Hackers can be business guys, and other lessons from Paul Graham - <AUTHOR> http://sub.garrytan.com/hackers-can-be-business-guys-and-other-lessons-from-an-interview-with-paul-graham-during-the-first-yc-batch-in-2005 <comment><USER3> I always thought this was PG's greatest gift to the tech world. To horribly generalize - prior to YC "business" people had a patronizing attitude toward developers. They were expensive assets - comparable to hw/sw and data-centers - that were required to successfully launch and grow a startup. But they weren't invited to the strategic table too often. They didn't get business.

I don't know this to be a fact but I always felt like PG responded with a "I'll show you!" after one too many patronizing comments from the old boys club of VC's or CEO's or SVP's of BD's. And show us he has. Certainly other factors (the lower entry cost to starting a startup) contributed to the rise of the wide spread geek business leader. But PG deserves a lot of credit.

Having said all that I almost feel like developers today are similar to women in the 80's (stick with me I know this is getting weird) Women in the 80's were supposed to have fulfilling careers and still be great mother's/spouses. They could have both! They just ended up with 2x the pressure to be great at what they did vs before. It seems today every developer is supposed to have a real side project that could blossom into it's own business at any point. Come to think of it; non technical startup folks are implored to "learn to code!" So maybe it applies to both devs and non devs in startups.

It's an interesting time. I think it's great developers can now lead companies with little or not stigma attached. In the long run though I believe in teams and specialization vs individuals and doing it all. I think we'll return to a more natural balance. And that tends to be that people who can build and nurture a forest tree by tree and row by row aren't the same people who can see the entire forest and what the seasons will bring. The forest does best when each person is in the right role.

<comment><USER4> While I agree with you, I wouldn't attribute the entire effect to Paul Graham. There's a steady progression: Phase 1 was Larry and Sergey: they tried their hardest to stay in charge, but the powers that be (i.e. the money) forced a CEO on them. The best they could do was limit the damage by making sure the CEO had as much technical chops as possible. In retrospect, Eric Schmidt was great: a real hacker in background who had made the transition into a business guy at Novell/Sun. Pretty good progress to getting hackers more power: at least when they were forced to hire above themselves, they picked one of their own.

But the next one in the line went better - Call this Phase 2: Mark Zuckerberg (the next big company founder) was somehow able to hold his own against the money. I think we can credit this to Peter Thiel: since Thiel had first hand experience at PayPal, he probably has tremendous respect for hackers (I don't know what his personal hacking skills are, but I suspect they are good). Thiel (as the primary money behind FB) gave the Zuck free reign to stay CEO, which moved the needle further.

And now we're in phase 3: Zuck has shown the money guys enough contempt (remember the articles in Businessweek or whatever where bankers were angry that Zuck wore a hoodie and not a suit at the IPO roadshows?), as well as established a ~50B company with hackers firmly at the helm. Now it's common knowledge that you don't really need a "business guy". The next guys are free from this tyranny.

I do think that PG helped though. A lot of the education has come from PGs essays: I'd be surprised if there was anyone in the valley who hasn't read them, or at least organically come to very similar conclusions that he has: notice how they overlap well with Peter Thiel's class notes for CS183 (at least in some of the assumptions they both make about how the world works). And the part of SV that PG doesn't influence (the bigcos, I imagine. I don't know, I'm speculating at this point...) Thiel influences. So take the lead-by- example of Google, then Facebook. The intellectual underpinnings by Thiel and Graham. The evangelizing of Graham and Hacker news, and that's what I would credit for this outcome.

<comment><USER5> > _I think we can credit this to Peter Thiel: since Thiel had first hand > experience at PayPal, he probably has tremendous respect for hackers (I > don't know what his personal hacking skills are, but I suspect they are > good)._

Peter Thiel's educational background is in philosophy and law [1]. There's been no public demonstration of hacking ability from him. I'd suspect that his respect for hackers was (if it didn't exist from earlier years through his personal relationships) grown from his partnership with Max Levichin in founding PayPal and keeping it afloat during those tumultuous years via multiple technical breakthroughs (including fraud detection, researched and developed by Levichin).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#College_and_law_sc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#College_and_law_school)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Right. Business things, like hacking is mostly experience.

But much like hacking, I would argue, there are rockstar/ninja/superstar/10x/<insert other (deprecated?) term here> _business people_ as well. A lot of it has to do with natural aptitude; just as how coding doesn't simply click for everyone, business things (which is mostly just dealing with people) simply doesn't either.

<comment><USER7> Personally I don't believe in natural aptitude. Most of what others tend to see as natural aptitude is in fact just attitude. If someone really enjoys something they put in the hours of practice and the effort to be awesome in that field, and they can become the "rock star".

<comment><USER8> The flip side is, when you're naturally good at something, it becomes fun to do. So you do it a lot.

I tried for 2 years to get good at guitar. Never got good. But didn't practice very often either.

Then one I sat down at a drum set and was immediately better than the drummer in my band. I had a knack. It was so fun to play those beats that I practiced almost every day for many years, and still do. And have gotten pretty darn good.

Natural ability turns into learned skills.

<comment><USER9> Considering myself an above average guitar player - I'm not sure whether guitarist vs drummer abilities carry over to hacker vs business skills. Your problem with playing the guitar was most probably related to left-right- coordination or some physical feature (like joint flexibility), right? Or maybe you did not "hear" the notes?

I think that both good/x10 business people and hackers need similar personality traits (or let's call them habits) - focus, persistence, and willingness to learn. Concrete skills like talking to or with people you have never seen before, or learning a framework in the matter of days, can likely be acquired when trying long and hard enough. E.g. I learned to learn new songs in the matter of half an hour or less; I'd never imagined I was capable of that! But it's a skill just like any other.

But we really have to _want_ to get good at something in order to do it. Staying with the guitar example - I can do finger exercises for months and months, but if I don't have a lick I want to eventually be able to play, I will not follow through, whatever focus and persistence I put in during exercise. That's why I prefer to sketch out interfaces before implementing them - hacking and Photoshopping is just a necessity in order to get the product I dreamt up. I do enjoy programming, and I do it focussed and persistent, but I have to really want the outcome (in that case a cool interface and UX).

<comment><USER10> Based on my reading & observations, skill at the upper end of a creative/intellectual domain seems to range from about 5-20% talent and 80-95% practice-related factors. A lot of people don't realize how important different types of practice are. _The Talent Code_ cites a study where researchers found that students who believed they would practice an instrument for all their lives learned nearly 4 times as quickly as students who thought they'd play the instrument for a few years-with the same amount of practice!

The one consistent element of natural talent that comes up in intellectual/creative pursuits is working memory. The average person can hold roughly 7 "units" of information in their brain[0], which is why phone numbers are 7 digits long. When sightreading, pianists with a high working memory effectively have an advantage of a few extra years of practice[1]. I would imagine that a high working memory is also helpful in programming, as it determines how large a program you can easily hold in your head.

[0]: it's a little more complex than just 7 pieces of information, see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_memory#Capacity>

[1]: <http://pss.sagepub.com/content/21/7/914.abstract>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know if anyone here is a fan of MMA aka Mixed Martial Arts (as I am), but I think the parallels between the startup/hacker world and MMA are fascinating.

Not unlike startups, success in MMA requires proficiency in several very different disciplines including wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, boxing, Thai boxing (Muay Thai), karate, etc.

In the early days of MMA, fighters were very one-dimensional and the dominant champions tended to be wrestlers, reason being that while a wrestler could reasonably defend against a (kick)boxer's strikes, (kick)boxers were generally powerless to do anything once a wrestler took them down, which they inevitably did in the course of a fight.

I believe this is the case with hackers vs. business guys as well. Hackers can generally become very proficient in business in 3~5 years on the job, but a business guy would need 10+ years of focused practice in order to become equally proficient in hacking, and until they learn will be absolutely clueless when working with hackers.

And in the early wrestler-dominated days of MMA, people envisioned a future where every MMA athlete would be equally well-rounded in all of the disciplines and such distinctions would become unnecessary. But as is often the case, the reality has turned out a bit differently.

A strong wrestling base is still a huge plus and a strong indicator of success - There are 8 weight classes in the UFC and 5 of them are wrestlers. But in general, what has happened is that in order to be a champion or championship contender, one needs to be minimally (i.e. above average) well-rounded in every discipline, but every champion is exceptional in at least one discipline. For example, non-wrestler champions like Anderson Silva (185 lbs) and Jose Aldo (145 lbs) are outstanding kickboxers who are competent enough in wrestling to be able to avoid being taken down. The days of only-specialists are gone and the days of only-generalists never came; the reality has turned out to be a combination of the two.

I expect to see the same dynamic in the startup world. Hackers are becoming more business-minded and business guys are (maybe less so) starting to realize the "power" and importance of hackers, but I don't expect the two worlds to ever completely converge. It will be important to be world-class in at least one discipline (hacking or marketing or whatever), but everyone will need to be at least above-average in all disciplines to expect to compete at all.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am surprised that Shenglong is down voted - it strikes me that the idea of 10x "business-people" is just as valid as 10x developers. Certainly Branson for example seems better at it than, say, me.

@Andrew_quentin Want my take on the 5 or so business rules:

1\. Budget. Don't spend more than you plan to, plan to make a profit.

2\. Clarity. Be clear what you offer and why it benefits the target market

3\. ABS - Always Be Selling. Build a pipeline of prospects and clients and audiences. Keep on telling them how your thing will make their lives better. Then and only then watch GlenGary GlenRoss

4\. Service - the customer must think you love them because only people we love do we treat so well. This is easier with few customers. They then have to be charged more. This is a sub rule (6)

5\. Consistency - say it, do it. Hire a PA to make sure you do.

6\. Never drop your price or cut your rates

<comment><USER13> Number 6 seems like the odd one out , there are plenty of businesses that were successful because they kept figuring out how to get things done cheaper and passing those savings on to consumers and undercutting the competition. Or companies who ate their margins to lower prices and gain market share.

<comment> mkr-hn Not every businessperson aims to create the next Walmart-scale business. You can live comfortably with a few tens of thousands of repeat customers.

<comment><USER13> yes, but that doesn't make competing on price an invalid strategy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would say smart hackers can be nearly anything they want to be. The best of them are capable of looking at most any problem and breaking it down into solvable chunks. Whether it's figuring out the behaviors necessary to tone their bodies into beings capable of physical activity, or honing their skills with machinery to rebuild an old car. Hackers can be some of the best mechanics and are capable of knowing how to turn their bodies into incredible machines.

Those are just a couple of examples of what hackers are capable of outside of, well, hacking on things. If there are parts of problems or tasks hackers don't know, they can research them and understand how to fix them. This means that they're not afraid to jump into the deep end in other professions or tasks.

Capable of being a business person, and possessing the same drive as business people are where the disconnect occurs, in my opinion. Could a good hacker figure out the steps needed to create something that would be considered a successful business? Yes, probably so. But, are smart hackers driven to generate wealth or create large organizations of people? In my experience, the answer is often: "not really, but I'd love to help you build it."

<comment><USER15> Great answer, nothing to add, nothing to take away. =) I haven't met Paul Graham but when I was watching this video I couldn't stop thinking that he should be an actor. At least his voice should be used in a commercial, a cartoon or elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Since this was in 2005 I wonder what he'd say now? I believe he has since said that initially, they thought they were looking for smart people. Over time they found out they were looking for determined people.

[Business Writer] What do you look for in people?

[PG] Determination. When we started, we thought we were looking for smart people, but it turned out that intelligence was not as important as we expected. If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence, you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination, you very quickly get an ineffectual and perpetual grad student."

</comment><comment><USER17> "We fire up that video the second we start reading an application, usually."

As a new applicant, it makes me curious. Does that mean that (usually) if I haven't seen views on the video yet, the application hasn't been read yet?

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm going to watch this entire video but what I find interesting in the first few minutes are Paul's facial reactions to the initial questions indicating what appears to be no idea at all of what he is going to be asked.

In contrast to the facial reactions of people who are asked questions on formal TV interviews who appear as if they more or less know what is going to be asked because there isn't as much facial twitching, or thinking, it's as if they've had time to think things through by knowing in advance the questions. Not the case here.

</comment><comment><USER19> > I'd be reluctant to invent in someone who made desktop software

I wonder if pg would revise that statement now seeing as how Dropbox is its largest winner so far.

<comment><USER20> It's also a web app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This interview contains some pretty amazing gems. This part[1]:

 _So, really good sofware is software that embodies an idea, some fabulous idea for some new thing that is possible that maybe only the guy writting the software realizes is possible. And maybe people who hear about it while he's working at it think it is the stupidiest idea_

... reminded me of Peter Thiel's famous quesetion[2]:

 _what important truth do very few people agree with you on?_

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BDA0t49AaZ4#t=133s)

[2] [http://blakemasters.com/post/22866240816/peter-thiels- cs183-...](http://blakemasters.com/post/22866240816/peter-thiels- cs183-startup-class-11-notes-essay)

</comment><comment><USER22> Even though it's true that "web based" software will be the future I personally think it's a bit sad(unless if that term doesn't solely mean software on a server that you connect with a bloated browser to).

Besides that, interesting and good interview.

<comment><USER23> 2005 was a long time ago, but I think that attitude (@ 17:23 "We would be reluctant to invest in someone making desktop software", "It's ridiculous to think that your data should be on a computer... Your data should be on the network.") is unfortunate. The web is the best and worst part of the modern Internet. It is easy to develop for and in the short-term can be quite liberating, but in the long term it can do very little except make us easier to control and less likely to revolt when the operators do anything "Evil (TM)." I also think the web is a very weak and overrated platform - <USER2> have been slow, because native experimentation has stopped. To do anything interesting, you need a native plugin. The Internet itself is ideal for communication and message passing, but the web is just one facet that excels at typesetting a dynamic book, but I can only look at so many banners.

Further more, the network exists to connect computers, not the other way around. It is not a thing on its own. There's no such thing as data that "lives" on the network. Today's cloud is just someone else's PC, somewhere else on the globe, and much less under my control, so it's not a very compelling alternative to running native software for me when it's available.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Right, what are these rules?

</comment><comment><USER25> Yes. And many top notch business guys can become great programmers if they want to. Hard working people can shine anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER26> As an aspiring business guy, my biggest problem seems to be accessing information about different models.

Say I want to build a web community around a particular kind of video game. Estimating the value of that market is pretty damn opaque to an outsider.

<comment><USER27> I've been thinking about the general business plan problem for years. Not only because it's a very real problem, but also because as I'm walking through a swap meet or a grocery store I'm perpetually curious about margins and return on capital for the many tiny to medium businesses for which almost no intelligence exists. If I could figure out a way to bootstrap a crowd sourced resource for these I'd be working on it right now...but alas.

In your case, if you haven't done so already, I'd suggest attempting to buy advertising from a site similar to the one you'd like the build. Maybe even invest some dollars advertising your own product (non-profits are interesting guinea pigs too) to get some idea of the volume of traffic they enjoy and the prevailing rate that advertisers are willing to pay for access to their audience. Once you have data you can start building some models and establishing ranges inside which the business makes sense to pursue. I've done this kind of research myself and for clients on multiple occasions, it's not bulletproof but it's a valuable start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What PG says resonate so much with me, it's hard to explain. People asking me questions about my startups or hacking stuff... I wish I could just redirect them to this video. Actually, I will!

On a side note, I didn't know PG sounded a bit british : )

</comment><comment><USER29> ob·strep·er·ous /əbˈstrepərəs/

Adjective Noisy and difficult to control: "the boy is cocky and obstreperous".</comment>


Is Steve Jobs Ignoring History, Or Trying To Rewrite It? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/09/is-steve-jobs-ignoring-history-or-trying-to-rewrite-it/ <comment><USER2> One of the things I most respect about Apple is that recognize the purpose of a business is to turn a profit - preferably by selling products people want - not obsessing about market share. The iPhone doesn't have a huge market share and likely never will - but it is ridiculously profitable.

Market share mattered in the 80s and 90s because computers were $3000 boxes that did one thing - run third-party applications. It made sense to spend your cash on the model with the largest market share. No one cares about market share when buying a phone.</comment>


Ethereum price goes up nearly 50 percent in under a week - <AUTHOR> https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ethereum/ <comment><USER2> The recent price movement could be attributed to the formation of Enterprise Ethereum Alliance[0].

Here's a description from the website for what the EEA aims to do.

> "The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance connects Fortune 500 enterprises, > startups, academics, and technology vendors with Ethereum subject matter > experts. Together, we will learn from and build upon the only smart contract > supporting blockchain currently running in real-world production – Ethereum > – to define enterprise-grade software capable of handling the most complex, > highly demanding applications at the speed of business."

Some big names that are a part of the Alliance include Microsoft, Intel, J.P. Morgan, and Accenture. The rest are on the site!

[0]> [http://entethalliance.org/](http://entethalliance.org/)

<comment><USER3> Unless the formation of Enterprise Ethereum Alliance supports about 10 or so other cryptocurrencies[1], then the formation is not really the reason.

Imo the Bitcoin ETF rejection produced a knee-jerk reaction and caused a lot of potential (in-case-of-approved-ETF) Bitcoin investors to diversify for now with other cryptos as well, then or at the same time cryptotraders started pumping more.

A lot of altcoins are in a crazy pump-and-dump cycles at the moment, so be cautious.

As for Ethereum, no one in their right mind would base something so crucial on such risky and proven-damaging language/platform. Print all the press releases you want to present yourself innovative etc., but it's a rotten foundation if you care about security and reliability. At least I hope we will see some evolution on that side instead of dirty-patching security issues.

[1] [http://coinmarketcap.com/](http://coinmarketcap.com/)

<comment><USER4> > As for Ethereum, no one in their right mind would base something so crucial > on such risky and proven-damaging language/platform. Print all the press > releases you want to present yourself innovative etc., but it's a rotten > foundation if you care about security and reliability. At least I hope we > will see some evolution on that side instead of dirty-patching security > issues.

This is a bold statement to proclaim while providing no evidence. It's the second largest cryptocurrency in the world, for Christsakes!

<comment><USER3> Just from the DAO hack, you can learn a lot of things of how Ethereum works as a project and a company: \- Ethereum's design (turing completeness etc.) doesn't enable formal verification of code/contracts \- Months before the hack, Ethereum had paid for security audits, in the report the way the DAO hack was done was described, yet Ethereum failed to do anything about. \- It's up to the decision of Ethereum's corporation (a.k.a Ethereum Foundation) to decide if they don't like one transaction or contract to make a hardfork, they broke one of their selling points of code is law.

On a sidenote, the 3rd largest cryptocurrency is a instant/premined scam[1] and the 5th largest is a super-centralized system that you can barely call cryptocurrency. So marketcap doesn't prove much.

[1]: [http://daia.group/2017/03/13/review- dash-2/](http://daia.group/2017/03/13/review-dash-2/)

<comment><USER4> Regardless if the ethereum language is turing complete or not, you can still formally verify individual contracts. You can't determine whether every contract will halt or not, but that is a separate issue. The DAO contract should have been formally verified, and this was an oversight of the creators and as well as the participants to not demand this.

Also, the DAO is separate from Ethereum. It's a contract running on ethereum, not ethereum itself.

You are being very hyperbolic with your criticism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ethereum brought a lot of geeky fun to my life, it's a great hobby for those interested in cryptocurrencies, distributed systems, compilers and so on. But, it was just that, a hobby. 90% of the people I met in Ethereum meetups and hackathons didn't really understand what Ethereum is, most big companies that invest in Ethereum just do it because they don't want to miss "the next big thing", not because Ethereum solves any of their problems.

After the hard fork I stopped going to these meetups and hackathons.

<comment><USER6> I especially dislike the "let's make spotify, but on blockchain" approach the community has. They simply don't get that people won't switch over to their solution just because it's running ethereum blockchain.

<comment><USER7> Are you kidding? Who doesn't want an Uber for the Blockchain, where they can enter into a smart contract with their driver before getting into the vehicle?!

<comment><USER8> I don't specifically want that. I don't not want it either.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps it wasn't clear, bit _I_ _was_ kidding :)

<comment><USER9> Son, on the Internet you need to close your <sarcasm> tag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I put a fair bit of money into ETH immediately when I saw the NYT article on the announcement of the EEA. If I were to sell now, I will have made a very good bit of money from it. I'm at a crossroads where, given the EEA and their recent white paper about linking private blockchains the banks will potentially be using, with the public blockchain, makes me think I should stay in it.

On the other hand, the skepticism in this forum (albeit from people who are far more knowledgeable about crypto currencies and markets than me) makes me feel like I should 1) sell it all, or 2) sell only enough to recoup my initial investment.

Either way, the money I put into it was just fun money and wouldn't hurt if I lost it. It's a bit of a thrill to watch an asset appreciate in value that much within such a small period of time. The ultimate question is when to realize the gain or the loss.

Humans have a distinct disposition wherein we tend to sell gaining assets earlier than we sell losing ones (the disposition effect), even in circumstances where it's detrimental to us. Is this playing out in my mind right now?

<comment><USER11> Commenters here were deeply skeptical of Ethereum during its crowdsale too. People who bought in and held anyway made a 100x gain, so far.

Personally I develop smart contracts on Ethereum for a living, and business is good. The ecosystem is developing fast.

<comment><USER12> I didn't know you could already do this for a living. Care to share what kinds of smart contracts?

<comment><USER11> I do partly new development, partly security audits for clients' code. Projects so far include an Ethereum-backed debit card, a gambling system, a currency backed by hours of labor, and ICOs ("initial coin offerings").

All my work so far is on startup projects for the public chain, but there's also corporate work for the EEA's private chain efforts. They said there's a severe shortage of skilled people.

I've gotten two other full-time job offers and one for ongoing freelance, without really promoting myself at all. I'm just active in the community and blog a little.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin (for those who don't know, ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built on top of it and enables decentralized code execution) and the development ecosystem is much more vibrant and promising.

We haven't seen the last of this.

<comment><USER14> > The underlying technology here is far superior to that of bitcoin

Opinion

> ethereum is a blockchain with a turing-complete programming language built > on top of it and enables decentralized code execution

Fact -- but double edged sword (my opinion, of course).

I have personally been skeptical of ETH for years as their team have been promising the moon for a variety of use cases.

For me, the biggest blow to ETH is the revelation that "the code is NOT law". This is in contrast to the line they were pushing for years that the code IS law. Then someone found a bug in the first major DAO and the code was quickly changed.

So much for that. If you think that is gonna be the last issue along these lines, I've got a bridge to sell you, too.

<comment><USER15> I'm personally waiting on an ETH successor with non-Turing-complete, verifiable code.

There's no reason that smart contracts require Turing completeness (no real world program requires it, for that matter), and software theorem proving will be required for me to take smart contracts seriously. We need to be able to prove things about the contract execution for it to be safe to trust "code as contract".

Im not as upset about the hardfork as many people, though. Social constructs should be changable by politics, not indelible and absolute. That's not what they were selling, but all the same, what they were selling was dystopian nonsense where humans are chained to machines, not their masters. It's a feature not bug of social constructs to be changeable through politics. What matters is the political process to do so.

<comment><USER14> I think this is a great response, especially because I agree with the first part, and the second part gave me more to think about.

> I'm personally waiting on an ETH successor with non-Turing-complete, > verifiable code.

Absolutely! My premise is that with turing completeness comes more chances for shooting in the foot.

> Im not as upset about the hardfork as many people, though. Social constructs > should be changable by politics, not indelible and absolute. That's not what > they were selling, but all the same, what they were selling was dystopian > nonsense where humans are chained to machines, not their masters. It's a > feature not bug of social constructs to be changeable through politics. What > matters is the political process to do so.

This is great insight. I think for me, personally, the problem I have is that it seems like there isn't much politics involved at all... a completely centralized and small group made a decision and the great majority of users followed right along (as we would expect them to).

This is not quite how it is (or was anyway) sold to people as a concept.

<comment><USER16> Checkout Byteball. I think it has a strong future and the technology is novel. [https://Byteball.org](https://Byteball.org)

<comment><USER17> They advertise a "fair" distribution. Note that

        98% of all bytes and blackbytes will be distributed to
        current Bitcoin holders who bother to prove their
        Bitcoin balances during at least one of distribution
        rounds.

and that

        Then the number of bytes and blackbytes you receive in
        each round will be proportional to the balance of your
        Bitcoin address in the snapshot block of that round.

So the rich get richer, again. This is not "fair" in the sense that I thought they meant ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A lot of things have happened in the crypto currency world over the past three months. A lot of people attribute ETH's breakout to the EEA announcement or the ETF rejection. Those things while I'm sure they had some effect are unlikely the underlying driver of the recent price move.

The current ETH price trend started in February. The other thing that happened in Feb. is that ETH's transaction volume started to rise after being essentially flat for the year prior. [0] The rise in ETH transactions roughly coincided with Bitcoin's blocks being consistently full and large backlogs in the Bitcoin transaction mem pool. [1] You can also look at Bitcoin's transaction volume graph and see that it's transaction volume has been growing throughout the year long bull market it is currently in. [2] ETH's price on the other hand was flat until February when it started to benefit from congestion in Bitcoin. Make of that what you will.

[0] [https://etherscan.io/chart/tx](https://etherscan.io/chart/tx)

[1] [https://blockchain.info/charts/mempool- size?timespan=1year](https://blockchain.info/charts/mempool- size?timespan=1year)

[2] [https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all](https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all)

[3] [https://etherscan.io/chart/etherprice](https://etherscan.io/chart/etherprice)

</comment><comment><USER19> Turing complete smart contracts are a problem, we will make mistakes, The DAO showed. Programmers can not make perfect software, formal logic is too hard and too expensive.

Instead, you can use a cryptocurrency which supports declarative smart contracts, which a lay-person could read, write and understand.

Declarative smart contracts, over at [https://byteball.org/](https://byteball.org/)

<comment><USER20> Using bytes as the unit of currency is awful. That's like releasing a car whose dashboard displays speed in liters.

<comment><USER21> Incidentally, the SI unit of fuel efficiency is 1/m^2, the "per-square-metre", not this miles per gallon crap.

<comment><USER22> Miles is a unit of measure, ultimately _meters_ in the SI. A gallon is a volume, _liters_ in the SI, or more fundamentally a fraction of _cube-meters_ (m^3).

m / m^3 = 1/m^2

Which is the unit for fuel efficiency. It's expressed in imperial units but it's physically sound, not 'crap'. ;)

In other parts of the world you'll see this expressed as "liters per 100km" usually.

<comment><USER21> Maybe my tongue-in-cheekness wasn't clear, sorry.

MPG is more pervasive than you might think. Even in metric, European Ireland it's the typical unit, despite speeds being in km/h and fuel being sold by the litre.

Since you seem to be interested, let me also add that litres are only accepted by, not part of, the SI. Also the SI spellings are "metre" and "litre".

<comment><USER22> Ha sorry I indeed failed to catch your irony... My bad too, then.

I'm actually quite interested in the fact that any equation can be "sanity checked" by solving it for units only (without values). It's always handy to make sure I didn't forget some exponent here or there. And knowing extended units as a composition of fundamentals (some variation of mksa) is kind of entertaining intellectually.(e.g. Newton = m.kg/s^2, which really makes sense when you think about it). Going down to Planck units and their significance in this universe (discrete spacetime manifold? Is reality ultimately non- continuous?), and here I am wishing our conventional units (of time, distance, all) were integer multiples (e.g. Decimal exponents) of Planck units. But I'm digressing, aren't I.

As far as fuel and efficiency goes, I'm not much of a car person. I didn't know that mpg was used outside the US, that's an interesting historical artefact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If there was a hard fork, shouldn't they report numbers for both versions? Or which version went up by 50%?

<comment><USER24> The new version the old version is at $1.60 +-

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> The altcoin trading market went berserk after the ETF decision, so there is likely some correlation. I guess a lot of money was made off the volatility around that time, so it had to go somewhere.

P.S. as I write this, poloniex went down.

</comment><comment><USER26> I see two reasons for this:

1) Bitcoin transaction fees increasing and ETH being the main alternative available on Coinbase, even though ETH is not meant to be a currency, more like AWS credits, and its supply isn't fixed so isn't a good store of value.

2) Everyone was holding onto their BTC in case the ETF decision lead to a surge of new money into bitcon. Now that is off the table they are seeking bigger returns in alts.

Also new money is being pulling in by Dash hyping their version to those who missed out on the bitcoin bull and since Dash is nothing special now people have the idea that any other alt could be next.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'll get the dumb stuff out of the way.

No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles.

No it wasn't a centralized bailout.

Yes, there were SOME shady things that went down, but all very minor. It was a very confusing time for all.

Yes, the website says "unstoppable uncensorable contracts" and we stopped one. Congratulations. Let me direct you to Ethereum Classic. You can't complain about a hard fork when you have a community that upholds the original version. Go complain there. The rest of us are moving forward and helping develop a technology that will ultimately be fully decentralized and uncensorable. In the meantime, our community respects our centralized development team that is super awesome and competent and are committed to changing the world.

Best analogy I can come up with is Elon Musk trying to develop automated driving cars, and a few people tragically get killed along the way due to it. That doesnt mean automated driving cars are bad, or that development of the technology should cease.

Here's a great list of upcoming projects

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/5slji5/its_all_sl...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/5slji5/its_all_slowly_starting_to_come_together/)

<comment><USER28> > No, the hard fork for TheDAO did not sacrifice our principles.

> No it wasn't a centralized bailout.

> Yes, there were SOME shady things that went down, but all very minor. It was > a very confusing time for all.

> Yes, the website says "unstoppable uncensorable contracts" and we stopped > one. Congratulations. Let me direct you to Ethereum Classic. You can't > complain about a hard fork when you have a community that upholds the > original version. Go complain there. The rest of us are moving forward and > helping develop a technology that will ultimately be fully decentralized and > uncensorable. In the meantime, our community respects our centralized > development team that is super awesome and competent and are committed to > changing the world.

What's to prevent a similar situation in the future and why should anyone believe that to hold?

> Best analogy I can come up with is Elon Musk trying to develop automated > driving cars, and a few people tragically get killed along the way due to > it. That doesnt mean automated driving cars are bad, or that development of > the technology should cease.

In your analogy the company set up by Musk would get sued and possibly shut down. It wouldn't stop the concept itself from being developed or promoted by others and doesn't speak to the concept itself. I'm not saying Ethereum should have "given up" but sacrificing the core point of transactions not being able to be backed out is pretty damning.

<comment><USER27> "What's to prevent a similar situation in the future and why should anyone believe that to hold?"

Ask yourself if this was a centralized hard fork ordered by up high, or as users we chose to opt in to this change. Clearly we opted in, because Ethereum Classic exists for those who so wish. Therefore, the Ethereum Foundation did not "force" me to do anything that I didn't agree to.

Yes in my example Musk might have gotten sued (although really? is he at risk of that right now? I doubt it.), but a mistake early on in development should not hinder the advancement of the technology.

If you are going to say smart contracts are useful, but we should abandon the Ethereum blockchain, then BY ALL MEANS please go to Ethereum Classic. You'll be welcome there with open arms. But the main Ethereum community clearly prioritizes pragmatism, as do the majority of the world. We're not idealists. We're actually trying to put out a meaningful technology to help people. So you can throw Musk in jail or let him get back to work on saving lives.

<comment><USER28> > Ask yourself if this was a centralized hard fork ordered by up high, or as > users we chose to opt in to this change. Clearly we opted in, because > Ethereum Classic exists for those who so wish. Therefore, the Ethereum > Foundation did not "force" me to do anything that I didn't agree to.

The analogy to the legal system is that mob rule supersedes (digital) contract law and property rights.

If people want to go down that path they're free to do so but I'm not a fan.

> Yes in my example Musk might have gotten sued (although really? is he at > risk of that right now? I doubt it.), but a mistake early on in development > should not hinder the advancement of the technology.

> If you are going to say smart contracts are useful, but we should abandon > the Ethereum blockchain, then BY ALL MEANS please go to Ethereum Classic. > You'll be welcome there with open arms. But the main Ethereum community > clearly prioritizes pragmatism, as do the majority of the world. We're not > idealists. We're actually trying to put out a meaningful technology to help > people.

Eating the loss doesn't stop you from developing better software. Heck, I'd say that it's a pretty good way to prevent things in the future by giving people a real incentive to _prevent_ bugs in the first place. If it's socially acceptable to roll back the clock because somebody wrote a dumb smart contract then it's a sign that writing dumb smart contracts is socially acceptable.

> So you can throw Musk in jail or let him get back to work on saving lives.

That's a false dichotomy. In the analogy Musk doesn't go to jail unless he willfully released something that he knew could kill people or otherwise programmed the cars to drive on the sidewalk.

In ETH's case they could have absorbed the loss, hardened the systems, and moved on. Honestly it would have added a lot more credibility to the whole endeavor by showing that they were willing to put their (ETH) money where their mouths are.

<comment><USER29> > The analogy to the legal system is that mob rule supersedes (digital) > contract law and property rights.

Imagine if you and I wrote a contract, and in the contract, there is a typo which says that I will pay you $5 gazillion for an iPhone, then that doesn't mean that the courts must enforce it. Clearly, it doesn't follow the 'intent' of the parties.

Now, what if the other side truly signed the contract because they thought that their iPhone was being bought for 5 gazillion dollars, well this is why we don't "JUST" communicate via the contract. We communicate and perform negotiations via other human channels and the legal contract is a formalized expression of our communication.

Same thing goes with smart contracts. I don't intend to use Smart Contracts because the missing 11th commandment said: "Thou shalt obey the Legal/Smart Contracts to the word". I want to use Smart Contracts because they would be an extension of legal contracts taken to the decentralized + technology domain.

Literally, nobody put their money in the DAO because they thought that if a person puts in $1000 in the DAO then he should be able to take out $10 million if he is clever enough.

Lemme put it this way, had the hard fork not happened, but nearly 90% of the Ethereum holders quit Ethereum after that and joined say Lisk or some other smart contract platform, (which meant that the hacker's bounty would have been decimated, would you still say that 'mob rule has superceded the contract law and property rights'?

<comment><USER30> "Clearly, it doesn't follow the 'intent' of the parties."

And who is deciding what that intent? Right now, the mob, so the parent is right :)

Your analogies to courts defeats the entire argument against that.

Courts were, in fact, set up as deciders of that thing called "law".

If code is law, so to speak, you don't need them. There is no intent.

<comment><USER29> > And who is deciding what that intent? Right now, the mob, so the parent is > right :)

Considering we can decide to abolish the constitution in America (or in any country) any time, does that mean we don't have a constitutional republic in America? Technically we can never say that we have a system X which is not Mob rule because the mob can always abolish it.

Literally speaking, there is no such thing as 'code is law' because in your definition there is no such thing as law, because anything which can be modified by the mob is not law and everything can be modified or abolished by the mob.

<comment><USER30> "Considering we can decide to abolish the constitution in America (or in any country) any time, does that mean we don't have a constitutional republic in America?"

The former is not correct, so the latter is nonsense. The constitution has no provision for abolishing it, the same as it does not have a provision allowing secession.

There is actually even caselaw on this, and it's very clear that it is about a perpetual union.

"Technically we can never say that we have a system X which is not Mob rule because the mob can always abolish it." That is 100% not what has happened here. In the constitutional system, there is a process for amending the constitution. it is not mob rule, or anything close to it. it is possible for basically 100% of the people to be against or for a thing, and them be unable to make it happen directly. (even if they call a constitutional convention, they send representatives, not a mob, etc)

In the other other case, the rules are 100% made up by whoever has the largest mob, directly. That is mob rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Its because of Barry Silbert's Ether trust. [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-09/bitcoin-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-09/bitcoin- trust-s-silbert-to-launch-classic-ether-fund-this-month)

</comment><comment><USER32> It also did 3x since Feb 1st.

I used this spike to cash out half of my ETH bought in July, which basically gave me back in $ my initial investment.

Interestingly, since July, roughly speaking both ETH and BTC doubled their prices. I was expecting ETH to go up, but I wasn't expecting BTC to be equally strong.

</comment><comment><USER33> ethereum = yahoo

tezos = google

choose</comment>


More people riding bikes makes cycling safer for everyone, major new study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/more-people-riding-bikes-makes-cycling-safer-for-everyone-major-new-study-finds-344859 <comment><USER2> Denmark just worked out it stopped 55,000 sick days and where able to persuade 34% of car drivers that tried an eBike to switch to an eBike. [https://cyclingindustry.news/danish-study-outlines- economic-...](https://cyclingindustry.news/danish-study-outlines-economic- savings-made-by-building-a-safe-cycling-network/)

Cycling can reduce risk of death by 41%, death by cancer 45% and death from heart disease by 46% [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39641122](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39641122)

A single 10ft cycle track can carry the same number of people as 7 lanes of car traffic.

Netherlands is currently at 10% obesity and going down to 8.5% by 2030. The UK is at 27% and predicted to go up to 35%.

So cycling really does appear be to that miracle solution for urban transport but you absolutely cannot 'share space'. Absolutely key to segregate. A good end to end network is only as good as its weakest link and too many times, town planners give in to politicians and local residents and deliver stuff that really is does not provide inclusive ages 8-80 cycle routes.

<comment><USER3> Basically every middle-class American child grew up riding a bicycle while sharing space with cars on his suburban streets.

Bike lanes may be a hard requirement for you, but the quintessential American childhood experience says that's not exactly widespread.

We go through the rite of passage of transitioning from bikes to cars at age 16 because they increase our time-efficiency and decrease physical exertion.

EDIT: A cursory Google puts the rate of cycling among children at 70%. Would you care to explain your disagreement?

<comment><USER4> Try commuting on your bike without dedicated lanes. It's dangerous as hell, car drivers are the worst. It's also super pleasant when you do have your own space, as it's nearly as quick as driving, but you get great exercise and it's pretty fun too.

<comment><USER3> If it's pleasant, you aren't exercising. 15mph is not "nearly as quick" as 60mph by any twist of the imagination. I ride regularly without dedicated lanes and feel far safer than I do at urban public transit stations. In other words, I don't think I can agree with anything in your post, other than that it's fun.

<comment><USER2> I'm beginning to recognise that you are a Vehicular Cyclist and probably fight against protected cycle lanes as this 'forces' you to use them. I've seen this argument a lot and only seems to be prevalent within the USA.

Most of the EU has recognised that this is a failed approach that only results in less people cycling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Come to Amsterdam to see first hand proof of this study. Virtually no one wears helmets... because you don't have to. Infrastructure is designed to be bikers first. Drivers are constantly aware of bikes and also receive training to avoid the most common accidents (hitting a biker when opening the door - see the Dutch Reach).

The biggest threat to a biker in this city is another (often less experienced) biker, pedestrians not looking around or trying to cross tram tracks parallel. However, it did take almost 40 years to get here though, changes starting in the 1970s - I do hope many cities will follow a similar route.

<comment><USER6> >Virtually no one wears helmets... because you don't have to.

Helmets are pretty misunderstood. They don't offer much in the way of protection in a serious accident. The real value is in preventing serious head injuries in an otherwise minor fall/accident.

People in Amsterdam may not wear helmets but it's because they choose not to, not because helmets aren't needed.

<comment><USER7> > Helmets are pretty misunderstood. They don't offer much in the way of > protection in a serious accident

Have you got a source for that claim?

[http://bhsi.org/stats.htm#effectiveness](http://bhsi.org/stats.htm#effectiveness)

"Helmets provide a 66 to 88% reduction in the risk of head, brain and severe brain injury for all ages of bicyclists. Helmets provide equal levels of protection for crashes involving motor vehicles (69%) and crashes from all other causes (68%). Injuries to the upper and mid facial areas are reduced 65%.

Authors' conclusions Helmets reduce bicycle-related head and facial injuries for bicyclists of all ages involved in all types of crashes, including those involving motor vehicles. Our response to comments from critics are presented in the Feedback section.

Plain Language Summary Wearing a helmet dramatically reduces the risk of head and facial injuries for bicyclists involved in a crash, even if it involves a motor vehicle."

<comment><USER8> You are referring to the US situation. As a dutchie, I wouldn't even want to bike with a helmet in the US. Of course, helmets work to an extent when the conditions are extremely hostile. They have (limited) value. True.

The solution isn't to leave the unsafe conditions untouched and protect just a part of the body by means of a helmet, rather it is making the driving conditions for bikers safe.

As it turns out, those safe conditions render the helmet as unnecesary. As pointed out, helmets could be a net loss in safety in a safe biker environment.

Biker helmets are a sign of bad road safety.

<comment><USER9> Even if your the only person on a closed smooth track, you can get a pretty bad TBI injury if you crash. Wear a helmet for yourself, not because it's against the culture of where you live.

Look at this guy without a helmet get one because he screwed up on a track: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVZz8EN_NKw&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVZz8EN_NKw&feature=youtu.be&t=508) The crash didn't look that bad, but it was enough.

<comment><USER10> We always go off about helmets, no one talks about learning how to wipe out. That guy didn't know how to go to the ground correctly.

Getting on a skateboard or a bike without having learned how to wipeout is about as irresponsible as going into a boxing match not knowing how to dodge or block a punch. Like, if there was a match between a guy with a helmet and no boxing experience, and a guy with no helmet but plenty of boxing experience, who would you bet on?

Pro skateboarders and BMXers rarely wear helmets and regularly walk away from spectacular, cringe inducing accidents that would kill or cripple a less skilled individual, and of course, they've been mastering the art of wiping out for as long as they've been riding.

A friend of mine once stood on a skateboard for not even 2 seconds before it rolled out from under him, he fell back and broke his elbow, he just hadn't conditioned himself to react properly in that situation. I saw another guy on a bike go sailing over the hood of a car that cut him off, and he did a face- plant on the other side, he didn't think to tuck his head or get his arms between himself and the pavement. His face was all bloody and his front teeth were knocked out, his helmet didn't do him much good. Being able to react instinctively to something like that takes training.

Strapping some styrofoam to your head is probably better than nothing, but framing bicycle safety as a binary depending on whether someone has a helmet on is a gross oversimplification. Between skateboarding, various styles of cycling, and general horsing around I've had hundreds, if not thousands of wipeouts and the only time I suffered a concussion was when I was mugged by a guy who came up behind me.

<comment><USER9> Most people can strap on a helmet and pay $20. Figuring how to wipe out is a entire different level that isn't that scaleable to an entire populace.

Not to mention its not very enjoyable to learn unless you are in some large padded room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I believe it. After picking up cycling a couple years ago, I've noticed I am a lot more aware of bikes on the road, and drive with more care. I've also noticed my family driving more carefully around bikes as I've mentioned close calls I've had. I imagine it also leads to more willingness to invest in cycling infrastructure, which tends to make things safer as well.

<comment><USER12> I think cyclists create a halo effect because they create a stigma against harming cyclists in their social circle. People who are confident that they aren't personally connected to any cyclists openly joke about running them down. The only consequences they worry about if they hit a cyclist are legal ones, and when cycling is rare and "weird," they know there probably won't be any. When, on the other hand, they know there are cyclists among their coworkers or in their social circle, or if cycling is prevalent enough that they feel it's likely, they start to worry about the stigma that will attach to them if somebody finds out they knocked down a cyclist or carelessly put a cyclist in danger. They're forced to pay attention in a way that they didn't have to before.

Many people _hate_ this change, by the way. It scares them that an attitude they used to be able to joke about in a positive way is now something they have to hide. It makes them angry that they have to invest effort and attention for the benefit of people they feel opposed to. It's easy for progressives to simply see it as "progress" and not realize that it leaves a lot of people feeling like losers.

<comment><USER13> Do you actually know people who have no ethical problems killing random cyclists?

<comment><USER7> I don't know any personally, but I know they exist. A friend of mine was killed by one intentionally in South Carolina.

[https://www.bikelaw.com/2011/10/s-c-driver-convicted-of- felo...](https://www.bikelaw.com/2011/10/s-c-driver-convicted-of-felony-for- killing-cyclist/)

"Throughout the country, cycling deaths are regularly dismissed by law enforcement as mere traffic 'accidents.' But often they are not accidental, the needless fatalities are tragic consequences of reckless driving and lawless drivers."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think a lot of the problems that cyclists have when riding amongst motor vehicles have to do with existing laws (such as riding as far right as practicable when going less than the normal speed of traffic).

In reality, most traffic lanes are not wide enough for a cyclist and a car to travel side by side with sufficient clearance between the two vehicles. A cyclist is about 2.5 to 3 feet wide and many states have laws requiring at least feet of distance between them and the cyclist. The cyclist will also ride about 2 to 3 feet from the right edge of the lane. A car is a little less than 6 feet wide on average.

If you add those distances up, you end up with a total of 14 to 15 feet. Even on interstate highways, lanes may only 12 feet wide. On surface streets, they may only be 10 feet wide. Because of this, you end up with the situation where cars will "lane split" while passing a cyclist and frequently misjudge how far they are from the cyclist when passing them. Also, the lane splitting car cannot leave enough room for cars in the adjacent lane because the lanes do not have sufficient width to accommodate a vehicle and half of another vehicle.

Another problem is that cyclists riding to the right aren't as visible to traffic as opposed to those who are "taking the lane". They're more vulnerable to collisions such as "right-hooks", traffic entering from side streets and opposing left turning traffic who didn't see them.

The laws should be changed to say that cyclists are like slow moving vehicles who are entitled to the full use of the lane they're riding in and passing traffic must move completely into the adjacent lane, when safe to do so, to pass the cyclist and only return to their original lane of travel after they have sufficient clearance. The law should also allow vehicles to pass cyclists on a double-yellow when its safe to do so with the same conditions as above.

This will legally sanction the "take the lane" type of riding and make cyclists more visible to the rest of traffic.

</comment><comment><USER15> More people riding also makes it normal. 15 years ago, working for a cycling wholesale distributor I was the only one that cycled to work. Yet I felt I had to explain why I cycled just so people didn't think I was a banned drink driver.

In 2017 I am glad to say that all the bike parking is taken at 8.55 in the morning and there are bike to work posters in the kitchen.

There is nothing new in this study. Perceptions have changed though and I thank all who have participated in this.

<comment><USER16> When I was growing up, biking was mostly for teenagers under 16. After that kids graduated to cars. I was an outlier biking into my twenties, eventually commuting to work meant having to drive 20 mins or taking a bus over an hour.

Weekend warrior lycra cyclists, I think, cleared the path for regular cyclists. It kind of normalized adults on a bike on roads.

<comment><USER17> Adults have been riding bikes for transportation for far longer than we have been giving spoiled, unsafe brats cars for "sweet 16".

<comment><USER16> True, but when I was growing up, very few adolescents rode bikes. Mostly only adults on the periphery of society did and a few enthusiasts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You mean less dangerous. To me, San Diego and Ft. Worth are average areas. In these places bicycles are relatively rare compared to cars. I am always surprised when I see them.

Cars weigh thousands of pounds. Consider the safety precautions for cars with air bags, crumple zones, and crash testing. There is no protection from cars for someone on a bicycle.

They try to say riding on the sidewalk with a bike is more dangerous because cars do not look out for bicycles at driveways and such.

But personally in most areas I don't feel safe biking on the street, and would rather stay on the sidewalk like I did when I was a kid. I would just have to pause to check before crossing driveways and intersections.

I believe that there will eventually be something like a smart safe city where 2000+ pounds vehicles do not freely mix with pedestrians, cyclists, and baby strollers. There should be physical barriers or totally separate walkways.

Think about it. They can't even sell a car without an airbag anymore. Yet what chance do you have from a physics standpoint to be truly safe when the other vehicle exceeds your mass by 2000+ pounds?

<comment><USER19>
        > I don't feel safe biking on the street, and would rather stay on the sidewalk like I did when I was a kid. I would just have to pause to check before crossing driveways and intersections.

This is a common misconception among folks who don't cycle. Cyclists are actually safer on the street. If you ride on the sidewalk, you have to deal with more potential issues such as pedestrians, driveways and intersections become even more dangerous because you're behaving as both a pedestrian and a vehicle with the all the disadvantages of both. In general, cyclists are the most unsafe where cars are not expecting them. Large suburban parking lots, for example, are particularly hazardous for cyclists-- experienced cyclists use extreme caution in parking lots, believe it or not.

Cycling is not particularly dangerous, depending on how you define "dangerous".

Most car-bike collisions occur at intersections and are "right-hooks". This is when a car turns right, cutting across the path of the the cyclist and the cyclist hits the car because there's not enough room to stop or turn. These accidents typically result in bruises, damage to bike and sometimes a broken collarbone. They're rarely fatal unless the right-turning vehicle is a truck and the cyclist ends up under the truck.

The accident you're probably thinking of is a car hitting a cyclist from behind with a huge difference in speed. This, I believe, results in the most fatalities for car-bike accidents. It is relatively rare.

        > ...what chance do you have from a physics standpoint to be truly safe...

None. You have no chance to be truly safe. That's an unrealistic goal for any kind of traffic system.

<comment><USER18> As I said, I am aware that you are supposedly in danger at driveways etc. I said I would pause to check at driveways and those places. You did not acknowledge or read what I wrote, you just took the opportunity to give me a patronizing lecture.

It is realistic to try to avoid putting myself in a position where I may avoid being hit or run over by a car with no steel or anything to protect me. And we are making massive strides in terms of safety with things like self-driving cars.

<comment><USER19> Sorry, don't mean to be patronizing.

You may know that risk can qualitatively be thought of as a product of two factors: the severity of the outcome and the probability of occurrence.

In the case of cycling a high-speed rear collision with a car is very unlikely but very severe in its outcome. How common is this accident? Not very common-- it ends up on the news when it does occur.

Many many cyclists enjoy riding, on the street, for their whole lives and never have a serious accident or injury.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Not to dismiss the study (because other studies have certainly found counter- intuitive results before), but I've always thought this would be an obvious result. If other road users are used to dealing with cyclists, and expecting them to be there at all, it's hard to see how that would make cycling less safe.

</comment><comment><USER21> I love the concept, but no way would I try to pull it off in 99% of the USA. I know a lot of road biking, bike to work, etc. enthusiasts and every damned one of 'em has some horrific hit-and-run story :-/

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm still deeply uncomfortable about riding a bike next to / in front of a car compared to the sidewalk, and I'm not sure how to overpower that fear...

<comment><USER23> Everyone that cycles on open roads had at some point to work on that fear. Though a little challenging at first, it's pretty simple.

Hold your line, if you have to deviate from it make sure you use your hands to signal your intention. There's tech to help you with that too. Garmin makes a proximity sensor that you can install on your bike that you let you know when cars are getting close to you; and there's my favorite solution, a Bontrager Flare RT rear light. Finally, you should use your bike to explore alternate/less trafficked routes. Bonus tip sourced from anecdata: I've found out that if you can keep up with the traffic speed most drivers will leave you alone.

Keep cycling and have a nice ride! :)

<comment><USER22> Yeah, mostly I plan to drive on trails and such, and, honestly, probably a lot of sidewalks. But sometimes you can't avoid it / the foot traffic is very busy so it makes sense not to bother the pedestrians.

Proximity sensor + rear mirror sound like good ideas to at least make one feel safer, I didn't know these were a thing (don't bike much due to aforementioned fears), thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I ride in NYC and have for almost a decade now. The city has taken major leaps forward at becoming more bicycle friendly, thanks in part to Citi Bike proliferation and the addition of more protected bike paths. I think there's still a long way to go - especially in terms of education of riders around proper biking etiquette, especially towards pedestrians

</comment><comment><USER25> I've always believed this. More bikers on the road creates more awareness from drivers, and also more investment by cities into bike infrastructure, including dedicated and protected bike lanes.

More bikes available also means more bikers, something we're working on at Spin for US cities. Get in touch (email in profile) if this seems like a problem space interesting to you :)

</comment><comment><USER26> Or, generalized, more people doing X makes X safer for everyone. :)

</comment><comment><USER27> Bike network effects!

</comment><comment><USER28> if everyone was riding a bicycle, bicycle riders would be safe indeed...

</comment><comment><USER29> This doesn't show that biking has gotten safer. It may have, but later adopters of biking are also less likely to engage in risky behavior.

Similarly, as the percentage of folks who use heroin increases, the relative rate of overdoses declines. But that doesn't mean that heroin itself has become any more or less safe.

<comment><USER30> What's missing from the heroin analogy is fact that the dangers faced by cyclists can be changed - if drivers see a cyclist every 5 minutes vs every 1 hour, they'll be looking out for bicyclists constantly.

<comment><USER31> What's also missing from the heroin analogy is that heroin itself _is_ becoming safer as its use becomes widespread. It's made to a higher quality, with more standardized production processes, people know how to measure strength better, and the average person becomes more likely to know a good source for safe heroin that isn't cut with dangerous drugs like fentanyl.

Take it to the logical extreme, imagining legalization of heroin and subsequent widespread use and sale in convenience stores, and it'd be way safer, because you'd always be getting a standardized product.

<comment><USER29> > heroin itself is becoming safer as its use becomes widespread

That definitely was true for a while, not sure about in the last few years. A less controversial analogy might be with coffee, where the rate of people overdosing is probably lower now that it's no longer mainly used by Sufi mystics in enormous doses for entheogenic purposes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you want to work at the MIT Media Lab? - <AUTHOR>

Media Lab is one crazy place to do research at. I deferred my application last year to MIT media lab and went on to do neural net research at IBM Almaden Research center.
There's no clear data about what are minimum requirements? How many students do they take etc.? The info is absolutely very less.
Can we form a small group of people who're applying.a private googlegroup would be great. Anyone? <comment><USER2> As one of the ML alums on HN, happy to share a few pointers.

The lab is a total of about 250 grad students and faculty, including MS and PhD. I imagine about 60% of grad students are MS. Even if you have an MS before, you'll have to start with the Media Lab MS degree.

You really apply to a specific adviser, so its important to know your research area, and define your past work in that context.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am sure. However, the faculty seems to busy to reply. I know that they receive a 100 emails per day.</comment>


A Ring of Controversy Around a Black Hole Photo - <AUTHOR> https://profmattstrassler.com/2019/06/14/a-ring-of-controversy-around-a-black-hole-photo/ <comment><USER2> As far as I can tell from an slightly extended skim of this text, this is a case of people from an adjacent field (theoretical GR) writing a paper that finishes with a remark about their abstract model that does not easily translate to the one used by the EHT.

In fact, I find this rather nice summary towards the end of the article:

"In particular, EHT's simulations show all of the effects mentioned above; there's none of this of which they are unaware. [...] Thus it's not enough to argue the photo itself is ambiguous; one has to argue that EHT's more subtle analysis methods are flawed. No one has argued that yet, as far as I am aware."

To me this reads very much like "I probably shouldn't have used 'controversy' in the title".

</comment><comment><USER3> The unit of resolution of that photo is just a little bit smaller than the size of the hole in the middle. Thus you are looking at the inverse convolution function that generates all the in-between pixels as much as you are looking at the black hole.

Eyeballing it you can't judge much at all, maybe the central hole is really smaller, maybe the ring is a little thinner, maybe not. It is a Rorschach test as much as anything else.

</comment><comment><USER4> Image was made by comparing polarization of photons on each pixel. BH gravity bends space and that changes photon plane. It is all in authors papers.

</comment><comment><USER5> This video by Derek Muller (Veritasium) helped me understand this phenomenon.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo)

<comment><USER6> The article states that the photon sphere does not exist, therefore his explanation is incorrect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I first saw the photo with very little explanation attached, I took the ring of light around it to be the accretion disc and found it suspicious that it would be so perfectly perpendicular to earth.

<comment><USER8> Even if it was the accretion disk, it would look that way no matter how it was facing earth because gravity would bend the light from the far side around.

<comment><USER9> To all viewers from any viewpoint relative to it? That's the bit I don't understand.

<comment><USER10> Derek explains the physics in a reasonably understandable manner in this video on his Youtube channel: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUyH3XhpLTo)

<comment><USER9> I've watched it, but his explanation (which is the best I've seen; don't misread me), basically goes into why it looks "thus" when viewed edge-on of the accretion disk. But there are as few like that as there are viewed from the poles; so why do they _ALL_ look like this?

If that's just the way it is I'll accept it, but I haven't heard or seen a good explanation yet.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What hashing algorithm does goo.gl use? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> It's not a pure hash; the same URL can be used many times to generate independent URLs. Using only the input of '<http://google.com> generated the following URLs in a brief test:

        aw9RP    fzUmL    n4UNp    V0Nre
        AYp1X    OFw3w    oQnRL    RyICJ
        eMioQ    sUcjC    mzmKE    i8NyH
        42R3d    9XYcV    6KpEd    TCve2
        tzNUd    pRMdn    QbmDx    WYaqH
        Ju74J    gqmYd    kilG8    AFe1P
        HiyI8    uqJal    qj5mZ    MzzwK
        WU8tK    QJlwz    vEqhL    1hdpl
        bBWCx    CQgWq    3avus    m8S7A
        ufJ4v    YBlWF    7T4cX    1ypMQ
        8zgUA    Sslwf    9HTDt    7t8ji
        AqedO    qyJNj    6rdR4    zRzcv
        0wkJ9    Zmf4l    rV5aK    af7cE
        ix0TO    bvNbb    p4cKS    m3vjc
        SXAnj    DcLA2    JRwiP    IdTQK

<comment><USER3> It's likely not hash at all, just a unique identifier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I assume they're just random numbers encoded in "base 62" or similar.

<http://birdhouse.org/blog/2010/10/24/base62-urls-django/>

<comment><USER2> It would be base72; they use all the lowercase numbers, all the uppercase numbers, and all the digits.

<comment><USER3> How is it base72?

      A-Z = 26
      a-z = 26
      0-9 = 10

      26 + 26 + 10 = 62

<comment><USER2> derp. The GP's page said "... goal page URIs consisting of characters from this set:

        BASE62 = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

I missed the numbers in the middle. How embarrassing. Time to get offline...</comment></comment></comment></comment>