How Bodega typifies Silicon Valley's cultural ignorance - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/15/how-bodega-typifies-silicon-valley-s-cultural-ignorance/ <comment><USER2> I don't want to always sound critic of the USA, but if here in Italy you opened an activity with real or supposed _insert your favourite heritage here_ style, no one would ever care.

You would get awful reviews if you weren't doing a good job of it, but aside from that, why would anyone really be offended?

If you guys were coherent, places like Olive Garden should never exist. And I am not even starting on how much of a shit job Olive Garden is doing of trying to look Italian, because I don't care.

Europe, with such a rich mix of cultures should be a trigger-hell for you Americans.

(I am being sarcastic) How can you really cope with all this?

Edit: to add insult to injury, how should we Italians feel about being always portrayed as "pizza, mafia, gobbledygook mamma mia". It's so far from our reality, we don't care.

Edit2: better phrasing

<comment><USER3> Rightly or wrongly, there are people here in the US that make it a hobby to become offended and make a big deal of how offensive it is. Obviously it would do everyone some good to use discernment with their actions, but everyone should also not try to look for how you can spin something that was probably tongue in cheek into something offensive. Is bodega a great idea? Probably not, but I don't know what the entire offering was, maybe the idea got funded because they were interested in a specific part of the whole idea. I would like to see people in the US realize that someone is going to do something they don't like and there is an option to ignore the behavior.

<comment><USER4> The problem is, unfortunately, becoming a world-wide phenomenon, because the entire media industry runs on generating outrage to capture the audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > If you're online in any way whatsoever, you likely know I'm talking about > Bodega.

I'm online in many ways, and no, I didn't know that.

When writing an article on cultural ignorance, try to be mindful of your own echo chamber as well!

</comment><comment><USER6> If the startup were called "Vendoogle" or "Quikbox" I don't think there would be so much outrage.

Local mom & pop stores have been under assault by all kinds of well-funded rivals for decades, including CVS, Target Mini-Stores, gas station franchises, and bottling companies working with vending machine distributors. Nevertheless, the little corner stores still keep ticking in many areas thanks to goods and services not offered by these bigger competitors, including specialty food, extended hours, and money transfer services.

However, if Target were to rebrand their mini-stores as "Red Bodegas" or something similar there would be similar outrage. It's one thing to compete, it's another thing to play dirty by usurping the little guy's brand or throwing your weight around too much in a very obvious or threatening way.

If I were McDonald and Rajan, I would use this opportunity to rebrand to something more acceptable, offer a mea culpa, and maybe even figure out some way to work with real bodegas and local stores (shared distribution for certain items to lower costs? Machine learning for real bodegas' inventory? "Local" goods? Spillover sales?)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is basically a fancy vending machine, so I'm not really clear on why this got funded, but on the other hand vending machines are a thing. They don't actually seem to be trying to displacement bodegas from the get go, but rather putting their machines in upscale places like lobbies and gyms, but I'm still a bit confused by this whole thing, is the premise that these places are more likely to accept a pretty vending machine?

<comment><USER8> I don't know, I can think of several times in the last week I would have been very happy to have a vending machine with toilet paper and coffee creamer in the lobby of my building. The only corner store nearby went out of business a few months ago.

<comment><USER7> Sure, everyone wants convenient things, but why do they need fancy tech development (they're planning to use computer vision), and what makes them think they will be able to make the economics work?

Putting these inside building lobbies means they can serve far fewer people than a regular vending machine; their costs have to be far better than a regular vending machine for this plan to make sense.

<comment><USER9> > Putting these inside building lobbies means they can serve far fewer people > than a regular vending machine

Huh? Lots (probably a vast majority) of vending machines are in building lobbies or otherwise semipublic spaces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not many people here seem to have read the article, or read so quickly to misinterpret it. This is not a rant about 'appropriation' or naming choices - that's only one of the facets of ignorance by the founders discussed in the piece. More importantly, the author makes their case that some ideas, in particular that of a vending machine, are so disconnected from the daily lives of what the author might call 'normal people' that it's offensive to dump significant money into them (or wasted on them, I suppose). That latter part is, I believe, the real offending bit.

<comment><USER11> One could argue then that the author failed to get the point across, even if the point might have merit.

It's any author's task to make their cases in a way so that people pay attention. In this case, this maybe failed. As I mentioned in my other comment: Using terms such as "offensive" when trying to make a serious point to fact- and argument-oriented people (which one typically finds on HN) might not work very well.

It's better to be critical of the author's approach to making the case than to assume that the problem are the readers.

<comment><USER10> hm, that is a fair point. yet, don't you also think that it is a little endemic on hn, and knee-jerk reaction, to jump on certain phrases? like...a trigger :P?

would you think this is a universal response (and therefore problem) or perhaps only among a certain readership? would an author not have to take into account the average response to their phrasing (or that of the audience they address)? if this is not the hn readership, then I would think a word like 'offensive' is comprising a lot of meaning in a concentrated way (ofc you can still disagree with the judgment, that the scenario is truly offensive).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When reading about things like this I'm always wondering if I'm the odd one out or others' perceptions are really off.

Background: I live in Munich, Germany which grew from ~1.3m to 1.5m people in my lifetime. I've never lived in the city center, and never outside. Just in "normal" neighborhoods, as I'd call them. And the same discussion about "brick and mortar book stores" and their downfall and people lamenting their demise and now this same thing. I've only ever had one of those "corner stores" near where I lived and it was basically a small supermarket. You went there in emergencies (shops here are only open from 7:00 to 20:00 at most, mind you) because there wasn't much stuff. I guess a few people went there exclusively but the selection was really limited.

TLDR: How can I live in a big city and still have never have experienced any upside to this? I'm not saying corner stores are bad at all, but I really don't get the fuss.

<comment><USER13> In America (especially the East coast), the mom & pop bodegas serve as impromptu social gathering places for the locals, as the store and its owners are very much a part of the community. Taking that away feels a lot like ripping apart a family.

<comment><USER14> Sounds like general stores in small towns closing down because a Walmart has opened next door.

<comment><USER15> To be fair, a lot of people are seriously angry at Walmart about that as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Two Ex-Googlers Want To Make Bodegas And Mom-And-Pop Corner Stores Obsolete

It's my understanding that bodegas (gas stations in car towns) make their money from "unsavory" things: nicotine, alcohol, and lottery tickets.

Unless Bodega is planning on stocking vending machines with this stuff (they can't; it's generally illegal), corner stores will be fine.

<comment><USER17> Actually, and this might be different where you live, but it's my understanding that shops don't really make any profit on cigarettes/alcohol/lottery tickets, and that they are only sold to entice you to buy other things (ie. if they didn't stock them, people would shop elsewhere).

<comment><USER18> I'm acquainted with the general manager of a local hardware chain in my small town that used to run a gas station. The sense I have from talking to him is, the gas station shut down because 1. Kroger put in a gas station that nobody can compete with, and 2. they couldn't sell liquor (because they were across the street from the high school). The gas station also used to have a successful auto repair shop attached to it, so apparently the gas and liquor problems were severe enough that even the auto shop couldn't justify continuing to operate the location---though, I gather, the Kroger gas station was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Obviously this is just one gas station in one small town, but then that's probably all there is to this discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There's a lot of hate and resentment in that article. Sure, maybe Bodega isn't the brightest startup. But who cares? If it's a bad idea, nature/market will make it go away.

If bodegas/corner stores whatever are worth it, people will continue to buy from there and Bodega nor any other "shiny" startup will stand a chance against them.

My guess is she doesn't believe in freemarket and thinks that someone can simply kill corner stores by throwing money at a startup.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think the more interesting point goes unspoken: nothing short of _appropriation_ is big enough to be a touchpoint for rejecting a run-of-the- mill Valley product.

 _even just the startup 's name "Bodega" told us locals and natives -- the involuntary first-wave recipients of Silicon Valley's fucked up experiments with our lives -- all we needed to know._

 _FIRST_ wave? You think this is first? The fact the battle is over branding at all is the biggest sign the war is already over regarding "Silicon Valley's fucked up experiments with our lives."

\---

There is nothing new about saying the Valley's products are out of touch, or positioned to change the physical landscape of society in a destructive way, or replacing personal interaction with web forms and call trees, or do damage to user's psyche just to maximize engagement and ARPU. Likewise there is nothing new about "internet threatens mom & pop business model." And in the grand scheme of things, bodeags are of the category "mom and pop".

Has everyone become this accustomed and propagandized to the inevitability of business models crushing unnecessary positive aspects of the end user's experience/culture in the name of profit? Where the "we'll do it cheaper, so just forget everything you loose in the process" idea is so ingrained that the only thing that can light up anyone's brain anymore is crossing into the hot political topic of appropriation?

</comment><comment><USER21> That was an unnecessarily angry article. A much more measured one (though still very cutting) one is here: [https://www.eater.com/2017/9/13/16302386/bodega-startup- corn...](https://www.eater.com/2017/9/13/16302386/bodega-startup-corner-store- silicon-valley)

Also has some very valid sounding criticism of their entire business model.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't take anyone seriously who casually calls something like Bodega an "offensive idea", as if this is the most natural thing to do. A name choice ca be bad without the whole idea "being offensive". Lazy labels are bad for discourse.

<comment><USER10> The article is not centered around the choice of name, it's an example. The offensiveness, to the author, comes from more than that.

<comment><USER11> It's the idea that "offensiveness" even is a reasonable critical descriptor of a startup idea that i see as a problem. This is such a fluid term which lacks any clear, objective boundaries. Everybody has their own view on what's offensive (apart from some areas in which somewhat of a consensus exists about offensiveness, mostly regarding pejorative expressions). Some people have a thick skin and find nothing offensive, others consider any opposing argument presented in a determined tone offensive. And then there is a huge space in between.

Therefore expanding the scope of "offensiveness" more and more is, in my eyes, a problematic trend.

<comment><USER10> The waste of money on a stupid idea is offending the author in light of the increasing issue of wealth discrepancy and homelessness in SF. This may not be offensive to all, but is not inappropriate usage.

<comment><USER11> It might not be inappropriate to you, but I'd argue it's counterproductive to use it. If the idea is to find allies outside of certain digital echo chambers of very like-minded people who all would instanly agree on the offensiveness, then it's not working, as outside of such groups, the concepts of what's offensive and what's not are very different.

It's like someone highly involved in church talks to non-religious people on the street in the same way as to members of the church, assuming that they by definition have the same context & associations. This assumption then could be considered a sign of ignorance from the church representative, who seemingly isn't even aware of what he/she is doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The author literally dehumanizes the founders _and all tech workers_ , calling them "machines" and "things in suits". What a terrible, clickbaity article.

<comment><USER22> "things in human suits", actually. This is an apt description of some tech workers I've worked with, and some of the commantari here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Pretty lazy piece, mostly full of easy jabs and containing very little argumentation.

"Bodega isn't just an offensive idea, it's an idea so bad and obviously worthless it's maddening."

I can (academically) understand how Bodega's rollout was offensive but I don't see how it's a worthless idea. Unlike the author, not everybody has 24-hour convenience stores just down the street.

If they had one of these in my building I'd use it every week.

</comment><comment><USER23> It occurs to me that without the apparent anger of the author, I would likely have never heard of "Bodega". They would have died quietly and never made an impact on my life. Now I know who they are, who founded the company, and what they're trying to accomplish.

You literally cannot buy marketing this effective.

</comment><comment><USER13> People don't actively set out to be this callous; it just happens as you become more and more insulated from the real world, and the divide between those driving the country and those living in it widens. The French Revolution is an extreme example.

</comment><comment><USER24> A lot of new innovations put someone else out of work. How is this any different from Buggy Whip Makers or (in the near future) Lorry Drivers being unemployed?

To be clear, unemployment like that isn't great but I'm not sure why this is a special case.

</comment><comment><USER25> > _Can you imagine handing your bank details to these clowns?_

On the whole this is an informative and well written explanation of the reaction to Bodega, but I don't think commentary like this is helpful.

<comment><USER22> Could you imagine the point-of-view of someone who did find this helpful? And then, the opinion of this hypothetical reader would hold of the Bodega clowns?

To me, the commentary helps call out how insincere and non-genuine the quoted text is.

<comment><USER25> > _Could you imagine the point-of-view of someone who did find this helpful?_

Who would this "bank details" comment help, and how, and why does someone's point of view affect whether it's helpful?

> _To me, the commentary helps call out how insincere and non-genuine the > quoted text is._

There's plenty to discuss on the branding, commercial model, and social implications without attempting to smear them with vague implications of either technical incompetence/negligence or some kind of fraud/ethical risk.

Perhaps I've misunderstood it and there's an interpretation of this "bank details" line that's grounded in some evidence rather than being an unnecessary smear.

<comment><USER22> Taking this as a 'no' then.

<comment><USER25> > _Taking this as a 'no' then._

Take it as a 'I don't consider your question as stated to be meaningful'.

<comment><USER22> It's a empathy exercise, not a question? You implicitly asked, "who would this statement about bank accounts be helpful for?", and I suggest that you try to think of someone.

<comment><USER25> > _It 's a empathy exercise, not a question? You implicitly asked, "who would > this statement about bank accounts be helpful for?", and I suggest that you > try to think of someone._

The question I asked you was a literal question, not an empathy exercise. By all means suggest a way that anyone might be helped by this apparently- unevidenced smear.

It may comfort people to read things that support their worldview, but I don't agree that it helps them.

[Edit: changed questions to question as I only asked one]

<comment><USER22> I was talking about the question I asked you:

> _Could you imagine the point-of-view of someone who did find this helpful?_

I felt that your response didn't try to answer it, and thus I thought you cannot imagine such a person & see things from their point-of-view.

<comment><USER25> > _I was talking about the question I asked you_

Yep, and I've explained at length now that your question needs clarifying before any kind of answer can be meaningful.

You asked me to empathise with the views of people helped by the author's apparent smear. I'm sincerely asking you; who are these people you're asking me to empathise with, and how have they been helped?

Without that this is all drearily hypothetical and meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good article, reminded me of Gawker/ValleyWag in a lot of ways.

</comment><comment><USER4> Seriously, out of all the problems this start-up represents, the author chose to focus on _cultural appropriation_? Now the article did touch on other things as well, but the central point leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The author seems disconnected from reality, too. Want to talk about the real problem? Start with how such companies will affect the unskilled labour market.

Also: people publishing these articles are - like always - fast to write about how the tech culture is perceived, but also stubbornly refuse to take the responsibility for the fact that _they 're who create that perception in the first place_. Juicero and Bodega are one but thousands of startups in SV. Yet they define the tech culture through them... because writing about those gives them most outrage-driven clicks, in a self-reinforcing loop of caricature.

I defer to SSC for the much saner critique of SV: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/11/silicon-valley-a- realit...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/11/silicon-valley-a-reality- check/)

</comment><comment><USER27> How is this "situation" with Bodega any different than the destruction of small town shops (and small towns in general) over the last 50 years?

This article could easily be retitled: "How This Article Typifies Urban Cultural Ignorance of the World Beyond the City Walls."

<comment><USER22> > _How is this "situation" with Bodega any different than the destruction of > small town shops?_

The $2.5MM funding for a bad vending machine which will only work in cities, in the face of extreme income inequality.

<comment><USER27> Don't get me wrong, I think Bodega is an exceptionally stupid idea. What bothers me is the outrage about the potential loss of these small shops in urban areas when absolutely zero concern was paid to the eventual shredding of the social fabric of rural communities. The author of the article does not address this, even in passing.

<comment><USER22> I guess the cause of that isn't 2 techlife 'product' guys with a ton of other people's money (which they got on the off-chance they completely disrupt the market).

Gutting of small towns is done with multi-year business strategies decided in the boardrooms & committees of giant corporations for shareholder benefit: also bad, but less offensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This article is gold. I honestly hope the startup bubble bursts soon enough so this kind of crap finishes one and for all. Too much money has been wasted in these "companies" that could've been used for better purposes.

</comment><comment><USER29> When I first saw that initial article of them mentioning their startup which was titled: " Two Ex-Googlers Want To Make Bodegas And Mom-And-Pop Corner Stores Obsolete " I already knew it was doomed. I mean an upper middle class Caucasian guy and an upper middle class South Asian guy who previously worked at Google make this startup with the idea of "making mom and pop corner stores obsolete" And they name the startup "Bodega" whose name has Latino roots....

How can these two be so tone deaf and insensitive to how people will react to this?

This sounds cruel and bad just from the phrasing of the headline. It's like they didn't use any common sense and have no heart for local businesses.

I just don't understand why a decent amount of these Silicon Valley techies are so time deaf? Did they grow up with silver spoons in their mouths?

How can you be so smart technically yet so culturally tone deaf at the same time? I would have thought sharp critical thinking and common sense would apply to more than just technical problems...

You can complain about how people are overreacting and perhaps you have a point but that doesn't change the fact that people will overreact.

Why are so many upper middle class and rich people so disconnected from the poor and middle class?

I'm fairly well off now but I still remember what it was like when my family was poor when my parents first immigrated from Malaysia (we were racial and religious minorities and Malaysia's government discriminates against racial/religious minorities so my parents left) back in the mid 90s...

and we had to go to food banks in Michigan to get some food when my dad's two menial jobs didn't make enough.

And I also remember when my family was middle class (about 60K) back in Idaho. The middle class life was much better than when we were poor (no food security issues and we had a nice house) and we got a smartphone back when I was in high school. (Only one smartphone for the family, more than one was too expensive, they let me have it because I was the oldest).

So even though I'm upper middle class now here in Silicon Valley, I still remember those harder times.

And I want Silicon Valley to make startups to help those poor and middle class people, instead of trying to displace or hurt those people.

All the machine learning they use in Bodega they could have instead sold that as a service to local Bodegas to empower their businesses by giving the local Bodegas a way to know what to stock up on.

And I believe that would have still been profitable but also community conscious.

Ugh the level of liberal snobby-ness and elitism that you see on Silicon Valley

Makes me super bummed sometimes when I think about Silicon Valley

When I see the immense income inequality which I didn't see as much back in Idaho.

Now I'm partially a hypocrite since I love my upper middle class tech job here at a top company which I would not have found in Idaho.

I won't kid. This is the best standard of living and quality of life I've ever experienced so far. I'm very grateful for that.

But the income inequality here reminds me somewhat of what I saw in India when I visited there for the first time last year.

Like it looked like 1/3 of the population has a gesta upper middle class or rich life with great stuff.

But 2/3 in like abject poverty.

Now California isn't as bad as that but out of all the States I've lived in or visited,

It's the closest to that and perhaps that's partly due to the fact that our education system doesn't prepare Americans for these well paying tech jobs....

But if that's the case then we need to fix that or we'll turn into India if we don't change or fix our current problems here in the US.

I didn't vote for Trump but I understood why many of my friends back in Idaho did because hey feel hopeless in this new changing economy and their education system didn't prepare them for it.

Anyway I refuse to believe that it's impossible to come up with profitable startup ideas that also empower local communities and businesses.

Sorry I don't mean to put anyone here down btw this was just a general rant on Silicon Valley.

I'm really sorry if I came off as rude.

I normally don't comment on hacker news this is my second comment ever.

Pardon my typos I typed all this on my smartphone.

<comment><USER29> Btw I see a lot of folks here always taking shots at the USA and it looks like there is a fairly large international audience in this "Hacker News" group.

But as someone who has somewhat extensively studied American history and government back in the day.

(I've read the Constitution, Federalist Papers, works by Thomas Paine, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin, many of the majority opinions in many landmark Supreme Court cases, etc etc)

And there is actually a significant amount of misinformation and paranoia about America and the American government.

Now some of it regarding foreign policy is rightly justified given the actions by the CIA or military.

But on domestic policy, there is some misinformation every once in a while by someone's comments.

Now while I usually prefer to talk about math and engineering stuff,

I feel most folks here already know that stuff and usually someone usually replies with the correction on Math or engineering issues/topics.

So I'll limit most of my comments to perhaps pointing out what in my opinion are half-truths or falsehoods on American domestic policy or legal issues based on the limited knowledge I have on whatever is being discussed.

Ok no more rants from me for a long while. Apologies!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I _think_ the thing the article was trying to explain was tulip fever.

But then got distracted along the way.

</comment><comment><USER31> Turning this company into a focal point about SV culture is such a ridiculous exercise in voluntary dyspepsia.

</comment><comment><USER32> Let's check in with what the actual founders of this company said:

      Are we trying to put corner stores out of business?

      Definitely not. Challenging the urban corner store is not
      and has never been our goal.

      Corner stores have been fixtures of their neighborhoods for
      generations. They stock thousands of items, far more than we
      could ever fit on a few shelves. Their owners know what
      products to carry and in many cases who buys what. And
      they're run by people who in addition to selling everything
      from toilet paper to milk also offer an integral human
      connection to their patrons that our automated storefronts
      never will.

This endgadget post is lying clickbait. It's "two minutes hate" for 21st century America.

<comment><USER33> This quote is in the article, where it makes it clear that the founders only said it after the backlash had begun.

<comment><USER32> It doesn't matter when they said it. It should be self evident to anyone that it's true. You can't replace a store with ~1000 products with a vending machine that stocks ~30.

<comment><USER33> The timing matters because it contradicts something they said before they starting facing criticism.

"Eventually, centralized shopping locations won't be necessary, because there will be 100,000 Bodegas spread out, with one always 100 feet away from you."

Whether it's possible or not, it was their aim, according to this statement anyway.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Age of Cretinism - <AUTHOR> http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/essay/the-age-of-cretinism <comment><USER3> I read an interesting article recently related to this, which posted the following problem: that in recent times, moralism has become hijacked by the financial elite.

For instance, to protect our environment you should eat local and organic food, which unfortunately tends to be more expensive than its mass produced alternatives. When you earn enough, you can live the 'right' way and telll all your friends; people who have to save money and buy cheaper mass produced foods are 'worse' not just because they are poor, but because they live their lifes the 'wrong' way.

When you have a good job and live in a good neighbourhood, you might welcome immigrants and want to give them a new home in your country so they can escape all the sufferings from where they are coming from. But when you are poor, you might also have worries that those immigrants compete with you in your job or might overwhelm your neighbourhood. But again, morally this worry is 'wrong'; until recently, bringing this out in the open would make you a racist or worse.

So lower classes see themselves pushed in a corner where they are not only the losers in a financial way, but more than that, they are 'bad' people because they dare to have second thoughts about all those morally right choices above. As a result, there is a growing movement to let go of morals altogether, which is the cretinism from the article.

<comment><USER4> These aren't the same kind of thing at all, though. "Ethical consumption" is a bit of a mess and I would agree that it's vulnerable to becoming just another form of conspicuous consumption unless people are diligently self-critical about their moralising.

Migration, on the other hand, involves key elements of human dignity. The right not to be subject to racial discrimination (e.g. the bad old days of "no dogs, no blacks no irish" signs). The right to family life: to live with your spouse and children even if they weren't born in the same country as you.

People who are worried about e.g. people moving from Mexico to California but not Ohio to California need to take a look at themselves. Are we really saying that to avoid overcrowding and ensure access to jobs for locals, that countries would be better off with _internal_ migration control? You'd need a visa to move to the big city?

<comment><USER5> I think his point is that when morality gets co-opted and redefined to be a mind-control tactic of the wealthy to get the poor to do relatively meaningless things for the agenda of the wealthy, the poor stop caring about morality. That would go quite well with the point of the article about cretinism being a disregard of morality in political process; though it would also turn part of the blame from the poor to the rich.

I don't necessarily agree with him, but it is a valid point connected to the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "It is hard to imagine a time in recent history where political leaders > openly support a culture of violence without compunction or any trace of > self-consciousness, public discourse routinely carpet-bombs fine > distinctions with a view to making any nuanced moral responses impossible, > and sympathy is routinely so partitioned along partisan lines that the > possibility of any human response to tragedy and atrocity seems like a > distant gleam."

Not sure about "hard to imagine a time in recent history"; "carpet-bomb" is after all a phrase from the Vietnam War. Or the 80s when nuclear MAD was such an omnipresent threat that it was all over pop culture.

To me it all seems tied to colonialism, which despite what everyone thinks is definitely not dead. Colonialism always comes with justifications for violence against the colonized.

Edit: ah, this article is about India, but I think the cultural drivers are the same - exclusionary nationalism by a group, in this case Hindus, opposed to the idea that minorities deserve rights as individuals.

</comment><comment><USER6> Really well written article. It is hard to articulate what is so frustrating about the attitude of the far right, but it is captured here.

</comment><comment><USER7> I kind of started to believe in chemtrails, except the poison sprayed over the world is probably digital, not chemical. That is the only way I can explain this worldwide slide into cretinism so perfectly captured in this article.

I would like to see what will science in the future say about this period - <USER2> the culprit was an orchestrated destabilization campaign by the likes of Russia or if it was a natural and inevitable outcome of the change of human communication patterns brought by the internet.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ctrl+F "reaction" highlights half the article.

"not being a progressive makes you a cretin" is not a good argument, maybe you should look at yourself to see why Modi is winning. This notion that progressivism is inherently and unquestionably good is a blight that comes from the West and has to stop.

<comment><USER9> I believe both the behaviors in the article and your point are well summarized by the word: _conformity_. The danger is when the behavior of conformity becomes more important than the subject matter regardless of how noble or moral that subject matter may appear or whether or not the conformist behaviors are apparent to the participants.

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

<comment><USER10> If you ever have the misfortune of being on the wrong end of injustice, particularly where perpetrated by greater authority, or number of authorities, you start to really quickly realize how pernicious conformity can be.

It's still possible for one to be infected with the kind of unjust hatred that turns one into a _bad_ or _wrong_ kind of person. Perhaps our collective consciousness tells us that is not possible anymore--we are not really persecuting witches, anabaptists, the poor, racial minorities, etc, etc. It's deceptive because there's truth we have made lot of progress there. But what is still true is that these human behaviors that made all of this constantly possible throughout history are still a part of us. Hatred and _wrongness_ is extremely infectious under the right circumstances and you would be amazed by how many people immediately conform to that, no matter how unjust, rather than at least ask questions. In that way the shadow of our unacceptable past still lives on in the present.

If it were not for this experience, I believe I would be ignorant of this and unbelieving in it: that the willingness to conform to unjust authority-- perhaps _the_ vital ingredient in all of the mass injustices in the world--is still something that most of the human population possess, not unlike in our past. Which is really scary. I hope I'm just particularly unlucky and wrong about this conclusion.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps the most finite ingredient (or virtue) is selflessness. Is the action or opinion expressed primarily for your own emotions or for something completely external? I suspect most people cannot honestly discern those two criteria and that indistinguishable quality is what allows people to conform unknowingly or fear originality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The concept of 'Godwin Point' seem to have been completely forgotten in the last two years. Gratuitous Hitler comparisons used to mean that the discussion had degenerated into meaninglessness. Now it's in opening paragraph of serious articles, by serious authors. The global debate has degenerated into meaninglessness.

<comment><USER12> At what point does it become fair to describe literal imitations of the developments that led to the rise of Nazi Germany as such? Such comparisons should not be made lightly, but when how far do we have to go in that direction before "Godwin's Law" stops being invoked to stop criticism?

<comment><USER11> When a politician starts to literally call for the end of democracy, freedom of speech, genocide of people, conquest of neighbouring countries, nationalisation of major industries, etc ?

<comment><USER13> I would suggest that if you wait that long you've waited too long.

<comment><USER11> Too long to fight against it, or to make Hitler comparisons ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm amused to learn that "The term 'parliamentary cretinism' was coined by Marx to describe a condition ...' which is 'a stunted political imagination that is consistently out of touch with reality'. Excellent description of Marxism.

<comment><USER15> I'm not saying I agree with it, but you should read the Communist Manifesto some time (it's short and free on Kindle).

Things it called for include stuff now totally non-controversial: free school education for everyone; women _not_ being the personal property of their husbands; that sort of thing.

Yes, there's also stuff I can't even comprehend well enough to either agree or disagree (it might have made sense to someone in 1848 but not to me), yet it is surprising how much of it is now "just the way things are" — even in nations which hate communism so much that mandatory private insurance is demonised as "socialist".</comment></comment>


Opera browser is much faster than a potato - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaT7thTxyq8 <comment><USER2> Cute. Incidentally, this was already my exact mental image of the average Opera user.

</comment><comment><USER3> Totally unfair comparison. If you chop up the potatoes and put a lid on the pot, they'll cook a _lot_ faster.

<comment><USER4> Putting a lid on the pot won't speed things along, as long as the water was boiling anyway. Boiling water is around 100 C, with or without lid.

Chopping them smaller make a bit of difference, but not that much - again most of the flesh will be at 100 C for the duration of the cooking. I've tried these things.

<comment><USER5> Keeping a lid on help keep the temperature more consistent, as there is much less heat escape and evap into the atmosphere.

<comment><USER4> Yes, there's less heat escaping. But the water is pretty close to 100 C throughout. Go ahead and try it out :)

<comment><USER6> If you dice the potatoes very small they will cook perfectly in about 30s in boiling water (it's one of my specialities :D)

<comment> w-ll how small?

<comment><USER6> about 1 - 1.5 cm (I have a special dicer that does it)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I feel like the average viewer is going to take this video at face value since they may not see the subtle reference to the Google Chrome speed tests video. Saying that you're faster than a cooked potato in hot water isn't saying much.

I do like the crack censorship though. It was funny and unexpected.

<comment><USER8> I have to think you're taking too negative a view of the intelligence of average. There is nothing subtle about this parody.

I could be wrong, but I'd be shocked that any competent person who had seen the chrome advertisements wouldn't recognize and understand this parody.

<comment><USER7> You're right, if someone had seen the Chrome speed tests video then they would likely see the direct reference.

However, anecdotally, I did see the Chrome video and I didn't see the direct parody until I read the comments here on Hacker News.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Which, of course, is a -not so subtle- parody on the Chrome video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oarMXGq3gI>

<comment><USER9> Does Chrome really render Web pages from bottom to top, as appears to happen on allrecipes.com? Or was that just done for dramatic effect?

<comment><USER10> No. If you read the description of the chrome video, you'll see that they turned the LCD upside down to remove a shadow, and used software rotation in Windows to turn the display back around. The exact quote:

Chrome actually paints the page from top to bottom, but to eliminate a shadow from the driver board, we had to flip the monitor upside down and set the system preferences in Windows to rotate everything 180 degrees, resulting in the page appearing to render from bottom to top.

<comment><USER11> That explanation never made sense to me.

If windows has rotated everything, then chrome is now the right way round again and _should_ appear to render properly.

The only reason it does that I can think of, is that chrome loaded when the screen was half way through a refresh - so we saw the now rendered bottom appear before it went back round and refreshed the top of the screen.

<comment><USER10> The point here is that the rotation is done by the OS, in software, so the screen is still painting from the _physical_ left-to-right and top-to-bottom. This is something you'll never notice with the naked eye, but their camera uses a staggering 2700fps. This means that a full repaint of the screen - assuming 60Hz refresh happens in 45 frames. Those 45 frames, played back at 30 fps means that the full repaint takes a second and a half, leaving you with the ability to see the individual lines being (re)painted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does anyone else think they are calling the Chrome videos a 'red herring' or is this reading too much into it?

<comment><USER13> Well, he does read a book called "Famous Herring Parties" while waiting for the potato to cook, and then proceed to simulate a sword fight with herrings.

<comment><USER14> I assumed it was a reference to something the Norwegian people _might_ worldwide be famous for, that is: herring. Just an impression.

<comment><USER15> I figured it was a Monty Python reference, to the part in Holy Grail where he systematically dismembers the black knight, and then faces the Knights Who Say Ni, who ask him to chop down the tallest tree in the forest with a herring.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is such a beautiful slap in the face for the Chrome video. Which was pretty cool by the way :)

<comment><USER17> Yes, but I still watched it _through_ Chrome and it didn't instil a sudden urge to switch browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Same as <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1386224> except that that one links to Engadget's comments on the video rather than directly to the video itself.

</comment><comment><USER19> They should have used the potatoes as a battery to power the laptop.

</comment><comment><USER20> That was great... but WTF (What Turbo Fan)

</comment><comment><USER21> What actually is Opera Software making profit of? Of not being funny? But seriously.

</comment><comment><USER22> It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.

<comment><USER23> Don't pick it up, pick it up, pick it up. Quick! Just pass it on, pass it on, pass it on... Thanks again, Douglas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> They are så fæntæstic! Heia Norge.

</comment><comment><USER25> The Chrome video was cool. I watched the "Making of" video and got bored pretty quickly and didn't finish watching it.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you evaluate Tomato.es growth? - <AUTHOR> http://tomato.es/statistics

<comment><USER2> I see that User growth is stabilizing since around July 23; if you were to plot the first graph from that date (instead of June 29th) you would probably see a steady (not growing) number of new daily users.

Tomatoes by day (actual usage), however, is growing at a much quicker rate than users. This can only mean that part of the user base is actually using the service more.</comment>


UK: Your entire internet history to be viewable by many agencies - Kepler-125c http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/technology/your-entire-internet-history-to-be-viewable-by-psni-taxman-dwp-and-food-standards-agency-and-other-government-bodies-within-weeks-35242522.html <comment><AUTHOR> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13034747).</comment>


Hacker News London meetup, Wednesday 25th September - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/HNLondon/events/139404452/

<comment><USER2> Nice to see that you have Mandy speaking. She is also speaking, as yet unannounced talk, at [http://allyourbaseconf.com](http://allyourbaseconf.com) this year.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Videos of talks from previous events are online at [http://vimeo.com/hnlondon](http://vimeo.com/hnlondon)

<comment><USER3> This is the talk that I gave at the previous event on hacking an electricity monitor to work with a Raspberry Pi: [http://vimeo.com/70302483](http://vimeo.com/70302483)

Deck: [https://speakerdeck.com/jpsingleton/raspberry-pi- electricity...](https://speakerdeck.com/jpsingleton/raspberry-pi-electricity- monitor)

Code: [https://github.com/jpsingleton/Raspberry-Pi-Electricity- Moni...](https://github.com/jpsingleton/Raspberry-Pi-Electricity-Monitor)

Demo: [http://jpsingleton.github.io/](http://jpsingleton.github.io/)

Full write-up: [http://unop.co.uk/dev/raspberry-pi-electricity- monitor/](http://unop.co.uk/dev/raspberry-pi-electricity-monitor/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can't go to this event but the previous ones that I've been to have been great. Recommended.

</comment><comment><USER4> Weird. I Wonder why HN London makes front page, but when SFHN gets front page we get banned?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure why you get banned. I always post HNLondon meetup announcements while it is morning in UK and SF is asleep. At that time there is less competition for the front page and it's possible to get there with just a few upvotes. Once SF starts to wake up we inevitably get swept away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Meetups like these generally have an overlapping crowd from other tech community meetups like RoR, PHP, WordPress.

<comment><USER6> And Hackers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H computer security experts, as well.

At least, the one time I went (I'm not from UK) I met a couple of guys who run pen-test businesses. Apparently they were completely unaware of YC and got the other meaning of word Hacker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm coming. See you there guys/girls :P

</comment><comment><USER8> It would be cool to have on up North too!

<comment><USER9> Hey! I've been to a few of the HNLondon meet ups and going to miss them a lot when I'm back in Newcastle this year.

If you want to chat at all about potentially setting something up in the North this year I'd be happy to help out. Not sure if I can dedicate myself full time to it though due to final year university demands hence why I'm not putting myself forward by myself to look into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does not take too much work to get it started.

1) Pick a decent venue that has space and it not too noisy

2) Announce it on HN

3) Invite interesting people to come along.

We started the London meetup this way and even completely screwed up step one. You can see the original announcement at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1434964](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1434964)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good. See you there !

</comment><comment><USER11> See you there!

</comment><comment><USER12> Nearest Underground not listed on meetup page... It's London Bridge by the seems of it.

Thanks

<comment><USER3> It's Old Street (northern line and national rail).

Map: [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Cowper+Street,+London](https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Cowper+Street,+London)</comment></comment>


Bitcoin declared illegal in Nepal, 7 arrested - <AUTHOR> http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/ampnews/2017-10-06/7-nabbed-for-running-bitcoin-exchange-business.html <comment><USER2> >run digital exchange >get arrested

when will this meme end? I don't own any crypto anymore, but I find it endlessly weird that a government can just declare something illegal and immediately begin arresting people with no warning.</comment>


How to Start Your Startup's CRM - <AUTHOR> http://wishery.com/blog/startup-crm <comment><USER2> I helped write an in-house CRM for my current employer as a transition away from Dynamics. It does leads, ownership, billing, conversion, all that stuff and it's built as a part of our existing backend systems, which is great for providing extra customer detail and insight you wouldn't get otherwise.

It might become a maintenance hassle five or ten years down the track, or after most of the original developers move on, but for now it was simple to write, the best solution to our problems, perfectly customisable to our precise needs and everyone enjoys using it.

I used plain excel to maintain a "CRM" of about 200 entries for a university society. Works incredibly well, fast and easy - exactly what you would want in a startup - i suppose until you have multiple people needing to work on it, and come upon data permission and file locking issues. I know several large businesses rely disproportionately on excel in this way.

<comment><USER3> I forget who said it first, but there's a saying that if you want to look for business ideas, look for where people are complaining about sharing Excel files. That's where they've accidentally built an application that they need (giving you a spec) but which isn't good enough for the job (giving you a way in).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the post it says that Wishery helps focus on relationships rather that just sales, but it seems like all it does is send Gmail contacts over to MailChimp. Isn't an automated email blast the opposite of a real relationship? Are people really sending drip email campaigns to investors? I've never raised money but I was under the impression that you're expected to have personal relationships with investors.

Disclaimer: I make my own CRM product, so I'm certainly biased.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does your CRM have an API? Perhaps Wishery could integrate with Less Annoying CRM!

<comment><USER4> We do have an API, but it's very basic right now (<https://www.lessannoyingcrm.com/help/topic/API>). We're more focused on serving traditional small businesses rather than startups, and most small businesses don't even know what an API is. We'll need to build it out soon, but it hasn't been enough of a priority yet.

Good luck with Wishery!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slightly off-topic, but can anyone recommend a reasonably-priced (full- fledged) CRM system run under a SaaS model that has a nice API that I can use for Web site integration and data analytics? Salesforce seems really overpriced for what you get.

</comment><comment><USER6> What I want most is to tie this into my phone (iPhone but willing to swap if there really is not an app for that)

I assume this should be easy but I don't knwo how

 _have all my contacts sync'd to gmail (doable)_ have all my mails to a contact tracked (standard email functionality, plus seems to be what this post is about) _have all my calls to from a contact not only kept on my phone but also exported and synched Ba k to this crm_ bonus points for an app that let's me add notes after a call and syncs those too

amazingly enough I had this on an old nokia n95 back in the day.

<comment><USER7> Well, I guess you need a Galaxy Note..

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm truly puzzled by the notion that a CRM-for-prospective-investors should be more important to a business^ than a CRM-for-customers

^ yeah, I'm old-school and still think startups should be businesses first and foremost

<comment><AUTHOR> In their earliest days, startups tend to depend much more on their relationships with investors than with customers. In fact, for some startups, there may be a period of many months where they have, essentially, not relationship with customers because they have nothing for the customers to use (because they are still building it - with the money the investors invested).

That is exactly why this post is about a CRM for a startup that can be easily grown out of as the relationship management needs change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> i'm sorry but this just seems a bit too complicated

<comment><AUTHOR> Which part?

<comment><USER9> for me, it's really just the whole terminology of the CRM. think it just over complicates what it really is. i guess my question comes down to, does Twitter/FB also fit in to the realm of CRMs? i see a lot of startups now use Twitter/FB as the main communication line w/ their userbase.

<comment><AUTHOR> If your users uses Twitter and Facebook as a primary communications channel, then "going to where they are" is a good strategy.

However, if they aren't already there, then focusing on Twitter/Facebook will cause you to miss many users.

Also, as a startup you have multiple audiences - your users might be on FB/Twitter, but I doubt your investors are (to the same extent) - you must match the communications channel with the audience's existing preferences and behavior - they won't switch channels just to hear from you ; )

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to hear your thoughts - is Gmail + MailChimp + Wishery an effective and efficient startup CRM?</comment>


Amazon to Begin Sunday Deliveries, With Post Office's Help - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304868404579190091121691258-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwMDExNDAyWj <comment><USER2> From the article:

> The Amazon contract will be a much-needed financial boost to the Postal > Service, which continues to bleed red ink as more Americans eschew "snail > mail" in favor of email, instant messaging and social networks. The agency, > which said it expects to lose around $6 billion this year, has been closing > locations and has proposed ceasing Saturday delivery of many items to cut > costs.

But the USPS is, operationally speaking, profitable; it makes about $400M in operating profit per year. So where does the $6B loss come from? It turns out that the overwhelming chunk of USPS expenses are due to a 2006 Congressional mandate that forces the agency to prepay for _75 years_ of benefits.

In other words, Congress believes that a hypothetical 30-year-old USPS employee's benefit costs need to be fully covered at current levels for 75 years, when the employee would then be 105. Likewise, a retiring 60-year-old USPS employee's pension benefits need to be fully covered for 75 years out -- when the retiree would then be 135 years old.

So, if USPS wants to hire, say, a new mail carrier whose benefits are worth (say) $20,000/year, they must immediately pay $1.5M into the fund (it's actually higher than that because there is a discount factor applied to account for interest and rising health care costs). Imagine if your startup or small business were held to the same requirements, and any reasonable person can see this is insanity.

Here's a WaPo article covering the problem in more detail:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal- eye/wp/2013/02/0...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal- eye/wp/2013/02/08/mandate-pushed-postal-service-into-the-red-for-first- quarter/)

<comment><USER3> _So where does the $6B loss come from? It turns out that the overwhelming chunk of USPS expenses are due to a 2006 Congressional mandate that forces the agency to prepay for 75 years of benefits._

So do all private sector businesses. You can't promise employees $X in future benefits without putting $X into a pension fund. This requirement is uncommon in government, which is why many municipalities have unfunded pension obligations, but it's completely reasonable. The scary fact is that we only require the USPS to do this.

You are also misrepresenting the 75 year time horizon. The USPS is required to make the following (wildly oversimplified) spreadsheet:

        year    #living employees   # earned costs/employee
        2014       1000000            50000
        2015        900000            51000
        etc

The pension fund needs to have SUM(column B x column C) dollars in it (again, wildly oversimplified - it's actually the Present Value of Future Benefits). The 75 year requirement means the spreadsheet must have 75 rows. This prevents the fund from cheating by cutting off the calculation early and failing to account for payments they promised to make. Changing 75 years to 100 years wouldn't change anything.

The number "earned costs/employee" is the fraction of the pension costs that have already vested. I.e., if the employee has earned a pension of $100/month so far, but will have earned a pension of $5000/month at retirement, their earned costs are $100/month, not $5000/month.

This is the same calculation that ERISA requires of all private sector companies.

(Certain grandfathered companies in the private sector are also allowed to escape ERISA, and this will be a problem if any of them go out of business.)

<comment><USER4> Nope, not even close. GM for example has a lot of unfunded pension obligations. Which is one of the reasons for the auto bailout if the US auto industry failed a lot of pensioners would see a huge drop in there monthly pension checks.

Above and beyond that companies set aside money each year for each working employee which is supposed to cover the majority of there pension they don't need to set asside the full cost on day one like the USPS.

<comment><USER3> How is my post wrong? From my post: _(Certain grandfathered companies in the private sector are also allowed to escape ERISA, and this will be a problem if any of them go out of business.)_

You are simply incorrect that the USPS needs to pay for an employee's pension on day one. They contribute according to a vesting schedule, same as any private sector company not grandfathered.

It's only in their _projections_ that they must include full costs. Unlike many other agencies, the USPS can't tell Congress that a program will cost $X over the next 10 years, where $X excludes the cost of employee pensions.

<comment><USER5> You are wrong because the USPS _is_ required to fully pre-fund all of its pension obligations. It does not pre-fund based on a vesting schedule, it must prefund each obligation _all at once._ That is why the prefunding obligation is always brought up when discussing the USPS's finances--it is a unique requirement that is not shared by any other entity, public or private.

You are probably misunderstanding the pre-funding schedule. Beginning in 2006, the USPS was obligated to make pre-funding payments with the goal of fully pre-funding 75 years worth of pensions by 2017. See the linked WaPo article, which explicitly states "Congress passed a statute in 2006 requiring the early payment of 75 years worth of retiree benefits within 10 years. " (This is not the same as vesting, because the pre-funding obligation is not tied to the vesting of any particular group of beneficiaries' benefits.)

More specifically, see section 801, et. al., for the specific language of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act fo 2006 which creates the silly requirement.

<comment><USER3> I don't care what some innumerate reporter at the WaPo wrote.

According to the actual law, what must be fully funded is the "actuarial present value of all future benefits payable from the Fund." What this means is that if an employee's pension has 50% vested, their "future benefits payable from the Fund" are 50% of their pension. The USPS is then obligated to put 50% of the NPV of their pension into the fund by 2017.

[https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407/text](https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/109/hr6407/text)

It's explicitly stated 5 times it should comport with "generally accepted actuarial practices and principles", which rules out all the insanity people seem to be attributing to this law.

<comment><USER5> Yes, I know what the text of the bill states, which is why I referenced it in earlier comments. More importantly, you yourself have posted the relevant language. The "acturial present value" part of the quoted phrase is what must comport with generally accepted actuarial practices. The problem is that "all future benefits payable" is by its express language not limited to _vested_ benefits. You need to read the _entire_ code section, not just little snippets.

<comment><USER6> I'm very much enjoying this discussion and I hope you guys can find a definitive statement about what the bill entails. (I find the language you have both quoted from the bill to be too vague to my uncertified ear to make a decision.)

Is your claim that the postal service must pre-fund unvested benefits at the day the employee is hired? That is, is that how you think "future benefits payable" is being interpretted? Because what's definitely _not_ true is that the postal service is being required to fund un-hired (or unborn) employees. See this article, which has quotes from the Congressional Research Service.

[http://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432](http://www.cnbc.com/id/45018432)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "Delivery on a Sunday would be very compelling for consumers. There are > certainly people who decide not to make an order on a Friday because it > won't get there until Monday,"

I am definitely one of those people. It seems like I always end up remembering to order something late Thursday night or Friday. When using my Prime membership's 2 day shipping on a friday, the package does not arrive until Tuesday. Is this ever going to change?

What exactly is the reason these shipping companies seem to go into a kind of hibernation over the weekend? Surely there are people out there who would be willing to work weekends (if the pay was right)? How much more would it cost them?

<comment><USER8> If we allow shipping companies to work on sundays, we should also allow some warehouse employees to work on sundays. Now all these companies will need electricians and mechanics that work on the weekend to fix stuff that breaks on weekends, because else they would have to wait until monday to continue working. These technicians will need to get their spare parts somewhere, so their distributors need to work on the weekend too. With so many people working on the weekend, it'll be necessary for typical white collar workers to work on the weekend, because a business owner doesn't want to wait until Monday for his accountant to do the paperwork for his new weekend employees. At some point the IT system of a shipping company, or a warehouse, or an accountant will fail on a sunday, and then some HN reader will have to go to work on sunday and miss the delivery of some parcel they ordered and they will have to wait until monday anyway.

<comment><USER9> That chain of events is a bit questionable since there are already enough people working on Sundays. Hospitals, Restaurants, Police, ...

<comment><USER8> Yes, and all these things already require a lot of people to work on the weekend. Blood transfusions are delivered on weekends just fine. But that's no reason to allow consumer electronics to be delivered on Sunday...

<comment><USER10> I can go into a store and buy it on Sunday. Why should delivery be any different?

<comment><USER11> It should not. The question might be why going into a store on sundays?

<comment><USER10> Why not? Stores or more or less universally open, and I've got the day off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Representatives of Amazon and the Postal Service said the Seattle-based company was taking advantage of a little-known offering available to any shipper._

So it sounds like they're just using Express mail.. not really anything special. USPS will deliver express mail on Sunday for an extra fee ($12.50). I'm in Denver, you can drop off an express mail package @ the post office in stapleton until 10pm on Saturday, and it will be delivered on Sunday by 3pm.

That facility used to be open 24hrs a day/7 days a week.. so it wouldn't surprise me if the cities amazon picked have facilities open for 24hrs, and they are able to drop off packages at 2-3am sunday, and still have them delivered on sunday (within the city, or near it).

</comment><comment><USER13> Working for the post office has to be probably the best job in the USA right now - your retirement is already funded before you are even hired, thanks to congress trying to put the post office out of business.

They are not "bleeding red ink" they are just being gouged and forced to fund things even the largest corporations do not do.

<comment><USER3> ERISA forbids unfunded (PAYGO) pensions in the private sector. A private sector employer must put the PVFB of your pension into the fund as you earn it.

<comment><USER13> "as you earn it" is the key phrase here, the post office has to fund pension plans before you are even hired, it's a future pool of staggering size.

Pensions at the post office are probably the most secure retirement fund in the US right now, well other than what congress awards itself.

<comment><USER3> No, they are not required to prefund before current workers are hired.

The pension costs of future workers are simply required to be included in future projections of USPS costs. It used to be that the USPS could go to congress and say "we want to do X over the next 10 years, it will cost $Y". The $Y value was allowed to exclude the cost of retirement benefits for workers hired during those 10 years. Now it must be included.

This is simply good accounting practice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It is amazing how obvious it is that customer satisfaction is at the core of every new initiative Amazon launches.

<comment><USER15> Is it really? A lot of companies do this. Apple pays _a lot_ of attention to what it's customers says and guides a lot of decesions by it.

<comment><USER16> So you're refuting the "Amazon cares about customers" point by saying other companies do too? Huh?

<comment><USER17> I think madeofpalk is refuting the "amazing" part. It's not amazing if it's common.

<comment><USER16> I don't think Amazon-level customer service is all that common. Yes, some other companies like Apple do the same thing, but it's generally surprising to get that sort of support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> TIL that Amazon doesn't deliver on Sundays in the US.

In Japan (well, at least in cities) pretty much everything works on Sundays.

</comment><comment><USER19> Amazon is really trying to be the end all for online purchases - I bet in 10-20 years, when you need anything, you just Amazon it (you know, like Google it) :-)

<comment><USER20> Except for food (and some clothes) I already "Amazon" anything I need. Once your credit card is in there, it's too damn easy to buy stuff.

<comment><USER7> Psh. I needed those twelve bags of sour fizzy soda bottle gummie candies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is great news. The USPS is hands down the best shipping provider. Priority Mail, especially the Flat Rate boxes, are often the cheapest and fastest way to ship packages.

<comment><USER22> Not for me it isn't. In fact, one of the things I like about Amazon Prime is that--at least in my case--it means that UPS delivers a higher percentage of my packages. The issue is that, while UPS drops off the package at my door (as they have to), USPS tends to leave it hanging off my mailbox out by the road because they don't want to spend the time coming down my driveway. And I've had more than one such package stolen.

<comment><USER23> Also from my experience with apartments, UPS will leave the package at the front desk while USPS leaves the package at the post office (forcing me to go to the post office to pick it up).

<comment><USER24> This. USPS for me has also been terrible about updating their tracking information, so I don't find out until late at night when expecting a package to find I need to make this trip. It is like they wait until the end of the day to update every package status.

<comment><USER25> I think I can echo having a list package from my mailbox vs front door and it has everything to do with FedEx/Ontrac _/ UPS leaving the box at my front door.

One of my favorites is the recommended carrier of Monoprice, Norcon, that emails you a photo of the delivered package once delivered.

_Ontrac is a west coast delivery service, and from what I can tell they keep prices low by using mid-90s beater white minivans with a company logo magnet and issuing their employees a polo T uniform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Oddly enough, I got my first Sunday delivery today from Amazon via USPS, and I don't live in either of the referenced cities.

<comment><USER27> The USPS currently does Sunday delivery to catch up when it falls behind. This agreement allows Amazon to drop off at postal hubs on Sunday for same-day delivery.

<comment><USER26> In this case, I don't think that's it: this package wasn't due for delivery until the following Monday. I was pleasantly surprised when I got the text saying it had been delivered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Companies like Instacart, Doordash, Postmates, Amazon, and Google are (in different ways) building a new, siloed delivery infrastructure. At the same time, the USPS and their local delivery infrastructure are in trouble.

Is it conceivable that the USPS could leverage their infrastructure to build a national same day delivery network? It's obviously a stretch, but they already have the scale and resources. As a country, we aren't as interested in having letters delivered to our houses anymore, but we sure are interested in groceries and appliances.

</comment><comment><USER29> Non-American here. Why at the start of the article does it say "...with an unlikely partner"?

(to be honest I immediately though of Owls! [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBfxOatX0tU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBfxOatX0tU))

So any idea why Amazon-Post partnership was considered as "unlikely"?

<comment><USER30> Few people see the USPS as a serious shipping competitor to FedEx and UPS and others. They're for letter mail.

<comment><USER31> ... Except for anyone doing business involved in shipping.

When I was reselling used books, USPS was the best ROI for shipping (packages and media).

<comment><USER32> With Priority Mail now offering $50 in free insurance to the flat rate packages, it's now the obvious choice for my online retail business.

Even before then it was the clear winner. Flat rate standardized (free) packaging is such an awesome perk. USPS loses way too many of my parcels, but it's just not worth going to UPS/FedEx and paying 2x the rate plus way more hassle for a slightly reduced lost package rate.

<comment><USER33> You should at least make UPS/FedEx available--I won't buy from you if you ship USPS only. Not worth my time for the potential hassle.

<comment><USER34> And I'm the opposite. I'll pick USPS over UPS/FedEx every time. In over 20 years of shipping I've never had a package show up at my doorstep damaged by the Postal Service. UPS can't even ship me their own envelope without ripping it. Don't even get me started on when amazon uses Lazership...

Of course you know what they say about the plural of anecdotes.

<comment><USER33> I've never had a USPS package show up damaged either, they just don't show up at all :).

Shipping is highly localized so options are always appreciated, a bad USPS delivery person or a bad UPS person can be all the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Meanwhile, in the UK, Amazon appear to have opted to not use existing services like the Post Office (who are capable enough to deliver packages) and gone with their own "Amazon Logistics" (who don't seem to be able to deliver a package).

</comment><comment><USER36> There's a lot wrong with the US, but this kind of thinking is exactly what's right with it

</comment><comment><USER37> I experienced this for the first time yesterday. It was surprising, especially with today being a postal holiday.

</comment><comment><USER38> Well, this explains the Amazon package on my porch this morning. I didn't expect it until later today.

</comment><comment><USER39> I got very excited. Then I realised you meant "Postal Service" and not "Post Office".</comment>


A way to determine dinosaurs' colors - <AUTHOR> http://m.npr.org/story/123018405 <comment><USER2> When I was a boy, I spent many an hour wondering what dinosaurs actually looked like. This is amazing! I'm wondering, though, how sound it is to extrapolate from what the shape of the melanin container says about colour today to what it said about colour in the past?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm going to guess that dinosaurs changed colors according to their environments (green in forests, brown/yellow in deserts). They evolved over millions of years, while skin/coat/scale color tends to change over the span of a couple millennia, at least in modern animals. So there were probably a variety of different colors even within species.

Still, it would be really cool to know for sure.</comment>


Legal fees--start swearing now - <AUTHOR> http://www.burningdoor.com/askthewizard/2007/04/legal_fees_start_swearing_now.html <comment><USER2> I don't think price is necessarily a great indicator of quality - at the very largest firms, I'd say that most of the high price is because they're offsetting the cost of training their newly minted lawyers on you. Three years of law school in the US really doesn't teach you a whole lot - you learn everything on the job. You're basically paying for a law firm's reputation sometimes.

He's right, though - the best gauge for quality of service is experience. Get a lawyer with lots of experience in your area, or at least work with a boutique firm that specializes in your field. They will be expensive. Ask around first - other companies have a firm they work with, or in-house lawyers who can recommend a firm. Don't go with an asshole bigshot just because he has the experience - you're in the long haul with your lawyers, so make it pleasant as possible. Never forget that law is primarily a service industry, and he should be listening to you as well as offering advice.

The other side of the coin is this: don't hide anything from your lawyer. He can't save you from the pit you dug yourself if you don't tell him about it. You'll save yourself a lot in fees, believe me.</comment>


Amazon Wants to Turn Lord of the Rings into the Next Game of Thrones - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/3/16605272/lord-of-the-rings-jrr-tolkien-game-of-thrones-amazon-studios <comment><USER2> Although LOTR does have similarities to GoT (lots of characters, vast, complicated world, lots of languages, etc), how is this even taken seriously, given the Peter Jackson movies pretty much did justice to the books? (I'm assuming they did from the fan following. I never read the books)

What value would they even really add?

At least with the Game of Thrones, it was the first time it was adapted to television.

In the case of LoTR, there's already been a big budget production that won a ton of Oscars.

This seems very strange to me. Usually these studios want to try new ideas and less conservative. This smacks of a typical Hollywood studio problem, just regurgitating existing franchises into new mediums.

<comment><USER3> > given the Peter Jackson movies pretty much did justice to the books? (I'm > assuming they did from the fan following. I never read the books)

They left out the "Scouring of the Shire" which was one of the key chapters of the book that illustrated the main point of the entire story.

I'm still bitter.

<comment><USER4> I am right there with you! My favorite part of the books. Although, I can understand why it was cut. It doesn't work in the context of a movie to have an epic world encompassing battle followed by a minor skirmish.

I feel like this story would be a good mini-series or standalone movie.

<comment><USER3> > My favorite part of the books.

Mine too! I also understand why it was cut, but it really ruined the movies for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would have said that the Wheel of Time series might be a better idea than rehashing LOTR so soon, but apparently that is already in the works -> [https://www.tor.com/2017/04/20/the-wheel-of-time-tv-serie- so...](https://www.tor.com/2017/04/20/the-wheel-of-time-tv-serie-sony- pictures-rafe-judkins/)

Another one that might be interesting is Glen Cook's Black Company series, but that is apparently also taken... [http://deadline.com/2017/04/eliza-dushku- star-the-black-comp...](http://deadline.com/2017/04/eliza-dushku-star-the- black-company-series-adaptation-david-goyer-im-global-1202076367/)

<comment><USER6> Wheel of Time TV shows are coming, (again, hopefully)

Kingkiller Chronicles movies and TV shows are coming

Stormlight Archive and Mistborn adaptations are coming

I'm pretty excited for the next few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As much as I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I don't think I'd like to see Amazon take this on. In my mind, the Peter Jackson movies (not including the Hobbit series) were done so well they kind of put the definitive stamp on the Tolkien epic for me. I guess Amazon could mine some of the extensive Middle Earth history but there are so many other fantasy and scifi master pieces that have not been successfully adapted. Dune and Foundation come to mind or, for more adult fare, something like Kushiel's Legacy. How about bringing China Mieville's Bas-Lag and New Crobuzon to life on the small screen? I think Amazon should take a bigger risk than a LOTR retread.

<comment><USER8> I'd go for either KSR's Mars Trilogy or, ideally, Stephenson's _Baroque Cycle_ \- which has plenty of material and has some great characters. Jack Shaftoe (AKA King of the Vagabonds, L'Emmerdeur, Half-Cocked Jack, Quicksilver, Ali Zaybak, Sword of Divine Fire, and Jack the Coiner) is one of my all time favourite characters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A Harry Potter TV show would be better. The movies didn't do the books justice, there is enough material there to make it into several seasons, and a different cast could do well with it too.

</comment><comment><USER10> There was a lot wrong with Jackson's versions where he thought he knew better than Tolkien (missing half the endings, representing Sauron as a _literal_ flaming eye in a tower, "fixing" Arwen badly because Tolkien couldn't write a female character). But it's still a very substantial work, and I don't see how a miniseries would improve on it.

</comment><comment><USER11> I must admit some degree of fantasy fatigue.

The setting I'd want to see for a complex multi-party high-budget drama, is a fictional world in the age of sail. Conquerors, unlikely allies, traders, and even pirates.

It could have social commentary around first contact, exploitation, different belief systems, different social structures, relations with the crown.

And it'd be really ambitious if the cultures involved were somewhat evenly matched. A bit better technology on one side vs. home field advantage and numbers on the other. Possibly diseases going in both directions.

<comment><USER8> "Conquerors, unlikely allies, traders, and even pirates."

I know I'm repeating myself - but the _Baroque Cycle_ gives you all of that _and_ Isaac Newton in top form...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm waiting for Midsomer Murders set in Ankh Morpork with Vimes solving weird murders.

</comment><comment><USER13> There are definitely a good number of fantasy series that could be adapted to television. just like GOT the vast majority of them aren't household names. GOT certainly wasn't until it became popular on HBO.

LOTR, is there even enough content in the three books for a multiple season show? deviation becomes very difficult because the stories are widely known and all sorts of cliques exist around what is what. While the LOTR movies did good work with the books there is always the danger for Amazon that we would end up with a LOTR meeting a Hobbit style treatment so that it moves so far from the books that fans of the source material tune it out.

rehash, the fact they want to use a known story such as LOTR shows they are concerned only about money and not a good show. They are approaching it from the wrong angle

</comment><comment><USER14> What a terrible idea.

The ~15 year-old trilogy remains awesome, and needs no competitor. This is just going to needlessly mutate a familiar and well-received thing.

If Amazon wants to do something new, then Amazon should do something new under a different name, and not co-opt brand recognition for a cheap bonus.

</comment><comment><USER15> IMO instead of trying to find the "unicorn" they should be working toward perfecting a process through which they can bring in a lot of inexperienced / passionate / relatively low cost teams and support them with a small core group of highly skilled / experienced people in the industry.

It's all about the story. A high budget film with a mediocre story will still only be mediocre. A low budget film with an amazing story will more than likely still be amazing.

</comment><comment><USER16> Sounds awful.

On the other hand, I'd love to see Ken Burns do _The Silmarillion_, a-la his treatment of _The Civil War_. It'd cut down on production costs, too :-)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'd be on board if it was based on the Silmarillion. We don't need more LoTR content at this time, imho.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm a bit _Lord_ -ed out. A _Bored of the Rings_ [1] adaptation could be fun, though.

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

<comment><USER5> This was, in many ways, what Futurama: Bender's Game was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Slightly off tangent, but how is Man in the High Castle both in terms of quality and trueness to the source material? I feel like the book would have made a great miniseries, but it didn't seem long enough to turn into a multi- series show.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure if I like the idea of this adaptation and I'm wonder if Amazon will give this a big enough budget to make an epic like GoT.

If anything, I'd love to see The Silmarillion turned into a series. I think it lends itself better to bursts of short epic episodes and the stories are largely untold outside of the book.

</comment><comment><USER21> Dragonlance offers much depth in its world and mythology, although its use of traditional high fantasy tropes may come off as cliche and make it unappealing.

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm really hoping they actually mean an adaption of some period from The Simarillion. Maybe Feanor's story? Something like that would be epic

</comment><comment><USER23> I did laugh that it was MTV that did The Shannara Chronicles, everyone is jumping on board GoT. They did an ok job for a series, nothing heavy though and I don't think accurate to the books.

But why you would ever redo the LoTR novels is beyond me. They are done by the movies... end scene.

Adding new material doesn't seem to me to be something the fans would allow.

I don't get how this idea ever got floated, as per South park a few weeks ago, Amazon are trying to Greenlite everything now?

</comment><comment><USER24> What a fucking terrible idea. They have completely missed the point of what makes Game of Thrones so popular.

GoT is about the victory of the historically downtrodden--women, eunuchs, slaves, "wildlings", bastards, and a dwarf--over the traditionally powerful men. GoT is full of sex and death. And, best of all, was totally unpredictable. (For the first six seasons, anyway)

LotR, on the other hand, is about the victory of a bunch of white males going to war against a multiracial army. Their goal: to help a white man from a "superior" race (the Numenoreans) reclaim his birthright: dominion over almost all of middle earth. The only two women in the books with any substantive role are Galadriel and Eowyn. Galadriel is in a no-win situation; most of her power is destroyed when the One Ring is destroyed. Meanwhile Eowyn, the scrappy shieldmaiden of Rohan, is rewarded for killing the Captain of the Nazgul by getting to assume a gender-normal role as the wife of the Steward of Gondor. (HT to David Brin for pointing a lot of this out first.)

Worst of all for the TV series, in LotR everyone already knows what's going to happen!

<comment><USER25> LotR is about how the wisest and the strongest barely manage to survive while the weak save the world.

In the books, Gandalf states that expliitly: "Many are the strange chances of the world,' said Mithrandir, 'and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter."

In the movies, they even have the King of Gondor kneeling before the hobbits, just to drive the point home. It's hardly subtle.</comment></comment>