Plastc will cease operations and will not fulfill any pre-orders - <AUTHOR> https://plastc.com/ <comment><USER3> "In 2011 after buying a pair of sneakers, then a fruit smoothie and noticing a Google Wallet icon on the cash register, Marquis asked the cashier how many people actually paid with their phones. The cashier responded that so far 2-3 people per month were using it...

Immediately the lightbulb went on in Ryan's mind that there was a significant shift happening in the market from a physical credit card to digital payments. His mind went wild as he dreamed about what the future of digital payments could look like and within a short time after he launched Plastc." [1]

So, after shopping at a store that sells fruit smoothies and sneakers (?), and being told that nobody cares enough about a universal credit card to use the free Google Wallet one, he concluded that the future is a universal credit card that people will pay hundreds of dollars for?

Only in Silicon Valley...

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-elliott/plastc-one- card-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bryan-elliott/plastc-one-card-to-rule- t_b_9435586.html)

<comment><USER4> It wasn't going to be so much that, as a card that you could put multiple credit cards on, but that still functioned entirely like a credit card - meaning it could be swiped in vending machines, by waitresses, and everywhere that accepts cards, without the need for an apple pay or google pay or whatever NFC payment hardware.

It's for people that keep multiple cards in their wallet.

<comment><USER5> _> everywhere that accepts cards_

Given the shift to chip-and-PIN, which can't be emulated like this -- Plastc claimed they could but never demonstrated it (because it's impossible) -- they were way too late to market with this idea even 3 years ago.

And if merchants are going to roll out new POS hardware they might as well jump to NFC as it leapfrogs cards on convenience. And security, if your device implements tokenization and fingerprints-instead-of-PINs (like Apple Pay and others). Also it's built in to lots of phones and watches now.

<comment><USER6> I don't know what was promised by Plastc exactly but I assume you need to register your card numbers somewhere (like with Apple Pay) and then when you use your Plastc card to pay (with chip and PIN or not), their back-end issues a payment transaction using the selected card. Am I wrong?

Over here in Europe we have Curve that does exactly that, without the fancy hardware: [https://www.imaginecurve.com](https://www.imaginecurve.com)

<comment> X-Istence Yes, that is not what Plastc was. Plastc was like copying the data from the front of your card and displaying it on a different one (mag-strip included).

<comment><USER6> Got it. EMV is clearly an issue then, I see the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My favorite part about this is that they created a webpage that essentially called out Coin for selling out, and that they'd give you a discount if you traded your Coin in. At least Coin was able to deliver some semblance of a product, whereas Plastc was only able to deliver a blog post.

[https://plastc.com/coinbuyback/](https://plastc.com/coinbuyback/)

<comment><USER3> For the sake of posterity:

"Flip Your Coin For A $50 Discount

Coin has been acquired and is now defunct. Or in other words, they sold you out. Don't worry, Plastc's got your back. We're giving you the opportunity to trade-up your extinct card for $50 off a Plastc Card pre-order. Looks like you're back in business! Flip your Coin Enter your email below and click "Trade-Up" Instantly receive a $50 discount when you place your Plastc Card pre-order Instructions will be sent to you by e-mail"

PS. If anyone got burnt twice by this, you should send me $200, and your Plastc pre-order receipt, and I swear I'll build you a smart card that will disrupt your wallet.

<comment><USER8> Hi, I'm interested in signing up for your card but I have one question first: When you inevitably abandon the project and take my money, can I expect a detailed blog post about your "incredible journey" or maybe your "amazing bet" to disrupt the market? That's what I really sign up to these things for.

<comment><USER3> Yes. We promise to be the most accountable and transparent smart credit card company in the world. We will be so transparent that we will spring the news that we ran out of money and you are out of your preorder on you through our Chapter 11 filing.

<comment><USER8> Briliant. If you do announce the news, will your posts be hard to decipher as well? I think that's what people are looking for, that marketing spin. I don't want to immediately understand that you're bankrupt and I'll never receive my order; solving it should be like a fun logic puzzle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> FWIW, the thread on Plastc from 3 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422928](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422928)

Edit: apparently there is a r/plastc and it declared plastc a scam 7 months ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Plastc/comments/52or45/due_to_recen...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Plastc/comments/52or45/due_to_recent_news_this_subreddit_will_now_be/)

To me it's fascinating how much Plastc seems to have flown under the radar. The initial announcement, and then almost no coverage until today: [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/plastc/press](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/plastc/press)

I wonder if they even got the millions in preorders it claimed? How would anyone know if they lied? Did they ever get VC funding, which would presumably require me to tell the truth to investors?

<comment><USER10> I like that the first comment points out that they would be useless once the chip and pin switch takes place "in a year or so".

<comment><USER11> Chip & Pin is an interesting beast.

Canada went straight to Chip & Pin, skipping over Chip & Sign. Since credit cards generally didn't have PINs at the time, there was a little work on the part of the issuing banks to assign PINs. One of my cards came with a letter that said "Use the same PIN as you use with your regular bank card", another came with one that said "Here's your new PIN, you can change it at any of our ATMs" (I only have a credit card with this bank). This all happened over 10 years ago.

When I visited the US recently, I used one of my cards and the cashier said "Oh, you're from Canada, you have to enter a PIN" after inserting it into the payment terminal. A payment at Walmart was even easier as the terminal was customer-facing, it worked just like it does in Canada - insert card, verify amount, enter PIN, done.

Clearly the infrastructure is in place, since the transactions all worked, but there seems to be some strange reluctance for the card issuers to actually use it.

<comment><USER12> Chip + Sign reduces 80% of classic fraud. Chip + PIN reduces ~98% (last I heard in 2016).

Someone I spoke to at capital one said that Visa/MS decided to do Chip+Sign in the US due to the increased support costs of forgotten PINs.

<comment><USER11> I'd be interested to know how much of a problem this is in Canada.

Maybe it's different here because debit cards are so common that we've been trained to remember our PINs. My bank even uses Chip & PIN as the first step for an in-person transaction at a teller.

<comment><USER13> > My bank even uses Chip & PIN as the first step for an in-person transaction > at a teller.

Some banks do that here in the US as well, as do retailers. Those are both for debit card transactions, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's borderline criminal how these guys were advertising their gear on instagram up until very recently, as though they were literally just about to ship. And they're not the only ones who have been advertising vapourware on instagram as though they are a day away from shipping

<comment><AUTHOR> In their defense, until today they thought they were going to get funded and actually be able to deliver.

<comment><USER3> In their non-defense, they also promised accountability and transparency. If you are one signature away from bankruptcy, you may want to be transparent about that, before taking un-refundable preorders.

Or you could do the responsible thing and keep preorder money in escrow.

Madoff was also only a few signatures from having his Ponzi scheme staying afloat.

<comment><USER15> Don't judge them until you walk a mile in their shoes. When you worked on something for years, you still maintain hope, and you're wrestling with doubt every day being "transparent" isn't so easy. You literally can't say "hey, we might go out of business" and then walk into a VC office and make a pitch. Having to wrestle with this was the hardest part of my job at RethinkDB, and any time I hear of someone who had to deal with it I want to wrap them in a blanket and buy them hot cocoa (laced with bourbon).

<comment><USER3> There are alternatives to what they've done. They could have opted to not use the pre-order money to fund their operations (Until more funding could be secured). They could have protected it, as soon as they realized that they are in deep financial trouble. Compare this story to that of Lily - where when the party ended, it seems like the company has plans to give customers partial refunds. [1]

Instead, from all external appearances, they did everything they could to do right by themselves - not their customers.

[1] [https://www.recode.net/2017/2/28/14766780/failed-drone- lily-...](https://www.recode.net/2017/2/28/14766780/failed-drone-lily- bankruptcy-refund)

<comment><USER16> >They could have opted to not use the pre-order money to fund their operations

Exactly. Sequestering pre-order money - at least some fraction of it - <USER2> have been one of the first orders of business for any company who cares about integrity.

<comment><USER17> People talk about this as customers, but: surely the point of pre-order money in many cases is precisely to fund operations - to provide the working capital needed to do manufacturing?

If I have a hardware product that costs $80 to make (x10,000) and I'm selling it on Kickstarter for $100, are you saying that after taking in a million on kickstarter I should just sequester it and then find a spare $800k to do the actual manufacturing?

<comment><USER13> The key difference here is that the manufacturing never actually happened. They seem to have used preorder money to fund other steps in the process but never actually made the product beyond some initial devices.

Kickstarter to fund manufacturing should happen at the appropriate time in the process, if you're "doing it the right way."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Understand launching hardware is hard but where did the $9 million pre-order money go?

Also they just took Series A? $4.3M

[https://www.crunchbase.com/funding- round/7fb2ab81232afc3adf4...](https://www.crunchbase.com/funding- round/7fb2ab81232afc3adf4..).

They've just deleted all social profiles [https://twitter.com/plastcinc](https://twitter.com/plastcinc) [https://www.facebook.com/PlastcInc/](https://www.facebook.com/PlastcInc/)

</comment><comment><USER19> My newsfeed on Facebook is full of ads of hardware startups with amazing concepts of products. When I get into the "know more" is always a "pre-order". From IOT-retrofit-motorized-shades to triple-your-macbook-screen-via-usb. I've been burned so many times that when I see "startup", "hardware", "pre-order" and "as a service" in the same pitch, I make a mental note of "call me back once you have a real product and it does not depend on your infrastructure".

</comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone have any information whether they'd refund people who have pre- ordered?

<comment><USER20> > A chapter 7 bankruptcy case does not involve the filing of a plan of > repayment as in chapter 13. Instead, the bankruptcy trustee gathers and > sells the debtor's nonexempt assets and uses the proceeds of such assets to > pay holders of claims (creditors) in accordance with the provisions of the > Bankruptcy Code. Part of the debtor's property may be subject to liens and > mortgages that pledge the property to other creditors. In addition, the > Bankruptcy Code will allow the debtor to keep certain "exempt" property; but > a trustee will liquidate the debtor's remaining assets. Accordingly, > potential debtors should realize that the filing of a petition under chapter > 7 may result in the loss of property.

[http://www.uscourts.gov/services- forms/bankruptcy/bankruptcy...](http://www.uscourts.gov/services- forms/bankruptcy/bankruptcy-basics/chapter-7-bankruptcy-basics)

I wish they have clarified this in the email and the website in plain English. I'm no lawyer, but this sounds like they won't refund.

<comment><USER21> Kickstarter style

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Three years? And they never shipped a thing?

How is this possible? I don't get it.

<comment><USER23> By taking all of the preoder money they were getting and rolling it into advertising (to get more preorders)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> CEO and founder Ryan Marquis deleted his Twitter? [https://twitter.com/ry_marquis](https://twitter.com/ry_marquis)

<comment><USER23> I still want a chrome extension that warns me every time a previously bad acting founders name is listed on a page I'm on, or I'm on the site of one of their new 'projects'

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> To be honest, I have always suspected that there is some kind of fraud going on with the company. Their Facebook page is an endless call for pre-orders. And they keep pushing the delivery date out. And further more, how the hell can you spend every bit of 9 million dollars and still not have a product? I don't know...

</comment><comment><USER26> At least Coin delivered my product before getting scooped up. =/

<comment><USER27> I just noticed they shutdown the coin servers at the end of February, and the app is useless without them.

Now I can't add anymore loyalty cards to my Coin. Damn internet of shit.

<comment><USER28> RMS said "Software As a Service" is not free

<comment><USER29> I'd suggest a very interesting subreddit

[https://www.reddit.com/r/StallmanWasRight/](https://www.reddit.com/r/StallmanWasRight/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> As much as I'd love to see something like this succeed, I can't see it happening.

CC companies have too many incentives to force you to carry their physical card, so they will keep on producing things like the chip-and-PIN tech. That means we will always have one force pushing us to carry their physical card, and until I NEVER need to pull out that real card I have to carry it with me, so I might as well just use it.

</comment><comment><USER31> Unfortunately this is bad for everyone in this market; it (all other players) is a reason we decided not to do preorders but only to take actual orders we can immediately ship out once the product is done and tested. Hardware is hard, especially tiny, bendable hardware meant for daily use under many different, hard to predict circumstances.

Disclaimer: I work on a similar product

</comment><comment><USER32> After canceling my pre-order in November I had hoped I was wrong about their future. However it seems that chasing more and more features (massive scope creep since the initial product) while being behind the curve on basics such as chip and pin was just too much for them to overcome.

</comment><comment><USER33> Shouldn't the amount they raised from backers have included all that was needed to fulfill preorders?

Taking someone's money and relying/hoping on future investments to be able to deliver what people already bought is kind of risky...

</comment><comment><USER34> Late to the party, but does anyone know how the card was supposed to work? It always seemed like a tricky technical problem, but may not?

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm no detective, but [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14155992](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14155992)

</comment><comment><USER36> Appears to be down, mirror here: [http://archive.is/1vHvk](http://archive.is/1vHvk)

</comment><comment><USER37> Their logo is 6 letters in similar or the exact text as stripe with similar color schemes

</comment><comment><USER38> Remind me of Coin card. Just a matter of time.

</comment><comment><USER39> I wonder if this has anything to do with Final ([https://getfinal.com](https://getfinal.com)) shipping?

<comment><USER40> Final has been shipping for 6+ months. Theyre also fairly different markets.

<comment><USER41> Yeah, I've been using Final since October of last year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> dang, sctb, et al: Please update the title to reflect the correct name of this (former) company, which is "Plastc" (no 'i'). Thanks!

<comment><USER43> It should have been obvious they were doomed to fail when they couldn't afford to buy a penultimate vowel for their name.

<comment><USER42> They sold it for a few million in VC funding.</comment></comment></comment>


Building an iOS App in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in-rust-part-1/ <comment><USER2> What is the advantage of using Rust for an iOS app over Swift, especially now that Swift is open source? I doubt the overheard of reference counting is going to be an issue for most iOS apps (although I'd be super interested to hear where it might).

<comment><USER3> The idea is to use it for cross platform libraries. Let's say you were building an RSS reader, you could reuse your same feed parsing code on Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

<comment><USER2> But with Swift riding on top of the LLVM infrastructure similar to Rust, cross platform libraries are also possible with the Swift toolchain, no?

<comment><USER4> Nothing about LLVM makes Swift inherently cross-platform. LLVM bitcode is not target independent.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure I understand the relevance? Neither are rust libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note that this is from 2015, the recent push to improve Rust's cross- compilation story may have made the info within obsolete.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Note that this is from 2015

That's true. The submission is only the first part of a series that spans several months. I pasted the links below for convenience[1]. The last part (so far) is from April 14, 2016.

> he recent push to improve Rust's cross-compilation story may have made the > info within obsolete.

Now that we have rustup [2], what is described in the first part should be much easier. I find it still worthwhile because it helps to understand what rustup does for you automatically. Researching this topic is actually how I found the article.

[1]

[https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in- rus...](https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in-rust-part-1/)

[https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in- rus...](https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in-rust-part-2/)

[https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in- rus...](https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in-rust-part-3/)

[https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in- rus...](https://www.bignerdranch.com/blog/building-an-ios-app-in-rust-part-4/)

[2] [https://www.rustup.rs/](https://www.rustup.rs/)</comment></comment>


America's New Elite - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102202873_2.html?sid=ST2010102204725

<comment><USER2> _An elite that also passes on ability is more tenacious_

That would seem to be a genuine elite, then.</comment>


Nature to join open-access Plan S, publisher says - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01066-5 <comment><USER2> I'm a bit confused by the article: being on nature.com it seems to be talking about…itself? Is Plan S really open access, or just something that looks like open access?

<comment><AUTHOR> The article is by the Nature News section. As stated in the article:

> _Nature_ is editorially independent of its publisher, Springer Nature

<comment><USER2> Of course, I missed that part…:/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> " Plan S has extra technical requirements, such as that journals must be transparent about their OA pricing strategies to be deemed compliant. Inchcoombe said Springer Nature still needed clarity from Plan S on these details."

And here's the crux of the issue. Publishers can't give up their cash. So they're going to stall and stall and stall. They don't want this.

Sounds like Plan S folded first. Too bad. Still room left in the war to have OA be victorious though.

The main this is continuing to win hearts and minds of influential scientists and funding body leaders. They have the clout to push back against the publishing industry. Plan S is a great start but needs continued developments.

What we need is for someone influential enough to start a whole new journal committed to completely OA publishing.</comment>


UPS's $20B Problem: Operations Stuck in the 20th Century - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/upss-20-billion-problem-operations-stuck-in-the-20th-century-1529072397 <comment><USER2> The thing I find curious about UPS/Fedex operations is that they're still oriented around a "make deliveries during business hours" model that made sense decades ago when businesses were overnighting documents to each other, but makes less sense when traffic is largely goods ordered online and shipped to residences. To an outsider, it seems like door tags/missed deliveries/redeliveries must be inefficient, expensive, and almost entirely predictable for the carrier, while also being a major driver of customer pain.

<comment><USER3> While I agree with you about the inconvenience of most residential shipping services, I think people not interacting directly with the industry tend to forget how absolutely huge the business-to-business market still is for UPS. I expect the margins are quite a bit larger for them there as well.

Working in the engineering field, people send things at shipping prices of $50-$200 plus per package on the daily. The only thing that matters is that it arrives where it's needed fast. I can't say for sure, but I would expect that UPS is still more inclined to cater to the relatively price insensitive business customer over the Amazon Prime residential customer.

<comment><USER4> Proof it can be done better, Japan.

It's common to be able to choose the day and the delivery time. 8am-12pm, 2pm-4pm, 4pm-6pm, 6pm-8pm, 7pm-9pm and I've never had them be 1 minute outside their designated schedule.

And, prices are cheap. Price to send a large package from Tokyo to Osaka (think SF to LA) (larger than the USPS would even allow), $20

<comment><USER5> How is this accomplished? Is it because of Tokyo's railway system?

Another example of cheap and fast delivery is in New Zealand, which is very roughly similar in size as Japan (and an island!) But infrastructure there is much, much, simpler.

<comment><USER6> Between the DCs they use 18 wheelers; they're then taken on a smaller truck to a local site and take to the end user by a truck or handcart.

It's partially because of different relative distribution of supply and demand and partially because infrastructural technology is just better here. (Random customer visible example: high-end apartments in Tokyo generally have an on- site package locker so that companies can drop off packages even when the recipient isn't home, which is a major convenience and avoids unnecessary redeliveries.)

<comment><USER7> I was just staying in a place in the US that had a package room with per- parcel codes for access.

It was kind of a terrible experience. Just because you had the address and unit number on there, you needed to be "in the system" so they could email/txt you an access code. I had a box of flowers for Mother's day that didn't show up until a week later. When everything did work as expected, it was still very problematic. Any "delivery" alerts were meaningless because it may not have been registered to the package room yet. The package room was a mess and was often difficult to find your packages--then you had to carry them all back to your unit. I'm not sure if they bundled access codes (i.e. 5 packages arrive but they only register the first and give you one code), but this seemed to happen to me. If you did forget a package they expired unused codes after you access. So if you forgot or couldn't carry everything you can no longer access the room.

I'm sure this simplifies things for the carrier, but I wouldn't be surprised if missing packages increased sharply when these were introduced. I also got the feeling packages were delivered to the front office before this system was in place (which would be the same, or perhaps, less work for the carriers). Which negates a lot of the issues mentioned above, but does mean you can only pick up your packages during office hours.

I haven't experienced Japanese package delivery, but when I first heard about it a few years ago I got super envious.

<comment><USER8> This sounds like a terribly implemented package room, not a significant problem with the concept.

One system I saw recently had a touch screen where the carrier selects the address and individual they are delivering to, and then that individual is notified. They could use their permanent password, door id fob, or a one time access code for each parcel. As for not being able to get it upstairs; there was nothing stopping you relocking parcel.

<comment><USER7> The system in place was obvious they didn't want to give all tenants unrestricted access to the room. Each time you entered a code you had to sign for your package and it took a photo. The room was also video monitored. Who knows if it was bad design, appreciable increase in theft, or insurance reasons.

I still think the worst part of the experience was sifting through all the packages. They had a shelf dedicated for each floor, but a sign saying people move stuff. I saw the office staff go in and resort packages onto the correct shelf everyday.

I've had much, much better experiences with Amazon locker. If I was still in an apartment and one was 0.5 - 1 mile away I would choose it every time (assuming it was a 24hr location).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Representing 260,000 UPS drivers, sorters and other workers, the union wants UPS to hire more full-time workers to help handle the surge in packages. It has opposed technology such as autonomous vehicles and drones and is wary of projects that do work with fewer employees.

This isn't tenable for the company. The union might be able to stall automation in UPS for a few years, but it'll end with UPS being unable to compete with its competitors. At that point UPS will have a lot more leverage in union negotiations because the alternative will be bankruptcy and everyone losing their jobs. Hopefully union leadership adopts a longer-term view before then.

<comment><USER10> Or they could do the socially correct thing and not automate.

Or, all that automation is just vaporware outside of marketing demos and the unions will be fine.

<comment><USER11> Why is it socially correct to not automate?

I'm genuinely curious to hear this point of view. I don't believe unskilled labor (or minorly skilled labor) has a right to a job anymore than a very skilled laborer does.

There's a reason why cement trucks were created when you could (and can) still mix cement by hand. It's wildly inefficient at a certain project scale, and I hold the same view for other items.

I'd love to know why you feel it's socially wrong to push forward automation.

<comment><USER12> I assume people are against automation because it leads to more unemployed. In the future we will probably have most manual labor automated by robots and have massive amounts of people without jobs, no healthcare, barely surviving at all in terrible conditions.

But you know, its all their fault of course, they could've just learned to code!

<comment><USER11> I think the fear is exaggerated, automation has been happening throughout the history of mankind.

Should we not have vehicles because it put the horse/buggy drivers out of a job? Have cars made by hand and not by more efficient, safer automation because it puts people out of work?

I completely understand & respect that viewpoint that this does not all happen in a vacuum so the people working manual labor likely did not get or have access to the same opportunities as those "who learned to code".

Who is to say that the automation opens room for better-paying jobs or leads to innovations in health-care that make universal health care more affordable to tax-payers so it can get passed into legislation?

There's negative consequences of slowing automation as well.

<comment><USER13> I used to hold the same viewpoint - automation is nothing new - but this video by Kurtzgesagt (more specifically the statistics cited in it) convinced be is that automation actually IS different this time ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKi8HfcxEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSKi8HfcxEk)).

The big difference is that automation now replaces jobs at a pace that is faster than we can create them. The whole video is good but the particularly interesting stats are at the ~8:00 minute mark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They need to standardize package sizes. USPS, UPS, everyone. I know this would be ridiculous, but what about essentially milkcrate-like containers of standard stackable sizes with fixed rates for residential bullshit. Residential shipping has to be the biggest fucking pain in the ass- I know I've done it. I moved via UPS one time, packaging tons of random 3' square boxes with shit unpadded, the delivery people actually taped them back closed with my stuff inside. You should never accept those. Basically, have a few sizes of really over-built injection molded milkcrates with honeycomb for impact protection, and customers bring a box of crap to the store and pick out their crate, put all their stuff in, set it on the conveyor with their name/payment/etc and it rolls up to the front. A machine inflates a tight plastic bladder which secures the material inside, closes it, charges you and spits out a receipt.

There shouldn't be customer service. If you need to pick up your package, scan your ID or slip or something. If you have an address problem, you use the computer to ensure you're shipping it to the right place. Declarations are handled, and an impact resistant box would probably do well for all the stupid assholes shipping batteries, liquids, dead animals etc.

I know this wouldn't work for a lot of reasons and people would just keep the boxes, but maybe you can keep them from being taken out of the store, like you pull your cardboard box out of it or something.

You get to fill a cardboard box that's barely taped shut and that HAS to fit in the plastic crate. You can't take the crate home.

<comment><USER15> > I know this wouldn't work for a lot of reasons and people would just keep > the boxes,

Actually I think this could work if you offered some money for the empty crates, like with bottle deposits. You could keep the crates if you needed them, but you could also save them until you had a carload to take to the UPS Store and get some cash. If the fee were low enough, the shipping companies would still be saving money over buying zillions of cardboard boxes per year.

I'm not sure if the economics work out, but if we standardized and got USPS/UPS/FedEx/Amazon all on board, it could work.

<comment><USER16> I've often wondered why UPS doesn't pick up boxes for recycling. How many trucks are half-empty after making a round of deliveries?

<comment><USER17> Because there isn't any money in used boxes. Why would UPS pay for fuel and a driver to drive the route 2x?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is interesting/surprising to me that there isn't the suggestion of auto- loading/unloading the trucks themselves. Is this one of those problems that seems pretty tractable from the outside looking in but it turns out there are some fundamental difficulties that aren't obvious at first but make it much more difficult than first imagined?

I could imagine the beds of the trailers being conveyer belts themselves that would "plug in" to the system at the sorting facility. From there the automation could take over. It would be something like training the robots to play a combination of Jenga and Tetris.

<comment><USER19> The loading of the trucks requires much more dexterity than a machine would be able to deliver. Also the packages themselves would be difficult for a machine as you get these huge pieces that come down the belt weighing 150 pounds and the weight isn't evenly distributed at all. In these cases we have to stop the belt and two loaders load the item quickly, and the belt is restarted. What happens when a package comes down a slide and busts open and gets over everything? This actually happens quite a bit.. one time a goats head came out of the package and blood went everywhere. Or better yet, what happens when a package accidentally has two labels instructing the package to go to two different trucks, perhaps even two separate parts of the facility? We call this a double label and it usually requires a human to sort it out.

There is a lot of idiosyncrasies like this with many of UPS' jobs. Automation will come not to take the paycheck from the low wage worker, but rather from the high wage worker such as driver dispatching, human resources, etc. Those people won't be fired though, most will be reassigned to over see some drivers I would imagine. That is a tough job and those people need all the help they can get.

<comment><USER20> The system needs to know its limitations and divert packages that cannot be handled automatically to manual handling.

It is too complicated to design a system that handles 100% of cases, better aim for like 90% with well integrated fallback for the edgecases.

<comment><USER19> This is a good thought. Something like git, where the relatively complicated task of merging is handled by a human.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I always wonder, why unionised workers won't pursue investment in technology that will make their jobs obsolete rather than fighting a futile war against the technology?

If you're an organisation of hundreds of thousands of workers, you probably can afford to invest in startups that can replace the jobs of the people you're representing. What's better, you already have a relationship with the client and your members have the know-how of the tasks and the business that's about to get automated.

If the investments fail, you keep your jobs. If your investments succeed, you no longer need to work to make living.

<comment><USER22> The idea is interesting but intuitively I don't think the math works out. I understand the hedge angle, but done at large scale this type of investment -labor automation companies- is unlikely to yield very good returns (say, 10% yearly or so) and is therefore incapable of providing enough income for a worker to retire on (based on a plausible investment amount available to a unionized worker).

<comment><USER21> Good point, but the idea here is that if the workers invest in the inevitable future and turn automation into a passive income instead of total loss for them(as it will happen when their trade is robotised by someone else). They might as well invest in anything else however collectively investing in the business they understand and are part of could bring considerable advantages such as educated "bets" in the startups and structured job losses(as not everyone will lose their jobs to the automation at the same rate) and all the the benefits that come with scale as opposed to individual micro investments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is largely in part to the same reason New York's subways are stuck in the 20th century: Unions. While they serve a vital function to prevent labor abuse, nowadays they are abused to prevent innovation.

<comment><USER24> The interesting thing from a German perspective is that over here, unions seem to have a much more positive influence on business decisions. I wonder where the difference is coming from.

<comment><USER25> In Germany union representatives regularly participate to management meetings. Moreover the labour union system is completely different: unions represent all workers, and in each company there are usually different unions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> the article talks about UPS as an old outdated and lagging behind its main competitor FedEx while in my experience as a regular shipper I have to say UPS is a lot more reliable with its delivery schedule and serving its shipper customers needs.

<comment><USER27> I'm drawing a blank to which company but this reminds me of when a huge worldwide shipping company was hit with WannaCry and did everything by paper.

The loss of efficiency was way less than they expected. They did have to spend weeks though fixing containers sent to the wrong location.

<comment><USER28> That would be Maersk.

<comment><USER27> Oh yes! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If you are not familiar with how big players like Fedex (or UPS) run their operations, go check out [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDctEAS0fw_zzOnWDJA7d...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDctEAS0fw_zzOnWDJA7dZ47Ne1UYEfdH)

</comment><comment><USER30> anecdotal background says -- pre-IPO the UPS company aggressively fired union employees and promoted low-power middle managers by the thousands, then got the IPO with a promise to expand to EU and Middle East, and then with loads of cash, blundered through execution with multiple public errors and mismanagement.

</comment><comment><USER31> Non paywall link: [https://outline.com/xD5B8c](https://outline.com/xD5B8c)

</comment><comment><USER32> They should try to become Amazon, or they will be made obsolete by them.

The direction they should take is to bind third party sellers, and to set up a web retailing website.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is an opportunity for Amazon to thrive into. It already has a lot of experience in a related industry, combining that with logistics is only logical.

<comment><USER34> The problem is that they will never be able to reach the potential in the market. Many shippers would refuse to do business with a competitor, and hiring random kids in moms minivan to schlep boxes won't retain B2B.

Seems strange for Amazon to enter a business with low margins and a low ceiling.

<comment><USER35> Amazon shipping doesn't have to grow into a dominant position. All it needs to be is a big enough threat that they can negotiate better rates with outside parties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I wonder if Amazon will buy them.

<comment><USER37> Why would Amazon want to inherit UPS's union and pension liabilities? Easier to just start from scratch with the latest tech and zero legacy costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> [http://archive.li/5YnbM](http://archive.li/5YnbM)

<comment><USER39> I can't access this link (ERR_NAME_RESOLUTION_FAILED). Anyone else having the same problem?

<comment><USER40> You're having DNS issues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Can someone please label WSJ articles as "paywall" in the title?</comment>


Incentives to Attract Firms Induce Bad Selection [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.economics.uci.edu/~aglazer/TaxIncentivesInefficient.pdf <comment><USER2> Not an economist, but Glazer's conclusion doesn't seem terribly interesting:

"I do not claim that incentives to attract new plants always hurt the locality offering the incentives. The new facilities incentives attract can be a benefit. Perhaps most importantly, as Greenstone et al. (2010) show, agglomeration economies exist.

My story shows a difference between local and state or national incentives. For any one locality, a new facility may preclude the establishment of other facilities. At the state or national level, that need not happen."

\----

The reason his conclusion seems weak in importance is that it is essentially just the following:

For any locality, there is the possibility that a new facility will be a determining cause in additional facilities not being built at some later point.

A couple natural questions here are, "who would disagree with this?" or "have a non-trivial number of economists in Glazer's subdiscipline not believed this?"

</comment><comment><USER3> No empirics. Just some dude waving his maths around.

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks like very, very early work.</comment>


Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer - <AUTHOR> http://hbr.org/2006/10/sleep-deficit-the-performance-killer

<comment><USER2> I know this is anecdotal but I feel it is worth sharing. I've had insomnia for several years. I've tried treating it with drugs, sticking to routines, exercise, meditation, diet, controlled lighting, and quite a few other methods. Eventually, I just stopped looking at it as a problem. I sleep about 5 to 6 hours a night now and I feel great. I just accepted I don't have the same sleep patterns as everyone else and moved on with my life. I've read about reaction times and how sleep affects cognition but I really don't believe it, _for me_. I've tested performance by going shooting and recording scores after various amounts of sleep and found that after more than 7 hours of sleep a night I get worse scores.

Science is averages, you might be average or you might not. Test your own performance and find out what you need. If you only need a few hours sleep and your performance is not affected, do that. Many people with insomnia worry about it or try to fix what might not be broken. You might be an outlier and not the average.

<comment><USER3> I have a 26-hour circadian sleep-rhythm, and so each night I go to bed 2 hours later than the night before. It made school years absolutely insufferable, but now I have a job where I can set my own hours and I just go with it. I'm not able to do certain things like shop during my "awake during the night" phase, but it usually works out.

I'm not sure if I have much to contribute other than "me too". I can confirm though that in my experience, drugs, routines, etc just don't work for me.

<comment><USER4> How can you measure how long your circadian sleep cycle is?

<comment><USER3> The time you wake up one day, to the time you wake up the next, averaged out over a long period of time. For most people it's right around 24 hours, as it should be.

Circadian technically means every 24 hours, so a better word may have been just "body clock": <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#Criteria>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't just apply to adults: highschool students do not get anywhere near enough sleep [1]. Some schools have tried moving to a later opening, which has in some cases led to better academic performance from the students, but most schools still start god-awfully early.

[1] My own experience, may not apply to everyone, everywhere.

<comment><USER6> Not just your experience: <http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/teens- health/CC00019>

Your circadian rhythm changes in your teens, and too few schools are willing to work with this rather than against it. The results are sleep-deprived kids doing crap work in school and getting into car accidents like the one mentioned at the start of the HBR article.

<comment><USER7> I've collected some citations on the topic: [http://www.gwern.net/education- is-not-about-learning#school-...](http://www.gwern.net/education-is-not-about- learning#school-hours)

(Too bad that there doesn't seem to be any large authoritative collection of relevant material.)

<comment><USER5> This page, and your entire site in general, are very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to compile all of these links, I'll have to start sending them to my teachers :)

<comment><USER7> Well, it's not finished\ _; so if you are going to send'em to anyone, might I suggest you pick particularly relevant citations and just link those instead or something like that?

\_ You obviously have no way of knowing this but my convention on gwern.net is anything in lower-caps is draft/incomplete, and so I don't link it unless it's extremely relevant (as it was in this case).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The fact that sleep is not really valued in the "start up" community is a disgusting reflection of stupid people. SLEEP MORE.

A great resource is a book called `Lights Out! Sleep, Sugar, and Survival` by T.S. Wiley. They book eventually gets into some controversial territory without much data to support the claims, but the first half or so is largely about sleep and invaluable. There's a ton of references for the sleep section.

Tl;dr - get the book I mention and sleep. Human sleep cycles change with the seasons and you shouldn't be up too much outside the realm of daylight if possible.

</comment><comment><USER9> > People in executive positions should set behavioral expectations and develop > corporate sleep policies (...) It's important to have a policy limiting > scheduled work:ideally to no more than 12 hours a day, and exceptionally to > no more than 16 consecutive hours.

This sentence seems like having been taken straight out of Marx's "Das Kapital", volume 1. I know this is the Harvard Business Review, a bastion of capitalism if there ever was one, but I gathered that business owners had smarten up a little in the last 150 years.

If they don't want to do it for the benefit of their employees, they should do it for the benefit of their family and business friends, because at some point or another some guy like Lenin or Trotsky could come again and ride the wave of discontent and the consequences would not be pretty.

<comment><USER10> This article was written for an audience of pointy-haired bosses, and so the meh scientific insights are followed by groundbreaking! executive! decisions!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sleep certainly is important but things like "Educational programs about sleep, health, and safety should be mandatory" and "Additionally, companies should provide annual screening for sleep disorders in order to identify those who might be at risk" sound like well-intentioned wastes of time.

</comment><comment><USER12> 99% had a great video from Tony Schwartz just last week:

[http://the99percent.com/videos/7110/Tony-Schwartz-The- Myths-...](http://the99percent.com/videos/7110/Tony-Schwartz-The-Myths-of-the- Overworked-Creative)

Basically, he believes that mental exercises is just like physical exercise. During rest periods is when your capacity to do the exercise expands, not during the exercise itself.

</comment><comment><USER13> Be ready for this when you have kids. Your performance will drop right off for the first 12-18 months or so for each child. They disrupt your sleep and make your day physically and mentally longer and more demanding. The number of crazy things I have done in the car through chronic sleep deprivation is scary. I love my kids to bits by the way :-)

<comment><USER14> This is completely true. I was focused completely on work when I was at work when I had no kids. My first kid brought that building completely down. I would sit at my desk staring at the screen not knowing that time was even passing. I finally had to force myself to sleep at lunch in my car in the parking lot so I could focus enough in the afternoon to not get fired. Luckily it passed and I started getting sleep after a while. It is amazing the stuff you think and do when highly sleep deprived.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As I sit here at nearly 3 AM trying to finish something for Monday that we over-promised a client...

</comment><comment><USER16> I have to say, this is one of the goals were wanted to achieve when I made SleepBot (Android). Sleep is such a big issue especially for us programmers. We often not aware of how much sleep we actually lose everyday and how much performance it kills.

</comment><comment><USER17> Seth Roberts' sleep experiments: <http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2xc2h866#page-1>

</comment><comment><USER18> summary: get enough good sleep

</comment><comment><USER19> In corporations this is a classic prisoner's dilemma: If EVERYONE agreed that they'd be sane and work optimal 40-50 hour weeks, it'd be great. But someone always 'defects', going to 80+ hours in an effort to show off. The result is actually lower efficiency, but since most corporations do very little track efficiency and results (they track effort, instead), it doesn't get caught.

<comment><USER20> I wish I could upvote that at least twice - once for the game-theory bit, and once for the tracking-effort bit. Those are both excellent insights.

<comment><USER19> Thanks. I actually run a company - I have to constantly watch people and make the effort/results separation. Folks never understand when they get a negative review "for putting in 12-hour days." See, it's because you spend 4 hours/day running in circles.</comment></comment></comment>


Using GNU's GDB Debugger - <AUTHOR> http://dirac.org/linux/gdb/

<comment><USER2> The Practice of Programming (Kernighan and Pike 1999):

"As a personal choice, we tend not to use debuggers beyond getting a stack trace or the value of a variable or two. One reason is that it is easy to get lost in details of complicated data structures and control flow; we find stepping through a program less productive than thinking harder and adding output statements and self-checking code at critical places..."

It's a view that I came around to.

<comment><USER3> It's a view with which I am familiar. In general, I agree that a programmer must reason about code execution, and that a debugger does not replace this process. However: with all due respect, a symbolic debugger is invaluable while trying to figure why inherited, legacy, spaghetti-ridden code which relies on pearls like parallel arrays in multiple different data structures being in sync crashes at 3 o'clock in the morning.

<comment><USER4> When I used to hang out in the workstation room at grad school, around midnight, I'd see guys feverishly trying to complete their beginning programming assignments. Invariably, some poor schmo was stuck trying to figure out where they went wrong with a doubly linked list implementation in C. They'd sit transfixed, staring at their code concocting all sorts of wild theories. I'd go up to them and tell them they should really try GDB. They'd always declare that they didn't have the time to learn it. Then at about 3:00 in the morning, they'd be desperate enough to try it. Most of the time, we'd find their bug within a few minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Add me to the list of people who had previously used a deluge of printf()s.

I've always wanted to be a gdb guru but it just seemed a little mystical and unnecessary. But this tutorial seems like it gets to the point so I'll start reading it tonight. Thanks for the link.

<comment><USER6> It's one of those programs that I feel I really ought to learn to use (somewhat like emacs) but whenever I try I get that sinking feeling after a while and give up.

At least for gdb, there are some great graphical front-ends like kdbg and (the slightly odd but definitely functional) ddd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A debugger's a great way to go through a source base of under/badly/not documented code. Ironically enough, GDB's probably the only way to get a good handle of what GCC does internally.

I love gdb's ability to call an arbitrary routine of your code while in a breakpoint. A good print/validation routine for your own data structures is wonderful there.

But yeah, it can turn into a parasitic, addictive time sucker if you don't stay disciplined about it. If all you're wanting is a stack trace here or there, and it doesn't take too long to relink the app, it's usually faster to put an

      if (condition) { printf(interesting state); }

in the code than conditional breakpoints.

</comment><comment><USER8> I use Rational Purify, which shows all memory leaks, and Rational Quantify, which gives statistics.

Purify stops leaks. Quantify allows adding a few hacks to give 20x speedup, sometimes 100x with practise.

Windows only AFAIK.

<comment><USER9> Valgrind is also incredibly useful if you are working with Linux.

<comment><USER8> I've used Valgrind on Linux, but it's one of those applications where I have the time and patience to install it once, but not twice. That's my fault for not taking notes on how I set it up.

It is in some ways as good as Quantify and Purify, except that they're much easier to use, being based around a good GUI.

<comment><USER10> Um... what? You install valgrind by selecting it from your package manager (e.g. "apt-get install valgrind"). You run it by prepending "valgrind" to the command. Then you read the output. Valgrind is one of the most dummy-proof development tools I'm aware of. For someone to claim that they don't have the patience to "learn" it is just beyond me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: The definitive guide to outsourcing a tech-startup. - <AUTHOR>

I can do HTML/CSS and design, but I can't code. I bet a lot of people are in my situation, or even worse.
I don't have a technical founder, but I want to start a startup, via outsourcing. I spent all of last night searching for information, and there really isn't much other than "make sure you hire someone experienced."
So, please share any and all information or links or experience you have on doing so.
Commence. <comment><USER2> You are setting yourself up for failure. Without specific knowledge of the development process you will not know how to place the checks and balances on an outsourced project to ensure success. You need a technical co founder. Take the money that you would put into outsourcing and pledge it to marketing and other items. A co-founder will be more likely to take you up, if he sees that there is some cash to bootstrap the product after it has been built.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have little experience when it comes to startups but from what I've read so far I think you'd be better off with a tech co-founder rather than a outsourced developer.

If your plan has trivial technical needs maybe you should try checking local universities etc. (There was an article about a guy who was selling bowling balls online and was paying 2 college guys to code the website for him, his business was in good shape)</comment>


Free Trade Is Dead - <AUTHOR> http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/free-trade-is-dead/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. I've never heard this "America doing the world a favor" version of free trade. The story usually told is "big corporations using political levers to open markets and make lots of money by taking advantage of weak governments". Many of those corporations are American.

But of course, what's good for American corporations, and the people who run them, may not be what's good for America as a whole, or specificaly the workers.

</comment><comment><USER3> In some possible world, a US president Trump and congress should impose a 50% tariff on imported goods, services and intellectual property, in steps, over a five year period.

BOOM.

<comment><USER4> Boom there go a bunch of trade dependent jobs, or Boom here come higher prices?

<comment><USER5> BOOM goes the dynamite.</comment></comment></comment>


Would you steal a buck? How about a can of soda? - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/ariely-tt0409.html

<comment><USER2> Question: "Even though the value was comparable [cans of sodas and a dollar] --and thus the situations were supposed to be equivalent--people responded in opposite ways. Why is that?"

Answer: Sane people leave six packs of sodas in refrigerators so the sodas get cold and in case those with access to the refrigerator get thirsty. The old idiom applies: treat others as you would want to be treated.

Dollar bills generally do not belong in refrigerators. Thus there is no social norm reasonably explaining the purpose of the dollars in the refrigerator. The researcher needs to provide an explanation as to why the situations are supposed to be equivalent.

<comment><USER3> That's an interesting question, but you can replicate this experiment in a variety of ways and see the same result. My mother is a nurse, and she has a saying that goes something like, "Leave a $50 bill in the break room, and nobody will touch it, but leave a plate of brownies and they're gone before you can tell people to take one."

Since it won't cost you much, try this: Leave a box of pastries or chocolates somewhere people congregate (the lunch room, a common kitchen, etc. Probably not on the street :). Count how many are left the next day. At another point, leave the cash equivalent. Count how much is missing at the end of the day.

In the vast majority of cases, the food goes (in the absence of explicit permission), but the money doesn't.

<comment><USER4> Don't plates of food carry _implicit_ permission? One person wouldn't bring a plate full of brownies if she intended it only for herself.

And if she did she would make a note saying so.

<comment><USER3> Ok, here's another example. Only a few people I know, a small handful, have had roommates take money from them. However, virtually everyone I know has had a roommate take food from them (or has taken food from a roommate) without permission.

<comment><USER5> But the problem is still the same. The statement that "people have an irrational sense of logic because they would take food from a roommate, but not money" is still incorrect.

Of the 15 or so roommates I've had in my life, 13 or 14 would have almost always answered "yes" to the question "hey, can I take XXX from the fridge and eat it." Whereas fewer of them would have answered the same if I had asked for money. Therefore, the decision to take something from another person is heavily influenced by the anticipated response of that person (and therefore not as illogical as the researcher is concluding).

<comment><USER3> Would your roommates refuse to lend you 5 dollars? If not, why is it wrong to take the 5 dollars from his desk, or take money he left in a common area? Under your reasoning it would perfectly fine, common, even.

"I'm sure he won't mind if I just take a few dollars," seems more wrong than "I'm sure he won't mind if I drink one of his fancy beers/soymilk smoothies/etc".

<comment><USER5> I think you're missing my point. Yes, it seems more wrong to take money than to take a drink from the fridge.

The researcher in this study is saying "aha! taking a drink is exactly the same as taking money, therefore human beings are illogical thinkers in this scenario!" But it is in fact logical - it's based on the anticipated response of the person whose money/drink you're taking (and if you don't know how it belongs to - the general expectations of people in your society/community).

Also, I'm sure that there are societies in which people never take drinks from other people, and consider it the same as taking money. A comprehensive study would have covered more than an American college campus.

<comment><USER6> No, I don't think that is what he is saying at all. He is saying that standard economics treats the two as being the same, because it reduces things to their dollar value. The experiment identifies an area where standard economic assumptions breakdown, which means that you can't use standard economic theories to determine the result.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _But then he tried another variation: Before doing the test, he asked one group of subjects to name 10 books they had read in high school. He asked another group to name as many of the Ten Commandments as they could remember. The group that listed the books followed the same pattern as the earlier test – they all cheated a little. But the group that named the commandments was different: Nobody cheated at all!_

 _"Just the act of contemplating morality eliminated cheating," Ariely explains._

This conclusion seems like one someone _wanted_ to make, not one that makes sense.

Couldn't it just be that people know the ten commandments are easily checked, so it's silly to try to make some up?

And I don't understand how they know people cheated on the books question. How can you possibly find out what books someone read while in high school? Unless they mean specifically which ones were assigned (which still seems hard to verify).

And if people listed some titles they hadn't read it doesn't imply cheating: they could simply be remembering incorrectly.

<comment><USER7> I found that section confusing too. I think it's just the result of a bit of bad writing though. After rereading it, I'd guess they had subjects list books or commandments and then take the addition test.

<comment><USER4> I think you're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dan Ariely, the researcher behind this, has done a lot of seriously cool work on human behavior (People call it behavioral economics, which makes it sound rather academic or wonkish). <http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/chapters.shtml>

This somewhat personal essay is worth reading for many reasons: <http://web.mit.edu/ariely/www/MIT/Papers/mypain.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER9> The values are not always equivalent. When you're really thirsty, a can of soda is worth more than a buck.

</comment><comment><USER10> What would you do if you found 280 bucks in a stack of 20's on the sidewalk?

This actually happened to me on campus a couple years ago. Not knowing what to do, I picked up the bills and just stood there awkwardly, holding them out, hoping the person who dropped them would come back and claim them (under the assumption that a random person wouldn't say anything to me holding 14 20's). I skipped class waiting, and then, not wanting to miss the next class pocketed the money. Was I wrong?

</comment><comment><USER11> I just finished and recommend a very interesting book on this kind of thing. It's called

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. By Robert B. Cialdini

</comment><comment><USER12> I think a small vignette from Clerks says it best:

Dante Hicks: "Theoretically, people see money on the counter, and no one around, they think they're being watched."

Veronica: "Honesty through paranoia."

</comment><comment><USER13> I bought the book this week. It's a juicy compelling read if you are interested in psychology and marketing.</comment>


Ask HN: How do algotraders backtest - <AUTHOR> Would like to know where do algo trading firms / quants / prop desks find the dataset to backrest your strategy? Is it common to use a commercial service or does these organizations use their own data that they have collected over the years? <comment><USER2> I would imagine the best thing to do is to own a sizable exchange and save all of the order data (submitted orders, cancelled orders, fulfilled orders, etc.). Getting second-hand data sets with coarse-grained information (like price per second) is going to vastly limit how effective your bot can be (since, for example, price per unit time is not raw data).</comment>


What Are the Popular SexTech Startups in Adult Industry? - <AUTHOR> https://adent.io/popular-sextech-startups-in-adult-industry/ <comment><USER2> Honestly, it never occurred to me that 'sextech' was a thing. But yeah of course and there must be some extremely cool tech opportunities: haptics, AI, communications, bot design, ...</comment>


Ask HN: Node.js text editor source code - <AUTHOR>

Atom was just released (sorta, no code for the core), LightTable is our there (but code is ClojureScript) and it seems there are quite a few browser based Node/JS editors.
What I was hoping to find is some source to a cross platform Node/V8/Chromium based editor for learning purposes. I can't seem to find any code via google/github/bitbucket and was wondering if someone might be able to point me in the right direction.
In case it matters, I wanted to learn a bit more about node for applications and possibly write novel writing software (ala Scrivener) in this manner. I am writing my first novel and find the options outside Scrivener to be pretty lacking. And to make it worse, Scrivener is only available on Ubuntu via Wine, which ideal for me. <comment><USER2> Brackets.io [http://brackets.io/](http://brackets.io/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I am using Cloud9 [https://c9.io](https://c9.io) for Node.js and they are the people behind Ace which is the editor that cloud 9 uses. You can check out Ace on GitHub here: [https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/](https://github.com/ajaxorg/ace/) or here [http://ace.c9.io/](http://ace.c9.io/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not node.js specific really, but the Ace editor and CodeMirror are both JavaScript-based code editing tools that work in the browser and would be embeddable in more feature rich editor.</comment>


Go upgrade Xcode. Fix your Git security hole - <AUTHOR> http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2016/05/05/xcode/ <comment><USER3> Apple's developer responsible for maintaining Git wrote that the fixed version didn't make it into Xcode 7.3, because the vulnerability was announced later than they released it [1][2]. It took some time to release 7.3.1, indeed, and maybe even Rachel's original post made them release it faster. It's sad that they can't do it more quickly, but let's hope they'll improve release process.

[1] [https://twitter.com/jeremyhu/status/722272350272512000](https://twitter.com/jeremyhu/status/722272350272512000)

[2] [https://twitter.com/jeremyhu/status/722482144082157568](https://twitter.com/jeremyhu/status/722482144082157568)

<comment><USER4> Their release process, IMHO, leaves a lot to be desired. I honestly feel Apple takes far too long to release fixes, especially when it comes to security matters.

I also feel that their decision making process in general is opaque and often arbitrary. Their lack of openness and transparency leave a lot to desired. Ironically, I love their products and I'm often astounded by their high level of customer service - it's the only company I know where they have setup a system where you submit a support request and _they_ call _you_ , and frankly their Apple Stores are a genuine pleasure to walk into and their staff have always been attentive and helpful when I go in there.

I really have a love-hate relationship with Apple, but on balance far more love than hate. There's a reason they inspire a passionate reaction in people, I just wish that many of those who are so passionate (the much maligned "Apple fan boi") would accept that you can be both critical AND supportive of a company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it enough to update Xcode command line tools or do I need to install full Xcode?

(I don't usually use Xcode)

<comment><USER6> Updating Command Line Tools is enough:

        $ xcode-select --print-path
        /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools

        $ git --version
        git version 2.7.4 (Apple Git-66)

<comment><USER7>
        softwareupdate  --install 'Command Line Tools (OS X 10.11) for Xcode-7.3'

<comment><USER6> Didn't know that software update was even possible from the Terminal. That's pretty cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And this wouldn't be a problem if they didn't make a wide variety of system directories immutable to anyone (including root) but the installation user.

Apparently this is a very unpopular opinion, so even though I really like Apple and use them on a daily basis, I await the brickbats for daring to offer even the smallest criticism of decisions they made about El Capitan.

Please, feel free to reboot your server to disable this security feature so that you can install security updates for software Apple take a rather long time to supply themselves.

<comment> vertex-four OS X isn't a server OS and hasn't been for a while.

<comment><USER4> Funny how I just installed OS X Server just today...

<comment> vertex-four You can also install Apache, a mail server, etc etc on Windows 10. Doesn't make Windows 10 a server OS.

<comment><USER4> And Windows can operate as a server running all sorts of things like Active Directory, Exchange, etc. - that's because Microsoft bundles the software with it to allow it to do this, but the underlying operating system remains the same.

How is that any different to OS X? And how are you defining what is and isn't a "server operating system"? Perhaps I'm taking you too literally, but I guess I consider an operating system that allows or is designed to act as a server to be such a thing.

Of course, it might not be the best way of running a server, but it's still an operating system running software listening on a port that serves the requests from clients.

I seem to remember when people said Linux wasn't a "server OS", yet it very much was...

<comment> vertex-four > And Windows can operate as a server running all sorts of things like Active > Directory, Exchange, etc. - that's because Microsoft bundles the software > with it to allow it to do this, but the underlying operating system remains > the same.

Actually, it seriously isn't - Windows Server has a hugely changed set of features compared to Windows on the desktop, from the kernel upwards. The software in question is tied heavily into every piece of the OS - there is almost no major component in Windows 10 that is exactly the same in its equivalent server build. This is very different from both OS X and Linux.

OS X is very much _not_ designed to act as a permanently always-on server in a business-critical capacity - what I'd expect from a server OS. The fact that Apple sell a product called "server" doesn't change that, any more than that XAMPP exists for Windows 10.

To put it in a question - would you run your SaaS off of OS X?

<comment><USER4> No, I wouldn't. I think I made that clear already? I'm just saying that I don't understand your definition of a "server OS".

Incidentally, my point about Windows Server is the same you have made - <USER2> that the kernel architecture is the same. It still runs pretty much this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT#/me...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Windows_NT#/media/File:Windows_2000_architecture.svg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Xcode 7.3.1 doesn't seem to be enough.

I installed Xcode 7.3.1, but git hasn't been updated to 2.7.4.

$ git --version

git version 2.5.0

Do I need to do something more?

<comment><USER9> Git seems to be included with the xcode command line tools, make sure that's up to date.

<comment><USER10> If you have Xcode, you don't need the command line tools and are better off removing them. The Xcode.app bundle itself contains all the command line tools, so having both is redundant. The command line tools are just provided for people who don't want to install the full Xcode.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The git versions Apple ships are reasonable up to date. Too bad they don't include the contrib directory.

<comment><USER12> > The git versions Apple ships are reasonable up to date.

More than usual, but still not exactly up to date, as of April 17 Xcode shipped with Git 2.6.4, which was 2 minors and ~4 months out of date (2.6.5 in January and 2.6.6 in March) on its maintenance branch, and a major out of date (2.7.0 had been released in January)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any chance that blog is based off a static site generator I can use? it looks like pretty much my ideal blog format.

</comment><comment><USER14> Probably not really related but to me that update is stuck at 0KB. I wonder if it has anything to do me having changed country in the middle of the process.

</comment><comment><USER15> Meanwhile, Homebrew's Git is at 2.8.2 (latest).

<comment><USER9> usr/bin/git is still vulnerable and is much more difficult than it appears to be to remove, homebrews git binary is stored in usr/local/bin/git

<comment><USER16> The claim you're making has been widely spread but is mistaken. /usr/bin/git is just a wrapper that execs the real git from /Applications/Xcode.app or /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools (depending on what you have installed), and some things will invoke the latter directly anyway; thus removing the wrapper is neither necessary nor sufficient to prevent exposure to the vulnerability.

<comment><USER4> Or you set the DEVELOPMENT_DIR environment variable... what could _possibly_ go wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> `brew upgrade git`

No need to wait for Apple.

<comment><USER18> That still leaves the system git vulnerable, which might be exploitable if you can trick the user into choosing the wrong git binary

<comment><USER19> chmod -x /usr/bin/git

<comment><USER4> You can't. That's the point!

<comment><USER20>
        sudo chmod a-x $(xcrun -f git)

_All problems in computer science can be solved by another level of indirection_

<comment><USER4> Er... I gain root access and just do:

      sudo chmod a+x $(xcrun -f git)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > _My reading suggests that if you were to point a vulnerable version at a > repository which is controlled by an attacker, then they could run code as > you on your machine._

This threat exists regardless, because git repos usually contain code, which you pull, compile and execute. As you, on your machine.

<comment><USER22> Yes, but normally you get to inspect that code before compiling and executing if you wish to.

<comment><USER21> But you don't get to do that with the updated git from Apple any more than the original.

<comment><USER23> I clone repositories all the time to inspect/learn/debug dependencies without ever building them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Drive will soon back up your entire computer – The Verge - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/6/14/15802200/google-backup-and-sync-app-announced-drive-feature <comment><USER2> Google will soon put you in pods and feed its AI straight from your brain. That seems to be the direction it wants to go, at least.

</comment><comment><USER3> You spelled "scan your entire computer for the NSA" wrong.</comment>