Culture still doesn't explain poverty - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonreview.net/BR36.1/steinberg.php <comment><USER3> Some research material I found on poverty:

Don't fall in the poverty trap, you might never get out (Best): [http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/2009/11/13/dont-fall- in-t...](http://trueslant.com/megancottrell/2009/11/13/dont-fall-in-the- poverty-trap-you-might-never-get-out/)

Economics of being poor (Second best): [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051702053.html)

Poor nutrition stunts growth of millions: <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/12/2740530.htm>

Life on $234 a week: no fresh food, holidays or visits to the doctor: [http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/life- on-234-a-we...](http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/life- on-234-a-week-no-fresh-food-holidays-or-visits-to-the- doctor-20110104-19f57.html) (You hear all about a dollar a day feeds the poor elsewhere)

The paradox of American poverty: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/17/census- bureau-poverty)

Poverty not Taliban causing war: Afghans: <http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/18/2746886.htm>

Statistics and pictures of children in poverty: [http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/poverty- forces...](http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/poverty-forces- children-sleep-strangest-places/15237)

Poor people spend 9% of yearly income on lottery tickets: [http://www.walletpop.com/2010/05/31/poor-people- spend-9-of-i...](http://www.walletpop.com/2010/05/31/poor-people-spend-9-of- income-on-lottery-tickets-heres-why/)

<comment><USER4> I wish I could upvote this comment twice. There's a tremendous amount of data freely available and it doesn't take a PhD to see correlations between motivations and consequences.

To this list, I add:

[http://www.amazon.com/American-Project-Rise-Modern- Ghetto/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/American-Project-Rise-Modern- Ghetto/dp/0674008308)

Tough read. Worth reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > nation to confront its collective guilt and responsibility for two centuries > of slavery and a century of Jim Crow

I reject collective guilt entirely. My ancestry is one of immigrating away from hardship, my great-grandparents were literally dirt poor, and despite it, my family has always been very cool and welcoming to people having a hard time of all backgrounds.

I have no collective guilt, and reject the idea as counterproductive nonsense. I'll lend a hand if I can be of assistance to someone who has taken responsibility for their own life, but I think it's dangerous and perverse to let people like the author saddle you with guilt even if you've never been part of the problem, and always part of the solution. It's perverse - <USER2> encourage you to accept none of that guilt and shame and bad feelings they're peddling. None.

</comment><comment><USER6> Attention conservation notice - this article is more of a summary of the debate of over culture and poverty, a sort of "who said what when". I found it interesting because it mentioned a couple books I didn't know about that I now want to read. But the article itself hardly makes any evidence based contributions to the debate. So don't read the article expecting to learn something about the link between culture and poverty.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Culturalists confuse cause and effect, arguing that lack of social mobility among black youth is a product of their culture rather than the other way around._

I recognize this pattern. This is what happens when both sides of an argument perceive at least part of a feedback loop, but neither side perceives the feedback loop itself.

<comment><USER8> Then both sides yell at each other, both playing the racism card on the other which ensures that their positions entrench because they can't afford to listen to those racists over there, governments left without any effective guidance pick whichever allows them to politic better with no regard for whether it actually work, which inevitably ends up further feeding the feedback loop instead of shutting it down due to the second-order impacts their ineffective interventions have due to the fact they don't consider that they are working in a domain with a feedback loop instead of simple forces that don't interact, and it all just gets worse.

I wish more disciplines other than physics and mechanical engineers would be introduced to the idea that feedback loops are the _norm_ and things that can be modelled with "simple first-order forces" are the _exception_. This misconception does so very, very much damage to us.

<comment><USER9> The social sciences in the US don't really understand _time_ (yes, it's crazy but true). They see social dynamics as happening between forces instantaneously, with all the nuance of whether something happens first or last completely washed out of their regression.

Oh -- sociologists aren't necessarily as smart as physicists and mechanical engineers, ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't buy it. To believe the black family is in such a state purely because of racism is to believe racism is worse now than it was in the '60s.

<comment><USER11> In other words, you are saying African-American culture is the sole reason for all the problems blacks face in the U.S?

I'm sure that's helpful to the 6 year old child when he is given the book that explains the two different culture choices he has in life, and that he should select one, and it will automatically become his.

<comment><USER12> The six year old born into poverty doesn't get a choice, regardless of race, because the chances are very high that he's the son of a single mother who either has access to a support network (grandparents, aunts/uncles) and works day and night OR who does little and relies on assistance and disability.

If that child is African-American, circumstances are often crueler. 1 in 9 black men (<http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28cnd-prison.html>) in the key fatherhood ranges for 20-34 are in jail or prison.

The cultural issue is that in spite of (or because of) government intervention, the African-American family is in shambles. Public assistance essentially requires that able-bodied males get out of the picture, which is a large contributor to the fact that a two-parent household has been the exception for several generations. At the same time, society has become more cruel to the poor -- factory jobs don't exist, you need a car to function in society, and tax policy encourages the decay of cities in favor of suburbs, which are segregated by class. (no car, no life in suburb)

Most people in technical fields don't get this. The vast majority are from middle class backgrounds and got started with computers 'on their own' at home. There are no computers at home in poor families with a few hundred bucks a month in income.

<comment><USER13> If the child is born into poverty, it is exceedingly unlikely that his mother works day and night. Most likely she doesn't work at all and is not even looking for work.

<http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Practice theory (Giddens and Bourdieu are the big authors) is an attempt to analyze the interaction of "structure" (social racism) and "habitus" (individual habits taken on because of growing up in a society). The interaction between class dynamics and internalized culture happens with white people too.

It would go a long way to elucidating the dynamics here (let me give a small town white example): white child grows up in poverty, learns aggressive habits to survive ("habitus") and cultural indicators like a "pimp roll" or bad grammar, tries to get a job (interfaces with "structure"), fails when he picks a fight with his boss or doesn't understand work ethic, his boss then confirms to himself never to hire anyone from that family, family continues to inculcate itself in aggressive alienated behaviors, family stays in poverty, rinse repeat...

You don't need racism to screw people over -- in fact, I think debates about racism hide the real important thing, which is class.

</comment><comment><USER14> I agreed with much of it, until he inferred the " 'repertoire of infidelity' among low-income men" is because they don't have good jobs.

"Does it matter how they approach procreation, how they juggle 'doubt, duty, and destiny' when they are denied the jobs that are the sine qua non of parenthood?"

I think it DOES matter. It represents a level of maturity, respect for others, and thinking about the future. Those are principles that should be taught, and are often taught through culture. "It's all hopeless anyway" can explain why some fall victim to drugs and crime, but it's inexcusable to pull another person (the girl) or two (her baby) into the net. That is the essence of lack of responsibility.

Other than this central issue, I agree with much else of what he wrote.

</comment><comment><USER4> When I first read this article, so many thoughts crowded into my mind that it was difficult to compose a coherent response. Since I often take the train through one of the less nice areas of Chicago, from time to time I catch myself gazing out at the dilapidated structures and piles of trash and thinking really hard about how a neighborhood goes from being founded in enterprise and hope to 'ruination.' I offer the following observations:

1\. Hopelessness perpetuates from generation to generation, being passed from parent to child. Children are born to young, uneducated parents whose finances are already stretched to the limit. Not having been properly habilitated themselves, it is common for these parents to take their frustrations out on their children in the same way their parents did. So you've got this cycle of despair and depression that perpetuates across generations.

2\. Certain characteristics of the impoverished class have been adopted by mainstream media -- particularly advertising media -- as if they are significant of some culture. Baggy clothing is used as an example. It's a little known thing that the 'zoot suit' of the from the 1930s and 1940s was considered a display of wealth. It meant that you could afford to have a suit made with volumes of fabric at a time when cloth was more dear than it is today. This display of wealth is consistent with the other characteristics of 'African American culture': large gold chains, gold teeth, everything covered in diamonds. At the risk of making a pun, this is a gold mine for advertising media. Think about it, it's an aggrandized display of excess that garners attention.

3\. These characteristics do not define any kind of real culture. Last time I looked, there are more impoverished caucasian Americans than there are of any other skin tone. Careful examination will reveal that the dynamic is more or less the same regardless of the false delineation of 'race.' How different are spinning rims from the giant knobby tires on a Ford F250, really?

4\. Which leads me to my final observation, in that I have for a long time considered identification with any sort of false 'culture' to be a form of self-segregation. History will show that encouraging a fractured 'hoi polo' is a very effective and powerful means of sustaining the status quo.

</two_cents>

</comment><comment><USER15> There is a limit to what empirical study can reveal. I've always been uneasy about these studies from either side of the debate because they are almost always conducted by people who have no other connection to the black community.

That is, white researchers who live, work, and play among their white peers are drawing conclusions about a community they (socially) know nothing about. These researchers often have few/no black friends. Have never been to a predominantly black party. Never sat down in a black hair salon or barbershop and listened to the talk of the day.

How we expect accurate analysis that can lead to meaningful solutions is beyond me.

ETA: Persistent poverty in the black community is the result of many things. Misplaced and legitimate distrust of white people, misguided government programs, low expectations, too high expectations, racist laws, stereotypes about black intelligence, black people's internalization of those stereotypes...

Anyone expecting a conclusive study that comes down on one side or the other, or that narrows the problem/solution to any one issue is living a pipe dream.

<comment><USER3> How about this study from a black professor into why rich black kids still flunk: [http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/rich-black- flunking/C...](http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/rich-black- flunking/Content?oid=1070459&showFullText=true)

He got his reputation attacked when it was shown that there was a belief that the school should take care of everything (Parents didn't encourage/supervise, students didn't care, etc).

<comment><USER15> I'm familiar with the study and generally give it more weight than other studies by people who dip in and out of the black community solely to collect data.

That said, I don't think it's entirely wrong to think that if you send your child to school for 6-8 hours a day, they should actually come home having learned something.

I didn't have helicopter parents, my parents just watched for grades. No PTA meetings, no reviewing my hw, no private tutors... I grew up and went to schools in the hood, but still got great grades, took a dozen AP/advanced courses, was in IB, got into an ivy league college, etc. etc.

So there was definitely something going on at school with regard to student expectations, curriculum, and teacher quality (I had amazing teachers).

<comment><USER3> Sounds like you didn't read the study. The study showed that some kids thought education was uncool and 'being white'.

<comment><USER15> Actually, I read the study some time ago, and am very familiar with it's findings. My response was to your specific comment here:

"there was a belief that the school should take care of everything (Parents didn't encourage/supervise, students didn't care, etc)."

I thought that was clear...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> freetochoose.tv

episode 4 of the 1980's series. specifically the debate section (second half of each program)

</comment><comment><USER17> I admit to being quite unhappy about the "collective guilt and responsibility" line - Steinberg's parents likely emigrated to the USA after 1900, thus they were never in the country when slavery was happening, so he should know better.

In my case, one side was non-slave-owning Northerners since 1729 where slavery was never legal, and the other side of my family wasn't in the USA until 1913.

So how exactly am I or any of my family culpable?

An aside: the first case in Virginia which legalized/recognized slavery under the courts, was brought by Anthony Johnson, who was able to convince the court that John Casor was his slave. Johnson, the slaveholder, was himself African :

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28American_Col...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28American_Colonial%29)

</comment><comment><USER11> Blaming culture is the Pontius Pilate method - the people who do so think "it is their choice, they suffer the consequences, so there is nothing we can or should do".

</comment><comment><USER18> If chinese, Indians and Koreans do well is it only because white people haven't enough resources to keep them down too?

<comment><USER15> Chinese, Indians, and Koreans have a completely different history in America than African Americans. Your comment is simplistic and easily falls apart under basic levels of scrutiny.

Those groups mostly had the luxury of immigrating to America AFTER black people fought for the civil rights of ALL American citizens. They reaped the benefits of black struggles while experiencing very little of the viciousness of racism.

That's not to say that there is nothing to learn from these groups though.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why are so many predominant Austrian websites left-aligned*? - <AUTHOR> *Not in the political sense
Examples:
www.oebb.at
www.wetter.at
www.immmo.at
www.vienna.at
www.willhaben.at <comment> dev-ious I think its an old webdesign style to support multiple screen sizes</comment>


Ask HN: 99designs for conversion rate optimization (CRO)? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone think there would be a market for crowdsourced conversion rate optimization, e.g. 99designs for CRO? <comment><USER2> I think Trada.com is your best bet for this. They have a number of case studies showing how they bring up conversation rates over time with crowdsourcing.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be CRO for PPC, but what about on-site page optimization?

<comment><AUTHOR> E.g. long-form sales copy (and more) with split-testing.</comment></comment></comment>


China's liberalization and structural reform drives growth - <AUTHOR> https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-liberalization-structural-reform-drives-growth-by-zhang-jun-2019-08 <comment><USER2> (I'm just an interested amateur who reads a lot so take everything I say below with a grain of salt. I also leave things out for brevity)

Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) should still get credit for most of what is happening now. China had multiple paths it could have followed when Deng took over, but he was a clever fellow. He made several gradual alternations to rigid socialist and Marxist doctrine and authoritarianism that separated Chinese communism from all others others. He was able to keep hardliners at bay.

1\. He declared that: "Socialism means eliminating poverty. Pauperism is not socialism, still less communism." Before Deng all communist countries justified poverty and suffering of the masses as necessary part of struggle towards communist utopia. Deng threw this rationalization away. He essentially adopted the same measure stick to success as capitalism.

2\. Deng recognized stuff that worked outside government. 18 households in Xiaogang Village started land reform after a serious drought in secret in 1978 and it started to spread. It was against government rules and even against party doctrine. Instead of prosecuting people Deng endorsed it. Successful land reform has been the starting point for other successful Asian countries as well (see Studwell's "How Asia Works").

3\. More meritocracy and checks and balances within the communist party. Before Deng, China was always gravitating towards typical strong man communist dictatorship. There was one dictator on the top and power and orders flowed downwards. Deng adjusted the rules. Government officials were moved to work in different regions from where their personal contacts were (and opportunities to corruption were reduced). Princelings still got into powerful positions but talented newcomers also had a change. There was clear movement towards meritocracy and accountability within the communist party.

After Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Deng's power started to wane and hardliners gained more power. The momentum of his institutional reforms has carried on but there is constant erosion. The current leader Xi seems to be a typical strongman who tries to get more and more power to himself and his inner circle and this may end all momentum for China that Deng Xiaoping created.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just in recent years China has decided to tighten its grip on private corporation, it's clearly i the government doesn't have any Desire for structural Reform and further economic liberalization.

</comment><comment><USER4> China has a population of more than a billion people, the 3rd largest landmass controlled by a single sovereign entity. The only question is how they managed to fall so low that they weren't a competitive superpower.

It is entirely possible that we don't know what the reason for China's rise is over the short term. I wouldn't trust any article written in English to understand the ins and outs of China's special economic zones, special administrative regions and historical norms and customs.

It is very likely that governance is connected to their success and it is also unlikely that the government is wholly responsible for their success. The situation is complicated. Even deciding if they have achieved 'success' is complicated; I'm not envious of the people who live there.

<comment><USER5> "I wouldn't trust any article written in English..."

What if the article was written by someone from China?

"Zhang Jun is Dean of the School of Economics at Fudan University and Director of the China Center for Economic Studies, a Shanghai-based think-tank."

<comment><USER6> It's funny. I'd generally be more skeptical of an essay coming out of China because of China's ideological control. Few authors will argue contrary to the official narrative.

That said, here's another perspective on China's recent rise, translated from Chinese:

> The argument is simple: when China joined the world economy in the reform > and opening era, capital flocked to China to take advantage of low-wage > labor and what Qin calls China's "low human rights advantage," i.e., the > state's commitment to development at any cost (land-confiscation, > suppression of workers' rights, exploitation of migrant workers, etc.). Over > time, China became the "world's factory," producing quality goods at low > prices, at the expense of jobs and tax revenues in the developed world > previously inhabited by the capital that had now fled to China. Despite a > surplus of capital and increasingly frequent labor shortages, the naked > power of the Chinese state keeps the machine running, lending the profits > back to the developed economies so that the "exchange" can continue. Such > debts only intensify the crisis of the developed world, as governments are > already attempting to supply more "welfare" to increasing numbers of > unemployed despite a fall in tax revenues.

[https://www.readingthechinadream.com/qin-hui- dilemmas.html](https://www.readingthechinadream.com/qin-hui-dilemmas.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Yet this process of economic liberalization and structural reform is also uniquely Chinese, insofar as it has emphasized local-level competition and experimentation, which in turn have supported bottom-up institutional innovation. The result is a kind of de facto fiscal federalism – and a powerful driver of economic transformation."

I'm not entirely sure what this means. The article that is referenced by the author is behind a pay-wall, and doesn't explain it in the top paragraphs.

 _How_ has the Government encouraged this local competition? By all means the examples he gives are all technology companies that have primarily benefited from 1) copying US tech companies strategies, 2) stealing their IP, and 3) not having to substantially compete with US companies because of tech restrictions, the Great Firewall, etc.

None of that is economic liberalization in the slightest.

<comment><USER8> The article does not do a really good job at explaining what the government it doing but basically it is:

1\. Creating competition between states/cities (Beijing vs Shanghai) which has similar advantages to the free market EVEN if both groups are part of the government. This tries to reduce waste and puts natural pressure on companies (including ones that are state owned).

2\. Encouraging close proximity (like silicon valley) by using grants, lower taxes, etc. This encourages lots of companies in the same industry to be close together and often in the same building. This encourages transfer of ideas and staff between companies. (economic development zones)

3\. Limiting the number of economic development zones so that they are not all over the place.

To just ignore anything that Chinese companies have done and say it is all stolen or copied is rather biased.

Alipay and WeChat are probably the easiest example to look at. They both started very different (WeChat was just a copy of What's App, which is a copy of MSN messenger, which is a copy of AOL messengers, which is a copy of IRC which is a copy of netsend, which is a copy of telegrams, which is a copy of smake signals, etc... - everything is based on what came before it)

Slowly based on competition with each other they have stolen each other features and now do basically the same things. Forget about America (Facebook keeps copying features from WeChat).

Hope this helps to explain what the article does not explain.

<comment><USER9> > To just ignore anything that Chinese companies have done and say it is all > stolen or copied is rather biased.

Upvote.

From talking to Chinese students overseas, it seems to me like Weibo and the like are actually ahead of FB/Twitter in many ways, including a functioning and scalable micropayment system. Sure, government support might be helpful, but you couldn't run anything of that kind and at that scale without some of the best tech people in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would have thought that that the "one child" policy played a large part, since it allowed a larger investment in fewer children by parents and society. This, coupled with an educational system that is able to spot talent and develop talented children, has produced a dramatic increase in China's human capital, without which liberalization would be ineffective. The US had a similar emphasis on developing talent in the late '50s and '60s after the Sputnik shock.

<comment><USER11> Compare the crude birth rate since 1920 for Thailand and China on this Gapminder chart [1]. You'll see that Thailand started with a birth rate _higher_ than China's. In 1967 they were at around the same level at which point they both simultaneously started trending down. Thailand maintained a smooth curve down to its present level which is _lower_ than China's. China's downward curve was interrupted in 1979 (introduction of the One Child Policy) when it curved upward for a bit.

So, despite all the myth-making, China's One Child Policy was an authoritarian disaster that _did not_ reduce births beyond their already downward trend. In fact, it disrupted the already established trend.

[1] [https://www.gapminder.org/tools/?from=world#$state$time$star...](https://www.gapminder.org/tools/?from=world#$state$time$startOrigin=1920&endOrigin=2018;&entities$show$country$/$in@=chn&=tha;;;;&entities_colorlegend$filter$;;&marker$axis_x$zoomedMin=1920;&axis_y$which=crude_birth_rate_births_per_1000_population&zoomedMin:0&zoomedMax:50&scaleType=linear&spaceRef:null;&color$which=country&spaceRef=entities;;;&chart- type=linechart)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Western society rose to prominence because of a few values: respect for property rights, intellectual property and personal freedom. America is far from perfect but was based on these ideals.

It's maybe a simplistic view of the world and East vs West... But the recent HK protests can be rationalized through this lens.

I think respect for intellectual property and human rights will determine whether China continues it's march forward or not...

<comment><USER13> Western societies rise to prominence is due to acceptance of scientific temperament with a balanced moral view looking beyond religion and tribal mentality. They challenged the established religious groups and tribal rules. Traveled across oceans and built global trade. Property rights and all you described are just means which are just subservient not the main reason.

China is moving forward due to the same scientific temperament, may be need to supplement more moral education to build a balance. But that's a normal process given it took out 1.4 billion people out of poverty and making them one of the largest middle income economy and slowly moving towards developed.

You can see an example in India where all values you described are part of its constitution (probably the only nation where there is a chapter on human rights in its Constitution) and government proclaim to protect it. Still has one of the highest poverty levels in the world. India needs more scientific temperament to come out of its religious tribal mentality and need more science education.

The problem you described of Hong Kong is its own making where people accepted living in prison cell size house and rely on get rich quick scheme when China was closed which doesn't work anymore. So it's just paying the price of its own choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> China has a cheap and easy, but hard politically recipe for growth: let loose of some state companies, industries and instantly record a net benefit from increased productivity.

And China still has lots and lots of state companies to put on the market, so they are nowhere near the end of the runway. The problem is that all what is left is so much entrenched with vested interests, touching them is a political bloodbath.

</comment><comment><USER15> Solid article, I've underestimated the liberalization of the Chinese economy, especially in regards to technology and advanced manufacturing. Anyone know what the proverb means?

<comment><USER16> > "On a journey of a hundred miles, 90 is but halfway"

The closest I could find (via googling) is this saying - "Walking 100 Miles: Stopping at 90 miles, is the same as stopping half-way" which means being 90% done with something is the same as being 50% done - you're not done!

[https://www.orientaloutpost.com/shufa.php?q=walking+100+mile...](https://www.orientaloutpost.com/shufa.php?q=walking+100+miles:+stopping+at+90+miles+is+the+same+as+stopping+half- way).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As someone from China I kinda feel like we are a developed country when I learned I am making more than my peers in UK #GameIndustryPeasant

<comment><USER18> My experience with China is that certain parts are 100% first world, but other parts are 100% 3rd world, with many places inbetween.

Whereas the difference between the poorest & richest Brit while significant is nothing compared to the difference between the poorest & richest Chinese.

<comment><USER19> Well it's because UK population is 66mn while China population is 1400mn.

UK was the oppressor and had all the riches in the world. Infact I feel so bad w.r.t to UK despite conquering, looting so many countries some significant percentage of population lives in poverty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Also, we shouldn't forget that since the economic reform of 1978, China has adopted the policy of intentionally escalating wealth inequality.

Please do not forget billions of worker/farmer in China still live in a third world condition, so that the upper 10% can live their bourgeois life.

<comment><USER20> So are you challenging trickle down economics? That's debatable.

I believe at least at the early stage capitalism trickle down economics works. However, without proper checks and balance system, corruption brought by power and wealth does stop the trickle down effect.

Therefore in China where corruption is an accepted norm, it's doomed to fail. That was not originally planned though.

Maybe that's also why recently the CCP has been trying so hard to abolish religions, to keep the people's moral standard low.

<comment><USER21> If the western economies were truly trickle down, the bucket at the top would be empty by now. However, the source of the trickle has become more sealed over time, and thus the inequality gap grows.

<comment><USER20> Seems you are one of the few who understands what I'm trying to say. Over time greed and corruption take over.

I live in Hong Kong, which is the most extreme example of this.

And I've also witnessed how this whole process is accelerated in China, since greed and corruption are more prevalent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Last year in Shenzhen, a young man walked up to me and excitedly said, "My name is Will, lets get rich together!"

<comment><USER23> And he wasn't just scamming?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is a simple counter-argument to this:

" _It is telling, however, that China is using its long-term planning and robust implementation capacity not to entrench state capitalism, but rather to advance economic liberalization and structural reform._ "

Right, but whatever the plan might be, it clearly isn't working, since the economy continues to slow. 50 years ago China clocked 8% to 10% growth a year, now they feel very lucky if they can get 6%.

And this is a truly incredible thing for anyone to write:

" _The fruits of this approach are irrefutable. In the last decade, a number of Chinese private financial and tech giants have emerged that, unlike their state-run counterparts, have managed to establish themselves as global leaders in innovation._ "

So, according to this, it is actually a sign of success that more and more large Chinese firms feel they need to export capital because they no longer see good investments at home. And that's success?

<comment><USER25> > Right, but whatever the plan might be, it clearly isn't working, since the > economy continues to slow. 50 years ago China clocked 8% to 10% growth a > year, now they feel very lucky if they can get 6%.

I think your comment is quite incorrect, and shows a lack of knowledge of Chinese history. 50 years ago (1969) China was going through the "cultural revolution" under Mao which was absolutely devastating for its economy. In the 1980s China began economic liberalization under Deng Xiaoping and that was when its economy began growing tremendously. So, there is a direct connection between liberalization and growth. Of course no growth of 8-10% is sustainable over many decades, and it's likely they are simply reaching a new equilibrium.

<comment><USER24> No, for God's sake, no, the Cultural Revolution was not devestating to the economy. Where did you read that? During the worst year of the Cultural Revolution, China still managed to grow 8%.

Large scale civil rights violations are not automatically bad for the economy. The German economy grew dramatically during the Holocaust and the best decades for the USA overlap with the mass murder of the Indians and the savage oppression of African-Americans. In China, the Cultural Revolution killed 30 million people, but it did not slow the economy.

<comment><USER25> > No, for God's sake, no, the Cultural Revolution was not devestating to the > economy. Where did you read that? During the worst year of the Cultural > Revolution, China still managed to grow 8%.

I'm afraid the data doesn't back you up at all. The Chinese cultural revolution is considered the years 1966-1976. Here is the data for those years in real per capita GDP growth[0]:

7.7, -8.1, -6.6, 13.7, 16.1, 4.2, 1.3, 5.4, 0.2, 6.8, -3.1

Average: 3.4%

Here are the numbers for the 1980s (1980-1990):

6.5, 3.8, 7.4, 9.2, 13.7, 11.9, 7.3, 9.9, 9.4, 2.6, 2.4

Average: 7.6%

7.6% is more than double 3.4%. So, as you can see, all of your assertions are wrong.

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

<comment><USER24> The Wikipedia article that you link to says it includes PPP estimates and also says this:

" _The GDP also has been converted to U.S. dollar-based data by utilizing the moving average exchange rate._ "

I disregard PPP estimates since so many subjective and cultural decisions have to go into PPP calculations, and during a civil war there is a wide space for the PPP decisions to include the political factors that we should ignore when discussing the real economy. Likewise, why would it be valid to convert to USA currency? Why not measure year to year growth directly, from the perspective of China? The variations in the currency exchange would again introduce those political factors that a person would want to ignore if they were curious about the real strength of the Chinese economy.

Back when I studied Chinese history it was well known that the Chinese economy had done well during the Cultural Revolution. Now that reality is being re- written to fit a political narrative that simply asserts that the economy did not do well during the Cultural Revolution.

<comment><USER26> > _Likewise, why would it be valid to convert to USA currency? Why not measure > year to year growth directly, from the perspective of China?_

So provide some data from that viewpoint. It seems that you're just making data up. e.g. What is your "During the worst year of the Cultural Revolution, China still managed to grow 8%." claim based on?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Bitcoin vs USD - which is better to drive donations to a site? - <AUTHOR>

I'm building a site, and I'd like to maybe get some money out of it without resorting to ads - is it more effective to have a bitcoin donation address or just a regular donation system? Are either of these effective at all?<p>Thanks <comment><USER2> There is no one that can answer this question for you. If I said, "I tried both and, in six months, I had $1,043,434 in USD donations and 1 Bitcoin", does that help? No, because it's "general information", not specific advice/data from the same audience as yours. If you're building a blog for people over 80 years old who want to check out their health insurance options in the US, obviously USD. If you're designing a tech review site for bleeding edge folks, maybe then BC. But unless you know your target audience's desires/comfort level, there's no way to answer this.

As others have said, offering both is a good idea. Unless you scare people by offering them choices they don't understand (many 80yo people don't understand BC and you might risk losing any donation from them if you paralyze them at the donation level).

</comment><comment><USER3> Well if you are after regular Joe to donate then USD. Most people outside of tech still don't know about or understand bitcoins.

</comment><comment><USER4> A/B test it and let the data decide

</comment><comment><USER5> How about both?

<comment><AUTHOR> I want to keep it classy and thought that having multiple ways of donating would seem a bit desperate, no?

<comment><USER6> A/B test, as previously said. But you may not have enough visitors at this stage. So put the 2 buttons, and in 3 months, remove on of them. Then you will have the best solution for your very site, and you will have a slick design.

I am exactly at the same stage of you for one of my site... I'll have a clear answer for you in 2 to 4 months :)

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like a good plan :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


TELL HN: I will consult your website's UI/UX - <AUTHOR>

I am a seasoned UI/UX designer that runs - http://Masswerks.com
I've worked with big names like Remax, Spinback (acquired by BuddyMedia), Chitika, CrazyEgg and many more.
I can help improve the overall UI/UX of your website which can lead to more sales, leads, conversions and happier users.
Ask me any questions here or fill out the form located below and I'd love to help.
http://Masswerks.com/consultation.htm <comment><AUTHOR> <http://Masswerks.com/consultation.htm> < clickable</comment>


AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/now-open-aws-asia-pacific-mumbai-region/ <comment><USER2> More info at [https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/now-open-aws-asia- pacific-m...](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/now-open-aws-asia-pacific- mumbai-region/)

<comment><USER3> While this is good news, AWS really ought to work on (a) competitive pricing, and (b) flexibility in cpu/ram customization. Today, google compute instances cost less than half of similar AWS instances and allow customization of ram and cpu.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious to know how Google gets efficient usage of their hardware when people are choosing weird RAM/CPU combos. Do you know if they have released any information on this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I noticed Digital Ocean added an India datacentre too - [https://www.digitalocean.com/company/blog/introducing-our- ba...](https://www.digitalocean.com/company/blog/introducing-our-bangalore- region-blr1/)

<comment><USER6> I migrated a droplet from Singapore to Bangalore on the 12th. It hosts a site that was averaging ~ 15k page views per day, predominantly Indian traffic (banking recruitment guide). Since then, the traffic has been rising steadily and yesterday crossed an all-time high of 26k page views. (No other changes made to the site)

<comment><USER7> What could explain the increase in traffic? Higher visitor retention due to improved page load performance?

<comment><USER5> does Google take server location into account when showing search results? edit: seems they might. This is a probable cause for the increase in your traffic

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/62399?hl=en)

<comment><USER6> Yes, I have experienced this several times before.

You can check my comments on this recent thread for a somewhat more detailed account of my observations:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11984673](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11984673)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Microsoft Azure had already (Edit: actually three) datacentres in India:

[https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/regions/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en- us/regions/)

This completely confirms the region as a technological hub moving forward.

<comment><USER9> Slightly OT but Azure is such a better product than AWS. I was really skeptical because Microsoft has a legacy of doing an absolute shit job at all their copycat products. I happened into some credit and gave it a try during some downtime and was extremely pleasantly surprised. It's as if somebody applied a 2016 interface and usability to AWS.

<comment><USER10> Are you kidding me? I find azures interface to be completely horrible. AWS interface isn't great but azures interface is no better.

GCE on the other hand has a very nice interface.

<comment><USER11> GCE has an interface that is painfully slow at times though. It's a complete slouch compared to the speed of the AWS interface.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is great news. I work at a major ecommerce player in India and we use AWS extensively, mostly from Singapore region. There have been internal discussions multiple times to move to a provider within India to prevent downtimes in case of an undersea cable cut or to gain the extra few fractions of a second in page load times but we always chose AWS for the flexibility it provides. Been waiting for this for a while!

<comment><USER13> Flipkart ?

<comment><USER12> Nope. Flipkart's entire setup is in Netmagic's (An NTT Communications company) datacenters as per my knowledge.

<comment><USER14> Not anymore. They've built their own DC and moved away from NM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks like all those billions Jeff Bezos is investing in India are trickling into AWS infrastructure as well. This is good news for others; Singapore was their closest zone for Indian consumers. I always wanted an availability zone here in India.

<comment><USER16> looks like pricing is costlier than EU / US

<comment><USER17> Anyone know what the AWS China pricing is like? There does not seem to be anything on the web sites for S3 or EC2. None of the calculator sites seems to have China in their list.

And maybe its time for the Asia region to be broken away from Pacific (but keep both). Mumbai associated with Pacific introduces dissonance.

<comment><USER18> This is the China homepage: [https://www.amazonaws.cn/en/](https://www.amazonaws.cn/en/)

<comment><USER17> I have been there but unfortunately no pricing info under EC2 or S3. Checked the product details link and FAQ links. Nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is Mumbai really in Asia Pacific? India doesn't touch the Pacific. In fact, it touches an entirely different ocean named after it.

<comment><USER20> Asia Pacific means all of Asia plus the Pacific countries like Australia and the scattered islands in the pacific.

<comment><USER21> It's generally not considered to include Western Asia/the Middle East, though.

<comment><USER20> Middle East is generally merged with Europe and Africa and called EMEA (Europe/Middle-East/Africa)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm really curious about the power infrastructure they use within their DC to guarantee availability. Even when I was in a very nice part of Delhi there were frequent brown outs.

<comment><USER20> Industries get 24 hrs guaranteed power. It is the regular consumers that get timed power cuts.

I am on a industrial connection and I only faced two failure power cuts in this year and I live in a major Indian city.

<comment><USER23> Completely false. Across three factories in two states, I don't get "guaranteed" power. In fact, the only place I see basically uninterrupted power is in the nice parts of residential Bombay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Oh my, waiting for this announcement forever! I was always anxious about the fact that so much data from Indian users had to be hosted outside.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm based in the Middle East and was really looking forward to this since announcement we use the Singapore region and currently get 105ms pings to our instances. Yet, how come I get 135ms pings to Mumbai despite it being MUCH closer (~1930km vs 5840km to Singapore) ?

<comment><USER26> Run traceroute and see where it's going.

<comment><USER25> Doesn't look good at Mumbai:

      6    39 ms    39 ms    39 ms  ix-xe-9-0-1-0.tcore2.MLV-Mumbai.as6453.net [184.108.40.206]
      7    40 ms    39 ms    39 ms  if-ae-2-2.tcore1.MLV-Mumbai.as6453.net [220.127.116.11]
      8   131 ms   123 ms   124 ms  188.8.131.52
      9   141 ms   135 ms   134 ms  184.108.40.206.static-Mumbai.vsnl.net.in [126.96.36.199]
     10   143 ms   136 ms   183 ms  18.104.22.168
     11   139 ms   136 ms   136 ms  184.108.40.206
     12   124 ms   124 ms   123 ms  184.108.40.206
     13     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     14     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     15     *        *        *     Request timed out.
     16   136 ms   136 ms   136 ms  <Instance IP>

Whereas for Singapore:

      6   145 ms   154 ms   146 ms  38895.sgw.equinix.com [126.96.36.199]
      7    94 ms   102 ms    92 ms  184.108.40.206
      8    94 ms    92 ms    92 ms  18.104.22.168
      9   106 ms   104 ms   104 ms  22.214.171.124
     10   107 ms   104 ms   104 ms  <Instance IP>

<comment><USER27> What is your src IP? Both 188.8.131.52 and 188.8.131.52 are less than 80ms for me from Mumbai.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> ~10ms from Tata and Airtel in Pune. Anyone got latency from Vodafone and MTNL?

<comment><USER29> if anyone wants a IP to ping or tracert, use below

      server-54-230-174-13.bom2.r.cloudfront.net

btw 70 ms avg ping from LK, not bad

<comment><USER3> From BLR over an ACT line: ~25ms

From BLR over an Airtel line: ~65ms

From Taiwan (google compute instance): ~112ms

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Finally, it getting closer bringing so much hopes.

Thanks aws team.

</comment><comment><USER31> Great news, indeed!

I was hoping to see one more region in Chennai or Hyderabad.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is great news. Sites hosted in India load much quicker than ones hosted abroad.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hope that Google Cloud Platform follows suit and arrives in India soon.

</comment><comment><USER34> Will Indian startups start migrating their DC's to Mumbai region?

<comment><USER35> The primary consideration for DC location is where your customers are located. If a startup is focused on the US market, such a move would make no sense. So, as with anything engineering, it depends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It would be great if there was an API that lists the AWS regions. Currently it is up to the developer to maintain a hard coded list somewhere.

<comment><USER37> If you are using the Java API, there is an enum Regions in the com.amazonaws.regions package.

<comment><USER38> That would be a hard-coded list. hoodoof means something that'd _dynamically_ tell you what existed, not just what happened to exist when your copy of the AWS library was released.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Patiently waiting for App Engine to announce the same too.Just waiting..

</comment><comment><USER40> Today, AWS has announced the general availability of its new India region, which should come as no surprise to any avid cloud engineer. AWS is not a new concept to India with its set of early adopters harnessing and driving cloud usage in the country for many years. As with all regional expansions, AWS must develop a highly knowledgeable and skilled local technical community. To help drive this process, Cloud Academy is excited to announce an introductory offer for Indian residents to celebrate the launch of the AWS India region.

[http://cloudacademy.com/blog/new-aws-indian-region-cloud- aca...](http://cloudacademy.com/blog/new-aws-indian-region-cloud-academy- sponsor-of-the-aws-india-summit/)

</comment><comment><USER41> So, more air pollution in Mumbai?

<comment><USER42> x + 1000 ~ x as x → ∞</comment></comment>


Tsar Bomba - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba <comment><USER2> While this is about the largest nuclear bomb ever produced, I also find the stories of the smallest interesting. Project Orion was a classified effort by the US to produce minituarized nukes for use in dropping out the bottom of a spacecraft to accelerate to insane top speeds.

Wicked pollution but I think they could also get to Alpha Centuri at like 10% c or something like that. Human-lifetime achievable. Project was cancelled for a number of reasons, the top likely being the Atmosphere and Space Test Ban.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_\(nuclear_propulsion\))

<comment><USER3> _"I also find the stories of the smallest interesting"_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_\(nuclear_device\))

2,100 produced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always wondered what evidence remains at the test site. Has nature completely covered up what happened once there? Or is the destruction too indelible? Has any reporter gone and explored that site?

<comment><USER5> Looks like it, albeit, it's so remote nothing was really there before it was used [0].

[0]: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Tsar+Bomba+hypocenter/@73....](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,55.1111069,749m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x44f9e590f9311b19:0xdc3f0ae7f142ba31!8m2!3d73.8426591!4d55.1149827)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Right now there are 14 Ohio class submarines in the water, each with up to 24 ICBMs, each missile with up to 14 warheads of 100 kilotons.

As of 2014 there were 488 cities in the world with over a million people. If somehow even half of that arsenal was unleashed: 7x12x7=588 city centers (2 mile radius) could be wiped out instantly.

It's scary to think about anything that possibly can happen, will happen.. eventually..

<comment><USER3> That's an eighth of that arsenal, not half of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's unfortunate that we are so good at making weapons, and that we expend so many resources and so much brain power to the endeavor.

The space race was military based, but at least it was somewhat wholesome in the outward appearance of trying to better humanity. We need another one of those.

<comment><USER8> The Green Energy race perhaps? I think its absolutely magical if we can run on 100% renewable energy.

<comment><USER9> Well, people were doing that with horses and natural resources like wood, sperm oil and others for centuries before us. I do love our modernity but as far as being sustainable, there is no way on earth we are not going to destroy this planet with all the plastic packaging and the short-term throwaway mentality of modern electronics. All-electric from renewable sources is such a small part of that equation that it is mostly lip service. After all, you will still need batteries with all the pollution that implies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 50 megatons of TNT? When fat man and little boy were 15 and 20 _kilotons_ respectively? This was really 3,000 times as big? I guess I didn't realize there was such a difference.

<comment><USER11> _This three stage weapon was actually a 100 megaton bomb design, but the uranium fusion stage tamper of the tertiary (and possibly the secondary) stage(s) was replaced by one(s) made of lead. This reduced the yield by 50% by eliminating the fast fissioning of the uranium tamper by the fusion neutrons, and eliminated 97% of the fallout (1.5 megatons of fission, instead of about 51.5 Mt), yet still proved the full yield design. The result was the "cleanest" weapon ever tested with 97% of the energy coming from fusion reactions. The effect of this bomb at full yield on global fallout would have been tremendous. It would have increased the world's total fission fallout since the invention of the atomic bomb by 25%._ [1]

1: [http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html](http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dear HNers, when kids study Cold War as part of the history lessons in schools of your country, is Tsar Bomba mentioned?

<comment><USER13> Not in Singapore. Nuclear weapons that it was used against Japan, but not cold-war developments in that respect.

Maybe it's because it makes the militaries of non-nuclear states feel small.</comment></comment>


Twitter Goes JSON-Only With One API - <AUTHOR> http://blog.programmableweb.com/2010/11/10/twitter-goes-json-only-with-one-api-more-to-come/ <comment><USER2> Thank god. I hate XML.

XML has its uses but honestly when it comes down to it working with JSON is a lot easier. When picking a data interchange format you need to consider indirect advantages as well. JSON is easier to read on a screen, type out, and overall skim. Skimming XML is a pain.

<comment><USER3> The only thing I miss from XML is the ability to comment out something. I discovered the other day that it wasn't apparently possible.

<comment><USER4> Formats targeted strictly at machine/machine interchange ultimately get used for much more. JSON is no exception.

Configuration tends to be the first place that interchange formats are "abused"; even for such a mild abuse, comments are essential. (Hard-core abuses, like XML-based programming languages, are another thing entirely. :-)

To deal with JSON's lack of comments, I've considered writing services and apps that produce JSON, but consume YAML. Here, the interesting qualities of YAML are (1) it's a superset of JSON, and (2) it supports comments.

<comment><USER5> YAML isn't a _strict_ superset of JSON, although since YAML 1.2 it is very nearly so; with just a little bit of care you can avoid the edge cases (eg. you can have hash keys longer than 1024 characters in JSON but not in YAML), _provided you are cognizant of them_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Impedance mismatch between XML and JavaScript is killing XML.

What's next? HTML? {"head":{"title": "JOHN"},"body:"{"div": "Javascript Object Hypertext Notation"}}

</comment><comment><USER7> Hooray! Let's hope other websites follow their lead and ditch the huge SOAP/XML overhead and stick with the ease and simplicity of REST/JSON.

<comment><USER8> At Yell we're currently working on our first public API, and only on Friday did we have the conversation and decided that doing JSON well was far more important than supporting XML at all.

The decision was a quick one, we just asked the iPhone, Android and web devs where we should focus, what they wanted most. The answer was unanimously JSON.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Other than smaller bandwidth on each call, what advantages does JSON provide over XML?

<comment><USER10> Benefits JSON > XML: Less bandwidth for same data, Quick to load, quick to parse. Very web friendly.

Benefits of XML > JSON: Easy to validate structure and content (via schemas), and transform content in a language neutral manner (via xslt). Older, thus supported in more places.

Use what works - JSON is fine for web stuff, XML is better for things that need strict validation and/or long term data storage.

<comment><USER11> I never really got the 'why' behind XML Schemas. Why would you validate a document with a schema vs actual code? It's just a bigger pain in the ass, and more limited.

<comment><USER12> If you have multiple applications using a document format, XML schemas are a good way to make sure they all agree on the semantics of the format. Recall that XML was originally intended as a means of bridging different environments and platforms, where code will not necessarily be portable.

<comment><USER11> I guess, but even if that's the case, who cares if the message is formatted right if it's still invalid.

I guess I haven't really worked in a heterogenous environment with a lot of XML before though, I can see the potential value there, but i'm still doubtful.

<comment><USER10> The big win for schemas is being able to use them to make assumptions about input, which simplifies your code.

For example, if you have an RelaxNG schema (which has a great compact syntax) that says that an element has to have at least one child node and that child node contains an integer between a certain set of values. Once you have that schema, you could write code that could read in the XML file and validate it against the schema in 2 lines, then grab all the child node integers with one XPath expression.

The data might be junk (heck, I'm not aware of any format that is impervious to worthless data), but at least it's junk in the right format, and you never had to mess around with parsing the input.

Need to switch programming environments or languages because you're working on Unix/Windows/embedded system/mainframe/database/web browser ? The schema can move with you (or be converted to another schema format that does), and programming niceties SAX and XPath will often carry over too.

<comment><USER11> I can totally see the value now. I haven't used XML in heterogenous environments much, but I can see the value now.

Thanks for the careful response!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Sigh_

I just implemented my project's API in XML. Time to switch I guess...

<comment><USER14> Since the 1st line of the article indicates this is the _streaming_ API only, I will presume that's the one your project is written against.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> On XML vs. JSON, I used to hate XML until I started programming in ActionScript which has a really nice syntax for it (except a few oddities here and there). I use Enunciate at work ( <http://enunciate.codehaus.org/> ) which generates XML, JSON, AMF, SOAP/REST endpoints all by itself from base Java services and classes, which works well too.

Can't say I'm disappointed, back when I did twitter dev I used JSON for everything, plus it was really easy to interface with our JavaScript client (duh).

<comment><USER16> I haven't used Action script but Scala has really nice support for Xml - it is properly the only language that allows you to do pattern matching on XML.

<comment><USER17> Scala's creator is on record as regretting the inclusion of XML literals in the syntax of the language:

[http://www.codecommit.com/blog/scala/working-with-scalas- xml...](http://www.codecommit.com/blog/scala/working-with-scalas-xml-support)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The article on Programmable Web doesn't add any value to the original press release: [http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development- talk/brow...](http://groups.google.com/group/twitter-development- talk/browse_thread/thread/6959dc497e4dc546/d8f58c013dc29f4e)

</comment><comment><USER19> You'll likely still be able to get results in XML via YQL which offers their own XML or JSON outputs for most web services.

<comment><USER17> YQL won't work for Twitter's streaming API - it's designed for standard request/response style APIs.</comment></comment>


Scientific Research Shouldn't Sit Behind a Paywall - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientific-research-shouldnt-sit-behind-a-paywall/ <comment> vaer-k I appreciate the work and risks that the creators of [https://www.sci- hub.tw/](https://www.sci-hub.tw/) have put into keeping this information publicly available. I don't appreciate that the research the public has funded is locked away from us, and it's a travesty that has many unwelcome direct and indirect consequences, such as the arrest and death of Aaron Swartz.

</comment><comment><USER2> "You have no free articles left.

Subscribers get more award-winning coverage of advances in science & technology."</comment>


ITEM UNDER REVIEW  This product is not currently offered by Amazon.co.uk... - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fitbit-Wireless-Activity-Tracker-Wristband/dp/B00CIV6990/ref=sr_1_1?s=sports&ie=UTF8&qid=1399319238&sr=1-1

<comment><AUTHOR> ITEM UNDER REVIEW

This product is not currently offered by Amazon.co.uk because a customer recently told us that the item he or she received was not as described.

We are working to resolve this as quickly as possible. In the meantime, you may still find this product available from other sellers on this page.</comment>


Ask PG: Can you make a statement on privacy regarding HN servers? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> What?

This is a social bookmarking site - do you mean you have a problem with the links you have posted? Stand up and be counted my friend!

<comment><USER3> I think the question is more along the lines of how long IPs are stored for logged in users, etc.

It's a valid question, especially for a site that seems to respect the privacy of its users (it doesn't even require an email address to sign up!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good question, HN has grown so big and I'm concerned about private data of members as well.</comment>


The Evolution of Gmail Labels - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/evolution-of-gmail-labels.html

<comment><USER2> i see many people whining in the feedbacks, but i'd guess that this change is welcomed by the majority of gmail users.

i like it so far. finally a way to hide labels i don't care about in a "submenu".

the "move to" business and the drag and drop should have their semantics explained somewhere. sometimes it acts like labels are folders, sometimes it doesn't. i'd rather have a true "labels" feel or a true "folder" view (of course as an option to the user), not such a confusingly mixed deal.

<comment><USER3> Coming from desktop mail apps (Apple Mail, Eudora...) which (almost ?) all work with folders, it was quite difficult in the beginning for me to understand how labels worked.

I guess that's why they are doing this move, labels are just too complex to comprehend for the computer illiterate.

Typical users want to organise mails the way Outlook does, so Gmail adapts itself to the mass without giving up the idea completely.</comment></comment>


(Android) Developer Income Report #8 - <AUTHOR> http://www.kreci.net/reports/developer-income-report-8/ <comment><USER2> So are we now encouraging mobile developers to try and develop many crap applications, the sum of which will give an impressive financial return? What happened to concept of developing a great product that actually takes some effort?

It seems to me that these developers are spreading themselves extremely thin to get many apps into the marketplace with the h̶o̶p̶e̶ prayer that some catch on. Imo, this is a crappy business model which just pollutes the marketplace.

I know the goal/dream is to become self sufficient and control your own destiny, but do it with a great product that you believe in, not with bs e-books and movie quote soundboards.

<comment><USER3> I'm happy for kreci that he is able to make enough money online to support himself but the apps are just dismal. That combined with the made-for-Adsense site he showed us a few days ago (which he claimed to have paid for 100 backlinks to!) shows that he's adding very little value to the Android ecosystem and the web.

His income reports are valuable because they can be an inspiration to others but the way he is making his money is, at the very least, distasteful.

<comment><USER4> It's the behavior that cheapskates and pirates make the system gravitate towards. There's nothing wrong or dishonorable about it. Incentives at work people - nothing new to see here.

<comment><USER5> Not really. Apparently you ate not aware that paid apps are not available in Poland. Kind of hard to make a great product when you cab only make money off ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a world where there is so much hyperbole in articles, thanks for an honest- to-goodness report on Android development.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you too for your kind words ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for the slap. I'm carrying on work, you convinced me again that making money is possible and it's just my laziness that is keeping me poor.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Comments welcome and very desired =)

<comment><USER8> It was a good idea to link to another developer's report from your post. It will encourage more people to report on their progress.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I will link to anyone who will write about Android Income... just let me know :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, the one guy's only really revenue generating app is an unlicensed Star Wars app that sounds like a ripoff of similar iOS "lightsaber" apps that were first unlicensed then became licensed?

Count me not impressed.

<comment><USER10> That is another person used as an example in the post that he isn't the only one making such money on android.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it typical to trade salary for equity when joining a startup? - <AUTHOR>

Suppose I got an offer from a startup that currently has funding to start hiring employees. Suppose they are offering a $100K total compensation package, such that I can choose to take a reduced salary for the equivalent in stock options (up to a certain limit). So if I am aggressive I can go $50K cash salary and $50K options a year (meaning $200K worth of options vested over 4 years with one year cliff).
Suppose the current valuation of the company is $4 million, so that means I can own up to 5% of the company (and they are ok with me owning this amount, as I will be joining as one of the first few employees.)
Suppose $100K is below my current market rate, so it seems I will not only be getting a pay cut, and then additionally exchanging my salary for equity. They mentioned that their other potential hires might also be taking even larger cuts (based on the total compensation).
Is this practice typical for startups?
I suppose the hope is that the equity portion of the compensation increases in value as the startup gets more successful. <comment><USER2> Yes, it's typical practice.

If the other potential hires are experienced startup employees then their willingness to take even larger cuts is a very good signal. Of course, it doesn't mean anything if they're fresh out of college or haven't worked at a startup before.

</comment><comment><USER3> What you describe here directly is not typical, IME.

Sure, you can often negotiate over salary and stock options, especially if you wanted a larger comp package you might argue for a couple thousand more shares or something.

I haven't heard of too many (well, ANY, really) successful cases of this direct sliding scale of some kind of 1:X trade of dollars for options.

Also, I would be very afraid of any management team that would even allow you to have 1% equity. The math just doesn't work. If an individual contributor is going to get 1%, what do the founders have? What do the investors have? They'd likely run out of shares to allocate to employees before they even finished hiring.

Without more detail, what you describe here starts to sound a little bit like an incompetent or inexperienced management team, and I'd proceed with caution.</comment>


The Criminal N.S.A. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/opinion/the-criminal-nsa.html <comment><USER2> Here's the thing. If file-sharers have the right to _anonymous speech_ , what does that say about everyone being spied upon by the NSA?

[http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-have-right-to- anonymous...](http://torrentfreak.com/file-sharers-have-right-to-anonymous- speech-court-hears-130627/)

I'm starting to think more and more that beyond this being a US Constitution issue, it's a _human rights_ issue, and we should fight to ban all such spying internationally. Yes, I realize how hard that that may be to achieve, and how long it would probably take, but we need to do it because it's the _right thing_ for humanity, not because it's easy or hard, just like everyone is fighting for gay marriage all over the world, and have fought for free speech, and so on.

<comment><USER3> How about we popularize encryption, and take the choice out of the hands of corporations and governments?

<comment><USER4> How do we do that when people don't care about privacy?

<comment><USER5> By making the solutions so simple that they pick them _because_ they don't care either way, but make it slightly more annoying for people still on non- end-to-end crypto services to communicate with those who are.

If there's enough people who care, then hopefully network effects would slowly take care of the rest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The public is not acquiescing in surveillance. It is simply rare for the mainstream media to report on this critically (or at all -- note the lack of front-page coverage of this story in the New York Times), an appalling development given the extension of this surveillance apparatus to targeting journalists.

With that in mind, it is worth noting that the two authors of this piece are NOT professional journalists, although what they report could and should easily have been put together by actual staffers.

<comment><USER7> > \- note the lack of front-page coverage of this story in the New York Times

1\. As of right now, the story is linked to on the front page in the Opinion box since this is an opinion piece and not a news piece. If you want opinion as news, I refer you to Fox News or Buzzfeed or Upworthy.

2\. The story of the NSA surveillance was front page on the NY Times when it broke and for about a week or two after.

3\. The Mainstream media has been reporting on this consistently, both on the Snowden drama and the actual substance of his leaks.

It's sad to see _both_ longer-time and newer users running around with this chicken little reddit-level bullshit. The mods seem to be complicit in it so oh well. The upside is that I waste less time here.

<comment><USER8> > If you want opinion as news, I refer you to Fox News or Buzzfeed or > Upworthy.

All "news" is someone's, or a group of someones, opinion. There's no such thing as objective journalism.

> chicken little reddit-level bullshit

It's only been a couple of weeks since people became aware that the largest spy agency in the world is spying on pretty much anything they can get a bead on.

Perhaps cutting people some slack until 24/7 surveillance becomes the New Normal might be in order?

<comment><USER9> In my opinion, there is about a 30 minute wait on the I9, and now in sports news, in my opinion the raiders beat the muskrats last night.... etc.

There is definitely such a thing as reporting the facts, and just because there are levels of opinion doesn't mean that all outlets of journalism are somehow comparable. Fox News != Anyone with credibility.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but even the choice of facts expresses an opinion.

I could report how many murders were caused by black people, how many robberies by mexicans, and how much drugs by asians, Then how many illegal immigrants entered the country this month.

All fact, no opinion?

<comment><USER7> He anticipated this point and explicitly acknowledged there are levels of opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The blowback from this mess could very soon be more severe than everyone might think. I expect several foreign countries to ban American tech company operations in their jurisdictions.

The bans in the foreign nations could easily stem from foreign business owners pressuring their politicians to ban American-operated companies under the guise of national security, privacy, and anti-American-power-mongering, but their real motivation will be to gain market share. Their politicians can easily make it into a win-win for everyone involved - the politicians (campaign contributions), the local businesses (market share), and the population, who wouldn't mind seeing a global anti-America movement.

<comment><USER12> Thou doth jest. Most western countries are lap-dogs to the US, and almost certainly exchange spying data with the US so that they don't breach their own privacy laws. This will have little impact with US allies.

<comment><USER13> Even if the intelligence governmental agencies exchange that in the US (and many certainly do), that doesn't mean they can't impose rules on businesses (expanding the privacy laws you mention) and other state entities to avoid using US tech services.

Sure it'd be hypocritical, but when did that stop anyone?

<comment><USER5> Especially because there's been past concerns about US intelligence passing sensitive data to US companies to help them win contracts.

There's bound to be a lot of high level execs at European companies whispering in their governments ears at the moment about how this is putting them at a substantial disadvantage, whether or not they believe it to be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Please talk to people who lived under oppresive regimes (former Eastern Block) and see for yourself what it meant to live in a society of paranoia, snitching, informants, secret service, fake patriotism etc.. embedded IN every aspect of social life (work, neighbours EVEN families).

Americans can't grasp this because they never experienced it, that's why you need to talk to people who did, otherwise your children will be sorry.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is it possible for Americans to file a class action suit over a top secret government surveillance program? I feel like we all have standing at least.

<comment><USER16> The courts would rightly reject it as a political matter.

<comment><USER17> When I object to the government breaking the law against me, it's not "a political matter" \- indeed, usually the courts are the appropriate venue.

<comment><USER16> You're not in a position to make that determination, and the judicial branch has traditionally taken a different view of this from yours. The question was whether people could sue, not whether they should be able to.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_question](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_question)

<comment><USER15> How are you construing an unconstitutional surveillance program as a political question?

I don't see how any of the Court Cases listed on the wikipedia article are relevant. These all seem to relate to truly political things, like which branch has what authority, or how districts are apportioned. The article only cites 5 areas the courts have clear precedent on - wars, treaties, gerrymandering, impeachment, as well as the Guarantee clause. The Guarantee clause relates to Article 4 though, not Amendment 4.

If we are construing this NSA wire-tapping as a war power, then we're in trouble, because we have now effectively agreed the written words of the Patriot Act have no meaning, and the constitution will never be applied uniformly to the executive.

<comment><USER16> I'm not all that sure it is unconstitutional, for one thing - aren't you begging the question here? And on a more general level, shouldn't you be considering precedent on justiciability, rather than basing your whole argument on your personal opinion of the waht the constitution means?

I might note in asssing that I favor a constitutional amendment that would create an explicit right to privacy; I'm not in favor of a surveillance state. But that doesn't alter my skepticism about how a class action lawsuit would actually fare in the courts.

<comment><USER18> >I'm not all that sure it is unconstitutional

And you know who the perfect people to decide that would be? Judges. In a court of law. Since that's one of their main job functions.

<comment><USER16> As I have pointed out numerous times over the last few weeks, my belief is that they made that determination in 1979, in _Smith v Maryland_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "...The two programs violate both the letter and the spirit of federal law."

"We may never know all the details of the mass surveillance programs, but we know this: The administration has justified them through abuse of language, intentional evasion of statutory protections, secret, unreviewable investigative procedures and constitutional arguments that make a mockery of the government's professed concern with protecting Americans' privacy. It's time to call the N.S.A.'s mass surveillance programs what they are: criminal."

Fatal bug throughout the whole `stack'?

Are these lawyered authors actually telling us the rudder is gone and the entire hull rotten?

<comment><USER20> The whole thing as implemented now definitely needs better accountability and oversight to call it a program that befits the public service. But I don't know about the rudder being gone (or what you mean by that exactly).

<comment><USER19> Well gudgeon-ed and pintel-ed teak rudder:

Respect for civilization's eye's covered verdigris bronze lady holding up scales.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Let's turn to Prism: the streamlined, electronic seizure of communications from Internet companies." OK, good so far, PRISM does indeed streamline and automate the process...

"... Prism is further proof that the agency is collecting vast amounts of e-mails and other messages — including communications to, from and between Americans."

??? PRISM was the one thing I stopped being worried about as soon as I figured out what it was. The government has always been able to subpoena a third-party for records pursuant to an actual investigation, and even Google seemed to be satisfied with the idea that specific PRISM requests have been legal (even if they forced NSA to get a real warrant first).

 _Other_ things may indicate NSA is hoovering emails like a Mob boss hoovering blow but PRISM isn't one of them. PRISM has to be turned on to acquire data, unlike other NSA SIGINT this one's not actually magic.

I'm kind of disappointed by the opinion piece because if they only took efforts to be factual they would probably be able to make a much more persuasive case (e.g. by bringing up Carnivore or 641A-style data interception instead of a system that queries specific individual users one-at-a-time).

<comment><USER21> So from Wikipedia, Boundless Informant uses 504 separate DNR (electronic surveillance program records) and DNI (metadata) collection sources known as SIGADs. In a 30-day period, they collected 3 billion data elements from within the US from these SIGADS.

And the PRISM document says it is the "the number one source of raw intelligence used for NSA analytic reports". Doesn't that mean that PRISM is the majority source of those 3 billion data elements?

And why did Page, Zuckerberg and Apple say they never heard of PRISM? Perhaps I am wrong but it's somewhat confusing!

<comment><USER20> If 2.999 billion elements never make it into those analytic reports then it may very well be possible that of the remainder that manual systems like PRISM end up being the majority source. As you note, there are hundreds of SIGADs, of which PRISM is just one.

> And why did Page, Zuckerberg and Apple say they never heard of PRISM?

Because PRISM is the name for the NSA end of that service and associated data tools. The company end of that service would be whatever they called the system they use for FISA warrant/NSL compliance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's criminal and people should go to prison. When we talk about locking people up forever because they're a threat to society, I can't think of a better example than this.

<comment><USER23> Take a gander at David Addington:

[http://froomkin.tumblr.com/post/54026897885](http://froomkin.tumblr.com/post/54026897885)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Yes, it _is_ time to call the N.S.A.'s mass surveillance programs what they are: Both criminal - and a betrayal of the people of the United States of America.

</comment><comment><USER25> This post makes a similar argument to my blog post[1] from earlier this week - that PRISM is simply criminal - although my analysis focused on why this made Snowden immune to charges as a whistleblower.

I agree that it's time to take the US government to task over this. How does that happen? A civil suit, a private prosecution?

[1] [http://joe-jordan.co.uk/blog/2013/06/tinker-tailor- whistlebl...](http://joe-jordan.co.uk/blog/2013/06/tinker-tailor- whistleblower-spy-Snowden-PRISM/) (hacker news comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5945185](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5945185) )

</comment><comment><USER26> Well said.</comment>


Show HN: Theory.js – Abstraction layer for cross-platform JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/amark/theory

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, this is the first of several libraries I will be open sourcing, and they will all be building off each other and culminating into something epic. So please, by all means, I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

It is thoroughly tested: IE6-10, FF3.6-23, Opera 11+, Safari 5+, Android 2.3.4+, iOS 6.1.3+, Windows 8phone, Chrome, and Node.

<comment><USER2> Can you give us a hint about the destination?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure! Thanks for asking. I'm laying a solid foundation with all the primitives of Javascript, then I'm building ontop some really elegant controls - so the libraries won't have any assumption, but you still get some powerful features. I eventually hope to create a tactile-spatial programming language with it.

All code is just three things: Data, Manipulation, and Communication. Theory represents having good control over data, with strong type checking.

<comment><USER3> >I eventually hope to create a tactile-spatial programming language with it.

Do you mean that figuratively or literally? I can't tell if you're working towards some super OOP magic or good support for like 3D vectors and events.

However you mean, I like the sound. Looking forward to seeing what else shakes out!

EDIT: I am now noticing your myojs stub and thinking that you mean "tactile- spatial" quite literally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed indeed! ;) :D Thanks for the encouragement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You realize, I assume, that you're making a lot of quixotic choices in this library, many of which appear to be different for personal (and, in some cases, I would say dubious) reasons. 1-indexed arrays? Arrays are no longer objects? An 'each' function that uses it's own way of combining what countless languages before you have split into 'map', 'filter' and 'each' functions? Etc etc.

I'm going to hazard a guess that your work has been predominately if not exclusively as a solo dev. This is effectively your personal utility library. That's cool. The problem is that virtually all software eventually ends up being a team effort, if nothing else than by the guy/gal who has to work on it after you. You may not like how JS does some things (like zero-indexing), but that guy already knows JS, he doesn't know your library. By revamping core semantics of JS, you're forcing him to learn your opinions. Are you so sure of your opinions that you can confidently say it's worth everyone else undergoing that effort? Are your opinions really so important as to break compatibility with every other piece of JS?

I gather from your comments that you intend this library as the base of a larger project. I'd encourage you to base that project on more widely known foundations -- pick your favorite module system, and use underscore.js or one of the other widely vetted and tested utility libraries.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it is the base for a lot more. Unfortunately I have tried and used countless other libraries for the last 3 years, and they always wind up breaking - in fact even underscore failed to pass some of my tests, and I had to patch a bug with it.

The only library I have been able to consistently trust is jquery. At a certain point as a developer you have to decide what is best for you and your code, and in my case it is relying on this library, because I know I can trust it.

<comment><USER4> That sounds a lot like the definition of NIH attitude.

You might like lodash.js if cross-browser consistency is your true goal.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would love to use other libraries, unfortunately I wasted too much time (years) trying to fix them up for what I needed and they still become unmanageable. I am glad your projects are simpler and don't push the limits of existing libraries, but don't dismiss my goals or act like you know what they are just because yours are not as intense.

Generally I have found that the libraries that are loud and popular wind up performing inferior to more obscure libraries which I use. Not that the loud ones are bad, they just can't handle my specific projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        "a reliable yet tiny library (at 7KB gzipped) that would
        normalize everything so any code written would literally
        work everywhere"

I felt the same way about needing to normalise client and server side, but the goal seems forever ambitious, considering not even IE8 can handle an extra trailing comma. This is not the only universal solution you will be using.

<comment><AUTHOR> It already works on IE8! :) From my experience, IE isn't as bad as what people complain about (with js, it is _horrid_ with rendering though), and a few tweaks of code makes it work, which generally makes the code even better on other browsers. People really don't need as many shims and polyfills as they think. Rendering though? Gosh that is a nightmare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I realize this is a nitpick, but the use of "is" after the various types is very counter intuitive.

Suppose I'm thinking, "hmm, is this text?" or "is this a number?"

To do this with the API you have looks like this:

      a.text.is(myVariable); // to check if myVariable is text
      a.num.is(myVariable); // to check if myVariable is a number

But just reading the code makes is backwards with respect to the phrase it represents (my bias). A more intuitive API call might be:

      a.is.text(myVariable); // reads like the phrase
      a.is.num(myVariable); // reads like the phrase

Even better might be:

      is(myVariable).text(); // nearly self documenting this way
      is(myVariable).num(); // ditto

Just some thoughts. Reading the API calls the way they are keeps sounding wrong in my head (clearly a bias).

<comment><USER7> I would buy is(myVariable).text within a second. Why calling two functions?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good idea too! Here we go, I made it a tiny module:

[https://gist.github.com/amark/6298069](https://gist.github.com/amark/6298069) include as a dependency then use as "a.is(myVariable).text"!

<comment><USER7> Great, that's very readable. Now someone needs to allow .text? to indicate the predicate without 'invalid token ?' :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was working on something that has a lot of overlap, but is more focused on scaffolding html from json structure. Mine also allows wildcard get and set :)

ex: obj.get('a.*.b') -> returns all b's in objects that are of the array 'a'

Shameless plug: [https://github.com/dclowd9901/lscenery](https://github.com/dclowd9901/lscenery)

</comment><comment><USER9> I was enthusiastic until I got to the part about 1-indexed arrays.

</comment><comment><USER10> But does it support do-while loops?

<comment><USER11> I look for this feature in all my libraries.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's your Git workflow for production systems? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, I'm revisiting the topic of choosing the best git workflow. To those of you who run software in production, what works best for you? Given the preceding sentence, what's the structure of your team? <comment><USER2> You may find GitLab's proposal of interest. [https://about.gitlab.com/2016/07/27/the-11-rules-of- gitlab-f...](https://about.gitlab.com/2016/07/27/the-11-rules-of-gitlab-flow/)

<comment><USER3> That's interesting. Instead of step 7. we have a separate release CI job which when is a one click, test build tag release.

This outputs artifacts to a sonatype nexus repo. From there, the binary can be promoted either automatically or manually to various environments.

It breaks Gitlabs rules of CI modifying the repo (with no explanation) but it allows any developer with any level of experience to easily release the product

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Git Flow is popular [https://datasift.github.io/gitflow/IntroducingGitFlow.html](https://datasift.github.io/gitflow/IntroducingGitFlow.html)

Trunk-based is IMO the best [http://paulhammant.com/2013/04/05/what-is-trunk- based-develo...](http://paulhammant.com/2013/04/05/what-is-trunk-based- development/)

</comment><comment><USER5> My git "workflow" (if you can call it that) is to explicitly ban git from production systems. If your prod machine requires Git to get code, you're probably doing something wrong. Config files are better gotten from an HTTP API, where you can audit access; actual code/program files are better grabbed from something like Artifactory or a network share.

<comment><USER6> I don't think it's all that bad, especially not for a small shop. I mean, obvious caveats aside. Don't store sensitive stuff like passwords in git, don't store big files.

But it does provide a pretty simple clean deploy, with information about the state of your deployment. You can even include some of that audit support with some relatively simple, judicious scripts. Check out, echo something to a log file, commit it to a deployment branch and push it.

I'm not sure I see how network shares or an http API offer better access controls over a git repo loaded over https for loading up code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I work in a small agency (5 devs), and we use git flow.

Essentially, we perform builds from dev, release branches, and master (and hotfix, but this rarely ever happens), and move to these branches over a two week sprint cycle. We work on dev during the sprint, move to a release branch when we're preparing for a client-facing release, and when the sprint is over we merge into master, perform our final regression tests and tag the release with the sprint version number (GitVersion helps a ton for this).

The key point for our production process is that a single build is used to go between environments. We use Octopus Deploy to package up our build and to perform the necessary transforms for deploying to different environments.

</comment><comment><USER8> In my opinion, your git workflow should be based on your release, application support & team structure.

If you have just 1 team, releasing 1 version, say a web application then your workflow will differ from 1 team, maintaining multiple versions of the same app, say a desktop version or say multiple teams working on one app say an enterprise backend. I look at how the application has to be released, how the team is structured, then figure out which workflow we will use.

</comment><comment><USER9> Master is the latest stable release. Topics are branched from master. A release branch is master plus topics that are ready to go live.

Releases are OS packages (.deb, .rpm, whatever) built from release branches. We don't deploy with git because we don't commit binaries, and git doesn't know how to deploy our OS dependencies and drain and restart our prod services.

</comment><comment><USER10> I like a branch per environment, usually staging and production with master as the development branch. To deploy you push to the environment branch and webhooks trigger the rest. I'm not sure how to enforce this part, but you always make sure tests pass on master, merge with staging and make sure they pass there, then merge with production.</comment>


Chinese bike-sharing firm Bluegogo has gone bankrupt: media reports - <AUTHOR> http://www.ecns.cn/business/2017/11-15/281078.shtml <comment><USER2> Dallas went from having zero bikeshares to three companies in a matter of days. Anecdotally I have seen the same green and silver bikes sitting in the same places since they opened.

East Dallas has some wonderful biking (white rock lake is where lance armstrong trained) but I feel like bike shares are replacements for short uber rides, not taking bike paths for 14 miles to get into the city. I doubt the average person in the city could even make it that far.

<comment><USER3> Dallas as with most post-war cities is sprawling, with most land being either parking or roadway in the more urban areas. This makes cities built this way much less usable for any form of transit besides driving, and even there you see travel distances doubled due to the added parking at every building.

Seattle got quite lucky insofar as being not too spread out, with the ability and demand to sustain 2.25 rides per bike per day[1]. Part of this is sustained by a robust mass transit system most American cities lack where a bike for the last couple thousand feet makes all the difference for a trip, whereas without that backbone you won't see high ridership.

Often, these trips are called the missing link. Turns out, thousands of people will pay to make these trips on bike every day here, versus using another mode of transit.

1 - [http://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2017/09/19/rolling-with-the- homi...](http://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2017/09/19/rolling-with-the-homies- seattle-bike-share-pilot-is-a-model-for-other-cities/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It was obvious to anybody on the ground in China. Shenzhen has been buried in bikes pumped by those scams for months, to the point of city mayor ordering collecting abandoned ones as garbage.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14694170](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14694170) 134 days ago [-]:

"chinese bike share companies are VC scam, they dont care what happens to the bikes, they are after the investors."

<comment><USER3> Sounds like waaay too much VC money combined with poor planning (or purposeful mismanagement). No market has limitless potential, at some point you'll saturate it in a given city.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They could have just asked the Dutch if this was going to work.

<comment><USER4> It worked great(for founders), all bike sharing companies were startups seeded with VC capital.</comment></comment>