Show HN: AddAI – A better alternative to A/B testing (Startup School project) - <AUTHOR> https://addai.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> After the first attempt at a Show HN accidentally got eaten by HN's spam detection and only rescued too late, here's another shot (ok'ed by @dang - thanks again for helping and your advice).

This project is something I've been meaning to work on for quite a while, mostly because I think it needs to exist and also because I think I have the background to do it. Most of the work has happened over the weekends since the start of startup school (this is one of the "accepted by accident" projects where they sent out an acceptance email to everyone they were planning to reject, then another rejection and finally a "sorry for the messup - we're letting you join" \- so let's see how things go ...)

The idea is the following: there has been this thing where companies basically kill off everything that doesn't work too well with their mainstream audience. This has been happening on a large scale (e.g. with Google killing Reader and now Inbox), on a smaller scale with companies removing features and on the micro scale it has even been automated with a/b testing (where you basically try to explicitly measure which option works best for the average user and kill the others).

This project is basically trying to attack the problem from this micro scale while hopefully later moving up that chain or at least motivating change there as well. The way it works is that we change the original goal of a/b testing from "what's the best option on average overall?" to "what's the best option for this specific user?" and try to automatically show him that (using reinforcement learning internally to make it happen). Right now this works on websites where we use JavaScript and some CSS magic to make it work in a way that's easy to use for developers - but longer term we're planning to look into other places as well.

I think the tricky part right now is to not move in this adtech direction it could easily be, but rather towards what chatbots tried and failed at - <USER2> least so far. There's gonna be another blogpost about this topic, but the tl;dr essentially is that the interesting part about chatbots is not the natural language interaction, but that they are - by lack of ui - <USER3> forced to focus on thinking about "how do I find out what the user really wants and get him there as quickly as possible without shoving irrelevant stuff in his face?" \- and this way of thinking could also be really useful even if you have ui - and ideally automated using AddAI.

<comment><USER5> My 2c: sounds like you're trying to force too many buzzwords, ie reinforcement learning, chatbots, google killing off product lines. And you're avoiding embracing the actual offering which is simply segmented ab testing. Chatbots are a massive scam and failure, you really should avoid comparison with or aspiring to emulate them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the difference between this and A/B testing. The fact that you slowly surface/chose the winning variant automatically?

<comment><AUTHOR> The difference is that we don't assume there is this one winning variant. Let's say you have a product that works for both, large enterprises and small businesses. Both visitors end up on your pricing page at some point - <USER4> enterprise customer has clicked around in the documentation looking at SLAs and other enterprise stuff and the small business visitor has focused on getting started pages primarily. When they end up on the pricing page you would ideally want to focus on showing/highlighting enterprise pricing and mentioning all those enterprise features again for the enterprise customer, while the small business customer gets to see small business pricing and that it's easy to use. AddAI automates figuring out those combinations and over time learns to show the right thing automatically.

<comment><USER6> How do you differentiate the users?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This could be very interesting. It wasn't explained so well on the home page but I liked it</comment>


Ask HN: CISSP without experience ? - <AUTHOR>

To qualify for the CISSP certification one needs to have say 5-10 years of industry experience thats what the website says. So If I do not have any experience but I want to get into the security industry as a fresher or at least attain a few certification to prove my worth what path should I take... Can or should I go for the EC-Council CEH (Certified ethical hacker) certification ? Any tips from anyone in the security industry is much appreciated. Thanks <comment><USER2> Ask your local whitehats for advice. Bonus points if you can get to a meetup and start making connections.

I am pretty sure that making positive associations with local white hats will be more likely to get you your first security job than a certification will.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I am a fresher just got done with my MS in computer science... could you please suggest where I could be part of such an interaction.

<comment><USER2> Assuming you're still in MA, check out the Boston Security Meetup. Even if it's too general for you I'm sure you'll meet someone who can direct you to a more suitable venue.

<http://www.meetup.com/boston-security-meetup/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome tat sounds good... BTW how did u find out im in MA ..i dnt rem putting up the location info on HN</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Quickly start a VM to find a cure for Covid - <AUTHOR> https://computingforcovid.io/ <comment><USER2> my lil lab cluster is at 4800th highest contributor to folding@home :-)

[https://stats.foldingathome.org/donor/mech422](https://stats.foldingathome.org/donor/mech422)

<comment><USER3> You should join the Computing for COVID team!</comment></comment>


There are days when I want to quit using php... - <AUTHOR>

Seriously. Just wasted an hour on this:

  <?php

  $s = "title";
  $k = 0;

  if ($k == $s) {
    echo("this is bad!\n");
  }
  else {
        echo("this is good\n");
  }
 I realize my mistake now ($k being an integer and $s being a string, PHP converts both to integers implicitly and does the comparison) so I would have had to use the === instead but I read over that missing = for a long time...
The problem is that this was not new code.
It worked flawlessly until one day an array key was made that was not a string but an integer, and by sheer coincidence that integer was 0.
The foreach loop surrounding the code did not check the type of the array keys... <comment><USER2> If the above is the only reason to quit PHP I would advise against doing it. This is a rather small issue, you could switch to other languages and have any number of small issues. Oh, somebody monkeypatched this built-in function, should have used .equals() instead of ==, so on and so forth.

There are plenty of good reasons to switch to a different language, but in this case I would highly suggest holding out for something a little more extreme.

Although as an avid PHP devloper who has chased down his fair share of coercion errors, I feel your pain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't worry, I'll feel better tomorrow. And thanks for the sympathy, it's just that it took a long time (much too long) find this one.

Last time I had to look this hard at least I was satisfied with being able to file a bug report with the php folks. This time I can only blame myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> My proposed motto for PHP: putting the "antic" in "semantics". Have a look at the values of

max('1', '3', '10')

max('1', '3 ', '10')

max('1', '3 ', 10)

and better still

max('antelope', 'wombat', 1, 3, 10)

max('antelope', 'wombat', '1', '3','10')

Not at any step necessarily unreasonable decisions, but not (to my eye) obvious ones.

</comment><comment><USER4> So do it; there are plenty of good alternatives. The only thing I'd keep PHP for is for adding just a dash of "dynamicity" (dynamicness?) to mostly static pages.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd have to convert the production of a team of people over about a decade to something else... If it weren't for the huge installed codebase I have I probably would.

The drawback of having an investment in anything at all is that it gets harder to switch away from it.

<comment><USER4> Yep, tough problem. Start with small, peripheral projects, and find a way to make the code talk to the old code? That's about as good as it gets... not easy.</comment></comment></comment>


Smallpdf – A Free Solution to All Your PDF Problems - <AUTHOR> http://smallpdf.com/

<comment><USER2> My major PDFs problem is to redo the table of contents in an existing PDFs as well as changing the page numbers, so that the front page and preface don't use the first number 1,2,3... But one matches the first page of chapter 1.

Is this even possible?

</comment><comment><USER3> I think they are good tools. I use them frequently, e.g. converting PDF to JPG. Thanks.</comment>


Frida Kahlo and the birth of Fridolatry - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jun/11/frida-kahlo-fridolatry-artist-myth <comment><USER2> Anecdata: I was shopping for a birthday card recently, and Frida Kahlo is _everywhere_ at the moment. Her image has been fully commoditised, so you'll find stylised pictures of it on almost anything. Her image is becoming as ubiquitous as Che Guevara's in the 90's, or it feels that way, and in becoming so I imagine 90% of the people who pick up a Frida tote probably have no idea who she was or why she's famous, other than she had thick eyebrows.

<comment><USER3> Her face is also peppered liberally in murals and street art in Los Angeles. It's unusual, because no other artist in Los Angeles seems to be particularly celebrated in that way — it's Kahlo's image that seems to be important more so than her art.

It would be interesting to chat with the people responsible for those pieces to get a sense of what they knew about Kahlo and what attributes about her they find interesting. I have a similar hunch that many of the people plastering her face around the city probably actually know fairly little about her.

<comment><USER4> To be fair her face is also peppered liberally in her own art work. Page through the carousel at the bottom[0], I think I count 2 without her face in it. That said I suspect that, like many artists, she's iconic for being iconic. Her works have made their way into our cultural consciousness even if her ideas or her personal life haven't.

I think that's okay.

[0]: [https://www.fridakahlo.org/the-two- fridas.jsp](https://www.fridakahlo.org/the-two-fridas.jsp)

<comment><USER3> That's something I hadn't really considered. The link could very well be that simple.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And this is why I was a little bothered by her inclusion in Coco.

I loved Coco. It's a fantastic movie. But putting Frida in there as a recurring character seemed kind of bandwagon-y for the normally-timeless Pixar.

<comment><USER6> OMG, that went whoosh over my head. (In my defense, I watched it on a trans- Atlantic flight so I probably wasn't at peak mental state.)

<comment><USER5> Hah, I know the feeling. Flying to India I couldn't sleep and watched so many movies with my brains just fried from low oxygen. I have no idea what Emperor's New Groove is about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What an odd ending to this piece. I don't even understand the authors purpose in writing it now. What point is she trying to make, this is all over the place.

<comment><USER8> The article talks about how the talented painter Frida Kahlo is understood by many as simply an exotic snack, and finished with the extreme example about how someone is declared to be dressed as Kahlo by the single feature of having a unibrow.

A comparable example would be an article about the hollow understanding of the 1960 hacker culture finishing with a story about how someone was declared to be dressed as Stallman because they held a printed email.

<comment><USER4> Hey, thats only because I have the long hair and beard everyday. Nobody appreciates the subtlety of the Stallman costume I wear year round.

Joking aside, while I see what the author was getting at I think it's a little unfair considering how prominently her face and brows are featured in her own work. Kahlo CHOSE that as her icon [0].

[0]: [https://www.sartle.com/artwork/my-nurse-and-i-frida- kahlo](https://www.sartle.com/artwork/my-nurse-and-i-frida-kahlo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not very knowledgable about Frida Kahlo but I was a little nonplussed by the throwaway line about the film "Frida" and Harvey Weinstein. It seems like a guilt-by-association tactic. Its been a while since I saw it but my recollection is Julie Taymor's film doesn't seem to fall into trap that she claims of the other "fridolatry". It certainly doesn't portray her as a passive victim, but as an active creator of her life and art.

<comment><USER10> There was a bit of victimhood in the narrative, particularly around the extramarital affairs. That was my ex-wife's favorite film so I've seen it several times, and I finally deeply read about Kahlo (the Trotsky story especially intrigued me), and the impressions and conclusions I drew regarding some of the portrayed events didn't jibe with how I interpreted them in the film.

Even without considering historical accuracy, after a few viewings, it becomes clear that the film is not well made despite Taymor. I think at the time it was an awards darling because, though it seems much more pedestrian now, a studio system film about a female Mexican cultural icon was even more unlikely to see the light of day then. I remember discussion around it highlighting its progressive nature, so that likely framed reception of the film, despite the occasionally clumsy script and at times loose interpretation of the subject matter. To be honest, when I saw this link pop up on HN, I immediately thought of the film as an example, rather than the Barbie (which is even worse, but oddly, I can't verbalize why).

As for Weinstein, that attributed pull-out quote, if accurate, stands alone to demonstrate thought behind the portrayal. I'd say it's fair.

Many figures are tough to interpret beyond death, to be fair, and maybe we're all wrong about her. Who knows. Arguable she'd find us discussing it amusing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if stories like these really make people treat other cultures with respect, or just make the fearful that everyone else is just out for revenge and thus just amplify their avoidance of anything foreign.

<comment><USER11> It's almost like you should learn a bit about what you take from other people.

If that's too hard for you, go home and eat your mayo on white bread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It feels like her visage has become more famous than her images or her name, though you do see a gradual rise in interest over the last few years of the phrase "Frida Kahlo"... ([https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&q=frida%20kahlo))

<comment><USER13> Trends only shows data for the past few years, but searching usage in print can be instructive. Frida seems to have become hugely popular beginning in the 90's. Strangely enough, there doesn't seem to be a rise in usage after the early 2000's Hollywood movie.

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Frida+Kahlo&ye...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Frida+Kahlo&year_start=1930&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2CFrida%20Kahlo%3B%2Cc0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of my favorite troll attempts was when someone 'fixed' [1] Frida Kahlo.

1\. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/kmallikarjuna/and-now-for-pretty- fr...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/kmallikarjuna/and-now-for-pretty-frida-kahlo)

</comment><comment><USER15> > Frida, the chic, gender-fluid, beautiful and monstrous icon

Is this a man? He/she looks rather manish.

<comment><USER16> If you are not trolling, Frida Kahlo was a woman. One would know that from a cursory glance at her Wikipedia page.

<comment><USER15> You don't know that these days because even men who start presenting themselves as women get female pronouns by default all over the place.

Not trolling, I've never seen or heard of this woman before.

<comment><USER17> If, impossibly, the exact same person had grown up in some other time or place who knows, but in the life she lived she was born female and lived her life as a woman, but with a defiant femininity; rooted in herself, her body, not in the capitalist beauty myth (N.B. the communist beauty myth wasn't much better and she rejected that as well).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A fresh look at OOP with concurrent objects [Spark Scheme] - <AUTHOR> http://vijaymathew.wordpress.com/2009/05/15/a-fresh-look-at-oop-with-concurrent-objects/

<comment><USER2> yes its cool that you can do this sort of concurrent oop in scheme, but man, there is an awful lot of boilerplate there. if you want to do something like this, a language where it is less of an idiom would seem to be a smart path to follow ( i say this as someone who really likes scheme ).</comment>


RIM announces $518 million loss, 5,000 job cuts, delays BB10 to 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1218739--blackberry-maker-rim-announces-518-million-loss-5-000-job-cuts-delays-bb10-to-2013 <comment><USER3> _"Excluding some items, the first-quarter loss was 37 cents a share, missing the 7-cent loss predicted by analysts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales fell 43 percent to $2.8 billion, trailing an estimate of $3.05 billion"_ [1]

Shockingly bad numbers, for a company that was expected to produce bad numbers. Exceeding expectations, but not in the direction you'd want :(

[1][http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/rim-reports-loss- as...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-28/rim-reports-loss-as-it-cuts- jobs-delays-blackberry-10-release.html)

edit: more numbers from same article:

 _"RIM said it shipped 7.8 million BlackBerrys and 260,000 PlayBook tablets in its last fiscal quarter, which ended June 2. Analysts had projected 8.8 million smartphones and 280,000 tablets, according to a survey of 10 analysts. A year earlier, RIM shipped 13.2 million BlackBerrys and 500,000 PlayBooks."_

<comment><USER4> I think the big part for me was BB10 being delayed.

BB10 is QNX, which RIM acquired 2 years ago. They were ready to ship QNX when they were bought, so the 2 year delay is just evidence of RIM's inability to ship on time.

Sad to see what was such a giant misstep so badly and so consistently. :(

<comment><USER5> > They were ready to ship QNX when they were bought

I've no idea where you're getting that but when they QNX was not ready to ship anything on mobile back then. They've been building the whole ecosystem around the core QNX system.

<comment><USER6> I wonder if they shouldn't shift gears and become _the_ dashboard computer before somebody else does, QNX is still developing automotive solutions and some look a lot like the BB10 demos we've seen. Deep integration with mobile devices (including iOS and Android), direct PIN messaging to a dashboard computer, providing a flawless mobile broadband solution in partnership with carriers, etc. Can RIM even keep these two mobile device product lines alive long enough, or should they move in while Microsoft hasn't got the UI right (voice maybe but not onscreen) and Google is just getting into it. Ironically, Nokia would be the perfect maps partner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I, as well as HN user 'HorizonXP' have commented extensively on RIM, so I suppose I need to give a statement.

I tried and failed to compose a meaningful comment, so, quite simply: I'm switching to Android later this year. Probably a Galaxy SIII.

My current BB is my first smartphone, which I suspect is why I have such a fondness toward it. The fact that Blackberry data plans are dirt cheap and unlimited also didn't hurt.

But features are lacking. For example: If I create a playlist, _I cannot change the playlist order._ So I was looking forward to BB10 to hopefully achieve something resembling feature parity with iOS and Android. I was checking Crackberry.com twice per day just to hear the latest on BB10. I eagerly digested the reheated leaks of the 2 models and the new BBM interface.

But I can't wait any longer.

Digicel, the dominant carrier in Jamaica, just launched 4G yesterday. Hell, the ad's playing on the radio right now! Prices aren't too shabby (USD17 for a 1GB plan). I can afford it.

It makes sense for me to switch, too. My many domains are all hosted on Google Apps. I use Postbox as my email client because of how well it supports Gmail. Might as well complete the last mile.

Goodbye, RIM. I'll always remember you.

Love, Oz

<comment><USER8> Interesting to see 'former' enthusiasts react to this news. This type of negative feedback loop demonstrates how animal spirits can impact what might otherwise succeed in a vacuum. It's also a fascinating intersection where search algorithms and financial modeling meet.

Those able to reliably capture the impact of this negative publicity inside of a model will be very wealthy... but I can imagine Google expanding into deeply into investing, should they ever produce satisfactory results.

\-----

Somewhat off-topic, but this caught my eye: _USD17 for a 1GB plan [in Jamaica]_

Verizon now charges USD50 for 1gb[0]. Have any insight as to why there is such a significant disparity? Does Jamaica have (i) more carrier competition, (ii) pricing regulations, (iii) lower spectrum demand relative to geographic area or (iv) are there other factors you're aware of?

[0] <http://i.imgur.com/Q2xTv.png>

<comment><USER7> Interesting, indeed. The comments on Crackberry are filled with people who were waiting it out, but have now decided to jump ship, mostly to Android.

Regarding the pricing, I see from the image that your USD50 plan gets you 1GB data _plus_ unlimited talk and text. The USD17 here is only for the data; voice and text are priced separately. My USD40 plan gets me 165 minutes and 165 text messages, with a subsidised rate for anything exceeding that.

Jamaica has 2 mobile carriers, Digicel and LIME (formerly Cable & Wireless). How these two have competed is an absolutely fascinating look at regulation, branding and consumer behaviour .

Until 1962, Jamaica was a British colony. Hence, Cable & Wireless, a British company had a monopoly on telecommunications. Like any good capitalist knows, this led to _atrocious_ service. I grew up in rural Jamaica, and we applied for a landline for _years_ before we got it. C&W just didn't care, and, as Jamaican's are wont to do, we gave them our own name: "Careless & Worthless." (pronounced 'kayliss' [hard k] and 'wutliss' in Jamaican patois.)

In 2000 or 2001, the then People's National Party (PNP) government, under Technology Minister Phillip Paulwell, liberalized the telecoms sector, and granted a cellular license to the Irish-owned Digicel. Digicel launched in April 2001. 100 days later, they had 100,000 customers. Literally 1000 customers per day, in a country of population 2.8 million. (Take that, SociaLocoMobi startups :))

People _flocked_ to Digicel. I mean, it was just amazing. Soon, people with C&W phones were few and far between. Digicel introduced GSM technology (as opposed to C&W's TDMA), per-second billing, Pay As You Go (you buy prepaid cards at retail stores, corner shops and street vendors.) They drove home their advantage with excellent marketing - they branded themselves as 'young' and 'hip' as opposed to the 'old' and 'stodgy' C&W. They sponsored football. They sponsored cricket. They sponsored track and field (They have sponsored Usain Bolt for years). Their coup de grace was the talent competition 'Rising Stars', - American Idol meets Jamaican music. It was, and is, a _phenomenal_ success, and has launched the careers of major artists in Jamaica, such as Christopher Martin and Romain Virgo.

Digicel was, and still is mostly viewed as Jamaica's 'Mobile Messiah'. They 'saved' us from the eternal damnation of C&W.

Digicel was on top, and C&W was forced to respond.

C&W did this by upgrading to GSM in July 2003, and rebranding as 'bmobile'. For weeks, there were flyers in the shape of the power symbol on your laptop everywhere, with the cryptic message "Get ready to be switched on." No one knew what it was, until the public was invited to an event. 'Twas a huge event - airshow with stunts, the whole shebang. It signaled the start of an era where C&W would spend hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing trying, but failing, to regain market dominance. Quite simply, Jamaicans hated C&W. They replaced about 6 CEOs in a few years.

The kicker is that after this new rebranding, C&W provided better value. Calls were cheaper. Data (GPRS) was cheaper. But the public simply did not care. My older sister, for example, could not be _paid_ to switch from Digicel, and many people share that sentiment. C&W, now bmobile, was in decline. But they would not bow out without a fight.

They rebranded as LIME (Landline, Internet, Mobile, Entertainment) in 2008, and introduced 3G. But they still could not compete, and continued to rack up losses.

But something was amiss, which was not widely known until late last year: When the telecom sector had been liberalised, the regulatory body, the OUR (Office of Utilities Regulation), had decreed that Digicel be granted favourable interconnect fees, so that C&W could not force them out by charging them exorbitant fees to connect to their network. However, Digicel was allowed to charge C&W very high interconnect fees. This was only supposed to last for a few years at most, but continued until a few weeks ago!

As a result of that disparity in interconnect fees, those with C&W phones found it very expensive to call Digicel subscribers, providing them with even more incentive to switch.

Late last year, the PNP was returned to power, and Phillip Paulwell reinstated as Technology Minister. One of the things he has done recently is to set a standard interconnect rate. LIME capitalized by slashing rates across the board, and Jamaicans rejoiced and are finally paying attention. Digicel responded by taking the OUR to court, arguing that procedure was breached. It is still before the courts, but the act has cast a negative light on Digicel. They responded a few days ago by launching the 'Sweet' plan with massively reduced call rates, but per-minute billing and reduced free offers. So the air is rife with the scent of competition, as both of them are gearing up to do battle, to the benefit of Joe Consumer.

A few days ago, when they launched the 'Sweet' plan in reaction to LIME's rate slash, they took their street team to middle of New Kingston, the business district, and had dozens of people dancing, and handing out flyers. Apparently, LIME got wind of it, and rounded up their own street team to make their presence felt. I'm told that due to the some police presence, they were not able to do so.

Very, very interesting times are head. And I'm _loving_ it.

NB. I'm not a supporter of the PNP; but the facts are the facts - they did a better job than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) where telecoms are concerned.

<comment><USER8> Great response, thanks for all of that context.

Sounds like the playing field was evened once the interconnect fees were standardized. It's a shame that we are so far behind in the U.S., at a very fundamental level. Most networks here (particularly the two largest -- AT&T + Verizon) are totally incompatible.

Anyway, thanks again for all that detail, very interesting stuff.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I really enjoyed writing it.

One thing in the US that would never fly in Jamaica is being charged for incoming calls. C&W used to do that when they were the monopoly, but Digicel didn't it. If any of them tried it now, there would be riots in the streets.

Most Jamaicans are on PAYG (or prepaid) plans. As a result, we usually pay full price for phones, whereas you guys can get a high-end smartphone for $200 on a 2 year contract.

It turns out that my sister was actually at the launch of The Galaxy S3 last night! She came back ooh-ing and ahh-ing...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The company appears to have the financial wherewithal to last for quite a while as it attempts a turn-around.[1] So I expect them to continue trying with the existing business model for at least a few more quarters before they give up and join the Android bandwagon or sell their soul to Microsoft like Nokia.

[1] The latest financial statements at [http://press.rim.com/content/dam/rim/press/PDF/Financial/FY2...](http://press.rim.com/content/dam/rim/press/PDF/Financial/FY2013/Q1_FY2013_Press_Release.pdf) show that the company ended the quarter with close to $1,467 million in cold hard cash and $780 million in investments, and no debt (page 8). Moreover, all of the reported loss came from _non-cash_ accounting write-offs and accelerated amortization; the company's combined cash and investments actually _increased_ during the quarter, from $2,111 million to $2,247 million (page 9) -- that's right: they ended the quarter with more money than they started!

<comment><USER10> The market is pricing the company with the expectation that the cash will be gone in the future. It sounds like the cash position may start to decrease in the next quarter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So now we have two companies (Nokia and RIM) in similar circumstances (the Innovators Dilemma). They each saw two paths forward. Each chose their own path. Neither are succeeding.

So were they already doomed by the time they chose to act or did they misunderstand the dilemma they faced?

It was both. After years of tech homogeneity, people were looking for a change. Apple came along and it was young and fresh, fun and had awesome technology to boot.

The incumbents were slow to act. When they did act they failed to recognize that it was a branding problem as well as a technology shortfall. They are toast.

<comment><USER12> I don't think Apple succeeded because people were looking for a change. They just made a smartphone that was usable for regular people (ie iPod users).

Nokia could have done that too. Maemo was comparable to (or better than?) Android in 2007. If they had really understood what made the iPhone a success, they could have spent a year repositioning Maemo to be competitive with iOS, just like Google did with Android.

Of course, they didn't since they were already heavily invested in Symbian, and that's why they stumbled.

<comment><USER11> _usuable for regular people_ \- that's awesome technology.

Maybe Nokia could have made a technically competitive smartphone in 2008 but they didn't. Why not? They thought they were competing on technology and that they had time. They weren't though. They were in the middle of a market changeover and they didn't see it.

If they came out with a phone that was technically competitive I don't think people would have bought it. They have one today and it's sales are disappointing.

<comment><USER12> I agree, although think if they had one not long after the iPhone launched, a lot of people would have bought them because of brand loyalty.

If you already had a Nokia your default choice was usually a new Nokia. And they had a pretty strong brand at the time (and 70-80% market share?).

<comment><USER13> This is true. I can remember waiting for a Nokia android device / a good touchscreen device with an app market before I got my first android. At that point I'd only really owned Nokia's and loved the reliability of them, but they just took far too long to come out with anything that could compete.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> How are these guys still in business? It's out of this world.

It's also out of this world how this company can't figure out left from right - they haven't released a single product since the failure that was the "new" Blackberry Bold 9900 - which was a miserable device that crashed 5x a day.

And now they're not releasing anything until 2013. Makes you wonder if they're just buying time in the form of bullshit product roadmaps in the hope of an acquisition.

It should not take this long to release a new device, a new OS or whatever the hell they are doing over there.

It's a shame, BIS and BBM are two great services, but their OS is just such dated trash.

<comment><USER15> Not really relevant anymore, but I have a 9900 in my hands right now and I think it's the best phone I've ever used. It has never crashed on me. Going on one month always on now. Keyboard is legendary, touch screen is perfect, browser is snappy.

<comment><USER16> The build of their phones are too inconsistent. I've gone through three different models with peers and some friends report really poor performance and major manufacture defects. Your 9900 may be serving you well but I'm about ready to slam mine against the wall. The fact that it has never crashed on you is miraculous, and don't get me started with that abysmal battery life.

<comment><USER15> To be honest, even the guy at the store where I bought it told me that they tend to "brick themselves" and that he had to return his. I hope my luck continues.

Definitely agree on the battery life issue. But I don't mind since I'm never far from a USB port.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, the level of delusion is just amazing:

 _In a conference call with analysts, Heins said getting the new system right was more important than doing it quickly. "I will not deliver a product to the market that is not ready to meet the needs of our customers," said Heins._

These guys are sitting in the armory of their castle, polishing their weapons, and the barbarians have already stormed over the ramparts, smashed through the walls and set fire to most of the village. But no, it's more important to get those weapons "just right".

Or to look at it another way, if BB10 is in such a parlous state that after all these delays it still cannot be shipped then there are huge, enormous problems with the technical competency inside RIM. And if that is true then we can assume that it will never ship in good shape because time is not actually a solution to such problems.

<comment><USER18> ..and yet if they release too early when it's not ready they have to hear "it just seems like beta software" "it's too unpolished"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> RIM needs more coders and less executives. Their products are lacking from basic stuff, just for example:

\- no IMAP folders means that I can't get two-way sync without getting every single email, no way to avoid 'bypass inbox' mails, it's that or just one way

\- software, and social integration on the PlayBook is really bad and too 'alpha' (hm, can't even send a DM typing the twitter account name) to be used.

And we have unstable software, lacking of the most basic functionality (like… editing bookmarks, storing notes, and with frequent glitches and bugs, disappearing folders…)

You cannot get adoption with such a bad experience, and that's why I understand that BB10 is the way to go. Their hardware is excellent, their software is a few years (and thousands of lines of code) behind of where it should be.

If you cannot attract developers, hire them and make your own ecosystem. In the end, social networks and usual convenience apps (weather, netflix, browser, twitter, facebook, presentations, sync, calendar, contacts) with a good support is all you need to attract a decent user base.

If every time someone tries out my PlayBook they run into a stupid glitch or crash, it's clear that they aren't going to buy one, even if it's cheap and it's a real beauty in terms of hardware and underlying system.

And my dad isn't going to get a new BlackBerry either. They're getting more expensive and he still can't have a decent Gmail integration without stupid 'features' like skipping inbox or two-way sync. There is no flexibility, menus are still too complicated and messy.

It's no wonder that they're making losses. I guess I'm the only one still sticking to BB out there without hating it or being forced to…

</comment><comment><USER20> I think we should really take a moment to thank RIM for what they've done for the market place. If it weren't for them, where would mobile instant messaging be?

Think down the road to when most of us will be moving on from Google to the next great "thing"

I know when that time comes that I will be forever thankful that I was able to share personal documents with family members overseas using Google Drive.

We should be thanking them for being a part of the cycle that is the modern world of technology; a stepping stone and a changing interface for information exchange.

Life goes on. And thank god for RIM.

</comment><comment><USER21> Unless they work out a miracle in 2013, RIM's best bet is to get acquired. And actually they could be a good option for Oracle considering they plan to explore new enterprise avenues.

<comment><USER22> Actually this is a really interesting suggestion.

Oracle definitely has the money, patience and will to go against Android and iOS in the enterprise space. And BB does have a Java story which suits Oracle.

The question is whether Oracle needs to get into the mobile space. They could just as easily sell apps for iOS/Android or add better mobile front ends to their eBusiness Suite.

<comment><USER21> Was actually discussing with someone I know in Oracle - they are exploring more mobile visibility aggressively. And I guess it wouldn't hurt if they own a popular enterprise mobile platform.

<comment><USER23> "enterprise" no longer exists. that's what is killing RIM, that's why they are trying to woo consumers.

Users rule now, and users are consumers. They don't want to carry two devices, one for home, one for work. The home one being technically advanced.

The cost of the IT fortresses is prohibitive and it is now being understood that IT departments with overzealous IT security policies ruined the actual use cases of technology.

Example: Top15 big pharma co. BB as the corporate standard, fully locked down. PIN lock activates the sec the screen goes dark. PIN is a alphanumeric password. Camera, Browser - pretty much everything is disabled. Windows Notebooks? VPNs, rotating passwords, dongles, e-mail mailboxes of 500mb, no e-mail retention, etc.

IT argues that this makes them "compliant".

Then, suddenly, strangely coincidental with the rise of Apple post 2007 a big shift starts. SaaS solutions are starting to replace on-premise stuff, Big pharco has realized that their IT really _sucks_ in terms of its job. The headcount, cost overhead is in no relation to the pain it causes. Everything is _no_ , everything takes ages, when it arrives it is unusable.

And now we are at bring your own device. Whatever works. iPads everywhere. iOS takes care of security and OS updates. No more we can't update to WinXP SP3 because we're still testing it.

Just had a meeting with another big pharco yesterday, where BB is corporate standard. They are dropping that next month. iPhones are taking over. With far less control.

"Enterprise" for end-users is dead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://www.google.ca/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:RIMM](https://www.google.ca/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:RIMM)

Down 18.07% in afterhours trading as of the time of this comment.

<comment><USER25> OUCH that's with the price they have making the company so ripe to be brought and broken up appealing that I doubt that it wont happen now :(.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've not been surprised that they have been on a downward slope, but this just seems to be the financial equivalent to a vertical nose dive.

Its the speed and acceleration of the decline that just seems to boggle; between RIM and Nokia, its hard to fathom how either former juggernaut could implode with almost Shakespearean-scale tragedy.

</comment><comment><USER25> Delaying BB10 until next year, even though it is to get it working well is another delay too far sadly.

How many more staff can they get rid off?

Nortel part two sadly for RIM. Sad, but realy have to make some epic bad managment mistakes for this level of fail and there making them :(.

So sad, but I hear the fat lady is warmed up already.

<comment><USER27> I'm Canadian and I honestly believe this is a display of the terrible management that exists in Canada, especially in the tech sector.

Examples: Nortel, Corel

<comment><USER28> I'm Canadian too. I don't know if it is terrible management or just lack of crazy new ideas. I remember just over a decade ago ... Nortel was doing quite well. I remember being at a meeting when I heard Apple was taking an investment from MSFT. I thought ... wow .. that's it for Apple. They're done for. And look what happened.

I worked in smart phones since the early J2ME phones hit North America. I too completely missed the iPhone. And I'm no suit. You can argue that I lack vision (you'd probably be right) just like the execs running the big telcos. Then again, I think the entire mobile computing establishment missed it. I know people in academia, at Microsoft, at Motorola, at Nokia, etc ... EVERYONE I KNOW MISSED IT! I don't know when people realized that everything had changed. This isn't a statement about just Apple btw. Google was also a new player in this space and look at their market share vs. the established players (circa 2000).

Honestly ... I'm a bit dazed. I can't believe I missed it. I'm sure neither can a lot of people and companies. I get a bit sad sometimes because it feels like it is too late to catch up.

<comment><USER29> _"I don't know if it is terrible management or just lack of crazy new ideas. I remember just over a decade ago ... Nortel was doing quite well. I remember being at a meeting when I heard Apple was taking an investment from MSFT. I thought ... wow .. that's it for Apple. They're done for. And look what happened."_

In the early to mid nineties, Apple spent fortunes on 'crazy new ideas'— it nearly bankrupted them. When Steve Jobs came back, he terminated all those projects and discontinued most of the product catalog. No more PDAs, stylus operated netbooks, printers, scanners, digital cameras -- all gone.

So no, trying 'crazy new ideas' won't necessarily save RIM. Replacing all major executives and the board of directors might. That's one of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple, and most of those execs are still with Apple now, 15 years later.

<comment><USER30> Did the iPhone not qualify as a "crazy new idea"? Certainly more so than a PDA or a digital camera?

<comment><USER29> Steve Jobs came back to Apple as an advisor in 1996, when the company was in trouble. That's the period we were talking about (see "Apple was taking an investment from MSFT").

The iPhone was released 11 years later, when Apple had already become an insanely successful company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Anyone who invested in this company post-iPhone 4 and post-"co-CEO" RIM deserved to lose their money.

<comment><USER32> I invested when they were around $11, thinking the patent, bbm, enterprise management crossplatform, M&A, and residual sales in third world markets would be worth something, and that the market had overreacted.

IMO there's a difference between good companies and good stocks in the public market. A cheap price on an ok company can be a good investment; a high price on a good or great company can be a mediocre investment. Kind of the opposite of startups or other illiquid private investments (which largely have a binary outcome).

I'm starting to think they'll go out at $8-12 though.

<comment><USER33> >> I'm starting to think they'll go out at $8-12 though.

Why? What would justify a premium over the after-hours $7.70? Wouldn't a savvy acquirer just wait another quarter or two to get a better price? What's the rush?

At the rate they are destroying value, it would seem more likely that they go out for much less than $8.

<comment><USER34> Their book value is more than $19. Even the liquid assets minus all liabilities is $6.60. Are you saying that all of their property, patents, and future revenue (decidedly non-zero) are worth less than $1.10?

<comment><USER33> I haven't researched the stock rigorously, so I don't have a good answer to this. But given their massive losses, they will be drawing down their liquid assets and increasing liabilities. And book value for large companies frequently consists of intangible (i.e. made up) numbers for goodwill, IP, etc., which may prove unrealistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> BB10 is just turning into the Duke Nukem OS of our time.

It's sad that a company with so much talent can be mismanaged into something as horrible as this, but on the other hand it's hard not to laugh when you read about their continued failures.

We are talking about a company which released a tablet with a OS they called complete, which couldn't check email. They are so completely out of touch with what people want, that there is no way they can make.

Even if the do get BB10 out the door, it will be a disaster. It will be underwhelming. It will be a monument to what bad management can do with product delivery.

I'm with ars technica on this one: RIM is on death watch.

[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/now-officially-on- our...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/now-officially-on-our-death- watch-rim/)

</comment><comment><USER36> How quickly giants fall. I see an M&A in their future.

<comment><USER37> I see patent troll.

Sadly, it's the last gasp of fallen tech firms.

<comment><USER38> I hope a patent chest-burster alien does not come out of rimm, mobile world will lose years with those legal suits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> A question to those at BB: if you're being laid off of leaving, where are you planning to head? There is a growing number of start-ups in Toronto and Montreal, and I wonder if they'd suddenly an influx of available workforce.

<comment><USER40> As someone that lives a 1/2 hour or so from the Kitchener-Waterloo area I'm thinking it'll have a hard hitting effect on the K-W market, on par with Nortel's implosion in West Ottawa/Kanata. When I moved here I picked the location to be able to hit as many locations as possible for potential employment. With RIM going south, moving closer to Toronto is sounding like the way to go, to say nothing of the rise in competition there will be for Java/C coders

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I actually thought RIM would go Windows Phone and it made more sense before Nokia. The enterprise fit would have been nicer maybe for them. Not that I am buying any of it, the old days of enterprise pushing consumer sales I think has flipped with Apple. Consumer usage now influences work more maybe.

</comment><comment><USER42> There is now little chance of a comeback.

<comment><USER43> Honestly, none

<comment><USER44> People said the same thing about Apple and look where they are. However, I think without changing the top 2-3 layers of management they are doomed.

<comment><USER45> What happened at Apple was—for all intents and purposes—a _reverse takeover_. In theory, they bought NeXT. In practice, NeXT's management took over managing Apple and its OS became Apple's OS.

I'm open to RIM becoming the next Apple. All we need is a company with superior technology and superior management that has been hampered by lack of a strong brand and sales strategy (not to mention certain legal agreements barring them from competing with RIM in its core markets).

Then we have them do a reverse-takeover, booting nearly all of RIM's management.

Have I forgotten anything? Oh yes, then we need a hit product (like the original Jellybean iMac) that will buy them time to create _entirely new markets_ rather than trying to compete in a business where they have already lost.

Put all that together, and you could have RIM being successful in automotive displays, or televisions, or making movies, or something provided _it isn't telephones_.

<comment><USER46>
      > What happened at Apple was—for all intents and
      > purposes—a reverse takeover. In theory, they bought
      > NeXT. In practice, NeXT's management took over
      > managing Apple and its OS became Apple's OS.

Something similar happened with Netscape and Collabra, and it was the deathknell for Netscape. jwz writes:

 _We had built this really nice entry-level mail reader in Netscape 2.0, and it was a smashing success. Our punishment for that success was that management saw this general-purpose mail reader and said, "since this mail reader is popular with normal people, we must now pimp it out to 'The Enterprise', call it Groupware, and try to compete with Lotus Notes!"

To do this, they bought a company called Collabra who had tried (and, mostly, failed) to do something similar to what we had accomplished. They bought this company and spliced 4 layers of management in above us. Somehow, Collabra managed to completely take control of Netscape: it was like Netscape had gotten acquired instead of the other way around._

Source: <http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The biggest problem now is they are trying to play catch up, and are skating to where the puck is at. Jelly Bean just came out, iOS 6 is shipping in the fall. By next year they'll be even further behind.

I think there's a very real possibility that they won't manage to ship BB10 at all.

</comment><comment><USER48> You know for a while it was kinda funny, but now I'm really starting to worry about RIM.

Is like they are trying to commit company-wide suicide, it still has a big chunk of the market, it's not "done for" RIM still has a chance, but it seems its poised to destroy itself.

</comment><comment><USER49> Are there any examples that firing people when a company does bad improves its chances of turn around ? It seems like a stupid move by RIM to fire 5k people when their product is already delayed.

</comment><comment><USER50> In the last four years, RIMM's market cap has fallen by an average of $49m per day. AAPL has risen by $261.7m per day over the same period.

I think that about sums it up.

</comment><comment><USER51> They have their unique clients !! They have their unique users. They need to figure a way to just strengthen what they are already good at !!

</comment><comment><USER52> 5,000 fewer RIM jobs - this is a bad day for the people of Kitchener-Waterloo and around the world

</comment><comment><USER53> Part of me wants to say that blogs killed RIM.

They did so much to slander a product that was for all intents and purposes doing well at the time.

They made it cool to rag on RIM before ragging on RIM was even a "thing"

My old BB Bold was the best phone I ever owned. I'm currently using an iphone, but that keyboard when used right and well can NEVER be beat.

<comment><USER54> For all of your rhetoric you are admittedly using an iPhone.

I think people who thought their BB was the best device ever, yet joined the exodus to iPhone or Android killed RIM.

That is- you killed RIM. Not blogs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This drama can only be saved if a Steve Jobs character shows up at Waterloo.

</comment><comment><USER56> Goodnight RIM

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't understand why they are persisting with this BB10 strategy.

Blackberry's value is not in the core operating system. It is in the business apps, BB messenger, unique keyboard, enterprise features etc. It seems like they would be much better off adopting Android as their base and building proprietary features on top.

It just seems like they are spending all their time just to create a product that can barely compete with the 1st iPhone let alone the 5th.

<comment><USER57> At this point, it's probably too late to adopt Android. It'd probably take as long or longer to come out with an Android OS (with all their apps) as it would to just finish BB10 now.

<comment><USER58> The point of Android OS isn't to save money, it's to win customers. I'm not 100% sure why people prefer Android or iOS to BBX, but I think it's partly just psychological. Whatever the reason is, I think Samsung and Apple are pretty happy with RIM and Nokia using a different (even if arguably superior) OS which don't sell very well.

RIM has over 1B cash, has about 16,500 (soon 11,500) employees. Most of their loss was from writedowns, so their burn rate might not be too bad. They might have time to switch to Android. They can't afford BB10 to flop, but I'm pretty sure it will (even if it's actually a great OS).

If they can loose some heads, and switch to Android, they might generate some confidence which could help them get funding. An Android phone with a competitive advantage (in some niches) over Samsung is something I'd bet on. A phone with a new OS in 2013 is not.

<comment><USER59> I don't think it's psychological. I think both Android and iOS have better hardware that you can do more with. Beyond just apps - I can actually usefully browse websites on Android or IOS; when I tried on a Blackberry a few years ago, it was absolute torture. Bad web browser that didn't render sites well with a stupid trackball instead of a touch screen. I loved the e-mail, but e-mail was the only thing it did well. Maybe they have improved in the past few years, but they're not getting another chance from me, because meanwhile Android's web browser, driving directions, and Swype have -exceeded- my expectations.

<comment><USER60> Disclaimer: I worked on the WebKit team at RIM. Starting in BB6 (two years ago) Blackberry shipped with a WebKit browser which was leagues better than the old Java browser. Maybe this is a marketing problem for RIM as in just about every RIM thread on Hacker News someone complains about their old Java browser not knowing that current RIM OS's ship with WebKit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> After hours price pegs their market cap at a mere $3.8 billion. Their all time high was $148.13 / share, on June 19th 2008, so almost exactly four years ago they were worth roughly $76 billion (95% destruction of value).

That averages out to losing nearly $50 million in market value every day for the last four years.

<comment><USER62> Wow those are insane figures.

I'm wondering, why didn't they try more crazy stuff? With the amount of capital they had, I'm just so surprised that they didn't release some super advanced crap that was impractical. Anyone know? Nothing jumped of the wikipedia page for me.

All I remember is their usage of QNX, but they did a terrible job with growing the community.

<comment><USER63> Is there any evidence that they ever had any "super advanced crap"? They happened to hit the combo of a nice keyboard back when you needed a keyboard and a separate server-side component that integrated with Exchange back when you needed a separate server-side component that integrated with Exchange.

<comment><USER64> Actually RIM pushed radio and mobile forward. Intel had to innovate on projects just to support RIM's early phones. Not to mention their work in networks with Telco's. They _used_ to make phones that lasted for weeks always on....but I digress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> But wait! They're going to license BB10! I just want to know if it's that they just accept that that will make them look desperate, or if they acknowledge the company perception is so bad that any glimmer of hope is a positive thing for them at this point?

</comment><comment><USER66> RIM says they're going to launch next year, when the iPhone 5 launches, but I think it's a stalling tactic. They surely don't want BB10 going up against Apple's 5 and still looking inadaquate.

Unless someone buys RIM, it's dead man walking, and they know it.

</comment><comment><USER67> This is so interesting. We now have:

1\. Apple - who makes great hardware and great software winning 2\. Google - who doesn't make hardware and gives away OK software winning 3\. RIM - <USER2> makes good hardware and OK software losing 4\. MS - who doesn't make hardware and makes OK software losing

It goes to show that business model both matters and doesn't matter.

<comment><USER68> Or maybe it goes to show that your good/great/ok assessments across hardware/software categories aren't good predictors of winning/losing.</comment></comment>


DNS.watch – Fast, free and uncensored - <AUTHOR> https://dns.watch/index <comment><USER2> DNSSEC in 2014 is a liability, not a benefit. Essentially, all you're signing up for when you use a 3rd-party DNSSEC server is that someone's misconfiguration is silently going to break your queries.

Virtually no important services on the Internet rely on DNSSEC. Using it now is pure downside.

What's especially funny about this is that your DNS queries to these third- party servers _are not themselves encrypted_ ; in other words, you're sending your DNS UDP packets halfway across the Internet for the _pretense_ of cryptographic security.

<comment><USER3> > Essentially, all you're signing up for when you use a 3rd-party DNSSEC > server is that someone's misconfiguration is silently going to break your > queries.

Isn't this literally true of any service?

> What's especially funny about this is that your DNS queries to these third- > party servers are not themselves encrypted;

This would be relevent if people were aiming to protect the confidentiality of their DNS queries. They're not though. They're trying to protect the integrity of the DNS queries.

Anyhow, I find it useful in that I can store SSHFP records in my DNS zone and then use `VerifyHostKeyDNS` when I'm sshing into servers. This becomes especially useful if I've got servers sshing into other servers and I don't want to have to lug around a known_hosts file on every server.

Saying things like "using DNSSEC is pure downside" is so easily demonstrably false and hyperbolic that it may cause people to ignore the rest of your argument. Which is a shame, because I know you have very insightful and interesting things to say about a lot of things.

<comment><USER2> I believe DNSSEC is, across the board, pure downside. But that statement is especially true here, in the case of a third-party resolver with DNSSEC enabled. And that's the case I was talking about. I don't think we have to reach the wisdom of SSHFP records to refute your rebuttal.

<comment><USER4> [https://eprint.iacr.org/2010/115.pdf](https://eprint.iacr.org/2010/115.pdf)

I'm just going to leave this here and let people make up their own minds. I don't really have an opinion but I think you are being excessively negative without presenting any evidence.

<comment><USER5> [http://cr.yp.to/talks.html#2009.08.11](http://cr.yp.to/talks.html#2009.08.11)

Downsides of DNSSEC are pretty well known, actually.

If you're worried about security yet still want to use a third-party DNS resolver, might much better off with OpenDNS.com and their DNSCurve client (called DNSCrypt), which encrypts and authenticates all communications.

[http://blog.opendns.com/2010/02/23/opendns- dnscurve/](http://blog.opendns.com/2010/02/23/opendns-dnscurve/)

[http://www.opendns.com/about/innovations/dnscrypt/](http://www.opendns.com/about/innovations/dnscrypt/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No DNSCrypt support yet?

Here are some DNSCrypt-enabled public resolvers, most of them without logs, and some supporting DNSSEC and/or Namecoin: [https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt- proxy/blob/master/dnscr...](https://github.com/jedisct1/dnscrypt- proxy/blob/master/dnscrypt-resolvers.csv)

Adding DNSCrypt support is as easy as running a small daemon (dnscrypt- wrapper) forwarding the queries to the actual resolver.

</comment><comment><USER7> While indeed slower then Google ones for example, like double the speed, still I would argue that it doesn't really change that much when you are loading the page.

For most part, entries a cached locally and in single visit, you are not visiting more then one domain.

I think we should welcome this line of thinking and acting, internet is becoming less free place every day. Not the same, but I was reading this article about a guy who is on Verizon and gets better Netflix when he uses his VPN.

<comment><USER8> > internet is becoming less free place every day.

And DNS.watch isn't solving anything. It only moves your dependency from one third-party (your ISP, Google, OpenDNS) to another one (DNS.watch).

If we _really_ want to keep internet the way it was intended, we must run our own resolvers. That will most certainly defeat the cacheability of DNS but it is very much needed.

<comment><USER9> I like this idea.

Any links as to how to build your own DNS resolver? I already have some things on my own "cloud", this would be one thing more :)

<comment><USER10> A great place to start would be to install Unbound - a great resolving caching server from NLNet Labs:

[http://unbound.net/](http://unbound.net/)

They also have a version focused on providing DNSSEC validation called "DNSSEC-Trigger":

[http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/dnssec- trigger/](http://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/dnssec-trigger/)

Wikipedia also has a decent comparison of a wide range of different resolvers:

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

The key is that in the "Feature matrix" table there you need to have a "Yes" in the "Recursive" column.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Our problem here (Iran) is they change dns packet, so whatever you censor the result or not, its always censored here. [https://gist.github.com/fzerorubigd/7a5a7a3d3bcdde982067](https://gist.github.com/fzerorubigd/7a5a7a3d3bcdde982067)

Thank you, but PLEASE provide dnscrypt service too.

</comment><comment><USER12> What about DNSCrypt support? [http://dnscrypt.org/](http://dnscrypt.org/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I can't seem to find any privacy agreements or EULAs anywhere on the site. I can no longer tell if that pleases me or scares me.

<comment><USER14> At the very least you're covered by german privacy laws I guess. As to their strength ... I don't know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> 165ms ping from San Francisco. Mostly likely not using anycast, not distributed.

</comment><comment><USER16> Is there a good reason to not have a streaming update protocol for DNS? Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to prefetch the top N million DNS queries, then subscribe to a stream to keep them updated as TTLs expire? This would give you both privacy and speed (for the majority of queries)

IPv4 address = 4 bytes

Avg domain length = ~14 characters ([http://datagenetics.com/blog/march22012/](http://datagenetics.com/blog/march22012/))

So ~20MB per million domain names (assuming 1 IPv4 address per domain name)

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if it is anycasted. It appears to be on the Accelerated IT Services ASN - if they do not explicitly own the IP addresses and they lose control of them, that would be a disaster.

<comment><USER18> It doesn't seem to use anycast. I've done a traceroute from different worldwide locations using [http://lg.he.net/](http://lg.he.net/) and they all get routed to Frankfurt, Germany.

Here in Germany I get a very good latency to this service (22 ms, almost as good as my ISP's resolver's 18 ms), but if you don't live in or close to Germany this service probably isn't for you, at least as long as they haven't implemented anycast with multiple world wide locations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have no idea about people complaining about high latency, but for me it has around the same ping of google dns (from Portugal) - google 40ms, this 43ms. Lately I've been using google ones because the previous I was using got more latency.

For reference I was using for a while dns from here [http://wiki.opennicproject.org/Tier2](http://wiki.opennicproject.org/Tier2) after testing which ones had less ping.

<comment><USER20> You have low latency since Portugal is pretty close to Germany where the servers are, compared to America or Asia.

If they want to promise low latency, they should use anycast with servers around the world. Google for example does this.

I compiled a list of reliable, anycast DNS recursors some time ago: [http://wiki.nyr.bz/dns_publicos](http://wiki.nyr.bz/dns_publicos)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I just want to note that the servers have a ping of ~150 here from India, which is not that fast, but OK. Hopefully some DNS servers will be placed in Asia.

<comment><USER22> I ain't changing my dns server to a server in Germany

6 220.127.116.11 (22.214.171.124) 11.825 ms 23.165 ms 11.936 ms 7 vlan60.csw1.sanjose1.level3.net (220.127.116.11) 167.163 ms 173.912 ms vlan80.csw3.sanjose1.level3.net (126.96.36.199) 179.634 ms 8 ae-61-61.ebr1.sanjose1.level3.net (188.8.131.52) 166.071 ms 166.300 ms ae-81-81.ebr1.sanjose1.level3.net (18.104.22.168) 166.493 ms 9 ae-2-2.ebr2.newyork1.level3.net (220.127.116.11) 166.700 ms 167.425 ms 168.243 ms 10 ae-62-62.csw1.newyork1.level3.net (220.127.116.11) 168.031 ms 167.538 ms ae-82-82.csw3.newyork1.level3.net (22.214.171.124) 168.819 ms 11 ae-71-71.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (18.104.22.168) 168.592 ms ae-81-81.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (188.8.131.52) 166.472 ms ae-61-61.ebr1.newyork1.level3.net (126.96.36.199) 167.677 ms 12 ae-41-41.ebr2.london1.level3.net (188.8.131.52) 167.766 ms ae-43-43.ebr2.london1.level3.net (22.214.171.124) 167.754 ms ae-42-42.ebr2.london1.level3.net (126.96.36.199) 167.882 ms 13 vlan103.ebr1.london1.level3.net (184.108.40.206) 167.297 ms vlan101.ebr1.london1.level3.net (220.127.116.11) 167.796 ms vlan103.ebr1.london1.level3.net (184.108.40.206) 166.458 ms 14 ae-23-23.ebr2.frankfurt1.level3.net (220.127.116.11) 165.179 ms ae-24-24.ebr2.frankfurt1.level3.net (184.108.40.206) 168.929 ms ae-23-23.ebr2.frankfurt1.level3.net (22.214.171.124) 165.134 ms 15 ae-72-72.csw2.frankfurt1.level3.net (126.96.36.199) 166.229 ms 171.583 ms ae-62-62.csw1.frankfurt1.level3.net (188.8.131.52) 166.542 ms 16 ae-3-80.edge4.frankfurt1.level3.net (184.108.40.206) 168.808 ms 167.824 ms ae-2-70.edge4.frankfurt1.level3.net (18.104.22.168) 177.082 ms 17 accelerated.edge4.frankfurt1.level3.net (126.96.36.199) 167.854 ms 182.773

<comment><USER23> Because of the latency? Doesn't that traceroute indicate that most of the delay was just getting to Level 3 in San Jose, through your ISP? (Isn't that 22.214.171.124 node right between level3 and your ISP? Sadly it lacks a name, so hard to say who owns it.)

Or because of trust? You're in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> .watch would not be the extension I would choose for a service that does not spy on me. Ironic isn't it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hey guys, your How-Tos page has some problems:

      - Window: points to FritzBox howto
      - OS X: 404
      - Linux: 404

You may want to run linkchecker ([http://wummel.github.io/linkchecker/](http://wummel.github.io/linkchecker/)) next time :)

<comment><USER26> Yeah, right now only the how-to for Fritz.box exists. Should probably write the others up, that's right :)

[https://twitter.com/mamunabms/status/490867160227409920](https://twitter.com/mamunabms/status/490867160227409920)

> You may want to run linkchecker > ([http://wummel.github.io/linkchecker/](http://wummel.github.io/linkchecker/)) > next time :)

Hehe :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is there any way for you to prove that you don't log stuff? In the sense of [1].

[1] [https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/can_i_be_trus...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/10/can_i_be_truste.html)

<comment><USER13> "Prove" is a pretty strong word. I looked for and didn't find a lawyeresque privacy agreement, but even if I did that's not proof either since they could lie. They could invite you to their data center, show you their code, etc, but that is still not proof since they could be hiding things from you, or simply wait until you leave to flip the "log all data" switch.

It always eventually comes down to trusting a company, or trusting strangers. You're already doing this, because you are viewing this on some form of a computer that you didn't completely hand-build, and are running software that you didn't build from scratch using your own, self-built compilers.

I say a potentially better way of looking at this problem is: I _know_ Comcast logs my DNS queries and who knows what else. I however don't know that this site does. From a pure privacy standpoint, I have nothing to lose by switching over and everything to gain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I expected the 'why?' page to explain how (or by who) they are funded/how they make money. I've never heard of these guys before and until they explain that, I have no reason to trust them more than other non-ISP DNS provider...

</comment><comment><USER5> Nowadays, I often find ordns.he.net to be quite useful. HE.net is getting to be a pretty big carrier nowadays, and they generally have better latency and locality than other resolvers. Will never use 22.214.171.124 ever again.

</comment><comment><USER29> That is pretty sweet, but is there any browser that does DNSSEC by default?

And even if there is aren't we back to trusting whomever signs DNSSEC? No doubt some US corp that had their private key national security lettered?

<comment><USER30> The browser doesn't need to do anything. The resolver will simply not pass an unsigned or incorrectly signed record from a signed zone. You can test yours here[1]. Google DNS[2] supports DNSSEC.

Were you thinking about DANE?

[1] [http://dnssec.vs.uni-due.de/](http://dnssec.vs.uni-due.de/)

[2] [https://developers.google.com/speed/public- dns/](https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Possibly I am just a noob, but at least for me having a simple "how to use" page with some info would be very useful.

<comment><USER32> Best place to start would be setup your own DNS server. On Windows use Acrylic, on Linux you have a number of options like MariaDNS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> ISP resolvers are significantly faster for me due to being close by. Yet, indeed, some ISPs may do evil things.

Wonder whenever there's a piece of software that'd retroactively verify every query done by my resolver against a set of supposedly-uncensored public third- party resolvers (like this DNS.watch) and raise an alarm in case of inconsistencies. (Although I have no idea how to deal with multitude of false alarms that would be there due to DNS load balancing)

</comment><comment><USER34> There's a small typo on the homepage: "chrarge" should be "charge", I presume.

</comment><comment><USER35> DNSCrypt would be nice.

[http://dnscrypt.org/](http://dnscrypt.org/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Just curious, not nitpicking - how are you calculating the statistics without logs?

<comment><USER37> You store simple counts, and whenever a particular type of query is made you increment the relevant count(s).

You can count all the red cars that pass by without logging their license plates, model type and number of passengers.

<comment><USER38> _You store simple counts, and whenever a particular type of query is made you increment the relevant count(s)._

Exactly.

As a plus, precise accuracy isn't necessary here, no-one's going to care if you report 39,893 instead of 19,898 queries per minute.

Simple counters + regular reset to zero would do the job well enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Seems really slow now, guessing it's overwhelmed.

</comment><comment><USER40> dig @126.96.36.199 facebook.com is much quicker than dig @220.127.116.11 facebook.com for me.

<comment><USER26> Yes, but which one do you think is censored/manipulated first? There are times, when it's better to use something not that popular ;)

Couple of other arguments: The internet is built around decentralization... now all people use the same resolvers. Great. It's good to have proper alternatives.

<comment><USER41> Why do you assume that you can withstand government censorship longer than Google? I'm really curious - sometimes size is good, sometime it isn't.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Great resources for learning vim? - <AUTHOR> I would like to learn vim to a proficient level, what are some wonderful resources aside from vimtutor that can help me get there? <comment><USER2>
        :help

        :only

Start reading the built in docs. They are pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://vim-adventures.com](https://vim-adventures.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> $ vimtutor</comment>


The cost of raising a child in America has soared (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-5-charts-show-how-expensive-it-is-to-raise-children-today-2018-03-29 <comment><USER3> In January of this year, I was blessed with two beautiful fraternal twins. Twins come out earlier and are expected to be preemies usually. The problem was, they were due on March 15.

We spent two months in the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). The nurses couldn't be more amazing. They took care of those babies like they were their own. And along the way, they took care of us. They made sure nothing was ever missing.

My sons got new pacifiers every time one got dirty. If their covers ever so slightly touch the floor it was thrown into the laundry basket. Their feeding tubes were constantly changed. I was grateful.

My sons were born barely weighing 2 pounds, but they came out of the hospital as plump babies. Then the bill came.

We have insurance. In fact, a very good insurance. The bill for the first born came a couple weeks later and it was in the amount of 1.25 million dollars. (I fainted) We called the insurance. They told us to wait, that the insurance will kick in.

It kicked in and the bill came back rectified with the amount of 250k. The adjusted bill for the second child came shortly after.

To give you an idea what is inside the bill, they moved the babies every couple days to a different section of the nicu. The bill showed that some section charged up to 20k a night. Those pacifiers that fell on the floor each cost 35 to 50 dollars. The formula they provided when we didn't bring breast milk cost hundreds of dollars.

I don't have any credit card debt, I'm frugal when it comes to trivial purchases, I pay for what I can afford. I even have insurance. But then, there is a bill to pay. To this day, we are trying to get the bill to be a reasonable price. And so far, it seems like it's going to happen. We are very hopeful.

<comment><USER4> My second child had a problem at birth and out of an abundance of caution was rushed to the NICU unit in a nearby city. I agree this was reasonable. I also agree the NICU unit and hospital are professional, effective, and sincere.

After a few days it was clear there was no ongoing problem and absolutely no issues. He was not a preemie. At this point the bill would have been around $100,000.

But they insisted to keep him longer to be safe and we couldn't say no. Eventually he accumulated various hospital acquired infections and the stay had to be extended.

After six weeks he was released. The bill was $1.5 million.

Parents aren't allowed to say no. If they do it's evidence of neglect. And most parents wouldn't dare to and go with professional opinions.

Entering the NICU was a room where you had to clean your hands and arms thoroughly. This is good. Doctors and staff weren't required to use this room and never did. The argument is they could use the wash stations inside the unit instead.

So, what's the big deal? Well those doctors come in through the same door as visitors and they touch the door handle with their unsterile hands. Then the visitors/parents, having just sterilized, touch that door handle.

I brought this up and it was discarded as nonsense. After all I am not an expert and they are.

Yet still, subsequently, there was my kid, with an infection he got from the hospital. No problem man, only cost me a bit over a million. Not their issue.

<comment><USER5> I can't help but think you might be able to sue the hospital for following unsanitary procedures in the NICU? Have you talked to a lawyer?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article points to housing as one of the largest factors of raising a child, and mentions healthcare as well.

To my very limited understanding, we calculate inflation from some fixed [per comments below: not entirely fixed] index of consumer goods prices [per comments below: which include some notional aggregate of rent].

Is it possible that instead of saying "The cost of children, housing, healthcare, and education have risen sharply" we should instead be saying "Inflation has increased substantially more than previously calculated because the price of a loaf of bread has been fixed by subsidies"?

<comment><USER7> > _we calculate inflation from some fixed index of consumer goods prices_

CPI includes housing, healthcare and tuition. The basket isn't fixed, _e.g._ 1999 CPI didn't include cell phone data costs.

<comment><USER8> The weighting applied to housing, healthcare, and tuition appears to be nonsensically low compared to the fraction of income most people spend on them.

Though to be fair CPI is computed nationally and things like housing prices are so localized that it's impossible to come up with a number that makes sense across the whole country anyway.

<comment><USER7> > _CPI is computed nationally_

There are CPIs calculated for each metropolitan area. When I'm considering my savings, for instance, I look at New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA [1] and New York-Newark-Jersey City [2] statistics.

National CPI is useful if you're planning policy. Local CPI is better for individual planning.

[1] [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUURA101SA0](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUURA101SA0)

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/regions/new-york-new-jersey/news- release...](https://www.bls.gov/regions/new-york-new-jersey/news- release/ConsumerPriceIndex_NewYorkArea.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Most of this is totally optional. I have a dozen kids, and I'm sure not spending that kind of money per kid.

Births are usually cheap. You can go it alone for $0 or get a midwife for $2000 to $6000. Most of us have health insurance with an out-of-pocket maximum. For example, mine tops out around $11,000. Crazy bills can usually be negotiated, with the hospital very aware that you might just not pay at all.

Child care is sort of free (though an opportunity cost) when done by family. That choice also strengthens the family relationships. It scales well, with older kids assigned to help younger kids.

Housing isn't bad unless you insist on a bedroom for each kid. You need a house for yourself anyway, and most houses have 3 bedrooms. Homeschool to avoid the school district bidding wars.

Food... is a bit of an issue. I go through about $4000 per month, but I'm not living on beans and rice. Being more frugal, $100 per kid per month should be possible for a large family.

Transportation can be mostly avoided.

Clothes become cheap due to hand-me-down policy.

Sports can be cheap. You don't have to sign up for hockey. Play stick ball.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you home schooling? In CA, depending on where you live, it costs the state and tax payers 10-14k/annum per child. That's for 12 years.

Dozen kids would cost about 1.6 million for 12 years of public education.

ETA: I just saw that you mentioned homeschooling.

If it's ok to ask, how much are your expenses per month and do you own your home?

<comment><USER9> I get dual-enrollment for free here in Florida, which most of my kids use to get AA degrees, so the state/county is paying something. I spent about $1000 for AP Chemistry labs and possibly about that much on all kinds of textbooks.

Expenses are primarily food, at about $4000 per month. The rest isn't usually notable unless something is broken, such as when our 4-ton air conditioner is low on coolant or gets the fan stuck. Normally somebody needs surgery (cracked skull, rib cage correction, etc.) so my medical bills hit the yearly out-of- pocket maximum at around $11,000. We probably do 100 to 200 miles per week, fuel being $2.25, so that is pretty much nothing.

I paid off my home in 8 years. It's 3500 square feet on 0.39 acre, about 0.9 mile from the beach. I got it for about $310,000 after the crash.

<comment><USER10> How big a family do you feed on $4000/month? At first it seemed a bit high but I know nothing about your household so won't play the assumption game. I, my wife and my year old spend at most 1000 on food monthly. We eat quite healthy but my wife cooks daily so that saves a bit.

<comment><USER9> A few comments above I said "I have a dozen kids". With parents, that is 14 people.

We cook. I look for sale prices. We eat a lot of chicken, but we also get fish.

I count just 3 of you. Scaling up for family size and ignoring the sizes of the people, your $1000 would be $4666 for me. I guess I'm doing well to spend only $4000. Scaling the other direction, you'd be on a similar per-person budget if you spent $857 per month.

<comment><USER11> Not to discount, but I'm sure you benefit from buying in bulk as well. We are a family of 5, about as efficient with food costs ($250/week) (yet, also our preschoolers are still quite picky eaters).

I'm just enjoying your comments. Sounds like you're doing a lot of things right. Right on!

<comment><USER9> It depends what you mean by "bulk".

I buy normal packages from a normal supermarket. I try to buy a bit extra when there is a sale, but I only have two refrigerators and a chest freezer. What is "bulk" to most people can be eaten in a week. I might empty the supermarket's supply of sliced cheddar cheese when it goes on sale, grabbing 10 pounds of it, but we'll have that eaten within a week or two. Sometimes I'll grab all the extra-large packages of ground beef or an entire display box full of canned herring. We go through 2 gallons of milk per day. There just isn't any way to really stock up on things without more storage space, and I'd have to find a store that wouldn't run out of things when I go shopping.

Maybe I should see about having Sysco trucks deliver food. :-)

<comment><USER11> By bulk I mean the quantities _not_ usually offered in grocery stores. Club- card-style outlets, basically. Of course; that's another trip, and a membership fee, and they don't always have everything you need like a typical grocery store will.

For us, it's always a struggle with waffles (And there's only 5 of us). If everyone eats two waffles in the morning (which happens 98% of the time) that's 10 waffles a day. Hardly anyone carries 48-counts so we end up grabbing as many 24-count boxes as we can and usually have to make another run by Sunday evening. Maybe when the kids get older we could switch to a waffle iron.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Medical guilds, unions and financial players are mature, strong and in-place. Many if not most, are well paid across the spectrum, and therefore can afford their own services. Why bring prices down ?

ps- if you think this is an endorsement of the situation, think again; simply a cold-blooded game theory thought on a most emotional topic

<comment><USER13> Your guilds will get disrupted with a OBGYNer or BirthBnB at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm having identical twins, classified as high risk. The cost is mind- boggling. I've already paid $7000+ out of pocket, and they have not even been born yet. Costs are mostly related to having to do ultrasounds all the time, and one MRI.

<comment><USER15> What insurance plan can result in $7k out of pocket for unborn children?

<comment><USER16> A very poor one it sounds like. Even a high deductible plan shouldn't have an out of pocket expense that is that high.

<comment><USER17> All my plans since 2013 have been $12K+ deductible. (Self-employed in Ohio.) Every medical event is a major shopping and price comparison exercise, and nearly every provider refuses to quote hard-and-fast prices. (You also get treated very badly by some practices who act terribly put-off that you'd have the lack of decency to ask about prices. You get that treatment double when it's about a procedure for your kid. P/A in the ER was a straight-up asshole when I questioned if a x-ray of my daughter was strictly necessary.)

<comment><USER18> Curious what is your yearly premiums? Is it a high deductible plan?

<comment><USER17> The current year is a high deductible plan (as all of mine have been since starting self-employment in 2004) but is not HSA-eligible. (Most years we've had an HSA-eligible plan, but some years none were available or they were vastly more expensive than the non-HSA eligible, which makes no sense.) We found a way to get an employer-sponsored plan thru my LLC this year and that dropped the premiums to just under $12K w/ a $13.6K family deductible. The marketplace plan we were on last year, had we renewed for 2019, would have been $17.5K in premiums w/ the same deductible. Neither is HSA-eligible.

<comment><USER18> I was punching some numbers into Covered California marketplace and for $12K you could get some pretty good plans. And if you qualify for the subsidy it is much lower. Some of the HMO plans have no or low deductibles.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like California has a much nicer market than we do in Ohio. I had one provider to choose from in the Marketplace for my county in 2019. Their "Silver" plan was what we had in 2018, chosen over the "Bronze" because the lower-priced "Bronze" was 20% co-insurance on inpatient care versus 100% coverage after deductible on "Siler". Aside from that company's plans those who purchased on the Marketplace in my county for 2019 had no other choices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it has raised in most of the countries.

In India, raising a child now is a very tough one. 1) Health Insurance - <USER2> everyone has it and many who have turns out to be not sufficient. 2) Education - Schooling has become extremely expensive. There is not much regulation and schools apply a lot of tricks to get money from you, mainly under the guise of extra-curricular activities or development. They force the parents to pay, and legal recourse isn't available. 3) Health again - With the bad air, water and food that the children are getting these days, a lot of them get some or the other illness on a regular basis, which forces the kids to visit doctors frequently and take medicines. These all doctor visits don't get covered under insurance a lot of times. Kids of today are not developing a strong immune system. To top it all, many parents don't let their kids play outside. They give them a mobile and think they have done their duty.

I forsee a very bad/difficult future for a lot of children.

</comment><comment><USER20> Article doesn't even touch on the environmental costs. Probably the worst thing you can do for the environment is have a kid.

Edit: Why downvote this? It's like talking about the cost of driving while ignoring all the costs being externalized and offloaded on everyone else.

<comment><USER21> Why downvoted? Maybe two reasons. First, it's off topic. You look like you're trying to find a way to sneak your hobbyhorse into the discussion, even when it doesn't really fit.

Second, by the same logic, the _best_ thing you could do for the environment is go on a murder spree and then commit suicide.

That should appall you. You should respond "No, because..." (If you don't, seriously, please get help rather than committing suicide.)

But what's the reason for your "no"? Because the murder spree is immoral? (It is.) Because suicide would hurt too many people around you? (It would.) Or is it because, despite the environmental cost of your continued existence, you feel that you could make a positive (net) difference with the rest of your life?

But if you can, _so can your child._

<comment><USER20> Boy, must have been a fun ride down the slippery slope from don't have kids to go on a murder spree.

> despite the environmental cost of your continued existence, you feel that > you could make a positive (net) difference with the rest of your life?

I definitely do not feel that. I recognize that essentially every person is a net negative on the world (especially myself). But I have already been born and there's nothing I'm willing to do to change that at this time.

I mean I get that people like having kids, but at least acknowledge how stupid it is to have one and then recycle or whatever like it makes some difference.

This is not off topic at all by the way. The article is on the cost parents pay to give birth. But ignores the fact that parents are getting an unbelievable discount by offloading the environmental costs to the rest of the world. If we were serious about combatting climate change, having a child would be all but prohibitively expensive.

<comment><USER21> That's not quite a slippery slope. I didn't say that people like you are going to _become_ murderers. I said that, by the standard you are using to choose to not have kids, that would be a good thing to do (and therefore maybe your standard is less reasonable than it appears to you to be). But you seem to find it comforting to have a glib dismissal to use, rather than actually interacting with the point.

Now, you did kind of answer it in a way. The only way my murder point actually makes sense is if reducing the population (or the environment) is your _only_ value. You obviously have other values as well (as you should). But just as those other values rule out murder and suicide (though that might benefit the environment), they could also allow a child.

<comment><USER20> And if those values allow a child, they could also allow living in a huge house, flying in airplanes, generally being wasteful, and well, look where that's got us.

Basically do whatever the fuck you want because your value system has allowed you to justify it to yourself.

<comment><USER21> Permit me to point out that you are now doing a slippery slope - or at least, doing as much of a slippery slope as I did.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>