Ask HN: Why do we (hackers) suck at design? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Most designers suck at design.

Consider the convergence of design of laptops and smartphones. If designers were competent, we would see a multitude of designs, since a good design must be designed _for_ something, analoguous to how optimization must optimize for something. Given the extreme similarity between available designs, there are presumably a significant number of professional designers incapable of generating anything interesting. (I would wager most laptop/smartphone designs at the moment are designed as cheap apple copies, which makes for no differentiation since everything else is designed for the same.)

<comment><USER3> Design is how something works. Glass rectangles are currently the best solution for mobile computing. This is how design works, Someone innovates, the industry copies the design, minor tweaks are made until another breakthrough happens (usually driven by tech, not design).

Designers don't suck a design, designers solve problems, and often the best solutions all look the same until there is a real tech break-though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Primarily because most hackers don't practice or study design.

As a further reason, consider an instructive metaphor: if you asked a blacksmith why he sucks at writing, his answer would probably be "That's not what they pay me for."

<comment><USER5> I'd add that this question your answer is an excellent example of the fixed / growth mindset I read about in a _Gates Notes_ [1]. 'I'm not good at math it's not for me' vs 'I'm not good at it because I did not spent enough time with it'.

[1] [https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New- Psychology-...](https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Mindset-The-New-Psychology- of-Success)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a coder, I don't think I "suck at design" in terms of product decisions. However, it's way easier to code something I have a sketch file for than something I have in my head. Whether I made it or someone else made it doesn't matter. Just having something to work against makes for much more consistent UI.

IME this is because when we code without a spec, we haven't answered all the questions up front. Either we box ourselves in by how we designed the code, or we make a spaghetti soup of UI buttons as we add unplanned features.

So, the important thing is not necessarily that we as coders "suck at design," so much as that we tend to sometimes code without first thinking about the UI.

</comment><comment><USER7> Many hackers have a dismissive attitude towards design.

It gets worse when they seem to be proud of it too.

Just checkout any GNU project or other "hardcore hacker" projects like OpenBSD.

You can spot their design feel from a thousand miles away.

"Ugly and proud of it!"

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it requires a different mindset in that with programming, I can, for many tasks but not all, kind of get in the zone and crank things out. But (for me) design is not like that. It's more experimental, a bit slower paced, requires a lot of subjective decisions and iterations. And sometimes the changes are very minor -- it's no code refactoring typically. But a number of small changes can have a big impact (just like code in a way). I think part of the problem is the decision tree is very big and the subjectivity makes it easy to go down the wrong path. So it's easy to dismiss it as too hard and settle for subpar.

I think all of that is fine as long as you pick it up again another day and keep on trying to make it better. I was all set to hire a designer to help with my most recent side project but I wanted to tidy it up a bit first and I ended up really happy with my changes and decided not to go with a designer.

So I think it is about effort and being willing to approach it as something different that takes time and relaxed effort to improve at.

As a side note, I'd recommend not studying (or accepting as ideal) designers output before evaluating it critically. A lot seem fixated still on print and ship static screens that often overlook user experience (or don't convey it at all). When I see things like more than 3 to 4 different font sizes on a web page design, I start to suspect the designer is more print-orientated. Obviously this is subjective and I'm talking about an initial design. Sometimes such a variety of font sizes is required but I wouldn't expect that early on. The hint here is that simplicity is incredibly powerful in design and it is more accessible to beginners so even if you think 10 font sizes on a page is fine, you might not want to go that path as a beginner.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a fascinating topic because I consider myself both a "hacker" and a "designer"... as of lately I've been coining the term "creative engineer" to represent the two.

Anyways, here are my thoughts from my observations as a creative individual.

Good design is a by-product of an individual's relentless pursuit of solving one or many problems. Very rarely do you have more than one of these individuals on a design team because they are stubborn and idealistic. But they have to be.

They are leaders that excel at providing a collaborative environment for everyone on the team.

They listen to every good or bad idea without dismissing that person's energy or intent behind it. They respect the person above all else.

They inspire those around them into new directions and encourage people to let go of all their preconceptions.

They protect against all the conscious and subconscious biasses that influence our design decisions.

They embrace mistakes and experiment with the unknown.

They check their ego.

This individual realizes that their quest towards great design is filled with a lot of failures, hard work, and loneliness. But the reward of seeing good design first-hand is worth it.

They do it because they care and it's worth doing right, not because they are told to do it.

Anyone can be creative; it just requires looking at the world differently.

Pick up a rock, what do you see? Is it just a rock? What are all the ways that you could use that rock? Now place the rock in your pocket, and throughout the day ask yourself about that rock. If you do this just for a single day, you might just find something that could benefit from a rock.

Cheers.

</comment><comment><USER10> Its honestly not that hard to get to the novice level at design and be able to have conversations with experts in the field. Like other things in its basics you're learning vocabulary and the rudimentary understanding of "why" certain patterns are used. If you're not looking at doing the design yourself you can bootstrap this up inside of a year.

I found [https://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering- Be...](https://www.amazon.com/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering- Beauty/dp/1119998956) to be a good basic overview of a lot of elements.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think this is very subjective, but I'm going to give it a shot.

People are usually either artistic/creative or booksmart.

Of course there are people that excels at both, but not in the general public.

So I would assume it's because most "hackers" are booksmart and not as much artistic/creative.

You're not actually asking the right question, because it's not just about design and creativity.

A great article: [https://www.healthline.com/health/left-brain-vs-right- brain](https://www.healthline.com/health/left-brain-vs-right-brain)

</comment><comment><USER12> That should sound as sensible a question as "Why do designers suck at coding?" The meta question is why is this a seemingly reasonable question?

</comment><comment><USER13> Because you do not practice enough?

</comment><comment><USER14> left brain VS right brain, maybe ? different ways to approach problems, or even regard this or that "problem" interesting ?... it's more or less acknowledged that mastery on any subject comes after 10.000 hours of practice ( or so ) and most people won't dedicate themselves to 20.000 hours to master two completely diverse subjects.

</comment><comment><USER15> Because doing it right takes time and it's not where we want to get stuck spending all our time on?

</comment><comment><USER16> Low IQ, generally. Design is learnable like anything else.

</comment><comment><USER17> Because you don't study it?</comment>


A micro compiler in Ocaml - <AUTHOR> http://troydm.github.io/blog/2014/03/29/writing-micro-compiler-in-ocaml/ <comment><USER2> As well as Real World OCaml (linked in the OP), there are also a number of tutorials/exercises at [http://ocaml.org/learn/tutorials/](http://ocaml.org/learn/tutorials/)

The most visited of these pages is 99 problems: [http://ocaml.org/learn/tutorials/99problems.html](http://ocaml.org/learn/tutorials/99problems.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Our program will preallocate 1000 bytes on stack for variables, since all of our variables are static."

Oof, talk about cutting corners. Works well enough until you need function calls, I guess.

Anybody who finds this intriguing might look at [http://esumii.github.io/min- caml/index-e.html](http://esumii.github.io/min-caml/index-e.html), which is also written in OCaml and goes into a bit more depth.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know what the purpose is here, but I think it would be a lot smaller if the standard tools for lexing and parsing were used. [http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml-400/manual026.htm...](http://caml.inria.fr/pub/docs/manual- ocaml-400/manual026.html)

<comment><USER5> Most real production compilers don't use lexer or parser generators.

<comment><USER6> A "micro compiler" doesn't qualify as "real production compiler". I think pointing out that a lexer/parser could have been used is relevant in this case.

<comment><USER5> Lexer/parser generators aren't used in practice even for hobbyists, so pointing out standard tools could have been used is weird since the tools are obviously not that popular.

<comment><USER7> In my experience lexers and parser generators are used extensively by hobbyists. Tools such as Antlr, Boost.Spirit and Xtext come to mind.

<comment><USER8> Xtext is very marginal compared to the far wider world of custom languages. Antlr not so much, but still, tons of people write rec. des. parsers themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And more mini-languages which are implemented in Ocaml, here:

[https://github.com/andrejbauer/plzoo](https://github.com/andrejbauer/plzoo)

</comment><comment><USER10> this reminds me of a neglected bookmark, the original rust compiler in ocaml from 3 years ago [http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/18b808/is_the_original...](http://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/18b808/is_the_original_ocaml_compiler_still_available/)</comment>


Show HN: An Android app for meh.com written entirely in Kotlin - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/burntcookie90/KotMeh

<comment><AUTHOR> Let me know what you guys think!

It's a pretty simple example that uses MVP alongisde Kotlin/Anko.</comment>


Apple and Spotify can now play podcasts on your Alexa-enabled devices - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/13/21020492/apple-spotify-alexa-podcasts-amazon-echo-homepod-siri <comment><USER2> Why was this not a thing before?

<comment><AUTHOR> Strategy Tax. The opposite is being on competing platforms and is called a Strategy Credit.</comment></comment>


Show HN: CLI browser bookmark search - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/chr15m/marcus <comment><USER2> It's cool that it's written in hylang! :)

Could this script be modified so that it [also] indexes the browser history? I rarely use browser bookmarks but I would definitely install marcus if it could search my browser history.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea. I'll add an issue to investigate. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Eliminating Schema Rot in MPP Databases Like Redshift - <AUTHOR> http://blog.treasuredata.com/2015/02/27/schema-management-redshift/

<comment><USER2> This article is nothing more than a thinly masked advert for Treasure Data.

<comment><AUTHOR> It really isn't (Disclaimer: I work there and wrote the entry)

In fact, you can replace Treasure Data with anything that is:

1\. Schemaless storage

2\. Allows you to output results easily and reliably to MPP databases.

What I noticed is that a lot of people tout various MPP engines, cloud or on- premises, as the only storage layer with any queryable interface that they need, and we think that's a bad approach.

Some folks are starting to realize this. For example, here is an article by Martin Fowler: [http://martinfowler.com/bliki/DataLake.html](http://martinfowler.com/bliki/DataLake.html) that talks about the concept of "data lake". The problem is, most data lakes are utterly inaccessible to the data scientist/analyst camps.

EDIT: some grammatical clarifications

<comment><USER2> I agree that the problem of schema rot is an issue, and I'm sure that Treasure Data is a great solution. I'm also sure you had good intentions posting this. However, that said your article reads like an advert rather than the kind of detailed technical explanation that HN readers deserve.

A visitor is probably looking for a technical answer to "How can I prevent schema rot?" and the only answer I see in this article is "Contact us to learn about Treasure Data".

If the technical details about how Treasure Data works and what it does under the covers beyond just sit between my app and RedShift were more prominent and the sales pitch was less prominent that would be fine. But instead it just looks like self promotion of an advert article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the good feedback.

>I agree that the problem of schema rot is an issue

I am glad to hear that, and as someone who once landed a patch on PHP (proof! [https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=61124&edit=3](https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=61124&edit=3)), I feel terrible that it read like an advert. I will consider writing a more technically sound followup.

Curious: do you feel this "schema rot" pain today? If so, can you elaborate on it?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Notes – Simple and fast note-taking in Chrome. (Chrome extension) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/penge/my-notes <comment><AUTHOR> My Notes allows you to write down notes, todos, research, or any text, directly in a Chrome's New Tab.</comment>


Learn about Startups with YC at Carnegie Mellon University today (Apr 5th, 6pm) - <AUTHOR> http://ycombinator.posterous.com/learn-about-startups-with-yc-at-carnegie-mell

<comment><USER2> Dang, I'm going for a CMU college visit today morning but I have to be out of there in the afternoon. I really wish I could stay...

Will this meeting be recorded/available online?

</comment><comment><USER3> This was great. Thanks for putting it one. Looking forward to hearing back from you guys for our startup FeedForward: <http://www.feed-forward.net>

</comment><comment><USER4> Wish I could see it. Anyone know if this is going to be broadcast?

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know if this is open to anyone?

<comment><USER6> You'll have no trouble getting into the building (it's unlocked on weekdays) -- you want the entrance to the fourth floor on Forbes between Morewood and Neville.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Looking forward to the event.</comment>


Larry Wall: On programming languages - <AUTHOR> http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2007/12/06/soto-11.html?page=1 <comment><USER2> Scheme (via DrScheme) caters to mere mortals more than any other programming language ever has.

In every powerful language, it's easy for a typo to create a valid program, but one that doesn't do what you intended. Usually you get an obscure error message related to the advanced feature you accidentally invoked.

DrScheme takes you through a series of learning languages, each increasingly powerful. Mistakes in the early languages create helpful error messages. You don't get a better on-ramp than that.

</comment><comment><USER3> His reasons for Tcl "languishing" were true until about _10 years ago_ , when 8.0 came out. Tcl was doing quite well then, and only started "languishing" later. It's a long story, sometime I'll write up my somewhat peripheral view of it.</comment>


The international student bait-and-switch - <AUTHOR> https://themargins.substack.com/p/the-international-student-bait-and <comment><USER3> This article really hit home with me. My girlfriend is an international student, so I'm all too aware of the ridiculous things these people have to deal with even in normal times. With COVID-19 and current politics, the immigration system has gone from slow to glacial, and now they're trying to cut staff. We've had to worry about work authorization in the past -- i.e. that my girlfriend might not be able to get a job after college because the approval is taking so long and that she would be forced to leave the country if she couldn't get a job within the allotted time. Right now, she can't legally drive (!!!) because her work authorization renewal, which she applied for with ample time, hasn't come through yet. In a couple months, we'll be back to worrying about job loss and deportation...

It's so stressful to worry about your transportation, your income & career prospects, your education, your friends & loved ones, and your entire life in the States being taken away because of politics that change with the whims of the current administration. My heart goes out to the people who have lost the chance to attend great universities, work at great companies, and live in the States because of this. Hurting them only comes back around to hurt us.

<comment><USER4> > We've had to worry about work authorization in the past -- i.e. that my > girlfriend might not be able to get a job after college because the approval > is taking so long and that she would be forced to leave the country if she > couldn't get a job within the allotted time. Right now, she can't legally > drive (!!!) because her work authorization renewal, which she applied for > with ample time, hasn't come through yet. In a couple months, we'll be back > to worrying about job loss and deportation...

What if she were your wife?

<comment><USER5> That is one legal route, but it takes time, and immigration being the reason for a hasty greencard marriage that the couple wasn't already naturally for, is never a good thing for the relationship and mental health of the couple.

It does make me wonder though why there isn't a "long-term relationship visa" for people who haven't reached marriage yet but want to be together and be eligible to work, and require some evidence that the two have been together stably for some period of time. In many cases one party is a US citizen and it would be in the best interest of the mental health of that US citizen to allow his/her partner to be together with them, and from the government perspective would thus be indirectly in the best interest of the country.

<comment><USER4> > It does make me wonder though why there isn't a "long-term relationship > visa" for people who haven't reached marriage yet but want to be together > and be eligible to work

What purpose would this status serve that marriage wouldn't? What is the idea behind planning to be in a permanent relationship, but not marrying?

<comment><USER5> > What is the idea behind planning to be in a permanent relationship, but not > marrying?

What? This seems perfectly normal to me. At least for me any serious relationship is always with at least the vision of permanence, starting from the very beginning of when you call yourselves official -- unless it fails at some point.

Considering most such failures occur in the first couple years, as you're still getting to understand each other, it's probably a bad idea to jump the gun into marriage that early while you still don't have a full understanding of each other. But that doesn't make it any less "planning to be permanent".

I'd also say that people who meet "the one" earlier on should arguably stay unmarried for longer. If you meet at 20, I'd say wait till 25+ till you marry. A lot can change in a person between 20 and 25. If you meet at 30, you can cut that shorter a bit and that's fine because most people know what they want in life at 30.

But a 22 year old US citizen who has been in a 2 year stable relationship with an F1 student, possibly living together, with permanent intent? I'd say don't rush them into marriage, but for goodness sake, let them be happily together.

<comment><USER6> > If you meet at 30, you can cut that shorter a bit and that's fine because > most people know what they want in life at 30.

I'd like to meet that "most people" you mentioned. So far, everyone I ever knew at best was conformed with the constraints placed on their life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I too am an immigrant to the United States and it's frustrating to read this, and not because the reasons most people might think. I came here as a child and I am reminded every day of the privilege American residency and citizenship affords me. The family that I left behind in my home country is still struggling to make ends meet, while I was, as recently as Feb. 2020, making nearly $200K per year as an attorney. I lost my job due to Covid-19, but I am optimistic that my future is bright, mostly because America is still a land of opportunity, unlike the vast majority of the world.

Mr. Duruk's thought's are frustrating to read because he assumes his privilege. He assumes he's owed an easy and straightforward journey to citizenship, that his future as a foreign-student shouldn't be jeopardized in the least by the political whims of the local population, as if the ravaged parts of THIS nation which screamed out and democratically elected a protectionist president do not deserve to be heard at the international's community's expense.

America isn't perfect, no country is, but having lived here for twenty years, having experienced life in other places, and having traveled internationally, I wouldn't chose another place as my home--and apparently neither would Mr. Duruk.

While I do not agree with this administration's immigration policies, I have enough perspective to realize that immigration policy is ultimately beholden to the local population. That is what democracy entails. Nobody owes anybody anything in life, complaining as if you are owed something reeks of privilege and a sense of entitlement.

<comment><USER8> > He assumes he's owed an easy and straightforward journey to citizenship, > that his future as a foreign-student shouldn't be jeopardized in the least > by the political whims of the local population, as if the ravaged parts of > THIS nation which screamed out and democratically elected a protectionist > president do not deserve to be heard at the international's community's > expense.

I don't think that's it. What the person seems to begrudge is them breaking the implicit deal. No one will ever willingly pay $200k to a university if vastly improved career prospects were not promised at the end of it.

Countries are expected to have a cohesive foreign policy across Govts. When the world most 'credible' country starts changing policies based on which side of the bed the president woke up on, it can get quite irritating for those stuck in the midst.

> I wouldn't chose another place as my home--and apparently neither would Mr. > Duruk

Being better than a rapidly Islamizing Turkey under dictatorial rule isn't a huge positive.

Also, it might be a coincidence, but it can rub people the wrong way that immigration is significantly easier for predominantly white Europeans (no visa needed to visit in practice (for audition, interview) and no waiting periods for immigration) as compared to people from Islamic countries (single entry visas) or Asia (infinite waiting periods).

> I have enough perspective to realize that immigration policy is ultimately > beholden to the local population.

Agreed, as long as the country doesn't pull a, "I've altered the deal, pray I don't alter it further".

I have always maintained a "reject them at the gate" policy. Don't welcome them with open arms, and then leave them to drown in the deep end.

<comment><USER9> F1 visa is non-immigrant; you are supposed to go back to your country after you're done with your studies or if you drop out. So the author was never promised a path to immigration, in fact, he actually promised to leave the US unless granted a change of status (which is a privilege and cannot be automatically expected, of course)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This ruling on international student is just plain cruel. I know how much hard work I had to put in to secure an F1 visa, and then had to invest in lease, buying a car etc. with very meager means. To come in the middle of that and tell everyone pack up and leave is just straight up evil. The next strategy will be deny visas for anyone re-applying for F-1, drastically reducing student numbers

<comment><USER11> Will it really reduce student numbers? There are usually more than enough Americans on the wait list for US schools.

<comment><USER12> US schools can't exactly support all those American students without income, and international students are that source of income.

My university (UIUC) heavily relies on international student tuition to provide facilities, pay teachers, and give financial support to students who need it, despite the fact that it's a public university; they simply don't get enough funding from the state.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Soft power was always crucial to US success. US as a cultural juggernaut in the 20th century was a key reason the US won the Cold War - not hard power. Projecting "liberal values" out to the world was part of it.

Since the Iraq war, the emperor has increasingly had no clothes. Instead of moral progress to realize those ideal, things have increasingly devolved and the bottom keeps dropping out...

I have optimism that even now the majority of Americans hold to some ideals to aspire to, and that eventually given a generation, things can change. But I won't hold my breath!

<comment><USER14> _not hard power_

What? There was a massive military build up in the US during the 90's including things like SDI.

<comment><USER15> The cold war ended in the 80's.

<comment><USER16> Yeah after 1980 or so the 'cold war' was just about siphoning taxpayer money to the military industrial complex.

<comment><USER14> I'd _love_ to hear how you arrived at that conclusion (that somehow military spending before 1980 wasn't the same as post-1980).

<comment><USER16> Easy because I grew up in the Valley during the 1960's and 70's. If you believed the muttering of military and aerospace engineers and the occasional ex-soviet engineer, or the girl material science engineer I knew that spent a year studying in the Soviet Union. Well you knew the war was over and the Soviets lost. Or you could believe the usual propaganda.

I am amazed how many people still choose to believe the propaganda.

<comment><USER14> Certainly no lack of strong opinions from engineers.

<comment><USER16> Go look at the MiG-25 which the US got their hands on in 1977 and then come back and say the Soviets hadn't lost the cold war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> as, a former international student in the us. I wouldn't recommend, anyone coming here to be an undergrad f1 student. PHD yes, everything else no. You can go to various countries and be better. though other countries might be expensive. I went to a state school, which by large was affordable. and just come to the us for things like Spring break or vacation i.e experience american life.

<comment><USER18> For many folks IN the US...that can be good advice as far choosing expensive undergrad schools, vs community college or more affordable options.

Interestingly enough I've seen a surprising number of international students going to more obscure and affordable US colleges than in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So glad I finished my studies before the pandemic... But, yes, universities do treat international students as if they are made of money.

</comment><comment><USER20> I guess I just don't believe the notion that ICE made this decision to try and force universities to reopen. It just makes so little sense. I understand that this administration's is interested in returning to normalcy, but surely university's aren't high on their priority list?

Meanwhile, we have now four years of evidence that at every moment where they can reduce the number of illegal immigrants to the US, they make that decision. Whether it's banning people based on their religion or kicking out people who have been legally living here for decades as refugees. It just makes far more sense that the administration's real goal here is to reduce the number of foreign students, not to force universities to reopen. The director of homeland security just doesn't want to admit it.

<comment><USER21> > Meanwhile, we have now four years of evidence that at every moment where > they can reduce the number of illegal immigrants to the US, they make that > decision.

Did you mean "legal immigrants"?

<comment><USER20> That was a typo, thanks for the catch!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Seems like schools could just create:

"International Students 223: In Person Cultural Learning."

And make all assessment digital. In practice it is an in person lab, but one nobody must show up for.

<comment><USER23> While I wholeheartedly agree with the intent behind this sort of protest, this moves universities into a more illegitimate category and jeopardizes their students' lives. It gives fuel to people who call universities as scams, and gives ICE an excuse to go after students and faculty for abetting this scheme. While this is fun to fantasize about on Twitter for Likes, universities are part of the countries' major institutions and are under major scrutiny so must follow the law to the letter.

<comment><USER24> Universities could pander and make the class on the US Constitution (a relatively short document) where the in-person component is an easy oral exam, given to each student individually so they do not have to gather in a classroom.

Other options which may be a good idea to do anyway is a public speaking class or a discussion class (almost exclusively on zoom) where students are asked to reflect on their goals and future plans.

<comment><USER23> They already have classes like that. The only difference is they're at their standard level of rigor. So you're just proposing increasing enrollment and dropping standards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thanks for writing that.

> all I can feel sometimes is that I've bet on the wrong horse

This is a very American experience, where there is no safety net for being wrong if you run out of money on the bet, but we do have convenient bankruptcy laws when you run out of other people's money on top of that.

> The whole point of moving to the developed world is to not have to deal with > developing world problems

The only unique thing about America is having the resources to do better, it just doesn't. so I am pretty thrilled that people are being forced to reconcile the difference between Hollywood propaganda and real life.

Most other major economic unions were forced to become more inclusive and empathic, by invasion and reeducation. The US has never been forced to reconcile any part of its culture, it is populated by people with incompatible extremes of ideologies wherever they came from, and it promotes those extremes for temporary unilateral control of US resources.

Your writing was very insightful, I hope this helps you patch your understanding of what America is and gives you a more objective way to use it as a tool.

</comment><comment><USER26> Feels like a fairly quick chat with an American could have dispelled some of the overly-positive ideas about the US they claim to have had.

<comment><USER14> Certain Americans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The US is not a dependable partner anymore. Not on the international political stage nor on the personal stage.

<comment><USER28> Is there a country that is a more dependable country and that has the means to project power and influence around the world?

China? If we are worried about the US becoming "America first", I think China is even more nationalistic than the US and looks through a prism of does this benefit China.

India? Has no interest in foreign adventures. Especially under Modi, has become more nationalistic

Russia? See Ukraine.

Japan? Prevented by its constitution from foreign adventures

UK? Brexit

France? Actually, partially exited NATO decades ago. Very nationalistic.

Germany? Doesn't have much ability to project power. Depends on Russia for vital natural gas.

<comment><USER29> > Is there a country that is a more dependable country and that has the means > to project power and influence around the world?

What's the purpose of the question? If you are looking for a place to work, live or do business with, the dependability is important, but I couldn't care less about whether eg Switzerland projects any power when making any personal or business decisions.

(Now, if I was the head of a country and looking for allies, that would be different. But I doubt many people are in that position.)

<comment><USER28> The grand parent post also mentioned "the international political stage"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > International students, however, by and large, pay the full ride in most > schools in undergrad and in master's programs. Very few schools offer any > scholarship to international students, and of those that do, the terms are > often not as comparable.

In my experience this is almost completely false. They do have to pay out-of- state tuition to public schools, and they generally aren't eligible for taxpayer-funded need-based aid. But we don't blink at giving scholarships to international applicants just as often as domestic. Often international students dominate the applications to master's programs, and get all the scholarships too.

<comment><USER31> I was an international student (undergrad) and your impression is... well, it differs from mine.

No need-blind admission (except at the school I went to, the others literally told me I was too poor) and no government funded student loans (my private loans, which were still non-recourse, started accruing 12% interest the day I took them out)

Graduate school is slightly different in that you're often working for the school to cover the tuition, and who is eligible will be based on the donors and the program administrators.

<comment><USER30> I have been on the admissions committee at a university and literally chose students to award scholarships to.

You can be too poor to be eligible for a visa (which goes for any country I'm aware of), there is a govt requirement to be able to support yourself. Otherwise I find it odd that schools would tell you anything about why you weren't accepted.

As for "no government funded student loans", I said there were no taxpayer- funded student need-based aid.

Graduate school includes Master's programs which the blog post was also talking about, and which only rarely come with teaching or research assistantships (those are primarily for supporting phd students). But international students are just as eligible for those as anyone else. It's much more common for MS students to get a scholarship than an assistantship.

For phd students, the primary sources of funding is overwhelmingly research grants the faculty member themselves get from the NSF and NIH. These grants almost never require the supported students to have permanent residency. Many programs (e.g. phd in electrical and mechanical engineering and many schools) would cease to exist if that were a requirement.

<comment><USER32> So, in your estimation, do you think that

1) international students are a major source of revenue for many US colleges and, more strongly,

2) they bring in a higher share of the revenue than what their share of students is?

<comment><USER30> Is this curiosity, or a moving goalpost as part of an argument?

Seems to me that completely depends on the school. Maybe international students will only come to a particular school if they get a free ride, while local domestic students will pay the tuition for the convenience of being near home.

At tuition-driven schools (i.e. most schools, but not the big ranked research schools we always hear about), most students are there as sources of revenue, except for the stars they can entice with full scholarships.

At research schools, research grants are the main source of revenue. The rest is a sideshow.

Also in either type of school, if they live off campus (far more common for MS and phd students than undergrad) then they are less revenue per student. Schools are essentially in the hotel business too. We are learning all about this lately.

<comment><USER32> > Is this curiosity, or a moving goalpost as part of an argument?

The reason I ask is because there seems to be a side argument on who is paying more, domestic or international students. I would've thought foreigners pay more (that seems to be the case in the UK), but would defer to your first hand expertise.

However, what the article is predicated on is just that international students bring in "enough" revenue that they can be used as leverage against the universities. I was wondering whether you'd concede that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This too shall pass. Ask the people that had the misfortune of being in foreign student status on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

</comment><comment><USER34> as an intl student, most of what is written is so true.

</comment><comment><USER35> They lose their immigration status? I thought they can return once their schools reopen?

<comment><USER36> They lose their status when the school goes online, since they are not currently enrolled in in-person classes. They will probably have to apply to reinstate their status in order to return.

Even if those applications are likely to be accepted, dealing with immigration bureaucracy is an absolute nightmare and anyone who is even slightly an edge case is gonna go through hell.

<comment><USER37> In addition to the big risk, hassle and cost of flying back to your home country and having to find housing for an uncertain amount of time, all amid a global pandemic.

<comment><USER38> Housing in many places is going to be a lot cheaper than the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > _Most fundamentally, I've always thought that the United States had a more > profound respect for human dignity._

It is always surprising to me that the US has been able to mostly maintain this image all while operating a global network of torture prisons and, now, domestic concentration camps for both adults and children, and while imprisoning 20x+ of its ethnic minorities, per capita, compared to China (which has, by various accounts, 1M+ in labor camps).

Do people not generally know what conditions inside US prisons are like? Are the torture facilities not common knowledge?

How is this level of spin even possible?

<comment><USER40> >and while imprisoning 20x+ of its ethnic minorities, per capita, compared to China (which has, by various accounts, 1M+ in labor camps).

Ignoring the "and you are lynching Negroes"[1] argument you're trying to make, your argument doesn't make sense on a logical level. How can you compare a relative figure ("20x+") with an absolute one ("1M+")? At least compare apples to apples.

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

<comment><USER39> It turns out that lynching black people in the United States was (and unfortunately remains) a very legitimate problem/criticism. The legalized system of prison slavery is another.

But, even those aside: Global network of CIA torture prisons. Concentration camps in Texas. Universal surveillance of all communications without judicial oversight. Extrajudicial assassination of citizens.

These are real things, happening today. Do people just ignore them because they don't fit the "land of the free" narrative?

<comment><USER38> "It turns out that lynching black people in the United States was (and unfortunately remains) a very legitimate problem/criticism."

Not even close to being true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Seems to me that the international student business is about selling a path to American citizenship.

How expensive can it get before the millions of students stop coming? How bad can the education be? How bad can the politics be?

I think the answer is a lot worse. USA is still attractive to billions of people on the planet.

<comment><USER42> Oh we sell a path to American citizenship, but it's not the international students. It's the EB-5 visa: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB-5_visa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB-5_visa) The purchase price of US permanent residence is as little as $900k, and until last November 21 it was as low as $500k.

Sure, the international students often don't pay that much, but in many cases they don't end up with good access to permanent residence either, let alone citizenship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have a feeling schools will figure out a straightforward loophole out of this. I'm also thinking that the USCIS/DHS might not have the ability/will/power to fully enforce something like this.

</comment><comment><USER44> > The whole point of moving to the developed world is to not have to deal with > developing world problems.

Tell that to the people living in Appalachia or on skid row in LA.

Like most third-world countries, the US is a fine place to live, if you have money and/or access to power. But if you're not in that category, don't expect anything from public institutions.

<comment><USER45> I'm curious what part of the country you actually live in. As somebody who just got back from a couple of weeks in boring, rural, flyover country: it's no surprise that the people who live there are so intensely patriotic.

<comment><USER46> So I'm literally "stuck" in rural Maine for this entire month. The landscape might be pretty sometimes, but there is absolutely nothing of value here. There are no jobs, no industry, no creativity, nothing being made or done or thought of here. The only people still left are the ones who couldn't run away. It actively feels like the town is dying, and it's not due to COVID as most people here think it's a hoax. What could these people possibly have to be patriotic of?

This is my home town. My mother still lives here. I cannot fathom how. The grocery stores look so run down the the Walmart one town over has entire chunks of the store just flat and open and missing. I tried to purchase a basketball the other day and there was not a single one to be found in any of the three low quality dollar stores or anywhere else. I tried to get something mailed to me and instead of prompt delivery it disappeared into a USPS facility for five days.

The town _feels_ sick and dying

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> What will this do to American competitiveness in the global race for talent? Most developed countries are doing a lot to attract and retain them.

Talented people have good memories. They will remember this and tell their friends and people who go to them for advice for years to come.

"Trump's freeze on new visas could threaten US dominance in AI

The president's executive order to temporarily suspend H-1B visas exacerbates the US's precarious position in the global competition for AI talent."

[https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/26/1004520/trump- ex...](https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/06/26/1004520/trump-executive- order-h1b-visa-threatens-us-ai/)

<comment><USER48> Maybe it will incentivize universities to grow talent locally

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> This whole piece reads wrong for me.

The United States has been disenfranchising its own citizens for decades particulary economically.

Students from around the world should be allowed to stay but this world view is so foreign, pun not intended, from my perspective as a mixed man from a broken background.

</comment><comment><USER50> Hoping that some colleges pull a fast one, like having one in-person lecture a week that are widely known to be shams and not for actual attendance, perhaps a lecture about a Simpsons episode, to maintain the "in-person" eligibility while having nobody attend, and then litigate the issue in court when the government tries to call them on it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Shouldn't International Students have to "pay a full ride"? I mean most of the stipulations with grants are intended to keep the knowledge and donations within the community. That seems entitled and very "woe is me" to me.

<comment><USER52> The article isn't arguing against paying a full ride, it's saying they shouldn't be treated like political pawns after they do so.

For context, the current administration is using international student visas as leverage to get universities open for in-person classes this year.

<comment><USER51> Yeah, I agree with that. I guess I just mean I think it distracts a little bit and makes the point weaker overall. No one should be treated like that though, and I wholly believe that there is suffering associated with that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Australia: we want more international students. you are worth $16b+ to us annually. (some estimates go to $30b of on-value)

Also Australia: Oh, covid: no money for you, indigent peons!

Basically, if you cannot afford to eat, as a displaced international student its begging, or starving. No help.

Truly amazing lack of insight into future study outcomes here.

We used to have a strategy called "the colombo plan" which was free tertiary education on a requirement to _go back home_ and this built links into emerging economies which liked us.

Now, our strategy is to milk international students dry, keep the ones who can survive exclusionist immigration policy, and screw everyone over if the risk- side tanks. Great plan!

<comment><USER54> > Now, our strategy is to milk international students dry, keep the ones who > can survive exclusionist immigration policy, and screw everyone over if the > risk-side tanks. Great plan!

Whilst at the same time ignoring local students almost completely.

It's a loss-loss!

<comment><USER53> ten points to gryffendor!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'll be the devil's advocate here. US as a country of choice for education, work and life is unbeatable. The author himself is looking forward to getting the citizenship soon. US also has a lot of structural issues, as any country and any structure of government does. US educational institutions and the teaching will still hold appeal and after Covid settles down, it'll still continue to attract international students. While international students pay full price, international students also receive scholarships and the student loan crisis of (mostly) American students shows that American students are not as subsidized as the author claims. Economy is interlinked - <USER2> students end up in tech sector jobs, earn exorbitant sums (PM in a FANG company is earning $400K while average American wage is closer to $50K), possibly joining social media businesses (morally challenged business models) and further straining the social fabric in the US. This is my conjecture, based on my experience. I'm an international student and studied in a premier US university and have all my friends working mostly in SF and NYC. Of late, I'm starting to judge things on the basis of what heals US and avoid picking things in isolation. In summary, I see that the immigration rules have been harshly implemented, but again, it's covid and I'm not sure what a measured response is anymore. US is well within its right to control immigration as it feels like, internationals like US because there is something about US that's hard to unpack, but as a whole, something to cherish and love. In my opinion, the author is fair to call out the immigration rule implementation, everything else feels like a rant and I have a hard time buying into the criticism.</comment>


Finland's fake four-day week became a 'fact' in Europe's media - <AUTHOR> https://newsnowfinland.fi/politics/how-finlands-fake-four-day-week-became-a-fact-in-europes-media <comment><USER2> A symptom of modern desk-bound journalism, I think.

<comment><USER3> Which is a symptom of Facebook and Google - two enormous advertising companies - sucking most of the profit away from selling advertisement in news sources.</comment></comment>


Why concerns about Net Neutrality are overblown - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/opinion/net-neutrality-overblown-concerns.html <comment><USER2> > Even if they wanted to, service providers would have a hard time extorting > money from huge companies like Google and Netflix, because each service > provider needs Google and its billions of users a lot more than Google needs > it.

Didn't Netflix agree under duress to pay Comcast for peering? If the strategy was successful for Comcast in that instance why does the author feel it would not be successful for other ISPs?

<comment><USER3> It did. The author's "theory" has no basis in reality.</comment></comment>


POTUS Requests $33.4M to Close National Endowment for Humanities - <AUTHOR> https://www.neh.gov/news/neh-statement-proposed-fy-2021-budget <comment><AUTHOR> The National Endowment for the Humanities does great work. [https://www.neh.gov/our-work](https://www.neh.gov/our-work). Why should the White House want to close it down.

<comment><USER2> Is the endowment strictly apolitical? That's the only reason I can think of that they would want it closed.

<comment><USER3> Unfortunately, many things are political merely by association in the public consciousness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's important to remember that in negotiations, both sides strategically establish their initial demands to be much more extreme than what they ultimately expect to receive. That is the case here. The Executive branch is posturing for budgetary negotiations. The NEH will likely survive, perhaps with a diminished budget, as a concession.

</comment><comment><USER5> Stand by for "Piss Christ" essays any minute now.</comment>


A Tiny Austrian Town Has the Coolest Bus Shelters (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/design/2014/05/a-tiny-austrian-town-has-coolest-bus-shelters-weve-ever-seen/371078 <comment><USER2> Here's one of my favourites[1] - in Bjørnevatn, (very) close to Norway's border with Russia on some 70 degrees of latitude.

It is a shovel from a heavy excavator used in a nearby mine; offers protection from the elements as well as anything except all-out nuclear war. Weighs in at 18,000kg/40,000lbs.

[1] [https://www.ifinnmark.no/ost-finnmark/norges-toffeste- bussku...](https://www.ifinnmark.no/ost-finnmark/norges-toffeste- busskur/s/1-49-7023005)

<comment><USER3> If the burst is not from the front, you'll be fine up to an overpressure of around 10psi, at which point the anchors will probably fail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some of these may be really arty, but IMO a functional bus shelter need to have:

* Protection from weather (both sun and rain)

* Protection from wind

* Some sort of privacy or seclusion area for women or children who have to wait alone

* Comfortable seating for long waits

* Space to put your bags or shopping without having to have them on the ground.

* Provide a clear view of approaching buses

Amazing how many architectural 'designs' miss some of these simple elements.

The only thing the simple concrete bus shelters in MY small Australian town have to distinguish them is paintings by local school children and artists [0], but at least they meet most of the above criteria.

[0] - [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-08/darwin-bus-stops- pain...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-08/darwin-bus-stops-painted- outreach-project-vandalism/7492366)

<comment><USER5> > Some sort of privacy or seclusion area for women or children who have to > wait alone

I'm neither of those things, but if the issue is personal safety, wouldn't a secluded and private area be _worse_?

<comment><USER6> I'm similarly baffled by these ideas. They seem like bad ideas for so many reasons.

1\. The point you make.

2\. Any man or masculine-looking woman who winds up there (either accidentally or as the result of the other areas filling up) will be automatically viewed as a threat.

3\. They're the western equivalent of burkas in that they promote the idea that men are uncontrollable beings and that the onus is on women to insulate themselves from us. (Though obviously they're far less extreme than a burka.)

4\. A woman who can't be there finds herself alone in a sea of men, which seems like an extreme version of the situation they're trying to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Its public art, but only a few are remotely functional as 'shelters', and only cool as in freezing waiting for the bus. I like modern, even bauhaus and brutalist style, but these are just sketches, built. Architechure without consideration for the human using it is arguably immoral. But thats a whole conversation in itself.

<comment><USER8> Hell, the place I was at made 'immoral' bus stops. They were tired of homeless sheltering in them, so they barely have any protection from sun and rain. Too bad it gets 110F in the summer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I prefer the home comforts of the Unst bus shelter: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unst_Bus_Shelter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unst_Bus_Shelter)

<comment><USER10> That is one of the most wholesome things I've ever read, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The coolest bus shelters are in Dubai - they have air conditioning. They look cool too.

[http://manonthelam.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Air- condit...](http://manonthelam.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Air-conditioned- bus-stop-Dubai-UAE.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER12> Just look at the first fine specimen already. No protection against rain and wind, but a fine view of the landscape. Good thing the village sits in the rain shadow of the Alps!

<comment> em-bee yeah, that one had me wonder too. but i suppose before that there was nothing. and maybe the raised platform makes it easier to spot the bus in a distance

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The biggest problem here is that they lack discoverability. You walk to bus stops which means they need to be recognizable and discoverable. If every one of them looks different, you need to memorize how all of them look to be able to spot them at a distance. This current design is only effective for residents that us the same couple of bus stops every day. For visitors, it's not very useful. Form has superseded function here.

<comment><USER14> The bus stops are for the surroundings of Krumbach, which probably means about one per village. I doubt it will be hard to discover them, especially because there are still signs for the buses there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There are two photo books by Christopher Herwig of some amazing Soviet bus stops:

[http://fuel-design.com/publishing/soviet-bus-stops/](http://fuel- design.com/publishing/soviet-bus-stops/)

[http://fuel-design.com/publishing/soviet-bus-stops-volume-ii...](http://fuel- design.com/publishing/soviet-bus-stops-volume-ii/)

</comment><comment><USER16> maybe the point is not to be overly functional but some sort of art trail that people hop on/hop off normal PT in between cafes and galleries etc. for a small town, even a few hundred tourists per month on weekends can make a huge difference to the economy. maybe someone else who knows the area could comment on the route.

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks good, but I'm afraid it's generally uncomfortable to sit on.</comment>


Optimising the Haskell program "HLint" (30 secs to 1.3 secs) - <AUTHOR> http://neilmitchell.blogspot.com/2010/01/optimising-hlint.html

<comment><USER2> Isn't it a fallacy to benchmark by running a program over itself?

If you find a redundant line of code in a function, you'll not only save on its execution but also on the execution of its analysis.

<comment><USER3> If it was redundant, it wouldn't be needed in general - it doesn't matter if you removed it because of profiling on program X, or Y - as long as the code is correct, it would be a right thing to do.

If the list of features is set and you're not doing a complete refactoring (only 10 or so lines out of several thousands were changed), I don't see a problem with this approach. You can (/should) always go back to the profiler if you find a better test case...

<comment><USER4> A better test case would be several arbitrary pieces of code which do not change between the the benchmarks. Even if just a few lines change in the test case of thousands of lines of code, you cannot expect the change in analysis time required to be proportional. It might not matter in this particular case though, who knows.</comment></comment></comment>


In Support of Oracle and Java - <AUTHOR> http://jasonvictordartmouth.blogspot.com/2010/08/in-support-of-oracle-and-java.html <comment><USER2> _"But there is immense value in an open source-friendly yet commercially backed platform upon which to build our projects. Anybody functioning within the four walls of a company knows that, when it comes to big decisions, the executives tend to want to invest in a platform that isn't going anywhere -- and that means, backed by a big bad company."_

Not going anywhere? So does that mean that Python or Perl because it isn't backed by a big company is going somewhere? That Linux would go away before Solaris?

If there is a company backing it, it will go away when they no longer find value in supporting it. If a community backs it, it will go away when the community no longer finds value in it.

I have never understood the security that people find in technologies backed by a single company.

<comment><USER3> For a platform backed by big bad company, that is not going anywhere, see what happened to Visual Basic (6).

Yeah, right. I'm sure that were great many decisions by many executives.

<comment><USER2> My knowledge of the history of VB is basically non-existent. So, what happened with VB6?

<comment><USER3> It was big, supported platform supported by big company. Until it was not. Overnight, you were told to rewrite all your sources to new, shiny language, also called VB.

Basically, VB1-VB6 were compatible. You made app in any of them, it required only small changes to build with never version, no big deal.

However, 2000 called and Microsoft came with new version, Visual Basic Net. It changed syntax, class libraries, everything. With the old VB, it had only name in common. It looked similar only on the surface (both are Basics, anyway). Sure, they fixed lot of warts, but broke many existing apps, that were in the maintenance mode for the time. If you relied on VB6 apps, and VB6 runtime had problem with new version of your OS, you just could not upgrade without expensive rewrite.

The message is: just because the language or platform is supported by big company, does not mean, that it is safe for your business to build your apps on it. On the other hand, ten years ago I took the risk to build an app in Python. At the time, it was little, unknown language (especially in the MS world). The app still works reliably today and is buildable (only .pycs were deployed) by modern Python.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _"Every wonder why "Droid Does"? Because Android code is written in Java, the most popular and most commonly taught programming language in the world. That means every coder and his grandmother can write code for an Android phone, since they already know the language, and they can likely write the majority of their app without even getting the Android developer tools (everything except the graphical components)."_

So then wouldn't we expect to find very little code written for iPhone? At the time the iPhone SDK launched, pretty much the only people using Objective-C and Cocoa were Mac programmers. The fast majority of people who went on the produce iPhone apps had to start by learning a new language--one very different from any language they were likely to already know.</comment>


The Next Nuclear Plants Will Be Smaller and Safer - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/the-next-nuclear-plants-will-be-small-svelte-and-safer/ <comment><USER2> No word here on how much they will cost to build and decommission or how much water they require, or what the plan for waste management is. I'd love to see some numbers here because without them it's easy to assume this is not cost competitive with solar+battery in +5 years given current trends.

<comment><USER3> The article includes an interesting note at the end:

> "I am skeptical of the ability to license advanced nuclear reactors and > deploy them on a scale that would make a difference for climate change," > adds Fetter. "But I think it's worth exploring because they're a centralized > form of carbon-free electricity and we don't have a lot of those available." > At least in the US, it might be the only way nuclear power gets another > chance.

I think that's a fair assessment. It's probably not going to make a lot of difference but it is still interesting to explore and invest in.

Regarding solar and battery, mass production capacity is basically the biggest hurdle here. Demand seems to be taking care of that (i.e. people are building so-called Giga factories to take care of this) but we're still an order of magnitude or two off to take care of most of our needs. Just the process of ramping up production is going to cut cost further. And of course at the current price levels, battery + solar is already highly competitive with just about everything else. Of course in the process of ramping up production, there are likely to also going to be massive technical improvements that will further drive down cost and performance.

And just to pre-empt the argument: darkness is temporary and local, which means it is much less of a problem than some nuclear proponents seem to claim. Basically, if your panels don't provide enough power when it is cloudy, install more. If your battery runs out in the middle of the night, buy a bigger battery. If the area you live in is susceptible to extended periods of darkness (aka. the polar night), import power using cables. On the other hand, if, like most of the population of planet Earth, you live closer to the equator this is not going to be an issue.

Nuclear is still going to be useful but just not as our primary source of electricity. The safety and securitt concerns alone would make this impractical. Even if we can deliver this technically and produce these things cost effectively, you'd still need a lot of security measures to prevent people from doing silly things like creating dirty bombs with the nasty stuff inside. Imagine a few tens of thousands of these things, it would be a nightmare from a security point of view.

<comment><USER4> Darkness is temporary (in the sense of nights) only when close enough to equator. Here in Finland even as far south as you can go solar efficiency drops to almost nothing for a good 4 months a year. And in the north it goes to literally to nothing. And it isn't very safe to rely on other counties for electricity over this period. Doing that basically hands the keys to freeze a sizable portion of our population to an external entity (government)

Though even now we aren't independent when it comes to heating over the winters. We have to import oil, gas and coal. But with those one can have strategic stockpiles to last over the next/current winter at least if things go bad. Kind of similar for nuclear fuel. We have stockpiles for years but don't mine it here (we could but economically much cheaper to buy from Sweden and Russia). Just much easier to stockpile that stuff.

But yeah for the vast majority of the whole planets population solar with batteries should work just fine.

<comment><USER5> I would be highly surprised if the habitable zone of our planet in 'sustainable' mode would be the exact same habitable zone in 'unsustainable' mode.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't. We are roughly distributed by local food availability, and that correlates well with solar power availability.

The one large difference is that food is easier to import. But I am pretty sure we can solve the energy long distance trade problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "I am skeptical of the ability to license advanced nuclear reactors and > deploy them on a scale that would make a difference for climate change"

I know of at least one design that is likely to be commercialiced in 5-10 years.

The 195 MWe IMSR is much smaller than the nuScale reactor and is already in the middle of the second pre licicing review of cnsc.

Main advantage of the imsr is that it operates at normal pressure and it has a much better fuel economy. It produces six times more with the same amount of fuel as a LWR.

<comment><USER8> I had to look this up. The CNSC is the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Their Pre-Licensing Review is an optional process intended to streamline the eventual license application. ([https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre- li...](https://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/reactors/power-plants/pre-licensing- vendor-design-review/index.cfm))

The NRC and the CNSC have also agreed to a joint review process that might perhaps allow the same design to be used in both Canada and the US. ([https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/2019/12/terrestrial- energy...](https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/2019/12/terrestrial-energy-imsr- advanced-reactor-selected-by-canadian-and-u-s-regulators-for-joint-review/))

However, the ISMR is at least three years behind NuScale who started their NRC application in December 2016 and are well along in the process.

<comment><USER7> If you look at the progress at the CNSC, then NuScale appears to be one year ahead. The IMSR should finish the second phase in October 2020.

Terrestrial Energy plans to have the first commercial plant on the grid in the next decade.

<comment><USER8> I don't know enough about the process to make comparisons, but NuScale currently expects to be producing grid power in 2026. Nothing against Terrestrial Energy or molten salt reactors which is certainly an interesting tech. NuScale is about as boring as all get-out and might face fewer regulatory hurdles, but it might also have a harder time competing against better tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the article:

>> NuScale's reactor is 65 feet tall and 9 feet in diameter, and is housed in a containment vessel only slightly larger. About the size of two school buses stacked end to end, you could fit around 100 of them in the containment chamber of a large conventional reactor. Yet this small reactor can crank out 60 megawatts of energy.

>> The review process is brutal—NuScale submitted a 12,000 page technical application—and will likely stretch on for at least another year. But the company has already secured permission to build its first 12-reactor plant at the Idaho National Laboratory, which may start supplying power to communities in Western states as soon as 2026.

<comment><USER9> A couple extra ideas for these beyond land-based power generation:

1) Put a couple of these on trans-Atlantic cruise ships, designed for speed, to make the journey in 3 days (at 50 MPH) carrying 2,000+ people.

2) Cargo ships that operate on the backbone long haul routes. If there are concerns about these getting too close to shoreline or population, just have them only operate 10 miles from land. Other cargo ships can then load and unload them in open water. (This would require some faster loading/unloading mechanism, maybe something where the front would open up and slide out the entire deck into the other ship.)

Thoughts?

<comment><USER10> The New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987 is arguably the strongest anti-nuclear weapon domestic legislation in the world. It bans nuclear weapons and propulsion from New Zealand's land, sea and airspace out to the country's 12-mile territorial limits.

<comment><USER11> How is this related? Are you quibbling with the 10 mile figure in GP's comment? Or suggesting that NZ is some substantial portion of the hypothetical target market for GP's hypothetical nuclear cruise ship? Something else?

Nuclear-powered US military vessels (subs and aircraft carriers, at least) already sail all around the world. I guess they don't enter NZ's 12 mile zone, or get some exemption when they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> TIL about liquid metal cooled nuclear reactors. Wikipedia makes lead-cooled reactors sound pretty amazing, and yet lead-bismuth seems to be preferred, presumably simply because of the lower melting point, despite the disadvantages of bismuth (polonium byproduct, high cost). I'd be interested to hear if there are other reasons pure lead cooling isn't being more actively pursued. Especially for small, single-use reactors, it seems like it would be perfect.

<comment><USER13> The reactor is difficult to turn off:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa- class_submarine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfa-class_submarine)

>The issue was that the lead/bismuth eutectic solution solidifies at 125 °C (257 °F). If it ever hardened, it would be impossible to restart the reactor, since the fuel assemblies would be frozen in the solidified coolant. Thus, whenever the reactor is shut down, the liquid coolant must be heated externally with superheated steam.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, those Soviet lead-bismuth reactors were basically single-use devices - once they ran out of fuel, they were useless and had to be replaced with a new reactor. I don't think Russia had any plans on how to safely decommission and dispose of them at the end of their life either.

<comment><USER15> If you're interested in a more modern Russian lead reactor, check out: [https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...](https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/49/085/49085788.pdf)

They also have a lot of recent experience with sodium fast reactors, of which the BN-600 is still running, BN-800 is running (and was started within the past 2 years), but the BN-1200 is delayed:

[http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2019/08/the_construction_of...](http://fissilematerials.org/blog/2019/08/the_construction_of_the_b.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> On Netflix there is a three part documentary about Bill Gates. One of the parts is about him funding a new generation nuclear plant.

<comment><USER17> Too bad he was working with China. I want it to succeed but I imagine it cannot in the curent political reality (trade war, Xi, HK, Taiwan independence, etc).

<comment><USER11> The major setback highlighted in the documentary was Fukushima, which predates the recent political climate.

<comment><USER18> I thought I recalled that the major setback was the current U.S. administration's trade policies with China. Everything was set to go, but then the plans got trumped.

<comment><USER11> You're right :-). They were both addressed in the series (part 3).

> [~27:24] Narrator: Bill and his team finally believed they had developed the > ideal energy source. A reactor that was clean, efficient, and most > importantly, safe.

> [cuts to conference room TV playing Fukushima news coverage] ...

> [~28:22] N: Public opinion, already skittish, turned against nuclear.

> [cuts to the two walking around outside]

> N: When you have a massive setback, how do you deal with that?

> ... [some cut to old DOJ drama] ...

> [~32:07] TV anchor: The US nuclear industry is bracing for a backlash

> [background switches to Fukushima footage]

Later:

> [~41:49] N: In 2015, President Xi came to Seattle and had a private meeting > with Bill.

> Some guy: Then we see real movement.

> ...

> [~42:39] TV: A tariff tit-for-tat, teetering on a trade war ...

> [~42:50] TV: Investment restrictions on China with respect to high > technology.

> [43:09] Guy working on the reactor: China and the United States had to > negotiate this very complicated contract. Well, each government had a right > to cancel it, and our government did. So, by canceling that contract that > gives us the legal right to do nuclear things in China, we can't do it > anymore.

> [43:35] [cuts to another guy] N: What was his reaction when you showed it to > him?

> Guy: I think he just said, "oh shit."

> [cuts away to more DOJ stuff]

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great, except those aren't the problems facing nuclear. The issues are cost and public perception. Reactors are already exceptionally safe compared to fossil fuel plants. People don't like nuclear and even when they do they don't want it near their home. This has resulted in among other things an absurdly expensive and drawn-out process for getting approval to build a new plant.

<comment><USER20> The hope is that small reactors are cheaper to produce and maintain.

Also, can you give more detail on why you think regulation is so over the top?

<comment><USER19> In short, deliberate regulatory obstructionism. Telling people you'll protect them from nuclear meltdown is a great way to get votes. Estimates for the cost of nuclear energy without the past four decades of anti-nuke activism are as low as 10% of current costs.

[https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169](https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If these proliferate how do we deal with fuel being stolen and used by terrorists or similar? I don't know how realistic a dirty bomb scenario but right now nuclear fuel is tightly controlled in a small number of locations. With these reactors it would spread out into more locations and potentially into countries that don't take maintenance and disposal seriously.

<comment><USER22> I think that if dirty bombs were a real threat, we would see more of the people who would want to use them doing more traditional bombing first/now, and bomb attacks are extremely rare.

I think this is perhaps more movie-plot threat than real risk.

<comment><USER23> Extremely rare in the west in 2019. Not rare in some other parts of the world with an unstable security situation. They were also common in the UK in the 90s and earlier during the troubles, so it's not like western countries are magically immune from instability.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Maybe nuclear reactors will be easier to deploy in China, where the government has more control: [https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656](https://twitter.com/sampenrose/status/1162772916125126656)

</comment><comment><USER25> I won't be happy until I can have one of these in my basement.

It's about time at least some people are becoming sensible about nuclear and dropping the "boogyman" attitudes towards it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Awesome. Nuclear is a necessary step as we move away from petro-energy.

<comment><USER27> Nuclear is not necessary. It's not even clear if it's even useful for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Too "bad" it will be economically uncompetitive compared to next generation wind and solar.

<comment><USER29> Wind and solar produce variable power sources.

Power for baseload has a 99.99% uptime requirement.

The batteries needed to make variable power sources even 95% capable of meeting demand are economically unfeasible as well.

As a couple examples.... The laegest solar plant in Arizona produces only 10% of its peak summer power in the winter. ...similarily, in Texas the wind turbines are usually not turning during Texas peak demand because it's during high pressure systems where there's not wind.

<comment><USER30> the problem with wind and solar is not 99% uptime requirement. it's always sunny somewhere or windy. it's not like at one point in time the whole world will be covered in clouds with no wind at all.

the problem is distribution the power over long distances.

<comment><USER31> That's kind of the "same" problem given we are not going to ditribute power of solar provenance by traveling half the earth. Likewise for wind: the distance are enormous to get reasonable wind diversity. So in practice it is not sure it is even possible in some (most?) regions of the world.

<comment><USER30> well it would be, if countries would see a need other than making money. but unfortunatly energy is something where everybody wants to make some money. also regions which are very unstable have a lot of sunpower. it's not easy to build reliable sunpower plants there.

and there is no grid available that spans the whole world. that would take a huge amount of work for all the countries, but countries do not think global, so it would be a pita to get everybody on the same feets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Smaller, safer, and just as friendly to centralized top-down control by governments, utilities, and mega corporations. Unlike solar which can be controlled by yourself on your own property.

<comment><USER33> While rooftop solar does allow you to go completely off-grid, if you still want to have a grid around, it will have to be centralized. An underappreciated aspect of power grids is just how much advanced control is required to keep the entire thing stable and functioning, think armies-of- PhD's-difficult. When grids get too small, or don't have sufficient control (either knobs, or software/people turning the knobs), the results are frequent blackouts. Interestingly, the risk begins increasing again as your grid gets too large: you have too many knobs to reasonably control centrally, and it certainly won't work without synchronized control. As a case study, see how China is breaking up some of their huge electricity grids (in to still-large ~1000mile or so regions), as maintaining reliability and preventing faults from propagating across the country became too difficult.

<comment><USER34> > _While rooftop solar does allow you to go completely off-grid, if you still > want to have a grid around_

Why would you want to have a grid around?

Friends have been entirely off-grid in the Yukon for over 7 years now. They have a large, modern house with every convenience. Last time they tried to switch house insurance the insurance company didn't want to give them a policy because they don't have "stable" power supply.

My buddy replied by asking how many power outages the insurance person had been through in Whitehorse in 7 years (easily a few a year)... his off-grid setup has never had a single outage in 7 years.

So who has the "unstable" power supply?

<comment><USER35> >Why would you want to have a grid around?

Because vast majority of the world are and will be living in Mega Cities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> We could build these reactors underground in areas where there are not seismic activity. That would also protect the atmosphere should there be any kind of incident.

</comment><comment><USER37> No, does make sense.

Going smaller will shoot the price through the roof. The basic convention is the bigger reactor you have, the cheaper it per unit of power output.

<comment><USER38> Nuclear powerplants suffer from high upfront costs that can be amortized if you mass produce the same model.

<comment><USER37> Then, you must mass produce the biggest type you can make.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wasn't the main issue with nuclear plants in the past that they failed in ways that were deemed impossible before they happened?

<comment><USER40> Not really. Chernobyl was explicitly known to have a vulnerability at a very unusual operating point. Fukushima was repeatedly flooded and officials refused to make protections against modest natural disasters. Three Mile Island was a mechanical failure.

There aren't many examples where something that went wrong was thought to be impossible. Much more often it is scenarios that were known to be possible, but ignored for reasons of cost or politics.

Nuclear plants are hardened against virtually everything. Certainly there may be things people haven't managed to think of, but there are many, many more things that we _have_ thought of and haven't dealt with. A plant may be able to survive a bomb, but not a bunker buster or a full out war.

We don't want to and often can't ensure safety in every event that is thought of, which is why fail-safer designs are so popular in research and press circles.

It's a bit of an unfair rap since other thermal plants blow up all the time, dams burst, and windmills fall over. Radation makes everything more dangerous and has a permanent impact on our planet, but the actual rate of accidents is tiny. We do need more fail-safe plants (Fukushima in particular was inexcusable) but the real problem facing nuclear right now is cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Are modular nuclear reactors popular science's new flying car--one in every garage, arriving tomorrow?

Modular reactors have been on the horizon for at least 20-30 years. Large nuclear reactors aren't viable because of the immensely costly regulatory burden imposed by a fearful, democratic population. To focus on reducing costs without considering the _reason_ for those costs seems naive. The fear is irrational. The population won't permit modular reactors anymore than they'd permit traditional reactors. Science, engineering, and reason don't matter. Necessity may matter, but the oceans may need to start boiling before people's fear of nuclear is overcome by other fears.

<comment><USER42> There are places where the local population consents to new reactors and then the projects still end up years late and badly over budget. SMRs wouldn't necessarily help to make nuclear-hostile regions more welcoming of reactors, but they might help builders to actually meet their cost and schedule estimates after they start building in a friendly region.

See these projects to understand why utilities in Western Europe and North America aren't ordering additional reactors recently, even in locales where the population already accepts nuclear power:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_C._Summer_Nuclear_Gener...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_C._Summer_Nuclear_Generating_Station#Units_2_and_3)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Pla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant#Units_3_and_4)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Unit_3)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)#Flamanvi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_\(nuclear_reactor\)#Flamanville_3_\(France\))

I live near an operating nuclear reactor. I _much_ prefer it as my neighbor over a fossil generating station. But if it were put to a popular vote, I wouldn't support building a new reactor here because I don't want my electric rates to soar after the project ends up late and over budget.

<comment><USER41> Vogtle is a jobs project, an odd, almost absurd artifact of the high costs. I have family members working on that site. The Summer units across the river were canceled. Vogtle barely survived. The loss of Vogtle would have caused too much unemployment in the region.

I'd bet money the others are jobs projects, too, presuming they're still ongoing. But they'll be the _last_ such nuclear jobs projects.

I hope modular reactors work out. I just don't think they'll work out in the U.S. or most other democratic countries, not until they're so well established elsewhere that nuclear becomes boring again. Failure to appreciate this--to shift focus to applications and regions where they have a viable, near-term future--will only ensure the total death of nuclear.

I had the same criticism for Rolls-Royce marketing piece last week about starting a modular reactor project in the U.K. I hope it works out, but Rolls- Royce claimed they were going to _install_ the reactors in the U.K., which I believe is highly unlikely--certainly much more unlikely than if they attempted to first install them somewhere with less organized political opposition.

My complaint is that popular science pieces such as this Wired article create the wrong expectations. Articles about modular reactors are formulaic and periodic, exactly like articles about flying cars many years ago.

<comment><USER20> So about the opposition in the uk. When people talk about modular nuclear there is an expectation that it would be built close to towns and cities. That you could have one pop up down the road. I think this is unlikely for now in the UK. It is just easier and more economical to cluster them together onto a single site close to a large grid connection. This would probably be an existing nuclear site or power station site. A lot of these sites in the UK are being decommissioned anyway and are looking for new opportunities. This is much less likely to cause opposition than a new site on green field land (like fracking). And an existing nuclear site will have a local population that are more comfortable with the technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> " Small Modular Reactors may be the nuclear industry's answer to avoiding obscurity, sadly, and one cannot blame them (though I am starting to) for failing to exhibit the courage or desire to commit attention to molten salt research. Because what is being presented by default is a practical absurdity.

What if someone promoting utility wind approaches you and claims that wind is the future? BUT in place of today's standard size 3MW turbines it absolutely must be a far greater number of 1MW turbines. You'd take a step back, confident that the reason must have little to do with technology. You'd feel dubious, imagine you were being 'played' in some way. Even a layman would sense something wrong with the proposal, given the overhead of placing units.

I have the same reaction when hearing discussion of Small Modular Reactors. I see them as a high ticket luxury item that is being fronted as the 'stealth solution' to a most pressing problem, to design something faux environmentalists and radiophobes might fear and hate less, even though they could never launch the nuclear industry into a new renaissance. Utility scale electric is geared to multiple ~1GWe+ solutions per plant, the round number that could practically be multiplied into a feasible grid solution.

Aside from industry desperation I also wonder if SMRs are being promoted by a few billionaires, not from a desire to supply lesser developed countries (all of whom should never go in for less than 1GWe), but to power their own offshore enclaves, their survival retreats in places like New Zealand. Call it my pet conspiracy theory. They wish to see the technology put to practice on our collective dime as soon as possible. Helping to stock the pantries of billionaires may be a tidy business some day but SMR fixation today represents a foolish diversion of attention away from what needs to be the principal goal --- attaining energy self-sufficiency for the grid with >=1GWe sources, less fuel volatility and less risk. This is an existential crisis. "

(from my 2017 letter to Energy Secy Perry)

[https://archive.org/download/20170629EmailToEnergySecretaryP...](https://archive.org/download/20170629EmailToEnergySecretaryPerrySC/20170629%20Email%20to%20Energy%20Secretary%20Perry%20SC.pdf)

(2016 letter to Candidate Trump on Energy)

[https://archive.org/download/20160422TrumpEnergyLetterSC/201...](https://archive.org/download/20160422TrumpEnergyLetterSC/20160422%20trump%20energy%20letter%20SC.pdf)

<comment><USER43> Is anyone going to comment on my capitalization of the word 'but' for emphasis in the above quote? This place is starting to annoy me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> But others remained unaware of the invisible dangers around them: soldiers lounged in the sun close to the reactor, smoking cigarettes and stripped to the waist in the summer heat; a group of KGB officers arrived in the zone incognito, clad in tank crew overalls and carrying expensive Japanese-made dosimeters—but approached the ruins of Unit Four without knowing enough to turn the devices on. Only the fate of the crows that had come to scavenge from the debris but stayed too long—and whose irradiated carcasses now littered the area around the plant—provided any visible warning of the costs of ignorance. (Higginbotham)</comment>