Google Glass has new rival in GlassUp smart specs - <AUTHOR> http://www.itproportal.com/2013/07/18/google-glass-has-new-rival-in-glassup-smart-specs/

<comment><USER2> What an amazing thing. Google is likely to fail in making Glass successful for a variety of reasons, not the least of which it is a new product in a new space with limited customer experience and high creepiness. So these folks decide to "compete" with that concept?

Technologically heads up micro-displays are a disaster. There has been _billions_ of dollars spent in this space and only _millions_ in revenue. Its a space I've been pretty interested in, (even has a couple of pairs of lame versions) but the problem is so large that even the sub-problems are multi- hundred thousand dollar projects.

I completely understand the desire to run at the problem, but use of indiegogo here? My fear is that crowd funding is this generation of entrepreneurs "dot com bubble."

<comment><USER3> You could say this about a lot of tech that just wasn't quite right, failed, and then someone tried something at a later date and it took off. Google wasn't the first search engine, Skype wasn't the first attempt at consumer- level video over the internet, World of Warcraft wasn't the first MMO, the list goes on.

<comment><USER2> That is exactly true. People come up with ideas and try things all the time. The "new" thing here is the crowd funding aspect. It appears to be much easier to convince 100,000 people to risk $10 than it is to convince 1 person to risk $1M. This fact has been exploited by "religious figures" for centuries, I fear for a world besotted with tech "gurus" who get rich off selling people a technological dream future that somehow never quite comes to pass. But I worry about lots of things so what's one more right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Recon Jet pre-order is $100 off ($499) for one more day.

[http://jet.reconinstruments.com/](http://jet.reconinstruments.com/)

      Recon Jet is a heads-up display for sports [...]. The Jet features a
      powerful microcomputer and a full-color widescreen display designed for
      active outdoor use, mounted on high-performance polarized sports eyewear.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure I buy the rationale. The person in the video says he receives so many text messages (he names emails, tweets, facebook updates) that he decided to build a device to see them right in front of his eye as they come in.

It occurs to me that having emails, tweets or facebook updates alert you is hugely distracting. Personally, I would probably allow SMS on Glass, though, given that they are — in my filter bubble — usually important, used when coordinating and occur rarely enough that it doesn't distract me. But email? No way!

</comment><comment><USER6> GlassUp lacks a fair amount of fundamentals that are going to hurt.

1) The green text in the middle of the eye is fairly annoying (at least I think it would be)

2) GlassUp seems to not be very well balanced

3) The inability to send data isn't very promising

4) Google has the best maps/navigation thus far, so it seems the GlassUp would be at a disadvantage (then again for the price who knows, it might be worth it).

5) A lot more intrusive that Google Glass

<comment><USER7> > _Google has the best maps /navigation thus far, so it seems the GlassUp > would be at a disadvantage (then again for the price who knows, it might be > worth it)_

I got the impression that an Android app could use the API to use Google Maps with this device. I could be mistaken though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> New rival? I'm not so sure. From the Indiegogo page[1], for $299 you can get the "Pre-release Buggy Version." With that type of wording and the recent track record of crowdfunded hardware projects, yes please take my money!!!

[1] [http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/glassup-augmented- reality-...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/glassup-augmented-reality- glasses-that-display-messages-from-your-smartphone)

</comment><comment><USER9> This looks too distracting for me. Google Glass in is the corner, so you have to go out of your way to look at it. This takes up the center of your vision, forcing you to see it.

<comment><USER10> I've had Glass for over three months now. I agree-- I love that Glass's display is out of the way. That being said, if GlassUp gave me on to try out I would happily. I'm excited about the future of wearable computing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I do need and use eyeglasses to be able to drive.

I don't see any indication if the lens can be formulated, it seems like a huge omission to me.

</comment><comment><USER12> wow. very critical comments here, none of which I see are a challenge in overcoming. For example

1\. Text in the middle: They could move this to the side or the bottom or anywhere else since it seems like it is projected. Google Glass cannot do this.

2\. Color of text. I'm sure that can be addressed with alternate colors.

3\. Cannot take input other than a smartphone: You mean a camera (listed as an option)? Not sure what else would apply

I'm more surprised no one else has positive comments 1\. $199 vs $1500 2\. Everyone has a phone today. I seriously doubt anyone using glass is giving that up soon. So, why not just tie the device to your phone. Why replace it? 3\. Once it is tied to the phone, the app can just communicate with device. If this actually works and gets adoption, app developers will work on integration. The biggest down is that Google will not which means (as someone else pointed out) no maps integration. That would be a shame.

I don't know if this is the product that will make it. But I know they have the right idea over Google in terms of demand. If google made this at $200-$300 instead of glass, I'd have pre-ordered.

<comment><USER13> I thought the $1,500 price point of Glass only applied to the early testers program and that the retail price has not yet been announced. Is that not true?

<comment><USER14> It is. Retail price is expected to be between $200 and $500.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think my big face will shut out the small projector and I do not like a big glasses...

</comment><comment><USER16> tl, dr; a much more lame, monocolor version of glass, which can't take take any input from user whatsoever except via smartphone.</comment>


Like Alibaba, But Safer: HD Trade Services (YC S12) For Goods Traders - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/11/like-alibaba-but-safer-yc-backed-hd-trade-services-wants-to-become-the-primary-platform-for-goods-traders-in-china-and-beyond/

<comment><USER2> Having ordered about $30,000 worth of goods from ali baba this year, my experience has been an interesting one.

First off, I started selling electronic cigarettes with custom cartridges. When I found a demand I went to ali baba to get the e-cig kits for cheap. It was easy to find a supplier, but for sure the lady I am dealing with isn't the factory, but she has been good. Few qualms though.

For one, she didn't want to use the ali baba payment setup. So the first payment was a leap of faith. On my second order (for about the same amount of $) she sent me different kits than the first time because one e-cig was longer than the other. I didnt know I was getting a modified kit until I received about 500 of them.

My overall experience with this random company I met through ali baba has been a good one. Each time they have lowered my price and even dealt with the dead units I receive (Over 100 dead chargers thus far... I have been taking them apart and resoldering them myself, but they replace each one). Would be nice to talk to the factory directly, but the people on ali baba really helped me launch a company through an IM window.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback, rickdale! Congrats on launching your business under such uncertainty. We love hearing about experiences through B2B sites, especially Alibaba.com. Although you haven't had any horror stories, which we hear all too frequently, sounds like you've experienced a few curveballs. No more curveballs! Help us build a truly transparent purchasing environment.

<comment><USER2> The greatest challenge I have faced through this was transferring the money internationally. My first order I did an international wire transfer from my credit union and it took 7 days, went pretty smooth. My second order the credit union had switched companies for processing wire transfers. Took them over 30 days to finally return my money. They thought it was fraud; I tried to explain to the wire transfer company that I had made the same wire transfer 3 months prior, but they weren't convinced.

My next solution was to try Western Union online. Their system is awesome. Took a couple of days to get my business approved (faxing docs and such) but then I was able to make the transfer no problem. Coincidentally, I messed up the account number and so after a week of the money not showing up in my distributors account Western Union corrected my error within 15 minutes of me realizing it. My third order the money went through in 10 hours and all of the account information was saved from the previous order, making it really simple.

Right now I email back and forth with my 'contact' in China. She is very good and really all I need to order goods. I noticed your site is a lot about tracking the products. I get a DHL tracking number before the products leave the facility and can watch them from HK to US. I don't have photos, but I am sure I could get them. I sorta like the gamble...

How are you guys going to stop companies from intercepting potential customers and getting them to pay directly?

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome feedback re: payment methods, thanks again for sharing!

We encourage buyers to route their goods through our growing network of inspection locations. These locations are neutral 3rd party logistics service providers (think DHL, except specialized in value added services like quality verification). They use our high definition inspection technology (<http://www.hdtradeservices.com/distributor.php#inspection>) to provide buyers with the ability to verify quality remotely, in real time. If the quality of the shipment does not meet your agreement with your vendor, you should not complete payment. It's a very proactive way to manage trade risk.

Let me know if you want to learn more.

All the best, Daniel

<comment><USER2> Daniel,

Would like to send you an email about possibly using your company for my next order (which would be next year). I have some basic q's and some more input on my past experience I would like to share and really I would like to learn more. Let me know if you are open to a line of communication.

me=midler.dave[at]gmail

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems like the beginning of an interesting idea. But while they're addressing the important issue of inspecting the goods, it seems they're missing a more important concern when sourcing manufacturing in China. Namely, knowing if someone is actually a manufacturer, or just a middleman.

It doesn't take much searching on Alibaba to find several companies offering the exact same item. Often with the exact same photo, with the only difference being the watermarks they slather over the shot.

Another more important service might be to offer on-site quality control. Of course, that might increase the cost over just taking photos, as you'd need people who were fluent in both Chinese (perhaps several dialects) and English; and who had domain expertise for the goods being manufactured.

<comment><USER4> This is very true. You will not always know who is a middleman and they will certainly be on our platform. What we can guarantee is that if you are dealing with someone on our platform, they have never misbehaved before. We have enough picture and video documentation to ban anyone who does, and our network of suppliers is tightly monitored. You should never be scammed even if we did not handle dispute resolution because of our inspection technology that makes sure you can interact with your product before it is paid for and shipped.

You may deal with a middleman, but you certainly will not have to deal with order inaccuracy, bait and switch, low quality products or any other types of scams that are currently saturated in B2B marketplaces.

<comment><USER5> > What we can guarantee is that if you are dealing with someone on our > platform, they have never misbehaved before.

It will be interesting to see how you manage that!

A few things I find sorely lacking with Alibaba and China in general, some of which I'm sure you have in your crosshairs, others not so sure:

1\. Language - Obviously English isn't their first language so some complications are to be expected, but:

a. I think there has got to be some serious disconnect going on between people with relatively proficient English speaking and writing skills, and companies that need that skill. I've been in contact with some rather large companies ($25+ million in sales or much more) whose sales people are just helpless.

b. Product Descriptions - sometimes just bad spelling/grammar or honest mistakes, but other times they're just plain wrong - like, differentiating details that are _really_ important are ambiguous, or worse. Perhaps this is deliberate to a degree (which I would also like to see go away)

2\. Culture - There's stretching the truth, and then there's lying, and it seems where this line is drawn varies greatly between cultures. It's very frustrating when you're trying to source a product, and every person you contact has it, in fact they have everything. Except they don't. Maybe there's something you could do along the lines of a comprehensive catalog of products, so when they list something, they "have" to tie it to a "fairly" strict item number(s), so I don't have to rely on text searches (which go against dishonest product descriptions). And, if they are doing a deal on 2 items and the buyer needs a 3rd, maybe you could somehow offer collaboration capabilities between sellers, ideally ones that they'd actually _want_ to use (share the profit on a sale perhaps?)

3\. Product listings - I'm sure you know all the issues here, but the ones that most bother me are the atrociously low-res pictures, pictures from other unrelated products the seller has listed showing when clicking "next", terrible ambiguous/misleading descriptions, etc.

4\. Quality control - With modern technology, why _some_ sellers don't do what your platform offers on their own (provide hi-quality photos, etc) is an absolute mystery to me, so it will be nice if you can show them how to do this, and affordably for them so it doesn't cut into their margins. However, for a lot of sellers, the total lack of quality control is a tremendous benefit to them so they can bait & switch, ship different product than ordered, etc.

5\. Affordable Escrow service - as others have mentioned, a lot of sellers like to move transactions off the system. I hope you guys can resist the urge to take too much of a cut of the action and find some affordable way to provide security for the buyer and not cut into profits for the seller.

It's good to see some competition for Alibaba that's for sure, I really hope you guys can pull this off. I wish you the best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an industry that has plenty of room to grow, so I appreciate their work.

Their software doesn't really look like a "competitor" to Alibaba though. It looks more like something you'd use in tandem with the Alibaba marketplace to better keep an eye on your supplier.

<comment><USER7> Their old software was released before, and yes, it was complimentary.

This article announces a new platform connecting buyers with suppliers. Direct competition for Alibaba.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dear HD Trade Services: Your javascript email submit handler told me my email was invalid. I hacked the source to accept my email anyway and it went through fine. Please fix that.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the feedback! We took a look and found that some special characters were not passing our validation. We should have this fixed ASAP.

<comment><USER8> For the record, the correct way to validate an email address is to send an email to it. Don't try to validate in javascript, beyond maybe checking for /.+@.+/.

Here's some more information on the topic: [http://haacked.com/archive/2007/08/21/i-knew-how-to- validate...](http://haacked.com/archive/2007/08/21/i-knew-how-to-validate-an- email-address-until-i.aspx) [no affiliation]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The site appears to handle logistics only. The comparison to AliBaba implies that you can also find sellers/exporters. Can users source goods (i.e. find exporters) on HD, or is it only for managing logistics once you've found a supplier somewhere else?

<comment><USER4> Currently, we only handle logistics. We have been working on our marketplace for some time and we want to launch the beta in early 2013. The purpose of this wait list is to find out who wants to buy what products from where so we can make sure to have only the most qualified suppliers as a part of our network with the launch of our Beta. You can already use our inspection and inventory services if you find a supplier elsewhere, but with the launch of our marketplace you will be able to trade free of risk because we have more documentation than any other service for dispute resolution, if someone misbehaves, they are out.

<comment><USER9> Sounds good. I look forward to seeing the marketplace, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Awesome concept and idea! I hope you succeed so the bad suppliers lose business and the small business owners win.

We are working on solving the same problem with Tradesparency.com, but we are taking a different approach.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER11> Sorry for the sidenote, but I have to say, seeing a (YC) next to a company name that's not 2 words mashed together caught me by surprise :).

That said, if you can guys can pull this off, it looks like it should be incredibly useful.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm glad to see start ups taking on problems in the logistics industry. How does your offering for warehouses and 3PLs compare with WMSs currently on the market? Edit: Looks like you operate all in the cloud, is this correct?

<comment><USER4> Exactly. What we do really well is information capture using tablet computers and storing the information directly in the cloud. Tablets can handle signature capture, scanning, photos and video documentation right at check in and check out so all the inventory is always synced. Our notification system and inventory portal makes sure that the 3PLs client is always informed about shipment activity. The biggest difference is probably that we can provide our basic WMS at such a low price because we primarily make our revenue in other ways that build off of this offering. Previously, smaller 3PLs were left out entirely from WMS offerings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The tagline "Like Alibaba, But Safer" makes me think of Panjiva.com - have you guys heard of them?

(Disclosure: Roommate used to work there)

<comment><AUTHOR> colinsidoti, thanks for bringing up Panjiva. We're very familiar with the company, in fact I had an opportunity to meet Josh Green, founder & CEO, at World Trade Week in NYC this past May. We really like what the company is doing. Think of them like the google of international trade related search. Just last week, they announced Global Search, which will seriously bolster their service. Here's an excellent resource for learning more about Panjiva: <http://panjiva.com/blog>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks awesome. Know of anyone currently using their platform? Any feedback?

<comment><USER7> It seems the platform doesn't open until early 2013.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is that like "wanting to be the guy"?</comment>


Show HN: ezsend.it, the quickest way to buy & print a stamp or shipping label - <AUTHOR> http://ezsend.it?what=hnlaunch&from=hn

<comment><USER2> I've tried to purchase a shipping label online a few times, and it is always a pain. USPS makes you sign up for an account, and fill out lengthy forms. You can buy USPS and UPS shipping labels through your paypal account, but that link is also difficult to come by.

I'd love to see a site when you can enter 2 addresses, a shipping weight, and a size, and then it shows you your options. It looks like this is what you're doing, so I'll definitely check you out once you release this.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly why I'm building it, and why I'll be focusing on the easiest and fastest possible user experience. Things like reverse geocoding to pre- fill addresses, the least amount of inputs, etc.

Now, do you think the time savings would be worth x amount of money to you? In other words, would you be willing to pay for the convenience?

<comment><USER2> I'd recommend something with 2 text boxes - source and destination. Using Google Maps api (or something similar) you should be able to convert this to a valid address (use ajax to do this as they type). They click submit, and see all of the different shipping options and prices. They select one, pay, print, and done.

I'd pay a little bit extra over the retail prices, not sure how much though. Especially if you get bulk discounts, you should be able to keep the mark-up pretty low.

<comment><AUTHOR> Having a text box for pasting addresses is a great idea. I also wanted to use location services to pre-fill the sender's address and show the closest drop off locations or mailboxes.

Thanks for the feedback! I'd like to get as much of it as I can, so I'd appreciate any word spreading about ezsend.it :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tonido welcomes Drop.io users - <AUTHOR> http://www.tonido.com/Tonido_Welcomes_Drop.io.html

<comment><USER2> It still relies on a 3rd party, no?

If they're hosting the files, then it is no better than Drop.io.

If the files are hosted off your own computer, then you still rely on them for redirection (same problem with URL shorteners). I don't like this solution anyways, since a 3rd party will have a server with at least 2 nines, my desktop wouldn't hit that even if I intentionally left it on.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if we go away, you can use any dynamic dns service to redirect.all the apps are self contained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love my TonidoPlug. I bought one last spring and have been using it as my own storage and sharing for photos, videos, and other media.

This sharing feature works very well, I use it quite a bit to share media files with collaborators (mostly to get uncompressed music scores that I produce for web media up to the director). And no, it doesn't take any kind of 3rd party service-- you could just as easily point a different domain at your TonidoPlug and be all set to go.

It has a lot of other useful features too-- I wasn't home when Ubuntu 10.10 came out, but I was able to log in from my phone and get the torrent started, in a simple and easy way. By the time I got home later that day, there it was, waiting for me. (All of this from a "server" that only pulls 2-5 watts and thus keeps my energy bills lower).

I have really enjoyed owning the Plug (and using the software) for its convenience and ease of use. I would recommend it without hesitation.

</comment><comment><USER4> Horrible website. No support e-mail address, or any e-mail address on the site for that matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Go Here: <http://www.tonido.com/support/Main_Page>.

Please don't jump to hasty conclusions. Come to our forum and see how happy our community is...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Smart marketing move.</comment>


Angular 2.0 release candidate out - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/angular/angular <comment><USER2> discussion seems to end up here (on front page right now): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11617887)</comment>


Show HN: Roadmojo-Global platform to store, share and discover road trips - <AUTHOR> http://www.roadmojo.com/

<comment><USER2> It's a really insightful website for a road tripper like me. The best part about it is that the trips are based on others' personal travels which makes it extremely reliable. Go RoadMojo!

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Is there anything we can improve/add?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What do you guys think? What's good, what we can improve? Is the USP clear?

</comment><comment> Mili-123_ Looks good. Great concept

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice layout for trips

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks really good! :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks interesting</comment>


CO2 in the atmosphere just exceeded 415ppm for the first time in human history - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/12/co2-in-the-atmosphere-just-exceeded-415-parts-per-million-for-the-first-time-in-human-history/ <comment><USER3> I used to work at a fitness tech startup, but then when it didn't work out (heh), I took a step back and wondered what industry I wanted to be a part of. I wondered if a software engineer could help contribute to fighting climate change, so I started asking around.

I found a job in solar, then eventually started my own clean energy software company. Every day I wake up with the incredible feeling that I'm getting paid to fight climate change. If feels good, and I'd like to encourage you to consider joining the industry, too.

It turns out there's a huge need for software and other tech skills (data science, sysadmin, etc.) needed for the energy transition. With the deployment of so much "intermittent" generation like solar and wind, we need fuck tons of software and communications infrastructure to run a new "flexible" grid. For example, the California ISO is using neural networks to formulate the day- ahead markets, and recently started letting aggregated demand response providers (e.g. companies who manage smart thermostats) bid into the market as distributed generators.

So if you're thinking what can you to help fight climate change, the best thing you can do is get a job in the climate change fighting industry. Start googling around for jobs with climate change keywords ("solar", "wind", "clean energy", etc.). Start showing up to clean energy events (if you live in the bay area, check out my bayareaenergyevents.com). There's so many people in this space who came from other sectors, and it's incredibly easy to move up or start your own company doing some specific thing you think is needed for the fight. Also, feel free to reach out to me or read my previous comments on this topic.

"They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!"

<comment><USER4> How [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842240) could be captured at a consumer / DIY scale?

From their post:

> The only inputs to make the fuel are CO2 and water (both from the air) and > electricity. The only outputs are fuel and oxygen.

\---

> instead [we] use a process that uses only electricity (no natural gas, etc) > and does it at room temperature.

\---

> we absorb CO2 and water vapor from the air into an aqueous electrolyte.

\---

> We then react the CO2 in the water with a copper catalyst to directly make > alcohols like ethanol, butanol, propanol, etc

> we have a carbon nanotube membrane that replaces it, extracting the alcohols > from water in a single step at room temperature

I think the question boils down to: How to remove CO2 from air through "aqueous electrolyte", then convert it to alcohols with "copper catalyst"?

<comment><USER3> Hmmm, I'm sure the tech is great as well as the scientists and engineering perfecting it. However, I consider this kind of tech important in a post- energy transition world and probably a bad idea to pursue now.

Converting CO2 to hydrocarbons is a fundamentally an endothermic reaction (e.g. it needs energy to happen), so given the limits on process and thermodynamic efficiencies, it will always take more energy to convert CO2 back into gasoline than the energy you got from burning the fuel in the first place. So it seems like what they are proposing is throwing 1x of one type of energy (electricity) at undoing the effects of less than 1x of another type of energy (fossil fuels used in transportation).

Maybe that would be a good idea if we had excess clean electricity generation and couldn't effectively decarbonize transportation, but neither of those are true.

First, we currently need all the clean electricity generation we can get our hands on, and aren't anywhere close to fully decarbonizing the grid to the point where we have excess capacity for stuff like this. Spending 1 megawatt- hour on this for less than 1 megawatt-hour of impact when it could be use to straight up replace 1 megawatt-hour of fossil generation is, I think, a waste of resources right now.

Second, electrification of transportation is starting to happen exponentially, so many of the things you were looking to offset in the short term will probably just cease to exist over the next 10-20 years. The exception is air travel, where the energy density and having propellants are super important, but then you're competing with the price of producing biofuels as a carbon neutral alternative. I suspect that biofuel production will be cheaper, simply because the energy required to grow the algae or convert the cellulose is less than the co2 reversal they are proposing here, but I could be wrong about that for process reasons other than thermodynamics (e.g. capital expenses, etc.). However, focusing on decarbonizing air travel is sooo far down the list of priorities right now. There's so much more lower hanging fruit we should be investing in.

Overall, I think spending energy sucking co2 out of the air and converting it into fuel isn't a good idea right now. Maybe in the medium term if it can compete with biofuels, and definitely in the long term after we've decarbonized as much as possible and still need to remove co2 from the atmosphere. But when I see investment dollars get thrown at this instead contributing towards deploying 1:1 replacements of fossil fuels, I feel a bit sad. Mostly because I know it will be used by propagandists for delaying decarbonization efforts (e.g. "See? We have tech than can undo all these fossil fuels we're emitting! So we're all good and don't need to electrify transportation.").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I don't understand is why this is so controversial. I clicked on a link in the article, leading to this article: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/new-study-shows-human- deve...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/new-study-shows-human-development- is-destroying-the-planet-at-an-unprecedented-rate/). The comment on it is extremely dismissive about climate change. I see this on pretty much every news website nowadays. First of all I don't see how man-made climate change is even controversial with the amount of evidence we have, but furthermore I don't see why we shouldn't transition to renewable energy asap anyway. Even if climate change would be a hoax (which it is not), then why would it be a bad thing to make changes to prevent it from happening anyway? Why would it be a bad thing to get rid of air pollution? Why would it be a bad thing to switch to an energy source that doesn't run out in ~20 years simply because it isn't renewable?

<comment><USER6> Because it's much easier to deny something that big than to take care of it. We'd need a economic/cultural revolution at a global scale. Everything has to scale down, no more ICE, not more plastic, no more food imported from the other side of the world, reduce meat consumption, reduce traveling &c.

The current system is based on unlimited and exponential growth, everything else is considered a failure. An unlimited growth in a finite environment isn't possible, it's called instability.

The second problem is that many people convince themselves that "Science" will save us, that we'll terraform Mars or that shifting to electric cars will be enough, but that's too little, too late. Even if we'd hit our ecological goals, and we're not, we'd be far from fixing the problem. We don't need to slow down, we need a complete paradigm shift. It's like when you move form a basic 40sq meter flat to a fancy 250sq meter house, going back is very hard.

<comment><USER7> > many people convince themselves that "Science" will save us

Why won't it? The main issue is where we get our energy from. There are working methods that are CO2 neutral. I'm firmly in the "only science will save us" camp.

> It's like when you move form a basic 40sq meter flat to a fancy 250sq meter > house, going back is very hard.

I believe this is view harmful to the cause because it will only result in pushback, and rightfully so. Only excess wealth creates the spare capacity to care for the environment.

<comment><USER8> > I'm firmly in the "only science will save us" camp.

The problem is that _just_ saying that, allows policy makers and public to sit back and wait for the problem to be saved - without funding the science to do, or take other necessary policy steps.

In a sense you can argue that science _has_ saved us - we have solar and wind, nuclear and excellent battery tech.

So why aren't we "saved"?

<comment><USER9> Science is primarily driven by private enterprise, that's why. A business without any demand has no reason to exist. If the sea rises, or weather becomes more catastrophic, or oil becomes scarce, people will naturally devise solutions and mitigations. You can already see this in places like Florida where new construction techniques are being used to build houses that can withstand hurricane force winds.

<comment><USER8> You've provided a very good examnple of where private enterprise and the markets fail. If the sea rises and weather becomes more catastophic, people will indeed device solutions and mitgations.

Those mitigations won't necessarily include carbon reduction - they'll be increased levee construction, abandonment of low-lying cities and building codes adjusted so that '1 in a century' storms are encountered every couple of years.

What we are trying to do at this point, ius _avoid_ such grim consequences, _now_ and the market can't help us unless we promote panic, which isn't a great strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There is a relatively small group of companies/people who know better, but would lose billions if this problem is addressed, they have an army of lobbyists and media companies to push the hoax/not-our-problem-narrative, and finally you have a huge undereducated part of the population who are already skeptical of 'elitist' scientists even before the manipulation begins. This problem also seems to be more extreme in the US compared to other western countries due to e.g. the prevalence of Fox News and decades of creationism leading the anti-science crusade. All in all, you can't really count on having a shared definition of 'reality' any more, as this has now been politisized.

<comment><USER11> There's a great deal of spin coming from the people warning about climate change too. End of the world stuff.

Here's something to consider: during the Early Eocene period (roughly 50 million years ago) temperatures were 9C-14C higher than now and CO2 levels were 1000-2000 parts per million [1].

And yet according to science, Earth was covered in forests from pole to pole, mammals flourished, and the oceans were "teeming with fish and other sea life". [2]

That's something you won't hear much about, because it doesn't fit the agenda.

1: [https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warming/early-eocene- period](https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/global-warming/early-eocene-period)

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

<comment><USER12> What about all the people living in coastal areas or close to major rivers? That's like 50% of the population, in addition to much of our shared history (buildings). It will all be under water and cause large migrations, unsettling much of society. Is that not worth fighting for?

<comment><USER13> it is a weird western media quirk that the first symptom people talk about is sea level rise. I think its an accidental product of all the news reports about melting ice caps and polar bears, so people have scoped the problem as ice melting and water rising in their heads.

this is basically, to a first order approximation, wrong. sea level rise, even in a nasty BAU/RCP8.5 scenario is really a next-century problem. we're talking tens of centimeters.

meanwhile, vast swaths of the euphrates, indo-gangetic, nile and yellow river deltas will suffer droughts and both successive and concurrent crop failures.

the flood of refugees from drought/famine/war into every city around the world will vastly exceed the flood of water at their shoreline (this century).

<comment><USER12> You're right, I didn't even mention the droughts and famines. I'm Dutch though so perhaps I'm slightly biased or preoccupied :/

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ux-app I'm really depressed about climate change. There is no way to fix this from an individual point of view. Society is impossibly reliant on fossil fuels. Individuals going vegan, reducing consumption etc will have negligible effect. The _only_ possible solution to all this is a technological solution that requires zero sacrifice from individuals. Technology got us into this mess, If we don't find a technological solution to this issue then all is lost.

A true tragedy of the commons.

<comment><USER14> The first step to doing something about climate change is to vote for a political party that actually believes in climate change.

<comment> ux-app > vote for a political party that actually believes in climate change.

hahahahahaha ooooh boy, that is some grade A wishful thinking.

Here's a thought... try to convince the average Joe to not turn on his air conditioning on a hot day "for the environment".

see how that goes.

We are a selfish species that deserves to go extinct. Have you ever considered that?

<comment><USER14> > Have you ever considered that?

The problem is not the air condition or the electricity needed to run the air conditioner.

The problem is the electricity was generated by burning a fossil fuel and that causes massive amounts of CO2 pollution.

So the solution is quite simple.

Just tax, and tax hard any electricity producer that is creating CO2 pollution.

What will happen is for a short time Joe's electricity bill will go up and he will put his air con on low.

But in the longer term market forces will quickly find ways to make electricity without producing CO2 just so that they can sell cheaper electricity to Joe and have him once again cranking up his air con to full.

Right now there is no real cost to creating CO2 pollution so of course there is no incentive to stop producing CO2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's been pretty well established and even discussed on HN that higher CO2 levels impairs some facets of human cognition. I quick glance at some of the research suggests that this impairment can begin around ~700ppm. Having higher and still increasing atmospheric CO2 levels means indoor concentrations will make diffusion between indoor and the outdoor even slower.

On the climate related side, the graph of CO2 levels for the last 10,000 years is very consistent, around 260ppm, up till recently. We should have just as concerned (or were) when it crossed 300ppm, 400ppm, etc.

On a more political note, while some/most climate change deniers at this point are likely ignoring evidence - having graphs with non-zero axis can be called out as a bit misleading which makes the increase relatively larger than it actually is; visually it's at ~230% of it's normal level when it's actually 'only' 157% compared to baseline. Graph manipulation has been used to in the past to spread false information about global warming/climate change so I think it's especially important to make everything above board. It only takes a few people spreading the graph around with the axis cropped out and then everyone will cry 'fake news'.

<comment><USER16> Wouldn't increased production of bicarbonate in response to high CO2 offset and reverse any change in cognition?

<comment><USER17> Pretty much my reading of it. Simply getting up and _walking around_ would put far more CO2 into your blood than such a small change in atmospheric concentration.

I don't really understand the level of credulity here on associations between CO2 and mental impairment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here's an article with headline, "Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040": [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc- climate-repo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/07/climate/ipcc-climate- report-2040.html)

And yet it says, "The report details the economic damage expected should governments fail to enact policies to reduce emissions. The United States, it said, could lose roughly 1.2 percent of gross domestic product for every 1.8 degrees of warming."

So an extreme rise in temperature of 3.6 degrees could reduce US GDP by 2.4%? That's about 18 months of average growth. That doesn't seem like a crisis to me - what am I missing?

<comment><USER19> I think you're reading that sentence as if that's the only effect on the US. Also assuming the effect is linear in the change in temperature (is it really?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >For the first time in human history — not recorded history, but since humans have existed on Earth — carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has topped 415 parts per million, reaching 415.26 parts per million, according to sensors at the Mauna Loa Observatory, a research outpost of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency.

I find the tone of these articles very counterproductive. The article hyperventilates over the number, but fails to treat it as a scientific result - one that's open to question by anyone.

Case in point: like most articles on this topic this one totally ignores the fact that the Mauna Loa station lies just 4 miles from an active volcano. Active volcanos spew CO2 into the atmosphere naturally.

Given these simple facts, how can this observatory's data be trusted? That's an _obvious_ question every single person reading the article should have.

Nevertheless, you have to dig for the answer. Here's an explanation:

> ... The observatory is located on the northern slope of the mountain, 4 > miles away from and 2,600 feet lower than the summit, which is 13,675 feet > above sea level.

> ...

> Most of the time, the observatory experiences "baseline" conditions and > measures clean air which has been over the Pacific Ocean for days or weeks. > We know this because the CO2 analyzer usually gives a very steady reading > which varies by less than 3/10 of a part per million (ppm) from hour to > hour. These are the conditions we use to calculate the monthly averages that > go into the famous 50-year graph of atmospheric CO2 concentration.

[https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/mauna- loa-...](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/blogs/climateqa/mauna-loa- co2-record/)

But even this article is vague about how interference from volcanoes is scrubbed.

The politicization of the issue of human-induced climate change has wrecked our ability to discuss this as the scientific phenomenon that it s. This leads to the very antithesis of science: facts that can never be questioned.

<comment><USER21> This clever thought is common enough to have a page on Skeptical Science.

[https://skepticalscience.com/co2-measurements- uncertainty.ht...](https://skepticalscience.com/co2-measurements- uncertainty.htm)

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately, that page says nothing about the corrections to the data that are required for the close proximity to active volcanoes.

Again, it's a very obvious question that's simply brushed aside by most sources. I'd be interested in finding just one that talks in any meaningful way about the algorithm used to correct the data from Mauna Loa specifically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm fairly sure that meat production and farming for human consumption is the best way to have a quick global impact on climate change, slowing deforestation and slowing species extinction.

Fossil fuels are the wrong target for a quick win (which we need).

Caveat: I eat meat once a week now.

<comment><USER23> You're talking about changing most of the world's diet. Good luck with that.

<comment><USER22> There are no 'diets' on a dead planet. Good luck with choosing your diet then.

<comment><USER24> Few care to have a discussion with hyperbolics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This might be off topic but I just don't know what else to do. I don't understand why we're not in full-on panic mode yet. It makes me scared. Really scared. As in I've never been so scared in my life.

We knew about climate change for decades. Scientists keep producing report after report after report. Every one grimmer then the preceding. Yet the global GHG emissions just keep going up. Governments and politicians have failed to act. I am tired of waiting for systemic change. I am tired of waiting for technological breakthrough.

While we should keep fighting for systemic change, I begin to believe individual action is paramount and a prerequisite for any broader change to take place. The time for signing petitions is over. It's time to act. There are no low-hanging fruits here. There will be no silver bullet. There will be lots and lots of tweaks across the board.

People don't like being told what to do. I get that. But I am not a politician telling you what to do. I am your peer crying for help. Please do something. Please don't say "most people" wan't sacrifice this or that. I am not talking to most people. I am addressing you, the HN crowd.

So what an honorable member of the HN community can do

\- Stop flying to conferences. Go to a local meetup. It's fun. And cheaper. If you really need to get out of town, take a train. Don't think about it as not flying for the rest of your life. Rather, can we declare a moratorium on conferences for like three years? Let's hope by then Prometheus will give us carbon-neutral jet fuel [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19842240)

\- Shift your investments from fossil to green. If you can't find enough worthy greens, shift it to anything else. Some say it won't impact your returns [http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/the-mythical- per...](http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/the-mythical-peril-of- divesting-from-fossil-fuels/) Move your deposits and savings to a more sustainable bank. This might be one of the most underappreciated yet simple and powerful tools [https://fairfinanceguide.org](https://fairfinanceguide.org)

\- Work less. Work part time, and part of that part time remotely. Reduce your commute. If your boss won't let you, find a job that will. In the current job market you can negotiate almost anything, and remote work must be the easiest thing to negotiate. [http://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change- worksh...](http://cepr.net/documents/publications/climate-change- workshare-2013-02.pdf) A firm lets its employees work four days a week while being paid for five. Everyone is happy, lower electricity bills, fewer cars on the road [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/asia/four-day- workw...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/19/world/asia/four-day-workweek-new- zealand.html)

\- I noticed that this one is quite controversial but I'll mention it anyway. Reduce your meat consumption as much as you can. It's fine to not go fully vegan, but make meat a special treat, something you are looking forward to, not an everyday snack. They say these new vega burgers are not too bad. [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climat...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climate- change-food-eating-habits.html)

Apparently it takes 3.5% of the population to take an active stance to cause a change ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YJSehRlU34w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=YJSehRlU34w)). I don't know how true it is or if it applies in all circumstances. But I want to believe it's true. That's what makes me tick.

<comment><USER26> The problem is that most of the ideas you propose - although good - only have force in the West.

Western countries are not the major culprit at the moment. EU has decreased their CO2 emissions by 20% during the last 30 years. USA has maintained them. China and India, increased them by 300% and China alone now emits more CO2 than USA, EU and Canada combined.

This is not to say that Western countries can just cross their arms and do nothing, but, they are not the ones that are going to change the picture and all this discourse about global warming has been turned in an anti-West political weapon that never addresses the real issues and never has the courage to point their finger at the countries that are the biggest problem at the moment.

This way, I fear no real change will happen until it's too late.

<comment><USER27> China is taking the problem seriously. Although their one-party rule is deplorable for human rights, it enables China to move rapidly on major technological issues like this because the economy is shaped by edicts from the top.

Anyone in the West who's trying to shift the blame to China is deluding themselves. We need to fix our politics so we can move with the same determination as China on this specific issue, not the other way around.

<comment><USER16> If they're taking it seriously, why do they keep building coal power plants, building ghost towns, and manufacturing products that won't be sold just to inflate their GDP numbers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm no climate change denier, but there is a complexity to the effects which NASA has identified (and recently updated) [https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide- fer...](https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide- fertilization-greening-earth) In particular the Sahel, famously arid and increasing in size a few decades ago, is now becoming more fertile again to the extent that people are moving back there.

<comment><USER29> So you're saying the climate is changing?

But seriously, the article you link to is directly stating rising CO2 levels as one of the causes as CO2 is good for plants.

<comment><USER30> The point is that a changing climate doesn't imply a specific policy must be adapted. The overall effect might even be positive.

<comment><USER31> The first half degree Celsius of human induced warming was quite probably a good thing on net. There's really no way that the fifth half degree will be anything but a catastrophe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Rising CO2 and temperatures is definitely a problem, but isn't technology making a difference already? There are millions of hybrid cars on the road just in the U.S., for example, and already over half a million EV's.

China and India are poised to manufacture and use millions of EV's and we are about to see a flood of very low price electric vehicles from these countries.

An electric truck maker is opening a plant in Ohio. Fracked natural gas, which is the "cleanest" fossil fuel, is replacing "dirty" coal in electric power plants. Residential solar is booming as prices drop and house batteries become a realistic way to store the power. In Massachusetts, for a few extra dollars a month you can now opt to purchase "green" electricity.

Research into better batteries, better solar panels, and more efficient hybrid vehicles and EV's is proceeding apace.

All of these technologies are bound to reduce greenhouse gas production not just in the developed countries but also in the places where it really counts --the billions of people of China, India, and Africa.

People are composting and gardening at record levels in the U.S. Interest in composting and recycling is now widespread.

If we accept that we have produced too much CO2 and need to scale back on burning stuff and allow the atmosphere and ecosystem to return to a _status quo ante_ then some legislative efforts to institute and continue tax incentives to spur technology seems like the right thing to do.

<comment><USER25> > but isn't technology making a difference already?

not really. If you look up emissions charts, they just keep going up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> For those wanting to discuss solutions, and not just problems, how about a wide-ranging carbon tax?

Specifically, a carbon tax set at _The cost of recapture_ that then goes toward recapture (within the US, audited).

So for example, if this were applied to gasoline, it would just over double the cost but give zero-emissions. This is something engineers like us could easily afford in our personal lives. Worst case scenario, I imagine all things we buy would double in price.

However, as billions (if not trillions) get spent on such a technology it would hopefully get more efficient.

So perhaps a rollout schedule of: 2020 - 1% of recapture cost 2021 - 2% of recapture cost 2022 - 4% of recapture cost 2025 - 10% of recapture cost (and so on)

Basic food items for survival could have their capture cost subsidized by the government, so as not to harm those on the brink of poverty.

The brilliancy of this simple economic solution is that if meat produces way too much carbon, the cost will start to reflect that, and people will gradually move to more efficient foods or have an incentive to find a way to make more carbon-neutral ways to make meat.

<comment><USER34> > This is something engineers like us could easily afford in our personal > lives

This is a clue on why just carbon tax won't do. An extra tax would hit the people who're most economically stressed while the top 10% will continue living their lives as is. Any tax on carbon should be accompanied with a negative tax or UBI for the low income earners. Moreover, since 50% of emissions are done by the top 10% income earners [1], there should ideally be a higher income tax which should direct go into funding R&D of carbon capture systems.

[1] [https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/extreme-carbon- inequality](https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/extreme-carbon-inequality)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This could have been avoided by using Nuclear power.

<comment><USER36> We are already using lots of Nuclear power, turns out it didn't help!

Nuclear power is slow to build safely, and if we had started to build all that power decades ago of the sake of avoiding climate change you are already in the bizzaro timeline where the regime _cared about climate change decades ago_.

<comment><USER35> > We are already using lots of Nuclear power, turns out it didn't help!

Of course it did. Lots of CO2 emissions were avoided. It helped much more than all wind and solar combined.

Of course regimes didn't care, and their refusal to build new nuclear power plants proves they still don't care.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is scary because of our current political situation. Even when nature is on our side we have mindless headstrong morons heading nuclear states and we seem to be in verge of war. People do not trust science and still believe in afterlife and heaven or hell rather than believing in our planet and its current problems. Amount of CO2 is definitely going to trigger extreme climate change and that is going to destabilize our geopolitics, and we simply are not ready for that change. We should start making life style changes for the sake of millions of species that are getting extinct and also to start a culture of responsible citizen of earth.

</comment><comment><USER23> The Bible gives man dominion over the Earth. Presumably, that's a license to do whatever we want with it without consequence. The Bible predicts an apocolypse driven by supernatural forces, not one of man's making. There's no room for both, therefore the one in the Bible is true and the one predicted by heathens is false. This is why Christians, specifically, tend to dismiss man- made global warming.

Also, there's a lot of fear out there that renewable energy means less jobs, especially across the entire coal mining supply chain. There's a fear that transitioning to a renewable energy economy means a transition from dumb jobs to smart jobs.

<comment><USER38> Just want to point out that "Christians" in this context refers to some sects of Christianity in America and these beliefs are not the norm amongst Christians worldwide. Actually I hazard, not even the norm amongst Christians in the US.

<comment><USER27> As someone who grew up a mainstream European Lutheran, the views of American evangelical Christians have always seemed more like a doomsday cult than anything based on Jesus's teachings.

It boggles my mind that these people have taken over the definition of Christianity in such an influential country. I imagine my feelings about evangelicals are roughly the same as how mainstream muslims feel about Islamic State.

<comment><USER39> Which is why they were forced out of Europe in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Can anyone recommend a reliable, self calibrating CO2 sensors that could be used with raspberry pi and similar or that could transmit data via BLE or wifi?

<comment><USER41> The 'Netatmo' home weather stations record CO2 level. Mine shares over wifi. I get around 400ppm with windows open for a while, or 1200ppm with windows closed.

I don't know what the calibration mechanism is, nor the specificity.

It's around $100 on Amazon - [https://www.amazon.com/Netatmo-Weather-Station- for-Smartphon...](https://www.amazon.com/Netatmo-Weather-Station-for- Smartphone/dp/B0095HVAKS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Overpopulation is real. We moved from 4 billions in 1974 to current 7.7 billions in 2019. Projections are more than 11 billions around 2100.

<comment><USER43> Which is really the problem, isn't it? However, no politician says this publicly because Western economies are built on a gigantic Ponzi scheme where we need more and more people to be born and create wealth for our ever- increasing retirements.

Am I simplifying things excessively here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This Ted talk gave me hope to reverse climate change and seems plausible: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI&t=163s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI&t=163s)

Does anyone know / have experience whether this actually works?

<comment><USER25> That was a good talk but that alone will not be enough. No single solution will be enough. We need lots and lots of solutions across all sectors of economy. And while we are waiting for those solutions to materialise we should do our bit and start consuming less.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I would really like to understand those who are angry, feel helpless or are depressed because climate is changing. What is the thing makes you feel bad: is it the change itself, the direction of the change or maybe the cause of the change?

</comment><comment><USER46> Ive almost lost hope at this point; while I will continue to support green movements and live closer to green, I don't hold any faith that things will change.

If they do, great. Otherwise, prepare your children for a world where their children may be less intelligent due to higher concentrations of Co2. Water will be expensive. People will wear masks everywhere and only rich people can afford houses with completely pure air.

I truly hope it doesn't come to this, but my fear is that when pollution gets to a certain point, those in charge will basically say "fuck it" and let things run their course.

<comment><USER47> >prepare your children

If you're stressed about the environment you shouldn't be having children

<comment><USER48> Yes, but maybe his children will contribute in massively positive ways that end up negating their negative climate impact.

Every child is also a chance.

<comment><USER49> Maybe but it's extremely unlikely. Think about the amount of damage a single person does to the environment. It would take a truly insane effort for someone to have a beneficial effect on it (assuming the live in civilisation).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> [https://www.kane.co.uk/knowledge-centre/what-are-safe- levels...](https://www.kane.co.uk/knowledge-centre/what-are-safe-levels-of-co- and-co2-in-rooms)

</comment><comment><USER51> Are methane or black carbon converted to CO2 equivalents and included in that metric ? If not, why aren't they published along with the CO2 curve ?

</comment><comment><USER52> Realistically, can anything be done without turning off electricity at the whole globe at once? "Going Amish", one might say?

It's not just about burning coal or going green, we are also using resources which are not replenishable. Even if all cars become electric and we switch to nuclear power and start eating bugs, we'll keep producing plastic, chemical substances and so on.

</comment><comment><USER53> Wondering what you can do? Especially for liberals? My idea of where to start: shame your company into phasing out business trips. I know we all like to travel but it needs to stop being seen as a work perk and start being seen as a liability. We put internet cables across the oceans and continents for a reason -- so we travel less, not more. Find a way to reward those who refuse to go -- maybe have a fun local hangout or whatever. Get your supervisor chain to stop making someone fly every month/week/whatever. Because every cross- continental/trans-atlantic flight (very roughly) emits around 20% [1] and 100% [2] of your _entire year 's worth of driving_.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane- pollutio...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-pollution- global-warming.html)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/09/car...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2010/sep/09/carbon- emissions-planes-shipping)

</comment><comment><USER54> Good site I came across from a ted talk, lists problems and solutions: drawdown.org

</comment><comment><USER55> Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but is a volcano the best place for an unbiased CO2 observatory? Even if dormant, I assume that CO2 vents out of the volcano naturally? Please note I am not trolling or trying to be skeptical, this is just an honest question.

<comment><USER56> > Please note I am not trolling or trying to be skeptical

You may not be trolling but you _are_ being skeptical. Specifically, the way you worded your question ("unbiased observatory") makes it sound like the scientists who put it there did so not for scientific reasons, but for some... agenda?

Personally, since I'm not an expert on environmental sciences, I have no trouble believing the observatory is there for perfectly sound scientific reasons.

<comment><USER55> I assume they put the observatory at that site for a reason as well, I just want to learn why. I honestly have no agenda and personally do believe in anthropogenic global warming. :)

<comment><USER56> Fair enough, it's probably the "unbiased" that kinda rubbed me the wrong way :)

<comment><USER55> I hear you, it is often hard to decipher intentions online - anyhow, I answered my own question using the power of Google: [https://skepticalscience.com/mauna-loa-volcano- co2-measureme...](https://skepticalscience.com/mauna-loa-volcano- co2-measurements.htm)

<comment><USER56> Nice find! TLDR below:

> Why Mauna Loa? Early attempts to measure CO2 in the USA and Scandinavia > found that the readings varied a lot due to the influence of growing plants > and the exhaust from motors. Mauna Loa is ideal because it is so remote from > big population centres. Also, on tropical islands at night, the prevailing > winds blow from the land out to sea, which effect brings clean, well-mixed > Central Pacific air from high in the atmosphere to the observatory. This > removes any interference coming from the vegetation lower down on the > island.

> But how about gas from the volcano? It is true that volcanoes blow out CO2 > from time to time and that this can interfere with the readings. Most of the > time, though, the prevailing winds blow the volcanic gasses away from the > observatory. But when the winds do sometimes blow from active vents towards > the observatory, the influence from the volcano is obvious on the normally > consistent records and any dubious readings can be easily spotted and edited > out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Plant life matters called. They said thank you.

</comment><comment><USER58> some study said that 150 trees per living human being would alter the atmosphere a bit

let's get ready

</comment><comment><USER59> I think I've seen cute infographics on what a tiny, tiny fraction of earth history is "human history".

<comment><USER60> 10-20 mil. years is enough for changes in the atmosphere to happen which is why this is relevant. Yes, it is a tiny fraction but is quite relevant in the sense of our 'recent' geological history.

</comment></comment><comment> jo-wol Tomorrow it will be 416 ppm first time in human history!

</comment><comment><USER61> This looks like the famous hockey stick curve

</comment><comment><USER62> and this is 416th comment... coincidentally

</comment><comment><USER3> > an army of lobbyists and media companies to push the hoax/not-our-problem- > narrative

I've noticed on most of the climate change posts on HN that they 1. fall off the front page very quickly (due to systemic flagging?) and 2. every single comment that's pro-fighting-climate-change has a "skeptical" reply that hits all the denier FUD talking points. For example, your comment has a reply saying both sides exaggerate, thus muddying the point you're trying to make. Classic whataboutism talking point.

What I don't understand is if HN mods see this going on and can tell if the person is a shill or an actual climate denier. Statistically, replies in these threads should skew heavily towards pro-fighting-climate-change, but even in this post, it seems like every other reply is denier talking points. It is really starting to make me think that HN doesn't care about stopping shills.

<comment><USER63> > What I don't understand is if HN mods see this going on and can tell if the > person is a shill or an actual climate denier. Statistically, replies in > these threads should skew heavily towards pro-fighting-climate-change, but > even in this post, it seems like every other reply is denier talking points. > It is really starting to make me think that HN doesn't care about stopping > shills.

People on HN are rational and thus see through most of the "pro-fighting- climate-change" posts, which address easy non-solutions.

To keep the temperature increase to 2C, we have to immediately cut CO2 emissions by 19GT. That takes the world back to 1990. And if you don't want India and China to be mired in extreme poverty like they were in 1990, you really have to take the developed world to zero. Under other models, we have to go to zero carbon emissions tomorrow world wide. You cannot "fight climate change" while buying vegetables shipped across state lines and coffee shipped from overseas. You can't go on international vacations and post pictures on Facebook. You can't live in trendy places like Austin that require year-around heating and cooling. You can't participate in the mass consumer economy at all—25% of your carbon footprint is non-food stuff you buy. (Just the consumer stuff your average American buys amounts to 5-10x the total carbon output of your average Bangladeshi.) You can't work in advertising—in a zero carbon output economy the consumerism that feeds advertising companies can't exist.

There is also the major problem of "climate change angles" on things that don't actually help avoid climate change. Take high-speed rail, for example. To offset the carbon realized by building California's HSR, the system would have to have over 10 million riders per year, more than the entire Amtrak northeast corridor: [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green- hig...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2011/11/how-green-high-speed- rail/492). (It is ludicrous to expect that a rail link between two enormously car-dependent metro areas, that goes through extremely low-density areas in- between, would somehow have the ridership of the densest corridor in the country, connecting some of the cities with the most well-developed intra-city and commuter rail systems.)

Then there is stuff like LEED construction: [https://www.imt.org/should-i- stay-or-should-i-go-the-embodie...](https://www.imt.org/should-i-stay-or- should-i-go-the-embodied-carbon-of-new-and-existing-buildings). Companies are patting themselves on the back, tearing down old buildings and putting up new, LEED-certified buildings. Except that it will take 25-75 years to offset the upfront carbon footprint of new construction versus reusing existing construction, for longer than current climate-change timelines allow.

Unless you're espousing these solutions, and present credible ways of achieving them, you're not "fighting climate change."

<comment><USER64> I had an argument with my SO about how very few people truly believes in climate change enough to change their lifestyle. It's mostly virtue signalling. This was while planning a flight to London with about 4000 lbs CO2 for the two of us.

In Seattle, you can sit on a chilly day on the porch of a popular restaurant and overhear people lamenting climate change while they sit under a row of 8 large blasting fracked gas heaters.

People don't want to go out of their way to think and change. It's a difficult PR problem due to human nature.

I'm trying to build advanced nuclear fission reactors to fight climate change but unfortunately burning oil is more popular in the polls.

<comment><USER65> I'm sorry, but this is such an irritating argument. In the absence of any coordinated action, why should I make my lifestyle worse just so you can use up my portion of our shared CO2 budget?

This is the exact same argument as "well if you advocate for higher taxes, why don't you voluntarily donate more money to the government?" It's a dumb argument in that context and still a dumb argument in this one.

The key part of shared sacrifice is that it's _shared_.

<comment><USER63> Let me restate your point, because it's a good one. The gist of your point is, if there is no collective action, then nothing will change, and "why should I make my lifestyle worse" if nothing will change?

The next step to realize is that, in the US, our "shared CO2 budget" is zero, possibly negative, in light of continued development in China, India, and Africa. Imagine how much CO2 emissions could be reduced if everyone in the US became vegan tomorrow. Now, realize that Chinese development in _last year alone_ went up by enough to offset the _entirety_ of that hypothetical savings.

Why "should I make my lifestyle worse" when development in India, China, and Africa is going to increase global CO2 output by multiples of the entire output of the US and EU combined?

<comment><USER65> My personal opinion is that citizens of democracies need to demand urgent action from their government, and that action will include wealth transfer to developing nations to help them decarbonize and trade sanctions and theoretically even war (or at least the threat of war) against authoritarian countries that refuse to meet their global obligations.

This is a global problem, and it requires global action to have any hope.

For what it's worth, I think the risk of Chinese and Indian pollution is overstated. At least the Chinese government accepts that climate change is a real threat (unlike the current US administration) and is moving (too slowly, but still) in the right policy direction.

<comment><USER66> Aren't Chinese moving faster than pretty much everyone? Last I checked, they were pretty into reducing use of coal, and deploying a lot of nuclear power plants instead.

Agree about wealth transfer to developing nations, and honestly I'd also love to see _IP transfer_. Developing nations have the right to the same life- saving and life-improving technologies the West enjoys, but they also have the opportunity to leap-frog and skip the high-carbon-footprint parts, the way they did with phones (skipping landlines and going straight to cellular). We should at least _strongly encourage_ them to do that leapfrogging - <USER2> preferably by subsidizing it instead of threatening war.

<comment><USER63> > Aren't Chinese moving faster than pretty much everyone? Last I checked, they > were pretty into reducing use of coal, and deploying a lot of nuclear power > plants instead.

China currently has so many coal plants under construction that their output exceed's the US coal industry's entire output. China's goal is to have 20% EVs in the consumer vehicles market by 2025. That means China will put 100 million new ICE vehicles on the road over the next 5 years, and will continue to put tens of millions of additional ICE vehicles on the road each year after that. China is building whole new cities. Construction releases enormous amounts of CO2. Construction releases so much CO2 that a fancy new LEED building takes decades to pay off its construction footprint with energy savings. From 2000 to 2015, China added over 6 gigatons of CO2 output. That's more than the entire US. In 2017, China added 120 megatons of CO2 output while the US cut 40 megatons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Must be all the bitcoin mining!

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. Mining is very inefficient

<comment><USER59> > Mining is very inefficient

Compared to what?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Basically all civilizations end like this. There were many before, there might be some in the future.

If we'll destroy biology completely we still have a small chance a new type of existence can emerge - silicon based intelligent form, what we call AI right now. It probably can survive without oxygen, even without planet. But it's a big MAYBE yet.

</comment><comment><USER6> Man the chinese are taking the hoax way too far. /s

We need a major shift in our ways of producing/consuming and on our quest for progress at all cost. We're heading for major issues, even in the short term. Humanity is committing suicide and taking Life with her.

[https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-migrants-might- re...](https://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-migrants-might-reach-one- billion-2050)

[https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/el...](https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/)</comment>


Simplifying Chrome Extension Development with Queuebert - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/attachmentsme/Queuebert

<comment><USER2> I don't get the different with the native Chrome API sendRequest/OnRequest. I've created extension for Chrome and I don't see what problem it is actually solving. You don't need to get a hold of the background page from your injected script, just send messages.

<comment><AUTHOR> It makes it easier to message between isolated iframes and between tabs.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Built this library, based on what I've learned so far building out the Attachments.me Chrome Extension in Gmail.</comment>


How the GOP Gave Up on Porn - <AUTHOR> https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/11/11/republican-party-anti-pornography-politics-222096?cid=apn <comment><USER2> The consumption data doesn't seem to be clear. Maybe I am mistaken but I would think ISP's should easily be able to provide a trend line of what the consumption rates look like.</comment>


Google's Steely Foe in Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/technology/googles-steely-foe-in-europe.html

<comment><USER2>
      (...) jobless builders presented her with a gift: a life-size sculpture of a
      hand with a raised middle digit. She keeps the artifact prominently
      displayed on a coffee table at her office in the European Commission.

Got to love the Danes :)

</comment><comment><USER3> This article is incorrect. Denmark says it will do something about large companies practices, but it is just talk. As an example Denmark has alot of laws regarding data protection. But the rules are only enforced for the small companies. Larger companies like LinkedIn and Google have been ignoring the data protection rules for years and the Danish government ignores it, as they are too hard to prosecute.

<comment><USER4> This article isn't about Denmark? But about Vestager and the work she's doing in the EU to go after Google

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"Consumers depend on us to make sure that competition is fair and open, and it's my responsibility to make that happen.

Really? Then why not go after banks, energy companies, telecom giants...?

As a consumer I have the choice to choose to trust google when I search for a product, however I have only two choices when I choose my ISP, or no option at all to choose my electricity provider.

Consumers don't depend on "them" to have fair and open competition, it's the companies that depend on the governments to have unfair or nonexistent competiton.

<comment><USER6> > Really? Then why not go after banks, energy companies, telecom giants...?

Banks:

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-01/europe- ban...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-01/europe-banks-in-u-s- scrutiny-as-bnp-pays-8-97-billion)

[http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-13-1208_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-13-1208_en.htm)

Energy companies:

[http://en.mercopress.com/2008/10/01/europe-fines-nine-oil- co...](http://en.mercopress.com/2008/10/01/europe-fines-nine-oil-companies- for-the-paraffin-mafia)

Telecoms giants (incl. Deutsche Telekom):

[http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-13-39_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-39_en.htm)

[http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-14-1140_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-14-1140_en.htm)

It seems that the standard response to the EU probing Google is to say it's unfair and "what about European companies" without actually doing any research into the matter.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. It's basically an unrelenting torrent of dumb streaming down the internet pipes. Thanks for refuting. Someone's got to do it.

<comment><USER8> Do you expect the EU to openly state that this is political and entirely about who gets to curate the information available?

<comment><USER6> Care to substantiate the accusations you're making so matter-of-factly?

<comment><USER8> It is not an accusation. It is a point of view that computes on my end. This forum is becoming entirely useless as a venue for 'discussion'.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


ChromeGalvanizer – Harden your browser against extension backdoors and exploits - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mandatoryprogrammer/ChromeGalvanizer <comment><USER2> Being a FF user I can't use it, but it made me think about the dangers of extensions being hijacked. It would be nice to have as a browser builtin feature a domain based whitelist that enables access to extensions according to a trust level, so that for example any new encountered domain can be accessed by all extensions by default, but if I assign say my bank domain a level of N, only extensions whose trust level exceed that N number would be able to access its data while others would be bypassed, then a fixed maximum value of say 10 would mean all extension bypassed for the paranoid. Probably even a trusted/not tusted flag would suffice, but just in case one wants to differentiate between locally written and installed extensions that can't self update, then official and non official ones. Doable?

<comment><USER3> One way to accomplish this is to just use private windows for your banking or other critical sites, and then don't let extensions run in private windows. You can configure this per extension in Firefox and Chrome.

<comment><USER4> A simpler, if perhaps unnecessarily heavyweight way of doing this is to have separate _accounts_ on the same computer. My email has its own account, and allows cookies there (it's gmail). I have to switch accounts to do mail but that's not so bothersome, perhaps even an advantage for some as it might help not jumping every time a mail arrives.

Using private X in the browser requires trusting the browser, this way you can have the OS isolate processes which has to be stronger.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've made it a rule to right click all chrome extensions icons and then set them to "This can read and change data > On www.example.com" on sites I really intend to use them. This prevents them from reading all sites but also prevents the annoyance of reloading the page every-time you need to use the extension. Also some extensions like Likepass inject some really ugly HTML into form fields (it also takes care of that)

It's a pretty useful feature that many people miss.

<comment><USER6> Phenomenal! Thank you!

I've personally just switched from Chrome to Brave. Funnily enough, Chrome was causing my computer to seize all the time while Brave does not, even though it's still built on Chromium. But I took the opportunity to go ahead and clear out a number of extensions. Feels so much better. Your browser can really get cluttered over the years!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This sounds great, I will try. Is it somehow possible to restrict the internet access of a single extension? For example I have an add-http-header extension that has no reason to create connection to an outside server.

<comment><USER3> Not sure if this answers your specific question, but you can limit the sites that an extension can run on. I recently discovered that Chrome offers this feature (right click the extension icon and select Manage Extension to access), and it saved me from having to build a site whitelist feature for my extension. [1] It already has a blacklist feature, and I was going to build a whitelist feature due to user requests. Then I discovered that this functionality is built into all Chrome extensions.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to exist on Firefox.

1: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline- reader/ifj...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline- reader/ifjafammaookpiajfbedmacfldaiamgg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Just tested in Windows with a registry file generated via the linked web interface[0]. Dark Reader was not prevented from accessing sites that should have been excluded based on the imported policy, even after a reboot. Has anyone successfully tested Chrome Galvanizer?

[0] [https://thehackerblog.com/galvanizer/](https://thehackerblog.com/galvanizer/)

<comment><USER9> I tested the following on Mac:

1\. Block "(star)" from accessing "(star)://mail.google.com"

2\. Install the config

3\. Go to chrome://policy/ and click "Reload policies"

4\. Open Gmail. Dark Reader doesn't work anymore.

<comment><USER8> Thanks very much - will test on macOS next.

EDIT: It must be me, as I am still not having any luck. I just tested in a slightly older macOS VM (10.12) with Google Chrome 81; even after installing the profile, Dark Reader continues to work on sites that should be excluded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Using Chrome Galvanizer, you can protect yourself from attacks like this by > specifying specific sites that one or all of your extensions can no longer > access. For the MEGA case, if users had created a policy restricting access > for the MEGA extension to access amazon.com, live.com, github.com, > google.com, myetherwallet.com, mymonero.com, and idex.market then they'd be > protected from the attack.

You might as well turn off the internet for some.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a challenge to weigh up the risk of not using an adblocker versus the risk of the extension getting compromised.

I guess that solutions like DNS-level blocking or custom hosts files are a fair balance, but I still like the DOM-based per-element control found within adblock extensions.

And then I see people with like 20 extensions installed...

<comment><USER12> Ultimately it's a trust tradeoff. Extensions should only be installed from incredibly trusted "I'd give this entity my passwords and my bank info for safekeeping" level trust. Because that's essentially the access a lot of browser extensions have.

The easiest way to protect your browser from exploits is to disable or whitelist extensions. At the office we block all but a small handful of extensions we've vetted, and we're very hesitant to add more without very good cause. Do this at home too.

<comment><USER13> Even for extensions you trust, if their domain expires, it can be minutes later that it is pushing an update.

Actually ... Chrome extensions should have a trust policy wrt domain age, meaning a newly refreshed domain (via expiration) shouldn't be able to push an update for X days.

 __edit, forgot to mention that this applies to all plugin systems, many which provide vectors of attack against programmers, many of whom can affect global infrastructure.

So VSCode, IntelliJ, etc can be used to inject code into the client as well.

<comment><USER14> Chrome extensions should be signed and should prevent updates of extensions if the new version was signed by a different from the one signed the current one until the user manually approves it.

<comment><USER12> The problem is malicious actors will only buy the extension conditional on the author handing over the signing key as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I open Chrome once in while for testing or on the rare occasion something only works there, so maybe this is useful for those occasions. But if you're serious about security and privacy shouldn't you be avoiding Chrome as your regular browser?

<comment><USER16> On malicious extensions and stealing login credentials specifically, what's bad about Chrome?

<comment><USER17> Since it's the more popular browser for non-tech people (i'd imagine firefox leans more towards tech/privacy-conscious people than 'normal' users), it's probably the first one targeted for auto-extension installation by malware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Who uses this?</comment>


Economic analysis of medieval trial by battle - <AUTHOR> http://www.peterleeson.com/Trial_by_Battle.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> I particularly enjoyed this quote: "[I]t's reasonable to expect to find a large number of retained legal representatives under a legal system in which people feel that their property rights are constantly threatened by rent- seeking litigiousness or in which rampant rent-seeking opportunity gives them an incentive to behave litigiously themselves. The rarity of retained champions in medieval England therefore suggests that rent seeking under trial by battle wasn't rampant."</comment>


Replacing the San Jose Airport - <AUTHOR> https://kristopherwindsor.com/replace-the-san-jose-airport/ <comment><USER2> Are you simply closing the airport? Is a replacement planned? Or does that traffic simply get redirected to the San Francisco airport?

The article closes with 'think big', but I think is incomplete in scope.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading. I've added a section about this in the "logistics and risks" section.

I'm basically adding this to the list of hard problems to be solved, instead of providing a specific solution. I do not know if the existing airports can be remodeled or operated differently in order to handle more passengers. I do not know if a high-speed rail will be put in place that could quickly shuttle people to an airport in Bakersfield, etc.</comment></comment>


My first mobile web Facebook app, review please - <AUTHOR> https://m.facebook.com/apps/135054176569450 2 months later and i have this to show for it, review this baby with a iron right hand mouse click
it lets you turn your facebook photo albums into slideshows
currently it only works on webkit browsers(chrome, safari) <comment><USER2> Usability tip: How about a simple explanation screen about what it is before you ask me for my most private info?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, will add that to the todo list</comment></comment>


Advice to advisers: Stop being so nice. - <AUTHOR> http://www.humbledmba.com/advice-to-advisers-stop-being-so-nice

<comment><USER2> This post reminds me of a favorite passage from _Lord of the Rings_ , when Frodo is debating whether he should wait for Gandalf in the Shire, or press on:

 _"… The choice is yours: to go or wait." [Gildor said.] "And it is also said," answered Frodo, "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."

"Is it indeed?" laughed Gildor. "Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill. But what would you? You have not told me all concerning yourself; how should I choose better than you? But if you demand advice, I will for friendship's sake give it."_

The problem is, most of your advisers probably didn't know and, more importantly, couldn't know if the IBM sale would pan out. If they said stop, and you did, and failed anyway, what if they felt bad at whether the IBM sale might've worked?

The world is big and unpredictable and replete with stories of people advising others that something can't be done or shouldn't be done that way, only to have the advisees ignore the advisers and do great things. Hell, see this post: [http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-i-almost- killed-f...](http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-i-almost-killed- facebook.html) for an example of well-meaning advice that, if taken would've been wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> It took me a while to understand the full benefit of people's criticism. My team's initial idea was a to build a mobile product that essentially focused on everything and added a ton of features, thinking that we'd get users from being so ubiquitous and awesome. After hearing the same "you're not focused", "how can you get users" criticism from many in the industry (including multiple YC partners), I finally got it through my head that maybe I couldn't impose my naive vision on the world just because I believed it was powerful.

However, its just as important to never stop thinking about your world- domination vision. I'm sure every one of the most successful tech companies in the world has heard all of the same criticism from well-meaning advisers along the way. Start with a focused smart plan, execute it well, and don't lose sight of the ultimate destination (which may change along the way too as you learn more).

</comment><comment><USER4> "I now ask better questions of my advisors and explicitly welcome their roughest criticisms. I gravitate towards those advisers that rip into me with skepticism and challenging questions. "

Just as you used to do, most people do not listen when criticized harshly.

You can try to blame your advisers for not telling you to avoid IBM, but in the end, it's still your fault and not theirs. In fact, they probably tried to tell you that, but you didn't want to hear negatives.

It's good that you can hear them now, but that still doesn't help most other people, and those advisors still have to deal with those people.

</comment><comment><USER5> The reason people don't typically act this way is that anyone who tries to give honest advice quickly realizes than in 90% of cases, the person seeking advice doesn't want to be challenged. _Especially_ budding entrepreneurs, who are often precariously balanced between wild optimism and despair. It's very hard to stay positive when someone points out that your baby isn't _quite_ as beautiful as you imagine.

</comment><comment><USER6> This guy is being way too hard on himself. Running out of cash is hard and painful enough, no need to unduly heap blame upon oneself. If people at IBM were talking to him about a deal, then they weren't doing it to coddle his startup or be nice... trust me, if people aren't interested they won't be shy about saying no. I think he got caught out by the slow-moving bureaucracy of a big firm... too bad for them, their loss. As for IBM being a stalwart of the tech industry not needing help from a brash young startup, isn't that exactly how Microsoft got its first big contract?

This wasn't a case of needing harsher advice (too many people are addicted to self-flagellation, as if crushing your own dreams was a sign of maturity) but a case where a fledgling company took a big risk. Risks are risks, there's no way to to apportion blame or change course in hindsight. This just as easily could have been a post thanking his many mentors for their sound advice and encouragement that saw him through to getting his first big sale to IBM. Just because the other party in a negotiation is a big corporation that lumbers along and takes forever to make up its mind, there's no need to berate oneself for not having tried harder or seen x,y,z in retrospect. I say good on him for having gone balls to the wall to bring his vision to life, and good luck with his current venture. But the lesson here is not about advisers, in my view, it is about caution when dealing with massive organizations.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't know who your advisers were, but there's an alarming trend in tech/startups right now where anyone associated with a startup becomes classified as a mentor. Some of the accelerator programs sprouting up have some very speculative names as "mentors" -- people who just seem to have a few years of experience, perhaps mid-level experience, who haven't built their own company, haven't led their own go-to-market strategy, and whose advice on product is no better than you'd get on any forum.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure how this matches up with your previous article, <http://www.humbledmba.com/dont-give-bullshit-advice> , that made the point: "Don't tell an entrepreneur whether you think his idea will work. You don't know. You have absolutely no idea."

Either you give advice about what doesn't work, or you don't... you can't do both.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure they conflict. The post you linked is about keeping an open mind and offering advice on specifics, instead of just shutting someone down because you think their idea isn't viable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> As an advisor (on the giving side) and an entrepreneur (on the receiving side) I totally agree with this.

It's tough because people are nice, but as an entrepreneur, I learn the most from the negative advice I have gotten from mentors (I've been ripped apart many times).

So now, when I give advice, I give my true honest opinion if I don't think their idea will work. I just preface with it saying, look, this is only one opinion, and not to take it personally.

And when I get ripped into, I always listen and ask questions, but I don't necessarily let it discourage me.

I think you can always tell by people's expressions if they are holding back. If you think they are, you should ask them: "It seems like you have some reservations about this, what are some of the risks you see?"

With that, you'll be able to get more insight, and you just have to remember that there's tons of risk, it's just up to you to decide how risky each situation is (and how to mitigate that risk).

</comment><comment><USER10> I totally agree. Advisers should be more like Asian parents. "Western" parents (much like "Western" advisers) start with the premisse that their children's self-esteem is fragile and therefore constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are. While Asian parents start with the premisse that their children's self-esteem will build up with improving performance hence are consistently critical and pushing their kids to improve. here's a link to different parenting styles - [http://proto- knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/01/asian-vs-western...](http://proto- knowledge.blogspot.com/2011/01/asian-vs-western-parenting-styles-and.html). I think advisers might learn a thing or two about "parenting" startups from it

</comment><comment><USER11> I believe honesty is absolutely essential for a good mentoring relationship. But it's sometimes counterproductive to be too blunt or too harsh. One way mentors can help the entrepreneur without coming across as negative or critical is to ONLY ASK QUESTIONS. Don't give advice. Don't lecture. Just ask a series of good questions. More often than not, while answering one of those questions the entrepreneur will have an aha moment on their own. Good questions from a trusted mentor have provided many a helpful knock-up-side- the-head for me -- without things getting adversarial or emotional.

</comment><comment><USER12> I've actually found it's quite hard to get negative feedback from most people. I've literally heard one person shush another person who was trying to say something negative about what I was building - when that was the exact feedback I really wanted. I bet if I looked closely and in retrospect I could figure out what people didn't like after it fails, but that doesn't help me now, I wish people were more direct and honest.

</comment><comment><USER13> I might be foolish, but being able to say that you were in intense negotiations to have IBM acquire your app is still a HUGE deal.

Even if it was not successful, it is a great story and demonstrates great potential. Congrats on your failure!

</comment><comment><USER14> I always ask people "what's wrong?" and "tell me what sucks about it?" or "why won't you use it?". Positive feedback rarely spawns growth. Criticism and negative feedback is PURE GOLD.

</comment><comment><USER15> As an advisor, this is tough advice to follow, but if you don't, you aren't provided real value.</comment>