Sticker shock over Seattle's new sugary drink tax - <AUTHOR> http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/sticker-shock-over-seattles-new-sugary-drink-tax/677490924 <comment><USER2> I broadly agree that we americans consume too much sugar but I'm worried that many will find drinking artificial sweeteners as detrimental as I have. Somewhere I have a link to a source article with references to the study behind this article but alas, I'm not finding it in my Pinboard - [https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/...](https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/14/artificial- sweeteners-dont-fool-your-brain.aspx).

What about all our other over-sweetened junk foods? What about all our fried snack-foods?

<comment><USER3> Good point. At least sugar is natural instead of a bunch of man made chemicals.

<comment><USER4> The sugar used in drinks - especially in the US - is far from natural. There's no HFCS in nature.

<comment><USER3> Yep. I would prefer if they went with just regular cane sugar instead but I know some drinks do have a version with that now.

<comment><USER5> Australia overwhelmingly uses cane sugar, but we still have plenty of obesity.

I think its less to do with the type of sugar consumed... and more about how much we consume.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These taxes currently only drive purchases out of your jurisdiction, lowering your tax base but not preventing the bad behavior. If you want a sugar tax to be effective it needs to cover a large enough area that I can't easily avoid it.

Boulder, CO has a two cent per ounce sugar tax. It has been extremely effective- I now always stop at a gas station in Denver to buy a soda before driving into the Boulder city limits (I only go to Boulder once or twice a month).

It's just like how we used to drive across state lines to buy cheap fireworks as a kid.

<comment><USER7> > These taxes currently only drive purchases out of your jurisdiction

Or you can use it as an employment generation exercise by setting up checkpoints at state borders to avoid import from other states, applying a higher tax on fuel locally and making it illegal to bring more fuel into the state than you go out with. A few states in India have successfully implemented the first part for alcohol for instance, and I guess other countries should have the same. Even US has differing gun laws across states, so whatever mechanism is used to enforce those can be extended to enforce this

<comment><USER8> > Even US has differing gun laws across states, so whatever mechanism is used > to enforce those can be extended to enforce this

Ah, so stopping minorities to shake them down for soda.

In all seriousness, you can't just set up border checkpoints in the US. You'd have to have probable cause to stop an individual, and even if you stopped everyone you can't search them without a warrant (which requires probably cause) or their permission.

<comment><USER7> Isnt checking for cross state border tax evasion considered probable cause? Just like how customs inspects packages coming from outside the country or even Americans returning from a foreign visit (Not an American, just curious.. since apparently this is a US specific behaviour)

<comment><USER8> > Isnt checking for cross state border tax evasion considered probable cause?

Nope. Probable cause is a specific legal standard in the US - the Wikipedia article gives a decent overview: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probable_cause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probable_cause)

In short, it requires a reasonable belief that a crime has been committed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are there any other goods taxed after quantity rather than a sales tax? It seems complicated.

EDIT: Ah, cigarettes and alcohol (in the US) apparently:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_taxes_in_the_United_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigarette_taxes_in_the_United_States#State_cigarette_tax_rates)

[https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options/2013/44854](https://www.cbo.gov/budget- options/2013/44854)

And healthcare:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excise_tax_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excise_tax_in_the_United_States#Affordable_care_act_excise_taxes)

<comment><USER6> Gasoline tax is based on quantity in the USA: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_Sta...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_taxes_in_the_United_States)

It makes sense because gas usage is very correlated with road wear, so people who drive heavier vehicles pay a proportionate share of the road maintenance costs.

<comment><USER10> > It makes sense because gas usage is very correlated with road wear, so > people who drive heavier vehicles pay a proportionate share of the road > maintenance costs.

There are also some cases where it makes no sense, particularly since fuel tax is a primary source of funding for infrastructure and repair.

A Toyota Prius and a Ford Focus are both around 3,000 lbs, will do roughly the same damage on the road. The Prius gets 58 mpg city and 53 highway. The Focus is at 30 city 40 highway. So for city driving the Prius driver contributes 1/2 as much to the fuel tax revenues.

It's a nice incentive to reduce emissions, however the Prius driver is not contributing proportionally to the fuel tax.

If only we could charge make a charge based on weight, mpg, and miles driven.

<comment><USER11> The brouhaha over a Prius (or heck, my Focus Electric) not paying fair share of gas taxes is overblown since hybrids and electrics still constitute a minuscule % of total road wear.

The issue will come to a head when we have 4x4s and 18 wheelers en masse hybridized or fully electric in large quantities. I don't see that happening for a decade or more out.

<comment><USER8> I honestly don't ever see the typical 4x4 being a hybrid. Living in rural Arkansas, almost everyone I know who drives a 4x4 drives an older model, and working on them is a large part of the experience.

I drive a 2000 Jeep, and wouldn't even consider buying a hybrid or fully- electric version. A diesel, absolutely, but not anything with a battery pack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't that the point? If it went unnoticed because it was too small then nothing would really come of it.

</comment><comment><USER13> I hate 'sin' taxes in all forms including this one. Tax alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and now sugar. It's meant to control behavior, but they disproportionately affect the poor. They do a poor job of controlling behavior. Any cigarette smoking given the choice between having no lunch or having no cigarettes is going to choose cigarettes every time. That's not controlling behavior it's subverting it.

<comment><USER14> The word "sin" implicates that it's all about morality, but there are also real negative externalities associated with these stimulants that are costing society a lot of money. Also, taxes have to come from somewhere, isn't it good to tax things that are (on average) bad for society rather than only good/neutral things (like income)?

<comment><USER15> "Pigouvian tax" is the term for a tax on negative externalities.

A tax on sugar is both a sin tax and a Pigouvian tax. IMO the real reason for its introduction was the sin tax angle, but it's Pigouvian tax principles is what makes it a "good" tax.

<comment><USER16> I was under the impression that the taxes were more from a public health perspective: smoking, alcohol etc. are leading causes of death and we want to discourage public consumption while at the same time raising revenue

<comment><USER15> That's basically the definition of a sin tax: a tax to discourage you from doing things that are bad for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> In common scenarios this can be a 134-236% tax. Cigarette tax is roughly 50%, Marijuana is roughly 50%, Liquor is roughly 30%.

Common scenarios:

Store brand 2-liter: $0.88, 67 ounces, $0.0175 per ounce, $1.17 in tax, 134% tax.

During all of December, 2-liter Cokes at Walmart in my town in Washington (not sure about Seattle) were $0.95 with $1 off coupon when buying two, this yields the 236% tax rate.

If milk is listed as the first ingredient, it's not taxed. So 1200 calorie milkshakes are a substitute.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hey, it could be worse.

I live in a place where as of Jan 1st of this year, you have to pay a tax on plastic bags (5 cents per bag).

Unlike soda, just about everyone who goes grocery shopping in small increments uses bags (because a cart is overkill).

Yesterday I left the grocery store with a chicken breast sticking out of my coat pocket.

<comment><USER19> Or, crazy thought, you could _reuse_ those bags. A tiny dent on all that plastic wrapping that goes into landfills but...

<comment><USER18> I will now but I don't think it'll do much in the grand scheme of things.

Even if you bought 1 bag every day for a year that'll be $18.25. Most people won't care enough to reuse bags and will continue doing business as usual pre- tax.

Then of course, there's the ~7.4 billion other people on Earth who never even heard of a plastic bag tax so their habits won't change either.

I would rather see them just stop manufacturing plastic bags and also make them illegal. If their goal is to cut down on people using them that would be the way to do it. Instead, they tax it to an amount where they are hoping more than enough people won't care enough, so they can profit off laziness while they care nothing about the environment.

<comment><USER20> _Then of course, there 's the ~7.4 billion other people on Earth who never even heard of a plastic bag tax so their habits won't change either._

Actually a plastic bag charge or even ban becoming the norm in more and more parts of the world. If anything the US is late to this game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I doubt the diet soda is going to be much better for you. Seattle seems crazy. Banning plastic straws. Sure wouldn't want to live there, maybe visit but they even want to ban people from driving gas and diesels into the city! So I guess skip them on the road trip across the country once they do!

Electric cars are all about control, limiting freedoms and are gimmicky. The new Tesla you have to use the touch screen to even open the glove box! Even the AC is touch screen based - which I think is unsafe compared to a tactile physical knob.

[http://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-other-major-world- cit...](http://komonews.com/news/local/seattle-other-major-world-cities- pledge-to-ban-gas-diesel-vehicles) \- wonder how huge of a fine they'll give to tourists just passing through.

I really think these local governments are out of control. I really hope the feds step in and do something to them using the Commerce Clause to end this nonsense. I think there are certain things cities should be prohibited from regulating.

<comment><USER4> So you want to ban them from banning stuff? What's wrong with local citizens deciding what they want for their own city, anyway?

 _The new Tesla you have to use the touch screen to even open the glove box! Even the AC is touch screen based - which I think is unsafe compared to a tactile physical knob._

I fully agree, but that has nothing to do with being an electric car. The Chevy Bolt has a regular knob for AC control, for example: [http://st.automobilemag.com/uploads/sites/11/2017/03/Chevrol...](http://st.automobilemag.com/uploads/sites/11/2017/03/Chevrolet- Bolt-EV-2017-All-Star-Winner-climate-control.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Nice about the Bolt. I just feel like Silicon Valley and other cities like LA and Seattle are out of touch with the rest of America, and some sort of bubble of repeating ideas over and over again.

I care about the environment but I also think we have to be practical about it. Newer and newer gas cars are getting cleaner and more efficient. Or maybe someone enjoys off roading in their Jeep. or someone out of state is touring the nation in their Diesel Pusher RV. I just think it's crazy for a city to try to ban people who live in other cities from even being allowed to drive there based on their car. Well by 2030 and the article mentions the mayor, so maybe it will never happen. I just hate that idea. Maybe the tourism or chamber of commerce would step up for that one.

At least with the soda tax you can just drive out of the city and buy it cheaper like the signs they posted mentioned at the store.

<comment><USER20> _I just feel like Silicon Valley and other cities like LA and Seattle are out of touch with the rest of America_

I thought that was one of the cool features of the US. That cities and states are much more free to come up with their own way to do things and test out new ideas without always having to go the federal government and ask for permission. If Seattle wants to do A and Minneapolis wants to do B, they can just go and do it and see what happens instead of lobbying the government to make either A or B mandatory across the whole country.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bell, Telus to use Nokia and Ericsson, not Huawei, in building their 5G networks - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bce-5g-ericsson-1.5594601 <comment><USER2> For a long period of time, these companies would not publicly commit to going ahead without Huawei for 5G, and despite pressure from the US (and warnings from CSIS), the Canadian government still has not made an announcement about whether Huawei would be restricted as a supplier.

Many Canadians were frustrated by this, feeling like they didn't want Huawei networks but that they weren't being heard.

It occurs to me now that had any of those steps been taken before reaching a deal with Ericsson, it would have given Ericsson a much stronger bargaining position and they probably could have charged a lot more.

This isn't the first time where I've felt frustrated, unheard, and kept in the dark, only to later realize that there may have been important considerations that I just wasn't aware of.

<comment><USER3> Just goes to show that Canadian telecom policy is controlled by telecoms, not by the government. It's very cozy and regularly functions to discourage competition.

Canadian telecom policy still revolves around "facilities-based competition", where it's believed that new entrants should build out a new network. It's designed to fail. Even the incumbents, Bell and Telus, share a 3G/4G mobile network to avoid redundant infrastructure. Ironically, the two contracted Huawei and Nokia to build out this network: [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bell-teams-up- wit...](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/bell-teams-up-with-rival- telus-on-3g/article1200256/)

Huawei was marketing 5G directly to Canadian consumers for a while, but was careful to never mention/imply that 5G could lower pricing. That would be a thermonuclear threat to telecoms with dire consequences.

<comment><USER4> People complain about the lack of cell phone providers here in the US, but damn! Canada is way worse. The cost of phone plans is outrageous and the major telecoms do everything in their power to stop new entrants from messing up their gravy train.

<comment><USER5> I think it's far more difficult to build a competitive network in Canada vs the US. Canada is as big as the US, but has 1/10th the population. Building and maintaining infrastructure for low-density population areas is extremely capital intensive. I am not saying the existing Telco oligopoly is a good or ideal situation. Just mentioning that US and Canada have some differences in this regard

<comment><USER3> Most of the low-density population areas aren't covered anyway. By landmass, it's single-digit percentages or low double-digit percentages of coverage (And often it's weak outside of urban/suburban area).

One of the least dense provinces, Saskatchewan, has some of the best pricing in the country because the government has yet to selloff the provincial telecom to private investors. Manitoba too before they decided to privatize and sell off to an incumbent.

And high-density is no panacea for cost. Tall concrete buildings everywhere can mean _more_ infrastructure costs. Especially if regulations require you to fit infrastructure into the facade. Medium-density is the least engineering: Just put up a tower and call it a day. And in Canada, antenna permits are federal. Once issued, local govs can't stop you from putting up your monstrosity of white panels on a midrise or a big metal antenna.

But you don't have to just compare Canada against the USA. Australia or Iceland have rates that Canadians can only dream of, with similarly geo- population situations.

<comment><USER6> There's a reason we fight hard for our crown corperations out here in Saskatchewan, if this was left to the market we would be screwed. The farther away from populated centers you get, the harder it is to get decent service however. I grew up out in Melville, SK where the fastest connections at the time were 15mbps DSL connections (this was around the time that Google Fiber was starting to roll out elsewhere). Once you get farther out, copper isn't even an option so cellular and satellite links are needed. The only nice thing about fiber is digging up ditches is relatively cheap

Some of us are excited to see how systems such as StarLink develop, maybe bringing decent rural access to the network is in the cards.

Next time you make a page that requires 10Mb of assets before loading, please remember there are people dealing with terrible connections. I know my first 100mbps connection was a godsend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm as much a proponent of free trade as the next guy, but I do think there's a strong argument for trying to build and maintaining one's own infrastructure whenever possible, even if it's a bit more expensive. Not just for national security concerns, but because they're big domestic projects and it's nice to have to the talent and knowledge at home.

<comment><USER8> Just to note that purchasing equipment from Nokia and Ericsson doesn't mean that you are "building and maintaining one's own infrastructure".

As a bonus the network is also actively listened by all state players who have the ability to do so, regardless of supplier.

<comment><USER7> Right, I was making an argument for domestic solutions, which wouldn't include Nokia or Ericsson - I could've been more clear.

<comment><USER9> Mobile network equipment is complicated enough that you can't expect every country to make their own from scratch. It's a bit like trying to make a domestic mobile OS or web browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Possibly a bit of a stretch, but to my mind more business for Ericsson means more guaranteed support for Erlang. That's something to celebrate about in my book.

<comment><USER11> I never put it together that for the the telecom-originating language Erlang, the "Er" stood for Ericsson. The more you know.

'The name Erlang, attributed to Bjarne Däcker, has been presumed by those working on the telephony switches (for whom the language was designed) to be a reference to Danish mathematician and engineer Agner Krarup Erlang and a syllabic abbreviation of "Ericsson Language".' [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_\(programming_language\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Huge relief to the government, who can now "approve" Huawei, and can go to the Chinese government and say, "see look we play fair in Canada", and still be sure that this will mean nothing and that no Huawei equipment will be used.

Wouldn't be surprised if the government asked the establishment telcos to do this favour for them. Huawei and the notion of them building Canadian 5G polls insanely badly in Canada and the government was in a tough place here.

<comment><USER11> The relationship between Canada and China isn't exactly cuddly warm right now, what with Meng Wanzhou detained in Vancouver at the request of the Americans, and China's execution of a few unrelated Canadians in retribution [1].

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/china- sen...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-30/china-sentences- another-canadian-man-to-death-amid-huawei-feud)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My mobile carrier in Australia (Vodafone) was 100% Huawei for 4G and, similarly, has had to pivot away for 5G at great expense (it seems that the Huawei 5G was a cheaper upgrade to the existing kit they had). It has delayed them doing 5G for at least a year trying to make both the tech and commercials work to pivot. [https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/vodafone-signs- nok...](https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/vodafone-signs-nokia- for-5g-huawei-sites-to-be-scaled-back-20191230-p53ni6.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Can somebody articulate why using huawei a bad idea beside it's a Chinese company and using those equipments gives China backdoor access into critical systems and everything it connects to. Or is that basically it? I am trying to understand this objectively as if sitting on mars why this is a good or bad idea.

<comment><USER15> Using Huawei will pump money into Huawei pockets - allowing them to spend more on R&D for the next-gen tech (6G), resulting in China cementing technological primacy in telecoms - which just won't do as such proficiencies tend to spill- over into related fields (chip design & fabrication, RF engineering & software chops for civilian and military applications). All this is bad (from the perspective of the US)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For the unfamiliar, these are the bigger 2 of the big 3 ISPs in Canada. The basically own most of the actual telecommunication infrastructure, Rogers got some but not much.

<comment><USER17> >Rogers got some but not much.

The Rogers network is massive. Bell (which is larger in the east) and Telus (western based) share infrastructure. Rogers is their nation-wide competitor.

Rogers' LTE network covers 95% of the population (according to wiki).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Wireless#LTE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Wireless#LTE)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a Canadian, I would say that if Huawei was not selected due to issues relating to national security -- then why not take some time to setup a crown corporation / Government-owned company and have them develop indigenous hardware/software for 5G networks?

I am sure if Canadians can develop their own smartphones, space mission components (Canada arm) and airplanes, they can develop 5G network equipment.

<comment><USER19> Starting from scratch would mean we would have 5G when everyone else is upgrading from the "old, outdated" 5G technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would love to know whether the fundamental objection over security vulnerabilities in the hardware and software of Huawei is resolved with this decision.

Or if Nokia and Ericsson are just as susceptible and it was just political posturing.

<comment><USER17> It's not _vulnerabilities_ they're worried about. The Chinese Communist Party effectively controls Huawei. For obvious reasons this is much more risky than sourcing equipment from ideological/political allies in Europe.

<comment><USER17> Hmm, this the first time I've been downvoted so hard and coincidentally, also the first time I've ever mentioned the CCP.

What a wild coincidence. /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In other news; here in Denmark the government has barred Huawei by decree. Also covering Greenland and Faroe Islands. The situation is a bit different here since as there are multiple competing network operators (at least in mainland DK).

Germany's main network operators are also decling Huawei; not by direct government decree though.

So Huawei seems to be loosing 5G contracts all over the western world.

<comment><USER21> Actually in which western countries will Huawei implement 5G networks? I know they are technically allowed some places but no operators dare to hire them.

<comment><USER22> South Africa, well I don't know if it counts as western but we're rolling out 5G and using Huawei, as we did for our previous gen towers.

<comment><USER23> Well you can't beat their pricing ... we don't have the luxury of spending $$$ on an ideological decision.

<comment><USER24> Are they really cheaper? Anyone have the prices?

I think even if they're cheaper now, they'll raise their prices later. And then you'd just be lining up the CCPs pockets at the expense of EU companies (does not apply to SA, I'm just saying for EU citizens).

I was really disappointed in their newest high end phones. On par with Samsung in quality and price, but instead of making them more open (for custom mods and ROMs) they just went down the lockdown route. "Bootloader is locked for the user's safety"... Yeah, right.

Shame, that's one thing they could've kept doing to distinguish themselves and their products.

<comment><USER22> They're really well priced, in terms of phones IMO yeah. In terms of broadcast hardware I assume that's the case too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> has anyone had to hear their crazy relatives go on about the dangers of 5G? Is there some penultimate youtube video or resource to point people to to assuage their fears?

<comment><USER26> I spent many hours arguing with a smart friend about this. I was unable to find any argument to get her to stop believing 5G is boiling/damaging/altering people's blood with "high powered energy waves" or similar (the blood clot revelations have only amplified that conspiracy angle).

I find a commonality among most conspiracy theory people is vast ignorance of the topic in question and any underlying science. This isn't always true, however I've found it to be frequently true. They watch YouTube or Facebook videos on a conspiracy, someone states an incorrect thing that is held up as being scientifically correct; the conspiracy minded person has no idea it's wrong because of their ignorance of science, and their eagerness to consume conspiracies prevents them from being willing to do proper research. They buy in with no skepticism.

Often the conversation would end on a variation of: when the pandemic is gone, and 5G is still here, then what happens to your conspiracy? They had no reply, the future risk of being wrong didn't matter, only the mental juice of the conspiracy here and now. Or: what about locations where there is no 5G and people are still widely getting the virus? No answer. Or: why is this event so interesting as to warrant outlandish conspiracy theories, versus the pandemics of 1957 or 1968 or 1918, which were not caused by 5G? Or: why didn't 4G kill everyone, despite the absurd conspiracy theories about that as well? It usually does no good, they ignore the premise because that's in the past, they're all about the conspiracy now (it's the only place they can mentally hide, because the conspiracy going on now is usually still open-ended, yet to be crushed fully).

The conspiracy they're latched on to in the present is interesting because all big events are interesting to the conspiracy brain. Particularly big active events. Once an event is disproven, they usually instantly forget it ever existed or that they were ever wrong, and move on to the latest thing occupying the news or culture that is worthy of conspiracy theories (it typically has to be a major event or their brains won't latch onto it).

I'm convinced at this point in my life, after decades of arguing with conspiracy-minded types, that it's a mis-wiring or imbalance in the brain that tilts people aggressively toward being prone to falling for conspiracy theories. They also seem to need the rush of it (which again makes me wonder about an imbalance in their brains). The way they behave intellectually is incredibly similar; when you get inside their way of thinking via long discussions, you start to see weirdly repeating patterns of thinking, traps, failures of logic, and so on. I find that people prone to it, can't seem to help themselves, they swallow conspiracy theories widely about numerous topics and rarely are capable of intellectual skepticism. It almost strikes me as an illness in how they seem hostage to it, and sort of reminds me of drug addicts I've known. Like arguing with a helpless zombie that can't alter their behavior under any circumstances, no matter what evidence they're presented with.

<comment><USER27> In my experience you can find plentiful examples of similar behaviour among people in general. Take any culture-war-themed thread here on HN and marvel at the _extensive_ collection of knowledge and facts people have on the subject, often extending well into unknowable regions that require omniscience, mind reading, future gazing, etc.

Human beings seem to be highly intuitive thinkers, but you may not notice it much in environments with low variance in core values and beliefs.

But just so I'm not misunderstood, I don't disagree that conspiracy oriented communities seem to have an unusually high percentage of people who are highly open to new and speculative ideas, and are mostly extremely tolerant of diversity of thought. I don't think it's necessarily as bad as it's made out to be, I think they provide some legitimate value to society, although whether it is _net beneficial_ I'm not entirely sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Anyone who lives in Canada should comment on this. Their mobile data cost is over the roof expensive! This is in comparison already expensive cost in Australia.

They need to manage to give everyone affordable 5G monthly data plan first!

<comment><USER2> Canadian here. I don't especially care about having a 5G plan, but I support this decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The carriers had every plan to use Huawei, the cost savings would drive far better profit margins and faster rollout for the same capital investment.

However, with the extradition situation with Meng and the threats from the CCP, it is clear that it isn't possible to do business with the company. The risk of a future need to tear out and replace Huawei product due to geo- political/ cyber-warfare in the future outweighs the savings from dealing with Ericsson or Nokia.

</comment><comment><USER30> Despite zero actual evidence, everyone seems sure that Huawei are a security issue.

Despite enormous evidence, everyone seems sure that Western countries are NOT a security issue.

Last time I checked, Huawei actually offered a better product (speed, price, reliability).

Am I missing something or are people cheering for the opportunity to pay more for a worse product with more security issues?!

<comment><USER31> The issue isn't the product itself - the issue is that the company that produces is controlled by an outwardly hostile foreign nation that has a history of carrying out state sponsored cyber attacks against critical infrastructure in the west.

<comment><USER30> Help me out here: link me to an actual Chinese state sponsored cyber attack. There are a few that might of possibly could have been something or maybe not according to someone. I don't doubt china are capable, but they don't seem to be doing it.

And that's exactly the same as the US. Plus the US are actively spying including using their power to support US companies and undermine democracies.

I wanna be clear here, neither "side" is to be trusted or safe or fine. But China is no more of a threat to third party nations' network security that the US as far as I can tell.

And I am normally the one being Hawkish on China.

<comment><USER32> Check out Mandiant's summary on APT1 [0]. Two brief excerpts from that report:

-APT1 is believed to be the 2nd Bureau of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) General Staff Department's (GSD) 3rd Department (总参三部二局), which is most commonly known by its Military Unit Cover Designator (MUCD) as Unit 61398 (61398部队).

-APT1 has systematically stolen hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations, and has demonstrated the capability and intent to steal from dozens of organizations simultaneously.

[0] [https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye- www/services/pdf...](https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye- www/services/pdfs/mandiant-apt1-report.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Here in Switzerland, all carriers which build their own cellular networks have chosen different partners for their 5G infrastructure:

* Swisscom: Ericsson

* Sunrise: Huawei

* Salt: Nokia

The whole Huawei scandal wasn't too big news here in Switzerland (as far as I know?) which is the reason that Swisscom and Sunrise were able to cover 90% of Swiss population with 5G at the same time (end of 2019).

</comment><comment><USER34> Bell is already using Huawei components in other parts of their network. When I opened my Bell fiber modem last year, I noticed Bell was using a 1.25 Gbit Huawei SFP+ transceiver. Is there any possibility of a backdoor?

<comment><USER35> > Is there any possibility of a backdoor? In a transceiver, I find it quite > unlikely. Usually the main question is to ask, what would the benefit and > cost of that backdoor be (and the risk of discovery).

So if Huawei managed to backdoor that transceiver, what could they accomplish with it? Chain it to exploit some vulnerability in the router the component is plugged into. Include a bunch of extra hardware and a capacitor, to allow it to surge the port on command to try and burn out your router? Try and sniff intelligence on that 1.25gbps connection, using some tiny low power embedded processor?

If your worth investing in an attack against, their are probably far cheaper ways to attack you specifically, instead of backdooring every transceiver and hoping you end up getting one.

Now, if you're the government your threat model might look a bit different, although, a transceiver is still a hard component to do something useful with a backdoor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Canadians don't realize how high their telco bills are because that's their reality they don't know prices elsewhere and the closest neighbour have also high prices

<comment><USER37> Oh we realize they are extremely expensive, unfortunately there isn't much we can do to increase telco competition with the current regulatory boards such as CRTC.

<comment><USER19> The only trick I have heard of to get lower rates is to rent a PO box in SK, sign up for Sasktel and get a SK number (Sasktel being government owned has lower rates I guess). Seems pretty complicated though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Ah, but will conspiracy theorists use Bic or Zippo to burn them down?

</comment><comment><USER39> Does it really matter?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19449824](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19449824)

<comment><USER40> Nokia phones are made by HMD Global, a different company that licenses the Nokia brand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> That's great. Picking Scandinavia over China (CCP really) should be a no- brainer, if you care about who you're doing business with.

<comment><USER42> I love seeing Nokia and Ericsson do well, but in all this I feel like there's something most people, and governments fail to realize:

Sure, Huawei could add backdoors to their equipment, but why bother? Telcos often have Huawei run their networks anyway, they have access to the network via the Chinese employees. That's also the only way they would be able to exfiltrate large amounts of data without anyone noticing.

I don't know about Nokia, but Ericsson manages networks from low wage eastern European countries. I'm sure that China could easily pay off a few Romanians with they really cared enough.

The mandate on the phone companies should be to manage their own networks, or require staff local to the country in which the network is deployed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Developers vs. machines, how long will it last? - <AUTHOR> I believe developers will soon be replaced by machines. Product people or even marketing folks will generate apps/software in one click. What would you do if you were to lose your job and become obsolete? <comment><USER2> The day a machine capable of transforming ambiguous and sometimes plain dumb input into code will be the day that developers are replaced.

</comment><comment><USER3> Except someone has to write those generators...</comment>


Prosecutors Trace $13.4M in Bitcoins from the Silk Road to Ulbricht's Laptop - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/01/prosecutors-trace-13-4-million-bitcoins-silk-road-ulbrichts-laptop/

<comment><USER2> Almost a million coins, most of which have not been recovered. There will only ever be 21 million total, it would be interesting between Gox and Silk Road and all the rest, what percentage of total float is/has been stolen, what percentage is effectively 'dead'?

<comment><USER3> What about the percentage of "false dead"?

When years from now, some guy comes out with millions of coins to mess with the state of the BTC Economy...</comment></comment>


Kubernetes by Example - <AUTHOR> http://kubernetesbyexample.com/ <comment><USER2> For anyone interested in Kubernetes: Red Hat's OpenShift is worth taking a look at.

It's upstream Kubernetes + a PaaS framework built in top of it.

It takes care of role-based access control, has a secured Docker registry (prevents applications from pulling each other's source code), Jenkins integration and can automatically build, push and deploy your applications.

Our team started using it and it's great. The documentation is top-notch (it's probably the best docs I've ever seen in an open source project).

I've seen many teams re-invent the wheel over and over again, when OpenShift already does most of what they need.

Happy to answer questions!

[https://www.openshift.org/](https://www.openshift.org/) (`oc cluster up` and a running Docker is all it takes for a first test)

Docs: [https://docs.openshift.org/latest/welcome/index.html](https://docs.openshift.org/latest/welcome/index.html)

Blog: [https://blog.openshift.com/](https://blog.openshift.com/)

<comment><USER3> I just tried to get started with minishift and it doesn't seem to work.

`minishift` seems to be similar to `minikube`. On my mac, running `minikube start` successfully starts a minikube instance in Virtualbox.

Unfortunately `minishift start` seems to sit there and fail after 120 seconds (with xhyve and vbox) because "the docker-machine didn't report an IP address", and it seems that the docker-machine is not even created.

This is a shame, I'd very much like to try out openshift. If anyone else has the same issue here please let me know!

Edit: Someone replied but deleted their comment. I should have run `oc cluster up --create-machine`!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who stepped out of the devops world for a minute and is now trying to convert my companies infrastructure to use these tools, this is very useful and I'm reading through the whole thing.

However, I'm still confused by how the tools in the ecosystem interact with the capabilities of various cloud providers. That is, we're using DigitalOcean and Docker and I want to get our infra to a point where I can easily spin up a brand new staging environment (staging-2 say) with an isolated postgres node using an attached volume which also say runs redis, a proxy node, a couple of nodes for application servers, and a couple of nodes for background jobs, all w/private networking, secure, w/non-root access, and run a quick task to seed dbs.

I just can't seem to find guides which put the whole thing together, just pieces and I'm lost in researching an overwhelming number of tools from Ansible to Terraform to Kubernetes to Helm, etc, etc, etc.

<comment><USER5> I'm not a very versed DevOps guy, but I have used Ansible, Terraform and Kubernetes.

It should go a bit like this:

\- Use Terraform to provision VMs, networking resources and storage from DigitalOcean. Basically, write the scripts that make your whole infrastructure available with a single command.

\- Then use Ansible for anything you might want installed on those machines - Kubernetes, security packages, SSH keys for your team.

\- Use Kubernetes to then deploy your application on top of your secure and replicable infrastructure.

Each of the steps above should be roughly one shell command. If you are disciplined enough to always provision machines, install packages and deploy your app via config files, this should be very much achievable.

<comment><USER6> Hey just curious:

With a dockerfile is there any point to using Ansible/Puppet/Chef any more? I have used those tools to keep 'how machines are installed' in code in the past, but with dockerfiles these days I don't get the point anymore. Seems like the future will be having a few dockerfiles (staging, prod, dev, db, etc) then just finding a place to run them (digital ocean, docker swarm, aws container service - or your macbook).

<comment><USER7> You still have to bootstrap the instances/droplets/etc with Docker, Kubernetes, etc before Dockerfiles can be used. Unless you're starting with images where those are already baked in, Ansible/Chef/Puppet are good ways to accomplish this on a clean OS.

<comment><USER8> It's debatable. Ansible/Chef/Puppet themselves need to be bootstrapped as well.

Bash is perfectly fine if the machine can be installed with less than 100 lines of code and immutable infrastructure is being used (so no need for idempotent operations). Just make sure to add ShellCheck to the CI pipeline.

<comment><USER9> _Ansible /Chef/Puppet themselves need to be bootstrapped as well._

Nope, Ansible just needs SSH access.

<comment><USER8> Not when using AutoScaling Groups. Then the machine will be provisioned on boot and therefor ansible would have to be installed on the machine.

<comment><USER9> No, you'd use Ansible to prepare the new image once, then you'd use that image to scale. Bootstrapping everything each time a VM is created doesn't make much sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been playing with kubernetes for the past month and I'm just now deciding not to go with it for our new production systems, mostly because I just don't understand it well enough to know how to fix it if it goes wrong.

There's a lot of cool things about kubernetes (e.g. I had an automated SSL cert fetcher for LetsEncrypt that applied to any SSL ingress I added) but it still does some weird things sometimes (like constantly trying to schedule pods on instances without enough spare memory, and then killing other pods because of that; fairly certain that's not supposed to happen).

I think I'll revisit it next year and hope that it's a bit easier to get into. I'm especially hopeful about using it with Spinnaker and some sort of CI, though I couldn't find anything lighter weight than Jenkins that was straightforward to get set up on it.

<comment><USER11> > constantly trying to schedule pods on instances without enough spare memory

I assume you're explicitly declaring the memory requirements for the application?

EDIT: I ask because usually I read examples just throwing deployments at a cluster, ends up the more explicit you are with the app requirements (CPU/mem, etc.) the better a job the scheduler can do. I realize this sounds like advanced common sense.

<comment><USER10> Aah yeah that might have helped. I hadn't been setting my memory requirements as I didn't technically know what they were :D

That's good to know for next time!

<comment><USER11> There's a great example on why setting limits is a good thing from one of Kelsey Hightower's talks, for some reason your initial comment triggered remembering this advice: [https://youtu.be/HlAXp0-M6SY?t=21m51s](https://youtu.be/HlAXp0-M6SY?t=21m51s)

<comment><USER12> Requests/limits settings also decide what "quality of service" class a pod will use.

Setting requests and limits to the same values puts it in "Guaranteed", whereas setting requests and limits to different values gives you "Burstable". The default QoS class is "BestEffort", which makes the pod expendable. (This isn't the best-documented part of Kubernetes.) (Edit: You can see the QoS class of a pod with "kubectl describe pod <name> | grep QoS".)

QoS classes are important for scheduling. When Kubernetes needs to evict pods, it will pick burstable and best-effort pods first.

Note that setting memory limits can sometimes not work well with apps that use GC. I have had particularly disappointing experiences with Go apps. Go's GC is a bit odd in that it reserves a huge chunk of virtual memory (which is why Go apps, if you look at "vsz" only, often seem to take more RAM than expected), and is not very aggressive about releasing it. I have a Go app that uses only a few megs actual, but because of the GC will allocate half a gig and get OOM- killed by the kernel before the GC is able to collect.

<comment><USER13> You have confused BestEffort with Burstable. Agreed about the docs.

<comment><USER12> Gah, of course I did. Thanks, edited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would recommend updating this to describe ReplicaSets[1] over ReplicationControllers. They are very similar and serve the same purpose, but the huge difference is that ReplicaSets have selector support -- meaning that you can require N replicas of pods that have X selector (rather than requiring N replicas of pods with the exact same spec).

[1]: [https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/re...](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/replicaset/)

<comment><USER15> I tend to agree, as ReplicaSets are, as the k8s docs describe, the 'next- generation replication controller', though I couldn't find a place where they state that RCs are in fact deprecated. The section on service discovery constructs an example using RCs, and I'm guessing other sections do as well, so the change may be non-trivial.

<comment><USER16> RS is still beta though, so while they're the future, RCs aren't going anywhere for a long time. In general use RS (or even better, deployments) and don't worry about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I host several smallish PHP/HTML sites for family, friends, and a few clients. Is Kubernetes a viable solution. These sites get very little traffic.

What I am looking for is: \- Ability to easily deploy containers \- Ability to route by url \- Ability to swap out containers without affecting others

Does Kubernetes solve this problem for me? Is there a better option?

<comment><USER18> I am also interested in knowing this.

Also, can Kubernetes be used to deploy to a single VPS instance (e.g: a 10$ Digital Ocean droplet) or is it only for a multi-node system like GKE?

<comment><USER19> You can use GKE with a single node if it's big enough (it won't let you do it with the absolute smallest instance). I do it because I just like the k8s model for deploying apps. If any of my sideprojects deployed there ever start to matter I'll scale it up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Might be helpful to have some text that explains the bare list of jargon on the front page, is the idea that readers should already know the lingo? I have thoughts about what's going on here.

<comment><USER21> Right. I don't even know what Kubernetes is — a link to their homepage[1] might've be nice.

[1] [https://kubernetes.io/](https://kubernetes.io/)

<comment><USER22> I feel like if it were all on one page, I would at least skim through the examples, but I don't want to click through to each one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We've been exploring openshift and minishift for a project for the last few weeks, and we've come back very impressed.

We especially like the interface they built that ties everything together.

</comment><comment><USER24> So, trying to get a clear handle on just what Kubernetes is - its basically supervisord but for containers, across a pool of servers? With the addition of:

\- A complete application e.g. wordpress + mysql containers, can be represented as pods

\- Pods can be "scheduled" e.g. auto-scaled, across "nodes" e.g. servers, with load balancing etc

Is that right?

<comment><USER25> More generally, Kubernetes is an abstraction layer between your application and hardware/cloud that allows you to declaratively define what your app is, how it runs, where it runs and what dependencies it needs. All in a standardized format that allows versioning and easy modification.

As opposed to the old-school method of having to describe all that in words to an ops team (or not and just expecting them to figure it out): "This is a Java app. It needs JDK 1.6 and at least 1GB of RAM. It expects to write logs at /var/log/foo.log. It needs a MySQL database and Redis and Elasticsearch at configured hostnames and ports. We need to run at least 6 instances horizontally scaled behind a load balancer."

<comment><USER20> _" This is a Java app. It needs JDK 1.6 and at least 1GB of RAM. It expects to write logs at /var/log/foo.log. It needs a MySQL database and Redis and Elasticsearch at configured hostnames and ports..._

Wow, brittle. Can't Java use environment variables? And since when does development tell ops what hostnames a machine should have, not to mention how many instances to run?

Sorry, don't mean to jump all over you, but your words apparently jumped all over me. :)

<comment><USER26> > since when does development tell ops [deployment details]?

Not to be cheeky, but since "devops"!

Docker, Kuburnetes, etc... all of these things live on the point of intersection between developers and operations. Some of the config artifacts (e.g. dockerfiles) typically live in source control, which is usually the domain of developers. But the values with which they're populated are typically set by operations.

It is indeed a dance that the two groups have to work out among themselves, and different organizations will handle it differently. Ultimately, I think you find that it really isn't FUNDAMENTALLY different from the dance that they already do in the old school. There will always have to be a handshake, where dynamic values are stored someplace and code knows to point to that place. How you handle that handshake is ultimately a human process thing.

<comment><USER20> I'm familiar, thanks. Keeping both ops and app in the same repo is one thing, but combining parts of them in code is a pretty amateur Separation of Concerns flaw and will inevitably break. I'm not sure what you're defending here.

<comment><USER27> The app can still use environment variables and be completely independent (12 factor), but the Dockerfile/Kubernetes config still needs to provide those things, so there is a clear distinction between ops and dev, they're just more mingled than previously.

<comment><USER20> I think maybe you didn't read the top-level comment in this branch of the thread?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Thanks for this. As much interest as there is in kubernetes right now, it's surprising how little good documentation there is.

<comment><USER29> I just bought Kubernetes in Action (MEAP) last week. I would highly recommend this book. It clearly spells out what it is and how docker containers are just units within a distributed system. Compared to trying to figure out how to properly do networking with Docker Compose, Kubernetes is clearly thought out and much easy to use and reason with. The final version comes out in August.

<comment><USER30> I was going to ask for some stock market tips since KIA isn't supposed to be published until August 2017, but I see that MEAP means there is an early access version of it that gives you incremental updates. Thank you for the pointer.

<comment><USER31> I'd second the recomendation for KIA, I've been following along with the MEAP and it's being kept well up to date with the latest version, which came out yesterday, covering features from 1.6 like RBAC.

One of the problems with books about things like Kubernetes which move quickly is that they can be well out of date before they hit final release.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for the recommendation. Will take a look at KIA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've found Docker Swarm Mode to be refreshingly simple after playing with Kubernetes. Am I crazy to have it in production?

<comment><USER34> From what I've seen of both, Docker swarm mode is smaller in scope and simpler than Kubernetes.

I think some setups will suite swarm better, whilst others will benefit from the richness of what k8s provides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> A replication controller (RC) is a supervisor for long-running pods.

A deployment is a supervisor for pods and replica sets

So what's the difference between these supervisors?

<comment><USER36> They basically serve the same purpose, but Deployments move more of the "state" into the Kubernetes API controller.

For example, the standard way to do a rolling update using RCs is to create a new RC that is responsible for the updated pods, and then gradually increase/decrease the replica counts to reach the desired state. This is conceptually simple, but the downside is that the Kubernetes API doesn't know anything about the relationship between the old and new controllers. All the responsibility is pushed to the client.

With Deployments, both the old and new configurations are first-class objects. So you can view the history of previous configurations, and you can query the progress of a rolling update. You also get better-defined behavior when multiple clients are trying to concurrently make changes, because Kubernetes can arbitrate between them at a higher level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> For figuring out how to write pod and service specs - I really like looking at the Helm Charts source code:

[https://github.com/kubernetes/charts/tree/master/stable](https://github.com/kubernetes/charts/tree/master/stable)

(Helm aims to be a package manager for kubernetes, and its packages are called Charts)

</comment><comment><USER38> It'd be great to read something about how people are handling logging in production with K8S+ELK for example.

<comment><USER39> I don't know how much it qualifies as "reading," but we've experienced great success using a DaemonSet of [https://github.com/rtoma/logspout-redis- logstash#readme](https://github.com/rtoma/logspout-redis-logstash#readme)

Because Kubernetes is great about applying docker labels, we get the k8s container name, Pod name, Pod namespace, UID, and then the normal docker metadata provided by logspout-redis-logstash. Then use the normal, and essential IMHO, multi-line codec on the logstash side of things: [https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/5.4/plugins- codecs-...](https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/logstash/5.4/plugins-codecs- multiline.html)

We have a few ``if [docker][image] =~ "foo"`` statements to snowflake the types of multiline split patterns, but all in all it just works.

The next level up the hierarchy of needs is to _also_ grab the systemd journal content from the Node itself and send that along, too, but it has not yet become a priority. Not to mention the likely substantial increase in store size once the much, much chattier kubelet traffic arrives in ES.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is a great! Thanks Openshift team.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've managed to get kubernetes up and running on Azure but stuck besides that on what the next steps are

Anyone have resources they'd like to share for me to pick up the basic requirements to get a docker stack up?

Up to now I've used docker compose

</comment><comment><USER42> We just recently decided to go with Openshift Origin after a long debate and POC's. We're currently using Mesos/marathon with a bunch of custom deployment scripts which are terrible, deployment issues etc..

</comment><comment><USER43> Anyone have experience with AWS ECS and Kubernetes? How do they compare?

<comment><USER44> I briefly evaluated ECS more than a year ago and it was lacking even more features than Kubernetes did. It has improved quite a bit since then, but Kubernetes has added even more functionality in the meantime. In a nutshell, if you run more than a few services, Kubernetes is probably the better choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> First, please consider whether you _actually need_ any of the Kubernetes stuff. The odds are that you don't. A huge number of people are switching to k8s just because it's the cool thing to do, without understanding any of the implications. Most companies have to undergo major software rearchitectures and renovations to make good use of the featureset that Kubernetes promises.

Second, _please_ don't run a database in it, omg. See point one. If there were just one application that is not reasonable to run in a container, it would be a database.

Third, yes, this seems to be the new way things happen in the software world. I'm worried about what tools we'll need to develop to overcome the cacophony of noise and half-solutions that is incumbent in the GitHub era.

<comment><USER46> Why shouldn't you run databases on it? Ive been running larger databases(10tb+) on it for some time.

If your database can deal with failure of single node and uses network storage it's totally doable to run databases on Kubernetes.

Take a look at Patroni on how to run Postgres on IaaS or Kubernetes.

<comment><USER45> Database servers are generally designed from the ground-up to utilize basically the entire machine and to be left running for a long time, with caching and memory utilization techniques designed around these assumptions. VMs muck with this somewhat but at least the memory region is reserved for that VM's usage. Docker eliminates that, and k8s eliminates the knowledge even of what type of hardware/memory the system is being executed on (without taking several contrived steps to restore this).

Database servers are also designed on the assumption that each node will be available on a consistent basis, at a consistent address, and that the data directory will be available to the server as soon as it starts up (except for rare node bootstrap operations).

This is the _exact opposite_ of what Kubernetes/Docker seek to provide, and in fact, such things can only be provided within Kubernetes by extensive special configuration that leans heavily on experimental features.

There could not be a _worse_ ideological match. Yes, you can try really hard to ram that square peg through that round hole, eventually pushing it through with significant damage to both the peg and the hole, but _why would you_?

<comment><USER13> > This is the exact opposite of what Kubernetes seek to provide

Not true. You can have dedicated machines for your db instances, check out 1. node affinity 2. Statefulsets.

Statefulsets are designed to provide consistency (no "split brain"), stable network identity ("at a consistent address"), stable storage identity ("and that the data directory will be available to the server as soon as it starts up"). Those features are beta but it's a matter of time (hardening and the likes) before we tut them stable.

> why would you?

For all the same reasons you would run any other workload on the same platform.

<comment><USER45> The reason to run any other workload on Kubernetes is to dynamically schedule your containers across a cluster of anonymous hardware resources, and to provide automatic monitoring, recovery, and control of those containers when certain events occur. The goal, essentially, is to abstract the hardware/system-level element from the deployment element. That's all well and good, but applications that make certain architectural assumptions do not lend themselves well to random scheduling across an anonymous array of system resources. Databases are absolutely among that class of applications, as are many other application types (which are now called "stateful" applications).

For k8s to work well for an application, that application has to be anonymous, without any masters or controllers. It has to be able to tolerate the sudden vaporization of any member. It has to be willing and able to share host hardware with any number of other services, including some which may be bad neighbors/CPU hogs, and it has to be content to be rescheduled in the event that a node goes down, that a pod is killed to ease the transition, etc. Databases fail on virtually every point of this.

If the database and Kubernetes start from opposite design paradigms, why does it make sense to run a database inside Kubernetes? I am still not getting it. `kubectl delete pod/my-postgres-pod` is not a smart thing; you don't want any of that scheduling magic that Kubernetes provides.

At most you would want Kubernetes to tell you that your database is failing health checks and execute the STONITH process to failover to replica, but you hardly need Kubernetes if all you care about is process monitoring.

So can you elaborate on the reasons? Databases are simply not designed for this kind of infrastructure and I see no value in trying to pretend they are. Isn't this the reason that CockroachDB exists, so that people can finally run their DBs in something like Kubernetes without endless headaches?

I think it would be very interesting to analyze the stability and performance features of a PgSQL k8s deployment, PgSQL VM deployment, and PgSQL bare metal deployment. The only issue is that you can't expect the failures to be open with their data.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I've left Twitter. It is unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/03/ive-left-twitter-unusable-anyone-but-trolls-robots-dictators-lindy-west <comment><USER2> Twitter for anything political is horrible, but politics pretty much is horrible everywhere right now due to extreme polarization.

Personally I find Lindy West the author responsible for this horrible cultural polarization after all she wrote very similar horrible things on exgawker site jezebel, that targeted individuals for harassment as well.

<comment><USER3> What makes that polarization horrible? Being able to take in so many different points of view, and trying to appreciate where they are coming from, makes it exciting and interesting. Discussions really become horrible when everyone agrees.

<comment><USER4> >Discussions really become horrible when everyone agrees.

"Discussion" isn't really the appropriate term to describe what I see on Twitter. I think "spastic digital shit-flinging" would be more accurate.

<comment><USER3> Certainly the "eloquency" can be incredibly low (which I am sure is exacerbated by the reduced character limit, but is still present in venues that allow for longer messages), but when you try to take in the underlying point there is still something to be gained in my opinion.

Granted, it's not always easy to try and take an objective look at heated messages when you, yourself, have an emotional attachment to the subject. Then again, part of the fun is trying to remain objective about subjects you are emotional about.

<comment><USER4> >it's not always easy to try and take an objective look at heated messages when you, yourself, have an emotional attachment to the subject

You're making a lot of assumptions, and none of them are true. I have no emotional attachment to fan drawings of cartoons I've never seen, or the shirt Kanye was wearing at a gas station, or what some politician I've never heard of in a country I've never been to said about home mail delivery or something equally trivial. Nor do I ever post on Twitter. I don't even have an account. But my eye twitches whenever "somebody said a thing on Twitter" somehow becomes news, or a trending topic, or a witch-hunt, or a cause, or a boycott.

Twitter is a wasteland of hashtags and horseshit, devoid of anything resembling meaningful human interaction.

<comment><USER3> _> You're making a lot of assumptions, and none of them are true._

Assumptions about what? My experience is what it is. It's interesting that you are able to make the assumption that the description of my experience can be untrue. On what basis is that done?

<comment><USER4> My dislike of the level of discourse on Twitter has nothing to do with my "emotional attachment to the subject". It's a total shitshow regardless of whether or not I care or even know anything about the subject.

That's where your assumptions are wrong.

<comment><USER3> I have made no assumptions about your situation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Twitter is useful as a type of news source, and way to be notified about certain important events in noteworthy people's lives, and organizations, but for any kind of actual human-to-human interaction it's correct that twitter is absolutely worthless. You're essentially muzzled and will be misunderstood the majority of the time, because everyone expects sarcasm and hate from everyone else, even when it isn't there.

All they have to do to fix Twitter is make the 140ch limit text become the 'headline text' and then allow each post to have an unlimited (or very long) length 'body part' that you can see IF you choose to click on it, to read the whole thing.

The other thing they need is to make it threaded for conversation so that each node has a parent node, so that to 'reply' to a node you make a 'child' node, under what you're replying to. HN does this to some decent extend. I've done this in my own side-project meta64.com app, but meta64 is not open for business yet so don't go there and then complain that it's not finished/working.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree with the expandable tweet. Down with the indexed tweet-essay! Down with having to quote blocks of text with screenshots!

Unfortunately, the overwhelming sentiment appears to be that posts over 140 chars would "kill the platform", as though it's some kind of pristine thing today.

<comment><USER5> The 140ch thing was a gimmic that made twitter go viral. That's all it was. It wasn't even an innovation. Limiting text is certainly no innovation. Twitter is afraid to change it, because it's the very thing that made them different to the point where they _did_ go viral. But it has become so widely used by now that the 140ch limit has become a massive pain in the ass for all of humanity (due to it's pervasiveness) and needs to be changed, BADLY. They are embarrassing themselves and making fools of humanity with everyone becoming expert at abbreviating, and living with the stupid morass.

<comment><USER6> You probably already know that 140 char limit was a SMS medium restriction.

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

It may have made sense to honor the 140 char limit so long as TXTMOB/Twitter served as a SMS gateway, router, aggregator, whatever. But Twitter abandoned that notion early on.

<comment><USER5> No I didn't know the 140 thing was from SMS. I just remember everybody talking about how ground-breaking it was at the time. Software developers tend to all agree Twitter was never an admirable technology but merely a gimmick that went viral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like how the contextual ads were all for the TV show "Man in the High Castle"...Likely because of the oft repeated word "Nazi" in the article.

<comment><USER8> Nah, that's pretty much all I get on anything on the Guardian these days, _High Castle_ ads. Bezos must be spending as much on The Guardian as on the Washington Post these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article is at least 3 years too late to be unique. I suggest anyone who feels the same way should switch to using the broadcast platform of the huge media platform they work for to opine to their many followers-- oh wait...

Promoting censorship is dangerous. Twitter is an option-- NOT a requirement. This is easily the 10th nearly identical article some arrogant reporter has written about their choice not to use a social media service.

<comment><AUTHOR> How dangerous is it, really? Most only communities have some form of moderation. And besides, I think that there really must be options for shaping the feed that reduce the ability for abuse to be magnified. See [https://twitter.com/StateFarm/status/811603055762436096](https://twitter.com/StateFarm/status/811603055762436096) for an example of not doing that.

<comment><USER9> Super dangerous! Sure twitter is a big private company it has the _right_ to moderate content-- but should it. Reddit also moderates content. The NYC moderates content, sure the founding family "controls" editorial responsibility but does Carlos Slim mexican telecom magnate excert his >14% financial interest to "shape the feed".

America is a community, yes we need "some form of moderation", but we enter into a very slippery slope when anybody but the community chooses what "moderation" means.

Reddit is a decent example-- albeit still flawed; of how this can work. It is states right, sharding, seperation of concerns, or a subreddit type model where small microcosms choose what is acceptable.

I dont agree with the KKK and hate speech is terrible, but if it is limited to speech I am all for it. I, like I assume many, will use my power to ostracize and dissiauade people from being hate mongering racists-- but it is helpful when I can identify who they are when they self-select to dress up like ghosts 365 days a year instead of just the end of october like many other Americans do.

Edit: to be clear, I am all for free speech & freedom to organize-- not all for the kkk obviously...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've found it useful for signing into things I don't really care about enough to create a real account for.

And the occasional irrelevant tweet.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't see legit utility to twitter except for citizen journalism and fan engagement.

</comment><comment><USER12> everytime I get downvoted for saying this but writedown.co is a free immutable microblogging platform as Twitter alternative and you are welcome to be one of its first users. The emphasis is politics.

</comment><comment><USER13> For content creators Twitter can be both an invaluable tool and their worst nightmare.

If only Twitter could fix that second part they'd probably be able to turn the tide.

</comment><comment><USER14> We delete Nazis on mastodon.social

</comment><comment><USER15> Don't rely on a closed platform for your communication.</comment>


11B tons of ice melted in Greenland – in just one day - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/11-billion-tons-of-ice-melted-greenland-just-one-day/ <comment><USER2> And as a look out of the window, on a sunny Sunday, all I see are hundreds of unnecessarily large SUVs riding around (1 person per vehicle, usually), contributing - like every day - their good share of superfluous greenhouse gases to our atmosphere. Probably going to/from a place where a walk or a bike ride would suffice, or where public transportation could get you to in no time. CO2 emission per capita continue increasing [1], and its no surprise why. In the US, personal vehicles account for over 25% of greenhouse emissions - that accounts for about 0.1ppm/year C02 increase in the atmosphere [from 2, 3], or an extra 10ppm in the next century if things don't change. That _only_ from cars.

But things are not going to change. Companies are already studying how much money they will save by shipping things over the artic when all ice is gone during the summer. That's due to happen within the next 50 years.

[1] [https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA:GBR:RUS&hl=en&dl=en#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhous...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions)

[3] [https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration](https://www.co2.earth/co2-acceleration)

</comment><comment><USER3> Sigh. The article doesn't say anything about how this compares to the "meltiest" day of years past nor does it provide any usable numbers which would allow the reader to put those 11B tons into any kind of meaningful context.

"Roughly 197 billion tons of ice from Greenland melted into the Atlantic Ocean in July, Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with the Danish Meteorological Institute, told CBS News Friday. That's about 36 percent more than scientists expect in an average year."

Ok, ok, we get it. It's melting more than average. Now please provide some actual year-over-year numbers and include a projection for this year so can do an apples-to-apples comparison and start our manmade-vs-natural-cycle discussion.

<comment><USER4> Given what we already know, and the already scary "36 percent more than expected" information, this sounds a lot like

\- Everybody! There's a 12 sq. ft. hole on the hull of our ship the Titanic!

\- Yeah, so? Gives us average hole sizes on other damaged ships that didn't sink, so we can discuss calmly for several hours after diner how important it really is!

<comment><USER5> That's not how I read that. It was "about 36 percent more [in one month] than scientists expect in an average year."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> About 11 cubic kilometers from an area of 2,166,086 square kilometers. Or about 5 millimeters thickness?

</comment><comment><USER7> It's summer, isn't it?

tl;dr: 11 million cubic meters is only 36% more than usual.

Next year it'll be 40% less.

<comment><USER8> _Only_ 36% more than usual? Something tells me that if you were told you had to pay 36% more in taxes next year, you wouldn't think that's an insignificant amount.

<comment><USER9> The question is much of an outlier is it from normal? My taxes often vary significantly due to restricted stock units, sign on bonuses, crypto transactions, etc. 36% higher than the mean might still be within a standard deviation if it's normally high variance.

It's a large number, and it's part of a global scale problem. But, the presentation of the number has been worthless because it hasn't shared how abnormal the number is and most people have zero frame of reference.

For example, I live on a small lake. About 400 access. The lake level, in the absence of rain and inflow would drop about 1.5 inches a week. Surprisingly, that comes out to more than 9000 tons of water evaporating a day. From a small lake. In normal conditions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [http://www.seattle.gov/utilities/environment-and- conservatio...](http://www.seattle.gov/utilities/environment-and- conservation/climate-change-program/projected-changes/sea-level-rise-map)

Oh no, my part of seattle will be under water in less than 30 years :\</comment>


Show HN: Find and Explore Interesting Websites Together - <AUTHOR> https://feldot.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is Luke Hackworth, founder of this site. Years ago I manually portscanned random IP addresses to find interesting servers, and experienced a tremendous sense of exploration in doing so. Feldot is my attempt to bring that sense of exploration to the general public. The site has tools that make easier the discovery of interesting sites, and it has a front page that brings the most interesting and viral sites to the top.

This site is very much a work-in-progress. I created this in my spare time, making the minimum viable product as quickly as possible. In the future, I hope to add additional features like social feedback for good posts(like Reddit karma), categories, more page ranking options(like top posts per day, week, hour, etc), and other features. If you have any input on how it could be better, please let me know!

</comment><comment><USER2> That's amazing! I built a bookmark curation tool Stackkup ([http://stackkup.com](http://stackkup.com)). Can I use your feed to fill up a collection? Will link back and add your logo for credits! It will be even more amazing if you have a public API!</comment>