Re: Linux 3.0-rc3 "In other words: don't be stupid." - <AUTHOR> https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/6/14/293

<comment><USER2> It's worth reading one of the other comments in that thread, by the person who Linus is replying to:

<https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/6/14/192>

And/or a clarification someone else gave to Linus:

<https://lkml.org/lkml/2011/6/15/38>

The code in question is for parsing command-line arguments, and its goal is to determine if the user was specifying an (optional) kernel version. When the goal is to guess what a user is intending, you're inherently dependent on _name_ of the version, not its features. And, contrary to what Linus says, you care just as much about future versions as old ones.

So Linus's criticism is _almost entirely wrong_ , for the actual use-case of the author of this request. There are other alternate criticisms, perhaps, and of course Linus's criticism does apply to most people who write "check this version" code.

</comment><comment><USER3> He's got a really good point about version number checking being for supporting old versions, not new ones.

I suppose it's probably that quotes are selected for their brilliance, but bits of logic like Linus' in that post always awe me. They're so simple and right when you hear them, but you didn't think of them yourself.

<comment><USER4> This is why autoconf annoys me. Sometimes it will actually check functionality, but most people just write rules to compare against version numbers. And of course they get it wrong and think that 1.8.12rc2 is somehow less recent than 1.8.9. Don't tell me it won't work, try it and show me it won't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone paste the content in a comment? lkml.org's not responding...

<comment><USER6> On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 5:15 AM, Denys Vlasenko <email@example.com> wrote:

> I've got a patch for my project to fix parsing of kernel version which

> has only two numbers. Basically,

> \- scanf(ver, "%u.%u.%u", &a, &b, &c)

> \+ sscanf(ver, "%u.%u", &a, &b)

Please just fix it.

The projects that care about kernel version are buggy in so many ways that it's not funny.

It's not just the "two versus three digits" bug either. The _bigger_ bug is usually that the tests are done the wrong way entirely, namely to fail when you cannot parse the version. And that's just f __%!ing stupid!

If you cannot parse the version, then rather than fail, a project should have gone "uh, it's some future version that I don't recognize or some other OS entirely, so I'll just do whatever the most modern thing is". Having an "assert()" or returning an error is just the mark of incompetence.

So please just fix things. Preferably by removing the version check entirely, but if you really feel that you cannot do that, then AT LEAST realize that the reason you're looking at the version is to support _old_ versions, not new ones, and make the logic work that way (so that next time around, when we change the version numbers to be sanscrit characters and you fail parsing them _again_ , you don't actually fail, you just go "oh, this is modern" and go on with your life).

In other words: don't be stupid.

Ok?

                          Linus

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is perfectly analogous to websites checking for specific browser versions.

So many websites exist where you'll browse with Chrome or Firefox and you'll get a big red "Looks like you're using an old version of Internet Explorer, please upgrade to IE6 or newer" just because they're checking your user-agent header rather than availability of specific features. This is what Linus is trying to avoid in the Linux ecosystem—a noble cause.</comment>


US Govt Gave Big Oil the Power to Prosecute Its Biggest Critic - <AUTHOR> https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/07/steven-donziger-chevron <comment><USER2> Summary at the top: "The government has taken the extraordinary step of giving prosecutorial power to a law firm that has worked for Chevron — and is allowing that prosecutorial power to be aimed at Chevron's chief adversary, who has been under house arrest for the past year."

Does anyone know how common it is for prosecutorial power to be given to a private law firm?

<comment><USER3> Wikipedia quotes The Intercept in saying "virtually unprecedented," and the judge did so in response to Southern District Court of New York declined to follow up on his contempt of court.</comment></comment>


Writing a Generalized Web Crawler to map all the URLs on web sites? - <AUTHOR>

I want to crawl web sites to find all all the pages on each site (domain). My simplistic attempts were quickly foiled by weird URL structures of sites. Many sites add dynamic query parameters to URLs (session ID, refering page, etc) effectively creating millions of unique URLs.
Is there a good strategy to find every page without getting caught in accidental tarpits like this?
Ideally I'd love to find some existing code that solves the problem of crawling web sites in a generalized way. Second best would be finding some great texts on the subject that I can work from while creating my own code.
Thanks in advance for any help. <comment><USER2> Your script should be able to accept a list of parameters to exclude, and then you can use regular expressions to strip them out. For example, if the urls look like www.example.com/pages/category?section=tutorials&sessionID=12345&refID=home, you could exclude (sessionID, refID) while retaining other parameters (e.g. "section" in this example).

If these pages were created using canonical URLs, you could find and extract that and add that to your index.

<comment><AUTHOR> I considered that. It seems like the only solution (to me). When the <meta> tag for a canonical tag is available it seems pretty easy to solve that way.

I'm really curious how Google (and other search engines) solve this problem.

Do they maintain a massive list of query parameters to ignore? JSESSIONID and the like are easy enough, but there are many others.

Many pages don't define a canonical URL with a <meta> tag either.

<comment><USER2> _I'm really curious how Google (and other search engines) solve this problem.

Do they maintain a massive list of query parameters to ignore? JSESSIONID and the like are easy enough, but there are many others_

I would imagine when google crawls a page, they analyze the content and compare it to other pages with similar URLs. If the content is identical to another page with the same URL, they look for a canonical URL and index using that. If not, they pick one URL to represent the many identical pages. Over time crawling a site, they would know which parameters to ignore.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with or stop escapism? - <AUTHOR> In other words, how do you stop yourself from running away from your problems? <comment><USER2> I don't have an actual method, personally, but years of experience has shown me time and time again that real problems will, sooner or later, force you to deal with them. If you avoid a problem until you have no choice but to deal with it, that problem will be orders of magnitude worse, more painful, and more difficult to resolve.

So when a problem comes my way, I remind myself of this and make a conscious decision to deal with it immediately out of a sense of self-preservation.

The tricky part is that not all problems are _real_ problems. Some are pseudoproblems that will eventually just evaporate. In the moment, it can be hard to tell which is which. I choose to deal with them anyway, on the basis that resolving a pseuodproblem does no real harm, but not resolving a real problem does.

</comment><comment><USER3> Problems usually tend to grow stronger as you look away and even if your escapism works, there will always be this looming black cloud in the back of your head.

The problem is, that over time you can grow so acustomed to this black cloud that you forget about it's existance and your feel bad and worse and when everything becomes to much you face it. And only then you will realize how much you really suffered.

Life is short. Too short to fill it with distractions.

If your problems seem big, do it like a mountaineer: one step at a time. If you want to reach that summit in one step you will not even start the journey. Break your problem into managable pieces and try to change habits in away that helps you to take these steps.

Find help and talk to people about it, promise a good friend to come back to them after a month and tell them how you did (even if you fucked up).

</comment><comment><USER4> Tell yourself it's a feature, not a bug. I'm only half joking.

<comment><USER5> Seconded. There was actually a study related to this: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019188691...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886910000474)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> By confronting and dealing with the underlying things leading you to want to escape in the first place. The escapes only offer temporary relief, while effective confrontation can resolve the issues so you can get off the hamster wheel and move on.

CBT [0] has been by far the best way I've found so far to achieve meaningful, long-term change to my underlying thinking and mindset. CBT offers a scientifically-based approach, and there are lots of helpful professionals out there.

If this information helps you or anyone reading this, I'll be so happy!

[0] [https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cognitive- behavi...](https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/cognitive-behavioral- therapy/about/pac-20384610)

</comment><comment><USER7> It's all just habit.

Don't overthink the methodology. The more you run from problems, the more likely you run from that problem next time. Whatever choice you pick when dealing with a problem is more likely to be the default choice next time.

The most common mistake is to not recognize the problem or escapism when it happens. Or rather, to see it but pretend it isn't there. That's really where all forms of therapy come in; they help you to admit the problem and stop avoiding it. After all, avoidance is a form of escapism.

There's a reason why we do this though. Most problems go away. And some problems get worse while you're tackling them. So like our addiction to sugars and fatty food, it's by design.

</comment><comment><USER8> It would help to make this more concrete, in the abstract it's a bit difficult.

Firstly, What kind of problems are you running away from? How do you describe your problems to yourself?

For mood dysregulation stuff: If you're angry or depressed or anxious, I found "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach to be very helpful. Getting help from a therapist is also worth checking out. Good therapists are hard to find, don't settle for just any therapist.

People problems? You don't get along well with your partner or family? Or you don't have people you feel close to? It's complex. A cheap place to start getting a picture of how healthy people relate is by heading Carolyn Hax's daily column. Google her. Going to Al-anon is good if people around you are drinking or being abusive to you. Therapy again is an option, as is meditation and other self-care techniques. Browse the self help section of your local bookstore.

Financial problems? Heath problems? Motivation problems: Not doing work that you like? These are definitely problems that need addressing, but the specifics of how to are even harder in the abstract.

How are you escaping/regulating your emotions yourself now?

        With drugs, alcohol or other addictive or compulsive behavior

        With work

        Just Daydreaming

        Playing computer games/web surfing/social media

The big question here being, is your escapism clearly destructive (drugs and other addictions), or more benign (daydreaming, consuming media). Destructive escapism needs to be addressed directly, one way or another.

One big problem with drugs and alcohol is that they get in the way of developing other, positive self-care mechanisms such as meditation, exercise, sleep and nutrition. Google psychological self-care.

What are your social supports in life? Spouse, family, friends. How can they help you in this?

Explore 'escaping from what?' What's something in your current life that you'd like to escape? What part of the past feels like it's been 'stealing the present', that you'd like to escape from? Personally, I've worked to escape the negative impact that my father's physical and emotional abuse had on me. (The main impact being it turned me into an angry person.)

It's a good thing you've done to reach out and ask for help around this. Consider that you're on a 'Journey of Awareness' to wake up to the reality of your own inner world. Take it on as an active task.

</comment><comment><USER9> Try to trace back that feeling when it arises, a feeling that hinders you from completing or even considering a goal. For me that would be a fear to fail, or fear of receiving criticism from others. If you have it in you, you know it cuts like a knife, drives you into perfectionism, etc. The solution is to embrace the idea that failing is a part of life.

</comment><comment><USER10> Are you talking about fleeing your problems or avoiding them?

"Escapism" usually refers to burying oneself in distractions (especially fiction) to avoid confronting problems.

Whereas running away from problems (ex: breaking up with someone because you're afraid to attend their cousin's wedding) is something else.

</comment><comment><USER11> By embracing it? Working in an escapism industry (VR for me) so escapism becomes a goal that you need to optimize and have an incentive to work for and complete tasks. For other issues like chores and paperwork, sharing the load with someone.

Basically by creating escape solutions for others.

</comment><comment><USER12> Unattended problems tend to get worse over time. So, it's rational to take care of them now vs putting it off for later.

</comment><comment><USER13> The mental seal.</comment>


Streaming Laying Bare How ISPs, Big Tech, Big Media Work Together Against Users - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/streaming-laying-bare-how-big-isps-big-tech-and-big-media-work-together-against <comment><USER2> > So if Disney+ or Netflix—or, more importantly, a smaller company trying to > compete with the big guys—wants their content to be on a level playing > field, they will have to pay a fee that HBO Max does not.

Can you imagine if AOL zero-rated any minutes on their dial-up connection used towards surfing AOL sites and using AOL's search engine? I'm sure Google would still exist today, but it would probably have taken a lot longer to gain traction with the mainstream if so many AOL users just wanted to conserve their dial-up minutes.

So what services will end up not existing in the future as a result of this?

ISPs should be a neutral pipe, that's it.</comment>


Startup: give up? - <AUTHOR>

This Q probably must have been asked several times; but as each situation is different, 'dare to ask this ;)
My situation: worked on my startup, so far self and little friends/family funded. Almost 3yrs; did some parttime jobs here and there. I am in a highly overcrowded but lucrative mkt; 2 patents pending; 3 to 4 customer Letter of intents(LOIs); but no tangle progress as all of the customers have outsourced their platform (application) and both my and my prospect's hands are tied. 2 of the platform guys put us on hold; 1 other platform vendor is painfully slow; running out of money  in next 3mths; pitched to VCs, no funding, asked to come back when gained more mkt traction; due to lack of funding, 'am working w avg team (mostly on equity) but progress is very little; myself spinning all the threads; now, even to pivot, 'need $s;
I do belive in the idea and have pitched to several. If it weren't for LOIs from prospetive customers, 'would have given up; I am highly qualified (education & corp exp), but feeling as if no talents due to above all; can someone give their perspective here? 'Also regret 'haven't moved to bay area.
Next 2 mnths, seeking angel round; but not optimistic; lack of motivation even to revamp my resume (as 'feel at crossroads w no talents)
Feeling like putting company in hibernation and do some job. Any advice , will take it. Thank you! <comment><USER2> Instead of creating this extremely brief and hard to read summary, it might be worth making a blog post describing exactly what your situation is, the problems you've encountered, so that people can provide you with better suggestions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> C'mmon folks; I really am looking for some directions; yes ultimately its me who has to decide w/o emotions. One other option 'am looking at is : focus/wait on patents being issued and then re attempt; or atleast 'can sell/license them.

PS: read "tangile" as tangible; "belive" as believe in the main posting; typos

</comment><comment><USER3> You probably already know the answer. Only you know your business best.</comment>


Tiny, weird online communities made a comeback in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/28/16795090/internet-community-2017-post-mortem-tumblr-amino-drip-tinyletter <comment><USER2> I am a member of three (admittedly weird) niche communities. These have been orders of magnitude more impactful in my life than Facebook. The friends I met there have become real-life friends. We've flown around the world to visit each other, we've laughed and cried, we send each other quirky gifts, and cheer on each other's kids. These are the only close new friends I've made in the last 10 years. Two of those communities are based around subreddits, the other a 90s era web forum.

The thing that makes them work where Facebook groups simply don't, I think, is pseudonymity. One of those groups has been particularly powerful, and it is a group that inherently involves being mutually vulnerable, so I certainly would never have joined under my real name, and I enjoy being part of the community even though only a handful of people know my IRL identity.

Reddit has some big problems, but is the best platform I have found so far for these niche communities. And my experience totally chimes with this article: big social media is as shallow as a puddle. Small niches are where real communities form.

<comment><USER3> I agree with your last paragraph, and IMO the reason is reddit is based on common interests, like Usenet used to be, while Facebook is based on random ways you met people in life and twitter is based on people trying to boost their ego.

<comment> LV-426 I agree about Reddit being Usenet-like. Unfortunately it's a really horrible version of Usenet, partly thanks to the number of unpleasant people who use it, but also due to the karma system - in _theory_ a way to collectively highlight good posts, but in reality often simply becoming an end in itself (karma whoring, playing to a gallery) and a weapon (people burying legit posts they simply don't like/agree with).

On Usenet you could filter anything you didn't want to see, which is reasonable, but you could not - as on Reddit, or HN - make it more difficult for other people to read it too, which is not reasonable, and simply helps to create a hostile, cliquey, poisonous echo chamber.

Cliques did exist on newsgroups, but they had less tools at their disposal. In fact one of the reasons people left Usenet for inferior moderated web forums is because while they could (quite rightly) control their own experience, they (quite rightly) had no ability to control the group.

Ironically, although Usenet is considered to be dead these days, it's in some ways in better shape than ever.

20 years ago it suffered from its popularity, under attack from spammers and trolls attempting and often succeeding in destroying newsgroups.

These days it probably has more users than it had before the mid 90s internet explosion, whereas spammers and trolls have largely moved on to bigger audiences elsewhere.

It's strange for me to read people talking nostalgically about how the internet was better in the past, about online forums they were a part of 15 years ago, or Reddit or 4chan, and seemingly have no experience or even knowledge of Usenet.

And that something as similar and simple to use as email is ignored by people who rue the loss of old (web) forums.

Unlike web options Usenet is no-nonsense, free, has no admin headaches, no advertising, no Evil Corp owner (or potential sell out to Evil Corp when the community grows enough), it's anonymous, private and allows unrestricted speech (within applicable law, obviously).

All it requires is for people to use it.

<comment><USER4> > _I agree about Reddit being Usenet-like. Unfortunately it 's a really > horrible version of Usenet, partly thanks to the number of unpleasant people > who use it, but also due to the karma system - in theory a way to > collectively highlight good posts, but in reality often simply becoming an > end in itself (karma whoring, playing to a gallery) and a weapon (people > burying legit posts they simply don't like/agree with)._

> _On Usenet you could filter anything you didn 't want to see, which is > reasonable, but you could not - as on Reddit, or HN - make it more difficult > for other people to read it too, which is not reasonable, and simply helps > to create a hostile, cliquey, poisonous echo chamber._

( And... you apparently got downvoted :-/ )

The most infuriating thing I experience on the Web is indeed to see awfully wrong comments being massively upvoted, next to perfectly right, on the point comments being (even slightly) downvoted. And I am not talking about opinionated comments, but just factual comments. It just drives me nuts.

I noticed that even here, when I write opinionated, or a bit rough and definitive, or a bit provocative comments, I often get upvoted (sometimes downvoted, but that's not a problem, I understand it for this kind of comments); but when I write to state purely technical, factual, documented, provable facts, I get downvoted. I just sounds insane. I can understand the difference of opinions, I can understand being upset about an opinion being roughly put in a short comment. But what I don't understand is people who downvote perfectly right _purely technical_ comments (like for example fixing errors in a program), where there is only one truth, there is no opinion to have about it, it is either right right or wrong. That's beyond me.

<comment><USER5> this is a reason slashdot's metamoderation was such a great idea, which has, oddly, never seen any further development.

<comment><USER6> Possibly because it is very strongly anti-gamification.

This while the HN/Reddit "karma" score is a very much a e-peen score board.

<comment><USER7> What is the problem in gamifying Slashdot? You can be "funny lvl 42" and "insightful lvl 8" for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article is very anecdotal and it doesn't talk about the underlying reasons for why niche communities are making a big comeback.

It mentions that Patreon has risen in popularity but doesn't talk about the YouTube adpoocalypse or the reasons why that occurred.

The adpocalypse and it's impact on everything from news commentary to comedy channels is one of the biggest factors driving creators and hence users onto YouTube alternatives.

It doesn't talk about said Youtube alternatives such as minds, steemit etc or why vidme shut down. It doesn't talk about their differences or why one is better than the other.

It doesn't talk about the economics of video hosting or how sustainable these platforms are.

It mentions the alt right but it doesn't talk about twitter giving tons of those guys the boot or the rise of gab.

It mentions the alt right & Patreon but it doesn't talk about how many of those people and other right wingers got booted off of that platform. It doesn't talk about the cottage industry of Patreon alternatives that sprung up to cater to those people.

It also doesn't mention mastodon or anything that's going on with similar technologies.

It doesn't mention why mastodon got big in Japan or talk about any similar niche services.

It also doesn't talk about the possibility of advertising on twitter/Facebook/google being regulated by the USA/EU. It doesn't talk about the testimony all three companies gave in front of congress nor its implications for the future of niche communities.

In summary this article provides neither a survey of the niche community landscape nor an explanation for why 2017 was the year niche communities made a comeback.

<comment><USER9> Would you mind writing some answers to those questions?

I would love to read these a lot more than the author's weak attempt to force politics on an otherwise really interesting topic.

<comment><USER8> Sure. I had been waiting for someone else to do this as it seems very obvious to me.

In the above comment I didn't even get into the big war that's looming between Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat for video ad revenue.

I also didn't talk about how crypto currency factors into all of this either.

I think 2018 is going to see some pretty big shifts in the online media landscape.

<comment><USER10> Sorry to pile on, but I would also like to see a more thorough treatment of this topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 2017 was the year I left Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, etc. Nuked my old reddit account and came back to a fresh start with only a few niche subreddits and of course HN. I don't even frequent 4chan as much because it's losing its ground as a first-party source of internet subculture and information dissemination

I've significantly cut out the time spent engaging in communities that don't give me anything in return, and while it makes it very hard to date other people in my generation and at times fills me with a lonely sense of disconnection from society, I feel so much healthier.

<comment><USER12> >I don't even frequent 4chan as much because it's losing its ground as a first-party source of internet subculture and information dissemination

Like it or not, /pol/ is exactly that for the alt-right. It's also started to seep out into the other boards, which is something of a problem to be solved.

<comment><USER11> > It's also started to seep out into the other boards, which is something of a > problem to be solved

Pretty much why I left. /pol/ is good to follow during important events like elections but in general the toxicity is unbearable... and the rest of 4chan culture has been suffering lately as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I hope one of the effects of this movement away from mass social media is a resurgence in self-hosted content and forum software.

</comment><comment><USER14> 2017 was the year in which I pruned my Facebook friends down from ~350 to 46. It was also the year in which I solidified friendships IRL that started in 1:10 scale truck modelling forums in Canada, the UK and Germany. I still check Facebook daily, but it's now down to once a day when I get up, rather than 100's of times a day. I only check in on Twitter once every couple of weeks or so, when I'm bored. For me this trend seems to be... a trend. One of my plans for this year is to build Clone Trooper armour, which will probably open up new friendships in the cosplayer world.

So I, as a single datapoint, love the trend. It's how I meet people who are absolutely, completely commited to the same things I am.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like a great direction to be moving towards. Much more grip on your social media, and _you_ using _it_ rather than the other way around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Weird communities never disappeared they just got overshadowed by the rest of the social networking place. It's like saying everyone goes to wal mart and home depo .

<comment><USER17> I would say your analogy applies, but in a different way: walmart and home depot arrived and mom&pop hardware and general stores didn't all disappear, but their numbers did diminish. Where 8 minimarkets were open, half may have closed (YMMV).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought the article would be about something like the rise of SSBC, maybe a reprise of diaspora*, and I wish this was true - but in reality most of these are still groups within the larger systems, let that be instagram or tumblr.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm a member of several 'weird' communities on discord. It feels like the old internet I loved of irc + forums, with voice and video chat bringing it into my modern times

</comment><comment> kris-s I've been thinking about this sort of thing a lot lately and I even briefly made an experimental message board that limited the amount of posts the users could make. The idea was that it would slow down the pace of the board and encourage more people to post.

The idea never really took off, almost entirely due to marketing - I have no idea how to promote such a thing.

The site is currently down but if anyone has ideas how to regularly promote it (and maybe keep out jerks who post bad things) I'd love some ideas.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Weird"

Actually niche online communities aren't weird. Just because a topic isn't repeated over and over again on big media doesn't mean it's weird. Big media doesn't dictate what is normal.

<comment><USER21> What's wrong with "weird"? It means: fateful, uncanny, magical. It's never properly been an insult, and those who misbelieve otherwise and deploy it in a pejorative fashion accidentally do that which they so label a favor by avoiding it - nothing ruins a small, special space like an influx of people who neither understand nor care what makes it special.

<comment><USER20> Nothing is wrong with it, it's just subjective. Being subjective is usually not the domain of journalism (outside of op-eds).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yes, I think VRchat is becoming one of those, with very high emphasis on the weird. Do you know the way, my bruddas?

</comment><comment><USER23> Rather than the size of the community, I'd really prefer if we had more distributed and decentralized communities.

The pendulum has swung markedly from distributed to centralized communities in the last decade. Would be nice if it finally swung back somewhat in the other direction.

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for the internet of the early 2000s.

</comment><comment><USER24> Like lobste.rs, way better than HN with the wacko-fascist mods on this website that force their political views on the users.</comment>


Phabricator, a software fabricator - <AUTHOR> http://phabricator.org/

<comment><USER2> Judging from the number of forced jokes on <https://secure.phabricator.com/> (needs login), it mostly seems to be a vehicle for bad humor.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool. Is anyone outside Facebook currently using this? At a quick glance, I like the focus on workflows rather than on features.</comment>


Verizon is launching a tech news site that bans stories on U.S. spying - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/politics/verizon-sugarstring-us-surveillance-net-neutrality/

<comment><USER2> Doesn't this just mean something like: Verizon's tech news site will be censored in just about all anti-corporate news, or in any story where Verizon itself plays the heavy?

How will advertisers be treated in news pertaining to them? Only relentlessly positive?

Sad when journalism comes to this.

<comment><USER3> I perused the site a bit and saw at least 2 articles that were blatant advertisements for consumer products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It says that they will also ban any content that talks about net neutrality. It is sad that this doesn't even surprise me.</comment>


Sprint Is Throttling Skype, Study Finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-08/sprint-is-throttling-microsoft-s-skype-service-study-finds <comment><USER2> Using a SIM card on a recent trip to Mexico, where net neutrality was never a thing, was really interesting.

Cell service plans come with separate tariffs for regular data and "social" data, which works only in the walled garden of Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Insta, etc., and the "social" data is much cheaper.

Even though the positive reinforcement was not as draconian as stuff like this, where they're obviously trying to dissuade use, it was still pretty creepy.

<comment><USER3> Local CDN im guessing. We had the same thing in South Africa. For a while you could get 90% discounted local only data.

<comment><USER4> > For a while you could get 90% discounted local only data.

Interesting idea. It's usually the last-mile that's the hard part - I presume that's the reason it's no longer done?

Did 'local content' include, say, Netflix?

<comment><USER3> >Interesting idea.

Even better is the eco-system it spawned. Myself and others ended up with 2 connections & network magic to split traffic dynamically to optimise cost.

Netflix wasn't a thing back then in SA (and even now isn't big).

However these local only packages did come with access to the ISP's usenet server so people downloaded mountains of ahem linux ISOs.

>I presume that's the reason it's no longer done?

No. Couple of big undersea cables hit SA shortly after. So current thinking is more managing capacity during peak times with various incentives ("night time data" etc)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tip of the iceberg.

Carriers see communication services as their turf, and they go to byzantine lengths to protect that.

Politically it can get funny.

If you work at a handset manufacturer, and sit in on sales calls, and one of your team members brings up anything _remotely_ related to this or VOIP, you might see the carrier buyers get visibly upset and literally walk out of the room.

I could never tell if they were 'actually' upset, or 'pretend professionally' upset.

But it's funny the games that are played.

<comment><USER6> You know what upsets me is that I can call people on my phone and the audio quality is terrible if they're not on the same carrier (T-Mobile in the USA). I had to tell my friend to just call me on Skype the next time cause it's always a struggle to hear them clearly over the phone. I can't believe that my carrier has "HD Calling" but everyone else sounds like the calls being patched through a sewage pipe.

<comment> village-idiot What's shocking is the first time you go from a cell phone to a high quality office phone (yes, I'm young). Holy crap are modern phones crystal clear, the stuff we've accepted on cell phones is _garbage_ in comparison.

<comment><USER7> Old ma bell was a monopoly and long distance cost over a dollar a minute, but land lines were crystal clear for half a century and more. The shape of old phones also were really great for isolating the phone conversation from everything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is key - "The researchers bought a Sprint wireless plan to try to detect throttling of Skype in the lab, but couldn't replicate the experience of the Wehe app users. This is likely because it affects only certain subscription plans, but not the one the researchers purchased, they said."

One app is saying this is occurring without anyone being able to duplicate the claim in a lab. Bloomberg could do better by getting a second source.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also see the researchers' own page: [https://dd.meddle.mobi/USStats.html](https://dd.meddle.mobi/USStats.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> Sprint is legit garbage, but it is worth noting that even under Wheeler, Net Neutrality rules have _never_ applied to mobile networks. It's a big reason many of us were disappointed with the legislation even when it was passed. I'd rather have something than nothing, but mobile carriers have always been expent from NN.

<comment><USER10> Tmobile made this clear to me too when I complained about their older zero- rating policy at the time. It was highly unfair to smaller companies without the means to implement their standards for video.

<comment><USER11> T-mobile customer here who supports zero rating. Their standards are extremely straight forward to implement to zero rate, and there is minimal burden to implement. This was my experience simply as a facilitator to enable a public radio station I enjoy to be zero rated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing most people do not understand is that the former net neutrality rules did not prohibit throttling, in and of itself. Every rule and clause in the net neutrality bill has a little clause following " _Though shall not [...] except for reasonable network management._ " What's "reasonable network management"? 400+ pages and it was not well defined. It's something that would be decided on a case-by-case basis. But ultimately if any carrier could create a compelling argument that some service was causing undue congestion on their network, they had complete freedom to throttle it.

As an aside you'll note that now, and then, when companies are found to be doing they'll immediately scream "reasonable network management." Search for _sprint "reasonable network management"_ and you'll get years of results such as [1][2][3]. Give them a cut of the profits and suddenly that congestion would be considered much more reasonable - a la Netflix/Comcast.

[1] - [https://www.sprint.com/en/legal/legal-regulatory-and- consume...](https://www.sprint.com/en/legal/legal-regulatory-and-consumer- resources.html)

[2] - [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/10/nonpr...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/10/nonprofit-groups-say-sprint-will-unfairly-throttle-data- after-wimax-shutdown/)

[3] - [https://civsourceonline.com/2015/10/15/sprint-sued-by-non- pr...](https://civsourceonline.com/2015/10/15/sprint-sued-by-non-profits-over- clearwire-lease-for-wimax/)

</comment><comment><USER13> My Zoom meetings via CenturyLink have become progressively worse since Net Neutrality bit the dust. Anyone else feel the same?

<comment><USER14> I've had Centurylink for years (fiber and DSL) and they consistently seem to throttle most video sites. Netflix/youtube has always been hit or miss. If you ask about this on reddit or dslreports you immediately get shills claiming that they would never do that / it's impossible. Weird.

Using a VPN always fixes the issue.

<comment><USER15> Have you compared IPv4 versus IPv6 performance? Centurylink seems to have much better peering via IPv6 (still a bit slow to certain destinations though), in part because they only peer with Hurricane Electric and other non-Tier 1's for IPv6.

<comment><USER14> Nope. I'll try that out. My modem is only getting a ipv4 address right now, but maybe I can configure it.

<comment><USER14> Shucks. No ipv6 support in my area.

<comment><USER15> Try 6RD, that is what I use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm a sprint customer and the throttling is so overt I'm surprised it took any amount of stuff to spot it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Does Skype still do the supernode p2p architecture?

<comment><USER18> No, that was phased out when they merged infrastructures with Microsoft's existing, post-merge.

<comment><USER19> Anyone know why they phased that out? Seems like a performance benefit and not many downsides I can think about warranting removal.

<comment><USER20> Definitely is about mobile, where users' devices are frequently not actively running the app at the same time.

Skype used to have a ton of issues with certain features requiring both parties be online. For instance, since it was peer-to-peer, sharing pictures and/or file attachments would fail if you weren't online at the same time as the other person, and of course, you were subject to the their upload speed for you (and each other person in a chatroom) to download it.

<comment><USER21> Not that it's any more reliable now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Australia <-> India Skype has become awful for us in the last 6 months or so. Does anyone know if this is related?

<comment><USER23> Sprint is a mobile network operator in the states. I don't think it is related to your issue.

<comment><USER24> Sprint is a telecommunications company, not just a mobile operator. They actually operate a 100G backbone between Australia and India (Perth to Mumbai via the SWE3 cable), so grand-parents question isn't that unreasonable.

[https://www.sprint.net/images/network_maps/full/Global- Globa...](https://www.sprint.net/images/network_maps/full/Global-Global- IP.png)

<comment><USER25> Do they or is it just indirect via a consortium? Looking at this [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEA-ME- WE_3](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEA-ME-WE_3) it doesn't look to be directly managed by Sprint.

<comment><USER24> Almost all undersea cables are owned by consortiums that are responsible for installation and ongoing maintenance. Telecoms like Sprint or Level 3 buy fiber pairs and run the gear on each end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> They might just be confusing that with sprint being an awful network in general.

</comment><comment><USER27> I sure hope the FTC does something about this!

<comment><USER28> Another agency, the FCC, was founded on the premise that we need to ensure some communicators don't degrade the communications of others unintentionally. Spectrum needs management.

It's funny we lack the same conviction when ITCs actively degrade each other...

<comment><USER29> With Democrats in control of the House, they can pass Net Neutrality and put some pressure on the Senate. Or package in with a spending deal.

<comment><USER30> Haha, hilarious man. I'm looking forward to two years of total gridlock in the U.S. government. No one is in a mood to compromise on anything at all, least of all a fringe issue like Net Neutrality that motivates, like, fifty people to the polls.

<comment><USER31> On the contrary, net neutrality being a niche issue might make it more likely for politicians to agree on action. NN is a vague, new enough issue that it can be spun to the public in appealing ways. And the battle lines on which legislators are willing to die on haven't yet been drawn. Think back to the SOPA bill back in 2013. It had massive bipartisan support, and a huge number of listed cosponsors [0], yet Congress folded like a chair on the day of the blackout protest. Not just because the protest was large, but because they had little to gain by sticking to their positions. Compare this to how Congress members change in no significant way from their campaign promises on gun and abortion issues.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Members_of_the_U.S._...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Members_of_the_U.S._Congress_who_support_or_oppose_SOPA/PIPA)

edit: fixed typo/grammar

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Not that it's Skype's fault they're getting throttled, but I wish I had an alternative to Skype.

I haven't found a service that lets me dial worldwide (particularly USA/Canada) at anywhere near the rates Skype offers.

<comment><USER33> Do you really still need to dial? Haven't all the persons you call a computer (smartphone!) with free VoIP capabilities?

<comment><USER34> When I'm in Japan and want to talk with my insurance company, bank, or airline over on the other side of the world, there's just one way: A phone number. Which is the (main) reason I'm still using Skype. There are other, and sometimes better, alternatives for video/chat/group chats/photos etc. But still nothing that competes with Skype's phone support, although Skype in general has degenerated a lot since the early days.

<comment><USER35> I use Google Voice For the same reason!

It's even better: it has a free US phone number. So my insurance could call me on that number while I'm in Japan.

<comment><USER34> Google Voice as a service is limited to the US and Canada, so if you're a North American it's a good alternative I guess. Otherwise, not so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've used Sprint before. It almost seems like all websites are throttled.

</comment><comment><USER37> Since Skype left its p2p roots, has it ever had enough bandwidth?

</comment><comment><USER38> All the carriers say straight on their website they are throttling you. Want HD video? Have to pay for the upgraded super version or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER39> the services named are all quite high bandwidth compared to regular websites. can it not be that this is automated throttling to prevent congestion on parts of the networks?

</comment><comment><USER40> Well Microsoft changed the underlying p2pness of skype so I can't blame Sprint for throttling that laggy buggy inconsistent network topology ineptly and inaptly still referred to as "Skype" R.I.P.

</comment><comment><USER41> Has there been more Bloomberg on the front page since the SuperMicro thing, or am I just noticing it more?

<comment><USER42> I think you are noticing it more. It's always been a popular source here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Did anyone else see this headline and hope for an anti-scrum rant?

</comment><comment><USER44> Does Sprint sell video chat? I don't understand the anticompetitveness angle. Voice calls are free on cell phone networks, and Skype users pay for data. How would Sprint profit from giving its users a bad Skype experience?

Something doesn't add up.

<comment><USER45> >Voice calls are free on cell phone networks

Since when?

<comment><USER46> Since in the USA. Assuming you already need to pay for data. And don't want to make voice calls to other countries.

<comment><USER47> What? There are lots of plans in the US with data that don't have unlimited calling.

<comment><USER46> I bet they exist somewhere but a quick survey of prepaid/budget services (Cricket, Straighttalk, USMobile, ...) shows that they all bundle unlimited calling with any plan that has data. All the major post paid carriers have been on unlimited calling plans for many years.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Magic Does Exist With "Uber-For-Flowers" Startup Bloomthat (YC S13) - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/16/bloomthat/ <comment><USER2> I now use Bloomthat for everything (YC and personal). The arrangements are always charming. It's also so easy (and immediate) that I find myself sending flowers to friends and colleagues much more often -- just for little reasons/thankyou's.

<comment><USER3> My wife's day is going to get a bit better in 88 minutes, just because the process was so simple.

<comment><USER4> How was the process?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know how Bloomthat works, but I'm a little suspicious of anything that offers pre-arranged bouquets without any consideration to which flowers are in season. San Franciscans who like flowers might like [http://farmgirlflowers.com/](http://farmgirlflowers.com/) : locally farmed flowers with beautiful arrangements and home delivery.

(Disclaimer: I have no connection to Farmgirl beyond being a happy customer. I feel like every time I carry my bouquet home I end up gaining them another customer though because people always ask me where I found such nice flowers!)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi evmar, we really appreciate your feedback. We rotate our arranged bouquets seasonally and we're big proponents of supporting local flower growers and local brick and mortar florists.

At any time, about 80% of our flowers come from California, and the majority of those are grown within a couple hundred miles of their final destination. Thanks for your comment!

<comment><USER5> That's great to read. The last time I looked into purchasing flowers outside of SF I was sad to discover that most local florists are themselves effectively just resellers of gross FTD flowers, so it seems like a service like yours can go far. I wish you luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If this weren't a YC company, "Magic does exist" would have been edited out of the title by now.

<comment><USER7> Why? It's the same title as the article, so why would it be edited? Unless the TC article had a different title when you posted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So the big differentiator here is delivery in under 90 minutes?

Perhaps I'm jaded by my experience in the industry (parents = florists and I worked for FTD in the past), but that seems like enough to get just a handful of orders. Broadening to the entire market might be a struggle. You've got many local florists, drop shippers, and supermarkets to contend with.

I love the website. I can see that perhaps having and beautiful app + trendy website might give you traction in a younger crowd, a group that purchases fewer flowers today. A focus on quality will give you a leg up over a huge percentage of local florists, for many quality just isn't there.

Are you opening locations in each locale wish to serve? That's capital intensive and leads to procurement issues.

If you gain traction, I hope you're ready for what Valentines/Mother's day bring.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. Your experience in the space is insightful.

We see delivering products (of any kind) in as fast as possible more inevitable than as our differentiator. For a large group of consumers, Uber has contributed to the shift of consumer expectations to mobile, instant and high quality.

We actually don't think of local florists as competition. Rather we partner with the good ones, provide the tools and training to make awesome arrangements, and bring in the urban logistics to make on-demand delivery possible. As you said, vertically integrating all of this new infrastructure would be way too capital intensive. There's a fairly new entrant to the market doing that now and it's taken a long time to hit a $4mm run rate.

On the consumer side of things, you're absolutely right. Great branding and awesome customer service will solve a ton of problems. Worst case for BT, a little bit rubs off on the incumbents and customers still win. Thanks again for your comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> After seeing the episode of The Lookout[1] about online flower services which contract out to local florists I decided to use the local florists directly. The gist of it was that the local flower shops will tend to give a more skimpy arrangement for online orders since they have to give a cut to the website.

If you're in NYC I highly recommend Starbright[2]. They have arrangements as nice or nicer than a fancy florist like Ovando, but the prices are way better.

[1] [http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/full-bloom-online- flow...](http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/video/full-bloom-online-flower- purchases-19695280) [2] [http://www.starbrightnyc.com/](http://www.starbrightnyc.com/)

<comment><USER10> I completely disagree with you. Local florists are to Target, as BloomThat is to Google Shopping Express. All the benefits of shopping online with delivery in less than 90 minutes. WAY more convenient than spending an hour driving, browsing, buying, driving.

And as Chad said below, they hold all florist to a high standard "to ensure quality across the board."

<comment><USER11> This isn't a great analogy as way to explain this (I still have no idea what you're saying). The only company I have direct experience with is Target; I'm unfamiliar with the purchasing experience of local florists or BloomThat, and didn't even know Google Shopping Express was a thing. I'm not really unrepresentative.

You should use ~2 widely known things and a known relationship (senators are to the senate as morks are to morkdom), or 3-4 well known things to show a new relationship.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a space ripe for disruption.

I ordered a bouquet from ProFlowers 5 years ago using a throwaway email (spamgourmet). Fast forward a few months and I'm getting unsolicited spam from businesses completely unaffiliated with ProFlowers at that one-time-use address. I called customer support to ask how to be removed from the list and got put on hold and hung up on. Not an uncommon experience:

[http://www.resellerratings.com/store/ProFlowers](http://www.resellerratings.com/store/ProFlowers)

New startup formula:

1\. Find "(Expertsexchange|ProFlowers) of X"

2\. Build "(StackOverflow|Uber|Yelp) of X", don't sell your entire customer base down the river

3\. Profit

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. You nailed it re: spam. They play a similar game with CPC ads - cornering the real estate with resellers and effectively bidding up the CPC on themselves. Speaking of which, I love the ads for the same companies underneath the horrible consumer ratings in the link you posted!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like the idea of a non-SEO/CPA, non-crappy flower company. My problem is the only people I need to send flowers to are outside the Bay Area, and generally in second or third tier markets you'll probably never serve directly. I have no idea what I should be doing -- I use Calyx now, which is overpriced and kind of crappy in a lot of ways. I tried the "local florist" in "place where parents live" and that was too much of a hassle, too. Searching for the city name and florist brings me 4 "local florists", only one I vaguely recall (same town I lived when I was 8-14 and not really in the floral market). 2 are "teleflora network", one appears to be a real independent shop, another appears to be wedding focused. I generally don't care about this very much, so I use a known vendor who lets me avoid the worst case but doesn't really provide a good average or best case. I'd normally use Yelp or TripAdvisor or something to check reviews, but each vendor has 0 or 1 reviews -- not exactly SF.

For me, a local florist matters less to me (because I can just go to the Flower Mart, if I really want flowers, or really go anywhere and visually inspect them; the flowers at Whole Foods aren't amazing but they're fine sometimes) than one which is flowers-at-a-distance.

</comment><comment><USER13> I like this idea. The flower delivery market has plenty of players, but also plenty of room for disruption.

I can't think of a time when I've needed flowers in the next 90 minutes, but if you want flowers even in the next week, you tend to get gouged by e.g. 1800 Flowers, so it's nice to see a new offering there.

If/when they try to spread to a new city, I wonder if the community will welcome them, or the establish ed competition will work against them?

<comment><USER14> > _I can 't think of a time when I've needed flowers in the next 90 minutes, > but if you want flowers even in the next week, you tend to get gouged_...

Exactly. I can't think of a time when I've needed flowers in 90 minutes, but I can think of a half a dozen times when I've wanted them same day, and at least a dozen or more when I've wanted them next day without paying a gigantic surcharge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is great. I've ordered many bouquets and it's always been somewhat stressful. I used to be in a long distance relationship, and so ordering a bouquet online required finding 1) reputable florists that could 2) deliver on time to the 3) region I want. So something like this is more than welcome.

I would suggest that Bloomthat also expand their offerings. Don't limit yourselves to flowers and bouquets. Gift delivery goes way beyond that -- chocolates, stuffed animals, etc.

I can see a new market emerging from a service like this. A market of people who engage in daily on-demand gift delivery. Someone did something nice to you this morning? Send them some flowers after lunch. Wife text you about her bad day at work? Have flowers at her desk in under an hour. Normally this wouldn't happen considering all the research and logistics involved, but this could spur an entire back-and-forth gift-giving frenzy!

<comment><USER16> There was a local florist where I used to live that was frustrating (but really, most of them I've used over the years have been).

My wife was not well, I was out of town, and I called to have flowers delivered. I asked for an extra, and got it, but had to talk to the owner, and it was like twisting their arm to get this done.

I asked for a small box of chocolates and a DVD to be included (I asked for a specific DVD). I offered to pay extra - the DVD was $19 - and I didn't care on the size of chocolates - just something. I kept getting "but we don't do that". I begged and pleaded. Got the owner. "But we don't do that". I said - "look, charge me an extra $50, just please go buy that DVD and include it with the flowers". They finally did, I think I got charged $35 extra for the DVD and chocolates, and it made her day.

This was well before streaming home video stuff, and my wife had hurt her foot - not able to drive anywhere for a bit.

I was shocked at how hard it was to get a local florist to even _consider_ adding in real extra value-add gifts. Throwing in a "romantic/comedy DVD of the season" option and tacking on an extra $25 or so seemed like "found money" imo. Yes, I'm not a florist by trade, but I've seen that there's a lot more that could be done.

Throwing in a movie and some candy and microwave popcorn along with the flowers seems tantalizingly easy to do. Heck - why didn't video stores deliver back in the day? (maybe some did?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Figuring out how to market affordably (and in a defensible way) is really key to this space. A friend works for 1800 Flowers and it sounds like the entire industry competes on marketing, not on product, because the products are indistinguishable.

[http://i.imgur.com/GUZRdUE.png](http://i.imgur.com/GUZRdUE.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great insight. You're absolutely right. For this reason, we take a lot of inspiration from Warby Parker. By building an awesome brand that people want to associate with, you can (hopefully) avoid playing the super expensive demand harvest game.

Thanks for your comment!

</comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady Maybe I'm missing something but I can't see this being more than a small business. The only reason I can see to choose this over a local flower business is that it delivers in 90 minutes. A very limited number of bouquets is a big downside meaning you can't really deliver to the same person more than a few times. Also, is the 90 minute thing really a big selling point? How often is anyone going to need flowers delivered that quickly? Normally you send for an occasion which you know in advance and if you're sending them to thank someone for something that just happened next day would be fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. You bring up good points.

Most of our users are sending flowers in creative ways outside of the obligatory flower send occasions. For this reason and others, we see the total addressable market to be quite large. In fact, we've reached substantial small biz levels of revenue in a matter of months.

Delivery in 90 minutes is what allows people to send flowers in creative ways. But hey, we're happy to concede 90 minute delivery isn't a game changer these days - it's a requirement.

Our users tell us the power flowers arriving moments after leaving a meeting or closing a deal is quite real.

<comment> k-mcgrady Thanks for responding, it's good to hear your side of things. I'm sure you understand the market a lot better than me (I very rarely use flower delivery services).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice idea but holy crap don't do this:

> One intrepid friend of mine suggested: "Find two people you think clearly > should be banging and send them each flowers addressed from the other."

</comment><comment><USER19> I literally just ordered flowers from ProFlowers and the whole flower ordering business sucks. I can't stand seeing flowers on a site for $19.99 then on the last page seeing that shipping and handling is another $20 bucks. And seeing an option for a coupon and searching the web for something is also absurd. I'm digging the flat model and speed. I'm not in the SF area, but I'm looking forward to this spreading through the US.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey scubasteve - great name - and thanks for the comment. You're absolutely right: pricing tricks and up charges are not cool. The price we display is the price you'll pay (plus a little tax). We're working hard to spread to other cities super fast. Where are you located?

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the reply! I'm in Atlanta, GA. Looking forward to your growth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is interesting, and they appear to be having a valid business plan, but how 'tech' is this startup really? It seems to be about flowers and logistics. Sure, that doesn't matter for the business, but I wonder if these guys would've been on sites like _tech_ crunch and _hacker_ news if YC hadn't taken them on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for your comment! What you see online now is the MVP we used to validate demand. We're working on some pretty cool tech too.

In fact, technology is what allows this to be possible today. Our API routes orders by zip code to guarantee quick and efficient delivery. Our vendor dashboard displays orders in real time to our floral and delivery partners. We'll also be releasing a mobile app soon that I hope you're able to checkout and provide feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Indeed, while there are your typical use cases like boyfriend-forgets- anniversary"

What about girlfriends sending flowers to boyfriends? I'll bet that majority of purchases to a significant other are made by a male, which is not really gender equal.

I've never given a SO flowers, such a practise seems pretty silly. It's like paying for caring.

<comment><USER22> Not sure if we (guys) like flowers as much as girls. But honestly, I think it'd be a very nice detail.

I don't see it as paying for caring, the times I've giving flowers to SO is when the way flowers look makes me think of them. Yeah technically you're paying for a good... But I'd steal it too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is it available in Växjö?

<comment><USER24> "They promise to deliver flowers to anywhere in _San Francisco_ in less than 90 minutes."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> How you will know when Austin, Kansas City, Seattle, Boston, or Tallahassee are just as startup-hip as San Francisco: When we read that "startup InterestingName with CleverProduct done on a local scale has launched in AnyCityBesidesSFO."

<comment><USER26> Density. Certainly it's possible to start a courier business in a less-dense city (and not saying there aren't others -- Boston and NYC especially) but you've now made getting off the ground a lot harder. Obviously the culture in SF has made courier start-up pretty popular lately, but without density I bet that we'd be seeing far less of them.

Density allows these P2P start-ups to succeed with a lot less hassle, and from there they can grow the capital they need to expand.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Density is a key component here. The good news is that nearly 80% of Americans live in places considered to be urban (50k + population). Are they dense enough for a model like this to work is yet to be seen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If people are curious about the price, they seem to start at 14 tulips for $35.00 or a succulent plant for $25.00.

I guess given my income and life priorities, I can't afford that much money for a one-time gift; but more power to those of you that can :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Is it available in New York City?

<comment><USER29> Yes - H.Bloom. [http://www.hbloom.com](http://www.hbloom.com)

<comment><USER4> That appears to be a subscription service mostly? I didn't see any mention of same day on demand delivery. I may have missed it, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't really like the idea of sending someone a dying organism. (Although my girlfriend I believe enjoys receiving such a thing.) But I guess they do real live plants as the article mentioned a succulent.

</comment><comment><USER31> Use case: "Oh shit it's February 14th!"

<comment> super-serial When a friend says that now you can respond: "BloomThat Shit"

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> We're doing the "Uber for X" in a non-ironic fashion still? Surprising...

</comment><comment><USER33> When can we get this in Chicago?

<comment><USER34> Chicago is definitely on our roadmap!!! Keep your eye out :)</comment></comment>


Facebook's Like Buttons Will Soon Track Your Web Browsing to Target Ads - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/541351/facebooks-like-buttons-will-soon-track-your-web-browsing-to-target-ads/ <comment><USER2> Soon? I thought it was considered common knowledge that they already did.

</comment><comment><USER3> Zuckerberg is a massive douchebag.

</comment><comment><USER4> I thought they already did?</comment>


Bower is alive, looking for contributors - <AUTHOR> http://bower.io/blog/2015/bower-alive-looking-contributors/ <comment><AUTHOR> This was Wednesday; on Thursday Dave says[1]:

> [A] noble death still requires people to manage a funeral. We're realistic — > moving to npm is right thing to do. I want to get to a state where that's an > easy transition.

[1]: [https://twitter.com/desandro/status/667417324123774976](https://twitter.com/desandro/status/667417324123774976) Mirror: [http://cl.ly/image/1a3K3N2u2Z3g](http://cl.ly/image/1a3K3N2u2Z3g)</comment>


BMW's new i3 battery car targets urbanites - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/100920208

<comment><USER2> On a venn diagram of electric cars, good looking cars, and cars that can do more than 100 miles on a charge, why is that the overlap area is still the Tesla by itself? If there was a more affordable Telsa, sales would be insane, yet we keep getting more ugly, tiny-range cars with limited appeal.</comment>


Sheerwind - <AUTHOR> http://sheerwind.com/technology/how-does-it-work <comment><USER3> I am not an expert in wind turbines, but I am technically an EE, so I have seen a thing or two. I have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, the principle of operation superficially looks OK. The weird shape probably gives more flexibility in the design (I say _probably_ because I honestly don't know anything serious about fluid mechanics). The data they provide seems usable.

That being said, the website is fairly scarce in terms of actual details (e.g. the "collected wind is channeled to pick up speed" doesn't seem to be explained anywhere -- _how_ exactly is that done, and how much speed would the wind gain?), and the only paper they published looks rather meagre -- from the works they cite to the dubious editing of the paper (e.g. last sentence before "Conclusions": "The total energy production of INVELOX over 8 days is about 314%" would _not_ have made it past decent peer reviewing).

I don't know enough about mechanics to make a proper assessment of this, but my bullshit detector is bleeping, though shyly.

Edit: BTW, the website also seems to casually glance over _what_ the (up to) 600% improvement improves upon. If I read their article correctly, it's an improvement over using the same turbine, but without the funky tunnel. In that case, I kindda doubt the economical feasibility of this design.

<comment><USER4> "I don't know enough about mechanics to make a proper assessment of this, but my bullshit detector is bleeping, though shyly."

Mine too…

One of the fundamental problems regular wind turbines need to deal with is the "V cubed" term in the power contained in moving air. For exactly the same reason that you need eight times as much power to make a car go twice as fast – if you build a turbine that can produce it's "nominal power" output in, say, 10m/s (~22mph) of wind, it'll need to be able to somehow deal with the turbine operating at 8 times nominal at 20m/s (45mph, a not unreasonable occasional windspeed in many places) and 27 times nominal power at 30m/s (a high, but certainly not yet "beyond reasonable safety design limits" speed).

My problem is with the numner on their Field Data page - they say they get an average "speed Ratio" of 1.8, and their turbine is rated at "600W at 12.5m/s". Ballpark extrapolation follows. I'll assume that's 12.5m/s at the turbine, or 12.5/1.8 = ~7m/s wind speed. About 15mph. At half that windspeed, there's 8 times less energy available, so 7.5mph of breeze will generate 75W, halve it again and output at 4mph drops down under 10W, and 2mph means low single digit Watts of output.

Now think about what happens to their turbine in a stiff breeze of 30mph? Where does the 4.8kW go? and when the once-in-5-years 60mph storm comes through, somewhere the best part of 40kW needs to be dealt with. Who engineers things with almost two orders of magnitude margins of safety?

It doesn't smell right to me.

<comment><USER5> This is where the 4.8kW will go if they haven't thought of the possibility of high winds.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e9uRSVun30](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_e9uRSVun30)

<comment><USER6> This seems precisely like an argument for a smaller turbine-based design INSTEAD of huge and (relatively) heavy blades. Turbines for car turbochargers and airplane engines can regularly (if I remember correctly) operate in the regime of ~100k RPM.

And like other commenters say: I think it would be much easier to restrict flow in the "funnel" part and most things I can imagine for a freestanding wind machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I applied to ycombinator with this idea two years ago, I read an article about how the wind turbines were driving people who live near them crazy with the noise they create. Having a funnel that would capture the wind, then put it through a turbine, plus the ability to channel the wind, seemed like a good idea. However I am not an engineer, never finished college, and am over 35 which may have hurt my application :)

<comment><USER8> Did you present a plan of how to inflate the price of the start-up rapidly for a quick sell-off?

<comment><USER7> That was the challenge, I couldn't think of a way to make everyone in the whole world want the product but it seemed like an interesting problem because giant blades spinning just can't be the future of wind energy. The blades take out too many birds and make too much noise. There is a wind energy project maybe 40 miles from me, the installation of the towers and movement of the dirt has caused dust storms for the local residents. A funnel system could be longer and have more support of a wider area, requiring less digging. Big corporations would only switch if they can build it for less and make more money through additional production from each unit so it is unlikely there is big money in developing it, it would have to be a Bill Gates type save the world project and give the designs away for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As others have mentioned, the air increases in speed because of the Bernoulli principle: the decreased cross-section increases the dynamic pressure. However, most of the power will be lost in friction, during the "channeling" part -- and the increase in speed will not make up for that loss.

The friction is relatively high because the flow is turbulent, not laminar. The friction factor can be calculated with the Colebrook equation, implicitly; if they did the calculation they would realize that the distance between the intake and the turbine is a mistake (especially the height difference, which doesn't make sense for atmospheric flow).

It would be better to use natural land features that create the kind of flow you need, such as mountains. Look at the figures here for inspiration:

[http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281973...](http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281973%29030%3C0801%3AATSOTF%3E2.0.CO%3B2)

</comment><comment><USER10> Was a bit worried until I saw 'Wind returns to environment.' Thought they were going to keep it.

</comment><comment><USER11> No, it doesn't work.

The same principle have been posted many times. The only important thing, is the surface area of the collector, that where the energy comme from.

In this case, think about the cost of all this structure vs the same area swept by a blade. The cost of the simple blade is always lower than the same area of 'concentrating funnel'.

Right now they are building turbine with blade of 90m of diameter, imagine building a concentrating structure of the same size.

<comment><USER12> Right, but is the mfging and installation costs of the 90m blade vs. the structure of the same size?

I see this as a cost optimization, not a way to get more energy from the same source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If it really works it's amazing. But I won't believe it until more information is disclosed and some independent experimental data provided.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is an absolutely awful idea, as it was every other time someone's had it.

Consider the following:

a) The _maximum_ amount of energy you can get from some wind is a function of the velocity and density of the air and the projected area of your generator. You can't go above 59.3% of the original kinetic energy content. Conventional three axis turbines get pretty damn close to this limit (80% or so).

b) That being the case, getting cheaper or better power is a matter of getting a large projected area for a low cost while still keeping pretty good efficiency.

c) If you cover a large projected area with a small amount of material, and can point your projection to face the wind... you will do quite well. This is what conventional turbines do.

d) If you cover a large projected area with an even smaller amount of material you may do VERY well. This is what Makani power acheived before they were absorbed into GoogleX.

e) If you cover a small projected area using an astronomical amount of material, which doesn't turn but is rather built for every direction, you can expect to do really really badly... no matter how many bullshit mystery air acceleration tubes you include.

It's bullshit.

*edit: I know nothing about the people who are proposing it. They may be doing so in good faith and not realize it's a terrible idea. But it's still a terrible idea.

</comment><comment><USER15> > The unit is about 50% shorter than traditional wind towers

This is the same thing people say about VAWTs... but they don't build HAWTs really tall just for fun, the wind speed is faster and more consistent up there. So all they are really saying is "the one we built isn't very big"

I think the biggest benefit to this design is that it looks like it could be dirt cheap to make and maintain since it appears to have very few moving parts exposed to the elements.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why is the funnel intake octagonal? Making it circular would be more aesthetically pleasing, or is there a technical reason why having 8 'separate' entrances is required?

Secondly, paint the funnel intake and top section green, and the 'trunk' brown, stick these on top of a hill, and from a distance it could pass for a tree. Much more visually pleasing than a traditional wind turbine.

<comment><USER17> I doubt that the aesthetics are the prime design consideration. This is to generate electricity, not to stick in a gallery. Power generation isn't generally pretty, but it keeps people alive in the winter.

<comment><USER18> > I doubt that the aesthetics are the prime design consideration. This is to > generate electricity, not to stick in a gallery. Power generation isn't > generally pretty, but it keeps people alive in the winter.

They are _a_ design consideration though. You can't just stick things where you want: there are political and community issues to consider. Many rural communities might object to functional-but-ugly wind turbines littered about "their countryside".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The physical rationale is fundamentally flawed. It assumes that all wind that is "caught" will enter on the big opening and all of it will leave on the small opening. But that is wrong, the smaller of the narrow region the less wind enters the entire construction.

The fundamental flaw of the rationale is that it confounds the concept of an engine to that of wind entering the tube. If you suck cold air into a compartment via a valve and provide heat inside it the air expands rapidly and must leave because it does not fit inside anymore. But note how we spend a lot of energy to expand the air and turn that internal energy into mechanical energy. There is absolutely no way that you could get air freely inside of a tube and have it "speed" up without actually pushing back on the air that is coming in.

Imagine that you close the narrow part completely. What happens? Will the construction blow up, of course not? Will the the pressure inside rise to a high value? Of course not. It will simply fill up with air and will experience as much pressure as the wall of the building is subjected to. Can you make the closure experience more pressure than any other part of the building? No that is not how pressure works, it is uniform inside the building.

Now imagine that you make a teeny tiny hole in the closed area. Will that lead to air leaking at insane speeds? No it will be barely noticeable, almost no air would be coming out. There is no reason whatsoever that the air would voluntarily go into a building than on it is own choose to leave on the tiny hole instead of leaving the same way where it got in (basically it is not getting in at all because the pressure inside is the same as outside)

Does it work, of course to some extent, take the area of the building that catches wind, multiply it with the speed of the wind and density of the air and you get the the mass and volume of air that is moving. Air is actually pretty light, you would be surprised how big the area needs to be.

</comment><comment><USER20> Why is this better than just putting a big cone around a small conventional wind turbine?

That would also 'concentrate' the wind.

<comment><USER21> It's being done, actually. Company called Ogin (was FloDesign Wind Turbine) is developing a 100 kW shrouded wind turbine that is similar to that idea. But it only works on small machines, can you imagine a 100 meter rotor with a shroud around it?

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Wind returns to the environment"? Ahh, running wildly as wind should.

Presumably, they mean, "some wind returns to the environment"? Currently, I'm reading that as, "massively inefficient".

And it doesn't really "return to the environment" anyway, does it? It's channelled, focused and ?most? of the power is removed.

</comment><comment><USER23> This design optimises for low-wind speeds by exploiting the Bernoulli Principle but the problem with doing that is that there is very little energy available in the wind at low speeds to begin with.

It's more practical to aim at higher wind speed sites (e.g. off-shore, or simply by being much taller) simply because there is vastly more energy.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not specialist in fluid dynamics or wind, but isn't some energy going to be robbed by the intakes on the sides not receiving the brunt of the wind? I would imagine that the passive sides would rob the tunnel of pressure.

However, if this problem exists and does reduce efficiency, I reckon it's an easy fix that just requires adding dampers for each of the channels and opening them for the ones receiving wind and closing them when not receiving wind.

Out of curiosity, what's the fluid dynamics equivalent of a parabola for energy rays? i.e what shapes are known to concentrate and accelerate fluids best? I know a venturi nozzle is one such shape for acceleration of already collected fluids. What's the best collector shape?

<comment><USER25> They would _have_ to use dampers. Otherwise the wind will enter one side, flow down the tube, then right back up the other side since there is less resistance that way compared to pushing a turbine.

You could use passive dampers - just a flap basically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> There has been a lot of hype on low wind speed energy production for years and Sheerwind is just one of the "contestants" of _challenging the laws of physics_ \- i.e. there is only so much energy per m3 air / wind power density provided with low wind speeds and you can't harvest more than 100% - also see Betz's law.

For a good overview of _novelty_ wind energy approaches (taken with a grain of salt) - [http://barnardonwind.com/2013/06/03/good-and-bad-bets-new- wi...](http://barnardonwind.com/2013/06/03/good-and-bad-bets-new-wind- technologies-rated/)

<comment><USER27> This is an optimization, they're not trying to extract more energy than the wind contains. They're taking 500sqft of wind and channeling it down to 100sqft where their 100sqft wind turbine is. 2mph*500sqft/100sqft = 10mph ignoring all the viscous losses and backpressure, both of which there will certainly be some of. So perhaps instead of 10mph you get 8mph.

What they've done is made a 100sqft wind turbine which would have a high cut- in speed effectively a 500sqft wind turbine with a lower cut-in speed. No magic, just a bit of clever engineering provided that the tower is cheaper than the 500sqft wind turbine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> According to my old aeronautics professor, 2-blade turbines are the most efficient when pointed directly into the wind. They've tested 3-blade, 5-blade, and vertical turbines and couldn't get the same amount of output. These experimental turbines look great on paper but rarely scale up.

The reason why 3-blade is the most common design is 2-blade turbines induce a lot of harmonics at high speed. 3-blade cancels it out but are slightly noisier from the blades slicing through the spoiled air.

<comment><USER29> Actually it is the opposite [1]. Efficiency is theoretically increased with _more_ blades. The three-bladed turbine is the most popular because of the cost benefit of building blades vs efficiency gain of extra blades - <USER2> the case of harmonics for even number of blades does hold true.

[1] [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/we.274/abstract](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/we.274/abstract)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Interesting, but I'd like to hear from someone other than the company that's making them. I'm kinda suspicious when I only hear the upsides to something like this.

</comment><comment><USER31> The first question that popped my mind is how long until the amount of produced energy exceeds the amount needed to build such a device.

</comment><comment><USER32> The mechanical power carried by wind is normally a cube function of its speed, which suggests that the surface area to generate substantial output from slow winds have to be enormous.

This doesn't seem to be the case here. Until there's an independent confirmation (and there seems to be none so far), I'd file it next to cold fusion folder.

</comment><comment><USER33> Ok, the air would flow into the channel facing the wind, but wouldn't it also be sucked out by the side channels as the wind passes by? A movement of air creates a pressure drop proportional to the speed of wind so there would be a sucking force on both sides of the tower (Venturi effect) - did they address that?

<comment><AUTHOR> I assume you could have something which only lets air in but not out, like a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_valve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_valve) but for wind.

<comment><USER33> Yes, but they aren't mentioning that, and I suppose this is quite an important ommission. And btw, valves would create additional drag and reduce efficiency of the device.

<comment><AUTHOR> In their FAQ they say:

\- What are the details of the system inside? Sorry, we do not comment on the details of the inside of our INVELOX system because they are part of our trade secret.

So it is not unreasonable to assume that they have something in there. And they could be needing the valve anyway to close the tube if the wind is too strong to protect the turbine.

<comment><USER33> There's a paper published by sheerwind, detailing the principles of operation - [http://sheerwind.com/wp- content/uploads/sheerwind/2012/10/Al...](http://sheerwind.com/wp- content/uploads/sheerwind/2012/10/Allaei-Andreopoulos_ASME-ES- FuelCell2013-18311.pdf). There's no mention of any valves, too. But there's a more interesting claim they make: "(...) INVELOX captures the wind kinetic energy and uses the pressure differentials to increase the kinetic energy available to a turbine". I wonder how they manage to increase the kinetic energy of air flow without any external energy source.

<comment><AUTHOR> The more I read about it the more I get the feeling that their goal is to get as much funding as possible without letting anyone test it, kind of like Andrea Rossi and his cold fusion reactor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This looks much more difficult to clean, think of all the bugs, birds and sediment that will stick to the INSIDE of that funnel structure. Cleaning the blades of an ordinary wind generator seems much simpler.

On the other hand, if this is as tall as they will get, it seems a lot safer to work on than the current behemoths.

<comment><USER35> In northern areas I think freezing rain would be extraordinarily exciting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If the wind gets slowed by turning the turbine, shouldn't the output side funnel of the turbine be larger than the input side funnel to be able to hold more air? (So the additional wind coming in from behind doesn't have to waste its own kinetic energy pushing the front air out of the system)

<comment><USER5> I believe the output side should as wide as possible while still preventing turbulent flow, as would exist if there were no output tube.

<comment><USER36> Would turbulences be prevented if 3 radial blades (3 so the 45:15=3fold amount of air can pass without problem) divided the wind from the turbine into 3 funnels as large as the input funnel?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is a nice concept. In populated areas there is quite a bit of pushback from the population to install wind turbines due to the distracting movement of the blades and their shadows. This idea solves that nicely by hiding the turbine. Maybe the marked for this is densely populated Europe?

<comment><USER38> I feel like this is worse though, as a tower like that looks million times worse than a wind turbine. I would hate if structures like that started appearing across the landscape.

<comment><USER39> We already have square structures in the landscape: office buildings. These could be put on top of regular buildings keeping the shape of the buildings, just making them a bit higher.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is this the same technique employed by the Windcatcher [1] (rapid inflation)

[1] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1484284472/windcatcher-i...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1484284472/windcatcher- inflates-in-seconds-with-no-power-or-p)

</comment><comment><USER41> The swept area of regular wind turbines seems enormous compared to sheerwind's turbine's. Even the combined area of those 8 entrances look much much smaller. How in the world is this going to compete with those giants? What am I missing?

<comment><USER42> Why would the "swept area" be meaningful? It's the blades that get the kinetic energy from the wind, not the space between the blades.

<comment><USER41> don't be silly, you just claimed that it doesn't matter whether you have 3 meter blades or 30 meter ones. Of course the swept area matters.

P = 1/2 x ρ x A x v3 where ρ = air density, A = swept area and v = velocity of the wind

<comment><USER42> Don't be silly yourself. What happens if you add or remove a blade, or change their shape or pitch? The swept area stays the same, but the energy captured changes. The "swept area" is a useful abstraction that gives us the total energy that you can extract from - with your formula - but it's the blades being there with their length that extract that energy.

These wind towers on the other hand capture and manipulate the whole air flow from the area of their intake, not just the part directly interacting with the blades of a traditional turbine. That's why it is physically possible to extract much more power than with a traditional turbine with an equivalent "swept area".

<comment><USER41> That's right, the above formula is just the power of the wind, the amount of energy you are able to harvest from it does depend on the characteristics on the blade. The swept area is still a key factor. (see Betz limit for another interesting fact)

You are right about the second part, those 'tunnels' do catch all the wind of their area.

<comment><USER42> Ok, I think you got my point. To sustain it: "Theoretically, an infinite number of blades of zero width is the most efficient, operating at a high value of the tip speed ratio. But other considerations lead to a compromise of only a few blades.[22]" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design#Blade_count](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design#Blade_count)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> 600% sounds impressive, but what is the typical output of wind turbines in absolute terms?

<comment><USER44> If I look at [http://sheerwind.com/technology/field- data](http://sheerwind.com/technology/field-data) it seems to me the 600% improvement is highly deceptive: that huge funnel tower gives _up to_ 600% (average 300%) more output than _the same tiny turbine inside it when it 's just placed on top of a pole_.

If you want to use this technology to boost the output of a modern 100m diameter turbine by 300%, you'd need to build a funnel tower that's over 1km high. I kinda doubt that's cheapter than building three of those turbines.

<comment><USER36> Maybe by "the same turbine" they mean the generator at the center, having swapped out the short blades shown on their site for a traditional set.

<comment><USER44> Doesn't look like it, neither in the photo nor the comparison table. Besides, I doubt that it's even built to allow that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This reminds me of 'windcatchers' that humans have been using for centuries. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher)

</comment><comment><USER46> "A single experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions."

<comment><USER47> A single _correct_ experiment, perhaps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I just saw one being put up in Rosemont, Illinois last week

That thing was huge.

</comment><comment><USER49> Hate to be that guy but sounds a little too good to be true.

</comment><comment><USER50> This looks like an amazing idea. How can I invest in this?

<comment><USER51> Click on "Investors"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Plus, in deserts one can collect water at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER53> Amazing technology!

Again I protest the design decision of light gray text on a gray/white background. Higher contrast! :) (sorry to be a broken record).

</comment><comment><USER54> The way it looks really gives you the feeling like this d'ni engineering. Except this is real! Ok, back to playing Myst

</comment><comment><USER55> Is this really real, or is this something misguided like the "flowerpot candle heater"?

</comment><comment><USER56> It looked good enough to Google to me. Sheerwind hoax is my 4th suggested search.

</comment><comment><USER57> At first I thought this was a joke or some april fool.

</comment><comment><USER58> Okay so it starts with normal wind at as little as 2mph (influx) and then with series of venturi tubes and processes the wind is sped up to 45 miles per hour. Then the blast is shoved through a turbine generating electricity and an exit wind at 15 miles per hour (efflux). All right.

So why not take this efflux wind at 15mph back to the top again, or even half way with some loss of course, and achieve a perpetual motion machine [1]?

Is something missing in the introduction video about this concept?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion)

[Okay got it: The blade area/size of a fan to turn at winds as low as 2mph is quite high (and expensive) as compared to rotor blade size that would work with winds at speed 45 miles per hour. This one looks like a play on lever action of wind on fan blade area/angle w.r.t achievable influx velocity. Not too bad it's a kind of optimization, but for the introduction video that wasn't clear enough.]

<comment><USER59> You could do this without having to "move" the exhaust back up to the top I think.

Just stack them in a line at different elevations so that one's exhaust turns into the fuel for the next one. If speed of the exhaust increases after a cycle you'd be creating stronger "breezes" as you go down each step.

It wouldn't be 'perpetual' but pods of 3-4 like this might be able to increase the yield substantially.

Then again I don't know much about this and I'm just trying to comprehend it all.

<comment><USER60> if you output one into another, the _resistance_ would back up into the first one and reduce its output, or else the pressure would push the air backward out one of the other tubes of the 2nd device and not spin the rotor.

<comment><USER59> Couldn't you space them out a little and rather than backing up it would expand and flow like regular wind? (serious, just curious)

<comment><USER25> When you say space them out do you mean open to the air?

If so then the wind will just escape into the easy air rather than push a turbine.

If in a pipe then spacing makes not difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> It seems to lack any kind of physical explanation of why it should be more efficient than traditional turbines? All it says is that it uses a smaller turbine - are those more efficient? I would have expected larger turbines to be more efficient (just on the grounds of larger fans in PCs making less noise...)?

It seems irrelevant if the turbine is sitting on the ground or not. "Accelerating" the wind also seems kind of irrelevant - they can't create energy that way. However, if they manage to drive a turbine with little wind that way that would otherwise not have worked, perhaps it is a win.

Maybe it is a good technology, just saying that I don't see any reason in the text of why it should be. At least they could have written "small turbines are x% more efficient than large turbines" or sth like that.

<comment><AUTHOR> They say they can generate electricity at much lower wind velocities already, long before a normal big blade could.

<comment><USER62> What happens with this setup when there are insanely high wind velocities?

<comment><AUTHOR> They don't say anything about that, I assume you could close a valve or something, that way it would be easier to controll the flow of wind then with a normal turbine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> What if the wind blows towards the bottom opening of the funnel?

<comment><USER64> The wind moving out of the opening is moving at 15 mph and the wind moving toward the opening would be at 2 mph. The 15 mph wind will win.</comment></comment>


"An absolute idiot with 10-20M users can make a ton of money. So, get to tens of millions of users and forget about money." - <AUTHOR> http://www.calacanis.com/2008/01/02/the-three-business-models-that-make-twitter-a-billion-dollar-bus/

<comment><USER2> Is it just me or does this seem like Jason is advocating the "get as many eyeballs as you can" business model//frenzy of web 1.0?

<comment><USER3> Yes and no. The eyeballs model has been maligned too much, I think. If you have 10-20M attentive people, it is easy to make money. Just ask NBC or USA Today. Then ask them about their plans now that their audiences are declining.

The great thing about the massive-eyeballs model is that it's very easy to measure, very easy to pick and choose between advertisers, etc.

The bad thing is that it reminds me of that saying "if X is so easy, why isn't everyone doing it?" Well, everyone _is_. So they need lock-in mechanisms like subscriptions.

In short, it's fragile & cut-throat but it has a great potential for buckets of easy cash.

<comment><USER4> I think that the "eyeball" model is fine, as long as you're not spending too much money to get those eyeballs, which was the problem with web 1.0.

<comment><USER5> Amen to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sure, this strategy will work for him, but will it work for everyone? What if you're not an absolute idiot?

<comment><USER7> Perhaps you should hire one, put him in a suit, and give him a three letter title?

<comment><USER8> "Complete Idiot Officer"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was going to say something snarky about "users" being the currency of the Internet... but you _can_ buy, trade, and sell them...

</comment><comment><USER10> PlentyOfFish.com

<comment><USER11> Hey may not be a web designer, but he's certainly not an idiot.

[http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/cited-in-the- fi...](http://plentyoffish.wordpress.com/2006/08/30/cited-in-the-fields- medalnobel-prize-in-math/)

<comment><USER12> "I am amazed I managed to create this program in the first place, I barely barely even understand how it works and I wrote it. This is because the program scans in multiple dimensions is very hard to conceptualize. "

He may indeed be a savant.</comment></comment></comment>


Scala is not dead, but - <AUTHOR> http://movingfulcrum.com/scala-is-not-dead-but/ <comment> cat-dev-null Sensational FUD and suspicion. It looks more like they're trying to ensure Scala has actual, independent governance separate from frameworks and show that TypeSafe/Lightbend/whatever isn't a SPoF nor going to dictate its evolution _exclusively_. Moreover, the anecdotal sources linked indicate Java and Scala _parity_. Plus, hiring one Java evangelist isn't sufficient to declare a strategic shift in focus... and I don't see any hints about "deprecating Scala" anything.</comment>


Ask HN: Why does Apple call it the trash bin? - <AUTHOR>

When you throw something away on a Mac the storage space will eventually be reclaimed. So why does Apple call it the "Trash" bin when what you really are doing is recycling? <comment><USER2> What about composting?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ooh, I like that. Composting would imply that the data is devolving back into its original components, but the same data is not used to make new data. I guess maybe it would be clearer if we knew what was being trashed; the storage medium, or the data.</comment></comment>