Great Toilet-Roll Holder Design - <AUTHOR> http://danzambonini.com/toilet-roll-holder-design/

<comment><USER2> Cool I suppose, but I would much prefer a simpler solution. A solid steel rod that bends 90 degrees at the end, high enough to keep the roll on, but not high enough to prevent changing it. Like this:

      |                              Here is where
      |                              the rod is
      +</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>anchored.

Assuming the radius of a toilet paper tube is greater than 3 line heights.</comment>


Peter Higgins, Dojo Toolkit, JSConf 2009 Presentation - <AUTHOR> http://jsconf2009.com/higgins_video.html

<comment><USER2> Not the easiest to follow presentation. You could tell he was nervous. The info is great if you already have an understanding of dojo.</comment>


Ask HN: Win 7 installation - misleading about multiboot?  - <AUTHOR>

I am working on a compiler which i need working on linux
and windows. I have been developing on GNU/linux all
this time, but decided to now check that it works well
on windows too. So I purchased a copy of windows 7
Home premium - and installed it on my laptop.
It had 12 (1-3 primary and 5-13 xtended) partitions
and I have 3 GNU/linux variants installed on it
(you never know what you need on a rainy day)
When you reach the install screen on windows 7 there
are 2 links below the "Install Now" button.
1. What to know before installing windows 2. Repair your computer.
I clicked on the "What to know ..." link and it has
a note like this.
Heading:
  "To install a custom (new) version of Windows 7"
Note:
  "Use custom when you want to replace your
   current operating system entirely;
   When you want to keep your current operating
   system and install Windows on an available,
   separate partition of your hard disk (multiboot);
   or when no operating system is currently installed"
When I read this note I was happy,
because it meant that I would not have to
tweak with the boot loader after installing windows.
However after it finished the installation,
there was no option to boot linux.
I called up microsoft support - first in the US
and then in India (this number  +91 80 40103000).
In india i spoke to Shruti and then a technical supervisor Sudhakar Bhagavanth - the IVR number is: 110414013468005
I pointed out the text to them,
both of them made me put in the installation DVD.
They said that I had installed windows over my linux partiton etc
- i said no, the windows 7 installation is not
honouring the multiboot which was shown
on the initial screen. I had various arguments
with Sudhakar - he first tried to argue that
multi means 2, then said it did not work
because i had 3 installations of linux, but would have worked it i had say 1  Mac OS, and 1 Windows and 1 Linux,
 but not 3 versions of Linux,  about how I had
installed windows on the linux partition,
or Other operating Systems means Windows XP
( it is clearly written in the note " ... keep
  your current operating system ") - My current
operating system is linux.
No, dont believe me - it's all recorded on the call and that tape is in the call center.
I feel that the information presented in the note is misleading and thought I would post here just to
figure out if others feel the same or is it just me. <comment><USER2> A couple of things.

This is a terrible wall of text that's really hard to read.

Your asking a support question and this isn't the forum for that, I'd try LinuxQuestions.

Two quick notes, look for a partition recovery program (TestDisk from cgsecurity maybe). Also Windows installations can get wrongly marked as "recovery" by Grub (a popular boot manager).

Lastly, I flagged this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry about the formatting. My main gripe was about the misleading multiboot mentioned in the Windows 7 pre-install notes screen.

Edit: I fixed it and removed the non-relevant tech question.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Atom plugin: better navigation panel - <AUTHOR> it displays structure of given JavaScript file (imports, classes etc.) on side panel.
It can analyze whole JavaScript project and give informations like "what files in project import
current file?".
It works with JavaScript (support for CommonJS and ES6 imports), it currently partially support AngularJS, and has basic support of CoffeeScript.
I'm also working for project explorer like these in Smalltalk-IDEs, when you can easily explore all entities (classes, functions, modules, components etc.) in project, but this part of the plugin is still in beta stage.
http://atom.io/packages/atom-lupa <comment><AUTHOR> link: [http://atom.io/packages/atom-lupa](http://atom.io/packages/atom-lupa)</comment>


The Instapaper Default.png dilemma - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/1548306059 <comment><USER2> We've gone through the same problem. In our case, we wanted our game to resume exactly where the user left off (i.e. no splash screen).

Our solution was to use a pure black Default.png, and design our game to have very low upfront load times. On iPhone 3GS, our game takes 1-2 seconds to fade in from pure black.

This also fixed the problem we had where some users that preferred to flip the game upside down (landscape mode).

</comment><comment><USER3> The AppleWay (tm) has another problem:

By displaying the last snapshot of the app as a splash screen, the Apple apps imply that you can immediately interact with the application - but you can't, because it's just a static image.

On slower hardware (e.g., the original iPhone/iPod Touch), this violation of user expectations can last for a measurable time - easily enough for the user to make multiple attempts to interact.

Touch...nothing happens. Touch...nothing happens.

A splash screen is better than a misleading "last view" snapshot.

Go with the night mode splash screen.

kb

<comment><USER4> The 'last snapshot as a splash screen' actually traces back to Jeff Raskin's work on the Canon Cat.

It counts on the user trying to remember where he left off while the program loads, so by the time you think "aha, I was gonna send an e-mail to Ron" the UI is responsive. It's a nice trick that saves you time in the end.

Of course, if the app takes too long to launch the UI would seem unresponsive, which is why Apple chose to not make it available to third party developers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Notes and Calendar are the only apps that still use custom launch images. I always found it to be more annoying than useful because you can't tell when the damn app has actually started running, so it's no surprise that they didn't make that feature available to third-party apps.

But if you look at Apple's other software, say, iBooks or Remote.app, the launch image often doesn't match the initial UI presented when the app starts running. I don't think it's much of an issue.

In the case of Instapaper, I might consider doing a very fast animation from light to dark, when necessary, but I wouldn't spend much time on it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Animate from Default.png to the first view:

      CABasicAnimation *a = [CABasicAnimation animationWithKeyPath:@"opacity"];
      a.duration = 3.0;
      a.fromValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:1.0];
      a.toValue = [NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.0];
      [theLayer addAnimation:a forKey:@"animateOpacity"];

Warning: tapped out that code off the top of my head and didn't put it through a compiler.

<comment><USER7> May I ask why you aren't using the UIView animations, which, for something like this, are easier (and don't need the extra CA power)?

For this case, do this (also uncompiled):

        [UIView beginAnimations:nil context:NULL];
        [UIView setAnimationDuration:3.0];
        [defaultImageView setAlpha:0.0];
        [UIView commitAnimations];

<comment><USER6> From the documentation: [http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/uikit/reference/UIView_Class/UIView/UIView.html)

      Use of this method is discouraged in iOS 4.0 and later. You should use the block-based animation methods instead.

Frankly, it's because I can't remember the block based methods off the top of my head yet.

<comment><USER7> Interesting; I didn't know that. The block-based methods are, of course, better, but then you can't support iOS 3.x, which is still a pretty big percent of users.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is another case of Apple not allowing third-party apps the same features of it's own apps (the previous privilege being multitasking, now mostly allowed).

This disparity makes it hard for a developer like Marco, who is only trying follow his rule of "If in doubt, do it Apple's way" (as repeated in the HIG and similar documents Apple provides to developers).

That said, with the new multitasking support in iOS 4 for newer devices, perhaps this issue is less important than it once was, especially for apps that you use often (and thus keep running).

<comment><USER8> It's not that big of a deal, let's not turn this into an "Apple is evil" discussion. Apple deals with this in their own apps (iBooks, for an example off the top of my head.) Every iPhone developer deals with it as well.

<comment><USER9> There does seem to be a difference in Apple's App store apps and the default system apps, which could be considered more analogous to a OS feature. The distinction is muddled since these OS features are accessed from the springboard, along with actual apps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This are my solutions: <http://twitpic.com/360tqd> or <http://twitpic.com/360t2b>

Effectively, halfway between the dark and light.

<comment><USER11> Nice. A gray evocative of either look was my first thought as well.

It could also be half-and-half -- for example a diagonal cut. (Then the transition to the actual could wipe the wrong color off to one side.)

Or, a shaded gradient, top to bottom, between the light and dark -- so either way the flicker-to-actual is half as harsh. (This could also work well with a fade/wipe to actual.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Possible solutions:

\- Make it a picture of the dark mode interface, and animate to the light interface on start (or vice versa).

\- Show the splash screen, and animate in the UI components.

I have no idea how hard either solution is, but you might be able to get a less jarring start from an approach like this.

It sucks that you can't take a snapshot of the app when exiting though.

</comment><comment><USER13> On the fastest hardware, you could keep Default.png displayed just a split second longer to avoid the "blink too quickly" problem.

Yes, it's bad because it further delays the launch of the app but if the hardware is so fast that the short blink is a concern the slight added delay probably isn't a big deal.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is also an issue for one of my apps, which can launch in a horizontal landscape, there's no way to create two Default.png files, once for each orientation (correct me if I'm wrong, would love to optimise for it).

<comment><USER5> You can (and would) on iPad, because apps can launch in any orientation. On the iPhone, apps always launch in portrait orientation (unless it's a landscape-only app) so your iPhone launch image only needs to support a single orientation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Marco doesn't have any comments enabled, which is a shame. He seems quite difficult to make contact with.

I'd say start with the dark default image. If you're starting Instapaper in a poorly lit environment in dark mode it'll be more disrupting to your night sight to have a bright starting image than if you start in normal mode and have a dark starting image.

Are splash screens cheesy? That's a personal convention, but screwing with someone's night sight for a particular use case focused on it being dark is probably far worse.

I use dark mode during the day on Instapaper Pro, I just prefer it and find it easier on the eyes.

</comment><comment><USER16> Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this problem solved by using a symlink? Creating a symlink with the name Default.png and then dynamically generating the file it points to is basically on par with Apple's built in apps.

[http://collison.ie/blog/2008/11/dynamic-defaultpng-files- on-...](http://collison.ie/blog/2008/11/dynamic-defaultpng-files-on-the- iphone)

The article is from 2008 and the SDK may have since disallowed this behavior. I've not tried it myself.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would just forgo the launch image for Instapaper then. Just get the UI up as quickly as possible. Also, supporting "multitasking" on iOS 4 helps with getting the UI up quickly when brought into the foreground.

<comment><USER18> I don't believe the launch image is something you can just forgo.

<comment><USER19> You can skip the Default.png file. The experience without it can be terrible, though. Your app will just show a black, blank screen until it finishes booting.

It's a bad enough experience that it's not even worth considering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love the look of the splash screen... why don't you just go with that? What does dropbox do? their app comes up with a lovely looking splashscreen as well and it sticks for a little while..

</comment><comment><USER21> Using secret APIs and not allowing third-party developers to access them so that first-party apps are better. Seems to me I've heard this before...

</comment><comment><USER22> iPhone User Interface Guideline recommends design a launch image that is identical to the first screen of app, and avoid a splash/about screen and branding elements.

[http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserEx...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/MobileHIG/IconsImages/IconsImages.html)

<comment><USER23> Yes, but his point was that the first screen of the app might look drastically different depending on certain settings (e.g. dark mode).</comment></comment>


Foxconn is confusing the hell out of Wisconsin - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/10/18296793/foxconn-wisconsin-location-factory-innovation-centers-technology-hub-no-news <comment><USER2> > Milwaukee is where we will transition our AI 8K+5G vision into reality

I've been reading and hearing a lot of nonsense in tech since the 1980s but this is really something to behold.

<comment><USER3> This is just three technology abrevations randomly thrown together that have nothing to do with one another. How incompetent are the politicians and people believing in this deal to buy this?

It's literaly a random word soup of tech terms. It sounds so bad that it looks like someone is just f-ing with them.

<comment><USER4> > How incompetent are the politicians and people believing in this deal to buy > this?

I think Scott Walker holds a fairly elevated "dumbass" position even amongst the stiff competition of other Republican governors.

> It sounds so bad that it looks like someone is just f-ing with them.

For a free $4.5bn handout, you would though, wouldn't you?</comment></comment></comment>


Getting Started with Quantum Computing in Python - <AUTHOR> http://dataespresso.com/en/2018/07/22/Tutorial-Generating-random-numbers-with-a-quantum-computer-Python <comment><USER2> Tangentially, noticed some good Python libs for Quantum computing have started appearing lately (one from google, Cirq for eg) could be a natural progression (from scientific computing). Good to see Python is making a presence there as well. Looks like it's going to stay relevant for a very long time.

<comment><USER3> Quantum computing won't require much extra power that python can't provide, the only heavy processing will be circuit generation which is (as far as we can see at the moment) fine to use python for.

In the sort term though there's a big place for languages like C, C++ and Rust for things like simulations which need to be done

<comment><USER4> Yes, there are two reasons that python is an ideal tool for quantum computing libraries at the moment.

\- In the NISQ era [1], circuits have limited depth and size. It doesn't matter so much which language (or even algorithm!) you use when N<1000.

\- Simulating a circuit is expensive, but all the heavy lifting can be delegated to highly optimized C code. The most expensive part of Cirq's simulation is (or soon will be) a call to `numpy.einsum` [2].

1: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00862](https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00862)

2: [https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq/blob/24638f234704686c4bb6...](https://github.com/quantumlib/Cirq/blob/24638f234704686c4bb6e365613259813fe58571/cirq/linalg/transformations.py#L140)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://ericbrown.com/you-probably-dont-need-machine- learning...](http://ericbrown.com/you-probably-dont-need-machine-learning.htm) s/machine\ learning/quantum\ computing/g

<comment><USER6> I kinda feel like this has become the new "middlebrow dismissal". It seems superficially insightful, but doesn't actually say anything useful. Sure, many - hell, maybe even most - people don't need (machine learning | quantum computing | big data | a partridge in a pear tree | whatever). But plenty do.

Merely pointing out this dichotomy doesn't do anything to help people understand when they do, or don't, need those things.

How about a comment along the lines of "Here's how to know when you need to use quantum computing, and how to know when you shouldn't"?

<comment><USER7> I agree. I find comments like that one to be incredibly stifling to discussion. In my opinion there's a certain smugness to dismissals like this, and I think they don't contribute much for several reasons.

First, the fact that most of us don't need quantum computers doesn't mean we shouldn't feel inspired to learn about them. It's a thoroughly interesting subject. I don't believe I'll live to see practical quantum computers for most of the use cases they're hyped about now, but that didn't stop me from making them my research focus in graduate school.

Second, in many exceptionally well-moderated forums for critical discussion (e.g. /r/AskHistorians), there is a mandate in place that requires commenters to _engage_ with their source material. This means it's not enough to link to something that's ostensibly accurate; you also need to critically clarify that material to make it accessible to other readers and contextually relevant. When a link is posted without that engagement, you force others to click through to decide for themselves not only _why_ it's relevant, but _why_ it's accurate.

Finally, it's not a novel insight. There are scores of comments repeating the same point for any number of hyped topics, from machine learning to blockchain to JavaScript frameworks to quantum computing. It's essentially a meme. But it's more insidious than a meme, because memes are obviously low effort and insufficientally novel. This is a middlebrow dismissal precisely because it appears intellectual, yet has no insightful contribution.

And this is the result: instead of discussing what might be a very interesting Python library for quantum computing, we're litigating the appropriateness of a dismissive top comment. What have we achieved?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another open source Python framework is Forest from Rigetti Computing. [https://www.rigetti.com/products](https://www.rigetti.com/products)

A simple getting started post on a similar topic is here: [https://medium.com/rigetti/how-to-write-a-quantum-program- in...](https://medium.com/rigetti/how-to-write-a-quantum-program-in-10-lines- of-code-for-beginners-540224ac6b45) which might be useful for comparison.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've also had fun playing around with StrawberryFields ([https://github.com/XanaduAI/strawberryfields](https://github.com/XanaduAI/strawberryfields)), a photonic quantum computing library which has some good visualizations with simulators driven by NumPy and TensorFlow. Xanadu's even made Blackbird, a language specifically for quantum.

<comment><USER10> This is a real diamond.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys! The next part in the tutorial series is out [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17637553](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17637553)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know of a pedagogically-minded quantum computer simulator?

<comment><USER4> Quirk: [https://algassert.com/quirk](https://algassert.com/quirk)

\- Drag-and-drop what-you-see-is-what-you-get UI instead of script-based. Smooths out the learning curve.

\- Supports putting state displays in the middle of the circuit, so you can directly view normally-inaccessible information instead of inferring it from experience or algebra.

\- Fast. It updates all displays interactively, as you edit the circuit. Very easy to experiment, e.g. just drag a gate around seeing what it does in different places.

<comment><USER11> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a question. Please excuse my ignorance but I thought that once the world has a working quantum computer, the world as we know it will be destroyed. Since a quantum computer can solve any NP hard problem in a polynomial time, it would mean it could break any kind of crypto, any kind of security and can brute force anything. Why hasn't that happened yet since its 2018 and we already have quantum computers?

<comment><USER13> That's not how quantum computers work. They ("quantum networking") significantly increase security as you can tell whether a qubit has already been observed (eavesdropped) or not. Also, there are proven asymmetric cryptographic algorithms that work with quantum computers. Algorithms based on factorization (RSA) won't be safe any more but you still need a large amount of qubits (around 1000s - don't cite me on this please) to break them, which has not been achieved yet.

Definitely not the end of the world.

edit:// And they can not solve any NP-complete problem in polynomial time. That is a common misconception and not based on facts.

edit2:// Researchers working on quantum computers actually don't believe that they will make it mainstream (partially due to their complexity like cooling them down to near zero Kelvin) but instead be specialized systems available via the internet for rent - or something similar. More on the side of predicting complex systems like the weather than powering your smartphone. Then again, who thought the PC would make it mainstream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> But confused. How does this work without Quantum hardware?

<comment><USER15> simulation/emulation

<comment><USER16> Related & interesting read;

Simulating physics with computers Richard P. Feynman — [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254705307_RICHARD_F...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254705307_RICHARD_FEYNMAN_SIMULATING_PHYSICS_WITH_COMPUTERS)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> i cant think where i could possibly use this but it seems concise and easy to follow, so here i go..

<comment><USER17> Ok, interesting, I dont really get the superposition on a logic gate though and can't see any relation to entanglement?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Quantum computing (under the quantum circuit model) basically consists of repeatedly applying unitary matrices to complex vectors (the qubits). They are like your Boolean logic gates but they must be unitary, which implies they must be reversible: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic_gate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_logic_gate).

You can think of unitary matrices as the complex analogue of rotation matrices ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_matrix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_matrix)), so what quantum logic gates are doing is "rotating" these vectors around in a complex space.

<comment><USER19> In classical computing nobody thinks of programming as consisting of a series of logic gates, though :-).

Should we expect more abstractions from quantum computing models in the future? Quantum data structures, common quantum operations etc? Or are quantum algorithms too different from one another, or are "the quantum parts" of most quantum algorithms very compact? (Or do we try to keep them as compact as possible because of hardware constraints?)

<comment><USER20> Great comment. Circuits are particularly unhelpful in describing quantum algorithms because they usually indicate a fixed problem size, and they do not provide an insight into entanglement, one of the fundamental "resources" of QC.

We need new representations and much better abstractions to get away from the low-level thinking we are currently promoting.

<comment><USER18> > [Quantum circuits] do not provide an insight into entanglement

What do you mean? Entanglement occurs whenever the state of a system cannot be factored into a product of the states of its components. Quantum circuits can definitely do that. Just take a qubit, apply the Hadamard gate to it, then CNOT it with a second qubit to get an entangled Bell state. You can see it in action here: [http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/GeneratingEntangledQubits/](http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/GeneratingEntangledQubits/).

Quantum circuits are also used to describe all kinds of quantum algorithms (quantum Fourier transform, Grover's algorithm, quantum teleportation, etc).

<comment><USER20> I mean, they do not illustrate when qubits have become entangled. You can't see that. I'm sure we can do better.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure what you mean by "illustrate when qubits have become entangled". Can you explain?

<comment><USER20> Entanglement is fundamental to QC, right? So in order to be a useful visualisation of an algorithm, a pictorial representation like a circuit should give some intuition to aid understanding such as: which qubits can potentially be entangled at a given stage in the circuit, etc.

<comment><USER18> Why is this (or the demo I linked to earlier) not a satisfactory representation?

[https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-1ab704621d3c845630ab6f...](https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-1ab704621d3c845630ab6fdc6d1b6259).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do people post only their slidedecks? - <AUTHOR>

Is it just me, or are most slide decks completely useless without the speaker talking over them. Especially the ones with random lol cats.
Most of the time these slides are not provided with any context, or are random code bits in languages that the reader might not be familiar with.
The rare times when a slide deck is complete and useful, I'm left wondering why it's not just a blog post.
The tools for recording a complete presentation are there, and if you have a macbook, you need nothing else.
Is this a lack of knowledge of how to do this? Should someone write up a howto? <comment><USER2> Well, it's a good reason to attend the talk.

I think the primary audience is usually people that attended the talk so that they could look over the slides later (at least, that's what I've done with my conference slides).

I agree with you, though -- I wish more conferences would allow speakers to simply upload video to YouTube. A lot of of the time the conferences have DVD sales a few months down the line and want you to buy the video of the talks instead of watching them online for free.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's mostly laziness, but people probably don't know how to make good recordings.</comment>


EMR Notebooks: A managed analytics environment based on Jupyter notebooks - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/emr-notebooks-a-managed-analytics-environment-based-on-jupyter-notebooks/ <comment><USER2> Can it seamlessly run on GPU/TPU with the click of a button? (Like GCP's equiv)</comment>


Trezor Switches from LGPLv3 to Microsoft Reference Source License - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2u1wea/trezor_code_no_longer_lgplv3_but_now_more/

<comment><USER2> They... can't really do this. Retroactively go back and say the last six months are not GPL'ed, I mean.

The GPLv3, which LGPv3 includes by reference, says

        All rights granted under this License are granted for the term of
        copyright on the Program, and are irrevocable provided the stated
        conditions are met.

So they have already given us code with a license that says it's irrevocable. They can, if they wish, produce new code from now on under a new license, sure. But they can't go back on their former promise to make it irrevocable. Putting the LGPLv3 on your code is such a promise.

I hope people just fork Trezor from yesterday and ignore their sneaky attempt to go back on their word.

<comment><USER3> > So they have already given us code with a license that says it's > irrevocable.

In US law, gratuitous licenses are revocable at will. The license _saying_ its irrevocable might still have an effect on the ability of the licensor to enforce the revocation against a putative licensee who relied on that language (particularly, if they relied on it before and/or without knowledge of the revocation), under the doctrine of promissory estoppel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good thing the code was GPLv3 a week ago. Let the forks begin. Maybe they'll fix the timing bug mentioned in the reddit thread, while they're at it.</comment>


Bitcoin faces a crossroads, needs an effective decision-making process - <AUTHOR> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/randomwalker/bitcoin-faces-a-crossroads-needs-an-effective-decision-making-process/

<comment><USER2> The blocksize debate asks the wrong question: not whether the blocksize should be increased, but more like what are the steps to do to make sure that the blocksize increase is as safe as possible: decreasing the header sizes, improving DOS attacks, synchronization between nodes are more important then the 15-liner that just increases the maximum block size.

<comment><USER3> Those are the technical questions. The big picture economic question is, how does bitcoin mining transition from block reward revenue to transaction fee revenue ( see [http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.39...](http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/#selection-185.5-185.396) ). Discussion with Gavin on this subject here: [http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin- andresen-d...](http://bitstein.org/blog/pierre-rochard-and-gavin-andresen- discuss-the-block-size-limit/)

<comment><USER4> The greater issue of BTC is the odds between hording speculators who "believe" the "rarity" of Bitcoin will increase the market price. Currency should be predictably stable as a medium to facilitate exchange of other goods and services. Currency should also be encouraged to recirculate back into the economy, rather than sit around doing nothing.

There's also a huge issue of people dedicating effort to form price manipulator syndicates and HFT bots within the cryptocoin communities [1]

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7126153)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The free market will solve the problem. If and when the blockchain runs out of capacity, only the transactions with higher transaction fees get through. Transaction fees will rise accordingly, and small transactions will become uneconomic.

Bitcoin transaction volume in dollars is flat.[1] It hasn't grown in the last year; it's declined slightly.

[1] [https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction- volume-...](https://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume-usd)

</comment><comment><USER6> I would argue though that the recently controversy is an illustration of "the arguments are so contentious because the stakes are so small". In all of the recent debates there have been smart people arguing that "leaving things as is" is an acceptable course of action.

In the past, when there was an objectively clear problem, the community always quickly rallied around a fix.

<comment><USER7> How is being unable to scale past an essentially irrelevant (globally) # of transactions "small stakes"?

<comment><USER6> Whether the block size is 1MB or 10MB in May of 2015 is "small stakes"... in May of 2018 (or whatever) the stakes might be larger.

Also, there's alternative approaches (payment channels, lightning networks, etc) for handling smaller transactions that may prove viable in the near future.

(To repeat: I'm not saying I'm against larger blocks, only that there's still smart people defending both sides of the argument at the moment, and that's why a stalemate has formed.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's just use the block-chain for decision making!

edit: I was probably trolling.

<comment><USER9> Yes! See suggestion #2 in the article. The block-chain is a great tool for decision making, since it makes it possible to get a transparent, permanent, public log of all the comments and opinions that go into the decision. So far, in-blockchain voting has been used for soft-forks, but it could be used more frequently and less urgently too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought the spirit of Bitcoin is that it is governed only by algorithms. If Bitcoin needs massive proof of work and human governance, that reduces its value significantly IMO.

<comment><USER9> Well, that has never been the case. The algorithm of the network is defined by the most widely used implementations, which so far has continued to be Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Core is maintained by a group of humans, who use some form of decision making process (whether it be implicit or explicit). The more effective that decision making process is, the more reliable and durable the system will be.</comment></comment>


Band uses delay from Facebook Live to loop a song - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2017/10/03/the-academic-facebook-live-loop <comment><USER2> Didn't like the song but enjoyed the creativity of it!

</comment><comment><USER3> Creative, someone was bound to it.

</comment><comment><USER4> good idea, not so good implementation</comment>


Restaurants are figuring out how to do without servers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/dining/san-francisco-restaurants-service.html <comment><USER4> I'd prefer a serverless restaurant even if the price was exactly the same as with the full-service.

It's like the difference between an old-style Taxi and an Uber, with the latter you just get up and go when you're done. The whole dance of flagging down the server to request the bill, get the bill, oops the server disappeared before you could pull out your card, wait for 10 minutes while they are off exploring Narnia in the kitchen cupboards. Finally they come to take the card and disappear again, what should have taken 30 seconds is now at 15 min+, hope you're not missing your show... ah, finally they're back! Now try to figure out the tip line, with the air of one who is trying to convert Fahrenheit to centigrade in your head while your house is burning down.

Waitstaff-less high-end restaurants expand the audience and frequency of visits of people who can now enjoy these better-than-Chipotle dining experiences. Much like Uber, which doesn't only cannibalize existing providers but actually creates a whole new category of short rides that you would never have previously considered using a Taxi for.

<comment><USER5> This is not a substantive comment to make but calculating a tip is very easy. 15 percent of course is that standard amount. That is 10 percent plus 5 percent. Finding ten percent is as easy as moving the decimal over one place. If the bill is 15.69 ten percent of that is one dollar and 56 cents. Call it 1.50. we know that five percent is half of ten, so just divide that number in half and add it. So half of 1.50 is .75 and 1.50 plus .75 is 2.25. it's very easy.

<comment><USER6> Maybe it's because I'm in the 50+ age category, but I think tips are confusing for a different reason. Yes, of course, it's trivial to calculate a percentage of an amount. The confusion is in deciding what percentage to give.

15% - 20% is standard, and always has been, for a full service, sit down restaurant. The tip makes some sense, based on the service given to you, some level of tip being roughly commensurate with the amount of service.

But what percentage am I supposed to tip in a restaurant where I order at a counter, bus my own table, and merely have someone bring the order to my table? (FWIW, some McDonalds now do this, yet nobody would ever tip at McDonalds.) What about if they come around and fill my water? What if I order at a counter but they still bus my table?

Moreover, in many places (coffee shops, ice cream shops) there is no wait service at all, the person at the counter merely draws a coffee or scoops some ice cream, yet tips are apparently still expected. Am I really supposed to tip 15% just for someone to scoop me an ice cream cone? Which leads me to another question that has bothered me since way back in the day: Why are bartenders tipped so richly simply for pouring a drink?

15-20% has long been standard for full-service. For lesser service I don't understand why anybody would be expected to tip the same amount. Am I missing something? I gather the younger generation might not think of things in these terms, but why not?

<comment><USER7> I'm surprised that you are 50+ and are saying 15-20% "has always" been the standard for sit down full service. I am 40+ and distinctly remember when it was 10%. Then little by little it seemed to morph into 10-15%, then 10%ers were seen as cheap and it was 15%. Then some restaurants would "suggest" 15-18%. Now, just yesterday I was in a restaurant where they pre-calculated 18%, 19%, and 20%. It's been inflating all my life, for no logical, discernible reason.

<comment><USER8> Simpler: never tip a percentage. Tip a fixed amount. It makes no sense to me to pay more because I ordered a more expensive dish.

<comment><USER9> That's like saying a real estate agent should make $8k regardless of what property they sell.

You could argue that, but only by ignoring practical matters of effort/level of service/value that attends a different price.

<comment><USER10> The fact that real estate agents are paid by percentage is the most ridiculous thing ever. I'm done with that. Pay 60k commission sales fee on your million dollar house? Houses sell in one week or less where I live. There's literally no reason to pay that money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _On July 1, the minimum wage in San Francisco will hit $15 an hour, following incremental raises from $10.74 in 2014. The city also requires employers with at least 20 workers to pay health care costs beyond the mandates of the Affordable Care Act, in addition to paid sick leave and parental leave._

If a local government dictates that your base wage rate for a labor-intensive industry has to increase by 40% within less than a 5-year period and, on top of that, further dictates that you as an employer must provide those same employees with above-average health benefits together with paid leave of varying types above and beyond what market norms have been, well, at the end of that process, you are obviously having to pay a hell of a lot more for those employees than you did just a few years back, perhaps as much as 50% more.

Real wage increases tie to rising productivity. I well remember representing highly-talented UNIX engineers during the early 1990s who were earning around $60K per year (adjusting for inflation alone, that number would still not be in the six-figure range today). Today, engineers of that caliber easily command six-figure salaries plus great perks. The best of them easily command $250k+ salaries. For employers trying to find such engineers, they have to open their wallets big time and, yet, they do. Why? Because, if you are a Google or a Facebook or a Twitter or an Apple, or any other preeminent company needing the services of such engineers, you are not trying to eliminate those positions simply because they cost a lot more today than they did in the early 1990s. You are desperately trying to _add_ such people to your payroll because of _what they can do for you_. The changing tech world has magnified the productivity and value of what such engineers can do and therefore the salaries and perks they can command are far higher. But this is _market-based_ and justified because the profits you can earn as an employer are also much higher owing to their work. The engineers of the early 1990s were just as talented as those today but their value was relatively less to employers than is the value of their counterparts today. Their productivity has vastly increased. Hence, so has their compensation.

Compare that to what the city officials in San Francisco are doing with waiters and similar restaurant staff. Essentially, they have decreed (in the name of worker protection) that the cost to the employer of such employees shall increase by 50% or more over a short period when nothing whatever has occurred to increase their productivity. I went years working my way through school doing such work and it is very hard work indeed. The people doing it earn every penny. Yet those who did it 5 years ago at considerably less cost to the employer than those who do it today worked just as hard as their counterparts today. If those doing such work today are doing the same work, and their productivity has not materially increased, yet they are getting paid 50% more, something has to give.

This article basically dances around the obvious by tying the discussion to the considerable expense of living in SF and to collateral issues affecting the city's living environment. In doing so, it does not discuss the obvious: when supply and demand dictates what people will do, and you arbitrarily raise the cost of something, it will affect demand by lessening it.

That is why SF restaurants are moving to less labor-dependent models of doing business. Not all will do so but the laws of supply and demand have given them an incentive to do so and it should surprise no one that a good number of them are adapting.

Perhaps this is all worth it because those who are now working as waitstaff in SF restaurants are doing much better financially and this is worth the trade off. But no one should pretend that this does not come at a price, perhaps a very high one, for those whose jobs have vanished along with the new business models. (By "new" here, I mean not that no one has had self-serve models before, which they obviously have, but "new" in the sense that restaurants that would before have never considered such models are now adopting them).

<comment><USER12> Minimum wage laws are absolutely necessary otherwise they'd pay $1 an hour and you'd see the '25 cent store' instead of the dollar store and people living in huts.

But - as you rightly point out - a 33% jump in a short period is stupid.

It would be nice if min wage were tied to some kind of economic indicator.

But good comment.

<comment><USER13> You really think people would work for $1/hr in San Francisco?

<comment><USER12> People will ultimately work for their minimum survivable wage and economies will adjust to support ever decreasing wages among a subset of the population.

People live in favelas in Rio. They live in tiny, one room flats in Hong Kong without plumbing in deplorable conditions. They live in 'work camps' in Dubai without any rights at all.

 _And they work hard_.

Of course 'people in SF' would do the same.

Don't think you're exempt - you would do the same if your skills were commoditized and you had no recourse.

Your salary has nothing to do with how skilled you are, how hard you work, or how much value you can provide. It's entirely a function of 'power' relative to your employer. So even if you are a full-on genius, and can speak 10 languages, code in 10 languages and have a PhD in AI - you will earn next to nothing if those things are common and your skills are a commodity.

In any given economy, a good chunk of people have commodity skills, i.e. manual labour or not much more. This bar is getting higher. Way back before minimum wage we (and without knowing you, there's a very high chance this applies to your ancestors as well) survived on next to nothing - and probably worked hard. Land owners, mine owners, factory owners would leverage and leverage and leverage to make sure the workers had 'only enough barely survive' \- after all - every additional penny to workers would have been simply charity, in the raw economic sense.

So - all modern and civilized economies have 'minimum wage' and/or collective bargaining for some groups. Minimum wage and unions were essential to bringing civilizations out of the dark ages. Some caveats to that would be a very high social security system with gracious benefits - i.e. the government gives you a 'job' which is 'not doing anything' which would set a floor for wages obviously. Or an economy in which there were very few people with commodity skills and 'everyone' was somehow empowered a little bit against everyone else (like 'equality and diversity in skill set' kind of thing), which is not very common.

Because of the imbalance of power - we have no choice but to have minimum wage, or something like it - and it's also generally why we don't need such things in areas wherein people are not commoditized.

The really interesting paradox is that the 'minimum survivable wage' for any individual is _not the profit maximizing wage_ for employers in the long run!

In the 'short run' employers save money / increase profits by cutting wages. But - those people can then 'spend less' and it hurts the economy, which hurts business!

Henry Ford realized this pragmatically. He realized that if he wanted to sell a 'model T' to 'everyone' and his own factory workers could literally not afford one, then few people would be able to buy his cars, ergo, his business model was not going to work! So he paid his employees more than the short-run minimum requirement.

This requires a fairly enlightened strategy on the part of employers - moreover - it requires kind of a common buy-in by most employers, which is like a strategy game:

> If all employers pay subsistence wages - then they all kind of lose because > nobody can afford to buy the crap they make in their factories.

> If all employers pay some difficult-to-calculate wage higher than > subsistence, like a minimum wage ... well, everyone is better off.

> But - if most employers pay this 'decent wage' but _some_ employers 'cheat' > and pay much less, well, those 'cheating' employers can benefit quite a lot, > and get rich of a system by sneaking off surpluses from a system they are > not paying into. Kind of like 'not paying taxes'. But of course - <USER2> > employer is under constant pressure to keep wages down - and they have no > formal pressure, like a taxation agency or regulatory body, to keep them > from doing otherwise. So of course we're going to have low wages without > regulation.

The minimum wage is actually economically rational from a practical, surplus sharing perspective (you could say 'socialist' or 'communitarian'), but even if you want to look at it more from a 'free market' perspective, minimum wage could be argued to be the wage at which the economy (including employers and shareholders) maximally benefit in the long run ... but it's just simply impossible to get 'all business' to intelligently collude and set this wage because they are all competing more or less on short-run business cycles, and have great incentive to cheat. Hence regulation.

As for SF, especially the increasing ratio of undocumented workers who have no access to social services, yes, they will work for next to nothing - <USER3> minimum that will allow them to survive.

SF would form favelas just like in Brazil, and there's absolutely no economic reason why it wouldn't - only regulatory policies etc. keep it from that i.e. wages, rights, services, etc. etc...

FYI - this partly why having a lot of undocumented folks in the economy is a really bad idea. For a host of other reasons well. If you're going to have people participating in the economy - give them full rights. But that kind of means 'open borders' \- which you can't have ... (ie can't have open borders and social welfare at the same time). A much better solution would be to have 'reasonably effective border control', close unprofitable factories/businesses in the US and move them to Mexico so that entire communities of regular people can aspire to a higher standard of living, safety, civility etc.. That's a much better win for everyone.

<comment><USER14> _People will ultimately work for their minimum survivable wage and economies will adjust to support ever decreasing wages among a subset of the population. People live in favelas in Rio. They live in tiny, one room flats in Hong Kong without plumbing in deplorable conditions. They live in 'work camps' in Dubai without any rights at all. And they work hard._

You just used examples of places for which a tiny one-room flat is an improvement over previous conditions. If you think a favela is bad, try being a peasant on a working farm.

The idea that people used to life in, for example, Texas or London will get used to a similar lifestyle which represents a massive downgrade is ridiculous. Historically people started overthrowing governments and sending people to guillotines for more modest losses. You'd have riots in SF if the options were "work for $1" or "starve."

I think minimum wage laws are a good idea too, but your argument is bizarre.

<comment><USER12> "Historically people started overthrowing governments and sending people to guillotines for more modest losses. You'd have riots in SF if the options were "work for $1" or "starve.""

YES. And what would those riots be for: MORE WAGES. Basically a minimum wage or collective bargaining. Hence my point of why minimum wage has to exist!

Using an externalized or non-market function like _rioting_ to achieve wage increase, is the same as _voting_ to require minimum wage etc:

\--> You literally just made my argument for me <\--

"Texas or London will get used to a similar lifestyle which represents a massive downgrade is ridiculous."

People have no choice but to accept the economic conditions they face.

This is 'reality' , it's not 'bizarre' at all.

My argument is nothing but basic, classical economics. It's not even an argument, more so an explanation. Nothing new.

If people have to work for 'next to nothing or die' \- what do you think they will do?

Die? Or work like a slave? The later in most cases.

It's economic reality.

I think what would happen in London/SF/Texas is that irregular workers would probably move in and form the basis of this ever lowering economy, and empowered citizens would be much less likely to fall - but they definitely could. And that includes you, and me, if we didn't have access to family, social services, minimum wages etc..

<comment><USER14> _People have no choice but to accept the economic conditions they face._

My whole point is that as I said, people don't just accept, they riot and revolt. I agree with minimum wage laws, but not because of some hyper-extreme scenario in which San Franciscans are working and living like Brazilians in favelas. Frankly we shouldn't need to resort to that kind of hyperbole to make the case for a living wage.

If you want to see what happens, even in traditionally poor places when people face a "fight or die impoverished" scenario, see Egypt, Tunisia, Libya. People were willing to face tanks and bombs with their bare hands because the alternative was to starve. I think you underestimate the potential belligerence of the average American if faced with a similar scenario.

The larger issue though is that riot, abject poverty, and revolt aren't actually the foundation of a minimum wage. Fairness, and Econ 101 are, and there's no need to get so far out there as to divert the debate away from present conditions to extreme hypotheticals.

<comment><USER12> Yes, of course people would revolt, I fully agree.

Of course American citizens would revolt and demand non-market interventions, like minimum wage etc..

Without non-market interventions, they would be serfs, is my point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm happy to see servers go. If "Include wait staff?" were a selectable checkbox on my dining experience, I would opt out every...single...time. I prefer to eat out as often as possible, and although I have had many wonderful experiences with talented wait staff, most act as gatekeepers between me and the food; me and payment; me and the real problem-solver. Servers often poorly represent the wishes of the establishment's owner, let alone the chef's. Good servers can certainly make an otherwise weak experience "fine", but they more often make decent experiences less-good.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm sorry, but as someone who pays the majority of a resturant waiter's salary via tipping, I don't think it's an issue of the restaurant saving the $5.50/hr.

I have never seen an article hype up the McDonald experience so much.

[Side tangent, I hate the concept of waiters. If I am having a romantic dinner with my wife, I would much rather get her a cup of water than have someone butt into our conversation]

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Go to dinner in Europe. The wait staff is paid a humane wage and they won't bother you at all unless you wave them over. This was my experience across Germany, Poland, and Italy, so I assume it's a continental preference. YMMV.

<comment><USER17> Wait staff in the US earn more than wait staff in Germany, France, and Italy. Your supposed humane wage is less humane than the US wages being paid. The cost of living is also higher in Germany and France than in the US.

Median waiter pay in the US: $20,820; mean: $25,280 (per the BLS).

Mean waiter pay in Germany (the median is always lower): $16,500 to $18,000 (depending on your source). Germany pays atrocious waiter wages.

The US pays about 40-50% more at the mean for its waiters, while having a lower cost of living. If the German mean is that low, I hate to see the median ($14k?).

The French average at near $21,000 is about 16% below the US average, and is barely above their required minimums:

"French waiters are paid, on average, 1,495 euros [$1,749] a month, only a shade more than the statutory minimum wage, and they usually expect some sort of tip. "

[https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-28793677](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28793677)

<comment><USER18> I am French so I can respond to your comment.

In France, tipping is not mandatory and if I do it I usually leave 1 or 2 euros in change.

Waiters in France do not have to pay for their own health insurance.

They can actually afford to go to the doctor and get help if they need it. No risk of medical bankruptcy here.

Waiters get paid the minimum wage in low-end restaurants but make more money in the upscale ones.

Waiters dont need to rely on the patrons' generosity to pay their bills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Tips are about the dumbest American tradition I have seen. (Yes I know they exist world wide, but wayyyyy less commonly).

So if I buy a $20 meal, I pay the waiter $3 to take my order, go to the kitchen, tell the chefs, go pick up the order, put it on my table and later take my credit card when I flag him down to pay. This should be included in the price. But hey. Whatever. $3. Fine.

Now when I go to a fancier restaurant and order the same amount of food, where the waiter does the exact same job of taking an order, putting it on the table and comes back later to take my credit card I suddenly have to pay him say $20? Why? How on earth has his job changed in any way shape or form to earn so much more money than the previous restaurant's waiter for the exact same amount of work?

I really do not get it.

If anything, the Chefs and Sous Chefs should be tipped and should earn more at fancier restaurants because food preparation there often takes longer, is a more intricate affair and often needs more skills and experience. Not the waiting staff.

<comment><USER20> The consulting and presentation in a fancy restaurant is harder. E.g. with a bottle of while.

In a normal restaurant you might just a bottle put on your table.

In a fancy they tell you about the wine. They have to hold the bottle right. You get to try a sip of it first,...

<comment><USER19> That is true. If you ordered wine.

Still gotta pay way more for when you just order a meal.

<comment><USER20> It's probably still valid for a normal meal.

You can get reccomandations, they tell you what fits good togheter... They have to serve it probably in some special way (that we don't even notice). Idk.

Just because most people don't notice or appreciate the added service, it doesn't mean that it's not there.

But yes, mandatory tips in general are stupid. It's the employers duty to pay their stuff a fair "base" salary. Tips should be additional income for extraordinary skill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Kind of inflammatory way to phrase it[2], but to save you the time: restaurants are shifting to models that use less waitstaff, closer to fast casual. In the first example, they say that runners bring the food but you have to fetch your own water and go to a counter for each wine glass; sadly, it was ambiguous on how orders are placed.

This is kind of to-be-expected as the wage/cost-of-living ratio dips too low so that lower-labor models are preferred. [1].

My peeve about these kinds of models is the ambiguity of the tipping situation; it's obviously not full service, but it's not zero either. And places like Super Duper are _zero_ service (you stand in line, fetch your order, and bus your table) but still guilt you into tipping. I don't know the amount for "this satisfies the standard expectation".

[1] If you automatically say "lol pay them more", it's not that simple: higher prices and you'll scare off too many customers -- into fast casual and home cooking -- to cover overhead. Take lower profits and it may not pay enough to be worth the investment.

[2] Edit: original version was something like "... putting diners to work".

<comment><USER22> My rule for tipping is:

\- someone takes my order, and busses my table: "full tip" (whatever that means to you)

\- I stand in line to place the order, but someone busses my table: "50% tip"

\- I stand in line to place the order, then bus my own table: "Look in the mirror, and shoot myself some finger guns"

<comment><USER23> Is 50% a typo? Because for 50% I better have gotten at least a handjob.

<comment><USER21> I think they mean 50% of the full, reference tip amount. If the full tip is 20%, then 50% there means 10% of the bill.

<comment><USER22> Yes this is what I meant :) apologies for the ambiguity

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> On a side note, the ordering kiosks in McDonalds are the best thing ever. Customizing an order is way less error prone this way than verbally. And the line is always shorter.

<comment><USER25> I've found the kiosks to be laggy and inconsistent in accepting touch input; any orders that have multiple different items take longer for me to key in at the kiosk than to verbally express at the counter.

But having the ability to customize items to your exact specifications is very nice; reminds me of the old Burger King wrappers that had icons for ingredients around the edges, with the intention of their inclusion or omission for custom orders being marked, but it's a practice I've never observed being used.

The McDonalds in-app ordering and pickup is a superior experience to the kiosk, but it needs location to be on.

<comment><USER26>
      The McDonalds in-app ordering and pickup is a superior experience

... If you don't mind the fact that they _suck all your private Contacts_ information off you device and _track everywhere you travel_. Is it worth it? Really?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I eat at Outback and I &$@! hate their tablets.

Who are all these people in this thread who don't value a server's knowledge and flexibility? It's as if they've never been infuriated by an IVR system and cannot imagine that kind of horror landing in their restaurant booth when all they're looking to do is enjoy themselves.

Sometimes you want recommendations that come with more details than what the web guy baked into the hero piece. Sometimes you want something prepared a certain way, and the UI isn't going to be up to it. Good luck getting that through an abused table tablet.

So some servers underachieve. Fine. I still want one.

<comment><USER28> You really need a waiter to recommend things at Outback ...

Even at a local restaurant a waiters recommendation is always biased. I'd rather integrate reviews into the system.

<comment><USER27> Sometimes they'll get an unusually good cut of something and a good server will tell you. Reviews won't. (Nor will they help much at a restaurant that frequently changes its menu. And if the restaurant is responsible for the review system, invariably a bunch will end up hiding the negative reviews and flagging the customers who leave them, with predictable consequences. Seriously, reviews you're reading on the restaurant tablet are going to be somewhere between useless and a disaster that starts Twitter wars.)

But getting back to my Outback example. Did you know if they pan sear your filet they do it with a weight on top of it? I didn't until a server told me, and gave me the option to skip the weight. (Much better result, by the way, even if it does take longer.)

And did you know at Outback if they wood fire your filet they don't use a weight, but instead of the 17 spice seasoning they use in pan searing, they switch to salt and pepper? I didn't until a server told me, and gave me the option to go wood-fired plus 17 spice seasoning, which is a terrific combo.

Drawing a larger point, computer people would rather deal with computers. I get it. But there's a whole world of possibilities out there you miss when instead of building relationships with the people you meet casually around you (like wait staff), you instead constrain yourself to the choices made available to you through silicon and Javascript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> There sure is a lot of righteous indignation in this thread. I am eager to see the fallout of the imminent minimum wage increase (hopefully not too much human suffering). With the similar event that happened in Seattle recently, the initial government-funded study of the outcome came back with results favoring the conservative opinion. Naturally, the liberal local government quashed this study and performed another. Similarly, if you google "Seattle minimum wage study" the results are a mixed bag, and more informed by opinion than data.

Take everything you read with a grain of salt, and stick to first-hand data as much as possible.

Here is a good, minimally biased (although by a libertarian-leaning economist) synopsis of the initial results: [https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/06/se...](https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2017/06/seattle- minimum-wage-study.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> I would prefer a server-less restaurant just so I don't have to worry about tipping. Reduction or elimination in wait staff may just appeal to the anti- tipping segment, which could have the intriguing result of increasing sales...

</comment><comment><USER31> My initial thought was that this was yet another post about serverless!

<comment><USER32> Similarly, I read the headline and thought, "What kinds of workloads do restaurants run on servers?". Oh boy.

<comment><USER33> Same, I was like "All they need is a POS system. Why would they need server infrastructure?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Minimum wage is debtor's prison redux: if you don't produce enough, you're not allowed to produce anything at all.

And some jobs just don't entail that much productivity.

</comment><comment><USER35> I feel like this is the logical conclusion of a living wage.

If we pay everyone enough to make a living wage, then it should cost the same for me to grab my own menu, utensils and water bottles as it would for a server to do so.

Honestly, the high cost of renting in SF has already made the "move to California and bus tables to get by while auditioning for movie / working on startup" dream impossible. This is just a side effect of the bureaucracy and housing policies here.

<comment><USER36> > If we pay everyone enough to make a living wage, then it should cost the > same for me to grab my own menu, utensils and water bottles as it would for > a server to do so.

I don't see how that follows. The opportunity cost per unit time for a skilled worker is typically greater than the living wage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Am I missing something? Plenty of restaurants have self serve policies.

<comment><USER38> I guess what's missing is that many of these self-serve restaurants with $22 pan roasted salmon or whatever still have 20% tip preselected on the payment screen.

<comment><USER39> To tip the chef?

<comment><USER23> I assume that the chef is paid from the 22 dollars the customer paid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> How is this new. Have the authors ever been in a British (gastro)pub? Order at the bar mate. Also, no silly tipping rules.

</comment><comment><USER41> Housing costs in places with good economies and lots of jobs are getting absolutely ridiculous compared to the median wage.

I guess people are supposed to look at less glamorous cities, but if everyone affected by this did that then they would probably run out of opportunities, fill up, and have housing prices shoot up as well. Something's gotta give here. There's a real disconnect between the prices and the ability to pay. Who is paying for these things? People with lots of generational wealth? People with upper-middle class jobs yet no savings and razor-thin margins due to living expenses? That's so shitty.

<comment><USER12> It has to do with artificially low interest rates.

The Fed should have been bumping them up years ago, forcing liquidity into other parts of the system.

It would be better if there was a more natural way to set rates.

Also - it has to do with perpetually extending our visibility into our economic future, i.e. as loan times get longer and longer - the lenders win as housing prices go up.

If everyone had the same term mortgage, and it was fixed - this issue would not cause problems for for housing inflation.

But as we go collectively from 25 years to 50 years to 75 years ... well, housing prices go up.

<comment><USER42> > _It has to do with artificially low interest rates_

It's predominantly a supply problem. Interest rates are low across the country, yet San Francisco is in a unique situation.

<comment><USER43> Out of control real estate prices are a problem across most of the usa, although particularly accute in SF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Another approach: in Menlo Park, a restaurant offers workers a crash pad where they can sleep during the week.

[https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2017/06/14/menlo-park- resta...](https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2017/06/14/menlo-park-restaurateur- offers-local-housing-to-workers)

<comment><USER45> Luxury, I used to have to sleep in the storeroom if I had a double shift and didn't want to go home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Note that in SF, waitstaff earn minimum wage plus tips- they do not earn a far lower hourly wage like many other parts of America.

<comment><USER47> Which is as it should be. The concept of a "tipped wage" is absurd on it's face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> In Indonesia tipping is not common, and I am glad that it is not. Mostly because I see that everyone here seems to be confused too on how much we should tip. Most restaurant here would have you choose your own table, then the waiter will give you the menu and leave you to choose, then you call them again to submit your menu, then the menu will be delivered to your table. (Other restaurant is like McDonalds I suppose, you go to the counter, choose and pay and got table number, sit and have the food delivered to you). It is a standard work that of course they were paid to do, and I dont think tipping is healthy, why would they hate me if i didnt tip them? Why would I tip them for doing their already paid job? Why would my colleague got better tip than me when im serving them? It ended up with so many speculations on people, which is not healthy (my opinion). If i want to tip, i usually just let them take the changes.

</comment><comment><USER49> In the eastern hemisphere, this kind of place is called an Australian style cafe.

Old joke: some Australians take a taxi from LAX to their hotel. As they get out, the driver asks, "Your tip?" "Our tip is, live somewhere with a minimum wage, mate!"

</comment><comment><USER50> Serverless has gone too far

</comment><comment><USER51> This is why there are smartphone apps for various resteraunts. You order your tood and pay for it ahead of time and it is there waiting for you.

First it was pizza places and now it is McDonalds and others.

Wife and I went to a Wendys and nobody answered the drive through system. We only wanted small frosties so we went home without them. Other cars got mad that they were not taking drove through orders.

These jobs are not 15 dollars an hour, but a lot of workers don't deserve that and will be replaced with competent workers or computers or kiosks or an app.

</comment><comment><USER52> I figured this was coming. Under living-wage isn't sustainable and that's how restaurants were operating while still making thin margins.

Except because everyone is too price sensitive with a race to the bottom on pricing, customer service is no longer valued. So we do away with customer service to keep the pricing the same rather than raise prices.

</comment><comment><USER53> >Can't Afford Waiters. So They're Putting Diners to Work. The city offers a case study of how high housing costs alter the economics of everything else, including restaurant service.

Well not really housing but property market. Don't know why they "discover" it now. Well it has been going on in some places for well over a decade.

</comment><comment><USER54> Is it just me, or does it feel like restaurant service staff provide less _service_ than they used to? They're often spread out over too many tables, and it seems like their role is scripted rather than adaptive. The chain restaurant dining experience just seems very hollow now.

<comment><USER55> I'm always bemused when walking into a nearly empty chain restaurant and the greeter has to struggle with where to seat you.

<comment><USER23> I was told I needed to download an app at one Chicago restaurant to get a table. It was nearly empty but the app said 20 minutes... It is a very well known place. I was also told by the bartender he is not going to get me a beer and a server will be around at some point. I got my beer eventually. But after waiting for a table for 40 minutes I just left without even paying, no one seemed interested in cashing me out. I literally had better service at the Chicago DMV.

<comment><USER54> It's all part of the script. They insert an artificial expectation that one must wait to be seated to manufacture a sense of popularity, trendiness, and exclusivity.

Sounds like another Chicago restaurant that I visited once. Once. That establishment remains to this day the only place where I have ever left a $0.02 tip--worst service I have ever experienced as a restaurant customer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> "Inside these restaurants, it's evident that the forces making this one of the most expensive cities in America are subtly altering the economics of everything. Commercial rents have gone up. Labor costs have soared. And restaurant workers, many of them priced out by the expense of housing, have been moving away."

I feel like so much of this could be fixed if we had a highly regulated housing market, with a goal of affordable housing for everyone. It's hard to imagine that this housing bubble can last much longer, it's distorting everything to such an extreme already.

The cost of housing doesn't have to keep increasing, just look at Germany: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/02/02/in-w...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/02/02/in- worlds-best-run-economy-home-prices-just-keep-falling-because-thats-what-home- prices-are-supposed-to-do/#55ef61506ad0)

<comment><USER42> > * a highly regulated housing market, with a goal of affordable housing for > everyone*

The former has a terrible track record of leading to the latter, particularly in America (where housing is treated as a proxy for savings).

Regarding Germany: "During the current real-estate cycle, i.e., from 2009 to 2017, house prices have risen 80% in large metropolitan areas (A cities) and c. 60% in B and C cities. In 2017, the number of newly completed residential units looks likely to have risen to more than 300,000 for the first time in the current cycle; in 2018, it might climb to 335,000. However, assuming that there is demand for at least 350,000 new apartments, the gap between supply and demand should continue to widen in both years. As demand remains high, upward price pressure will continue. This suggests that prices and rents will rise further in all major cities. Overvaluations are rising, and the risk of a price bubble on the German housing market is increasing. The price uptrend is likely to continue for several years to come, at least in most major cities in Germany" [1].

[1] [https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN- PROD/PROD000000000046...](https://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/RPS_EN- PROD/PROD0000000000460528/The_German_housing_market_in_2018.pdf)

<comment><USER57> What do you think of this proposal in the UK? London seems to have a similar problem to what we are seeing in US cities now but I don't know if causes are similar.

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/25/home- ownersh...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/25/home-ownership- out-of-reach-for-2-million-uk-families-says-thinktank)

<comment><USER42> "Stronger role for councils" reminds me of New York's community boards. The latter are churches of NIMBYism. (They also advocate for subsidized housing. But in other neighborhoods.)

London's solution is the same as Manhattan's: build more. Case in point: my Flatiron neighborhood. Our building is upper-middle income, except for a few higher-end flats. Let's call the average rent $3,000.

Luxury building opens; prices at $5,000. Not enough biters. $4,000. Highest- priced tenants in my building moved. Our building had to drop rents to (a) attract replacement tenants and (b) compete with the luxury building, which now wicks off the highest-earning renters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if some of these establishments truly can't afford it, or they don't want to. It would seem MBA 101 to always reduce costs, and increases profits.

</comment><comment><USER58> I've been in a half dozen restaurants of this style....in Manchester UK, London, and Frankfurt DE. I had no problem with the style of service.

</comment><comment><USER59> This is why $15 is not a sound idea.

We need 'small jobs'. They're an important part of the ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER8> While McDonalds has figured out how to have waiters bring you the food to your table here in France.

</comment><comment><USER60> Literal serverless architecture.

</comment><comment><USER61> This is pretty standard in most of Finland

<comment><USER62> I don't agree. Restaurants have servers as usual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> We need SaaS for restaurants...

</comment><comment><USER12> "San Francisco Restaurants Can't Afford Waiters."

Uhhhh. No - that is really the wrong way to say it. There's a supply/demand mismatch obviously.

Clearly the wealthy residents of SF simply don't want to pay ... for some reason.

I think there is something sneaky going on - when I lived in SF, restaurant prices were disturbingly cheap. As a Canadian, I'm used to not very good prices. But in SF, I couldn't grasp it. I know that they employ a lot of undocumented labour, and I suggest this might have something to do with it - i.e. - a resto starts employing undocumented workers in the back simply to 'stay alive' \- but then it forces other restaurants into the same competitive bind. And then they start moving into other jobs - forcing those layers of the value chain to have 'real wages' that are under minimum wage.

This is effectively what has happened in farming - and the same thing could be hitting restaurants - it's one of the more pernicious aspects of irregular immigration and employment.

<comment><USER64> SF is full of rich people but it also has a normal share of middle and lower income residents. As high rents eat up more and more of their budgets, they have less and less money left over for other things, like dining out. If the restaurants raised their prices to pay a better wage, then only the rich could afford to eat at the restaurants, and there not being enough rich people, they would go out of business. Maybe the Bay area should be forced to feel the effects of its insane housing market in this way, but the individual restaurant owners aren't going to respond to these pressures by going out of business, they're going to try and reduce costs so they can keep prices low.

<comment><USER65> Yes but their response is to create demand for a foreign, undocumented underclass in place of raising wages for native workers. In fact that impulse is part of what makes it so that the Bay doesn't have enough people who make enough to eat out enough to support business. Ending our reliance on a captive labor force will raise prices but it'll raise wages too.

<comment><USER12> Yes, that's it.

It's nice that we can provide employment to people, and I understand the argument of 'jobs for things American's won't do anyhow' \- but there are better ways to move civilization along.

Make sure workers are documented, have decent conditions, minimum wage and some kind of healthcare.

The factories and farms that are not sustainable will move to places like Mexico where jobs will be created to help entire communities and families live well - not just those who risk an illegal life in the USA.

Young Mexicans don't want to join cartels, people would rather a 'decent job with respectable pay' any day. A well run Toyota factory could provide such a powerful economic basis for the community and allow them to re-take control of their communities.

There's no reason for strife and struggle in 2018, we have all the knowledge and technology for everyone to be 'ok' \- we can't blame it on the Gods for famine and disaster anymore, it's 100% all on us! We have to organize ourselves conscientiously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> "Specific SF restaurants are too cheap to pay proper wages to their staff" would be a more correct title.

This is not a general problem in SF.

</comment><comment><USER67> San Francisco has the world's richest companies, but you can't even walk the street without running into a several homeless people every single block. Go figure, very 'progressive'.

<comment><USER68> Many of the most self righteous progressives in California have made a few million off their ramshackle bungalows and would like to keep the housing prices sky high. Incredibly, they argue that increasing supply would make prices higher, even though the past 40 years have conclusively disproven that, to their great enrichment.

<comment><USER66> NIMBY's _are not_ Progressive.

They're practically the definition of Conservative. There's just this wildly mistaken belief that CA (and SF in particular) is populated by ultra-left people.

The Bay is centrist _at best_.

<comment><USER69> >The Bay is centrist at best.

If SF is centrist I want less than nothing to do with the whatever is left of it.

I'm sure if you want to pick and choose an issue to use as your measuring stick you will find that a substantial chunk of people in SF do not have a far left position on an issue when a far left of center position hurts them personally. However, justifying exceptions to the rule when the rule is not in your self interest is pretty common. Fiscal conservatives don't complain when the government pisses money away on things they like. Commies will gladly redistribute all the wealth that isn't their personal wealth. Few people are so dedicated to their beliefs that they advocate against their own self interest.

Edit: Is it the slight against SF or the observation about humanity that people don't like?

<comment><USER70> SF is conservative in some ways, liberal in others, just like.... everything. However, if you look at the money in the area, it's not hard to see how the culture will eventually clash with leftists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Sure, whatever. Cause $2.35/hr is just sooooooo expensive. So we sucker diners to do our labor for us, and , 'pass on the savings' HAH.

Try, "Nobody wants or can afford to do the work for such a pittance, so nobody does." I hope those businesses that do this die. Then again, won't really need hope. New restaurants easily die within 1 year. Good riddance.

<comment><USER47> Agree with the sentiment, but in California servers make the regular minimum wage. There is no special "tipped wage" like there is in other parts of the country.</comment></comment>


Megatheriidae - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megatheriidae <comment><USER2> > able to reach as high as 17 feet (5.2 m)

Now that would have been a sight to see. Makes me happy we still have animals like giraffes and elephants roaming around Africa, and sad to think about how there might be a time when we won't.</comment>


Voice Search for Chrome is now available - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/5720334/voice-search-for-chrome-searches-and-fills-input-boxes-with-your-voice#comment

<comment><USER2> I'm looking forward to the personalized voice recognition from Android. I suspect Google will be able to do very interesting things with a model of my voice over the years.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is possible with voice command currently? I've been considering using dragon naturally speaking and set up to use voice commands for keyboard shortcuts but I don't want to bother if I can't make it sufficiently "star trek like".

</comment><comment><USER4> Sometimes, when I think no one is looking, I shout "Arch!" just in case I'm on a holodeck

</comment><comment><USER5> What are hn users' thoughts on voice control for the future?

<comment><USER6> I think the problem with voice control is that if it's not 100% perfect it's completely frustrating. When I encounter Interactive Voice Response systems, I'd much rather "press 1" than have to repeat myself three or four times.

That being said, if the technology improves to the point that it works the first time, then I see it being incorporated everywhere (cars, microwaves, lights, thermostat, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you guys actually like doing voice searches? Because I don't.

<comment><USER6> When people are around I feel very odd doing voice searches, so I'll probably never use this at work. I like voice search on mobile devices, however, since it's easier than typing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Supports DuckDuckGo but not Bing? What sense does that make (no offense to DuckDuckGo but, seriously, it's not in the same league as Bing).

<comment><USER9> _> You can add you own searches, too, and activate the extension to add a little microphone switch to other web pages' search boxes._</comment></comment>


Make Your Reports Dynamic by Putting HTML Code Snippets in Your Data Warehouse  - <AUTHOR> http://www.sql4bi.com/2014/04/make-your-reports-dynamic-by-putting.html

<comment><USER2> Is this really a thing? It sounds like a terrible idea to mix display and UI elements right into your database.

"I find creating custom Cognos templates tedious. The process involves iteratively modifying XML documents, modifying cascading style sheets and quite often you need to restart the Cognos server to see the changes."

This sounds like more of a tooling/workflow problem that could be solved by any number of readily available build tools.</comment>


Moving From Heroku to the Clean Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.cleanweb.org.uk/blog/2013/04/21/moving-from-heroku-to-the-clean-cloud/ <comment><USER3> After the line "it runs on top of Amazon's EC2 cloud computing platform which means it is powered by dirty CO2 spurting coal power plants" i stopped reading..

Seriously are you kidding me?

<comment><USER4> Why do you dismiss this? I didn't investigate into it, but does Amazon not run its infrastructure on coal power?

Anyway, if Amazon does, then what the OP did was justified in their own ideals. While most of us do not think in this direction while hosting a webapp, there are some organizations and companies who have made being eco- friendly as one of their pillars. Let's be respectful of everyone's motives and ambitions.

<comment><USER5> > AWS and Sustainable Energy <http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainable- > energy/>

> Many AWS customers have workloads with latency requirements that require > they be hosted near their customers. [...] we locate AWS datacenters in > places that allow companies to get the latencies they require.

> __Both the Oregon and GovCloud Regions use 100% carbon-free power. __AWS > customers who want to operate in a Region that uses 100% carbon-free power > can select one of these two Regions. We will continue to work hard on our > own, and alongside our power providers all over the world, to offer our > services in an environmentally friendly way in all of our Regions.

So if latency is important to you, there's an AWS Region for that. If carbon- free power is important to you (and maybe heroku could pass this through?), there's an AWS Region for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Data center power consumption is a real issue and it makes sense that a website for renewable energy projects will itself run 'green'. I for one, upvoted this story, as I hope it raises awareness that, yes, the greenhouse effect still exists, and fossil fuels are harmful to people.

Also, even though natural gas seems to be growing faster than coal in terms of electricity generation, gas isn't green, it's just "greener" than coal.

<comment><USER7> I agree with what you're saying, and I agree that there's a need to cut the use of polluting power-sources to run data-centres, but I really, _really_ dislike the way it's being put across here.

Hyperbolic, emotionally charged phrasing like ``dirty CO2 spurting coal power plants'' makes it far, far too easy for people to dismiss the author of the piece as some sort of tree-hugging hippie wingnut with an agenda. What was wrong with keeping it simple with something like, ``coal-fired power plants''?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> tl;dr You left Heroku because they run on EC2 which uses too much power in your opinion, and bought a VPS from a green host and set up your own webserver.

Seems to me a bit more like a statement about EC2 datacenter power consumption relative to other large companies than actually migrating from Heroku to another platform.

<comment><USER9> This isn't a post about using EC2 using too much power.

Energy and emissions aren't the same thing.

You can have an efficient datacentre that still emits CO2 because it's powered by coal.

Conversely you can have a less efficient datacentre that runs on geothermal, that will have vastly lower CO2 emissions.

If you want to decouple the nice things we talk about on here (PaaS, IaaS and suchlike) from the bad things (climate change, pollution from burning tonnes of coal etc. ), then finding away to generate power without releasing loads of CO2 helps.

Tom Raftery has a nice slideshare outlining some of the issues here - <USER2> you've made this far to read the comments, it's worth skimming over it.

[http://www.slideshare.net/TomRaftery/can-we-hack-open- source...](http://www.slideshare.net/TomRaftery/can-we-hack-open-source-cloud- platforms-to-help-reduce-emissions)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How dare Eskimos eat meat, they should eat bananas and fruit!</comment>