Gimme Bar: Don't bookmark the web. Save it. Forever. - <AUTHOR> https://gimmebar.com

<comment><USER2> I use Gimme Bar and love it. I also use Pinboard.

Pinboard I use for pointers to things - GitHub projects that might come in handy in the future, development/design resources, particularly interesting Wikipedia articles, and other things like interviews and magazine articles.

But there's some stuff that I want to keep. I used to have a `~/box` folder on my Mac where I'd keep pictures, quotes, and screenshots of web pages I really liked. I wanted to keep them locally so that I would always have a copy of them. However, there were problems with this. By just keeping pictures as files, I couldn't always easily find where the picture came from (not without coming up with a complicated naming scheme or moving away from the simplicity of just having files in a folder). I kept quotes in plain text, so attribution was difficult for them, too — I needed to be able to capture quotes quickly, so I didn't have time to also store the URL the quote came from. And screenshots of webpages aren't exactly interactive — if I wanted to look at some HTML to see how something was done on the page, too bad. I also didn't have a pretty way to look at all the things I'd wanted to keep. All I had was a Finder window.

I know that Pinboard's premium service can archive each bookmark I send there (I've been thinking about enabling it just so I have permanent copies of interviews), but archiving an entire page is overkill for when I just want to save one image or one choice sentence from the page. Besides, if I archive the whole page, how can I indicate which image/quote I wanted to save in the first place? Long story short, Pinboard's archiving isn't quite what I want (though, like I said, I've been thinking about switching it on for backing up interviews).

Gimme Bar is basically the best of all those worlds. I can save images, videos, quotes, and site designs. I can easily see where the image/quote/etc. came from. The site gives me a purdy way of looking at them. And integration with Dropbox means I always have a local copy of everything. Gimme Bar lets me have my cake, eat it, _and_ have my cake stored in Dropbox (I may be stretching this metaphor).

Anyway, I really, _really_ like Gimme Bar.

<comment><USER3> > I know that Pinboard's premium service can archive each bookmark I send > there (I've been thinking about enabling it just so I have permanent copies > of interviews), but archiving an entire page is overkill for when I just > want to save one image or one choice sentence from the page.

Hard drive space is cheap, cheaper than your own time when you discover you want context or perhaps some other choice sentence from that page. The best solution is to save the whole page, and annotate the bit of interest.

(My own current solution-hack is _two_ parallel systems: manual Evernotes for specific quotes or photos, and an automatic archive system that downloads the entire page: <http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs> So I consult one or the other as appropriate.)

<comment><USER2> > The best solution is to save the whole page, and annotate the bit of > interest.

Agreed. That's definitely something I'd love to see Gimme Bar do: in addition to showing me the quote I pulled out of the page, also give me the option to see the full page, with the text I quoted highlighted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of note: we (Fictive Kin, fictivekin.com) created Gimme Bar. We also created LeakedIn (leakedin.org) which is currently sharing the front page.

Thanks for the busy two days of dev-ops scrambling, friends. (-:

Let's try to keep DDoSing to a lower level than yesterday, though, please. (-:

S

<comment><USER5> Congrats!

Many years ago I worked on a similar idea: first a desktop archiver called Dowser, and an online app called Archivd.

If you don't have enough to do (heh) one killer feature is to extract semi- structured data: email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, prices, photos, Facebook "og" metadata, etc. Imagine saving a bunch of apartment listings to GimmeBar, and having it automatically plot them on a map of the city.

Good luck!

<comment><USER6> We actually have some stuff in place to do things like that.

It's currently limited in scope to things like recipes and a few other things, but it's very much on our radar as being useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Pinboard archives each bookmark as a premium feature. I have used it several dozen times since I signed up.

[http://blog.pinboard.in/2010/11/bookmark_archives_that_don_t...](http://blog.pinboard.in/2010/11/bookmark_archives_that_don_t/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm unconvinced. I used FURL, which saved actual web pages. Then FURL was sold to diigo and they killed all that -- actually wiping out everything I saved and just leaving the URL (like a frikkin neutron bomb acquisition!). I'm not going through that again. Good luck otherwise.

<comment><USER4> Hi.

You make a good point. We've gone to great lengths to ensure this doesn't happen. One of those lengths is that you can export your entire library to Dropbox. This protects you against us failing or being stupid in other ways.

S

<comment><USER9> "This app will have access to your entire Dropbox."

Uh, no. Why do you need access to my entire Dropbox? That's bad. You should request access only to /Apps/Gimmebar.

(I'd submit this as feedback, but your bottom right 'feedback' thing is broken - on submit, you get a blank page.)

<comment><USER4> Hi.

You're right. That is bad. We added Dropbox support before Dropbox allowed per-directory sandboxing. We're on it (but we also have a huge number of things to do). This does have a fairly high priority.

Thanks for pointing it our (and understanding).

S

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Like Pinterest, Gimme Bar will quickly fall afoul of copyright lawyers. Copying content outright and _re-serving it from your own systems_... not good.

<comment><USER11> If its for your own purposes I don't see why its any different than archive.org. The intent isn't to make money, just archival.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks nice, but that dropbox-export is not enough futureproofing for me. When I rely on something like this, I need to be sure it will keep automatically existing even if any one company goes down.

In your case, I should not have to manually initiate the dropbox backup, and it should not rely exclusively on one cloud provider.

So there sould be something like a RAIC (redundant array of independent clouds) and then your service would be provided on top of that.

With those changes (which are non-trivial, unfortunately), I would happily use the service.

<comment><USER13> How many services do that? I can't think of any.

<comment><USER12> Yes, there probably aren't any at this time. I'm just outlining my main points of critique to suggest further improvements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't talk to me about "forever". There is no forever. There is only "until we get bought and shut the service down."

Fix _that_ problem, and _then_ I'll consider using your service.

<comment><USER15> They store files on your Dropbox. Granted, there is no guarantee that Dropbox will last forever but there aren't guarantees on most (all?) things lasting forever and Dropbox will sync the files to your local disk.

<comment><USER16> I'm not really comfortable with giving them access to my entire Dropbox. They don't seem to be using the restricted apps directory, unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Seems very like evernote webclipper.

<http://evernote.com/webclipper/>

<comment><USER18> I think their landing page needs to indicate how they are different from Evernote. The ability to 'find cool new stuff' is intriguing - a bit like Stumbleupon + Evernote then?

Also there needs to be a way to contact someone and/or ask questions and/or provide feedback. An Olark tab would work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The voice is really hard to understand. Too low and the way it reads is annoying.

It seems that you can use Dropbox in some way but I didn't understand if it can save directly on a local folder (no login required) or you have to login every time.

I use ScrapBook to save whole webpages.

I haven't tried it yet but I think you can save webpages to your Dropbox folder and have them everywhere.

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/scrapbook/>

<comment><USER20> I thought the video was (relatively) amazing. It was funny and cool and not overly douchy and/or nerdy like other demo videos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Gimmebar pulls a Readability. When you share content from Gimmebar, it shares a shortlink to the content on Gimmebar, not the source URL. Sure seems like content/value/traffic theft to me.

<comment><USER22> When you share content from gimmebar, they're no longer sure the original source is still displaying the item in question, or even that the URI chosen was canonical (think the root url on a blog). What choice do they have?

To go a step further, I think you're freeing the person sharing the content prematurely. If I see something funny on cracked.com, and decide to grab that content, upload it to imagur, then share the imagur link… Imagur getting the traffic instead of cracked is on me, not imagur.

<comment><USER21> i guess they could put a hoverbar at the top of the page when they link to the original content. if there's a 404 or redirect, the user can click the hoverbar to see gimmebar's copy.

i'm not sure how to do it, exactly, but i know it's possible to do this in a way that isn't so... swipey.

<comment><USER22> How do you know you're seeing the wrong content?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What's that? A plugin? JS? Will I be able to install it in Seamonkey in Windows? I can't tell by its web.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've been a Gimmebar user for months. Pro user for about 1 month. The redesign (currently available to Pro users) is great.

The difference between Gimmebar and lots of other similar services is your ability to bookmark anything you find, which is great for doing things like a moodboard for a project.

</comment><comment><USER25> Seems like a cool idea,

I watched the video but it hasn't convinced me why gimme bar is better than my current bookmark system in Chrome with folders etc. to be honest, I quite like my bookmark bar at the top

All the video did was told me that gimme bar is better, but not why it is.

<comment><USER26> It saves the content so it doesn't matter if the original goes away. FWIW, I learned this from the video, hadn't used the product or even heard of it before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Seems nice, though a bit slow.

When copying quotes it would be even nicer if you could keep the formatting from the website. Bold text, lists etc. should be preserved when presented on your site.

I thought the screenshot feature could have been a useful alternative, but for certain pages it doesn't really work: [http://inoveryourhead.net/20-things-i- should-have-known-at-2...](http://inoveryourhead.net/20-things-i-should-have- known-at-20/) \- I'm not sure it can be solved in general. Maybe it is possible to run it through readability before taking the screenshot.

<comment><USER28> If you really want quotes and things to be presented in the same formatting as the site, you might want to try Citational. It fills a different role than GimmieBar, in that it's meant for one-shot sharing instead of an archive. But it does let you highlight text or an image and show it in context: <https://citational.com/v/5mf/15-learn-to-cook>

(Yes, I built it... )

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Gimme Bar is brilliant. I've been using it for awhile now and can't offer enough applause. I use it for two main reasons: gathering and collecting inspiration (specifically via their discovery stream) and having a visual reference library (as a designer it's great for saving color palettes, fonts/typography, and other resources).

Sign up, connect it to your Twitter, follow some interesting folks, and hit the discovery stream. I'll talk to you in a couple hours.

</comment><comment><USER30> Evernote + pinterest, right?

<comment> B-Scan Yeah, something like <http://clipboard.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> GimmeBar is fantastic - used it for a while for images & design inspiration; using it now for most of my bookmarks as well (cool Gems/plugins to check out, quotes, bits of articles etc).

Thanks FictiveKin for being amazing :)

(also - syncs via Dropbox to my hard drive. That's forever enough for me)

</comment><comment><USER32> I use a really hackish perl script to wget, diff, and wget -r websites in this way, because articles disappear way too much for my liking. This product looks wonderful and I'll be playing around with the API as soon as I have a spare moment. Thankyou for this.

<comment><USER32> Hmm. A few more minutes with this has me a little mixed. I may have confused this with some kind of personal mirror service. Is there a way to mirror an entire page? (Recursively --no-parent is ideal, usually.) Even backing up the plain HTML without images would be suitable. Text is formatted usually.

A great product nonetheless. It will replace a cocktail of pastebins + image/binary uploaders for me, in many cases. The screenshots are most definitely useful. For articles where formatting and sublinks are important, I may need to keep using my silly wget routine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I look at the page and see nothing but a flash video. Nothing there at all to tell me what the service is.

Are you going to force me to take the time to sit through a flash video to learn about your product? Seems like a very unnecessary barrier to me.

<comment><USER34> Directly under the flash video: "Save the Web Don't bookmark the web. Save it. Gimme Bar doesn't just keep bookmarks; it stores items in your personal library in the cloud. You can even back things up to Dropbox."

Seems to state the purpose and expected usage scenario quite clearly. The Terms of Service at the bottom also has a good description of how they handle Copyright issues which I would think is likely to be the big issue. I.e. if I "save" a favorite video to the site, can it disappear a year later due to some copyright complaint? The answer is yes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Please create a Firefox add-on. I don't like using the bookmarks bar at all.

</comment><comment><USER36> This is actually very well done, I've already signed up for the pro account and was happily surprised to find an improved UI waiting for me. Cool!

</comment><comment><USER37> No About section?

</comment><comment><USER38> Great idea, I love it. But serious, to all those doing their on voiceovers...BUY A DECENT MIC. They are 30 USD max

<comment><USER39> It sounds fine to me, and I've worked in pro audio for over a decade. Maybe too bassy for your speakers?

 _They are 30 USD max_

If only :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Should I move from Delicious to this? What are the advantages of this over that?

</comment><comment><USER41> looks good... What do the pro accounts offer and how much do they cost?

I used to use LittleSnapper when I had a mac, but now that I'm on Linux, I just take screenshots of stuff. I'll give it a try.

</comment><comment><USER42> Their backup to dropbox feature is pretty nifty.

<comment><USER25> I backup to my Google account with my Chrome so I don't see the difference.

<comment><USER43> There's a huge difference between saving the content itself, and a link to something that is bound to disappear eventually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Cool, but evernote already does it all.

</comment><comment><USER45> "...bookmarks are like myspace..." ehm no</comment>


Researchers suggest that R.E.M. sleep serves to warm the brain - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/science/seals-mammals-sleep-brain.html <comment><USER2> So the hypothesis is that mammals need REM sleep to prevent the brain from getting too cold while sleeping, but the hypothesis hasn't been tested yet.

If this turns out to be true, I wonder if it has implications for night terrors. It seems plausible that if the brain fails to warm enough through REM sleep, hormones are released to wake the brain up completely which lead to night terrors and the adrenaline rush feeling that accompanies them.

These are just hypotheses, but interesting nonetheless.

<comment><USER3> The hypothesis seems a little unlikely. If REM sleep was to warm up the brain you might think people wouldn't do it in hot climates but I don't think that's the case.

Maybe it's more like the "Google's DeepMind AI gives robots the ability to dream" stuff that increased their neural nets rate of learning 10x [https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/240163-googles- deepmind-...](https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/240163-googles-deepmind-ai- gives-robots-ability-dream) and "Rats Dream About the Places They Want to Explore" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9791927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9791927) \- about improved cognition.

Also the 'inceptionism' stuff looks so reminiscent of human dreams that it makes me suspect there is neural network stuff going on rather than heating. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9736598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9736598)

<comment><USER4> > If REM sleep was to warm up the brain you might think people wouldn't do it > in hot climates but I don't think thats the case.

Isn't internal body temperature kept constant (or at least the body tries very hard to) irrespective of environment?

<comment><USER3> The body tries to keep the core temperature constant around the heart and internal organs and will divert blood there and let your feet get cold. I'm not sure about the brain but in a 40C climate say I doubt your head would get cold inside.

<comment><USER5> Depends on where you are. In a land climate, days can be searing hot while nights are freezing cold.

<comment><USER6> There's plenty of places in the tropics where it's hot during the day and night for months on end, and yet as far as I know there's no evidence of less REM sleep in the people living there. And even if there weren't, these conditions would be easy to replicate in a laboratory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know a very successful banker who prides himself on sleeping 4 hours a night because he believes that is the optimal point where each additional hour no longer has any incremental benefit.

I have gone through periods of high and low amounts of sleep for both work and personal reasons.

Sleep has always been phrased in terms of time - ie get x hours of uninterrupted sleep to perform your best. But there has to be more to it than that.

I've stayed up all night and felt rejuvenated the next day. And I've had lazy Sundays where I've remained tired the entire day.

I might not have not seen the scientific study on it yet, but I believe the quality of your sleep has a lot to do with the nature of when and why you're sleeping as well as your mental state when doing so.

<comment><USER8> In the traditional medicine system of India (Ayurveda), there is an anecdote passed around that goes something like this: for each hour of sleep before midnight, count it as two hours. For each hour of sleep between midnight and sunrise, count it as one hour. Sleeping after sunrise counts for zero - it is useless.

And I've observed this to be true in my life. The most peaceful, restful sleep I experience is consistently between 10pm and 1am.

I fully agree with your dismissal of hours slept being the quantitative unit of sleep, and I'm similarly curious about what constitutes a healthy, effective sleep habit...

<comment><USER9> > _Sleeping after sunrise counts for zero - it is useless._

I don't know about some people, but for me this is practically the silliest thing I've ever heard.

I need 8 hrs of sleep period, and the time of day has _zero_ effect on my alertness. It can be 9pm-5am or 3am-12pm, it's exactly the same.

But if I get only 6 hrs of sleep? I'm miserable.

I can't even begin to imagine where the idea that the hour of the day matters would have come from.

And just think of nighttime workers. Obviously their daytime sleep counts...

<comment><USER10> > And just think of nighttime workers. Obviously their daytime sleep counts...

I think the quote is more an aphorism than rigorous guide. The framers of the quote probably didn't anticipate the night shift ;)

<comment><USER11> It's interesting to consider that the 9-5 workday is a very modern innovation, especially considering how long Ayurveda has been around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If it's related to warmth, then why would rats have to make it up after days of deprivation? Overheating seems like it would be just as destructive.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd recommend the book "The Promise of Sleep" [0] for anyone that's interested in learning more about sleep. The author basically pioneered the sleep medicine field and was at the University of Chicago in 1951 when R.E.M. sleep was discovered.

[0]: [https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection- Hap...](https://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection- Happiness/dp/0440509017)

<comment><USER14> Thanks, purchased!

Sidenote: The book recommendations on HN are always top notch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You know my performance might change imperceptibly with sleep, but the area where I know it makes a difference -- probably the most important area -- is how nice I am to fellow human beings.

I am a better co-worker, family member, client etc with sleep.

They should look at aggression in animals rather than how well they do tasks.

</comment><comment><USER16> What is the connection between swimming and heat? How did they even arrive at this hypothesis? Why would rats need to catch up on heating their brains, days after missing REM sleep?

The facts are interesting, the conclusion doesn't make any sense at all to me.

<comment><USER17> It doesn't make any sense at all to me either. Because of the difference in specific heat and heat conductivity of water vs air, an animal that can sleep under-water (even whilst alternating the sleeping part of their brain), surly doesn't need to warm its brain while on sleeping on land.

(But I'm no expert.)

<comment><USER18> It could be that the cooling of the brain is dominated by convection through blood flow rather than conduction through the skull/fat/skin. If that's true, then the effect of water vs air would be on the whole body which still has to be maintained at proper body temperature so there would be no difference in brain temperature sleeping the same way in water or in air. If the body's temperature regulation is designed assuming that the brain is always generating too much of its own heat and doesn't need to be supplied with additional heat like the extremities do, then, it would still need to keep up that heat generation independently of the rate of heat loss to the environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My first reaction was that it seems so _inefficient_ to bring the entire computer online just to maintain its temperature - which could be controlled physically using blood. But couldn't we test this by artificially keeping the brain warm and seeing what sleep patterns emerge?

<comment><USER20> As an anecdote, I always have intense dreams with fever. I'm prone to kidney infections so I experience this often. My head is clearly very warm, my brain swells a little with the heat, and my dreams are clear and intense.

<comment><USER21> this would seem likely because you aren't sleeping well or deeply, hence able to recall the dreams.

<comment><USER20> I usually recall my dreams, fever or not. There is a marked difference between them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > n fact, the earlier studies on R.E.M. deprivation might not have been as > compelling as they once seemed.

> In those earlier studies, researchers kept animals from going into R.E.M. > sleep by waking them up. "In some experiments, they wake up the animals a > thousand times a day," Dr. Siegel said.

So much science that I used to take for granted is garbage.

<comment><USER23> I many cases, the science is not talking about real proofs (in the mathematical sense) but marely about assumptions based on some (or many) indicators. Such "science" should not be part of the real science. The real sciense should contain ONLY the things which are proved with real proofs!

<comment><USER24> If that were true we'd be paralyzed by solipsism and skepticism. Sometimes you have to make do with a working hypothesis.

You can't eat mathematical proofs.

<comment><USER25> But that's the essential point, that what you call working hypothesis are actually untested hypothesis. Using an untested hypothesis as a working hypothesis is bad science that may actually be counterproductive, unbeknownst to the users of the working hypothesis.

<comment><USER26> You always depend on an untested hypotheses at some point. They are absolutely unavoidable.

Here's a very simple example:

\- How much testing is sufficient? For example, as far as we can tell the laws of physics don't vary over time scales that we can directly observe. This has been true as far as we can tell.

\- So far so good: the hypothesis that 'the laws of physics don't change' has been 'tested'. Next question: is that amount of testing _sufficient_?

\- Well, that seems to be an untestable proposition; it's always philosophically possible that things get pulled out from under your feet, and no amount of testing up to time T lets you know with complete certainty what happens for t > T.

Go even one or two steps deeper, and you quickly find yourself resting on either unfounded, untested, or untestable assumptions.

<comment><USER25> That's diverging from what was being discussed and creating a strawman that you are now debunking. The context is the use of method-less science that uses assumptions based upon indicators as working hypothesis - not that there are always base assumptions but that the refutation of testing while holding assumptions up as tested is something that is bad science.

<comment><USER24> I thought what was being discussed was:

"The real sciense[sic] should contain ONLY the things which are proved with real proofs!"

As in mathematical proofs. You can't prove most things the way you can in mathematics, which is rock-solid through tautologies and self-consistent abstract models. When you are observing actual reality you have to make some assumptions.

<comment><USER25> What was being discussed was the reply in the context of my comment that had been replied to. I was not the original GP poster. Sorry, if I didn't make that clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You expect a future where brain implants will be tiny computers that make you smarter, but perhaps instead you get a future where brain implants are tiny heating coils that make you wake up earlier.

<comment><USER28> I'm pretty sure I won't have any kind of brain device installed, no matter the upsides. No upgrades for that hardware!

<comment><USER29> I feel the opposite. As soon as it's possible to replace biological neurons with artificial one, even if they aren't perfect replicas, I'm in. I'm pretty sure the mind is an emergent phenomenon robust to slight variations in the lowest levels of hardware, and I'd like to live for billions of years. (And if the tech lets you process faster, it could feel like trillions.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My personal theory was that dreaming allows humans to rest while staying somewhat alert to the environment (because outside phenomena tend to manifest inside dreams). The phased aspect of REM sleep allow groups of humans to sleep at night while guaranteeing that some members of the group will be in REM rather than deep sleep at any given time, so the group never becomes completely unconscious of the surrounding environment.

<comment><USER31> My couch scientist theory is that REM sleep is phase when brains reconnects and tunes quantum links between neuron groups (assuming brain is big quantum computer underneath), that why there are chaotic movements.

<comment><USER32> That's a pretty big assumption there. There's a huge difference between "exploits a quantum effects" (like classical computers today) and "is a quantum computer". What evidence leads you to suspect the latter?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> REM cannot be strictly necessary because I don't get any REM sleep (or so little it's difficult to detect) due to severe sleep apnea (AHI=148). Three different sleep studies (using two unrelated labs+doctors) produced very similar results. The hypnogram was always a narrow rectangle of rapid oscillations (λ ~= 25-35 seconds) between NREM stages 1 and 2.

Obviously this _has_ caused harm, but it's difficult to isolate how much of that harm (if any) is caused by lack of REM when the dips in oxygen saturation could easily be the causing most of the problems.

</comment><comment><USER34> I think it's got more to do with maintenance, not temperature. From my own experience, lack of sleep leads quickly to "spinning my wheels" as my thought process becomes bogged down to the point of not being able to "finish a thought".

At some point the brain needs to clean out molecular by-products, replenish stores of needed neurotransmitters, I'm sure at some level there's some garbage collection going on, maybe mark and sweep everything out of short term memory that's been moved to long term. Maybe dreaming actively helps us to connect disparate thoughts and concepts into some kind of of aggregate.

Some of my best thinking comes easily after a great nights sleep...

</comment><comment><USER35> Natural question follows: can humans train ourselves to do the same as animals in water? Live a bi-phasic life where creative / analytical sides of brain each get to "sleep"?

<comment><USER36> It would depend on how this evolved in the water mammals researchers have found this in. Maybe some land mammals do the same thing, we just have preformed this type of experiment on them yet.

If it does appear in humans, it'd probably be best to study those with extreme insomnia or people who claim to have very short sleep patterns (<2 hours a night) or maybe those who are narcoleptic (the other end of that scale).

<comment><USER37> So we need a volunteer to put the electrodes on the hippopotamus?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If this is true, then why are there such extreme consequences to not sleeping for extended periods in mammals ?

Without REM sleep (deep sleep does not work by itself), you lose control of your emotions in 2 days at most. You go insane between 1 and 2 weeks (mania, depression, and likely quick switches between those 2), and your body will physically shut down and die a week or so after that. (note that in humans it hasn't been well established that death occurs, for obvious reasons. In mice, however, it's well studied and accepted. No sleep for ~10 days, half of the mice just die).

This seems to be a bit at odds with the idea that it's just a brain warming technique.

[https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep- deprivation/effects-...](https://www.healthline.com/health/sleep- deprivation/effects-on-body#1)

[https://www.livescience.com/52592-spooky-effects-sleep- depri...](https://www.livescience.com/52592-spooky-effects-sleep- deprivation.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> I feel weird about this post. It feels like it's posted by people wanting to somehow give evidence or support to the idea that sleep is good and necessary. I feel weird about the fact that that is something that needs to be proved. Don't you trust in the signals your body is sending you? Do you really trust a model of average human behaviour more than your body; which is perfectly conditioned your precise enviourment and history?

</comment><comment><USER40> To me this looks like evidence that seals don't enjoy sleeping in water very much. Not much else. Also sleep-deprived rats seem to consume more calories. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER41> Have there been studies of sleep need, or sleep quality, vs temperature?

I wonder if the modern (American?) trend of running heating at night is affecting people's sleep?

As a Briton who moved to the USA a few years ago, I found the American habit of running heating overnight to be very odd - as I think most Europeans do. In Britain, we tend to run heating only during the day, unless it's _extremely_ cold outside.

</comment><comment><USER42> Do we know which animals experience the most R.E.M. sleep, or if humans display atypical R.E.M. sleep characteristics compared to other animals?

<comment><USER43> Not a direct answer, but immediate REM sleep is a symptom of narcolepsy. So the animal displaying the most REM sleep is probably a narcoleptic human.

It just makes you tired, no matter how much sleep you get.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I thought the received wisdom was that REM sleep was connected to memory. E.g. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768102/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768102/)

</comment><comment><USER45> I've always found that I get exceedingly warm when I sleep. Whenever I fall asleep on a bus or plane, I eventually wake up drenched in sweat. It's not from bad dreams or night-terrors; my body temperature just increases. I now wonder if it's specific to REM.

<comment><USER29> Every night I have to throw a few blankets off of me in the early morning.

I read somewhere (?) that the body cools during sleep. Somehow one of the implications was that taking a shower before sleep can help you sleep faster.

The fact that a body is sweating indicates not necessarily that it is hotter than during the day; it could be that the body is trying to be cooler than it was during the day. (Of course, if you wake up feeling hot, it's probably because you're hot.)

Thermodynamically, it makes sense that being in a bed, with insulation against almost all of one's body, would (once the insulation gets warm) leave someone warmer than when they're sitting or standing -- at least if the ambient temperature is the same in the day and night.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I would be cautious about extrapolating seal metabolism to mammal metabolism. Diving mammals have many special adaptations to deal with high pressure, breathing, oxygen, nitrogen etc. Is an interesting history in any case.

</comment><comment><USER47> My personal theory is that REM has many uses - one of which is giving the brain an opportunity to do reinforcement learning.

</comment><comment><USER48> Is it just heating of brain required or blood flow? One crazy way to test would be to artificially heat the brain!

</comment><comment><USER49> If you found that interesting you should read about why our bodies are at the temperature they are, 37C. The tl;dr is to fight off fungus.

</comment><comment><USER50> Just so you know, there's half a dozen of equally plausible hypotheses about REM function, and dozens more of more fantastical. Most amusing one yet is about synthesis of molecular chaperones that guard against aggregation of chains produced during NREM. But honestly we just don't know.

Personally I agree with Marcus Schmidt and his idea of "energy allocation function of sleep". Basically it says that distinct physiological states provide viable configurations of priorities for vital functions that allow for the lowest possible energy expenditure over the whole cycle. I.e. there's no single specific function of REM sleep, it hosts all functions that are too costly to prioritize during other states, and the same is true for NREM.

<comment><USER51> That means that biology uses the same idea of having "background jobs" and worker queues that get more relevant while the main function has a bit less to do: many IT systems will schedule some tasks during the night when there is not much going on, so they can prioritize them because otherwise they wouldn't get a chance during the day.

I wonder if there are universal laws that transcend biology and technology, all following the same rules that we haven't figured out yet.

<comment><USER10> > many IT systems will schedule some tasks during the night when there is not > much going on

Indeed, it's natural that we do this but kind of funny when you consider that our machines now have their own circadian rhythms in tune with ours.

What might our IT infrastructure look like if humans evolved to sleep far less or not at all I wonder!

<comment><USER11> > What might our IT infrastructure look like if humans evolved to sleep far > less or not at all I wonder!

Sounds like your typical developer or sysadmin to me, so probably not much different at all. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Another clickbait title, it should really be "an unproven theory for why mammals need R.E.M. sleep based on seals"

Or even

"R.E.M. sleep might be a trait evolved to keep your brain warm at night"</comment>


Paris Eyes Luring 20K Bankers from London Amid Brexit Rupture - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-03/paris-eyes-luring-20-000-bankers-from-london-amid-brexit-rupture?cmpid=BBD010317_BIZ <comment><USER2> Doesn't France have fairly strong labor laws and high taxes? I recall not long ago seeing headlines about "the rich fleeing France".

I wouldn't think that would be a big draw for finance types, especially when there are other markets in the EU that seem like they would be more tax friendly (Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Frankfurt), while still being close enough to other centers of power.

<comment><USER3> Zero chance Paris pulls a large percentage of these bankers. They do have a lot of bad labor laws and quite high taxes, both of which have contributed to France having a very stagnant economy (both in terms of innovation and growth) for decades. In real terms their economy hasn't expanded in nearly 25 years. The centers of power in Europe are still by far in Germany and the UK. French voters have noticed the problem, which is why their Socialist leader recently had a 4% approval rating and the far-right is making big gains. The same disastrous policies that have left them with a broken economy, will keep the London bankers away. There are half a dozen other major cities that will get a look before Paris.

Not to mention, France is increasingly an outlier in Europe with a punishing corporate income tax rate (33%). Most of their European competitors have been slashing that rate the past decade plus: Netherlands 25%, Spain 25%, Austria 25%, Sweden 22%, Denmark 22%, Portugal 21%, Finland 20%, UK 20%, Iceland 20%, Czech 19%, Poland 19%, Switzerland 17.9%, Ireland 12.5%. The average across Europe is about 20%. Why would an international bank want to be there, except for local French business purposes?

<comment><USER4> France _has_ a large percentage of EU bankers already.

Only Frankfurt and London are at a similar level as Paris in the EU for banking today, and if London ceases to be a viable alternative (due to passporting etc. post brexit), then Paris will end up taking a lot of that business for the simple reason labour laws and taxes are not the only things the banks need to care about, but also where their employees are willing to live and work.

My ex works in HR at executive level at a major investment bank. French labour laws etc. never comes up when they consider where to staff up/down (and they do _continuously_ ). As for corporate taxes, no investment bank has a problem finding schemes to shift profits around.

> They do have a lot of bad labor laws and quite high taxes, both of which > have contributed to France having a very stagnant economy (both in terms of > innovation and growth) for decades.

Their GDP per capita is largely moving in lockstep with the UK and Germany, despite far fewer hours worked per year for the average French worker. As it turns out there's very little evidence that these "bad labour laws and quit high taxes" have much impact on growth.

> Not to mention, France is increasingly an outlier in Europe with a punishing > corporate income tax rate (33%).

In line with Germany.

> The average across Europe is about 20%. Why would an international bank want > to be there, except for local French business purposes?

They are already there for purposes other than "local French business purposes". Many international banks have similar numbers of staff in Paris as in London.

<comment><USER5> >> Not to mention, France is increasingly an outlier in Europe with a punishing corporate income tax rate (33%).

> In line with Germany.

The problem in France is not corporate income tax, as some huge companies do not pay that tax with creative but perfectly legal accounting. The problems are with the "taxe professionelle" which is not based on revenues and the taxes on labour. If some employee receives 2000 euros, usually the company has to provision 3000 to 4000 euros. Most of those labor taxes go to the social security organism which has a budget as large as the state budget. (Edited for grammar and clarity)

<comment><USER6> > The problems are with the "taxe professionelle" which is not based on > revenues and the taxes on labour.

The "Taxe professionnelle" was abandoned in 2010/2011.

<comment><USER5> True, it was abandoned, and replaced by "Contribution économique territoriale" which is more or less the same thing.

[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contribution_%C3%A9conomique_t...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contribution_%C3%A9conomique_territoriale)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Frankfurt Correspondent for the Magazin "Capital": "Hey we have to do something, Frankfurt is in the news with their 10000 Bankers!" "Let's just say 20000 to Paris." [https://twitter.com/kirchnerchris/status/816196993517289472](https://twitter.com/kirchnerchris/status/816196993517289472)

Which kinda summarizes the facts this is based upon.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have no particular insight into what banks are planning for their staff, but this reads rather like an infomercial from a pressure group.

</comment><comment><USER9> Meanwhile, in the real world, bankers aren't moving from London. More Brexit hysterical fake news. Expect much more of this in 2017.

</comment><comment><USER10> 20K bankers to shortly find themselves working in a regional office and wishing they could relocate back.

Passporting doesn't require moving your employees wholesale, you just setup a subsidiary within Europe and trade with that legal entity for European trades. A skeleton office is all that is required.

<comment><USER11> I was thinking that. Nearly all the big banks must have European branches already and presumably someone at Barclays London can log into the systems of Barclays Paris and do a trade there for instance if it has to be done that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Given most of global trading in London is USD debt anway, can't happen, won't happen, Thinking in London, doing in Dublin, the manual part that is necessary anyway today.

</comment><comment><USER13> Are all those "bankers" really necessary? The business London is losing can probably be done with far fewer people.

<comment><USER14> Well, those X,000 bankers pay their taxes (to some degree), pay rent, buy food in restaurants.. So their absence is disruptive to the local economy, considering how much money their earned.

<comment><USER15> This sound like the glass-makers fallacy. To really evaluate this kind of thing you need to see the entire economic chain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Comments by people in the English banking ecosystem: France is completely delusional about being able to attract English financial ecosystem. They are only hesitating between Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _They are only hesitating between Amsterdam and Frankfurt_

At least in private equity and the related leveraged loan, structured product and similar work, New York is taking the lion's share of formerly British bankers' business.

<comment><USER17> In relation to Brexit? I don't think so. It will be much harder for most employees to move to NYC (visa) than Paris/Dublin/Amsterdam/Frankfurt. Also, apart from the Americans that are working here, convincing people to move 500 miles is much easier than to the US.

Banks operating in both countries can of course gradually shift more work towards the NYC office, but I don't think that many companies are looking to relocate whole departments there.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _relocate whole departments there_

That's not what's happening. The top performers are moved, middle- and low- level staff in London released and new staff hired in New York. A handful of middle managers may be moved or hired in Paris or Frankfurt or Amsterdam, as a conduit, too.

Clients are also shifting. The amount of first-time business I am personally seeing from new European clients, who need a considerable amount of help adapting to New York's more direct banking culture, has us hiring frenetically (though locally).

<comment><USER17> Exactly, but even for well performing front-office staff it will not be easy to get a visa for everyone. Moving within Europe is easy as there's no visa process (right to work in the EU is already given).

I don't doubt that NYC will profit from Brexit, but I think it's more in an indirect way (as you describe) and the generally better economic environment in the US at the moment, not through relocation.

As a side note, some banks use the Brexit discussion to move back office functions to Eastern Europe, hoping that they can sell it as a Brexit consequence and not as offshoring.

<comment><USER18> > Moving within Europe is easy as there's no visa process (right to work in > the EU is already given).

well, that would be conditional on Brexit, right?

<comment><USER19> For British workers yes, but a large portion of London bankers are EU citizens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> With google, facebook and apple all expanding in the U.K. are they hoping to collect the developers that are left out in the cold? Anyway this has all been mentioned before back in 2011 after the government went on a witch hunt in the U.K. but all the talk of moving amounted to nothing mainly due to the cultural difference that exist outside of London. [http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business- news/finance/bou...](http://www.londonlovesbusiness.com/business- news/finance/bouncing-back-how-londons-hedge-fund-scene-survived-the- crisis/314.article)

</comment><comment><USER21> Globalization is Zero-sum

<comment><USER22> Un-coerced free trade is never zero-sum. If I choose to buy goods from you, it's because I value the goods more than the money I pay, and you value the money I pay more than the goods. Both of us are better off after the transaction.

Arguments about foreigners taking our jobs are obverblown. Take Britain as an example. Through tour historic trade networks, commonwealth links and EU membership we a major free trade powerhouse. So have all our jobs gone to China? No, our unemployment rate is near historic lows and our employment rate - the percentage of the population in work - is the highest it's ever been since it started being tracked in 1972. Compared to what life was like in my childhood in the 70s most Britains are fantastically better off. Our city centers and public facilities have been transformed. Foreign travel for leisure, once the preserve of the wealthy, is within reach of most of the population. My wife in Chinese, I've been going there since 2001 and that country is almost unrecognizably better off thanks to Globalization.

I've seen both sides of the globalization equation up close. It's the most powerful force for good the world has even seen, flooding our markets with cheap consumer goods and low cost luxuries (I'd never seen a Mango in my childhood, now you can buy a box of them for £2 in the London markets in season) while lifting millions of people out of grinding, abject poverty.

<comment><USER23> >If I choose to buy goods from you, it's because I value the goods more than the money I pay, and you value the money I pay more than the goods.

Uh... No? If I pay you, it's because you have something I need. I'm not giving you that money because I think it has less worth than what you're giving me in exchange, I'm doing it because that's the price.

As far as UK unemployment goes, a huge part of that low percentage is due to zero hours jobs. Just because people are not registered as seeking a job doesn't mean they're better off. It's exact same scheme as Germany, and while unemployment goes down, the percentage of people with a job yet under the poverty line grows almost proportionally.

<comment><USER22> >Uh... No? If I pay you, it's because you have something I need.

So you value it more. It has more utility to you. You are better off with it than with the money.

<comment><USER15> Unless it is tied into some kind of mandatory tax, or government subsidy.

<comment><USER24> I find utility in staying out of jail, so I pay my mandatory taxes.

<comment><USER15> Exactly :-)

If the government can "manufacture" utility like this, it isn't utility.

<comment><USER22> Therefore government services have no value?

Driven or been driven on any roads lately? Bought any goods transported on public infrastructure? Etc. I'm lost. I've no idea what you're really arguing at this point.

<comment><USER15> I don't think I argued that. Perhaps that's why you're confused.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is there an excuse for short variable names? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/176582/is-there-an-excuse-for-short-variable-names

<comment><USER2> I am reminded of a complicated piece of indexing that I had to figure out. I kept on getting confused, reversing things, etc.

Eventually I put a big comment at the top that to understand the code you needed to draw the picture, and named my variables x and y. About a page of code later, I was done. And when I has to tinker with it a couple of years later my first reaction was to wonder WTF I was thinking, wince in memory of how I had struggled with it, then I drew the picture, and I was amazed at how easy it was.

The rule is not that you need long or short variables. You need _meaningful_ ones. A short variable name is inherently ambiguous, which can lead to confusion and mistakes. Thinking through anything with a long-variable name abuses your working memory, limiting how complex your thoughts can be.

It is a trade-off. Use the right one for your code. For me, index variables are short, and so are any variables that refer to math concepts that I understand well. Otherwise I use (concise if possible) descriptions without any abbreviation, separated by underscores.

<comment><USER3> A short variable name is not ambiguous when the code is based on some math or physics that has a more or less standardized notation. In this case, what's needed is to connect the variable names to the mathematics, as Rex Kerr pointed out to the OP:

"Once you understand the math, the length of the variable names is irrelevant. Do others a favor and leave a citation (in a comment) to some relevant description of the math, though, if you had to learn it!"

<comment><USER2> _A short variable name is not ambiguous when the code is based on some math or physics that has a more or less standardized notation._

The problem is that the same notation is often used in different parts of math in different ways. You sometimes need to clarify. (Except in the case of differential geometry - there the notation is so horrible that you should find a different job! I only partly kid...)

Conversely even if you aren't using a standard math notation, meaningless names and a simple labeled diagram can often make something unambiguous in a way that no amount of verbiage in variable names can hope to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Variable name length should be inversely proportional to scope visibility. Names in complicated math should also be kept very short. I like to get the best of both worlds by renaming just before the formula:

        var G  = Physics.Gravitational_Constant;
        var M1 = Physics.Mass_of_Earth;
        var M2 = Simulation_Constants.Mass_of_Asteroid;
        return (G * M1 * M2) / (r*r);

</comment><comment><USER5> An argument that usually lets programmers understand why physicsists do this: to a physicist variables like x (position), v (velocity), p (momentum), R (radius) are as clear as i,j,k,l to a programmer. Using the longhand would not improve readability for them, just like using arrayIndex instead of i would not improve readability for a programmer. In fact for a physicist it is much _easier_ to read the short variable names, since that's what we always use, and it makes it easier to recognize an entire expression in the blink of an eye. It also keeps expressions on one line instead of 5. Another thing is if you're not a physicist, chances are very good you are not going to understand the code anyway, or at least not without consulting a physics text or paper, in which they will use exactly the same variables x,p,v,R, and now you're glad that these correspond exactly to your program's variables. If you update an equation like T = dE/dS to temperature = infinitesimal_change_in_energy / infinitesimal_change_in_entropy, you have gained only superficial readability. If you don't understand the former you will not _truly_ understand the latter either.

<comment><USER6> > If you update an equation like T = dE/dS to temperature = > infinitesimal_change_in_energy / infinitesimal_change_in_entropy

and in the case the changes in energy or entropy are _not_ so infinitesimal, the semantics of the variable name can cause all sorts of troubles

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Simple solution: in a program source, create a very clear comment header that won't be missed, that explains the meanings of the variables.

Also, even though physicists can use any names or lengths they like in their papers, they seem to prefer concision:

f = G M1 M2 / r^2

If the reader understands the math, short variable names aid comprehension, not the reverse.

<comment><USER8> This actually bothered the hell out of me. For anything more complicated that highschool physics, this is terrible. You start to run out of letters and start using capitals and noncapitals, and even worse is that there are some "globals" that are not really variables but well-known constants. So you're trying to distinguish between uppercase / lowercase / variable / constant and keep all that in your head.

There really is no logical reason to do this, other than established practice.

I've found that even scientists and mathematicians can be closeminded enough to get angry when you suggest that they're being inefficient and wasteful, and their conventions are crap.

Don't even get me started on the mathematician way of explaining things, where instead of explaining the concept and filling in the gaps, you take a 20 variable equation and start by describing all the variables one by one. By the time you reach the end, you can't remember what the beginning did, so you have to go back and forth all the time.

<comment><USER2> Most people tend to get unhappy when you start dismissing their knowledge as _crap_.

Also in this case you are wrong. With a compact notation you can think more complicated thoughts than you can with a verbose one. The downside is that a compact notation requires more from the person reading it. The tradeoff is correct, and the domain expert is not necessarily wrong.

Your domain expertise is maintaining a lot of very precise instructions for a variety of different problems. For you, constant signposts are an assistance. For a domain expert in their domain of expertise, they are overhead.

<comment><USER9> This is a wonderfully lucid and subtle comment. I think any earnest programmer who wants to get better would do well to study your contributions to this thread until they are sure they understand them.

 _For a domain expert in their domain of expertise, [long explicit names] are overhead._

Once you pass a certain threshold of complexity and/or time-investment, a well-designed program becomes its own domain of expertise. At that point there is great leverage to be had in finding a compact notation suitable for the recurring concepts of the system. In some ways, finding such a notation is _how_ one ensures that the system has a good design and will keep it. As you point out, it (critically) is what enables us to keep more complex things in our heads. It also becomes an intimate part of the creative process – a good notation suggests new concepts and hints at how the system should grow.

Long explicit names are exactly what you don't want when it comes to the core concepts of a well-designed system. They are useful for things that aren't familiar and so need to be spelled out. But in a well-designed system, the most important concepts _are_ familiar and it is a poor use of our limited cognitive capacity to constantly spell them out, for much the same reason that we prefer to say "gas" instead of "liquid hydrocarbons". Since cognitive capacity is our principal bottleneck in software, this is a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Variable length should be comparable to the length they're in scope and their importance. So short indices for loops is fine. S for a string in a loop over a list of strings is fine (so long as the loop isn't too long).

Assuming everyone knows your equation and what your variables mean is a terrible idea. Unless your method is less than 10 lines and you explain all the variables in a comment... just write stuff out. Text is free. Don't go crazy, but 4-8 characters won't kill anyone and may well prevent bugs.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ugh. He's complaining about commonly known physics abbreviations. Short variable names are fine as long as they are descriptive. The key thing to keep in mind is descriptive to you may not be descriptive to someone else (or future you for that matter.)

You can even scrape by with naming the full version in declaration. nothing worse than a cryptic name you cant figure out at first glance like in this instance.

</comment><comment><USER12> You might be able to make the case that short variable names are reasonable as long as they are common and used consistently.

I am not completely sold on this, but for example LLVM has a lot of 1 character variables where 'I' is always the instruction you're working on, 'F' is always the function you're compiling, 'B' is the current basic block you're processing, etc.

Having worked on several compilers over the year, it's certainly not much worse than other practices I have seen like using 't1' and 't2' to refer to the two instruction temporaries you just created, or 'insn' for the instruction you're currently examining.

</comment><comment><USER9> The root problem seems clearly (to me) that he is the only programmer maintaining a system whose original authors are no longer available. The life of a software system is very much in the minds of the people who are making it, and when they are gone, this is a kind of death.

This has nothing to do with length of variable names, although it is tempting to ascribe one's frustrations with a codebase to lack of skill on the part of the original programmers, rather than lack of access to their thinking.

</comment><comment><USER13> Uh, the example in the article is from a numerical computation, and following conventions (typically, from a book, or a research paper, etc) is often a good idea. Just as long as they are not confusing. An example would be using _g_ for the gravitational constant. If they start becoming confusing, can take them out to a namespace (if the language allows it): just like _Math/e_ is a better practice than _e_ , so _Physics/g_ could be better than _g_. As a previous comment (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5157849>) indicates, when used in a short piece of code, quick synonyms can be used, thus _g_ instead of _Physics/g_ (or _Physics/Some_Longer_Name_ ).

As mentioned elsewhere in this thread, short-lived names can often be short, too. In some cases they are little more than placeholders. An example is an index for a for-loop that is in fact a "for-each" loop when the language lacks the latter and the index does not have much of a meaning of its own.

</comment><comment><USER14>
      //for every
      for(int i = 0; i < things.length; i++){
        //there's a
        dx = x - tx/mf;
        dy = y - ty/mf;
      }

      //but then for every
      distanceToTarget = Math.SquareRoot(xDistance*xDistance + yDistance*yDistance)
      //there's a
      for(int index = 0; index < robotsCurrentlyInField.length; index++)
      {
        robotsCurrentlyInField[index].ohGodMyFingersAreBleeding(distanceToTarget);
      }

<comment><USER15>
        di[ctrl+space] = Math.Sq[ctrl+space](xD+[ctrl+space]

...

        robo[ctrl+space][index].ohG[ctrl+space]

Every editor I've used in about 10 years has had an excellent autocomplete feature. I've never had to type out such long variable names.

<comment><USER16> Physicist here. I never have to __read __such long variable names, which would make it much more difficult to spot bugs. I do undertand that long variable names have their place but, when it comes to programming numerical code which is a translation of actual equations, shorter names make it much easier to read and spot mistakes. I do wish that I could use a programming editor that could look like a TeX output on the screen though ...

<comment><USER17> > I do wish that I could use a programming editor that could look like a TeX > output on the screen though ...

This was one of the design goals of the Fortress project

[http://labs.oracle.com/projects/plrg/Publications/fortress.1...](http://labs.oracle.com/projects/plrg/Publications/fortress.1.0.pdf)

Scroll down to section 2.3 'Rendering'.

Sadly the project is now defunct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised Hacker News readers are even having this conversation. :-) Kernighan and Pike's excellent _The Practice of Programming_ addresses it early on; chapter one _Style_, section one _Names_. It includes suggesting length should be inversely proportional to scope and that "clarity is often achieved through brevity". <http://amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/020161586X/mqq-20> <http://cm.bell- labs.com/cm/cs/tpop/>

</comment><comment><USER19> After reading many of the responses, I am wondering if there is a difference between the 'business programmers' and the 'scientific/mathematical programmers'. Most of the examples below show code that could have come from physics or maths code. I have noticed that my code (scientific) tends to have much shorter variable names than the code of some of my "not so mathematical" counterparts. Also, 'business' languages like Java and COBOL seem to encourage longer names more than C and FORTRAN.

</comment><comment><USER20> Original question on Programmers:

<http://programmers.stackexchange.com/q/176582/55712>

</comment><comment><USER21> dhh recently posted about this very issue. Made me feel a bit more confident in being more expressive with variables.

[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3250-clarity-over-brevity- in-...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3250-clarity-over-brevity-in-variable- and-method-names)

</comment><comment><USER22> Readability. Whatever is the most readable. Do that.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think that the second most upvoted answer is right on spot: variables that a short lifespan should be shorter than the ones having a long lifespan.

Of course when you're working in a functional language you basically only have short lived "variables" (they're not even "variable" but whatever). Even better yet, in some languages you don't even _need_ that many variables.

The recent voted article about the guy refactoring Java code to Clojure was _precisely_ an example of that.

So why even have "variables" when you can very often do without!?

<comment><USER7> > So why even have "variables" when you can very often do without!?

In many of those cases, as often as not, the problem of variable names is replaced by the problem of function names, and we're back to square one.</comment></comment>


Google Live Transcribe speech engine open sourced - <AUTHOR> https://opensource.googleblog.com/2019/08/bringing-live-transcribes-speech-engine.html <comment><USER2> This title is disingenuous, the part open sourced is a client for the Google Speech API, not the actual speech engine (eg: the interesting bits that Mozilla is trying to build with Mozilla Deepspeech).</comment>


Paul Graham ranked No. 11 in Bloomberg Businessweek Top Angel Investors list  - <AUTHOR> http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/02/0225_angel_investors/12.htm

<comment><USER2> The Bechtolsheim one had some great info.

[http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/02/0225_angel_investors...](http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/02/0225_angel_investors/11.htm)

> As an angel investor, he's famous for cutting a $100,000 check to Google's > founders even before they had chosen their now-famous name. In an e-mail, > Bechtolsheim confirmed that the check has netted him more than $1 billion.

> Bechtolsheim also expressed a sober perspective on the emergence of former > Google employees as angels and entrepreneurs. "When people are part of a new > company that gets very successful very quickly, such as Google (but this > effect is by no means limited to Google), they sometimes confuse the root of > this success and incorrectly assume that the success was due to their own > actions. They then want to translate this experience to other opportunities, > either in the same or in related spaces, which in some cases may turn out, > but in most cases will fail, just like the majority of all VC investments > fail. … The only thing different about the Google mafia compared to other > similar periods in history is that more money was made at Google by more > people (and more money will be lost here)."

<comment><USER3> I'll tell you another story about Andy Bechtolsheim: he invested in a competitor of my startup about 10 years ago, would never give us the time of day when we tried to raise money. We never got to pitch to him, which is unfortunate considering that he was the _one_ angel specialized in our space. Fast forward 5 years, we acquired the company he had invested in.

Who you know (or rather, who knows you) matters. We were out of towners at the time.

<comment><USER4> "Who you know (or rather, who knows you) matters."

Yea, if Andy had known you guys well enough to understand that you would kick the other's company's butt and acquire them, he could have just invested in your company directly and got a better return. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The list of top angel investors.

No. 1

Chris Dixon, 38 Co-founder, Hunch Chris Dixon's blog

No. of angel investments: 23 Companies funded (a sampling): Skype, Postini, Milo.com, Knewton, DailyBooth

No. 2

Ron Conway Investor

No. of Angel Investments: 190 Companies funded (a sampling): Google, Facebook, bit.ly, Digg, Mint.com, Twitter

No. 3

Reid Hoffman, 42 Chairman, co-founder, LinkedIn Reid Hoffman's LinkedIn profile

No. of Angel Investments: 49 Companies funded (a sampling): Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, Ning, Zynga

No. 4

Esther Dyson, 58 Investor

No. of Angel Investments: 60 Companies funded (a sampling): 23andMe, GridPoint, del.icio.us, Flickr, Meetup

No.5

Peter Thiel, 42 Founder, President, Clarium Capital Management

No. of Angel Investments: 26 Companies funded (a sampling): Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zynga

No. 6

Marc Andreessen, 38 Investor

No. of Angel Investments: 53 Companies funded (a sampling): Business Insider, Digg, LinkedIn, Qik, Scribd, Twitter

No. 7

Jeff Bezos, 46 Chairman, founder, Amazon.com

No. of Angel Investments: 18 Companies funded (a sampling): 37signals, Google, Linden Lab, Social Gaming Network, Twitter

No. 8

Chris Sacca, 34 Managing Director, Lowercase Capital

No. of Angel Investments: 32 Companies funded (a sampling): bit.ly, FanBridge, Gowalla, Posterous, SimpleGeo, Twitter

No. 9

Mike Maples, 42 Investor

No. of Angel Investments: 39 Companies funded (a sampling): Circle of Moms, Digg, Kongregate, Odeo, Twitter, Weebly

No. 10

Andy Bechtolsheim, 54 Founder, Chairman, Chief Development Officer, Astra Networks

No. of Angel Investments: 49 Companies funded (a sampling): Brightmail, Google, Granite Systems, Nvidia, Tapulous

No. 11

Paul Graham, 45 Co-founder, Y Combinator

No. of Angel Investments: 129 Companies funded (a sampling): Bump Technologies, FanChatter, Heyzap, Justin.tv, Scribd

No. 12

Max Levchin, 34 Founder, Chief Executive, Slide

No. of Angel Investments: 7 Companies funded (a sampling): Evernote, MixPanel, Raptr, Slide, Yelp

No. 13

Aydin Senkut, 40 Founder, Felicis Ventures

No. of Angel Investments: 65 Companies funded (a sampling): Foodzie, Mixer Labs, Rapleaf, The Auteurs, TwitVid

No. 14

Bill Joy, 55 Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

No. of Angel Investments: 24 Companies funded (a sampling): Blazent, NeoPath Networks, Dantz

No. 15

Kevin Rose, 33 Founder, Digg Kevin's blog

No. of Angel Investments: 12 Companies funded (a sampling): Twitter, 3Crowd Technologies, Foursquare, SimpleGeo

No. 16

Dave Duffield, 69 Founder, Chief Executive, Workday

No. of Angel Investments: 18 Companies funded (a sampling): Acta Technology, Bridgestream, Netcentives

No. 17

Andrea Zurek, 39 Founding partner, XG Ventures

No. of Angel Investments: 26 Companies funded (a sampling): Lotus Vodka, Facebook, Red Mango, and Vaxart

No. 18

Marc Benioff, 44 Founder, Chief Executive, Salesforce.com

No. of Angel Investments: 9 Companies funded (a sampling): Mashery, Qik, Tapulous, Zuora

No. 19

Jeff Clavier, 42 Founder, Managing Partner, SoftTech VC Blog: Jeff Clavier's blog, Software Only

No. of Angel Investments: 52 Companies funded (a sampling): bit.ly, Circle of Moms, DNAnexus, Mint.com

No. 20

Caterina Fake, 36 Co-founder Hunch Caterina's blog

No. of Angel Investments: 6 Companies funded (a sampling): Etsy, Maya's Mom

No. 21

Martin Varsavsky, 49 Founder, Chief Executive, Fon Martin Varsavsky's blog

No. of Angel Investments: 28 Companies funded (a sampling): 23andMe, Dopplr, Eolia, Joost, Plazes, Tumblr, Wikio

No. 22

Naval Ravikant, 36 Founder, Chairman, Vast.com Blog: Startup Boy

No. of Angel Investments: 21 Companies funded (a sampling): Chatterous, DotSpots, Fluther, Twitter, Vidly

No. 23

Joe Kraus, 38 Partner, Google Ventures

No. of Angel Investments: 5 Companies funded (a sampling): InfraSearch, Linkedin, Napster, Odeo

No. 24

Eric Schmidt, 54 Chairman, Chief Executive, Google

No. of Angel Investments: 9 Companies funded (a sampling): Citizen Effect, CX, iShake, PublishOne, Sendmail

No. 25

Lauren Flanagan, 55 Co-founder, Managing Director, Phenomenelle Angels Fund

No. of Angel Investments: 23 Companies funded (a sampling): Alice.com, Stealth Therapeutics, U.S. Trailmaps

<comment><USER6> How can Ron Conway not be at #1?

<comment><USER7> There's a detailed table of the rankings: [http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/future_of_t...](http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/future_of_tech_2010/)

<comment><USER8> I find that list really dubious -- it's very hard to believe that 97% of Ron Conway's investments have worked out. The only way I can imagine that being true is if there are strings pulled so that there's a fire-sale at the end that's being counted as an exit.

<comment><USER9> 97% are "not dead"

I also find this hard to believe.

I've invested in ~ 20 companies over the last four years.

\- Two are insanely good, but no liquidity yet \- One appears to be dead \- One has been acquired

The rest are in various stages of growth.

<comment><USER8> Right, as Paul pointed out, the numbers for Conway are way low (maybe these are just the SV Angels numbers?), but over the course of Conway's investments in the last 20 years, it's astronomically unlikely that 97% of them are "not dead".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think I was interviewed for this article. I guess I forgot how to talk in sound bites. At least I got promoted to exec!

I wish the "top" angels had some outside SV diversity; I know two thirds of that group pretty much directly.

<comment><USER10> cdixon is #1 & in nyc

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting that pg is second only to Ron Conway, in number of investments (I'm guessing this is YCombinator vs. Ron Conway Inc.) 190 vs 129 given that YC has only been doing it for 5 years.

EDIT: link to table: [http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/future_of_t...](http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/future_of_tech_2010/)

<comment><USER12> I don't know where they got that number. The current number is 172. Last June it was 144.

The number for Ron also seems wrong. He's made a lot more than 190 investments. He's been doing this since the 1980s.

<comment><AUTHOR> 2004 onwards was the time frame.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish these sites would take the time to populate the title attribute for images so you can mouseover and see the name before clicking.

<comment><USER14> They could crowd-source it or pay some mturker.

<comment><USER10> You miss that the point is to get a clickthrough. Bs publishing tactic

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _The Harvard math PhD..._

I thought pg's PhD was in Computer Science?

<comment><USER16> Wikipedia says "Applied Sciences" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Graham>), but paulgraham.com says Computer Science (<http://www.paulgraham.com/bio.html>).

<comment><USER17> Someone contact the Wikipedia people and tell them to update their reference.

<comment><USER18> Someone tell PG to update _his_ page.

<comment><USER19> Wikipedians strongly recommend against that and get annoyed when people do it. Anyone that wants to fix their own mistaken Wikipedia page is best off doing it by posting a link on the talk page with the correct information and letting someone else fix it, or having someone else do it for them.

<comment><USER16> I read staunch's post as a joke -- "obviously Wikipedia is correct, so have pg fix paulgraham.com to what Wikipedia says".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting how pg is the only YC founder listed here. Other than being the most visible face of YC, why is only he on the list?

<comment><USER20> There's other interesting omissions in that list. Most glaring of all, where's Vinod Khosla?

<comment><USER21> Despite the number of oriental and south asian people in the valley, how came their are so few of them in vc, never mind blacks or latinos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It would be interesting to get some numbers on YC's returns/investment ratios.

<comment><USER12> It sure would. But we've been operating such a short time that all the acquisitions so far have been early acquisitions, which are always for small amounts.

I'm pretty sure we're ahead on paper, but I've never tried to calculate how far ahead.

<comment><USER14> Strange. I'd expect more accounting and number-crunching.

<comment><USER12> There are thing we measure, but not unhatched chickens.

<comment><USER23> Isn't one of the advantages of scaling investing the ability to count unhatched chickens?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What tends to be the biggest contributor to angel success? Knowledge, instinct, network, luck? Or impossible to tell?

I'm assuming it largely comes down to the type of people (smart, hardworking, get 'er done) in the startup and the angel's network.

</comment><comment><USER25> How on Earth is Chris Dixon #1??????

<comment><USER20> The cynic in me is thinking that it's because BusinessWeek is based out of NYC. Don't get me wrong though, cdixon's blog is pretty insightful, and it sounds like he's got a good rep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The ranking were researched and calculated by YouNoodle. [1]

YouNoodle took angel money from Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and The Founders Fund. [2]

This conflict-of-interest was not disclosed by BusinessWeek.

[1] [http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/future_of_t...](http://bwnt.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/future_of_tech_2010/) [2] <http://www.crunchbase.com/company/younoodle>

<comment><USER27> Yes it was.

[http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_10/b41690396...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_10/b4169039642419_page_2.htm)</comment></comment>


Did MPEG LA kill media support in Java - <AUTHOR> http://labs.teppefall.com/2010/05/did_mpeg_la_kill_media_support_in_java.html

<comment><USER2> The author makes no sense:

"Basically MPEG LA did a very naughty thing. They added a metric ton of patents to their patent pool AFTER all the developers had signed up"

What is that supposed to mean? If a developer has signed up to license the MPEG-LA patents already, adding more to the pool isn't going to cost the developer any more.

<comment><USER3> Nero's complaint appears to be that the original MPEG-2 patents have expired and thus they shouldn't have to license anything, but since MPEG LA keeps adding patents to the pool they have to keep paying as long as these additional patents are valid. I don't see what that has to do with Java, though.

<comment><USER4> From TechDirt:

First, the MPEG-LA would engage with independent experts to ensure only essential patents would be placed in the MPEG-2 pool. They told the DOJ that the MPEG-2 pool constituted of 53 essential patents. Second, independent experts would "weed out nonessential patents" from the pool. Third, licensing terms would be "fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory".

Nero claims none of these safeguards were honoured, and here's where it gets juicy; "absolute power has corrupted the MPEG-LA absolutely", according to Nero. First of all, the so-called independent expert was anything but independent. The expert helped form the MPEG-LA, helped in drafting the first MPEG-LA licensing agreements, answers questions from licensees on behalf of the MPEG-LA, has attended business settlement meetings on behalf of the MPEG- LA, and has testified before US congress on behalf of the MPEG-LA. Heck, he is listed on the MPEG-LA website as "MPEG-LA's US patent counsel".

Nero also claims that the MPEG-LA has unlawfully extended its patent pools by adding non-essential patents to the MPEG-2 patent pool. Even though the MPEG- LA told the DOJ there were only 53 essential MPEG-2 patents, the non- independent expert added round and about 800 more patents to the pool, extending the duration of the patent pool, since the old, 53 essential patents expired....

Nero further claims that the MPEG-LA has "formulated and imposed licensing terms that are unfair, unreasonable, and discriminatory", by charging different royalty rates from licensees for the same MPEG-2 license and by not making any downward adjustment in line with the "rapid and dramatic" decrease in costs of implementing the MPEG-2 standard. In addition, the MPEG-LA collects royalties for the same device multiple times (internal hardware, software, monitor, etc.), and the licensing body has failed to "communicate its policies equally to all licensees".

Be fun to watch...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand what he's asking here. JavaFX apparently supported using local H.264 codecs on certain operating systems. Is that what got removed? Or is it the VP6 support that got removed?

On a related topic Oracle is listed as a WebM supporter on the website, which I assumed was related to JavaFX since I knew it used On2 VP6 for cross platform video, but I haven't seen any announcement about what they're actually planning.

</comment><comment><USER6> I doubt anybody is going to miss media support in Java.

<comment><USER7> I didn't even know that support was in there. Then again I haven't installed java on my computer in years.</comment></comment>


Grooveshark Bites Back: We'll Fight Universal in Court, Not The Press - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/grooveshark-bites-back-well-fight-universal-in-court-not-the-press-111123/ <comment><USER2> _We use the label's songs till we get a 100m uniques, by which time we can tell the labels who is listening to their music where, and then turn around and charge them for the very data we got from them, ensuring that what we pay them in total for streaming is less than what they pay us for data mining._

This part doesn't quite make sense to me. Besides being news to me that this is their business model, how could it possibly be that UMG is willing to pay more for the data about a song play than they charge for that play?

<comment><USER3> I hope you aren't upset about this revelation.The quality of their service is pretty high, I don't recall ads, nor do I recall having to pay a subscription fee.

If you _are_ discomfited by it, take comfort knowing that the only reason they get money for it is they are selling the amalgamation of what thousands (millions?) of listeners chose; from the sound of it, you are going to be completely invisible among the masses.

<comment><USER4> That was from an internal email. I can't find any sources saying that grooveshark is actually making money from the labels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "$271,350,000" Wow. And all they had to do was read a comment on a blog post. If I didn't know any better (I'm not sure I do), I'd say piracy is big business for the entertainment industry.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if there's any money to be made in posting comments that companies can use to file frivolous lawsuits.

For $5, I'll claim that I watched the CEO of Grooveshark waterboard an orphan while listening to a song he didn't own.

<comment><USER7> See also: "Battling the Internet Water Army: Detection of Hidden Paid Posters"

<http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1111/1111.4297v1.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one who noticed that Custer claimed he wouldn't fight Universal in the press... in a statement released to the press including his arguments as to why Universal is wrong?

I'm willing to support just about anyone who is taking on the record labels, but don't claim you won't fight Universal in the press right after doing so _and_ scolding your opponents for doing so as well. That's just hypocritical.

</comment><comment><USER9> I still remember the WordPress/Thesis fiasco that involved Twitter, blog comments and Mixergy interviews.

<comment><USER10> Do you have a link? Thanks!

<comment><USER9> Here is some:

[http://wordpress.tv/2010/07/15/mixergy-interview-pearson- mul...](http://wordpress.tv/2010/07/15/mixergy-interview-pearson-mullenweg/)

<http://mashable.com/2010/07/22/thesis-relents/>

[http://wptechguy.com/2010/07/matt-mullenweg-and- wordpress-v-...](http://wptechguy.com/2010/07/matt-mullenweg-and-wordpress-v- chris-pearson-and-thesis/)

<http://jane.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/thesiswp/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A trial of this nature could end as a fantastic promotion for Grooveshark, assuming they can survive it.

<comment><USER12> Sure similar to the lawsuits and trials of Napster, Kazaa, Limewire, Muxtape and all the others that were sued out of existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I still think Grooveshark is the best cloud music service there is. I can't stand spotify or google music.

<comment><USER12> Are you willing to pay $10 a month for GrooveShark once they are forced to change their business model?

Pardon the pessimism, but I don't recall any online music service that didn't negotiate with the labels first surviving these lawsuits. Though maybe I am forgetting one that is still around and going strong?

<comment><USER14> If Universal shuts down Grooveshark they set a precedent that can get Youtube shutdown, because they are run on the same model. Users upload content, Grooveshark removes content and users when they get DMCA complaints.

<comment><USER12> I don't think the YouTube analogy works here, because YouTube's main focus was never to be an online music service. That is Grooveshark's sole purpose and is marketed as. There are many music services that allowed that same thing and are no longer around like muxtape for example.

Also the wild west that YouTube was is no longer, as they pay they labels. Maybe Grooveshark won't go the way of all the other unlicensed music services & they'll negotiate the proper licenses to remain in business?

If that happens their model will be like Spotify and the others(pay monthly fee for mobile access). Though will it's users stick around or jump ship to what service I'm not sure? I don't know of any other Grooveshark like services as the press only covers Spotify, MOG and Rdio these days.

<comment><USER15> You can make your own music, just like you can make your own videos. I think the analogy works pretty well

<comment><USER12> Sure, but the masses are not listening to the unknown bands. They are listening to the best talent in the world which the labels find, cultivate, market and create icons out of - ones that the MASSES follow, love and adore.

Further the majority (Grooveshark's users/visitors) are there to listen to the label's music not the unknowns. Now if the unknowns are really good then they'll get a record deal because they want to be heard by as many as possible (become famous).

Just like us entrepreneurs wisely seek out investment to grow our businesses artist do the same with the labels. Some artists could say "I hate the labels they will never sign me!" Though once that artist gets a following and a taste for money/fame they'll change their mind! They'd be foolish not to!

<comment><USER16> The same could be said for YouTube. It was primarily the Lazy Sunday video from SNL, along with some other major production videos, that made YouTube popular. It was only after the service saw success that the user-generated videos became interesting to the masses. They came for the major label productions, but stayed for the home movies.

But that is, of course, the fear of Grooveshark. The masses come to hear Lady Gaga's latest single, but they just might stumble upon an independent that they enjoy while they are there. That discovery leads to wanting to find more, and eventually the major labels, like in video today, become even less relevant. Grooveshark has already started promoting bands I have never heard of, and I'll usually give them a chance when I am there.

<comment><USER17> There's a timing game being played here that YouTube already won, and which I think GrooveShark are about to lose.

Both YouTube and GrooveShark bet that they'd be able to (quasi-illegally) host major production content without the owners' consent until some derivative (in YouTube's case, raw audience combined with ad revenue and in GrooveShark's case apparently metrics) gave them enough value and/or capital to strike deals with legitimate content owners.

YouTube won; they were able to push enough traffic to entice labels into partnering with them for a revenue-generating service (VEVO), and were subsequently able to begin enforcing the DMCA aggressively via automated tooling combined with an easy takedown process for labels.

I think GrooveShark are about to lose. So far, labels seem less interested in making deals with them than in destroying them, and I _highly_ doubt they have enough legitimate content to survive. They didn't make it past the "host infringing content for long enough to generate value" inflection point quickly enough.

It's also worth noting that it's possible to host a much wider variety of independent / user-generated content which is actually interesting on a "video site" than a "music site." "Video" encompasses an incredible range of content (including music!), while "music" is a single content type with a much narrower range of producers. Many more people have cute kids, athletic talent, cool cars, funny pets, and so on than have musical talent.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How San Francisco's Progressive Politics Led to Its Housing Affordability Crisis - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/equity/2015/07/whats-the-matter-with-san-francisco/399506/ <comment><USER2> While SF needs to build tons more housing, a major issue is that Bay Area cities/counties are only watching out for themselves, often to the detriment of neighboring residents (Such as building tons of office space, but no corresponding housing and worsening congestion).

It seems that the Bay Area would benefit a lot from NYC-style borough designations. Doing so would allow proper residential planning and transportation infrastructure.

<comment><USER3> We voted down such an idea a century ago [http://www.nationalaffairs.com/doclib/20080709_19991377isreg...](http://www.nationalaffairs.com/doclib/20080709_19991377isregionalgovernmenttheanswerfredsiegel.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Move out. US is big.

You want to have house affordability when sharing a city with people that make money from house price speculation and, maybe, have some influence of city's politics?

Then propose to regulate house prices. Establish some maximum. Oh, but you don't like it cause it would go against "free market rules"? Then stop moaning. In a free market the most powerful dominate.

So give up on that battle and move out.

<comment><USER5> This is already happening - there's significant outflow from the Bay Area to other relatively progressive cities like Seattle, Portland, Boulder/Denver, Asheville NC, Austin, etc. In many cases they've turned those cities even _more_ progressive in the process. My very conservative aunt in Portland complains about all the Californians moving in with their liberal politics. Colorado was a Republican-leaning swing state when I was in college, but it's turned quite Democratic lately.

They're replaced by domestic migrants from the Midwest, South, and farm belt, and by international immigrants from China, Taiwan, India, Vietnam, the Middle East, and many other countries. Interestingly, this "Bay Area conveyor belt" is perhaps the best thing that could happen for progressive politics, as many people newly arrived in the Bay Area come from very conservative regions, they often pick up more liberal values in the area (this is helped by selection bias - typically you don't pack up and move to a whole new city unless you are somewhat open to new experiences), and then they move on to other areas that were previously swing states.

<comment><USER6> >In many cases they've turned those cities even more progressive in the process

Be careful what you wish for, I remember a saying from when I lived in Vermont: "They moved here because they like it better than Connecticut, now they're trying to turn Vermont into Connecticut."

Don't blame that attitude on the right - they'd just call them Carpetbaggers. This is the kind of thing our non-democrat left would say (Even then-mayor Sanders, but I can't find the youtube clip of it right now because I don't want to listen to a bunch of hours-long interviews).

Unless the only thing important to you is turning the state from red to blue, all this does is poison local politics.

>"Bay Area conveyor belt" is perhaps the best thing that could happen for progressive politics, as many people newly arrived in the Bay Area come from very conservative regions, they often pick up more liberal values in the area

If I wanted the left to continue shooting themselves in the foot, I would be championing this too.

You're describing the same process as when kids from a strongly-conservative upbringing come to UVM and swing left. They are inevitability full of terrible ideas, naïve idealism and need years to mellow out into anything resembling a tenable political perspective. They're not necessarily dummies, but their ideas haven't been shaped by debate or tested against reality.

<comment><USER7> Well, we have that process on both ends of the political spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why is progressive politics the cause? If we take "progressive" as "more socialist", socialists are famous for their cheap housing projects. [https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+housing&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=soviet+housing&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER9> I think "progressive" is a fairly American term, and puts a certain sheen over left politics. It's tough to say whether it's socialist or not because it never seems to matter. It's more of a feeling, or a vibe, than a critique. It describes the unconscious desires of a demographic very well, but falls short on political content. In this sense, it may have been an OK choice of words.

<comment><USER8> Terms like "progressive" have been around for so long, and used for so many different movements, that pinning down what somebody means when they use them may be difficult. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States) doesn't even mention housing, so I guess it's not a core issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The San Francisco Left could never come to terms with its central > contradiction of being against the creation of more "places" that would give > new people the chance to live in the city.

I'm not from SF, but I'm curious to know if those who live there (or grew up there) agree with the author?

<comment><USER11> I was born in San Jose. And in SF for the last twenty years.

Three things he doesn't touch on here.

1\. Proposition 13. A malign issue with Prop 13 is that it make housing a financial drain on city and county governments. Under prop 13 property taxes do not support the services required by residential housing.

2 There is very little opportunities for greenfield development and building costs are high. This is especially true in San Francisco proper, but also in a lot of other cities. When I was a little kid we used to play in the local cherry orchards.

Here is an example, if you look in the google street view, there are three palm trees. I know those used to be the palm trees that lined the driveway of an old farm house surrounded by orchards. The developer dug them up and replanted them when the housing development went in.

[https://goo.gl/maps/q8FyJdPbcfz](https://goo.gl/maps/q8FyJdPbcfz)

The housing development went in 40 years ago.

3\. Is the failure of post war neoliberal/conservative politics and social organization in the US. There is a premium for places that have resisted it the best. And that is fundamentally why the author moved to SF in the first place.

That brings up that SF has no real ability to control the influx of people into the city. Because of the tax system imposed by the state it has minimal resources as well. The geographical constraints, very high building costs[1], and the desire for those that control capital to live in SF is the root of the problem.

[1] How do you build affordable housing when the building costs are $500-600 sqft? That doesn't include acquisition, design costs, permits and fees. You end up with condo's that cost $600-750k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't it strange that people always seem to complain about a city or town suffering some problem as if it was a person. If you can't afford to live there, then don't. If you benefit from high property prices, enjoy it. If you grew up there and feel sad that you can't afford to anymore, then recognize that property rights exist to give the owners priority access to land so anyone who doesn't obtain property ownership has to expect that one-day they'll be forced out. They can create a bohemian utopia somewhere else if they want that. Why should it be tied to some arbitrary geographical area?

<comment><USER13> Housing and transportation politics are severely under-appreciated. Your local zoning and public transit authorities have far greater impact on your life than anything happening in Washington D.C., yet federal politics get all the airtime. Decisions about local government are made by very small groups. Until recently, the politics of development have been project-by-project skirmishes between the developer and a few opposing neighbors. The rest of us were not necessarily aware that this was happening, or how the pattern of outcomes in hundreds of these block-level skirmishes over decades could hurt us.

"Complaining," as you put it, gets people thinking and talking about the issue in a general way, and it doesn't necessarily take that many people doing so to create radical change in municipal governance. There's potentially a large constituency that's fine with seeing more multifamily structures and on board with supply-and-demand market dynamics, but doesn't necessarily know or care about their municipal regulatory regimes until the impact is explained. Activating these potential pro-growth voters is a worthwhile project. It worked on me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A nuanced conversation on this is well within the popular imagination but outside the limits of this article.

<comment><USER13> The overwhelming majority of San Franciscans live in "trickle-down housing." It was the solution to their problems until they took it off the table for future arrivals.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Subscription Licensing of Cartoons (based on your feedback) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gagcartoons.com/blog/announcing-subscription-based-licensing-cartoons/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a result of this discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7325021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7325021)

In which I talked about creating a new business model for cartoonists. Many of you suggested I add a subscription-based licensing plan, so I did. Would love to hear your feedback!</comment>