This is why software sucks - <AUTHOR> http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/this-is-why-software-sucks <comment><USER2> Another reason software sucks is that developers are sometimes so incredibly bad at communicating their ideas (which impacts documentation, development planning (especially in the age of distributed open source projects), and even code quality [in terms of naming, commenting, etc]).

"I don't have much involvement in portable, but I definitely had a hand in neutering the RAND and egd interfaces. Contrary to some commentary, we didn't neuter these interfaces because we didn't know what they were. We neutered them because we know precisely what they are. They're fucking stupid."

uh... okay; thanks for the enlightenment.

I'm sure this post makes more sense to people who are intimately familiar with whatever it is that is being talked about in the first place, but to the rest of us it might as well be written in Klingon.

<comment><USER3> Having read the various slides on why libressl is deemed necessary, it makes quite a bit of sense. A large chunk of OpenSSL's API has no business existing in the first place, let alone in a public scope, because said chunk consists mostly of redundant and half-baked implementations of things that exist in the operating system and/or external libraries.

OpenSSL took a rather strange approach of "hey, $some_obscure_operating_system doesn't provide $some_critical_system_function, so let's implement it ourselves and _activate it for every single platform that OpenSSL is used on regardless of whether or not there 's an existing equivalent_". In many cases, these sorts of shenanigans are the source of various bugs or - just as horribly - the reason why so many bugs had been undetectable via stricter memory access requirements and debugging techniques (the latter being what's referred to when the phrase "exploit mitigation countermeasure" is used in the context of OpenSSL).

Ted could probably be a bit more helpful by providing a link to the "fucking stupid[ity]" that is OpenSSL's bass-ackwards API, but most of this is already explained in prior announcements about libressl's improvements/development and such, so it's understandable why he didn't feel the need to provide links for context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Do you want software to stop being shit? Then stop expecting... nay, stop > demanding that software be shit.

As I've written before, it's almost _entirely_ about the economics of it. For tons of software out there, there is simply no incentive to make it super stable, polished, secure, etc.

In other words: let's say you're building a web app for a small local business. Are you going to build it in Erlang, run it on several physical machines and do all the other fault-tollerant, high-availability stuff, or are you going to put together some pieces of Rails or PHP or Django and call it 'pretty good'? You're going to do the latter, because otherwise you're going to cost a _lot_ more than the competition, deliver less, and in any case the guy running the business is going to be understanding if you need to take the site down for an hour on Sunday morning to upgrade something once in a while.

So far, so good. Security is a bit more problematic, because there can be some pretty serious financial ramifications. The trick is to get the people who bear those risks to pay some of what it costs to produce better software, which is not always easy in the case of open source.

<comment><USER5> I've long thought that the different liability regime is a big part of that. In just about any business that is not software, it's much harder for a commercial vendor to _completely_ disclaim all liability via a boilerplate contract. At the very least some basic liability attaches when you ship a seriously defective product: if it's not even remotely fit for the advertised purpose, has failure modes bad enough to be negligent, etc. But the way the existing doctrines have been applied to the software: 1) are quite deferential to EULAs; and 2) de-facto raise the bar for "negligence" to something approaching intentional malfeasance or fraud.

(The economic effects of the different liability regime might be good or bad, but it's quite striking how doctrines that are well-understood in other areas are applied so differently to software.)

<comment><USER4> That's a good point, but I still think it's tricky: we're talking about OpenSSL here. Making contributors liable for defects in open source software would have some very, very negative effects: we would not even _have_ an OpenSSL to complain about.

<comment><USER6> openssl didn't ship to end users; it's the software that goes to end users that should bear liability

<comment><USER4> That's a pretty much impossible distinction to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Software sucks because everyone makes mistakes. Even if the developer avoids mistakes, mistaken users will demand more mistakes which will in turn support their own "wrong wrong wrong" or "software sucks" narrative.

Anyone have a less horrific take?

<comment><USER8> "on the other hand we have people demanding that we maintain every last misfeature piece of shit function in that API."

AKA I'd like you to sprinkle magic security dust on the code so I can check off "secure" on my checklist, but don't actually change anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't even really understand what this is saying. Is it a critique that LibreSSL faces undue criticism?

This is one of those "Live by the sword, die by the sword" things: LibreSSL was birthed, it seems to me, as an opportunistic venture to take the meager funding and attention away from OpenSSL during its time of crisis, sold on the premise that OpenSSL is a festering heap maintained by a bunch of hacks, and now it's time for the big boys to show how it should be done.

When you start like that, you _will_ face an incredible amount of scrutiny. Every failure will be exaggerated and spread far and wide.

Expect to die by the sword. Or to use another cliche, when you throw rocks at your neighbor's glass house, you should avoid building your own of the same.

<comment><USER10> _> LibreSSL was birthed, it seems to me, as an opportunistic venture to take the meager funding and attention away from OpenSSL_

How do people come up with bullshit like this? You try to make the free software project look like an obnoxious enterprise that would exploit a time of uncertainty to show off and bolster their status, for revenue.

The reality is that they realized a critical component of their security- focused project is broken and needs fixing, urgently. So they started working on it. That is _what they do._ All the attention was generated by media and citizen of the Internet. At the time, I don't think anyone was talking about funding. Definitely not about the funding of OpenSSL.

Then people started demanding portability. Other people wanted to support the project just because. Or because they came to realize (or already knew) that OpenSSL had serious issues. At the time, no funding was being directed at fixing these issues.

<comment><USER9> _You try to make the free software project look like an obnoxious enterprise that would exploit a time of uncertainty to show off and bolster their status, for revenue._

During the wide media exposure of OpenSSL's heartbleed vulnerability, Theo quite cleverly forked off LibreSSL, started a campaign for funding, and aggressively and viciously attacked the existing codebase.

[http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/04/openss...](http://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2014/04/openssl-code-beyond-repair-claims-creator-of-libressl- fork/)

Yes, it absolutely appears to be exploiting uncertainty for their own benefit. Both in exposure and status ("I'm here to save the day"), but also in funding. Theo, and I assume others, are paid by such funding, so it isn't quite so benevolent.

Sticking "free software" in the description doesn't suddenly remove all normal human motivations.

<comment><USER11> Yep - they could have just easily acted like team players instead of egoistic contrarians and joined efforts with the OpenSSL team to help improve OpenSSL along with the original developers. If they did that you'd probably see a lot less criticism today. Instead, they chose to be assholes - and this is their come-uppance.

Nothing says "This codebase is beyond repair" quite like forking a codebase and repairing it.

<comment> vezzy-fnord Acting like a team player doesn't get shit done. That's not how human relations in free software development work. The improvements of OpenSSL that the LibreSSL team envisioned required such massive code overhauls and deletion of legacy functionality, plus certain modules for FIPS support that were detrimental to security, that there was likely no way to do it all upstream.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> here is some software that sucks less: [http://suckless.org/](http://suckless.org/)</comment>


Ask HN: What Happened to Model Driven Development - <AUTHOR> Why am I getting taught this in final year of university.
Is this paradigm still used in non-legacy areas?
Regards, <comment><USER2> Absolutely. Model-driven development and related paradigms like domain-driven design are still in use in almost any area of business software development. Domain-driven design in particular has become quite popular again in recent times and I don't see it going anywhere anytime soon.

The thing is: You have to do it right to reap the rewards. Especially in larger companies it's unfortunately not uncommon to encounter all-encompassing models with hundreds (or even thousands) of entities / classes. That kind of model not only doesn't help with developing software faster and more cost- efficiently but even has an adverse effect. In order to benefit from model- driven development you have to think in terms of the various business functions (sales, HR etc.), the boundaries between those functions and models which are specific to their respective subdomain.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I was told it leads to rapid development.... disagree.

Just making a project in class i found it to Beverly tedious jumping between diagrams.

Much rather prefer code.

<comment><USER2> Nah, rapid application development for the most part is a pipe dream. It works for contrived school examples and default CRUD interfaces but as soon as you need custom logic or user interface behaviour it breaks down pretty rapidly.

However, rapid application development isn't the main benefit of these approaches. Their main point is getting a better understanding of the business domain you're operating in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just curious if you're inside or outside of the US? I hadn't heard this technique mentioned in my undergrad CS at the time I graduated in 2012.

Going off the MSDN article ([https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/aa964145.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/aa964145.aspx)), MDD, it starts to sound vaguely like how most early-stage startups build software wrt agile. There are definitely tools to generate basic CRUD models from a data model diagram eg UML. There are also tools to generate class diagrams from code. However, they lost me somewhere in the middle of that article where everything quickly detached from reality into abstractions. Beyond those points and using TDD, personally I had a hard time seeing what this approach _is_ exactly and what the value added is.

The Wikipedia article for model-driven software development ([https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model- driven_software_develo...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model- driven_software_development)) makes it sounds like you generate code then never modify it directly, only regenerating from the abstraction. That sounds _cool_ in theory but completely unrealistic in practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Canada. Google: SYSC 4805

<comment><USER4> 2nd Ottawa themed comment of the day for me.

There is a fair amount of model based design in defence and aerospace, where the systems in question can be years away from being ready and finding bugs when the systems are ready is hugely expensive. This starts to get into Systems Engineering territory (the INCOSE kind not the MCSE kind).

When one gets into Systems of Systems territory, just looking at code isn't an option, and understanding the interactions between systems at a system level can be worth the up front cost of creating the models.

Having models drive code generation (say Simulink generating FPGA code) can also allow for simulation and testing to be done on the model and then the exact same tests be done on target with very little rework.

[https://www.mathworks.com/products/hdl- coder.html](https://www.mathworks.com/products/hdl-coder.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> MDD and code generation from models two completely different things.

</comment><comment><USER6> Still the norm in the defence and automotive sectors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Should I invest time into this if I ant to go into automotive and similar industries?

<comment><USER6> Probably not any extra time than are required by your studies. A lot of it can be learned on the job and the organisations I worked with (only in Europe, truth be told) had heavy training sessions for on-boarding. I know because I designed, developed and taught those courses.

Usually those places have a a 'full-stack' of model based systems engineers using SysML, who hand off models to the dev guys using model based development (MBD). Testing with a V-model, etc.

Defence more than automotive, but some orgs have very long project cycles (i.e. >25 years) so models provide a great benefit over simple source/docs.</comment></comment></comment>


Loomio – Crowdfunding a better way to make decisions together - <AUTHOR> http://loomio.org/crowd <comment><USER2> Crowdfunding web applications? Is this becoming a new thing?

Send us 100k, and we'll finish our beta application, and give you rewards, like your name in the code, or for $500, you can have a coffee with us on video chat. Or for $25,000, fly yourself here, and we'll give you a tour of the city and cook you dinner. Does this not sound crazy to anyone else?

If they raise an extra $150k, they'll develop extras, such as _a plug-in architecture to enable an ecosystem of open-source plug-ins for different discussion and decision-making protocols that will scale to much larger groups_. I don't know what the hell that even means, but isn't it a little irresponsible to even consider such features when you haven't made an official release, and proven the concept has any long term traction?

If you can't tell, this entire thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. After 18 months of beta they're unable to launch, or make enough sales to organizations to fund their development, so they're asking the crowd for a 100k donation? I don't believe their software is as life changing as the video makes it out to be, and I don't think they have a viable business. I expect them to burn through the money, launch, and fade away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for your comments. We launched a functional and useful alpha in early 2012, followed by a public beta in 2013, which was open to everyone to use. 15,000 people have already signed up and people are using the software right now all over the world. You're welcome to use the Loomio protoype right now, either the hosted version in the cloud, or install your own instance.

Set up a Loomio prototype group here: [https://www.loomio.org/group_requests/new](https://www.loomio.org/group_requests/new) or grab the code from [http://github.com/loomio/loomio](http://github.com/loomio/loomio)

So if we're talking about the beta prototype, characterising us as "unable to launch" isn't fair. What the crowdfunding campaign is for is building Loomio 1.0, a redesign and expansion of the core idea we've validated.

The stretch goals would allow us to unlock matching funding from the New Zealand government, including taking on some big technical challenges. You are right that these are not yet well-defined, since we're still a ways off from starting to work on them. But there are serious challenges around scaling up meaningful online discussion and decision-making to large groups that I don't believe anyone has really solved yet. We want to take them on.

We've hung in there for 2 years already, and put together an amazing team. The incredible support of over 1000 people is now going to allow us to release Loomio 1.0 later this year. We're not going anywhere!!

So sorry it leaves a bad taste. If there's anything else you'd like to know that might help you understand it better, please let us know! We're a genuinely earnest and well-meaning group trying to build something we think can help people.

<comment><USER2> Why would you say unable to launch isn't a fair assessment? If you had a functional and useful alpha over 2 years ago, and 1.0 isn't released, I'd say that's spot on. You're going to be in for nearly 3 years, $100k from the crowd, and an unknown amount from your supporters and team before officially launching. 15,000 users on free software is a small number. I'd be worrying the small number isn't because the big launch has happened, but because the concept doesn't have enough appeal. I've launched a few different projects in the past that hit 15,000 users in a week, and the majority of those died within months or a year.

Nonetheless, congratulations on raising $100k from 1,000 users. That shows some dedication from the community, so you must be doing something right. Hopefully I'm wrong on my forecast, and good luck on the project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So excited to see Loomio on the frontpage of Hacker News! I've long dreamed of an effective web app for consensus decision making processes (and even thought about building one) but as a user of Loomio for over a year I can say they've done almost everything right -- even down to having some serious design chops. I'm so excited to see where they will be able to take this with the money they've raised (hit your goal today! woot!) and look forward to introducing more activist organizations, especially those with people in many geographical locations, to Loomio. Great job to all the devs and designers and alpha and beta testers!

For those of you who don't know, consensus decision making is not just a willy-nilly free for all. Over the years it has been refined by groups, it has developed strong points of process that help ensure it actually is a decision making process, not just a discussion that goes in circles or goes nowhere. (including the infamous hand signals that many saw during Occupy). If you are interested in consensus decision making, I highly recommend checking out this classic book.

[http://consensus.net/pdf/consensus.pdf](http://consensus.net/pdf/consensus.pdf)

While I don't think formal consensus decision making is the best tool for non- hierarchical decision making i all circumstances, I do think it is quite powerful /when used correctly/. Historically this has required strong facilitation skills and other roles (timekeeper, temperature checker, etc) -- all of which play their part in keeping the process working as designed.

Loomio has created a platform for decentralized non-hierarchical decision making that bakes in some crucial features /to accomplish formal consensus decision making/. All the activists I know that have tried it have been impressed by the dev team's responsiveness and dogfooding (Loomio uses Loomio), and have found the features enable formal consensus decision making in a way that a discussion board or voting polls or similar tools that aren't quite designed for consensus just don't.

<comment><USER4> What have you been using Loomio for? I still can't say I really get it.

<comment><USER3> For doing formal-ish consensus decisionmaking with groups that are geographically dispersed and can't do in-person consensus-based meetings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like the platform. It enables people to conduct the decision making in a way that is followed in formal committees, and even the UN. People present options, everyone talks about them, then when it seems that the group is converging towards a solution, you present a proposal. And then everyone votes on it (and not just a yes or no!). So it's pretty cool.

I just have one concern, does only the leader present proposals? or can everyone do it? To me, letting only the leader (OP) do that makes sense. otherwise wouldn't everyone be just doing that instead of posting suggestions?

<comment><USER6> Thanks! Yes anyone can start a discussion and a proposal, but we haven't experienced people just starting proposals without engaging in other ways. People start proposals but if you don't want to participate, you can just let them die. The big idea here is to build shared understanding through discussion before a proposal is suggested, that way the group has a solid foundation on which to create a decision.

<comment><USER5> I understand the intended usage but I am just a little surprised that people actually follow that. Either way, good work! I am loving it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My pet peeve is projects that don't describe what they do. Thought process while reading:

> Loomio is a user-friendly tool for collaborative decision-making:

Piqued my interest.

> not majority-rules polling, but actually coming up with solutions that work > for everyone.

Skeptical because it promises to get rid of office politics. I want to know specifics how and why it works. Cold, hard, game-theory and/or economics. Maybe there is something useful behind that marketing-speak.

> We're a small team in New Zealand, and we've built a prototype that people > are already doing great things with.

Total non-sequitur. I don't care who you are. Convince me why the product works before I invest more effort.

> Now we're crowdfunding so we can build the real thing: a new tool for truly > inclusive decision-making.

Ah, it doesn't work yet.

> Youtube video

Sorry, I'm not going to spend an hour of my time when you've already proved yourself a bad steward of the last five minutes.

Contrast this to xerophtye's comment: short, punchy explanation how Loomio works.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the feedback. We'll try to fix those points.

Checkout the explore page for a few examples of groups using the tool:

[https://www.loomio.org/explore](https://www.loomio.org/explore)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know some of the people involved in this project, and I've recently started trying to contribute. It's really cool to see New Zealand open source software doing well in the wider community.

I've also used it personally for a few things and I think the idea has really good potential. It ties open decision making into a discussion quite well. Try it out.

[https://github.com/loomio/loomio](https://github.com/loomio/loomio)

<comment><USER9> Thanks! We were stoked to get your pull request today :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone for checking out Loomio! If anyone has questions, please feel free to ask away (several of the team members have answered a few already).

<comment><USER10> I'd just like to thank the loomio team for supporting Taiwan's #CongressOccupied activities as chronicled in [http://0sdc.tw/en](http://0sdc.tw/en) — you played a key part in ensuring a safe and successful process, and will likely help on our future of constitutional reform as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> We were humbled to be able to support you, and it's reaffirmed our belief in the importance of translations and accessibility in the app. All the best to you in Taiwan!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Here is a different approach (a mash-up of StackExchange, reddit, Wikipedia, and hallojs):

* [http://davidjarvis.ca/world-politics/](http://davidjarvis.ca/world-politics/)

* [https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/](https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/world-politics/)

See also:

* [http://hallojs.org/](http://hallojs.org/)

<comment><USER12> it's an interesting approach. I would be interested to see whether world- politics is capable of generating and addressing a range of diverse perspectives.

in my experience, without a focus on dialogue this isn't easy.

<comment><USER11> A good point. A friend of mine pointed me to six hats[1]. Currently the mock- up mirrors a two-level reddit in its dialogue with a tight focus on facts (the information-based white hats).

The advantage of having only facts is that the interface is simpler. The disadvantage is that not all views might be represented, thus impeding dialogue.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Loomio is a great platform. A simple, yet elegant way to tap into the collective knowledge and decision making in organizations. Really recommend it!

I've already supported the crowdfunding and planning on contributing to the open source community as well. There is huge potential in Loomio!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much! Right from the start, Loomio has been a community-driven project, and we only exist because of everyone's support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This concept reminds me of the non-hierarchical decision making by consensus process that groups such as 'Reclaim the Streets' tried to implement a couple of decades ago.

However, 'Reclaim the Streets' never asked anyone for any donations. That made them very different to your typical 'save the world' group where the main point of the org/charity is just that, soliciting donations.

Like many people here I don't quite get what the money is needed for, even though it is spelled out. I also had a look at the github and it looks like things are aeons away from the 'Wordpress 5 minute install'. The Wordpress 5 minute install really is too much technical wizardry for a lot of folk, they need an 'I.T. Expert' (TM) to do it for them. Wordpress offer hosted versions to get around this trifle and I am sure that is the way to go, however, if you are open sourcing the code and expecting people to host their own, being open source is not enough, it has to be reasonably easy to install.

Every man, dog and cat rolls a few Rails apps before their breakfast in The Valley, so it is no big deal. Yet for the people that are just about okay uploading something like Wordpress to their 'FTP server' and setting up a database through some hideous 'cPanel' contraption do matter. These are the people likely to be administrators of a group somewhere that could benefit from your software.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is indeed inspired by consensus decision-making, although the Loomio platform can work for various decision-making protocols not just 100% consensus. It just nudges groups away from strict majority-rules or one-way communication (polls with pre-defined options), which leads to a lot more meaningful participation and better outcomes for groups.

A big focus for the next phase is making installing your own instance a lot easier. We're going to release a docker file for Loomio 1.0. But just in case you weren't clear, there is also a cloud-hosted version that anyone can use without technical expertise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Speaking from experience, Loomio is a wonderfully effective decision making platform. :)

<comment><USER16> how does it ensure that only one person gets one account?

<comment><USER9> We're interested in exploring cryptographic anonymization. But the truth is, most groups don't need it.

<comment><USER17> What about using SMS/Facebook auth?

<comment><USER12> for auth at the moment we have (in no particular order): google, facebook, persona

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great project, have my $12.

FYI - the website takes a very long time to load in Australia, I would suggest using a CDN to improve international load times.

<comment><USER12> good to know, we're on cloudflare, and do have caching in place. were there any pages in particular that were slow?

<comment><USER18> Sorry only just saw this, it was the front / landing page. It seemed to be very sluggish, especially if you are already using cloudflare, unfortunately Australia's internet is atrociously slow compared to NZ's (oh how I miss it!) so it's very noticeable if a page is even slower than usual. Perhaps make a free NewRelic account and have a look to see what you can easily target as low hanging fruit (long db queries etc...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great start guys! Wishing you all the best making that great product. I believe it can bring a lot of value to the World

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks so much! We really appreciate the encouragement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nothing more than a fancy discussion forum.

<comment><USER21> Well, it's not really fancy. In terms of discussion forums, Discourse is much more fancy than what we've built.

But, unlike most forums, we've tailored every feature toward bringing discussions to consensus. And when you're trying to decide something online, that makes a big difference.

<comment><USER5> And from the looks of it, you did a great job!! Exploring your "how to make a decision on loomio" right now.

<comment><USER21> Thanks!! :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Terracotta Network Attached Memory for Web App Session Clustering and Replication - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebitsource.com/2009/04/18/web-application-session-clustering-and-replication-with-terracotta-server-network-attached-memory/ Terracotta provides a service called Network Attached Memory for JEE applications. It is similar to a distributed cache, in that it provides object caching and session clustering features. Terracotta sets itself apart from traditional Java distributed caches because of it's seamless integration with most Java application servers and frameworks, and ability to cache the entire framework and code, as well as provide session clustering and replication features on a level of high-availability that is difficult to attain with such finesse and ease. This article demonstrates some of Terracotta's session clustering and high availability features using a demo application the Terracotta engineers have created, called the Examinator. <comment><AUTHOR> Terracotta provides a service called Network Attached Memory for JEE applications. It is similar to a distributed cache, in that it provides object caching and session clustering features. Terracotta sets itself apart from traditional Java distributed caches because of it's seamless integration with most Java application servers and frameworks, and ability to cache the entire framework and code, as well as provide session clustering and replication features on a level of high-availability that is difficult to attain with such finesse and ease. This article demonstrates some of Terracotta's session clustering and high availability features using a demo application the Terracotta engineers have created, called the Examinator.</comment>


The one key to dealing with senior executives: answer the question - <AUTHOR> http://kellblog.com/2012/01/17/the-one-key-to-dealing-with-senior-executives-answer-the-question/

<comment><USER2> I agree that the practice of "just answer the freaking question" is a good policy and not only for communication with C-level suits, but when answering a question from anyone.

However, sometimes the question itself makes it very clear that person asking it has missed the clue-bus and is operating under a deep misunderstanding of the situation.

Those situations require the courage reframe the discussion and NOT answer the question.</comment>


Are Passenger Jet Engines Hitting Their Technical Limits? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-12/why-passenger-jet-engines-are-reaching-their-technical-limits <comment><USER3> >The first patent for using a gas turbine to power an aircraft was filed in 1921 by Maxime Guillaume.

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

After close to a century of development, one would think it would be near its technical limits.

Fuel efficiency trends for new commercial jet aircraft: 1960 to 2014

[https://theicct.org/publications/fuel-efficiency-trends- new-...](https://theicct.org/publications/fuel-efficiency-trends-new- commercial-jet-aircraft-1960-2014)

[https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_Ai...](https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/ICCT_Aircraft- FE-Trends_20150902.pdf)

Current airliners appear to burn half the fuel per passenger mile as did early '70s airliners. This reflects both propulsion and aerodynamic improvements.

<comment><USER4> > After close to a century of development, one would think it would be near > its technical limits.

Internal combustion engines in cars have been around longer and we're still pushing record amounts of power and record amounts of efficiency.

<comment><USER3> This is partly due to the application of computer controls and partly due to the application of things like direct fuel injection, turbocharging, etc. that were previously available only on racing or aircraft engines.

For example, the Cosworth DFV normally aspirated Formula 1 engine with 182 cubic inches was making over 520 horsepower (2.9 / cubic inch) by the end of its career in 1983.

<comment><USER5> Combustion engine development _was_ oddly stunted though. We have known the basic formula for power for a very long time (forced induction + high compression + high octane fuel). Superchargers are ancient, turbos aren't new either, although I guess fuel injection had to wait for computers to be reliable and cost effective. Even then I don't fully understand why it took 30 years for automakers to figure out how to produce high power engines that met emissions standards.

<comment><USER6> It didn't take long to know how to do it. It took a long time to make cost effective parts that were reliable in doing it for the service life of a car. the bearings in a modern vw turbocharger are incredible. Imagine getting 100K Miles out of a turbocharger which can regularly spool to 200K RPMs. those bearings need to be made to incredible tolerances, which were not previously cost effective.

<comment><USER3> People generally overestimate the difficulty of designing a product and underestimate the difficulty of designing the equipment, processes, and systems needed to mass produce the product economically.

<comment><USER7> Is that true? There are a number of interesting corollaries if so, notably that China should get a lot more respect for extremely cheap mass-production of products, the U.S's position as "designer of products that are built elsewhere" is quite precarious, that software and other IP (where mass production is basically free) are basically the perfect businesses, and that services that can be provided without mass-producing a product will grow in importance.

I could buy all 5 of those statements, but it's interesting that the combined effect of them would be to push people out of making things and into manipulating brains (which itself is a statement I could believe).

<comment><USER8> It is true, and _some_ Chinese production lines are truly feats of engineering. However, it's a little tricky to determine whether this is really Chinese values and engineering or the values and engineering they have imported from other countries. There's a lot of production lines in China that produce nonfunctional goods.

In the microelectronic and mechanical areas the strength of the Chinese market seems to be very, very lax IP law. While most of the interesting parts don't make it over to the western market, they have very featureful, accessible, and novel components that are made by cobbling together (potentially stolen or at least unlicensed) IP.

Historically US manufacturing used to be the best cost/performance optimized and this is what helped win WWII.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A friend in the industry explained to me recently that part of the problem is requirements creep while the engines are being designed. I am definitely _not_ a mechanical engineer - so take what I say with a grain of salt - but I did think there were some interesting parallels to software development.

New engines are normally designed alongside a particular aircraft. The aircraft manufacturer optimistically estimates how much thrust will be required. Over years of development, the predicted weight of the aircraft increases and the aerodynamics get slightly worse. To compensate, the engine manufacturer needs to find a way to squeeze more thrust out of the engine - but without changing its size or overall architecture.

This can be resolved by adding extra complexity in the form of extra compressors or stages. Alternatively, you can try to run the engine at higher temperatures and pressures. While it's still possible to certify the engine and run it safely, you will probably experience many more maintenance issues than if the engine was running inside its original design parameters.

<comment><USER10> When an aircraft is released engine development doesn't stop. These things are always undergoing revisions, performance upgrades, ADs, and even just performance upgrades / downgrades / operating procedure changes based on data from in field running.

I doubt an engine would undergo the addition of a stage as that's pretty major but there's no reason a mfc couldn't charge you a mil for better compressor blades and give you a thrust rating upgrade for your patronage.

Edit: I'll keep talking as more info is coming to my head. Jet engines have fadec computers that get to decide what your maximum power level is. This maximum is programmed into the engine as a thrust rating. Let's say you engine has 8 possible power levels to configure, when you test the engine when new or after maintenance, you will look up a chart based on parameters that your test cell has logged, ie thrust vs EGT (exhaust temp) is a big one, so too is vibration at the different bands. This chart will tell you what to program the ECU with (forgot the actual acronym, its analogous to an ECU on a car). So to your point, when you get more performance out of an engine, you can set these levels higher, so you wouldn't expect more degradation from you engine for a higher power level as the manual will tell you what power level the engine can be set to which will keep everything within its maintenance limits. (Sorry if that's not super clear)

Edit 2: Funny implementation detail of setting a thrust rating, it's literally a jumper based system similar to old motherboards, except you manually wire a blanking plug to bridge the connections. A blanking plug is an electrical connector that has a cap on it with a little bit of space to run wires from one pin back to another.

Also the correct acronym is EEC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Bloomberg article doesn't seem to touch on what specifically is going on with the Trent 1000 (but my understanding was that protective coatings weren't holding up to air pollution). In any case, General Electric is having problems specifically with the air-cooled blades that Bloomberg's pinning Rolls' troubles on. Keeping the blades solid at those temperatures is almost wizardry. Fascinating stuff.

A Thai Airways lost an engine (GE90) on one of their 777s recently due to problems with the air cooling. As a result eight GE90 engines are now subject to an additional inspection. Here's a video touching on the GE problem by a tech who works on GE turbines for a living:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxvEQZil2U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GxvEQZil2U)

<comment><USER12> Pollution causing jet engine issues is scary. The countries and engineers building the engines don't encounter extreme pollution and the places experiencing the worst pollution aren't major hubs for aircraft development. It's an "out of sight/out of mind" type of issue during a record period of air travel growth all around the world

I hope ICAO can begin studying the affects of pollution on aircraft more heavily because compressing air with an AQI over 1,000 (like India has experienced recently) could have very unknown consequences elsewhere in the engine after the blades, (unless it just pushes all the pollution particulates back into the cabin, which is another issue that needs to be solved)

<comment><USER13> Airborne particulates are absolutely not "out of sight/out of mind" for engineers designing commercial jet engines. That's an absurd statement. It's one of the top considerations for those engineers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> note that there isn't that much efficiency left on the table: the best turbine is about 62% thermal-efficient[1] (note - not an aircraft engine). compare that to the theoretical carnot cycle at approximately jet operating temperatures - it's about 80%. these things are approaching dark magic territory at ~75% theoretical thermodynamic maximum.

[1] [https://www.ge.com/power/about/insights/articles/2016/04/pow...](https://www.ge.com/power/about/insights/articles/2016/04/power- plant-efficiency-record)

<comment><USER15> By my calculation the carnot efficiency for the jet operating temperature is about 85.5%: 1-T_cold/T_hot, where T_cold ~ 230K (it's quite cold at high altitudes) and T_hot ~ 1588K (or 2400 F, which is the hottest temperature in the Leap engine produced by GE, which powers the 737-Max [1]). This is only possible though because of GE's usage of the ceramic matrix composites (CMC) which allows for 150-200K hotter temperatures than classical alloys.

Now the current CMC method employed by GE uses silicon carbide, which has a melting temperature of about 3000K. If one day they could switch to hafnium carbide, with a melting temperature of more than 4100K, the carnot efficiency could reach more than 89%.

[1] [https://www.ornl.gov/news/ceramic-matrix-composites-take- fli...](https://www.ornl.gov/news/ceramic-matrix-composites-take-flight-leap- jet-engine)

<comment><USER14> didn't know they get so hot. i assumed 1170K (900C) exhaust temperature and -50C cold reservoir. this is even darker magic than i suspected :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> They were hitting their limits by the mid 70's.

The mid 70's was golden era of supersonic research. Supersonic engines are just regular jet engines with a Turbofan. Add in wings swept further back in a Delta pattern like the Concorde and you have...supersonic aircraft that comfortably can do Mach 1.5-Mach 2.0.

Today, I think there is just 1 functioning wind tunnel in the US that can do supersonic research, so sad. If you live in the Bay Area you pass it, just look at Moffet Field on your way north of San Jose.

The Japanese and Australians, due to their remote location in part, have done most of the significant research of any last few years.

Why did SuperSonics not go anywhere with essentially every major civilian project being mothballed?

1\. Materials Science: we simply don't have reliable data for how long XYZ Metal lasts at extreme temperatures of supersonic flight. If you read Michael Crichton's Airframe from 1996 (great novel), they mention that aircraft are designed with a lifespan of a human. 80 years. It's insane how long these things fly. The heat is so extreme, the Concorde would fully extend 1 foot (it was made in part of titanium) during flight. Many crashes have occurred, such as Alaska Airlines Flight 261 in 1999 from Mexico to California, because the maintenance time frames of these parts is still not fully understood. And that's for subsonics!

2\. Noise: No way around it. The decision to build aircraft close to cities was essentially finalized in preparation for World War II. You can dampen significantly, but it is painfully loud. Landing outside the city with fast train back is best solution.

3\. Fuel costs and burn. Supersonic research got underway right as Earth Day started. Lots of supersonic tech relies on afterburners, terrible mileage. It was bad timing.

4\. 2003 Concorde crash where a tire was hit on the runway, and the entire aircraft exploded. This should have not happened for a tire collision. SuperSonics are fragile because of all the design tradeoffs one has to make (currently).

<comment><USER17> Previous commenter had it right. Supersonic aircraft have terrible lift/drag. This means that they will always burn much more fuel. Since the extra speed is really only useful for long flights, a supersonic aircraft has to carry a higher fraction of its weight in fuel, further reducing efficiency.

This makes supersonic airliners infeasible for the really long routes that they would truly help with. The Concorde only shaved 3.5 hours off the NY- London time, and cost about 8x as much to operate.

The extremely high costs then mean that you have to sell what are essentially coach seats at greater than business class prices. There aren't many people willing to pay business class prices, so you can't run the planes very often, and you can only run them between very large, rich cities.

Since the whole point of supersonic is speed, you can't effectively sell connecting flights, because if you fly, say, Boston-London through NYC, the direct flight from Boston subsonic will arrive at nearly the same time as the supersonic flight with a connection.

This leads to a very small passenger market. It also means that supersonic planes will operate on an infrequent schedule. Many people in a position to pay for a supersonic flight will prefer a subsonic flight that meets their schedule over a supersonic flight that doesn't.

With the advent of lie-flat beds, in-flight wifi and power, and higher cabin pressurization, being on an airplane an extra 3.5 hours isn't even so bad anymore, so the practical advantage isn't nearly as great.

All of these factors make supersonic a very small niche market. This means that few planes will be produced. High performance aircraft have high development costs, and those need to be amortized over the production run. Concorde was a complete financial disaster because they only produced 14 of them, for all of the reasons above. The only solution is to somehow make the airframe far more efficient.

<comment><USER18> > With the advent of lie-flat beds, in-flight wifi and power, and higher cabin > pressurization, being on an airplane an extra 3.5 hours isn't even so bad > anymore, so the practical advantage isn't nearly as great.

I think this is huge. From what I read, the cabin of the Concorde was very cramped. I would prefer business class on a 787 or A380 vs being cramped and arriving faster.

<comment><USER17> The size of the seats was a little bit worse than what airlines sell today as premium economy.

It's interesting to see what Boom is doing here relative to Concorde. They have a similar sized cabin, but they propose to configure it with fewer but larger seats.

They will have more efficient engines and a lighter airframe, but the lower efficiency at higher speeds means they can't match subsonic range, so they'll have to make a fuel stop on transpacific flights, which hurts comfort and will cost at least an hour per flight. Economically, transpacific routes may make more sense even with the fuel stop. Concorde probably could have done this too, but Air France and British Airways didn't serve these routes. All of the very long routes they might have used it on crossed Europe and Asia where they couldn't go supersonic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I can't read the linked article, but in general, any technology constantly tries to push the limits. Jet engines are a very mature technology, so there are less improvements by just improving the general design. The next step is optimizing each part, e.g. by selecting new materials to make the parts from. This usually means a large performance leap - new materials can mean a way better performance - but also a time where there are struggles to make a new material working reliably. With time and experience, reliability grows and progress slows down till the next large step, which might reduce the reliability somewhat.

On top of those things, I heard stories that GE for example laid off a large amount of their experienced engineers. This certainly increases the risks with new designs.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yeah I guess that's a good way to start discussing investments in railroad and nuclear energy.

I don't think a more efficient jet engine will make air traffic environment- friendly anytime soon.

Sorry to hijack the conversation.

<comment><USER21> neither solve the issues air travel does. the amount of rail needed to funnel the same amount of traffic one of the larger airports generate would be phenomenal let alone where could you even put it down? then of course comes the small problem of how many miles cross ocean which puts rail right out of the equation.

Seriously, look at an airport. get the number of flights and where they come from and their frequency, now imagine trying to build a sufficient number of rail lines to do the same.

air travel saves time that no rail line could except in short hop scenarios where extra time to process through an airport might tip a balance. let alone you can have nearly an number of planes in flight between two points

<comment><USER22> London Victoria rail station averages ~207k passengers per day. London Heathrow airport average ~211k. Doesn't feel that unfeasible.

<comment><USER23> Does London Victoria have trains going to Canada, Hong Kong, Moscow? I am pretty sure most Heathrow flights aren't to Leeds.

<comment><USER24> The point is: take airplanes where it makes sense (long distance > 600km), and a well-meshed train network for everything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> No, turbine inlet temperatures are physically possible to get higher.

Mitsubishi has been developing a turbine for 1700C inlet temperature, and it seems they are getting close.

Second, it is possible to reduce compression losses in 3 spool designs.

Fan designs are getting better, and more efficient. Gearboxes for mid-sized engines are planned, and it's possible we'll see them in GE90 class engines eventually.

Lastly, it's entirely possible to slap a recuperator, intercooler, and reheater on the engine if things will get too desperate.

<comment><USER26> "Mitsubishi has been developing a turbine for 1700C inlet temperature, and it seems they are getting close."

And how long does the blade stay together? What happens to the blades if a foreign object is ingested? These blades are being made to run at T that make them very ductile, the centrifugal forces literally bend the blades.

Mitsubishi isn't the only one trying to increase the T.

"Second, it is possible to reduce compression losses in 3 spool designs." And increase the losses due to mechanical coupling and decrease reliability.

"Lastly, it's entirely possible to slap a recuperator, intercooler, and reheater on the engine if things will get too desperate. " At what weight and aerodynamic cost?

Its not my intention to contradict you, but to highlight that it's not obvious that any of these things will ever commercially.

<comment><USER25> > And how long does the blade stay together?

Perspiration cooling, the blade itself will always stay around 1200C

> And increase the losses due to mechanical coupling and decrease reliability.

Three spool engines are already there, and flying

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The biggest issue for innovation in aircraft, is due to the sheer capital it requires to develop both jet engines and the aircraft, which results in companies developing these separately. For there to be more innovation in the space there needs to be closer alignment between aircraft manufacturers(Airbus, Boeing) and jet engine manufacturers (Rolls Royce, GE, P&W). There's talks of blended wing bodies etc, which would improve aerodynamic efficiency but I can't see anything like this happening given the way the industry is set up.

</comment><comment><USER28> So, this have been bugging me for a while - what when we actually come to limits of the new technological and scientific advances that got us through the 20th century? I doubt that anyone here doesn't see a comparison to Moore's law. Supersonic passenger flight isn't happening, Musk's spaceship (or at least, it's use for passenger travel) is a huge gamble...

What if, among all the possible visions of the future, 2119 will have roughly the same tech as 2019? I don't doubt that there will be cosmetic differences, I'm talking more about about the fundamental stuff: energy efficiency, FLOPs, bandwidths, etc, being in the same order of magnitude. What if 2219 and 2319 still says the same, and the hockey stick of growth turns into another plateu?

TBH, this future frigthens me even more than nuclear war or climate change. For both these old horrors, we at least know the theoretical solutions; but if we simply run out of new things to discover that make a difference for us as a species, what then?

<comment><USER29> Biotech is still in its infancy and mastering DNA would open up a new frontier where humans can edit the genetic code to what makes a human. Assuming it isn't universally banned.

The only truly depressing future to me is if interstellar travel really is as hard as it seems to us now. There kind of needs to be a physics/propulsion discovery on the order of magnitude of electricity or the journey can only be feasibly made by the immortal AI robot race that replaces us.

<comment><USER30> Interstellar travel IS hard, but the current laws of physics allow it to be done. Crewed interstellar travel can be done on timescales of ~50 years to the nearest star system using ~10Terawatt of solar power in space to power efficient beamed macron propulsion with the benefit being that most of the investment is in the macron beamer and power supply which stays in the solar system and can be reused like once every few months, sending a stream of ~100 ton spacecraft on magsails to Alpha Centauri (using the magsails to brake against the interstellar medium near the destination). Two way trips are not feasible in a human lifespan as it currently is, but one-way settlement of nearest stars is, with a stream of supplies and settlers arriving every few months.

To really make this feasible, improvements in hibernation tech could help. Induced torpor over a week or two already works and could be used repeatedly so that psychological time in transit is only a few years (and the reduction in metabolism from torpor may also extend calendar life of the crew, but that is not yet proven). Even modest life extension (i.e. increasing healthspan from ~mid-60s to mid-80s or longer) would significantly increase the viability of human settlement of Alpha Centauri, and we're just getting to grips with the biochemical tools needed to fight aging, so who knows over a few centuries what will be possible. I think increase in human healthspan and lifespan is more likely than a dramatic practical but fundamental physics breakthrough cutting down the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is like the 737 Max problem all over again, the regulators need to step in and say that there's not enough margin in these designs to be reliable and safe. This would force the Airbuses and Boeings of this world to go back to four engines in their new designs, which they should have never abandoned in the first place.

As I've said for many years, cutting air travel prices to the bones is a very dangerous affair—as it results in substandard/shithouse quality engineering being installed in aircraft (cost-cutting results in designs that have insufficient safety/reliability margins).

Travelers need to get used to paying about 30% to 40% more per trip—and the regulators should be spruiking this message loud and clear from upon high until the plebs get the message!

(It's all pretty basic really—it's a no-free-lunch argument.)

<comment><USER32> It seems far from clear to me that increasing prices for air travel in pursuit of further increased safety would help overall when it is already incredibly safe. Higher prices may encourage air passengers to switch to less safe forms of transport (bus, car) leaving more people killed in transportation accidents overall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Unlike carmakers, the airlines lack viable technological alternatives. > Biofuels have potential but fully electric large commercial aircraft are > probably decades away.

Huh? Sure they have alternatives: Fuel cells, or non-polluting combustible pairs of compounds, e.g. Hydrogen + Oxygen (or even Hydrogen + Air?) . Also, I'm no physicist, but I'm pretty sure it's more efficient to convert to kinetic energy (almost) directly rather than through electricity - <USER2> that electric engines don't make much sense.

Correct me if I'm wrong!

Also, even with current technology - passenger aircraft engine turbines are quite far from their maximum potential efficiency; see @baq's comment.

<comment><USER26> "I'm pretty sure it's more efficient to convert to kinetic energy (almost) directly rather than through electricity - meaning that electric engines don't make much sense."

An electric motor is >90% efficient. Sure you're added an extra stage converting to electricity, but so what?

Electric drives are so efficient, _diesel_ ICE locomotives have had electric drives (in lieu of transmissions) since the 1950s. That is, they have massive diesel engines that generate electricity instead of moving the train directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Only tangentially related, but when I was at VT there was a lot of interesting research going on to move engine testing to the ground. There's engine/aircraft compatibility issues around blended wing body aircraft. You can read more about it at the link below.

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289985065_An_overvi...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289985065_An_overview_of_recent_results_using_the_StreamVane_method_for_generating_tailored_swirl_distortion_in_jet_engine_research)

</comment><comment><USER35> Anyone on HN got a link that shows the improvement of commercial jet engines over the last 50 years or so?

<comment><USER25> I can show one which shows just how much of a runway is left: [https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/49793471/active- cooli...](https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/49793471/active-cooling-air- cooling-newac)

There is a lot of space to improve in

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> If we let companies race to the bottom leaving only a duopoly, then one of those companies mortally wounds themselves with flawed profit-margin-enhancing tech (787 MCAS, VW diesel, Galaxy battery fires, Deskstar HDDs) are we not at risk of entering a technological dark age?

<comment><USER37> Nah. The magic is not the company. It's the people in it.

When Nokia's retail division went up it a ball of flames, the engineers didn't just disappear and become janitors or something. They formed HMD, who is the one of the very few mobile phone makers seeing ear on year growth in shipments.

Raw human talent is the major driver of innovation. Companies are just one way they organise themselves. Open source is another. Different organisations suit different circumstances, but you always need the raw human talent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I wonder how much fuel and maintenance could be saved on airliners if airports had giant electro-magnetic catapults like naval carriers to accelerate and launch aircraft without consuming as much fuel at high power.

<comment><USER39> Very little. By one estimate jets burn about 10% of fuel to reach _cruising altitude_. [1] Unless the catapult got you up to altitude it would not help much. Catapults solve a different problem, namely taking off from a short runway.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/How-much-fuel-is-burned-during-take- of...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-fuel-is-burned-during-take-off-until-an- aircraft-reaches-normal-cruising-speed-Is-this-the-most-fuel-consuming-part- of-the-flight)

<comment><USER40> On the plus side, a catapult that could get the airplane up to cruising altitude in one piece would make for a heck of a ride.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder if this means Boeing/Airbus/etc will have to move towards flying wings or other designs which might risk some degree of passenger comfort to achieve efficiency goals?

</comment><comment><USER41> [http://archive.is/OoWW6](http://archive.is/OoWW6)</comment>


Why one of America's richest states is also its poorest - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/10/27/why-one-of-americas-richest-states-is-also-its-poorest <comment><USER2> The problem is a lack of inventory. When you have limited supply and a ton of demand, that's how you get high prices. Why is there a lack of housing? While Prop 13 is an issue, imo it's not the core problem.

This is the problem: _" High rents reflect the success of California's businesses—but also decades of low investment and over-regulation. The California Environmental Quality Act, passed in 1970, aimed to ensure that environmental concerns got a proper hearing in planning and development. In practice, the act has become a NIMBYs' charter. Four-fifths of all suits filed under it have sought to stop infill development in cities (ie, on land already zoned for building) even though this usually has a smaller environmental impact than building on green fields. California's development and impact fees are about three times higher than the national average. Zoning laws and parking requirements are onerous, too."_

SF isn't even the worst offender compared to cities like Belmont and Palo Alto. While there are real safety concerns that limit development since 1. we're in earthquake country, and also because of 2. some Superfund sites in parts of the Bay Area; most of the problems just stem from current homeowners of single family homes (NIMBYs), who do not want high-density housing near their house. Until this changes, no reasonable amount of income assistance will solve this problem for the poor or the middle class. There's just too little usable land here to be exclusively used for traditional single-family homes.

This has more detail about the problem in SF: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/How-powerful- is...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/How-powerful-is-Bay-Area- s-pro-housing-13352047.php)

<comment><USER3> Why doesn't the government just use eminent domain to buy out some Nimby's in crucial areas and build some high rise apartments? The housing issue is 100% supply and demand. If I could wave a magic wand and create 1,000,000 apartments in SF rent prices would drop.

I'm assuming there's political pressure from wealthy land lords who don't want their cash cow slain?

<comment><USER4> They wouldn't build 1 million apartments, for one, Apartments would likely be built at a slower rate than people moving there. Two, as seen in Seattle, only housing for the already wealthy is built. There is tons of demand for low income housing, but no supply because it doesn't make as much profit (if any) so there's no incentive for capitalists to house low income people and the cycle keeps going.

Before I moved into my current place, I was in low income HUD subsidized housing. It was a brand new building with rent control. Rent control worked great, but the owners didn't keep their side of the promise. Maintenance took months, all amenities we paid for were broken, access to the garage to store our vehicles was broken for 4+ months, elevators were broken for months at a time.

There is no way to get people to freely build affordable housing in or around larger cities under this current system.

<comment><USER5> I don't really buy this. If you build enough market-rate housing to satisfy demand, then the price of older, less nice, formerly for-the-wealthy housing stock will become considerably less expensive.

<comment><USER6> You can see it in the used car market. Low income folks drive around in very old Lexuses. Smart move.

<comment><USER5> I used to drive around in an old '91 Lexus LS400. It was a fantastic car. I still see that generation of LS400 on the roads :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> California has fast growing tent cities. Even if you live in a gated community it's a pressure cooker that will get to you. On a blue state.

And instead of stepping back and analyzing what's causing this disaster they double down on their existing agendas.

<comment><USER8> On a related point, I visited Sunnyvale from the UK last week and was surprised to see legions of battered RVs parked on the backstreets in the area. What's going on there? Is it workers who can't afford to rent in the area?

<comment><USER9> Read the news articles on the subject. There's a vast number of gainfully- employed people whom don't wish to fritter their relatively meager earnings away on techie-inflated rent. Most people in the area cannot legitimately afford to live there as they would be spending more than a sensible amount on housing because they can't ever hope to earn enough to be considered middle- class. Still, the area needs janitors, cooks, teachers, bus drivers, human resources and more non-techies whom rarely make much in a normal American city. Instead, they make some sacrifices to keep more of what they earn and opt-out of following the other lemming off the cliff into perpetual debt peonage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> California currently has about 25% of America's homeless.

Some additional stats on homelessness and California:

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2018/05/california- statistics-on-homelessness.html)

<comment><USER2> imo chronic homelessness is a separate problem that mainly involves the lack of funding for mental health institutions at a federal level. If I remember correctly, 80% of homeless people are no longer homeless after 6 months. The remaining 20% either suffer from mental health issues, drugs, or both. It's a federal problem since all the states just want to play hot potato with the chronically homeless, instead of actually trying to solve it

[https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng- interactive/2017/dec/...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng- interactive/2017/dec/20/bussed-out-america-moves-homeless-people-country- study)

<comment><USER10> And this explains the California statistics how? California just churns out ridiculous numbers of crazy people? Is that the suggestion?

<comment><USER11> I would think California attracts homeless from outside of California at least due to the temperate weather.

<comment><USER10> I've suggested that myself. It's a factor I'm familiar with.

I have zero reason to believe that this fully accounts for one of the 50 states being home to one out of every four homeless Americans.

<comment><USER12> > I have zero reason to believe that this fully accounts for one of the 50 > states being home to one out of every four homeless Americans.

"One of 50 states" is a misleading statistic, given that states are nowhere near equal in population and California is the largest.

California is home to one out of every eight Americans, has good weather, and has some cities with an infamously high cost of housing. What fraction of the homeless population would you expect it to have?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's homeless people living on the sides of highway on-ramps in the Bay Area. 30 years ago, this wasn't a thing, but it's gone too far: not that the people need to be busted up and bus-ticketed elsewhere, but rather civil society has broken down and failed to provide for people.

<comment><USER13> In San Diego last year I saw evidence of habitation in most downtown ramps where there was shade, no matter the ambient noise level. Friends who moved away from the Bay Area only 10 years ago came back and were shocked at the homeless encampments off of 101 in south San Jose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> No mosquitoes, no snow, little rain, constant 60-70 degree weather.

Homeless is easier in California. I imagine a lot of New York homeless people die in the winter. Not true in a place like LA.

There's definitely a selection effect completely separate from any political/economic factors (though of course those have an effect too).

</comment><comment><USER15> I guess London has a similar problem but not this serious.

Living Wage Foundation calculates yearly the living wage for London and there are around 4k companies that pay it voluntarily.

Maybe a similar solution would be useful.

I'm struggling to understand why the these people living below the poverty line don't just move to a place where rent doesn't eat all their salary. They must be trapped in one way or another.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm glad to see all this attention being given to this absurd housing crisis and everyone can agree that a huge part of the problems comes down to NIMBYism, but is anything being done about it? Or are we just going to continue having the same conversation over and over again.

</comment><comment><USER17> This reads like anti-Prop-10 propaganda piece.

</comment><comment><USER18> TL;DR: because rent.

What a surprise: in a state where working full-time for minimum wage doesn't even cover rent for a 1b apartment in the suburbs of one of its largest metro areas, there are a lot of people who struggle.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is it me or the article linked presents zero relevant content?

<comment><USER10> _This is why poor people are coming en masse to california._

California exports poor people and imports rich ones.

[https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article13647809...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/article136478098.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Prop 13, Prop 13, Prop 13!

American economic woes are solely a consequence of enormous debts and unwillingness to let prices go down.

We are precariously similar to Japan in 1989

</comment><comment><USER21> Don't worry, free trade will short all of this out for the best, if only they make it even freer. Some tax cuts for big businesses will help too.

Sure, a lot of those people might be dead by then, but who keeps score when you're in the 10% that has no problem whatsoever?</comment>


Tech companies in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://employbl.com/ <comment><USER2> I think we've reached the point where we need to adjust our concept of what constitutes a tech company. Many of these companies do develop their own technology but it's only a means for improved delivery of their primary product or service, rather than being the product or service itself.

The default definition of a tech company lingering in peoples' minds seems to be any company using in-house software to conduct their business, but that describes most of Wall Street, the entire automotive industry, and so on. Why not be more specific?

Lyft, for example, is a transportation company - providing software and/or hardware is not a primary revenue stream. Similarly, Opendoor is in the real estate business, DoorDash is in the food delivery business, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey @longerthoughts,

I pretty much define tech company as companies that hire people that sit in front of a computer all day. I define more subsets of how to identify companies through the tag feature. For instance Lyft has a Transportation tag as well as a tag for San Francisco, cause that's where there office is

[https://employbl.com/companies/lyft](https://employbl.com/companies/lyft)

<comment><USER3> I personally believe your definition is somewhat flawed. Computers are ubiquitous; my dentist's receptionist sits in front of a computer all day, using it to manage appointments and electronic communication. Does that make my dentist's office a tech company?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is only showing companies that are HQ in SF, doesn't show satellite offices, which there are many of them.

<comment><USER5> Yeah they have Mozilla but not Google which occupies the other 99% of the same building. Amazon also has significant headcount in SF.

<comment><AUTHOR> Adding Google. I somehow omitted that company even though I walk by Google's SF office all the time. It's on the site now!

[https://employbl.com/companies/google](https://employbl.com/companies/google)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Patagonia is a designer of outdoor clothing and gear for the silent sports: > climbing, surfing, skiing and snowboarding, fly fishing, and trail running.

Patagonia is a tech company? Is every company with a web presence considered a tech company now?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah they sell via eCommerce. Patagonia is hella cool and really they're a non-profit. Read their book about going surfing

I pretty much define tech companies as companies that hire people that sit in front of computers. You can view all their IT and tech jobs here: [https://www.patagonia.com/careers/](https://www.patagonia.com/careers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool concept, but its a listing with a map....so you can choose a job that you can commute you a little faster

What's the story here? Is anyone who worked on this, able to jump into the comments and give us what's the reason behind building a list of companies hiring this way?

<comment><USER8> Their sign-up forms say they want to 'democratize hiring', whatever that means.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I know I kinda cringe when I wrote that, won't even lie. The idea is to have employers pay $110/month to use the platform. $10 of that would go to [https://scripted.org/](https://scripted.org/) which I volunteer with twice a week. It's relevant because the org teaches comp sci in under resourced high schools in the bay area and NYC. (P.S. we need volunteers). The rest is a hella low subscription fee for companies so candidates can have actual companies reach out instead of random as recruiters from India when you upload your resume to Dice.com

You have more questions? Send me email: firstname.lastname@example.com

I'm on linkedin: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorleech/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/connorleech/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This looks just like my map where I live, I littered with google starred icons everywhere with things like software companies, design agencies, makerspaces, collaborative work environment areas, gyms, event centers, nonprofits, etc

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, well you live in the city so happy that at least we reflect reality. If you have suggestions about how to get more value out of the website please email firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER9> You could add colored flags to differentiate markers. One color for tech companies another for marketing agencies startups etc. Use three.js or d3.js visualization

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if this site is published using: [https://github.com/simonw/datasette](https://github.com/simonw/datasette)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not. I have not seen that before but it looks cool. The site is built using Laravel 5.5, Vue.js and an Airtable spreadsheet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is YC company ! I am probably missing something here but not sure what to make of this. It seems like a map and a list of companies in SF. No description or about page.

<comment><AUTHOR> Employbl is not YC. I am going through starup school though because YC accidentally let all 15,00 applicants into the program this year.

There's no about page cause isn't too much to say yet. I do blog a shit ton on Medium though: [https://medium.com/employbl](https://medium.com/employbl)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like that you can suggest new ones. This was missing both my companies so nice to be able to fix it.

<comment><USER13> I see one tech startup that changed addresses about 6 months ago. Is there a correction button?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey for sure shit changes pretty fast. For instance Prosperworks changed it's name. Please send me an email: firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll fix it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> bra-ket apparently there is only one mobile app startup in SF and lots of developers developing developer tools

<comment><AUTHOR> hahahaha so many companies doing tools for developers to build. Yeah the tagging could be better....

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> any plans to do austin and new york or should I do that?

<comment><AUTHOR> DUDE. I'd be so down but as you can already see there is so much going on here in SF. It takes a lot of manual work to grab the company addresses. If you'd like to work together and collaborate on adding companies I'm totally down. Best email to reach me on is email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like seeing all the 1-sentence descriptions on a long list!

Also, since when is Macy's a tech company...?

<comment><USER16> They have a large e-commerce operation.

<comment><USER17> Yep, I talked to someone years ago who was working in an non-climate- controlled space in the attic above their Union Square store. Hopefully they have a better office now.

But really posting because their name seem to break this site. This looks like a ye olde classic security hole. [https://employbl.com/companies/Macy's](https://employbl.com/companies/Macy's)

<comment><USER18> 65 and foggy every day isn't climate-controlled enough?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice and simple, I like it

</comment><comment><USER20> No Cruise Automation?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch. That was an oversight on my part.

[https://employbl.com/companies/Cruise- Automation](https://employbl.com/companies/Cruise-Automation)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> missing postmates, which is an sf company since inception

<comment><USER2> How is Postmates a tech company vs a delivery service that happens to use an app? I fully recognize that there are a lot of other companies on this list that should be excluded on that basis, which I've noted elsewhere in the comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> What is this?

<comment><AUTHOR> don't worry bout it bru

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Cool site but did someone forget to design mobile first? It looks like shit on my phone, can't read company descriptions

<comment><USER24> Sorry the developer wasnt thinking of you

<comment><USER25> Thinking about your users is kind of your job as a developer / entrepreneur...

<comment><USER26> You might not be there target user. You can't please every user and some sites want to add features that look great / add value when viewed on a larger monitors.

Mobile first sites make the desktop experience bland and simplier than they need to be.

It is still the best solution to the variable screensizes reality but it does make the web a little blander then need be.

<comment><USER27> You don't have to choose one or the other, you can have a simpler (but usable) interface for mobile and a more feature-ful version for desktop. This isn't rocket surgery.

<comment><USER26> You are referring to functionality my comment was more related to look / feel.

If you go with a popular framework with the mobile first approach you must design with those limitations on your full desktop site as well. If you go with Bootstrap and use the grid layout both layouts will use grid.

<comment><USER27> I know this might be shocking but you can make a website without a framework. In fact, it probably would have worked out better for this site as it has such a simple design. HTML plus a handful of custom CSS rules would have sufficed and it wouldn't lock you into any "limitations". This is not a hard problem, not even close.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Federal Judge Says Embedding a Tweet Can Be Copyright Infringement - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/federal-judge-says-embedding-tweet-can-be-copyright-infringement <comment><USER2> The ruling actually seems very reasonable. Someone took a photo and posted it on his social media account. The platform license on those accounts presumably allows others to share as fair use

Some for profit media companies then used the photo in their content without licensing hiding behind a technicality of it being served from a third party server and got stomped by the court.

Presumably if the story was an artistic criticism of the photo or described the photo, they would have been safe under fair use.

<comment><USER3> The photographer didn't post the image on Twitter, someone else who presumably didn't have a license to do so did. The sites then embedded that other person's tweet.

If it had be the photographer that posted the tweet then the media companies would have been in the clear AFAIK since part of Twitter's TOS allows for embeds.

This ruling doesn't make a ton of sense assuming the media companies were acting in good faith. If they knew that the image was copyrighted and the Twitter user didn't have the rights to post the image but embedded it anyway in an attempt To get around the copyright on a technicality then this seems more reasonable.

<comment><USER4> IAAL

In general, outside of any safe harbors, you are responsible for infringement when you republish something, even if it was by accident.

IE if i reprint a newspaper article that fucked up and didn't clear an image, i am also a copyright infringer[1]

The main thing that makes this not true on the web is the DMCA safe harbor for hosting third party content (which is inapplicable in this context).

This ruling, IMHO, is completely and totally consistent with every copyright ruling i've ever seen about republication.

[1] The circumstances in which you would have an innocent infringement defense would be something like: you having licensed, from the newspaper, the right the republish, and mistakenly, but reasonably, believed that they had the right to license you the image.

<comment><USER5> But in this case the media companies are not the ones publishing the photo, Twitter is. The embedded data was never produced or even passed through their servers. It is loaded directly from Twitter.

<comment><USER4> So, this is basically a technical argument based on a technical implementation detail. These mostly are considered irrelevant and frequently fail (see, e.g., napster et al)

It's true, fwiw, the ninth circuit did reject visual incorporation tests in favor of a physical transmission test. This is, IMHO, silly, and only some courts have chosen to follow it.

<comment><USER6> It seems like more than an implementation detail to me. If Twitter receives a DMCA notice and deletes the image, it will immediately be deleted from all of the sites embedding it. When the publishing, distribution, and unpublishing are entirely under someone else's control, it's really hard to justify treating a link as infringement.

BTW I know you're talking about the way judges actually tend to interpret these things. I'm talking about the way they would interpret things if they had any sense.

With your ebook example, if the ebook "auto-loaded and displayed that content for the user" then you're describing something completely different from what happens when a site links to a tweet. It's more like if the ebook reader parses "Encyclopedia Britannica volume B, page 38" whenever it appears in any ebook and embeds the contents itself. If Encyclopedia Britannica is violating someone's copyright on that page, it's just crazy to hold the ebook publisher liable.

<comment><USER3> The sites aren't linking to a tweet, they're embedding them. There's a difference of intent between a plain old <a> link to a tweet's URL, and the full set of tags, scripts, and configuration used to embed a tweet inline with your page. It would be unreasonable to hold you accountable for a simple link if I had a browser plugin that automatically converted them into embeds, but if you used the twitter markup such that they would be rendered as embeds on any standards compliant browser that's a different story.

<comment><USER6> Embedding, a.k.a. hotlinking, a.k.a. transclusion is just another type of linking. Any of those terms would work just as well in my comment because they all share the property that the content is being published by someone else.

But there isn't much of a difference between hotlinks and anchor links in this discussion anyway, since sites (e.g. Google, Pirate Bay) also face legal liability for simple anchor links to copyrighted works. Just Google "[any popular book] pdf" and read the DMCA blurb at the bottom of the results.

<comment><USER7> But technically they're not the same. Like, if you were to describe the DOM nodes generated in response to a hyperlink versus an embed tag, they'd be quite different, right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> (Armchair copyrighting ahead.) This case, which is apparently about "embedding", raises some questions about the line between linking to infringing content and hosting it.

I feel it is clear (apparently unlike the judges) that linking cannot possibly violate copyright while hosting content without permission does.

I'm not clear technically what this article means by "embedding". I think the interesting blurry lines are when page A contains code from page B (say as a frame), and the code loads infringing content.

I wonder if this situation should be subject to DMCA "safe harbor" provisions, which are what protect Twitter, YouTube, etc. from liability for user-uploaded infringements as long as they take them down upon request.

But in general, I tend to think the responsibility should fall on page A for content that it serves to users, even if indirectly by loading third-party code....

</comment><comment><USER9> As I read the article, it sounds like a more-accurate headline would be "Federal Judge Says Embedding an Infringing Tweet Can Be Copyright Infringement".

<comment><USER10> But if you were commenting on or critiquing the photo or the narrative around it ... wouldn't that be fair use?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yikes - this is bad. Criminalizing embeds (and hyperlinks, it sounds like?) is a swing at the jugular for the Internet.

<comment><USER12> Worse, it is teaching a generation (or more) that our justice system is stupid and broken. That in turn erodes ideas like rule of law that a essential to modern civilization.

<comment><USER13> > Worse, it is teaching a generation (or more) that our justice system is > stupid and broken

Well, you wouldn't be wrong for coming to this conclusion (source: this ruling, and more!)

> That in turn erodes ideas like rule of law that a essential to modern > civilization.

Not necessarily. Our implementation of this is essentially flawed, but that doesn't mean all possible implementations of rule of law are flawed as badly. I would hope that this would inspire change, but people are inherently against change so at the end of the day you are probably correct.

<comment><USER14> The only direction people really want to change in is socially. They focus all their attention on social issues and poverty and taxes. The _actual_ laws don't want to be touched by anyone. We have very poor and contradictory laws and decisions with regards to new technology. The people in charge don't seem to understand the internet and internet-related rights.

<comment><USER13> Yep, which is why our implementation is flawed. It allows folks who have no knowledge of certain topics to make and enforce laws that pertain to those topics.

<comment><USER15> I know the solution: Just remove government officials who use the word "cyber".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Somebody help me out. Neither the article nor the quoted decision provides any rational as to how they jumped to linking would also be considered infringement. From my reading, the argument is that the sites made a conscience effort to display a copywritten image, tweet or not. Help me understand why displaying the tweet that included the image should not be infringement when displaying the image directly is.

<comment><USER17> > _... the sites made a conscience effort ..._

I believe you mean the sites made a _conscious_ effort here.

<comment><USER16> Thank you. Autocorrected

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The EFF write-up is quite misleading. The district court does a perfectly reasonable job of explaining the difference between a hyperlink and an embed tag, namely that the latter results in the content integrated into the webpage instead of taking you to a separate site. Contrary to the EFF write up, focusing on the "coder" is not misleading. The choice to embed a tweet versus linking to a tweet is in fact what someone writing HTML code would make.

<comment><USER18> > The choice to embed a tweet versus linking to a tweet is in fact what > someone writing HTML code would make.

Duh, HTML is code now?

Tell twitter to remove the feature, then. [http://socialmarketingwriting.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/09...](http://socialmarketingwriting.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/09/Embed-Tweet-Code-With-Preview.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Youtube, soundcloud, and other huge sharing platforms have all dealt with copyright & infringement through a combination of:

1) Easy takedown process DMCA

2) Algorithmic content identification & blocking

Is there a start-up that provides similar content moderation / blocking as a SAAS?

</comment><comment><USER20> What's the difference between a news org embedding a tweet containing a photo vs. embedding just a photo hosted by a third party?

<comment><USER21> From a practical (not legal standpoint), the second one is has the possibility of going down due to too much traffic, or being replaced by obscene images.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/28/cartoonist- the...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/28/cartoonist-the-oatmeal- trolls-huffpo-over-images-published-sans-permission)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Definitely good for the lawyer business to turn more of society into a warzone.

</comment><comment><USER23> I was told that one can't copyright less than 3 lines.

</comment><comment><USER24> How is tweeting not considered putting it into the public domain, it's open broadcast.

<comment><USER25> Because being on the receiving end of a public broadcast does not give you the right to re-use the content. The content owner, for better or worse, typically retains the exclusive right to use or broadcast the content, regardless of how many times it is broadcast.

Consider older mediums; does broadcasting a TV show put it into the public domain? Or playing a song on the radio?

<comment><USER6> > Consider older mediums; does broadcasting a TV show put it into the public > domain? Or playing a song on the radio?

In a sense, it does, yeah. It's just that copyright injects a century or so of lag time before members of the public domain are allowed to exercise their rights.</comment></comment></comment>