Is San Francisco losing its soul? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/is-san-francisco-losing-its-soul <comment><USER2> SF lost its soul when the Native Americans settled the land.

Then it lost its soul when the missionaries arrived and stamped out all the Native American culture.

Then it happened again when the ranchers showed up.

Then another time when the US won the Mexician-American war and got rid of the old "Yerba Buena" name.

Then it _really_ lost its soul in 1849.

Then it happened again when the US Army and Navy made the bay into a military town.

Then those hippies and gays showed up and ruined SF's tough "Iron in War" reputation.

Then the Mexicans caused the Mission to lose its traditional German-Irish- Italian soul. Oh, and those groups killed its soul earlier when _they_ moved in, too.

And then they opened the ballpark and suddenly SOMA was no longer a charming cluster of warehouses anymore. Also when Noe Valley lost its working-class roots.

Did I miss any other times the city lost its soul?

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's not forget SF was founded for one purpose: the Gold Rush. So in reality, it's getting its original soul back.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish this article had mentioned restrictions on development as the major cause of insane rental prices. Just build more high rises. It's not that hard. There is room for a dozen more Rincon and Infinity like towers around downtown.

<comment><USER2> Let's keep an eye on the huge new proposal at 16th and Mission. If it gets to be a ten-story residential tower, as its developers propose, I think that's a very good sign.

If it gets chopped down to 6 or 8, then it's a sign we're in for six more weeks of winter. (By winter I mean skyrocketing rents, and by weeks I mean years.)

<comment><USER5> Only in San Francisco would a 10 story residential building be considered huge...and that's part of the problem. Even when SF does try to add new residential units, it adds the bare minimum. (From a social POW, at least. The developers do this deliberately to maintain scarcity so they can derive greater profits.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As somebody who's in his 15th year in San Francisco, I think it's a reasonable concern.

For me, it's not about change as such. One of the things that defines San Francisco for me is its openness to change, its endless mutability. Change is great. It's about a specific sort of change that is destroying potential for future interesting change.

For me it goes back to why San Francisco is an important center of Internet innovation in the first place. It's a cultural center that is close to major universities and a major technology center. When a _technological_ innovation (the Internet) became a _cultural_ medium (the web), San Francisco had the right ingredients for incredible innovation.

Why was it well placed for that? I think it was San Francisco's 150 years of acceptance of seekers, immigrants, artists, bohemians, and freaks. Not just a cultural acceptance, but an economic one. You didn't need to be rich to move here. You could find a workaday job and an adequate place to live while having time for your writing, your art, your tinkering, your cultural experimentation. That's important: pioneers rarely fit in well to contemporary society; in a sense, they're already living in a possible future.

But the incredible shift in rents and the Gini coefficient here is wiping that out. To me the problem isn't change. It's the destruction of an incubator for new ideas, new ways of thinking.

<comment><USER2> _> One of the things that defines San Francisco for me is its openness to change_

I'm shocked that you say that. My impression of SF today is almost the exact opposite: that one of the most defining characteristics of the city's current population is its extraordinary resistance to change.

<comment><USER6> Could you say more about what you mean? And how you're getting that impression? I'm not following.

<comment><USER2> Props B and C

Discretionary Review

CEQA abuse

Nativism

Height restrictions

Bus protests

U-Verse protests

Articles about how the Mission is changing, and how that's a bad thing

<comment><USER6> So your entire impression of San Francisco's history comes down to a few years of stuff related to the recent economic situation? You might want to expand your horizons a bit.

Consider the beats, the hippies, the summer of love, the gay and lesbian rise, Burning Man, and the rise of cycling. And hey, the web. Having lunch in South Park with the Wired folks in 1997, I sure didn't notice any hostility from the neighbors.

The obvious difference to me in these lists, beyond the time scale, is the use of power. That a ~$200 billion communications oligopoly gets a little pushback while trying to increase their market dominance is not something I'm going to shed a lot of tears over, and I don't think you can reasonably call it a smoking gun for generalized resistance to change.

<comment><USER2> _> So your entire impression of San Francisco's history..._

My comment was quite clearly addressed at SF's _current_ population, not previous ones.

In fact, that's one of my major gripes with them: they benefited by riding a previous wave of change, but now that _they 're_ the status quo, they want to stop the next one.

It's the classic, "I got mine, now slam the door" mentality.

<comment><USER6> The current population is by and large the one that has been quite welcoming to the tech industry -- when we aren't totally jacking the rents up, flooding neighborhoods, and paying for the eviction of long-term residents. So again, I think you're overgeneralizing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As an interesting data point, watch the settings and backgrounds crowds in Dirty Harry movies to see what San Francisco looked like in the 70s.

<comment><USER8> I always found it hilariously ironic that Dirty Harry was set in San Francisco. Then again, I am a fan of both, so maybe it's not so crazy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The idea of San Francisco losing its soul was much of the content of Herb Caen's columns in the San Francisco Chronicle for decades.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't you just wish every city and place could just stay the same forever?

No.

"Losing its soul" = Changing in a way I don't agree with, and maybe I'll try and use government to stop the change. I'm more important than the people causing the change.

<comment><USER11> _' "Losing its soul" = Changing in a way I don't agree with, and maybe I'll try and use government to stop the change. I'm more important than the people causing the change.'_

Or equally important, if the attempt at change is democratic.</comment></comment>


Why I hate Ruby (or at least some common practices of its developers) - <AUTHOR> http://www.benjamincoe.com/post/6234388028/why-i-hate-ruby-or-at-least-some-common-practices-of

<comment><USER2> Really? What is it going to take to get beyond the stupid provocative titles?

Can we work on being constructive? It would be pretty sweet if people started writing post-mortems for crazy bugs they found the way people write them for outages.

What was the process you went through to track down this problem? Were there any interesting tools or processes you employed?

What was the final solution?

What can we (both you and your team and the community as a whole) do in the future to prevent this sort of thing from happening again?

<comment><USER3> It seems to be more or less universally true that anyone complaining about a particular language, framework, platform, IDE, text editor, etc. is staring into the abyss of whatever outdated, outmoded, outmaneuvered way of thinking that they've invested themselves into. Everyone else is busily improving on what we've got to work with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Digging around, I found that the author used the JSON gem, relying on to_json taking an optional generator arg. But, yajl-ruby and ActiveSupport define to_json themselves without that, leading to breakage. Those, and the fix for his project[1], are all on GitHub.

The author claims most Ruby programmers are monkey-patching and causing these problems. That's almost right: they _were_. But by and large, they know better now, and would happily replace it with better code, if they could just find it and fix it: that's the real problem.

The author could help by, say, logging an issue, or forking and pull requesting a fix. I checked GitHub; his ID, bcoe, doesn't show in the issues, nor in the pull requests of yajl-ruby's GitHub page[2].

I'm not saying he _must_ do this for every problem with every open-source project he happens across, but even one contribution helps more than this steam-venting blog post.

[1] <https://github.com/bcoe/tire/commit/2dd5fc03>

[2] <https://github.com/brianmario/yajl-ruby>

</comment><comment><USER5> Summary: OP used a gem that depended on other gems, didn't write tests for it and deployed it. This caused problems and he had to go down a rabbit hole which led to a lot of frustration.

Snarky response: Duh. Test before you deploy.

<comment><USER6> And you've missed the point.

Monkey patching is a really bad idea for reasons that have been understood for decades. A lot of Ruby folks think that monkey patching is the bee's knees. The result is that a lot of Ruby gems monkey patch things in conflicting ways.

Every other language community that he discussed frowns on monkey patching and doesn't do it to any significant degree. And it means that stuff isn't nearly as fragile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A better solution for monkey patching is in the works: [http://yehudakatz.com/2010/11/30/ruby-2-0-refinements-in- pra...](http://yehudakatz.com/2010/11/30/ruby-2-0-refinements-in-practice/)

That being said, any language feature can be abused and misused

<comment><USER8> It's worth pointing out that clojure's protocols actually address the "multiple issues of the same method" problem. It looks like Yehuda's been, at the very least, reading the same books as Rich Hickey (this is a good thing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It doesn't have to be ruby to make it hard to integrate your own frankenstack. Can be just as tricky on Java with different types of dependency injection framework and configuration xmls.

</comment><comment><USER10> Flagged for linkbait title.</comment>


Evidence of the context-freeness of Natural Language (1985) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~shieber/Biblio/Papers/shieber85.pdf <comment><USER2> A well known example of a natural language that is not context free is the African language Bambara, spoken in Mali.

In Bambara the way you say "whichever <something>" is "<something> o <something>". For example, the Bambara word for dog is "wulu". So to say "whichever dog" you would say "wulu o wulu".

Another construction in Brambara is "<noun> \+ <verb> \+ la". That means someone who does <verb> to <noun>. The Bambara word for "search" is "nyini", so if you wanted to say "someone who searches for dogs" it would be "wulunyinila". The word for watch is "filè". So someone who watches dogs would be "wulufilèla". There can be more than one <verb> in this construct. For example "wulunyinifilèla" would be someone who watches dog searchers".

This can be carried on indefinitely: "wulynyininyinifilènyinila" would be someone who searches for watchers of searchers for dog searchers (if I counted right...).

This can be combined with the "whichever" construct, for example "wulynyininyinifilènyinila o wulynyininyinifilènyinila" would be whichever searcher for watchers of searchers for dog searchers.

This was first discussed in this paper [1], which is cited by the submitted paper.

[1] [http://babel.ucsc.edu/~hank/mrg.readings/Culy1985_Bambara.pd...](http://babel.ucsc.edu/~hank/mrg.readings/Culy1985_Bambara.pdf)

<comment><USER3> >> "wulynyininyinifilènyinila o wulynyininyinifilènyinila" would be whichever searcher for watchers of searchers for dog searchers.

This is very unwieldy and the translation is also hard to parse (even for the person who generated it!) (you weren't sure if you counted right :) and I'd wonder how weird the Bambara string sounds to native speakers.

That's not to argue against the context-sensitivity of natural language but it's worth pointing out that even the context-freeness of natural language sometimes presupposes the ability to keep an unlimited number of tokens in perfect symphony despite the fact that most people would probably not have the attention span to keep track of the grammaticality of a phrase of more than a few dozen tokens uninterrupted by punctuation signs if it was spoken rather than written down to make it easier to cross-reference, as indeed the former part of this sentence here suggests (I myself had to check what I was writing a couple of times). On the other hand, even such overly-long phrases don't _sound_ ungrammatical (unless they _are_ ), they just sound a bit silly, so semantically "bad" somehow, rather than syntactically.

The submitted paper is well aware of this and touches upon it in several places, e.g. where they state in their claim (4) that "An ordinary number of Vs can occur in a subordinate clause of this type" and, in parentheses, add the disclaimer "subject, of course, to performance restrictions".

The paper in fact closes with an observation that it may well be that the practicalities of parsing context-sensitive languages essentially make them possible to learn and parse _as if they were context-free_ (or, I'd say, even regular, or finite). Although learning a context-free language itself is not exactly easy (it's impossible to learn from examples, basically).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Title should be "Evidence _Against_ the Context-freeness of Natural Language".

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks, I've been looking all over for this paper. I knew the result, but couldn't find the reference.

Now, could we please correct the title? It's evidence _against_ etc. [cref yorwba, [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177944)]

</comment><comment><USER5> A recent result in the same vein is that also Romanian is weakly non-context- free: [http://nslonge.scripts.mit.edu/site/wp- content/uploads/2015/...](http://nslonge.scripts.mit.edu/site/wp- content/uploads/2015/01/presentation.pdf)

Personally, I find Shieber's refutation of section 4.4 "Clauses are Bounded in Size" unsatisfactory. I have yet to see cross-serial clauses with more than two constituents outside such papers.

</comment><comment><USER6> What happened to Stuart Schrieber after he was a student at Harvard ?

<comment><USER5> [http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~shieber/shieber.html](http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~shieber/shieber.html)

<comment><USER3> [chuckle] To quote from that link:

 _My name

It's spelled S-H-I-E-B-E-R, and pronounced shee-ber. No "c". Not "ei". Not shy-ber. Not "Schreiber", the name of my near-namesake at Harvard.

It is frequently misspelled, because it is close to being consistent with German orthography, the "ie" being pronounced as a long "e", though the initial consonant would then be spelled "sch". Nonetheless, there is no "c" in the name. Why? Because it is not a German name.

The name is an American invention, applied to my ancestors upon immigration to the US from the city Szczebrzeszyn, currently a part of Poland, and mapped below. During the immigration process, the surname was shortened from the city name, probably from its Yiddish pronunciation shebreshin. Had my ancestors not left Szczebrzeszyn, my existence would have been unlikely._

A grave sin indeed, committed by the OP :)</comment></comment></comment>


Day Job: A Story of Chasing Dreams - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/dayjobdocumentary

<comment><USER2> On the topic of startup documentaries, Something Ventured was very good. It's in Netflix too.

<comment><USER3> Pretty Bird is an awesome movie about entrepreneurship :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks very interesting and high quality.

Another great startup documentary: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=A...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ApUln7AD0_Q#)! (The Startup Kids)

</comment><comment><USER5> I am on one of the teams in this documentary. They are catching some amazing footage of dynamics and challenges startsups face. Worth whatever you can afford to give on IndieGogo :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks interesting. Is there a ETA?

<comment><USER7> February 2013

<comment><USER6> Sweet. Look forward to it. Will be funding on pay day.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the support, keep following up on us

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool. Much better than that nonsense I watched on Bravo recently. This is real!

</comment><comment><USER9> Looks pretty cool - I like how it's building on meta-startup niche that is "startup"

</comment><comment><USER10> pretty inspiring, can't wait to see the full doc!</comment>


Show HN: Let's Encrypt SSL Certificates with Azure Cloud Service - <AUTHOR> https://richev.github.io/LetsEncryptAzureCloudService/ <comment><USER2> I think there are a few limitations with this:

1\. It assumes you're operating on a single instance cloud service. If you're operating with many instances, you could end up sending the challenge information to one instance and another could serve the request to obtain the challenge. A distributed storage (redis cache, sql db, etc.) is where the challenge should be stored.

2\. All of the steps to obtain a certificate and have it used by the cloud service should be automated. You shouldn't have to update thumbprints or re- deploy your site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, the approach had loads of limitations, as you've identified.

1\. Yep, this is my scenario, so the steps are written for this.

2\. When my certificate expires in about 2.5 months I'll pick this up again, and will be trying to work on automating more of the steps. Suggestions welcome!</comment></comment>


Facebook is building an operating system so it can ditch Android - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/19/facebook-operating-system/ <comment><USER2> _By moving to its own OS, Facebook could have more freedom to bake social interaction — and hopefully privacy — deeper into its devices._

Privacy? I expect some amazing detailed & intrusive data gathering.

<comment><USER3> By 'Privacy' they mean they will be the only ones with access to your data.

<comment><USER4> Except for all the companies that accidentally leak it to, all the companies that grab it in breaches, all the companies that find it sitting in S3, all the companies they sell it to, etc.

But otherwise yes only Facebook will have it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All the more reason to consider the HTC Vive or Steam Index if interested in being an early adapter of VR where their achievements can be more collaborative.

Side note regarding Portal and other "social hardware", I can't imagine there being user-friendly privacy toggles when facebook owns the complete stack..

<comment><USER6> Valve has done a pretty good job at standardizing VR tech with OpenVR/SteamVR. All of the headsets except the oculus seem to have really good hardware compatibility. The vive controllers can be used with the pimax hmd, etc.

Facebook seems to be trying really hard to create a lockin with the oculus, if you buy games on the oculus store, you are now forever locked in to only buying oculus hardware from now on.

<comment><USER7> Thankfully you can use Oculus devices (or at least, the Quest) with the new Link feature to turn the headset into a sort of external display, which is then compatible with SteamVR.

Honestly it's the biggest selling point of the Quest for me, in addition to being able to hack around on it through an adb shell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I doubt this will get much in the way of mainstream penetration. You're never going to see any competitive phone installations of this. It'll probably mostly be for things like portal. I doubt they'd be successful in doing a chromebook competitor either given how horribly tarnished their name is, but it does at least seem more realistic than a phone.

<comment><USER9> You kidding? Free phones with Facebook OS built in all funded by selling every scrap of your data? Third world countries are gonna eat that up to begin with, and then it'll spread all over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Android privacy is bad enough as it is, I can't imagine how horrible a facebook operating system would be.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wasn't there one like this already (though used android) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_First)

</comment><comment><USER12> It's an obvious vertical integration play to make an operating system for the hardware you manufacturer.

I'd like to see an AR/VR first OS/UI.

</comment><comment><USER13> Finally, a rival for Fuchsia.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good luck with that, Mark.

</comment><comment><USER15> For a company of the size of FB and its ambitions, this seems kind of late. I would have thought they already had something like this.

</comment><comment><USER16> Mark Lucovsky is pretty legendary! Every Windows exe starts with the two bytes ML!

EDIT: As others pointed out its actually another Mark, MZ. Lucovsky was the Mark, who Steve Ballmer was throwing chairs around when he said to leave for Google. Still legendary. :)

<comment><USER17> That's MZ for Mark Zbikowski - [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zbikowski](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zbikowski)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Makes sense. It'll be a *nix variant probably.. we might get a nice new UI layer out of it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Eye OS, because they will always be watching you?</comment>


Cytoplasmofrupturedfrogeggs organizes into cell-likes with the ability to divide - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-11-cytoplasm-ruptured-frog-eggs-cell-like.html <comment><USER2> In my opinion modifications to overly long titles are acceptable to fit it into the character limit (assuming that you do not turn it into click-bait in the process;).

I think _Cytoplasm of ruptured frog eggs organizes into cell-likes that can divide_ might be fine?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> actual title prior to truncation

"Cytoplasm of ruptured frog eggs organizes into cell-like structures that retain the ability to divide."</comment>


Tell HN: Looking for non-technical cofounder - <AUTHOR>

I have launched my first bootstrapped startup and am now looking for a co-founder. The product is built and live (check my profile for details).
My dream co-founder list: 1) Experience successfully launching a social media / advertising company. 2) Connections in the tech world with bloggers, mentors, and possible angels.
3) Experience with product marketing, business development, and sales 3) Has worked at, founded, or launched a startup before.
4) Lives in the Bay Area 5) Some coding ability or graphic design. Perhaps you are a "retired engineer" who has decided a marketing career path is a better fit for you.
I also believe that a good personality fit is key.
Some things to know about me: 1) I currently have a day job (summer internship) 2) I'm a college athlete
Basically this means I can't work full-time on this as I generally have only an hour or so a night to dedicate to the company.
My contact info is in my profile :) <comment><USER2> "Basically this means I can't work full-time on this as I generally have only an hour or so a night to dedicate to the company."

I'm not sure that 1 hour per day is sufficient to achieve anything at all. You're better off just enjoying college and not worry about startups until you have your priorities in line, i.e. decide whether doing a startup is really for you.</comment>


Almost None of the Women in the Ashley Madison Database Ever Used the Site - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the-ashley-madison-database-1725558944 <comment><USER2> Stanford has a higher acceptance rate at 5.7%. Yes, you have a better shot at getting into Stanford than getting lucky on AM.

<comment><USER3> 50% of you...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> fantastic.

question is: will this deter new male sign-ups?? will this cause male cancellations? logic says it should.

i would love to see similar analysis on Zoosk, another site that i personally believe has zero female activity. i also personally believe that they are much more aggressive on the fake account creation due to their monetization scheme (seeing seeing female profiles triggers male money purchases)

<comment><USER5> Basically every dating site has this problem. I think it's linked to the usage pattern every site devolves into - men say yes to everything and women are extremely selective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fascinating. If this holds up and is well publicized this has the potentially to change the nature of a revelation that someone had signed up for AM. The "honey, I signed up in a moment of weakness, but look, nothing happened" argument gets a lot more plausible if their really were no women on the site.

<comment><USER7> The followup to that though, is whether they were hooking up with other married dudes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> why doesn't that seem to interest anyone?

<comment><USER9> It's interesting because it's likely they were shill accounts created by the company to give the appearance of having active female users so that males would pay for a chance to hook up. It's not uncommon in the online dating world though. I'm pretty sure that's how most of those sites start out. I'm wondering if it's bordering on fraud though?

<comment><USER7> It's not bordering on. It's definitely fraud. The whole point is to deceive in order to achieve financial gain. Not all fraud is a crime. Proving false advertising, in this case, might be both challenging and amusing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> shouldn't the question be were the content of the communication the male population obviously engaged in came from?

edit: typo</comment>


Blind speed dating over 3-minute blurred video calls - <AUTHOR> https://blindlee.com <comment><USER2> Years back there was a trend of using blurred profile photos, which could be "unblurred" if some criteria had been met. This is a logical extension of that idea and I wish I'd thought of it back then.

However, I don't like the idea that "women control the blur". While I think I understand the reasoning, I think it would be better to automate the process. For instance, gradually decreasing the blur based on number of interactions, with participants slowly "resolving" and becoming clearer to one another as they get to know one another.

In this way, each person involved "controls the blur" by simply choosing whether or not to interact with the other person again.

And btw what about same-sex interactions where there is no woman or two women?

</comment><comment><USER3> This will leak your information to Google, Yahoo, Mixpanel, Facebook and Twitter with no opt-out possible (browser-based opt-out links don't opt you out of SDKs embedded in apps, so the opt-out links in your privacy policy are irrelevant). No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER4> Congrats on the launch. I remember seeing a company working on this same problem in Startup School and can't remember if that was you guys, but looks like you did a great job.

I'm wondering why you need to launch in each city? Curious what is city- specific about the software.</comment>


Interactive Resume of Robby Leonardi - <AUTHOR> http://www.rleonardi.com/interactive-resume/ <comment><USER2> Totally awesome! Best luck to you sir!</comment>


How to send a file using WebRTC - <AUTHOR> http://bloggeek.me/send-file-webrtc-data-api/

<comment><USER2> Thank you for your excitement for data channels and willingness to use the bleeding-edge stuff. I'm the author of the RTP-based data channels in Chrome, and I've been working hard to update those to be SCTP-based data channels. We now have SCTP-based data channels in Chrome M30 behind a flag, which will hopefully graduate to "not behind a flag" in M31. I apologize that it's taken so long and that you've had to do so much to work around the RTP-based data channels. Such is the bleeding edge, I suppose.

Also, I think it might be a good idea for readers to update the article with a few notes and fixes. For example:

\- SCTP-based data channels don't require messages to be less than 1200 bytes. The RTP-based data channels do. In other words, SCTP-based data channels will break up your message in chunks for you, so you don't have to when using SCTP- based data channels.

\- SCTP-based data channels support binary data, so you don't need that base64 encoding when using SCTP-based data channels.

\- SCTP-based data channels always do congestion control, so any "flow control" in JS is really just controlling how much data gets buffered by the browser. It's a good idea not to make that grow too large, but it doesn't effect what is sent on the network, unless you let the buffer go empty.

\- It is not correct to say "to optimize transfer speeds, unreliability is key". Doing reliability yourself on top of unreliabile mode in JS will not be any faster. In fact, it will probably be slower. What you may want is unordered data, meaning you can get the file chunks out of order. But that won't speed up getting the whole file; it will just speed up getting a particular chunk. If I were you, I would use reliable, but perhaps unordered mode, which SCTP-based data channels support.

\- The bandwidth hack for sending more than 30kpbs with RTP-based data channels is probably a bug, and I wouldn't recommend relying on it.

\- WebRTC always uses ICE, so it's not accurate to say "ICE or just STUN", it's more like "ICE with TURN or ICE without TURN". Either way, it's still using ICE.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the author of rtccopy.com ([https://github.com/erbbysam/webRTCCopy](https://github.com/erbbysam/webRTCCopy)). Having just updated the site to support reliable connections, I was not aware that SCTP supported larger "chunk"/message sizes. Do you have a recommendation for a maximum size for Chrome or a spec for this?

I also still base64 encode files... I should probably update that as well.

<comment><USER2> As far as I know, the only issue with large messages is that while they are being sent, they'll reside in memory. But that's true even if you break up the message into smaller pieces and call send() in smaller chunks all at once. So, it's really a matter how much data you pass to the browser via send() calls at any time. The more you do, the more gets buffered in memory.

I'm not really sure what is optimal for chunk size, but I think the real target is about keeping the buffered amount low, but non-zero. Lower means less memory used, but zero means you missed out on bandwidth you could have used. Choosing a chunk size probably doesn't have a large impact on that, but you won't know for sure until you try different sizes. It would be interesting to see an article that experiments with different sizes and different buffered amounts and tests the results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.sharefest.me/](https://www.sharefest.me/) works pretty well for this.

<comment><USER5> The author is part of the team that runs [https://www.sharefest.me/](https://www.sharefest.me/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks. Looking to hear some comments</comment>


Anonymous VC partner reviews by founders - <AUTHOR> https://www.vcguide.co/ <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting but not sure how legit it is.</comment>


The Ever-Present Glow of LED Greenhouses - <AUTHOR> https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2019/10/greenhouse-series/ <comment><USER2> One interesting property of LEDs compared to many other lighting technologies is that they can be turned on and off very quickly.

Suppose you made all your LED lights so that they alternated 2.08333 ms on, 2.08333 ms off. That's a 240 Hz flicker rate, which should be high enough that it won't bother people.

Further, suppose you synchronized the flicker of all the lights in a city so that they were all on at the same time, and all off at the same time.

Finally, suppose you made some goggles that had a shutter system opened for 1.5625 ms out of every 4.16667 ms, and synchronized it with the LED flickering so that the shutter opens 0.520833 ms after the LEDs start their off phase. The shutter will then be closing just as the LEDs turn on.

By the time the shutter opens, the LEDs will have been off for 0.520833 ms. Light travels 156 km in that time, so the last light from the on phase of all LEDs within 156 km of the goggles will have already reached the goggles by the time the shutter opens.

Question: would this effectively make the LEDs invisible to you through the goggles, while letting you see non-LED sources such as stars with no interference other than the 62.5% of their light you are losing during the times when the shutter is closed?

One problem I can see (no pun intended) is that many LED lights actually use a bulb coated with phosphors, and the LED in the bulb is used to excite the phosphors which then glow giving off the light that we see. I'm not sure how quickly the phosphor stops glowing when the driving LED turns off.

<comment><USER3> At least for greenhouses it might be simpler to require narrow-band LEDs and matching narrow-band filter glasses.

<comment><USER4> Isn't sunlight much more powerful in terms of energy than these lights? Couldn't we use a "one-way" mirror to reflect the led/lights inside, and still allow sunlight in during the day? The additional reflections inside the greenhouse might more than make up for the "shade" provided by the "one-way" mirror?

(now, AFAIK there are no actual one-way mirrors, simply semi transparent (both directions) - question is if we cut 70-80% of the leds escaping, would 20-30% sunlight entering be enough?)

<comment><USER3> LEDs are supplemental. Sunlight gives you about 1kW/m² for free, it's hard to beat that. So anything that sacrifices a large fraction of sunlight is probably a non-starter, especially during the colder seasons where you also need it to keep the glasshouse warm.

<comment><USER4> I suppose you could always go for semi-transparent - so not reflect but absorb a fraction of the light?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When landing at an airport at night in Vietnam, you can see this all over the landscape. Much of it is for dragon fruit in off season...

[https://www.growables.org/information/TropicalFruit/DragonFr...](https://www.growables.org/information/TropicalFruit/DragonFruitSubTropicalQldClub.htm)

[https://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/science- it/187197/vietname...](https://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/science- it/187197/vietnamese-scientists-invent-light-to-control-plant-flowering.html)

<comment><USER6> Interesting links, thanks!

Here's an excerpt which I found particularly interesting:

"According to Nguyen Doan Thang from Rang Dong, the research team created more than 20 types of fluorescent powder to produce specialized lamps for chrysanthemum and dragon fruit tissue culture. The manufacturing processes are highly reliable, meeting the requirements for industrial production."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That is a pretty offensive amount of light pollution going on the glimpses of street lights and car headlights in the pictures.

<comment><USER8> We need a law where if they want to use those at night, they need to cover them up somehow (has to be retractable, because they'll still want free natural sunlight in the daytime).

That'll never happen though. "It costs too much".

So, they'll steal the night sky from us and give us nothing in return.

If public art is worth investing millions in per city, then what is the value of preserving the view of the night sky?

Why don't we just paint everything grey and all wear grey clothes and eat soylent every meal and have nothing left that's beautiful. We can work in windowless offices to save money on windows. Maybe we can cover up the sunset next.

Bah.

<comment><USER9> If you think the night sky hasn't been stolen already, then chances are you've just never been to someplace where it hasn't been. After that, it's all a matter of degree.

It would be fairly straight forward to have ordinances that limit light pollution--- do a night time flyover (perhaps via drone), issue citations to any property with more than Y illumination facing up after hour X on more than N days out of M.

But people don't care, perhaps because so many people have never actually seen a dark sky.

<comment><USER10> If you want dark skies, move to the country. There's tons of trade-offs to living in an urban areas and light pollution is but one of them.

<comment><USER9> Even 'in the country' there is a considerable amount of light pollution-- and per the subject of this article, there is likely to be more there in the future! :)

City vs country is seeing no stars at all or only a couple vs hundreds, but to see thousands you have to be a long way from any kind of development.

<comment><USER11> I wonder if this was less true a couple decades ago or more-- say, in the mid-1990s. I remember being out on a rural road in northern Wisconsin (about an hour north of Green Bay) where the driver of the car pulled over and turned off the car & lights so I could see the sky. In my memory, at least, there seemed to be thousands visible, along with the Milky Way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The yellow/orange lights could very well be high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting, the same type used in street lights prior to LEDs. Like the street lights, LED lights seems to have less wash and reflection back into the night sky than HPS, and use less power than HPS for the same growth effect on the plant.

The industry is still transitioning to LED lighting due to cost and because some plants don't respond very well to LED light, so more development is required.

I remember when HPS became a big thing in greenhouses and people would call the fire department at night thinking the glow meant a nearby fire.

<comment><USER9> A lot of commercial lighting is switching off of HPS because of claims about LED lifetime costs based on (seemingly false) figures about durability. (E.g. drive around Los Angeles and see the dead/dying LED streetlights all over the place).

I wouldn't be surprised if HPS lightning starts becoming unavailable as a result-- this has already happened with LPS lightning, with several manufacturers shutting down fabrication.

<comment><USER13> > claims about LED lifetime costs based on (seemingly false) figures about > durability. (E.g. drive around Los Angeles and see the dead/dying LED > streetlights all over the place).

LED can be made durable if desired. In Detroit's case[1], the high failure rate can be attributed to manufacturer cutting corner on heat dissipation.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19848794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19848794)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> pure-awesome Ironically, the lights in these "green" houses will be anything but green precisely for the reason that greenhouses are called that in the first place!

Most leaves are green. This is to say that green light is reflected, and it's the OTHER wavelengths that are absorbed by the chlorophyll. So you need a light that is brighter in other parts of the spectrum where the absorption is strongest. Hence, a NON-green light.

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

<comment><USER14> The curious thing is that sun gives most energy near green color so plants evolved to reflect the most energetic part of sun's spectrum.

And nobody knows why.

<comment><USER15> There's speculation about this. Plants absorbing green grew too well and then the population collapsed on early earth. The survivors were mutants who didn't absorb green.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is absolutely beautiful. I get the clear sky argument, but personally I think there's something amazing about having a city full of these at night. Imagine seeing such a city from the ISS.

</comment><comment><USER17> So beautiful and that's food right there.

</comment><comment><USER18> Unfortunately the side effect of any artificial lighting in greenhouses is massive light pollution and pretty much no view of the night sky. I guess not being able to see the stars is a small price to pay for fresh vegetables year round, but having grown up far from greenhouses, I still miss the stars.

</comment><comment><USER19> The Netherlands primarily fossil fuels to heat and light greenhouses. This industry has a large carbon footprint.

<comment><USER20> Just to give some numbers:

The Dutch greenhouse horticulture sector has emitted 6-8 megatons of CO2 per year between 2000-2015 and emissions are expected to decrease to ~4 megatons of CO2 per year in 2020 [1]. 7 megatons is approximately 4% of national emissions [2].

[1] pdf, [https://www.wur.nl/upload_mm/c/e/c/f827af2c-9ae6-4bb5-bb47-9...](https://www.wur.nl/upload_mm/c/e/c/f827af2c-9ae6-4bb5-bb47-920f4700cef8_2016-067%20Velden_rapport_def.pdf)

[2] [https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2018/37/co2-uitstoot- in-2017...](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2018/37/co2-uitstoot- in-2017-gelijk-aan-die-in-1990)

<comment><USER21> > 7 megatons is approximately 4% of national emissions

What makes up the bulk of national emissions?

<comment><USER20> As of 2nd quarter 2019 [1] rougly:

32% Energy, water and waste services

24.5% Agriculture, mining, industry, construction

12% Other services

13.5% Transport

18% Households

This is a major challenge (not only in the Netherlands) because it appears there is no one "bulk emitter" that must be tackled.

[1] [https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2019/39/uitstoot- co2-hoger-i...](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2019/39/uitstoot-co2-hoger-in- het-tweede-kwartaal-van-2019)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I get that greenhouse windows have to be transparent during the day to let in the sun - so why don't they add shutters that close at sundown and preserve even more of the LED light inside the greenhouses, reducing the necessary power input and solving the light pollution problem?

<comment><USER23> Because it's cheaper to make the lights brighter than the reflective shutter system you are imagining

<comment><USER22> How does making lights brighter save the problem?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Use to be farms in the middle of nowhere was where you could get away from the orange and yellow glows of the city streets. Massive farms that glow too?

I've been reading a Sci-Fi series recently where one human sees a world totally dark at night except for a few human settlements .. and the character thinks about what Earth must have been like from orbit, before humanity arose.

</comment><comment><USER25> Seems like this could have been better done in Iceland with access to lots of heat and power from renewable sources.

<comment><USER15> They do: [https://nea.is/geothermal/direct- utilization/greenhouses/](https://nea.is/geothermal/direct- utilization/greenhouses/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> My first thought was how much energy they are squandering.

Guessing the glass roof to collect sunlight in the day.

Seems like merely rolling out mirrored mylar (horizontal) curtains at night would be worth it in energy cost savings alone, and of course create the benefit of minimizing light pollution.

</comment><comment><USER27> Strangely beautiful, but also scary... makes you wonder what people will come up with once nuclear fusion makes electric energy even cheaper - I guess the amount of light pollution we have today will pale by comparison (no pun intended).

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm curious if there is any kind of post-processing being done to these pictures. They are beautiful in a strange way

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a mark of inefficiency, no?

<comment><USER30> How is this inefficient?

<comment><USER31> The light should be going to the plants, not space?

<comment><USER32> Look at the sides of the greenhouses, which are far brighter than the roofs. The light from the roof is only what's reflected off the plants. LEDs are quite directional.

<comment><USER31> By definition, all the light you can see is light that isn't going to the plants - light reflected off the plants could still be redirected, right?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Do you use desktop widgets? If so - what other than calendar & weather? - <AUTHOR> http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2010/01/14/where-is-the-desktop-widget-innovation/

<comment><USER2> Gadget that checks the build status of a project. And shows the status of the unit tests run during the most recent continuous integration build/test cycle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Name?

<comment><USER2> It is an internally developed gadget.</comment></comment></comment>


Aeron: The 17-Second Chair - <AUTHOR> http://www.hermanmiller.com/discover/aeron-the-17-second-chair/

<comment><USER2> "The Herman Miller Performance System", also known as the "Toyota Production System": <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System>

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, and it only takes 8 seconds to make a complete baby (by this logic).</comment>


Ask PG: Why no "Work At A Startup Day" this year? - <AUTHOR>

Last summer there was a "Work At A Startup" day at Y Combinator in Mountain View. A large group of would-be startup employees filled the Y Combinator building and a number of companies gave presentations about why we should work for them. It was like demo day; except attendees wanted to invest their time as workers, not their money.<p>I'm just curious as to why this didn't happen again? Did the companies not recruit as many people as they had hoped? Did the "right sort" of hacker not attend? <comment><USER2> We may yet host one. Also, YC NYC is effectively a hybrid of Work at a Startup and Startup School.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was actually the YC NYC announcement that triggered this question.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience last year. I met some interesting people and made some useful contacts. I think it should become an annual tradition at Y Combinator like all the others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there also a YC Europe planned? Maybe in London or Berlin?

<comment><USER4> While we're at it, let me throw in my bid for YC Canada. :]</comment></comment>


Show HN: Chatroulette Spy - <AUTHOR>

I have just launched a project that has been sitting on my hard drive 80% finished for the better part of a year. http://www.chatroulettespy.com
It detects your 'anonymous' chat partner's IP address and performs a geolocation lookup on it to show the user the partner's approximate location on a map.
I know the Chatroulette fad has peaked a long time ago (when I started this project), but there are still many people using it and its many clones. It was important for me to follow through on this one and not let it die on my hard drive like many projects before.
I would appreciate any feedback you have so I can improve it as I suspect it may be buggy.  Also, any marketing advice to get the ball rolling would be helpful as well. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.chatroulettespy.com>

</comment><comment><USER2> Cool. You said something about adobe cirrus on the FAQ. Can you explain more how it works?

<comment><AUTHOR> Adobe Cirrus (formerly Status) is the technology that Chatroulette and most clones are built on. Chatroulette was not much more than a slightly modified example program provided by Adobe for Status.

Cirrus sets up the connection between the two clients and then the clients talk directly to each other. Since there is a direct connection to your 'anonymous' client you can get the IP and then geolocate. Bing. Bang. Boom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the creator of calltunnel.com . Will it work with my website too? Thanks.</comment>


Let's Open up Venture Capital - <AUTHOR> http://opencapital.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> It's pretty politically tone-deaf to call for relaxing SEC rule 501 in the wake of the Madoff and Sandford scandals.</comment>


Ask HN: How to optimize Nginx for static content? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I suggest checking out the NGINX Wiki page for static content at [https://www.nginx.com/resources/admin-guide/serving- static-c...](https://www.nginx.com/resources/admin-guide/serving-static- content/). Here's a great resource as well on Github: [https://github.com/h5bp/server-configs-nginx](https://github.com/h5bp/server- configs-nginx).

Lastly - I've not checked this site before but you may want to read [https://tweaked.io/guide/nginx/](https://tweaked.io/guide/nginx/)</comment>


The Language of Identical Twin Tennis Champions - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/the-secret-language-of-tennis-champions-rp <comment><USER2> Wow, it's the "really cool little things" that make articles like this so interesting. I just learned of _"cryptophasia"... a secret language that twins share as kids. While scientists question whether cryptophasia constitutes a discrete language, they agree it offers a provocative look into the birth and development of language itself._

If one sees a copy of one's self, does one learn to recognize the other's state based on theory of mind and proprioception? Huh. Very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER3> Would suggest a title change here to be about twins, not tennis champions (despite the original article using the tennis champions title).

<comment><USER4> OK, we've updated it from that of the article. We're happy to change it again if someone suggests a better one.</comment></comment>


Where can I rent a cheap small startup place in the US? - <AUTHOR> Preferably East coast Nothing fancy. Should allow for assembly of some tech hardware.<p>Suggestions? <comment><USER2> If you can't google this on your own you have zero chance of a successful Startup, IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not rely on crowd intelligence?

I can't google every state. Many of the "incubators" are just real estate businesses, they don't offer cheap or subsidized rent. Ycombinator is not an option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would you consider operating out of an apartment?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but it must be a little bit office like.

I know NYC but this seems to be too pricey.

</comment></comment><comment> a-fried-egg Try the SouthEast</comment>


Discussion invitation: "Testing confusion" - <AUTHOR> http://www.ikusalic.com/blog/2013/10/24/testing-confusion/

<comment><AUTHOR> How do you write a good test? What characteristics should it have?</comment>


PPA Impounds UberX Vehicles in Undercover Sting Operation - <AUTHOR> http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/10/26/uber-philadelphia-uberx-ppa-sting-impounds/ <comment><USER4> Just so I'm clear is the current narrative that Uber, a multi-billion dollar private enterprise seeking to maximize its returns to a handful of shareholders, is single-handedly battling on our behalf against every democratically elected local authority, all of whom (despite regulating taxis through the advent of the engine, the radio, the telephone, the mobile phone and the internet) are running a corrupt, outdated licensing regime at the behest of the taxi industry and/or to preserve their own jobs. Is that the story here?

Or is the story that Uber wants to lock up the taxi market and build a two tier business: 0.1% of their operation earning multi-million dollar payouts, and the remaining 99.9% earning $COMMODITIZED_RATE [0] per hour driving passengers around with zero opportunity to manage drivers, open their own taxi firm, or form a collective.

The honest truth is I don't actually know. The times I've used Uber I've loved it, but I'm not sure, overall, how I feel about well-funded startups using VC money to basically buy their way around local regulation.

[0] We're seeing artificially low fares and high wages at the moment in this landgrab. Just look at eBay with fees that come to a good 10% of sales prices to see what a few more rounds of investment and a flotation will do.

<comment><USER5> I can safely say that the situation is complicated enough that neither you described is true.

Taxi regulation _is_ corrupt and broken. I can't find a link but Seattle basically hasn't issued any new taxi medallions in 20 years. Suffice to say the area has grown significantly in that time.

Uber's business strategy is also derived from those medallions. I think they could offer a better service that is more efficient and higher margins if the drivers were Uber employees. Right now each drivers needs to be profitable by themselves. There's no room for loss leaders or any other kind of driver distribution strategy.

That's just two points. There are dozens more that could be made I'm sure.

<comment><USER6> > I can't find a link but Seattle basically hasn't issued any new taxi > medallions in 20 years. Suffice to say the area has grown significantly in > that time.

Medallions are largely a red herring. Municipalities vary, and I can't speak to Seattle, but for example, New York also is in a similar situation (the number of medallions has not increased commensurately with the increase in population since 1970).

However, you do not need to own a medallion in order to drive a car, just as you do not need to own storefront real estate in order to operate a retail business. You can rent medallions, and many (most?) drivers do this[1].

In addition, you don't need to either rent or own a medallion in order to drive a cab - you just can't take street hails. (These cabs are regulated as well, but differently from yellow[0] medallion cabs)

The medallions are a very common talking point, and it always irritates me because it's such a misleading statement. Medallions are not the barrier to entry for individuals who want to start driving professionally.

[0] Or green medallion cabs, which were introduced last year.

[1] They also often aren't driving their own cars, which is something that Uber/Lyft/etc. ignore - if you don't already have a car to drive (or in Uber's case, the _right_ kind of car), you're out of luck.

<comment><USER7>
        Medallions are largely a red herring.

Agreed. Here in Seattle, the biggest issues have been:

1\. It's almost impossible to find a taxi outside of a couple specific areas of town (downtown, and the commercial cores of Capitol Hill and Fremont on weekend nights), which means you're going to have to call a dispatcher.

2\. The unbelievable ineptitude and rudeness of the Yellow Cab dispatchers in Seattle.

3\. The historical unwillingness of Seattle taxi drivers to accept credit cards, which bears some additional unpacking. Seattle is a very credit card- friendly city. I can go weeks without visiting an ATM and not change a thing about my daily routine. However, taxi drivers used to be very hostile to accepting credit cards. I've had a couple who refused to take plastic, and actually drove me to an ATM (on my dime) to make me get cash to pay them. To their credit, on the few occasions I've had to use a taxi since UberX launched, I've found them more than happy to accept credit cards through Square.

My use of Uber is almost entirely driven by my loathing for Seattle's Yellow Cab.

<comment><USER8> Those last two points really resonate with me and several other people I've spoken to about the topic.

I live next door to a hotel in downtown, so getting a taxi is even quicker and more convenient for me than calling Uber or Lyft. However, the incredible rudeness of cabbies and repeatedly being driven to an ATM because their credit card reader is mysteriously "broken" have pretty much dissuaded me from ever taking a regular cab again.

<comment><USER6> > and repeatedly being driven to an ATM because their credit card reader is > mysteriously "broken" have pretty much dissuaded me from ever taking a > regular cab again.

In most cities, (incl. SF and NYC), if their machine is broken and they do not tell you before your ride starts, your ride is free.

I've never had this issue in NYC, but in SF I found that reminding the drivers of this is the best way to magically "fix" the machine. And if that doesn't work, well, hey, free cab ride!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just moved from Philadelphia (lived there for 4 years and nearby for my entire life). I always wanted UberX in the city from a convenience perspective, but I do feel bad for the Philly cab drivers here.

In my 4 years there I talked to probably 100+ cab drivers, most of the time talking about their job. I found ~95% of them to be hard-working and nice, definitely not 'corrupt' people or part of some larger scheme that needed to be disrupted. They also have it tough in a lot of ways. First of all, the medallions are very expensive and many go into debt getting them. Second of all, I've been told (can't confirm) by the cab drivers that they are forced to accept credit cards but then get hit with ~10% fees on those transactions by the processor. My only complaint with Philly cabs is that the dispatchers were generally rude and unhelpful if you were in a strange location.

So for the consumer it is great to have UberX, but I do feel bad for those cab drivers who invested in a legal system and are just trying to make a living. I guess this is just how markets work, but it seems like Uber is setting a dangerous precedent by using VC money to subvert local legislation at every turn. Sure they may be vindicated in the end, but it doesn't strike me as fair play.

<comment><USER10> It sounds to me like the Philly cab drivers would be better of as Uber drivers. You said they go into debt to pay for the medallions. Where does that money go? Do these fees collected by the city provide a service for the community or does it disappear into a corrupt government?

If you want to help the drivers don't support a system that forces them into debt. Support an alternative.

<comment><USER9> I totally agree, however in the meantime they invested in the medallion and Uber is trying to make it worth nothing.

It would be nice if we could find a way to somehow compensate the drivers for that investment instead of saying "you're dumb and should not have bought into that system, now your medallion is worthless".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems like Uber does this just for the headlines. They know they need to have laws changed in order to break past government-sanctioned taxi monopolies. And they know they're going to get in trouble for breaking the current laws.

The headlines always end up as The Government sticking it to The Working Man, and Uber eats that stuff up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, here, the PPA is deplored almost absolutely, for constant abuse of power. Over the weekend, an insurance company went bankrupt leaving about 1/3 of Philadelphia's taxi fleet without insurance. The PPA decide to _allow_ taxis to continue to roll despite their insurance company being bankrupt[0] and then the next day did this to an UberX driver over insurance woes.

This is why it's a big deal here in Philly. The corruption of the PPA knows no bounds.

[0] [http://mobile.philly.com/business/?wss=/philly/business/tran...](http://mobile.philly.com/business/?wss=/philly/business/transportation/&id=280346362)

<comment><USER12> What insurance company went bankrupt?

<comment><USER13> First Keystone Risk Retention Group Inc. It's in grandparent's reference link (emphasis mine):

"The taxi owners contend their existing insurance continues to provide coverage for 30 days, _despite the insolvency of First Keystone Risk Retention Group Inc._ ... The insurance company was ordered liquidated Tuesday by a South Carolina judge at the request of the state insurance director"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> From a licensing point of view, Philadelphia is interesting. The PPA manages the licensing of Taxi and Limo services in Philadelphia, but, outside of the county, it's all the PA Department of Transportation. Pennsylvania constables can work in any area of Pennsylvania once certified, but not in Philadelphia.

Am I surprised by this? Not in the least. It's possible that Uber got an ok by PennDOT and thought that it would be good throughout the state...or, this might be the PPA throwing their weight behind their revenue protection. Regardless by which one it is, I would hope that Uber will protect the drivers who took their advice (then again, independent contractors and the like) and drove.

*edit: grammar/spelling.

<comment><USER15> I'm really starting to think that we generally need some sort of organization at city, county, state and county level whose sole purpose of existing is to identify governmental organizations/agencies to which Kevin Kelly's "Shirky Principle" apply

        "Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which
        they are the solution." — Clay Shirky

[http://kk.org/thetechnium/2010/04/the-shirky- prin/](http://kk.org/thetechnium/2010/04/the-shirky-prin/)

This isn't about agencies regulating transportation and ridesharing, but about many governmental agencies set up during the 19th and 20th century. There are a lot of useful organizations/agencies, but just as many if not more which have become zombies feeding off society to keep receiving paychecks while burdening us with unnecessary bureaucracy.

Such an agency would be the governmental equivalent of the consultants that come in and identify the dead weight in a company, which need to be let go for the company to stay relevant.

PS I suspect someone will point out the irony in creating organizations/agencies, whose sole purpose is identifying unnecessary agencies and proposing how to wind them down and eliminate them altogether, but I can't see how such an agency could ever reach the point where it would prefer the problem to which it is the solution. Furthermore, if that were the only agency left preserving itself, I could live with that.

<comment><USER16> I don't think all the blame belongs with the agencies. Certainly some, or most. But the legislative branch also tends to force agencies to regulate things they'd rather ignore. See also: the military declining orders for new tanks, but being forced to accept them because they're made in an important senator's state.

<comment><USER15> Totally agree. I guess what I had in mind was an agency that constantly re- evaluates other agencies and writes the legislation to wind down and then shut down needlessly bureaucratic agencies that preserve the problems to which they are the solution. At the end of the day, an act of law needs to be passed to shut down agencies which came into existence via acts of law.

The more I see how government is run, the more I see that lawmakers are commit generators that never take the time to re-factor all the code they've committed to production. Think of this agency as the ones that sit down and get their hands dirty refactoring the code and handing it off to the lawmakers for code review before being committed to the code base.

I appreciate that many laws are passed to solve genuine problems. I don't appreciate the fact that they are never checked to make sure they were effective or continue to be effective.

Regarding the specific military tank example, I'm certain that there must be a way to set things up so that stupid stuff like that can't pass. I honestly don't see how purchase orders for military equipment could ever be a law issue. The fact that the military can't make purchases according to their own needs and budgets is insane. The money spent on those tanks would be better off being spend on all the veteran's affairs programs that are often underfunded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Will Uber be reimbursing the drivers for expenses since they apparently told the drivers it was legal?

<comment><USER17> [http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/10/26/uber-calls-ppa- uber...](http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/10/26/uber-calls-ppa-uberx-sting- deplorable-charade/)

"We fully stand behind our partners and will cover all costs associated with this deplorable charade."

<comment><USER18> If you pay someone to commit a crime, doesn't that make you criminally liable as well? How are they going to reimburse someone for being caught breaking the law? That seems less than sane.

<comment><USER19> If you legislate and enforce a law that is harmful to society, does that make you criminally liable?

<comment><USER18> Crime is a function of law, an action is only a crime if it breaks the law. So no legislating the law by lawfully elected individuals is not a crime. This is true even if you disagree with the laws that were written. I will be candid and share with you that I think what you asked is a stupid question on multiple levels. I assume you're riled up whenever the government does its job of governing, which yes, involves enforcing the law and taking things from people, like their freedom and or property.

There's a democratic process in place in our country that allows you to help decide who is in power, if you're unhappy with who is in power become more involved in elections.

<comment><USER19> It's not so simple. I'm not aware of all the laws that would apply in this particular case, which is why I asked the question, but I know that in many jurisdictions there are laws against abuse of power and corruption. If a political official were to explicitly say "I am supporting Proposition X because it will return some benefit to my benefactors," would that not be a criminal offense? Granted, it's well-accepted that such is the norm in politics, but I don't think that means that it's not criminal. Many politicians have been charged with crimes like abuse of official capacity, bribery, and fraud, for similar actions.

I disagree with and resent both your claim that my question is stupid and your claim that the recourse for a broken political system is becoming more involved in elections.

<comment><USER18> Corruption is illegal, but that isn't what you asked. I take back what I said about it being stupid though, I've given it more thought since then, and I was stupid for saying it was stupid. It's actually an interesting question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What is involved in becoming a cab driver in Philly? Is it medallion costs, vehicle costs (buying or renting), tests, etc.?

Another example of backlash to Uber/Hailo etc. has been the London black taxis. Their operators study for years for very difficult tests in order to be licensed operators, and pay significant costs in doing so, and as such I can understand why they would be irritated by competition coming in without these conditions, but if these conditions don't exist then it's market protectionism at a cost to the consumer.

<comment><USER21> I can see why London operators would be upset. They're the most consistently professional and knowledgeable service force I've ever encountered. And London traffic I think is greatly improved by the road being taken up almost exclusively with taxis and buses, as they're all driving in optimal and intelligent ways.

<comment><USER20> Indeed, internationally London taxi drivers far outrank their competitors.

The only issue, I suppose, is that their base of knowledge - the studying they do, the tests they pass to be licensed, etc. - is already irrelevant in a time of modern GPS and Sat Nav, and will become increasingly so as we begin to move to an era of self-driving vehicles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good for the PPA. Regardless of the laws being stuck in time or not, uber has repeatedly defied laws especially in California where they specifically are told your ride share is illegal shut it down, and they don't. Sad for the drivers but they themselves should also be more aware of the laws that apply. Bad on uber for not even explaining the possibility which of course they know about.

<comment><USER23> If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. -Thomas Jefferson

This has never been more true when it comes to ride sharing companies.

Monopolies benefit next to nobody, while Uber benefits a lot of people.

<comment><USER24> "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. -Thomas Jefferson This has never been more true when it comes to ride sharing companies."

Seriously? _Never_ been more true?

Prohibiting unlicensed rides-for-hire (it's not 'ride sharing') is more unjust than say...Jim Crow laws?

<comment><USER25> I think you mentally inserted the word "than" between his words "true" and "when". If he had written it that way, then your indignation would be justified. As it is written, it means that when it comes to ride sharing companies, that quote rings true in a profound way.

The way you misread it, it would indeed seem to say that the situation with ride sharing companies violating the law is exactly what old Thomas Jefferson was talking about. But you misread it, obviously.

<comment><USER24> I probably did mentally insert "than", but that doesn't make it any less absurd to use a Jefferson quote in an attempt to elevate this to some sort of righteous crusade.

I'm totally missing any "profundity" here, sorry.

<comment><USER25> I'll respectfully disagree; the point was that civil disobedience is valid and necessary when a law is absurd or doesn't serve the good of the people. The fact that one of our founding fathers said it makes it no less relevant or profound today.

And I don't even like Uber; I think in general they treat their drivers like crap, and I realize that they are only flouting this law because it stands in the way of their business model. But just as with Tesla (a company I do respect), they are breaking new ground and showing the rest of the country that these archaic laws exist only to protect the establishment. The laws should be reexamined, and if the people find that the laws are incompatible with their needs, the laws should be changed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> On one hand the taxi monopoly is certainly something which has to be reconsidered, on the other hand I'm not sure UberX screening and insurance is sufficient.

<comment><USER27> Are you sure taxi screening and insurance is sufficient? When was the last time you checked how taxi drivers are screened?

<comment><USER28> One of the things I like about taxi drivers is that they are accountable. If I see one behaving badly, I call up the city taxi commission and let 'em know. If the commission decides they shouldn't be driving a taxi, they will no longer be driving a taxi at all in this town. Good luck doing that with some rando driving for Uber, though.

For similar reasons, I'm also pretty sure the insurance situation is solid. In direct contrast to Uber, where they actively disclaim any responsibility for their cars and drivers.

There are a lot of problems with the taxi industry. It's in deep need of reform. But in my view, Uber's cure is worse than the disease.

<comment><USER27> If you see Uber driver behaving badly, you can call Uber.

>>> Good luck doing that with some rando driving for Uber, though.

Why? Every driver is identified and known, and Uber has a lot of incentive to weed out bad drivers, especially when they are just starting the service and couple of bad reviews can kill adoption for a whole market. What incentive Uber has to support bad service? I can tell one incentive for city politicians to do it - taxi lobbyists pay into their campaign funds, and you do not (at least not as much, unless you are Zuckerberg, in which case you probably have your own limo anyway), so who has more influence on them?

>>> For similar reasons, I'm also pretty sure the insurance situation is solid.

Because Uber just dreams about uninsured million-dollar lawsuit. Nothing inspires investors to invest into a young business as much as an uninsured risk of a million-dollar lawsuits, right? And Uber doesn't care about investors or risks - unlike city politicians whose very future is linked to the fact whether city would be sued or not, since lawsuit cost comes out of their pockets... Oh wait, I got it in reverse - city politician could not care less if the city is sued since taxpayers would pay it anyway, while Uber guys risk their own money and their investors money. Yet somehow you trust more the guy who uses your money to insure your risks and has zero incentive to preserve it and large incentive to follow lobby interests over guy who uses their own money and has large incentive to preserve it. I wonder how it works out for you.

>>> But in my view, Uber's cure is worse than the disease.

Worse in what? Of course, if you refuse to trust anything that does not say "State Commission" and is not rules by an unaccountable bureaucrat, then every cure would be worse than the disease for you. However, do not be very surprised if you find no cures at all, because you seem to be insisting on having the disease as a precondition to finding the cure.

<comment><USER28> > Why? Every driver is identified and known

Because every taxi is marked with a number that I can see. Uber cars are just random cars. And Uber is just one of many services employing any warm body they can find.

The rest seems like generic Argument From Libertarian Fantasy, with the apparently requisite bad grammar and bad-faith assumptions about my views. And of course it's from someone who won't publicly stand behind their arguments.

<comment><USER27> Every car is marked with a number you can see. And these numbers, just as driver names, are known to each Uber user and of course to Uber company. Did you ever use Uber? There's no anonymity there - you know who your driver is, and Uber knows too. Everything is recorded. It's not a fantasy, it's a fact that is obvious to anybody who used the service even once. And Uber asks every user at the end of the service for the rating. Uber may be employing a lot of people, but they are in no way anonymous or untrackable.

>>> with the apparently requisite bad grammar

Yes, English is not my native language. You caught me. This invalidates all my arguments, of course. You won, take a cookie.

<comment><USER28> > Every car is marked with a number you can see.

Not in my city. And many Uber cars display no logo at all.

> Yes, English is not my native language. You caught me. This invalidates all > my arguments, of course. You won, take a cookie.

It is regrettably _also_ how loons write. When combined with their typical arguments, it is going to get you written off as a loon. One way to fix this is to stand behind your words and just say something about yourself in your profile.

<comment><USER27> >>> Not in my city.

Wait, in your city cars don't have license plates? Which city is that?

<comment><USER28> Cars are (mostly) marked with license plates on the back. Taxis are also marked with big logos (telling me which company they're from) and taxi numbers on all sides of the vehicle (which are issued by the city).

I usually have no way to know which cars are Uber cars. Thus my point about lack of accountability.

If you're really having trouble understanding how this is a difference in accountability, I think I'm going back to my "anonymous loon" theory.

<comment><USER27> When you order Uber car, you immediately are told: drivers name, his picture, his car model and license plate. This is enough to identify both the car and the driver. Meaning, Uber knows all this and you know all this, the moment you have made your order. I do not know which more accountability you require - <USER2> any problem happens, the driver is uniquely identified by not one but two ways.

As for big logos, they are useless if you are not using the service - <USER3> then you have no reason to complain about it - and when you're using it you know how the specific car you're using looks like, so why you need the logo?

>>> I usually have no way to know which cars are Uber cars.

If you are using one, you do. If not, why would you need to know that?

>>> I think I'm going back to my "anonymous loon" theory.

If my arguments cause you mental anguish and you can not resolve it by finding counter arguments, it is always soothing to mark the opponent as "anonymous loon". I'm totally fine with it, if it makes you feel better. My arguments do not become worse because somebody on the internet failed to address them and resorted to name calling and focusing on my grammar, which is the lowest level of discussion above name calling.

<comment><USER28> > if you are not using the service - since then you have no reason to complain > about it

It's almost like you didn't read my original comment here, the one where I said "If I see [a taxi driver] behaving badly, I call up the city taxi commission and let 'em know."

Which is an actual thing I actually do. Because it turns out private cars use public roads, ones other humans also have to get around on.

> My arguments do not become worse because somebody on the internet failed to > address them

Statistically, they probably do. Sometimes people stop dialog because the thoughtful, reasoned, evidence-backed propositions make them realized they are wrong. Most of the time, though, it's people saying, "Well, I guess I have better things to do than argue with some anonymous goof with an axe to grind and no interest in understanding what I might have to say."

Your bad grammar doesn't make you wrong. But that plus the fundamentalist libertarian idiocy makes you look like a sort of wrong person common on Hacker News. If you don't want to be mistaken for one of those people, you'll have to try harder.

<comment><USER27> >>> If I see [a taxi driver] behaving badly, I call up the city taxi commission and let 'em know.

I thought you meant behaving badly while providing service. You mean just generally behaving badly, like spitting on puppies and cussing at nuns? Why you need to call taxi commission about it? If he's doing something illegal or disturbing the peace, call the police. If not, why you need to call anybody at all?

>>> Because it turns out private cars use public roads, ones other humans also have to get around on.

In other words, you like to control people around you, and not having everybody wear a number and a phone that you can use to tell on them disturbs you. I find that sentiment hard to sympathize with, sorry. People sometimes do behave badly, but they have no obligation to provide you with a phone number to tell on them.

>>> But that plus the fundamentalist libertarian idiocy

And here we are back to name calling. Take another cookie!

<comment><USER28> > If not, why you need to call anybody at all?

I like that in your world there is only "illegal" and "perfectly fine", with nothing in between. You should write about your homeland. Dystopian fantasy novels are so popular lately.

> People sometimes do behave badly, but they have no obligation to provide you > with a phone number to tell on them.

People in general don't. People providing certain regulated services in fact do, at least around here. We like it that way.

> And here we are back to name calling. Take another cookie!

No, when I say "idiocy" I'm mocking your ridiculous ideas. If I'd meant to call you names, I would have said you were an idiot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Uber providing the insurance would give them clear stats you could compare accidents, robberies, etc.. Uber vs taxis. Suspect Uber is going to compare favorably if we get to see the data. Then what is the _need_ for current state regulation?

Govts are going to have to deal - there is huge demand for ride-sharing. Bash Uber if you want - they are right this time. Just declaring it illegal is the wrong approach - Govt and ride services need to be in negotiations to safely give people what they want for taxi services.

<comment><USER30> The government didn't just wake up this morning and declare Uber illegal. Their ridesharing service was illegal and they set up shop anyways. There are massive downsides to the current monopolistic state of taxis in areas like Philly, and I believe the laws need to be changed to accommodate the new state of transportation. But Uber ought to be working to change the law, not breaking it in the hopes that the government eventually just gives up.

What they're doing puts drivers in the position mentioned in the article: Uber has told them they're operating legally when they are not. Whether or not the law is valid doesn't change the fact that Uber knowingly put the drivers in this position.

<comment><USER19> > But Uber ought to be working to change the law, not breaking it in the hopes > that the government eventually just gives up.

You're missing the very real possibility that deliberately disobeying the laws _is_ the most effective way to get the laws changed.

<comment><USER30> I am not missing that: I do not believe that to be the case. My apologies for not addressing that directly in my original comment.

Uber isn't fighting against discrimination, they aren't fighting against poverty or famine or some global crisis.

They are a business engaged in political maneuvering as part of their goal of changing the regulations in their favor. Whether we think their end goal is good or not, we shouldn't pretend that they're doing this out of altruism.

Civil disobedience and similar acts are effective tools in protesting against injustices in the government. But in using such acts as tools against any inefficient or obsolete laws, we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

<comment><USER19> Please don't misunderstand. I don't mean to compare the nobility or importance of changing taxi regulations with the American civil rights movement, the Indian independence movement, or other notable historical instances of civil disobedience.

But I do not believe the civil disobedience is only effective for causes of that scale.

<comment><USER30> Sorry if I implied you were making that comparison. The comparison is my own: I do feel that civil disobedience should only be utilized for things of that scale.

For things where the dispute is over efficiency or cleaning out obsolete laws or correcting over/under-regulation, actual political involvement applies. Campaign vigorously, support and send candidates who feel passionately about your cause, withhold support from those who do not. Hold rallies, organize protests. Be involved.

But disobeying laws that were enacted via legal means and do not violate human rights crosses a line.

Imagine you're upset because your ISP charges massive prices and their quality of service is terrible (like this would ever happen). Contacting their support, reaching out to their corporate office, blogging about their poor service, and taking them to court over broken SLAs are all valid things to do. Refusing to pay your bill because the service is subpar is not.

It's not a perfect analogy, but hopefully it does a better job describing why I draw the line where I do.

<comment><USER19> > But disobeying laws that were enacted via legal means and do not violate > human rights crosses a line.

But I _do_ think these taxi laws blatantly violate human rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Some people want to paint Uber as the heroes. Others want to put the the regulators and the taxi monopolies in that seat. I'm really getting the impression that both of them are assholes.

Uber may (sometimes) provide better service, but they certainly haven't shown any inclination towards responsibility. E.g., as we see here, when a municipality promises to impound Uber vehicles, Uber happily lies to their drivers that everything is sorted out, because manufacturing involuntary martyrs does a much better job of making Uber look victimized than proceeding through normal channels would.

</comment><comment><USER32> It will be interesting seeing Uber like services go up against the Australian Taxi cartel. I would expect similar antics...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7WdSFS3SFI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7WdSFS3SFI)

</comment><comment><USER33> Killing someone with your car is cheaper than a $1000 fine and you get to keep your car, too.

But god beware you transport people to their destination and take money for it.

</comment><comment><USER34> According to Uber website their service is available in Philadelphia.

[https://www.uber.com/en-US/cities/philadelphia](https://www.uber.com/en- US/cities/philadelphia)</comment>


Securing an HTTPS server - <AUTHOR> http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2009-09-28-securing-https.html

<comment><USER2> Encapsulating parts in their jails is a good security measure. But this is not anything related to securing the SSL. It's about securing your system. But giving a "my cgi's are secure but I can't believe in Apache's security" thought to your customers is not a correct way I think. I can't find any statistics right now but AFAIK security breach sources are mostly not the servers but user applications running over them.

<comment><AUTHOR> _But this is not anything related to securing the SSL. It's about securing your system._

Nonsense. This configuration both keeps other parts of my system safe from bugs in OpenSSL _and_ keeps the SSL certificate safe from bugs in Apache.

 _I can't find any statistics right now but AFAIK security breach sources are mostly not the servers but user applications running over them._

Quite true, in general. But in my particular case I have far more confidence in my (very simple) CGI scripts than I have in Apache.

<comment><USER3> I would add that there are more than likely far more people trying to exploit Apache than are trying to exploit your particular CGI scripts :)

<comment><USER4> The opposite is true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this is overkill, and add that a vulnerability that this FreeBSD jail setup would stop would be page 1 "the Internet is broken" news; hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions every day rely on there _not_ being system integrity flaws in OpenSSL.

That doesn't make Colin crazy; it just makes this not general-purpose advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> _a vulnerability that this FreeBSD jail setup would stop would be page 1 "the Internet is broken" news_

Not true. There have been potential code execution bugs in OpenSSL which have received very little attention in the past. One which comes to mind is a 'free an arbitrary pointer' bug -- in an application like Apache, if you can free the right pointer, it's not hard to get code execution. (I didn't produce an exploit for this OpenSSL bug, so it's possible that it was unexploitable for some reason -- I just saw 'bogus pointer being freed' and said 'wow, this really needs to be fixed'.)

 _That doesn't make Colin crazy_

Thanks, I think.

 _it just makes this not general-purpose advice._

This is an easy step to take, and prevents a class of attacks. Why not err on the side of caution?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice setup. I've got a similar one on a server: Each daemon runs on it's own jail. Each jail is created from a cloned ZFS "base" jail filesystem, so it doesn't take any additional space (except each jail's installed packages), plus there are all the nice ZFS goodies (snapshots etc). There is one package- building jail. Every http request is served from a jail running varnish, which serves as a caching front-end to all the other http daemons in each jail.</comment>


Metro Manila might fix its traffic jam by overhauling a World War II relic - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a20686/can-the-worlds-worst-traffic-problem-be-solved/ <comment><USER2> I'm a US citizen, but I lived in the Philippines for over a year previously. I'm now back in my home state. I learned the language and got to know the people. It was great.

There's a joke about Jeepneys.

Q. How many people can you fit in a Jeepney.

A. Always one more.

That joke was funny because it was true. One time I was sitting in a Jeepney and the driver was waiting for the Jeepney to fill. (As the article stated they like to do.) And I was waiting for him to leave because we were already very full. It seemed that people kept coming in. As the article states you sit next to each other "knee to knee". There are two rows to sit on in a Jeepney and they face each other. Also You have to crouch to walk down the aisle between the two rows of the Jeepney to get in. So anyways everyone was squeezing tighter and tighter until there was no way anyone else could squeeze in. The last lady gets on and I'm just sitting there thinking she is just going to turn around and get out like they usually decide to do when it is that full. Nope, she just sits down on some woman's lap and they are complete strangers. Everyone on the Jeepney had a laugh at that. From that point I was convinced that joke was true.

</comment><comment><USER3> Way back in 2001 I was part of a 2 person team to sell traffic video monitoring systems to Manila. They were ISDN (H.320) based... I wouldn't be surprised if they're still running.

</comment><comment><USER4> Traffic jam in Metro Manila is because of poor urban planning and weak implementation of traffic rules. Adding to that is the growing number of car owners who make the road their parking space because they don't have garage which is mandatory in countries like japan before buying car.

</comment><comment><USER5> As an US expat in Panama I say , this has nothing on the local "Diablo Rojo" us school busses with a second life as the pirate bus system.

<comment><USER6> I am from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which was mainly a Puerto Rican and Dominican neigborhood when grew up there in the 1970s. Custom cars were just that, custom! With painted hoods akin to the back panels of Levis Jeans jackets with rock star or salsa or gang pictures. I now live in East Java, Indonesia, and have traveled in the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam to name a few for the past 9 years as an expat.

The Philippines is certainly up there on the crowded spectacle meter of buses and other transport vehicles. I remember seeing three people standing on a bus bumper holding onto the roof as we drove behind over a bridge. The paint jobs, detailing, added hardware (bumpers!) was fun to look at. But one pothole, a loose grip and you are not showing up to work that day.

I am always amused by what seem like cross-cultural similarities to the colorful, blasting stereo vehicles in each location. I guess the colors are inspired by the tropical climates' flora, and other cultural influences.

Indonesia has its becaks or moto-becaks (bicycle or moto-powered rickshaws), but it is more conservative here with regards to transport both outside and in them, but people pile in.

Thailand has the tuk-tuk and motocabs.

I am stirred when seeing a family of 4 or 5 on a 125cc scooter here in Java. No helmets, kids sleeping on the back with their school knapsacks, and a kid standing in front, no eye protection or helmet, squinting at the road.

I have two older children back in the US, and a newborn girl here. I always have to adjust to car seats, and transportation in general when I return for a visit, and NYC traffic now looks so tame to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some factoids about current Manila traffic:

1) Uber has made traffic 30% worse than usual because it's cheaper than taxis, thus more pax

2) Jeepneys are no longer painted with murals because it costs $5,000 extra

3) Traffic is bad in some areas, but not that bad on highways from say the airport to Manila Bay or QC</comment>


Making custom renderers for React - <AUTHOR> http://goshakkk.name/react-custom-renderers/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome! Like you mentioned towards the end, I've been stewing on the idea of a React Native <-> React bridge for a while now too, but haven't had the time to thoroughly dig into the code of other custom renderers to find the right way of doing it. I'm confident that a combination of [https://github.com/web-perf/react-worker-dom](https://github.com/web- perf/react-worker-dom) and [https://github.com/alinz/react-native-webview- bridge](https://github.com/alinz/react-native-webview-bridge) would get most of the way there. Thank you for shedding more light on the not-so-clear world of making a react renderer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bravo! I was going to build this soon for an upcoming project. I'll keep an eye on your repo!

<comment><AUTHOR> Danke :) Anything in particular that was not obvious/bad about the blog post? I guess I'm still trying to find my voice here to explain different ideas in simple way, so any feedback is very welcome!

Were you going to build another replica of Pablo or?..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this compare to something like flipboard's "react-canvas" library?

<comment><AUTHOR> My intention was to create a custom renderer from scratch instead of using an existing one. To learn more about how that stuff works, but also because react-canvas and react-art felt like too much.

I didn't want anything to get in my way, so what I made in Pabla really only exposes the canvas primitives. (Oh, and I also got to make my own text wrapping function.)

All in all, the point of the post is to fill the void in the custom renderers space, first and foremost; not to sell Canvas.jsx from Pabla :)</comment></comment>


Give Up and Use Tables - <AUTHOR> http://giveupandusetables.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it should come down to this simple yes or no test... Are you are working in house at a corporation, or agency and someone else pays you? Then use CSS. If you work for yourself use the table. Only half kidding. :D</comment>


The iPhone is a piece of shit, and so is your face. - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

<comment><USER2> Old, outdated, funny. Sort of.</comment>


Google will now auto-delete location and search history by default for new users - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/24/21301718/google-auto-delete-location-search-history-default-myactivity <comment><USER2> Google is by far the most ethical of anyone with meaningful tech power over my life, maybe second to Signal. It is mind blowing how muck flak they take when almost every other company happily operates in China with prod DB access.</comment>


Google Cloud Source Repositories now GA and free for five users and 50GB storage - <AUTHOR> https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/05/Cloud-Source-Repositories-now-GA-and-free-for-up-to-five-users-and-50GB-of-storage.html <comment><USER2> Glad to see one more service becoming GA on GCP. I'm eagerly waiting for Postgres GA and managed redis, memcache.

I'm working on an open source[1] PaaS platform which makes integrating managed services a breeze and more accessible on GCP[2].

[1]: [https://gitHub.com/datacol-io/datacol](https://gitHub.com/datacol- io/datacol)

[2]: [https://www.datacol.io/docs/cloudsql](https://www.datacol.io/docs/cloudsql)

<comment><USER3> What is GA? The only place I see it in the article is the title, and a google search turned up nothing for me.

<comment><USER4> General Availability

'are excited to announce that it's leaving beta and is now generally available' \- OP

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why should I trust them again? Back then I trusted the bigger guys code.google.com over the little guy GitHub.com and was eventually screwed. Their UI sucked, issues couldn't be imported back to GitHub fully, and they continued to screw their costumers back and front. In the meantime GitHub and redhat openshift had been rocksolid stable services for free without any interruption for 7-9 years for me. Sorry no.

</comment><comment><USER6> Product page: [https://cloud.google.com/source- repositories/](https://cloud.google.com/source-repositories/)

</comment><comment><USER7> What would you do with this?

<comment><USER8> idk what would you do with github

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if the equivalent of Github Webhooks is present in Google Cloud Source Repositories, as far as I can see, couldn't find any in the product page.

<comment><USER2> You can create a trigger and start a build with container builder. Pretty powerful. ([https://cloud.google.com/container-builder/docs/creating- bui...](https://cloud.google.com/container-builder/docs/creating-build- triggers)).

If you need more powerful CI/CD system on gcp, checkout www.datacol.io ( I am the author, so little biased )

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone see an advantage here over, say, GitLab?

<comment><USER11> We use this as a secondary remote. Google's security model inside of a project means that you can grant accesses between select services without authentication.

E.g., we keep our main private repo at gihub, but when we want to auto-build a Docker image, push to the Google remote. Google's build trigger has been r/o granted access to the repo, clones the code, builds and publishes a private image.</comment></comment>


Noise.sh – a digital signal processing spreadsheet for sound design - <AUTHOR> https://noise.sh <comment><USER2> The sound quality is much better after exporting, I assume this is likely due performance issues when creating sounds on real time using JS, so maybe one could use most of the same exporting logic to internally save a cached version of the sound (instead of always generating it on real time) to avoid such issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very nice! Reminds me of loglo, a similar app posted a few weeks ago for spreadsheet geometry: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23542876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23542876)

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there a button to play the sounds on the site?

<comment><USER5> Just click any cell

<comment><USER6> This was my issue as well.

I thought I was looking at something like Ableton Live's session view, where each cell could be a mathematical function or any instruction a spreadsheet offers.

I clicked only on the A1 "$t"-cell, so obviously I didn't hear anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there a light mode?</comment>