Show HN: Webpack plugin to prevent loading polyfills when not needed - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/swimmadude66/webpack-nomodule-plugin <comment><USER2> On my case I use [https://polyfill.io](https://polyfill.io) which is a great service returning only what the browser needs by user agent. Some example url I used: [https://cdn.polyfill.io/v2/polyfill.js?features=Element,requ...](https://cdn.polyfill.io/v2/polyfill.js?features=Element,requestAnimationFrame,Number.parseFloat,es6,Promise,Array.prototype.map,Map,Set).

It avoids adding a lot of useless polyfills for up-to-date browsers.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was reading an article about the newest features coming to Angular ([https://blog.ninja-squad.com/2019/01/31/angular- cli-7.3/](https://blog.ninja-squad.com/2019/01/31/angular-cli-7.3/)) and was intrigued by the `nomodule` attribute. However, I do not use the CLI for my Angular projects, so I instead made a plugin to do it for me. It uses `minimatch` to find any files you list as being only needed for older browsers (or IE) and labels them with the nomodule attribute.</comment>


Google Offers Early Stage Startups $100,000 in Cloud Platform Credits for 1 Year - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/12/google-offers-early-stage-startups-100000-in-cloud-platform-credits-for-1-year/

<comment><USER2> dupe:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307341](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8307341)</comment>


"Buckypaper": Revolutionary Paper 10 Times Lighter, 500 Times Stronger Than Steel (VIDEO) - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/20/buckypaper-revolutionary_n_136286.html

<comment><USER2> ugh. it's not impressive to the common man unless you shoot bullets at it or try and blow it up.</comment>


Taiwan Can Win a War with China - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/ <comment><USER2> And if Taiwan has WMD they could throw China into complete and utter turmoil, likely breaking the mainland into 6 or more "kingdoms" once again (were Beijing nuked).

[https://nationalinterest.org/blog/chinas-greatest- nightmare-...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/chinas-greatest-nightmare- taiwan-armed-nuclear-weapons-19661)

Taiwan _does_ have excellent missile technology (there are even rumours that their work is the basis of North Korea's ICBMs).

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, Taiwan will win so long as they keep the US on their side. A couple of carrier battle groups levels the playing field considerably.

I'm surprised that trump hasn't ended the one china policy as part of his general shit stirring.

</comment><comment><USER4> China might choose modern 4th generation warfare and low intensity conflict.

China declares all of Taiwan as a war zone. Missiles are launched at slow pace towards logistics hubs, airfields and harbors. Taiwanese economy starts collapsing. Commercial shipping and air traffic is nonexistent. 5-10 years passes and Taiwan has lost it's economic status and living standards are down. Chinese supported fractions and saboteurs start their operations. Morale is down and internal political conflicts emerge.

</comment><comment><USER5> Taiwan only has a population half the size of california about 25 million and they can beat 1.39 billion? they'll need to kill 59 Chinese each. I really don't like those odds nor this continued red army paranoia.

Also this site lists China as having less than a million in military might yet the [https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength- de...](https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength- detail.asp?country_id=china) says their current active military is over 2m

<comment><USER6> "...their current active military is over 2m"

Yes and that doesn't even count how many brainwashed citizens China has who believe anything they read in the government controlled media, who think they know all about Taiwan and have strong, confident, opinions based on ignorance.

They could easily marshal a few more million volunteers if they wanted to.</comment></comment>


Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/literary-fiction-in-crisis-as-sale-drop-dramatically-arts-council-england-reports <comment><USER3> The negativity here about Literary fiction is interesting. A lot of people implying that readers don't enjoy it or that it's elitist or a status symbol etc...

I think it's important to accept that there is a group of people - <USER2> small - that love reading literary fiction. It's not reasonable to assume bad faith, just because you can't see the merit in something. There maybe people that use it as a means of identifying with a group and not out of genuine passion or interest - but that is true of every group. You always have people who attach themselves in this way: programming and tech world are a classic case.

Anyway just because something seems esoteric does not mean the person iis not enjoying it. We all have radically different needs, experiences and interests. And it's OK. Anyone who thinks that because they read literary fiction they are superior in some way is foolish certainly. On the other hand they may quite reasonably say that they consider one form of fiction to be aesthetically superior: that is the nature of aesthetics - we all get our say.

<comment><USER4> > there is a group of people - perhaps small

Right, but this post is not about the vanishing of Literary fiction from the face of the earth.

A merely shrinking market is obviously consistent with the idea that some (or much) of it formerly sold to people who weren't _really_ enjoying spending hours with a genre almost defined by not having much in the way of story or ideas, which in turn is consistent with the hypothesis that part of the market was sustained by status signaling.

<comment><USER3> I think again to say "defined by not having much in the way of stories or ideas" is a level of dismissal that suggests something stronger than mere indifference. A lot of people have bad early experiences with literary fiction and I'd agree that when it's bad, it's the worst. But when it's good it can be exceptional. It also does not preclude strong stories, or idea driven stories. Of course a great deal of it is about capturing subjective human experience in a way that - when it fails for a reader - leaves them with nothing. But when it works it can be incredible.

Generally what I find is that once peoplelike a work of literary fiction they no longer think of it as "literary" \- they sort see it in a category of its own.

<comment><USER5> Most of people who dismiss that category of books this way do it out of prejudice and never read them. It is no different then rejecting SF as stupid without ever bothering to read much of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Arts Council England: "we are saying that there is something so unique and important and necessary and fundamental about literary fiction in particular, that we need to focus on it and support it."

Yeah, right. Because navel-gazing is the only thing in literature worth supporting. We'd have fewer problems in the world if more people read (and appreciated) _science fiction_.

ACE, I make a gesture of contempt in your direction.

<comment><USER7> Why do you consider literary fiction "navel-gazing" and why is SF that important?

As a side note, one of the books they give as an example is _The Time Traveller 's Wife_, which involves "a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel unpredictably", which certainly sounds like an SF-y premise.

<comment><USER8> There's a strong status separation between SF and literary fiction. If you get someone to read SF that has literary merit, they'll try to tell you afterwards that it wasn't SF.

<comment><USER9> The lack of vehicles for SF delivery have at times impeded literary acceptance and broader adoption -- take H.P. Lovecraft for instance, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Literary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Literary)

Format adaptations have catapulted some great SF into the pop culture stardom:

The War of the Worlds was published in 1898, and though looked upon favorably, it is rarely mentioned today without also mentioning the 1938 radio broadcast.

The Wizard of Oz (Baum 1900) is more famous for its 1939 film.

In more modern times, Johnny Mnemonic (1995 film from "Burning Chrome", Gibson 1986), Snowpiercer (2013 film from "Le Transperceneige", Lob and Rochette 1982), and The Martian (2015 film from "The Martian", Weir 2011) have all increased SF visibility through film adaptations.

Without format shift, would general SF readers have pursued these works independent from the film? Probably. Would these works have entered pop culture and have been sought by the everyman, even the ones who don't routinely buy books or enjoy reading? Less likely.

<comment><USER8> Many of the works that have received the most cultural success have been science fiction.

Of the five top grossing films, Avatar and Jurassic World are very clearly science fiction, Star Wars and The Avengers are arguably science fiction. It's only Titanic that couldn't be claimed to be science fiction.

The situation is probably similar for TV Series too.

The status problems of science fiction are arguably related to its extreme popularity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Point is if we lose humanities and its highest expressions, we lose the historical and progressive enlightment how it came for societies more and more complex, in that reverting to simpler, mechanical, narrower, fundamentally brutal models. Less Facebook, then, more sophisticated novels, even the opportunity to choose them when we need them would be good enough.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have understood some drop in fiction book sales to be caused by the wind-up of the Harry Potter series in 2007. A 2011 article from The Guardian (Datablog section, author uncredited) linked to this spreadsheet of Harry Potter book sales numbers: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C6QriM1aMBd5Ab6Tn7hn...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1C6QriM1aMBd5Ab6Tn7hn2SzrveVnw0-u4pabuj- nP80/edit?usp=sharing)

Is Rowling's Potter part of Literary Fiction? The report states "We therefore leave the definition of what literary fiction is, open. [...] What it definitely is not, for our purposes, is poetry or plays. We are looking at fiction." Which causes me to believe it does fall within their definition.

<comment><USER11> Literary fiction as opposed to genre fiction. Literary fiction consists of pointless books about the middle class, by the middle class; genre fiction is everything else.

<comment><USER12> Here's a quote from a bestselling non-fiction work, "Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding."

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure that the Jubilee Bible was best selling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> "A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." -Kafka

John Le Carre, Salman Rushdie, John Banville, Anthony Horowitz. All had superlative novels out this year.

Also just started Francis Spufford's Golden Hill. Absolutely sublime way to spend a snow bound winter night.

The crisis is obviously in readership. Not writing. And the chaotic divergence of attention.

It may be true that the text no longer acts as Bildungsroman. The primary method to impart moral and spiritual character to young influence-able minds.

But then the Mountain must come to Muhammad. And the great works rendered as digital classics.

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

</comment><comment><USER15> My wife enjoys literary fiction and I enjoy reading scifi (most recently Chinese scifi). We spend quite a bit of money on new eBooks, books, and audible books.

Everyone gets to decide what they enjoy and how they spend their time. I generally enjoy good writing and good movies over spending time with miscellaneous web browsing and network TV. I have friends and family who love watching TV or hanging out on Facebook and that is fine because everyone gets to decide how they spend their time.

It is important to me that producers of great content get paid so even though I enjoy spending time in my local library, I prefer to purchase entertainment material.

</comment><comment><USER16> I find it quite strange that literary fiction in particular is sinking when other kinds of fiction seems to be increasingly in a boom. Romance ebooks are taking off, for example. I wonder if it isn't possible that these literary authors couldn't move their work to electronic mediums like, well, Medium.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't know what "literary fiction" is, exactly. I suspect that, for the most part, it's been a status symbol. Back in the day, one needed copies of the latest stuff on tables and shelves. But on Facebook, one can fake it, based on Goodreads etc. No dead trees needed.

<comment><USER18> Around one in five, one in four books were bought with no intention of reading. On one hand that's a lot of faking, on on other, the other three fourths is much more and not fake. (Source: Editors I knew, over alcoholic beverages.)

EDIT: "Were", not "are", because I've lost touch in the past years and don't know how it is nowadays. Sales have dropped, the audience may have too. (Still see gorgeous women in the bookshops though.)

<comment><USER19> I have no idea how many books are bought just for show, but why would being an editor provide you with insight into the numbers? How could they know?

<comment><USER18> Editors talk at parties, just like everyone else. If you're invited to a publishing house's christmas party you'll chitchat and learn factoids like that one. (You may also meet your future wife. I did.)

As to how they'd know: Editors are the people who effectively decide what books are published. Their income depends on their insight into customer behaviour. Wouldn't you try to learn why books are bought?

<comment><USER19> I asked how they are supposed to know. Saying that their job depends on insight into customers isn't explaining how they know. The only explanation you provide is: from taking to people at parties. I fail to see how that is supposed to provide insight into how many books purchased by the public at large are bought with no intention of being read.

Let's consider the problem. Presumably the majority of people who buy books that they have no intention of ever reading would never admit to that fact. How do you then figure out the numbers of such purchases? (Remember that the comment I originally replied to gave specific figures). How does being an editor somehow give you any meaningful insight into those figures?

<comment><USER18> I suppose I'd better ask. Look here again in a day or two, please.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Should antivirus vendors block state malware? - <AUTHOR> http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1663

<comment><USER2> For those that don't know, the man quoted, Mikko Hypponen is a really smart guy, and completely wrong.

Antivirus solves a specific problem: compliance. AV demonstrates that you're taking steps to reduce the likelihood of you infecting another person's computer. In our experience at Mandalorian, Antivirus has roughly a 20-40% success rate at stopping malware. That's a wide margin, but still the wrong side of 50%. To put things into perspective, in the past several hundred penetration tests, there has not been one where the AV stopped our attack, subsequent compromise or persistence mechanisms. Let me clarify:

In the past 18 months the total number of simulated attacks by us on customer engagements that have been stopped by Antivirus is: 0.

I'm fairly confident that we've never had an AV stop us, but I don't have data going that far back. Now if that's what a commercial penetration testing outfit can do, what can governments do?

There's no real such thing as 'state malware' per se (well there is, but I'll come to that in a minute). When defending against state level attack you need to understand your adversary and their capabilities. A government attacking you or another government is not a technology, it's a threat group. They will have a specific goal in mind and it's up to you to identify it and defend accordingly.

Now assume that to develop something like Stuxnet is expensive. A government is going to require a lot of resources to create ordinance to use in these attacks. They'll start with things like metasploit because if they can get in with that they don't risk blowing their own code. Then you'll start seeing zero day exploits, botnet toolkits and more before you start seeing specifically developed targeted code.

The reason is simple - it takes months to develop the attack and the exploits and persistence are a massive part of that. If you can detect it, block it and share the indicators, that work is now burnt.

Antivirus vendors are not targeting that space (or if they are, they won't win - unless they're receiving the indicators of compromise, also known as IoCs).

<comment><USER3> AV != IDS. Goal of the AV is to stop known malware from propagating.

Goal of the IDS is to detect (or block) attacks (or your penetration tests).

<comment><USER2> The AV should detect the code I'm using to maintain persistence as malware, no? When I change permissions on a section of memory so I can inject into a process it should pick it up, right? What about the driver I uploaded and installed to do it? After all, any AV worth it's salt does disk and memory scans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes. The hole that the state malware use couldn't be kept secret, therefore it's not safe to not patch everything. Plus, the state has no right to free access to our computers without warrants. There are many sides to this argument.

</comment><comment><USER5> The answer to this seems obvious to me: much like a lawyer, the interests of a security vendor must align with those of its customers, even when some of those customers might be doing bad things.</comment>


Node.js modules you should know about: everyauth - <AUTHOR> http://www.catonmat.net/blog/nodejs-modules-everyauth/

<comment><USER2> Passport (<http://passportjs.org/>) is worth investigating as an alternative to everyauth. Its primary advantage is a modular architecture focused solely on authentication, which is fully decoupled from routing and template engines. Many people find this approach more flexible and easier to integrate.

(Disclaimer: I'm the developer of Passport.)

<comment><USER3> Nice. I'll take a look at that. my big beef with everyauth has been my frustration with trying hooking into its pipeline where it is simply doing too much.

<comment><USER2> That was my frustration too. I think you'll find Passport solves it nicely. Ping me anytime with feedback or questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Direct Github link: <https://github.com/bnoguchi/everyauth>

</comment><comment><USER5> Definitely starring this for future reference, may come in handy as node.js gets more popular. Thanks!</comment>


Google TV: No Need to Tune In Just Yet - <AUTHOR> http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20101117/google-tv-review/ <comment><USER2> I'm not disagreeing that Google TV doesn't need some work, but if you look at the other articles by the author, you can see a distinct pro-Apple theme: <http://ptech.allthingsd.com/>

\- Google TV: No Need to Tune In Just Yet

\- Samsung's Galaxy Tab Is iPad's First Real Rival

\- MacBook Air Has the Feel of an iPad in a Laptop

\- Microsoft's New Windows Phone 7: Novel But Lacking

\- Mac Users Are Getting New Outlook From Rival

\- Finding the Best Way to Read Books on an iPad

And in "A Fall Guide: How to Pick Your Next Computer":

"If you're looking for a light-duty, highly portable computer, it's worth considering the iPad, which starts at $499, instead of a small laptop."

Walt tries to be unbiased, but he just isn't.</comment>


Qualcomm rejects Broadcom's $103B takeover proposal - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-qualcomm-m-a-broadcom/qualcomm-rejects-broadcoms-103-billion-takeover-proposal-idUSKBN1DD1NU?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social <comment><USER2> > the Board has concluded that Broadcom's proposal dramatically undervalues > Qualcomm and comes with significant regulatory uncertainty

Qualcomm's stock took a dive since Apple (25% of their revenue) said they might not need them for their next models. They're probably gonna wait to bounce back.

<comment><USER3> Isn't there a big lawsuit between Qualcomm and Apple pending?

<comment><USER4> There are many lawsuits and trade dispute filings pending from both sides. Qualcomm is also under anti-competitive practice investigations in a number of places.

It's going to take years to sort out and will cost a lot - stock has already tanked 2x what Apple's lost revenue was worth, so the market thinks this is not only more damaging than currently told, but also that they won't recover

I can't see them surviving years without being taken over

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Well, the board rejects it, but the shareholders can still sell, no? Hostile takeovers have worked in the past, e.g. Oracle's acquisition of PeopleSoft.

<comment><USER6> I cant see it happening. Most of the large share holders (largest is 2%) are index funds and EFT's.

<comment><USER7> I don't really know, but it isn't impossible to do a takeover when index funds own a lot. If ISS is on the side of the acquirer, the index funds are likely to go with what they say.

<comment><USER8> I'm actually a bit surprised that they don't just abstain, so that their vote doesn't count. I mean, if you're going to be a passive investor, actually be passive. Voting in favor of the management or ISS all the time is not passive.

<comment><USER9> I'm just confused at what the International Space Station has to do with it? (Yes, I DDG'd (duck duck go'ed) ISS, guessing it is some trade association or society, but I came up with International Space Station, and a very long list of other possibilities).

<comment><USER8> Wikipedia's disambiguation page is typically want you want in scenarios such as this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_%28disambiguation%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISS_%28disambiguation%29)

Near the bottom of the list, you'll find "Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy advisory firm":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Shareholder_Serv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Shareholder_Services)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would have been probably been rejected by anti-trust regulators.

<comment><USER11> what makes you think so? I mean it should be, but I don't think the govt is currently being run by a sane administration.

<comment><USER12> Are Qualcomm and Broadcom subjected to EU antitrust laws when it comes to acquisitions? Or just limited to when one side is registered in a EU country?

<comment><USER13> Effectively both are in all jurisdictions because they sell their parts globally. So, the EU certainly would be able to reject the acquisition.

<comment><USER14> What does that mean if the EU rejects it? They are American companies, no? If the US doesn't reject it, why can't they merge? Or can they, but the EU rejection means they can't sell things in the EU or other ramifications?

It's curious to me because China does multiple things that wouldn't be allowed in the EU. Like working far too closely with the government can be allowed for Chinese companies, but mergers between them can still be rejected by the EU?

<comment><USER5> The landmark case is the GE-Honeywell merger, which the EU blocked after the US DoJ had already approved. In it, the Commission said they had the authority it involved at least two "companies with a combined turnover worldwide in excess of €5,0 billion and European sales of at least €250 million".

I'm not sure what would be the procedure if they went ahead anyway, but when you control €500M+ in sales in your jurisdiction, you have a strong position.

<comment><USER15> Great article for anyone interested.[1]Thanks for making me aware of this.

[1][http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,166732,...](http://content.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,166732,00.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since QCOM hasn't given back the 13% pop the offer provided, it seems shareholders are expecting BRCM to come back with another, higher offer.

<comment><USER17> AVGO and yes most expected Qualcomm to reject the offer to solicit superior ones. This isn't news to anyone, but rather a formality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Bad move by Qualcomm. Now is the best time to cash out. Apple, Samsung and LG have been working on their own chips, and will have no need to go through Qualcomm in the next 1-2 years. Seems like ego is getting in the way of the solid decision making

<comment><USER19> Qualcomm just released a server chip, broaching a new market for them. And that chip is a serious pain in the ass for Intel. Why would they want to be bought by Avago, which itself divested of Broadcom's Arm server effort earlier (which recently launched as well anyway!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How many competitive LTE chipset manufacturers exist?

<comment><USER14> Does anyone know who would be making the chipsets that come after LTE? Do patents for each round of network technologies change which companies make them? Or does it stay the same?

Really, I'm wondering what happens whenever 5G or whatever comes after 4G/LTE comes around. And in how long approximately that will be.

<comment><USER21> > Does anyone know who would be making the chipsets that come after LTE?

Even if some competitors will make 5G chipsets, they still will have to build in everything from good ol' GSM over EDGE over HSxPA to 4G in addition, because what use is a phone (or IoT gadget!) that only works in major urban areas where 5G deployments will happen first? All this will have to incorporate Qualcomm patents at the least, and most likely also Qualcomm chipsets.

Hell when I drive to the German country side I more often than not only have EDGE, and the situation in developing countries is even more dire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It would be more surprising if they had accepted.

</comment><comment><USER23> Negotiations 101, always reject the first offer?

</comment><comment><USER24> I want them to merge just so the resulting company can be called BroadQual.

<comment><USER25> Nah, they'll probably "rebrand in order to harmonize on multiple vectors of international brand awareness and leverage strategic synergy among incipient blue-ocean markets" or some such, and then hire a bunch of high-priced consultants who will come up with something inspired like:

"Inprise"[1]

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland#The_Inprise_years.2C_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borland#The_Inprise_years.2C_and_name_changes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Qualcomm did the right thing.

Avago Corp. now called Broadcom run by that Monkey man Tan will ruin Qualcomm into bits and pieces. Just like how Broadcomm was ruined, back then the key people left & by selling tons of IP slashing $300M off the same fate will happen to Qcomm, first they will strip off the mega Patents which Qcomm holds and sell them off to offset this $103Bn. Because that Tan is interested in the NXP only due to the massive Automotive and IoT treasure ([https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1332...](https://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1332555&))

Surpisingly this is where Apple comes. Apple's iPhone's chipsets have tons of Broadcom tech and they share ties with them, Apple may even buy them, Slowly the Android will die because no other corp apart from Qcomm manages the OSS SRC development, CAF and XDA development speak for themselves. For the better or worse, Qcomm is the ONLY leader in the OSS SoC game. Period.

Because Intel doesn't do that and they retired after the Z3000 series powered ZenFone2 which has great processing at CPU with x86 for Android but poor SGX GPU from Imagination Technologies & total lack of drivers and documentation made no OEM to opt for Intel.

Exynos (Samsung's) focus shifted when past Exynos powered SII, SIII was the last. Now the cat and mouse game happens with their Knox lockdown on the Note5+ phones.

Mediatek is not even worth considering they are anti-GPL, HiSilicon (Huawei's) Kirin is in the same page as Exynos, Open Kirin is only a try to grab XDA attention and budget game. Because once you make the chipset with Neural Engine which will be under closed doors (NPU in Mate 10, Kirin 970) it won't be like Tensor Flow at all. Forget the OSS development under it.

Xiaomi doesn't bode well either with their super long 3-6mo wait times for kernel src drop they don't even stand a chance against the Qcomm's Snapdragon SoCs and their CAF in both performance or the Open nature. (Read- [https://www.xda-developers.com/gplv2-and-its-infringement- by...](https://www.xda-developers.com/gplv2-and-its-infringement-by-xiaomi/))

Also Qcomm is responsible to destroy the SD80x platform off support due to the CTS check for vulkan driver and lack of Nougat (Android 7.x) Reason ? Because these Corporates don't want to trust the OEMs, and provide all documentation, If it leaks their IP is at stake of imitation, security issues. It's a dangerous game. (Read- [https://www.xda-developers.com/in-depth-capitulation- of-why-...](https://www.xda-developers.com/in-depth-capitulation-of-why- msm8974-devices-are-excluded-from-nougat/))

And also Pixel, it's way worse now with removal of Accesibility services threat (Read - [https://www.xda-developers.com/google-threatening-removal- ac...](https://www.xda-developers.com/google-threatening-removal- accessibility-services-play-store/)) & ([http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/11/12/google-will- remove-p...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/11/12/google-will-remove-play- store-apps-use-accessibility-services-anything-except-helping-disabled- users/)) ([https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/7c4go5/is_google_p...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/7c4go5/is_google_play_really_going_to_suspend_all_apps/))

Removal of overlay over other apps (Read - [https://www.xda- developers.com/android-o-is-breaking-apps-th...](https://www.xda- developers.com/android-o-is-breaking-apps-that-overlay-on-top-of-the-status- bar/)) Removal of granular battery stats (Read - [http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/22/android-o-feature- sp...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/22/android-o-feature-spotlight- granular-battery-usage-system-level-items-services-gone/)) their new Pixel's Visual core is made by Intel (Read - [https://www.xda-developers.com/google- intel-pixel-visual-cor...](https://www.xda-developers.com/google-intel-pixel- visual-core-chip/)) and the functions it offers so far on the 8.x DP is just 2 (Read-[https://www.xda-developers.com/developers-cant-test-hdr- pixe...](https://www.xda-developers.com/developers-cant-test-hdr-pixel-visual- core-android-8-1/))

So basically Google is now becoming Apple #2, with slamming doors infront of developers, Headphone jack fiasco, Overpriced trashware iPixels, also they have a secure Element chip + A/B system making TWRP issues...(Read - [https://www.xda-developers.com/magisk-v14-4-root- pixel-2-xl-...](https://www.xda-developers.com/magisk-v14-4-root-pixel-2-xl- su/))

And coming back Qcomm did every innovation and acquired Patents legally for more than $25Bn, Most of them include 4G/LTE and 5G R&D having a lead over Intel/Mediatek by 20Months but they are raising price for that chip or license deals & as Apple wa earning a lot over the iPhones, Qcom license works per phone profit basis. So they started this war against Qcomm since they are not new to kill off the ones who have higher revenue as their producer-customer relationship like GT Adv tech ( Read - [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gt- advanced-tech-bankrupt...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gt-advanced- tech-bankruptcy-apple/gt-advanced-says-fell-victim-to-bait-and-switch-by- apple-idUSKBN0IR2G220141107)), Imagination Tech (Apple's so called inhouse GPU is nothing but Imagination's IP after poaching a few of the key people they decided to drop ball Read - [https://www.anandtech.com/show/11243/apple- developing-custom...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/11243/apple-developing- custom-gpu-dropping-imagination/2)) have Intel,which are inferior to the X16/20 modems at just 600Mbps vs Qcomm's 1.2Gpbps downlink.

Apple vs Qualcomm started long back, dating back to 2007 and WiMax threat to Qualcomm, (Read this - [https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332242](https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1332242)) but now Qcomm gets razed due to the Apple's global domination. Plus NXP antitrust scrutiny. Unless they get that NXP, Apple will continue to blaze them & Broadcom too.

This is what Apple does to industry, I suspect wearing my Tin Foil hat, They pressed Broadcom of this deal on Qualcomm, now even Huawei is dropping royalities for Qualcomm and SKTC asking to renegotiate Qcomm IP licensing it's a mess, because despite the Qcomm's nature of Patent wars they are the only OE who support OSS which is most crucial aspect nowadays regarding a smartphone vs Planned obsolescence.

Ultimately Broadcom is dangerous. NXP deal should move else Qcomm will lose money due to Apple war and there are ton looming around..& remember vote with wallet.

</comment><comment><USER27> 103BN is more than a GDP of entire countries. This is just mind blowing.

<comment><USER28> GDP is a measure of everything produced in a country per _year_. It makes no sense to compare the value of a company with growth per year.

<comment><USER29> Of course you can compare a rate with a quantity. GP is saying that whole countries take more than a year to create one (proposed) Qualcomm's worth of value.

Have you never compared your car's gallon-per-mile rate of fuel consumption with its gas tank's size in gallons?

<comment><USER30> I haven't. The operation I suspect you're thinking of is division, not comparison. Division of capacity by consumption gives range, whilst a comparison leaves me scratching my head for a meaningful interpretation. I'm afraid this analogy appears to reinforce the point rather than challenge it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I thought Qualcomm had better revenues?</comment>


What the Industrial Revolution Tells Us about the Future of Automation - <AUTHOR> https://cacm.acm.org/news/220768-what-the-industrial-revolution-really-tells-us-about-the-future-of-automation-and-work/fulltext <comment><USER2> >specifically the Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries – did not lead to major social upheaval or widespread suffering.

Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries led to massive social upheaval. Average height of Englishman decreased before started to increase (based on military records). Workers started to organize, skulls were cracked. People were shot in the streets. Armies were ordered to kill workers. There were bloody civil wars and revolutions.

Industrial revolution was not possible without massive social change that created, land reforms, working class, middle class and increased private consumption and accumulation of capital. It was at times bloody, but in the Western Europe and North America continuity of government was maintained. Not so in Soviet Union or China.

Anti-Union violence, Union violence (union busting) communist violence, anticommunist violence was pretty intense at time even when the society as whole worked.

Let's use US as an example of well managed industrialization and social upheaval with small number of casualties. We can still list numerous conflicts with 10-100 deaths: The Molly Maguire trials (20 workers executed), Battle of Virden, 1898 Colorado labor war,Italian Hall disaster, Ludlow massacre, Thibodaux Massacre, Pullman Strike, West Virginia Coal Wars, Rock Springs massacre, 1905 Chicago Teamsters' strike, Steel Strike of 1919, The Herrin Massacre, 1922, Battle of Blair Mountain, Hanapēpē massacre, Harlan County War, Memorial Day massacre of 1937.

Future of Automation will create wealth and prosperity beyond all our dreams, but it requires massive political struggle that settles issues like privacy, rent seeking, ownership of personal information.

Violence in the street may be positive sign that automation is finally changing our society.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I struggle with this squaring this disruption with a generally libertarian economic stance. If we truly are at the edge of a disruption that will make the vast portion of workers under or unemployed, what does that mean in terms of social stability and survival for those people?

<comment><USER4> The libertarian would say that if the general public gets access to advanced robotics then there will be enormous prosperity. For example, imagine if you could buy a robot that would survey your backyard, order equipment from amazon, start planting food, set up irrigation, harvest and deliver it to a neighbors automatically? Free locally grown food for everyone. Now, isn't that awesome? You could also rent a robot that would find water, dig wells, trench, put in pipes, etc. The possibilities are endless to take PRODUCTION of goods out of the hands of specialized highly capitalized organizations and into the hands of anybody who can rent a robot.

The problem is is that a robot this advanced could also be used for very sophisticated bad purposes, so you're going to have lots of regulation and big corporations will only be able to use these robots and you'll have to buy things they produce with whatever meager wages they let you have.

<comment><USER5> How do you pay for the robot if you're not working?

<comment><USER4> Just take out a loan. The food cost savings and excess production will pay for the loan and they can repo the robot if you don't pay. The robot will even be able to tell you if it's likely to be cash flow positive.

<comment><USER6> Only people working would qualify for a loan. Those people would have more prosperity until the robots cratered all wages and prices, being free labor and flooding the market with excess.

When the prices crash a large number of people with robots will be unable to pay back the loan. Their robots will be repossessed. They will now be out of a job and with no robot.

The poor would get left over food from the kindness of people with robots? They'll certainly never work again.

<comment><USER4> The robot will properly buy futures contracts so that the borrower will be insulated from any food price fluctuations. If the numbers don't add up the lender will not make the loan. There will not be any "overproduction". The robots will instead recommend another line of business where the robots production will be profitable given the price of market futures for those products.

I have an American friend who lives in Argentina who works online. The cost of living is such that he can work two months and pay his living expenses for two years. Those horribly low prices in Argentina are totally killing him. Not!

So what you are saying is the disaster is there will be so much food that people won't be able to eat it all and the prices will crash? Imagine if everybody had unlimited amounts of everything they wanted! How would we support prices?

This kind of thinking reminds me of the great depression where they would destroy food to keep up prices even as people were starving.

BTW, The novella "Manna" by Marshall Brain is kind of a good take on the future with robots and everything, though I don't really like his "happy" future.

BTW, thanks for giving me a hard time on this. I am getting to the point where this is going to be a bit of a manifesto and you're helping me flesh things out.

<comment><USER6> I'll be interested to see if any manifesto can plot a path through societies looming issues. I don't see a scenario where we can maintain our current style of capitalism without things breaking down in one way or another.

You're friend in Argentina:

* has the ability to get a job from home, which means it's probably a tech/outsourcing job in a first world country. That doesn't take care of 95% of the population. That doesn't fix the issues.

* In the robot scenario where robots are smart enough to understand markets/futures and can decide a completely different line of work, and then do that work, those remote jobs are gone. Your friend is out of work. He doesn't get a robot.

* the company that hires him has to compete for resources in their country of origin. Their local pay requirements determine what they think a "good deal" on labor is. That country would have robots as well and their wages would crater. Again your friend's cush life would disappear, unless he could buy a robot.

>what you are saying is the disaster is there will be so much food that people won't be able to eat it all and the prices will crash? Imagine if everybody had unlimited amounts of everything they wanted! How would we support prices?

Now you are getting to the root of the issue.

We produce enough food in the US that nobody should go hungry, yet we have swaths of kids that don't know where their next meal is coming from.

We have enough abandoned houses that nobody should be homeless, but people still live on the streets.

In capitalism, a private person/entity produces and someone else has to PAY to use what's produced. The issue isn't that there won't be enough to go around. The issue is that our current system will allow lots of people to starve and do without even when there is excess.

You used the term libertarian. That might be why you're getting all the push back. Maybe I'm misinformed on the topic. Libertarians believe an unregulated market and human morality will make everything better. Those two things combined gave us the triangle trade, raw goods (America) --> manufactured goods (Europe) --> slaves (Africe). We also got child labor, poisonous food being sold, no education, life threatening work conditions, etc.

>This kind of thinking reminds me of the great depression where they would destroy food to keep up prices even as people were starving

Being against this strategy is the antithesis of capitalism. If I give away food, prices drop. If I reduce the supply then prices will go up.

During the great depression, prices dropped so low that all farmers were going to go bankrupt. Farmers themselves were dumping crops and rioting to keep crops off the market to try and increase prices. Farmers were marching on courts because they were demanding that foreclosures stop.

If you let farmers flood the market with goods (lowering prices), while allowing them to refuse to pay their debts, then what kind of economy do you have? It's not capitalism.

My concern is that the coming wave of automation will recreate the great depression x10. The population at large doesn't see it coming, and maybe I'm a chicken little. 30% of the US population think poor people are just lazy, and that if they just worked harder they'd be better off.

When automation comes full force, then our economic and political system will change. The question is what will it change to, and what will the transition look like. There's a happy path and a bloody path.

<comment><USER5> >When automation comes full force, then our economic and political system will change. The question is what will it change to, and what will the transition look like. There's a happy path and a bloody path.

This is what I keep harping on with folks. I think automation will hit and hit hard and our current economic/political structures are not ready for it or won't be able to adapt fast enough (hence your depressionx10 or just a massive inequality gap).

We already have 'more productive' economies but we have stagnant wage growth, increasing rental/housing costs due to people leaving for cities since there are little/no economic prospects in rural areas now, and, as you said, logistical problems in fulfilling basic necessities. Not to mention mental models that say that these 'unemployed' folks are bad and should just retrain/go to bootcamp/move elsewhere.

Consumption-wise, we can buy whatever we want. Shitty food is cheap, electronics, etc, all cheap. But some of the base foundations in Maslow's hierarchy don't come very cheap anymore and it's harder and harder to get to the higher reaches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's amazing how this keeps coming up and people keep try to make these arguments that there isn't really much to worry about in the long run, without looking at this from the right perspective.

18th and 19th century didn't replace humans it replaced either animals or mechanisms (water-mills) or laborious human physical processes.

The replacement we are looking at today is about replacing not just the solutions of the 18th and 19th century but about replacing human laborious intellectual processes.

In the 18th and 19th century you could still point to the human mind and say well at least they can't do that.

But this is now an argument that is becoming less and less true.

What a lot of people who try to claim automation isn't doing anything to jobs forget that most jobs doesn't actually require the whole human being they only require parts of what a human can do. A job is a function in a process even some of those who seem to require the whole human (like experts)

The real way to look at this is too look at what types of jobs requires general human intelligence and which ones require specialized human knowledge or intelligence and what we find is that the cleaning lady is more likely to keep her job for a while while the radiologis function in the process of detection can be compressed into much fewer (and almost none in the long run) people.

And compression is IMO the right way to think about the job market and why it's going to be less and less an area that humans are going to have any dealing with.

In other words automation is about replacing higher and higher levels of abstractions. I don't know of any level beyond human intellect and that is why you can't make comparison with 18th or 19th century progress.

The last people to listen to IMO are the economist as they treat technology as an externality when it's really at the core the job market discussion.

Sure we might end up in some post scarcity society but getting there needs serious attention as it affects how we tax, where we tax, who we tax and to what extent.

Currently politicians listen to economist, they need to listen to technologist way more.

<comment><USER8> The importance of human intelligence to a functioning economy is overrated.

Humans are social animals; we are each interested in ourselves, and interested in each other. It was true before we developed intelligence and it remains true today. We want to be healthy, socially connected, and entertained; we can never get enough of those. And they can't be automated--a robot can't be healthy for you, or feel emotions for you.

There is no reason to doubt that an economy that is 30% health care, 30% social communications, 30% entertainment, and 10% everything else, can work. Or even an economy that is 99% entertainment, and 1% everything else. Comparing today to even just 200 years ago, we're already well on our way.

<comment><USER9> "[...] a robot can't be healthy for you, or feel emotions for you."

You're right of course, but you're not addressing an actual argument. No one is saying that.

What people are talking about are AI's replacing _doctor 's_ and other health care professionals, replacing _Hollywood_ and the rest of the entertainment industry, etc.

We as consumers could still be consuming all of these things, but that says nothing about who is producing it.

<comment><USER8> You can't replace Hollywood with AI because the whole point of entertainment is that it is about humans. You have to have humans making entertainment or it is not entertaining.

I'll give you an example: people still watch bicycle racing. We all know a motorcycle is more advanced technology that could easily beat any human on a bike. So what did we do? We invented rules out of thin air that exclude motorcycles, just so that we can keep watching humans agonizingly grind their way up a mountain on a bike. Because we find that entertaining.

There's motorcycle racing too of course but again--who's on the back of the motorcycle?

A long-held concern is that we'll get rid of all the old jobs, but no new jobs will be created. My point is that even in an economy in which all physical needs are provided for free, there will still be plenty of reasons to create new jobs.

<comment><USER7> You are mixing two things together. Entertainment is not a job its largely based on its ability to entertain and fewer and fewer make money in the industry.Already today large parts of hollywood has been and is being replaced. The bicycle sport is there because humans like to compete but it has nothing to do with a job, people will do it for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Quoting from the OP:

 _Many economists say there is no need to worry. They point to how past major transformations in work tasks and labor markets – specifically the Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries – did not lead to major social upheaval or widespread suffering. These economists say that when technology destroys jobs, people find other jobs. ...

As one economist argued: "Since the dawn of the industrial age, a recurrent fear has been that technological change will spawn mass unemployment. Neoclassical economists predicted that this would not happen, because people would find other jobs, albeit possibly after a long period of painful adjustment. By and large, that prediction has proven to be correct." ...

These economists are definitely right about the long period of painful adjustment! The aftermath of the Industrial Revolution involved two major Communist revolutions, whose death toll approaches 100 million. The stabilizing influence of the modern social welfare state emerged only after World War II, nearly 200 years on from the 18th-century beginnings of the Industrial Revolution. ...

Today, as globalization and automation dramatically boost corporate productivity, many workers have seen their wages stagnate. The increasing power of automation and artificial intelligence technology means more pain may follow. Are these economists minimizing the historical record when projecting the future, essentially telling us not to worry because in a century or two things will get better?_

The author's answer is, WE SHOULD WORRY, because the adjustment _already is_ and _in the near term will continue to be_ painful. It's hard to disagree with him.

This article brings to mind John Maynard Keynes's most famous quote: "Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again."[1]

[1] [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Maynard_Keynes)

<comment><USER11> One interpretation would be that civilization needn't worry over the large scale, but people born into an certain time periods certainly do need to worry - particularly when it appears that the economy might veer off course with a correction not apparent within their own or their children's lifetimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I used to design and build high speed packaging machinery. When I started my apprenticeship in the late 90's I saw machine lines running at 6000 units per minute with 3-4 operators per line and regular maintenance performed by a team of skilled engineers. Mid 2000's it was 10,000 units per minute, 2 operators per line and periodic maintenance performed by a skilled engineer. In 2012 I visited a factory with row upon row of machines running at 20,000 units per minute, fully automated lorry loading for dispatch and the machines diagnosed their own preventative maintenance. There was a guy wandering around with a broom. Two years later I jumped and changed industry.

<comment><USER13> Looks like each time they took a person out of the loop the machines got faster, and the factory increased in capacity. I think this is the true benefit of automation. The cost reductions from 4-1 operators is pretty minimal. The increase from 6,000 units a minute to many lines with 20,000 units a minute is where the money is.

<comment><USER12> Quite right. The production facilities do tend to shift to less expensive regions for labour too though, which does increase the impact. The first factory was in the UK, the second Poland, the third was in China. The UK one doesn't exist anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the past 15 years, the labor force participation rate has dropped 4%. I would argue that this is an indicator that we are already permanently losing jobs to automation, and this trend will rapidly increase going forward, as automation gains momentum. I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues, but I am adamant that we're going to need a "living wage" stipend for the people who simply don't have enough skills to participate in the future job market. I would further argue that unemployment and various entitlements are bridging the gap for now, but what's happening will become explicit in the near future, because it will soon be too obvious to hide.

For a long time, I complained that the US couldn't afford such a thing, but we've been running a huge deficit for decades, and no one seems to care, so why should we let a budget hold us back from things like a living wage and free higher education and a single-payer insurance system and any other entitlement you want to tack on?

<comment><USER15> > I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues,

Aren't they opposites?

> For a long time, I complained that the US couldn't afford such a thing, but > we've been running a huge deficit for decades, and no one seems to care,

One mistake that people make is believing that no deficit is a good thing. Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college.

Another is that money is worth something. If as a generation all the wealth was owned by rich retired unproductive people, but the only way that food is generated is from poor working people, the elderly are screwed. Savings are not value, they are a hope that the future generations as a whole will be kind enough to work for old people based only on how much old people did when they were productive.

If future generations decide they will not pay any attention to old people's money, what happens then? What do I care that in 1960 you worked 60 hour weeks saving $500,000 in assets. Why shouldn't my generation decide "lets reduce the value of the dollar to 10% of it's current value, and lets put a massive tax on assets to redistribute to working people (say swapping income tax for an asset tax). That way I only owe rich people 1 year's salary in debt, not 10, my wage would simply have a zero added to the end (as would prices). The tax relief would mean a real wage increase too.

<comment><USER14> >> I lean conservative/libertarian on social issues,

>Aren't they opposites?

It's sad that everything about American politics casts every issue in black and white, either/or, polar-opposites mentality, and must be labelled. I was just trying to "get on paper" for context with my post.

> Running a deficit is like borrowing to fund college.

That may have been the most unfortunate example you could have used, since so many people are not seeing the value of their education in the marketplace pay off that investment in a reasonable period. Regardless, I understand what you're saying, but if you're trying to tell me that the deficit that the US federal government consistently runs is a planned, strategic effort, I'm not buying it. ;-)

<comment><USER16> The government is either going to have a cash outlay or cash influx as a direct mirror of its deficit or surplus, respectively. If the government runs a surplus then entities outside the government are, on balance, giving it cash. That's like a bribe from foreign entities. But a deficit is like the government outlaying cash. This is necessary, btw, for the US dollar to be the defacto currency of the world. Believe me, if you want the US government to succeed or at least be stable then you want it to keep its status as the defacto world currency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17>
       >Many economists say there is no need to worry ... specifically the Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries – did not lead to major social upheaval or widespread suffering.

The fact that many economists state this is, if true, a pretty strong condemnation of the current state of that field of endeavor.

<comment><USER18> > _Until very recently, the global educated professional class didn 't > recognize what was happening to working- and middle-class people in > developed countries. But now it is about to happen to them._

but economists don't foresee job losses in their own ranks

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If the Industrial Revolution is any analogue, there will be plenty of inter- state wars, revolutions within states and competing ideologies within a few decades...

The optimist in me says that there's been a period of 70 years or so without major wars between different state powers, and maybe MAD will hold up -- but in the theme of prologues repeating themselves...

<comment><USER20> The saying goes, "history never repeats itself but it often rhymes".

If there's a threat on the horizon, it's probably the one we discuss the least right now.

<comment><USER21> I prefer Marx's version, "history repeats itself... first as tragedy, then as farce"[1]

1: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eighteenth_Brumaire_of_Lou...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eighteenth_Brumaire_of_Louis_Napoleon#.22History_repeats_..._first_as_tragedy.2C_then_as_farce.22)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not- apply](http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-apply)

> This time is different

<comment><USER23> To me this entire argument "woe us if we run out of work to do" is directly self-contradictory. If people are miserable because they don't have the necessities of life, then, by definition, there's work left to do. On the other hand if there really is no work left to do, then everybody should be perfectly content with their material wealth.

<comment><USER24> The problem is automation could conceivably create a (sufficiently) closed system wherein a capitalist class can fulfil their desires for material wealth with minimal need for labor, while the masses lack access to the means of creating wealth (i.e. the tools of automation) or even fulfilling the basic necessities of life.

<comment><USER23> What's to stop the masses from working for each other?

<comment><USER25> Creating food how?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "We should listen not only to economists when it comes to predicting the future of work; we should listen also to historians, who often bring a deeper historical perspective to their predictions."

We should also listen to ecologists.

<comment><USER27> And anthropologists, who uniquely understand the wide breadth of possibility in human societies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > In the U.S., for example, income of production workers today, adjusted for > inflation, is essentially at the level it was around 1970.

I have a legitimate question about the usefulness of this statistic.

Everyday living has dramatically improved since the 1970s. There's been massive improvements in medical care, for starters. Communication and finding information has never been better thanks to computers, the Internet, search engines, wikipedia, etc. Entertainment has never had more options, and the options have never been this good. There's smartphones, of course: They made the internet accessible everywhere, and provide a platform for some incredibly useful apps (e.g., Uber/Lyft). There's been dramatic innovation since 1970, including: microwaves, GPS, home video, text messaging, MRIs, HIV treatment, smoke detectors, and on and on and on.

These technological improvements are not reflected in income statistics, but they're extremely important to every-day living.

Are there statistics that try and encapsulate technological improvement along with the normal measures of economic improvement? It's totally possible that wages are stagnant, but you get triple the utility out of your money than you would've in the 1970s.

<comment><USER29> I think the prevailing view on living standards is that they're no longer rising for those who enter the workforce at the bottom. If your parents can send you to college, you'll probably do well. But If not, since tuition costs have skyrocketed in the past 20 years, you'll no longer able to send yourself to college, so your prospects will be limited.

Likewise, for those at the bottom of the job market, employers offer far more modest benefits to further your development (like tuition reimbursement), thereby closing yet another door to upskilling and advancement.

<comment><USER28> > I think the prevailing view on living standards is that they're no longer > rising for those who enter the workforce at the bottom.

Hmm, how is "living standards" defined exactly?

It seems like many of the technological advancements of the last 40 years have become cheap and affordable by almost everyone. Even smart phones are relatively inexpensive and widely used. 64% of individuals making less than $30k a year own a smart phone, for example [1].

Life seems to be getting better for all income levels. Though, this isn't easy to track statistically. The citation I was originally responding to (an article on stagnating income vs inflation [2]) uses CPI as the measure of inflation. But the CPI only tracks the prices of basic commodities like food and fuel. It misses a huge part of our lives.

1\. [http://www.pewinternet.org/fact- sheet/mobile/](http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/) 2\. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=eUHS](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=eUHS)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> >>Many economists say there is no need to worry. They point to how past major transformations in work tasks and labor markets – specifically the Industrial Revolution during the 18th and 19th centuries – did not lead to major social upheaval or widespread suffering.

Nonetheless, the "economist consensus" is that there "is need to worry" and the article linked to is a (well written!) exception to the current groupthink.

This is in spite of the inconvenient fact that labor productivity is down.

As for the "widespread suffering caused by automation" \- I don't see ANY evidence that it was caused by unemployment caused by "too much automation". The industrial revolution induced more suffering primarily because of new weaponry that presaged industrial-scale slaughter.

As before, the real job stealer isn't a robot, it's a man in a suit executing a trade deal with countries that still practise literal slavery, blaming your lack of a job paying > 5¢ an hour on a robot.

</comment><comment><USER31> It's a no brainer that the coming change will cause people fear for their livelihood. And fear is a great motivator. It will not matter if the fear of automation is true or not, there will be a lot unrest.

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe instead of UBI, we need to think more Star Trek. How about universal basic health and universal basic food?

<comment><USER33> And universal basic housing and universal basic education. Then everyone would really be free to be entrepreneurs, but they wouldn't have to fixate on profit seeking at the expense of all else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I must be missing something here. Unemployment rate right now is barely above 4% despite the significant push for automation in manufacturing, drastic downsizing in retail, accounting, movie rental, newspaper industries etc without that much global impact.

What is it that's new and so threatening automation-wise that is going to have drastic effect on ppl's lives comparable to the industrial revolution?

<comment><USER35> movie rentals and newspapers are small industries, with slow change. i don't think accounting has seen large scale downsizing.

As for retail, i got curious, so: "Stores are closing because of the rise of e-commerce and shifts in how people spend their money," said Deb Gabor, CEO of Sol Marketing a brand/retail strategy consultancy. "Shoppers are devoting bigger shares of their wallets to entertainment, restaurants and technology, and spending less on clothing and accessories." [1]

Retail has revenue per employee of ~$450K. Restaurants have about $150K revenue per employee. So money is shifting to the more labor intensive industries, and maybe this is true even while including tech and entertainment.

But this is just a small scale, relatively to what could be coming. And people's spending patterns may not be so supportive of humans.

[1][http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinso...](http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Retail- workers-will-be-the-next-unemployment-11263625.php)

<comment><USER34> >> movie rentals and newspapers are small industries, with slow change.

Ok, fair enough. So then what are those large and fast-paced industries that are under the immediate and severe threat due to automation?

I mean for something to be on par with industrial revolution there has to be a pretty profound impact all over the place, the kind of impact that the existing ways of doing things can't adapt to at all (kind of how retail has been adapting to e-commerce with mixed results over the course of the past 15+ years).

<comment><USER35> Is retail adapting to e-commerce ? Or is it mostly a really slow decline ? This question is still unanswered If you look at the Amazon's recent fashion growth and walmart's grocery pick up.

As for what big industries are under immediate threat ? I'm not sure about how rapid, but in almost every industry you look you see a lot of real term deep innovation(from startups) that, if successful would greatly reduce jobs. Think not only automation but electric cars and mechanics and plant based meat and farmers.

That, combined with the fact that we are maybe starting to be able to mechanize the key skills of humans:dexterity and thinking, seem quite a huge change.

And maybe we can adapt - but we don't hear almost any ideas at all for many more new jobs, even with creativity of the net so maybe massive unemployment is a possibility?

<comment><USER34> >> Is retail adapting to e-commerce ? Or is it mostly a really slow decline ?

It's both, really. For some retailers with brick-and-mortar shops online presence is a way to expand their market, for others - internet is slow death.

But again nothing drastic in terms of job reduction has happened overnight even though the whole "internet thing" changed the way things are done drastically af.

>> And maybe we can adapt - but we don't hear almost any ideas at all for many more new jobs...

It's hard to predict these things. But again I'm not buying the "zomg there will be riots" spiel. If anything there will be a whole set of new (or subset of existing) industries along the lines of how adoption of the internet-based tech spawned them.

<comment><USER35> >> It's hard to predict these things [new jobs]

Let's think about the Internet(in 1994) but in the abstract:

It was a new medium. New mediums create new advertising and content industries around them. So did the Internet. They also create many jobs to manage/improve the technical stuff - That's also true.

It's also a great distribution channel for software and goods. we've known this pretty early. and new distribution channels reduce a business cost thus increasing demand. They also create changes along the whole supply chain, so that's more work.

But the surprising fact about the net is it's ability to enable businesses targeting very tiny niches. But if you talked to a many direct marketing guys back in the day, before the net and explained to them about the technical possibilities of the internet(and moore's law and powerful computing) and let them think about it, one in a 10-100, would have told you: this could be great for small targeted businesses.

Or maybe that guy is working in prediction, or science fiction, etc.

But today we have blogs,and media business who would kill for an eyeball, so we should be able to hear from that smart guy .

So why aren't we hearing stories about all those possible new jobs ?

<comment><USER34> >> why aren't we hearing stories about all those possible new jobs ?

you tell me :) I'm not 100% sure why the automation narrative has primarily been of the "impending doom" variety.

I think just like with the internet - even if automation does take off big time there will be some "victims" but also new possibilities from the obvious ones - like manufacturing, supporting/updating, installing the "robots" to some things we (speaking for myself lol) can't envision until this actually happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm a big proponent of UBI, but I have to admit, many new jobs got created, despite the call that automation would make us all obsolete.

I think the problem isn't that automation kills jobs, it's that nobody cares about people who worked in these jobs for >10 years and don't know anything other.

I'm not saying we should allow everyone to become a pilot or medical doctor after working 30 years as a trucker, but I think we should at least try to work in this direction.

</comment><comment><USER37> we will fight two world wars in the next 3 decades and the generations born after will be wasteful and destructive.

revive me in 2099 if i was correct.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think that there are two big differences between the Industrial Revolution and similar past increases in automation and what is happening now.

1\. The workers then were displaced in many (most?) cases by newly invented _physical_ machines. Those machines had to be built in brand new factories, employing many workers. Building those machines greatly boosted the need for many resources, such as metals, lubricants, fuels, and wood, so indirectly created many jobs in those industries. The machines needed frequent and regular maintenance, spawning even more jobs and industries.

What's going on now seems different. Our automation nowadays involves much less new physical machines. As an example, consider self driving big rig trucks, which some think will be the first self driving vehicles to displace a large number of workers.

What is the difference between a self driving big rig and a regular big rig? The self driving one is essentially a regular one with some additions:

• some sensors,

• some motors or actuators to operate controls,

• one or more computers that run the driving software, and handle the interface with the human who is in charge,

• maybe some kind of wireless communication system so the driving software can receive orders from the trucking company if that's not handled by a human who accompanies the truck.

None of these things are new. What's new is putting them in a truck.

Let's focus on the computers. Let's be optimistic and assume that every single new big rig that comes off the assembly line is equipped from the factory for self driving, so every single one needs a computer. Let's further assume that they use a high end GPU to run the AI software.

Putting a high end GPU in every single new big rig in the US would raise total annual demand for high end GPUs by about 10%. That's not "build a new factory" territory. That's "authorize a little overtime at the GPU factory" territory.

It's similar for other things. Each big rig now has a few electric motors so the AI can steer and shift gears and brake...but as with GPUs that's just a small bump in the total demand.

Worse, many of these things, like the GPUs, the sensors, probably the motors, and probably the communications system are built in highly automated factories, so even if the factories have to kick up production with overtime or even add new shifts, it will be machines getting the new work.

2\. During the Industrial Revolution we had large, rapidly expanding frontiers.

If you were in the developed part of your country and lost your job to a machine there was a good chance you could go to the frontier and find a similar job that was safe from the machines because the frontier lacked the infrastructure to support the machine.

Our frontiers now, to the extent that we even have any, are small and not expanding much if at all, and we've gotten a lot better at getting our machines there.

</comment><comment><USER39> Oh my god why are there so many people here who don't understand. UBI wont work. If you just think further than the extent of your nose; consider a 2-person society; a fisher and a fishnet maker. They live off eachothers work. Then give them this fantastic UBI. It's so great, the wealth gets distributed and they both have income without having to have a job. Ok. So fisherman goes to fishnet maker and gives him 100$ and says make me some fishnets please. Fishnet maker says nah, why should i? I have this fantastic UBI so i don't have to work. Btw i'd like to buy fish from you here is 100$. Fisherman says nah, you know i got this UBI. WAOW SUCH GREAT, UBI, AMAZE, BEST, SMART, PROGRESSIVE

<comment><USER40> > WAOW SUCH GREAT, UBI, AMAZE, BEST, SMART, PROGRESSIVE

Unhelpful and counterproductive rhetoric.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> In before anybody mentions "universal basic income", I want to remind that it was exactly the major selling point of Communism: machines will raise productivity to such levels that nobody will even need money, as material products will be plentiful for everyone.

This grand vision was unsustainable and led to millions of deaths.

Universal basic income is no less unsustainable (even government retirement and pension funds, which require much less money, are struggling everywhere). I really can hope that this false promise will not lead to similar catastrophes.

<comment><USER42> UBI was never a "selling point" for Communism (except if you have a very vulgar concept of Communism), quite the opposite it's what sustains Capitalism beyond the point it should have already had died off.

<comment><USER41> Really?

I am Russian, I went to a Soviet school, and I am quite aware what was and what wasn't a selling point for Communism. It was -- down to being mentioned in every socialist realism book, in nearly every major TV report, even as a running joke. There was a line in a popular Soviet movie: "no more worries, no more rat race, robots are toiling, man is happy" \-- and this line was taken at a face value, as a defining feature of the future Communist utopia we were all building.</comment></comment></comment>


A Memory Allocator (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://g.oswego.edu/dl/html/malloc.html

<comment><USER2> Note: this is dlmalloc, which is the basis for/an ancestor of glibc malloc. dlmalloc was written by Doug Lea, who's also known for e.g. Java's util.concurrent.</comment>


Show HN: Taxi Wars – Stories from the front line - <AUTHOR> http://www.taxiwars.org <comment><AUTHOR> This is not a typical 'Show HN', but I checked with the mods & Daniel encouraged it.

Three months ago, in the comments to HN submission 'RIP Kuro5hin', I posted [1] about my story having been the last to post, and that I was thinking about getting a domain of my own. One of you responded, "Please do that. I enjoyed your stories, particularly 'Who Are Your Lifelines?'"

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11609802)

All of the current blog posts at my new site - [http://www.TaxiWars.org/](http://www.TaxiWars.org/) \- were originally posted as diaries at kuro5hin.org (K5). I'd started blogging about my taxi passengers at K5 in March, 2012, after my eighth lease. My original intention was to help me better remember all the interesting people I was meeting. I posted at K5 because I wanted to be anonymous, and was not looking for attention (the site had already shrunk to a skeleton core of users at that time).

K5 users voted three of my story submissions to the site's front page, and one to section.

"Electronic Taxi Dispatch, v1.0" is about how the taxi company's pre- smartphone/pre-tablet GPS-enabled computerized dispatch system matches passengers with cabs: [http://www.taxiwars.org/electronic-taxi- dispatch-v1.0/](http://www.taxiwars.org/electronic-taxi-dispatch-v1.0/)

"Who Are Your Lifelines?" is about the time that I bailed my passenger out of jail. He was a down-on-his-luck tech worker. He'd called me because he remembered my phone number. [http://www.taxiwars.org/who-are-your- lifelines/](http://www.taxiwars.org/who-are-your-lifelines/)

"Humanity's Second-Best Hope" is about the dreadful seasonal job that I had just before I started taxi driving, mixed with some 2012-era political commentary: [http://www.taxiwars.org/humanitys-second-best- hope/](http://www.taxiwars.org/humanitys-second-best-hope/)

The section story was an anecdote of no importance. It needs some editing.

The pages and posts are basically as I submitted them to K5, except I've moved the pictures and youtube videos into the stories (K5 did not allow inline images).

Speaking of youtube… The passenger whom I rescued from his new 'friends' built websites for people, iirc: [http://www.taxiwars.org/2012/07/passenger- rescue.html](http://www.taxiwars.org/2012/07/passenger-rescue.html) [http://www.taxiwars.org/2012/08/passenger-rescue- pt-2.html](http://www.taxiwars.org/2012/08/passenger-rescue-pt-2.html)

This post is about why I decided to call my K5 account 'TaxiCabJesus': [http://www.taxiwars.org/2013/04/origin-of-tcj- moniker.html](http://www.taxiwars.org/2013/04/origin-of-tcj-moniker.html)

That post mentions Michael Crawford (whom I believe was K5 user 'Zombie Jesus Christ'), who witnessed a murder while a student at CalTech. He eventually graduated with a physics degree from a California State university, but has struggled with mental health issues ever since. He was a prolific diarist at K5. Some of my K5 diaries were about visiting him in the San Luis Obispo county jail, that time he was arrested for stealing ketchup packets from McDonald's (they dropped the charges and released him the day after I visited).

I kept notes about almost all my passengers. Some of the stories that I haven't posted are of some importance. I plan to narrate "Ordinary Rendition" and get my EMACS friend from college (I suffered through a $100,000 computer science program) to help me find someone to help with animation…

 __*

Thanks for reading this far. If you have any comments or suggestions about my little website (layout, etc), I'll very much appreciate them!

<comment><USER2> _If you have any comments or suggestions..._

You can add " / cover" to the background: CSS definition on the body or add the separate property "background-size: cover;" to make the image not tile on larger screens.

Great writing, I really enjoy your vérité style.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a stock blogger theme. I've looked into adding this css definition/property, but it's a bit past my competency as a webmaster. I imagine myself breaking something else, and not knowing how to fix that either.

> Great writing, I really enjoy your vérité style.

thanks... I do some writing on other topics too, and try to keep 'fluff' to a minimum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I didn't read a lot of these. And I'm a naturally skeptical person, so forgive the following observation. In every story I read, you seem to offer sage advice which people are almost immediately receptive and responsive to, even in dire or exigent situations. In my experience, people are rarely so responsive when flooded emotionally. In other stories, you're saving the day by calling cops when needed, etc. It seems like you're painting the picture of yourself as a sort of heroic sage. That's alright, I suppose, but it smells funny to my (admittedly skeptical) nose.

I'm glad you checked with mods before posting and if this is cool with them, then it's cool with me. But this smacks of self-promotion to me.

Also... Mitt Romney as a freedom fighter from the future who can help us stop Amazon's Skynet? Okay. Maybe I skimmed too quickly by this point, or I missed the metaphor, but this seems a little whack.

<comment><AUTHOR> > It seems like you're painting the picture of yourself as a sort of heroic > sage. That's alright, I suppose, but it smells funny to my (admittedly > skeptical) nose.

Having an online persona called "TaxiCabJesus" led me to make an extra effort. Some of the company's other taxi drivers have gone the extra mile to do nice things for their passengers too. But it doesn't pay the bills. Or it gets complaints filed against you, when people take it the wrong way.

There are around 44 diaries, written over the course of about 4 years. So that's less than 1 a month. For most of my tenure, I drove 4 12-hour shifts a week. There was nothing special about most of my fares.

> In every story I read, you seem to offer sage advice which people are almost > immediately receptive and responsive to

The early diaries were a little different in tone to the later ones. Very few passengers were receptive... they'd think something I said was "interesting", then they carried on as before, as I expected - free advice is usually worth what's charged. Every once-in-a-while I'd get someone who appreciated my efforts - these passengers made it all worthwhile. I haven't written about most of them.

> Also... Mitt Romney as a freedom fighter from the future who can help us > stop Amazon's Skynet? Okay. Maybe I skimmed too quickly by this point, or I > missed the metaphor, but this seems a little whack.

This was mostly written as a tongue-in-cheek exercise to apply the 'skynet' metaphor to Amazon, and to the political system we find ourselves subjected to. Corporations and the political establishment make more sense if you figure they're run by autonomous war machines.

(EDIT: I _enjoyed_ writing 'Humanity's Second-Best Hope' more than anything else I've ever written.)

> But this smacks of self-promotion to me.

'Who Are Your Lifelines' is a public-service announcement that I hope helps people think about who they'd call if they needed to get bailed out. People who are stuck in jail are helpless to do anything to defend themselves.

'Electronic Taxi Dispatch v1.0' points out that the 50-bazillion dollar "ridesharing" company is only selling a reinvented wheel.

Right now this is just about pointing out the fallacies of the status quo / 'conventional thinking'. At the start of my little journey, all I knew was that some things weren't quite right in my understanding of the world. Because I spent three and a half years in a taxi, dealing with all sorts of people, I think I've figured a few things out. This is my effort to share my experiences. It's on Hacker News now because another user here said they'd appreciated what I'd written on Kuro5hin.

Thanks for your comment.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your kindly and thoughtful reply.

I'm glad you learned through your experiences and it's nice of you to want to share what you can.

Regarding "Skynet" and automation at Amazon, I think this is fertile ground for metaphor and for science fiction parable. Some great works of imagination have been created in this vein already. So, I'm onboard with that, personally. I get lost at calling Obama an AI of some kind or Romney a time traveler, but I understand you were joking in a way. I just didn't get the joke, but that's probably on me.

4 years of interacting with several humans a day in one-time or small groups in a fairly closed, intimate environments will almost certainly lead to interesting stories. And to many, many opportunities to demonstrate compassion and care. So, I believe that, certainly. I am skeptical about the stories you described of holding people's heads in just such a way so as to relieve pressure and bring emotional balance in the same way that I am skeptical about ads that proclaim a simple pill can grow the size of a man's genitals or that "one weird trick" causes dramatic and rapid weight loss. But, as I said, that skepticism is part of my questioning and curious nature, so it's nothing personal or specific and I hope it didn't come across as such. (By the way... I may well have missed it, but do you have a more detailed description of this technique and some knowledge or theories on the pathways by which it works? If this works, it should be taught and popularized!)

Thanks again for your reply and I wish you well. It's great that you take a compassionate point of view and apparently try to help people whenever possible. I wouldn't want my questions here to take anything away from that general principle.

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the recurring themes for the diaries was how one fare leads into the next... If not for this person going there, I wouldn't have met that person, who I learned something interesting from, or who needed more than just a ride.

> (By the way... I may well have missed it, but do you have a more detailed > description of this technique and some knowledge or theories on the pathways > by which it works? If this works, it should be taught and popularized!)

The self-appointed gatekeepers to conventional medicine are hostile to the theories about why it works.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22122417](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22122417)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Install Android OS on your PC with VirtualBox - <AUTHOR> http://www.javacodegeeks.com/2010/06/install-android-os-on-pc-with.html

<comment><USER2> Looks really cool, except for that the underlying project hasn't issued a release in over two years. Given how much Android has changed in two years, that would seem to make this tool inappropriate for dev testing, unfortunately. Also, the article didn't make it clear if this live distro works with adb or not, which would be very useful for debugging and testing.

<comment><USER3> This project is still up-and-running: <http://www.android-x86.org/> and it works just as well in VirtualBox and adb works fine.

<comment><USER2> Ah, neat. They must have just moved sites, then. Thank you!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Create a timeline for realworld events, follow other timelines - <AUTHOR> http://tilap.co <comment><AUTHOR> I created this in bubble.io, and it's my first product built in no-code. Let me know what you think, and I'm happy to answer any questions.</comment>


Help David Horvitz make his $58,412 student loan disappear. 58 cents at a time. - <AUTHOR> http://davidhorvitz.com/studentdebt/

<comment><USER2> There are people actually starving around the world <http://www.worldbank.org/foodcrisis/></comment>


Songwriters: Just Make Music - <AUTHOR> http://allthemusic.info/ <comment><AUTHOR> A melody-writing duo published (on the Internet Archive) and released into the public domain 2TB of recorded audio that includes all 8-note melodies. This is something people have mused about for some time, it's nice to see it becoming real.

[https://kottke.org/20/02/recording-all-the- melodies](https://kottke.org/20/02/recording-all-the-melodies)

It seems they could save space by leaving out pure keyshifts, and to really make the point a future version should include the sheet music // offer an easy way to index into a melody + play it back at normal speeds.</comment>


We Need a Massive Surveillance Program - <AUTHOR> https://idlewords.com/2020/03/we_need_a_massive_surveillance_program.htm <comment><USER2> It was HARD to read through this whole article, but I did it anyway and I totally disagree.

The argument that private companies are already tracking you doesn't exactly hold up, you don't have to install Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Messenger, Google Chrome, or whatever else on your phone. There's ways of limiting tracking by private companies (not always easy for every user but there are options).

<comment><USER3> I believe ENOUGH people have these apps for this approach to be effective.

What I don't understand about this article is that the author assumes the data has to flow through a government entity. I don't see why the company holding your data, eg Google, can't just have their own pandemic-tracking analytics that they can publish for everybody, including the government.

<comment><USER4> Among other things, to be most effective there has to be two-way information flow with public health authorities who do contact tracing. When somebody is found to be positive, that info needs to propagate into the app and through the likely-spread network. I believe that simply cannot be done by private entities under the framework of existing health privacy regulation.

Similarly, when the tracking system identifies someone as high risk, they need to be referred to testing by public health at the least. It also makes sense that a high risk person be isolated or quarantined, and it's possible the benefits of enforcing that through police outweigh the risks. If so, that's clearly a government function, not something that can be done by Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I basically agree with this. We've already collectively decided to give up our surveillance / tracking information for the purpose of making ad targeting more effective. I wish we had a competent, trustworthy set of institutions who could take that data and repurpose it for stopping the spread of Covid-19.

Unfortunately, I am not very optimistic about this. There are also people who would misuse this data, and how can we protect the institutions against them? I wish the urgency of the situation could create the will to do this right, but I'm not seeing a lot of positive signs.

Science had a related piece recently: [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/cellphone- tracking-c...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/cellphone-tracking- could-help-stem-spread-coronavirus-privacy-price)

The takeaway I got from it is that some kind of bold action is necessary - creating a voluntary, opt-in tracking app will likely have almost no effect at all.

<comment><USER4> A few other thoughts I want to get across here (I've been thinking about this a lot, and have started drafting a blog post, but probably won't post it because I don't really have answers, only want to encourage people to ask the right questions).

A computerized tracking system can't do a lot by itself. It needs to be integrated into deployment of health care services, including testing and treatment for people who get the virus, supporting a small army of people doing contact tracing using a combination of low-tech and high-tech methods, not to mention equipment and supplies.

Lastly, I'm surprised Maciej didn't bring up China's experience, as they _do_ have some of this surveillance in place, and it also seems to help them be effective. I've been trying to learn more, but there's precious little in English. There's a "mini program" that is deployed in Alipay called sui shen ban (随申办), seemingly voluntary but with strong incentives.

I'm not what the best way forward is for the US, but I do strongly feel we should be talking and thinking about it. If there is a tool that can help significantly and we're not using it, that's a tragedy.

[1]: [http://www.smartshanghai.com/wire/wellbeing/how-to-get- your-...](http://www.smartshanghai.com/wire/wellbeing/how-to-get-your- shanghai-color-code)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can do contact tracing without location surveillance: [https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/asia- pacific/singapore-g...](https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/asia- pacific/singapore-government-launches-new-app-contact-tracing-combat-spread- covid-19)

</comment><comment><USER6> I am also a privacy activist and this post has really made me think about my convictions. The most convincing argument here is that the infrastructure is already there and already used by private companies for "bad," why not let the government use it for "good?"

This is the crux of all technological advancements. I still truly believe that a hardline for privacy is the only thing that will keep it alive. Everything else is a slippery slope.

The Benjamin Franklin quote is still applicable:

"those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither."

The proposed actions are exactly giving up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety.

<comment><USER4> Maciej includes that quote. He also proposes organizing the program with significant protections and limitations. I know it's very likely politically infeasible to competently create such a program, but I ask you: with these protections and limitations in place, and if there is evidence that this program would save many lives (in addition to getting the economy back online more quickly), would you still be opposed to it?

<comment><USER6> I'd still be opposed to it on principle because no matter what protections and limitations are in place initially, if they're put in place by a centralized (aka corruptible) organization, they can just as easily be replaced or removed. Even if there is evidence that such a program would save many lives (and arguably such evidence is starting to come about) it still remains to be seen whether those lives saved even out versus the amount of lives that would be upended in the future because the "privacy line" has been redrawn. All change is incremental, and we don't know what an incremental change away from privacy as a basic right to be respected no matter what could lead to as a next step.

It's entirely possible that even with all these considerations, a democratic society still chooses to implement such a program. In such a situation I still think it's necessary for someone like me to stick to privacy as a principle even if only for the sake of philosophical discussion and keep parroting: "We're on a slippery slope!"

<comment><USER4> Thanks for your thoughtful answer.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Love JavaScript, but hate CSS? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/dceddia/love-javascript-but-hate-css-254e <comment><USER2> Not directly related to the article, but IMO CSS is good for what we have now. There is no better alternative. As for Javascript - there are many great alternatives. (Scalajs, Purescript, Elm, Typescript,...)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah i don't get this sentiment but i see it a lot here. Not a programmer but have coded websites since the early days. Css aint perfect but as long as youre not doing extremely complex layouts, its easy. You could learn enough css to get by in 2 hours. But for whatever reason, programmers don't bother to learn it, and that's how you get stuff like React.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure that lack of css experience is what motivated the creation of react's UI as a function of state paradigm is orthogonal to styling.

<comment><USER3> Gave my comment a second thought and you're right. React doesn't excuse you from learning css.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _> Look how nicely centered that little red square is! _

Is anyone able to see the red square to which the author refers? I'm not seeing it.

<comment><USER6> No red square for me. Using a recent Firefox on OSX.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any startups using/considering Windows Azure?  - <AUTHOR>

Either as a deployment platform or as an area that you are investigating for a tool/service.
Or maybe you're just adding Azure integration to an existing product.
I'd love to hear any opinions/experiences you might have had, or maybe if you're considering it what you find attractive about it or what puts you off. <comment><USER2> I'm not, but <http://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/> is a program that gives startups 3 years of product licenses, including some Windows Azure and SQL Azure credits. I don't know too much more about the program, but its at least worth checking out if you're thinking of using Azure.

<comment><USER3> I'm not really building Windows products (although I do have a few components) but the BizSpark programme looks like a really great offer.

Has anyone else had any experience of BizSpark?

<comment><USER4> I'm in their WebsiteSpark program, through StartupToDo.com

The service is great, they're really trying to build a sense of community, and obviously, you're getting the whole suite of development tools.

However! I've been concurrently (okay, mostly) developing the project I'd intended with it in Rails instead.

That said, it's still a great deal for a small developer who wants a little more power than the free editions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am aware of one that is but so far they're in stealth mode. Most other firms I've asked about that have had some derisive commentary about building on Windows.</comment>