You can't judge housing affordability without knowing transportation costs - <AUTHOR> http://cityobservatory.org/transportation_housing_affordability/ <comment><USER2> Several years ago I asked my mom why she lived so far from where she worked (Vallejo, CA to San Ramon, CA), and she claimed they were saving money on cheaper rent. Five minutes of napkin paper math later I pointed her and her partner were spending roughly $700/month commuting in gas, bridge toll, and basic wear+tear on their vehicles (based on ~$0.45/mile).

It seems like most people don't account for vehicle costs when accounting for cost of living. Why I'm not positive, though it seems to just be the general abstractness of the cost spread out over time, and the assumption in America that you're going to drive everywhere anyway so it doesn't matter.

Even worse we see this with numerous Uber/Lyft/delivery "contractors" who are putting endless miles on their personal vehicles without accounting for the inevitable cost of replacing them.

<comment><USER3> Why $.45/mile? Is that real? I keep track of all my expenses, so a few years ago I was able to calculate my real lifetime costs at $.15/mile, asymptotically approaching $.10. Of course when I travel for work the IRS says I charge $.50/mile, which is pure profit.

The IRS numbers assume a newish car (more expensive) that gets poor fuel mileage. It is probably correct for the average car, but there is no reason you need to be average - unless you want to.

<comment><USER4> In my country (EU, so gas is a bit more expensive) the government calculates* transport costs at 0.37eur/km. So $0.45/mi would be in the right ballpark.

You have to account everything, not just fuel, from car depreciation, servicing (oil changes,...), normal wear (brakes, tires,...), occasional replacements (batteries, wipers, ...), etc. If you drive 20.000kms per year, and a yearly service (oil, filters,...) costs 200eur, just that adds aditional 0.01eur/km. Two sets of tires (winter/summer) are ~2 _300eur + 8 changes (8_ ~40eur) adds an additional (almost) ~1k eur in four years, 1 more cent. Insurance, registration.. 3, 4 cents. etc.

*that's the untaxed amount you get reimbursed for if you use your own car for a business trip.

<comment><USER5> There are two different calculations here. One is, what's the total cost of vehicle ownership amortized per mile? That's what the government and most popular types of accounting use.

The other is, given I'm going to own a car already, what's the difference between a shorter commute and a longer one? That's going to be a lower number per mile. A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than miles, insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra if you drive more, the registration and tax isn't any different etc.

The second one is how a lot of people end up all the way out in the suburbs. They can't afford to live in the part of the city that makes it viable to not have a car at all, but once you have a car as a sunk cost, another ten or twenty (or thirty or ...) miles in exchange for saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on housing starts to look like a good deal.

Though the huge factor people commonly forget is their own time. If your time is worth $25/hour then a half hour each way on your commute is $6500/year. And that's assuming you're only further away from work and not also further away from whatever you do on weekends.

<comment><USER6> > A big chunk of the vehicle's depreciation is a result of years rather than > miles

Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond common correlations:

      - usually more years = more miles
      - cars < 5 years are usually in warranty and fetch a premium

> insurance doesn't generally track how many miles you drive and charge extra > if you drive more

Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia)

<comment><USER5> > Ehhhh, I'd say that it's not that skewed towards age of the vechile beyond > common correlations

But the warranty period is a huge amount of value, and there are others, e.g. newer cars are safer and have whatever other improvements so older cars aren't worth as much regardless of milage. Then many repairs are age related rather than mileage related, e.g. a car exposed to the elements will rust or experience day/night thermal stress even if you don't drive it.

> Mine does: in 5000km increments. (Australia)

Let me rephrase this. The insurance cost does not scale linearly with miles driven.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a huge connection between housing and transportation, one affects the other in profound ways.

NIMBY Environmentalist, please take note: For example, in the bay area, high housing prices push people to the outer boundaries of the bay for housing, like Tracy, Stockton and beyond. Imagine the impact on the environment as most people are commuting 100+ miles per day more than if they were simply allowed to live where they work.

<comment><USER8> > NIMBY Environmentalist

This is a real thing. Exhibit A is the San Francisco Sierra Club.

[https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/the-sierra-club- fi...](https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/the-sierra-club-fights-to- save-a-parking-garage/article_93ff9084-3be7-11e7-a3a8-17f11f24db6e.html)

<comment><USER9> Usually the opposition to density is just cloaked in environmentalism.

When it comes down to it, these are individuals who don't want outsiders moving their community, or new units driving down the explosive growth in property values they have experienced.

As usual, it is just greedy people wanting more.

<comment><USER10> Or maybe they just don't want more density. You talk like there's only upsides to high-density cities but the people who are living there right now might not be amused about more people, more cramped spaces, more noise and pollution. You can call it greed but it is, as a matter of fact, a downgrade in quality of life for most of the residents.

<comment><USER5> > Or maybe they just don't want more density.

Which is a fine thing to want -- so go live somewhere that occurs naturally without regulatory restrictions. There are plenty of areas in the US, or even within California, with low and medium density that require no artificial restrictions to keep them that way.

<comment><USER11> The thing is somewhere that occurs naturally could change tomorrow. I live in a quiet dead end by a small park with nothing interesting near by. Or well, nothing USED to be interesting near by. A small family shop around the corner sold their lot and a giant apartment building via special permit is replacing it, and with it a bunch of other conversions around happened, all in the span of a few MONTHS. And now it's a permanent construction zone and heavy traffic. No one would have guessed that was going to happen. The area was a freagin slum with no one wanting to touch it with a stick until then. Until we (and people like us) decided to make it nicer. Often with our own money.

Some people definitely care about their property value and generally use their house as an investment and a retirement plan. A heck of a lot of people just want to be able to keep sleeping at night. Short of buying a lot in the middle of nowhere, it's ALWAYS going to be a gamble, and its pretty natural to expect it not too change too much if there's no indication it will. I'll give you that if you buy a single family in SF today and think it's going to stay that way, you're pretty silly. But it was well within my lifetime/adulthood where it wasn't that crazy an idea.

<comment><USER5> > The thing is somewhere that occurs naturally could change tomorrow.

So could a million other things. The local government could become corrupt and raise taxes while cutting services to divert money to cronies, leaving you in the middle of a violent slum with a high unemployment rate. Your employer could move its offices thirty miles further from where you live. Climate change could put your whole town underwater.

The solution to things changing in a way you don't like is to vote with your feet. And at least in this case you're effectively being compensated for it, because an area that is being developed will cause your land to be worth more. Some developer will pay you a lot of money to put up more apartments or condos where you are, and then you have all that money to go somewhere else -- where the land will generally be less expensive, yielding you a nice profit to compensate you for your trouble.

You can live in any kind of place you want. You can't expect that place to never change.

And predicting this isn't really _that_ hard. I can predict with reasonable certainty that twenty years from now Des Moines will still not have the population density of New York City, and a person making the same prediction twenty years ago would also have been right. San Francisco is the exception, not the rule.

<comment><USER11> > The solution to things changing in a way you don't like is to vote with your > feet

Or you know, just vote in municipal election or go to cityhall hearings, since that's how cities work, and that's exactly how people do it. It's not super weird for people living in a city to try and dictate how the city they live in work.

Last time I moved cities I ended up having to move 3 times in a row because of unexpected things. Yes, some people can do that without breaking a sweat, but it sure got exhausting. If I lived to 1000, I wouldn't really care, but life is short and there's only so many times you can do life altering changes. If moving was that simple, there wouldn't be so much criticism over people getting displayed by raising housing costs, after all.

> And predicting this isn't really that hard. I can predict with reasonable > certainty that twenty years from now Des Moines will still not have the > population density of New York City

Except a NIMBY thinks about "their backyard" for a reason: Who cares about the city's population density. The problem is the 10 story building popping up across the super tiny quiet street because a special permit was issued to override zoning.

<comment><USER5> > Or you know, just vote in municipal election or go to cityhall hearings, > since that's how cities work, and that's exactly how people do it. It's not > super weird for people living in a city to try and dictate how the city they > live in work.

The problem obviously being that there are people who work in the city and would like to live there but can't afford to and thereby don't get a vote even though they have a stake. So then you get efforts to overrule the cities at the state level and so on, and the outcome of that process is whoever can capture 50%+1 of the votes regardless of your preference as an individual. Whereas if you move to somewhere your preferences are likely to remain satisfied you don't have to worry about any of that.

> Last time I moved cities I ended up having to move 3 times in a row because > of unexpected things.

Moving is work. But so is fighting everybody just so you don't have to.

And the people who want to be able to live in the city _don 't have that option_. Moving into the city _is_ what they want, but the housing needed for all of them to do that doesn't exist, so their only option is to cause it to.

> Except a NIMBY thinks about "their backyard" for a reason: Who cares about > the city's population density. The problem is the 10 story building popping > up across the super tiny quiet street because a special permit was issued to > override zoning.

Not a lot of ten story apartment buildings go up in the middle of a hundred square miles of farmland.

<comment><USER11> > Not a lot of ten story apartment buildings go up in the middle of a hundred > square miles of farmland.

You already said "The problem obviously being that there are people who work in the city and would like to live there". So people who are already there and already have that should give it up so others can have it. Got it.

> even though they have a stake

A stake for sure, but compared to people who not only work there, but sleep there, go to school there, pay taxes there, shaped it, took part in the decisions that made it what it is? A very minuscule stake. I don't live in the city I work in. Short of them shutting down the roads and the subway, those who do can do whatever they want. Fortunately they seem to like those roads and subway, so there's no big push (that I've seen) to do so.

<comment><USER5> > You already said "The problem obviously being that there are people who work > in the city and would like to live there". So people who are already there > and already have that should give it up so others can have it. Got it.

The people who want to live there want to live _in a city_ , i.e. a place with ten story apartment buildings. The people who are already there can continue to live there all they like, but if you don't _want_ to live in a city with all that entails then why are you? There are suburbs all over the place if that's what you want.

> A stake for sure, but compared to people who not only work there, but sleep > there, go to school there, pay taxes there, shaped it, took part in the > decisions that made it what it is? A very minuscule stake.

Explicitly because you're imposing rules that prohibit them from having those things, even though both they and the owners of the property that could be used to allow them to do that would like to allow it.

> I don't live in the city I work in. Short of them shutting down the roads > and the subway, those who do can do whatever they want. Fortunately they > seem to like those roads and subway, so there's no big push (that I've seen) > to do so.

There is a clause in the US Constitution that allows the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. It's used as an excuse for them to regulate everything under the sun, but its _purpose_ is to deal with conflicts between regions. If Texas has a bunch of oil companies and wants to enact protectionist rules to impede the rise of electric cars, there is a national interest in preventing them from doing that.

It's no different between cities and towns. Everybody wants protectionist policies that benefit themselves at the expense of everybody else, but those policies are net negative for society and the people you're screwing over have every right to try to stop you.

<comment><USER11> > There are suburbs all over the place if that's what you want.

Not SF obviously, but most places where these debates pop up ARE suburbs. Thats the whole problem. People spend forever finding a place that suits their need, and then others come in trying to transform them into something that suits theirs instead. Which is fine I guess, but I'd be hard pressed to say one side has the moral high ground.

<comment><USER8> 100 years ago they were farmland or forest. Things change. We can't expect our cities to stop evolving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The fact that this article does not break down the various transportation costs sets off massive red flags.

The $3k/yr number mentioned for the cost of transportation via car in Houston is on the same order as an MBTA rail pass in the Boston area. Driving everywhere in Houston results in a hell of a lot higher quality of life than riding public transit everywhere in Boston.

Yes of course transit is not free but that's true whether regardless of your mode of transit. The premise is solid. The analysis is lacking.

<comment><AUTHOR> An MBTA local bus and subway pass is $84.50 per month

$84.50 * 12 months = $1014 per year

As someone living in metro Boston, that is a large difference in cost from my perspective - approximately equivalent to 2 months of rent.

<comment><USER12> If you live outside of the subway system and need to get places (particularly in/out of the city) within a reasonable time-frame you're likely going to need a commuter rail pass. That jacks up the price substantially.

I did the whole "live in Boston and just use public transit thing" for awhile. Then I moved to one of those cities that MA likes to pretend doesn't exist and my transportation costs stayed about flat. If I had made heavy use of Uber/Lyft they probably would have decreased. My friend commutes in from Worcester and rides the train because of the tolls and the fact that his work subsidizes the rail pass. In a sprawling city with free/cheap parking there would be no economic reason to do anything but drive.

<comment><USER13> When people say "public transit", they don't mean the periphery of a commuter rail system. They mean the core bus network and usually the subway. You're comparing the worst case of meaningful public transit to a city only built for cars. My hypothesis, if you lived in Somerville, Dorchester, or at most, Quincy, the numbers would look different.

<comment><USER12> Sure, if you specifically craft your living situation to not involve commuter rail (and don't replace it with Uber/Lyft) you can save money. But you'll spend the money on rent.

<comment><USER14> > But you'll spend the money on rent.

Bingo! That's exactly what the linked article is about. How much extra are you paying in rent? How much are you saving on transportation? What are total costs of [rent + transportation] in both cases? How much time is wasted on transportation when you're paying lower rent? These are questions that need to be asked.

Why would you not want to "craft" your living situation to give you the optimal setup? No, you can't have everything, but a "crafted" lifestyle that avoids need for transportation may be preferred by many, and may in addition in some cases be cheaper _and_ provide higher quality of life. Maybe not, maybe not for everyone; but those are questions that need to be asked, not simply have, "What are housing rental/purchase costs?" be taken as deciding question of what places have higher cost of "housing".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> EZ-E Housing affordability & transportation costs relationship is the cornerstone that triggered the yellow jacket movement in France. Take most vulnerable families that live away from employment centers (cities) because they can't afford a house there, you have dependability to driving cars (no public transport). The government steps in and tries to tax fuel more for ecology - which pleases richer urban voters but squeezes people who bought a house 20 years ago back when fuel, insurance, parking wasn't as expensive. Their house are the only one that - by the way - are the only ones that didn't gain value.

The ever increasing "metropolisation" as we call it, is scary. More and more, you better be able to afford living in a big city or suffer the negative consequences

<comment><USER15> > squeezes people who bought a house 20 years ago back when fuel, insurance, > parking wasn't as expensive. Their house are the only one that - by the way > - are the only ones that didn't gain value.

Are those the same people that tell me to move out of the city into a bigger place and commute in? They seem pretty smug about their choice, "you paid how much for your tiny little house? You could buy a mansion for that here"

Well this is why those people are wrong.

<comment> EZ-E Some people do not realize they could get bit pretty hard by buying a house far away, that is indeed cheap and larger - but what happens when fuel gets even more expensive and governments issue many taxes and restrictions to discourage car usage ? (without offering realistic public transport options). Not to mention the usually poorer infrastructure/hospitals/schools

Note that it depends on the locality though, some places manage to find the sweet spot - not too far and still not that expensive. In some cities this doesn't exist.

<comment><USER16> Is the fuel really a concern there? I mean, fuel is such a tiny small part of the expenses overall in Europe. Almost invisibly small. France consumes 162K barrels of gasoline a day, or 9.4 billion liters at average price of 1.57 EUR. That's 1.2% of the value of household consumption, and by far not all of it is gasoline consumption by consumers. So we are speaking of <1% of household expenses. How is this squeeze?

<comment><USER17> This is what I'm trying to work out.

Here in the UK the AA come out every time theres a budget, asking for lower fuel duty for "hard pressed motorists".

The reality is fuel isn't that expensive, as evidenced by the fact that large 4x4s are getting increasingly popular, and people are happy to drive the half mile to the local shop to buy a pint of milk.

Edit: Plus EVs are a thing now, if fuel prices really were that bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Am I the only person here to actually like cars and enjoy driving? Being free from public transport timetables and the ability to go anywhere on a whim are so precious. As an introvert, I see my car as my private space.

<comment><USER19> For _most_ people, there's no such thing as liking or disliking "driving".

There's how you feel about "driving and finding parking in rush hour in midtown Manhattan" and how you feel about "driving down beautiful back country roads with no traffic".

Without discussing the context of _where and when_ , giving opinions on driving is almost meaningless. I mean, here in Manhattan during the day, the subway comes often enough that you don't need a timetable, and you can get most places on a whim a hell of a lot faster than you would in your car.

<comment><USER20> There are some people for whom driving really is something they like. It's not driving per-se but I personally enjoy motorcycling in pretty much any context whether its commuting in heavy traffic (granted, here in California that does mean I get to lane-split through lots of it) or riding for leisure. Maintaining the machine is also an aspect of it, for some people their car or bike fulfills a niche sort of analogous to a pet or a garden. Not being able to have an automobile (car or motorcycle) if frequently a deciding factor in where people choose to live.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A lot of this is hand waving. As the article admits, it doesn't adjust for lost time, or household size and composition. Regardless, it assumes a causal relationship between housing costs and transportation costs (I.e. that people with lower housing costs spend more on transportation because their houses are further away).

That's not a sound assumption. The typical pattern is younger people living in the city and moving to the suburbs as they get older and have kids. In the latter case, transportation costs go up because the amount of transportation that needs to be done goes way up. My wife and I went from not having a car in Chicago to having two cars in the Annapolis suburbs. One car is necessary because we now have to drive to the train station to get to DC. That fits in with the article's premise that increased transportation costs offset lower housing costs somewhat. The other, however, is necessary because we have two kids who need to go to a ton of different places. Even in Chicago, it's unlikely that your work, your wife's work, your kids' school, and your kids' extracurricular activities are all going to be near transit.

Also, the article assumes that transportation erases the housing cost difference without accounting for the fact that people might purchase more transportation because housing costs are so much cheaper, not just because they have to to cope with sprawl. We moved from a 1,400 square foot 3BR downtown to a 2,800 square foot 4BR in the burbs. Our mortgage is half of what our rent used to be. Had we continued to pay city rents, we may have continued to drive my 10 year old fully paid off car. Instead we bought two newer cars, not because they were necessary for the commute, but because we had the extra cash.

The article also leaves out the third rail of urbanism: schools. The folks who live in our neighborhood in Annapolis could not afford to buy a house, even a much smaller one, in DC with a public school as good as the one we have here. The folks I know trying to square that circle (living downtown in one of the handful of good school districts in the city) are paying three times as much as we did for housing. (And, as a result, live in gentrified neighborhoods with little economic or even racial diversity.)

<comment><AUTHOR> >The typical pattern is younger people living in the city and moving to the suburbs as they get older and have kids.

How long has this been the typical pattern? Auto-oriented suburbs are an experiment two generations in the making. Before that development, there was a sharper urban-rural divide. I would not be surprised to see the US largely swing back to that arrangement within the next 60 years.

<comment><USER22> To expand on this anecdotally, I know of millennials who moved to the suburbs anticipating that suburban shift and have found themselves sorely mistaken about most of their friends patterns. I'd love to see stats on urban->suburban movement by age over the past 20-30 years.

<comment><USER21> Data suggests that millennials have been putting off moving to the suburbs, consistent with their putting off home buying and having kids, but that trend has already peaked as we get further away from the recession: [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millen...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millennials- moving-to-suburbs-will-change-economic-development).

The lack of good schools and affordable houses in cities seems to be the deal killer. In my own experience, I don't know any middle class people trying to raise kids in the city. Out of my friends' circle, the folks trying to stick through the city thing are all high income ($200k+ household). My wife and I stuck it out downtown for a while—until our daughter was five. But the costs add up shockingly fast. For example, for the first four years, you can't send your kids to public school even if you want to. A daycare near my office in DC is $2,400 per month for infants. Near my house in the Annapolis suburbs, it's $1,500 at the high end. Most of the good public schools are in Northwest, where $900,000 is table stakes for a house (and where you need a car anyway because there is no metro).

<comment><USER22> Yeah, you need money to raise a kid in a city, that's for sure - no argument there. That said, I'd say millennial are having fewer kids (feel comfortable on that claim without researching stats but of course they are welcome) so that makes cities more attractive to the current 25-40 age range than their predecessors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The math in the article is a bit off when it claims the "sprawl tax" makes up the difference in higher travel costs when located in sprawling lower cost housing markets. They estimate increased travel cost at $3k/year, $250/month

They take Houston as an example, which is on the opposite end of the housing cost/sprawl spectrum from, say, San Francisco, but the "sprawl tax" math doesn't work here. Given average apartment costs and 30yr mortgages at about 4%:

      Houston Avg House Cost:about $300k or $1400/month
      SF Avg House Cost: about $1.3 million or $6100/month
      Difference: about $54,000/year

Apartments aren't much better:

      Houston Avg Apt: about $1100/month or $13k/year
      SF Avg Apt: about $3500/month or $42,000/year
      Difference: $2400/month or $29,000/year

The sprawl tax doesn't begin to cover these differences. The numbers above are similar for NYC. For Seattle it's less drastic, but still well in excess of $3k/year. Boston is on par with Seattle. On the other hand, Chicago is semi- sprawlish with it's suburbs, and prices are significantly cheaper. About the only place I could find where this "sprawl tax" concept applies successfully after looking at a few randomly picked cities is Hoboken, NJ. A small city twice as densely populated as SF, very popular through proximity NYC and a mini tech hub in its own right. There, buying a house is still not going to even out the sprawl tax, but an apartment will just about do it. (The average cost of apartments vs. houses there is oddly divergent from other cities I looked at.)

<comment><USER24> Maybe try a city like Taipei or Tokyo?

I think unfortunately there's too much noise from factors like weird regulations and anti-housing hyper activists in cities like San Francisco to get a good comparison.

<comment><USER25> But isn't that part of the problem? You can't make these sort of blanket "one size fits all" statements because every local is a new mix of problems. The types of solutions and regulatory changes that solve the bay area would be useless in Tokyo and laughable in New Jersey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> " If you have to drive everywhere, and drive further for every trip, what you save in rent or mortgage payments, can be more than eaten up in car payments, gasoline purchases, and time wasted traveling."

Well, that's assuming you own / lease a vehicle.

Instead, if you're using public transportation then sprawl translates into time. Longer distances translate into more stops, and perhaps even a transfer, or two. That time adds up.

If you're lucky you drive to the train station. But best I can tell, if you're using buses to get around locally, you're paying dearly in time. In fact, a couple days ago I saw a report on the local news that SEPTA (PHL, PA) is seeing bus rides / riders declined. They attributes this it Uber and Lyft. Apparently, the market is figuring out - faster than SEPTA - that time really is money.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's strange to me that this wouldn't be considered intuitively obvious.

Is it specifically car costs that people find hard to grok?

In London you could live in Zone 1, walking distance from your work, and pay 0 GBP for essential transport, or you could live in Zone 6 and pay ~250GBP a month, or you could live in a small town or village somewhere with a rail station and pay 250-500 depending on distance.

You can't really avoid knowing it unless you just don't care what anything costs.

A few years back I moved from a flat around the corner from work to one quite far out. The cost savings were minimal with transport accounted for; negative if I valued my time. The main thing was being in a more suburban location, less concrete etc.

</comment><comment><USER28> Yes! This is why I have suggested using my metric DIPHLoW:

Discretionary Income Per Hour Lost to work:

Discretionary income: Income minus taxes and minimal housing costs.

Hour lost to work: Time at work plus time commuting

That more completely captures the tradeoffs that policymakers face.

They can't just sigh and expect people to move further out, be cause, yes, it increases discretionary income, but also increases time lost to work, so isn't necessarily an improvement.

Higher taxes _might_ be a good idea if they can be used to scale up transportation capacity in proportion to the hit to DI.

And policies that reduce pre-tax income _might_ be a good idea if the housing savings cancel it out.

</comment><comment><USER29> When you ask for public transit, you don't necessarily get it either.

It seems that when demand for public transit is high, politicians often put forward light, elevated, and subsurface rail boondoggle projects instead of just buying some buses and organizing routes, the incremental, somewhat temporary improvements necessary to move toward better transit connectivity.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why single out transportation? One could imagine a cheap house in a small town with no jobs, high taxes, expensive utilities, pricey shopping centers, in a flood plain, in a country with an exceptionally broken healthcare system. Transportation could be the least of your problems.

</comment><comment><USER31> Also property taxes and costs of living: food, _transportation_ and other necessities.

</comment><comment><USER32> One of the easiest ways in which you can live longer, is by simply managing your current time better. For example, try living near everything that you might need, in an area with no pollution. Hard to find for a good price!

</comment><comment><USER33> "They spend 30 percent of their income on housing and 20 percent of their income on transportation. The second household lives in a city and owns one car. Their house is more expensive than the suburban one, so they spend 40 percent of their income on housing, and just 10 percent on transportation. Is it really accurate to describe the second (city) household as any more "cost- burdened" than its suburban peer?"

The answer is yes. Comparaing housing costs to transportation costs is not accurate. Housing costs are fixed based on neighborhood so most residents are forced to either pay the price or move. While transportation costs can always be budgeted lowered by many methods. EX: using fuel efficient vehicles, car pooling, sharing vehicles, etc.

<comment><USER34> You can buy cheaper houses in neighborhods, or rent, or have roommates. Many things can be done to mitigate the cost of housing, just like with transportation.

<comment><USER33> > You can buy cheaper houses in neighborhods, or rent, or have roommates. Many > things can be done to mitigate the cost of housing, just like with > transportation.

Housing prices both renting/buying are usually fixed based on similar houses in the area. You arent going to see a $2500 a month house next to a $600 a month house. So the idea that you can just buy drastically cheaper houses in the same neighborhood is not true. Roommates are an option for singles. But not feasible for families

<comment><USER35> >You arent going to see a $2500 a month house next to a $600 a month house

Maybe not in a modern cookie cutter subdivision, but in older neighborhoods, definitely. My street has a lot of variety of size and occupancy. We have big single family houses, smaller single family houses, duplexes, triplexes, and a house with a mother-in-law apartment.

>Roommates are an option for singles. But not feasible for families

Roommates can work for families with the right architecture, I've seen it work before, personally. Of course, if you're completely closed off to the whole idea just on principal, it won't work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> keep in mind the retail cost of fuel is massively subsidized ... after you factor in global military budget spent subjugating oil rich countries, say nothing about the hit western global big oil would take if those same countries nationalized their own oil ... everytime people step on that pedal they must be reminded of the implications

</comment><comment><USER37> Not to mention all the tax dollars suburban/rural homes take from city centers to subsidize their "cheap" housing.

</comment><comment><USER38> 4:30 PM PST - hug of death?

</comment><comment><USER39> Yeah, it makes me very uncomfortable when people say "housing is unaffordable in ${region} for anyone making less than ${salary}.

On the one hand, I appreciate that they're trying to put numbers on a problem we all feel in our gut. You can't hand-wave it away by saying "well, things change".

But, at the same time, things DO change. At a time when many goods and services are at an all-time low in terms of costs, why WOULDN'T housing costs go up? On the one hand, costs will be affected by constrained or increased supply. On the other hand, there's the demand side. If I can afford to cheaply feed and transport and clothe myself, why would I not choose to allocate a greater share of my income towards housing closer to work, or with more space, or in a more desirable neighborhood? The choices we all freely make with how to allocate our income necessarily drives affordability for others.

<comment><USER40> This seems like a reasonable hypothesis.

And easily tested.

Is it true that the other costs of living have gone down in real terms. If it is, then we also need to know if people are buying those cheaper products and services.

We also need to know which groups of people are affected by which price- changes-over-time, in real terms.

This seems like information the statistics bureaus are likely to collect, definitely recall seeing this sort of data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and I vaguely recall the costs of living have gone up but I've never attempted to dissect the data.

I think the most important idea from the parent comment here is whether it's possible to live on rice, lentils, onions, and potatoes, plus heating and cooking energy, at a lower rate now than the recent past, and if so why are we choosing not to.

<comment><USER41> Cars are more expensive compared to many people's salaries, as evidenced by car loans getting extended to 7 years. However they are more fuel efficient, last longer, and have lower maintenance costs (oil change at 10,000 instead of 3000 miles, for example).

For food it really depends on what you get. Meat seems to be higher, but I'm always amazed at how cheap bananas and potatoes are (and rice). Paying per minute for phone calls is a thing of the past too.

However a modern lifestyle also comes with more "almost necessary" expenses, such as home internet, cable ($150 - $200 a month), plus cell phone ($160 per month for two lines, to get unlimited calls and data). But electric usage is lower due to higher efficiency appliances and lighting.

<comment><USER39> The 7 year loans _could_ just mean people are _choosing_ to buy more expensive cars, or have less money left over after other costs. I believe average selling prices are tracking inflation, but mandated safety and efficiency drives costs up. (I'm not saying this is a bad thing -- it just IS).

I agree with you on the "almost necessary" expenses. While nobody "needs" a $1000 smartphone, of course, it's hardly reasonable to not expect someone to complain about the cost of living unless they're adjusting their rabbit ears and using a tin cup and string. In particular, for many lower-income people, their (say) $400 smartphone might be their primary computing device

In other words, it's complicated!

<comment><USER12> >The 7 year loans could just mean people are choosing to buy more expensive cars,

That's exactly what it is. Cars are lasting longer so more of the market is shifting to various types of used (e.g. CPO Avalon is bought by people who would have formerly bought a new Echo) and there's a bunch of secondary mechanisms and financial incentive shenanigans that further this.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you find this useful? - <AUTHOR>

I recently wrote this very simple web timer (it lets you put a countdown on any website you want to limit your use of). It's gotten some good reviews on sites like lifehacker.
I've seen a lot of really helpful critique / suggestions on HN, and I would appreciate any thoughts you might have. Does the site seem useful to you? How can I make it better? All observations welcome.
Thanks.
http://x.minutes.at <comment><USER2> It's certainly an interesting idea. I'd get rid of the dialog boxes and just do a form, jquery makes that extremely easy. I'd honestly never use it. I clicked the link because I am very interested in making myself more aware of time, but I don't care to have my activities limited. Here's an example: I want to take a 5min break and read HN. I read HN mostly because occasionally, something new and useful shows up. This happens very rarely but when it does, I'll be there for 20min instead of 5.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link: <http://x.minutes.at/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments everyone. I'll take them on board.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Love the simplicity of the idea (and the implementation too, for that matter). The cancel button, however, doesn't cancel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll fix it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its unlikely that people will visit sites with a timer on but they might be interested in knowing how much time they have spent on a site. So, instead of reverse timer a simple timer will probably do the work. Also it will be great to have it as a browser plugin

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. A few people have asked for a plugin so I will work on that for FF and chrome.

As for knowing how much time you've spent on a site, there is a stopclock mode, i.e. counting upwards from 0. Just <http://howmany.minutes.at/yoursite>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You need to lower/change the barrier to entry. I could see myself using it if it limited itself everytime I went somewhere (ie: 2 minutes for hacker news, since I check it too damn much), but there is simply no way I'm going to go to your site first and then enter it. The bookmarklet is a good attempt at a fix, but it really needs to be seamless and automatic. For me deciding how much time I need on a site each time I go to it requires a fair amount of thought and consideration, whereas I could get used to getting everything I need out of HN in 2 minutes unless I was there for a lengthy stay.

Focus on an FF plugin maybe?

</comment><comment><USER6> I think it's a pretty much perfect implementation of a service of this nature. Esp. like that I can use bookmarklets. How robust is your frame buster buster? I do get a slightly weird interaction when loading nytimes, at least in chrome. A killer feature would be pausing if you tab away, but I'm pretty sure there's no way to do this. Having said that, I don't really see myself using something to limit my time on a page.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great design, I don't see myself using it though, maybe a firefox plugin???

</comment><comment><USER8> Brillant. It is simple and intuitive. I love it :D A lil work needed on the implementation though; when I clicked on a link in the same site, it disappeared, the timer that is.</comment>


Canadian grocery chain orders 25 Tesla electric Semi trucks - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/18/canadian-grocery-chain-orders-25-tesla-electric-semi-trucks/ <comment><AUTHOR> I have a feeling these orders are going to pile up. Many companies could be at a disadvantage at some point if this takes off. Tesla will give preference to early adopters for further Truck/Tractor sales. I would imagine they could also leverage this with trailers that sport solar panel on the roof to help recharge a battery for refers and even put regenerative braking on trailer wheels.

I have so many good ideas I wish I could share with Musk concerning this industry, too bad he is impossible to reach by us simple folks.</comment>


Why Digg Should Buy StumbleUpon - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2008/10/07/why-digg-should-buy-stumbleupon/ <comment><USER2> * "From what I've been able to glean from various sources,"

* ". In this current economic climate, eBay is going to have a tough time finding a buyer, never mind one that would be willing to pay such a price. "

* "eBay could have its cake and eat it, too...by selling it to Digg in exchange for equity in the combined entity."

None of these quotes in the article link back to any reliable source that would give any reasonable foundation for their own interest. Aside from a link back to TechCrunch (checking your sources does not mean finding another article that says the same thing) that doesn't tell the reader much, there's no real reason to think Digg, an entity of it's own would want to buy StumbleUpon.

</comment><comment><USER3> If eBay had any faith in its system, it would auction StumbleUpon off on eBay. And then have something go wrong and fight with the faceless eBay entities for weeks before getting some of its money back.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any interest in this area has to do with monetisation. They both work. They're bot popular. Next.

How much bigger will stumble or digg get? I haven't heard many (any) stumbleupon advertising success stories. Anyone know of case studies.

There's always the chance that a big chunk of that is coming from companies that spend big on ppc/seo with good returns & are looking for any other channel. They could be throwing some money at it to see what happens. They may not come back.

Actually, a good sign of potential would be money making sites obsessing about being on Digg's home page or getting 'stumble thunder' like bloggers do.

</comment><comment><USER5> Since digg has no money at all and microsoft is funding digg, I assume you meant microsoft should buy stumbleupon?

<comment><USER6> You must have missed the recent funding announcement.</comment></comment>


The Amazing Disappearing BSD License (2005) - <AUTHOR> https://urchin.earth.li/~twic/The_Amazing_Disappearing_BSD_License.html <comment><USER2> If you would like a non-copyleft free software license consider using the ISC license. It removes language not required by modern laws. It's the preferred license for the OpenBSD project.

Here it is:

Copyright (c) Year(s), Company or Person's Name <E-mail address>

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

<comment><USER3> Why half of the license is CAPSLOCKED? Is it really necessary?

<comment><USER4> It doesn't have to be capitalized. US law (and probably some other places) requires key parts of a contract to be 'conspicuous' i.e. well read and not missed.

CAPS LOCK NEAR THE BEGINNING OF THE CONTRACT seems to be a convention (in the US) [for making things 'conspicuous'] where something as revolutionary such as bullet points may not be.

This is not global convention (for making things 'conspicuous') and seems peculiar to the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you were going to design an optimal protocol from scratch today, you would not make TCP/IP or HTTP (check the Referer header [0]) or lots of other things. But we all use them to maximize interoperability.

For the same reason, you should almost certainly be using the MIT, Apache, or GPL license to maximize the chance that your open source software can actually be used by others. If you don't use a well known license, very few will invest in the lawyer's time necessary to evaluate your custom license. (See the problems caused by the tongue-in-cheek JSON license: [http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json- license](http://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license) )

Use the dominant license for your project (e.g., MIT for Ruby Gems). For new projects, I recommend [http://choosealicense.com](http://choosealicense.com) to pick a license.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer)

</comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only one thinking that:

 _THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS..._ and continued

is incredibly important.

<comment><USER7> Does anyone know if the EU requirements for mandatory warranties on products affect free software and the ability to distribute them without warranty?

<comment><USER8> EU doesn't do punitice damages, you might just be entitled to get some or all of your money back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Came here to highly recommend [http://choosealicense.com/](http://choosealicense.com/) for new projects and since you're probably not a lawyer. Clear explanations and guidance!

</comment><comment><USER10> It is certainly not a minimalist approach, but I see a lot of people discussing the various potential holes in the minimalist licenses anyway - what about the Apache Software License 2.0? It's longer, but that's precisely because lawyers have filled in a bunch of the ambiguities. In my opinion, it's a more robust implementation of the spirit with which the BSD licenses were written.

</comment><comment><USER11> BSD license does not cover warranty. There is a risk author gets sued to oblivion.

<comment><USER12> has this ever actually happened?

<comment><USER13> It seems to be coming up.

[http://www.hklaw.com/digitaltechblog/The-UCC-and-Software- Co...](http://www.hklaw.com/digitaltechblog/The-UCC-and-Software-Contracts- Recent-Developments-02-18-2011/)

It looks like it ends up being decided on whether or not the software is a good (covered by a warranty) or a service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't understand the purpose of these extreme licenses. If you don't want to restrict the usage of your software in any way, why not place it in the public domain?

As I understand it, the point of owning something is to restrict what others can do with it. Some people want that. For example, some people choose to own the software they write so they can license it under the GPL. They want restrict my freedom to limit what others can do with any modifications I might make. If that's what they want, then retaining ownership makes sense.

If you _really_ don't want to restrict others in any way, why maintain ownership? Why take on the risk of liability, or go to the bother of disclaiming it? It's software, so giving it to the public won't deprive you of its use.

But then, I am not a lawyer. Am I wrong? Are there downsides?

<comment><USER15> Dedicating a work to the public domain is legally very ambiguous and varies globally; Some jurisdictions do not allow a creator to relinquish their moral rights. Permissive licenses are simply a way of unambiguously stating that a work may be used freely. Permissive licenses also provide important protections to the author, as liability is not necessarily waived by relinquishing a claim to copyright.

As the Zen of Python says, explicit is better than implicit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The 1-Clause BSD License seems to be similar to the Boost Software License ([http://opensource.org/licenses/BSL-1.0](http://opensource.org/licenses/BSL-1.0)). I think it's a pretty good fit for foundation libraries.

</comment><comment><USER17> My own license is a more family-friendly variant of the WTFPL: [http://www.johntait.org/webhelp- mobile/WYLPL.html](http://www.johntait.org/webhelp-mobile/WYLPL.html)

<comment><USER18> Everyone should write their own license. This will increase freedom and democracy.

<comment><USER6> How will specifically writing your own license increase freedom and democracy??

What everyone should do is _choose a license_.

<comment><USER19> The parent's comment is dripping with sarcasm

<comment><USER20> Sarcasm is a highly inefficient mode of communication and should be avoided as much as possible.

<comment><USER21> It's inefficient if your assumptions about the audience are wrong. If you know your audience, sarcasm is highly effective, high-density mode of communication.

<comment><USER20> Got it, only with close friends and family.

<comment><USER18> Only with intelligent people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://www.unlicense.org](http://www.unlicense.org) is the only civilized thing to be using these days.</comment>


Orbital Display: Low Earth Orbit billboard for 7B people - <AUTHOR> https://startrocket.me <comment><USER2> I hope this idea gets terminated with extreme prejudice.</comment>


Soundproofing for New York Noise - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/realestate/soundproofing-for-new-york-noise.html <comment><USER2> Street noise can slowly wear down your nerves.

I live in SF, and when I was dating my GF (now wife), she had an apt on a busy street (Oak Street); I live in an in-law garden unit. The first time I slept over at her place, I got barely any sleep. When she slept over at my place, all she heard was birds, leaves and the very occasional Harley or emergency vehicle. When she slept over, she woke up feeling so much better. So when it came time to move in together, there was no question where she wanted to be!

On that topic: I wish we could have acoustical limits on vehicle noise. Those loud motorcycles with the fat pipes: they seriously need to control those.

<comment><USER3> I moved to NYC a few months ago, from Long Island, and I have been experiencing morning headaches. If I look at my sleep logger app, I notice that after around 5-6 AM, my sleep quality goes way down and moves into mostly light sleep, almost no deep sleep or REM. There's definitely something to be said about how street noise affects our sleep patterns.

For me, I'll have to try using earplugs more, but the stress on my ears isn't so nice because I'm a side sleeper. I wish I could just go to bed earlier, but I work on a remote team which is half in LA, and it would be counterproductive if I wasn't able to stay up past 10-11 PM... not to mention my schedule would conflict with that of my friends and roommates.

<comment><USER4> Have you tried adding white noise, like sleeping with a fan on? I find it just as effective as earplugs, which make my ear canals hurt if I wear them all night. For me, it's not the volume of noise that hurts my sleep quality; it's the variations in the noise.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, pink noise helped tremendously with my urban-noise-induced tinnitus at night.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just went through a fairly thorough soundproofing project for my apartment in SF. (If anyone has any questions or needs advice, I'm happy to help.)

Few things I learned: 1). It doesn't have to be expensive. My problem was that I live in a 2BR apartment with a wonderful roommate -- but we share a bedroom wall, and that wall is thin. So you can imagine the....awkwardness...at times.

I got quotes from various soundproofing specialists that ranged from $10k to $25k (!!!) to thicken the shared wall and reinforce the bedroom doors. Hogwash. I did some research, bought some raw materials (Green Glue, QuietRock sheetrock, solid-core doors, door seals) and did the whole thing for a fraction of that price.

2) Sound science is fascinating and DIY projects like this are kinda fun :) I've never been much of a DIYer around the home, but it takes on a whole new appeal when you have a clean end goal in mind and your quality of life takes a major improvement when the mission is completed.

Anyway -- this is a fascinating subject and I'm happy to geek out about it with anyone who's interested.

<comment><USER7> Had you just reinforced the wall, or windows, too? If anyone has advice for sound-proofing street-facing glass, I would be obliged.

<comment><USER8> That'd be great. I live on Hyde st right by a busy road and the cable car. I've become more immune to the noise but would love to reduce it. Acoustic dampening curtains have mixed reviews and are an expensive experiment. Any other ideas?

<comment><USER9> Outside shutters, either roll up or swinging; better windows, with thicker glass and more layers; making sure the windows and door openings are properly air sealed, as well as all construction joints (corners, inside corners, where the wall meets a floor or the roof, the connection between the foundation wall or slab and the walls...). Also, all penetrations for wires, pipes, etc. need to be air sealed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the culprits:

> air-conditioning units (which are basically unrestricted openings to the > street)

Window air conditioning units are virtually unknown in a large part of the warm weather world. We use "split systems," where only a couple thin pipes and some wires connect the outdoors with the indoors. NYC's fascination with inefficient window units is really quite strange. I suppose landlords enjoy not having to pay for installation and maintenance of permanent units.

<comment><USER11> Given that a window unit is on the order of hundreds to a thousand dollars (for a REALLY nice unit) and the permanent external/internal systems are on the order of $5-10k, I think the fascination is pretty obvious.

<comment><USER12> What the hell? An indoor/outdoor system costs less than $1k on Amazon:

[http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Ductless-INVERTER- Conditioner-...](http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Ductless-INVERTER- Conditioner-110~120/dp/B00E9I9I4S/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1450644629&sr=8-9&keywords=air+conditioning)

<comment><USER13> In an apartment building, installation is going to cost you more than the actual unit. You need to run fairly heavy hoses to the condenser. You also aren't going to put a fleet of little one-ton units on the roof, so you're looking at much larger central condensers or possibly cooling towers for chilled water (which often ends up cheaper for large installations but requires more space).

<comment><USER12> Huh...have you traveled to other parts of the world? Look at an apartment building in Japan or China, those are all over the wall and is the de-facto AC solution.

Really, installation takes less than an hour and the rest of the world think Americans are bizarre with the window units.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Soundproofing can be extremely useful, but it's also expensive and unavailable for most tenants. Because it involves construction work, quality soundproofing can't happen without the consent of the landlord.

I think a lot of people are overlooking a solution that would improve quality of life: Make it easier to punish noisy people.

Even when I've lived near busy streets like Van Ness, most of my annoyances have come from inside the building, not outside. It's amazing how much grief a careless neighbor can inflict on the dozens around them. All it takes is a subwoofer and a taste for bass. Even if multiple neighbors complain, there's little that can be done. In my case, most of the neighbors –including myself– gave up and moved. Had the laws been more reasonable, the only one moving would be the cause of the nuisance.

<comment><USER15> Yup. Another thing is that many older NYC apartment buildings are built with paper thin walls/floors, which obviously has no easy fix. Another issue, especially for people who are just "passing through" the city is a lack of concern for others since they aren't around long. My current building, for example, has people moving in an out every 4-6 months. Hard for many to care when they view their apartment as a glorified hotel room.

The choices in these cases are passive-aggressive notes in the lobby, or direct confrontation at 3AM when the bass is pumping, which is what it usually comes down to, unfortunately.

<comment><USER16> Older buildings, at least those built prior to WWII, are specifically sought out because they don't have paper thin walls and floors. They generally have plaster interior walls, thick poured concrete floors, and triple layer masonry exterior walls. Postwar buildings on the other hand tend to have gypsum (sheetrock) interior walls, thinner reinforced concrete floors acoustically bound to the frame, and thinner exterior walls. Newer windows are much quieter, but that's something that can be updated fairly easily.

The worst buildings were probably built from the end of WWII to the early 1970s. Stuyvesant Town apartments, for example, are terribly noisy.

<comment><USER15> The buildings I've lived in were built in: 1910 (Lower East Side), 1920 (Yorkville), 1915 (Kensington), 1928 (Brighton Beach), and 1910 (Upper East Side), and all of them were awfully thin. Maybe we have different definitions of paper thin, but I have always been able to hear my neighbors: walking, talking, playing music, taking a shower, or watching TV.

<comment><USER16> Interesting. Do you know if any/all of them had plaster walls? Maybe they had all been gut renovated at some point?

<comment><USER15> No clue at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wouldn't an epic startup idea be to build a ventilated, sound-proof, vibration-proof box for sleeping in and then sell it directly to consumers? I imagine it would be a hell of a lot cheaper than sound-proofing an entire house or having to move because of crappy neighbors and I'd sure as hell buy one if it existed. A device like that probably would have saved me from having to move from my last house under quite bad terms, plus imagine being able to have parties in your house and then being able to sleep when you get over it without having to wind down the whole party. There's probably multiple user- cases for such a device but I honestly don't know how practical this would be to build - acoustics != my field.

<comment><USER18> That device is called ear-plugs.

<comment><USER19> Some people cant tolerate ear plugs for long periods of time. They block the throat tubes and lead to painful infection.

If you are sitting, then noise cancelation headphones are a hygenic alternative. But this does work for mosr sleeping positions.

<comment><USER20> _They block the throat tubes and lead to painful infection._

????

Your eustachian tubes that connect the back of your throat to your _inner ear_ aren't affect by ear plugs. Your ear drum seals your inner ear from your outer ear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Noise is one of the factors we considered in buying a house. Through some experiments, we derived some metrics. We realized that anything closer than .25 miles from a highway and we would hear the noise during rush hour. Also you didn't want to have a house right adjacent to any of the busy streets. Its amazing how when we walk just one house away from a busy street how much the noise is attenuated. The peace and quiet when sitting in your backyard is something to value.

<comment><USER22> I live in a condo next to a highway. With trees, some double pane glass, concrete construction and who knows what else, I don't hear highway noise at all. When I open the porch window, it sounds like quiet background white noise.

I actually hear people coming in and out of the condo more than the highway.

<comment><USER23> _With trees_

FYI, trees don't block sound unless the strand is extremely dense and at least 100-ft thick. Their value is more psychological (out-of-sight, out-of-mind) than physical in reducing the perception of noise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Sirens, rooftop fans, construction and upstairs neighbors who clomp about > like a team of clog-dancing Clydesdales are common conditions of city > living.

It's amazing how oblivious some people are to the fact that every step they take is actually a huge stomp. I'm surprised their ankles don't shatter from repeatedly hammering their full body weight down onto their heels.

Isn't it uncomfortable for them to use their heels like pistons? How does it not hurt?

</comment><comment><USER25> And yet everyone wonders why many choose to commute and not live in a crowded city or next to a freeway. The Bay Area is extremely noisy with most housing near major transit. Definitely a growing market for abatement services.

<comment><USER23> I don't know why you were downvoted - transportation noise is the major noise course in this USA and creates a lot of negative affects. We as a society need mechanized transportation to function as we do, but it creates some negative effects. At the risk of sounding self-serving, we need to do more to help reduce these effects, but noise control is waaaaaaaaaaay down the list of problems that are addressed in capital transportation projects.

<comment><USER26> > noise control is waaaaaaaaaaay down the list of problems that are addressed > in capital transportation projects.

At least in Europe it is considered almost always.

But seriously, this sounds like a vicious cycle:

1\. Streets are too loud.

2\. So you move further away, use car instead of walking.

3\. Streets are even louder.

4\. Even more people move into the suburbs.

<comment><USER23> _At least in Europe it is considered almost always._

I should have appended "in the USA" to that sentence. Europe is far, far ahead of us in terms of addressing noise in general and transportation noise in particular.

For example, many Americans may have noticed that kitchen/home appliances (dishwashers, washing machines, etc) have gotten significantly quieter over the last decade or so. The reason for that is that an EU directive set maximum noise levels for common appliances. Because many manufacturers sell the same units to the US and to Europe, they designed all of their products to meet the noise spec and we Americans got the benefit.

In terms of transportation noise, I am continually blown away by the public and private sector support consultants in western Europe get in support of noise analysis and noise mapping. I've seen projects in Europe spend more money address flow noise from a high-speed rail door handle than we get addressing noise over an entire rail corridor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This kind of noise is the bane of my existence. Any good texts on this subject out there?

<comment><USER23> For a book that's lightly technical, there's F. Alton Everest's "Master Handbook of Acoustics" that discusses many aspects of acoustics, but does cover noise control and sound abatement.

For more technical treatments, my go-to books are Leo Beranek's "Acoustics" (or Beranek's "Noise and Vibration Control" if you just care about the noise control aspect) and "Fundamentals of Acoustics" by Kinsler and Frey.

<comment><USER28> Your username lends your post an air of authority :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can we hire her to tell the drunk people outside to shut up and the neighbor not to blast his tv at 2am?

<comment><USER30> Drunks are a big problem in my neighbourhood, especially on weekends. Last night I had to get up at 05:00 to tell a bunch of drunks to bugger off. They didn't like that, so they made more noise. Sigh.

<comment><USER7> My strategy: shine a bright flashlight and don't say a word until they leave.

<comment><USER31> This. People (especially drunks) don't like confrontation. Just make them feel uncomfortable and they'll want to get away from you, not the other way around.

Shining a flashlight on them is freaking hilarious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> As a owner of an apartment in Greenwhich village, noise-proofing windows is the extent to which I am allowed to modify my apartment. All else will involve appealing to the board, appeasing the neighbors during the construction phase and other headaches - not to mention the cost.

But these windows at about 500$ do a pretty good job.

</comment><comment><USER33> Noise is a particularly complex topic (and spiral) here in NYC.

First, the housing stock is old. It's hard to build new, mostly for zoning reasons. Old building will be more leaky and creaky.

Unlike most of the country, even new construction does not include central air, and often does not include central heating. They use wall units called PTACs, even in "luxury" buildings. These units are loud.

NYC is dense, which means each neighbor's noise matters more, including our automotive "neighbors".

That said, sirens are far and away the biggest problem. They are loud enough to distort in one's own ears. Well over 100db at street level. Apartments are close to the street. And clogged streets means emergency vehicles move slowly, while screaming.

Reducing this outlier would be the single biggest win, even over car traffic, which is comparatively benign.

<comment><USER28> I dunno. I think garbage trucks at night are by far more annoying than sirens. Maybe it depends on your neighborhood? I really think that NYC should mandate electric garbage trucks.

<comment><USER30> They wake me up every wednesday night. I live in a dead end street, so they have to reverse for the entire length of the street, all the while going _beep beep beep, this vehicle is reversing, beep beep beep_. I'm surprised that stuff isn't illegal.

<comment><USER26> You should see them in my street (Kiel, Germany) in winter: Backing out, on ice, _beep beep beep_ , sliding the hill back down, trying to back out again _beep beep beep_ ... and repeat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm surprised how little focus there is on noise insulation for apartments. This does not seem to be a high priority for most apartment complexes being constructed. For example, most people seem to care more about the size of the apartment than whether or not it's quiet. Personally, I'd rather live in a quiet 500-square-foot apartment than a noisy 2000-square-foot one. But I guess I'm different from most people.

<comment><USER35> New apartments are built to be sold, not be lived in. If it _looks_ good _when it sells_ , that's all that matters.

For this reason, much of the sought-after stock in NYC are townhouses that were built for, and occupied by, particular families and then later subdivided.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Amazing! Anyone knows a good source for acoustics fundamentals?

<comment><USER23> See my response to pervycreeper

<comment><USER37> Permalink: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10766834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10766834)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> No one ever mentions this, but do you know what is almost as bad? The ocean. I have romantic ideas about living next to the beach. Worse than living next to a highway.</comment>


Ariadna – Opensource geocoder for OSM data - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/maddevsio/ariadna <comment><USER2> What inspired you to start this project? There are numerous open source geocoders and the core problem isn't the software anyway, it's data. I'm often perplexed by people spending time building new things thinking they've uncovered/solved something when researching/talking with others who have domain experience would quickly reveal there may not be a there there.

<comment><AUTHOR> I need to solve a few problems for my city: 1\. Search crossroads 2\. Search pair of lat/lon from non structured text 3\. Possibility to add a custom data

And it was my inspiration to create yet another geocoder.

<comment><USER3> Love the itch scratching motive! Crossroads and intersections is a nice idea - they are used quite a lot in American cities, from casual observation "at the corner of Pine and Union".

I imagine in some countries with different addressing systems, road intersections may be a primary means of locating things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how this compares to Pelias which supports autocomplete based on OpenStreetMap, OpenAddresses, GeoNames and Who's on First: [http://pelias.io](http://pelias.io)

<comment><USER5> In fact, one of them seems to have taken part of the other ones description and modified it slightly.

EDIT: Codebases appears to be entirely different though (Node.js vs Go)

<comment><AUTHOR> I took a pelias README, because I had a low english skills when I've done it. BTW README needs to be updated and I think that I'll update it soon

<comment><USER5> That's understandable. I wouldn't worry about it other than that it made it superficially look like they were related.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What does this do that Nominatim[1] doesn't?

[1] [http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim](http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Nominatim)

<comment><USER5> Good question.. Based on my experience with Nominatim I really, really hope the answer would be that it imports faster/uses less space (to be clear: I have no idea if it does - but imports and the sheer data volume have been my biggest pain point with Nominatim)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ariadna can search crossroads :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> other: [https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Search_engines](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Search_engines)</comment>


Herd immunity: will the UK's coronavirus strategy work? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-will-the-uks-coronavirus-strategy-work <comment><USER2> This is a very dangerous strategy, given the 10% to 20% of the infected cases that will need hospitalization. I would also worry about the fact that the virus will mutate even faster as the number of infected will increase. The UK is heading towards a very difficult time at a period when most countries will be dealing with their own problems and are the least likely to help.

If the UK wants to follow this strategy they should find a way to infect the least likely to die, first. They can then deal with the associated hospitalizations in a more orderly fashion.

Good luck to them, I hope it works.

</comment><comment><USER3> The herd immunity level is (1 - 1/R0) where R0 is reproductive rate.

If the effective reproductive rate can be lowered with measures (like increased social distance and gatherings) the level where herd immunity is reached is lower.

Another reason to use countermeasures is to prevent hospitals from filling up too fast. There is limited number of ventilators available.

</comment><comment><USER4> How would that coccooning even work? I don't think it's viable for them to isolate for months or years.</comment>


Putting Apple's iMac Pro Through the Paces - <AUTHOR> https://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/putting-apples-imac-pro-through-the-paces/ <comment><USER2> It's interesting that development of the iMac Pro was already underway when Apple and pro users (mostly developers) had that big showdown after the touch bar came out. The touch bar seemed like the final slap in the face to the pro crowd, but this was already in the works then.

Every pro review I've seen so far has been that's it's excellent - not because they're fawning over this or that, but just that's it's a solid option with a great screen at what's actually a reasonable price for the components inside. If you think the price is unreasonable, you're probably not the sales target for this machine - the ones who really need this, like in the case of this reviewer, are buying three at a time - just because.

It's interesting because upgradability doesn't seem like a very big concern to anyone buying this - they're happy with that they're getting at the price they're paying. It almost seems like Apple needn't have promised everyone a new modular Mac Pro. If they'd just announced / launched this machine alongside the pointless MacBook Pro update, everyone would have been happy and with no accusations of taking the name of the Pro in vain.

<comment><USER3> I'm not so sure the reviews would have been _quite_ so positive if they hadn't also announced they're releasing a 'modular' traditional Mac Pro.

I think the knowledge that a new 'modular' Mac Pro is coming gives a different context to this machine. I think people are framing this on the idea that: if you want a quiet, good looking machine with a great screen and the other 'benefits' of an all in one (and don't mind the trade offs), then it's good to have this option. If the trade offs don't work for you, then wait for the more traditional Mac Pro.

If it had been released without any mention of another option coming for pro users, then it would have been framed as "if you need workstation grade hardware running mac os, then your only choice is now an expensive, non- upgradeable all-in-one which has traded off performance for quietness and for other thermal constraints".

<comment><USER4> I'm definitely in the category you describe: owing to ancient personal prejudices, I consider the idea of having one's computer integrated with the screen to be an utter abomination. I have trouble suffering the trend towards laptops and notebooks precisely for this reason, let alone the rise of the integrated all-in-one.

Knowledge of the coming Mac Pro allows me to view this device with levity because I can view it as a herald of things to come in a more satisfying format; had I not known of the 'imminent' (end of 2018 or beginning of 2019) Mac Pro, I would have been utterly aghast at the idea of Apple pushing me towards the integrated solution.

I tend to cram my computers with cards (not graphics cards, but things like SDRs and FPGAs) but what really does it for me is having the monitor built-in: I'm used to multiple monitor desktops, and I like both screens to be absolutely identical make and model. That clearly isn't possible when you have an all-in-one computer with no available 'identical' screen.

Also, my computer belongs beneath my desk, and my monitors on top of it. It's just the preordained way. All else is heresy. ;)

<comment><USER5> Also, computers and monitors have vastly different life cycles; the former become obsolete much faster than the latter. Binding them together physically forces you to replace one or the other either too soon or too late for absolutely no benefit.

<comment><USER6> At least the displays Apple ships are very _very_ good. Best in the industry.

<comment><USER5> I agree. I was the very happy owner of an Apple Cinema Display that served me well for many, many years, and was still in perfect working order when I had to abandon it in favor of an ASUS display because I needed more resolution and Apple wasn't selling standalone displays any more :-(

I want to be an Apple fan. I really do. But they are making it impossible for me nowadays.

<comment><USER7> Apple has mentioned that the next Mac Pro will also have a matching display.

I'm fine with a typical 4k display (or better). The panels of the better ones seem to come from LG anyway and are widely available on the market. I wonder if Apple would be selling a good quality 5k monitor with TB3, or if they go for a high-end 8k screen. Personally I'm not in the business for the highest end. LG has announced a bunch of TB3 screens, where the 4k 32" version would be sufficient for me. But LG lately has problems bringing their better screens in enough quantities to the market. Last years 32" 4k screen is still not widely available here in Germany.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Secondly, you get a wireless mouse and extended keyboard. Both have to be > plugged in to charge. In the case of the mouse, the cable plugs in at the > bottom, rendering it useless during charging. Truly a bad design.

The Magic Mouse 2 is one of the worst mice I've ever used, but the charging thing is a non-issue. The battery lasts like a month on one charge. Mine has never gone below 50%.

<comment><USER9> _The Magic Mouse 2 is one of the worst mice I 've ever used, but the charging thing is a non-issue. The battery lasts like a month on one charge. Mine has never gone below 50%._

This would be terrible for me, my battery always dies in the middle of the day, because I do not want to keep track of charging. Luckily, the Magic Trackpad 2 does not have this shortcoming and can be used with a lightning cable attached.

(I absolutely love the Magic Trackpad 2. Not just because it is large, but some applications use haptic feedback. E.g. OmniGraffle uses a subtle vibration so that you feel when two objects are aligned.)

<comment><USER10> You get nine hours of battery life from two minutes of charging for Magic Mouse 2. It's really not an issue.

<comment><USER11> Why does the magic mouse have fast charging but iPhones don't?

<comment><USER12> iPhones do have fast charging, see Power and Battery on [https://www.apple.com/iphone-8/specs/](https://www.apple.com/iphone-8/specs/)

Also a magic mouse has much lower power drain, so the same amount of charge lasts much longer on the mouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> People wondering about the unit construction, lack of upgradability, etc. may be interested to know that the "sealed box appliance" mentality has been in Apple's DNA since the design of the _first_ Macintosh:

[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port....](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Diagnostic_Port.txt)

"Apple's other co-founder, Steve Jobs, didn't agree with Jef about many things, but they both felt the same way about hardware expandability: it was a bug instead of a feature. Steve was reportedly against having slots in the Apple II back in the days of yore, and felt even stronger about slots for the Mac. He decreed that the Macintosh would remain perpetually bereft of slots, enclosed in a tightly sealed case, with only the limited expandability of the two serial ports."

</comment><comment><USER14> In defending their choice of macs, a decision that will likely come under fire no matter what, the author didn't even mention lower maintenance costs, which can mean more profit for the business if a machine would have been down otherwise. I suppose "solid and robust" would be the trait that leads to higher reliability. My boss personally hates macs, but he recently switched the entire office to macs because our IT service company's monthly maintenance fee is half price for macs.

<comment><USER15> Also, cheap parts and good youtube tutorials are more readily available for mac if you want to DIY.

<comment><USER16> I have looked at the diy tutorials for the later macs the ones that are made hard for end users to maintain - and they make installing custom cooling loops with hard tubing look simple.

<comment><USER15> There's no comparison to desktop PCs which, as you point out, are as simple as lego to build/fix and have part availability that puts lego itself to shame. I was really thinking more about laptops, where the need to peel/replace some glue is nothing next to the availability of parts.

<comment><USER17> Most enterprise laptops are vastly easier to fix than Apple hardware. The manufacturers of these machines have thought carefully about repairability and designed it in from the start.

For example, the Lenovo X270 opens with eight Philips screws. Once you're inside, you'll find an array of standard parts in standard sockets. Lenovo provide a detailed service manual and will sell you anything from a replacement fan to a new LCD from stock. The logic board isn't caked in BGA underfill and has a sensible level of density, so component-level repairs are vastly easier and less time-consuming.

<comment><USER15> It's good to hear that Lenovo treats you better than Dell treated me. Is this their policy in general or do you have to buy a megabuck enterprise service contract (i.e. the one bonestamp2 identified as not competitive)?

<comment><USER17> Completely standard across the Think* line. Service manuals and diagnostic software is available to download directly - you don't even have to log in. You can buy all parts directly from Lenovo or from a distributor without a service contract and regardless of warranty status. Opening the chassis doesn't automatically void your warranty and the terms specifically state which parts you're allowed to replace yourself.

The standard US warranty on ThinkPads is one year RTB, but you can upgrade to three years RTB for $99 or three years onsite for $159. International warranty coverage is an extra $10. The standard warranty in Europe is three years onsite. For minor faults, you can usually ask for replacement parts to be shipped for self-installation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm happy to see something with professional specs coming from Apple. I have serious concerns with the iMac Pro in terms of heat while rendering for many days of the year.

The Mac Pro trash can is notorious for overheating, so I'm not sad to see it go and I look forward to a new Mac Pro in 2018. The market for that unit will pay a premium for serviceability as well. I'm expecting a heavy price tag.

It's nice to see a real world example of the iMac Pro in use. I do a lot of sustained renders for TV and feature length content. Our PCs run laps around our trash cans, but a mixed environment is far from ideal. We spend more time troubleshooting with editors than anything.

I have more concerns about macOS High Sierra than anything at this point though. I've upgraded a few machines and we're seeing more crashes than ever. Sierra might have to be my staple for a long while.

</comment><comment><USER19> > At the distance that the editors sit from a 27" display, there is simply > little or no difference between the look of the 27" LED display and the 27" > iMac Retina screens.

Eh?

<comment><USER20> The author seems to be well in his middle age, and wears glasses. His visual acuity might make his subjective experience irrelevant on that specific point.

I can tell the difference between retina and non retina 27" on a desk (but I have 20/10 vision, which makes my subjective experience irrelevant for most people too)

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I can also absolutely tell the difference and have a hard time using any non-retina monitor now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Even if you never upgrade the machine during its lifetime, you still have to pay Apple's notoriously high ram and hard drive upgrade costs.

Example: when I bought a new iMac last year, Apple was charging $1400 for 64GB of ram. That's insane, so I went with the base and purchased my own. Took five minutes to install and saved around $800 if I recall

<comment><USER9> A large organization might not really care about dropping $1400 on 64GB of RAM if required when your employees cost $100,000 per year.

<comment><USER16> Never met a large organisation where purchasing cheaper OEM parts wasn't liked by the CFO

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would have been interesting to see the same benchmarks on similarly priced Threadripper workstation.

</comment><comment><USER23> I read in one review that, in addition to the non-upgradeability of the new iMac Pro, there is one real coup de grace: the beautiful integrated screen is not capable of being used as an external display for any future computer.

If true, doesn't this strike you all as truly unnecessarily egregious? Why should an iMac Pro stuffed full of chemicals to show beautiful 5K images, never be capable of being used as just a display? Is there a good reason Apple customers have to buy brand new displays?

This is worth asking because, unlike the components in the new machine, the display will probably be state of the art for a while.

<comment><USER24> Isn't this already true of recent iMacs? I don't think you have been able to use them as dumb displays for at least 1-2 generations?

<comment><USER23> I think you're right. But just as insane in that situation. Think of the work necessary to prevent that screen from ever being used to display a nasty video signal from –– gasp! –– another computer. It's just such an insult to customers. Am I crazy here? And isn't Apple supposed to be a company of environmentalists?

<comment><USER25> _Think of the work necessary to prevent that screen from ever being used to display a nasty video signal from –– gasp! –– another computer. It 's just such an insult to customers._

They just didn't bother adding the circuitry for "video in", due to cost; there is no active opposition here.

For many years now, you can buy "LVDS converter" boards[1] which will let you use any display panel as a monitor. I'm sure demand will mean such boards appear for the iMac Pro displays soon, if the existing ones aren't already compatible. I haven't looked too closely at this but the display might even be eDP or similar, which means only a physical converter is necessary if you want to connect a DP output to it. That's been done with iPad displays before[2]

[1] [http://www.ebay.com/bhp/lvds-hdmi](http://www.ebay.com/bhp/lvds-hdmi)

[2] [https://hackaday.com/2013/04/22/connect-a-retina-display- to-...](https://hackaday.com/2013/04/22/connect-a-retina-display-to-a-regular- computer/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> _In my next test, I took a 4½-minute-long 1080p ProRes file and rendered it to a 4K /UHD (3840×2160) H.264 (1-pass CBR 20Mbps) file._

So this is why those media pros need that computing power and resolution..

<comment><USER27> For projection mapping, my large, well-known theater uses a 14,000x14,000 pixel canvas. Every frame is a little over 500MB.

<comment><USER28> Those sizes surely warrant a small render farm and not just beefed-up workstations?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Can iMac be used as an external monitor for a Macbook?

<comment><USER30> No, retina iMac models don't support target display mode anymore. You can get a pretty expensive Dell 5K display and use that with a Macbook...

<comment><USER31> MacBooks don't support 5K resolutions, so it would be a bit wasteful to buy a 5K monitor for one. Are you sure you're not confusing it with the MacBook Pro?

<comment><USER30> I was using the term "MacBook" to mean a generic Apple laptop, not the 12" Retina MacBook with Core M processor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I want to see an apple designed chip running full out (no real thermal restrictions like in iPads/iPhone/Apple TV). Those chips already compare pretty favorably to Intel, and running at 3+GHz would likely have great single threaded performance.

I actually believe we're going to see MacOS for arm and a mac mini running an arm chip, it makes too much sense for Apple not to do it.

<comment><USER33> I know what you mean, but I'm not sure that's the way forward.

My understanding is that when you start really cranking up CPU speed -- let's say, with an imaginary 3.5ghz version of whatever their latest iPad Pro CPU is -- now you're just spending all your time waiting for RAM. So you need fancier and fancier speculative execution hardware in order for the CPU to have something, anything to do. You get into that game, and you wind up with as many transistors on a chip as Intel and AMD, hitting the same performance walls as Intel and AMD have been hitting for a long time.

What Apple _could_ do is just go super wide, of course. Instead of bumping up the clock speed, they could cram 16 of those iPad Pro cores into a Macbook or whatever. Which would be fun, but for most workloads, those cores will just be idle most of the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> > The AME version kicked in the fans on the iMac.

Interesting... so they're noticeable.

Anyone around who has (access to) an iMac Pro and can comment on the fan noise?

<comment><USER35> I noticed that too, but the author said iMac, not the iMac Pro.

<comment><USER34> Ah you're right. Wasn't the Pro. But my question still stands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > _But is this really an issue? I'm sure Apple has user research numbers to > justify their decisions._

They also have a direct incentive not to make user memory upgrades an option. It's a bit too charitable to think they're not supporting it because they somehow know nobody would want to do it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER37> Ultimately, isn't the iMac Pro just a stopgap pro because the true upgraded desktop is coming out this year?

<comment><USER35> Plenty of people will be happy with the iMac Pro. If the number of people who'll pay $5k for a computer that will be much less useful in 3 years is relatively constrained, the number who'll pay $5k for a computer they expect to treat as a stopgap for a few months is miniscule.

There's no indication that Apple thinks it's a one-off: there's a lot of custom engineering in there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Does it have an Intel processor?

<comment> yoz-y Yes. Intel Xeon. All of the benchmarks use the os already updated for meltdown too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> "...there is simply little or no difference between the look of the 27" LED display and the 27" iMac Retina screens."

I feel sorry for the author, because your eyes have to be shit to come to come to this conclusion. If I remove my contact lenses, then yes, there is no difference.

I'm sure the difference in color gamut is no big deal to someone with colorblindness either.

<comment><USER2> Think the author is just saying that editors sit past the Retina boundary on for the 27" LED. Have added another comment above with links.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's it like working as a finance developer? - <AUTHOR>

I've had experience interning out at a large Silicon Valley company(soon to be two). It's been a blast, and I've had a ton of fun. I've gotten a pretty good feel for how Silicon Valley operates, and I know I'd be happy taking a full-time offer out there. However, part of me wonders what other possibilities there are beyond the Bay Area.
One particular area which I'm curious about is finance. My (limited) understanding of software engineering in finance is that developers are treated as second-class citizens, paid comparatively poorly(though not absolutely) to traders, and are expected to put in long hours. The last part doesn't bother me so much, but I am curious about the first two aspects.
I'd be interested to hear from people working in finance on the following questions:
- Is it true that developers are treated like support staff to traders?
- To be blunt: What are typical salaries for software engineers in finance?
- For those who have experience working in the Valley as well: how does it  compare? <comment><USER2> I completed an internship at a large bank this summer in their Technology Analyst program. They basically house all the technical people into technology and it ranges from IT people to developers. Within the world of finance front office > all and are treated like it and treat others like crap. If you're really interested in working in finance as a developer I would look into either doing quant development or working at a respected proprietary trading firm like Susquehanna International Group, Optiver, GETCO, Jane Street, etc. These firms are definitely more quant and your development skills will be utilized here far more than at a large bank. Hope this helps.

<comment><USER2> The starting salaries in the Technology Analyst programs at large banks in NYC are ~65k.

<comment><AUTHOR> That seems really, really low in comparison to Silicon Valley. The typical numbers I've heard thrown around are 90-100k for new CS grads, plus bonuses. Does "Technology Analyst" refer to 'IT guy' or 'developer'? Also, the salary seems really hard to live on in NYC(being from the area).

<comment><USER2> The scope of the Technology group ranges from typical IT stuff to development. In general there is another group closer associated to the Trading group along the lines of Quantitative Development. I believe all of these interns were Financial Engineering majors, none were CS majors (a lot more hardcore math involved). These salaries were closer to ~90-100k.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr: at most banks, the traders directly drive pnl. developers are seen as secondary since they treat the process as developers supporting traders. At other places, the developers are the true source of "alpha", and there the developers are treated like rock stars.

"developers are treated as second-class citizens" <\-- partially true

There are two classes of developers: those who drive pnl and tose who don't.

To give an example, I built an ultra low latency trading operation. My development [granted, it was only part of my work process] directly resulted in pnl and it could be proven.

Some of my friends worked in the IT departments of some investment banks (GS, MS, JPM, etc). Many of them are doing things which do not directly generate pnl, nor could their work be attributed to the revenue of any division.

"paid comparatively poorly(though not absolutely) to traders" <\-- partially true

Traders are paid more because it is easier to attribute pnl to them. Developers in a quantitative shop are paid better than the traders, because in those contexts the developers bring more value to the process than traders.

"are expected to put in long hours" <\-- partially true

I've never had to work outside of 9-6. However, in some places, where they care about headcount, people work longer hours.

"- Is it true that developers are treated like support staff to traders?"

Depends on the place

"- To be blunt: What are typical salaries for software engineers in finance?"

For support, salaries are like 70K. At a quant shop, you are looking at like 100-150K. At a hft developer, 200-300K is pretty common (but those jobs are hard to land, mainly because those funds arent doing as well thanks to a low VIX)

"- For those who have experience working in the Valley as well: how does it compare?"

Cannot say

<comment><AUTHOR> What skills do HFT shops look for in a developer? Do they require finance knowledge, or do they "just" want a rockstar systems hacker who can optimize packet delivery latency by hacking the kernel?

<comment><USER4> Some people are making reports using Excel/VBA or Perl, some are building trading gateways in C++ from scratch, some are developing trading models (typically requires a PhD or a financial engineering master's).

Take a look at the websites of the prop trading shops cdmcnamara mentioned. Mind you, getting a job at SIG, Jane Street, etc, is harder than getting a job at Google, Facebook, etc.

<comment><USER3> "Some people are making reports using Excel/VBA or Perl" <\-- these are the second-class people, so to speak.

"some are building trading gateways in C++ from scratch" <\-- depending on the shop, its either support (banks) or first-class (hft)

"some are developing trading models (typically requires a PhD or a financial engineering master's)" <\-- this is not completely true. GETCO for example hires mostly bachelor's.

"getting a job at SIG, Jane Street, etc, is harder than getting a job at Google, Facebook, etc." <\-- its primarily harder because the competition is tighter and the work is very different from what silicon valley asks for.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Translate any HTML/webapp without an i18n runtime library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adamleithp/jamstack-translate <comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing! Very interesting. Looking to do something like this soon on our static site

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Glad someone can find it useful :)</comment></comment>


Stop Guessing. Start Measuring. - <AUTHOR> https://www.7pace.com/blog/stop-guessing-start-measuring/ <comment><USER2> To me you could use % complete with some confidence level to measure not just progress but, confidence. There are many task which aren't fully defined. Those would have lower confidence than entering a bunch of data into a table or something.</comment>