Omni Group Layoffs - <AUTHOR> https://mjtsai.com/blog/2020/03/31/omni-group-layoffs/ <comment><USER2> Nothing signals to me that the market for high quality software is utterly and completely broken than this piece of news. Sad to hear this - if the Omni folks are having difficulty what hope do other small shops have. I am always amazed at the creativity SW folks show when coming up with reasons/excuses for not paying for tools - the culture around this is very saddening. On the other hand my friends who are into electrical, woodworking or automotive take a deep pride in the tools they own. Many of these fields pay a fraction of what SW dev does.

I never fully understood why we do not have the "a good tool saves me x hours, and makes me happy while doing my work so I should pay for it" culture. SW engineers are pretty well paid and companies themselves have decent margins so this penny pinching tendency is upsetting.

<comment><USER3> OK, I'll bite. I have a fundamental aversion to paying for something that has zero marginal cost. I feel I'm taken for a ride if I do so.

If I pay for a book, I feel it cost some effort to produce it physically, print it, bind it, ship it. I cannot force myself to pay for an e-book, which is a pdf copied at no extra cost. Same for digital music and software or any other digital "good" or subscription. I sympathise with the creators, if they will produce something that does not scale, I will pay them for it. Otherwise, sorry, but not my job to figure out their business models.

<comment><USER4> I also have that aversion. But regard, zero marginal cost doesn't mean 'zero cost'. There's overhead to amortize. Like, the effort to have a company that hosts that stuff. And the desire to run a for-profit company, else we'd all be at the mercy of volunteer organizations.

They seem to have 'figured out' their business model already, and it involves each person copying the PDF, paying a nominal fee.

FWIW

<comment><USER3> You make a good point of course -- my issue is that this amortization has become totally divorced from use. For example, a taxi driver also needs to amortize the upfront cost of their car, but the more they drive, the more the car wears down, so it is all predictable, and somehow feels "fair". With digital goods, you may sell it twice, or a billion times, what you earn is independent of how much cost you sunk into it (apart from hosting and other infrastructure as you mention) -- which explains the runaway successes of our times, but it's just something I am unwilling to participate in :)

<comment><USER4> Yes it seems like new rules are needed for synthetic businesses of this sort.

I've argued elsewhere on HN, that the reward for building an automated system should be, pay for building the system. In America at least, we consider the entire lifetime output of said system to belong to the builder. That is unsustainable. Imagine a future where everything is automated. There will be no need for workers, and not much further development. The economy becomes a static owner-vs-unemployed deal, and how can that survive?

<comment><USER5> Wouldn't that discourage automation? By which I mean, wouldn't the economy optimize for busy work instead of producing more value for less effort?

<comment><USER4> Referring to reassignment of automated machine output? I don't see this slowing automation much. It makes for a simpler, more reliable process across the business. Why deal with hiring people when automation solves it forever?

And even if some folks _do_ decide to go the 'boutique' route and hand-make something, there is always another person who will go the automated route and cut their prices by 90%. Free market after all.

It will be upsetting for sure. Lots of entrenched interests in renting automation at high rates. Maybe have to do it in a phased approach - VAT or some such?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I discovered Omni yesterday when League of Legends dumped 20 gB of text logs on my brother's old MacBook, eating up all available disk space and crashing it. He asked me for help. I didn't know what was taking up all his disk space so I searched for a tool to help me and found OmniDiskSweeper. Unlike the MacOS builtin tools that try to hide the underlying file system, OmniDiskSweeper actually helped me understand the contents of the file system and discover what was eating up all the storage.

If anyone who worked on that project is reading this, thank you.

<comment><USER7> I use WinDirStat for the same thing on windows. Lets you pick and then scan a drive and then gives you a graphical view where the bigger the file the larger its block is proportionally to the other files.

<comment><USER8> Not sure if WinDirStat got updated to use a different method by now, but a few years ago many people switched to WizTree [0] as it is almost instant thanks to reading the data differently.

[0]: [https://antibody- software.com/web/software/software/wiztree-...](https://antibody- software.com/web/software/software/wiztree-finds-the-files-and-folders-using- the-most-disk-space-on-your-hard-drive/)

<comment><USER9> WinDirStat is still slow as shit. I use it weekly. haha

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have been an OmniGraffle user from the very beginning (~2000). I love OmniGraffle. But I've seen Sketch come (and go) and there have been no significant updates for OmniGraffle for a very very long time. Omni only added to their iOS offerings and totally forgot about desktop. I understand that mobile "is the future" but, there is a significant need for desktop design applications. And although I still use OmniGraffle I would no longer buy updates.

<comment><USER11> I have a few theories on this:

\- Lack of macOS staffing meaning that it's very much in maintenance mode (it was "make sandboxing work" in 2013 and "make dark mode work" recently), which parallels general pushes from Apple on iOS and iPadOS.

\- Lack of need for new features: I think Omni could have pivoted towards Sketch/Figma style "export to mobile" (which would have actually probably meshed really well with the rest of the mobile app dev business, since we did mocks in OmniGraffle), but I'm curious what else Graffle really needs to be useful. I think historically there has been enough net new customers to not need to provide all that much upgrade incentive.

\- In 2013 the codebase was a beast, and this was like v4 or v5... I can only imagine adding major new features to it.

<comment><USER12> > (it was "make sandboxing work" in 2013 and "make dark mode work" recently)

Honestly starting to feel like the past 4 years of OS X changes have just been too much burden for the few remaining OS X software developers across the board. I recall when the Mac App Store came about a lot of developers moved their software to it, then sandboxing happened and that seemed like an absolute nightmare for most to implement, then after months of that they started to leave the App Store and then there's Gatekeeper too.

Now I'm not saying these are bad things, I definitely see the benefits but there just isn't the mass of engineering talent or money in building OS X software to justify the work required.

This has been tangible to me, 6 years ago my Mac was running all Cocoa apps apart from Creative Suite. Today all the apps I'm running are Electron apart from Textmate and Creative Suite.

The neglect of the Mac platform and the divvying up of the small Mac userbase into Mac users, iPad users and iPhone users means the future of the OS X app experience is just going to be running Javascript apps in Chrome wrappers.

<comment><USER13> Surely this is the motivation for Catalyst.

<comment><USER14> The problem with Catalyst is that it's just bringing iOS apps to the Mac, and iOS does not produce profitable businesses in many categories. The #1 paid iOS app, Procreate, has only 17 employees, OmniGroup pre-layoffs had ~40.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Unfortunately Omni's software is pretty old and bloated at this point, although I've only used OmniFocus and OmniGraffle. The former is very powerful but this is a blessing and a curse, in that the UX is very cluttered and quite intimidating. I honestly think that Things has exceeded it now, being less customisable but also capturing the essence of what makes OmniFocus good without getting bogged down in too much customisation and verbosity. OmniFocus is the opposite of a productivity tool to me, it keeps you in the app for too long configuring and setting things up just right, instead of getting out of the way

OmniGraffle is great, and probably the best diagramming tool I've used, however it feels like it hasn't had a really significant update in a very long time and it's starting to show frankly

<comment><USER16> The flip side of it is that OmniFocus needs to be so customizable because the defaults are not great. (I feel the same about the default styles in OmniGraffle.)

I was a die-hard OF1 user, but they've completely lost me with the OF2 redesign. Large checkboxes on the right stress me out on mobile (that's where my scrolling finger rests), and it took months before there were layouts in OF2 for Mac that had the same information density as in OF1. I haven't even tried OF3.

<comment><USER17> Hard same. The redesign for OF2 drove me away completely; I eventually landed in orgmode, where I control everything and don't have to worry about seasonal / fashion oriented redesigns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's sad to see apps full of ads/tracking and ridiculous subscriptions thrive, while quality software like this gets into trouble.

I've been happily using Omnifocus for a long time;

\- Single purchase, no subscription

\- e2e encrypted syncing between devices (+ server storage)

\- 0 tracking, ads etc.

<comment><USER19> I don't think subscription is that bad.

Development and support is never ending.

Single purchase, you also get "single development", and then it dies.

At some point the market is not infinite.

<comment><USER20> I think companies should use something like what Jetbrains does with its IDEs. You get a lifetime access to the version you paid a year subscription for. Keep the yearly subscription up, and you are getting updates, getting a more recent lifetime access, and the sub gets cheaper.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I think that's pretty much the perfect model and I wish most companies would adopt it. It supports both types of customers: people who always want the latest updates and features, and those who want the most stable software.

I am firmly in the second group, but get why so many people prefer the first. I like that those users can get all of the updates they want, while I don't have to constantly burn mental energy figuring out UI changes and new bugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I used to love Omni Graffle. But after spending a bit of time reading about their current product lineup, I can't stop wondering why they didn't transition to web apps years ago.

Notion, Figma and Whimsical are eating their lunch. They have a far less robust feature base, but they're fast, built for teams, simple to use and the pricing scales well.

On the other hand, Omni is almost entirely native apps, bloated feature sets and pricing that spent make sense in a team environment.

I'd love to see them rethink a few core apps with a fresh coat of paint and a better pricing scheme, developing web first. It's definitely not too late.

<comment><USER23> I don't know if I'm an outlier here, but to me the Omni Group is/was almost like an extension of Apple themselves. Like with Panic's or CultureCode's applications, they just work in the way a seasoned Mac user would expect. They fit into both the look and feel of the Apple ecosystem and support all integrations you would expect.

Of course the market for high-quality Apple only software is small. But I think they would be even less competitive and successful if they pivoted to the Web.

It would be almost like suggesting Microsoft drop their desktop Office applications and just focus on Office365.

<comment><USER24> " almost like suggesting Microsoft drop their desktop Office applications and just focus on Office365"

Not sure if you're experience is different, but this seems to be exactly what they're doing. Outlook windows app is buggy and terrible. Outlook 365 is great.

Excel is the only app better on native then web.

<comment><USER25> And OneNote 2016, I hate the web/app version. Outlook has always been a bizarre mess, it is the only application I have seen with a 'cancel server request' because it has stopped responding. 17 years later (I think since office 2003), it is now needed on every Office desktop app because of horrible lag interacting with OneDrive/SharePoint. I've actually installed LibreOffice because I can't stand the shitty performance. In 1997, MS Word opened in about 3 seconds on a fast PC, and now it is an ordeal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm sorry to hear this. In a subscription model world, Omni stand out in producing very high quality one time purchase software. I love OmniGraffle! Such a great product once you learn it.

<comment><USER27> They seem to be moving to a subscription model: [https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/buy/](https://www.omnigroup.com/omnifocus/buy/)

<comment><USER28> Not really moving, more providing the option. Given that iOS and desktop are two separate versions, with new licenses required for upgrades...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think Omni Group's locked down to Apple is a mistake. As a iPad Pro/iPhone user I wish to buy their products but as a Windows/Linux desktop user the lack of cross-platform support is a huge dealbreaker.

<comment><USER30> Seems like a great opportunity to build a Windows alternative. Omni software is deeply Mac, using Mac UX/UI components that don't exist elsewhere. If they GTK/QT/JSed it, it wouldn't be Omni and it wouldn't be worth $50-$250 a pop.

<comment> worthless-trash Are you saying using mac components alone gives it the $50-$100 a pop value, if so thats some quality brainwashing going on.

<comment><USER31> I've been paying for OmniGraffle since 2004 or so and also bought licenses at various employers. The price has never been a problem.

But if it wasn't a native Mac Cocoa app, I would never use it. A lot of OmniGraffle's value comes from UI that abides by platform guidelines and the high-quality rendering and integrations enabled by being a native app rather than a lowest common denominator cross-platform port.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Brent Simmons seems to be keeping pretty good spirits—the last paragraph of his blog post made me chuckle. Good for him, he seems like a lovely person.

[https://inessential.com/2020/03/31/looking_for_work](https://inessential.com/2020/03/31/looking_for_work)

> _The hard part of all this: normally everyone would get together for a happy > hour for a few drops of encouragement and friendship. These rituals are > nice, and they matter to me._

> _But — (gesturing again at this fallen world) — nope._

</comment><comment><USER33> Is this the company behind omniGraffle? I love their product. I don't know what other products they have, but it doesn't sound like the current situation should have an effect on them, at least not yet. Sounds like they have been struggling regardless.

<comment><USER34> OmniWeb was my favorite browser when it was around.

<comment><USER35> Which was originally the web browser on NeXT computers.

<comment><USER36> The title of _the_ web browser on NeXT, however, must go to TBL's WorldWideWeb, world's first.

[1]: [https://www.w3.org/People/Berners- Lee/WorldWideWeb.html](https://www.w3.org/People/Berners- Lee/WorldWideWeb.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I'm slightly confused. What about the current pandemic changed their business so much? Do people suddenly have less need for their apps? That seems unlikely. It seems like this has been coming for awhile. OmniGraffle missed the online diagramming collaboration wave, and OmniFocus missed the same thing on the project management side.

<comment><USER38> While I'm sad to hear they're suffering, I agree about OmniGraffle.

I am a paying customer and I use it for my job... but if I'm doing anything at all I expect other people might need to edit, I can't use it. Because the other people won't have licenses, or won't have Macs.

So I use it for a lot of quick and dirty diagramming but don't really ever invest the time to take advantage of its power features, because anything that complex needs to be available for editing, even if it's less nice.

<comment><USER39> The Mac solution for that is to buy more Macs and Mac software licenses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> In my experience their stuff has a surprising amount of friction. It also used to be buggy, but it's not that anymore. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it feels a little like they're just not getting the basics right.

Just one example: In omnigraffle, pinch to zoom has all kinds of janky jumpiness that is simply disqualifying. And they only got it to this point _very recently_.

</comment><comment><USER41> I thought the Omni group mostly worked remotely; it's too bad that they don't have the cash reserves to pay people to keep working at home, because it's a good time to crank out some code!!

I like their products and Omnigraffle in particular, though they still seemed to have old-school high pricing.

<comment><USER11> Unless things changed dramatically, Omni has no remote folks, it's entirely Seattle based.

As for pricing, they charge a fair price for their software given the audience (mostly professionals who are willing to pay a premium for high quality software). It's never been the cheapest, but it always had a large enough userbase to pay folks a good wage, have great perks, retain great talent, and enable incredible work/life balance.

Source: worked @ Omni in 2013

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Was one of the first interns @ Omni back in 2013. I'm really sad to hear this, and I have only good things to say about Ken, Tim, and the whole Omni team.

Most folks are highlighting what feel like obvious flaws in the business model:

\- "They charge too much for their software"

\- "'Apple only' meant limited distribution"

\- "SaaS apps are making desktop software obsolete"

Those all may be true; however, I think these miss the point as they aim for something that wasn't really Omni's goal. Omni succeeds because it builds amazingly high quality software targeted at a specific group of users, and charges a fair price for it (vs the vast majority of software that is of questionable quality and heavily subsidized by VCs and/or your attention). There are (were?) still enough people in the world willing to buy high quality software at that price point to sustain the company.

I think the other point missed is that, unlike what I feel like a lot of SV memes portray, Omni was designed to be an infinite game, "A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play"[1]. The company isn't trying to blitzscale its way to a billion dollar valuation and let the founders cash out after five years--it's designed to be the best place for the best indie MacOS/iOS devs to have fun building great apps for as long as possible. They've succeeded for a long time, and I have no doubt that even with the downsizing there is still room for the company to succeed in that goal

If you're looking for awesome macOS/iOS devs, these really are the best of the best, and you'll be lucky to have them. Given that a big chunk of the team was also support and QA, there are likely a few of them available as well, and definitely check them out if you're in the market for those.

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

Fun story: the first Omni app I ever shipped was OmniKeyMaster, which let you swap your Mac App Store license key for an Omni App Store license key. Within an hour of submission, Apple pulled it from the App Store (for obvious reasons). Always fun to have your hand slapped a week into an internship!

Second fun story: speaking to the nature of the company... as part of the internship offer, Omni agreed to pay for our housing, and ended up renting the five of us a house in Wallingford. Turns out the house ended up being a scam (we all showed up to move in and someone else was living in it), and so they put us up in the Residence Inn in South Lake Union for two weeks until they got us furnished apartments right next door to the office. It probably cost them a hell of a lot, but to them it was the right thing to do and they take care of their employees (even though they had just hired us). This company does its best to do right by its people, so I know this must have been an incredibly difficult decision for them to make.

<comment><USER42> I agree with all of the above, but unfortunately no matter how good the intention and clarity of market ("high quality software targeted at a specific group of users"), if that user group is not willing to pay, then you are doing a bad job of solving their problems.

We can lament how sad this news is - and it is - but it does expose that, at some level, the company was not able/willing to meet the needs of their (potential) customers.

<comment><USER43> Uhhh, no - they're well known for meeting that need. They're also very well known for being good at what they do.

It's just economics of the race to the bottom in software development, likely coupled with a touch of worldwide pandemic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Omnifocus Pro 3 user here. Totally worth every penny.

</comment><comment><USER45> It's sad to see this happening. I was using OmniGroup software for probably 10 years now. But, their stack was just outdated. OmniFocus 3 still looks like Windows 95 in comparison to Things 3.

Their web version is a step in the right direction. But it took them ages to adapt to a faster development cycle, and the web version is still not usable for me.

I don't see it as a subscription vs. one-time pay problem. I am happy to pay for good software, but to be honest, OmniGroup still lives in the past.

When I visit their website now, and look at the screenshots they present, boy... I wouldn't buy these tools if I wouldn't know that they are actually so good.

</comment><comment><USER46> OmniOutliner is one of my favorite pieces of software.

The idea of hierarchical organization of knowledge is, to me, a really powerful one. I started using it when I was in law school, and it helped me stay organized as I was changing careers and learning how to write software. Even today, where my employer uses Jira and spreadsheets to stay organized, I use an outline as well, which despite being additional effort still provides a lot of value to me.

I've heard really good things about notion, and I may try it out one of the days. But for me, OO has been a particularly effective organizational tool in my arsenal.

</comment><comment><USER47> I would love to hear more how the COVID19 has exacerbated the business down period. I naively thought that enterprise software would not see a strong impact from COVID19 in the first 2-3 months.

<comment><USER48> 99% of all businesses are planning on at least two really bad quarters coming up. Very few have cash reserves to cover shortfalls. If you're planning out the rest of the year, and you were already in a little trouble, you have to cut expenses immediately.

I'm not sure Omni is as tied to quarterly planning/reporting; but for those who are, and are on the regular calendar schedule, this all happened just in time for a lot of the potential Q1 end of quarter sales to dry up as everyone tightened up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Just recently I took over a very rapidly evolving project, and I realized that OmniFocus for iOS (as much as I love it with all the custom "perspectives" I created) is way to slow in quickly capturing and organizing new tasks & projects. That's why I temporarily switched to a paper based approach and than rediscovered Things3 (which I used prior to OmniFocus). Now after a week or two I realize how much lighter and quicker Things3 is compared to OF. And how impractical OF on iOS always felt.

OF for Mac is fine. Although I must admit - after using Things3 for a week or two - that OF feels like overkill, interface-wise.

Other Omni products feel like from distant past: OmniOutline (orgmode feels way lighter, better), OmniGraffle was super cool several years ago, but it hasn't evolved much.

I feel very sorry for this company because several years ago their products were so unique and typical for the Mac experience. Things have changed.

</comment><comment><USER50> Oof. This is a little upsetting to me. Inessential has been on my RSS feed forever and I've enjoyed reading it for a long time. Makes me feel somehow connected to what's going on with Brent because he's written about his work at Omni so much. Hope he finds a company to work with soon. Tough times :(

</comment><comment><USER51> I would, and I'm actually considering, to offer them $2000 just to compile me Omnifocus 1 (latest of v1 branch) as 64bit app, as it's currently 32bit and can't work due to CatalinaCurse.

Omnifocus 2 was a joke in any category, while I have mixed fealing about 3 (speed, ergonomics, features).

Anyone want to chip in? :)

<comment><USER52> Is is Omni Focus 1, right? ([https://www.macworld.com/article/1132832/omnifocus1.html](https://www.macworld.com/article/1132832/omnifocus1.html))

I don't use it, But I'm curious as to what are the major changes of v2 which disappoint you? I like the v1 interface as shown in the above mentioned article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Oh, man. Hate to see this. I used to use OmniGraffle for UX wireframes and diagrams. Very good software. I left the employer that held the license, and honestly, haven't found a replacement that is as fast... especially for diagrams.

<comment><USER39> You could buy a license?

<comment><USER53> If I were doing wireframes monthly, I'd buy in a heartbeat. At present I do so sporadically, and my daily driver is no longer a Mac.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I use omnigraffle every day. Recently tried to create penrose diagrams but discovered you can't create custom open-ended shapes; and modifying any of the few open ended shapes they have closes them. Guess I can't hope for any improvements any time soon.

OG is probably the main reason I'm still on a mac. Nothing else comes close. I hope they can rethink their plans and create a more sustainable & successful business. Their other apps are pretty good too. Easily the best software shop for mac.

</comment><comment><USER55> What a shame. I rely on Omnigraffle every day. Some aspects of it are showing their age, but it is still the best tool on MacOS.

</comment><comment><USER32> ...can someone please give me an excuse to go buy Omnigraffle? I want to, but I need a reason.

What would I be able to use it for in my daily life as a layperson doing layperson things?

<comment><USER56> I use it for UX wireframing, mind/node mapping, and visualizing processes and data flows. Personally, we've used it to figure out some household organization but it's more of a professional tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This seems a good thread to memorialize OmniWeb — for a few years there, it was the best web browser of all time.

When was that? 2002-2005 ish?

</comment><comment><USER58> Big Omniplan fan.

</comment><comment><USER59> I recently signed up for OmniFocus cloud, should I be worried? It's a fantastic product.

</comment><comment><USER60> Really good people. :-(

Been a customer since their web browser for NeXt. Dang.

</comment><comment><USER61> OmniGraffle is the best substitute for Visio that I've found in 25 years, that is affordable (US$100). They are also extremely responsive to bug sightings.

</comment><comment><USER62> Omni has a great product (products, really) but not launching them as a SaaS was a big mistake. Hopefully, not all is lost and they can still do this.

Also, they need to embrace freemium model when it comes to project management like Bitrix24, Trello and Asana have done. That's why they are undisputed leaders right now.

</comment><comment><USER63> I'd spend a lot of money for an Android version of OmniOutliner (and OmniGraffle); 100 EUR/year would be no problem. Sad they bet on a failing platform.

Incredibly focused, well rounded products that are unmatched.

<comment><USER11> Curious why you consider iOS to be a failing platform when the App Store consistently generates 2-3x more revenue than the Play Store even with considerably lower volume (and iOS developers can typically charge more for their apps). Fragmentation in the Android ecosystem makes it considerably more costly to develop and the lower average cost of apps mean you're required to hit significantly higher scale in order to generate the same revenue as a developer.

Omni's business model (small number of incredibly loyal customers paying top dollar for the software) likely wouldn't have survived on Android.</comment></comment>


Speed up your sites with PageSpeed for Nginx - <AUTHOR> http://googledevelopers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/speed-up-your-sites-with-pagespeed-for.html

<comment><USER2> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5609529></comment>


Adventures in Narrated Reality (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/artists-and-machine-intelligence/adventures-in-narrated-reality-6516ff395ba3 <comment><USER2> I got about 3000 words in and lost interest but I will say this - I always wonder with posts like this whether you are seeing examples that are representative or cherry-picked. I assume the latter.

Which implies that we are reading about what _humans_ select, not what the machine learning is selecting, artificially enhancing how interesting the output of these algorithms really is.

<comment><USER3> That's actually a point the author makes - he sees an AI as a tool for the artist, not as an creative subject on its own. I found it highly interesting to read about a writer's perspective on text producing AIs. Especially the part where its output suddenly was "I don't know what you want me to do". Part 2 - where he presents a sci-fi short film with a plot written by AI - is also a interesting read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Unfortunately, I've had trouble making it say anything interesting about > language, as it prefers to rattle on and on about the U.S. and Israel and > Palestine.

And the simulated version shares the same problem?</comment>


Chrome sends a suspicious tracking parameter on every Google search - <AUTHOR> http://superuser.com/questions/653295/what-is-the-aqs-parameter-is-google-search-query <comment><USER2> It happens in Chromium too... it's literally a 1 minute code search to find out where this is constructed:

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/c...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/chrome/browser/autocomplete/autocomplete_controller.cc&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=582&rcl=1383945446)

[https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/c...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/chrome/browser/autocomplete/autocomplete_controller.cc&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=392&rcl=1383945446)

Looks harmless enough. It just provides omnibox autocomplete timings to search engines.

<comment><USER3> if you click on the var you get on this page: [https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/c...](https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/src/chrome/browser/search_engines/template_url.h&sq=package:chromium&type=cs&l=85&rcl=1383945446)

ther is a link with more details: [http://goto.google.com/binary-clients- logging](http://goto.google.com/binary-clients-logging)

but for that you have to login with a google employ account...

<comment><USER4> Heh, that login page is marked up with a tabular layout. I wonder why Google as a "cool-kid" company never properly redesigned its internal applications. I can only shudder at the usability of "moma". Or is it just the login page?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >If you want to use Google, use the barebones search query ([http://google.com/search?q=%s](http://google.com/search?q=%s))

>Disable the webservice for finding navigation errors (happens via Google)

>Disable the autocomplete omnibox features (happens via Google)

>Disable the prediction of network actions (happens via Google)

>Disable protection against phising and malware (happens via Google)

>Disable requests for translating webpages (happens via Google)

>Disable HTTPS validity checks (happens via Google)

>Disable background apps

>Disable Google Cloudprinter detection

And with that, you have gotten rid of all tracking interaction via Google at browser level _which is user configurable_ (i.e. accessible via chrome://settings).

<comment><USER5> Out of curiousity... Are all those options in Chromium too?

Does anyone know for certain what differences between Chromium and the closed- source Chrome is?

I find it very hard to trust a browser from the internet's biggest user- tracking- and ad-agency.

<comment><USER4> These are the only options you can modify from the assigned UI for it (chrome://config). As far as I know, Chrome is the branded version of Chromium. Chromium development is done by open source contributions, but mostly they are on the Google payroll. What do they get from this? As you said: user-tracking so they can deliver even more targeted advertisements. It is great they also deliver a FOSS-ish browser, but there is only a small minority actually using Chromium. The majority gets to use Chrome which, due to Google branding, is vastly more popular.

Their search engine also greatly benefits from all the data hoarded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At least on the desktop they bother sending autocomplete requests over https. On android, autocomplete is a security disaster. the stock browser up to 4.2 sends anything you type in the addressbox in cleartext over the "wire". Haven't checked if chrome does the same thing but i would guess they share some of their codebase.

I think it's time to start compiling your own browser..

<comment><USER7> You could just use Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fact that it sends it in Incognito mode too, is very concerning.

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't there a guideline about editorializing submission titles?

<comment><USER4> Flag those you don't like and don't bother starting meta discussions. The moderators will figure it out.</comment></comment>


Hydroxychloroquine found to be more potent than chloroquine to inhibit SARSCoV2 - <AUTHOR> https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa237/5801998 <comment><USER2> I ignorantly wonder (and _wander_ beyond my territory) if zinc has a role here, considering chloroquine's apparent ability to allow it to become intracellular and work thusly against the virus, which it seems to do with co- administration.

For an intelligent, less befuddled perspective, see medcram lecture 34 [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U7F1cnWup9M)

</comment><comment><USER3> It seems like the title may be misleading:

"We propose that the immunomodulatory effect of hydroxychloroquine also may be useful in controlling the cytokine storm that occurs late-phase in critically ill SARS-CoV-2 infected patients."

This seems like:

a. This would have no prophylactic benefit (to avoid infection or reduce early symptoms)

b. The benefit would only apply to people who are already in the late stages and experiencing a cytokine storm

As hydroxycholoquine is immunosuppressant, I might suspect that its use in non-critical cases could actually worsen outcomes by suppressing the functioning immune response. As someone who was looking into it as a potential tool in the prep kit, I think this is likely a drug that is best administered only at the discretion of a doctor.

Would love to hear opinions from others who are more knowledgable though.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Chloroquine is a cheap and a safe drug that has been used for more than 70 years and, therefore, it is potentially clinically applicable against the 2019-nCoV."

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41422-020-0282-0) [04 February 2020, [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-020-0282-0](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41422-020-0282-0)]

A generic anti-malarial on WHO's Essential Medicines list, about 100 times more expensive in the US (WP)

</comment><comment><USER5> In vitro, not in vivo.

<comment><USER6> But we haven't had a readout on the Chloroquine trials yet. Early results say they are promising. So, it's not a huge leap to say there is a good chance that Hydroxychloroquine is even better (based on in-vitro results) and has a better safety profile.

It's easier to buy Chloroquine online though, than Hydroxychloroquine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is SARSCov2 == COVID-19?

Or is SARSCov2 ~= COVID-19?

<comment><USER8> ==

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2)</comment></comment>


Quadriga was a fraud and founder was running Ponzi scheme - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/osc-quadriga-gerald-cotten-1.5607990 <comment><USER2> The CBC article doesn't go into enough details about Cotten's death, but it was almost certainly a fake too.

The Indian state which wrote his death certificate is apparently infamous for faking deaths in exchange for bribe money, e.g. for insurance fraud. Nobody saw the body. There was so much shady stuff that went down.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do crypto enthusiasts just regard all this rampant fraud in the space as "just the cost of doing business" for all the other things they like about crypto?

<comment><USER4> Traders can choose between highly regulated US exchanges (Gemini) and lightly or unregulated offshore (Binance) and all manner in-between. The market shows demand for all of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"The Quadriga cryptocurrency exchange that saw millions of dollars disappear just as its founder died was a "fraud" and Ponzi scheme, according to the Ontario Securities Commission."

There is one school of economic thought which says that all fiat currencies (including cryptocurrencies), and any asset which is a derivative of those things -- are ultimately all Ponzi schemes...

I'm not sure that I believe that, but, I do know the following:

First food had value, because you could eat it.

Then gold had value, because you could trade it for food.

Then dollars had value, because you could trade dollars for gold.

Then stock shares and cryptocurrencies had value, because you could trade them for dollars.

Then increasingly complex derivatives had value, because you could trade them for stock shares...

Perhaps all that we are really debating then, is what can be traded for what, when, and for how much, and will the transaction work or not?

If all of this comes down to a belief that something will be tradeable in the future for something else at a given valuation -- then wouldn't any future failure in the ability to make such a future expected transaction for the expected amount of future exchange -- be indicative of a Ponzi scheme (intentional, unintentional?), of one type or another?

Well, I for one wouldn't know.

It might make for an interesting debate among economic theorists, however...

<comment><USER6> Can't trade dollars for gold anymore

<comment><USER7> Sure you can. They're not pegged together like at one time but you can walk into any bullion exchange and buy yourself X amount of gold in all sorts of highly portable phyisical forms for X dollars.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All of cbc.ca is currently down. Looks like a server config issue. Oops!</comment>


Rise of the Machines: The Future Has Lots of Robots, Few Jobs for Humans - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/rise-machines-future-lots-robots-jobs-humans/ <comment><USER2> Why is a job a _good_ thing??? I don't need a job. I need income. The two don't have to be necessarily connected. If robots doing all manual/farm labor replace humans, that's a _good_ thing - it frees us up to pursue more interesting pursuits.

Now, all of this wealth that will be generated, if it's concentrated in the hands of the top 0.5%, then yes, we're screwed.

But _some_ form of basic guaranteed income would go a long way to make sure we're not turned into serfs.

I love programming. But if I could focus on the projects I _wanted_ to write instead of what I'm forced to write, why is that horrible?

<comment><USER3> We need our jobs. The rich may play with their robots however much they want, but I will not have my job take away from me.

Basic income or what not, it is unemployment. You may want to spend your life sleeping 15 hours a day, binge watching TV rest of the time, but I choose to be gainfully employed. Do not take that choice away.

<comment><USER4> I don't want to sleep 15 hours a day or watch TV. Last time I was unemployed (3 months following graduation from my college program), I was so busy playing bike polo, volunteering at the local bike co-op, putting on races and tournaments, and swimming at the lake with friends that I didn't even have time to catch up on the TV I missed during exams. I don't know who the hell has time to sleep 15 hours a day and watch tv when there's so much STUFF to do in the world! I guess it's a personal choice. I'm pretty good at keeping busy without a boss telling me what to do though.

<comment><USER5> >I guess it's a personal choice.

Bingo! It's going to be so depressing if we don't get basic income because people are worried about what about people will do with it, and ( _horror_ )disagree with those choices!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So the article points out that within a half decade we'll see a lot of repetitive jobs being replaced by machines. I get that and certainly agree.

Later in the article it suggests that we'll see even more jobs being replaced and eventually all human employment will be obsolete (it doesn't say this directly). Then the author of the book points out that this may be a catalyst for people becoming more entrepreneurial.

To counter the second point; if there exists a point where AI can be applied to essentially any job (doctors, therapists, CEOs, etc.) then why would the job of an entrepreneur exist? What makes that job more special than any of the other highly intellectual jobs out there that are supposedly on the chopping block?

I mean if we're really talking about true AI, one that can medically treat patients, mobilize and palpate, then that same "being" would easily have the mental capacity to start a business.

Point being, it seems contradictory to say all human jobs will be replaced by machines except for this one thing.

<comment><USER7> People argue that the owners of the robots will amass wealth and then sit on it like Scrooge McDuck, leaving everyone else to starve and live in poverty.

Not that I agree with them :)

<comment><USER8> That brings some interesting questions. Like, will they use this power to use humans to do the jobs of robots, for fun? What will they use this wealth for? It can't be to pay for things because you wouldn't have to pay people to produce and deliver those things for you.

<comment><USER9> Maybe currency fades away and we start anew by measuring wealth by how many people are loyal to you. I don't think power and influence will go away just because labor does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I posted this article. I have been an AI practioner since about 1982 and whenever a non-tech friend asks about AI I usually talk about the challenges to society in dealing with a world where only a small number of people need to work to produce enough for everyone.

I think that social challenges will be even greater than the technical challenges.

<comment><USER10> Maybe The Terminator and Robocop had a deeper effect on my young psyche than I recognize but what I find truly terrifying is the day when first world nations can completely automate military and law enforcement.

A human being can have internal dialog, "Yes, I know that no one is supposed to be here but I'm not blowing up a building full of toddlers." or "Yes, I know that it's a crime but I'm not going to use deadly force to apprehend someone who was stealing apples to survive." and obviously, machines won't care.

<comment><USER11> Machine warfare is something so anti-intuitive that my head spins.

How said that watever should be a crime, and why? (Those are much deeper questions than it looks like.) Also, machines can avoid deadly force much better than humans, and apply it better too.

I think after enough casualities we'll settle on some superb law enforcement. More "human" than anything we can imagine today. But the path through there is complicated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> CGPGrey on this same topic: [http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not- apply](http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/humans-need-not-apply)

</comment><comment><USER13> "Then I believe that a guaranteed income would actually result in more entrepreneurship."

In a future where finding easy problems is hard, and everyone is trying to start a business... you'll going to see a lot of "sit-com" start ups.

<comment><USER14> What is a sit-com startup?

<comment><USER6> > Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by > trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn't > merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough > to fool you into working on them.

At YC we call these "made-up" or "sitcom" startup ideas. Imagine one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup. The writers would have to invent something for it to do. But coming up with good startup ideas is hard. It's not something you can do for the asking. So (unless they got amazingly lucky) the writers would come up with an idea that sounded plausible, but was actually bad. [1]

[http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 'Well if I drop out I'm still going to get the same income as everyone else.'

We can observe an experiment we're running in poor areas without jobs, inner city, deep south, appalachia, and around half the students will eventually graduate even if there's no vocational reward for anyone, grads or not.

</comment><comment><USER16> It isn't the physical ability of the robot that matters much to jobs, it's the intelligence. How about a future where each person is given a computing wattage allowance for an artificially intelligent workforce at AmaGoogleBaiduSoft. That way, each person can advance in intelligence and productivity in tandem with technology.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like coal-powered space ships and flying cars to be honest. If AI is possible then you will soon enough have computational allowance for rather running yourself in the cloud, unless you really love original imperfect organic bodies and hate mind back-ups.

<comment><USER16> It is unlikely AI will itself accelerate Moore's law for decades, so that means we have decades to plan, use, and benefit from steadily improving AI at Moore's law rates. AI is not a threshold, it's a continuum.

<comment><USER17> Sorry, I thought you meant strong human-level AI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If, as this guy contends, the future economy won't adapt to automation as it has in the past, it will lead to massive unemployment and social instability.

When threatened with massive social instability, smart countries will regulate automation. Countries that fail to regulate will face rising social instability and eventually eat themselves alive, being taken over by countries that are more stable. Political elites will regulate automation purely out of the interest of keeping their jobs.

All of these technofatalist arguments (the technology is coming, so why fight it?) fail to take into account that Angloamerican laissez-faire politics are not a global inevitability.

<comment><USER19> [http://lao8n.com/2015/04/05/if-technology-growth-does- lead-t...](http://lao8n.com/2015/04/05/if-technology-growth-does-lead-to-mass- unemployment-what-then/)

the flaw in your reasoning i think is that there will be zero-sum fight to have the limited number of companies in your country so that you can tax those companies and support the massive number of unemployed people. there will be a race to the bottom in the automation regulation that you describe because companies will just move if they are not allowed to lower costs through more automation... thus i think the result is that some countries will have very high employment rates because all the high-skilled, unautomatable jobs are located there (e.g. the US) and some countries (e.g. spain?) will have really high unemployment... this will lead to extreme tensions internationally followed by god knows what..

<comment><USER18> Unfortunately (fortunately?) your rebuttal assumes that 1) companies can move easily from country to country and 2) companies are motivated entirely by profit.

As for 1, countries have many ways from persuasion to coercion to keep companies in their sphere of influence. There are plenty of business- unfriendly countries in this world that somehow retain businesses. In the real world, there's friction.

In my cursory research, I find 2 to be, once again, a liberal-democratic assumption which relies on our particular barrier between public and private. This barrier doesn't exist the same way everywhere: some corporations operate as extensions of nationalistic projects. Gazprom's relationship to Russia is different than Apple's relationship to the US. Samsung (and other Chaebol corporations) has a different relationship to the Korean nation than Google has with the US.

<comment><USER19> it is not just a function of companies moving after they are successful. just look at silicon valley where most of the best start-ups are founded. silicon valley is a classic global zero-sum game because the network effects are so strong... look at attempts in chile, dublin, london etc. to create startup hubs, they are struggle with the fact that silicon valley is taking all the best companies first...

re 2) that's a good point i didn't thikn of that and many countries may seek to nationalize big corporations to keep them based in the domestic country etc..

clearly i'm not arguing that there will be no companies in some countries and all the companies in other countries, but maybe just a more extreme version of what you already see now where most of the big technology companies are based in just two countries: usa and china... maybe you need only half of all the companies in the world to be global enough to serve the world from just one location/country to have extreme international inequality/differences in % unemployed etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> These kinds of things ignore the premiumization of things. Sure you can roboticize and 3D print cheap crap, but someone will make a slightly higher quality version with slightly better materials and charge more for it. People will flock to the better version for their own reasons. Capitalism fits in very nicely with our own vanities and desires. Robots won't change that. Does everyone reading this drive the cheapest Kia or Hyundai? If not, why not?

With premium goods you will need marketing staff, support staff, etc. Jobs will continue to be created. We'll just lose manufcaturing entirely, which seems to be a net good considering how horrible those jobs are. New jobs will take up the slack, or if it not, we'll see a trivial uncheck in welfare and less work hours for workers. Not exactly end of the world scenarios here.

These robot scare pieces really are out there. We've had industrialization for 100+ years. Its no different than what we're doing now. If anything, advanced and cheap robotics and replication will help with a lot of inefficiencies in the market. Why does it take a $90/hr guy to do some basic plumbing in my house or to replace a door? This kind of blue collar stuff should be automated/roboticized. Or why is Chicago on the hook for billions in pensions for meter maids, janitors, bus drivers and other low effort/easily roboticized jobs? We're paying millions per person in pensions for a mere 20-25 years of labor. Robots will solve the inefficiencies that need to be solved. They'll make things better via lower tax loads and better outcomes.

We need more robot optimistism here. I'm ready for the low work, low tax, low hassle leisure society.

</comment><comment><USER21> Still waiting on machines to free humanity from the shackles of manual labor.

</comment><comment><USER22> Good riddance to jobs.

</comment><comment><USER7> Indeed, it would be unfortunate to lose your job to a machine, but oftentimes people fail to see the upside: if a robot can do a job more cheaply than a human, then whatever that robot produces is then cheaper for _everyone else_ to buy! If most of the economy were efficiently automated, then you would barely need an income to survive or thrive.

Machines do not decrease your productivity. Just because a machine can make a shoe faster than you doesn't mean you can't make a shoe. If a machine can make houses in a day, that doesn't make your house will spontaneously combust because you made it inefficiently. Labor-saving machines only _add_ to the productivity of society.

People have been losing jobs to tech since the dawn of civilization. It does suck if your job is automated out, but the overall good to society can't be denied.

<comment><USER23> The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs for everyone, or nearly enough anyway. And our culture reinforces this fact (a strong desire to work is honorable, a belief that most work is mostly bullshit is not) which will make it harder for our society to agree to rethink our economics, even if what we're doing is clearly not working. And it doesn't help that our political system seems broken as well, in much of the West.

So yes, the overall good to society can be denied, if it turns out that we aren't smart enough to reap the benefits of our technology, and instead get to watch our economy collapse and our society eat itself, right before the owners of the robots decide to murder the rest of us since we were complaining too much.

<comment><USER7> > The way we do economics depends pretty heavily on there being enough jobs > for everyone...

That's the way many economists interpret the economy, but modern macroeconomics economics can hardly be called an accurate and reliable representation of the real world.

> And our culture reinforces this fact (a strong desire to work is honorable > ...

Then culture will have to change.

<comment><USER23> Yes, culture _will have to change_. But the technological advances are coming an awful lot faster than cultures usually change, historically speaking. And even if we make it through to the other side, it's probably going to be painful.

You act as though the Puritan work ethic is just a thing we can evaluate the efficiency of, and keep or discard based on the results of that evaluation. I wish this were so, but my wishing doesn't make it so.

<comment><USER24> There are many subcultures. The Puritan ethic is probably quite small these days. A subculture can thrive alongside.

How about this scenario: A rich person builds a town where a new ethic holds sway, using her money to 'fend off' the rest of the world and executing a new model culture, based on automation, creativity and leisure. Folks learn to envy its benefits; the young decide to emulate it. Soon only old Puritans live outside the new plan, in ghettos where they pretend to work and exchange money in a dusty farce of the old economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Sponsor Content" \- so, HN is linking to a paid advertisement

<comment><USER26> It's promotional material for a book, yeah. If the content is any good, I don't know why that makes it unsuitable for discussion on HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> So from an energy prospective are robots better? Would generating all that power to run all those robots cause problems in natural resources?

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this will be great in industries where we like to interact with people. If robots cook the food and mix the cocktails, it will free up people to provide a better experience at the bar and table, with better food for cheaper, or less pressure to get people to clear the tables.

</comment><comment><USER28> I imagine The Second Machine Age is old news on HN, but I highly recommend it for a discussion of these topics. It's a very readable book and discusses these social shifts in an intelligent manner without descending into pessimism or making exaggerated claims.

</comment><comment><USER29> Automation en masse of low skilled labour is going to present an absolutely huge challenge to society.

I cannot see how low-skilled jobs such as:

\- driving jobs (taxis, haulage, etc)

\- store work (stacking shelves, stock ordering, cashing out purchases, solving basic customer queries such as where in the store is product X, etc.)

\- retail banking

\- fast food or convenience store services

\- etc.

will not be replaced by automation in the next decade or so.

We're already seeing it as self-driving vehicles are rapidly developing, stock picking bots at Amazon and similar are coming along rapidly, self-service checkouts at stores are becoming very much mainstream and highly used, online banking and ATM machines offering a wider range of services, etc.

Those jobs listed above represent an enormous amount of employment throughout the western world as it is. If we accept that not everyone can do every type of job, that IQ does separate people in their abilities to do or even learn to do a job, etc. then that means we will see mass displacement of the workforce when the only jobs available to many are one's that are out of their educational or intellectual reach.

This is just the beginning, by the way, as AI and automation gets better then the skills and jobs it can replace will grow and increasingly sap up jobs requiring higher levels of intellect or education. So while low-skilled job replacement is the primary short-term challenge, overall job replacement is a medium-longer term challenge.

This challenge has been on my mind quite a lot recently, as have the challenges posed by the development of AGI/AI which are pretty well linked, although AGI has its own challenges in terms of what it might mean for humanity as a whole.

If we accept the above then we accept that not just large scale unemployment, but large scale human redundancy, is inevitable then we have very large questions to ask, and thus very large answers or solutions to provide, regarding how we structure society.

If the low skilled jobs are the first to go, which are tended to by people of lower IQ / intellect or who aren't strong academically, then not only will we have large scale unemployment/human redundancy but I believe it would be coupled with comparatively low entrepreneurship. That's not to say that people of lower intellect can't be entrepreneurs, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to find easy problems to solve and will only become more so. It would also be significantly more difficult for such people to, for example, open a franchise of a chain due to the financial and experience backgrounds levied by most franchise owners.

The conclusion I've come to is that socialism is inevitable in the medium-long term whereby the machines do the work and the ownership/profits of the methods of production are shared by everyone.

I'm not a proponent of socialism, I will say, but I've come to the conclusion that it's inevitable given the technologies and changes that are coming our way.

On solutions:

\- Without changing the ownership of that which produces, a basic living income for all would come at a very high cost to those who still have jobs in the form of higher taxes.

\- If the current situation remains, whereby few people control the vast bulk of the production in the economy, and large scale unemployment comes around, even with a basic living income we will see unparalleled inequality. Even if ALL jobs were replaced by machines, if the ownership of these machines and the decisions regarding their profit remains in the hands of few, there will not only be unparalleled inequality but a system of inequality more sustainable than ever before.

\- Regardless of how a solution is implemented, it will be gradual as automation takes time to take up increasingly more intelligent work, which will place an enormous burden on those intelligent enough to do the work. It will inherently become even more less unequal, as those who "cannot" do the work will not work but would be supported by those who can, those who can will do so and pay large taxes while doing so, and those who own that which produces can further relax.

\- We live in a society that is increasingly "no man left behind" in terms of resources. The obvious solution to an issue whereby society shifts toward more intelligent work and automation of less skilled work would be to produce more intelligent babies.

\-- Eugenics will never be looked upon kindly, so the only other solution is to make embryonic selection for intelligence en vogue.

\-- Despite grand increases in intelligence and knowledge, many of the population are still highly religious. I don't believe this will fare well for embryonic selection in the short term.

\-- Therefore in the short term we would see more of what we currently see - higher reproduction rates in the unemployed or those doing low skilled work, increasingly lower rates amongst those in higher skilled work as having a child becomes even more expensive/stressful due to higher taxes.

\-- This makes all the above challenges even more difficult than they already are.

So the solution lies in something like:

\- Changing the ownership of production

\- Putting in place support systems to support the lives of those whose jobs are replaced and who have not the skills or intelligence to take higher skilled work

\- Putting in place support systems to enable those in higher skilled work/higher education/etc. to have as many children as they want. Free childcare for working parents is one of the most important parts of that.

\- Increasing emphasis on education for all. Make it available to all for the same cost and make the various colleges entrance based on merit alone.

\- Continue developing and finding a way to make embryonic selection for intelligence popular and accepted.

There are large barriers to the above, namely ourselves in our reluctance to put more funding into social/educational/etc. programs, and the elite who control that which produces certainly not wanting to give up their position any time soon.

I'm interested in people's thoughts on this. It seems to be something that is largely ignored but yet appears to be staring us down head on as something that _will_ happen and _will_ begin happening soon.

</comment><comment><USER30> Are AI scares cyclical as well? Much like market adjustments

</comment><comment><USER31> His first book "The lights in the tunnel" is a great book too.

</comment><comment><USER32> "When you have a safety net in place, people will take more risks. That probably is true of the economic arena as well."

I think the difference is that the same company that is going to take the risk will also be restricted when it comes to income they are earning (more taxes), and any other rules that are in place that will directly effect growth.

Look at countries like Sweden and Denmark: large safety nets and you would think everyone would start a company, but it's just not the case. The requirements for employees make it so you need lots of money to even manage HR (hiring and firing is a court case).

Many safety nets also create a culture where risk is seen as a bad thing and less people will want start companies. This can also be seen in places like Sweden and Denmark.

"People say that having a guaranteed income will turn everyone into a slacker and destroy the economy"

Will it turn everyone into a slacker? no. However, I know so many people that went on unemployment and had no motivation to even be bothered to look for a job. If this happened in my small, circle of friends, I can just imagine the effects of essentially free money at a much larger scale.

All of these predictions are looking at what's happening now. We need to predict what will happen when 2 or 3 generations of people have access to this basic income. When more and more people are getting basic income and less people are working (which I predict will happen over time as more people figure out the system), where does the money come from to support everyone?

<comment><USER33> The problem with Sweden and Denmark is regulatory complexity. To maximize entrepreneurship you want a social safety net and a simplified regulatory regime. The ideal would probably be a simple basic income and few other interferences.

<comment><USER34> Based on my own experience and others, being dependent on social security is the most stressful and time consuming work you can have thanks to the heavy dose of bureaucracy involved.

There are also rules against what you can do in the meanwhile, such as not being allowed education.

<comment><USER33> That's just a stupid implementation of a welfare state.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Purify, a Tumblr theme powered by Isotope - <AUTHOR> http://purifytheme.tumblr.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://purifytheme.tumblr.com/>

Uses the jQuery Isotope plugin: <http://isotope.metafizzy.co/> for the responsive grid layout and for content filtering.

Video demo: [http://purifytheme.tumblr.com/post/7801430330/purify- theme-d...](http://purifytheme.tumblr.com/post/7801430330/purify-theme-demo)

<comment><USER2> Nice, I really like it.

Think I'll use it for <http://blog.rumplo.com> & <http://motherandcub.com></comment></comment>


The Golden Rule of Data Manipulation - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jeffs/archive/2008/06/11/golden-rule-of-data-manipulation.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Great article about such a simple issue that so few get right.

His "Golden Rule" is:

"It is always easier and more flexible to combine data elements rather than to break them apart"

So he calls for storing each segment of a data element in its own column.

Author does a good job of identifying the problem. I would have liked to have seen a few more examples of proposed solutions.

</comment><comment><USER2> One caveat - keeping the data split apart makes it slightly more difficult to do certain kinds of searches (unless your system supports indexing the concatenation).</comment>


Computer Architecture – ETH Zürich – Fall 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://safari.ethz.ch/architecture/fall2019/doku.php?id=schedule <comment><USER2> The lectures are by Onur Mutlu, an ex-CMU prof and a gifted teacher. He also teaches stuff on memory systems and digital design of circuits.

All of his course videos are available online on his youtube channel : [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIwQ8uOeRFgOEvBLYc3kc3g/pla...](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIwQ8uOeRFgOEvBLYc3kc3g/playlists)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing, I was looking for something exactly like this earlier today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been following Onur's Design of Digital Circuits. I even bought a Basys 3 FPGA to do the labs. It's really helped me break down the black box that is the CPU I program as a software dev (I finally understand Spectre and Meltdown), and I'm learning basic FPGA dev as a nice bonus.

<comment><USER5> Where did you find the lab material?

<comment><USER6> [https://safari.ethz.ch/digitaltechnik/spring2019/doku.php?id...](https://safari.ethz.ch/digitaltechnik/spring2019/doku.php?id=labs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one of the best courses at ETH (computer science). Too bad I finished the PhD before this course was there.

Another very interesting course is "Reliable and Interpretable Artificial Intelligence".

<comment><USER8> How was attending this University? I recently moved family abroad from USA. Hoping my daughter may have interest in attending here for computer science. I am just blown away by the cost of US Universities. Not sure what you get out of USA schools anymore compared to some European Universities?

<comment><USER9> Not the OP, but I studied at ETH Lausanne and visited at ETH Zurich, and it was my best academic memory, surpassing Paris, London or the other universities I attended. So I recommend you a lot to try to get into this School, it's one of the best in the world, and the price of the education is a bargain compared to the comparable US universities.

<comment><USER10> In case someone gets confused searching for it, normally the federal politecnic university at Lausanne is called by its French name, EPFL.

ETH Zürich has better score in international ratings, but the EPFL doesn't lag behind much. It's a really top noch place to learn any technical career.

<comment><USER11> Also worth mentioning is the fact that the Scala programming language was created at EPFL: [https://scala.epfl.ch/](https://scala.epfl.ch/)

Martin Odersky (the original author) is still a professor there and teaches some Computer Science courses: [http://lampwww.epfl.ch/~odersky/](http://lampwww.epfl.ch/~odersky/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And as a continuation of it, with a little of Active Oberon and non-UNIX OSes along the way,

[https://www.systems.ethz.ch/node/1447](https://www.systems.ethz.ch/node/1447)

[https://lec.inf.ethz.ch/syscon/2019/](https://lec.inf.ethz.ch/syscon/2019/)

<comment><USER13> The "Advanced Operating Systems" looks fantastic! Do you or perhaps anyone else know if there are any video lectures for this similar to Onur's "Computer Architecture" class?

<comment><USER14> Prof. Kubi, Berkeley univ has a very good course on Advanced OS. May be you will find this useful.

[https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kubitron/courses/cs194-24-...](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~kubitron/courses/cs194-24-S14/index_lectures.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> From the lecture titles it seems to be almost entirely about memory. Is this a subset of their comparch course? If so, where's the rest of it?

<comment><USER16> Much of the CompArch topics are covered in his first year course: [https://safari.ethz.ch/digitaltechnik/spring2019/doku.php?id...](https://safari.ethz.ch/digitaltechnik/spring2019/doku.php?id=schedule)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, very DRAM centric view of computer architecture. Where is Tomasulo algorithm, for example.. Not as much about caches that I would expect..

Maybe there are other courses for this stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a lecture on Out-of-Order execution [1] in the Design of Digital Circuits course [2].

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ALyN0-jBrw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ALyN0-jBrw)

[2] [https://safari.ethz.ch/digitaltechnik/spring2019/doku.php?id...](https://safari.ethz.ch/digitaltechnik/spring2019/doku.php?id=schedule)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As someone who taught this at a top 10 university, it doesn't look to me like a very good course. I feel like you should have all the basics to design a CPU by the end of the course and this course fails completely to teach the Breadth necessary for CPU design

<comment><USER19> I'm curious, do you mind explaining, what a top 10 university is (e.g. ranked by students, number of published papers etc.)? FYI, the ETH is also considered as a top 10 university (top 6 actually according to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QS_World_University_Rankings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QS_World_University_Rankings))

<comment><USER20> > I'm curious, do you mind explaining, what a top 10 university is (e.g. > ranked by students, number of published papers etc.)?

If the comment was made by a professor in the U.S., it could have meant "top 10 <in the field> in North America".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In high school I used to watch Onur's lectures while he was still at CMU. Probably a significant reason for where I am now.

<comment><USER22> Where are you?

<comment><USER23> I am guessing he is at ETH Zurich

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm looking for almost exactly this, but an abstraction or two higher - software architecture. Almost like SICP but as a course where I can follow along in more bite size chunks with video lectures. Does anyone have a recommended course?

<comment><USER25> Maybe elements of computing systems?

<comment><USER24> I'm struggling to search for this, is it by a particular university or provider?

<comment><USER25> [https://www.nand2tetris.org/](https://www.nand2tetris.org/)

<comment><USER24> Thank you

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What would you say are the prerequisites for this course? It looks interesting but I've never taken a Comp Arch course myself and worry I'll be too far out of depth.

<comment><USER27> Give it a try. The lectures I looked at don't look like they require much more than being able to read basic assembly language, and some of them probably don't even need that.

The GPU lecture is particularly good and doesn't seem to require much more than basic programming knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am going to watch the whole thing. I guess now it will be largely review. But, the fascination is in the instruction; this is not an easy topic to teach.

</comment><comment><USER29> another good Youtube playlist for Architectures from Semiconductor Engineering [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4RrBxLcT1nY9ugQ_V-1p...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4RrBxLcT1nY9ugQ_V-1pgbRTwdl2FQ3H)

</comment><comment><USER30> I can as well highly recommend this course, as well as the professor! Outstanding!

</comment><comment><USER31> Too bad they host their course videos on Youtube. It has become painful to use. I don't understand why they cannot host them on their own server.

<comment><USER32> Interested to hear how you think self-hosted video is superior to Youtube, I have found the opposite to be true in every circumstance (unless you are without adblocker for some reason).

<comment><USER33> I've actually started to hate YouTube so much (just for being terrible to content-creators and consumers, and supporting toxic videos (time watched is a ranking factor, promoting high-engagement "edgeline videos)), and so on and so forth) that I wanted to create a white-label HTML video player that would keep the benefits of a consistent, well-made UI but drop the publisher aspect of YouTube.

I don't think I ever will, but the world needs an alternative that has a good encoding/optimization (like switching to lower bitrates on slower connections), a unified interface (familiar no matter what site it's being used on) and that doesn't tempt users to write custom skins for the video player.

<comment><USER34> And the player needs to fit into an ecosystem that will cover the bandwidth costs of the video it streams. I don't think that's a simple part of the system if one is seeking to avoid having any advertising (a good goal, that I'm absolutely for).

<comment><USER33> That's what I was wondering about.

Honestly I was thinking that some sort of integration where content creators could be directly contacted by advertisers - who would pay for in-video advertising by the content creator (this is more for personalities than for corporations) - and have a vetted way to be payed for their time / platform / ads would work (with companies paying to be part of that system). This would result in higher quality ads that are more beneficial to the content creator than the video distributor (a goal I view as equally good). And to benefit the companies advertising, you could create a tool where shorter clips of the advertisement could be sent back and forth, previewed, and approved as needed (if integrated with a payment system, this protects both parties from a bad deal).

I also think some, but not all, content creators would view paying for a small hosting company to store and stream their videos in the same way they view buying a new webcam or microphone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My friend Abdullah works with him. He was the best in the country.</comment>


Represent: building a modern democracy that helps you have your say - <AUTHOR> https://represent.cc

<comment><AUTHOR> From the homepage:

Imagine if voting was as easy as clicking 'like'? Or 'dislike'? Represent is building a modern democracy that helps you have your say, and be heard. Anyone can ask a question, everyone can answer it, and the anonymised results are immediately visible to everyone in clear graphs and maps. We're working with organisations, politicians, and progressive businesses around the world to show them the future you want. Please help by spreading the word. "The best way to get there quickly is to know where it is we want to go."</comment>


Regulators Are Looking at Cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/regulators-are-looking-at-cryptocurrency-1516836363 <comment><USER2> There are plenty of options for regulated securities. That are much easier to buy.

Obviously, people don't want defrauded but, if someone wanted to buy a stock they would have already bought one.

Oh, wait the average person can't buy stock in most start ups/small businesses/small projects the lotto is OK though....maybe regulators should look at that issue(s).

<comment><USER2> Maybe there should be a special account that has a yearly contribution limit like an IRA that all your gambling, speculation, risky investments need to be bought from.

<comment><USER2> might cut into the state(s) looto funds but oh well.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: what are the sources of revenues for a Content Site? - <AUTHOR>

I know about Google Ad words , what other sources of revenues exist ?  Given that  this is not going to be a blockbuster mega site and it is being bootstrapped on a show string budget, how do I maximize the revenue potential ? <comment><USER2> Depends on the content of the site. Other than running ad words (generally not a great idea on a low traffic site), you are left with a few options: \- Affiliate campaigns: think of being a sales rep on the internet, get products, market them and take %/flat rate in sales. Some websites like clickbank allow you to do that rather easily. Alternatively, you could probably sell ad space - but then again depends on what your website is doing. So rather, what kind of website is it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is an experimental site --a community video news blog out of Toronto. Its not going to get a lot of traffic but as I add more cities ---- it might get better. The content format is video and not text.

<comment><USER2> Is it <http://www.newspvr.tv> ?

If so, I'd suggest you read over these blog articles.

<http://conversionxl.com/>

<http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/>

Also an interesting read: <http://www.spring.org.uk/>

In my honest opinion - focus on what will make you money. If you're doing community (geo-sensitive) based news, then you'll have to get advertisers from that same community.

No point in watching local news and seeing adverts from overseas companies. Approach your key players and find out if they're interested and ask local companies if they would be interested in advertising.

You'd probably have to charge the local companies for advertising and giving the news companies a cut from the profits for using their content (if they're keen).

Small scale, small profit - larger scale, larger profit.

Remember, just because it doesn't work on one street corner, doesn't mean it won't work on another - location, location, location! Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ! My goal at the moment is to be able to keep the lights on. I love this line '..just because it doesn't work on one street corner, doesn't mean it won't work on another - location, location, location! '</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Engineers Create Brain-Machine Interface for Controlling Exoskeleton - <AUTHOR> http://www.awwnews.com/technology/brain-machine-interface-exoskeleton-00152.html

<comment><USER2> The comment thread on this post is awesome!

<comment><USER3> I thought it was some kind of weird bayes-busting spam being inserted into the page at first.</comment></comment>


Making America Carbon Neutral Could Cost $1T a Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-13/making-america-carbon-neutral-could-cost-1-trillion-a-year <comment><USER2> This is a profoundly misleading headline!!

The word "could" here is carrying all the weight. The report from which that number is derived gives a range of estimates, and the $1T figure is at the extreme high end. The median is $300 billion, the 25th percentile is negative $90 billion (it saves money), the 75th percentile estimate is $730 billion.

Yeah it "could" cost $1T if there is "little to no technology innovation over the next four decades." Or it "could" result in billions worth of savings. Both are supported by the report.

Here is I believe the summary report from which this number was derived [1].

1: [http://deepdecarbonization.org/wp- content/uploads/2015/11/US...](http://deepdecarbonization.org/wp- content/uploads/2015/11/US_Deep_Decarbonization_Technical_Report_Exec_Summary.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Also: define "cost". If you include the benefits of avoiding a climate catastrophe, then nearly any amount of spending today will return a profit over the long run.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in Australia"

[https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies- rea...](https://reneweconomy.com.au/global-fossil-fuel-subsidies- reach-5-2-trillion-and-29-billion-in-australia-91592/)

Still, it's hard to imagine the companies that currently receive fossil fuel subsidies would be happy to say "hey, don't give it to us, spend it on preventing the end of civilisation"

<comment><USER5> US fossil fuel subsidies are 3 billion according to wikipedia

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

This is different from your source which estimates US fuel subsidies at over half a trillion

A little reading reveals the source of the discrepancy, according to your article

>The largest contributor to fossil fuel subsidies is the under-pricing of local air pollution, as the impacts of smog and particulate emissions have significant health impacts and are a contributor to early deaths.

so they are looking at the social costs of smog and emissions and including that in the calculations - which I understand some people might argue is a subsidy but it seems a little underhanded for the IMF to call it a subsidy in an economic report because that's getting pretty far from the ordinary use of the word subsidy.

I think we like to imagine that there is all this money floating around in fuel company subsidies that we could redirect to alleviating the economic effects of climate change. And that's the impression that this IMF report creates. And when we look at it this way then we don't have to face the reality that we in the West spend our lives ignoring. The reality that not everyone lives in the comfortable west where an economic downturn is an inconvenience. The reality that we live in a world where people are literally starving to death, and taking on these kinds of enormous economic burdens on a global scale would mean that even more people have to starve to death.

When we pretend that economic effects means the same thing to the 3rd world that it means to us in the west, when we pretend carbon neutrality is just an inconvenience and not life or death: Then we don't have to really struggle with questions like how certain are we that it's human activity that is causing these warnings. We can just say it's indisputable scientific consensus without worrying about who the scientists are and what they are actually saying or whether their continued funding is dependent on the veracity of global warming.

<comment><USER6> The 3rd world also releases a lot less air pollution than the west. (I'm not including countries like China, which _really_ shouldn't be considered "third world"). On the whole, rich people tend to release more pollution than poor people.

And honestly, this is all beside the point--we can talk until we're blue in the face but who can afford to pay for climate change mitigation, but at the end of the day, someone has to do it, or we're all going to be much, much worse off than we are today, rich and poor.

<comment><USER7> The last time I checked, the IPCC ar4 report said that the effects of climate change would cost about 5% of GDP, starting in 2100. Some Wall Street Journal economists ran the numbers and found that the net present value of those costs are about 0.1% of gross domestic product. So the power of economic growth and compounding interest means that overreacting to climate change is even more dangerous than climate change itself.

<comment><USER8> Fine in theory.

In practice we only get one planet, and trying to quantify whether taking care of it outweighs the loss of income of just letting the damage happen is not merely wrong, but outright terrifyingly inhuman.

It goes even beyond the Tyler Durden (Fight Club) car recall speech, which I won't talk about for obvious reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why are we valuing this sort of stuff in money?

It's frankly absurd to me. We really need better metrics.

This is rapidly becoming (if it isn't already) a basic maintenance expenditure.

Fixing the roof of your house doesn't cost money in any meaningful sense other than at the specific moment that one balance decreases and another increases. It maintains the value of the house; you have to do it otherwise it falls in. It's not deadweight expenditure.

Unless you use a net present value calculation that discounts the future into nothingness. Then, sure, ignore it.

<comment><USER10> You measure it in money so that you know what the opportunity cost is for 'this' allocation of scarce resources whatever the value of 'this' is.

There may be occasions where the cost will never be so high as to preclude the allocation. Value the benefit in money (which could simply be justified as being infinite in certain circumstances).

"I feel emotion about this issue, let's allocate all the resources and think no further." Has generally been a very, very bad idea. Money is the only metric we have to compare unlike resources when considering allocation and it makes a lot of sense. It has little to do with our bank balances in such usage. It should have nothing to do with greed and avarice.

If on the other hand you're talking about propaganda war and the misuse of analysis to either act or stall, I have little interest in commenting other than to say such propaganda techniques are evil every single time they are used and especially in the service of "right" the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Thinking properly about "what will happen if we do X" is the best defence we have as a species against just about everything.

I am not making a comment on how well the analysis has been done in the attached article. I note it is possible to do such things very, very poorly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Carbon neutral is kind of the 'whole enchilada' and like many 100% efforts, the last few percent cost the most. I don't know the actual cost breakdown, but if we assume the pareto principle applies, we will probably get a great amount of benefit for doing 20% of that investment in the most polluting industries.

Saying it will cost $1T a year is just FUD from that perspective. Sure, doing it all will be very expensive, but if doing most of it is a hell of lot less expensive, why scare everyone by covering the 'worst case scenario'?

<comment><USER6> This begs the question, what would the cost of 95% carbon neutral be?

(We absolutely need to pay for it regardless, but it's still worth knowing these numbers, if only for planning.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The thing about "cost" is, it's about spending money. When you spend money it goes somewhere — to someone, which most people would call creating jobs. So we can spend $1T and make a ton of jobs, make money move around the economy which drives the engine, and in the end we've made the world a better place. Why exactly are Republicans against this plan? Aren't they supposed to be the job creators?

<comment><USER13> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window)

But it's as easy that the people opposed see the opportunity cost - if you spend $1T on this then you're spending -$1T on something else. Imagine if the Republicans proposed spending $1T on the military - why oppose it? It'll create jobs, right?

<comment><USER14> but it will produce instruments of death so not really the same

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "It's cheaper to just die." Interesting argument at least.

</comment><comment><USER16> How much could "Not Making America Carbon Neutral Cost a Year"?

<comment><USER17> afaik economic markets indicate, surprisingly, some open questions about this. For example, real estate in vulnerable markets such as is popularly known in Florida hasn't shown evidence for pricing in cotastrophe.

<comment><USER18> Which just could mean that they expect the government to build sea walls and other mitigation measures as well as pay for rebuilds after hurricanes.

<comment><USER19> Or, more likely, most people don't think the situation is as dire as certain politicians and costal elites make it out to be.

<comment><USER20> Markets aren't rational because people aren't.

<comment><USER17> Is there something more rational than a market in the absence of scientific evidence?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is how much the tax cut from last year cost. We can go ahead and undo that and call it equal

<comment><USER22> What's your source on the tax cut costing $1T/year?

<comment><USER23> Didn't AOC disseminate that information to her minions recently? It has probably infected some of the HDBs on HN.

<comment><USER24> Please keep partisan flamebait off HN.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER23> Why? I see people on HN indiscriminating shitting on Republicans. Why can't take a shit on an idiot on the left?

Is that stated policy of HN that only people on the right can be shitted on?

<comment><USER24> No; the policy is that you must follow the site guidelines, even if others are breaking them.

We all perceive the other side as doing bad things more. That's a cognitive bias. To counteract it, we have to inhibit the impulse to stick it to the other side "equally". Does that make sense?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Bloomberg, America is subsidizing $650b/year using fossil fuel [https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA...](https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA2019089.ashx) -

<comment><USER19> Even within the comments I'm seeing "fossil fuel subsidy" amounts jump around. Besides, are basic "all business" subsidies included in that number, such as depreciation? How much of it is specifically for fossil fuels

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't a significant portion of those costs translate to new business opportunities for the suppliers of said solutions? If so, is it really fair to call it a straight cost? Isn't it really a forced spending on certain technologies?

</comment><comment><USER27> US GDP is about $20 trillion. Spending 5% of productivity keeping the planet habitable seems utterly reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER28> Who's looking at net zero emission? Let's get back to the Paris agreement targets. The Obama administration enacted the Clean Power Plan [1], with the main aim of having the 2030 emissions 32% below the 2005 levels. The last official numbers from the EIA [2] show a level in 2017 that is 14% below the 2005 level. The EIA does not have final 2018 numbers yet, but it project an uptick in emissions, followed by a decrease in 2019 and 2020, so in 2020 we'll be roughly at the same level of 14% below 2005. That leaves 18% reduction to be achieved in 10 years (after 14% in 15). Very difficult, but not impossible. It obviously depends on who's in the White House, but not exclusively.

The bad news is that the EIA projects that the US emissions will remain at the roughly the current levels until 2050.

What can be done? Obviously, more renewables are a potential answer; the EIA already included them in the projection, assuming current laws and government incentives, and reasonable technological advances. If we want more renewables, we probably need a bit more government subsidies, or maybe a bit of help from Musk.

Nuclear is another option. I'm personally very pro-nuclear, but I'm aware of the general reservations, so I'm not holding my breath.

Replacement of coal power plants with natural gas achieves substantial emissions reductions, but this was taken into account by the EIA .

Massive changes in automotive fleet from gas-powered to electric were not projected by the EIA ([4], p. 25: "petroleum remains the dominant fuel used in vehicles throughout the projection period").

But here's the biggest way you can make a difference. Just say "Yes". Yes as in "Yes in my Backyard". Yes as in the opposite of "Not in my Backyard". If more building is allowed in the main metropolitan areas in the US, then tens of millions of people would move from suburbs to the densely populated cities like NYC or SF. Population density means less transportation for lots of goods filling the malls, less construction for streets, better building insulation, more people biking to work or using public transportation, fewer school buses, I can go on and on.

The best part is that this would not involve a sacrifice to the economic growth. This would go hand in hand with increased economic growth. How many startups are not viable in SF because the rent is so damn high?

Who would not benefit? People who expect that buying a house means the right for future capital appreciation without moving a finger. Some would even go as far as characterizing these people as rent extractors.

Oh, and I think we should also desalinate more water and plant more trees.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan#Aims](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan#Aims) [2] [https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/](https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/carbon/) [3] [https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38773](https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=38773) [4] [https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf](https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/pdf/aeo2019.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER29> That's not as much as I thought it might cost.

</comment><comment><USER30> and saving Earth is priceless. Abolish usage of Carbon, now

<comment><USER31> We should probably set up a viable replacement first before throwing the baby out with the bath water right?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Bing VS Google - <AUTHOR> Google is giving me bad results lately to the point that i have to set my chrome's default omnibox to Bing. Do you guys experience the same? <comment><USER2> I was intrigued by your question. I tried the queries you mentioned on both Bing and Google and got similar responses on the first page. Perhaps our ad- blockers are configured differently. Interesting!

Wonder what other HNers are finding if they perform the same test(s).

<comment><AUTHOR> how many pages of results did you get? did you set "past 24hours"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What is bad about the results you get? What are you searching for?

<comment><AUTHOR> my latest search was "century city makati" and set it to "past 24hrs", google list a never ending of unrelated results. bing list as much related results as needed, and lead me to a forum in the top result which gives me good idea of what i am looking... in the past few days i have to check Bing for results after I queried google, now i have to set bing permanently.</comment></comment>