Amazon details its plan for how drones can fly safely over U.S. skies - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2015/07/28/amazon-details-its-plan-for-how-drones-can-fly-safely-over-u-s-skies/?tid=HP_national?tid=HP_national <comment><USER3> In my view, if industry wants such a lavish public gift as the privileged use of airspace, it should come with plenty of strings attached.

Drones should be licensed and carry liability insurance. They should emit an ID signal that includes their GPS coordinates. They should respond to a "scram" signal that clears an area for things like rescue helicopters and firefighting aircraft. They should not carry advertising banners or emit noise pollution. There are already analogous rules for cars in most of these areas.

There's also a laundry list of items regarding data privacy that should apply to drones.

<comment><USER4> _> They should respond to a "scram" signal that clears an area for things like rescue helicopters and firefighting aircraft._

This is a massive thing.

An issue I see though it whether everyone will play by such safety rules. Yes Amazon and the like will, but once the site of a delivery drone is commonplace other drones will be around either for publicised purposes (such as event recording, or people like Google updating their aerial maps) or "hiding in plain site" (i.e. those recording without permission or delivering less legal cargo). Who will be able to regulate those to make sure that they confirm to such safety standards (quick answer: nobody). Also the scram signal itself could be open to abuse.

<comment><USER5> A lot of these problems already apply to people walking around, cars, helicopters and private aircraft.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but a drone can cause some forms of damage that a person walking around can't (in places inaccessible to a person just walking around), and the barriers for entry (which to a large extent will come down to costs) is (or will soon be) a lot lower than that for the other things you mention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everyone should remember that the Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos while reading this article. Even the title is propagandistic in style "...can fly safely over U.S. skies"

<comment><USER7> That's a good point, but if you left 'safely' out of the title, the meaning changes significantly.

<comment><USER8> And that - a single word change - is why editorial control matters.

<comment><USER9> And what does it mean to "fly over US skies"? The drones are flying over cities, not skies. The article might get different response if it read "Amazon details its plan for how drones can fly safely over _your children 's school!_" :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They didn't address the _other_ part of safety -- some percentage of those hundreds (or thousands) of 15+ kg drones flying over a city are going to have an unavoidable collision or a catastrophic hardware failure and come crashing down to the ground, which could easily be deadly if it lands on someone, or cause a car accident if it lands on a car or on the road. At the very least it's going to cause property damage - who do I call when one punches a hole through my roof or I see one hanging in my tree?

Has anyone done an analysis of the crash rate for large drones and likely casualty rate on the ground?

<comment><USER11> You're right that they need to address those concerns. I'd like to see that analysis also include any possible reduced injury/death from fewer delivery truck miles and fewer consumer car trips to the local store.

I have no idea if it will offset or not, but I could see—even with a few thousand drones crashing every year—that a net benefit could still be realized because people are not driving to the store for some of their shopping.

<comment><USER10> Sure, using drones instead of trucks could be a net win in safety if it means less drivers on the road, but this seems unlikely -- one driver in a UPS truck can deliver hundreds of packages on his route, but since the drone has such limited payload capacity, it might need to make a round trip per package so it would take hundreds of drone trips to replace one driver with a truck. And, since heavy packages aren't realistic for a drone, the truck is still going to drive much of his delivery route to deliver the heavy packages.

<comment><USER12> What if a drone costs 100x less than a delivery driver? You can have 100 drones out delivery packages for the same cost of one delivery driver delivering one package at a time.

It would be interesting to see data on what % of amazon purchases are above the payload of a drone - i imagine they crunched the numbers themselves and determined it was low enough to justify continuing to push this issue (even after the FAA tried to ban[1] drone deliveries altogether)

Theyll look at $/package and time/package for drones and delivery drivers.

I imagine once you account for driver salary and benefits, cost of vehicles, cost of fuel and maintenance, cost of insurance for drivers and vehicles, cost of management structure to maintain drivers, schedules, routes, etc - <USER2> $/package for drones likely make up for any disadvantage they currently have in time/package

Also, drones can deliver packages 24/7/365, no reason you cant wake up to a package delivered overnight (maybe even your morning kindle (tm) e-ink newspaper)

[1][http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/24/faa-bans-the-use-of- drones-...](http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/24/faa-bans-the-use-of-drones-to- deliver-packages/)

<comment><USER13> As drones and other autonomous machine/robots start to replace human employees, I expect to hear calls to tax them to recoup the social externalities. If they are taxed enough, then there is no longer an advantage to using them over human employees.

The fallacy in that thinking is left as an exercise for the reader.

<comment><USER14> The externalities might be smaller than the profit. Ie even with all externalities internalized via taxes, it might still beat humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is uncompelling. Just having layers of airspace like that doesn't really address the main issue, which is that in order to get to any layer you have to transit the layer below. Even giant commercial flights end up below 500 feet all the time of course, well at least twice for every flight.

It also has some real issues in that it's glossing over the challenges of steep terrain and obstacles. Most of our air navigation takes place by reference to MSL altitude (i.e. relative to sea level), but this is exclusively based on AGL (i.e. relative to ground level). Not an insurmountable challenge of course but it seems like they are skipping a lot of important parts. Same impression of the "real time data" plan, which sounds extremely complex in the context of aviation.

The overall impression is that nobody has really thought this through particularly, that this is more of a conversation starter at best.

(Relevant: I have a pilot's license)

<comment><USER16> It never ceases to amaze me how negative the HN community is to new ideas, technology and generally "trying new stuff" that has never been attempted before.

Drone Delivery - never going to work. Lots of solar power - too expensive. Autonomous cars - too risky

This is supposed to be a community of "Hackers" making cool stuff, and here we have a company talking about making cool stuff, and every single comment, without exception, is negative.

Yes, this is a very difficult problem to solve. Yes, there are many things they have not addressed yet. Yes, this needs a lot of work. No, they shouldn't just start doing this and see how many crashes happen. But yes, they need to keep talking, testing, learning and working towards a future where this is possible.

Does anyone in their right mind honestly think that in less than 150 years there will still be a single human-controlled vehicle (plane or automobile)?

Of course it's coming, and these guys are starting it. Now.

The same negativity could be said of the Wright brothers when they told people they were going to fly, or Henry Ford when he set out to mass-produce the automobile, or the people that said we'd have a global computer network and a computer in every home.

I honestly don't understand why the community here isn't more open to new ideas. Even ideas that never come to fruition are still worth analyzing. There is always something to be learned.

We should be talking about the interesting parts of this challenge and how they could be overcome, not saying "Not safe enough" Every. Single. Time.

</rant>

<comment><USER17> "Does anyone in their right mind honestly think that in less than 150 years there will still be a single human-controlled vehicle (plane or automobile)?"

You do realize that we don't even have clean water on a global scale?

<comment><USER18> JFK, 1962: We're going to go to the moon.

You: You do realize that we don't even have clean water on a global scale?

<comment><USER19> Right, but still only twleve of us have been to the moon.

I think the parent commenter's point was that it's pretty naive to think that there will be no more human-driven vehicles at all. Change will happen quickly in some parts of the world, and other parts will take a long, long time to catch up.

<comment><USER20> Gotta sell all those old manual vehicles to _someone_ ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like the idea of rivers serving as a natural drone highway. They weave through most cities/towns, provide insulation from populations on the ground and relatively easy recoverability (as opposed to being destroyed on impact).

<comment><USER22> Also consider railroad tracks, at least normally you'd only have one property owner making claims (the railroad), and the local residents are already used to 9000 HP worth of coal train rumbling thru at 3am so a tiny little quiet drone is no real issue. Also in an accident, I think its pretty obvious who "wins" when a ten million pound train hits a ten pound drone, so other than glass and paint claims I think you're pretty safe. I don't envision a drone ever causing a coal train to derail, LOL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I still don't understand how an autonomous delivery drone is better than an autonomous delivery car.

I feel like a delivery drone is the absolute most complicated way to solve this problem other than somehow involving rockets.

Drone limitations: \- Needs great weather. \- Package size and weight exceptionally confined. \- Exceptionally limited range. \- How to actually get package from drone to human? Drop? \- Night flight? Yes / no? Probably not.

Car limitations: \- Traffic.

<comment><USER24> Actually drone delivery is much more simple than autonomous driving. Algorithm: grab package, fly up, fly directly to delivery point, drop package, all faster than driving. Compare to autonomous driving which needs to take into account road users (non-autonomous), traffic laws, visualization, etc and it's obvious why drones are more efficient and easier to program.

<comment><USER25> Assuming empty airspace, it's obvious why drones are easier to program. Assuming a single package it's obvious why drones are more efficient. Take away either of those assumptions and things get less obvious.

<comment><USER26> Those are very wrong assumptions. If a serious drone delivery program (or multiple competing ones) starts, airspace will suddenly become congested and you'll have to do heavy air traffic coordination to avoid mid-air collisions. And when you comapre with cars, you need to compare one delivery car with a hundred drones. Suddenly you see that drones are not efficient at all, which is kind of obvious, as it takes a lot of energy to keep stuff in the air with active propulsion.

<comment><USER27> I always pictured trucks driving from distribution centers, and deploying drones that cover an area. That way the drones only have to cover a small distance, reducing the number of drones that have to fly over a given area.

<comment><USER26> Mobile drone hubs seems like a very interesting solution, which could even be more energy-efficient than just trucks or just drones. Somehow I never thought of that, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> It will be interesting to watch how over the next decade the airspace is forced to get split up and reassigned. We're on chapter:fairy tale and we will eventually get to chapter:mundane. The tech exists, the money exists, the demand exists. There are clearly some huge obstacles, the same magnitude plaguing self driving cars. Both fascinating worlds unfurling before us.

</comment><comment><USER29> There's a lot of negativity in this thread. I'm really excited about this.

Even on an aesthetic level, it will be amazing to look at the city sky and see hundreds of lights buzzing about, blade-runner style.

<comment><USER30> Bunch of negative nellies up in here. Stuff like this would drive me nuts if I was trying to invent the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm surprised the Washington Post doesn't include any disclaimers regarding their ownership by Bezos in their coverage of Amazon.

<comment><USER32> I don't really understand this process of declaring conflicts of interests. The declaration of a conflict of interest seems like at best a bare minimum requirement and one that is abused.

I see posts sometimes where they write about how great X is and then have a disclaimer of (we're owned by creators of X) as if that was good enough. I just think if you have a conflict of interest, unless the value of the news is significant, writing about X should be avoided altogether especially if it's heavy on speculation, analysis or opinion.

<comment><USER33> That's excluding a lot of people from the conversation who might have something interesting to say. For example, are you going to exclude pilots from a conversation about aviation because they have an obvious conflict of interest?

If you're an expert in a certain area, it's quite likely that it's because it's part of your job. There aren't that many people who are both impartial and knowledgeable.

<comment><USER11> I think you're misunderstanding the concept of "conflict of interest". In this case, the news story was written _by the same company_ that the news story is about. They have a direct financial stake in the public's perception of them, and are writing the story that helps shape that same perception. That's the conflict.

If the story was about American Airlines' employee compensation practices, and it was published by the Air Line Pilots Association, then the same conflict would arise. But if the story is about aviation in general, then the conflict goes away and the pilot is a good source of expert knowledge.

<comment><USER34> _In this case, the news story was written by the same company that the news story is about._

Well, not exactly, just by a company with the same majority owner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I am not looking forward to all the noise pollution flying drones will contribute.

<comment><USER36> Thanks for that comment. I felt I was the only one thinking that these drones in the sky constitute a major pollution and visual agression. In my case, it triggers the exact same revulsion I have when I discover a big spider walking on my ceiling. Yuck.

At least with trains, roads and airports, we can move away from the source of pollution. With drones, great, nowhere to hide. Pollution comes to you. Not to mention that I am sure soon we will have ads displayed on the side of the said drones. Did I hear "Blade Runner"?

<comment><USER34> _At least with trains, roads and airports, we can move away from the source of pollution. With drones, great, nowhere to hide. Pollution comes to you. Not to mention that I am sure soon we will have ads displayed on the side of the said drones._

So, just like cars?

<comment><USER36> Worst than cars. Cars don't drive over your garden...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I've always seen these Amazon drone delivery stories as an elaborate PR stunt (I'd say an extremely successful one if it is...). But every time the story comes up on here everyone seems to take it very seriously. Am I just being really cynical or do we actually think this is going to happen in the next 5-10 years?

<comment><USER38> It's not a question of drone deliveries coming in 5-10 years, it's already happening in some places: for example, DHL has a drone in service (albeit as a research project) shuttling urgent pharmacy orders to an island 10 km off the German coast.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/25/german- dhl...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/25/german-dhl-launches- first-commercial-drone-delivery-service)

[http://www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/releases_2014/group/dhl...](http://www.dhl.com/en/press/releases/releases_2014/group/dhl_parcelcopter_launches_initial_operations_for_research_purposes.html)

The question for the next 5-10 years really if the economics and regulations can change or have changed to make it practical to do this on an ongoing basis for small and larger payloads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Current law holds that flying within 500 feet of someone's land is trespassing. I'd be happy to lease my property for each use by a drone operator for a modest fee. Perhaps they could credit my Prime account for each use.

Also, since sound dissipates by the inverse square of the distance, the difference in sound between a drone flying at 100 feet vs 500 feet is quite a lot. I'd expect any fee charged by me to use the space above my property to vary by that formula.

However, it looks like they're going to try to take my property rights away from me by paying off some people in Washington. This would have the convenient effect of nullifying my ability to seek redress for noise and other polution, or loss of use of my property.

<comment><USER40> Someone here must be working on domestic anti-drone self-targeting weapons as we type? Surely firing potatoes/beanbags above your own property is legal, if a drone just happened to be passing and got hit then wouldn't that be a shame.

Or perhaps we'll have patrolling sentry drones that physically tackle and enforce domestic airspace?

Will be interesting to see how sophisticated lawmakers get in pre-empting such actions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> > Amazon Prime Air engineers have largely kept a low profile as they test > their technology overseas.

Canada, specifically British Columbia, is hardly "overseas".

[http://www.thecanadianpress.com/english/online/OnlineFullSto...](http://www.thecanadianpress.com/english/online/OnlineFullStory.aspx?filename=DOR- MNN- CP.c756149ac89240cead9200c597688014.CPKEY2008111303&newsitemid=32503812&languageid=1)

<comment><USER42> Well, you might have to cross a tiny bit of ocean water if it's on Vancouver Island.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> "Imagine the Internet without HTTP and TCP/IP" That's quite an absurd analogy to push forward Amazon's drone program.

Even though I am quite fascinated by the innovation of this idea, not so much about the practicality of it. I believe it is good for rural areas where highway system is not streamlined and major shipping carriers don't encourage frequent routes.

</comment><comment><USER44> It would be interesting how they plan on detecting smaller moving objects like birds, which would be more of a challenge than a helicopter or a construction crane. Perhaps lasers and radar similar to how Google's driverless cars detect potential hazards?

<comment><USER45> I wonder if detecting them is even really a problem. They move, emit heat, and most are naturally inclined to avoid drones already. I'm really curious about whether birds of prey might start hunting drones.

<comment><USER46> It's a possibility if the drones are delivering food for Amazon Fresh... That would be so awesome!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is all wrong.

Small underground tunnels covering entire cities with autonomous delivery bots on wheels which automatically take the fastest route from any given A to B with a generic size/shaped payload are the real solution to this issue.

Horizontal drilling technologies mean that we can bore a 30 metre long tunnel while only digging up the first 3 metres.

Imagine all the industries this would revolutionise. All shopping and food ordering would become completely price and quality-driven, as realestate prices and premium spots are no longer relevant. last 10 mile package delivery would cost tens of cents.

Automated subterranean transport is the REAL future of automated delivery.

<comment><USER48> You say this, but plenty of cities (Chicago, London) have small gauge underground railroads which used to be used variously for mail and coal - they're all now abandoned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> can't wait to see hundreds of drones flying around the city. the future is...loud

<comment><USER50> Since there will be so many flying at once you're going to have the occasional failure. That's going to make walking around in the city interesting for sure.

<comment><USER51> It should be straightforward to design corridors for drones where, if they were to fail, they land on structures instead of people. Amazon could design this as an additional OpenStreetMap layer, using existing satellite mapping data to create areas to avoid where people are likely to be.

Avoid roads and sidewalks.

<comment><USER52> You know even if they don't land on people, I sure don't want an Amazon drone falling on my house, or out in my pasture, or on top of my shop. Will Amazon pay up in full if it punches a hole in my barn, harms livestock, or destroys a car I have sitting outside? If they're going to have a non-zero number of these drop from the sky, they better know they're not getting that drone back, for starters.

<comment><USER11> > Will Amazon pay up in full if it punches a hole in my barn, harms livestock, > or destroys a car I have sitting outside?

Of course they will. Why wouldn't they? You have their drone and a photo of a gaping hole in your roof.

> If they're going to have a non-zero number of these drop from the sky, they > better know they're not getting that drone back, for starters.

Well, they'll probably make damage reimbursement contingent upon your return the drone.

<comment><USER14> I assume the law will compel them to pay for the damage. And the law might or might not compel you to return the drone.

(If the law doesn't compel you, Amazon might pay extra for return.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> "Kimchi also laid out his thinking on how autonomous drones could safely fly in the same locations as helicopters. Helicopters are much more problematic than planes for drones because of low-altitude flying."

I wonder what size drones they are envisioning. For example with a typical prosumer drone out there now, it would be completely obliterated by a large helicopter when coming in contact with the moving blades or hitting the windshield or other parts. Likewise the downdraft of the heli would force down anything of that size in it's path.

After all if a drone is such a threat to a heli then what kind of threat is it to a person that it comes into contact with by accident?

<comment><USER54> Watching the latest Mythbuster episode is enlightening, particularly if you take the weights of the crafts they're testing into account.

THe TL;DR of the episode is - carbon fiber blades directly connected to motors (likely the setup for commercial UAVs) is capable of slicing deeply enough to hit your jugular, others are not (unless the motor is being held solidly and used as a form of saw).

I'm more concerned with UAVs and payloads in excess of 10 lbs falling from 400 feet up onto my head because a wiring connection came loose and cut power to the UAV (happened to me recently, minus the head).

In short, don't fly UAVs around people, or in no-fly zones.

<comment><USER53> Of interest:

[http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2013/09/05/remote-control- he...](http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2013/09/05/remote-control-helicopter- kills-man-in-brooklyn/)

"A 19-year-old model helicopter enthusiast was killed Thursday when a toy helicopter he was flying struck him in the head, a law-enforcement official said."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> The trouble with drones, even more than self-driving cars, is that soon, lots of manufacturers will be able to make them. When no-name unaccountable manufacturers make drones for people who buy and fly them anonymously, we won't be able to prevent the havoc that occurs, with laws.

Previously, this was hardly a problem, because very few machines operated autonomously outside of a building. Cars had occupants. Helicopters and planes had occupants. Now, many won't. If a rogue drone with mounted guns starts shooting up a public square, we won't know who launched it unless the manufacturer played by the rules.

That's a serious problem for our society that's coming up. Terrorism has always been a problem of technology, and we're about to make more technology available to the masses, where some fraction of a percent of wackos is going to use it for nefarious purposes. The trouble with unmanned robots which are easily manufactured is that we can't trace who made it, sold it, or launched it. And therefore can't enforce the law on everybody.

I am more concerned about this than governments using the technology.

<comment><USER56> >If a rogue drone with mounted guns starts shooting up a public square, we won't know who launched it unless the manufacturer played by the rules.

a bomb hidden in a thrash bin or a stolen car parked on the public square. A bullet from sniper rifle from a mile away. No drones necessary. And just imagine what kind of, including chemical or nuclear, havoc can any engineer wreck with tech available today.

>Terrorism has always been a problem of technology.

centuries ago Church tried to outlaw crossbows:

[http://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/05/23/the-crossbow-a- medi...](http://militaryhistorynow.com/2012/05/23/the-crossbow-a-medieval- wmd/)

Safety through obscurity works only for very cutting edge technologies and only for the very short time.

<comment><USER55> These things aren't able to follow instructions, target people, etc.

Go ahead and tell me what we will actually do when these things appear.

You can poo-pooh security through obscurity but we're all relying on the "infeasibility" of defeating various systems. Just as one example, reputational attacks followed systematically without rest or hesitation can subvert entire communities and make them not trust each other. You only don't realize what dedicated technology can do to subvert human systems because you haven't had to face it yet.

If every time you launched your startup, an automated process would find, hack in and bring your network down or make a thousand sleeper accounts which will bring it down later, when you couldn't rely on them "just not finding you long enough for you to secure your network", then you'd have a different attitude.

<comment><USER56> there is a difference between doomsday declaration on every technological advancement and just reasonable basic safety measures.

Specifically for drones - having millions of them in the sky would naturally lead to 2 things - automated traffic control with ground and airborne AESA radar systems that even military would envy (after all an Aegis destroyer have to track only several hundreds objects simultaneously where is drone traffic control over Bay Area would have to track a million) and the second thing - "license plate transponders" similar to car. Any drone without registered transponder will be taken off the sky by a police drone similar like an unregistered car from highway today.

So, yes, somebody would use the drones for crimes like today they can use planes or cars. So what? The drone flight will be recorded in radar and various visual systems. And like in any other case investigation will trace the stuff back to perpetrators. And sometimes not successfully.

And yes, machine guns plus cars did produce the Dillinger gang and the like for some short time. And it resulted in FBI. The way of progress...

<comment><USER55> So what? So right now when they use planes and cars you can see who was driving it, who made the car, who purchased it.

With drones, you won't be able to see any of that. The criminals who programmed the drones would be free from the law. And not only that, the "police drone" as you say might arrive too late, the drone might already have shot up some people. And then there's always the possibility that despite your best efforts, some drones are gonna fall from the sky on people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think a very real problem with package-delivering drones will be thieves or bored kids shooting them down.

</comment><comment> bra-ket It looks like a surveillance network.

<comment><USER57> >While the Supreme Court hasn't explicitly accepted that as the upper limit of property ownership, it's a useful guideline in trespass cases. Therefore, unless you own some very tall buildings, your private airspace probably ends somewhere between 80 and 500 feet above the ground.

[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/07/photographer_george_steinmetz_arrest_how_much_airspace_do_you_own.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I want a rule that limits drones to flying over roads when they fly in non- rural areas.

<comment><USER59> Why?

<comment><USER58> Because there are fewer exposed heads on roadways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Has there been much discussion about hundreds or thousands of drones filling the sky and how much of an eyesore that would likely be to many people, then the political fight that is likely to ensue?

</comment><comment><USER61> I would love to see how they plan to address theft. Surely it would be super easy to steal the drones and harvest them for parts.

<comment><USER62> I'd guess it simply won't be that big an issue. They'll know where they are all the time, and they'll file theft reports and get police involved. They could add video, too, if they felt the need. In the US, it doesn't seem like organised bands are going to risk criminally attacking autonomous devices to steal parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> just want to point out the obvious here: the VP of Amazon Prime Air's name is Gur Kimchi.

Godspeed, brother.

Korean-Americanly yours, F

</comment><comment><USER64> No plans on if they fall out of their special zone and onto my roof or my head though?

</comment><comment><USER65> Can other companies do this or just Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER66> Cue pirate drones stealing cargo.

</comment><comment><USER67> [http://i.imgur.com/SLZeCmS.png](http://i.imgur.com/SLZeCmS.png)</comment>


Sal Khan's 'Academy' sparks a tech revolution in education - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2012-05-30/sal-khan-profile-khan-academy/55270348/1

<comment><USER2> I really, really dislike Khan Academy. I'm in high school and at least one of my teachers thinks that it's a substitute for actually teaching us. He just puts on a Khan Academy video and we watch it the whole time. Usually we watch a few of them. That, and Sal's voice makes me want to rip my hair out. He repeats things, over and over, like:

"If the box moves five... five meters... five meters per second... five meters per second."

When you have to watch fourty-five minutes of these videos, it starts getting old. Real quick.</comment>


Show HN: BLyrics – Ionic android app made in 2 weeks. Will be open sourced soon - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.izappworld.bollywoodlyrics&hl=en

<comment><AUTHOR> I started learning Ionic Framework and created this app which allows viewing lyrics of popular Bollywood songs.

Technologies used:

1- Ionic Framework 2- PouchDb (offline storage) 3- Asp.net Web API for back end 4- ImageCache for offline image caching

Also you can view live app at:

[http://bollywood-lyrics.com/](http://bollywood-lyrics.com/)</comment>


Should meat be banned to save the planet? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/shortcuts/2019/sep/23/should-meat-be-banned-save-planet-new-laws-environment <comment> core-questions So what, we're just going to eat maggots, live in Podshare bunkbeds, consume content, and get excited for next content?

Is this really the best utopia we can dream up? Is it worthwhile to sacrifice quality of life on a grand scale - of which meat is a huge part, sorry vegans - just so we can have more and more humans packed into their kennels to produce code and consume content?

<comment><USER2> This article doesn't even cover, how we will replace all the nutrients that meat and animal products bring to our health. This article looks like more those vegan hypothesis articles that never fits into reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just get rid of factory farming. Meat should generally speaking be much more expensive than it is right now. Prices are artificially low due to subsidies and industrial scale farming practices.

<comment> core-questions So your thesis is that it should be fine for only the rich to get to eat meat, and poor people can just eat maggotburgers and soy?

Can you see why someone might see that as an elitist, late-stage-capitalist solution to the problem? Especially when we know factory farms work to feed massive numbers - shouldn't the focus be to make it more environmentally friendly, rather than restricting it to those who can pay?

God, can you imagine working the farm all day and then going home to eat crickets because you can't even afford the hamburger you're raising?

<comment><USER3> I didn't realize "late stage capitalism" meant removing subsidies that distort the free market.

For most of history meat was considered a luxury. In many countries it still is.

For what it's worth, I'm all in on lab grown meat. Hopefully in 20 years we'll look back in time and see how barbaric factory farming was.

<comment> core-questions Barbaric? To provide sanitary fresh meat to the entire populace at affordable prices is barbaric? To replace that with some lab-grown monstrosity that requires the entire fragile technological stack of our civilization for maintenance is somehow better than a system that mostly relies on grass, water, and sunlight?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can you give me some advices about IT outsourcing? - <AUTHOR>

Hello, friends. I'm IT entrepreneur from Moscow with web development and linux skills. And now I starting IT outsourcing with my small team.
I have got two projects for it:
1. http://webica.org - outsourcing web development
2. http://adminicana.ru/en.html - remote linux administration
So, may be you can give me some advices about it? What you want to see in outsourcing company? If you will hire remote people, how you will find them? freelance sites, google, forums, something else? Can you know another websites full of IT people, where I can talk about it as well?
Thank you. <comment><USER2> One suggestion is to be extremely responsive. Make sure no question or comment gets missed. Answer quickly, clearly, correctly and succinctly, every time. Make sure you clarify anything you're unsure of.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for answering</comment></comment>


What online language translator do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I frequently need to translate chunks of text from other languages, mostly German, to English.
Google translation is ok if one has enough context. But results are often hilarious. For example, the following text:
"Bitte überschreiten Sie die Upload-Limite von 1 MB pro Dokument nicht! Es können sonst Upload-Probleme auftreten."
... was translated to:
"Please exceed your upload limit of 1 MB per document, it can otherwise upload problems."
Are there any online translators out there better than Google's? <comment><USER2> My wife proof-reads and copy edits professional translations. She and those producing the translations have tried pretty much every system they could get access to, and Google is pretty close to the best they tried.

It works much better if you use only very short sentences. Very short. Few adjectives, no connectives, only have a subject, object and verb in some order. The shorter (but grammatically correct!) the better.</comment>


Snowclone search example - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/search?q=%22one+*+to+rule+them+all%22+-ring

<comment><AUTHOR> This method of using a wildcard and excluded term just occurred to me. (Admittedly it fails if the original word appears somewhere else.) Hope you like it.

If you have no idea what this is about, refer to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone></comment>


Password Sync Feature Added to Google Chrome - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_chrome_gets_password_sync_feature.php

<comment><USER2> I don't think that there is a one-size-fits-all product. I am a cofounder of Passpack, an online password manager for workgroups. So for me I've found my optimal solution (I built it!), but that doesn't mean it is optimal for every use case. Sometimes I also use the browser's password manager, for example for some non critical sites. Firefox's built-in password manager has good security measures. However since I prefer to browse with Chrome, and Chrome does not have a master password protection, that leads me to rely entirely on Passpack. So as a first step, I think Chrome should add a master password to protect the stored passwords. There's little point in adding sharing features if basic in- browser protection is still missing.

<comment><USER3> There is an optional feature to encrypt with a master passphrase.

Ref: [http://lifehacker.com/#!5662970/add-an-extra-layer-of- securi...](http://lifehacker.com/#!5662970/add-an-extra-layer-of-security-to- chrome-syncing-with-a-passphrase)

<comment><USER2> Maybe. But it seems to only be connected to sync. Do you know if there is a way to simply protect your stored passwords without start sync?

<comment><USER2> @kpozin, obviously I was replying to kylekramer :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to find out if this uses google's two factor auth (if you opt to use your account passphrase).

A second issue: encrypted arbitrary note data

I use lastpass right now along with yubikey for two-factor auth. Pretty nice.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1Password is my weapon of choice. Leaving a universal login on your browser isn't always a good idea.

<comment><USER2> I agree. In fact, I specified that using the browser is good in some cases with the caveat that there is at least a master password protection. But a good password manager is always a better idea. Of course everyone chooses the one that best fits his needs, but the important thing is that you use one. 1password is a great product for consumer and individuals.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't work on Linux though.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask E.T.: Interface design and the iPhone [Fixed Video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00036T&topic_id=1 <comment><AUTHOR> If you look at his examples, his primary argument is that you can cram more information on the screen because of the iPhone's high resolution. I can't agree with him that this is a good idea.

Part of the reason that people BUY the iPhone is that it's simple and stylish, rather than the existing information heavy devices like Pocket PC phones. In particular, look at his example about the Weather- Apple's widget is small and sleek. It shows you the vital information, and it does it in strong fonts and bold styling. It's clear, and it's easy.

He squishes all of that information into a tiny corner, so that he can add a large repeating satellite view- Sure it's useful in some cases, and it's certainly a neat demonstration of the iPhone's abilities, but it fails when it comes to the task of quickly giving me the important information.

It makes me squint to see the tiny version of the temperature, and shows off, rather than helping.

Sometimes developers fall into the problem of working so often because they can, not wondering if they should.

Note- He dismisses this argument, saying that information density isn't the problem, it's laying it out clearly. I agree with him in general,in that complex information can often be presented simply, but in most of his cases, increasing the density would diminish it's usefulness.</comment>


Chrome 60 Beta - happy-go-lucky https://blog.chromium.org/2017/06/chrome-60-beta-paint-timing-api-css.html <comment><AUTHOR> NOTE: _Headless in Windows is fully supported in Chrome 60_ | [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14498052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14498052)

\--

I was happy to learn Chrome is packaged by the PortableApps folks, simplifying side-by-side use of multiple versions with separate profiles.

[https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portabl...](https://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable)

 _Please note that this is not intended to be used as your primary, everyday browser as it is not even to beta build quality. It will be updated as time permits to allow people to try out upcoming features of Chrome._

source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14497989)

 _It 's handy for trying it out without installing the full app and update service on Windows. Or for running Stable, Dev, Beta on the same machine with separate profiles without needing command line switches._

<comment><USER2> Doesn't Chrome Canary already support side-by-side profiles/installs though? :)

<comment><USER3> Yes, the Canary branch of Chrome uses a separate profile by default. Stable, Beta, and Dev all use the same default profile on Windows. You can run them with a command line option in the form --user-data- dir="C:\MyCustom\PathToMy\profile" to get them to use a specific profile, but they will still step on each other a bit in the registry within HKCU\Software\Google. The portable launchers for Google Chrome Portable's various channels will take care of any registry weirdness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If there is anyone from the Chrome team reading here: Please increase the number of suggestions while typing in the Url bar! In Firefox I can see 10 suggestion but in Chrome I can only see between 3 to 5 which is not enough.

This is especially annoying on Android where I prefer to do as little text input as possible and rather select urls from the suggestions.

A long time ago this value could be modified but that command line option was removed years ago.

</comment><comment><USER5> With google bringing it's own adblocker to Google chrome (which is like calling up a casino for gambling addiction), I guess moving to open source chromium is the best idea now as long as Google is not dropping mysterious binary blobs to it ([https://lwn.net/Articles/648392/](https://lwn.net/Articles/648392/))

<comment><USER6> > which is like calling up a casino for gambling addiction

The analogy holds but I just want to point out that this is very common and all serious casino and poker businesses have staff working with terminating accounts for people requesting to be banned due to addiction. The same people are going over chat logs that get flagged due to mentioning of certain words like "addiction" and ban them even if they haven't requested it. If you tell a support agent that you're addicted you will be banned in an instant.

<comment><USER7> Is that because addiction is a recognized medical disability and thus the people would have a claim against the casino in case of losses? Or more for PR?

<comment><USER6> I can only speak for certain jurisdictions but apart from the reasons you mention it was a requirement from the Gambling Commission where I worked. In reality the casino found its ways to circumvent this for the whales though but that's a different topic.

<comment><USER5> And this exactly is my point. Google's main business is selling ads, why would it start blocking ads in it's flagship browser?

it's going to start banning all ads except google ads.

<comment><USER8> It's never that direct.

They would probably publish some policy what is an acceptable ad and what isn't, and let the others self-regulate. For them, the ability to finger-point ("it's only your fault that you are not compliant with the blocking policy") is very important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The paint timing is a great addition. Hopefully other browsers add it too.

</comment><comment><USER10>
        The Payment Request API is now supported on desktop versions of Chrome.

<comment><USER11> The idealist in me cringes when he sees something like this. Why spoil something platonic, abstract, universal, like the web platform with something so accidential, petty, and bound to a specific culture and time, like payments? Not every thinkable society has money or will understand the concept of buying immaterial goods.

Then the realist reminds himself APIs have a churn time of a couple of years, whereas we will probably still be using money in a century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure if it's a Chrome update or macOS update as I did both at the same time, but since I updated to High Sierra I've started getting a lot of certificate errors in Chrome v59. I tried updating to the 60 Beta, but it is still occurring.

My company use a Cisco WSA to decrypt HTTPS traffic, and that cert is suddenly no longer trusted, and I seem to be unable to trust it. Despite it never being required to be trusted previously. Sites load fine in Safari though and off my corporate network.

<comment><USER13> Same issue at my job with McAfee proxies doing SSL interception. Newest Chrome complains because it doesn't use the CN field anymore and now demands SAN (Subject Alternate Name) fields be present instead - but the certs generated by our proxy lack them.

<comment><USER14> This change has caused so much pain in our internal network too. Not because of intercepting proxies, but because of a ton of certs signed by an I terns CA.

I really wonder what kind of issue triggered them changing this and whether it was Wort the trouble. Stuff like this is why I can understand companies still being reluctant to allow browsers other than IE

<comment><USER15> i think it was because the rfc that says which attributes of a cert must be checked by the browser was deprecated 15 years ago and everybody ignored the update (that says that the san attribute must be present)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Payment Request looks useful...anyone using it?

Could VP9 replace widevine?

<comment><USER17> \- Widevine is a DRM technology \- VP9 or VP10/AV1 are the video codecs. Basically, a video compression technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Will people understand that incrementing first number in version a couple times a year is bad before Chrome hits three digit version?

<comment><USER11> Add a "1." before the version number in your head. It is all a matter of rescaling.

Of course, the real reason for the crazy version numbers back then was to 1. get people to update, 2. to look more recent than Firefox (which has since followed suit), and 3. to stop people from programming websites towards certain version numbers (because nobody has a clue anymore what version they are running). I don't like it, but I can follow their reasoning.

<comment><USER18> > Add a "1." before the version number in your head. It is all a matter of > rescaling.

That still won't turn it into semver ( [http://semver.org/](http://semver.org/) ), and 1.127 is not much better than 127.

Versioning can be not just random number to differentiate between two versions, but actually give useful information about changes to users and devs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Still no official WebVR support? Or was it added in a previous version already? I know it was postponed a couple of times..

</comment><comment><USER20> Chromes versioning does not make any sense; do they have 60 breaking changes?

<comment><USER21> Yes. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_version_history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome_version_history)

<comment><USER20> Looking at the changes in 59; doesn't seem any breaking change to me rather than features

It just seems ridiculous to me to have 4 major releases in '17 alone

<comment><USER22> If understand they do it on a schedule. A new major release every 6 weeks. Dev bumps to beta, beta bumps to stable, and the old stable is retired.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cartohost – Managed CartoDB Hosting - <AUTHOR> http://cartohost.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> We have just launched dedicated hosted version of CartoDB which comes with backups and monitoring. CartoDB in case people don't know is an open source geospatial service which runs on top of PostGIS/PostgreSQL. For more info message me via [http://cartohost.com](http://cartohost.com)</comment>


This is why you should work out of a tech hub - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2018/09/03/technology-innovation-hubs-startups-africa/ <comment><USER2> Clicking "technology and innovation hubs" does not work. The `httpa` should be changed to `https`.</comment>


Bad Safari extensions bug with context menus - <AUTHOR> https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/contextmenu.html <comment><AUTHOR> This bug unfortunately still exists in Safari 14, more than 2 months after being reported to Apple.</comment>


New Family Of Antibacterial Agents Uncovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090115190456.htm <comment><USER2> Sadly the journal reference isn't freely available.

My first question with these new discoveries is always how much do you need to use to get a reasonable effect.

Doses as low as 0.2 microM were effective, 90% lethality, against some of the tested microorganisms with 0.9 microM effective against all the gram negative drug resistant microorganisms tested. The results with gram positive were not nearly as good requiring an order of magnitude more active compound.

For comparison I found this paper: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19028617?ordinalpos=2&...](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19028617?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum)

If we take the molecular weight for Cefditoren from wikipedia we get a minimum inhibitory concentration (90) of 0.03 mg/L (which is 0.04 microM) to 1 mg/L (1.61 microM).

This isn't my area of expertise and I'm not sure how comparable LD90 and MIC(90) are but it sounds promising.

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's hope they don't put it in every household product imaginable and exploit it to the point of uselessness, as was done with the previous crop of antibacterial agents.

<comment><USER4> Or feed it to livestock. IIRC the vast majority of antibiotics go into livestock, not humans or household products.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How much (technical) debt does your team owe? - <AUTHOR>

OK so you are working on some awesome new (or existing) application.
But there's no way your team can get it all done of course, so a certain amount of stuff gets skipped and pushed into the technical debt account.
What is your development culture like in regards to technical debt - is accumulating debt encouraged?  Is there a huge amount of technical debt or a minimal amount?
Does the amount of technical debt concern you? <comment><USER2> In general, we try to avoid technical debt and instead take on functional debt, cutting features and falling back to workarounds where they exist.

When dealing with a technical-debt-laden code base, it's important to communicate to the people who set the priorities that changes become more time consuming and buggy as the code continues to be added upon. I did this at my last job and they understood the risks and impacts. They determined that they would give me the time to make changes, but not to refactor. My estimates just got longer and longer and business went on as usual. At least I wasn't held to unrealistic deadlines.

</comment><comment><USER3> My team has accumulated some technical debt. Some of it is refactoring. Some of it can be labeled as bugs. I realized that some bugs are not worth dealing with. Many of them are edge cases or things that are so small that they don't warrant the time in fixing them in a complex system.

We allocate about 10-15% of items in each sprint to technical debt.

I would not say that tech debt is encouraged. And it would concern me if large amounts of technical debt is being accumulated.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm currently working in web agency so speed > anything else.

The amount of technical debt we have shipped dwarfs the GPD of a small country.

</comment><comment><USER5> The project I most recently left: very little technical debt.

The legacy project I've been moved onto: Dave Ramsey couldn't save it.</comment>


THC's Favourite Tips, Tricks and Hacks - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hackerschoice/thc-tips-tricks-hacks-cheat-sheet/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> I was severely disappointed too discover this wasn't a list of weed tips, tricks and hacks...

</comment><comment><USER3> line buffering high latency links (last item)... that used to be so much better known.</comment>


Nintendo Asks Mobile Developers to Curb Microtransactions - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/nintendo-to-smartphone-gamers-dont-spend-too-much-on-us-11551864160 <comment><USER2> I grew up when games were entire games. I very much hope that this whole microtransaction racket will be over by the time my kids are big enough to get their own console (or whatever people game on by then). What a customer- hostile clusterfuck, these people ruined a totally good industry.

<comment><USER3> After a long-ish hiatus I picked up a Wii U two years ago for Mario Kart 8 and BOTW. And then last year grabbed a PS4 for Horizon, God of War, Spider-Man, RDR2, Gravity Rush, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us, Journey, and others.

Basically, there are a _lot_ of high quality single player adventures to be had out there, and if you're patient enough to wait 1-2 years after release, you can a) focus on just the good stuff, avoiding duds, and b) snag complete/goty editions for very inexpensive, which will have all the DLC included. See the the price trajectory for Horizon Zero Dawn, for example:

[https://psprices.com/region-us/game/1838981/horizon-zero- daw...](https://psprices.com/region-us/game/1838981/horizon-zero-dawn- complete-edition)

(And yes, I'm a grown-up with three kids; this is gaming done an hour or two at a time a few evenings a week— gone are the days of pre-ordering a new release and then pouring an entire weekend into it when it comes out.)

<comment><USER4> There's a community devoted to this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers](https://www.reddit.com/r/patientgamers)

I usually wait for most games to go on a Steam sale, unless it's Bethesda or a game that just looks exciting.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, some people there are _really_ patient. You have to find the right balance. For me, I'm patient in the sense that I didn't get my PS4 until late in the generation, and probably won't get the PS5 on launch, but I also have some interest in industry trends and the spectacle of the latest-ish graphics. I also have limited time, so I'm not going to spend a ton of it digging through the game catalogues from last-gen systems (especially if the cream of the crop is available remastered for the current generation).

One interesting note particular to Nintendo is that other than the very limited "Nintendo Selects", their first party games basically never go on special. This means that if you want a deal on an older game, you have to buy second-hand physical, because the digital game is still $60. (Don't believe me? Twilight Princess HD, a 2016 remaster of a 2006 game, still retails for full price: [https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-legend-of-zelda- tw...](https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-legend-of-zelda-twilight- princess-hd-wii-u)) Anyway, the consequence of this is that in general you just want to buy physical regardless for a Nintendo system because the retained-value means you'll have the option to trade it in for much longer than you would any other game.

This is in contrast to the PlayStation store, where there are weekly Steam- like sales with loads of great games always available at the click of a button for sub-$20. So much so that there are entire websites and subreddits that track these things and trade recommendations around, see: [https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4Deals/comments/axn3f7/ubisoft_pu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PS4Deals/comments/axn3f7/ubisoft_publisher_sale_na_psn/)

<comment><USER5> > One interesting note particular to Nintendo is that other than the very > limited "Nintendo Selects", their first party games basically never go on > special. This means that if you want a deal on an older game, you have to > buy second-hand physical, because the digital game is still $60. (Don't > believe me? Twilight Princess HD, a 2016 remaster of a 2006 game, still > retails for full price: [https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-legend- > of-zelda-tw...](https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/the-legend-of-zelda- > tw...))

Actually, this is not particular to Nintendo if you extend it a little bit. Disney does the same thing with their classic animated movies. It's a statement from the company about the quality of their brand.

<comment><USER6> Yes, Nintento has always refused to dilute their brand value/cast doubt on their quality by lowering the pricing. You can see this all the way back in the NES with the "seal of quality," and how rare it was to find games for the system that released without that seal. They legitimately felt like bootleg releases even if they were from Capcom or something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a life-long gamer, I was almost ready to give up on the fun kind of gaming experience I knew as a child, thankfully the Switch came along and it even got my wife back into gaming, who hasn't gamed since N64.

I hate micro transactions with a passion, because I _know_ they exist to keep taking money off of you just to get an enjoyable experience.

The only game I buy micro for is PoGo because my wife enjoys it and it's something we can do together, outdoors, but PoGo doesn't even need you to buy them if you're in a well populated area.

</comment><comment><USER8> Good. They're a plague on fun. This kind of thing is part of the reason I keep buying Nintendo products.

<comment><USER9> I don't have time to grind games anymore, so I simply don't play games that have microtransactions, if a game has good and complete DLCs, that's still okay, but I remember fondly the times where games came complete when you bought them.

Also, they are predatory, so that's other reason for not support them, companies that try to sustain themselves using addicted "whales" deserve to fail as soon as possible.

By the way, the most downvoted comment[0] on reddit history so far is exactly one when a big company (EA) tried to stuff a lot of microtransactions in a big brand name (star wars), fearing the backlash, disney intervened and told EA to remove them.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b...](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWarsBattlefront/comments/7cff0b/seriously_i_paid_80_to_have_vader_locked/dppum98/?st=JH2MUORV&sh=5997c5a5)

<comment><USER10> Interestingly, a lack of time brought me to a different conclusion, and I'm certain this is the reason why "uncreative" and "unfun" microtransaction-heavy mobile games are still popular (the game in question is a mobile game). Note that I'm not defending microtransactions themselves, but the low-immersion simple and grindy mobile games that typically implement a microtransaction monetization model.

Conventional games require a certain commitment of immersion and structured time. But when I have the energy to immerse myself in something and the available structured time, there are certainly more important or interesting things I would rather pursue than a traditional game.

This is where mobile games come in. If I'm in an uncomfortable place when I'm prevented from or unable to do anything interesting, such as in public transport, it is comparatively pleasurable to grind a bit on these games. And there are quite a number of these slivers of time in my everyday routine. Mobile games are typically designed so that they are near-frictionless to hop in and do something without a heavy context switch. They fill an entertainment niche for me, and probably many others, that conventional games cannot provide. Previously, light games like Minesweeper or Solitaire filled this niche, but mobile games are of superior value since they offer a semblance of progression and community. Of course, among microtransaction-heavy games there are those that are more frustrating and exploitative. What I'm primarily playing is the game in question in the article, Dragalia Lost (DL), and I've had a pretty positive experience in the free-to-play and dolphin-friendliness monetization model of the game. Monetary purchases are typically priced out of the range of people who have little discretionary spending, and spending more money gives diminishing returns. It might be troublesome for someone with poor control, but for me I get as much of a kick calculating expected values of their different virtual goods on sale (and end up not buying them anyway) as playing the game itself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a flipside to this. In the last few months I have started playing two new games - Apex Legends and Rainbow 6: Siege. Total cost for those two games is £8.50. They are both supported by microtransactions for cosmetics, leading to no cost for Apex, and a low price for R6 (which is admittedly also a 4 year old game).

As someone who has gone from a significant income to a non-existent one due to founding a company, I quite like that my gaming is subsidised by those who are willing to spend lots of money on cosmetics.

<comment><USER12> Don't you need to pay to unlock characters in Rainbow 6? Not sure that counts as cosmetic. Definitely seems like paywalling game content.

<comment><USER11> Yes, did oversimplify the situation. Both Apex and Rainbow have additional characters that aren't initially unlocked. In both cases, they can be unlocked through a currency earned in game, and you don't have to pay cash.

Apex launched with 6 unlocked and 2 locked. After a couple of weeks of play I almost have 1 more unlocked.

R6 you start with none, but can get the 'original' 20 operators unlocked pretty quickly (~15 hours of play). There are another 40 or so that take much more 'renown' to unlock, and I may spend some cash on some of them if I continue to play the game. There is enough learning at the moment that I feel no need for that.

The result is I think a beneficial incentive. It's not '£50 whether good or bad, 5 hours or 100 hours' classic purchase model, the profits there are a result of marketing as much as game quality. Instead it's 'low or no barrier to entry, and money will only continue to come in if I continue to be engaged with the game'. I may end up spending more money on a game (over time), than I would compared to a purchase price, but that will only be on games that are rewarding me for a decent duration.

To me, this means developers are incentivised to make engaging, interesting games that are worthwhile in the long term!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Somewhat ironic, considering that I just saw their own 3DS Badge Arcade, which costs $1.00 for 5 plays of a highly luck-dependent claw machine game, to win icons that you can decorate the home screen with (and sometimes custom themes.)

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

<comment><USER14> As someone who played a lot of that game I can tell you it was not luck dependent at all. Entirely skill based, there was even a daily practice mode which would net you free plays. If the claw grabbed the piece it wouldn't drop it unless it got to the end. Most boards could easily be done with 5 plays.

Nintendo has kept scummy micro transactions to a minimum for as long as I can remember. Even Pokemon Picross had a maximum spend on micro transactions (after $40, any further premium currency was free)

<comment><USER13> The first and only time I tried it, 3 of my 5 free plays resulted in the claw dropping the better badges after picking them up, before reaching the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://outline.com/Zu4cBe](https://outline.com/Zu4cBe)

</comment><comment><USER16> Also get rid of ads that get kids to click on them as they play...

</comment><comment><USER17> People complained about Mario run costing 10$ for the complete game. Quite frankly, i enjoyed it a lot and feel that 10$ was a good price and there was no grinding or waiting. It was focused on fun. But i think people are just not used to paying for phone games.

</comment><comment><USER18> "Nintendo is not interested in making a large amount of revenue from a single smartphone game," one CyberAgent official said. "If we managed the game alone, we would have made a lot more."

Yes, they would have made more, at the expense of the entire industry.

<comment><USER19> When we see a statement like the one that CyberAgent official made, I can't help but think of the Banality of Evil. We're so focused as a society on economic growth - and surely, these employees have financial targets and objectives they've been given that add to that on a personal level for them - that thinking about the ethical implications of an exploitative business model seems unnecessary, and even foolish. "There's no time for that," one might say, or "that's not under the jurisdiction of my job title."

Well, bad news: it's not under the jurisdiction of _anyone 's_ job title. And not considering it brings us to... well, where we are today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd be much more willing to pay $10 for something that resembles an actual game than get some branded gacha crap that's free to download but really has no gameplay beyond being a slot machine that doesn't put out money. Its hard for a lot of people to fathom that those types of games actually make a lot of money. Even for something like Pokemon Go, which in my opinion is pretty playable without paying money, I have two friends who put over $100 into the game. Microtransactions prey on people who lack self-control, I guess I'm just lucky I'm not predisposed to that kind of thing.

<comment><USER21> Nintendo tried it both ways. FireEmblem Heroes, micro-transaction (gachapon) based, made more money than Super Mario Run ($10, one time only buy).

I'm amazed that they are still very careful with their experimentations, and not switching everything to the free-to-play model. Let's hope they continue this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great to hear. So are they going to start by removing slot machine microtransactions from games like Fire Emblem Heroes?

I would love to see big, AAA studios step forward and be brave enough to say that variable ratio schedule-based microtransactions are morally objectionable, and that - even if they've used them before - they have changed their minds and are no longer willing to normalize the practice in the industry. But then they have to put their money where their mouth is and actually stop using it.

(To note, thanks to the paywall I can't actually read this article. I read another site's summary of it. So if they _are_ removing variable ratio schedule microtransactions from Fire Emblem Heroes and other games that they control, good on them!)

Here's a telling quote from the summary I read:

"Nintendo is not interested in making a large amount of revenue from a single smartphone game," an official at CyberAgent told the Journal. "If we managed the game alone, we would have made a lot more."

THAT speaks to the heart of the conflict that exists in the industry. There are some people who genuinely don't see the use of variable ratio schedules in microtransactions as ethically compromising, and see not using them as "leaving money on the table." It is this attitude that we need to be aware of: not just as consumers, but as creators of products. Software engineers, designers, producers: we need to think carefully about how the products we make can affect people, and how it can harm them. Creating a product cannot just be about maximizing profit. Software Engineers, at the very least, are bound by a duty to think about and attempt to mitigate the harm brought about by their creation. (See IEEE and ACM code of ethics) "If we managed the game alone, we would have made a lot more" makes me glad that they didn't manage the game alone. It implies that no one in that company is asking themselves about their ethical duties as the creator of a system designed to take advantage of common human psychological weaknesses.

When we boil the question of variable ratio schedule microtransactions down to just "did we leave money on the table," we are saying something about what we picture as being our duty to those affected by our products. And it's not a pretty statement, even if it is unintentional. I'm sure that the people who made that statement don't consider themselves to be "bad people," and I won't even go so far as to say that they are "bad people:" but it does make me think of Hannah Arendt and "The Banality of Evil." It's very easy to get so caught up in what you're assigned to do, what your business/organizational/state goals are, that you lose sight of your other ethical duties.

Doing what's right isn't about justifying whatever you can think to create, or even whatever people won't happen to notice or complain about (i.e. what you can get away with). It's about doing an honest evaluation of the ways in which the products you make can hurt people. It's about expressing some level of empathy - thinking seriously and honestly about how you would feel and what would happen to you if you were one of the people that were to fall into harmful cycles that the product encourages. And it's about accepting that - even if you believe that the person falling into it had a "choice," that you were intentionally injecting yourself into and influencing that choice through techniques that we as a species know to be psychologically manipulative. (and indeed, we know they are effective as tools of psychological manipulation because if we didn't, we wouldn't be using them)

<comment><USER22> This is a wonderful post. Video games are my favourite hobby, and I still love them even as I get older. The more knowledge the general public has on the harm of these methodologies, the better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Url changed from [https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/nintendo-mobile- microtr...](https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/nintendo-mobile- microtransactions-1203156557/), which points to this.</comment>


The Facebook Flop - <AUTHOR> http://stratechery.com/2013/the-facebook-flop/

<comment><USER2> There's a lot of post-hoc reasoning here.

<comment><USER3> First link - Apps, People and Jobs to be Done was written April 7: <http://stratechery.com/2013/apps-people-jobs-to-be-done/></comment></comment>


Is it time to shut Twitter down? - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/06/thinking-the-unthinkable-is-it-time-to-shut-twitter-down/ <comment><USER2> A simple approach to that problem is to stop using Twitter. I don't have Twitter account nor a Facebook account, nor I read any news or content originating from these services.

Nobody forces anybody to use these services or rely on them in anyway. The author himself has a Twitter account. So if he really disagree with Twitter content why doesn't he close it? Facebook, Twitter and Google are in the influence business, they sell eyeballs to the highest bidder, that's their product. Every decision they will make is to pursue that goal. If you despise these platforms, then why are you using them?

This article is quite emotional, and quite hypocritical at the same time. Yes people spread bullshit, and no, nobody is forced to pay attention to that in anyway.

<comment><USER3> Well fwiw we do ban gambling in most jurisdictions, and many internet services have adopted the gambling industry's tactics for user addiction. So it's not entirely without precedent I would think.

<comment><USER2> > Well fwiw we do ban gambling in most jurisdictions, and many internet > services have adopted the gambling industry's tactics for user addiction. So > it's not entirely without precedent I would think.

What do you with the government would ban exactly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When terrorists call one another, do we shut down AT&T? After 9/11, do we shut down AA and United? They are the medium not the problem.</comment>


Duplicates appearing in HN top? - <AUTHOR> Hi,<p>I'm noticing duplicates appear on the top list of HN.  I've got a screenshot if people need one but thought I'd post this in case someone who can fix this views 'new' postings. <comment><USER2> Oops, looking into it.

<comment><USER3> As you look into it, it would be pretty cool to know the steps you took.

<comment><USER2> 0\. View frontpage with horror. Remind self not to panic.

1\. Back out latest release, which contained a bunch of low-level changes, and restart the server.

2\. Use the server repl to analyze what's happening. Notice that the problem is duplication in the list of top stories, because its len is 180 and len:dedup of it is 157. Fix the immediate problem with

        (zap dedup ranked-stories*)

Now there are only 157 top stories, but no one will notice.

2\. The list of top stories is kept in order by reinserting things into it when they get upvoted. Hypothesis: this code is not recognizing duplicates.

3\. Here's the operator that does that:

        (def reinsert-sorted (test elt seq)
          (if (no seq)
               (list elt)
              (is elt (car seq))
               (reinsert-sorted test elt (cdr seq))
              (test elt (car seq))
               (cons elt (rem elt seq))
               (cons (car seq) (reinsert-sorted test elt (cdr seq)))))

4\. The expression where it should get rid of duplicates is

        (rem elt seq)

5\. Why is that not working? Because I just stupidly expanded the Arc testify operator to treat tables as tests, like functions. What used to be

        (def testify (x)
          (if (isa x 'fn) x [is _ x]))

had become

        (def testify (x)
          (if (in (type x) 'fn 'table) x [is _ x]))

I thought I'd rarely want to find or remove a particular table from a list. I'd be much more likely to want to use one like a fn. Doh. I forgot all the items in News are tables.

6\. Revert to old definition of testify, test on localhost, commit code, restart server again.

7\. Be really thankful that the problem was not some other much more frightening stuff we changed today, like the definition of atomic.

<comment><USER4> Test suites are your friend.

<comment><USER2> You are my test suite, friend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Best response ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's something pretty weird in the rendering code - given a top and a bottom copy, clicking on the bottom copy votes up the top copy.

<comment><USER6> I think that just has to do with the javascript/DOM - DIV ids are supposed to be unique to a page so the upvote is just affecting the first one it finds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Same here.

<comment><USER8> I have captured the screen. <http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5545/duplicateposts.png></comment></comment>