People leave molecular wakes that may give away their secrets - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/13/people-leave-molecular-wakes-that-may-give-away-their-secrets <comment><USER2> Gas chromatography is being miniaturized with MEMS sensors, [https://www.bronkhorst.com/int/blog/mems-technology-to- suppo...](https://www.bronkhorst.com/int/blog/mems-technology-to-support- compact-gas-chromatography-equipment/)

$50 spectrometers are already quite small, [https://hackaday.io/project/143014-compact-25-spectrometer](https://hackaday.io/project/143014-compact-25-spectrometer) & [https://www.tindie.com/products/onehorse/compact- as7265x-spe...](https://www.tindie.com/products/onehorse/compact- as7265x-spectrometer/)

If portable analyzers inspired by Star Trek's tricorder become affordable, the transparency goes in multiple directions, e.g. analyzing food, liquids and other substances sold commercially.

<comment><USER3> There was a time when mobile phones gained many sensors, and it all kind of stopped 10 years ago. I expected high-end phones by 2020 would measure distances and temperatures, air quality, UV exposure, radioactivity, infrared photography, etc. In essence, baby tricorders.

In fact, several of these they can already do with a combination of the existing hardware, but sadly, the market has laser-focused on visual social media.

<comment><USER4> CAT was branding a phone some time ago with a low-res thermal camera, but it was locked to some already-ancient version of Android and otherwise total lamesauce.

Sad, because I'd buy one if it was just a normal phone plus IR. Presently I make do with a plug-in accessory module.

I share your frustration. Consider a sled-backpack-case sort of thing with "all the missing sensors", instead of piecemeal accessories you carry a gaggle of and have to swap out. If it was like one of those extended-battery sled cases, you could just leave it on and write apps that expect it to be there...

<comment><USER5> You'd probably want the sensor pack to be separable from the phone case, so you can buy a new phone (whose shape changes every year, forcing new accessory purchases).

I do think it's simultaneously cool and ridiculous that instead of just adding a simple distance sensor, companies making measurement software for phones double down on the software-only approach with computer vision.

<comment><USER6> Friend-of-a-friend was involved in this

[https://ikegps.com/spike/](https://ikegps.com/spike/)

I think they licenced it to Stanley or similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I find quite disturbing in all these privacy invading technologies is that they're often marketed as fantastic problem solvers whereas the reality is that they have many confounding factors that put the innocent at risk. Even DNA testing is unreliable unless a lot of care is taken in the entire process.

The problem I see is that lawmakers and law enforcement want these to be taken as the gospel truth when obtained and provided as evidence in a court of law, while the judges or juries are usually not competent enough to understand the nuances and question the "evidence" to the extent necessary to not sentence an innocent person.

</comment><comment><USER8> "The East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi) ... buil[t] up a massive archive of people's smells. Started in 1979, the collection was kept across East Germany, collected and evaluated by the Main Department XX, responsible for monitoring the East German cultural and media scene and the repression of the political opposition."[[https://www.deutsches- spionagemuseum.de/en/sammlung/odour-ca...](https://www.deutsches- spionagemuseum.de/en/sammlung/odour-capture)]

<comment><USER9> Have a look at this scene from the fantastic film "The Lives of Others": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkRxvEjprBM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkRxvEjprBM)

The odour conserve features at the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I recently had a strange thought about the human body as a bunch of different pots of soup.

They all sit on a large surface, and represent different types of fluids. One might represent the insides of your cells, another represents your blood. Another might represent the stomach, or another part of the digestive system, etc.

You have an input pot that represents what you eat, and that's the only one you can actually put ingredients in, and each pot cooks things in a different way. Your body is like a chef trying to keep the "cell soup" pot tasty, but it can only swap ladles of stuff between ajacent pots, mostly at random.

On the one hand it seems like a big mess, but on the other it feels like it has some sort of usefulness.

There really is a huge amount of chaos happening, and molecules are just kind of bouncing around and migrating randomly between regions. Using this soup- random model, it's easy to understand the wake we leave behind, as what is being spilled as things move around.

<comment><USER3> I.. think I need a little pot of coffee before rereading your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DSI9-D...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:DSI9-DHuBdIJ:https://www.economist.com/science- and-technology/2020/02/13/people-leave-molecular-wakes-that-may-give-away- their-secrets+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER11> Thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > The most common way of analysing metabolite content is gas chromatography- > mass spectrometry. This technique sorts molecules by their weight, producing > a pattern of peaks that correspond to different substances. But the same > weight can be shared by many molecules, so the results may be ambiguous.

There's more to it than that. So basically you get a MS profile for each GC peak. But there are various ways to do MS. Some mainly give you masses of intact molecules, after ~gentle ionization. But some also give you masses of fragments, and that distinguishes among molecules with similar masses.

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://outline.com/qJvRN6](https://outline.com/qJvRN6)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for that. Seems like The Economist has strengthened their paywall in 2020!

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting you noted this.

1) I ALWAYS try to post an unblocked version of stories from the Wall Street Journal and the Economist that I submit: if I can't do so, I don't post the article.

2) I used to rely on Outline as my #1 go-to for unblocking, but something changed there about 6 months to a year ago such that it stopped working completely so I stopped even considering it along my "trail of unblocked tears."

3) When I see a comment about blocked New York Times or Washington Post articles posted by me or others, I immediately post an unblocked version.

4) Having said all that, here are my go-tos for unblocking paywalled articles, best first:

a: [https://archive.is/](https://archive.is/)

b. [https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en](https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en) (Google cache)

Every time I unblock something a little "good deed of the day" bell rings in head; paying it forward, as it were.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is no secret to anyone who's owned a dog.

<comment><USER16> Heh, hard to imagine what a dog can smell. My wife started bringing treats from a particular restaurant. So when she would come home from that particular restaurant our normally polite dog would run and check her bag.

We thought it was the bag she smelled... until she left the bag outside in the car. Our dog smelled her, asked to be let out into the garage, asked to be let out into the driveway, then asked to be let into the car, and then nosed her bag.

We were amused.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm pretty sure that if a dog could read this, it would say "well... yeah, you didn't know that, guys ?".

</comment><comment><USER12> VPN services, Tor and I2P do a pretty good job at blocking "molecular wakes". But even that will fail, as the devices that people use incorporate GC (and eventually, GC-MS) sensors.

As I am wont to say, privacy in meatspace is dead. Or at least, getting deader every day.

Edit: And so this is another advantage of working remotely. In particular, as a consultant.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is just a formalized and scientific equivalent to smelling marijuana

<comment><USER19> As a descriptive matter, yes. But from an interpersonal perspective, it is the raw material of a large change.

Like a lot of tech, it favors those already in a powerful position. If you make it cheaper and easier for a nosy boss to be nosy, they will be nosier. Cops will have a field day figuring out exactly how far courts will let them push things. And so on.

The potential for surreptitious sampling also opens up new angles for general snooping and blackmail.

<comment><USER20> But if you make it cheaper, then that tilts the balance slightly toward the less well off!

Not saying it's any thing equal, but imagine being able to 'get dirt' on those in power easily.

<comment><USER21> I disagree. If these devices were free they would still increase the power divide between those who can wield force and those who can't. Maybe even more so.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. These things are more often a force multiplier than an equalizer.

<comment><USER20> My argument is that currently the price is effectively infinite for all but the very rich.

Now, it's a lot less.

That is to say, n/∞ << n/x.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is nothing compared to what people can learn about your magnetic field around your body. Aka "oura".</comment>


Odroid-H2 Rev.B: Quad-core x86 2x1Gbps ethernet SBC is finally on stock - <AUTHOR> https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also available on AmeriDroid: [https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-h2](https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-h2)</comment>


Ask HN: What does motivate you to down-vote a comment? - <AUTHOR>

Well, I am very interested to know: What does motivate you to down-vote a specific comment?<p>What is your judgement criteria on a specific comment to say: Oh, this comment should be down-voted! <comment><USER2> I down-vote boring comments, pointless comments, comments by people I don't like, false comments, comments I disagree with, comments that are already down-voted, meta comments about what constitutes proper voting behavior, and accidentally hitting the down-vote arrow instead of the up-vote arrow.

I think I'm in the minority, but my position is that the arrows should be used liberally and for whatever reason a person sees fit.

I like things like voting and scores because I have a kooky personal theory that reading too much stuff online scrambles my thought processes and sometimes even makes me feel physically kind of sick. I'd rather simply ignore down-voted comments than read a well-intentioned but vacuous back-and-forth discussion about why people disagree.

There's another common notion that high scores on funny quips are a bad thing. I also disagree with this. Reading genuinely funny stuff makes me laugh and boosts my serotonin levels, which is actually good for you. The issue with this phenomena on Reddit was that funny quips that weren't actually funny started getting high votes.

Next to YouTube style comments, the worst stuff you can read online is the sort of middle range discussion between two people who sort of know what they are talking about but not really. It's like listening to two dentists on vacation talking about time-share apartments and tee times. It turns your brain into mush.

I've been here since the beginning and have not noticed any significant abuse of the voting system[1]. Most buried comments seem to deserve their scores. I wonder why this topic keeps coming up. The stark reality is if your comments consistently get down-voted, you're probably making stupid posts.

[1] aside from long ago when you could nuke someone's karma into oblivion by repeatedly downvoting everything they had ever posted.

</comment><comment><USER3> Things that are false, mean, or devoid of content (things like: "thanks!", "I agree", or "haha"). Only exception is things already at -1 or below.

If a comment is none of those things and below one, I'll mod it up because I don't believe in burying someone you disagree with.

As for things that are blatantly trollish (linkspam, racist, stream of curse words, etc), I'll gladly pile on until they are too faint to read... and usually flag them as well.

<comment><USER4> I think meanness in service to a larger cause, ie a site's quality, as opposed to just an arguing tactic, is a good thing. I used to hang out at K5 (when it had traffic) where one finds that meanness to dummies is quite effective at shutting them up. Shutting up dummies is the #1 thing to preserve a site's quality. High quality comments is a fragile thing, imo too rare to ruin with squeamishness about people's feelings. There's a threshold of tolerating bad comments past which you can't do anything anymore (eg, Reddit).

<comment><USER3> I'm not against meanness in defense of people's feelings, I'm against it because the only outcome is starting a feud or feeding a troll. Being mean directly _degrades_ a site's quality... in no way does it preserve it.

When you say something mean, even to a troll, you become part of the problem.

<comment><USER4> In the short term. In the long term, a witty or angry putdown is quicker, conveys more information and gets its point across more deeply than politeness and downmodding. imo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I ask whether the comment detracts substantially from the HN community? If the answer is yes, I downvote.

The nice thing about this question is that it implies many derived reasons for a downvote: being mean or insulting; egregious stupidity; being irrelevant; being "clever" without adding real value. And so on. I try to be careful to NOT downvote someone just because I disagree with them.

<comment><USER6> " _the nice thing about this question is that it implies many derived reasons for a downvote_ "

I like this way of thinking about it, I think the same approach is good for upvotes. Is this something that makes HN a better community? Is this part of the debate thought out and valuable (even if it's ultimately not the stance I end up agreeing with)? etc.

For example, I will always upvote the sincere "review my new startup/application" submissions. They are a special thing going on here and so often full of good observations (and good 'vibes') so I want to encourage them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Meanness, especially when combined with mistakenness (which is not unusual).

</comment><comment><USER8> I down-vote:

      * ad hominin attacks with no substance
      * unoriginal snowclone jokes with no substance
      * "+1" and "I agree", if that is the entirety of the post
      * if a post is vastly, enormously over-rated

I try to reserve downvote for the last resort. Well, second to last, now that we have flag.

Generally, I ignore the arrows. They are only there for things that make me say "I (dis)agree with this, and it is so good/well thought out/interesting I think everyone on HN should take the time to read it."

</comment><comment><USER9> I usually reserve my downvote for the most absurd of comments. Stupidity, trolling, immaturity.

I DO NOT downvote things that are false, things I disagree with, or comments that make outlandish claims. All of these are discussion instigators, and not worthy of negative ratings.

I upvote comments that make smart and sound points, get me thinking in a new way about something, or effectively counter an argument, even if it is mine.

I also upvote in lieu of a comment if what I would have said has already been sufficiently covered.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have to be pretty annoyed to downvote. I almost never vote up or down, actually, and downvotes are extremely rare.

A personal pet peeve is when someone willfully misses the point of an article or comment in order to go off on some pretty much unrelated tangent. It happens on reddit more than around these parts (I suppose because politics are free game over there and not welcome here, and politics bring out the worst in people), but it happens around here occasionally, particularly on religious topics (Apple, text editors, pg essays, programming languages, etc.).

Plain old stupidity will do it, too. Willful ignorance, spam, self- righteousness due to ignorance of limitations (e.g. a "business/idea guy" looking for an engineer and offering a pittance for the work being shocked and angry that no one wants to work with him), that sort of thing.

I'm more forgiving of stupid posts if the poster recognizes their limitations and can laugh about it. Humor goes a long way towards nullifying any annoyance I might be feeling about flaws in a post.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'll consider a comment for a down-vote if it negatively affects the conversation. Usually this means it's off-topic for the conversation that it replies to (including insults and just plain meanness).

However, when I determine whether to down-vote, I first figure out what I think the score should be, and only down-vote if it's above that value. I've even up-voted comments that I thought were bad because I felt the author was being punished too harshly for saying something they obviously didn't realize would be bad.

</comment><comment><USER12> If it is obviously factually incorrect.

<comment><USER13> Only if the down-modder is actually correct. Some of the more sarcastic ones are usually wrong.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I asked a similar question a few months ago, and included my policy: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=361390>

</comment><comment><USER15> If a comment is logically invalid, intellectually lazy or cruel I sometimes hit the down arrow.

</comment><comment><USER16> redditness

p.s. I would totally downvote my comment since it is stupid, on the other hand it is the most correct answer to your question.</comment>


Are Chicken and Fish as Unhealthy as Red Meat? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/142782/are_chicken_and_fish_as_unhealthy_as_red_meat?page=entire

<comment><USER2> The title of the article is barely related to this pro-vegetarian/vegan propaganda.</comment>


Magic Leap Announces Its Augmented Reality Developer Platform - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/magic-leap-platform/

<comment><USER2> > This chip powers its augmented reality headset that works by shooting light > directly onto your eye, rather than sticking a screen in front of it.

I'm curious to know exactly what they mean by shooting light directly into your eye. Wouldn't you see the source? That is basically what a screen does, though less direct. It makes light, some of which enters your eyes. You see more light when you look at the source, the screen.

<comment><USER3> Every single display works by projecting photons into the eye.

<comment><USER4> If that where the case only one person could see your monitor at a time. Instead monitors send light across a vary wide viewing angle.

<comment><USER5> Light is made of photons. Every single display shoots photons into your eyes. Traditional displays send photons into everybody's eyes.

<comment><USER6> Keyword is _directly_ , to contrast it with, say, a page of [e]paper that reflects light into your eyes.

<comment><USER7> I'm thinking "looking into a tiny projector focused on your retina", but I'm having a hard time imagining what what would be like, since I've literally never experienced anything like that. Looking into a normal projector wouldn't be comparable really, as the focus for those is a field much larger than your retina. You'd need something with a lens that would focus it down to dime-size or smaller to get a similar effect, and I doubt you'd want to do this with anything more powerful than a pocket projector. Might be a fun weekend project to hack a new lens system into one and see what it can do if the internals are even hackable enough to make something like that possible (I'm thinking focal lengths and lens types).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How does Magic Leap compare with Microsoft's Hololens? It appears that both are implementing AR is slightly different ways. Was completely blown away though by the demo videos of the Hololens -

[https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en- us](https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us)

<comment><USER9> Magic Leap are promising MUCH more - realistic occlusion of virtual objects by real ones, dynamic transparency (allowing both AR and fully immersive VR), natural depth of field (refocusing on virtual objects without simulated blur), a scanning fiber light-field display, fully accurate hand tracking, both very near (holding something in your hand) and far (things flying through streets) depth tracking.. you get it. Not to mention, they haven't even said anything about their cloud platform yet, which you can bet Google are heavily involved with.. combining Tango area mapping with Google Maps.. they are trying to solve every problem in AR/Computer Vision, so it's no wonder people are skeptical. But if anyone's going to succeed, they have a pretty impressive team & investor lineup.

Not to mention, Magic Leap are trying to build a whole ecosystem designed for AR experiences, right down to retails stores. Whereas Microsoft simply seem to be making 'Windows-AR'.

<comment><USER10> There's no way to occlude real objects. Think about it, it's just shining more light in your eyes. You can't shine "dark" into someone's eyes.

I don't believe they've promised that anywhere either. In fact where are you getting _any_ of this information?

<comment><USER11> The OP claims the reverse: _" realistic occlusion of virtual objects by real ones"_

With a good 3D model of the real world, that is possible (but not easy to get right with a possibly rapidly moving camera)

<comment><USER12> And also complains dynamic transparency. That would be a way to do real objects occluded by virtual ones, depending on what it means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As someone who is developing in the same space (AR) I am wondering if ML is going to be like the Segway in that there is something interesting there but the reveal is not going to be that much of a breakthrough.

It just has too much backing from people that don't get suckered for that to be the case though, so it is really interesting.

</comment><comment><USER14> Everything is 'upcoming' with this company.

<comment><USER15> Yes and I'd be loathe to spend any real time learning the SDK of a device that is so far mostly concept videos (as far as I can tell).

That won't make a whit of difference to them of course, it's not like I'm known in the gaming space anyway...

I'm pessimistically hopeful that they aren't just hype and don't spend so long trying to get it right that they're irrelevant by the time they launch.

<comment><USER16> They have a ton of very high-profile investors, it can't be purely hype. It's hard to believe Google would put half a billion dollars into a company without seeing something concrete and impressive.

<comment><USER15> And Bezos and Jobs invested in the Segway, I'm not saying that it's pure hype, just that all they've shown is hype.

<comment><USER17> To be fair, the segway did what was promised, but it turned out that it wasn't so useful in practice.

<comment><USER18> A plausible outcome for this technology as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a musician, I'm curious about the potential for using the VR/AR envrionment as a production tool. DAWs are pretty static, but giving depth to composition by way of more granular interaction seems possible. With so much digital progress in emulation and networking, it would be very cool to finally have a VR/AR "jam room" that could unite musicians across the country/globe in one room to collaborate. A distant future, sure, but a reasonable application.

As a capitalist, my biggest question is...I'm half joking here, but tongue in cheek serious... _How is this eventually going to be used for porn?_

<comment><USER20> Network latency is going to a significant factor for musicians jamming together. I could see it for musicians living in the same city or maybe a few hundred miles from each other. If they're on different continents, the speed of light will become a limiting factor:

[http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real- worl...](http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/06/01/theoretical-vs-real-world-speed- limit-of-ping/)

It comes to about 1/10th of a second for people on the opposite side of the globe under ideal network latency. Okay for conversation, but could be a problem for musicians playing together.

Don't get me wrong, I think there are a lot of interesting uses for this technology if they can get it to work as promised.

<comment><USER19> Yeah, it's been one of the more prolonged riddles.

However I can say from firsthand experience that the JamKazam platform is usable and functional. Distance and connectivity do matter, that is true. Even on my very limited connection using a relatively modest USB audio device, I've had success on several occasions with one to several participants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> VDK - vapourware development kit.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm not really understanding what the announcement is here. They've had a Developers section on their site for almost 6 months?

</comment><comment><USER22> Still only have his word to go on. Still no hardware actually demonstrated. Won't believe it till I see it.</comment>


Introduction to Bert - <AUTHOR> https://towardsml.com/2019/09/17/bert-explained-a-complete-guide-with-theory-and-tutorial/ <comment><USER2> I was hoping this would be more comprehensive, breaking down the transformer architecture as well. Anyone got a resource like this?

<comment><USER3> Here you go:

[http://www.peterbloem.nl/blog/transformers](http://www.peterbloem.nl/blog/transformers)

<comment><USER2> Wow, I didn't expect such a detailed write up that is still meant for people without a great overview of all the advancements leading up to this.

I'll certainly start digging into this tonight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You know how in movies the "alien" learned the language and customs from popular media and so the story pokes fun at them for how oddly they behave (and how odd our popular media is). From this article, it seems like NLP people are essentially worried about the same thing happening.

Now I have a vision of Dan Akroyd and Steve Martin -esque computers announcing that "we are... two wild and crrrazy guys!"

<comment><USER5> That was a movie too -- _Short Circuit_ (1986).

"Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A timely post, as December is prime 'Bert' month.

If Bert & Ernie are only Sesame Street characters to you, please watch "It's a Wonderful Life" (carefully) this holiday season. I think that's where Sesame Street got the names.

<comment><USER7> Interesting, but a little Googling tells me that the writers deny that. It's just a coincidence.

 _Perhaps_ Jim Henson subconsciously remembered them though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I went there expecting something about Binary Erlang Term (BERT) [1]. It's unfortunate the acronym clashes, though with so many acronyms it is bound to happen. Interesting article though.

[1] [http://bert-rpc.org/](http://bert-rpc.org/)</comment>


Back from the brink: Akatsuki returns to Venus - <AUTHOR> http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2822/1 <comment><USER2> Japan has a surprisingly ambitious space exploration program, much of which seems to go completely unnoticed by the west. At about 2e9 $/year (about 1/10 of the founding NASA gets) they've successfully launched:

* a solar sail (navigatable by electrically changing reflectivity of parts of the sail)

* two asteroid sample return missions (one succeeded, one in progress)

* tow missions utilizing ion engines (Hayabusa I and II, that's on par with NASA)

* missions to mars and venus (Nozomi, the mars mission failed, the venus mission Akatsuki is delayed, see the article)

* Kounotori resupply vehicle to the ISS with 6 metric tonnes payload.

* I gues a lot more that I'm not aware of.

They have their own rocket launch facility on japan soil (Tanegashima Space Center) launching domestically developed rockets with > 16 metric tonnes payload to LEO. I wonder how long it will take them to develop a manned space program (or maybe they're smart enough to not waste any money on that).</comment>


Google Updates it's Search Algorithm to Punish Sites With Too Many DMCA Notices - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/10/google-search-algorithm-copyright-removal-notices/

<comment><USER2> This could be the beginning of the end for Google. As soon as they start pandering to advertisers instead of users, things are all downhill. People want to find file sharing sites, and if they can't find them on Google, they will go somewhere else.</comment>


Startup in africa. - <AUTHOR>

I am trying to startup a pay website in africa and the problem I have is ,no potential partners ,co-founders and the thing most bothering me ,cash..

   At the moment what stands between me and launching is a sweet $2000.my question is, is there a website sort of like kickstarter but for other countries aswell? or the old (now dead fundable).as for employees,am finding it very hard to find people who can code even basic stuff.So I thought I start a programming school in my town where I can teach programming for a charge and thus male some money aswell as identify intelligent potential.Would that be wise?
 <comment><USER2> Well, if you can't get programmers, maybe it would even be impossible to get customers. I live and work in Africa, and I feel that what Africa needs is knowledge and training. Charging poor folks to learn programming may be a bit hard to turn into a successful business model. And if you can't afford to shell out 2000USD, then you have to re-work your business structure. BTW, how come you can program while others in your community cannot? Are from moon or what? And to produce a programmer from your pressure pot may be impossible. Programming is not something like basic language, it goes beyond that. And learning to program is indeed a hard exercise which might take a long time. Cut your expectations, code your App alone. I wish you a wonderful new year!

<comment><USER3> I agree, funding is not the first step. It sounds like there a few bigger challenges, like understanding the market.</comment></comment>


Show HN : togist, chrome plugin - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ddommmoecmndjejocdikjendidfoecal?hl=en-US

<comment><USER2> Cool idea! I like these little helps that make repetitive tasks so easy. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :) Still working on language detection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Works great! Thanks for sharing. Any plans to release something similar for other browsers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, working on FF now</comment></comment>


Startup Quote: Edwin Land, creator, Polaroid - <AUTHOR> http://startupquote.com/post/2926218077

<comment><AUTHOR> An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail.

\- Edwin Land

<http://startupquote.com/post/2926218077></comment>


Show HN: Cyptic Tutor – an app to teach cryptic crosswords - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptictutor.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just released a new app to teach people how to solve cryptic crosswords - initial version is on iOS but the Android version is coming soon.</comment>


LibreOffice 6.2.0 was ported to Haiku - <AUTHOR> https://haiku-os.tumblr.com/post/174629492437/libreoffice-620-was-ported-to-haiku-its <comment><AUTHOR> The LibreOffice Qt5 backend they use was started by Jan-Marek Glogowski and native menu support was added by Katarina "bubli" Behrens. Bubli has created a KDE5 backend on top of the Qt5 one and the screenshot in the Haiku blog is of the KDE5 one.

</comment><comment><USER2> its pretty broken. i gotta mess with it more. the font is screwy so far.</comment>


Holy crap the .NET Gadgeteer is awesome - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Clint/NET-Gadgeteer

<comment><USER2> Clint's content is generally really good - Channel 9 is the geek equivalent of porn.</comment>


What It Takes to Be in the 1% Around the World - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-07/how-to-be-in-the-richest-1-around-the-world <comment><USER2> So basically, it sounds more like real poverty threshold. Here in Cyprus, it must logically be near that of Italy because per capita GDP, climate and culture are similar, so round $180K, and PPP correction factor is about 0.65, so like $120K a year... really, pre-tax, ugh... is that rich?

I can't see how someone making $120K pre-tax here can buy a good new car (well, simplest sure, but not what's considered good here - starting from BMW 5-series) or their own place, apart from cheap, cold, moldy apartments.

Essentially it's the level where one stops worrying about grocery prices or stops picking economy class tickets based on price, starting to consider convenient times etc. Are people really that poor? Only people i know who make that much or less, are employees, and they live hand to mouth, unable to afford heating their crappy rental places in the winter, and driving 15-year old, clapped out cars.

This place is full of apartment blocks where a single bedroom is $1M+. I really don't trust these metrics, $120K must be just above median for a household and maybe at top 20-25% for a single earner, and top 1% should be at least $500K, that is what should give you "able to buy a good new car and own apartment which is not a shame to invite people to" living standard.

I think i know one person who makes more than half of her income officially. Even not sure about her. I guess it's that - people just make vast majority of their earnings under the table. Official salary? sure, it's in line with this data, some like 1700 EUR a month median. Show me a person who actually lives on it.

And "sharks of capitalism" that people can blame for their problems - who are able to bend the rules in their favors by bribes and connections, and otherwise "oppress" someone - do exist, i know a couple of them... but they don't make on that laughable "rich" level. They make millions of euros. Per month.</comment>


Tensor Calculus and the Calculus of Moving Surfaces - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlXfTHzgMRULkodlIEqfgTS-H1AY_bNtq

<comment><USER2> Best math lectures since Herbert gross.</comment>


Google eavesdropping tool installed on computers without permission - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/23/google-eavesdropping-tool-installed-computers-without-permission

<comment><USER2> "OK, Google" is perhaps the strangest thing to be so commonplace. It will sometimes interpret the shorttalk mumbling I have become accustom to when speaking to my siblings and will go on to loudly interject that it had no idea what I was trying to tell it.

The answer is nothing, google.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm ashamed to see this FUD still being passed around and starting to hit news sites.</comment>


ES6 const is not about immutability - <AUTHOR> https://mathiasbynens.be/notes/es6-const <comment><USER2> This is why 'final' was a better keyword and 'const' should have been reserved for primitive types only!</comment>


Air conditioning's original purpose was to enable factory processes - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/buildings/air-conditioning-wasnt-invented-to-provide-comfort-to-human-beings <comment><USER3> I spent a couple summers working at a printer in Massachusetts around 2005-2006 and the first year the shop did not have air conditioning. The paper came off a large roll at the back of the press which was pulled through from the front. Part of the process involved sending it through an oven presumably to set the ink, then it would go over a chilled roller to cool it off again. On particularly hot and humid days it would be difficult to restart the press after stopping it as the condensation on the chilled rollers would saturate the paper and it would immediately rip (referred to as a "tear out") and would then have to be manually spliced back together with tape. One night we spent something like 10 hours trying to get the press started up again after stopping it to change the plates.

Anyway, that's just my story about humidity and printing. The second summer I worked there they had installed air conditioning and those problems went away. I'm sure they did it for business reasons and not because they thought it was cruel to force people to regularly work in 100+ fahrenheit temperatures.

<comment><USER4> In a previous life I worked for a company that made extremely precise tooling for airplane manufacturing. These things were often upwards of 200ft long and 60ft tall. And they are so precise, that a difference of 5F could make the steel structures grow enough to be out of spec. Most aerospace factories have tightly controlled HVAC for this reason. Well, anyway, we installed a set of tooling in a factory in Japan where the summers can be quite hot. They didn't have HVAC in the factory and this resulted in a 30F gradient from bottom to top. This meant that we had to redesign some connections between parts to progressively account for thermal expansion. This crazy problem would not have existed had they just had HVAC!

<comment><USER5> wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a few dozen box fans from the local electronics store?

<comment><USER6> Circulation is not cooling.

<comment><USER7> Technically, parent says the issues was the temperature gradient, so this may have helped?

<comment><USER8> Normally, high precision measuring rooms have zero airflow, otherwise have a constant temperature in the room and on the piece is not possible.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, could you clarify? It seems like zero airflow would inhibit a constant temperature?

<comment><USER8> For example you putt those pieces like 24 hours (depends on thickness) before measuring in that room, the piece should have from it's core to the edges the same temperature.

Airflow inhibits a precise measurement, imagine you putt something in that room that changes the airflow just a bit, so more warm air from the ceiling hit's one side of the piece.

Always when you try to measure something, no outer energies should interfere (no temperature change and no force like airflow or even driving cars outside of the building), it could even be, that the airflow creates vibrations in the piece, like rolling cars do.

<comment><USER7> The issue is that the temperature in the room is non-uniform. The ceiling is 20 degrees hotter than the ground so over time the object will have the same distribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I toured the main FedEx hub in Memphis several years ago. They have many buildings that sort packages on high-speed machinery.

In one building, there was a long line of parcel trays, each carrying a single item. The trays would move fast down the line and, at just the right moment, tip the parcel out and into a bin below, each for a different flight. Because of the tray's speed (and the trays don't stop), the tipping needed to start well before it was over the bin, at a precisely calibrated time. A video of these machines is here, at 1m 45s: [https://youtu.be/xytmh6t3Grk?t=105](https://youtu.be/xytmh6t3Grk?t=105)

It was one of the few sorting buildings that was air conditioned in the hot Memphis summers, and not for the humans. The humidity affected how quickly the parcels slipped off of the tray, and they might end up in the wrong bin.

<comment><USER10> Was wondering why the video quality looked like shit until I realized that it's a "virtual reality video"

<comment><USER11> I was wondering why a simple youtube video was making my CPU fans kick into overdrive, then I realized the same thing.

<comment><USER12> It's just mapping a rectangle to a sphere. I wonder what's wasting the CPU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's interesting that this article didn't talk about the CO2 emissions from heating the North. My understanding is that we would save emissions if people would move out of Boston and move to Houston because heating houses is more carbon intensive than cooling them. The temperature differential is a lot bigger when heating.

There's something Puritan and not very well considered about viewing air conditioning as a new-fangled luxury while viewing heating as a necessity.

<comment><USER14> The north east US is the largest heating oil market in the world, we consume 85% of the heating oil in the US. Most of these oil boilers will be 80% efficient at best. It does get quite cold here in the winter!

The answer is building codes that require energy efficient construction techniques, and 0% loans for retrofitting existing houses with better insulation, windows and heating (actually much of this exists via HEAT loans). Tax breaks would help here ...

Previously, the only real choices were some sort of fossil fuels with natural gas being the most efficient and cheapest (although it's only available in urban and most suburban areas).

These days, a heat pump is more than capable of both heating and cooling even in the depths of a New England winter (although you still need a heat source for hot water). However, you need the right sized ducting for this which can make it cost-prohibitive for a retrofit (but there's no reason why any _new_ house should NOT have a heat-pump).

<comment><USER15> >but there's no reason why any _new_ house should NOT have a heat-pump

Are heatpumps always more economical than gas/oil? I know that natural gas almost always beats electrical resistive heaters in terms of cost, even though resistive heaters are more efficient than natural gas. Heatpumps are supposed to be more efficient than resistive heaters, but in areas with expensive electricity it still might be more expensive.

<comment><USER16> I was curious about this a while ago and did some napkin math.

Natural gas is roughly $15 for 1 million BTU. There are 3412 BTU in a kwhr, so if you heated resistively, you'd need 293 kwhr to get 1 million BTU.

In my area, which I feel has pretty high electricity cost, we pay $.24 per kwhr, so that'd be $70.

Therefore, you need a 70/15 (4.666) COP for your heat pump to match natural gas by price. My understanding is that that would be an unusually high number for cold weather conditions.

<comment><USER14> The State of NH Office of Strategic Initiatives has a nice Fuel Price comparison page that they keep up to date (and are adjusted according to cost per MMBTU):

[https://www.nh.gov/osi/energy/energy-nh/fuel- prices/index.ht...](https://www.nh.gov/osi/energy/energy-nh/fuel- prices/index.htm)

You can see that as of June 2, measured at $ per MMBTU (million BTU):

      Natural Gas           $8.31
      Oil                  $17.62
      Propane              $32.93
      Wood pellets         $21.92
      Resistive electric   $48.84
      Air src heat pump    $18.74

The fossil fuels are all measured assuming 80% heating efficiency, whereas for propane or natural gas you might well have a high efficiency unit up to 97% which gains you a bit more savings.

These prices may vary depending on location and also I think natural gas isn't that common in NH as it's a mostly rural state.

<comment><USER16> Holy moly. That price per million btu is a lot less than the number I stumbled across. Makes it even more obvious.

<comment><USER17> Remember, oil prices cratered over the past few months. I'd take the current numbers with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER18> We also don't know what the long-term fallout is going to be. Natural gas has been unusually cheap recently because it's a byproduct of fracking for oil. But low demand for oil means less demand for fracking which mean less natural gas production.

It's really hard to predict where prices are going to be in a year, because you really have to predict how well the oil industry can predict future demand in this environment. If they shut down too much production and then demand comes back there could be a price spike. If they expect a quick recovery and are wrong, prices could remain on the floor for a good while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The headline is not strictly accurate. Putting aside non-mechanical indoor climate conditioning that dates back thousands of years, in 1842 John Gorrie used an evaporative cooling machine to create cold air for hospital patients. Carrier was just the first to use an electrically-driven compressor.

<comment><USER20> IMO evap isn't even worthy of consideration when discussed in the context of the south where you're dealing with 90+% humidity.

<comment><USER19> By evaporative cooling I mean using controlled phase-change of a cooling medium in closed-loop condensation/evaporation coils, not something analogous to a swamp cooler. Sorry if I wasn't clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if octovalve/superbottle is coming to home hvac. I spend energy to make my water hot for showers and washing. I spend energy to make my air cold so I can work without sweating. I spend energy to chill my groceries.

I can't help but feel that coordinating those better would lead to reduced energy usage (thus reduced cost). I don't know if I can feasibly do that right now with residential/consumer tech.

<comment><USER22> That's a compelling idea. I've seen systems that use essentially solar panels on the roof that heats up a liquid in a loop then goes to a heat exchanger which heats up your water before it goes to the water heater, thus making it so the water heater doesn't have to work as hard.

Could we use the exhaust from your fridge, A/C, furnace, etc. to also heat coolant in a similar system that circulates to your pre-water heater, thus boosting efficiency. Especially if you can dump the exhaust of your fridge outside rather than paying to heat up that air, then cool in down again with your A/C.

The question is if the cost savings would be worth the cost of the system.

<comment><USER23> The closer you get to the equator, the more you're likely to see these. When I was visiting Turkey, I didn't notice them in Istanbul because most rooftops are not visible from the street, but then I visited Safranbolu, a small tourist town, and there almost every century home had this recently-made metallic hot water tank on top which completely destroyed the bucolic architectural character of the town.

One of my uncles here in Canada built a passive system by just putting a giant 1" PVC tube coil on the backside of his roottop to heat up water for the swimming pool, since the swimmable season is pretty short anyway.

<comment><USER24> Not sure if it's exactly what you're talking about, but something similar is pretty common in China as well. I've heard people call the system "solar power", but what they're referring to is effectively a tank of water on the roof that is heated by the sun which is used as the hot water source for showers, etc.

<comment><USER25> It is very much solar power, it's just not fancy high-tech photovoltaics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Anecdotal evidence but my ex boyfriend was an HVAC technician and frequently serviced suburban households. He was always stunned at how cold most customers wanted their homes in the summer. "theyre like chubby little eskimos in front of the TV" he used to chuckle, and most would ardently refuse energy saving ideas like acclimating to 75 degrees in the home, installing ceiling fans, or opening windows instead of running the HVAC system. Most people would just run the system constantly until the blower died or the compressor burned up every six or seven years.

Summertime is supposed to get a little warm :).

<comment><USER27> I would like to politely disagree; I think the point of having control of the temperature in your house is to have it be exactly the way you want it all the time. Now, it may take a while for the technology to catch up to that, but I think people would happily install a new system every few years, rather than lose that control. I personally like it cool enough to wear layers, regardless of what month it is.

<comment><USER28> The issue is that many people do not realize the range to which they can acclimatize. And the acclimatization has varying degrees of value depending on the temperature differential to outdoors.

Eg: in Canada one can keep their home a few degrees cooler in the winter to save quite a bit of money. Same idea in hotter climates -- keeping it 75 instead of 70 is something one can acclimatize to, but has more value when the out door temperature is 100f vs 80f.

Overall I think it's just momentum. When I had a nest I used the dynamic range that said only cool if my place is over 78 and only heat if it's 68. Everything else, just roll with the ambient.

<comment><USER29> > The issue is that many people do not realize the range to which they can > acclimatize.

Said acclimatization normally comes with downsides... When its hot, one might be less productive, feel less motivated to get stuff done, etc. It's pretty hard to measure that cost on a personal basis.

<comment><USER30> If you feel worse enough to be less productive, have you actually acclimatized?

I grew up in a house with air conditioning on all the time during the summer and thought that there was no way I could ever handle indoor temperatures of, say, 75. Then I spent a couple years in Arizona and wanted to save on AC costs in the summer, it took a while to get used to, but now an indoor temperature of 70 in the summer feels very cold to me.

<comment><USER31> As a kid in Phoenix my parents forbid setting the thermostat below 80, unless the humidity outside was low enough we could use the swamp cooler instead of the air conditioner.

Now I'm comfortable at 78 with a ceiling fan, to me 75 is cold and 70 would be freezing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's odd to me how both this history and the one on Wikipedia seem to keep industrial refrigeration and industrial air conditioning at arm's length, as if air conditioning isn't a walk-in cooler scaled up to building size.

30 years before Carrier, Carl von Linde was refrigerating beer for Spaten Breweries and within 10 years everybody was doing it. It seems like the key difference is that his chiller was indirect, freezing water instead of chilling air.

I think I first heard of this on Connections 3, which of course makes these connections because that's what they do.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's funny (and sad too) how in some parts of the world, AC is frowned upon: I visited France and Spain, the two sides of the border by the Mediterranean had about the same temperatures, but AC was a rare oddity in France, while it was very common in Spain.

It seemed to be due to beliefs, as the locals said they were afraid of getting sick due to AC -- while I don't disagree improper maintenance can provide breeding grounds for a bunch of microbes, just do the scheduled maintenance and everything will be fine!

<comment><USER34> It's also that "it's hot only several days in Summer, why do we need Acs?" and then year over year Western and Central Europe is suffering from "unexpected" heat waves. What makes it worse is that residential buildings haven't been built for this kind of climate.

<comment><USER35> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave)

14000+ dead in France that year...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> 99% invisible podcast about AC

[https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal- delight/](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/thermal-delight/)

<comment><USER37> A much better article since it discusses home design. You really can live comfortably without AC in even harsh environments. In particular houses with basements that have airflow through to the rest of the house. Underground the earth is ~55F the world over and it's really not difficult to design houses to make use of this fact.

<comment><USER38> All of that is dependent on location. If I dig a basement I'm under water.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I learned that from James Burke on Connections:

[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68uf3j](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x68uf3j)

He says it was for treating malaria though.

</comment><comment><USER40> Yet another misery conquered by technology.

<comment><USER41> Evil, unholy technology!!!1

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

<comment><USER41> > Characters: Doctor Muñoz: A Spanish physician of _" striking intelligence > and superior blood and breeding"_

I can't believe I glossed over how racist Lovecraft was when I read this in my teens.

<comment><USER42> Is that racist? Why? Obsessions over bloodlines and breeding have existed even in homogeneous societies. Not to say Lovecraft wasn't a racist -- he was.

<comment><USER41> racist/classist... at that level it's the same thing.

And why is your handle a typo away from the respected MalwareBytes name? (Other than to sow confusion, of course)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Funny, being from Buffalo I've always heard it was invented here, and I read this and it says... Brooklyn?!

In 1902 the factory's operators asked Willis Haviland Carrier (1876–1950)... I guess he's FROM Buffalo, but created it FOR the place in Brooklyn. Good to know the details of this little trivia piece now.

[https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/the_last_laugh/2011...](https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/blog/the_last_laugh/2011/07/buffalo- birthplace-of-air-conditioning.html)

<comment><USER44> Florida also claims credit because of John Gorrie.

In fact, in Congress each state contributes two statues to the National Statuary Hall Collection. One of Florida's is of John Gorrie -- that's how much state pride is taken in it.

[https://www.floridainvents.org/john- gorrie/](https://www.floridainvents.org/john-gorrie/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The podcast "50 Things That Made the Modern Economy" has an episode about this: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0504qtn](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0504qtn).

</comment><comment><USER46> It'd be nice if someone could properly design a dual-hose portable A/C with attention to soundproofing and efficiency. Lots of people will be needing these over the next few decades. I recently bought one, and found the low- hanging fruit to be pretty pathetic: [https://pmarks.net/ac](https://pmarks.net/ac)

(The ability to wirelessly integrate with a standard thermostat would also be nice; I'm currently hacking that together using ESP32 modules.)

</comment><comment><USER47> It depends on how you define air conditioning. The story from the article describes different technologies from the modern AC unit: cold water and evaporative cooling.

But already the ancient egyptians used evaporative cooling for their homes.

And with an even looser definition, we might include root cellars. They are also rooms with controlled temperature and humidity, dating even further back than ancient egypt.

</comment><comment><USER48> >"In 2018 the International Energy Agency predicted a coming "cold crunch" driven by a combination of three key factors: _Incomes will continue to rise in the emerging economies, where one of the first spending choices is for a window A /C unit._"

</comment><comment><USER49> I thought it was first for watching movies.

[https://wfpl.org/air-conditioning/](https://wfpl.org/air-conditioning/)

</comment><comment><USER50> AC was first introduced to US subs in WW2 to make the fire control computers more reliable.

Although more comfortable for crew, they lost bunk space for the AC equipment.

<comment><USER51> Its interesting to think that a submarine would require air conditioning with average ocean temp being pretty cool. I guess it was because of the extra heat produced by the engine and other machines?

<comment><USER50> Yes, heat, humidity and odors (basically air pollution) are a problem in subs. Subs are so awful to live in that the crew always gets the best food and amenities possible, but before AC I think they worked shirtless.

They have layers of insulation for both thermal and acoustic reasons.

Subs and torpedos are interesting to study since navies and inventors really struggled to make viable models, and probably a higher percentage of sub pioneers died than in aviation, which is saying something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> > It's original purpose was to

Side note: as a non-native speaker I'm always shocked by these basic errors made by natives, even more when they're so prominent: here it's the very first word of the lead.

Edit: as pointed in the comment the author is not a native. This was a general remark.

<comment><USER53> What always confused me was that "its" is meant to denote possession. For example, I find this to be more consistent.

Bob's purpose vs. It's purpose

For consistency, shouldn't we use: Bobs purpose

<comment><USER54> What if their name is "Bobs"? You'd have no way to distinguish the name as names are always going to be the least consistent part of the language - <USER2> you then use "Bobss"? But what if their name is "Bobss"…? ;-)

Funnily enough, if their name was Bobs then the possessive would be _Bobs '_, but you'll see natives use Bobs's and even say "Bobses" (Gollum like) as it's confusing even for us. That kind of consistency isn't a strength of the language, and the education system is failing too many people (that's a whole other discussion).

<comment><USER55> > Funnily enough, if their name was Bobs then the possessive would be Bobs'

Actually, no; s' is for possessives of plural nouns ending in s (well, an s or z _sound_ , which might be an s, x, or z, but usually for a plural will be an s, and most plurals ending with s won't have it silent, but...); plural nouns not ending in s or singular nouns, including those ending in s, get 's.

Except for the special rules for classical and Biblical names, where then the _number of syllables in the base name_ (which then makes the s or z _sound_ rule more interesting, because names ending with silent s, x, or z are a thing) becomes relevant because English.

[https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what- happens-t...](https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/what-happens-to- names-when-we-make-them-plural-or-possessive)

> as it's confusing even for us.

True, that.

<comment><USER56> I looked into this exact topic a few months ago when a cake decorator friend wanted to know what to write on the cake board for "name's christening" but the child's name ended in S. I applaud the attention to detail :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rails for Zombies - Learn Rails from in your browser - <AUTHOR> http://railsforzombies.com

<comment><USER2> This makes me wish I wasn't already a Rails dev so I could have the pleasure of learning from scratch with this series. Anything Gregg Pollack screencasts is worth absorbing.

His initial <http://www.youtube.com/user/envyads#p/u> (with Jason Seifer) practically invented rails evangelism. Then his many videos on Scaling Rails (<http://railslab.newrelic.com/scaling-rails>), Rails 3 (<http://rubyonrails.org/screencasts/rails3>), and other topics (<http://envycasts.com/>) are awesome, informative and entertaining. And no, I'm not paid to say this :).</comment>


Ask HN: First world country with simple tax system? - <AUTHOR>

Is your country's tax system easy to understand ? In particular, for people who work on their own or as entrepreneurs. Just out of curiosity. I'm german, and we produce more than half the tax related literature in the world. <comment><USER2> For true first world Hong Kong and Singapore are an entrepreneurs dream. They are both usually rated as the 1st and 2nd most free places on the planet. Every country in the world should copy their system of taxes, regulations, and bureaucratic environment. Their idea is to just minimize the burden and get out of the way. Just look at the results, they went from complete poverty to two of the richest places on the planet in a matter of decades.

Russia, while not really first world or really safe it has a ridiculous simple tax system designed by Milton Freeman and the guys at UofC. Most of the former Soviet Bloc countries have adopted similar systems. One single flat rate, minimal deductions, how every system should be.

As a side note, when I do business in Asia I usually always go through Hong Kong or Singapore, makes life a whole lot easier. Don't worry as much about getting screwed.

<comment><USER3> You might want to be more specific about what you mean by "most free" because Singapore isn't very free as in freedom: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Singapore>

<comment><USER4> "Freedom" is overrated in this case- I'd feel safer walking down the street in Singapore at 4am than the streets of San Francisco, hell there are streets in San Francisco where I wouldn't feel safe at noon.

<comment><USER3> That is a surprising aspect of San Francisco. Went there for the first time in October and wandered into basically a ghetto downtown. I'm not sure if US cities are the best comparison. That said, there are a lot of other good cities with strong business communities in the world that are quite safe. It seems a bit disingenuous to suggest the trade-off is between authoritarian government and safety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've read Estonia has a pretty simple tax system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting - bit close to Russia, though ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Slovakia has a 19% flat tax.</comment>


Why the 'Internet of Things' may never happen - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/9245507/Why_the_Internet_of_Things_may_never_happen <comment><USER2> The article says that, "EU will regulate the standards to death, stifling innovation", but on the other hand the main problem with the internet of things is that, left on their own devices, private actors would act in their own interest to stifle competition and create incompatible devices... So I would say that, at the beginning some strong armed entity like a regulating EU would be a good thing, it would enforce standards.</comment>