CryptoBucket: A Social Media Site for CryptoCoin Users - <AUTHOR> http://cryptobucket.com/

<comment><USER2> Should I be the first to point out the irony of creating a social media site for people who value personal privacy and hard cryptographic solutions to common problems?

While I'm at it, your home page doesn't support HTTPS? Does the rest of the site?

<comment><USER3> The idea behind giving the crypto community a social network of their own is to give them a place where they don't have to worry about privacy as much as they do on the current large social networks. We don't track user behavior for anything more than making the site better for the users and give the ability to have a completely private profile if you only want to lurk.

SSL is on our long task list. We will have it implemented within the month.

While I understand that hardcores in the community value "cryptographic solutions to common problems", I also understand that 99% of the community couldn't explain to you what a hash is or what "cryptographic" even means leaving much room for projects such as this.

It's been just over a month, we're approaching 1000 users. I'm happy with the slow, steady progress we're making! :)</comment></comment>


Interview with Ted Nelson, 1990 - <AUTHOR> http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_4D37F2D8E1054BA49999027BF9D18957 <comment><USER2> Anyone serious about computers and how humans interact with them should study the works and thought of Ted Nelson. Ted sees problems differently. If it's hard to see where he is headed or difficult to understand what he is saying, just wait a decade or two and your perception will catch up.

<comment><USER3> And buy or borrow a copy of his iconic book [https://www.amazon.com/Computer- Lib-Dream-Machines-Revised/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Lib-Dream- Machines-Revised/dp/0914845497/) it's not long, won't take you too long to read the first time.</comment></comment>


After his mother died, he found her secret in the freezer - <AUTHOR> https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/after-his-mother-died-adam-smith-discovered-the-secret-in-the-freezer/Content?oid=32329816&showFullText=true <comment><USER2> It's really about much more than just the dead baby. For me, the headline wasn't click bait. The obvious inference was "dead baby."

It's actually a really interesting _Case Study in Serial Hidden Pregnancies_.

There's a lot of data out there on hidden pregnancies. I've read a number of such stories.

My general impression is that they are typically a one time event for someone really young who comes from a conservative environment, such as a Catholic family. The event seems to frequently spur personal changes that prevent future incidents.

They make a break with the conservative social circle they come from; or they get educated about birth control; and/or they feel burned, stop drinking, stop sleeping around and become more conservative and preachy than anyone else.

What's very unusual here is she continued to successfully hide pregnancies, even after having a fallout with her Catholic family. She didn't become a serial killer either. She gave up at least two children for adoption.

It's a strange case because she basically is a woman who had many lovers over the years. That's much more typically male behavior.

Men fairly often pick up women randomly and may have no idea how many children they fathered on one-night stands. Women usually can't manage to get away with that or, if they do, it's because they are infertile and incapable of becoming pregnant.

This is one of the elements of Mae West's life. She couldn't have children.

My sister had serious fertility problems. I had my first baby unexpectedly at age 22 and never managed to have a real career. My sister ended up with a real career and finally had her only child in her mid thirties after years of intervention.

She read extensively on related topics. She concluded that infertility was a root cause of serious careers for some women, herself included. She once said if things had been different, she could see having four kids. But they weren't.

So what's strange here is this woman wasn't privileged. She didn't have the money to support a large brood. She took a long time to distance herself from her conservative family. She wasn't infertile.

Yet she kept drinking and sleeping around. And she sometimes successfully hid the resulting pregnancies.

Following her death, relatives are still trying to piece together the full story. There remains at least one hidden pregnancy unaccounted for according to the records they've been able to find.

</comment><comment><USER3> The title is a little click bait-ish but the story was fun to read - like one of the shorter Damned Interesting articles people used to post here. [https://www.damninteresting.com/](https://www.damninteresting.com/)

I started playing the audio versions in the car during family vacations and now they are tradition whenever we take a road trip.

</comment><comment><USER4> TLDR: A mummified baby.

<comment><USER5> Yes. I'd be happy to change the title to make it less baity, but couldn't think of a dignified way to do so.

The article is much more interesting than just that detail, although it goes to tragic places.

<comment><USER6> I'm glad it wasn't in the title. It was a good read and a real surprise when I got to that part.

<comment><USER7> When I was 6, my older sisters hamster died. My father put the body in a box in the deep freezer because this was the dead of winter and we couldn't bury it until the ground thawed. He didn't tell anyone. A few weeks later I was looking for ice pops and found the frozen mummified hamster. I can't handle being around dead pets to this day.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Lyft Carpool: A New Way to Commute - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lyft.com/posts/meet-lyft-carpool <comment><USER2> No driver background checks or vehicle inspections, per the TOS [0]:

"The Carpool Platform is operated by Clara Rides, Inc., not Lyft, Inc. Clara Rides, Inc. is not a Transportation Network Company or a transportation service. Clara Rides and Lyft do not conduct criminal background checks on Carpool Drivers, perform vehicle inspections on vehicles used for Carpool Rides, or provide insurance for Carpool Rides."

[0] [https://www.lyft.com/carpool/terms](https://www.lyft.com/carpool/terms)

<comment><USER3> A serious question to everyone complaining about uninsured drivers: do you ask your friends for proof of insurance before getting in their cars as passengers?

Do any insurance companies sell passenger insurance to cover accidents when you're the passenger in a car with an underinsured driver?

<comment><USER4> I have health insurance, so treatment for my bodily injuries is covered. Someone else is driving, so if his negligence results in a wreck I generally won't be liable to the other driver. I won't be responsible for fixing his vehicle.

That covers most garden-variety car wrecks, so there is little need to be concerned about my friend's insurance. I suppose if I were really on top of things, I would ask my friends for proof of insurance anyway, because maybe I would want to sue him for pain and suffering, which his insurance might pay for (my health insurance would not pay for that, or for lost wages.)

Never seen "riding around in someone else's underinsured car" insurance. Typical umbrella policy wouldn't cover that unless I'm negligent. I suppose I could get disability coverage which might help protect against the lost wages from getting injured in someone else's car.

<comment><USER5> > I have health insurance, so treatment for my bodily injuries is covered

No, that's not how it typically works. If the injury was caused by car accident, your insurer will likely deny the claim. This happened to me when someone rear-ended me and I went to the ER to get checked out; I didn't want to file a claim with the other party's auto insurance but had to for payment of the ER visit.

<comment><USER4> Sorry your insurance is crummy. Mine explicitly says it will pay for my care and that my insurance company can seek damages from those who may be liable and their insurers.

<comment><USER5> In California, health insurance is not required to and can ask for it back.

From the insurance dept website [http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/105-type/95-guides/...](http://www.insurance.ca.gov/01-consumers/105-type/95-guides/01-auto/auto101.cfm#ifyouhaveanaccident) :

"If I am injured in an accident, does my health insurance pay anything?

Usually, your health insurance pays for your immediate medical care. Then your health insurance company will typically try to get back money from your auto insurance or the other person's auto insurance. When one insurance company tries to get money back from another insurance company, it is called subrogation."

<comment><USER6> That situation only exists because the other party had auto insurance. If they didn't have auto insurance and you didn't have auto insurance that covered it, your health insurance policy would have covered it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A few notes on items I find a bit strange here.

1\. To get from the East Bay to SF in the carpool lane you need 2 passengers (3 people total - or a car that only seats two)

2\. The East Bay already has a pretty nice system for this called the Casual Carpool which is probably its biggest competition. The Casual Carpool is just a bunch of spots (usually BART Stations) where drivers can stop and pick up a few other passengers to get in the carpool lane across the bridge and _usually_ the passengers chip in a few bucks for the toll. This system is pretty good and works well considering the need for 3 folks in the car to get carpool lane access. The Lyft model is a lot harder to coordinate picking up 3. The biggest issues with Casual Carpool are that there's no revenue for the driver and it's mostly one way (inbound in the morning). The eastbound after work system is not as efficient, there's a common pickup area downtown with stops indicating destinations but it can be hit or miss on whether passengers are there when you're ready to go home.

Long and short of it I think this is a Peninsula solution not really an East Bay to SF one yet.

<comment><USER8> The largest such system I'm aware of is slugging in the DC area (particularly along the 95/395 corridor to Pentagon/downtown): at various parking lots, a driver pulls up to a line of people, says they have 3 slots and is heading to the Pentagon (say), and 3 people pile in and get to ride the HOV to the Pentagon.

It's entirely free, almost entirely grassroots (governments occasionally ask that the pick-ups/drop-offs move slightly), and remarkably safe (1 known incident in >30 years). Having grown up in the area, I was surprised when I casually made reference to it to someone not in the area and they had no idea what I was talking about.

<comment><USER9> Having never spent more than a few days in DC, the only reason I know about slugging is because of "Slugline" in House of Cards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Neat that a "ridesharing" company is finally helping people actually share rides.

I imagine something like this would be a lot easier for municipal governments to swallow, compared to the current "not a cab but yes it's actually a cab" model.

<comment><USER11> They already had lyft line. That's not a cab model.

<comment><USER10> Not exactly but it is pretty "cab-like", in that the driver is still independent of the passengers. It's basically an easier way of sharing a cab.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We've been doing this in Vancouver, Canada for 5 weeks now ([http://sparerides.com](http://sparerides.com)). It is great to see another player doing true ridesharing. Lyft actually started with a business model similar to this ([http://zimride.com](http://zimride.com)) but saw much greater growth with the taxi model so rebranded and pushed that instead.

While HOV lanes are a large incentive for drivers, we have seen that many of our drivers here in Vancouver are looking to either cover the cost of parking and driving, or meet new people. These solutions generally work best in dense metro areas with relatively good public transit (I.E you have to be able to get home, if you can't find a carpool home).

Also interesting, Uber is not allowed to operate under the existing Vancouver taxi regulation. Because carpooling does not provide an income to the driver, the car is not considered a vehicle-for-hire, making systems like Lyft carpool and Spare Rides legal in Vancouver and I'm guessing many other cities that have pushed Uber out. This is a really good way for Lyft to grab those markets before the regulation changes.

<comment><USER13> What do you mean by "carpooling does not provide an income to the driver"? I honestly wouldn't pick up people without compensation, especially for longer distances. So you just charge riders and the driver gets nothing?

I'm curious because I'm planning on starting a similar venture in my home country.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, the correct word to use there would be profit. The driver does get paid, just not enough to exceed the operating cost of the vehicle and parking, which in Vancouver is roughly $0.58 per km.

<comment><USER13> That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is good to see Lyft moving towards a more civic minded direction in their business model. A lot of "disruption" talk is simply code for deregulation.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm the CPO and Co-Founder of Scoop automated carpooling - www.takescoop.com. I wanted to jump in with a few thoughts.

It's exciting to see one of the ridesharing/ride-hailing companies focus their attention on where the pain is still high - the commute. 100M Americans still wake up everyday, grab their keys, and get in their car to drive to work. On average, that drive lasts at least 25 minutes.

The negative impact of driving alone is enormous - congestion in our communities, $250B out of our pockets every year, and a huge toll on the environment. Autonomous vehicles, hyperloops, or whatever the future has in store might change this - but not for a while.

So, carpooling is obviously something I've spent a lot of time thinking about - and I think Lyft is doing some smart things here. I like the Rider scheduling buckets. We do something similar with Scoop - every trip is scheduled with "time slots" that help align Rider and Drivers' schedules.

And of course, Lyft's availability around the Bay Area is nice. For Scoop, we really focus on partnering with employers and 511 ([https://carpool.511.org/](https://carpool.511.org/)) to strategically open "routes" into different Bay Area cities. We do this carefully, to ensure that commuters can really rely on their local Scoop community for a carpool every single day.

There are also some important ways that carpooling is really different from ride-hailing, and it'll be interesting to see how Lyft, Uber, etc. address that. For example, who you go with really matters. 45 minutes in a car isn't the same as 10. How you get home really matters too. In the case of no carpool, a regular Lyft or Uber with surge-pricing will make for an unhappy commuter.

Our team of 13 works really hard every day to try to take cars off the road, and are excited by anyone who wants to try to do that too. To that end, we just opened up our newest route today to tackle congestion in a new community. Starting today, you can schedule commute trips with Scoop into Palo Alto. All trips to Palo Alto are just $1 - sponsored by the Palo Alto TMA and Stanford Research Park. And we're excited to have great partners like the Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce and companies like Tesla, Palantir and HP.

PS: If you do want to try to help, we're hiring! Email us at firstname.lastname@example.com or visit [https://angel.co/takescoop/jobs](https://angel.co/takescoop/jobs).

</comment><comment><USER16> I wonder what this will do the the already established causal carpool for crossing the bay bridge. At the moment, it's free for riders, the benefit for the driver being that they skip the toll.

On the upside, I had a friend who was a rider, and had lots of stories of terrible drivers. Once he witnessed the driver hit a person and then drive off, and then drop off my friend. My friend called the police, but I guess with Lyft carpool this type of thing wouldn't happen, or at least not as often?

<comment><USER17> > Once he witnessed the driver hit a person and then drive off, and then drop > off my friend. My friend called the police, but I guess with Lyft carpool > this type of thing wouldn't happen, or at least not as often?

Lyft would probably rate the drivers like they do normally and stop allowing them to drive for the carpool. You can't prevent accidents like that, but you can prevent those people from doing it again with your service fairly easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can see drivers/passengers travelling together for weeks or months at a time. So you'd probably just want to quit Lyft and enter a private arrangement. Is there anything in Lyft's business model to prevent or mitigate this?

<comment><USER19> It says riders pay up to $10 per ride and drivers get up to $10 per ride. This makes me think that Lyft won't be taking a cut from the carpool rides. If that's the case, then Lyft is also providing a super easy way to pay the driver without having to remember to bring cash.

<comment><USER20> The "up to" parts make me think they will be taking a cut ;-)

<comment><USER21> Well the math says they won't. If the most a rider can pay is $10, and if Lyft takes a cut, then the max the driver will receive will be less than $10, which is not what they say.

<comment><USER22> It says "drivers earn up to $10 per trip", which means a driver can earn nothing! Or the rider can pay "from $4-10"; Lyft takes no more than the rider(s) pay; and the driver takes the rest.

<comment><USER23> The terms of service have a section reserving the right to impose a service fee. Not sure if there will be a fee at launch.

"Service Fee. In exchange for providing the Carpool Platform, Clara Rides _may_ assess a service fee on each Carpool Ride (on either or both of the Carpool Rider or Carpool Driver). The amount of the applicable service fee shall be communicated to you in writing."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> interesting. didn't lyft start off as zimride which is a carpool app?

[https://zimride.com/](https://zimride.com/)

[http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/29/6000-words-about-a-pink- mus...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/29/6000-words-about-a-pink-mustache/)

<comment><USER25> Yes they did, the founder of Lyft gave a speech at SXSW last year on the evolution of Zimride => Lyft. He said that "the focus of Lyft would continue to be and always has been reducing the number of empty seats on the road." (paraphrasing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'd probably be willing to do this if they gave me insurance, tied it to the regular Lyft rating system (and maybe let me set a threshold of 4.5 rider score or something?) and if the Bay Bridge were a HOV-2 v. HOV-3.

I don't do Casual Carpool right now because of 1) insurance 2) not knowing who the passengers are 3) not really knowing how to do it.

I hope Lyft will tweak this to work better for my use case. Otherwise, it will probably be a US-101 solution only.

</comment><comment><USER27> How do they handle commutes back? With carpooling to work, that is always my biggest concern - will I be able to get a ride back.

</comment><comment><USER28> Google/Waze is trying something similar [http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/07/google-owned-waze- launch...](http://arstechnica.com/cars/2015/07/google-owned-waze-launches- ridewith-carpooling-app-on-android/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Curious if this allows for picking up two passengers so that one can use the carpool lane in areas that require 3 passengers (notably, the Bay Bridge). If not, most of the value for both parties is drastically diminished.

</comment><comment><USER30> It seems the natural progression of this service is not paying each other $5-$10 for a ride, but some sort of service that allowed getting and giving credits for sharing rides.

Most of us in the bay area have cars (because public transportation is stinking horrible). I want more to lessen my burden on the environment/save money on gas by sharing the road. A more natural pair would be to easily find people who share my commute and then rotate rides.

<comment><USER31> Why is it preferable for the "credits" to be in units other than currency?

<comment><USER32> I'm guessing it's because the OP wants riders to also be drivers, so you don't end up with one set of people making less than minimum wage to drive another set of people around (the Uber model). Of course, this won't work with formal "credits," since people will just create a market exchanging "credits" for dollars. This is where an informal reputation system shines: people eventually identify freeloaders, and kick them out of the carpool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Since this is limited to one passenger only, would this allow for drivers that have two-door cars? I'd love to use this all the time if that's the case :)

</comment><comment><USER34> Sounds really interesting but will it be available for 2 doors cars (like a mustang)?

<comment><USER35> Yes

<comment><USER34> Awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder what the ettiquite is when sharing a ride like this? On a bus or in a cab there is no pressure to make conversation with the other passenger/driver, although sometimes they may be chatty. In this situation I'd feel pressure to make conversation with the driver, but what if I want to just read? Would that be rude?

If I found a good driver I would just deal directly with them because (a) I know they share my route and (b) I don't need to get to know them again each time I commute. That would be money off the table for Lyft though.

But I would not use the service because I have kids to drop off and also I may not finish at the same time every day.

</comment><comment><USER37> This was essentially Lyft's first idea right? I believe it was called Zimride?

</comment><comment><USER38> Hey Lyft: I have a truck (in addition to my fuel and earth friendly bike). However, I know a lot of people need help getting stuff home from home depot, babiesrus, best buy, etc. How about a summon a truck option?

</comment><comment> open-source-ux Interesting. This new service from Lyft has some similarities to the ride- sharing service of French startup company Bla Bla Car. The French company is doing well in European countries but hasn't launched in the US.

</comment><comment><USER39> I expected a feature similar to UberPool but having the limitations on this being your daily commute is very cool. Encourages a different set of drivers and seems friendlier.

<comment><USER40> Lyft's alternative to UberPool is called Lyft Line. Pretty sure they actually launched that (a bit) before Uber as well.

<comment><USER41> If I recall correctly Lyft made an announcement/small release of Line and shortly after uber sent out a PR page with a signup form to be notified when available.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Really would love this in Orange County, CA. I think it would work very well in SoCal where there isn't a lot of transit but many routes are fairly deterministic.

</comment><comment><USER43> Someone on HN tried to make a similar service in Africa (I can't remember who you are, sorry!) and found that eventually the commuters just worked together to commute and cut out the middle-person.

$10 per ride is really not a lot of incentive to drive an hour to the city with company that you don't want, who may not want to listen to your music/podcast, or smell your farts, or listen to you sing along to Rebecca Black.

</comment><comment><USER44> How does Lyft expect to maintain a financial middleman relationship in a carpool relationship? What incentive does a commuter have to keep paying Lyft?

<comment><USER45> Seems like the advantage here is that you're never beholden to a particular time, or really any prior agreement. You can check for compatible carpools whenever and wherever you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wanted to join their previous Line effort, but re-read my insurance policy and found it falls under prohibited commercial driving. The terms now encompass any participation in online ride-coordinating services. Government needs to step in because individually the insurers have no incentive to allow this.

<comment><USER23> Lyft is attempting to get around the limits on commercial activity by only reimbursing up to the driver's costs (see the TOS section on Reimbursements). But the terms you describe would seem to preclude even this. Do you mind saying which insurance company has those terms?

As to the question of incentives, I have pay-by-the-mile car insurance (from MetroMile, in SF). They would make more money if I took a detour and drove a little further, or if this service caused me to drive to work more frequently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I don't drive or live in the bay area. What sort of typical time savings does the carpool lane give you?

<comment><USER48> During my morning commute I sit in traffic in the regular (non carpool lane) for about 5-10 minutes, whereas the carpool lane passes right by with no traffic. I am only on this stretch for about a mile. So imagine about 5-10 minutes/mile saved as an example.

It really depends on the area though. I am referring to the 85/101 merge near all the Google exits.

<comment><USER49> >I am referring to the 85/101 merge near all the Google exits.

I've never stepped foot on the West coast, but I found this sentence really amusing! I guess I never realized the extent to which GAFA was embedded in the landscape.

(Nevermind this East-coast pleb. Carry on!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> 10USD from San Jose to SF?! AWESOME

</comment><comment><USER51> Lyft are spending time and money on things like this (it looks great to be fair) but they can't be bothered to compete with Uber in markets outside of the US.

Seems a bit of a shame really...

<comment><USER16> They need to grow within their budget -- Uber has way more funding than they do.

Lyft is scaling by leveraging technology to be better. Uber is doing that but also burning cash opening in new markets. The only way Lyft can compete is to out-innovate Uber.

<comment><USER52> Plus, why waste money validating the market when Uber is doing it for them :)

<comment><USER53> The early worm gets eaten by the bird. The late one presumably enjoys the spoils.

<comment><USER51> If I was Uber I would love to have a competitor as callow as Lyft; they seem willing to cede whole markets up front. For me it's as weak as not internationalising your software; if you wanna downvoted for this view point that's fine btw but I stand by it!

EDIT: downvoters, Lyft has $2.01 BILLION dollars in funding... It's ridiculous to suggest they shouldn't be competing with Uber internationally!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Very similar to wunder's current model. ([http://www.wunder.org/en/](http://www.wunder.org/en/))

</comment><comment><USER55> alt eu [https://www.blablacar.co.uk/](https://www.blablacar.co.uk/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Any idea if commuter benefits are eligible for this? If so, this sounds better than my Caltrain ride.

<comment><USER57> Unlikely unless there is a regulatory change. Commuter benefits, as in an employer paying for transit with pre-tax dollars, currently exclude vehicles that can carry less than 7 passengers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This would be better if you could ride with the same people or persons on a regular basis.

Maybe at reduced lyft fees.

<comment><USER58> You could. Just arrange it informally once you get to know the driver/passengers and ditch Lyft entirely.

Which is a risk a service like this faces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I wonder if people will take this to the airport with airport employees.

</comment><comment><USER56> Just tried to sign up but apparently my route isn't ready yet.

</comment><comment><USER60> at a cost of $4-10 per ride (I read correctly I hope) does it make financial sense for commuters in bay area?

<comment><USER5> for the passenger absolutely! it's on par with transbay bus or caltrain fare. not sure if I would participate as a driver for so little though

<comment><USER61> In my case it doesn't make sense. Fremont to San Jose is $10 per ride or $400 per month. This cost more than what I pay in gas, insurance and maintenance. ($240 in gas on avg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Awesome! Congratulations on the launch!

</comment><comment><USER63> this service is complete shit. my trip to SFO from Golden Gate Park was 2.5x the amount of time it could have been, and I saved 7% on my final bill.

lyft is bleeding is dry with this new service, i highly recommend against it.

</comment><comment><USER64> I totally would have used this last year when commuting from SF to Menlo Park. It's too bad I sold my car and quit my job, would have been fun to meet some cool people and make some extra money at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER65> I liked this when Uber did it last September. [https://newsroom.uber.com/ubercommute/](https://newsroom.uber.com/ubercommute/) it's great to see Lyft picking up from a great idea.

<comment><USER66> Just curious, do you work for Uber? The rest of your comments seem to be berating Lyft, haha

<comment><USER67> Clicking on viscanti's profile does not seem to reveal any other comments in this thread...

<comment><USER68> All of viscanti's submissions are pro-Uber and/or anti-Lyft.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Running WebAssembly and WASI with .Net - <AUTHOR> https://ericsink.com/entries/wasm_wasi_dotnet.html <comment><USER2> This is super exciting for me, as a C# developer. I'm fed up of needing (to learn how) to compile C++ projects for each platform so that I can reference them from .NET Core. The idea of just compiling them once for WebAssembly/WASI and only needing to ship one copy of each binary dependency is quite freeing and makes cross plat functionality easier.

<comment><USER3> You can compile C++ directly to MSIL if you want...

<comment><USER2> Ooh, instructions as to how would be super, please :)

<comment><USER3> Visual studio compiler option "/clr": [https://www.visualcplusdotnet.com/visualcplusdotnet1.html](https://www.visualcplusdotnet.com/visualcplusdotnet1.html)

There's a bunch of language extensions which let you access C# heap, string types etc from C++. You may want to define a "shim" layer to do the translation, but the bulk of your existing C++ can just compile straight across.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Eric Sink is a great developer and blogger. If you have a bit of time, do yourself a favor and go through his entire archive ;)

-> [https://ericsink.com/tocs/topics.html](https://ericsink.com/tocs/topics.html)

<comment><USER5> Yep. One of my all-time favorite blog posts anywhere is his 2003 post "The .NET Abstraction Pile", where he lists 40-some different abstraction layers involved in clicking the "Check In" button in a networked version control system:

[https://ericsink.com/Abstraction_Pile.html](https://ericsink.com/Abstraction_Pile.html)

A particularly good quote:

> I stop whenever I get to Physics or Chemistry. For my purposes, light is > real, not an abstraction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This reminds me of the early days of .NET when COM objects could be used with a shim that allowed .NET applications to consume existing COM components... but the lifecycle and memory management of those objects were beyond the ability of .NET to control and an error in the COM object could still crash your .NET app even though the loading and unloading of the COM component was wrapped in a try/catch... such frightful memories! I'm curious how the GC/exception handling story will be different by going through WASM to MSIL as opposed to the days prior to framework 2.0 and COM components.

<comment><USER7> From the article:

> Whatever you call it, what this project does is take a WebAssembly module > and convert it into a .NET assembly on disk.

So running such code should be no different than any other .Net code in that regard.

<comment><USER8> yeah, assuming that I've not got the wrong end of the stick, you could still have all the usual C/C++ issues take down your process. Although, seriously...pinvoke and the like are a PAIN. This is really interesting. Cheers.

<comment><USER7> As far as I understood, this project emits CIL (MSIL), and does not rely on PInvoke.

As such I don't see how it _wouldn 't_ play nice, unlike PInvoke/COM stuff, which is native code doing whatever native code feels like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A cool project indeed!

I wonder thought if one could just build CIL backend for LLVM.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is madness ... awesome madness</comment>


Udacity in partnership with Pearson VUE announces testing centers - <AUTHOR> http://udacity.blogspot.com/2012/06/udacity-in-partnership-with-pearson-vue.html <comment><USER3> For those of us with kids and without access to a world-class university this is huge news. I had to study in Spain. Becoming and engineer here was difficult, but the difficulty laid not in the things we had to learn, but in the hoops they made you jump through. With a few exceptions ---there are some great teachers here too-- it was more survival training than a learning experience. Later, when working for HP, I had the opportunity to take Stanford graduate courses. The quality of the teaching was mind-boggling. How lucky these guys are, I kept thinking. Such opportunity!

Of course I jumped at the chance of taking the first AI class, eager to see if it would go towards the (possibly hugely profitable) world-wide higher education framework I was hoping we'd manage to build. I was disappointed by the certificate at the end only mentioning Stanford to make sure that we didn't think this was associated with them in any way. They were clearly not getting it.

But Sebastian Thrun was, and I think Anant Agarwal at MIT is as well. The extremely high teaching standards they have already shown: add a way to give trusted certificates, and this could be the way out for millions of kids throughout the world. And, I assure you, people everywhere _will_ pay for a paper from a trusted source that shows the degree of excellence they or their kids have achieved.

</comment><comment><USER4> The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete, so it sounds like these are actually going to be significantly less difficult. Still, I think this is a step in the right direction. Of all the online education programs out there my money is definitely on Udacity (or at least the Udacity model) to be the winner, and I think ten years from now people will recognize that this announcement was every bit as big as the X-prize or the recent SpaceX docking.

That's not to say there isn't room for other programs that are run in different ways, not only will there be but many will be insanely successful and profitable, but I think that the Udacity model is going to sort of the default way of doing things that every other program is compared against.

<comment><USER5> "The current Udacity exams take about 10 hours of coding to complete..."

From the article: " For the first round of exams, programming will not be included."

I don't think you can demonstrate programming competence with a 90 minute multiple choice test, so I'm interested to see how they end up tackling that challenge.

<comment><USER6> "...students wishing to pursue our official credential and be part of our job placement program should also take an additional final exam in a Pearson testing center."

It sounds like the Pearson exams are in addition to the online, coding test.

<comment><USER4> Interesting, it's a little ambiguous as to whether they mean a second final exam or whether they mean in addition to the regular course. Assuming they mean a second final exam though this would be good as a clever checksum just to make sure you are who you say you are and can answer basic questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Humble and understated announcement of what is arguably the most important part of making online education sustainable.

<comment><USER8> Not just sustainable, but perhaps more importantly, _credible_ , for redefining education.

After all, educations need the signaling factor, and credibility is required for the signal to be effective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is fantastic and a required piece of the online learning revolution. You have to prove that it's _you_ and take an exam to get the credit and currently this can only be done by physically going to test centers. I predict that in the _very_ near future (~1-2 years) taking such tests to get credit for online courses will be as common place as taking the GRE or GMAT.

</comment><comment><USER10> THIS IS HUGE! Wow, an amazing move by Udacity. I love (as others commented) how understated and under-hype they've made this announcement to be.

Talk about closing the loop further in enhancing the viability of online education.

I consider this one of the biggest turning point in Udacity, if not online education space as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd rather see web-cam based proctoring or a similar solution that would allow for some accreditation while letting udacity still control costs and provide a cheaper overall examination process to its end users.

<comment><USER12> I came across this recently: <http://www.proctoru.com/>

The endpoint is a model that will satisfy the employers - whether that's webcam or live proctoring or any combination thereof is irrelevant.

One variant of live proctoring could be an arrangement in which universities give students a number of online options to fulfill a particular requirement - cs, math, physics, etc - and administer their own exams. So the university would simply use it's brand to issue the stamp of quality. In a sense - <USER2> is cannibalism for the university. But I think there are public schools that are struggling to serve their students in a financially feasible way. This could be a good way to streamline...

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm reminded of the old microsoft certification hoops I was required to jump through for a previous job (I think I ended up with about 30 or so of the things and a load of letters to put after my name that I now cringe to think about, mainly because of how absurdly pleased with them I was at the time. HR departments and management were impressed by it, the people who worked at the coal face, not so much.

Be interesting to see how it turns out.

EDIT - and of course for things slightly more academic, I'd expect there to be not quite the same set of issues as there were with vendor qualifications (before someone points it out). Yes, I too would prefer to hire people who maintain an interest in learning over someone that didn't (I'm signed up for four of these things as soon as my MSc is out the way), so not intended as a derogatory comment.

</comment><comment><USER14> I _hate_ Pearson products with a passion (save for a few imprints and assorted acquisitions). This is a great step though for both companies, so hopefully it works out for both. Pearson's online components has included some of the worst software I've ever had to deal with– maybe thanks to this, future students will never have to deal with it again. Udacity on the other hand has been great, so it's all very exciting anyway.

<comment><USER15> Pearson are just a big acquisition/sales company so have some good/some bad products. Their model of business is not where I would personally hedge my bets if I wanted my product to be successful. Udacity probably have no idea how difficult it will be to work with Pearson yet.

If the partnership gets it right then Pearson will look to acquire Udacity, given Pearson's track record of how little they innovate after acquisition this may be damaging to Udacity's long term goals however if the stakeholders of Udacity are looking for a quick out of the market then it might be ideal for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Inversion of the classroom is an idea whose time is come. In the university setting it's easier to do than in a junior high school setting. People can all learn at their own pace. And then schools will primarily do testing and accreditation.

The question is, should the lesson plans (for the overall year) be open source, or a marketplace of proprietary competition, or both?

</comment><comment><USER12> This is absolutely huge.

</comment><comment><USER17> Every time I see VUE I always think of The Falls.

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080715/>

</comment><comment><USER18> I love udacity!

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome. Aping the accreditation, credit and degree system of brick and mortar academe doesn't make sense for the latest generation of educators - udacity, Coursera, Khan Academy, et al. Proctored exams to verify that the student knows the material are the way to go.

For final exams that cover an entire course, a test independently designed by a third party, using input from employers, entreprenuers and academics, might be a great supplement. Where you took the course would be irrelevant, so long as you could pass the test. It would allow for easy comparison of students in different programs.

Testing is a vital step in providing a credential at least as valuable as a college degree.</comment>


Explorers given approval to retrieve Titanic's Marconi telegraph - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/explorers-can-take-titanics-marconi-telegraph-cutting-into-wreck-for-first-time/2020/05/19/bbe39b70-8a47-11ea-8ac1-bfb250876b7a_story.html <comment><USER2> I guess I'm unsentimental, but I don't really see the point of restricting access to the wreck. People say it's a grave or memorial, but its not like it was built for that, its just the ship the people happened to be in when they died. We generally don't preserve crashed airplanes/trains/etc as memorials to the people that died in them. And its not like mourning family members or their descendants can visit it.

If I or one of my family members die in a shipwreck, I can't imagine I'd have any particular problem with people salvaging from the same. If some future salvager wants to go salvage an iphone or whatever from the ship, I can't see why I'd be upset by the fact that my corpse is now resting in a ship with one less random knicknack in it.

The radio seems like an interesting artifact that people will enjoy seeing, while at the bottom of the ocean it isn't doing anyone any good. If people want to bring it to the surface, let them have at it.

<comment><USER3> > People say it's a grave or memorial, but its not like it was built for that, > its just the ship the people happened to be in when they died.

 _Obviously_ the shipbuilders never intended for the ship to become a grave, but that's exactly what it became and the intent of the shipbuilders hardly seems relevant.

As for plane and train crashes, the discrepancy in treatment is obviously a matter of tradition. Not all traditions are problematic relics of the past that need questioning though; particularly not traditions as harmless as respecting the deceased victims of ship wrecks. And if traditions are to be challenged, it should be for a better reason than profit. (Historic inquiry is a better reason to challenge this tradition, but doesn't seem to apply in this circumstance.)

I think that devaluing harmless traditions like respecting the dead in the name of utility and profit demeans our society.

<comment><USER2> Is there a tradition? Salvaging wrecks, with or without human remains, is a pretty old practice, the law generally seems to support it and I'm not really aware of any religious or other traditional prohibition against it. There's certainly efforts made to respect whatever human remains are present, but not to the extent of a defacto ban on salvage operations.

<comment><USER3> > _Is there a tradition?_

Obviously yes, otherwise it wouldn't be contentious.

There are many reasons to salvage shipwrecks, some better than others. Wrecks which pose navigational hazards are obviously removed. Wrecks which contain hazardous materials (oil, nuclear waste, explosives, etc) may also be salvaged. Wrecks which contain valuable materials are also sometimes salvaged, and in rare cases ships may be raised and refurbished to be used again (this happened to the confederate submarine _Hunley_ twice.) There is no hard and fast tradition on salvaging ships, it exists on a continuum of necessity to reviled grave robbery.

Specific instances can be evaluated on that continuum. The K-141 Kursk was dismantled and partially raised, in large large part because it contained a nuclear reactor and several nuclear warheads; I think most would agree doing so was prudent. On the other end of that spectrum, numerous ships sank during the Battle of the Java Sea have been destroyed for scrap metal, which has been widely reviled as grave robbery. (The steel of those wrecks has some value because it dates prior to the nuclear era: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low- background_steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel)) but _" it's valuable tho.."_ isn't generally seen as an acceptable reason to molest these graves.

I think retrieving artifacts from the Titanic to put on display falls closer to the "grave robbery" end of this spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Because of a backlog of personal messages, the wireless operators had ignored ice warnings from other ships."

Actually no, ice warnings* were passed onto the Bridge, which the Captain choose to ignore, as he was endevouring to beat the record for the fastest crossing on a maiden voyage. The lesson being, don't go full steam ahead into an ice field, in the middle of the ice season, at night under a moonless night.

"On the 11th April, she received 6 warnings from ships stopped in, or passing through, heavy ice, 5 more on the 12th, 3 more on the 13th, and 7 on the 14th."

[http://www.titanic-titanic.com/the-ice-warnings-received- by-...](http://www.titanic-titanic.com/the-ice-warnings-received-by-titanic/)

</comment><comment><USER3> > _The recovery project has been vociferously opposed by the National Oceanic > and Atmospheric Administration, whose representatives argued in court that > the Titanic, sunk about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, should be > respected as a grave rather than mined as a museum supply._

Frankly I agree. This isn't a scientific mission, or any sort of fact-finding mission; it's just looting. The plan to make a "wonderful exhibit" sounds like a cynical business ploy to get the public into museums with sensational exhibitions. Perhaps getting the public into museums is not such a bad thing, but is it such a good thing that it justifies this sort of looting? I don't really see how.

Edit: I should say that I'm not categorically opposed to retrieving items from shipwrecks, if it's being done respectfully. But this plan with the Titanic doesn't seem very respectful to me. An example of what I'd consider reasonably respectful was the retrieval of the bell from the SS Edmund Fitzgerald:

> _The ship 's bell was recovered from the wreck on July 4, 1995. A replica > engraved with the names of the 29 sailors who lost their lives replaced the > original on the wreck.[190] A legal document signed by 46 relatives of the > deceased, officials of the Mariners' Church of Detroit and the Great Lakes > Shipwreck Historic Society (GLSHS) "donated the custodian and > conservatorship" of the bell to the GLSHS "to be incorporated in a permanent > memorial at Whitefish Point, Michigan, to honor the memory of the 29 men of > the SS Edmund Fitzgerald."[191] The terms of the legal agreement made the > GLSHS responsible for maintaining the bell, and forbade it from selling or > moving the bell or using it for commercial purposes. It provided for > transferring the bell to the Mariners' Church of Detroit if the terms were > violated.[191]_

Even this though caused some controversy.

<comment><USER5> How many generations must pass before such a site passes into being able to be scavenged for items of interest? There have never been remains found. In some waters you could find bodies but not where the Titanic sits.

Has it aged enough to fall into the same category we assign Egyptian artifacts? We have dug up remains of many societies and some are within a few hundred years of age. So it really comes down to, what is the rule?

To me it should be allowed to retrieve items from the site and if no national government wants to sponsor it then why not a private organization? if placed under proper restrictions but not outright confiscation they should be able to operate as a museum type organization taking their historical artifacts on tour so others may enjoy them

<comment><USER6> Is _"standard off-the-shelf" equipment of the time that has little value outside the ship_ truly an item of interest?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A terrible idea.

       "... it is conceivable that it could be restored to operable condition," RMST said"

It was a spark-gap transmitter? Which broadcasts noise across the entire radio spectrum. It would be illegal anywhere in the world to operate it today.

Nonsense like that confirms that this effort is some circus act put together by a money-making shill of some kind. Not a sincere effort to preserve history.

<comment><USER8> Couldn't you build a Faraday cage to operate it inside?

<comment> the-dude What is the point of putting a transmitter in a Faraday cage?

<comment><USER9> Then it's not illegal to operate.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will you peerfund my crazily ambitious work? - <AUTHOR> http://tav.espians.com/will-you-peerfund-my-work.html

<comment><USER2> Sorry but No.

I don't mean to be rude but as soon as someone comes to HN with a request like this and actually gets funded the floodgates will almost surely open. Every person rejected by Y Combinator will start showing up to try and get their funding via the community and since it really doesn't take that much to get to the front page I suspect the place will be flooded in no time.

Sorry to be so blunt and had you not posted this yourself it might be a different story but I just don't like this sort of thing. I like this community…it brings joy to my life and I don't want to see it devolve into a "Pitch your startup" forum. That's what VCs are for.

<comment><USER3> I have mixed feelings about this. I agree that HN shouldn't become just a place to pitch startups, but.... 1. people already "pitch" their startups here for feedback on a regular basis, just not for funding. Is it that different? And 2. there does seem to be a need for this sort of crowdsourced funding scenario.

Maybe a new site (could|should) be created, dedicated to this model of soliciting funding? Something similar to Kickstarter, but for startups seeking funding? But, I think there are a lot of regulations about investing in startups, aren't there? If so, not sure there's a way to reconcile that with this sort of crowd-sourced, highly distributed model. :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As best I can figure out, what I'd be paying for is your time, as you work on a project which you want to work on anyway. In return, I would get warm fuzzy feelings. Do I correctly understand the nature of the transaction?

If I didn't give you money, would you work on it in your spare time? If yes, why am I giving you money? If no, then maybe you're not all that committed to this project after all.

<comment><USER5> How does this not apply to every project looking for kickstart funding?

<comment><USER4> Because those are willing to sell me a slice of the company? This guy seems to just want money as a charity case. Unless there's something I've missed.

<comment><USER6> > Because those are willing to sell me a slice of the company?

Not usually, kickstart does not give you equity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty neat idea, but if you've been at it for a decade why would the next three months suddenly make a difference ?

<comment><USER7> That was my first thought too. I also question his confidence that he only needs 3 more months to launch it, given that it's been in the works for ten years (or more likely it seems, on and off for ten years).

It also seems like he's trying to build a cathedral when the blueprint specifies a bazaar. He's already got the source code on GitHub, why not instead focus on using social media and whatnot to enlist another hacker or two, get it to Beta, launch it, see if it gets traction, and then seek funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://ampify.it/> is an awesome project. It's great to see the Mediawiki Confluence extension coming out of the recent work. Everyone who has a mediawiki should try it out at <http://socialstartuplabs.com/wiki/>

<http://alexrollin.com>

<comment><USER9> Hey alex,

You're being downmodded because you've started posting without reading the HN guidelines (<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>):

 _Please don't sign comments, especially with your url. They're already signed with your username. If other users want to learn more about you, they can click on it to see your profile._

Please take a look at those before posting, and welcome to HN!

<comment><USER4> OK guys, but let's not all pile on and downmod him to hell just for signing with a URL, alright?

-1 might be appropriate, but right now he's somewhere below -4 and probably going to drop further since nothing below -4 is displayed.

<comment><USER10> Totally, I lost 50+ points once on a bad comment. Weak. Show mercy hacker news police!

<comment><USER11> Huh! I always thought the downmods were capped at -4, and further downvotes just made the comment lighter, and therefore less readable. Sorry to hear that, that's tough!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Yoshua Bengio – From System 1 Deep Learning to System 2 Deep Learning - <AUTHOR> https://slideslive.com/38921750/from-system-1-deep-learning-to-system-2-deep-learning <comment><USER2> Would be awesome if the guys of slideslive.com are able to also offer the possibility to link to the google slides presentation. This would make sharing knowledge from the presented slides into another format extremely easy.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the suggestion! We will look into this and we might offer it in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is the youtube link (if needed):

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FtUbMG3rlFs](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FtUbMG3rlFs)</comment>


Automakers Go Electric, Even If Gas Is Cheap - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/business/going-electric-even-if-gas-is-cheap.html <comment><USER2> Tesla has proven that electric cars can be fundamentally superior to their ICE counterparts in nearly all respects, except for cost (for now) and the speed to refuel (which is made moot by the convenience of refueling from home if you have garage access).

The trend toward EVs despite low gas prices should be no more baffling than the trend toward smartphones despite low flip-phone prices.

<comment><USER3> _except for cost_

And the cost is falling with astonishing rapidity: [http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/01/chevrolets-bolt-is-an- el...](http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/01/chevrolets-bolt-is-an-electric- vehicle-for-the-masses-and-weve-driven-it/). We may end up in a situation in which electric cars are cheaper and simpler than ICE cars sooner than is commonly supposed.

The scenario I'm sketching obviously isn't guaranteed, but it's gotta be more than 10% likely and probably less than 85% likely. At the very least it's likely enough to scare conventional carmakers.

<comment><USER4> If you live in a place like the PNW where electricity is cheap there's some really awesome synergy there.

First month of owning an EV I put ~3k miles on it at ~$40/mo electricity bill increase. Most EVs range from 230-330 Wh/mi, gas for the car it replaced would have been ~$250. If you drive a lot EVs make sense for a bunch of reasons(no oil changes drop the per-mile cost even lower).

<comment><USER5> How many KW/h of electricity is that in your first month? Which EV do you have?

<comment><USER4> ~330 Wh/mi(Model S 85D) * 3k = 990kWh * 0.06c per kWh

Leafs come in around 230 Wh/mi from what I hear which is even better from a cost perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pop Quiz:

Did sales of electric cars grow or decrease in 2015 compared to 2014. Answer: [http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales- scorecard/](http://insideevs.com/monthly-plug-in-sales-scorecard/)

What about sales of ICEs? [http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/202980/us-auto- sales-hit-all...](http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/202980/us-auto-sales-hit- alltime-high-in-2015-what-about-2016)

So if overall car sales are up by EV sales are down, tell me why we are so bullish on EVs?

</comment><comment><USER7> > "The government is regulating what automakers have to produce to meet new > standards, but it isn't what consumers want to buy," said Michelle Krebs, an > analyst with the firm Autotrader.

Why doesn't the fed just use higher taxes on gas to disincentivize gas guzzlers, and let the market take care of the rest?

US gas prices are ridiculously low compared to most of the developed world.

<comment><USER8> That would disproportionately penalize poor people. Imagine gas prices suddenly spike due to a new gas tax, poor people who can barely afford a used 2001 Toyota Camry are now even worse off, while your typical doctor or software engineer just goes out and buys a fancy new hybrid or electric car.

Sure it may eventually change market conditions to favor electric vehicles, but it will be a long time before there are cheap, used electric vehicles for poor people to buy.

<comment><USER9> Many cities have local gas taxes that are used to subsidize public transport. In Quebec for example, there is a tax applied only in Montreal (where the public transport system is almost usable, compared to other North American cities), so gas is always 5-10¢/L more expensive in the city. So people living in poorer rural areas aren't affected.

Other upside: a lot of gas stations have closed, converted to apartment/condo buildings, which helps to revitalize parts of the city.

Downside: I don't feel like the provincial government has been investing at all in public transport. On the contrary, they're investing in more unsustainable highways to make suburbans happy. 1960s nostalgia.

<comment><USER10> In Finland they have envisioned somekind of transmitters to all cars that would signal if the car passes certain border close to Helsinki. This passing would cause 20 cent traffic payment to be billed from that driver. Costs of the system millions, goal is to bring down congestion. (As if people would want to sit in traffic.)

You Canadians are freaking smart.

<comment><USER11> In South Africa our government built a system like that on most of the highways around Johannesburg. (One of our main cities)

Everyone got pissed off, and refuse to pay, but still drive on the highway anyway.

Result: still the same amount of traffic, and now the government is sitting with billions of Rands worth of new debt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Gas and oil will not be cheap forever. Now it goes down but when investors or governments want to rise its price, it can be easily changed. Just make some "noises" or "predictions" and the price will be affected.

Besides, electric cars have zero road emission. Drivers will not see the exhaust emissions by themselves. Electric cars shifted the emissions to the power plant so drivers will have less feelings about their contribution to global warming.

<comment><USER2> > Electric cars shifted the emissions to the power plant so drivers will have > less feelings about their contribution to global warming.

Even the filthiest conventional power plants are significantly more efficient than the internal combustion engine and emit fewer greenhouse gasses.

Aside from that, the electric grid is becoming cleaner by the month which means EVs automatically become cleaner as we transition to renewables and clean generation. Gasoline engines never become cleaner.

That's the main sustainability argument for EVs: de-coupling transportation from oil or any particular fuel, thereby enabling a clear path as the grid continues to transition to renewables.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Cars are going to get much more expensive with these fuel efficiency mandates and the affluent will drive electrics, while everyone else will drive old cars.

We have ever increasing crashworthiness requirements, which make cars heavier, which increases car weight. We have a ratcheting fuel efficiency mandate. The convergence of these two pushes for lighter, more crashworthy cars, which means expensive materials. Electric cars may be price competitive very soon as prices for batteries fall, and as prices for gasoline cars increase.

However, these regulations, while well meaning, will be counter-productive. People simply can't afford new cars anymore and are driving old cars much longer. We have a lot of 1990's engines out there in fairly reliable cars, and these emit far more pollution than a modern car, nevermind the fuel efficiency.

<comment><USER14> Doubtful. The price per mile to rent a self driving electric will be lower than the cost per mile for gasoline in fairly short order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Federal and State governments are literally paying people to buy plug-in electric vehicles.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug- in_electric_vehicles_in_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug- in_electric_vehicles_in_the_United_States#Government_support)

<comment><USER4> This is a good thing. We should be incentivising move towards clean energy rather than letting things with hidden costs continue.

<comment><USER16> Sure, everyone loves subsidies when they are the ones getting them.

Having the government pick winners is a losing proposition. The correct solution is to properly price the externalities of ICEs, then let the market sort it out.

<comment><USER4> I agree carbon tax is the right way to go, although politically it might be difficult(see other thread here). I'd rather have something(subsidies) than nothing at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It was very kind of Saudi Arabia to allow us to develop so much oil extraction technology at $100 and now teach us how to use that new technology profitably at $35.

I'm not exactly a fan of fracking and tar sand extraction, but it is quite an achievement.

</comment><comment><USER18> Move to electric vehicles and produce the electricity needed by burning fossil fuel in large scale regional plants with higher efficiency, where it is also economic to invest in filter systems to reduce pollution.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is how it should be, whatever is influencing prices now will pass, this is the future.

</comment><comment><USER20> Other than, well we are seeing the results of two to as many of five years of the pipeline coming out finally. It isn't like they can plan for cheap gas. GM would know this best with the second generation Volt landing when gas prices were already on their way down.

The real opportunity here isn't for the automakers, it is for the Congress to change the law with regards to fuel taxes so as to set a floor price on fuel to encourage the shift to more economical vehicles; not necessarily full ev. A tax system could be set to provide a floor and a ceiling - meaning if the product price got to high the tax would decrease a bit to compensate

Still, what did you expect from the big companies in the face of the fleet mileage requirements? You cannot do that without at least hybridization. Finally, with GM, did anyone really expect them to cede the everyday car buyer market when it came to electrics. GM even has the production capacity to make the cars when people want them

</comment><comment><USER21> Electric cars trade pump prices for grid prices. In the long run, that should make sense whether there's an oil glut or not, since oil should affect prices in both columns.[0]

Hybrids trade pump prices for cost of additional (non-oil-based) components. That's going to be a better trade when pump prices are high. It's more contingent.

So... low oil prices could mean we should see more electrics, but fewer hybrids.

[0] Should, hasn't yet, I don't know why. So far lower oil costs are reflected in transportation fuel, but not in household electricity costs.[1] Maybe because the grid just takes a really long time to shift its energy portfolio? Maybe I'm just completely wrong...

[1] [http://www.eia.gov/pressroom/presentations/sieminski_0226201...](http://www.eia.gov/pressroom/presentations/sieminski_02262015_csis.pdf) : slide 11.

[2] Yes, embedded footnotes. And unreferenced footnotes. Madness.

<comment><USER22> _" So far lower oil costs are reflected in transportation fuel, but not in household electricity costs."_

In 2014, petroleum only accounted for 1% of US electricity generation, so the price of oil isn't likely to have much of an effect on the price of electricity:

[http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3](http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Now if the government would just raise the fuel tax, we'd really be in business. Start making up for the drop in prices and incentivize electric vehicles on the consumer side as well.

<comment><USER24> Wouldn't that risk turning a government anti-EV, since they would be addicted to the revenue from fuel?

<comment><USER23> This is a good point. It's important to remember, though, that local and state governments think in the short term. In the short term, gas vehicles are going to be around for a long time. The average age of cars on U.S. roads is at a record 11.5 years, according to research firm IHS Automotive.[0]

That is to say, if 2015 were the last year anyone could buy a gasoline-fueled car, we'd be looking at 2027 for that last batch to age out.

[0][http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs- average-c...](http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-ihs-average-car- age-20150729-story.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sidenote: Is there a hackernews or lobsters for automotive technology?

<comment><USER26> Lobsters?

<comment><USER27> [https://lobste.rs/about](https://lobste.rs/about) \- It is like hacker news but requires invites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Something else: electric everything and using less oil is the only way out of political instability in some parts of the world.</comment>


Django 1.0 Documentation - <AUTHOR> http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ <comment><USER2> My thoughts:

Django has, for a long time, operated as a small-ish community. When you're a small community, people generally know what's going on just because they hear things and there's a lot of trust in each other. As projects get larger, you often need a more formal structure.

For example, Django has been slow to release and has even recommended that you run off SVN. That's great when you're an involved person who knows what's going on, but less fun for a casual user of the framework. Django is getting more casual users.

That's great too, but sometimes it requires organizational change. Django hasn't been (and probably will never be) the boisterously-led community that Rails is. It isn't the personality of its leaders. That said, I think we're going to see a lot more communication happening. For some people, Django has dropped the ball here, but the 1.0 plan definitely cleared a lot of things up and I hope we similarly create a 1.1 plan over the coming months to provide a neat roadmap for developers).

In terms of the framework moving forward, I think the 1.0 release will fix a lot of complaints that people have had. One of the problems with the "run-off- svn" mentality is that you're very cautious about putting in big changes. However, with the run-up to 1.0, we've seen qsrf, newforms-admin, geodjango, etc. all merged. I think the 1.0 stable release will give us the opportunity to get through a lot of the other patches on SVN as people use 1.0 in production.

Every community stumbles, we can always do better, and Django is moving forward and post-1.0 is a great time to start changes. As a developer with a post-1.0 item in queue, I'm excited. Yes, it's frustrating when you've contributed a patch just to see it wait in queue. Hopefully version stability will change that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's hoping I can finally stop getting Deprecation Warnings....

<comment><USER4> I think the point of that is that YOU change your code. No update will fix that, in fact, updates will make it worse ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks much better, but Django REALLY needs to release quicker. This slow pace is damning.

Also, Django needs to be more open. There is something fishy going on in Django management, and they don't want to say. I smell a fish, but it's swimming in murky waters and I can't see it.

<comment><USER5> Really? What parts of Django development make you smell a fish?

<comment><USER4> For example, Geo-Django, a very unessential part of a web application was merged into trunk with no explanation as to why. There are lots of essential things things missing, I really don't see why Geo-Django has to be in there in the first place, and why with such urgency.

<comment><USER6> I guess Geo-Django is essential to Holovaty's work in EveryBlock, perhaps that's why it got more attention.

<comment><USER7> EveryBlock doesn't use GeoDjango.

<comment><USER4> Then WHY is geodjango in Django! Why is there no useful explanation as to why so many things in Django are "Design Decision Needed", but GeoDjango got accepted with no questions.

<comment><USER7> Because it was on the <http://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/VersionOneFeatures> "maybe" list (as in it will go in to 1.0 if someone does the work to get it ready), and someone did the work to get it ready.

As to how things got on that list, that's why Django has BDFLs. Someone has to make these decisions. If you wanted to influence those discussions, the time would have been several months ago on the django-developers list. If you want to influence future decisions, join that list and start arguing for them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>