Cargo Cult Science (1974) - <AUTHOR> http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm <comment><USER2> Everyone who cares about science has known his point for over 40 years now.

But Psychology, the subject he was discussing, continued to not take figuring out how to replicate seriously until the recent replication crisis demonstrated exactly HOW bad it was in terms that they couldn't ignore. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis) for more on that.

And now it is a hot topic with lots of, "Look at what we've figured out about how to make our research better!" With very little discussion of the fact that this was something they should have known all along.

<comment><USER3> yes the problem is politics , or what you might call institutionalized group psychology of those with access to spending tax dollars, and the legislators they need to 'persuade' to get the money spent.

science is not an art , it is generally an institutionally funded social behavior. the art of science is such that a lot of shitty ass sciece research with poorly constructed hypothesis and protocol gets funded............

can we do a better job? maybe. but the answer lies in better policy analysts and politicians, not in better 'scientists'.

on heuristic for helping pinpoint bad and poorly constructed research is to look for where the most 'growth' in research has occured the quickest; and by that-----i mean look for the research 'bubbles'.

why? as with art in general, and clothign and every sphere of human behavior -----that which gets popular very quickly is usually by nature fleeting and without the most substance, like fast growing weeds. that which grows slowly and withstands the test of time usually resembles an oak in quality.

that does not mean that fast growth is always undesireable. you want fast growth in areas where there is great potential and low hanging fruit.

it is good that bubbles occur SOMETIMES. BUT NOT ALWAYS. some bubbles are poorly advised. you must crack a few eggs to make an ommelet but sometimes you are just breaking eggs inside the carton without ever making breakfast.

but regardless of whether or not a bubble is good or bad, all bubbles still must pop at some point to let the overgrowth and wasteful growth be cleared. all forests must eventually have a forest fire.

the longer fire and destruction is suppressed beyond a certain point........the greater the amount of destruction is going to be when it finally comes.

and in general, this is why our current economic bubble is so worrisome

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well we should talk about Cargo Cult Management. I suspect most management is Cargo Cult :-)

[https://gigaom.com/2009/06/21/cargo-cult- management/](https://gigaom.com/2009/06/21/cargo-cult-management/)

<comment><USER5> Very much so. My pet theory is that most business management practices evolved from manufacturing production line environments, and the application of these management practices to, say, running a university or research facility is cargo cult in the extreme.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The parts that always strike me the most about this is that in 1974 Feynman lamented a lack of scientific rigour in deciding how we teach and how we manage crime and the criminal justice system. In both cases, despite 40 years having passed, it's hard to say there's been any large improvement in the application of rigour.

<comment><USER7> There's _some_ progress: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_lineups](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_lineups)

The part that boggled me was how recent (and incomplete) was the introduction of blinding to police lineups. Apparently it really was (and is?) common for the witness to pick out a suspect, and for the cop to know the 'real' suspect and say things like "Are you sure? Take your time."

From another Feynman talk: "This is not yet a scientific age."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This applies extremely well to programming and software engineering in particular. "Best practices" are often a good excuse to avoid thinking hard about the problem at hand.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think there is a lot of cargo culting going on everywhere. The lucky ones pick the right cult. How do you know whether your model of how the world works is right?

<comment><USER10> You're looking at this the wrong way. The question is not "does reality match this model?" but rather "how well does this model match reality?".

You never know exactly to what exact extent your map matches the territory. But you can have a pretty good idea. Like, we know (to the extent that we can "know" anything) that models predicting the Sun will rise tomorrow match reality better than those which don't. We know that models which predict that turning on a switch will cause the lightbulb to emit light are more accurate that those who say that it's magic or mysterious.

To quote Feynman:

> We've learned from experience that the truth will out. Other experimenters > will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. > Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, > although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain > a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in > this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to > fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in > Cargo Cult Science.

<comment><USER9> In physics or other hard sciences it's possible to validate a lot of models.

I was more thinking about other areas like politics, management or software engineering issues. There it's often not possible to validate your model. It's even hard to tell if something goes well or not. And the feedback loop from decision to result can take years in many cases. So you pretty much are forced to do cargo culting.

<comment><USER10> Ah, I see. I thought you were going more along the lines of the "how can we know anything?" sort of philosophical questions.

In the matters that you're talking about, it may just be that we can't really know. Certain things take years to figure out (take Feynman's example of the Milikan value): people still −I assume− had to use some value while the "official" value was shifting.

I'm not sure I'd call that cargo culting necessarily. If the best case to be made right now is in favour of the majority position, then I think one should go with the majority position. I'd say that one should still keep a healthy dose of skepticism and be ready to change their mind if the balance of evidence changes… but then, it may be that managers/leaders need to feel committed and that a "healthy dose" for them is very, very little.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how many cheer this, then turn around and do the sorts of things he was complaining about.

</comment><comment><USER12> Ancient typos

She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time. This was in about 1935 or so, and it seems to have been the general policy then to __nut__ try to repeat psychological experiments, but only to change the conditions and see __hat__ happens.

</comment><comment><USER13> In CS (Systems, not Theory) research there's a big push now to move toward reproducibility by publishing code and dependencies; [https://twitter.com/kragen/status/727220736633524228](https://twitter.com/kragen/status/727220736633524228) talks a bit about some of the historical context and details.

Hackademia has a couple of synergistic efforts going on, directed mostly at securing the free-software distribution infrastructure and somewhat at simplifying system administration: on one hand you have reproducible builds being done by Tor, Mozilla, and Debian, and on the other hand you have Nix, Guix, and the like pushing purely-functional content-addressable package management.

The upshot of all of this is that, in theory, in the near future, it will be practical to publish machine-executable instructions for reproducing the bit- identical executables and other output products you used in your research, at a cost of only a few gigabytes, so they can be exactly reproduced at any time in the future, and then modified to do new experiments; and it will be straightforward to make archival copies of this entire set of dependencies so that it won't be lost because some random guy died or decided to pull his modules from npm.

Mike Hoye famously complained about how far we are from this in a Tweetstorm the other day: [https://twitter.com/mhoye/status/725010388547330048](https://twitter.com/mhoye/status/725010388547330048)

The Sprite-LFS affair I mention in that tweet is an infamous case of a famous, influential systems paper by a famous, influential academic (Ousterhout) that badly failed reproduction when a different famous, influential academic (Seltzer) tried to reproduce its results by writing a new log-structured filesystem. Nobody really knows what went wrong, but our best guess at this point is that the Sprite operating system had unknown bugs in it that gave a performance advantage to log-structured filesystems.

(ChuckMcM may want to weigh in, since his company at the time (NetApp) was getting record-setting performance with WAFL, which is very similar to a LFS in some ways, but not others.)

Jan Vitek, Jean Yang, Sam Tobin-Hochstadt, and Shriram Krishnamurthi are four prominent researchers who are advocating this change; they and others have created a new institution called "Artifact Evaluation Committees", which review the artifacts submitted by authors to see if they are able to reproduce the results the authors report. They've written an overview of it here, and they seem to already be getting significant results: [http://jxyzabc.blogspot.com.ar/2016/05/myth-cs- researchers-d...](http://jxyzabc.blogspot.com.ar/2016/05/myth-cs-researchers- dont-publish-code.html)

Hopefully over time this will create a bubble of real, reproducible science inside of the systems part of Computer "Science" research.

[Earlier versions of this comment did not mention Krishnamurthi or Vitek and the synergistic work in hackademia, which was a combination of cluelessness and carelessness on my part. I regret the omissions.]

<comment><USER14> I could be totally wrong, I don't read a huge number of CS research papers, but aren't most published CS papers fully self-contained? They contain the algorithms or ideas within them. Perhaps in pseudocode, but fully reproducible.

The little experience I have is in computer graphics publications and (less) distributed systems publications. Graphics papers very often have data sets and code that go along with the paper. These are nice, and it would be awesome to have a common and well-known way of publishing all that together with the papers, but they are just examples. Mike Hoye's comparison to the loss of greek fire doesn't seem applicable to the idea of _reproducibility by publishing code and dependencies_. The meat is in the paper!

Same with my experience in distributed systems papers. I can implement Paxos at any time using only the Paxos PDFs I've saved. Companion code is nice, and again I'd be fully supportive of a system which gave permanence to not ony the papers but companion artifacts... but the paper is the important part, isn't it?

<comment><USER15> > I could be totally wrong, I don't read a huge number of CS research papers, > but aren't most published CS papers fully self-contained? They contain the > algorithms or ideas within them. Perhaps in pseudocode, but fully > reproducible.

They may be not reproducible if going from pseudocode to working implementation and from there to the pretty graphs published by author is nontrivial. From parent post:

 _The Sprite-LFS affair I mention in that tweet is an infamous case of a famous, influential systems paper by a famous, influential academic (Ousterhout) that badly failed reproduction when a different famous, influential academic (Seltzer) tried to reproduce its results by writing a new log-structured filesystem. Nobody really knows what went wrong[...]_

> I can implement Paxos at any time using only the Paxos PDFs I've saved. > Companion code is nice, and again I'd be fully supportive of a system which > gave permanence to not ony the papers but companion artifacts... but the > paper is the important part, isn't it?

Paxos is closer to the "theory" than the "systems" end of parent's spectrum. Real problem is with things that take man-months to implement and validate, not things that take man-months to invent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The entire "agile" methodology strikes me as a prominent example of a software engineering cargo cult.

Yes, good projects have been executed successfully using agile methodology. No, this does not mean that using agile _caused_ these projects to work out well.

Most agile projects fail, just like most non-agile projects. There is no evidence whatsoever that agile methodology _causes_ projects to work out well -- but there is a whole mini-industry of training, books, seminars, "scrum masters" and so on built around the idea that it does.

<comment><USER14> There's very little evidence whatsoever about _any_ software development methodology or practice working well or poorly. That said, most experienced developers I've interacted with consider most of the Agile principles to be wise -- either common sense, or shown to be true via decades of experience.

Here are the principles:

* Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

* Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.

* Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.

* Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

* Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

* The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

* Working software is the primary measure of progress.

* Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

* Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.

* Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.

* The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

* At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Which of these would you argue aren't wise principles for all of us to use when developing software? Now, if your beef is with Scrum (or some other branded methodology) in particular, I'd be more inclined to agree.

<comment><USER17> >Which of these would you argue aren't wise principles for all of us to use when developing software?

most of these aren't principles, these are wishes. Like i can say i have 2 principles - be wealthy and be healthy - and those 2 principles look like very wise and hard to argue with, don't you think?

Except for the stuff like this :

> The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and > within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

>The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

which is just some personal beliefs or dreams of somebody, and is obviously not true in general. There is a reason things are called 'manifest' and not even a 'paper/essay', less 'peer-reviewed paper'...

<comment><USER14> _most of these aren 't principles, these are wishes. Like i can say i have 2 principles - be wealthy and be healthy - and those 2 principles look like very wise and hard to argue with, don't you think?_

Becoming wealthy takes time and luck. It's not something you can just turn on at will. I just read through each of the principles, and I find exactly 0 of them that share that quality. Most of them tell you _specifically_ what to do, and they are things that you can start doing at any time.

Name one or more specific principles that are like "become wealthy" and we can talk about them specifically. We may be reading them differently.

 _> The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self- organizing teams. which is just some personal beliefs or dreams of somebody, and is obviously not true in general._

I've worked remotely for a long time and love it. However, I certainly recognize that there's a legitimate cost to the team. I've also worked for years with teams that are split geographically. Again, the distance is a cost.

Of course there are benefits too. That's why we pay the cost. But the principle says _the best architectures, requirements, and design_. How exactly could physical distance be a net negative to architectures, requirements, and designs, all other things being equal? The methods of communication at your disposal face-to-face are a strict superset of the methods at your disposal when physically separated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 16th time this has been posted to HN

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cargo%20cult%20science](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=cargo%20cult%20science)

<comment><USER19> I wouldn't complain if it were posted 160 times. It's brilliant, amazing, relevant stuff that hasn't dated. I've re-read it at least 16 times since first encountering it in "Surely you're joking Mr Feynman" in the 80s.

<comment><USER12> it's been so long, why are there typos in it?!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> today is richard feynman's bday! happy bday feynman!!

</comment><comment><USER21> The problem can not be solved by education alone. Education alone does not prevent the minds from making mistakes. Its about building and maintaining social structures that destroy cargo science and at the same time give freedom to groups/individuals who abstain from it. On envisions a credit system, in which you earn credibility by proofing something you did works- or by disproofing something that was wrong (obviously you get all credits that proof held). New credits enters the system with every entering scholar.

</comment><comment><USER22> He probably could have been delighted to see all these "pendulums going in both directions at the same time" and other marvels of modern science we so often see on this site.</comment>


Survival of Scottish Gaelic in doubt - <AUTHOR> https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0702/1150912-survival-of-scottish-gaelic-in-serious-doubt/ <comment><USER2> On the island of Ireland, there are only three places where people regularly speak Gaelic in conversation, all of which are way at the west coast away from Dublin - in Munster, in Connacht and in Ulster. My mother's parents happen to be from the Ulster Gaeltacht, which is centered in Gweedore.

I was speaking to an older relative who still lives there. She told me after the 2008 Irish banking crisis, all the local Allied Irish Bank branches there closed down, with the closest branch then 20 km away - which is still the case. The closest branch after that was and is 50 km away. Not a great harbinger for the vitality of the Gaeltacht.

<comment><USER3> By coincidence I was just watching an 8 year old Teilifís na Gaeilge (TG4) program in which the protagonist attempts to travel the length and breadth of Ireland speaking only 'as Gaeilge'.

The scenes in which he attempts to get state-run tourist services to communicate with him in one of the official lanaguages of Ireland are painful. In particular his visit to the prison cell in which his grandmother (one of the 1916 revolutionaries) was incarcerated starts off badly: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyll- bBZzyk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyll-bBZzyk)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Its quite curious seeing this headline, Duolingo recently added Gaelic and alongside the Scottish Independence movement it seems at least within my bubble to be having somewhat of a revival,

396k active learners @ [https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/gd/en/Learn-Scottish- Gaelic](https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/gd/en/Learn-Scottish-Gaelic) including a large amount of people I know, I havent started yet but have been tempted

<comment><USER5> The headline does feel surprising but then it goes on to mention on the ground research that people who learn the language the "normal" way (i.e. from parents and the community) are the population in scope for the study.

<comment><USER6> The definition of a language being "living" or "dead" is centered around native speakers.

I would bet that a tiny percentage of Gaelic duolingo learners will ever use it in conversation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would guess that because the Scottish accents are so distinct (to the point of being unintelligible to many English speakers unless the speaker is making an effort rather than just speaking in a relaxed manner) and well known, it provides a lot of the identity that the effort to preserve Scottish Gaelic needs to rely on. And Scottish accents don't seem to be weakening much.

<comment><USER8> Worth noting the Scots language is also a thing, separate from Scottish English and Gaelic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Scottish Gaelic has been proclaimed dying for as long as I remember. Despite my name being Gaelic (I am Scottish), the amount of "public" (tax) money that has been poured into the language by our devolved government (>£28 million/year) is appauling. The phrase "that which is falling should also be pushed" comes to mind.

Edit: typo

<comment><USER10> 28 million GBP a year seems pretty small, budget-wise. How much is that per capita?

<comment><USER6> The Scottish budget is £34B. So Scotland is spending 0.08% of their budget on Gaelic education, which seems pretty inconsequential.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are there any similar articles about Gaelic in Ireland? I'm curious where it stands as a language.

</comment><comment><USER12> Apparently Gaelic has been dying for quite some time. David Mitchell has a rant on the topic from 10 years ago [https://youtu.be/OvlQXPNwrqo](https://youtu.be/OvlQXPNwrqo)

<comment><USER3> Before ranting David Mitchell would be wise to learn the difference between:

\- Gallic == of, or pertaining to France

\- Gaelic == the dialect of Irish spoken in Scotland

\- An Gaeilge (or just 'Irish' seeing as he's an English speaker) == the dialect of Irish spoken in Ireland

Also, although I like David Mitchell's comedy (Peep Show in particular) I doubt that Scottish people are terribly interested in English people's opinions on whether their language should be destroyed. Still, it's probably good for the next independence referendum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Do they teach this language in British schools like they teach Irish Gaelic in Irish schools?

</comment><comment><USER14> Make learning it a requirement for immigration. If the locals want to preserve it without their own effort, they can sell it in exchange for living in their country.

<comment><USER6> Countries can make language learning a requirement for immigration when they're already attracting a large number of immigrants; it's not uncommon to see work permits in rich European countries list fluency in the official language as a requirement. This naturally reduces the level of immigration, but that might be an acceptable trade off if you're already an attractive country.

But is Scotland really attracting enough immigrants to make that a requirement? If a country isn't already an attractive spot for immigration, such requirements would effectively bring immigration to a complete and utter stop.

<comment><USER15> Fluency in Gaelic would be a pointless requirement thought, since the point is that very few locals speak Gaelic.

Gaelic is only really spoken on the west coast, and even then very sparsely and mainly by older people. I don't like the idea of a language dieing out, but realistically I don't see Gaelic going any other way; any opportunity for a Gaelic renaissance has long since past.

Disclaimer: I'm Scottish

<comment><USER6> I think Gaelic has finally fallen below the necessary threshold for survival; all that remains is for the last native speakers to age out of the population.

There are a couple of languages that have or are going through this process on mainland Europe, including Occitan, Bavarian, and Franconian. The creation of the modern nation state and globalization have been very hard on non-major languages.

<comment><USER15> I agree - it was on borrowed time since the 1600's when it was forbidden, and we were apathetic in modern times. A few futile efforts were made, which never seemed serious even in their conception. Scots Gaelic is all but dead.

Realistically, it would be a _very_ tough sell to try to cling on any longer - as you mentioned, globalisation has taken a toll on languages. Personally, my father spoke basic Gaelic, and his parents spoke it as a second language to English, so I don't feel particularly sentimental about it.

<comment><USER6> The only chance Gaelic has is the separation of Scotland from the United Kingdom. You occasionally see old languages come roaring back when a group of people is split back out from a larger political entity that they'd joined. This basically happened to modern Czech in the 1800s, with the elites rushing to revive a language that had been losing out locally to German.

But that ... is a much bigger ball of wax than just Gaelic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Do we need every language in use to survive in an everyday setting?

Latin is dead, and yet it still permeates much of the world in some form or another.

It's important that we document and keep a good record of the language, the culture it accompanies and any other relevant context; I think this is obvious to most people. But to force people who don't naturally want to learn the language to do so for sentimental reasons doesn't sound like the way to preserve it as a source of joy.

<comment><USER17> > Latin is dead

Latin isn't dead. School children all around the world still learn it. It's still taught at universities. It's still used as the living language of the Catholic Church. I wouldn't be surprised if Latin is fairly high up the list of second-languages people learn.

<comment><USER18> School children learning latin is very high on the list of pointless drudgery our school system imposes on our children. We do waste lots of money, teachers and childrens' lifetime and attention.

<comment><USER6> Learning a language is a skill; it's been shown that you learn your _second_ foreign language much easier than your first. Teaching students a years worth of Latin and then transitioning to another living language is actually a fairly effective teaching strategy.

<comment><USER18> You might as well teach multiple living languages. Using a dead to teach language learning is a waste of a good opportunity.

<comment><USER6> The first language is lost; there's no need for it to be "useful". In some ways it's mildly preferable for it to be a language that no student is likely to return to, but that is incredibly unlikely no matter what the first language is.

Then again, given the incredibly low level of bilingual native born Americans, one should probably examine the purpose of second language education given that it basically doesn't stick.

<comment><USER18> My first language at school was english, same as for the majority of german children. It stuck sufficiently for me to talk to you right now.

My second language, Latin, didn't really stick, I couldn't order a meal if I were starving in latin...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


One-bit signed integers - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/anonymous/d9f057e910349da0ceba

<comment><USER2> So? What's your problem?

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why does this happen?

<comment><USER5> it's a signed int... ones' complement.

<comment><USER2> Indeed, if you want 0/1, use unsigned int, not signed int!</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where's the Good UX Research? - <AUTHOR>

Have you found it? Does it exist? WHERE IS IT? <comment><USER2> Rex Hartson coordinates a research group about Human Computer Interaction at Virginia Tech and they are pretty good. He's also the author of this book: [http://www.amazon.com/The-UX-Book-Guidelines- Experience/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/The-UX-Book-Guidelines- Experience/dp/0123852412).

</comment><comment><USER2> Also Brad Myers in Carnegie Melon (leading the Human-Computer Interaction Institute). [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bam/)</comment>


Breaking Out of Docker via RunC - <AUTHOR> https://www.twistlock.com/labs-blog/breaking-docker-via-runc-explaining-cve-2019-5736/ <comment><USER2> A post by Christian Brauner (LXC/LXD developer) on how LXC and LXD are affected. In summary, unprivileged containers (as found in LXD) are not affected.

[https://brauner.github.io/2019/02/12/privileged- containers.h...](https://brauner.github.io/2019/02/12/privileged- containers.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a really great exploration of this vulnerability.

It makes me sad that lxc doesn't get more love. LXC has had unprivileged containers as its default for 5+ years now. Its a really solid tool set that has mostly been passed over for lack of marketing.

<comment><USER4> The reason Docker gets so much attention is its container image repository infrastructure. I'm sure LXC has something similar, but Docker's is built-in and has almost anything you can think of. (Of course, this presents other security/trust issues).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is very interesting, because most docker break outs I see are exploits in the linux kernel, but this is one of the few in the containerization components themselves (first one I remember in runC).

<comment><USER6> Definitely not the first. There was one with leaking file descriptors which weren't opened with O_CLOEXEC.

Another with ptrace (fixed by making the process non-dumpable).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are those diagrams generated via something or did you create it in an app?

<comment><USER8> They're created using [https://www.draw.io/](https://www.draw.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> why isn't docker and k8s banned by security teams? these are clearly broken abstractions that would violate most security audits immediately

<comment><USER10> We think of these as deployment abstractions that provide no security value. This is why services like Amazon's ECS Fargate pair 1 task definition (usually a single container) to a single EC2 host for isolation.

<comment><USER11> AWS employee here! The relationship is actually one task per EC2 _instance_ (VM isolation), not one task per host. I'm sure you meant the former, but just wanted to clarify for readers.

<comment><USER12> Something I've been wondering for a while (and you may be placed to answer): is firecracker part of the isolation story for Fargate - or is it regular EC2 instances?

<comment><USER13> Hi, I'm from the core compute engineering part of AWS.

Like most good stories, there's a beginning, middle, and end. We're in the middle now, and Fargate uses both regular EC2 instances and Firecracker in some cases.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Ticketmaster ruined the concertgoing experience, and how it might be saved - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/17/how-ticketmaster-ruined-the-concertgoing-experience-and-how-it-might-be-saved/ <comment><USER2> I dislike going to concerts because it is a crappy way to listen to music.</comment>


SQL Indexing and Tuning e-Book - <AUTHOR> http://use-the-index-luke.com/l/ <comment><USER2> I had seen this before, but I can't recommend it enough.

I very much like resources like this that explain things by explaining how they are implemented. Once you understand the basics of how a database is implemented, a lot of the performance implications of your queries make sense.

It also really helps in the understanding of what is going on in EXPLAIN output.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I took an Oracle course on this stuff a few years ago. This has proven invaluable for me in understanding performance in a variety of databases since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I might recommend offering an ePub download for those that want to load onto an eReader/Tablet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Other formats (PDF and paperback) are available on a commercial basis:

<http://sql-performance-explained.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks very interesting, can anyone say if this material also applies to SQLite?

<comment><USER6> SQLite only makes B-Tree indices, not hash or bitmap, and there are no clustered indices, for instance. But there are indices spanning multiple columns, there are ephemeral indices (when doing an n^2 query would be prohibitive), there are self-analytics (to gauge the efficacy of using an index in a query).

It's an entire book, so it's tough to say in a small comment box.

If you're doing queries across a 5MB database on a phone, you should be fine with or without optimizations.

<comment><USER7> If you're doing queries across a 5MB database _frequently_ on a phone, you should think carefully about your indexes because you're responsible for battery life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would just like to point out that this "ebook" is not really free because it is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND; meaning you cannot make derivative works from it. Eg: If you take the contents of the website and turn it into an epub manually you cannot legally distribute said epub.

In fact, the only way you could distribute the contents is by having an identical mirror to the site.

<comment><USER9> It's perfectly free. I've never been charged a cent for reading it.

Perhaps you really meant to complain that it isn't Free?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fantastic stuff - this is definitely worth a look.

</comment><comment><USER11> Strongly suggest that those interested in Oracle tuning look at Cary Millsap's book on Oracle tuning.</comment>


Show HN: Tired to enter repetitive bash commands? - <AUTHOR> Have difficult to remember long commands ? tired to type repetitive commands ??
asynctasks would also be useful when you need a bash snippets manager:
screencast:
https://github.com/skywind3000/asynctasks.vim/raw/master/images/snippets.gif
homepage:
https://github.com/skywind3000/asynctasks.vim/wiki/Command-Line-Tool <comment><AUTHOR> clickable links:

screencast:

[https://github.com/skywind3000/asynctasks.vim/raw/master/ima...](https://github.com/skywind3000/asynctasks.vim/raw/master/images/snippets.gif)

homepage:

[https://github.com/skywind3000/asynctasks.vim/wiki/Command-L...](https://github.com/skywind3000/asynctasks.vim/wiki/Command- Line-Tool)</comment>


Show HN: Precis – A minimal note-taking app built over GitHub Pages - <AUTHOR> https://abhin4v.github.io/precis/ <comment><USER2> I was initially confused how this could work, since GitHub pages is only for static hosting, but it turns out you use it by pushing notes to your repo, and Precis acts as more of a viewer/organizer for your notes (if I am understanding it correctly). I don't know if I would call it a note-taking app, since the actual note taking part is on your own computer rather than on the website, but it is pretty cool. Very pretty!

<comment><USER3> +1, especially since all notes are public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To me, it looks like the right balance between the Twitter and an actual blog. I may give it a try. Nice job!

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems like interesting way to utilize GitHub. Kudos!</comment>


DomIRC – An IRC network for all domain name owners and their communities - <AUTHOR> https://domirc.net <comment><USER2> "Slack for everyone".

(After paying some registrar and ICANN gets its 13 cents or whatever.)

Pay to play DNS aside, this is really what the "web 2.0" should have been.

IMHO, an IRC channel has always been more functional than a "website".

It makes peer to peer easy.

<comment><USER3> If only the big networks weren't so change averse, we could have had a new RFC for IRC that included mobile/roaming-friendly protocols, which IMHO is the #1 thing holding IRC back in the current age.

Does my client really have to burn battery by sending a PONG back every half second or so? Can't we have seamless roaming without disconnects?

<comment><USER4> XMPP works so well on mobile connections that I have been using IRC over XMPP almost exclusively for quite some time using a transport that maps any IRC channel to an XMPP MUC (#maemo on freenode is "email@example.com") and any IRC user to an XMPP user (nickserv on freenode is "email@example.com"). Even when the connection is gone for several minutes (like when using UMTS on a train), XMPP usually transmits all pending messages as soon as I am back online.

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

<comment><USER5> Wow, that reminds me of UUCP.

<comment><USER4> How so? Please elaborate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To clear that up a bit, you can register a channel like #domain.tld only if you control the DNS zone of the said domain, and you can't get op in a primary channel without registering it first.

<comment><USER6> Well, that is definitely _one_ way of approaching the lack of federation in IRC

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. In fact, there is a lot of networks but they are made because people want to experiment and operate a server then they wonder what they could use it for. Here, well, we had a goal and IRC was a solution, as once you have your channel you just have to add an iframe on your website and tadam, a fully functioning live webchat with permissions! ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slightly off-topic, but IRC discussions don't come up too regularly.

What channels / networks are people hanging out in?

I mainly lurk on ##re and ##security on Freenode.

<comment><USER8> Freenode is HEAVILY moderated and censored to the point of restricting basic free speech. Find a different place.

To the downvoters: you are doing exactly what I'm talking about

<comment><USER9> Lack of evidence is probably the reason you're getting downvoted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is rather a novel way of approaching verification.

If someone has ops in a channel he or she must either be a webmaster or someone trusted by a webmaster.

Whether this is useful or not is sort of irrelevant, it's a fun exercise.

</comment><comment><USER11> If it only were controlled by a formal entity like the root zone owner it would be somewhat awesome, as this project or company may die out if not successfully enough...

Still an upvote

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it is controlled by a non-profit organization already funded by something else.

There are no profits created by this network, so even if it does not work well, we will not lose money.

About the organization itself, it has others activities maintaining it alive.

As the President of Blackfields Network, the parent organization of DomIRC, I swear we will maintain this network as long as we exist.

<comment><USER12> That's the problem with federated systems: we (users) have to rely on the promises and whims of our system operators to have access.

I don't trust or distrust you, I wish I didn't have to decide.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I have experienced that as well and I get your point, that's mainly why we have created a whole structure and registered an organization, even if we can never predict what will happen next we can always do our best to get the odds in our favour.

Unfortunately, the best alternative would probably be the P2P way, with something like [https://matrix.org/](https://matrix.org/) which also seems to be nice.

<comment><USER4> You can host your own XMPP server today: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ##frontend on freenode, we are off-topic almost all the time.

<comment><USER14> I haven't used IRC aggressively in over 15 years. What's with the double hashes I now see on the front of channel names? Is one hash no longer enough?

<comment><USER15> double hash means non official channel. Single hash means that the channel is administered by "official" staff member.

Example #debian would have operators that are really member of the debian project while ##debian is your old normal IRC channel on first serve basis</comment></comment></comment>


Google ate my email address - <AUTHOR> http://rondam.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-ate-my-email-address.html <comment><USER2> Welcome to Google Hell. I have described my experience here [http://blog.foundrs.com/2010/11/15/the-10-step-google- login-...](http://blog.foundrs.com/2010/11/15/the-10-step-google-login-from- hell/) (the 10-step login from hell).

I never wanted to have a gmail account. But to use a certain service, years ago, Google required that I create a gmail account. So I did. Then someone invited me to a Google Apps project, so I got another email there. Then YouTube decided to merge my login info with Google. It's been more than 5 years, and now I have _6_ accounts with Google, and it's been hell ever since. It did get better this year as Google started better supporting merging and multiple accounts.

Don't blame the user. I never wanted this to happen to me.

<comment><USER3> __Note: Google does NOT support merging accounts.

I've had a similar experiences.

The Youtube merge was a disaster causing many Gmail addresses to be merged with "nicknamed" Youtube channels that users didn't want anymore. Since Google refuses to step in and delete accounts or unlink them, many people are stuck with a Youtube account nickname they don't want to be associated with. This got even worse over the last few weeks as Google now automatically logs you into Youtube.

The Google Apps/Full Google Account so called "merge" never actually merged anything, it just created 2 full Google Account, a new one under your domain email, and the old one still active under a modified version of the your email address.

Google has no reason why they can't unlink, merge, or rename accounts/usernames. I'm convinced that almost every single person in the world has 2 or more Google accounts.

Google Hell is right.

<comment><USER4> YouTube insisted I login in order to watch some movie trailer, so I did so with my gmail account. It then insisted that I give a nickname. I didn't care at the time, as I figured I could just change the name later - surely the only unique ID here is my gmail account. And that's why my YouTube name is skadfjlsakdfjlksdfjl.

<comment><USER5> Ha!

I'm upvoting you because I did almost _exactly_ the same thing in that situation... my YouTube name is lalalalalalalala2334.

<comment><USER6> and mine "thisloginprocesssux"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish Google had some form of reasonable technical support. That way, HN homepage wouldn't be the only way to get their attention.

<comment><USER8> Agree. Its surprising how much Google can get by without providing any customer support at all. I stopped using my gmail accounts earlier this year when I lost my I emails and google couldn't track them down.

<comment><USER9> Apparently they offer 24/7 phone and email support for Google Apps for Business customers, but I've never had any experience with it. Could someone else comment as to whether or not their Apps customer support is just as bad?

<comment><USER10> Very bad, at least in our case (small company). They reply mostly with templates. When one issue would have taken a bit more time to solve (Thunderbird IMAP issue with ONE of our user names) they simply stopped responding after a while.

AND: You can NOT go back to the free service, at least not easily! Talk about lock-in...

<comment><USER11> Really? I had no problem downgrading my account. It was during the demo period though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Similar situation happened to me:

1) Signed up to have google manage the email for my domain.

2) Tried to create michelle@ _domain_.com

3) Google failed. Signup process hung.

4) Tried again. App hung.

5) Tried different name. Worked.

6) Tried to add michelle in the admin panel and got: "Username already exists" but there's no way to see, edit, or login as michell.

It happens quite often, and remains unresolved for the majority people: [http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/search.py?hl=en&foru...](http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/search.py?hl=en&forum=1&query=%22Username+already+exists%22+more%3Aforum)

It's been months of trying different things, forum posts and contact attempts and it's still broken.

Google is a great company with many great products, but they will straight up not care about your customer service needs and will just let your business suffer.

<comment><USER13> After some hours, I managed to get one domain into Google Apps, but managing 2 domains at a time is a real b*tch. Basically, the only thing you can do with domain number 2 is create users for it. Just about no configuration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be nice if Google would publish a finite state machine showing what's going on with your accounts/email addresses, and what you can do to transition to somewhere better.

It might make people feel better to know that there is a logical process (is there?) when something screws up, rather than having to pray to the user support people to fix your account.

I mean, I don't _pay_ Google for anything, and I know that Google is mainly made up of machines, not humans. So I imagine my accounts could get "eaten" at any time, perhaps permanently.

I don't _really_ trust Google with my Google accounts.

<comment><USER15> "to know that there is a logical process (is there?)"

There isn't. You're fucked.

\-- ex Google employee

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Google seems to have done pretty much the same thing with one of my accounts. It started a couple weeks ago when I needed a gmail account to test a mail server bug. When I created the gmail account they changed my 'primary' address to the new gmail address.

Then in the last couple of days, they decided that my secondary email address was now part of a Google apps account because it was associated with a Postini mail filtering account. They removed the secondary email from my account and created a new account for it using the same password.

Now I'm stuck with two different email addresses for logging into various Google services.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've had a gmail account since the service started, and I have an email address thats just my first name--a very common first name. Because of this, 15 email addresses are associated with mine (as in, I can reset their passwords and what not). Not really the same kind of deal, and it doesn't really affect me--just the people who signed up with my email. Just had to rant about it.

</comment><comment> X-Istence The only time I got this when I had my gmail account forward to my google apps account, when they started unifying the whole account stuff it was no longer a valid backup email account and had to be removed.

</comment><comment><USER18> I recently picked up a fastmail.fm account and am forwarding gmail to that, in case gmail effs up.

<comment><USER19> Be careful, I've created a fastmail.fm (actually airpost.net which is one of their domains) account, and unless you're paying for it, they can and will wipe your account if you leave it fallow/unused for a year or more (unsure what the duration is).

This became an annoying problem when I created a seperate account backed by my airpost.net email (won't do that again unless I decide to pay for the email acct).

<comment><USER18> I am paying for it. :) It's not very expensive, especially if you pick 2/3 year options. That said, the interface is vastly inferior to gmail's, IMHO. What, no conversation view? I can't believe people still use non-threaded email views.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3216029>

<comment><USER21> Google is pretty notorious for providing no support, and in the post he notes that one of the avenues of support (google groups) is effectively cut off to him because of the issue.

<comment><USER20> Googling "google groups support" -> clicking "Contacting Us" at the bottom -> Email us -> this contact form: [http://www.google.com/support/groups/bin/request.py?contact_...](http://www.google.com/support/groups/bin/request.py?contact_type=groups_feedback)</comment></comment></comment>


Hands-on with Canonical's Orange Box and a peek into cloud nirvana - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/hands-on-with-canonicals-orange-box-and-a-peek-into-cloud-nirvana/

<comment><USER2> When I read "Orange Box" I still first think of this: [http://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/](http://store.steampowered.com/sub/469/)

</comment><comment><USER3> 20 cores i5 @ 1.8GHz , 160G RAM, 1.2T SSD for $12K.

My [at a BigCo] HP workstation has 16 cores i7 @ 2.6GHz, 256G RAM, 1T SSD - about $10K. Of course it doesn't consume 320W power - its power unit is something like 1KW :)

I'd wonder what is advantages of Intel NUC in such a cluster setup over say using microATX boards with 4 core i5 and 32 GB per board.

<comment><USER4> As the article says, the Orange Box is not about specs or price. It's a cluster in a box to demo MaaS.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but I think what the poster is trying to get at is.. why couldn't you make a configuration using the NUC's that was more than a demo environment? I don't see any reason you couldn't as long as your infrastructure doesn't care about what happens to single nodes.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, lots of reliable services are built using cheap, unreliable parts, because it's often cheaper to have redundant nodes and replace the ones that break than to buy more reliable stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No ECC RAM support. I'm guessing this isn't for "serious" use?

<comment><USER8> The article says so several times: this is demo hardware. It goes out on the road in a single case and shows you what you can do on a 10-node system.

No failover power. No internal redundant networking (each node only has one NIC, and there's one switch acting as the backplane. One control master unit, specially wired up so that it can be a console. No redundant storage anywhere. Probably no clustered filesystem, though you could put one in... but not that much I/O to deal with the outside world.</comment></comment>


The Threat Coming by Land - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-09/the-threat-coming-by-land <comment><USER2> _Essentially, a Land Value Tax is a property levy with exemptions for development._

So let's say you buy a house, not because you are a speculator, but because you want a home. You live there for 50 years, raise your family there, and are enjoying your retirement. Someone over that time period, your property happens to become more valuable, as say a city expands.

Then along come some carpetbagger in a shiny suit and says, your home is not a "productive" use of this land, and he's going to tax you more than your pension is worth if you want to stay there, you should make room for his new development of "executive apartments" or whatever. No normal person would think that is just or right.

<comment><USER3> This scenario of yours is used to justify policies such as California's Prop 13.

But realistically, the primary beneficiaries aren't retired middle-class homeowners on fixed incomes, but large corporations who own commercial property that now have their property taxes permanently frozen at 1970s levels, costing local governments huge amounts of money and encouraging poor land uses.

<comment><USER4> I love when people pretend that money not taken in in taxes is lost money, as if the government has default claim to it and is missing out by not confiscating it.

<comment><USER3> In this case, the losers are local roads, public transit, public utilities, schools, police and fire departments, social services, emergency management, parks, libraries, museums, street sweeping, garbage collection, food inspectors, building inspectors, city planning, other city hall offices, election infrastructure, etc.

Or, at the county level, judges and court officials, district attorneys, public defenders, the county sheriff's office, county fire department, animal control, emergency rooms, county parks, public health officials, etc.

<comment><USER5> _All_ of which could be _much_ more efficiently provided by private enterprises competing in a free market.

Strangely enough, bureaucrats just aren't particularly prudent when _they_ are using _our_ money.

<comment><USER6> > All _of which could be much more efficiently provided by private enterprises > competing in a free market._ (Emphasis in original.)

That's one, ideological view. Another view is that the so-called free market is very focused on the short term, which isn't conducive to providing public goods [1].

Moreover, the "free" market seldom actually is, because more than a few of the players work at least as hard on amassing market power and excluding competition as they do on competing.

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

<comment><USER5> It's not "an ideology", by the way. It's simple truth, and I pointed to one element of why it's obvious:

>> _bureaucrats just aren 't particularly prudent when they are using our money_

> _Another view is that the so-called free market is very focused on the short > term, which isn 't conducive to providing public goods_

I can't decipher what potential problem you're pointing to. Apparently even "knowledge" is a "public good".

But whatever your complaint there is, it's based on the flawed premise that there is some One True Way <X> should be, and that central planning intervention is necessary to make it so.

<comment><USER6> > _It 's not "an ideology", by the way. It's simple truth, and I pointed to > one element of why it's obvious:_

That fallacy is called _ipse dixit_ , roughly translated as _I say so, therefore it is._

> _bureaucrats just aren 't particularly prudent when they are using our > money_

And _that 's_ the fallacy of the excluded middle. Just because (some) bureaucrats aren't particularly prudent when using our money, it doesn't follow that (as you alleged before) the free market is always better.

> _But whatever your complaint there is, it 's based on the flawed premise > that there is some One True Way <X> should be, and that central planning > intervention is necessary to make it so._

I actually happen to think the opposite of the two assertions that you claim constitute my premise.

<comment><USER5> > _That fallacy is called ipse dixit, roughly translated as I say so, > therefore it is._

That's not what happened though. I pointed out that bureaucrats aren't prudent when spending other people's money, and that's self-evidently true.

For example, you know would not be prudent with other people's money either, or with $1000 you found on the street.

> _And that 's the fallacy of the excluded middle. Just because (some) > bureaucrats aren't particularly prudent when using our money, it doesn't > follow that (as you alleged before) the free market is always better._

I was hinting at the fact that since everyone uses someone else's money less prudently than his own, using someone else's money results in 'waste' compared to using one's own, and therefore, all public spending results in 'waste'.

So it's clear that the free market actually is 'always better' in that sense. It's better in all other senses too.

For example, you'd be hard pressed to argue that a state-maintained monopoly or cartel is better for us than no such thing.

> _I actually happen to think the opposite of the two assertions that you > claim constitute my premise._

Quote the _two_ assertions I claimed constitute your premise.

<comment><USER6> > _That 's not what happened though. I pointed out that bureaucrats aren't > prudent when spending other people's money, and that's self-evidently true._

It's also a sweeping generalization, both:

\-- as to what counts as a "bureaucrat" (of whom I know more than a few); and

\-- as to what counts as "prudent" \--- a public servant must take into account more than your, or my, personal preferences.

> _you know would not be prudent with other people 's money either, or with > $1000 you found on the street._

Evidence, please. (I happen to think I'd be prudent in each case.)

> _since everyone uses someone else 's money less prudently than his own, > using someone else's money results in 'waste' compared to using one's own, > and therefore, all public spending results in 'waste'._

Another sweeping generalization. It also depends on your definition of waste. Is it waste for "bureaucrats" to spend money on, say, enforcing traffic laws that prevent you from going as fast as you want through a school zone? (Feel free to pick another example; I really don't like the "but think of the children!" argument, or rather, so-called argument.)

> _So it 's clear that the free market actually is 'always better' in that > sense. It's better in all other senses too._

I used to think that way. I assume you know about "negative externalities" [1]. If you remember the days before the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, then recall what the air and water were like in the U.S. when "the free market" allowed businesses to dump their wastes in the air that the rest of us breathe and the water that the rest of us drink.

Some key limiting factors of "the free market":

1\. People tend to have tunnel vision --- they want what they want, and they want it _now_. (This, I suspect, is a trait developed by natural selection [2].)

2\. In a so-called free market, we assume that buyers of goods and services will individually make rational choices that, in the long term, will promote the common good. But that assumes two facts not in evidence:

First, it assumes that people will take the time to investigate the choices available to them. That doesn't always happen. For example, I don't know a lot of people who study the terms of click-wrap agreements and decide whether they want to proceed. Most people simply click on "I agree" and hope that they aren't giving away their first-born; they also unconsciously count on the legal system not to enforce terms that are _too_ onerous.

Second, it assumes that people are rational in their choices. That assumption is increasingly being challenged in behavioral economics [3].

> _Quote the_ two _assertions I claimed constitute your premise._

Okay --- what you said was this: _" But whatever your complaint there is, it's based on the flawed premise [A] that there is some One True Way <X> should be, and [B] that central planning intervention is necessary to make it so."_ I don't believe either of these things _a priori_ , but neither do I rule out the possibility that _in a particular case_ one or both of them might be true.

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

[2] [http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/03/good_news_bad_n....](http://www.questioningchristian.com/2006/03/good_news_bad_n.html) (a self-cite)

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

<comment><USER5> I've debated lots and lots of _other_ psychopaths, going through variations of those bullshit distractions, so I'll just not bother now.

<comment><USER6> Check the mirror first, noob. And while you're at it, note the number of downvotes you've attracted in your first few days here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The reason land is so valuable is that when new money is created in our financial system it is created as loans. Naturally, banks want to lend against valuable collateral, which is primarily represented by property and large businesses, thus the new money goes to holder of land and large business first and then slowly spreads out to the rest of the economy. This time lag in the distribution of money and that there is a smaller class of land and business owners is the main source of inequality.

This is one of the main criticisms that Hayek and Von Mises have of Keynesianism: that "raising aggregate demand" via monetary policy does not raise prices evenly but instead tends to create asset bubbles because the new money enters the system through loans against assets.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unconvincing. So the explosion in modern communication technology and advanced worldwide transportation has led to this?

Many jobs are now shipped round the world. Xrays are read overseas. iPhone parts are procured from multiple nations. People work from home--some teams of software developers are scattered over thousands of miles.

Meanwhile, there is a growing prospect of transportation becoming even cheaper and more efficient. We've already seen this for goods--containerized shipping was a revolution. Now the Uber-like services and driverless cars hold potential to remake cities.

A piece like this needs a rebuttal--or at least a mere mention!--of these developments. Instead the reader is left to figure out how innovations like a video phone in everyone's pocket and worldwide next day shipping have had the exact _opposite_ effect that one would expect?

<comment><USER9> Of the few hundred people I know, who work across many industries including health care, automotive and aerospace engineering, and software development, I can think of 3 who are able to work from home full time. What you experience in your particular area might not be the norm in another part of the world (or even just the US).

<comment><USER8> Just because they are not able to work from home does not mean that technology has not affected their work. More importantly for the purposes of this article, technology may still affect the importance of proximity in land uses. A call center worker may not be able to work at home. But thanks to cheap communications the job can be moved overseas, thus reducing the value of land in rich countries. A health care worker may not be able to work at home. But if someone overseas can read the x-rays, there's less need for land in the rich country. Moreover you say you know only three who can work from home _full time_. Others may be able to work from home part time, which gives them freedom to live farther from work and commute.

These are obvious arguments in an age of blanket 4G coverage but this piece doesn't even address them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> LMAO! I love how Bloomberg (voice of the financial sector) stirs up shit and then suggests that taxation is the solution. This is great propaganda at work here, so study it well. They want desperately to steer the world away from financial sector reform (debt amnesty, bank regulation, prohibition of currency speculation, etc.) and blame it all on the government. Why? Because the US government is leading criminal proceedings against the leaders of the financial sector for their crimes during the collapse of the financial sector in 2008. [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-03/jpmorgan-f...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-03/jpmorgan- faces-u-s-criminal-probe-into-foreign-exchange-trading)

<comment><USER11> Yeah, Bloomberg View has no idea how real people in real world live and work. I remember reading an article a few weeks ago with the premises that income - equality is okay because we have these superman productive individuals.

They also love china/japan/asia bashing which is okay but after a while it gets old.

I still read it the same way I find fox news to be interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article is a bit strange. In my opinion it accurately describes a problem, but then totally fumbles on the reason and the solutions.

The real reasons are described by narrator and kephra in this comment thread. They've got to do with how land is scarce and getting scarcer, and how banks leverage the demand almost without risk and in perpetuity. If you don't really get the economics of it, it comes down to this: property owners negotiate with you one (important) aspect of your life (where/how you live) for a percentage of _all_ income you _ever_ make. Imagine the scale of that nationally, it's really not surprising to learn that property is the largest share of income for capital.

I've been thinking about this reason a lot since I've started reading Piketty and perhaps more so now I'm looking to buy a house in one of those super scarce places. An interesting point Piketty makes at some point that this form of capitalism is fundamentally un-American, or at least, against the idea of the U.S. in its forming years, but you'll have to read the book for that. I promise you he's not a socialist ;)

The solution that came to me, even though it would screw me if it were implemented, is capping mortgages even stronger. In the Netherlands we are moving to a 100% home value cap in the coming few years, and gave them a max duration of 30 years, that fixes one side of it. But it should also enforce lower limits on mortgage relative to salary.

Perhaps those values are already closer to what's right in The Netherlands than they are elsewhere. In Amsterdam you pay 220k for a small 2-bedroom apartment or small house on the edges, which costs you about 35% of your income (if you maxed out).

Those regulations give way to another problem though, and that's rent. They definitely should be regulated the same way. At the moment that same apartment in Amsterdam rents for about 1300, almost twice to what a mortgage would cost. And I know for a fact that people who aren't allowed the mortgage do rent those places instead, that's just draining capital.

Maybe some (amateur) economist can poke a hole in my plan (reduce mortgages and rents through regulations). I have a feeling there is a right level of regulation that will make mortgages comfortably profitable for banks without it squandering the publics spending power.

</comment><comment><USER13> The article doesn't make a convincing case that there's a problem.

</comment><comment><USER14> Given such a ridiculous premise they need to back their theory up with data.

We are living denser than we ever have, and getting denser but somehow that's going to just stop because land owners will do what and why?

Stop building up? Stop subdividing? Because why? they hate money?

<comment><USER15> Building up isn't affected by a land value tax, since the tax value is on the unimproved land. If anything it encourages building up.

One negative outcome, in the absence of a land value tax, is empty lots. Leaving a lot derelict may be the wisest option for those that don't hate money, as it can be held as an investment and quickly sold after it appreciates in value. No building to demolish, or tenants to evict. Of course in the meantime it's just a placeholder in the middle of a bustling city that's looking for new houses and/or commercial property.

With the land value tax they'd need to pay more to keep it empty as the area became more desirable, encouraging them to use it for some purpose or sell it to someone who intends to use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> it starts promising with:

> Landlords are eating the world.

but it then falls short, by only pointing to the tip of the iceberg, the rising prices in city centers. But the problem is much bigger in the rural, in 2nd and 3rd world, where former small farms are replaced by big agriculture corporations.

> To understand why, we have to look at the reasons land has value in the > first place.

And he totally fails here. He fails to explain, that land ownership depends on the state monopoly on use of force, and legalization of murder, rape and genocide during the time the state acquired the land. He fails to explain that money equals debt, debt is often preferring land as security, and therefore land prices are doomed to rise globally.

I do not expect a Marxist analysis in Economist, but I would at least expect some in deep comparison of how different countries cope with this problem. Point to massive buyout of agricultural land in eastern Europe, point to the housing bubble in Spain, point to how Hartz IV stabilized the German housing market, ... but this article is only pointing to the iceberg in front of the unsinkable.

</comment><comment><USER17> From the article:

"When it becomes more important, it also becomes more scarce, and when it becomes more scarce, it puts a brake on growth, just as if oil became more expensive."

Oil got more expensive. Did that put a brake on growth? Does it follow that land becoming more expensive will put a brake on growth? Land got more expensive, did that put a brake on growth.

I don't mean to sound repetitive, but land has been getting more expensive for the past 300(?) years, and yet here we are.

That other thing the article says about land becoming an increasing percent of GDP, does that really mean anything? Are the right metrics being considered and the right data being used to come to the right conclusions?

I'm not sure I got the point of the article? Economists know what to do but interest groups get in the way? Does that make any sense? Sounds like the economists models don't match reality then. Economists shouldn't try to predict the future, they do a bad enough job of predicting the past.

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at either. I think I'm just disappointed the article ended right when I was getting in to it.

<comment><USER18> _Oil got more expensive. Did that put a brake on growth?_

Have you paid much attention to what happened to Western economies following the 1973 OPEC embargo?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Surely this is something that should unite both ends of the political spectrum?

For the right - it's about improving market efficiency and rewarding economically useful behaviour over 'rent seeking'.

For the left - it's about social justice and avoiding yet another way for wealth to accumulate wealth.

</comment><comment><USER20> The simplest way to counter this problem is for the Fed to raise rates this week.

</comment><comment><USER21> If the land tax increased, wouldn't the landlords just increase the rent? Thus making life more expensive for non-homeowners? Disregarding what the government does with the extra tax revenue.

Feel free to correct me.

<comment><USER22> According to economic theory they would not as the supply of land is fixed.

<comment><USER23> How does a fixed supply of land preclude raising the rent?

<comment><USER24> The land value taxers' argument generally works the other way round, arguing that the supply of rental properties actually is artificially constrained by landowners, and that tax on the undeveloped value of the land would push landowners into developing and letting property on their land or selling up to developers, implying more price competition in the rentals market and thus less ability to pass on the tax costs to the end occupant.

The fixed supply of land is important only inasmuch as it provides a reason why landowners can be pretty confident their land will appreciate in value in the first place (and in some cases, to a sufficient degree to make the additional revenues achievable from development/rentals in the short term appear relatively trivial). Moreover, if land ownership is highly concentrated then releasing very little of that land for rentals and gradually selling off the highest-value parcels probably is the most effective way of maximising the value of one's dynasty's land portfolio.

The argument isn't so much that rents would never go up at all as that the effects of more efficient land use and competition in the rentals market mean that individual occupants of the land wouldn't pay the _full_ value of the tax (and would tend to benefit from commensurate rate reductions on other taxes)

How well that argument explains or even fits the facts of land ownership varies hugely by geography.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here in the U.K. our right-wing government are planning re-introduce a scheme whereby those in government-owned social housing have the right to buy the property cheaply after a set period. This has always been a very controversial idea: it does increase home-ownership rates fantastically, especially in poor areas, but it also destroys the social housing programme (an attractive outcome to the nasty British right).

Rent limits, related to local earnings, are one way to increase home-ownership by making landlording less profitable. Our new opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, goes further and suggests we should actually extend this "right-to- buy" idea into the private sector. I only just discovered the idea this morning and I think it's pretty interesting.

<comment><USER17> You say "nasty right" then go on to appear to support the idea of forcing property owners to sell. Nasty left!

I'm only half joking. P.J. O'rourke's has a chapter called 'Why I'm Right' in his book 'Don't Vote! It just encourages the Bastards', I found it helped with a similar attitude I used to have.

<comment><USER25> I do indeed. We have a problem in this country; there is a shortage of homes, so being a landlord is extremely profitable, so house prices are astronomical and its very difficult to get on the ladder.. leading to all the homes being concentrated in the hands of a few rich people. I want to see that trend reversed and homes distributed more evenly.

Still though, it's a pretty extreme manoeuvre, I'd like to read an expert's analysis of the idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Most "land" or real estate is actually held by banks or other financial conglomerates through a proxy called a home "owner".

<comment><USER27> Banks enjoy a cut from the interest rate but it is also the people who deposited money in those banks who earn money that way. And noone is forced by financial institutions to take 40 years long home loan.

<comment><USER28> Deciding between buying and renting depends on many things, like the different costs, interest rates, inflation, tenant rights etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Land should be from the country not owned by a private entity. This fixes a lot of issues.

<comment><USER30> Despite overwhelming evidence of such failed policies in the past and the "let's try failure again" crowd, you probably don't even like the reality of your suggested policy.

You end up with a small group of people owning everything. It's like what the left complains about now with wealth inequality, but orders of magnitude worse.

I wish you would think these things threw.</comment></comment>


Hour Long SproutCore Training Video on SC MVC - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/24779602

<comment><USER2> Great presentation. Now I really understand the difference between Rails MVC and SproutCore MVC.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really great presentation. This has actually helped with my understanding of RoR. Where can we get your slides?

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://public.iwork.com/document/?d=2-core- concepts_old.key&...](http://public.iwork.com/document/?d=2-core- concepts_old.key&a=p299016638)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome training, thanks Mr. Moeck!</comment>


How to run Mac OS Catalina on unsupported hardware - <AUTHOR> http://dosdude1.com/catalina/ <comment><USER2> Since my 2008 mac is no longer supported for OS updates, I switched over to Linux on it and it's beautiful for development as a spare pc. Works even faster then before tbh.

</comment><comment><USER3> Should say mac. Otherwise sound like hacintosh

<comment><USER4> My first thought was "are we doing hackintosh's again?"

<comment><USER5> Did we ever stop?

<comment><USER4> I stopped after the introduction convinced me to prioritize buying a Macbook

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Their work is awesome. I run Mojave on my old 2009 Macbook Pro with this and it runs very well.</comment>


Here's What Morgan Stanley Is Telling Its Wealthiest Clients About Uber - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/here-s-what-morgan-stanley-is-telling-its-wealthiest-clients-about-uber <comment><USER2> shorter MS: businesses have risks, now shut up and be thankful we got in for you</comment>


MIT Turns Pile of Phones into a Big Display Screen - <AUTHOR> http://cellular-news.com/story/48303.php

<comment><USER2> Story previously submitted here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2321408></comment>


High and Low Exercise Intensity Found to Influence Brain Function Differently - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-01/ip-hal013020.php <comment><AUTHOR> The difference observed:

> The results of the Rs-fMRI tests showed that low-intensity exercise led to > increased functional connectivity in networks associated with cognitive > processing and attention. High-intensity exercise, on the other hand, led to > increased functional connectivity in networks related to affective, > emotional processes. High-intensity exercise also led to a decreased > functional connectivity in networks associated with motor function.</comment>


Stealthy Seattle Startup Raises $500,000 In Capital  - <AUTHOR> http://emoney.allthingsd.com/20110207/stealthy-seattle-startup-raises-500000-more-in-capital/ <comment><USER2> _Investors in the round consist of the who's-who of angel investing in Seattle, including Mike Slade, Nick Hanauer, Pete Higgins, Rich Barton, Erik Blachford, John Cunningham and others._

umm... Who?

But not to be snarky what I wonder is how some start-ups manage to generate press. Do they hire PR firms? Do investors pump the reporters? How can something so completely uninformative get out as news?</comment>


Ask HN: How Do I Hire a Great Rails Developer? - <AUTHOR>

I haven't had any luck finding RoR developers through my personal network, so I thought I'd open it up to HN for ideas -- I have 2 open positions in the Bay Area (south bay) for front-end focused Ruby on Rails developers. The company recruiting team has the job boards covered, but only 1 candidate worth interviewing has come through that channel so far. There aren't any meetups I can find scheduled in the next few weeks, so I'm running thin on ideas. We are a mid-sized company in the real estate space, but I'm not mentioning the company name because I don't want this to seem like a recruiting pitch (although if you or someone you know might be interested of course drop me a note). So, HN, any ideas? <comment><USER2> Do you accept remote work? Here there a lot of great rails developers:

<http://barcelonaonrails.com/> <http://barcelonaonrails.com/jobs>

<http://37signals.com/remote>

<comment><AUTHOR> Possibly. I've been hoping to find some candidates who can help train other developers here on Rails. We do pair development, which has proved to be tricky to do remotely. Anyone with experience doing remote pairing/remote training?</comment></comment>


Deficit Reduction - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/01/deficit-reduction.html <comment><USER2> Military and "defense" costs far more than "just" $1 trillion every year.

There are many many hidden costs and the massive expenses for the thousands of severely wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan that survived instead of dying because of modern medical technology.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_S...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States#Other_defense- related_expenditures) _This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup, and production, which is in the Department of Energy budget, Veterans Affairs, the Treasury Department's payments in pensions to military retirees and widows and their families, interest on debt incurred in past wars, or State Department financing of foreign arms sales and militarily-related development assistance. Neither does it include defense spending that is not military in nature, such as the Department of Homeland Security, counter-terrorism spending by the FBI, and intelligence-gathering spending by NASA._

Military expense is a MONSTER that just grows and grows and grows.

ps. The costs for the Iraq and Afghanistan war are technically done outside the budget and through borrowed money. The INTEREST on them alone is over $500 Billion

[http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-10-23-wacosts_N.h...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-10-23-wacosts_N.htm)

<comment><USER3> "Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." (Eisenhower's farewell address, 1961)

<comment><USER4> The documentary "Why we fight" opens with Eisenhovers farewell speech and addresses this very problem. It'a available on Google video here: <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9219858826421983682#> and is worth watching.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fixing Social Security - it's always up for discussion and nothing ever gets done about it. The frustrating part is that the solution is somewhat simple, but politically it's untouchable. Here's my quick & simple solution for the problem:

1) Phase out Social Security benefits if your income level hits $50k that year. \- This aspect of Social Security is perhaps most baffling - why does someone who is making $250k a year on their pension and 401k distributions getting the same amount of Social Security as someone who's destitute and barely getting by? "But I paid into it, I should get something out of it!" goes the argument by rich people. Really? I pay into my car insurance every 6 months, never been in an accident, and I don't get a refund check when I'm done driving! Social Security is insurance, it's not a deferred savings plan. Social Security is really called FICA, and the "I" stands for insurance. It's insurance in case you don't have enough money to survive in old age, and the benefit payouts should reflect that. Someone making over 100k a year doesn't need another 25k a year in Social Security benefits to survive.

2) Take away the cap on contributions. Last year any dollar you made above $106k wasn't taxed at the 6.2% FICA rate. Why?

3) Make the Social Security Administration an independent entity free from Congress's whims, and more importantly, free from Congress's hands dipping into its pockets every time they need cash. Social Security _should_ have a huge surplus right now in cash, as over the years they've always had more pay- in than pay-outs. Too bad Congress took all that money and spent it. Social Security is full of government bonds right now, essentially IOU's from Congress that "we promise to pay you back".

Combine #1 and #2 and you have a simple solution to both decrease payouts and increase pay-ins. Add #3 and you're assured that this institution (which isn't some evil socialist creation but really should be thought of as "poverty insurance") can be a self-sustaining, solvent part of our country forever.

<comment><USER6> 1.) FYI - Your car insurance analogy falls apart in aggregate because some people do use it, but the element of luck is what you can't account for, so we use risk tables. There's no refund for you because other people got unlucky - you're paying for them to absorb your risk. Social Security isn't insurance - it's a progressive tax for the purpose of generating a small pention for everyone.

<comment><USER7> Quite right - if SS were insurance, you would pay into it directly in proportion to your probability of receiving it. Good drivers pay less for car insurance, and people who can provide for their own retirement would pay less for retirement insurance.

For example, consider a very rich person, with P(income < $50k/year) = 0.01. If SS were really insurance, he should only pay $50k x 0.01 = $500 + administrative costs. If bluedevil truly believes SS is insurance, and if we implemented his 1), then 2) would be utterly unnecessary.

<comment><USER8> Insurance is still insurance even if everyone pays equally into the system. The underlying principle of insurance is spreading risk to lower average cost. You can bill everyone the same amount and still have such a model. What you must mean is that social insurance isn't priced like commercial insurance, and that is true, but it makes sense to do it that way.

Commercial insurance tries to give least protection to those most at risk, to produce a higher profit margin. Social insurance tries to give maximum protection to those most at risk, to achieve some sort of ethical goal. Or in other words, commercial insurance is a form of business, social insurance is a form of charity. That's why social insurance costs least for those with the highest risk, and why commercial insurance is priced the other way around. They're still both insurance, just priced based on a different theory.

This difference is also why a commercial model of insurance can never be used efficiently for a social system (such as pensions or healthcare). Competition forces insurers to lower their prices, but the only way to do that and maintain profit is to lower pay-outs. How do you lower pay-outs? (1) provide less service to those that need it more, or (2) raise prices on those that need it more (risk-based billing, as you propose). The logical conclusion of that is that many of those that need protection are unable to afford it. That's not a "social" system. Social insurance is a charity, not a business.

<comment><USER7> Insurance is about pooling risk to allow people to reduce the variance/value at risk/etc of their costs, while holding the expected value of their costs constant.

You are describing a forced redistribution scheme, which perhaps devotes a slim minority of it's revenues to insurance. It's deceptive to describe such a scheme as insurance - you might as well describe the mafia as a pizza business, since a small amount of their revenues are laundered through a pizza shop.

You are also utterly mistaken about what charity is. Charity is the practice of benevolent giving. You are describing taking money from people by force and giving it to other people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Please note: Romer writes about "dealing with the LONG-RUN budget deficit". The short-run deficit MUST be high right now.

In the current policy debate, debt is often invoked as a reason to dismiss calls for expansionary fiscal policy as a response to unemployment; you can't solve a problem created by debt by running up even more debt.

It assumes, implicitly, that debt is debt -- that it doesn't matter who owes the money. Yet that can't be right; if it were, debt wouldn't be a problem in the first place. After all, to a first approximation debt is money we owe to ourselves. The overall level of debt makes no difference to aggregate net worth -- one person's liability is another person's asset.

The level of debt matters only because the distribution of that debt matters. Borrowing by some actors now can help cure problems created by excess borrowing by other actors in the past. Deficit-financed government spending can allow the economy to avoid unemployment and deflation while highly indebted private-sector agents repair their balance sheets, and the government can pay down its debts once the deleveraging crisis is past.

</comment><comment><USER10> To a large extent, the focus on Social Security budget shortfalls in these pieces is like the punchline in the joke about why the drunk guy is looking under the lamp post for his keys when he lost them in the alley: "Because the light is better here." Rising Medicare/Medicaid costs are a much bigger long- term budget issue than Social Security, but coming up with realistic-sounding proposals to improve Social Security's fiscal status is relatively easy (and less politically radioactive) compared to controlling medical costs.

Still, I think that blog post really drops the ball by not even mentioning Medicare/Medicaid as budget problems.

</comment><comment><USER11> Some numbers in this analysis are a bit misleading - if you view the budget as "social security, defense, and everything else", the huge portion of the budget taken up by Medicare and Medicaid is papered over. Medicare+Medicaid is $788b, more than Social Security, and is similarly "untouchable". (source: <http://useconomy.about.com/od/fiscalpolicy/p/Mandatory.htm>)

Not to say that I think Social Security shouldn't be touched. I do think that as a matter of purpose, Social Security needs to be a defined benefit plan, even if we have to cut those benefits to some degree or another to make ends meet.

</comment><comment><USER12> On the whole, this is a ridiculous article. No one except rich elites cares about the deficit (including the bond market: 30 year treasury notes are yielding 4.5% right now). Republicans may have made noises about it in the last election, but one of their major planks was that the Affordable Care Act cut Medicare benefits!

We are in the middle of a global economic contraction, it is not the time to be reducing spending (redirecting spending to useful infrastructure, sure).

The calls to cut Social Security are especially irritating. Thirty years ago, Reagan increased Social Security taxes to save the system. It worked, and the Social Security benefits are fully funded until 2037.

For 30 years, workers have paid extra into Social Security to keep it solvent long-term. Now a bunch of rich elites demands that benefits -- that they don't need, but millions depend upon -- be cut. That is a bait-and-switch of the highest order.

He doesn't even talk about Medicare, which is the real budget problem. You can tell if someone is serious about reducing the budget deficit if they have a real plan for Medicare.

Despite my disagreement on entitlement spending, I appreciate that he thinks military spending could be cut and tax rates on the wealthy need to be raised. Since he's wealthy, I appreciate that he is willing to make a personal sacrifice.

<comment><USER13> "We are in the middle of a global economic contraction, it is not the time to be reducing spending"

I disagree. It's time to put Keynesianism to bed again. The only reason it came back to life was because it told politicians what they wanted to hear a couple of years ago. What it's time to stop doing is pretending that the solution to the problem is for the government to suck a dollar out of the economy to generate 75 cents of wealth and 50 cents of debt. In the real world, the Keynesian government multiplier is less than 1, and that cracks the entire theory wide open. And once you plug that number into the theory, it'll tell you the same thing.[1]

We absolutely need to cut government spending. Government can _move dollars_ but it has proved incapable of _generating wealth_. It boggles my mind that after the past couple of years we're even talking about this. The final test of a theory is that it makes correct predictions, and the predictions based on Keynesianism have been repeatedly and continuously wrong. It's time to stop pretending it's because we're still not doing it hard enough.

[1] (Also, the multiplier is not a static universal constant. Like pretty much everything else economic, it reacts to conditions; if government were actually too small it might indeed be over 1 to grow it some more. So it's not that the optimal answer is to cut spending to 0, that's typical first-order thinking. It's just that today, the multiplier is way less than 1, and we've got a lot of shrinking to do before that's even close to changing.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is a terrible article. The heart of the projected deficit is increased medical spending -- if you don't deal with that, nothing else matters much, and vice-versa. Social Security is projected to be in balance for decades, then modestly out of balance for some time -- there is no rush to adjust it, and when we do the adjustment will not have to be dramatic, because although the expenditures are huge, so is the dedicated revenue stream. Finally, the "bipartisan" commission was bipartisan between rich centrist Democrats and conservative Republicans, and it foisted a deficit-increasing preference for reducing taxes on rich people into its report.

Fred Wilson, Paul Graham, Bill Gates, Larry Page, etc. ... these people are extraordinarily rich, in important ways the richest people the world has ever seen. Their perspective and interests do not and should not stand for the tech community, let alone the country or the world. The HN community could stand to be a little more skeptical of their pronouncements, and a little less slavish about enforcing the existing status hierarchy which upvotes every blog post they see fit to publish.

<comment><USER15> The heart of the deficit for the past 10 years has been increased military spending.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I can't read the comments for this article. It makes my brain hurt. Everything from 9/11 being an inside job to increase the national security net to the concept that the USA exists as a totalitarian empire.

<comment><USER17> I live in China, which I wouldn't even call totalitarian but rather authoritarian ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism#Difference_betw...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totalitarianism#Difference_between_authoritarian_and_totalitarian_states)), so I can't find much sympathy for the 'totalitarian' part.

But I think a decent knowledge of history would reveal that the US functions in many ways that are similar to how historical empires functioned.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/US_milita...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/US_military_bases_in_the_world.svg)

I wouldn't go so far as to say that we still have many colonies, but a huge amount of spheres of influence across the planet? Yes.

When we are studied 500 years in the future, I suspect the US' historical role during this past century or so will be likened to the role of Britain at the peak of the British empire.

<comment><USER18> Agree. Read Paul Kennedy and think of Britain in 1914.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _Our country continues to operate a defined benefits plan while most businesses have moved to a defined contribution plan._

A government-run defined contribution plan would almost certainly have to have some kind of guaranteed payment floor to be politically viable, which would encourage serious moral hazard in investing.

I also wonder how many companies can offer defined contribution plans because their employees are also automatically part of a defined benefit plan (i.e., social security).

</comment><comment><USER20> He is wrong on the second count, nyt had an info thing some time ago where you could come up with a plan to balance the federal budget.

It was easy to do without raising taxes.

<comment><USER21> It might be easy to do in a spreadsheet, but that doesn't mean it's easy to do in a politically realistic way.

<comment><USER20> True but besides the point - it isn't possible to reduce the federal budget at all, politically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Right on.

As Fred Wilson points out this is partially a political problem: getting most people to agree to necessary changes.

It is tough to cut defense spending however. Throughout history the rich and powerful have become richer and more powerful through wars. The chances of the government acting in the best interest of our country is about zero.

Another way that the rich get richer is on the "war on X" where X can be terror, drugs, etc. I just heard a good lecture on how much illegal drug money gets money-laundered through Wall Street by the drug cartels. Good luck changing that.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yes, the issues deficit hawks are raising are worth addressing in and out of themselves. But not because of deficits they generate!

What majority fails to understand and minority who understands it is too afraid to acknowledge is that for countries like US or Japan with independent monetary policy deficits truly don't matter. It's just another variable central bank deals with when executing monetary policy algorithm.

US public debt seems unsustainable to you? Go check Japan's debt (in reality it is japanese people savings)!

Japan's real problem is aging population, not its' World record public debt.

P.S. some good reading on WHY deficits don't matter:

[http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra- klein/2010/05/galbrait...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra- klein/2010/05/galbraith_the_danger_posed_by.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> He is ignoring economic realties..

Basically, to get USA back on its feet we have to encourage industry to invest in hiring and consumers to reduce their own debt and produce savings.

By having the deficit this high it encourages those groups to make those economic choice as they are the best option as far as return on investment compared to other rates of returns..

When the employment, savings, and consumer deficit figures improve then you reduce the deficit.

That is not to say that parts of the budget do not need fixing, they in fact do..</comment>