Show HN: Mechanical clock simulation in WebGL - <AUTHOR> https://nikital.github.io/clock/ <comment><USER2> Nikita, this is brilliant. I've been doing some experiments with creating 3D models for How a Car Works using threeJS (there's a very basic alpha proof-of- concept at [http://www.howacarworks.com/3D/charging-a-car- battery](http://www.howacarworks.com/3D/charging-a-car-battery) ). I'd love to commission you to create some moving models of car components - drop me an email if you're interested email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER3> That was a useful animation: it made me realise that I didn't really know how a clock worked; I only had a fuzzy -and wrong- understanding of how the the parts worked together.

Good use of visualisation and animation is an extremely powerful tool for triggering that aha! moment.

<comment><USER4> Me too, I went from thinking I sort of new something about how clocks work to actually understanding it properly for the first time ever, reading a small amount if text, again to get to the 'I get it' moment.

I also think that this is possibly because this is a model of a real clock that really worked, once upon a time. So the WebGL model works as per the real world clock, not some 'example' model made from theoretical pieces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think you mounted the main spring the wrong way? The way it is currently, the clock's operation would wind it tighter.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I missed it. Nice catch :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In Chrome, the minute hand didn't move anywhere near 10 minutes worth over 10 minutes of watching the mechanism. Are the gear mechanisms designed to accurately reproduce a real hour/minute clock, or is it just intended to be an example of the kind of mechanism used?

<comment><USER7> I'd imagine it's deliberately slowed mainly for illustrative purposes; for comparison the balance wheel in my watch is currently spinning too fast for me to see.

It could also be an fps thing

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice animation. I'd add the option to show the speed of each gear (a curved arrow around the axis, with a label "1 turn per 15 seconds", and perhaps the number of cogs in each gear).

I'd like to see one additional simple version with only one gear, so it's easy to understand how the balance / anchor / escape work.

Another nice version would be a linearized version, where all the gears are in a row, so they are easy to see. Bonus points for a smooth transformation from the linearized version to the actual version.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the simple version, did you see that you can rotate, pan and zoom the camera? You can focus on the escapement to get a better view. You can also slow it down using the speed slider.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Balance wheel(oscillating wheel in demo. Its the brain. it keeps the time accurate)--->Lever escapement fork(looks like pin pallet. Your watch's fork looks more like a dinner fork)--->Escapement wheel--->Fourth wheel--->Third wheel--->Center wheel(holds the dial hands)---<>Barrel wheel(stores the power. connects to Center wheel). The small wheel connected to only the center wheel is the setting wheel.

The animation makes the it so much easier than a verbal walk through. Couldn't stop chiming in; I am working on a pin pallet watch (Amida 542 movement) right now, and frustrated. The blue mainspring just broke, and its a weird size, measured in Dennison units. I need a social life.

If interested in Watch repair buy Practical Watch Repairing by Donald De Carle, preferably 3rd. edition. to start your library. If you really want to build a watch from a chunk of brass, maybe a little gold, and watch lathe, buy George Daniels book Watchmaking. George Daniels invented the Co-axial escapement(an unusual escapement that Omega adopted, and might not need lubrication.), and was a great Watch Maker/machinist. He supposedly did his best work after 50.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice. It seems that small spring is driving the "ticking" of the clock, so does the winding of the springs wind both the large and small spring? Also, it's surprising to me how the small spring could tick accurately, since I would think that it's rate of oscillation changes as the spring unwinds, so that you cannot rely on each tick being a constant amount of time. How is the problem avoided or mitigated?

<comment><USER11> The mainspring provides all the mechanical energy. The small spring is called the escapement, it spins one way, then back the other at a set frequency (typically 4, 6, or 8 times per second), letting the energy of the mainspring 'escape' gradually (instead of unwinding all at once, in a rush).

<comment><USER12> So the small spring is what makes it run accurately? I wonder how hard it is to make the small spring accurate without modern tools (1800s technology).

<comment><USER13> This provides a good description of how the balance wheel works:

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

It is manually tuned, via weights and spring tension, to oscillate at a precise interval.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Zooming-in is a bit tricky as a page scroll is triggered. Might help to add

      event.preventDefault();

to the wheel event listener function.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, cross-browser issues. There shouldn't be any scroll bars at all... What browser/OS?

<comment><USER15> Safari 9 on OS X 10.11 has this behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> aps-sids I'm not entirely sure, but zooming closer to gear teeth interaction, it looks like cogs aren't aligning perfectly like they do in real life? I'm viewing this in firefox, so that might be a reason as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> In real life the do align perfectly, otherwise they will get stuck.

Here there are off a bit because 1. I didn't get the sizes absolutely right as I modeled it in Blender and not in a real CAD (like Gearotic) and 2. The gear simulation is iterative so some floating point error accumulates over time.

<comment> aps-sids Thanks for the explanation :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _An Electrical Engineering View of a Mechanical Watch_ :

[http://video.mit.edu/watch/an-electrical-engineering-view- of...](http://video.mit.edu/watch/an-electrical-engineering-view-of-a- mechanical-watch-9035/)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is really cool!

WebGl is so difficult, UI-wise, on a tablet. It's not your fault, but I wish Apple would translate some of the desktop metaphors (scroll/pan/zoom) for this context.

</comment><comment><USER18> It looks like the main spring is flipped 180 degrees. I speeded up the clock movement and it looks like it would be tightened, not loosened.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice, but I don't think the escape wheel animation is correct. The explanation says it pushes something but I don't see it.

<comment> X-Istence The escape wheel is actually pushed indirectly by the large spring, it pushes against the metal pins that stop it from freely rotating. The smaller spring with the pendulum attached (the balance) then flicks the anchor which allows the escape wheel to advance one tick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nice! Can you give more details on how you made the simulation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure: I wrote it in Typescript, modeled everything in Blender and rendered with three.js. The simulation logic itself it in [https://github.com/nikital/clock/blob/master/src/mechanics.t...](https://github.com/nikital/clock/blob/master/src/mechanics.ts). That code is a bit messy but it gets the job done :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very cool and informative at the same time. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER22> It's an animation, not a simulation.

And not a very good one, gear teeth intersect all over the place:

[http://i.imgur.com/xDWigpp.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/xDWigpp.jpg)

<comment><USER23> Where's yours?

<comment><USER22> Just because I'm not a writer, doesn't mean I can't point out the spelling errors in books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> i hope next version will come with tri-axial tourbillon :)

</comment><comment><USER25> Beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER26> cool</comment>


HashBrown CMS: A free and open-source headless CMS - <AUTHOR> http://hashbrown.rocks/ <comment><USER2> This is great! What's the technology stack for this? Node + Mongo?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not the author, nor do I have any connection, but yes, appears from the Getting Started page that the dependencies are GIT, node.js and MongoDB .</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think of our new domain name generator? - <AUTHOR> http://nametoolkit.com We know it has been done before, but we think we do it rather differently.  Please tell us what you think.  All ideas and criticisms are welcome. <comment><USER2> Looks similar to the project I announced last week (<http://rewordio.us>) here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2118240>

I like the interface to show additional (whois, etc) information. Have you had folks purchase any domain names through your affiliate links - or has it mostly been used to come with with crazy combinations of words?

<comment><USER3> Hi Rich, I've never seen your site before, I have very little free time, and I use it to code more than read the news. Your site isn't bad.. it's not the best I've seen and not the worst either, which is similar to how I'd currently rate ours.

domaintyper.com is one of my new favourites and I was aware of domai.nr but found it too minimalist to be useful to me, and some minor ones you'll get through Google , or DuckDuckGo :).

Actually one of the things I learned on the project was how poorly I'd initally researched the market. There are far more competitors than I thought in this space. Many are proof of concept or prepend adjectives, some are more advanced. We are trying to be creative and we're coming up with most algorithms and UI concepts from scratch out of necessity as we're not hugely impressed with what we've seen elsewhere.

Yes we have made sales, I won't divulge the number, safe to say, not enough for me to quit my day job but we're moving on much faster than expected. Being an affiliate, as you probably know has it's drawbacks in terms of not being able to track user behaviour once they disappear into the registrar's site.

Name Toolkit doesn't merely attach words to other words randomly, or prepend random words, but if that's how it looked, then we're not doing well enough. We're working to make our search better daily and we hope that will become apparent if you re-visit.

All the best with your efforts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi from me too Rich,

I notice going back through your post that you say it was a weekend project - we've been coding the algorithm for more than six months, and we have an office set up specially for it, and we are old, qualified, workaholics. Maybe we're slow and dumb... but

Take an couple of examples, 'name toolkit' and 'new site'. You return nothing for nametoolkit, [http://nametoolkit.com/suggest?q=name+toolkit&sort=relev...](http://nametoolkit.com/suggest?q=name+toolkit&sort=relevance). You return rawposition.com for new site. Hmmmm. Our interface's are almost similar, but our interface is not our product.

I like the way you present the results, but my biggest problem with our site is that we have to only return the top few results for each algorithm, or else we overwhelm the user. We are hoping to approach this by allowing the user to view results by algorithm, and perhaps paginating or adding infinite scroll. For example, our thesaurus has over 100 responses to 'new', and we then filter and rank these by context, using our filtering database that takes a day just to add an index.

We already have twenty hours on the clock for our domain hacks algorithm, and I will be hand-cleaning tables until 2am tonight again.

It's fun though, isn't it?

<comment><USER2> You should definitely reserve that name! Maybe through our site? :)

I agree with not overwhelming the user. Though I think it depends on how your users are individually inspired to find the right domain name. Looking at competitor sites, some allow you to wade through tons of results, others just show you a couple.

We didn't put a lot into the algorithm, so our results are mostly dependent on the thesaurus we are using. I would guess that providing a good results algorithm is definitely the best way to go. Good luck gents!

One interesting approach is what nxDom.com does under their 'advanced options' section. They allow users to create their own custom algorithm for things they care about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow - they get the minimalism thing, alright. domain-atrix is actually a pretty good result for domain - and I am not sure how they are doing that.

It's interesting, though strangely the site is a bit half-baked. Why get so far and then peter out at the testing and execution?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lots of domains show up available when they're not.

Domain hacks would be great.

Otherwise - nice interface, very responsive.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bug identified... almost fixed.

<comment><USER5> fixed, although the availability checks are offline, this is by design, checking the availability inline is just a horrible experience, even using batched Asynchronous lookups. Perhaps we can do something similar to Skyscanner and do the check only if you're interested in a particular domain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: Found another anomaly. Whois needs to be offline for performance reasons. We will refine it - but it should be 99.9% correct now.

It is 6 stages to grep, sed, diff, sort, uniq, and import the files into our whois db so it will be a couple of days potentially before I track the .01% down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "There should be a domain name lookup service that combines a thesaurus, misspeller, and translator"

<http://twitter.com/#!/savant/status/24226152759431168>

Where do you get the Verisign's list? I was looking around for this when I tweeted that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi,

1\. Our translator is currently switched off. We might add a checkbox to update it. Renualdo? We switched it off because we used google translate, and then cleaned the output (i.e., kill aux, des, della, etc). We are in the process of getting an offline translation kit together though for another project, so that can be added instead in a month or two.

2\. We applied through verisign's website and faxed (no kidding - we faxed) our company info. We have a fully registered limited liability (plc) company so it was not too hard. It took about three weeks though to get access.

3\. We have thesaurus (clearly) but that is only the start of the fun... and the mispeller is on the list of things to add, after domain hacks. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's good work. Coming up with a name is the hardest part.

It would be nice to have simple filters like no hyphens in name and domain length limit. Also, some way of separating unavailable domains will be great.

<comment><AUTHOR> We can add a sort by domain length - you will get a completely different sequence of results. At the moment it is sorted by top n results from each algorithm (eight algos so far).

Hyphens - there is only ever one result.

Separating the unavailable - second person who asked - Renualdo is working on this as I type. (now I must go back to fixing the plurals)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's fast, but a few things I have an issue with:

\- only shows .com \- doesn't show splits or domain hacks (eg del.icio.us) \- not clear when I see only orange results if those are unavailable

<comment><AUTHOR> Not quite in order...

1\. Splits & domain hacks. My partner in crime will be happy you said that - we will add. Prob at least a week though.

2\. Orange - yes - means that they are unavailable. We can add a comment to make that more clear. If you click on an orange link, you get a 'more like this' effect where we search with the underlying phrase.

3\. .com. Valid point - a bit like the domain hacks I didn't think people were that interested in odd domains so it wasn't rolled out at first. It will be added shortly. Thank you :)

<comment><USER5> Told you man, it's all about the domain hacks these days :), seriously though, noone really wants a .net do they?

<comment><USER9> Only if they want clari.net or bassi.net, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> it looks very similar to mine (<http://domain-generator.us/>), but for .COM only: synonyms, different combinations of names, etc. Someone posted a list of domain name generators on this forum a while ago (cannot find the link), there are a lot of sites that offer similar functions. You might want to focus on that other do not have to stand out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes - we have seen it, and a few others. Try some queries in ours, and some queries in yours, and you will see that we use quite a different set of algorithms although there is some overlap.

We all like some healthy competition, right? How have you been doing with yours?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like how it searches synonyms and homophones. One thing you might add is plurals.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are pluralising nouns only - but the selection of nouns is limited by our grammar db. It should have been around 4th/5th result, depending on the number of search words.

Have you got the example and we can look into it?

<comment><USER9> Sure, the word 'tool' doesn't yield any result with 'tools'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Voila. Yeah - our grammar db had a really limited list of plurals. Now I just find everything word where a variant exists ending in 's' or 'es' from our everywordevereverever table (not called that).

tl;dr; tool gives tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You might want to correct the typo in the second heading: How to I use it?

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing about the internet is that it is so publically humiliating. Now I know that that is there and don't clock off the day job for another few hours.

Thanks for the tip.

<comment><AUTHOR> And she's fixed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We just got a bang operator on duckduckgo for our new domain name generator. Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER12> Show 2 columns, separate the orange and the blue, so I don't have to look at the unavailable.

<comment><USER5> I was thinking of having a show/hide taken domains checkbox above the list and/or a site-wide preference if you never, ever want to see the taken ones.

The idea of showing the taken ones is that they might be close to expiring and valuable to you somehow.

<comment><USER12> Well yes, I do think that unavailable domains can be sometimes useful, that's why I said separate into 2 columns.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm... problem with the two columns is my android phone, and my partner's iphone. We don't want to have to rejig things.

The check box is literally going to arrive in a few minutes... do tell us what you think?...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Launch HN: Interactive Go Course Using WASM in Browser - <AUTHOR> https://classroom.qvault.io <comment><AUTHOR> If you want to try the Go Course use this coupon code to get the gems you need: JUQE55

<comment><USER2> Thank you. Any way to report bug?</comment></comment>


Virgin Atlantic Pilot (ex-Gulf War): Could MH370 have been 'swapped' mid-air? - <AUTHOR> http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/22048613/could-mh370-have-been-swapped-mid-air

<comment><USER2> This article makes no sense.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. One of the final sentences appears to contradict the thesis presented throughout the rest of the article.

> In my view suicide looks unlikely – he would have had to been very lucky to > kill the other pilot, then fly undetected to a remote spot in the sea and > either crash or run out of fuel – it doesn't add up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why is this question being asked? The transponder codes clearly weren't stopped - the MH370 one stopped transmitting and no other aircraft followed the known onward flightpath of "MH370". Otherwise this is just rehashing and conjecture. But then this IS Yahoo...

<comment><USER5> I think the suggestion is that this swap would of happened early in the flight. MH370 heads away disguised as the other thing. Once enough time has passed then the other thing turns off the transponder and then heads off, perhaps being detected by defence radar along the way.

So a plan that requires the use of another fast aircraft for no particular advantage...

<comment><USER6> My crazy theory was similar. Swap early (perhaps on the ground so that MH370 might even never have left), other plane flies out, turns off code, and returns. The other plane is smaller and so can land on more runways than a 777, and even if seen would not arouse suspicious since no one is looking for it. Perhaps a transponder is even then used with a drone to make it look like MH370 flies out west over the ocean and disappears. Drone crashes in the ocean, but is small enough that even if debris is spotted, it won't be connected with MH370.

I bet the writers of "Elementary" could make a good episode out of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are hundreds of theories. There is nothing that makes this one any better than the others.

</comment><comment><USER8> No.

source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines)

<comment><USER6> Not applicable in this case.

<comment><USER8> How does it not apply?</comment></comment></comment>


Suicide Helmet Constructed by a Genius Young Man - angry-hacker https://www.bizarrepedia.com/the-suicide-helmet/ <comment> angry-hacker According to a Reddit thread, this happened 40+ years ago.

But definitely interesting engineering for all the wrong reasons..</comment>


New spear-phishing attack on Facebook accounts - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidewalt/2012/08/29/facebook-spam-email-spear-phishing/

<comment><USER2> There's a more common version of this attack, one that many people volunteer for -- the multiple-recipient e-mail.

The worst kind of e-mail is one that has more than one visible recipient address. If a system has been compromised, and the attacker can get his hands on multiple-recipient e-mails, he can use them as the basis for a phishing campaign in which he pretends to be one of the other recipients -- i.e. a "friend" of the recipient.

The solution is to _never send an e-mail with more than one visible recipient_. As it turns out, this is easier said than done -- people just don't understand why multiple-recipient e-mails are dangerous. They also don't understand that the remedy is simple -- just put the list of recipients in the BCC (blind carbon copy) field of the e-mail client program, not the CC (carbon copy) field. The former avoids disclosing the addresses of all the recipients in each copy of the message.

More details: <http://arachnoid.com/opinion/help_the_crooks.html></comment>


Did British Spooks Use NSA Data to Spy on You? FIND OUT - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/message/did-gchq-use-nsa-data-to-spy-on-you-a0cd75a34a5b

<comment><AUTHOR> For the first time since Edward Snowden revealed the indiscriminate spying of the Five Eyes national intelligence alliance, everyone in the world has a chance to ask, what about me? Did they spy on my life? In a narrow but important decision, the UK Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruled that the sharing of NSA data with GCHQ was an illegal human rights violation up to December 2014, because there was no public legal rationale for the sharing. Now anyone can file a request seeking to learn whether their personal data was shared.

</comment><comment><USER2> I know that HN titles are the post's title. But seriously? I'm not clicking that. This isn't some magazine aimed at young girls.

</comment><comment><USER3> And also apparently sign a petition and sign up for some sort of mailing list (most likely).</comment>


Dealshaker is the hope for 3.7m members? - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptoscandal.com/2020/02/08/dealshaker-the-hope-for-3-7m-members/ <comment><USER2> Yes i think so its a part of onecoin and onelife community.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Oh realy thanks for comment here for this article. Thanks</comment>


If an autonomous machine kills someone, who is responsible? - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2009/aug/19/autonomous-machines-systems-report <comment><USER2> I don't want to forego a stimulating intelectual discourse, but isn't it obvious?

Replace 'autonomous machine' with 'child' and it is clear a parent is responsible. For autonomous machines these are the owners. Machines may be autonomous, but if a real person is liable, then I am sure there will be plenty of checks and tests done to prevent any disasters.

In fact, the results of the accounting scandals not so long ago may be a good template. Investors were fully dependent on this autonomous, faceless, financial machine to churn out profits. That blew up in their face and they had no-one to blame. One result was the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley which set, amongst other things, criminal penalties on individuals.

That is good motivation: accountability.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. However you forget one thing: Parents are not liable for damage their children do. E.g. in Germany as long as parents do not violate the obligatory supervision neither can they nor their children be made liable for any acts of their children.

<comment><USER2> Your example implicitly means that you do agree someone needs to be made liable for the child through 'obligatory supervision' - because if you don't do that, you will be accountable.

You say 'as long as parents do not violate'. Indeed, as long as you do what is required to ensure nothing goes wrong ("bonus pater familias"), but an accident still happens, then society/German Law accepts no one is liable.

Your argument seems to point more to: How do you define someone as liable and how do you enforce it?

<comment><USER4> If we take the case of the robot surgeon, then the person/institution who made the decision to use the robot would presumably be responsible (e.g. in this case, the hospital). The 'obligatory supervision' in this case would mean running regular tests, getting it repaired, etc...

I think in most cases we can come up with someone who is responsible for the robot. The person who owns it will generally be the person responsible but there will be exceptions (e.g. if I borrow your robot, break the "don't attack people" software and then use it).

If, after doing all the maintenance, the robot surgeon still kills someone, then you would need to investigate. Did something go wrong with the robot? If so, is this a defect in design that the manufacturers should have thought of? If so, blame them. If not, well, no one is to blame (unless it happens with the next model... where they should have learned from the past). I suspect we'd also end up seeing recalls of robots when flaws are detected, as we do with cars occasionally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Software defects kill people on an infrequent but fairly regular basis. Legal precedent and licensing agreements suggest that this is the software user's fault, not the manufacturer's.

So I assume we'll carry on with this preposterous state of affairs and just extend it to software-in-machines killing people autonomously, 'cause a defect in that _still_ wouldn't be the manufacturer's fault, right?

<comment><USER6> We also have fairly well-developed laws and case law on animal attacks. If you keep a chihuahua in a jurisdiction which does not have strict liability, and it bites someone, you are likely not at fault unless you had reason to know it was prone to violence AND you took insufficient steps to restrain it. Your local jurisdiction may have strict liability ("It is the owner's fault, period") or may have designated certain breeds as "aggressive dogs" whose owners are presumptively liable.

You could see this happening with the law of machines, too. Roomba crushes someone? Awful but lawful. KillBot9000 mistakes a troop of Girl Scouts for armed revolutionaries? You're probably going to end up liable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know, but expect to see Hofstadter and Searle debate by proxy in a courtroom, because Searle's Chinese Room argument is exactly the sort of thing you could put over on a typical jury.

<comment><USER2> I had not heard of this before, but very interesting!

For those wanting more info: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room>

<comment><USER7> If you found it interesting then you really need to read <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach> ...and indeed, pretty much everything else he has written.

It seems to me that the long slow debate between these two philophers (add in Daniel Dennett on Hofstadter's side) turns on the fundamental philosophical question of where consciousness begins and ends, which has considerable ramifications beyond the field of artificial intelligence. I reject Searle's argument for reasons too long to go into here, but he is a very interesting philosopher in his own right.

While I'm on this topic, I may as well also mention Stanislaw Lem's essay _Non Serviam_ excerpted here ([http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-19-non- serviam....](http://themindi.blogspot.com/2007/02/chapter-19-non- serviam.html)) from _A Perfect Vacuum: Perfect reviews of nonexistent books_. Much, perhaps most, of Lem's output is concerned with the nature of consciousness and autonomy explored through the medium of fiction, just as Philip K dick tends to explore the same questions from a psychological standpoint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This question exists because humans _demand_ a cause for each effect, and a "responsible party" for every tragedy. Sometimes, things are just "accidents."

A colleague of my dad's tripped and fell while walking down a set of _three_ stairs, hit his head, and died. It was nobody's fault -- it was just bad luck.

<comment><USER5> But that ignores the idea that somebody designs and builds an autonomous machine.

If an airplane autopilot sends a plane full of people into a mountain due to a defect in the software, who is liable?

<comment><USER9> The FAA (and common sense) treats an autopilot as just a fancy interface to the actual control surfaces of the aircraft, meaning the pilot-in-command is still responsible.

Even on autopilot, I'm supposed to be monitoring the systems, keeping track of where we are, where we're headed, the weather, etc. If my autopilot sends me towards a mountain, it's on me (practically and legally) to fix it.

<comment><USER4> Sure, but if you see some bad weather and decide to turn off autopilot... and the system won't let you, then the company is to blame (legally, though practically you'd obviously do everything you can to make sure you survive).

The decision would need to be made case by case in courts to determine who (if anyone) is responsible. At least in court systems like the US has. For very different systems, I'm not sure.

<comment><USER9> The certification process for autopilots, even for light single-engine aircraft, is designed to prevent "autopilot can't be turned off or over- ridden" scenarios.

Can it prevent all of them? No, but mine has a mandatory self-test that has to complete before it can be engaged, there is a dedicated breaker with a collar so I can kill power to just the autopilot, failing that I can kill the power to all avionics, failing that kill all electrical power, and failing all that each of the servos has a clutch on it that can easily be over-ridden by even the daintiest pilot. If the autopilot is commanding a left turn that I don't want, I can mechanically override it, or I have 4 electrical ways to shut it off. That takes "autopilot can't be disengaged" way, way down on the list of things to worry about, especially when compared to flying behind a single piston engine, with no anti-icing equipment.

If I fly my airplane into a mountain, the NTSB report will say: Probable cause: The pilot in command's failure to maintain clearance from terrain, resulting in in-flight collision with mountainous terrain. They may add: Contributing causes were: <some list of lesser causes such as weather, lighting conditions, failure of navigation equipment, projected spatial disorientation, and if they have evidence to support it, autopilot malfunction or more likely, pilot's incorrect or insufficient reaction to that malfunction>. The likelihood that S-tec [maker of my autopilot] is found liable is precisely 0.00%.

<comment><USER4> Wow... taking the autopilot example too literally.

I suppose there is no need for me to point this out, but I'm not a pilot and have never flown anything, with or without autopilot. I was just using this as an example of "something going wrong with the machine" to show that there are times you would blame the pilot and times you would blame the company who built the autopilot. If autopilot is a bad example, replace it with some other autonomous machine... or pretend that we were back in the stone ages of autopilots when things could go wrong. Or, I'll make up a new example where the autopilot all of a sudden inverts the plane and then sets it right before you get a chance to turn it off therefore injuring one of the passengers. Lets not get too caught up in the specifics of autopilots and aviation laws, etc...

That said, having a number of failsafe mechanisms (like the ones you described) would be a critical part of any autonomous system, especially in the early stages, which would, of course, affect who we end up blaming.

<comment><USER9> I recognized that you weren't confining yourself to specifically autopilots, but I felt that describing the autopilot failsafes (even on $50K family airplane) as well as the case law surrounding what people might consider to be "autonomous system" but which case law considers "fancy cotrols under command of the pilot" was useful to the discussion.

I wasn't trying to argue against any particular point of yours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The autonomous machine should be brought to court and be allowed to defend itself before any judgement is passed. They should be allowed access to legal aid even a pro deo counsel.

It is not impossible actually for a legal system - that over time has passed judgement to witches, dogs donkeys, used torture to extract confessions and in some parts of the world demands its high priests to wear funny clothes and wigs - to be modified to suit the new circumstances.

In the meantime if you developing software for automating trains, aircraft or heavy construction machinery get plenty of Professional Idemnity Insurance. If you developing software for drones, missiles or nukes don't worry, there will be nobody alive to sue you if something goes wrong!

<comment><USER4> I don't think autonomous here is the same as sentient/intelligent/etc... It just means a machine that does something without human intervention. E.g. if a Rumba takes off your toe, you can't take it to court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> God.</comment>


Is the secret to a successful crowdfunding campaign moving to a beach house? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@YallahAline/what-if-the-secret-for-a-successful-crowdfunding-campaign-was-to-move-to-a-beach-house-502b77c17d1a

<comment><USER2> Sensationalist title but the concept is solid - I think these sort of "let's go to the beach and hack/launch/brainstorm like mad people" trips are the new version of geeks gathering in basements for the same end-result.

...Now that I think about it, who wants to see geeks with neck-beards and sun- tans on the beach!? *shudders

</comment><comment><USER3> As someone who used to live near Taghazout, it's definitely a nice environment to focus on what you love to do, & let ideas flourish.

</comment><comment><USER4> I love the idea! I am planning to start my project in 6 months, I would love to benefit from your experience !

</comment><comment><USER5> It may be. Definitely worth trying, anyway!</comment>


LISA Akoya - Amphibious light aircraft to be available in the US soon. - <AUTHOR> http://www.lisa-airplanes.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> It competes with the Icon A5. Here are some additional links :

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LISA_Akoya>

[http://www.justluxe.com/lifestyle/aircraft/feature-1645924.p...](http://www.justluxe.com/lifestyle/aircraft/feature-1645924.php)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RqovFiz-Xw></comment>


How Mayvenn built community and raised from A16Z - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sendsonar.com/2015/06/19/how-mayvenn-grew-its-community-using-sms/

<comment><USER2> I wonder if SMS is being effective now because it's under-utilized by companies and is known to be a channel more typically free from business notifications.. if lots of companies started using SMS would it become too noisy and change user perception about how they wish to be notified / kept part of the community?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a bit of "with great power, comes great responsibility" situation. It's really easy to piss someone off if you keep texting them. That's why Sonar is all about high touch two-way SMS, and that's largely how Mayvenn uses SMS as well. To use SMS effectively, it's important to let users opt in themselves, so they know to expect SMS and have the option to opt out. Mayvenn places their phone number on their website and asks customers if they want to opt in on the registration form.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this case study to analyze how Mayvenn built up to 10s of millions in revenue and 30,000 hair stylsits across the United States. It was great to talk to Taylor Wang (COO of Mayvenn) and get his thoughts on it all. Esp on Email vs. SMS. Let me know if anyone has any questions!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really great. We talk a lot about reducing friction. Have other company's experience been similar to Mayvenn's in-terms of conversations?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, some examples are service businesses to coordinate with users--(Rinse, Shyp, Handy etc.) Handy is even using it to register users for recurring cleaning service if they had a good experience. Delivery on demand companies are using it to allow opt out (Susie assumes you want a meal from them everyday unless you opt out of it.) Mayvenn's definitely the first to apply SMS to Ecommerce so well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great case study by nbhartiya on how Mayvenn used SMS to really drive home the personal touch for a huge community of stylists.

</comment><comment><USER5> VC BUBBLE</comment>


Bergamo, Italy: 70 military vehicles haul away coronavirus corpses for cremation - <AUTHOR> https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/03/18/foto/bergamo_non_c_e_piu_posto_70_mezzi_militari_portano_le_salme_fuori_dalla_regione-251650969/1/ <comment><AUTHOR> Google Translate English version: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.repubblica.it%2Fcronaca%2F2020%2F03%2F18%2Ffoto%2Fbergamo_non_c_e_piu_posto_70_mezzi_militari_portano_le_salme_fuori_dalla_regione-251650969%2F1%2F%3Fref%3Dfbpr%231)

 _> To relieve the burial chamber of the cemetery - with no more space available - it had been necessary in recent days to line up the coffins of the deceased in the church of Ognissanti, inside the cemetery. Since yesterday, the solution identified to deal with the emergency has been the use of army vehicles._</comment>


A Kingdom from Dust (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://story.californiasunday.com/resnick-a-kingdom-from-dust <comment><USER2> It is all fun and games until the last drop of water gets sucked up. Then they will (already are in some cases) bitch and complain that other states don't pipeline then hundreds of millions of gallons of water while disparaging those same states for not following the same short-sighted and unsustainable practices.

<comment><USER3> Basically like the states that want to take water from the great lakes. Texas is crying foul because of New Mexico's actions. Florida expects to be given access to the water resources of Georgia, (even though the Army Corps of Engineers has been clear that Georgia needs the resources for things like navigation and, crucially, flood control.) States like Nevada expect access to Great Lakes water. You even have really weird situations, like places that really are untenable even in the Great Lakes region, demanding water be diverted for their use. For instance, Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Water wars are really going to be a mess in the near future. Right now we just have some agitated tussling.

Just wait until the _real_ arguments start, it's gonna be bad.

[1] [https://www.greatlakeslaw.org/blog/2018/07/supreme_court_con...](https://www.greatlakeslaw.org/blog/2018/07/supreme_court_considers_federal_interests_and_powers_in_interstate_water_cases.html)

[2] [http://www.startribune.com/the-great-siphoning-drought- stric...](http://www.startribune.com/the-great-siphoning-drought-stricken- areas-eye-the-great-lakes/483743681/)

[3] [https://www.petoskeynews.com/featured-pnr/opposition- mounts-...](https://www.petoskeynews.com/featured-pnr/opposition-mounts- against-wisconsin-town-s-request-for-great- lakes/article_3e78bc57-84cf-57d1-b550-3871af90d5b0.html)

<comment><USER4> > Florida expects to be given access to the water resources of Georgia, (even > though the Army Corps of Engineers has been clear that Georgia needs the > resources for things like navigation and, crucially, flood control.)

My dumb model says that adding a large drain to Georgia's water system (aqueducts to Florida) is a pretty strong flood control in itself. How does this damage Georgia's flood control capacity?

<comment><USER5> Because the issue is flood _control_. Simply lowering Georgia's water table doesn't change the fact that there's variable input.

Also places with less water can still flood. See Arizona.

<comment><USER4> > Simply lowering Georgia's water table doesn't change the fact that there's > variable input.

But that's not what I asked about. The idea was to massively increase Georgia's water output capacity. This would seem to make it easier to handle unexpectedly large input.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's interesting to think of the state of California as one ginormous mining- town. Only instead of some rare mineral that will one day be exhausted, it's the groundwater in the aquifer that underlies the entire valley.

The concept of virtual water may help us to treat this vital resource with more care. I'm imagining something like a nutrition label, where there's an estimate of how many liters/gallons of water is needed to grow the food.

A quick search turned up a food/water required table: [https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how- mu...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water- food-production-waste)

Looks like we could do quite a bit to reduce our individual water usage by substituting a meal of cabbage and potatoes for a chicken dinner every so often...

<comment><USER7> The problem with that is that it's not water that's so valuable, it's water in California. Penalizing water use everywhere, even in rain-soaked places, would be counterproductive.

<comment><USER6> That's a good point. But I wouldn't classify the water usage label as "penalizing". It's more, um, informational. So if you're in CA, you might set an ideal "virtual water budget" for yourself (100 kl/mo for example), but if you're in VA, your ideal could be several times that.

<comment><USER8> But where you are located isn't what matters, it's where the water was consumed.

It does not matter where you are eating Californian almonds; those almonds still used Californian water.

<comment><USER6> That's another good point. Then the only way I could see it working universally is if you assign a price to the water consumed, where it's costlier in CA than VA.

Then you can say that a single almond grown in CA uses $.001 H2O, but in VA it's $.0001 H2O, or something like that.

It's just a thought experiment, of course. But it seems like a worthwhile one, if only to introduce the idea of accountability for the cost of water consumption in various foods.

<comment><USER9> The normal way to do this is to charge for the ingredient at source. It seems easier to change the California laws (constitution?) so that agriculture pays per gallon of water.

<comment><USER10> I don't know the specifics in California but property rights in water are complex, especially in the Western U.S. A mere change in regulations, even under a state constitution, might constitute a regulatory taking (i.e. a taking of property requiring just compensation under the 5th Amendment).

Because the issues are so complex, the legal terrain so unclear, and the consequences of an adverse court ruling so substantial, not to mention the politics, legislators are reticent to impose such strong measures.

<comment><USER7> Water laws are loose because they were written in a world where groundwater is almost as plentiful as air. Locations where this is still true should keep their simple laws (nobody wants a trillion detailed laws if there is no need), but places like California need to get more sophisticated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > One day water will be more valuable than oil, and like oil it will start > wars.

Is this true? Its true that _natural_ sources of water might be scant, but what happens if we just build huge desal plants all along the CA coast and pipe in the water? And what if those desal plants are powered by cheap renewable energy?

<comment><USER12> Before that happen, it will probably be cheaper to buy water from poorer countries, which will destabilize those regions (locals won't be able to buy their own water), and thus start war.

<comment><USER13> Water is heavy, and almost none of the water used in the world is used for human consumption. It will never make more economic sense to ship water long distances than to move the economic activities that require it to the source of the water. This is leaving aside the subject of aqueducts, but there's really only so long you can make an aqueduct, and most countries border countries in roughly similar economic situations. Siphoning water from "poorer countries" via aqueducts is not going to be a thing.

<comment><USER4> > there's really only so long you can make an aqueduct

This doesn't make any sense. Oil pipelines cross continents.

<comment><USER14> Good luck watering your fields with a 1m diam pipeline...

<comment><USER15> Or, to expand on this, a gallon of oil makes a car go dozens of miles, while a gallon of water won't even flush a toilet; volumetrically, the US uses about 50 times as much water as oil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The unexcerpted article is at [https://story.californiasunday.com/resnick-a- kingdom-from-du...](https://story.californiasunday.com/resnick-a-kingdom-from- dust)

<comment><USER17> Yes. We've changed the URL to that from [https://longreads.com/2018/02/05/the- couple-who-turned-a-cal...](https://longreads.com/2018/02/05/the-couple-who- turned-a-california-desert-into-a-multi-billion-dollar-snack-empire/)

There was also this thread last year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16291845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16291845).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I would urge everybody to watch the National Geographic video on Netflix "Water & Power: A California Heist". Gives a complete different view of this couple.

[https://www.netflix.com/title/80168231](https://www.netflix.com/title/80168231)

<comment><USER19> >Gives a complete different view of this couple.

The impression I got from the article wasn't one that wholly praised them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The Dollop (comedy/history podcast) did an entertaining episode about these psychopaths. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38R-OOVfz7A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38R-OOVfz7A)

<comment><USER21> Came here to say this. I was amazed at just how deep that rabbit hole goes; an incredibly entertaining/depressing view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> [https://vimeo.com/301508642](https://vimeo.com/301508642) : A documentary on Pistachio Wars ... this story is well known and everyone from politicians in Sacramento and DC to Big Ag is complicit.

All the nuts exported during our 'drought' was really California Water that was being exported and that tax payers fund through bond measures every election.

</comment><comment><USER23> The bit about water one day being more valuable than land seems to be half truth and half someone who has never lived on the otger side of the US where we have too much water.

Farmers in south central VA work to keep their land dry because it rains here everyday and we average about 4" a month.

<comment><USER24> You're not gonna ship that water to California.

<comment><USER25> If the article is correct that water will become more valuable than oil, then of course you're gonna ship that water to California. The economics will mandate it.

Now whether the article is correct about that prediction is another question. It's an understatement to say I'm skeptical. Desalination plants produce expensive water, but not that expensive...

<comment><USER26> I'm skeptical that this "water more valuable than oil" prediction will come to pass.

Currently, a thousand gallons of freshwater from a desalination plant costs between $2.50 to $5 to the end consumer in the US. By contrast, a thousand gallons of West Texas Intermediate crude oil costs around $2500. And oil is becoming more scarce as we burn through it.

[https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-05-15/desalination- expensiv...](https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-05-15/desalination-expensive- energy-hog-improvements-are-way)

<comment><USER27> I would agree. Oil only exists in certain locations and is extremely difficult to get, so it necessarily has to be extracted by corporations and shipped around the world.

Water, on the other hand, covers a _lot_ of the _surface_ of the planet, and even if you're not standing by a lake or river almost anyone can dig straight down and with an hour or so of work you're likely to find water. The places where this is not true are fairly rare, and the easier solution is to move the people to where water is instead of moving water to where people are. Filtering water to be drinkable is just so much easier than getting crude oil out of the ground.

And worst case scenario, even if you have to move water from one place to another because the best farmland doesn't have water, basically anyone with a tanker truck and a hose can supply water pretty cheap. There's just not enough barriers to entry in the water business.

The only way I see water becoming more valuable than oil is if oil demand falls so far that it's practically worthless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It isn't looking great for pistachio cultivation in Iran either - [https://phys.org/news/2016-09-iran-pistachio-farms-dying- thi...](https://phys.org/news/2016-09-iran-pistachio-farms-dying-thirst.html)

We have more frequent droughts in many parts of the world as a result of climate change, and groundwater reserves are being depleted - this will have a large impact on where crops can be grown

</comment><comment><USER29> So, is it me, or is their font choice obnoxiously hard to read? Why can't people just choose screen readable fonts.

This is their font: [http://www.hoftype.com/sinanova](http://www.hoftype.com/sinanova)

It is very obvious it was designed for printed text, not screens. It's like they wanted Garamond (ahem: [https://designforhackers.com/blog/garamond/](https://designforhackers.com/blog/garamond/)), but shot themselves in the foot with an even worse one.

Usually I can prove bad font choices happen because of web developers being obsessed with rare computers (Retina-equipped Macs, forgetting the rest of the universe uses normal-DPI Windows machines), but I just looked on my HiDPI screen... it's nearly unreadable there too.

Is anyone else having this problem?

<comment><USER30> Same here, the font is terrible for mobile devices telling from seeing it on iOS and Android. Strangely, the web version with an updated browser does not have this problem.

<comment><USER29> So, I tried it in other browsers (look, if I have to use other browsers to _read things_ , the Internet has a problem), Edge is most readable in LoDPI, Chrome still is visually fatiguing but readable, Firefox has the most correct rendering but also the worst readability (I'm primarily a Firefox user).

On HiDPI (2x DPI on Apple Retina), its, eh, all of them are readable but fatiguing, no clear winner.

On my 3x dpi Android phone, its the least bad due to just the shear number of pixels. In Firefox and in Chrome, it still exhibits a lot of oddity. The stems are inconsistent in their width (being skinny and being at such high DPI makes it very noticeable), and the visual rhythm of the words is even worse.

I don't even want to read the article anymore, screw it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If the owners of the almond orchards were, say, thousands of small farmers instead of a billionaire, I think I could put a really positive slant on this story:

* The amount of protein one gets from almonds per unit of water is far higher than the amount of protein one gets from raising livestock

* Almonds are considered a relatively healthy food with relatively high quantities of antioxidants (including vitamin e)

* Almond trees sequester carbon but livestock create additional methane -- one of the worst greenhouse gases

* Trees clean the air of other pollutants

* At least some of the water used to water almond trees soaks back into the ground without becoming fouled by animal waste products

* California water policies are helping the little guy -- the small farmer and poor immigrants

</comment><comment><USER31> There was an article on HN some time back, which chronicled the life of a surveyor who presented evidence to the Congress early in the history of the United States. He basically said that state lines were being drawn all wrong and that conflict over water would be baked in.

Can't for the life of me remember his name or google it up, but it looks _very_ apt for this discussion.

</comment><comment><USER32> California is a special place. No where else in the USA/Canada do you have such a wonderful climate where you can have so many growing seasons (6?). It is the Bread Basket of NA.

It would be worth helping find a solution to provide this area of the country with water.

<comment><USER33> Unless North America is into eating Strawberry flavored Almond Bread, CA is not bread Basket of NA.

Garlic basket - Yes, Strawberry Basket - Yes,

Nut Basket - For sure (if you count hollywood celeb and eccentric world saviors of SV).

But bread basket .. nope. The people of CA think the sun rotates around them. The most arable land in 'Murica is the mid-west and Mississippi river system. America with out CA will happily feed itself without missing a beat, without Almond milk of course.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, I just love the Mid-West and Mississippi fresh fruit and fresh vegetables in the middle of Winter. Who knew they had a harvest of Lettuce in January.

<comment><USER17> This comment breaks the site guidelines. Please review [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and follow the rules when posting here. They include "Don't be snarky."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Reading this I couldn't stop thinking about the Jack Nicholson movie Chinatown. It's a story of rich men fighting over water rights in the thirties. Apparently very little in California has changed over the years.

<comment><USER35> "Chinatown" was a simplified take on the water wars in California ( [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_water_wars) ). The book "Cadillac Desert" is a somewhat depressing history of what happened. The whole thing, including the present day, is the story of how something beautiful to the beholder can be built upon a squalid mess from the get-go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Help me out here. Why is using such vast quantities of water necessarily a bad thing? It evaporates right back into the atmosphere and then condenses and finds its way to the rivers again and again. It doesn't disappear. It doesn't get irretrievably ruined with industrial chemicals. Is this mostly about limited capacity?

<comment><USER37> In California, we're drawing down groundwater sources faster than we're replenishing them.

<comment><USER36> Is this irrigation water ground water though? That'd be pretty uncommon, no? Usually irrigation comes from nearby rivers. Again, I'm not at all an expert at this, just trying to understand the facts without the bias this article shows.

<comment><USER38> It absolutely is. That's how water rights in this state work. You own the land, you can tap the aquifer to your heart's content. If you're poor and can't afford to chase the water table down, then you no longer get water.

The ground is subsiding due to this[1]

See East Porterville[2] as an example

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterville,_California#Enviro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porterville,_California#Environmental_issues)

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the links, I got a much better understanding of the situation now. Now I don't get why this is allowed to continue.

<comment><USER38> It's a minefield of property rights and politics. Land owners have water rights. The state can't (or won't) just arbitrarily yank those rights without compensation. At this point, I think that compensation would be in the very high billions of dollars? I'm not sure what the value is.

Water in California is a complicated story. The right solution might be to take over the rights from the private owners and ration water in a systemic way. But politically that is still a non-starter.

If this had been foreseen way back when, with water being treated as a public resource to be auctioned to the highest bidder, we'd all be better off. But it's too late to easily switch to that. There are way too many rights-of- ownership to untangle.

Imagine if the FCC never existed, and spectrum rights were instead allocated based on who has the tallest and most powerful transmitter. That's loosely how water is currently apportioned. He who has the deepest well and thirstiest crops gets the water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> _> In the Wonderful fields, he tells me, at least 80 percent of the workers carry no documents or documents that are not real. U.S. immigration has little say-so here. Rather, it is the authority vested in Wonderful that counts._

Interesting to consider in this context how illegal immigration has facilitated a continuing and escalating cost to society by subsidizing labor and environmental externalities for inefficient (and ultimately ill-fated) industries.

<comment><USER40> The benefits of this labor go to the private business, while the economic and social costs (education, healthcare including pregnancies the workers don't earn enough to pay for, so the state pays for it) are borne by others.

<comment><USER24> And they scapegoat the workers who are powerless, instead of the employers, like Trump.

<comment><USER36> Except, of course, Trump is trying to get them to hire workers who are not powerless, and can legally demand the minimum wage and protection under US law at least.

<comment><USER41> His policies are designed to selectively terrorize migrant labor and make it impossible for them to have recourse to the state. This keeps wages low because no private businesses are seriously penalized for employing migrant labor, but the laborers themselves are at risk of being brutalized by the immigration authorities if they attempt to seek redress for unfair treatment by their employers.

The way to actually resolve the issue would be to aggressively enforce labor laws without regard to the worker's immigration status, because they would remove the incentive for private business to use migrant labor in the first place.

<comment><USER36> It's not "migrant" labor. It's labor which consists of people who _have broken US law_, and it's hired by people who are also breaking US law. It's like that article a few weeks back which called an armed home invader an "unwanted house visitor". These people _can't legally work here_, like, at all. If this is something you don't like, have your congresspeople change the law. Selective enforcement of laws is an insanely slippery slope, you won't like where it ends.

I'm an immigrant myself. I didn't just come here and start working. I had to go through a lot of hoops so that the US would make sure I wasn't going to be a burden and my presence in the US could be good for the US.

<comment><USER42> > It's labor which consists of people who _have broken US law_, and it's hired > by people who are also breaking US law

Of which Trump himself is guilty of [0]. Why isn't Trump in jail for that specific crime already then? You see the parent's point now?

[0] - [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-trump-organization- emp...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-trump-organization-employed- illegal-immigrants-2019-01-30)

<comment><USER36> Seems like you wanted to use the verb "was", at least according to the article. And I very much doubt Trump knowingly hired illegals as there are severe criminal punishments for knowingly hiring more than 10.

<comment><USER42> > And I very much doubt Trump knowingly hired illegals

I very much doubt any somewhat-savvy businessperson hires illegals "knowingly". In other words, it's just plausible deniability.

<comment><USER36> Farmers do.

<comment><USER42> Source?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter + BOSS = Real Time Search on the Google App Engine - <AUTHOR> http://zooie.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/twitter-boss-real-time-search/

<comment><USER2> How does it find the "related" tweets? any ideas?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure what you mean beyond the twitter API call with the query string, but the source code is available (link from end of post). Most of the work is in file fresh.py.

<http://vik.singh.googlepages.com/fresh.zip></comment></comment>


One-bit Computing at 60 Hz - <AUTHOR> http://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/One-bit%20computer/One-bit%20computer.html <comment><USER2> This reminds me of Dave Taylor's "Pinky Processor." [1] Crack dot com has been shut down for years, so I couldn't find a better source, but the idea was to have single bit processors and they could be linked in a "Pinky Farm" to work in parallel. Every instruction would be this type of branching instruction and it could handle calculations by performing table look ups. 15+ years ago people had even written assemblers and emulators to demonstrate the theory. Shortly after publishing his paper, Dave Taylor went to work for Transmeta on the Crusoe processor and any research into Pinky processors faded out of existence.

[1] [http://tech-beta.slashdot.org/story/98/06/06/136239/pinky- pr...](http://tech-beta.slashdot.org/story/98/06/06/136239/pinky-processor)

</comment><comment><USER3> This a very sweet and cool design, it is nice to see this theorical idea applied to a real use case. I think it should be demonstrable that for a turing machine, for a size-bound input state space, there is a data bus width (with matching eprom and register) for this kind of machine, so that it emulated the said Turing machine. Also, the eprom is a non-invertible function, but there again is always a wider bus, register and eprom, this time with a reversible (injective) action, that would have, nontrivially, equivalent behaviour. In this reversible case, the action of the eprom could be expressed in terms of a unitary transformation acting on a quantum register, so the traces of the register values against time would be a subset of the valid quantum state dynamical trajectories. In this case the two I/O chips below are not required, and the system would evolve autonomously after an initial state. So look, this computer is a cousin of a quantum circuit.

<comment><USER4> Interesting, the first thing I thought of was the (classical/non-quantum) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_instruction_set_computer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_instruction_set_computer)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It'd probably be pretty easy to reimplement this in wood and marbles.

Ex:

[http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd/](http://woodgears.ca/marbleadd/)

[http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/37...](http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/375-dcii)

<comment><USER6> How would you even begin to implement a 1kB byte-addressable EPROM using wood and marbles? That's probably the most complex part of this computer.

<comment><USER5> Send the byte in a parallel set of channels, which set a register value, which dumps the correct row of memory.

Maybe "pretty easy" was a misnomer. It'd take up a wall. "Pretty easy" in comparison to implementing a 6800 in wood and marbles, or something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My first instinct in this situation (adding some automation to a printing press) would be to reach for a microcontroller. I always overlook how much can actually be done without one.

<comment><USER8> Yes, certainly! And I admire the author to have put the idea into production.

For even more inspiration, the "Application Handbook" linked to on the Wikipedia-page for the MC145000B has a lot more examples similar in spirit: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MC14500B](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_MC14500B)

But then, in an industrial job, you'd be scolded for the implementation, because only few of the colleagues would be able to follow this thought or make modifications to the logic stored in the 2kByte ROM.

I don't know about the precise time the article-author had put his logic into use, but PALs (the predecessors of FPGAs) were available since 1980 or so, and they should have been sufficient to implement the "printing-press" logic mentioned, and they meet the "programmable" requirement.

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

(it seems the 2716 used in the article's schematic was introduced 1977 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPROM](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPROM) )

<comment><USER9> Assuming that specification of logic performed was in form of some state diagram or flowchart, transforming that into contents of that ROM is pretty straightforward, you just assign memory addresses to states and then follow arrows.

PAL seems to be natural choice for this, but:

* this circuit has more state than what would fit into PAL22V10 (I don't know if it is really necessary), which is largest common PAL device (it would not fit even into 26V12, might into GAL6001) * rewriting some state machine description into logic equations for PAL compiler is significantly more work than creating contents of that ROM. * PAL programmer is more specialized piece of hardware than (E)PROM programmer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would label this a finite state machine more than a computer. Still, if it got the job done, great. It doesn't say when he created it, but if it was any time in the past 15 years, a microcontroller would have been smaller, cheaper, and easier.

<comment><USER9> Judging from the 74C logic and 2716 this was designed more than 20 years ago. In today's situation only expensive component in this thing is the 2716 (or just about any (E)PROM) and I believe that even few years ago this thing would be in single quantities cheaper than using microcontroller (although not significantly).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I may have missed something in my quick read, but isn't this a 0 bit processor?

There is only one instruction, and no No-op,

To be a one bit, shouldn't there be 2 instructions? one for 0 and one for 1.

Again I apologize if I missed something, I get a little fuzzy about what a Single operation processor should be since 1 bit has 2 states.

<comment><USER9> One bit refers to it having exactly one bit of what could be called "architecture state" or "datapath", that is the second channel of lower 74C374 going from input to A0 of program store. "Instruction" has two phases and result of first phase determines what will happen next by means of this one bit (by changing which pointer to next instruction will be read from memory).</comment></comment>


Show HN: App recommending free Wifi based on hotspot heuristics and crowd-input - <AUTHOR> http://wifimapper.com/?ref=hn

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, what is your reason for using wifi hotspots in today's world?

Personally, I don't bother connecting to a wifi network anymore (except when I'm at home or at work) because the mobile network is just so fast and convenient.

Even when abroad, I just buy a local SIM card and use that.

<comment><USER3> Seems like you don't travel to the countries with poor/oversubscribed mobile coverage (i.e: Argentina).

<comment><USER4> +1 Funnily enough, I'm in Argentina right now working on the Android version of WifiMapper as we speak.

<comment><USER3> Great! we can have lunch next week if you are available.

<comment><USER4> Sure, I'm on a super hectic schedule, so it may just be a drink and some empanadas, but let's set something up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a rating in the app that says "% of people who were actually able to get online".

I've been to many places where they say there is "WiFi", but it's either not free, difficult to get on, or only free for certain people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed - this is exactly the challenge we are working on. In future versions I think we will provide more detail on the classifications (e.g. 6 out of 7 users marked this as Free).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi all - I'm one of the founders of OpenSignal and wanted to add some technical detail on what we're doing here - It's a V1 (although 4 years in the making!) and would love any feedback.

The source of the Wifi database is our existing app OpenSignal [1] which crowdsources data on the coverage of mobile networks. We also collect data on Wifi hotspots and have since mapped over 500 million of these since 2010. Although we can automatically detect if a password is required to connect, determining if it's free or not is another challenge as there are plenty of non password protected walled-garden hotspots and plenty of (what we consider) free hotspots where you still need to find out the password (e.g. cafes, restaurants etc).

So our algorithm looks at a number of heuristics of each hotspots including (but not limited to):

\- Are there clues in the SSID (e.g. does it mention +ve keywords like 'free', 'cafe' or -ve keywords like 'staff', 'private', 'employees' etc).

\- Is it part of a wider network that we know more about (e.g. 'ATT-wifi', 'Starbucks-Wifi' etc)

\- Do we know what kind of place it is? (e.g. if it's a cafe, is it more or less likely to be free?)

\- Is there a walled-garden behind the hotspot (we attempt some automatic background checking of this similar to the way Android & iOS will do this on new hotspots).

\- How many distinct users have we detected connecting to a particular hotspot (If many, is that a sign it's a public place?)

This is just a sample - we look at over 20 different heuristics on each Wifi, none of which are individually conclusive, but together give us a strong indication on whether a Wifi hotspot is free or not.

However, it's unlikely we will ever be able to completely accurately classify free Wifi through a purely hueristic algorithm which is why with this new app we are asking for user input to help us curate this algorithm. Not only can users help tweak any hotspots that we have classified incorrectly, but we can train our algorithms to be smarter by learning from their input. We believe that this dual approach of an automated algorithm combined with manual curation from the crowd is the best way to solve a problem like this in the long run (not least because we didn't want to provide users with a blank canvas and ask them to classify Wifi without us doing any of the hard work first!).

Any feedback much appreciated!

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

EDIT: Tweaked line formatting

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice to see London on a screenshot and not San Francisco for once! Congrats on the launch.

</comment><comment><USER7> If you are in Europe, take a look at the FON service. [1]

[1] [http://maps.fon.com/en](http://maps.fon.com/en)

<comment><USER8> +1. Here in Portugal we're covered in FON hotspots, thanks to our biggest ISP including it in their routers. Buying a Fonera router was the best $40 I've ever spent - I know have Wifi on almost every populated street of the country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm traveling in Argentina right now, and I downloaded the app before heading out. Then saw this screen: [http://i.imgur.com/QvaIf0w.png](http://i.imgur.com/QvaIf0w.png) while trying to use it. ... doesn't this defeat the original purpose of the app?

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a way to try Android beta without going anywhere near Google+? (I'm banned from + for using a pseudonym).

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you shoot us an email? We can probably send you the APK file: [http://opensignal.com/blog/contact/](http://opensignal.com/blog/contact/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks. I've got the APK from @milankragujevic, but found that the application itself wants a Google+ login, so I can't participate :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice, but isn't it a safety risk to log on a Wifi network you know nothing about ? You should probably warn users not to do any kind of sensitive browsing on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, there are risks involved, but I'd argue that connecting to public Wifi is a pretty common existing habit already. There are good ways to stay protected though whilst doing this e.g. using a VPN.

<comment><USER11> You'd be surprised how many people don't even know what a VPN is... :/

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally appreciate this is not something the average user understands. In the long run it would be nice if we could offer VPN style functionality without users actually having to understand what a VPN actually is (e.g. an "Enter secure mode" button, but that's a longer term feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does it work offline?

<comment><USER13> +1 Seems pointless if it doesn't.

<comment><USER14> So your phone can't connect to the internet at all without wifi? You should get that checked out.

<comment><USER8> Not everyone has a mobile data plan...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> i just wanted to add free wifi hotspot but i refuse to sign in with facebook. please add different kind of login.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll be adding sign-in via email soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tried adding one hotspot and got "Sorry! We didn't manage to get a response from the server".

</comment><comment><USER17> Typed in wifimapper on my iPhone here in the UK. It says no results. Have you checked that?

<comment><USER18> It takes a while for the App Store to index new apps for search (which is annoying), but the app is live! You can see it here - [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wifimapper-free-wifi- maps/id...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wifimapper-free-wifi- maps/id935258365?mt=8).

<comment><USER17> Ah I see! Congrats on the launch today! Will download from direct link instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Microsoft WiFi Sense does something very similar on Windows Phones.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a number of others building hotspot databases like this but mainly taking a purely automatic, heuristic approach. Our plan is to augment this with an engaged community of users who can help curate the database further in a way that isn't possible through an automated-only approach. See my comment below for more details.

<comment><USER20> Wifi Sense actually shares credentials with your contacts and vice versa, so you automatically connect to hotspots within your (social) network. Not sure exactly how it handles duplicate SSIDs and things; probably with the heuristics you are talking about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> says 'server offline' in Melbourne, Australia

</comment><comment><USER22> it's a shame opensignal isn't more like openstreetmap with its dataset.</comment>


MasterCard's Simplify Commerce - <AUTHOR> https://www.simplify.com/commerce/ <comment><USER3> To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider.

If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't much, I'm happy to see if they can start a bit of a pricing war here. If it drives payment costs down across the board, all the better.

<comment><USER4> (I built the first version of Stripe and work here.)

I think the unfortunate aspect of these clones is that they're lazy. I have huge respect for anyone that innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company.

What I find disappointing is when a product copies _everything_ about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2/3" getting started pop-up when you create your account to the nomenclature of "InvoiceItems" to the ordering of tabs in the account settings.

It's certainly MasterCard's (and anyone's) prerogative to do that, but I don't think it's particularly worthy of support from other engineers and makers.

We should encourage each other any time we see great, original work -- creativity is hard, and new ideas are often delicate in the early days. It'd be really cool if MasterCard did _that_ , but Simplify unfortunately doesn't seem to have anything that's new. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!)

<comment><USER5> The SV expectation/mentality that if someone builds something first they "own" that space is unjustifiable. I'm not say you are saying that, but it is an implicit attitude in the Valley.

Competition (or "clones") were around 100 years ago, continue to exist today and will be around for the next 100 years. Today's innovation is tomorrow's commodity thanks to competition. This is good.

Is it disappointing that MasterCard launched a similar service? Sure, I would too be disappointed and I sympathise.

Having said that, stating that "a product copies everything" is not really true. They can not copy execution, culture, customer service, customer loyalty, etc. You have that on your side.

People think that Ford Motor was one of the first (if not the only) car manufacturer in States in the early 1900s, but it was quite the contrary. The car was a revolutionary technology: it had a combustion engine, it was fast, etc. Over 100 car companies were launched in the early 1900s. All of them car startups. When the technology goes in one direction it is difficult to be the salmon that swims upstream, in the opposite direction. To tell those +100 car startups to "go and innovate, I own the combustion engine on top of four wheels" is simple unrealistic. Expect competition, that's my point.

How did Ford survive having less resources than many others? How did Ford survive the great depression? Execution. It improved the assembly line, vertically integrated to bring more production in-house, etc.

Stripe's case should be no different. Today's technology and innovation is commoditised in months. Execution can't be commoditised. Don't expect competitors to rest on their laurels.

<comment><USER6> > People think that Ford Motor was one of the first (if not the only) car > manufacturer in States in the early 1900s, but it was quite the contrary. > The car was a revolutionary technology: it had a combustion engine, it was > fast, etc. Over 100 car companies were launched in the early 1900s.

There were over 1,800 automobile manufacturers in the United States from 1896 to 1930. Very few survived and only a few new ones were started after that period.

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

<comment><USER7> A lot of the reason for the lack of very many new car companies for decades has been due to insider sponsored regulations meant to target upstarts and using political power to crush competitors (which of course has been tried on Tesla in a variety of ways).

Not suggesting you didn't know that, but it's still worthwhile to point out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Check out [https://www.simplify.com//](https://www.simplify.com//) (the double slash ending is important).

<comment><USER9> What was there? Just getting a 404...or is that your point?

<comment><USER8> Ahhh, they shut it down already. It was a page with links to login to their JBOSS admin pages and such. You needed passwords, of course, but still, not the sort of thing you want clients to randomly stumble across.

<comment><USER10> Bloody hell, that is an instant, trust destroying, security cock-up. You can set JBoss to bind to a separate IP address (i.e. one not publicly accessible etc.) for all management functions, it is a simple configuration change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something that caught my eye: the name "Simplify" is pretty close to "Simple", the online bank service.

Different products entirely, I realize—but heck, Simple's twitter handle is even @simplify.

<comment><USER12> That was actually what drew me to the headline. I saw "Simplify" and thought it was about my bank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _At this time, however, the merchant must be a U.S. business_

Oh well...

<comment><USER14> With clones of Stripe poppin' up everywhere, I think the niche advantage would be to be able to scale the service to a number of other countries where this type of service is either expensive or unavailable (please come to Australia! - I know there is "pin", but we wouldn't mind a cheaper alternative without any monthly fees!)

<comment><USER15> Have you looked at Braintree? We're charging 2.4% and $0.30 in Australia, with no monthly fee.

<comment><USER16> Does it work similar to PIN/PayPal where you hold the money then deposit the money into a bank account or do you require a merchant account?

<comment><USER15> We work with you to get you set up with a merchant account. Unfortunately, the application process isn't instant yet like it is in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wouldn't trust anything that comes from Mastercard or Visa directly. I would _much_ rather have the companies' idiosyncrasies and politics abstracted through a 3rd-party service like stripe or balanced. That's just my kneejerk reaction, take it or leave it.

<comment><USER18> Why not? Millions trust them with one their most important assets: cash.

<comment><USER19> On the merchant side, the picture is a lot less friendly than the consumer side. With a traditional merchant account, there is basically a march of monotonically increasing fees here and there that add up, and are only brought back down a bit when someone wins against them in court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I find this to be a really interesting business decision for MasterCard. MasterCard cannot offer this service directly on their information systems because of there own rules and the antitrust consent decree.

So what have they done? They've built a wrapper around Priority Payments Services, an independent sales organization of Wells Fargo. (For reference, Stripe is also an ISO of Wells Fargo Merchant Services).

Which is all a long way of saying that MasterCard went pretty far out of there way to build this system. They must really see value in selling directly to merchant developers.

There is another possible story here: maybe the ISO wanted to compete with Stripe, they built the system and site, and asked MasterCard for their branding.

<comment><USER21> Mastercard can see almost exactly how much Stripe is growing, I don't think they needed to be very perceptive in "seeing value in selling directly to merchant developers".

<comment><USER20> Not to be flip, but I haven't found that MasterCard or Visa are particular great at data analysis. Additionally, I would be surprised if MasterCard could easily figure out the information you suggest from the data they get. I could be completely wrong, but I've seen them have enough trouble figuring out interchange charges -- their core business -- let alone random analytic facts about (so-called) competitors.

To my immediate recollection ISO 8583 (the standard set out for credit card transactions) doesn't have much info on independent sales organizations (a different ISO acronym). This is all to say that the transactions are through a merchant account set up by Stripe for each particular merchant at Wells Fargo Merchant Services, then through First Data and only then hit MasterCard. Again, I'm not certain, but I'm not sure its a question they can easily answer from their data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> As usual, there is no information at all on which countries that is supported, I guess this is only supported in USA. Maybe I'm the only one outside of America...

Edit: Yeah, after registering, confirming my email and trying to apply for a full account, I know that it's only for America. Sigh...

<comment><USER23> "At this time, however, the merchant must be a U.S. business."

[https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173591-s...](https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173591-some- of-my-customers-are-located-outside-of-the-u-s-can-i-still-use-simplify- commerce-)

<comment><USER22> Cool, in Support -> Home -> General, couldn't be more visible. Tried searching for "country" in the support-area, no hits, no more time spent searching.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If MasterCard can create an international version of this product before Stripe, then this will be big.

</comment><comment><USER25> BTW MasterCard has a whole bunch of other interesting APIs available: [https://developer.mastercard.com/portal/display/api/API](https://developer.mastercard.com/portal/display/api/API)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Complete competitor to Stripe and Balanced and Braintree.js. Just a teeny bit underneath pricing for all - 2.85% versus 2.90%.

<comment><USER26> ... which is a fairly terrible percentage rate. Even a small processor should be able to get under 2%, provided you don't have a lot of fraud/chargebacks.

There's a tremendous amount of froth in those rates.

<comment><USER27> 2% is below CNP interchange on a lot of card types. For example, it costs _the processor_ 2.95% to charge a Platinum MasterCard or 2.05% to charge a World MasterCard card as CNP. A processor charging less than interchange is taking a loss; it's paying the merchant more than it'll get funded by charging that card.

The flat-rate pricing these new aggregators offer at 2.7-2.9% already builds in taking a loss on some cards by making it up on ones with cheaper interchange rates. To go below 2% flat rate and make a profit is near impossible. The only place you'll find that is somewhere like PayPal, with $100k/mo or more in volume and a negotiated contract, and they can get away with 1.9% because many of their payments are balance-funded or ACH-funded at nearly no cost.

2.2-2.5% is much more realistic and you'll still need a minimum monthly volume to get it.

Or we can all set up retail stores and abandon this e-commerce stuff. Rates are much lower when you can swipe a physical card. The real profit-taking is happening in those card readers you can pick up at Staples/BestBuy/etc from Square/PayPal/Intuit/GoCardless where they're collecting 2.7-2.9% and paying half that in interchange.

<comment><USER28> You would think that MasterCard could charge significantly lower fees on MasterCard transactions since they're, like, MasterCard and all... Clearly, they're not interested in competing based upon price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Give me your bitcoin address and we can have a transfer in minutes for a few satoshis or within an hour or so for free.

(blahblahblah, usd, ponzie scheme, cbx halting transfers, grandmothers)

</comment><comment><USER30> Jumping on this thread for a flyer.

Any stripe devs know if it's possible to integrate with infusionsoft.com? That integration would make me so, so happy.

<comment><USER31> I completely agree. And with 1ShoppingCart too. I considered using stripe but they didn't integrate with any of the popular shopping carts that handle affiliate marketing type of features. So I have to pay for two merchant accounts and a load balancing gateway. I also live in fear of my funds being frozen any moment or losing sales if I go over my processing limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> US[A ONLY | ELESS].

</comment><comment><USER33> 0.05% is a tiny amount. This is the first shot though across the bow on lowering the transactional rates set by Stripe, Braintree etc.

</comment><comment><USER34> It is only supported in USA. I'm in Canada. Next please ...

</comment><comment><USER35> I'd like to see one of these 'API friendly' companies compete more in the physical space to.

Basically something equivalent to Square with a Stripe-like API and lower rates for swiped transactions.

</comment><comment><USER36> The entrenched payment companies are definitely scared of competition, but by launching clones of their competitors they show they still don't get it.

<comment><USER37> I think that their target audience are (mom & pop) businesses (about to go online) happy to trust the Mastercard brand, not programmers that get uppity about seeing yet another clone & complaining about an API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Restricted to US individuals and companies only... I'm not sure why sites don't call that out from the get-go.

<comment><USER39> It is not restricted to US individuals, just US Businesses. "Using Simplify Commerce, you can create payments with credit and debit cards carrying major card brand logos for customers anywhere in the world. At this time, however, the merchant must be a U.S. business." [[https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173591-s...](https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173591-some- of-my-customers-are-located-outside-of-the-u-s-can-i-still-use-simplify- commerce)]

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Sign up and develop. When you're ready to go live, tell us a little about your business."

It's actually more of a "PayMill" model than a Stripe model. So they allow you to begin development but they don't actually promise immediate on-boarding.

<comment><USER40> Stripe does exactly the same thing. You have to enter some business details like tax ID, sales volume, etc. to go live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Given that they permit weapons and pornography, if they're otherwise just a direct clone of Stripe with the MasterCard brand, they're pretty awesome. I'd be fine if it cost 3.5%, but it's actually cheaper too.

</comment><comment><USER42> Looks like they don't handle recurring charges for you. So you'll have to be the one to hold onto the card number and jump through the PCI compliance hoops. Or go with a card vault service.

<comment><USER43> Is it not this? [https://www.simplify.com/commerce/docs/tutorial/index#recurr...](https://www.simplify.com/commerce/docs/tutorial/index#recurring- payments)

<comment><USER42> Whoops. Didn't see that. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This is cool, but much cooler if they will support businesses outside US. it seems i'm stuck with paypal and Payment gateway in the Philippines are way too pricey for our business

</comment><comment><USER45> Jesus, this looks kind of like a desperate in-house hackathon product pushed live before the execs could kill it.

(Props to the development team! You still need better docs though. :( )

<comment><USER46> This seems a bit cynical. Either Mastercard is changing their organization around from the top, or there happened to be a rogue product team that managed to fight their way through the bureaucracy to launch something cool.

Either way, props to em.

<comment><USER47> [http://blogs.computerworld.com/it-leadership/21657/how- maste...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/it-leadership/21657/how-mastercard- restructured-it-innovation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Its still stupid credit cards.

Most eCommerce sites have a profit margin of less then 10%, often around 5%. Charging 2.85% + $0.30 kills most business ideas.

</comment><comment><USER49> Are there any chargeback fees? (For those who don't know a fee in addition to the chargeback which is usually $25.)

<comment><USER50> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5955772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5955772)

<comment><USER49> Thankyou!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> 2.85% fees? Such a rip-off.... Braintree is much better/cheaper and offers so much more.

</comment><comment><USER50> Can't find anything about chargebacks, wonder if they are free :)

<comment><USER44> $12 for charge backs [https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173584-h...](https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173584-how- much-does-it-cost-to-use-simplify-commerce-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Seems identical to stripe?

</comment><comment><USER53> Their website design looks like a hardware store site design.

</comment><comment><USER54> "Deposits are made into your account in two business days in most cases."

This is awful copywriting. There's not even an asterisk with more information or anything.

</comment><comment><USER55> Do they also accept Maestro debit cards?

<comment><USER33> US only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> So what's the consensus on this? I'm looking to integrate either Stripe or Simplify... which service do I go with?

<comment><USER57> Stripe knows how to innovate. Simplify knows how to copy. Go with Stripe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Yes! We'll save 0.05%! That's 500$ for every million in sales. You must have huge sales to justify a switch.

<comment><USER59> If you're doing a million in sales, you should negotiate a rate with your CC provider which will be far lower than the list price. All of the providers - Stripe, Braintree, PayPal, Authorize.net, and most likely these guys - <USER2> negotiate a rate with you, and if you're doing any volume you ought to give them a call and ask.

When you call, they will ask you two important things:

1\. What is your current volume (if you're looking at switching from someone else)

2\. What is your chargeback rate? (How often do angry customers call the credit card company to issue a chargeback against you?)

If you are growing and have increasing transaction volume, and you aren't defrauding your customers, then you can absolutely get a lower rate than you're paying now.

This is true for so many things in business - the list price means nothing!</comment></comment>