & Matthew Lyon

</comment><comment><USER7> Would be cool if besides the evolution of internet technologies, it also talked about significant events that happened in these various networks. An example could be Linus Torvalds' Usenet posting first announcing Linux.

<comment><USER5> Walter Isaacson's innovators is that book - yes, it refers to that Usenet posting as well :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not strictly what you're asking for, but you might enjoy Microserfs.

<comment><USER9> The copy I own says "Soon to be a movie" I wonder what ever happened to that. I re-read it for the first time since it came out, it aged way better than Gen-X did for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not a book, but a great video via Steve Blank: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo)

</comment><comment><USER9> The Nudist On The Late Shift is a great one.

The Nat Geo TV series "Valley Of The Boom" was on earlier this year, that was entertaining.

</comment><comment><USER11> The Dream Machine by M. Mitchell Waldrop

</comment><comment><USER12> What Will Be - From Old president of MIT

</comment><comment><USER13> Close to the machine by Ellen Ullman</comment>


Silicon Valley a lot like the boring ubersuburban parts of NoVA? - <AUTHOR> http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2007/05/silicon-valley-lot-like-nova.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Ugh. If this is true, it pretty much cements my decision not to move to the area anytime soon.

</comment><comment><USER2> Just move to SF. There's a nightlife and I've seen way too many Segways.</comment>


The Deal on the Table (1994) - <AUTHOR> https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html <comment><USER2> Autodesk stock is up 28x since the "1987 high" mentioned in the article (so that forgone $37M could be $1B now)

[https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ADSK/](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ADSK/)

<comment><USER3> Hindsight is 20/20\. Decisions should only be evaluated based on the information available at the time of the decision. Was Autodesk that successful at the time of that negotiation?

<comment><USER4> > _at the time of these negotiations, generating sales equal to the size of > the deal every month and generating after-tax profits close to the size of > the deal every quarter._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > But, our Distinguished Financial Advisor informed us that this would > constitute ``shopping the deal'' when ``a deal was on the table'' which was > right out by the genteel standards of the venture community

What does this mean?

<comment><AUTHOR> Shopping a term sheet means that when you get an investment offer, you go shop the term sheet around to other VCs to try to get a better offer. As you might expect, VCs don't like that. [http://cdixon.org/2009/09/02/dont-shop-your- term-sheet/](http://cdixon.org/2009/09/02/dont-shop-your-term-sheet/)

<comment><USER6> VCs might not like competition, but maybe it would be good for them!

<comment><USER7> Agreed, Considering the "C" stands for Capitalist, a competitive market shouldn't scare them. IMO they want you to play by their own rules, not "free" market rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would be very interesting to see the evolution of term sheets over the last few decades. The shifting power balance between founders & investors, seeing novel provisions become boilerplate etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cooley and Fenwick track a lot of term sheet trends. See [https://www.fenwick.com/topics/pages/topicsdetail.aspx?topic...](https://www.fenwick.com/topics/pages/topicsdetail.aspx?topicname=vc%20survey) and [https://www.cooleygo.com/trends/](https://www.cooleygo.com/trends/).

The Fenwick reports go back at least a decade. Maybe someone will a lot of free time will put them on a graph someday :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [OT] And since you're there, try their "yoursky" tool:

[https://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/yoursky/)

<comment><USER10> Saying this because I didn't know it for years: Fourmilab isn't a "they", it's just the personal website of John Walker, the founder of Autodesk and a fantastically interesting person. Not to be confused with "fermilab" of course, which is a United States national lab that does high-energy particle physics.

There are a ton of very interesting things on his site, including a DIY RNG that uses a radioactive source and an event counter: [https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/hardware.html](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/hardware.html)

I wonder if anyone else has built a similar device to this, it seems like it'd be very popular among hackers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> the actual date is 1984 not 1994.

<comment><USER12> Yes, there are 2 dates:

1984: the date of the actual events

1994: the date of the online book (4th edition) describing those events: [https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/)</comment></comment>


Do you like agar.io? what about Ninja agar? - <AUTHOR> So, this is what i've done in my free time, it is basically an agar.io clone but with super-powers, levels, and other (maybe) cool features. Check it out and tell me if you like it.<p>http://www.ninjagar.com/ <comment><USER2> I didn't know ninjagar but it looks a so slow and old fashioned.

</comment><comment><USER3> how did you build this? I'm getting like 10 fps on my chrome</comment>


Control your Mac from anywhere in the world - <AUTHOR> https://edovia.com/screens-mac <comment><USER2> Without using it yet, it seems rather convenient - filling the shortcomings I found annoying the last time I used the native remote desktop client.

What strikes me as odd is that the "curtain mode" (that you can't see the remote session on the physical machine) is marked as a feature and isn't the default behavior.

<comment><USER3> For helping people or working together a shared session/screen is quite useful. They both are completely valid for their respective use cases.</comment></comment>


Houston to edge past Chicago as third largest city in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/14/houston-to-edge-past-chicago-as-third-largest-city-in-america.html <comment><USER2> For a dramatic international comparison, consider that the 15th-20th largest cities in China already have populations of greater than 7M: double this forecast to be reached over the next decade in America's 3rd Largest urban area

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_agglomerations_i...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_agglomerations_in_China)

<comment><USER3> The city I am most curious about is Lagos. Estimated to get to 40 million.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If trends continue it COULD be bigger than Chicago in a decade. Maybe.

That's hardly as strong an assertion as the headline implies.

</comment><comment><USER5> Austin looks like it will pass San Jose soon, making 4 of the top 10 cities by population in Texas.

<comment><USER6> Austin's land area is 50% bigger than San Jose

<comment><USER7> Houston is about double Chicago as well. Texas cities are attractive due to space and cost. Austin's average home price, despite being at an all time high, is 1/2 to 1/3 that of San Jose.

<comment><USER6> Yes, the disparity on home prices is what is referred to in economics as a "revealed preference"</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Debug your Android applications remotely on real devices - <AUTHOR> IronLab is happy to announce a FREE beta launch. Deploy, test and debug your Android applications on real devices.
Familiar simulator-like experience with all the benefits of real devices!
Live remote debugging. Real devices. Fully integrated with the tools you use today!
Use familiar tools to develop, test and debug your app! We support all the debugging tools that rely on ADB.
Sign up for a FREE beta! https://www.ironlab.io/ <comment><USER2> Accessing [https://www.ironlab.io/](https://www.ironlab.io/) results in HTTP 503 (Service Unavailable).

<comment><USER3> Works for me, works great actually! Not sure what the catch is with the service being free.

<comment><USER4> For me it loads in Chrome, but in IE11 I only get a blank page.

Perhaps the connection is overloaded. Have you tired using this from a nearby Starbucks instead of the same building?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. Do you guys have any tutorial to read thru?

<comment><AUTHOR> Demo video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGSH1CtM6xU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGSH1CtM6xU) shows how quickly it is to get started.</comment></comment>


Fitbit Raises $43 Million - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/13/fitbit-43m/ <comment><USER2> People are wondering why they'd need to raise so much at this point, so I'll throw in my guess:

The consumer health wearables market is one that exploded recently, but is now at a standstill. We have several companies (Jawbone, Nike, Fitbit) who have been selling well-designed slightly-advanced pedometers for the last few years, and others (eg Basis) that are scheduled to ship similar products very soon. There's been little innovation in this space, but the market is still enormous, and there's a ton of money to be made.

Now considering that the current products are more or less equal, the company that will win in the end is the one that can 1) first get to market with a new innovative product, 2) brand it effectively to appeal to a wider audience, and 3) develop an ecosystem around the product that leads to customer lock-in.

With these points in mind, it may make the $43 million funding round more sensible. Although one could argue that Nike has the R&D resources to out- innovate its competitors, giving them point 1, Fitbit has also been in this game for a long time. Where FitBit is currently winning is their market and ecosystem. They're marketing to a large segment of the population who just wants to develop healthy and happy living, so they push features like calorie logging and sleep tracking -- features that Nike's products lack. Nike's Fuelband, on the other hand, is geared towards a smaller more athletic market. As for ecosystem, Fibit also offers the Aria scale, which can keep track of an entire family's weights, and a whole line of Fitbit trackers geared towards various lifestyles. And for Jawbone, well, they may have the R&D strength to innovate (I don't know), but they haven't been in this game long enough to get a foothold on a segment of the market, or to develop any sort of ecosystem around their product. At this point, there is no other company that's marketing to a wider audience and that offers both the variety in product as well as complementary offerings than Fitbit.

My guess is that investors see that Fitbit is best-positioned to win this race and needed the cash injection to break the stalemate it's currently in with its competitors.

<comment><USER3> > the company that will win in the end is the one that can ... develop an > ecosystem around the product that leads to customer lock-in.

but where should the lines of that ecosystem (for all kinds of custom consumer hardware, from thermostats to pedometers to ...) be drawn? fitbit is definitely making room at the lower end for apps <[https://www.fitbit.com/apps>](https://www.fitbit.com/apps>), but it appears <dev.fitbit.com> they want data to go directly from their hardware to their servers before anyone else's code can touch it.

as a developer, of course, it would be nice to get as close to the hardware as possible. i mean, there's no point in releasing the firmware for hardware like this or that nest thermostat since you probably can't even reprogram the things once they're off the line, but could it make (business) sense to have 3rd-party software talk directly to some of these smart appliances, wearable devices, and the like?

there was an interesting comment on the post about amazon buying the washington post, the gist of which was that business strategy is sometimes more about betting on some particular future and preparing for it rather than trying to build an entire future unilaterally. for amazon, the example was ubiquitous tablets; for google ubiquitous internet .... both of which are looking like pretty safe bets. but not everyone can buy into the table where they're gambling on this whole "internet-thing" panning out or not, so let's say you were going to wager on wearable fitness devices taking off. (final flog of the metaphor) where would you place ㅛyour chips?

<comment><USER4> >> it appears <dev.fitbit.com> they want data to go directly from their hardware to their servers before anyone else's code can touch it.

The way Fitbit works is they push the data down to you whenever it's updated by the device or user.

>> as a developer, of course, it would be nice to get as close to the hardware as possible.

In our case it wasn't desired at all - all we want from the device is the data, which we get from the site. Building wellness products where it's so much easier to have the device automatically upload the phone app (bluetooth transfer) or USB dongle on the users PC. Half your problem is getting people to log into a site every day to record their activity.

Other vendors such as Pebble require the developer to hit an API for the data and their site can be down for days at a time, without so much as a peep out of them. You think as a company they'd want to treat developers better...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How much have they raised so far? According Crunchbase, around 96 million. [http://www.crunchbase.com/company/fitbit](http://www.crunchbase.com/company/fitbit)

This means they need to exit at a 'cool billion' or IPO in order to provide the return their investors are seeking.

I think Fitbit is cool, but 1b for a product that has no demonstrable uniqueness would scare the hell out of me as a founder.

I'd love to know why they went for so much.

<comment><USER6> You say they are not unique, yet cite no competitors. Do you know of any, without googling for it even?

<comment><USER7> Jawbone has a competing product, and even Samsung Galaxy S4's latest phone includes some of the functionality (ie: a pedometer) people look to Fitbit for.

My anecdotal experiences with GS4 vs my Fitbit One shows the Fitbit One to be superior, but I'm more likely to forget my Fitbit than I am to forget my phone.

<comment><USER8> iPhone has an app called Moves which is remarkably accurate ([http://www.moves-app.com/](http://www.moves-app.com/)). I'm getting fairly similar results from my jawbone. I believe the discrepancy is due to the fact that I don't have the phone on me when I'm at home.

<comment><USER9> Moves eats your battery quite a bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gave my dad a fit bit. He now exercises much more.

That's why they are in business.

<comment><USER10> This is such a perfect comment. You completely sum up their business in 11 words.

In the future, I hope they partner with hospitals/medicare to provide fitbits for free. There's immense savings in preventative medicine.

A lot of people don't see the potential for movement trackers beyond counting steps. By looking at the data, you can identify when a person is beginning to get sick or weak before they even feel symptoms.

One such startup working on the data problem: [http://ginger.io/](http://ginger.io/)

<comment><USER11> I'm sure my company is not alone in offering a wellness program with incentives that include reduced health insurance premiums for increased/consistent physical activity and preventive care. How do they know you performed physical activity -- they issue you a pedometer or allow you to connect your Garmin/MapMyFitness/Fitbit/MyFitnessPal/etc account to the program. It's brilliant, and the $0-75/mo employees can save on insurance is a strong motivator, as is the $50/mo gym reimbursement (as long as you connect your account to the wellness system and visit at least 4x/mo), and other perks.

What I would really like to see is an open standard for data formatting, similar to the IPC 2547 CAM-X series of standards for industrial equipment output, so it'd be easy for 1) developers and 2) consumers to shop around without worrying about losing their historical activity information. As you mention, this is a serious consideration for everyone, and it's incredibly annoying to feel locked in just because you can't get your data out (or even better, out and then into the next system). A personal example: I really like Runtastic and I have a couple hundred miles logged over the last few months. However, it's a European company and not nearly as popular in the US as Endomondo, Runkeeper, MapMyFitness and a few others. This means I'm missing out on the social aspect, which itself is a motivator. I'd like to try out some other apps, but I can't import my Runtastic data. Argh. (Runtastic is really great, btw.)

<comment><USER12> > How do they know you performed physical activity -- they issue you a > pedometer or allow you to connect your > Garmin/MapMyFitness/Fitbit/MyFitnessPal/etc account to the program. It's > brilliant, and the $0-75/mo employees can save on insurance is a strong > motivator

I don't like it, and would not participate. Why should someone who is fit and healthy have to carry a tracking chip to avoid a $75/mo fee? Aside from the privacy concern, anyone with 5 minutes to devote to the problem can beat the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe my understanding of a "Startup" is wrong, can someone explain to me how a company founded in 2007 is still considered a startup?

<comment><USER14> Agreed - I once worked for a startup that had been around for 9 years - definitely defeats the purpose. I can't figure out how they raised that much with all the other competitors in the market with much bigger brand awareness - i.e. Nike's fuelband - yes the products differ but in theory do the same.

<comment><USER15> As another person commented, I know far more people with Fitbit's than any other device. They kind of hit a lot of sweet-spots with their product. I do however also know a couple people with the Nike product.

From there down I expect the competitors for those two split the remaining market-share up into tiny bits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have a fitbit and enjoy it. I'd easily buy a second bracelet if it measured pulse or blood pressure periodically throughout the day.

Quantified self FTW.

<comment><USER17> _if it measured pulse or blood pressure periodically_

I'm with you on this suggestion. Though, I would really get excited if a device like this could somehow gather metrics from the blood stream without needing direct access. Pie in the sky, I know.

If pedometers get people to exercise more, I wonder how a real-time cholesterol monitor would change peoples' eating behavior?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love a device like this, but until it understands that cycling is not driving mode, it's pointless for me.

(I think I heard about someone tying it to his shoe when cycling; I'd be interested to know if that kind of thing actually works.)

<comment><USER19> The fitbit one came with this velcro sleep wristband. [http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/10/fitbit...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/10/fitbit- ultra-wristband.jpg)

When I want to ride, I take my fitbit out and put it into the velcro band and tie it around my ankle. It works surprisingly well, registering approximately each pedal stroke as a step. I register around 8,000 steps for a 15-mile bike ride. Since a 15 mile ride is a lot more exercise than 8,000 steps, I'll also mark in the app that I went cycling, and that's that.

<comment><USER20> This is a helluva hackjob, tho...seems like a market opportunity...

<comment><USER18> I agree, a good workaround, but there's an opportunity to get all the fitness geeks who cycle in on the act!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Got myself a Fitbit this month.

Makes me take so much walks. All I want is to fill those 5 little stars to have it rumble on my wrist as if I had a level.

...

Fitness too.

But levels, really. I'm grinding so much.

</comment><comment><USER22> I hope that they use this money to fuel the development of new innovative products. I have a Fitbit One and want to see this company succeed. It seems like Fitbit and Jawbone are going head to head trying to out dazzle and out create each other.

</comment><comment><USER23> Bubble 2.0

<comment><USER24> Life is a bubble too. Who gives?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hope they use this to invest in customer service. I've been infinite-looped on their automated support line three times.

</comment><comment><USER26> If you don't have your fitibit yet, get a 3D preview here! [https://sketchfab.com/show/rtKMNxtTBPh5dA70gdt81nxipgx](https://sketchfab.com/show/rtKMNxtTBPh5dA70gdt81nxipgx)</comment>


Citron reverses opinion on Tesla. The story has become too compelling to ignore - <AUTHOR> https://citronresearch.com/citron-reverses-opinion-on-tesla/ <comment><USER2> Money quote: "Like a magic trick, while everyone is focused on Elon smoking weed, he is quietly smoking the whole automotive industry"

I can't help but wonder if both the weed incident and the 420$-make-Tesla-go- private tweet were actually _planned_ to take looks away from the numbers...</comment>