Chrome's experiment of hiding the URL is great for security - <AUTHOR> http://jakearchibald.com/2014/improving-the-url-bar/ <comment><USER2> As a member of the Chrome security team and one of the original instigators for this experiment, yes the whole point is to prevent phishing. The fact is that phishing is one of the most common attack vectors for most people, and the way the URL is currently displayed does very little to protect them. So, we're experimenting with ways of displaying the essential information (origin and TLS state) as clearly as possible, while removing the components that are not security relevant and are currently being abused to trick users.

No one has any intention of diminishing usability or making it hard manipulate URLS. The team working on this is still actively refining things and studying what works and what doesn't. But, phishing is a very big problem, and this change to the omnibox shows real promise in countering the attacks. So, I think we would be remiss in not pursuing the investigation further.

<comment><USER3> So phishers buy domains with a levenshtein distance of 1 or two. It solves one problem, but creates an entire class of users that don't understand what a URL is. Who benefits? Google and search engine providers because now they can manipulate future internet users to believe that search engines _are_ the internet. We've reverted to AOL in 1995.

There is nothing more that can be productively argued about this topic. There will be analogies about how complexity is hidden in various domains (cars, computers) and how beneficial it has been and how users are happy with it. Those arguments are fine and maybe they are being made in good faith, but it doesn't change the underlying future truth:

Marketing will now be changed to reflect Google keywords, not URLs. "www." and ".com" will become meaningless. Google will have put one more level of distance between what the users type in the URL and even what they click in the browser and what is reflected in the address bar.

<comment><USER4> Well, if www and .com become meaningless then advertisers will use "type xxx yyy into you bar" instead (which goes to the search engine) or hash tags (already doing this). Then Google could come up with "associate permanent keywords with your URL" (for a small fee of course) to guarantee that those keywords won't shift under you when your Google ranking changes.

<comment><USER5> I already see this happening in Japan. Rarely do I see ads include URLs, they have a search term.

<comment><USER6> Which IMO is a smart idea. URLs are too often hard to remember and/or type correctly if not too long anyway.

<comment><USER7> Until a competitor's SEO outranks your site for those keywords or buys similar Google AdWords.

<comment><USER6> Those keywords are not supposed to live long: they are used as part of marketing campaigns. But your comment is still valid. Such a strategy would be very risky in the long term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are a number of people in this thread posting things like "the average user should be educated" and "why break things for us technically savvy people just to please people who can't be bothered to read a whole url".

I really con't stand this behavior. Not everybody, not even most people, want to understand "how to web works", "how urls work" or anything else along those lines. _Insisting_ that people are somehow wrong to not want to understand this is just ridiculous - as ridiculous as if I had said "we're not going to let anyone drive a car unless they know how to tune an engine" or some such.

I for one am _very happy_ that the creators of automobiles have bothered to make the process so simple, even a moron at automobiles like me can drive in car and have it work 99.9% of the time, and the rest of the time - it's clear I need to take it to an expert.

We as the software developers, product designers and UX experts of the world should stop trying to tell the world what it _should and shouldn 't_ care about, but rather, use that as input to decide _how to build our software so actual people can use it_.

Do I love this Chrome experiment? I don't know. But I know that I'm willing to trade a few seconds of discomfort of my own, which can probably be stopped by tweaking one configuration setting, in order to save the majority of the population who _aren 't_ tech savvy from the problems of phishing and just generally giving them a better user experience.

<comment><USER9> > Not everybody, not even most people, want to understand "how to web works", > "how urls work" or anything else along those lines.

There are also a surprising number of people that don't want to be _literate_. In the modern world, we have generally regarded such views as _wrong_. Basic literacy is such an important skill to have, we have even created various mandates to provide the necessary education to all children.

Technology has simply added a handful of additional details. Nobody is suggesting that every has to learn all the subtleties of URLs or read RFC 1738. Much like tuning the engine in a car, these are technical details safely left to experts.

Anybody who wishes to participate in this new, technology-filled world (i.e. ~"everybody") will need to make a few minor additions to their skill-set[1]. One of these is to know what a URL _is_ , in concept, and be able to differentiate between the host-part and the path-part. Being able to parse the path/query-string is not necessary. The necessary skill is being able to recognize that "example.com/foo/bar/baz" is more specific than "example.com", or being able to guess that "example.com/2014/04/18/the-great-quux" is probably a specific article posted last month.

This skill is important to have _to participate in the modern world_ , not just to use a "web browser". You see URLs everywhere. Many print ads now have a URL in them, for example. This is the new literacy, _de facto_.

[1] Other skills might include understanding that text shaped similar to "email@example.com" is probably an email address, how to use a mouse, and what terms such as "password" or "login" mean.

<comment><USER8> That's a really great point, thank you.

My only possible objection is to observe that clearly some things are important/necessary to teach, others aren't, and all we're arguing about is which of these URL's fall into. Nobody here is (currently) arguing against such basic things as login's and passwords, or that "email@example.com" should obviously to everyone be an email.

The reason I think URL's are over the line is because everything after the domain name is _usually_ an implementation detail. Some sites will have "id=234234234", some sites will have complicated paths, some sites will have nice, readable URL's, and a large part of the difference is the specific framework or approach that the Web Devs decided to use. Do you really think it's important for people to understand the decisions behind this? That's over the line IMO.

Also, another knock against URL's being required is that, _de facto_ , people don't understand URL's and seem to use the web just fine. That's because us selfless developers have been working hard to abstract away the issue from users. I think most users _don 't_ understand URL's, and this doesn't bother them in the least until you get to issues like phishing attacks. So all Chrome would be doing is _recognizing an existing situation_ , and helping make it better.

Lastly, I'd like to point out that even the easy examples you mention, e.g. passwords, are something that most users _don 't really understand_, and for exactly that reason, developers have been trying to get rid of passwords for many years. And IMO, one of the big benefits of Facebook is that it makes the "send a message to someone" game _much easier than email_ for real users, so that's a knock against email.

I really _don 't_ think that understanding URL's is akin to being basically literate. I think the bar is much lower, and that we as developers forget just how much specialized knowledge we already know, and how much the average user _already has_ in order to use a computer these days.

That said, it's a great analogy so thanks for bringing it up!

<comment><USER10> > _de facto_ , people don't understand URL's

Here is evidence that shows a lot of "average users" do have some understanding of what URLs are, and even if not the technical details, then at least the concept (which is definitely more important than the details):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7678729](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7678729)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think we are confusing the fact that phishing takes place with the purpose of the web.

Even if 80% of the time I was trying to be phished, I'd still want the URL. Why? Because the URL is my ownership of the web. It's my address book. It's what domain owners pay to have. It's the roads that connect one spot to another.

So sure, phishing is a problem. Figure out some way around it that doesn't involve Google locking up the entire internet behind a UI element somewhere. Mobile phones is one thing -- my main browser is another.

I don't doubt there is a problem. I seriously question the ethics of actors that use the existence of a problem as a reason to exert further control over my e-commerce activities. If it looks wrong, even if most people probably don't care, it _is_ wrong. This isn't hard stuff, guys.

I'm also already getting impatient with the seemingly endless parade of folks who are ready to play defense for Google. If Google thinks this is a good idea, let them defend it on their own.

<comment><USER3> Many people in this thread will confuse a clean interface with convenience and sloppy conclusions for protection.

<comment><USER11> Agreed.

Sorry for the cranky post today, but this purposefully (in my mind) obfuscates the issue. Clean UIs are awesome. Taking away the friction between my wanting to go somewhere on the net and getting there? Also awesome. Effectively killing the idea of the URL and giving yet more control to Google for my movement around the web? A disaster.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't get the benefit to cutting off the rest of the protocol handler and path. It may be noisy and not useful to the average user, but it's useful for people who know what they're looking at.

An alternative would be highlight the domain portion of the URL in the appropriate color, ala source code highlighting. This would accomplish both goals nicely.

<comment><USER2> Chrome has been highlighting the origin component and de-emphasizing the path since its initial release, but the fact is that the vast majority of users are still very unclear about the security relevance of origin and easily fall victim to phishing attacks. So, the team that's working on this is intentionally investigating larger departures from the current URL display. Accepting that, what you see right now is an incomplete experiment, and no one involved would be happy with the result if it damaged the utility of URLs or made Chrome less useful for web developers.

<comment><USER13> chrome keeps both domain and subdomain black, which makes this kind of phishing easy. Firefox have a better approach of keeping black only the main part, and graying out everything else. Yet better solution would be to highlight domain with green color instead of [https://](https://), and to scroll urls with very long subdomain to make domain viible.

I rather liked how this[1] firefox addon added a bubble around domain, but kept url as selectable text.

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart- text/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/smart-text/)

<comment><USER14> An approach like greying out the path would be a good idea if it were in any way desirable for the path to be user-visible by default, but it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't understand all the resistance to this. It's doing the work that currently all non-programmer users of the web (the vast majority) have to do themselves every time they look at a URL - parse out the meaning.

For example, when my wife is checking our credit card charges, she isn't using "[https://online.americanexpress.com"](https://online.americanexpress.com"). She's using "Amex's website". That's how she would tell me what she's doing; that's how she thinks about it. She doesn't give a damn what the URL is, and that's why phishing works in the first place.

This new UI simply reflects how most people think about the web.

Everyone on HN who has been arguing against this is missing a huge point: _this isn 't for you_. We still do everything in our terminals for Christ's sake. Nobody has taken that away from us. Nobody is going to take URLs away either. But just like the terminal application they will be shuffled away into a "utilities" drawer where you have to look for them because they were designed for machines, not people. Those of us who work with machines can still have them.

I can't wait for this to ship.

<comment><USER16> I got it about a week and a half ago in Canary, and I stuck with it for about a week until it was disabled. I didn't like the idea but I'm interested in new UI experiments.

I hated it. Not only for the reasons other people mention (it makes copying and pasting cognitively more difficult, and even after a week it didn't really get any easier) but also because I would argue that on sites with halfway- decent URLs, it's a navigation device. We already lost the title bar, and apparently the URL bar was acting as secondary indicator of what page I'm on. It was really, really disorienting.

I do wonder whether Google only planned to display the feature for a week, or if it got feedback from my navigation habits and disabled it. And what, if any, indicators they're using to measure success. (or at least non-failure)

<comment><USER15> > but also because I would argue that on sites with halfway-decent URLs, it's > a navigation device

I agree, but I will argue that websites that suddenly seem disorienting without a URL are poorly designed. If we take away the crutch they will have to stop relying on it and improve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I hate this behavior in iOS 7 Safari so much. Whenever I want to modify the URL, it's a huge pain (on HN specific links, usually) -- there's no way to edit the parameters at the end of a URL (that I've found), and typing the whole long url on a phone or tablet isn't fun (especially when it includes lots of parameters, rather than just a simple path). It's one of the few things an alternate browser on iOS actually fixes.

<comment><USER18> In Safari, you can tap the address bar and hold down on the url to bring up the pointer and scroll over to whatever you want to edit/copy. It's the same behavior in Chrome on iOS7 (apart from the fact that the pointer is at the beginning of the URL in Safari and in the end in Chrome, which albeit, is preferable).

<comment><USER17> Ah! I didn't realize you could hold down and scroll left/right. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> While I agree that this will be great for security, with changes like this I always wonder: what happens when we idiot-proof and hide implementation details of almost all consumer products? How does the next generation of hackers pop a path into a URL and learn about path traversal attacks, or code into query params and learn about XSS when we've hidden all that away from them? There's some value to that, too.

For me, that was exactly how I got interested in software development, first learnt about application security attacks, and even some scripting languages. I'm not sure any of that would've happened as well, or at all if my first device was a locked-down iPad (which it frequently is, for kids these days.)

<comment><USER20> Maybe that's the regular path of any technology. At first most of the community is small and technical so you don't need (and don't have the means anyway) to idiotproof. Then it grows and eventually there are more casual users than technical ones. Since the technology is more stable you have more ressources that you can dedicate to figuring out how your casual users use the technology. And since they have no interest in understanding how it works, you idiotproof.

The beauty of it is that it regulates the number of potential technical users. At first, your technology needs a lot of technical users, and since it's not idiotproofed yet, and users are exposed to low level details, you attract a lot of them. But then, low level details are progressively hidden, and only the users that have a strong interest will become technical. Essentially filtering out the users that don't have a strong enough interest to dive deeper than what they're exposed to.

Maybe the internet doesn't need as much technical users as before. So yes, there will be less kids getting interested in its technical side, but that's okay because it doesn't need them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _I followed the link, entered my username and was about to enter my password._

This is the problem demanding a real solution, not some cosmetic change around the URL. Your browser should be entering the credentials.

The computer is not fooled by an ugly URL. If the domain doesn't match, no password for you. If the protocol is different from the one you used the first time (https hopefully), no password for you.

Yet instead, we get autocomplete="off" and a butchered URL bar.

<comment><USER22> I don't understand why do banks often have autocomplete=off. (At least my bank does.) What is the reasoning?

Luckily, LastPass ignores that.

<comment><USER23> to prevent login and password from being automatically filled, so someone using your OS user or browser user can't login to your bank account.

<comment><USER22> True. I actually forgot people let other people use their computers. (And I really mean it, I just didn't realize it.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A native breadcrumbs display might be a great addition to this.

I mean, show the domain first, and show a subsection that the website provides, so I can click on that to navigate. If I click on the domain name, provide a standard url input field.

Google already does that with search results: [http://d.ekin.io/bOdk](http://d.ekin.io/bOdk)

<comment><AUTHOR> That'd be great. But so few URLs are breadcrumbable, in fact, I should fix this on my own site, [http://jakearchibald.com/2014/](http://jakearchibald.com/2014/) is a 404.

<comment><USER24> Using URL itself as a source would not work most of the time I guess, or would require assistance from Google servers.

In any case, I believe breadcrumbs should be parsed from the page html: [https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/185417?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/185417?hl=en)

<comment><USER25> Some years back there was a proposal on one of the Mozilla blogs to use breadcrumbs when a sitemap¹ is available. I think that's a bit more reliable and would solve the 404 issue.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Phishing is an attack vector promoted by email. Email clients should not create automatic hyperlinks from email content and email senders should not be providing links in the body of the email.

This is entirely a problem that should not be solved by breaking the web. This is basically an attempt by Google to insert itself between the primary connecting mechanism of the web and should be rejected wholesale.

The URL contains everything the user needs to determine the origin of the web site they are visiting. This doesn't provide users tools to ensure their safety only the illusion of safety.

</comment><comment><USER27> So I will register "benefltaccess.com" as "Morgan Staniey". Would the people who fall for phishing actually notice? I think removing URLs just feeds into Google's "door to the internet" monopoly and really dislike it. People should rather be educated about how websites actually work.

<comment><USER28> > So I will register "benefltaccess.com" as "Morgan Staniey".

Have you actually tried doing this? Getting an EV certificate with the business name involves actual checks, not just having registered a domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't like it. I like control, and this hides stuff from me.

It's basically telling you: "You don't need to see this, kid. We got it".

<comment><USER30> That's the point. And for most users that's great.

<comment><USER31> No it's not. URLs enable users to link to content. People blog, email, post to Facebook, do all kinds of linking. And no, it's not always using the FB/Twitter buttons. They do know that a url is an address and what an address is for.

If you tell me the url is still accessible, you are contradicting yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> As the article states, this is likely good for the non-tech-savvy people, but what it needs is a button to copy the URL as easily.

If the problem is misleading subdomains, would some kind of a detection and a warning be a better solution to the problem?

<comment><USER24> Did not try it, but apparently if you click on the domain label, it provides a standard url field so you can copy / modify the url.

<comment><USER33> In this case I'd be more open to the idea, although having some advanced preference to disable it if needed would be helpful, should it become the default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Surely I can't be the only one here who has dealt with actual flesh and blood average users?

This would do nothing form them. It requires that you pay attention to the tab, which most don't do, read where they are, again something the majority don't do, and be savvy enough to realize that "site.com" is now different to "[https://www.site.com/somthing$%else/and&&a+lot_of[]crud"](https://www.site.com/somthing$%else/and&&a+lot_of\[\]crud") something that I doubt 1 in 100 will figure out.

Unless it's in red, has a klaxon attached to it and flashes enough to give you a seizure either the majority or a very large minority of your users will ignore it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Couldn't the browser easily slice off the domain and display that in a non- editable field somewhere to the left or right of the url? Seems like an easy solution, while not hiding the url.

</comment><comment><USER36> The path to hell is paved with good intentions.

Hide URL to make phishing harder -> URL is no longer understood by anybody ->Keyword based navigation->GoogAOL->Keyword based phising

<comment><USER37> Ahh, but keyword-based phishing is _profitable_ to the people who own the association-engine...

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Trying to prevent phishing, and hiding the URL such that you only see it with an explicit action, are two separate things. The first makes sense, but it by no means requires the second. iOS is a perfect example. Everyone talking about this says how iOS 7 does the same thing. Except _it doesn 't_. You cannot interact with the URL bar, say, to search for something else, without first making the URL visible. And that's fine. But this Chrome experiment doesn't do that. It makes it so you can trivially search without ever seeing a URL. And that's the part I disagree with.

If you want to experiment with making phishing obvious, you can play with much more obvious separations between domain and path. I see no reason why you can't use the same origin chip that's being experimented with now, but simply show the rest of the URL in the field next to the origin chip. You could even hide the URL until the user interacts with the bar, the same way iOS 7 does, except I don't think there's any good reason to do that (that's hiding potentially-useful information with no benefit [assuming that the visual distinction between domain and path is large enough, such as it is with this new origin chip]).

</comment><comment><USER39> What a shock, first post on here is, "Let's do this for security reasons..." #PatriotAct #TSA #IraqWar #NSA

Sure sure, it's not the same thing... but it is. Why don't we just educate people to use a password manager (LastPass prevents this shit), or maybe learn to read the URL bar.

Let's not go back to 1995 AOL please. URLs are good things.

</comment><comment><USER40> I need an option to disable this feature (for web developers), or show me the path after the host:port at least.

</comment><comment><USER41> Here I was expecting numbers. The cynic in me doesn't think this will really have any impact at all.

</comment><comment><USER14> People want to find a way to continue showing the path portion of the URL, but this is really undesirable. The URL's path should contain no information, beyond its role in making up the unique identifier of course; it's a virtual guarantee of link-breakage in the future [https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=7679423](https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=7679423) . Making it invisible will help to ensure that people stop putting information in it. User-friendly document names and tree-structured site guides are all well and good; they just don't belong in the URL. The query string, on the other hand, should probably remain visible.

</comment><comment><USER42> I was a little surprised by this. I bet most people here refrain from clicking in urls in emails, and would instead enter the company's url themselves in the browser, and follow the path to renew the domain or whatever needed to be done. If I _do_ follow a url in an email like this, I at least look at the email headers, or actually look at the url first. I'm not saying I'm immune from any possible phishing attack, but these defensive behaviors have become just a reflex by now, and I guess I assumed that anyone with this kind of knowledge and experience shared these reflexes.

</comment><comment><USER43> While I agree the URL for the "normal" users is just meaningless ballast, I don't understand how this is great for security.

So what, now "normal user" Joe will still input his Paypal's user and password, because the web page clearly displays a very nice PayPal logo and has the same look&feel as the original page. What is to be gained?!

I feel like it is just an attempt to dumb it down and put even more power in Google's hands, transforming [http://](http://) into google://

No, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER44> It seems to me that the entire benefit to this scheme could better be achieved by say bolding the domain part of the url, or perhaps displaying it in a different color.

</comment><comment><USER45> This has a nice "accidental" benefit to Google where users handle URLs less often and lean even more heavily on search to locate things on the Internet.

</comment><comment><USER46> Apparently the less you know, the more secure you are. Fishing is a problem with the web, not the browser. Please quit trying to fix it with the browser.

</comment><comment><USER47> The cynic inside me thinks that this is just a step to remove those pesky open URLs from the user and gradually push something propietary Google to replace it in the future. Google now controls about all search queries done on the web but does not control people going directly to a URL yet. That's what a big firm's marketing department would describe as a place to realize growth.

</comment><comment><USER10> "It's great for security, therefore we should do it."

One of the most secure places to live in is a prison. Is that really the direction we want software to go in? I can't help but be reminded of that infamous quote: "Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither."

As for this hiding of the URL, I'm not so convinced it'll help the situation any better. From the article itself: "To the average user, the URL is noise." In other words, if you assume that they already can't understand URLs/aren't bothering to, then what's to say they'd be able to notice the difference between a real URL and a phishing URL in those examples? To this average user, one is shorter, the other is a bit little longer. "The page looks real, that bunch of stuff up there I don't normally pay attention to anyway, so I wouldn't mind if it changed length." The one with the EV cert vs regular HTTPS is more obvious to me too since it's a different colour, but once again if you "assume illiteracy", anything could happen.

The other aspect of this is that it's only protecting "cross-domain" phishing; this is probably the majority of cases, but consider the situation where the real login page is at somehost.com/site1 while someone is trying to phish and creates another account at somehost.com/site2 . Now hiding the path to "prevent phishing" has the completely opposite effect! You could argue that this is an edge case, but it still seems to be an awfully discriminatory practice to me; I personally have password-protected accounts on various servers where the login is located at somehost.com/~myusername , and a phisherman with somehost.com/~otheruser could do this quite easily with hidden URL paths.

The real solution to preventing phishing? _Education._ Educate the users. Empower them with the knowledge to understand what URLs are and how they relate to where they are on the Internet. We should not continue to keep them ignorant, as they will become even more so, and that will have negative effects on the future of the Web and continue to propagate the notion that computers are "impossibly difficult to understand". I have worked with people who are otherwise very intelligent and sensible, but whose brains appear to completely leave their skull the moment they need to use a computer; and feel that this attitude may be partly responsible for that.

</comment><comment><USER48> I have the new UI and... it's awful.

I get the whole "it's for preventing phishing, etc." but I believe that it shouldn't be done by hiding the URL from the user.

Furthermore, it's a real pain to have to click to see it. And guess what happen if you go to another tab and then go back to the first one? The URL is gone. You can't even compare 2 tabs URLs.

IMHO: good problem, wrong solution.

</comment><comment><USER49> I keep getting this error, in Firefox and Chrome:

<Error> <Code>AccessDenied</Code> <Message>Access Denied</Message> <RequestId>3CB1F41D7DFDC794</RequestId> <HostId> wHCPzEYPDsmkMJX+YIgjU40YPrGYytHrk5B44dApi7663NkQQI0RKx9A/6EX7Iph </HostId> </Error>

</comment><comment><USER50> I just hope it will still be easy to prepend urls, such as when entering reddit.com/s/URL_OF_CURRENT_PAGE

<comment><USER2> This is an in-development experiment, so its current state is a work in progress. Anything that would ship to users (assuming it even does) would do so in a way that does not damage the general utility of URLs.

<comment><USER51> After dealing with YouTube for the past year, I'm very skeptical Google won't mangle a UI/platform for "the good of the common user".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> That's an interesting experiment. How about showing breadcrumbs (as seen on Google search results page) next to the EV/domain badge?

eg. Registrar Inc [US] | registrar.com › SSL certificates › Renew

</comment><comment><USER53> So, on the HN front page, for each thread, only the top-level domain is listed in parenthesis, next to the title, and no other part of the URL is shown.

Am I expected believe that this is "secure"?

</comment><comment><USER54> I believe banks would be better served sending emails with links that open their mobile app instead of popping up a web browser.

</comment><comment><USER55> I find it to be evil to release a feature that is about security aside a feature that highlights the fact that you can Search Google. Separately we could debate the merits, but putting them together you've totally placed focus on security.

</comment><comment><USER56> Obscurity is great for security. Mostly bad for everything else.

</comment><comment><USER57> > To the average user, the URL is noise. It's a mix of protocol, origin, and > path. It's a terminal command, echoing it back to the user is weak UI. We > should focus on the security of the URL, without harming shareability.

Powerful words.

</comment><comment><USER58> interestingly, cookies would not work for this url in IE.

</comment><comment><USER59> Surprised to see so much attention to this: Isn't it exactly what Safari on iOS does on hundreds of millions of devices worldwide?

EDIT: And given the seeming _confusion_ by some, no, the "article" (if a couple of screenshots and some guy giving an opinion is an "article") is utterly irrelevant to this comment. Noting that it mentions iOS is meaningless. We continually see front-pagers voted up by people who seem blissfully unaware of trends in the industry.

<comment><USER60> Did you even read the article, where that comparison is made explicit?

<comment><USER61> Not only is it explicitly stated, but it's done so in the very first sentence.

<comment><USER59> How could you have gone ahead and posted such a banal, irrelevant comment long after I made it clear that the linked content doesn't matter? Sad attempt at a dogpile?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Rails 4 or Rails 5 - <AUTHOR> Hello HN I am new to web development. I have decided to take the Rails route. Luckily a local business has asked me to develop a few apps. So I will learn on a live project. There are no time constraints since the owner of the business is a friend. Should I learn Rails 4 first and develop the app in Rails 4 or should I jump right into Rails 5? <comment><USER2> I'd go with the latest, most eyeballs are on the latest version of code, which runs on more recent versions of ruby, stuff is just more happening.

Things change so quickly, that it makes sense to start with the most recent bits. You get exposed to the leading thinkers more as well, rather than asking questions about older technology that is being maintained as an obligation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is Rails 4 a consideration for you?</comment>


What you need to know about the Wuhan coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00209-y <comment><USER2> [VIDEO] how annoying!</comment>


European companies can't compete against global giants - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/17/european-companies-cant-compete-against-global-giants <comment><USER2> I suspect this is a matter of ideologies. A constellation of tangential policies derived from various ideological values widely held in Europe conspire to make it difficult for tech giants to exist.

You can't build a boat if you don't recognise the existence of the sea, are opposed to things that float and require all boats to have holes in them.

It's obvious when stated like that, but now replace the boat with attitudes and policies that indirectly affect the viability of tech startups.

</comment><comment><USER3> At the same time people across the pond begin to wake up to the dangers of monopolies and start calling for the break up of the tech giants.

What a propaganda article

"Under the pretext of protecting the European consumer from the creation of a potential monopoly, Brussels prevented the French and German companies from becoming a world leader in rail, even though their main competitor, the Chinese CRRC, is already twice as big as Alstom and Siemens combined."

Pretext? Really? How about it _did_ actually protect the European consumer from the creation of a potential monopoly?

""It seems certain that electrification will permanently penalise the German economy over the next few years," said Dirk Schumacher, an economist at Natixis, who believes that if nothing is done, Germany's car sector could lose half a million jobs by 2030."

German car industry has only itself to blame. They dragged their feet for years and engaged in diesel frauds instead of investing in EV. Creating a monopoly is not gonna fix that.

EDIT: formatting

<comment><USER4> It did not protect consumers against anything.

As often this was a decision to uphold ideological purity in the face of reality and at the expense of European industry itself.</comment></comment>


How Silicon Valley's Palantir Wired Washington - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/palantir-defense-contracts-lobbyists-226969 <comment><USER3> I cannot say enough bad things about Palantir. Their technology is worse than the free alternatives and their consultants are not worth the money. They are losing their big commercial customers because of this and now need 'Hail Mary' contracts from the US govt to remain in business.

There is already a lot of information out how bad Palantir is. I hear from friends who work there that the BuzzFeed article on them is accurate. In short, like much in the valley, Palantir financially set up as an unmaintainable pyramid scheme.

One way for them to get out would be to pay Goldman Sachs to get Meg Wittman use HP shareholder money to buy Palantir at face value. This worked for Autonomy - a similar scam 'Big Data' company where the founders got away with it.

<comment><USER4> This is the kind of Palantir criticism I want to hear more of on HN. Could you flesh it out? What are the open or free alternatives?

<comment><USER3> Sure, I'll give a few examples.

A guy from BP told me in 2013 that they forked iPython, replaced all iPython references with Palantir and tried to sell it to them for $500K p.a.

For me; back in the day (2010) they were less secretive about their technology which was essentially an ontological reasoner. This was pre the Big Data hype boom - and AFAIK Palantir has never been about Big Data. Ontological reasoners have problems that prevent them from scaling or generalizing so they generally fail. Due to a long long history of failing ontological systems have a very bad name. But they look good for guided demos and has a ton of academic backing so it's easy to sell - as long as you call it something else - <USER2> is what they did. So if you want to use ontologies a better open source alternative software is Protege. But for the problems Palantir targets I'd recommend using standard machine learning technology where all the good stuff is open sourced.

As an aside, Peter Thiel also helped found Quid. A start-up that ripped off the Gephi layout engine and charges people $20K p.a. a seat. They've since rebuilt it but like Palantir it's still not solving people's problem and they've evolved into a consulting firm.

<comment><USER5> They apparently say it right here about the ontology approach:

[https://www.palantir.com/palantir- gotham/technologies/](https://www.palantir.com/palantir-gotham/technologies/)

That's especially hilarious given that approach's failures are what led to investment in machine learning in the first place. Such approaches tend to assume precise information, variables, and rules about the world. Most problems Palantir wants to address... the hard ones... are imprecise with hidden variables/relationships. The machine learning techniques did very well on those kind of mess problems. So, research shifted.

If Palantir is using ontologies for that stuff, then that would certainly be a sign for buyers to run. I still encourage academics to look into such approaches with probabilistic, simple methods in case any advances come up. Fuzzy logic was main one in my day. Just stumbled on a claim today a drone AI did human-level performance using that. Some corroboration for R&D in underdog solutions but _not production apps_. Haha.

<comment><USER3> Huh, so they are open about it now. They definitely were not when I talked to them. I guess enough time has passed that people have forgotten the hard won lessons of the past.

I worked on scaling and generalizing ontologies at university and had already switched to working with Big Data / ML at a big company when Palantir tried to recruit me. I talked to some of their senior engineers about their tech and made the point that their tech sounded just like ontologies. I tried to get them to admit what it was so I could be sure I was having an honest conversation with them. They flatly denied it and made it out like the whole thing was their great new idea. I was unimpressed.

I was still interested in working for them. Access to hard interesting problems can be hard to come by. In the end I couldn't take their legendary arrogance and insecurities - to me these are bright red flags of a toxic corporate culture. And they low balled me. I would have temporarily put up with the toxic culture for large piles of money.

<comment><USER5> "I was still interested in working for them. Access to hard interesting problems can be hard to come by. In the end I couldn't take their legendary arrogance and insecurities - to me these are bright red flags of a toxic corporate culture. And they low balled me. I would have temporarily put up with the toxic culture for large piles of money."

Smart decision. Far as ontologies, the Cyc project to create common sense in machines was my favorite at the time. Used ontological, knowledge base if my broken memory is accurate. I was and still am firmly convinced that finding an architecture suitable to solve that problem is a pre-requisite for the AI's we really want. Deep-learning is approximating it but closer to how brain does vision than common sense. Minsky noted at one point he could count number of researchers doing common sense on a single hand or so. That's a hard problem if you want one. Also unbelievably hard to get funded. (sighs)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. There is some interesting work being done with Deep Learning mixed with Bayesian Models and external databases of facts. The training apparently ungodly slow though. My work these days is visual so CNN works well enough. I'm not an authoritative expert in this field though so I'm taking 6 months off to study it intensely, after which I hope to be able to make some meaningful contributions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Felt compelled to create an account to describe my experiences with Palantir as well. We tried to engage with them for some threat intel work. They set up an instance for a client and in the course of the engagement:

\- they exposed our data to other clients and other clients' data to us by accident

\- had significant unplanned downtime

\- their platform buckled under relatively small amounts of object graph data

\- provided a fat client app that was the most bloated mess of repackaged and unacknowledged open-source JAR files I've ever seen

</comment><comment><USER7> I've always found Palantir's sales&marketing strategy to be unique and fascinating among Silicon Valley startups.

Palantir is a high-touch, B2B enterprise software startup, and as such, they are no different than other startups when it comes to sales&marketing. They need to find leads (= potential customers), close them as customers and retain them.

Yet, Palantir's leadership and employees have repeatedly emphasized that they don't do sales or marketing. The OP confirms that they meant that they do sales and marketing _differently than other companies_.

Retaining lobbyists and policy advisers is one example. Typically, enterprise software companies retain industry analyst firms like Gartner, Forrester, etc. and "influence" their opinions via briefing/consulting. These industry analyst firms also work with technology buyers and make recommendations to them based on their knowledge of software/service providers and the needs of the buyer.

To be sure, no analyst firm is 100% pay to play because if they favor select vendors too much, they lose credibility, access to information and hence influence. That said, it's naive to think that they are 100% free from monied vendor incentives.

It did not occur to me until reading this post that the same model applies to lobbying, and that's where Palantir invested their influencer marketing budget.

Palantir often emphasizes their technological innovation and unique culture (again, a great marketing strategy to attract great technical talent and put them in sales engineering roles). However, I've come to believe that Palantir's greatest innovation is in their business strategy.

<comment><USER8> > Yet, Palantir's leadership and employees have repeatedly emphasized that > they don't do sales or marketing.

That was definitely a matra a few years ago, but then they started plastering adverts all over D.C.'s metro stations [1] and started hiring sales, BD, marketing and advertising people in huge numbers [2]. In addition, they've clearly hired some great PR firms to get "news" articles written about them in high profile newspapers.

At this point, looking at their venture raises and the lack of major technology investment (outside of integration and customization), I'd say they're probably one of the best funded traditional sales & marketing organization in this space.

1 - [https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Palantir-Technologies- spen...](https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Palantir-Technologies-spending-to- advertise-along-the-DC-metro-system)

2 - [https://www.palantir.com/careers/](https://www.palantir.com/careers/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > While still a fraction of what the Pentagon's biggest contractors spend, > Palantir's lobbying expenditures grew from $300,000 in 2010 to over $1 > million by 2015.

Expected this number to be a lot higher as this seems to be the articles thesis: palantir aggressively outspent and outmaneuvered the traditional war contractors.

Also, given that palantir has secured $500m in gov contracts (1.2b*40%) the ROI on the ~$10m they've spent on lobbying is massive. I find it hard to believe that it accounts for a substantial portion of palantir's success.

<comment><USER10> Maybe their intelligence is so good that they knew exactly which wheel to grease and that it didn't need a lot of grease.

More seriously, it's interesting to consider them turning their expertise against their customers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thus the reason I hang up on startup recruiters the moment they say "A peter thiel funded start-up". I'm not sure what is a sadder waste of this amazing braintrust we have in the United States today, all of the advertising start- ups, or sociopathic dreck like Palantir.

<comment><USER12> This is the wrong attitude - there is no "waste" of braintrust. Innovation doesnt work like that, it comes from all over by people working on what they want to work on.

What's wrong with advertising startups? Some of the most valuable companies on this planet are advertising companies because it's an essential part of success for any business.

<comment><USER13> Most people in most startups are not "working on what they want to work on" they are working on what their boss wants them to work on.

Heck, I would wager that >50% of startup employees are not even doing the work they think is most important _for the success of the startup_. They are doing the work their boss (who by definition is further removed from the facts) thinks is most important.

Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if >50% of startup employees are doing work they _know_ is not important for the success of the startup.

That's what happens when you run a command and control organization. You lose >50% of your output, in exchange for guaranteed alignment of whatever is leftover. As long as you pay people <50% of what they are worth you can still make money.

<comment><USER14> "their boss (who by definition is further removed from the facts)"

While I agree that poor leadership is common, I strongly beg to differ with the reasoning that leadership is removed from the facts.

Friend - 'Engineering' is not 'the facts', or not usually.

Customers, business opportunities, markets, investors - these are usually the 'facts' in a business, and sometimes it means doing things that don't seem obvious to a coder.

I've never seen something great come to fruition that involved a linear progress from 'need' to 'product'. It's usually messy, and involves all sorts of actors.

For example, hacking together a 'throw away' something to impress a customer or to ensure they believe in the capacity of the company would likely been seen as a 'waste' from an ops perspective, but it's certainly not if the business situation calls for it.

Sometimes the facts are in the code, but this is much less often than one would realize.

That said, Palantir is a little scammy. They're just CGI or Accenture by another name.

<comment><USER13> > Friend - 'Engineering' is not 'the facts', or not usually.

Not sure why you're referencing engineering? I didn't say anything about that. Not all startup employees are engineers.

> Customers, business opportunities, markets, investors

Customer support is going to have more facts about customers, investors are going to have more facts about investment terms and opportunities, marketing team is going to have more facts about markets, biz dev is going to have more facts about business relationships.

Management is not going to have more facts in any area than anyone really. Their job isn't to understand what's happening in detail, it's to maintain the structure of communication which allows different parts of the company to make good decisions.

If management starts thinking they know more than their employee on a topic, something has gone terribly wrong. They hired someone who doesn't know what they are doing, or they are preventing information from flowing to where it is needed, or they are just being hubristic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article makes Palantir sound really weak to me.

Palantir makes money selling their product. They are not a real competitor or Northrop Grumman or Raytheon. The big primes are massive and organized to win lots of different big contracts over a long time period.

If they wanted to compete with the big primes they would be at a massive disadvantage paying expensive SV engineers who are hard to clear versus cheap DC engineers who are easy to clear.

If they have had 1b in revenue I'm not sure what that means. They have raised about 1b, but paid like 5000 employees. Financially not bad but they are big, I kind of expect a lot more federal money than that to keep them in a good place.

I'm not sure what the future of Palantir looks like.

<comment><USER16> Having worked in DC and SV I'm not sure DC engineers are cheap, especially the ones who can clear.

<comment><USER15> I have too. The ceiling for an engineers salary is much lower in DC. Also young people have a much lower salary as well. Some managers might be pretty close in compensation though.

We are talking about DMV. Working in the city is very uncommon for big primes. All their HQs are in Tysons

It's more than DC though. Big primes have satellite offices everywhere.

<comment><USER17> I have noticed that about DC. I've met plenty of quality engineers but the salaries seem surprisingly low here. It would almost be better to take a slight pay cut but live in Richmond, VA where the cost-of-living is much lower.

Either way I have major doubts about having an engineering career in DC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I recently read how Palantir is currently suing the government because they got pissed the Army is considering dumping them and is trying to bid out the work to others. They're coming across as a bit desperate in this whole thing and to be fair they probably are since if Uncle Sam pulls out they're probably toast.

There was a lot of press a few months back about how they've been dumped by a lot of their private sector customers for costing too much and delivering too little. If the government catches on and and does the same thing that sort of destroys their business model.

<comment><USER19> Are you kidding? The government LOVES to overpay for underwhelming software.

<comment><USER20> That's really not accurate.

While it happens, there are many projects and efforts that are tightly controlled, managed, and executed.

And when projects go off the rails, people are generally pretty unhappy. The government is huge though, so bad apples and bad actors exist... but it's not accurate to write hyperbolically as you do.

<comment><USER21> > but it's not accurate to write hyperbolically as you do.

Yes it is. Give me 5 on-time, on-budget IT projects I'll give you 50 that flopped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lots of questions over how much firms of this type spend on lobbying, here's an article with some figures.

[http://watchdog.org/124909/defense- spending/](http://watchdog.org/124909/defense-spending/)

As an example Lockheed Martin spent around $14.4m in 2013 and does about $45b/year in revenue.

According to this Palantir spent around $1m in 2015 and gets about $1b/year in revenue.

<comment><USER22> Lobbying from what I understand is a more polite form of corruption for the most part. I think in the parts of the world where corruption is more direct (bribes) you actually have to pay a lot more to get this kind of returns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Palantir is just a secretive CGI: mediocre devs doing outsourced work. There is no product. Just a brand.

<comment><USER23> >mediocre devs

Really? They pretty much hire from the best (Stanford, etc) - how are they mediocre?

<comment><USER24> Because coming out of a prestigious school doesn't make you good by default. It just means you were able to pass their tests well enough, whether it is from actual skill or playing the tests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is a million a lot to spend on lobbying?

<comment><USER26> Not sure relative to revenue, but the top lobbying group (US Chamber of Commerce) spent $85MM last year.

[https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2015&inde...](https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2015&indexType=s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I look at consultants like home improvement, if you can spend $100 and improve the value of your home by $70, you've basically won.

As an aside, there should be a JP Power rankings for consultancies. Is there?

<comment><USER28> Maybe this is a typo, but the way you wrote it, you lost $30.

<comment><USER29> no, it very much depends on what your time is worth and the time it would take you vs. someone you pay to do a job.

If I pay someone $100 to raise the value of my home $70, but it would take me 10hrs and I value my time at $100 an hour then it would cost me $1,000 to do what I hired someone to do for $100

<comment><USER30> Why would you do it in the first place? By definition your EV is $30 higher by just not doing anything.

<comment><USER27> a combination of "this time it's gonna be different", and I need some on- demand expertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I just love the name of the company and its perhaps unintended implications.

The Palantiri were seeing stones ... allowing rulers to observe distant events, but ...

The Orthanc-Palantir was used by Sauron (the big bad) to enslave Saruman (the lead Wizard), causing him to betray the forces of good.

So, now we finally see why Thiel (Saruman) endorsed Trump (Sauron).</comment>


Show HN: Minesweeper game implemented in HTML/CSS - <AUTHOR> https://cnees.github.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Code: No JavaScript, no CSS3. [https://github.com/cnees/minesweeper](https://github.com/cnees/minesweeper)

Gameplay: Each number tells you how many of the tiles touching it (on sides and corners) are bombs. This board is designed to be solvable without guessing.

Pro Tip: You can undo a move by clicking on the square and typing Shift+Tab.

Discussion: Can you figure out how it works? Can you think of a way to implement flagging, game-over, or other features? Know of any other HTML/CSS hacks?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also: HTML/CSS Lite-Brite

[https://codepen.io/qaz/full/wzams/](https://codepen.io/qaz/full/wzams/)

</comment><comment><USER2> Pretty cool. This takes me back.

One thing I noticed is I can see which squares are mines when I zoom out all the way on iOS. Not very noticeable but there's a thin red line on the bottom of those tiles.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That's a nice way to solve it! It looks like when you shrink it, it fits two pixels into the space of one by averaging their colors. I should be able to fix it by putting a margin above the bomb so it's not adjacent to the square you click on.</comment></comment>


Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increase in violent crime - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/10/09/exposure-to-air-pollution-is-linked-to-an-increase-in-violent-crime <comment><USER2> For all those commenting on 'aren't more polluted areas just more criminal due to other factors", as far as I can tell the researchers examined crime rates for the _same_ place and find correlation with whether there was more Ozone and PM 2,5 on a particular day or not.

So they are not comparing clean air neighborhoods to highly polluted neighborhoods, but the same neighborhood on different days.

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003114007.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191003114007.htm)

<comment><USER3> Is there a word for the fallacy of believing that another professional didn't consider the factor you thought of in seconds?

I see this all the time at meetup tech talks and it infuriates me!

<comment><USER4> It wouldn't be a formal fallacy in itself although certainly impolite. Perhaps like Slippery Slope.

It is related to arguement from ignorance and Dunning-Kreuger effect in that it often assumes their comprehended issues are the end of all problems and that the objections may already be implicitly handled. Listing everything explicitly in exhaustive detail technically addresses it but would be both inefficient and bad communication from how overloaded it would get.

That said assuming uncovered issues are implicitly covered is itself a fallacious inference. It may be dickish pedantry that is wrong based upon incomplete information but not illogical given what is known and communicated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related: "much of the decline in crime in the 1990s may have been due to the reduction of childhood lead exposure after the removal of lead from gasoline and house paint."

[http://freakonomics.com/2007/07/09/lead-and- crime/](http://freakonomics.com/2007/07/09/lead-and-crime/)

<comment><USER6> I absolutely believe that removing it from gasoline is a big factor, but I think it's often over emphasized in the context of today.

Cleveland has twice the prevalence of lead paint over any other big city in the united states, yet has 25% lower violent crime prevalence than say, st louis, baltimore, detroit, and memphis.

<comment><USER7> Lead paint tends to stay on the wall so as long as you don't eat paint chips it's not as big a risk as particulate lead in fuel exhaust. If you are removing lead paint you need to wear a suitable respirator to avoid breathing in fragments but just being in a room with lead paint or a lump of the stuff isn't especially dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> You can read the full paper directly from the author here

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/18S8Ttan33xbH2UYKY_N1EcNAYyA...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/18S8Ttan33xbH2UYKY_N1EcNAYyAsm1W0/view)

<comment><USER8> My hero!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The main problem I see with this study is that it could be confounded by the fact that high air pollution areas have other problems too that could be causing the bad behaviour instead, like overcrowding, noise, frustration at slow traffic, etc.

<comment><USER10> Reminds me of one of the prototypical sociological study examples of correlation vs causation where something akin to icecream sales correlated highly with murder rates.

The fact air pollution, in many cases, directly correlates with population density, make the results seem less surprising. It would be more interesting if less populated areas with high air pollution (perhaps near industrial plants, etc.) had a high correlation to violent crime rates in conjunction with highly dense populated areas.

<comment><USER11> Except it's not a case of ice cream and summer time.

Lead fucks people up. Always has, always will. Pretty easy to trace a relationship between lead concentrations and societal disfunction.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis)

<comment><USER12> The article specifically mentions the lead-crime hypothesis as a different example of hypothesized linkages between air pollution and crime. It seems exceptionally likely that it isn't what they're looking at.

This paper specifically looks at short term air pollution effect (ie, the kinds that will measurably rise and fall in different parts of a city over an 8-year span). Lead takes so long to affect a single person (since it mostly harms brain development in children, but crimes are mostly not committed by children) that it almost certainly being meaningfully measured here.

<comment><USER13> Hacker news and not reading the article before commenting name a more classic combination

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's such a typical kneejerk "skeptical" reaction at this point to be like "oh well maybe correlation doesn't imply causation" as if there are no causal relationships ever in life itself.

But really if the rationalists just took a few seconds to think about it maybe they'd find a some plausibility in the notion that exposure to harmful pollution could trigger a stress response; stress is intimately wrapped up with aggression.

[https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2004/10/feedback- cyc...](https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2004/10/feedback-cycle)

<comment><USER15> Well, I think it's a fact¹ that a large majority of "science" stories that go viral turn out to be wrong.

So the rational approach to them _is_ "what might be wrong with this one?".

¹ Citation Missing

<comment><USER16> If you want to avoid this, just read the paper.

I don't understand why technical people waste their time complaining about this stuff. We all have the acumen to read, understand, and debate research.

<comment><USER17> It's paywalled. [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00950...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095069619301901)

If I had access, I'd try to dig into more depth into how they approached decoupling this from temperature, because that seems like a really strong confounder. I'm also a bit curious about the underlying physical cause of the change in pollution levels, (weekends? summertime?) because that seems like it could also be a confounding common cause.

Alas, I'm not interested in paying $35 for the paper.

<comment><USER18> Preprint from the Colorado State website:

[https://pierce.atmos.colostate.edu/Monthly_Pollution_and_Cri...](https://pierce.atmos.colostate.edu/Monthly_Pollution_and_Crime.pdf)

<comment><USER17> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The paper doesn't seem to be freely available; there's just the abstract. The first sentence of the abstract mentions "short-term". So I think what they've detected is that in a given locality people get violent when the air is dirty, which is not surprising, of course, but it's interesting to have an estimate of the magnitude of that effect.

One would like to know for comparison what the magnitude of the effect of humidity and temperature is on violent crime. Those numbers are probably in the paper somewhere because the abstract mentions how they had to "address confounding variation between temperature and air pollution". It not being mentioned in the abstract makes me suspect that the effect of pollution on violent crime is probably rather small compared to the effect of weather on violent crime.

(Is there a positive correlation between people stating stupid banalities and violent crime? Probably there is, because people who parrot things like "Correlation does not imply causation" tend to get punched in the face. For the avoidance of doubt, that was a joke, not a veiled threat.)

EDIT: The last sentence of the abstract strikes me as highly questionable (though perhaps there's something in the paper to justify it). Just because there's a short-term correlation between pollution and violent crime doesn't mean that there will be a long-term correlation with a similar magnitude. In other words: if you reduce pollution globally over the next ten years people might just raise their expectations and be just as violent on the days on which pollution is relatively high as they were ten years previously.

</comment><comment><USER20> "They are now working with a large online chess platform to determine if increased pollution exposure is correlated with worse chess performance."

[https://scitechdaily.com/fascinating-and-scary-is- something-...](https://scitechdaily.com/fascinating-and-scary-is-something- literally-in-the-air-causing-violent-crime/)

</comment><comment><USER21> Yes violence increases in animals too if the environmental stress (biotic and abiotic) ratchets up. It stands to reason the same applies to humans although we have more conscious control over our responses but we don't often exercise them unless we're aware. These are all subtle mechanisms by which destabilising effects can cascade and proliferate. This is why ecologists and conservationists warned against unrestricted exploitation and an appeal to the assurance of science and technology rescuing us out of the resulting mess, but this is exactly the path we're down on.

</comment><comment><USER22> The article doesn't talk about mechanisms, but researchers have been looking at the effects of air pollution on the brain for a while, so there are at least some hints in the literature. My favorite specific result to cite in this general direction, which seems potentially relevant here, is that there is evidence that acute exposure to some forms of air pollution blunts or even eliminates the increase in serum brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF; basically a kind of growth hormone for the brain) otherwise caused by exercise [1]. Depending on what's mediating that effect, it could be that a whole complex of CNS regulation/recovery/maintenance mechanisms is altered by various forms of air pollution.

[1] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21708224)

</comment><comment><USER23> Can someone explain what "linked to" means in the context of a research study? Is it just a way to highlight correlation when it is insufficient to assert causation?

<comment><USER2> "linked to" is used as a synonym for "correlated with" in articles aimed at a layman audience because they think the latter is a word that isn't part of the layman's vocabulary.

It is debatable whether this type of presumed accommodation leads to making the articles more accessible, or just dumbs down colloquial language further in a perpetual spiral to the bottom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Preprint is here:

[https://pierce.atmos.colostate.edu/Monthly_Pollution_and_Cri...](https://pierce.atmos.colostate.edu/Monthly_Pollution_and_Crime.pdf)

It points out that they look at data for 99% of US counties, which rules out a simplistic attribution of crime to population density, and describes some of the data cleansing. They also claim it corroborated findings elsewhere.

Since this is a data review presumably other centres can repeat the analysis to confirm the correlation result at least, and medical researchers could conceivably find a real experiment to establish causality.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure about how much causation is being captured here, but I don't doubt the effect directionally. Here's a paper that came to similar conclusions, which I think captures causality better

[https://www.nber.org/papers/w25489](https://www.nber.org/papers/w25489)

Basically it compares performance of students who transferred into schools upwind vs downwind of major highways. Unsurprisingly, those who ended up in downwind schools saw

> decreases in test scores, more behavioral incidents, and more absences

<comment><USER2> The article itself references many such studies correlating long term exposure to polluted environments with cognitive impairment. This study however focuses on short term effects (within the same day).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I grew up in a part of the US that some of the most polluted air in the country, back in the 70s and 80s. I recall waking up on a particularly clear day and being shocked by a mountain in the background, not realizing how close we lived to the mountains. I also recall feeling depressed about the continually yellow sky. While there may be a physiological effect of air pollution, I'm certain there is also a strong psychological effect, which could explain the immediate effects described in the article.

</comment><comment><USER26> From the Abstract - >"We find a robust positive effect of increased air pollution on violent crimes, and specifically assaults, but no relationship between increases in air pollution and property crimes." [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00950...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095069619301901)

Paywalled paper from an Elsevier journal.

</comment><comment><USER27> This could be data dredging since it seems they may have looked at lots of dimensions and picked the one that correlated. It doesn't make sense to me the effect of air pollution would be so acute and at such low levels:

The effects are present in and out of the home, at levels well below Ambient Air Pollution Standards

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

</comment><comment><USER28> Can someone go into the paper and list out the confounding variables that the authors accounted for?

e.g. weather (temperature and air pressure); day of week; time of year; whether auto-related crime was tagged as "violent" crime; ethnographics/demographics of a community (an aging community will pollute less and be safer) etc etc

</comment><comment><USER27> This seems like data dredging to me. I would be surprised if this holds true.

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

</comment><comment><USER29> It'd be interesting to look at data from countries that have really bad air pollution levels and see if this trend is seen there too.

</comment><comment><USER30> If the conclusions here are as statistically robust as they seem, why wasn't this published in Nature or Science?

</comment><comment><USER31> [https://outline.com/Ftuxkp](https://outline.com/Ftuxkp)

</comment><comment><USER32> Looking forward to "The air made me do it.." defense coming soon to a court near you

<comment><USER33> While that sounds like a troll comment, I'm going to say that there's merit to this - at least as a class action lawsuit. When you get sick from second hand smoke and it's been shown to be bad for you, there's a case to be made. If people are being psychologically affected by 'second hand pollution' then there's a case to be made that the local or federal government isn't doing their job (which is to serve the people). A lawsuit can be very real if consistent results are shown in multiple studies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> More cars => More people out and about => More opportunity for crime to happen?

</comment><comment><USER35> Lead(Pb) in the air maybe?

<comment><USER11> Yes. Lead moreso that other pollutants. Areas with higher concentrations of ground lead (older, poorer parts of cities) are pretty strongly linked with violent crime.

Pretty well documented, don't have the citations handy though. It's been thoroughly discuss on HN.

Rudimentary citation

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2%80%93crime_hypothesis)

<comment><USER36> Interested - what would be causing the high lead levels in those areas, not that lead has been removed from petrol? Is it legacy contaminants or other ways that lead is released into the environment?

I was warned off eating the food I grew in my garden in London as historically people threw their ash into their gardens, so the soil their can be pretty polluted.

<comment><USER37> Lead is still present in Avgas.

<comment><USER38> 100LL is used in such vanishingly small quantities compared to basically every other source of lead it may as well be rounding error.

Someone always brings this into any discussion of lead as though we should all be outraged that lead isn't technically banned in all fuel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is there a certain chemical they think causes this?

<comment><USER40> PM 2.5 are small particles from Diesel cars for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I wonder if they took demographics into account?

</comment><comment><USER42> With the fog, you can hide your crimes.

</comment><comment><USER43> I remember reading "Sexual Assault increases as Ice Cream Sales go up".

Turns out sexual assault is less likely in the winter.

</comment><comment> S-E-P well of course.

As someone in an area with a lot of smoke, I'm much more irritable

</comment><comment><USER44> This article is paywalled with no workaround. My understanding was that HN did not allow such links. Economist.com links, if they are all hard-paywalled like this, should be blacklisted.

<comment><USER45> Users usually post workarounds in the threads. They did in this thread.

<comment><USER44> A "workaround" doesn't mean someone posting a link to Outline or a similar service. It means having a way to access the content on the site itself. Economist.com links should be blacklisted, because they have no workaround. If Outline is required to read a given article, then the main link on the submission should go to Outline.

You seem to be stickler for the rules, so I can't understand your position on this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> If that is the case, why aren't major cities in China, or other major Asian cities like Singapore bastions of crime? Hint: they aren't. They are in fact some of the safest places in the world, and on average have air pollution levels much higher than cities in the US, even dangerous ones!

And yet look at all of the misinformation in the comments, as usual.

<comment><USER47> There is plenty of _undocumented_ violent crime in China, like domestic violence, for example.

<comment><USER48> That's like saying that there's undocumented crime on the moon. You don't know that. But you have a theory that you most likely need more funding to look into. ;) On the other hand, if you have documentation to the contrary, I'll of course retract my own claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Oh Delhi

</comment><comment><USER48> Everyone sing with me now: "Correlation does not imply causation!" :D

<comment><USER48> You guys seriously need to lighten up...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Textbook correlation vs causation.

</comment><comment><USER51> What if violent crime is the cause of air pollution.

</comment><comment><USER52> Is not there some common denominator, something simple like - there is both more crime and pollution in cities?

<comment><USER53> I'd like to assume that all the "easy" facors are already taken into account (population density, property value, education level, income level, weather, etc).

Even if it's just a correlation, it's not really a result worth publishing otherwise.

<comment><USER52> I do not get why it got downvoted. Maybe I should have elaborate more. I skimmed the paper and it does not seem to be the case. They only take into account weather.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Could this be as simple as people with asthma being less able to evade the perpetrators?

</comment><comment><USER55> It just doesn't make sense intuitively to me. This feels more like an example to show correlation does not equal causation. So what if the violent crime is higher in highly polluted areas? How is that information useful for anything?

<comment><USER56> Well, for starters, it might incentivize governments that want to reduce crime to reduce pollution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Another correlation, is it coincidence as in urban city usually has high pollution and high crime or a real link like pollution causes brain to go violent?

</comment><comment><USER58> They think people who have enough to not have to resort to crime will live in dirty areas by choice?

</comment><comment><USER59> That's one dishonest headline. Air pollution areas are commonly associated with big cities, where the crime rate tends to be higher. The website clearly turned this into something else for no reason at all other than clicks.

<comment><USER60> Ironically, your accusation of them doing this for "the clicks" prevented you from clicking the link and finding out that your criticism is not relevant to this study.</comment></comment>


Swiss to vote on linking bosses' pay to wage of office cleaner - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/19/us-swiss-vote-idUSBRE9AI0MJ20131119

<comment><USER2> Not only will this NOT raise wages for workers (for obvious reasons – you can't pay janitors, low skilled employees, nor replaceable employees half a million per year, if you want to stay in business), it will also create a system that ends up either automating or outsourcing the work force (and in turn hurting those same people that want this to happen).

This is totally self-destructive and counter-productive, and an example of a group of people with no real experience + absolute bad judgment attempting to force their ill conceived notions on anyone they think is preventing them from reaching the happiness they are entitled to (all without doing the hard work).

If you want to get paid well, take the chance and start your own business, or buy shares in an existing enterprise. Or have the ability to be skillful and in high demand.

> Schwan was paid 261 times as much as Roche's lowest paid worker in 2012, > according to a study by employee group Travail.Suisse.

Perhaps Schwan created 261 times more value for the company than the lowest paid employee.

<comment><USER3> _all without doing the hard work_

Sorry, I didn't read that correctly. I got the impression somewhere along the way that the people in companies that are are doing the hard work and adding real value are the same ones who are paid insufficiently to start families and get ahead in their lives. It is middle and upper management that can be trimmed without worrying too much about a company's bottom line.

<comment><USER2> If that was even remotely true, than those poor, overworked, and abused family men could just get management jobs... Do less work and get paid more! Problem solved.

<comment><USER3> It is more than remotely true; it's manifestly true. As Reagan should have said, management is not the solution; it's often the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the chance this will be quickly be skirted by corporate restructuring/outsourcing? Just put all the execs in a parent company.

<comment><USER3> I think this is a good point. But the proper response in such cases, it seems to me, is to try to close the loopholes, rather than give up on the experiment.

<comment><USER5> It will be like playing whack-a-mole. Or the talented executives will just leave the country and go where they can earn more.

<comment><USER3> _Or the talented executives will just leave the country and go where they can earn more._

The whack-a-mole game is undoubtedly true. About the most talented execs leaving, this may be true, and it is certainly what well-compensated execs will argue.

Also possible is that it will be primarily the most self-serving execs, rather than the most talented, that will leave. It would be a delightful irony if Swiss companies began performing better after an exodus of executives. And we should remember that there is no limit on executive pay, specifically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There seems to be one of two possible outcomes if a bill like this passes: Either swiss companies drastically raise worker salaries, or they just move their businesses out of the country.

Is anyone here familiar enough with how Switzerland's economy is structured to know which way it would lean?

</comment><comment><USER7> Could be some rather well paid cleaners in Switzerland.

<comment><USER8> It seems to be linked to the lowest paid workers' pay, rather than the cleaners' pay specifically.

So for an exec to take home $1 million, their lowest paid employee would have to be on $83,333

<comment><USER3> Seems like a nice incentive for companies to raise workers' wages, provided the 1:12 law is written in a way that is difficult to get around.

<comment><USER2> So it's either:

A) Double, triple, 10x existing wages - and go out of business before the year is out.

B) Dictate to privately run and owned businesses that they are subjects of their employees (rather than the other way around) - creating resentment, socialism, and speeding up automation and outsourcing.

I don't see a win here for anyone.

<comment><USER3> I see what you did there. :) There are many other ways it could go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is Hacker News turning into Reddit? What does this article have to do with startups, tech or anything else HN is about?

Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting article but, frankly, there are plenty of other websites I can go to for this kind of content.

<comment><USER10> I almost think that you are intentionally trolling, but I will link to and quote from the HN guidelines in response to your comment:

[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes > more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the > answer might be: anything that gratifies one 's intellectual curiosity._

> _If your account is less than a year old, please don 't submit comments > saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)_

<comment><USER9> Was just kidding. Sorry...</comment></comment></comment>


Airbnb asks for donations to their hosts - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/olenskae/status/1283000201993748482 <comment><USER2> Raising the price and adding options are both perceived as frustrating experiences. Requesting donations (raising the price) on top of adding two negative choices (do I ignore donating and therefore spark feelings of being cheap, or do I donate and lose more money than I anticipated).

AirBnB is in a tough spot right now but this is a good reminder for product makers that people generally do not respond well to the above.

</comment><comment><USER3> landlords: we deserve to make lots of money because we risk our money when buying property

also landlords: we need a bailout from our risky investments

</comment><comment><USER4> Oh yeah let's pay those guys, that buy apartments in our cities to rent them out to tourist, making our own rents go up.

</comment><comment><USER5> What's the point of this post other than sparking a rage mob?

<comment><USER6> I do not see the point on linking to twitter instead of the official announcement[1]. Still, the fact this is a thing is interesting in itself.

Their landlords are in a really dire situation right now but airbnb cannot give them free money, so they are asking their customers to do so.

[1] [https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2795/how-can-i-send-a- ca...](https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2795/how-can-i-send-a-card-or- contribution-to-a-prior-host)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sure thing AirBnB! I'll take out a personal loan right away. How much should it be?</comment>


HN2JSON: A ruby gem for HackerNews - <AUTHOR> https://rubygems.org/gems/hn2json <comment><USER2> Be careful not to hammer the site. Your IP could be added to the blocklist if you are too aggressive:

 _"Yes, we block IPs that seem to be crawlers ignoring robots.txt. We've always blocked abusive IPs, but I tightened up the blocking a few weeks ago. A lot of people were crawling HN, most of them unnecessarily because they were doing things they could have done more efficiently through HNSearch's API[1]." --pg_ [2]

[1] <http://www.hnsearch.com/api>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3196298>

</comment><comment><USER3> I've written a script that extracts HN, which anyone is welcome to use. I use it for the Hacker News iPhone app:

<http://api.thequeue.org/hn/frontpage.xml>

<http://api.thequeue.org/hn/new.xml>

<http://api.thequeue.org/hn/best.xml>

</comment><comment><USER4> item = HN2JSON.find 4623690

NoMethodError: undefined method `url=' for #<HN2JSON::Entity:0x007fb84cd63a88>

from /Users/markburns/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/hn2json-0.0.4/lib/hn2json/parser.rb:92:in `block in get_attrs_post' from /Users/markburns/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/hn2json-0.0.4/lib/hn2json/entity.rb:92:in `add_attrs' from /Users/markburns/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/hn2json-0.0.4/lib/hn2json/parser.rb:91:in `get_attrs_post' from /Users/markburns/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/hn2json-0.0.4/lib/hn2json/entity.rb:71:in `get_attrs' from /Users/markburns/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/hn2json-0.0.4/lib/hn2json/entity.rb:56:in `initialize' from /Users/markburns/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/hn2json-0.0.4/lib/hn2json.rb:35:in `new' from /Users/markburns/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194/gems/hn2json-0.0.4/lib/hn2json.rb:35:in `find'

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I forgott to update the gem, on rubygems.org. Just install the gem again now.

<comment><USER4> Cool thanks. Might be nice to override the inspect method to display something nicer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah! The idea is to return the object in JSON

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Going through the code on github to see how a HN page is parsed, was informative. I may use this to create one using Node.js. My interest is in building an intelligent agent that filters content based on my interests (example: coding, customer acquisition, hiring etc.) and notifies me on a daily or weekly basis.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have written a program that is similar to what you just explained, also on GitHub <https://github.com/jcla1/hackernews>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Checkout apify - <http://apify.heroku.com/resources> & scrapify - <https://github.com/sathish316/scrapify> Library to scrap HTML content as JSON data.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wrote a small, ScraPy based HN crawler available at <http://github.com/mvanveen/hncrawl> in case anyone is interested.

</comment><comment><USER8> Excellent! I know I'm biased but I also know you've put a lot of effort into this. Well done Joseph.

</comment><comment> why-el Nice work. Does Cronic have to be a runtime dependency?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, but at the time I didn't want to have to write my own date parser. (HN doesn't show the date, just things like "x days ago")</comment></comment>


Apple Interested in Making its own Mac processors in-house - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2017/09/29/apple-interested-processors-modems/ <comment><USER2> I've maintained for years Apple was waiting for their ARM chips to get big/fast enough to make the switch</comment>


Ask HN: Good and logical resources on growing kids - <AUTHOR> I have a 10 months old daughter and it's getting tougher than ever. We are living outside of "grandmas" location, so we're definitely struggling with focusing on something else than our baby. I took some holidays now, but it seems that the most I can do is relax from taking care of the baby.<p>Do you know any good books on that matter? <comment><USER2> If you find something that actually helps, let me know.

My life consists of working fulltime, then watching the kid while my wife goes to work in the evenings and on the weekends. I also have to find time to shop, cook, bake, do mechanic work, handyman work, yard work, grow the garden, run a small apiary-centric business, and so some of the cleaning/laundry/etc.

<comment><USER3> In my experience kids really like helping with chores if you phrase it right and get better as they get older, until they're teenagers. My kids are 5 and 6 and will help with weeding, clearing up cuttings, washing car/windows. They generally crave attention, but they also like being left alone to watch TV :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Baby Whisperer is the only book I remember reading (part of at least.) The writing style is a bit much but there is some generally good advice such as 'crying baby does not mean bad parent'

The biggest challenge is getting a decent mental break every day. The other advice I have heard is 'you sleep when the baby sleeps' which is really hard to follow.

</comment><comment><USER5> Right now with COVID19 things are a lot different but you can look into babysitters. Usually, babysitters charge less if you are at home with them. On many babysitting apps, they call it "Mommy's helpers." This may let you work on your projects, and you can step in if baby needs something that helpers cannot handle.

</comment><comment><USER6> 10 months too young to establish your own routine so give it time

I've found books a waste of time as every child is different.

</comment><comment><USER7> We're hours or days away from having our first and I can't imagine the next 9 months being harder than the past 9 months.</comment>


Our home delivery habit reshaped the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/21/how-our-home-delivery-habit-reshaped-the-world <comment><USER3> The media really seem to love pushing downright naive logistical assumptions trying to make online shopping a villain while expecting us to believe our own cars and brick and mortar store's logistics run on pixie farts. You never see them talking about the impact of junk mail.

To be frank at this point it feels like they are trying to extort ad money to stop negative press coverage.

<comment><USER4> I think that assessment is unfair to the author. The article even talks about the warehouses and logistics in a pre-same-day shipping world, and compares it to the pace and scale required by the new delivery model.

The point I took from the author is that the expectation of same-day or even two hour shipping is erasing the barriers to consumption. There's a big difference between a weekly walk to shop or drive to the mall, and 24/7 instant delivery with just a click. It's no secret that the pitch on fast delivery speed is that people will consume more.

Anecdotally, many people I know who have Prime seems to have steady streams of packages arriving at their door - snacks for the kids one day, a new sweater the next, a package of toilet paper the next - with the logic that they have paid for the delivery, they might as well use it. Each in a separate trip, box etc. And if an item is incorrect or damaged, they often don't even bother to return it, they will just order something else.

<comment><USER5> I consume less with online shopping.

With groceries, I plan out my week's meals with the Paprika app, shoot the list of ingredients over to notes, and then order only what is on that list, which is delivered to my door.

No more "hmm, this looks interesting" as I'm wasting my time walking up and down aisles specifically designed to make me spend more.

My fridge and cupboard now look almost empty, despite having the week's shopping in it because I don't have jars and boxes of HFCS-laden garbage that I bought on a whim.

As far as non-consumable goods go, I spend the time I used to waste driving to and from stores and trying to find objects hidden in a sea of shelves finding written and video reviews of big-ticket items and I do not purchase anything unless I know it has passed the muster of several trusted reviewers, has all of the features I want, have seen it from every angle, know its precise dimensions, and know it has documentation and patches/upgrades available on the manufacturer's website.

Can't really do that looking at a box on a shelf in a store.

Regarding a steady stream of deliveries, it is too easy to set up a once-a- week delivery, at least with Amazon Prime. I set mine to Saturday.

People who impulsively buy things online are the same people who would have gone to the dollar store for "shopping therapy" pre-online shopping and come home with a basket full of cheap Chinese crap.

<comment><USER6> > cheap Chinese crap

It may rhyme but it remains offensive.

Can you please change that? Maybe not for that post, as it is too late, but for your future posts?

<comment><USER7> But most of the stuff in a dollar store is cheap goods manufactured in China. Was it the word "crap"? Maybe "cheap Chinese goods" would be more palatable?

<comment><USER6> Just that makes a world of difference to me.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough. But I have to agree with the GP: it's crap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I lived in Japan I would pass dozens of small shops every day on my way to and from work: in my neighborhood and in the areas around the train stations I passed through. On weekends I went in to the city to buy things I couldn't buy otherwise, or just to browse around. On one hand, I spent a lot of time on trains or buses or walking around looking that I could have spent doing other things. On the other hand, I got a lot of exercise that I don't get now and I spent a lot more time outdoors. I felt like I had more energy and I slept better.

<comment><USER9> Japan is way more compact than the average US city, though I do love a place that's really walkable like Montreal or Boston

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think it is fair that the increased usage of public infrastructure warrants a substantial increase in taxes

<comment><USER11> I'm pretty sure online shopping dramatically reduces use of public infrastructure, i.e. roads and parking.

Every UPS truck that goes out with 100 packages means, what -- conservatively, maybe 50 separate car trips that it replaced?

And so that much less traffic, congestion, pollution, gas used, etc.

<comment><USER12> I am going to venture the hypothesis that people will make the same number of car trips - just to other destinations.

Similar to how building more or wider roads do not reduce congestions - <USER2> traffic takes its place.

<comment><USER11> You're right in that the, say, 20 min saved per person is going to go to some other activity.

And certainly some of those activities can involve driving, like going to visit friends. But many other activities will just be spending more time at home -- e.g. coming home straight from work instead of running errands, or staying home Saturday afternoon to read or play video games.

To your point: in areas where traffic congestion is already extreme, it may not make a difference because there's so much pent-up demand for car trips. But in most of the rest of the country (suburbs, rural, etc.) that doesn't suffer from congestion, I think package delivery would have to result in reducing traffic to some measurable degree.</comment></comment></comment></comment>