'Talent Wants Transit': Companies Near Transportation Gaining the Upper Hand - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2018/11/29/671203167/talent-wants-transit-companies-near-transportation-gaining-the-upper-hand <comment><USER2> I think what's interesting is that there are people in the Bay who want to live in apartments and take transit to work and there are people who want to live in houses with gardens and stuff. The people in the latter group do not want to allow the people in the former group to have the experience they desire. But that's because the people in the latter group do not want just to live in houses with gardens. They want to live in houses with gardens where their neighbours also have houses with gardens.

So we have these big fights about property rights and whatnot when it's just that the two aims are incompatible and the latter group wants the status quo (which is necessarily easier to adhere to)

<comment><USER3> I'll bite... I've protested apartments being built near my house-with-a-garden in the suburbs (Seattle area).

Not because I have a particular interest in my house price, or want to interfere with other people, but because the plans are doing absolutely sweet FA to improve the infrastructure to cope with the additions. In general, I'd be happy for the extra apartments if they came with extra infrastructure. We'd all benefit from it.

In one case, they started planning to add hundreds of apartment blocks specifically targetting young families, and yet the way it was being done there would be zero money going towards local schools to deal with the extra influx. Usual construction requires money towards schools, but there are loopholes, and the developer was using them, and the city seemed happy to let them.

Nor were there any plans to deal with the additional cars being added. Even with good transit links to Seattle, the roads leading to the proposed site.

Nor were there plans to deal with increased sanitation or power demand on an already flaky power grid.

The list literally goes on and on. What we keep seeing around here is developers interested in doing the absolute bare minimum to build apartment blocks, and a city content to just let them overload an stretched resources.

<comment><USER4> Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what timeline? Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a school addition for each housing block (or is it?), but if the people haven't moved in yet then there's no data to show the city so that they can project tax/levy money and scale schooling, transit, and other infrastructure appropriately.

If we let the circular dependencies stymie us at all turns, we'll never get anywhere. Gotta start somewhere, and having people to clamor for services seems like a good place to do so as any to me.

<comment><USER5> > Whose job is it/should it be to get that infrastructure built, and on what > timeline?

The new residents, so, by proxy, the developer putting the apartment block in.

Of course, the developer immediately starts grousing about regulation, and excessive fees, and apparently, this is the reason for why we can't have sub-$400,000 apartment units.

> Obviously it's not reasonable for a private contractor to have to build a > school addition for each housing block (or is it?)

It is reasonable for them to pay the city enough money to construct the infrastructure necessary to serve the new density they are adding.

<comment><USER6> infrastructure in sprawl costs more per capita than in dense urban developments. If these people will move to the same city anyways, maybe the city should be subsidizing the cost of the infrastructure because it's cheaper to provide it to a big building on an existing street than it is to a new subdivision down the road

<comment><USER7> > infrastructure in sprawl costs more per capita than in dense urban > developments. (snip) it's cheaper to provide it to a big building on an > existing street than it is to a new subdivision down the road

Unfortunately, even if you divide the costs per person, it's still often cheaper to get 40 people new water lines in say 20 average suburban homes, than it is to get 40 people new water lines in say, one building in Manhattan.

Infrastructure costs do not scale evenly per mile. The capital costs in infrastructure are rarely the actual wires or pipes, it's the installation and maintenance labour. Which are considerably more complex and more expensive in dense urban environments, than it is in the sprawl.

There are plenty of downsides to sprawl (it's a waste of land, for instance). But sprawl is nearly always cheaper (even after removing all subsidies), that's kind of the whole reason sprawl exists in the first place.

<comment><USER8> The problem is, you're comparing a Manhattan high-rise to 20 single-family homes. Price/performance tends to be mid-rise apartments, which look like duplexes for the most part. These mid-rise apartments are cheaper per-capita both capital wise and maintenance wise than sprawly single-family homes.

Sprawl exists because of zoning codes, not because of a market equilibrium.

If you're interested in the phenomenon, read [https://www.strongtowns.org/the- growth-ponzi-scheme/](https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/) about the Growth Ponzi Scheme.

<comment><USER7> > you're comparing a Manhattan high-rise to 20 single-family homes.

That's generally what people mean by "Dense Urban" vs "sprawl", yes? You could replace "Manhattan" with "Chicago Loop" and it would be the roughly identical.

> These mid-rise apartments are cheaper per-capita both capital wise and > maintenance wise than sprawly single-family homes.

They aren't, sprawly apartments (like duplexes, or low-mid-rise apartments) are roughly equivalent to costs as sprawly single family homes, and dense apartments are more expensive.

This gets confusing, because sprawly apartments (like duplexes or low-rises) are usually lower quality and lower maintained than nearby single family homes, and therefore are cheaper. But if you brought the SFH down to that lower level of maintenance, they too would be cheaper in a similar way. (And similarly, if you brought those low-density apartments up to the quality of nearby SFH, they would be slightly more expensive).

> Read Strong Towns

I have, many _many_ times. They get promoted on HN on a _literally daily_ basis.

Strong Towns is a fun blog to read, but unfortunately, Strong Towns is simply wrong sometimes. Their understanding of suburban finances is one thing they are semi-routinely incorrect on, they assume most suburbs are only financially viable if they continiously grow -- and while this is true for some, it is not common for most. The Growth Ponzi scheme they mention, while true for a handful of suburbs, does not apply in any way to 75% or more of suburbs across the US.

Don't take my word for it. Most municipalities budgets are public record (they should all be, really). Look up one near you, and see this for yourself.

<comment><USER7> I'll break this down another way.

I'm going to pick a random suburb that happens to be near me. They are about a 33% even split of old suburbs (1940-1960s), middle suburbs (1970s-1990s) and new suburbs (2000s+), with maybe 15% of that new suburb land still totally empty. There are a few duplexes and apartment buildings in there, but nothing dense. No buildings higher than 3 stories, it's like 95% low density stuff.

Their budget for 2017 includes $7,143,000 towards "Major Streets and Local Streets". That's costs for basically every road except the freeways (those are maintained by the state). This suburbs spends that, every year, on roads alone.

"OH MY GOD THATS SO EXPENSIVE" says StrongTowns, "OBVIOUSLY SUBURBS ARE DOOMED!"

There are 75,000 people living in this suburb. That 7 million dollars, divided per person (per capita) per month, comes out to $8/month per person. (That's number is artificially high, because it includes none of the businesses or retail that also pay taxes -- it assumes just the residents alone shoulder all the burden).

Even ignoring all business revenue, for less than the cost of a Netflix subscription per person, this suburbs maintains every single street in the entire suburb.

An average house in this Midwestern Michigan suburb, costs about $150-200k. A single family home pays a couple hundred dollars per month in property taxes. It costs just $8 of those couple hundred dollars per month, to maintain every single street in the suburb.

Is it possible the municipality mis-counted something? Sure! Is it possible they aren't fully accounting for every possible road cost? Perhaps! Let's pretend they mis-counted by something extreme, let's assume they are a full 50% under-estimating on _literally every street_ in the sububrb.

That doomsday scenario means a citizen might have to pay $16/month for roads, instead of $8. Oh no, what a terrible world that would be

I'm not pretending every suburb is identical. I'm sure there are suburbs that spend more than $8/per person per month on roads. Some suburbs are more sprawled out than others. But generally speaking, there is no great infrastructure apocalypse coming down upon us. It's just not happening, unless some major disaster wipes everything out all at once (like a hurricane, or a tornado, or a screwup like Flint's Water crisis).

\-----

The Growth Ponzi scheme makes a great headline for StrongTowns. But for most people, it's completely fanfaction. It is not grounded in any reality whatsoever, for the vast majority of people who are reading it.

<comment><USER8> > There are 75,000 people living in this suburb. That 7 million dollars, > divided per person (per capita) per month, comes out to $8/month per person. > (That's number is artificially high, because it includes none of the > businesses or retail that also pay taxes -- it assumes just the residents > alone shoulder all the burden).

Are you assuming that each of those 75,000 people owns property and pays property tax? That is a pretty inaccurate statement.

Moreover I too will engage in your random exercise. Let's pick Paso Robles, CA [1]. Rather than guestimating property taxes based on some weird anecdotal extension of my own property tax, I'm going to take a look at the city budget [2]. The city earned $10,370,327 in property taxes in the 2017 FY. The city paid $1,258,730 to maintain its streets in the same FY. That's 12.1% of property taxes devoted _just_ to street maintenance. In fact, if you look at the city budget, property tax can _barely_ pay for the public works of the city. Without other sources of revenue, the city would fall woefully behind on its payments.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paso_Robles,_California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paso_Robles,_California)

[2]: [https://www.prcity.com/DocumentCenter/View/23619/Two-Year- Ad...](https://www.prcity.com/DocumentCenter/View/23619/Two-Year-Adopted- Budget-FY-2018-19-and-2019-20-PDF)

<comment><USER7> > Are you assuming that each of those 75,000 people pays property tax?

Yes, because effectively, they are. Renters pay for it through their rent (landlords don't just eat costs for free) and obviously children don't pay for their own, and homeless folks don't and such. But effectively, most every resident is paying property taxes (or someone is paying their share for them) in some way or another.

> I too will engage in your random exercise. Let's pick Paso Robles, CA

So, using your approach for the suburb I picked, all road construction + maintenance + repair costs are about 20% of the total suburban budget. Approximately $8/person/month. (This is in Michigan, where we have snow+ice+flooding for 6 months straight each year, so that seems totally reasonable to me.)

Using your own link for Paso Robles to the budget they provided, they're devoting 12.1% of property taxes to street maintenance. With ~29k people, that's ~$4/person/month.

So, your suburb spends even less to maintain their roads (per capita) than mine does. Isn't that a good thing? Doesn't that just further reinforce the fact that there is no coming "infrastructure apocalypse" for roads? If Paso Robles needed to _double their entire road budget_ for some magical reason, you'd still be paying less than what folks up here already pay every single year.

> In fact, if you look at the city budget, property tax can barely pay for the > public works of the city. Without other sources of revenue, the city would > fall woefully behind on its payments.

Isn't that also a good thing? In a perfect world, the total taxes collected would pay for all the services provided, with a little set aside for a rainy day and nothing more left over.

<comment><USER8> > Yes, because effectively, they are. Renters pay for it through their rent > (landlords don't just eat costs for free) and obviously children don't pay > for their own, and homeless folks don't and such. But effectively, most > every resident is paying property taxes (or someone is paying their share > for them) in some way or another.

I think this is a weak argument you're using to make the price per capita seem low. If your income is $10 / mo, and you pay $4 in property tax, then you are spending 40% of your income in property tax.

> Using your own link for Paso Robles to the budget they provided, they're > devoting 12.1% of property taxes to street maintenance. With ~29k people, > that's ~$4/person/month.

That's still 12.1%. Whether it's $4/person/month or $1/person/month, it's 12.1% of property tax.

> If Paso Robles needed to double their entire road budget for some magical > reason, you'd still be paying less than what folks up here already pay every > single year

Again, how does that matter? The city will now be paying 24.2% of their property tax on road maintenance, leaving a shortfall.

> Isn't that also a good thing? In a perfect world, the total taxes collected > would pay for all the services provided, with a little set aside for a rainy > day and nothing more left over.

Right but what about emergency services, and city vehicle fleet maintenance, and sewage, and parks... The property tax _cannot_ pay for all services associated with the sprawl. Oh and building new infrastructure. The city relies on a bevy of other taxes and entitlements to pay their budget, including various State transportation subsidies.

<comment><USER9> "If your income is $10 / mo, and you pay $4 in property tax, then you are spending 40% of your income in property tax."

Those numbers don't seem very realistic?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't necessarily think "talent" wants transit. Something that matters to every job seeker is what "home" is going to look like, and being close to transit opens up more types of "home" to choose from. Some talent wants the pace of downtown while others want 4 bedroom houses with yards. Being near transit does a better job of providing both of those to candidates, thereby increasing the talent pool's size.

<comment><USER11> People also just don't want to be stuck in traffic for an hour and a half. If 101 were as free flowing as it was in the mid 90s the desire for transit would be less but given arteries like 280, 101 in the SF bay area or 95, 90, 93 in the Boston area are perennially clogged the alternative is transit.

<comment><USER12> Meanwhile, we FLY down 101 every morning because reverse commute down the Peninsula into the valley. I don't think the people who complain about CA from what they hear online could even believe the speeds we manage.

<comment><USER13> There is no reverse commute in the bay area anymore. It's uphill both ways

<comment><USER12> So I'm lying, then. As are all of the traffic maps that show eastbound bridge traffic being wide open in the mornings, south 280 and 101 being wide open in the mornings, and the opposite in the afternoons?

It doesn't really take me 20 minutes to go 22 miles in the heart of Silicon Valley at rush hour?

okay then.

<comment><USER14> My personal experience of driving south from ~San Francisco down to Sunnyvale along 101 in the mornings is that it takes me around 1.2 hours, on average. I'm not sure what traffic maps have to say about it, but every time I drive down I hit backups at Millbrae, San Mateo around 92, Menlo Park (the Facebook exit), Palo Alto which is just always congested, and Mountain View.

In fact, the traffic is the deciding factor for me in ruling out regularly working in the Peninsula.

Where do you start, and at what time of day, to get 20-minute drive times? I'd love to know the secret.

<comment><USER12> Marsh, 7:35, to Winchester in SJ.

<comment><USER15> That places you downstream of all Facebook traffic.

<comment><USER12> Ish. Actually I live pretty much right next to Facebook, so Facebook traffic is my traffic. Trust me, when I commuted from the north, I'd spend 3-5 minutes sitting on my own damn offramp just to go a few hundred feet to my house while all the FBers and bridge folk were trying to turn left onto a gridlocked overpass :)

<comment><USER15> Heck, when I worked in that neighborhood, the Marsh Road overpass was just _one_ lane each way!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I currently live in SF and work in South Bay, but this is probably the last job I'll accept down there. Being able to walk to work, or at least jump on a short bus ride to work cannot be understated for quality of life.

<comment><USER17> I'm the opposite. I'm 31, live in the South Bay, and am so happy to jump in my car and spend 30 minutes driving to work, sipping coffee, thinking about the day ahead, and listening to news or music. On the way home, the commute is a chance to unwind and relax.

I find San Francisco claustrophobic, and I can't think of a more miserable commute than walking to, waiting for, and riding public transportation in the rain or heat with a crowd of other people. I've turned down jobs in the city for that reason.

I don't pay any more for the house I'm renting than a decent apartment would cost in the city, and I have a small yard and a quiet neighborhood to live in.

I don't know how you city people do it.

<comment><USER18> You drink coffee while driving?

Seems unwise.

<comment><USER19> Where do you live that this is surprising?

I see people putting on makeup and checking email while driving. Not while stopped in traffic, actually being in control of a rapidly moving vehicle.

<comment><USER20> More anecdata: I have seen:

      - Someone watching a video on YouTube while driving

      - Someone on their phone, with headphones on, while driving

People are using their cars like they're already driverless ;)

<comment><USER21> I've seen a driver watching porn on a maybe 20 inch screen while on a packed but still speedy Autobahn. One hand holding the screen while steering with his wrist pressed against the wheel (looked rather elaborate and acrobatic even), kinda, while the other hand was out of sight and "busy" somewhere "below".

I've seen another driver having her foot on top of the wheel, cutting her toenails with a clipper, also on the Autobahn.

And the amount of truck drivers I seen reading a newspaper (actual-paper one, usually "Bild") while behind the wheel is astonishing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yes! When the Expo line opened in Los Angeles I restricted my job search to companies accessible via the line.

I chose my next job because it was accessible via the Ballona Creek bike path and buses (though the 2 buses made a 20 min drive take an 1hr+).

My current job is a shorter bus trip and a shorter bike ride. I'm not willing to drive 1-2 hrs one-way to work. I want time to be a part of my community, to have hobbies, to do more than drive, eat, sleep, work and to get that time I need a short commute.

If a long commute limits my existence to drive, eat, half hour couch potato, and sleep than the job is not worth it.

<comment><USER23> What if the Expo line goes down? There could be a strike, a suicide on the tracks, some other sort of wreak, track maintenance, etc.

Roads are highly redundant. You can route around almost anything.

Also, why not move to the job? That is the huge win for shortening a commute.

<comment><USER24> What if there is a crash on the highway? What if your car breaks down? What if have a medical emergency and cannot drive?

<comment><USER23> "Roads are highly redundant. You can route around almost anything."

Crash on the highway: pick a different road

Car breaks down: rent one (BTW, not scalable to a mass transit strike)

Medical emergency and cannot drive: call for an ambulance

<comment><USER24> Not sure where you live, but "pick a different road" doesn't really work for 99% of the country.

<comment><USER25> I can't wait to pick a different Bay Bridge

<comment><USER26> Well, you're commuting too far, but anyway: San Mateo has a bridge, you can go via San Jose, and you can go via Marin County.

Even the Bay Bridge is seldom 100% out. It has multiple lanes, unlike a typical rail line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For me, transit not so important but a low-hassle commute is. If transit is the only way to achieve that, great.

For example - When I first worked at my current job, it was a 45-90 min drive over interstate. A year later, I moved closer and now it's a 15-30 min drive over regular streets.

Upsides: Lower commuting stress - even when my current drive home looks fubar, I can tolerate it long enough to either get home or find a pub and wait it out over a brew.

Downsides: My housing costs tripled.

My previous job was a 30-60 min drive, but later took a shuttle bus that had a stop right in front of my job.

Upsides: After 30+ years of interstate commuting, taking my hand off the wheel for a couple of years was a godsend.

Downsides: The bus stop was basically a street corner with no shade or rain protection, so waiting for the bus on some afternoons was a bit challenging.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Talent wants transit" says transit salesman. OK.

I don't want transit, I want a relatively short commute that doesn't kill my soul. Ideally not working from the office all the time, IDEALLY NOT WORKING EVERY DAY.

<comment><USER29> Ultimately this is probably the real solution: Less work, more remote.

<comment><USER30> Indeed, after getting next to transit the next step will be allowing more remote work, until companies are all remote.

<comment><USER6> Remote work is great and I agree it needs to become more culturally accepted, but almost every remote-only worker I talk to about it with has mixed feelings. The gist I get is that remote work has its ups and downs and usually their preferred ideal world would be having an office to go to but only 1-3 days a week, depending on the individual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I wonder if talent wants transit specifically, or if they just want an employment situation where they don't need to drive their car to work or be limited in where they must live.

Telecommuting fits this as well, if the job allows for it.

<comment><USER32> I've been telecommuting for about 6 years. I'd prefer good transit and a nice office.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The stats are sort of misleading. Of COURSE 97% of people drove to an office park in an Illinois suburb, because that was the only way to get there.

OF COURSE almost every commutes to downtown Chicago by transit, because parking costs are insane.

I'm not saying I'm not pro-transit; I am. Very much so. But these stats don't capture how many of the 97% hated commuting by car but had to, and how many of the 90% "non-automobile" commutes are being done by people grudgingly (or AFTER driving a car to a train station, paying for parking, waiting for a train, and wishing they had a nice big free parking lot at their destination).

<comment><USER33> As a human living on earth, I don't actually much care what the 97% or 90% actually think about their commutes. Using transit instead of single-occupant cars is a huge improvement from an environmental and economic standpoint.

<comment><USER34> You should care because the real way to get people to use transit is by making it better than the alternative.

<comment><USER35> Raising the price of gas helps too.

<comment><USER36> Not really, no.

Raising the price of gas negatively affects the working poor more than helps the environment. That subset of society may not live in an area accessible by transit, or their employment requires them to be in a different location than is feasible to travel to by transit.

<comment><USER37> > _Raising the price of gas negatively affects the working poor more than > helps the environment_

In the short run. In the long run, the proceeds could be used to encourage the working poor to move to cities where they don't need a car. Given how financially terrible car ownership is for America's poor--between traffic tickets, civil forfeiture, police violence, predatory lending and collection practices, insurance practices, _et cetera_ \--I think it would be a net boon.

<comment><USER38> This is a horribly naive statement which disregards the existence many different jobs other than office and retail.

<comment><USER37> > _disregards the existence many different jobs other than office and retail_

Gas taxes can be raised in a way that is neutral to our working poor. It's a minor adjustment to the lowest tax bracket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm very glad that issues of urban development are now getting more attention on HN.

Urban development will be one of the biggest challenges of 21st century.

This issue deserves both more money, and talent being directed to solving it.

And Californian people, your issues are truly severe. I met Chinese people who ventured to SF and Silicon Valley, and called it an urban hell.

</comment><comment><USER40> I recently moved from a job where it was a half hour car drive home to one that is a 15 minute public transit commute - counting from the "I'm leaving the office now" text to my wife to unlocking the front door. It's been a huge quality of life improvement for me.

<comment><USER6> I took an internship in college that was an hour car drive and swore off car commutes before even graduating. Now I do 45 minute door-to-door with transit and I'm quite happy. I can only imagine how great a 15 minute transit commute would be, unfortunately most places that close to downtown are expensive as heck in Boston.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As a daily NJ Transit commuter... I'm very grateful to have easy access to one of the few commuter heavy rail systems in the country. I live in the suburbs and rail is so much nicer (and safer) than driving.

</comment><comment><USER42> "half of all newly created jobs are within a half mile of a CTA or Metra rail station"

I'm kind of surprised it's only half actually...where is there Chicago office space more than half a mile from a Metra or CTA station?

<comment><USER43> It is the Chicago region, not just the city. Examples are; Oakbrook (where McDonald's moved from), Downtown Naperville, Schaumburg, Elk Grove Village, etc.

<comment><USER42> Ah that makes more sense

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is particularly interesting in light of the way Nashville just rejected transit: [https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/what-went- wro...](https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/what-went-wrong-with- nashvilles-transit-plan/559436/)

</comment><comment><USER45> I sort of wanted them (NPR) to say "but how can you have a driveway moment on transit?". Listening to NPR is one of the very few redeeming features of driving to work.

<comment><USER46> Podcasts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Cities should take this to heart and really invest in creating seamless public transit experiences or they'll get left behind in attracting large companies that can bring jobs to their areas.

</comment><comment><USER48> Talent doesn't want transit. They want minimal commute or to minimally attend office at all.

<comment><USER49> I mean, that's very person-specific. I wouldn't take a job that was mostly work-at-home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Yay transit, but it seems like this trend tends to make housing more expensive as businesses move to the hearts of already-crowded cities and make rents even worse. Wouldn't it be better for a company to move its headquarters to a new transit stop that's in an outlying area?

<comment><USER51> It makes land more expensive; if zoning allows housing doesn't have to be expensive. There may be a few years of lag because construction is not instantaneous, but supply can eventually catch up.

Seattle has started seeing sustained rent drops after a housing boom (and then oversupply) coinciding with the Amazon boom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Is it transportation or just short commute/ease of commute?

I live in Minneapolis, for awhile I used to work in the southern suburbs. On a good day the drive was 30 minutes during rush hour. On a bad day you were talking 1-2 hours.

Now I live 10 minutes from work, and I can't imagine doing anything else. Even when I speak to recruiters I increase my salary ask and tell them it's for the commute. I get laughed at.

Meanwhile I talk to people that live 45-60 minutes away just so they could "get more house for the money" and constantly complain about their time to get to work/get home.

However, the earlier comment about job density is probably the most relevant thing I haven't thought of.

</comment><comment><USER53> This is only news because of the historical anomaly of California (Silicon Valley and Hollywood). Everywhere else, "talent" flocks to big cities with transit (NY, Chicago, Boston, DC, etc in the US; I'm sure it's simila rin other nations), as transit is is part of how a city grows, and population growth is codependent with economic growth and the network effects of "talent" industries that generate wealth.

<comment><USER12> Except the first example in the article was in Illinois.

<comment><USER43> Except it is about Chicago, not Illinois. Chicago's overall population has stagnated since 1990, but is now the most-educated big city in the country. This implies that "talent" is indeed flocking to Chicago while it sheds it's industrial past.

"Combined with other data, the continuing tale-of-two-cities story suggests large numbers of lower-income African-Americans are fleeing Chicago while somewhat lesser numbers of better-educated and higher-earning whites, Asian- Americans and blacks are coming in. That's leaving the city better off in some ways than it was a decade ago, but smaller."

[https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20171004/BLOGS02/171...](https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20171004/BLOGS02/171009951/chicago- census-data-show-shrinking-city-growing-wealthier-educated)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> and companies offering remote job gaining even bigger upper hand.

</comment><comment><USER55> Travel time to and from work is unpaid hours required for work. If it takes people 45 minutes to work that is an hour and a half every day that they get nothing for that is not voluntary.

</comment><comment><USER39> My advise for Californians:

1\. Densify population centres.

2\. Rehouse people from single family houses into highrise appartments.

3\. Improve ground level infrastructure.

4\. Transition to mixed development policy.

5\. Abolish zoning in favour of universal sanitary codes.

<comment><USER56> > Rehouse people from single family houses into highrise appartments. Except > many people find that high rises suck. What to let your little kids out > front to ride their bikes? Go down the elevator, through a lobby, onto a > very crowded sidewalk or the major road out front. In a house, I can have a > backyard. Walking the dog doesn't require 5 minutes of elevators and > hallways. Kids can play outside. I am not opposed to high rises at all, but > suggesting that people be "rehomed" is what I am objecting to. However else > minariby arbitrary height restrictions would be a good start. Some people > would like to live in greater density, but attempting a 40 story apartment > in Mountain View would be by howls of protests from environmental groups. > There is room for all sorts of housing to meet everyone's lifestyle needs, > the problem is that the regulation has become an albatross and it prevents a > market response to increased demand. Try to build a mid rise in Palo Alto; > people there would lose their minds.

<comment><USER39> You have a wrong idea about highrise living, and in particular distinction in between main highrise classes.

I classify three that are well recognised around:

1\. Standalone towers with chic small apartments - those are more oriented towards bachelor living for upper working class. Think of them in a "starbucks vs a restaurant" comparison.

2\. Apartment complexes - these are city block sized developments, with more or less fully managed amenities, some times including daycare, playgrounds, mini-strip malls. These do avail for family living.

3\. Shitty box apartments - for everybody else, the cheapest option.

> but attempting a 40 story apartment in Mountain View would be by howls of > protests from environmental groups.

I think 40 storey's will not do it in such expensive neighbourhood. It can be economically feasible with 50 storey with modern construction technology, and 60 if you can make it look "high-end" enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> You know what else talent wants? Work from Home to actually use their talents instead of chit chatting.

</comment><comment><USER58> Transit? Talent wants remote.

</comment><comment><USER59> Talent wants to not be homeless. Transportation and housing are thus very much intertwined. Most people would gladly move closer to work, given the opportunity, but it's usually just too expensive.

</comment><comment><USER6> >Rail and bus systems around the country have backlogs of repair and maintenance needs in the billions of dollars, and transit advocates say not only is more state and local funding needed for upgrades and to expand transit routes, but a big federal infrastructure investment is needed, too. Without it, they fear the nation's economic growth could suffer. But they note such funding may be hard to to get out of a federal administration that seems at times hostile to transit, and instead seems to want to invest more in highways.

We have two big crises: people can't afford to live near jobs (with insufficient new housing being built in top cities), and transit infrastructure near jobs is crumbling, neglected, or nonexistent, depending on the city.

Local municipalities don't want to build more housing because, in the grand scheme of things, a single municipality can't fix the housing crisis, but allowing new construction in inner-city neighborhoods or low-cost-but- desirably-located towns is a guaranteed path to gentrification, so most choose to opt out. Richer neighborhoods don't want new housing because it would damage their picture-perfect neighborhood character, affect their schools and infrastructure, etc. So, neighborhoods near the city stay frozen in place, save a few luxury developments at the prime locations in the city because these developments can bankroll getting past municipal blockades.

The federal government can fix both of these by cooperating with states. Offer money earmarked for public transit to states that meet guidelines promoting large-scale (and, hopefully, equitable across rich & poor neighborhoods) upzoning efforts near their job centers. Subsidize transit-friendly dense developments on a large scale, instead of subsidizing suburbs as we have since WWII.

The good & bad would probably be:

-Good for the environment, as suburban sprawl is greatly damaging to the environment (and necessitates a car-centered lifestyle).

-Good for companies that can more easily attract workers to their headquarters in cities.

-Good for workers who wanted to live in the city but couldn't afford it, or workers who spend a large percentage of their budget on housing because they have a job in the city.

-Good for government budget in the long run (probably) because the cost of infrastructure per capita is cheaper in city than in sprawl

-Good for the economy in the long run? No one really knows on this one, but I would argue current trends show cities are going to be big on capitalizing on 21st century economic opportunities (hence why companies want to relocate near transit).

-Bad for current suburban homeowners, one may expect suburban homes to decrease in price.

-Good or bad, depending on location, for current urban property owners. Urban home prices will (by design) go down with this policy thanks to an influx of housing, but landowners may still make a big profit (for example, if you own a single family home or duplex near a transit line, and it gets upzoned, you could sell it at a premium to a developer who wants to build a midrise or highrise on the land. On the other hand if you own a condo in an existing highrise, it will probably go down in value with a glut of new housing on the market)

</comment><comment><USER60> why not just make work be a state more than a place.... Working from home has so many benefits, including reduction of costs to both employee and employer.</comment>


Move Fast and Break the Iowa Caucus - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/opinion/iowa-caucus-app.html <comment><USER2> Great title. Good reminder to the occasional overconfident technologist (myself included) not to trust untested machines with critical responsibilities.

When your gmail doesn't load for 30 seconds, that's not the end of the world. When an app breaks a process that's been working relatively smoothly for hundreds of years, it may be time to take a moment and reflect.

Also another example of why spreadsheets will never die. As long as the human can see the data, the inevitable machine breaks can only cause so much damage.

<comment><USER3> Although even spreadsheets have gotten too "smart" for their own good and can corrupt data. Biologists have actually had to rename the septin-1 gene because spreadsheets containing its abbreviation "sept1" get automatically changed to 01-Sep in Excel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel like a company named "Shadow" funded by "Acronym" doesn't instill confidence.

<comment><USER5> I think whats more alarming, is that if you read either Shadow or Acronym's websites is that they are primarily based on an ideological "Progressive" position. Is this what anyone wants the future of politics. Shadowy opaque companies running an arms race to win elections.

<comment><USER6> What's wrong with them being ideologically progressive? This is tech developed for the Democratic Party, of course they're going to be progressive.

<comment><USER7> Not sure how tech and progressive politics interact; handling of data is another issue but that's not the tech side IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> More infos :

[https://venturebeat.com/2020/02/04/mysterious-startup- shadow...](https://venturebeat.com/2020/02/04/mysterious-startup-shadow-under- scrutiny-after-iowa-caucus-meltdown/amp/?__twitter_impression=true)

[https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/1224597485781303297](https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/1224597485781303297)

</comment><comment><USER9> Good old votetech</comment>


A New HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles - <AUTHOR> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-tbray-http-legally-restricted-status/?include_text=1

<comment><USER2> At the bottom of the page, "Thanks also to Ray Bradbury."

It appears they deliberately chose 451 in homage to the great Fahrenheit 451 (or more specifically, to the dystopian future presented in the book).[1]

[1] [http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120725/06093819827/truth-...](http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120725/06093819827/truth- erroring-ietf-proposal-includes-new-451-censorship-error-code.shtml)

<comment><USER3> So, when will they start burning urls?

<comment><USER4> The job now falls to the Writermen. They excerpt, rewrite & aggressively- SEO... so that no original, true, or subversive ideas ever rank in top 450 search results (unless wrapped in neutralizing snark).

It's "SearchRank-451".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me very much of the TCP Evil Bit [1]. That is, it seems like the issue of whether anybody would actually set this is essential to the question of whether or not it would work.

One could even imagine that governments would _want_ people to live in ignorance of the existence of restrictions. It's 100% the Ethan Zuckerman Cute Cat Theory of Internet Censorship [2]. The government would rather that you have all of YouTube _except_ the subversive content, because then you might not notice the restriction and so will learn not to care.

Indeed, from the document:

      "The use of the 451 status code implies neither the
      existence nor non-existence of the resource named in the
      request.  That is to say, it is possible that if the legal
      demands were removed, a request for the resource still
      might not succeed."

That suggests to me that the author is also aware of this problem.

It should be noted that Google has done an amazing job in trying to fix this problem by trying to force whole services to be blocked when that's feasible and by transparently explaining (in the UI itself!) when content is unavailable for legal reasons. Kudos to them.

For that reason, I would say such an effort is worthwhile even if it won't have much impact: it's quite likely that it will help further the norm that when censorship exists it should exist transparently. That's a cause worth fighting for, even if every step is going to be a huge challenge.

[1] <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt>

[2] [http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute- cat-t...](http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/03/08/the-cute-cat-theory- talk-at-etech/)

<comment><USER6> People will set this to indicate that they had to censor something. Obviously if you don't want the censorship to be detected, you will not use this code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "This request may not be serviced in the Roman Province of Judea due to the Lex Julia Majestatis, which disallows access to resources hosted on servers deemed to be operated by the People's Front of Judea."

Ave Caesar, moritURI te salutant

</comment><comment><USER8> Discussion from last year: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4099751>

</comment><comment><USER9> Already used by LiveJournal in Russia:

Example: <http://drugoi.livejournal.com/3712998.html> (slightly NSFW) — if you visit this URL from Russian IP address, you'll see something like this: [https://www.evernote.com/shard/s72/sh/6e76310b-daec-454c-a66...](https://www.evernote.com/shard/s72/sh/6e76310b-daec-454c-a66b-abf9fb366db4/43b5e2c128e0bf4c6d439f2f64b528ed/res/60f8b86d-0431-415e-8c79-d347743139bc/skitch.png)

Allegedly, this page and photos are used to propagandize suicide.

<comment><USER10> Warning, the link contains pictures of a man on fire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think if these types of messages were as jarring as possible instead discreetly displayed in the existing interface it would heighten people's awareness of these issues.

<comment><USER12> There's no reason a site couldn't serve content along with the 451 code, just as HTTP200 is served with content.

In fact, that's a _SHOULD_ in the RFC:

        Responses using this status code SHOULD include an explanation, in
       the response body, of the details of the legal demand: the party
       making it, the applicable legislation or regulation, and what classes
       of person and resource it applies to.

<comment><USER13> Or how HTTP 404 is served with content.... (e.g. <http://github.com/xyzzyeieio> \- there's a good 134KB text/html with your 404 error code)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This perhaps would top HTTP Response Code 418 "I'm a teapot"

<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324>

</comment><comment><USER15> Mozilla is apparently using this in their AMO/Marketplace codebase:

[http://firefox-marketplace- api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/top...](http://firefox-marketplace- api.readthedocs.org/en/latest/topics/submission.html#get--api-v1-apps- app-\(int-id\)|\(string-slug\)-)

</comment><comment><USER16> The most startling clause is this:

       The 451 status code is optional; clients cannot rely upon its use.
       It is possible that certain legal authorities may wish to avoid
       transparency, and not only demand the restriction of access to
       certain resources, but also avoid disclosing that the demand was
       made.

It seems this clause, as highlighted by deepblueocean in his "TCP Evil Bit" comment, is what is most disturbing... Shouldn't it be made mandatory? Can it be made mandatory?

</comment><comment><USER17> China: "451 all the things"

<comment><USER18> The GFW generally works on the TCP layer, resetting the session which delivers some sensitive-keyword-containing payloads, both in and out of the boundary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Damn it, not more HTTP status codes, I want 402 to work all ready!

</comment><comment><USER20> The draft was published on Jan 11. Why is it relevant, today?

</comment><comment><USER21> I prefer my internet without legal interference.</comment>


An anonymous phone number in your browser for an hour - <AUTHOR> https://dtmf.io/ <comment><USER2> So I googled for feedback, and there's some in bitcointalk thread: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1602801.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1602801.0)

Also reddit discussion: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/51fif1/dtmf_anonym...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/51fif1/dtmf_anonymous_phone_number_in_your_browser_for/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cool, but the customer has to jump two technical hurdles: being able to pay with Bitcoin for the first time and using WebRTC for the first time. Perhaps the most likely customers are already fluent with Bitcoin and WebRTC. I have the feeling however that there could be a hundred times more potential users if the hurdles were smaller (or better explained).

Also, although _I personally_ like the super-clean minimal web page, I imagine it'll look amateurish to the typical user. (Maybe this doesn't matter to the target audience.)

<comment><USER4> WebRTC is not a hurdle, every recent browser supports it.

<comment><USER3> Stop 100 people on the street and ask them how they'd make a phone call through their browser (not even mentioning jargon like WebRTC). How many will know what to do?

I'll grant you that perhaps all that's needed is a better explanation and examples on the OP's web site.

<comment><USER5> (creator of DTMF.io here)

I don't see WebRTC as being too much of a hurdle. If the user is running recent-ish Chrome or Firefox, they don't need to know about WebRTC any more than you need to know about HTTP in order to load the website. It just happens to be the technology we use to make the voice calls work: you still type a number into a box and click a button and then talk.

If they're running Safari, they're unfortunately completely out of luck for now - but SMS will still work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be interesting to turn this into a one-off CLI command [using 21]([https://github.com/21dotco/two1-python](https://github.com/21dotco/two1-python))

(disclaimer: I work for 21 Inc.)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the link, I'm going to look into this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For some reason, I expect everything on HN to be free...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What I found interesting about this is the anonymity factor. Currently you can't get a GMail, Twitter, etc accounts without verifying it with a phone number via SMS or voice. This service supposedly solve this issue, but indeed if they rotate between a few mobile phone numbers they will be quickly banned.

<comment><USER8> Anonymity, yes, as long as you acquire bitcoin with cash, and don't leave any identifying traces behind – the difficulty of which varies with each individual scenario.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How long until an intelligence service creates a system like this and turns it loose, only to be watching and listening the whole time.

<comment><USER10> How do you know an intelligence service _didn 't_ create this system, and turn it loose only to be watching and listening the whole time?</comment></comment>


Occupy Geeks Are Building a Facebook for the 99%  - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/occupy-facebook/ <comment><USER2> This does not pass the smell test. I think this is Facebook for the 0.1% who give a crap. The rest is pretty happy with FB as it is right now.

Normal folk care about social network privacy as much as they care about, say, Walmart's business practices, or Apple's obscure app acceptance decision criteria.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have literally just returned from a meeting at the 28c3 conference in berlin, where the Social Swarm group were discussing strategy in this direction.

Social Swarm is an open think tank initiated by the German privacy and digital rights NGO FoeBuD. They are attempting to research and co-ordinate the many and varied efforts in decentralised, secure social networking. You should visit their wiki, where they have collected many resources from across the net, so we can get a handle on the many different projects and their statuses, as well as talk tactics with regards to that deciding factor, _traction_. You should also sign up to their mailing list if you are at all interested in these ideas.

<http://wiki.socialswarm.net/index.php/Main_Page>

Also, have a look at Secushare. Today I also attended a talk by some of the members of this project, and it seems extremely promising. They know what the hell they are doing, with something like a century of combined experience in the field. It's fully distributed, based on GNUnet, (similar to tor) and has some very innovative ideas around using the trust network implicit in the social graph for routing and distribution of data.

<http://secushare.org/>

(Note that I do not necessarily represent the social swarm collective, I only just met them today ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> This article is lacking on any sort of details. It's not even clear if they are building a "facebook". The technical standards they think there can reuse include things like oauth and openid. OpenID does not a social network make.

It also talks about solutions looking for problems, likkr RDF. I don't think the semantic web will be a social network for the 99%.

The biggest problem with building a new social network is traction, ie users. This is a social, not technical, problem. If the occupy groups want to stop Facebook, they could try to get all people to never use it for occupy stuff.

</comment><comment><USER5> Can we say that the "99%" term has now officially jumped the shark?

</comment><comment><USER6> Honest question: What about this platform will make it immune to subpoenas (since the author mentioned that specifically)?

<comment><USER7> If it is decentralized and pseudonymous, who do you subpoena, and how do you find out who they are?

<comment><USER8> Why, the DNS of course!

...waiiit a minute...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "[...]or forcing you to get yet another username and password to keep track of."

As a professional fraudster with first class honours in identity theft, I for one welcome the move to a grand unified 'one-password-fits-all' structure, and look forward to working hand-in-hand with everyone on your friends list for a better tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'll skip commenting on the actual site they're building, and zero in one paragraph I found particularly interesting:

"When he was an undergrad in 2005, Boyer, who is now 27, took a job at the Student Trade Justice Campaign, an organization focused on trade policy reform. In 2007, he wanted to build an online platform for individual chapters to organize into groups and to link those groups for national discussions – essentially what the FGA is meant to do. But Boyer couldn't build it, he said. "I didn't even know how to program at the point that I started with it."

Because. Word. My first thought was: "Story of my life." Just substitute "2007" for "Summer 2010" and "Student Trade Justice Campaign" for "non-profit student organizations." I wonder how many others were inspired to learn web development because of similar motivations.

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be great if Europe took the lead on these kind of services, it currently seems impossible to get decent web services that are outside the reach of US subpoenas. Boston PD has already issued a subpoena to Twitter for Occupy related info. Europe needs to step up.

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately things are generally getting worse in Europe with ACTA and data retention laws passing EU legislation and subsequently beeing forced into national laws.

<comment><USER11> But it is still hard for an American government agency to subpoena documents from an European company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What the hell does "for the 99%" mean? Usually that means that refers to the bottom 99% in income but I think the bottom 99% in income are _more likely_ to use Facebook, not less.

</comment><comment><USER14> The FreedomBox Foundation inspired by Eben Moglen and which raised over US$85k earlier this year on KickStarter is also looking to cover this space through software and hardware:

<http://freedomboxfoundation.org/> <http://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox>

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of every time someone comes up to me and pitches me idea of making "Facebook, but better." I don't see where's the need of making a social network for specific purposes and reasons.

</comment><comment><USER16> You clearly haven't seen the sort of people who are on Facebook.

If anything, Google+ probably skews higher on the socio-economic scale, since it's easier to keep the riffraff out of your circles and discussions.

</comment><comment><USER17> I love how they're all just checking their email in the photo

</comment><comment><USER18> diaspora...?

<comment><USER19> "But those [diaspora, identica] developments aren't specifically focused on protest movements. And the Occupy movement's surprising rise in the U.S. has added new impetus to the desire for open source versions of the software that is playing an increasingly important role in mobilizing and connecting social movements, as well as broadcasting their efforts to the world."

So yeah, Diaspora. The article is not well-written.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> ... And there I was all this time, thinking the 1% isn't even on Facebook..

</comment><comment><USER21> I for one am tired of this "I am the 99%" buzz phrase. It seems like most who dogmatically repeat this phrase have no direction in terms of what they are trying to convey.

The ironic thing about this is that it seems very very closed in terms of sharing which I believe is a step backward.

</comment><comment><USER22> Yawn</comment>


Daylight-Saving Time Is Past Its Prime - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443749204578052962065551312.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

<comment><USER2> The posted link is behind a paywall. Try: [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044374920457805...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443749204578052962065551312.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, WSJ is bad about this. The link originally was done through Google and did work. It is fairly common practice with WSJ/OJ to highlight the title of the story and search google which can, not always, a full story.

<comment><USER3> This one might work then: [http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&#...</a>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can we move the clocks 30 min and then just call it quits?

<comment> Cyril-Boh Don't how else to send a message to you so I'm leaving a reply to your comment.

I have 2 more aerofs invites if you still want one.</comment></comment>


Analysis: Plaxo and Friendfeed, pushing the feed - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/09/analysis-plaxo-and-friendfeed-pushing-the-feed/

<comment><AUTHOR> My feed: <http://friendfeed.com/paul></comment>


The Myth of Japan's 'Lost Decades' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/the-myth-of-japans-lost-decades/71741/ <comment><USER3> As an business major myself and having lived in Japan for 5 years, I was a little surprised to see no sign of a lost decade anywhere. I come from one of the riches regions in Europe (Salzburg) and I found the living standards in Japan to be at least on par. I lived in Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima and Nagano so far.

In my opinion the Author's explanation is a little misleading. He overlooked the most important factor: "Demographics". I am referring to the article at [http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2011/january/the- japan-...](http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2011/january/the-japan- myth/69887.aspx)

Looking at the working age population, Japan is doing surprisingly well, better than the US, or Europe.

Despite the rapid decline of the working age population and the infamous long life expectancy Japan achieved economical growth. In other words there are considerably fewer Japanese working than a decade ago, but those few manage to make everyone in the country richer.

I agree with the author, Japan's 'Lost Decades' seems to be a myth.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this myth is largely believed within Japan, too, at every level of Japanese society I have access to. (From retirees to college kids to governors.) That doesn't make it true, but I'd be careful about characterizing it as wily Asians trying to pull one over on whitey. (Japanese cell phones in Chinese paper boxes counting as Chinese cell phones, on the other hand, is _totally_ according to plan.)

<comment><USER5> With all dues pect (and I think it's clear I respect you) , this is yet another case of taking a non_normative view of economicsl We can not conern ourselves with whether another party is doing better against us, until such time as we are not doing better against our past.

Do I live better than those who preceeded me under thse same circumstances? The answer is, almost without exception, yes. It may be popular to decry how one or another advtantage which is enjoyed by one population is not enjoyed by another. But the question should always be, not "Am I doing better than the Other Guy? But 'Am I doing better than one might expect (given my invariant circumstances)?

To ask more than that does diservice to the entire concept of progress.

<comment><USER6> unfortunately humans don't think like this. when asked if they would rather make $50k while everyone else makes $25k or 100K while everyone else makes $200k (the costs of goods and services being the same) people overwhelmingly choose the former. why? status is zero-sum. mate-pairing relies on looking good compared to the next person, not on absolute scales of standard of living.

<comment><USER7> > when asked if they would rather make $50k while everyone else makes $25k or > 100K while everyone else makes $200k (the costs of goods and services being > the same) people overwhelmingly choose the former. why?

I'd like to see the cite, because most behavioral economics research that I've seen is crap.

But, even if that's true, so what? It's dumb to act as if pi = 4 even if "everyone" wants it to be.

Yes, I realize that you're not arging that we should act as if envy is better than greed, you're just saying that people think that it is. So, what do we do about that?

<comment><USER6> you abandon populism as a decision method in economic matters. people don't care about wealth creation, they only care about their own status.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Japan spent a decade or more working off the debt that it's citizens had, just as the US is taking a long time to get its citizens out of financial trouble.

The government eventually rescued the private sector by building railways to no-where. That's still causing problems, as they have to spend tax revenue paying interest, not paying for healthcare or research (or tax cuts).

The excessive debt shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Of course, it's not all bad news, and Japan has grown in some ways (despite competing with Korea and China), but its high trade balance is the result of abused consumers (who were first conned into taking in giant loans for their houses, then taxed so the government could rescue lenders), not of great economic strengths.

<comment><USER7> > The government eventually rescued the private sector by building railways to > no-where. That's still causing problems, as they have to spend tax revenue > paying interest, not paying for healthcare or research (or tax cuts).

Did that "rescue the private sector"? Or did it rescue the folks who worked for railroads and their dependents while causing greater problems in the rest of the economy?

Bad capital allocation, by definition, means that you got less for your investment than you would have gotten otherwise. A "train to nowhere" means that you couldn't do something that would have produced greater benefits.

Yes, building that train benefitted the folks who built it, but that ignores the costs.

<comment><USER8> By talking about "resource allocation", you are ignoring the dynamics of credit and debt. Resources aren't fixed, because labor (a very important resource) is very flexible. You are not just allocating resources within the economy, you are promising people resources in the future. People work harder if they are promised resources later on, but only while that promise is credible.

Creating lots of debt makes people work hard, and creates the illusion of wealth. People do jobs, because you told them you would pay them. People spend money, because they know you are going to pay them. Paying off the debt is where things come unstuck.

The government took on a lot of debt, which made everyone work harder and spend more. But that creates a future issue when the government has to pay that debt back.

Creating debt is similar to creating new money - it speeds things up (which is generally seen as good), but can cause people to start doing irresponsible things (which doesn't show up until somebody asks what the elephant is doing with the sofa).

<comment><USER7> > By talking about "resource allocation", you are ignoring the dynamics of > credit and debt.

Not at all.

> Resources aren't fixed, because labor (a very important resource) is very > flexible.

If labor is so flexible, why is it so necessary to waste money on trains? (Inflexibility is an argument for temporarily suboptimal allocation.)

> Creating lots of debt makes people work hard,

Only as long as they feel an obligation to pay back that debt.

> and creates the illusion of wealth.

No, debt doesn't do that. The things/services that you get in exchange for going into debt may create wealth, or they may just create a hangover.

> People do jobs, because you told them you would pay them. People spend > money, because they know you are going to pay them.

Yes, but none of that has anything to do with what you spend money on.

> but can cause people to start doing irresponsible things (which doesn't show > up until somebody asks what the elephant is doing with the sofa).

Surely you're not arguing that bad resource allocation is good until someone notices....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Lost decade or not, it is impossible to do a startup in Japan. We tried a few months ago, with 2 Japanese classmates. Even though they both spent significant time in the US, they could not say "no" and would not take any risks. If in doubt, be conservative was their mantra. Releasing a mobile app for a conference, we just needed to list the names and companies of people attending, no contact info. It was in the spec from the beginning. At the last second, someone got scared that someone might object, and although there was no evidence, they refused. So we couldn't test the app and we ended up abandoning. There is so much fear among the young.

Debate the macro economics all you want, but there is no doubt this generation is already lost.

<comment><USER10> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1802016> "Japan: To Fix Your Economy, Honor Your Failed Entrepreneurs" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803426>

[http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/29/japan-entrepreneur- conferen...](http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/29/japan-entrepreneur-conference- markets-rebuilding-global-markets-venture.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Regardless of any of his other points, I almost stopped reading when I came across this artifact of the 90s,

"The Japanese boast the world's most advanced cell phones, and the biggest and best high-definition television screens."

Maybe we can give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he just doesn't know anything about tech, but is he trying to say that Galapagos phones are more advanced than (Apple/Android/WebOS/Windows/etc) smartphones?

And for TVs, I guess he's just trying to say that he thinks Sony and Sharp are bigger and better than Samsung, LG, etc?

These are the kind of empty statements that make you sound like an amateur and completely detract from your point even if you have a valid argument.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps he is talking about the Japanese consumers rather than the Japanese suppliers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wait, why is the author saying that defaltion (or "a strong currency") is a sign that the economy is doing well. And likewise why do they think that exporting much more than one inports is a good thing?

</comment><comment><USER14> I stopped reading the article when I hit "Given that Japan's current account surplus (the widest and most meaningful measure of its trade) ...".

A positive current account balance is pretty useless figure for the robustness of a country's trade. A country could have extremely robust foreign trade and have a zero or negative current account balance.

The US, for instance, during our economic boom times often (always?) had a negative current account balance.

And if I were analyzing the Japanese economy, the giant current account surplus would give me pause because it begs the questions:

a.) Why are the Japanese not importing more? b.) Why aren't foreign companies making more capital investments in Japan?

Each of which contribute as much to the enormity of the capital account surplus as their healthy amount of exports.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you don't think they are lost now, then take a look at their absolutely hideous public debt numbers (which was incurred when the government transferred private bank debt on to the public balance sheet and built the original bridges-to-nowhere to unsuccessfully fight deflation).

[http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/27/news/international/s_p_japan...](http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/27/news/international/s_p_japan/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER16> The author calls the misrepresentation of Japan's economy in the USA a "media myth," but I would simply call it propaganda reinforcing the idea of American "exceptionalism." If you make people in a country think that they have it better than everyone else then they won't complain about things that with clear thinking they would complain about.

<comment><USER16> also: when I was in Japan a few months ago I asked two locals about the economy. Both indicated that things were good: people had jobs and could afford what they needed. I saw no evidence of any homeless people - <USER2> after lingin n the USA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Assuming this article is correct, I don't understand why any political leader would not 'fix' the growth calculations to be rosier. Surely there are great political incentives to do so, the Japanese parliament has really unpopular leaders basically all the time. Do the bureaucrats really have THIS much power that PMs are basically forced to sacrifice themselves for trade policy?</comment>


The PC will never die - mkr-hn http://bitoftech.mkronline.com/2011/08/24/the-pc-will-never-die/

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the point is that local storage is dying.

A couple years ago, my working documents existed as files on a server and my e-mails were copied from the POP3 server to a local archive. Now they exist on servers that live in data-centers far from me.

<comment> mkr-hn I think you nailed it. We've been watching it happen for a while as browsers and web apps matured, but it's only in the last few years that the declining importance of local storage seemed so real.

I actually can't think of a single thing I do on my laptop that depends on local storage. I even sync my Simcity 4 cities to a cloud service.

<comment><AUTHOR> In 2007 or so I got my work laptop stolen. All I lost were a couple changes in the code I was working on I made during a meeting with the client. After filing the police report, I dug out my old laptop, reinstalled it and checked the code out of my repo. The next day I was able to continue more or less from where I left off.</comment></comment></comment>


Reviews of neural network research papers for art generation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tensorflow/magenta/tree/master/magenta/reviews <comment><USER2> I keep wondering, has anyone tried feeding all these papers about neural networks into the neural network and what would the outcome be?

Sort of like someone did with wikipedia, css, etc?

<comment><USER3> > what would the outcome be?

Machine-learning sounding gibberish. Here is an example of sci-fi screenplay sounding gibberish (amusingly, directed, produced and acted by real people):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11875829](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11875829)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone knows if there's actually a repo somewhere that captures what the title says?

</comment><comment><USER5> Could we include the deepmind atari paper there? Should be interesting to lots of people.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can re-title this? Perhaps Something like "Art Related Deep Learning Papers"?

This list is specific to those working in the context of deep-learning generated picture based artwork. It isn't a general list.

</comment><comment><USER7> The title is a little misleading as the context here is art. This is not a general list of deep learning papers to read, but art-related deep learning papers to read. Google's project Magenta objective is to answer the question "can we use machine learning to create compelling art and music?"</comment>


PS3s Help Astrophysicists Solve Black Hole Mystery - <AUTHOR> http://www.labspaces.net/94312/PS_s_Help_Astrophysicists_Solve_Black_Hole_Mystery

<comment><AUTHOR> Everybody here probably already knows about distributed computing, but just in case...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_computing>

You can also do your part for science, with your idle CPU cycles, or your GPU, or your PS3..</comment>


Introspected REST: An Alternative to REST and GraphQL - <AUTHOR> https://introspected.rest <comment><USER2> If you're trying to solve problems caused REST not being a protocol, why not settle with defining -- or better yet, _using an already defined_ \-- protocol? Really, there were plenty of good RPC protocols, starting with XML- RPC and a little more modern incarnation of JSON-RPC 2.0.

<comment><AUTHOR> RPC is not evolvable neither self descriptive so it's very difficult to introduce changes on API used by remote clients, without human interaction.

<comment><USER2> On the other hand, REST allows exactly what changes to the API that don't require modification of remote clients? Because hypertext only allows to move boundaries where data is split into chunks returned at one call, not how the data looks like, and it's the structure of the data that mainly changes with API.

<comment><AUTHOR> REST allows you to change the structure of the data as well, for instance using linked-data specs, like schema.org. However, in practice it's very difficult and also REST makes it very difficult to evolve different parts of the API, asyncronously.

Here we propose Introspected REST which gives you much more flexibility and solves such issues through introspectable content provided by various MicroTypes the API uses.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask yourself: Will this get my users laid? - <AUTHOR> http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html

<comment><USER2> Considering the success and effects of WOW, flash games, and many other time wasters I think the real question should be:

Ask yourself will this stop my users from getting laid?

<comment><USER3> And if your users play it anyway, you know you have a real winner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ask yourself: should I see if an article has already been posted 100 times before posting it here again?

<comment><USER5> How, out of curiosity, would one go about checking whether the article has already been posted a hundred times?

<comment><USER6> You can use this site:

<http://searchyc.com/>

<comment><USER7> if HN cares that much about not re-posting, HN should make it easier to check. A lot of people don't even know about searchyc. Can't a URL check against searchyc for a high percentage match and give an intermediate "are you sure you want to post this?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "And if it doesn't work with webmail, you've lost before you've even begun, so don't do something dumb like requiring a plugin. The trick you want to accomplish is that when one person is using your software, it suddenly provides value to that person and their entire circle of friends, without the friends having had to do anything at all. Then, later, you pull the friends into the fold: if one of them starts using the software, they become their own hub, and get the benefit they have already witnessed from a distance."

Truly insightful.</comment>


Seesaw, a new social decision making company from the founders of CoTweet - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/11/13/seesaw-a-new-social-decision-making-company-from-the-founders-of-cotweet/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=share%2Bbutton&utm_content=Seesaw%2C%20a%20new%20social%20decision%20making%20company%20from%20the%20founders%20of%20CoTweet&utm_campaign=social%2Bmedia <comment><AUTHOR> Looking forward to what this team does. A lot of talent there. The awesome Sam Soffes of Hipstamatic and <http://cheddarapp.com> fame</comment>


Ask HN: Have you ever used SQLite as a client/server DB for a high volume site? - vanilla-almond The SQLite website states that it works well for low to medium traffic websites (e.g. 100k hits as a conservative estimate). However, the site cautions about using SQLite as a client/server database when multiple clients are trying to write to the database. [1]<p>Have you ever used SQLite in the second scenario? What was your experience? Why did you stick with SQLite over a client/server database like PostgreSQL? What it simplicity of usage and deployment? Or was SQLite simply fast enough for your needs?<p>[1] https://sqlite.org/whentouse.html <comment><AUTHOR> That "100k hits" figure you quoted surprised me, so after going over their page, I just wanted to add here that that's "100K hits/day", which translates to just 1 query per second, which is unreasonably conservative.

In a post [0] from last year, Expensify tell how (with some modifications) they managed to get sqlite to 4M qps on a single powerful server running 192 cores. That's 20K qps/thread for their huge table, and they got over 200K qps/thread for a table with a single row (demonstrating how little overhead sqlite has).

[0] [https://blog.expensify.com/2018/01/08/scaling-sqlite- to-4m-q...](https://blog.expensify.com/2018/01/08/scaling-sqlite-to-4m-qps-on- a-single-server/)

<comment><USER2> At that point why not use a heavier database that one would expect to be faster?

<comment><USER3> check out the numbers on SQLite. It's incredibly fast and beats PostgreSQL on a number of benchmarks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used it to MVP a site that didn't gain traction so never achieved "high volume"; single process with multiple readers and single writer. My tests showed it beat Postgres by a large margin on mixed workload (reads and writes 50/50). The use case was "single db per account/user". I'd use it again.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is not a question of performance, rather about architecture and how concurrency and failure states are handled.

SQLite does not have a socket server and only supports a single concurrent writer to a given datafile. So by definition it is not client/server- a term which implies process and network segregation between the thing issuing SQL commands and the thing applying them against the physical storage.

It is perfectly possible to do a variety of high volume server-like activities using such a component- and that page describes some of them- but it is kind of an- if you know what you're doing and what the implications are- kind of thing.

It is a completely different architectural component than Postgres or MySql. It is in fact much faster for what it does precisely because of the different tradeoffs it makes. Those tradeoffs are usually not worth it in conventional client/server scale scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER6> I developed a game with sqlite on the backend, during development sqlite took everything I threw at it.

I planed to switch to mysql for production but when I benchmarked sqlite it was able to do ~10,000 query's a second (iirc) way more than I needed so I figured I would try it in production.

This was a mistake sqlite quickly died in production because of the amount of concurrent queries. During development it was just one processes using the database so locking wasn't a thing, but when more than one process was trying to use the same database waiting on locks slowed the whole thing to a stand still.

I think its possible to write a client server protocol for sqlite with proper locks that performs as well as mysql, but it was easier to just use mysql :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Not really a "high volume" site but I used it as the main database for a community site with about 200k pageviews per month for several years. Unsurprisingly, it was fine given that's a pageview every 10 seconds or so.

Yet even at that level we eventually ran into some repeating file corruption and locking issues that confused me enough to eventually migrate it to Postgres and chuck it up on Heroku to stop bothering with it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I know Pieter[1] uses SQLite for Nomad List[2] and Remote OK[3], both high- traffic sites. Maybe you can tweet him to learn more.

[1] [https://twitter.com/levelsio](https://twitter.com/levelsio) [2] [https://nomadlist.com](https://nomadlist.com) [3] [https://remoteok.io](https://remoteok.io)

</comment><comment><USER9> To be clear, by client-server they mean a connection from a client application directly to the database. For example, in PostgreSQL you can use the command- line tool psql or a graphical tool like pgAdmin. Typically these client applications connect to the database over the network. It's impossible to connect to SQLite over a network, unless you put its database file on a network filesystem (which is risky, as pointed out in the page you link to).

With web apps, the clientele don't connect directly to SQLite. They connect to the web server, like Apache, and through some PHP or Python or whatever, your web server connects to SQLite. From the point of view of the database, your web app is the only customer.

As for multiple writers (which, again, would be going through your web app), the same page has this assurance: "For many situations, this is not a problem. Writers queue up. Each application does its database work quickly and moves on, and no lock lasts for more than a few dozen milliseconds."</comment>


DNS got you down? Share ip addresses with freedom.txt - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mvanveen/freedom.txt

<comment><USER2> _An open internet is more important than corporations. They have failed us because of their natural greed. They must be changed._

To be fair, evil greedy corporations also prevented SOPA

 _An open internet is more important than security, copyright infringement, terrorism or child pornography. We will not be fooled by the strategies of fear employed by those who wish to censor us._

This is the kind of false dichotomy the enemies of an open internet want to create. The point is that we can fight all these things and _still_ have a free internet.

Finally, the URI to IP table is confused. Example

         http://hoop-la.ca/freedom.txt: 126.96.36.199

But <http://188.8.131.52/freedom.txt> fails because of the missing hostname.

This is slacktivism at its worst.

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the concept, but why does this map http addresses (<http://server.com>) to ip addresses? Why not instead have a table of ips and domains (like /etc/hosts) so you can then just sync the freedom.txt file into your hosts file? That's what the hosts file is designed for after all.

This has the added benefit of working with virtual hosting configurations where the browser has to pass the Host header to the server to get a web page.

<comment><AUTHOR> The script grabs the domain of the uri in question, so it's effectively mapping the domain to the url.

To answer your question more specifically, the freedom.txt format started in this thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3498505> , so it links to the uri of a freedom.txt for historical reasons.

/etc/hosts integration is in the works; you're the 2nd person to recommend it so far (the first being my roommate ;-) ).

What's up now is just a quick hack to get momentum for the project in the meantime. If this takes off, the innovation will be social rather than technical, so I thought I'd spend 5 minutes to see if it's worthwhile.

Thanks for the input!

 _Edit_ : I'm working on /etc/hosts integration right now.

<comment><USER4> I know the web moves fast, but you got a good laugh out of me for calling something someone came up with in a thread yesterday "historical reasons" :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair. Probably not the best wording on my part.

For context, I've been in contact with the original poster and did not want to separate our efforts. This idea was suggested in the last thread, and I thought it was worth a try.

Leveraging what's already out there seemed like a good idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two nitpicks:

1\. `/robots.txt` is here to stay, but everything else should use the `/.well- known/` prefix so that they do not squat the root URI: <[http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785>](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5785>).

From the RFC:

> To address this, this memo defines a path prefix in HTTP(S) URIs for these > "well-known locations", "/.well-known/". Future specifications that need to > define a resource for such site-wide metadata can register their use to > avoid collisions and minimise impingement upon sites' URI space.

2\. alternative DNS root systems have been tried in the past [1] and the IETF has always spoken about them on technical and political grounds. The ORSN was probably the most autoritative alternative DNS root, backed by Vixie and others, and stopped operating few years ago.

From the Wikipedia article

> The founders of ORSN are concerned that ICANN is ultimately controlled by > the government of the United States. Their aim was to limit the control over > the Internet that this gives, while ensuring that domain names remain > unambiguous. They also expected their network to make name resolutions > faster for everyone.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_DNS_root> [2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Root_Server_Network>

<comment><USER6> Much like /robots.txt and /humans.txt I think this belongs on root. I understand that we do not want to trash the root URI. Perhaps this can be merged with the humans.txt instead? It can be a separate section in it.

I also dont think this is necessarily an alternative DNS. Much like the hosts file that circulated the internet, this is is just a way to track some major IP addresses, that can be queried when the world ends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just start some alternative root servers. There's nothing that makes the current roots authoritative except for convention and a hardcoded list of IPs. It's not even hard to start up a server that can act as the authoritative source for blocked domains and pass through requests to the real roots for everything else.

</comment><comment><USER8> Off topic, but can anyone tell me the history of

[SOME DATA FORMAT]

\---

[SOME OTHER DATA FORMAT]

?

I'm sure there must be a better way to have multiple data types in a single file than just searching for '\n---\n' and splitting, no? What's the general principal when one data-block has a '\n---\n' in it's data?

I first saw it in Jekyll, I believe they call it 'Front Matter' (Though their implementation seems to be using a '---\n' to start the block) but I can't find any more information on it. Is it some sort of standard/specification/thingy I've completely missed?

<comment><USER9> Some email clients also chuck anything after a line with just two or three dashes. I believe I recall that in things as old as Eudora or as recent as Entourage.

Used to be that you'd put \n-- \n before your sig, and then replies would omit the sig.

ADDED:

See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_block>

"The formatting of the sig block is prescribed somewhat more firmly: it should be displayed as plain text in a fixed-width font (no HTML, images, or other rich text), and must be delimited from the body of the message by a single line consisting of exactly two hyphens, followed by a space, followed by the end of line (i.e., "-- \n").[1] This latter prescription, which goes by many names, including "sig dashes", "signature cut line", "sig-marker", and "sig separator", allows software to automatically mark or remove the sig block as the receiver desires."

1\. The links in Wikipedia reference RFCs dating back to 1994.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can tell you from direct experience this doesn't scale. That was in 1991 when the internet was a much smaller place.

What's with mapping URLs to IP addresses anyway? That's completely wrong ...</comment>


Tell HN: the speed of HN - <AUTHOR>

7 Hours ago I wrote that 'snailflix.com' is still free. Now it's taken by one Mark Sutz.<p>Interesting. So, if you ever have an idea for a domain keep it to yourself, don't mention it on HN. (Not that I was planning to register it, but it serves as a good reminder that the walls sometimes do have ears). <comment><USER2> Same with startup ideas. However, we are rarely original in our ideas, so we often confuse coincidence with theft.</comment>


Uses of implicit differentiation - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
I have now gained an intuition of solving a simple equation involving implicit differentiation.example x^2y = 5 where y is considered to be a function of x even though it's not quite obvious.(it's not explicitly stated like y = f(x).)in this case we proceed taking the derivative using the power and the chain rule.my question is what is this implicit differentiation all about?i tried doing a google search on this but couldn't find a convincing article.wikipedia too starts off with the definition of it which i couldn't understand.neither of the two talks about the practicle uses of it. i'll be really happy if someone could explain this concept in detail.so far i've been blindly solving problems involving this technic
Thank You <comment><USER2> In your example, y _is_ a function of x. x is also a function of y. If you pick a value for x, there is a unique y that satisfies the equality. If you pick a value for y, there a unique x that satisfies the equality. Let's find y as a function of x

        x^2y = 5 => y = 5x^-2 <</comment><comment> this is y(x)

That's all it means. This a _function_ , because as mentioned, x uniquely determines y.

Now let's look at an example where y is _not_ a function of x - the standard example of a circle of radius r:

        x^2 + y^2 = r^2

solving for y gives

        y = +- sqrt(r^2 - x^2).

This is NOT a function, because for a value of x, we don't know which value of y to choose - it could be the positive case or the negative case. Geometrically, this means a line (like y = c) can intersect the circle in two places, so trying to find _the_ single intersection point is not well defined.

But the _gradient_ y' IS a function, a function of both x and y and we can find it by implicit differentiation (with respect to x):

        2x + 2yy' = 0 => y' = -x/y  <---- this is y'(x,y)

Geometrically this means that _given_ a point (x,y) on a circle, the gradient _is_ a well defined quantity, even though y(x) is not.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>

Also: I had a look at your submission history and I really don't think that HN is the right place for most of your questions. I'm just procrastinating by answering this. You should probably be using math.stackexchange.com or a similar site.

<comment><USER2> Ugh, I shouldn't try and post at stupidly late hours. In case you're still reading, in the first paragraph x is NOT also a function of y, as x = +- sqrt(5/y), and we have the choice of signs to deal with. The rest is ok.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a perfect example of how math is very simple. It just isn't always simple in a way our brains are wired to naturally follow. With the result that when people "get" a concept, they beat themselves up for not getting something so simple.

Implicit differentiation is simple in that way.

Let's take your example. xxy = 5. This implicitly defines some function y. xxy is an expression. And 5 is another expression. And the two are equal for all x. Now note that you can differentiate any expression you want to. For instance the derivative of xxy is 2xy + xxy'. And the derivative of 5 is 0.

The entire idea of implicit differentiation is this. If two expressions are the same for all x, then they have the same tangent lines, and therefore the same derivatives. Thus you don't need to solve for y first. You can just differentiate and solve for y' instead. This is convenient when y is difficult to solve for.

In this case you find that 2xy + xxy' = 0 so xxy' = -2xy and so y' = -2y/x.

That's all there is to it.

Now two notes of interest. The first is that regular differentiation is really just a special case of implicit differentiation. We get y=f(x) and differentiate both sides to get y'=f'(x). The second is that equations like y' = -2y/x are the start of a very important subject called differential equations.

</comment><comment><USER4> Your question is a little vague, but I'll try.

What it is: Differentiate both sides of an equation. That's it.

Why it works: When two things are equal, if we transform them in identical ways (being careful about what "identical" means), then the results are equal. So if two differentiable functions are equal, then their derivatives must be equal.

What it's good for: In spite of all the carefully selected examples we're given in calculus class, the fact is that solving equations is often very difficult, and usually _impossible_. So if someone writes some "f(x,y) = k", and asks you to solve for y in terms of x, well, in general, you can't do it.

Now, suppose you want to find dy/dx in the above situation. The "usual" way is to solve for y and then differentiate. But what if you cannot do that? If you can find the derivative, w.r.t. x, of f(x,y), then you can apply implicit differentiation, to get something like g(x,y)*dy/dx + h(x,y) = 0. Then finding dy/dx is easy.

So: What it is good for is finding a derivative while avoiding the pain (or the impossibility) of solving an equation.

Of course, that leads to the question of what derivatives are good for, but I'm hoping you have some inkling of the answer to that one. If not, then back up, and learn more about derivatives.</comment>


The last batches of IPv4 Internet addresses will be distributed Thursday - <AUTHOR> http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEC_INTERNET_ADDRESSES?SITE=ALOPE&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-02-01-17-11-28

<comment><USER2> This is starting to feel like Y2K.</comment>


Achieving 1.26% mcommerce conversion rate on a mobile ad network - <AUTHOR> http://blog.twotap.com/post/84443459295/achieving-1-26-mcommerce-conversion-rate-on-a-mobile

<comment><USER2> The retailer featured (Diamond Candles) had an interview on Mixergy: [http://mixergy.com/justin-winter-diamond-candles- interview/](http://mixergy.com/justin-winter-diamond-candles-interview/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Razvan, congrats on the app.

It would have been interesting to see comparision before and after TwoTap. Still, 1.x conversion sounds good for mobile un-targeted traffic.

<comment><AUTHOR> This model wasn't possible before so it's difficult to compare apples to apples but the increase in performance (products sold through this channel) is around 10x.

We believe 1.x conversion in this scenario is incredibly good considering there's room to improve AND these are transactions. The performance here is better than most mobile CTRs for banners.

<comment><USER3> Don't know about your target market but to me 10x increase sounds a whole lot better than 1.x conversion rate. \+ I would have loved to see a video with the checkout process

<comment><AUTHOR> The 10x is harder to define compared to the typical scenario before Two Tap. The real achievement here is the conversion rate considering mobile + commerce + general traffic.

Feel free to test out the checkout at [https://core.twotap.com/demo](https://core.twotap.com/demo) or with other publishers (maybe Honey, the Chrome extension?)

Thanks for contributing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What are Apples rules about by bypassing their payment system? Does it only work for physical goods?

<comment><AUTHOR> It works for any product from any retailer we currently support and it doesn't impact Apple's payment system, it's an ecommerce transaction outside of it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, deleted the post by mistake, not sure it can still be upvoted.

Happy to answer any questions publicly or privately.

</comment><comment><USER5> What did the ad look like?</comment>


UK government wants to make copyright law by decree, bypassing parliament - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/19/mandelson-copyright-filesharing-murdoch-google

<comment><AUTHOR> Not satisfied with the powers he'll get against filesharers in the new Digital Economy Bill -- a £50,000 fine and banning from the internet -- Lord Mandelson has decided that to stop illegal copying, he needs the power to make new laws by decree.</comment>