Xero Raises Another $150M to Do Battle With Intuit in Online Accounting Software - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/13/xero-zeros-in-on-another-150m-to-do-battle-with-intuit-in-the-world-of-online-smb-accounting-software/ <comment><USER2> _Xero's unique selling point is its slick and simple user interface_

This worked for Mint. I am less confident it will work for Xero, even though many startups/small businesses (myself included) want an alternative to Quickbooks.

The article didn't mention this, but one of the most important selling points is not how it looks to SMBs, but whether or not banks and accountants will work with it. I remember reading somewhere that 90% of small business accountants integrate with Quickbook files or Quickbooks Online. Getting accountants to start using a new system will be a tough sell, especially if only a small number of early adopter clients are there to begin with.

While it may be possible to encourage SMBs to switch to Xero-based banks or accountants, that's a large step for some. I use a neighborhood bank for business banking services (augmented by Dwolla) and a local accountant team that is pretty sharp. Switching is not only a PITA, there's also the risk that a new bank and accountant may be lacking in other areas, even if they support Xero.

<comment><USER3> I use Xero.

I showed it to my accountant and we now regularly use it to cooperate on my accounting. I don't have to bring a MYOB file in to her, I just send her an email with a question and she can log in to look at my books.

She's now recommending it to her other clients.

(n=1)

<comment><USER4> I had a similar experience. My accountant had never heard of Xero. I sent her a login and she was quickly using the system without a problem. For me, they've nailed making a system that is easy to use without being an accountant, but powerful enough for an accountant to do their job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was looking at Xero last year and ran into a firm brick wall, from [0]:

"There is a daily limit of 1000 API calls that a provider can make against a particular Xero organisation in a rolling 24 hour period."

That is an absurdly low limit for anything but the simplest of businesses or businesses that aren't actually looking for tight integration, but rather just something to push accounting data to at the end of a day.

[0] [http://developer.xero.com/documentation/getting- started/xero...](http://developer.xero.com/documentation/getting-started/xero- api-limits/)

<comment><USER3> Their market is SMBs. The worst case is that you group your updates into (say) 5 minute batch jobs, using only 288 of the available 1000 API calls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Living in London now I've not really kept up with the start up/entrepreneurial scene in New Zealand (actually it's one of the many reasons why I left New Zealand in the first place but New Zealand's start up prospects are a whole other story). While it is amazing that Rod Drury (Xero's CEO) has built Xero up to a valuation of about 2 billion, it's not a surprise. Rod had a vision right from the start to build a global company that would outmanoeuvre QuickBooks and MYOB with Web 2.0 and from what I know he had the experience (he's a serial entrepreneur) and access to capital to execute.

I've meet him a few times when I lived in Auckland (New Zealand) and approached him for advice when I was fresh out of University. If New Zealand wasn't such a small place getting access would have been impossible but Rod was really approachable and I was lucky enough to meet him over breakfast and get some entrepreneurial advice (this was about 7 years ago).

Some of the most memorable things he said to me at that breakfast was that entrepreneurs are fundamentally unemployable. I inferred from that statement that being an entrepreneur was going to be the only compatible career path for me (at the time I was considering going into investment banking). At the time I didn't heed his advice (well I was an impetuous youth) and I went to work for a discretionary fund manager but with the benefit of hindsight he was quite right. I really didn't like working for others.

The other thing he said was that I was probably too young for entrepreneurial success and that there's a certain element of experience needed for entrepreneurial success. I'm now a bit older and a touch greyer and with the luxury of hindsight I can now understand what he means. Now in my early 30s, my approach to launching my start up is a lot different to what I was doing in my 20s.

<comment><USER7> > Now in my early 30s, my approach to launching my start up is a lot different > to what I was doing in my 20s.

Rod has said to me previously that no entrepreneur should have money before they're 30... which has rung true with me. At least from a NZ perspective, we have to suffer for our art, it takes time to earn your stripes.

<comment><USER6> Okay well guess I feel I have to respond to the "from a NZ perspective, we have to suffer for our art". Yes, we do suffer as entrepreneurs in New Zealand (NZ). But I disagree, I think the suffering is self inflicted. An entrepreneur in NZ is up against structural problems and the cultural issues that make it unduly hard on us. Please permit me to explain.

The structural problems:

IMHO the biggest problem isn't distance to global markets but a lack of capital gains tax on real estate which soaks up capital that could otherwise go to new ventures. When I say that, I'm talking about the 3Fs... friends, fools and family. Please don't get me started on the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund (NZVIF), the Seed Co-investment Fund and Kiwi Saver because these are band-aid solutions to the tax problem. And forget about any solution to it. Any political party/coalition that tries to do away with the no capital gains tax on real estate will be committing Seppuku.

Also NZ suffers from a vicious venture capital (VC) Catch-22. With hardly any angel/VC industry there is no quality deal flow (I'm talking about deals where the VC actually has a chance at x1000 returns) which feedbacks to poor prospects for VCs to raise money for their funds from pension funds (they live and die by their returns). So without astronomical VC returns, pension funds just aren't interested in an allocation of their portfolio to VC because it just won't make a difference to their overall fund return. End result, there is no NZ VC.

The cultural issues:

While entrepreneurial tall poppy syndrome was waning when I left NZ thanks to initiatives like the University of Auckland's Spark competition (I was a finalist one year and an eventual winner the next) there are much bigger cultural issues I think kiwi entrepreneurs face that no one seems to talk about. This would be the shame of failure and low aspiration that pervades kiwi entrepreneurs. The shame of venture failure is something I have personally experienced. It took me my 5th time trying to start a venture (between my teens and my early 20s) before I successfully built a company of 30 people. I then got bought out by a co-founder and I went to University. I'm sure that those 4 other failures taught me lessons (the 5th venture did too) but I just couldn't talk about my other failures to people. I always felt that it just wasn't culturally all right to do so and I've seen it cause problems when trying to raise seed/early stage money in NZ. I've found that people keep this silence and project a "I did it on my first go" fantasy. This becomes a feedback loop and the bottom line is that kiwi investors just don't want to invest in entrepreneurs that have 'failed' before. This isn't the case in other places where your venture failure, and ability to keep picking yourself up, is seen as important and needed experience. The low aspiration/horizon thing is also a big problem... I found that on average most entrepreneurs only aspire for the 3Bs... the beamer (BMW), the batch (holiday home) and the boat. Anything beyond the 3Bs and there's this perception that you're just being greedy. And you know what they say... birds of a feather. I remember pitching something (in NZ) to some some high net worths from Silicon Valley a venture idea and then being asked point blank why I want to do it. I was floored, thinking to myself, "isn't it obvious?" I replied, "I want to get rich." To which they replied, "that's the right answer." "We've been travelling across NZ looking for ventures to invest in and not one entrepreneur said that. They all see their business as a lifestyle vehicle whereas I'm interested in a good return on my risky investment." And while they weren't so interested in the opportunity I pitched them, they have become great mentors to me.

My advice to aspiring kiwi entrepreneurs, don't become an entrepreneur unless you are tough enough to handle it... but if you are, then shed a tear for Aotearoa (the Maori name for NZ) and just leave.

I know saying that will ruffle feathers and won't be right for everyone's situation. However after fighting these structural and cultural issues I let go and embraced that NZ has a location disadvantage for new tech ventures. This decision was hard, and the price I've paid has been high. Leaving my friends and family and starting from nothing in London... no friends, no money just my entrepreneurial dreams, has much harder than I ever imagined.

I am a much stronger person because of it. Also I know right down to my bones that moving here has been the best move for my future entrepreneurial prospects. If it doesn't work out then I'll do it all again and somehow, some way, move to Silicon Valley. It's been hard... and I expect it will get harder since I have a baby on the way, but IMHO you have got to stack as many things in your favour when you're trying to launch a new venture and location is part of the equation.

If the scales are tipped against you then you've got to do what it takes to even out the odds.

Best of luck to all kiwi entrepreneurs, you all have my heart felt condolences.

<comment><USER3> A lot of this rhymes with the Australian situation.

<comment><USER8> We have tall poppy syndrome, but there's also a great deal of Valley envy. There are as many naysayers telling us to keep our day jobs as there are sociopaths telling us to "fail fast and break things", the consequences be damned.

I think there's an appropriate middle ground, and we'll find our footing over the next 5 years or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a public investor, I was wondering why my ticker wasn't ticking last Friday. I'd encourage anyone in AU/NZ to take a look at Xero - we don't have many public tech stocks here, so it'll be interesting to see what happens to this one and its effect on the scene here.

[https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=ASX:XRO](https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=ASX:XRO)

<comment><USER10> As always, I wish I'd bought when it first floated (same with Pipe Networks). Any hints? I'm currently looking at CBA's MyWealth platform to start investing.

<comment><USER9> That's perfectly fine. It's really quite intuitive once you start the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Xero was started by someone involved with MYOB. MYOB's software is a nightmare for SMB's, so they probably started there as small businesses are happy to put their finances in the cloud. Once they grow their businesses out I can imagine Xero will grow with those businesses (ie payroll). Xero seem to be embracing API hooks into other systems too, very smart play as they can potentially include things like payroll etc etc later down the track.

<comment><USER12> We realise we can't build it all. So the API enables Xero to stay flexible, if you really need additional features there will be suitable add-ons. We have Payroll in Australia.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Xero is one of a number of companies that are helping to modernize the backoffice for SMBs. While the article focuses on Xero's UI as a selling point, another key value proposition is their integration with other modern back-office software such as ZenPayroll for payroll and bill.com for billing. These sorts of things are providing a more integrated and seamless back office for businesses and accountants.

</comment><comment><USER14> Their website doesn't seem to mention prices for accountants. If I was a bookkeeper wanting to manage the accounts of say 10 clients, how much would Xero charge me?

<comment><USER12> Accountants & Bookkeepers aren't charged, the model is to charge the end customer (business owner). The accountant or bookkeeper can choose to purchase Xero and then charge their client for it, or just absorb it into their existing pricing.

Through the Xero partner program there are some perks, including software to manage their practice. [http://www.xero.com/au/partners/](http://www.xero.com/au/partners/)

<comment><USER14> Hmm... so Xero will charge me the full end-user price for each business even if my clients have no interest in using Xero?

<comment><USER12> No, only clients that want it. Accountants and bookkeepers can have clients on Xero as well as other platforms. There are incentives to have them all on Xero, but there are no requirements to be 100% Xero.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, I wasn't clear: Let's say that I want to manage my clients' accounts using Xero, but my clients have no interest in using Xero themselves. Does that mean I have to pay around £19 per month per client?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We chose Xero for our UK startup as:

1) It syncs with HSBC bank (we chose HSBC as it syncs with Xero)

2) It syncs with PayPal (we chose PayPal as it syncs with Xero)

3) Our accountants ( [http://ihorizon.co.uk/](http://ihorizon.co.uk/) ) use it heavily

4) It has an API

My goal in choosing an accounting tool is to have visibility and centralisation to ensure that the key people in the company have information instantly about cash flow, assets, the books, etc. And it does all of this really well.

The areas in which Xero is a PITA for anyone considering using it:

A) Expenses.

B) API limits.

C) Payroll

On expenses, the cycle is a long one and unfortunately expenses in Xero are such a mess that our accountants urge us to use an Excel based spreadsheet that we print and complete by hand, and then post to the accountant for processing. Then the accountant summarises the expenses and enters it into Xero. This sucks big time. One of our goals in choosing Xero is to ensure that we can see all of our costs clearly. We want to be able to answer questions like "How much are we spending on air travel?" and if expenses are summarised we lose that insight. Expenses in Xero are non-editable, which makes them very hard to fix when an employee enters in something wrong. We're not talking about fixing the payment amounts as payments would have been made already, but fixing categorisation, VAT (sales tax), etc.

On API limits one of the driving reasons to select Xero was to have the capability for a company dashboard in which revenue, recurring revenue, runway, etc is displayable on the single dashboard along with customer metrics, operations information, etc. We even want to eventually have monetary events in the company books charted "there was this spike of customers due to this Slashdotting, that led to this operations load which in turn did this to the revenue" (or not as is likely the case). The API limits are way too low to be useful, to the point that right now we've not actually built it into the dashboard. The limits are such that developing against the API isn't as trivial as calling it and fetching the numbers, now we'd have to build our own storage and design that schema, etc. It's gone from a quick extension to the dashboard to a more significant piece of work.

On payroll, Xero does not implement any real capability other than recording that payroll has happened. That our accountant still uses Sage ( [http://www.sage.co.uk/sage-50-payroll](http://www.sage.co.uk/sage-50-payroll) ) to calculate payroll and generate payslips and payment instructions shows how useless Xero payroll is. It's not even fit for purpose, they built the first 80% (recording it and issuing payslips, etc) but not the ability to calculate it.

I don't know how the main UK competitor stacks up against Xero, but I've looked at Kashflow ( [http://www.kashflow.com/](http://www.kashflow.com/) ) a few times and would probably try it out in parallel to Xero for a while if they'd complete the picture above and weren't using SOAP for the API.

Xero is a love/hate relationship, it's good but the limitations are awkward and inelegant. It feels half-baked in many ways, parts of Xero are nearly perfect, but other parts look like a first-stab that after 3 years of using it it has become clear that no-one is going to finish.

<comment><USER8> In Australia, there was a company called Paycycle which filled in the payroll gap, which Xero subsequently bought out and incorporated into their Payroll offering for Australian companies.

My theory is that Xero purposely crippled parts of their software so as not to offend or discourage the developer ecosystem. However, they missed the target with things like payroll, which is such a gigantic PITA for everyone and EVERYONE WANTS IT, that they instead responded by creating a solution that tried to appease third-party developers and their users. As you said, that solution ended up half-baked and pointless.

However, I have great faith in Xero. If they buckle down on things features we want, their developer ecosystem be damned, then we might get a truly killer product.

<comment><USER12> The developer eco-system is very important. The lack of payroll didn't eventuate out of a fear of offending the developer community tho. Xero started in NZ without payroll. It was only after expanding to Australia that there was enough demand for payroll. At some stage payroll will be available in all regions.

I'm glad you have faith. Lots of features in the pipeline.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, I signed onto Xero when payroll didn't exist. Payroll is as hard, if not harder than doing payment gateways in different countries - everything's different for each country. But the first incarnation of (Australian) payroll left much to be desired - and I assume that's the payroll that everyone's currently stuck with - so I was elated to hear that you'd bought out Paycycle and were integrating it directly into Xero.

We're going to be integrating internally with Xero in the next couple of months, so hopefully the API call limit doesn't become a pain.

Otherwise, keep up the good work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was trying to find a breakdown of Freshbooks, Xero, and Quickbooks. Found this: [http://accounting- software.findthebest.com/compare/64-157/Xe...](http://accounting- software.findthebest.com/compare/64-157/Xero-vs-Freshbooks)

Anyone have any thoughts on features/prices of these?

<comment><USER17> I don't think Freshbooks really counts...

They do great marketing, and the name being a play on Quickbooks is simply brilliant, but it's not at all an accounting system. No double entry, no general ledger...it's just invoices.

Granted, they are incredibly successful, so are doing something right, but I find it fairly annoying that their marketing positions themselves as a Quickbooks alternative ("cloud accounting") when they are not, IMO.

Perhaps I'm being pedantic.

So, Freshbooks aside, Xero is not Quickbooks, so I think that means it wins. :-)</comment></comment>


BugHerd Progress Report - <AUTHOR>

We had an incredibly positive response to BugHerd from the HN community (totally hadn't anticipated hitting the front page). So seriously, thank you guys for that, your feedback has been invaluable in helping us flesh out prioritise our roadmap.
So I thought you guys deserved an update on what we've been doing since, where we're at and what we have planned.
We have made significant changes to a new user's first experience with BugHerd. We found that because BugHerd works very differently to a conventional bug tracker, a lot of folks ended up not knowing what to do.
We are using the same process when users setup a new project as well and have seen a sharp increase in usage as a result.
We also recently combined our home, about and signup pages into one to reduce the steps required for people to get up and running. We're running some multi-variate testing at the moment to gauge what works best in terms of explaining what BugHerd does.
We're also making improvements to how issues are displayed in the embedded bug list and being able to filter and sort them. Alan is simultaneously working on tweaks to the admin to make things a little bit easier on people that are in a project management role.
We're happy to answer any questions you guys might have, rationale, process, workflow, setup, whatever you guys wanna know about, so fire away :)
To check out the landing page, go here: http://bugherd.com <comment><AUTHOR> Also apologies for the double post, was intended to be a text post, but posted as a link accidentally :(</comment>


A Skype call in Ethiopia will now get you 15 years in prison - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/14/ethiopia-skype-illegal/ <comment><USER2> Releveant speech from the Oslo Freedom Forum by exiled journalist: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pECH8Co_oxE> (also provides some background - 40 000 put in camps during 2005 elections)

Having lived in Ethiopia for almost 10 years, this is has been systematically going on for years. It ofcourse started as a way to keep revenue coming in from long distance phone calls, blocking services like net2phone. I've also been told that the whole country had a 2Mb satellite connection and everything was dialup. Traceroutes left Ethiopia and came back 750ms later in New York, but they now have fiber connections and seem to be connected through Djibouti.

Now they're blocking Tor and snooping on opposition parties (what's left) and bloggers. SMS traffic also can be shutdown whenever they want.

<comment><USER3> I had no idea Djibouti was an independent state. Thank you for teaching me geography.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can say what you like about the Constitution, but my tin foil hat says that the reason you don't have laws like this in North America is because we have the technology and can afford to snoop on Skype, email, and so forth at scale. Ethiopia simply doesn't have the money and/or know-how to monitor VoIP and Email at scale. There's no salient difference in policy between them and us.

If we rewrite the law to say, "Thou shalt not use a communication mechanism we can't monitor," the behaviours of Ethiopia and US/Canada aren't all that different.

<comment><USER5> The Ethiopian decision isn't about monitoring, it's about protecting a monopoly. It's the same sort of thinking that has a certain political party opposing free trade agreements out of a fear that it will bankrupt manufacturers using inefficient processes. It's a classic case of violating Henry Hazlitt's economics lesson: "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."

While this prohibition has the immediate (apparent) consequence of 'saving' the state-controlled telephone industry and ostensibly the jobs of its workers, it has a long run consequence of raising telecom costs for the rest of the country which results in less money available for other investment, resulting in a net-loss for the economy. This will also result in an expansion of the "industry" of catching illegal Skypers and prosecuting and incarcerating same -- thus magnifying the net economic loss. Instead of diverting government and/or private resources into innovation, those resources will instead be consumed by reactionism.

The Ethiopian policy is entirely about protectionism and has nothing to do with communications security.

<comment><USER6> _It's the same sort of thinking that has a certain political party opposing free trade agreements out of a fear that it will bankrupt manufacturers using inefficient processes._

If by 'inefficient processes' you mean 'workers who are paid a living wage', then yes.

As a general rule I support free trade, but I think you're misrepresenting the concerns coming from the left about free trade.

<comment><USER7> As with most things a 'living wage' is context dependent and changes as society changes their ideas of what people need to 'live'.

<comment><USER8> And as other things, substinence wages are not context dependent, and are very common in places which "free trade" proponents tout.

Plus, their arguments which amount to "working in a sweatshop for our cheap shoes is doing them a favor, because otherwise they'd have no jobs at all" I always found as mere justification for the continuation of slavery and colonization in modern terms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This Venture Beat piece is a riff of a TechCrunch article which is a riff off of a Al-Jazeera aggregation...the source article, I assume, is in Arabic: [http://www.addisadmassnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&...](http://www.addisadmassnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2328%3A2012-05-26-13-33-26&catid=1%3Alatest- news&Itemid=513)

Here is a blogger (a lecturer at Arba Minch University) who the Al-Jazeera aggregation links to; he has some interesting insights on what it means for the average Ethiopian:

[https://endalk.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/the-new-ethiopian- te...](https://endalk.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/the-new-ethiopian-telecom- service-infringements-law-is-it-the-most-creative-way-copying-sopa-and-pipa/)

<comment><USER10> It is in Amharic language written in Ge'ez script known as Fidel. Since you don't have the font installed, you weren't able to see it.

For those who are not familiar with the alphabet, it looks like this: <http://www.amharicmachine.com/alphabet.gif>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Something similar, to a lesser extreme, exists in Egypt. I believe this isn't an issue of security but an issue with the profits telecoms make on international calls. Telecom Egypt is sustaining significant losses due to VOIP and I assume it must be the same with Ethio Telco.

<comment><USER12> Yep that is why in third world coutries the PTT minister is a highly desireable job - lots of opertunities for diverting cash to ones swiss bank account.

<comment><USER13> Thank God it only happens in third world countries! We sure know better than these savages

<comment><USER14> Cleptocracies exist. Systematic diversion of state and aid resources to personal accounts is a real and persistent problem in many parts of the world. To not acknowledge that out of fear of appearing neo-colonialist is, I think, misguided.

Certainly North America and Europe (I assume that's what you meant by "we") have corruption issues, especially with deferred bribes in the form of industry appointments, and contract money flowing to well-connected companies. But that's decidedly different than seeing large percentages of tax revenue ending up as personal property, or state industries like telecoms being awarded as personal fiefdoms to cronies, who then use revenues like a piggy bank.

"Political correctness" is not a dirty word in my vocabulary -- I usually see it as sensitivity or tact -- but censoring our appraisal of corrupt governments because there are elements of corruption in the west, out of fear we'll be accused of hypocrisy or colonialism, is not helpful.

<comment><USER12> well shall we say south of the border there was lots of Qustionable conduct "Hem Hem" - though Argentina expropraiting Telefonicas assets gave me a good laugh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The sentence " The new legislation empowers the state-owned telecom to prohibit the use not only of VoIP services, but also of video chatting, social media, e-mail, and any other data transfer service capable of communicating information. So that encompass pretty much all communication except for speaking aloud and talking within your own mind." scares the shit out of me...

</comment><comment><USER16> The sad part is that they're crippling innovation and thus, in the long run, crippling their and all their people's economic prospect. The digital industry is a lot like the invention of the steam machine. Ethiopia will feel, in several years to come, what it would have been like for an early European country, to back out of the industrial revolution. Once again, politicians are trading the long term for short term monetary gains. (by gains I mean probably the ability to snoop on citicens and to make more money).

</comment><comment><USER17> We deploy many research projects in Ethiopia, and the situation has always been murky. For example, it has been long outlawed to provide calling services for others over VOIP. So, if you run an internet café, and provide a calling service charging people, you faced jail. Private use of internet has been mostly unmonitored so far---but far too many people are now using their home internet for calling other people it appears. Given its very big diaspora population, communication is a very lucrative business in Ethiopia, and the government has made it clear in the past that the monopoly is going to continue this way because "it is one of the major sources of funds for development". This sounds like the next step in that approach.

</comment><comment><USER18> The only reason they get away with this is that it makes no difference to the day to day lives of the average Ethiopean. It's a bit like us in the west having legislation passed that says you are not allowed to go over Mach 2 in your private jet. I wouldn't expend energy fighting that, but take away my comms rights, and I'll burn your mansions to ashes.

<comment><USER19> Not digging the analogy. The Arab Spring reinforced the role of free communication in the process of overturning tyrannical regimes. All analogies are broken at some level, but the discord in relevance here is too much.

It may not be the case for the people of Ethiopia today, but mobile phones have proven to be a powerful disrupter in similar countries. Skype acts as a conceptual anchor for the reader in the article, but the law is not limited to Skype.

You can't downplay this legislation. It is an assault on the very foundation of freedom. Make no mistake about it.

<comment><USER18> I agree that this is a very serious assault. My intention was not to downplay this legislation but to point out how it passed so easily in a population of 85 million. Their priorities are fending off starvation. i.e. they are being kicked while they are down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was a time when U.S. Americans would have condemned any attempt by the government to inject itself into their lives. However, that time has long since passed, and with very little effect on the way most Americans live their lives.

Though the government is surely monitoring internet communications, at least people aren't being disappeared. I'd like to see an amendment to the constitution that protects the citizens' right to privacy for all forms of electronic communications and personal digital storage. I think your online identity should fall under the same right of non-self-discrimination that spouses and accused persons have.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just saw this on the comments on VB:

"Can't imagine why they are one of the poorest countries on earth."

Agreed !

I would add this relevant idea by Matt Ridley from The Rational optimist (<http://amzn.to/KvuK4S>) :-

As long as human exchange and specialization are allowed to thrive somewhere, then culture evolves whether leaders help it or hinder it, and the result is that prosperity spreads,technology progresses, poverty declines, disease retreats, fertility falls, happiness increases, freedom grows, knowledge flourishes and the environment improves.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a lot more serious that just Skype calls... they also make using email and any form of non-State-owned communication illegal, too.

Amazing to think somebody making an unsnooped call would get longer in prison than some murderers!

<comment><USER23> It's like copyright infringement against billionaire corporations in The West ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If this sort of trend continues unabated (see also UK "snooper's charter" etc), VPN companies will soon make more money than Apple.

(unless VPN software is also covered by this legislation, which the article doesn't say).

<comment><USER25> I have to think that VPNs will be targeted soon enough, along with any other solution that obfuscates/encrypts/etc the details of your Internet traffic. We've already seen China's firewall being tweaked to counter such measures. In the West, we'll probably see the usual suspects, like the UK, cracking down first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Technology and information is on the verge of bringing disruptively empowering change to people and societies everywhere. Politicians have lately realized how dangerous that can be to their entrenched positions in power. Even places like India, America and many other supposedly democratic countries are now clamping down hard on the Internet using various excuses. All of this is disheartening to say the least. China seems to be the role model for where we are headed.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra That's why state monopolies are bad. It's not state that owns the monopoly, it's the other way around.

<comment><USER27> Dictators and corrupt governments are bad.

State monopolies can be bad.

IMHO.

<comment><USER28> May I be so bold to throw in the theory that states are bad?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> sounds like they're taking all measures so their people can't organize an uprising and overthrow the government.

</comment><comment><USER30> amateurs. you know you can just "ask" skype to let you in on all your subjects' conversations and they'll do it?

<comment><USER31> No,I didn't know that. Can you give chapter and verse?

<comment><USER30> here's one [http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2010/02/the-skype- conspiracy...](http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2010/02/the-skype-conspiracy- and-american-intelligence/) \- not hard to find

<comment><USER32> Just curious, but are you actually using a conspiracy theory site as evidence of "not hard to find"? My favorite part of the article was perhaps this line:

"The evidence comes from events that revealed the NSA's true motives from 2005 through 2009."

It sure is a shame that the author forgot to link to such evidence and actually present it; someone should notify the webmaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I cant help thinking that while there are so many issues like this in the EU and US, having a pop at Ethiopia is a bit ridiculous. If _we_ cant get privacy and freedom sussed out, why on Earth should Ethiopia be held up as some sort of evil?

<comment><USER34> Can't both Western laws and Ethiopian laws be bad? Why is it a must that the West fix their laws before Ethiopia consider fixing theirs? Isn't Hacker News for everyone, not just western readers?</comment></comment>


Strong candidate for worst graph of the year - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/technology/interactive/tech_ipos/?source=cnn_bin

<comment><USER2> Hmm.. I don't know, I immediately grabbed the triangle scrubber and started moving it to the right and it very quickly clicked for me what was happening, and why the bubbles were growing or shrinking.</comment>


The Coyotos Secure Operating System - <AUTHOR> http://www.coyotos.org/

<comment><USER2> Coyotos isn't that interesting, but anyone who's interested in security or OSes should read the EROS papers; there are some mind-blowing ideas in there.

</comment><comment><USER3> umm.... this project has been dead for so long.... this was a candidate a LONG TIME ago for the gnu operating system... you can read (if you really want to) about the hurd and how this was the main candidate until development stopped...

<comment><USER4> ... and it won't be revived:

[http://www.coyotos.org/pipermail/bitc- dev/2009-April/001784....](http://www.coyotos.org/pipermail/bitc- dev/2009-April/001784.html)

[http://www.coyotos.org/pipermail/coyotos- dev/2009-April/0018...](http://www.coyotos.org/pipermail/coyotos- dev/2009-April/001867.html)</comment></comment>


John Goodenough, 93-year-old physicist regarded as father of lithium ion battery - <AUTHOR> http://fusion.net/story/211064/john-goodenough-electric-cars-lithium-batteries/? <comment><USER2> 24 years isn't that long compared to what the The Nobel Committee for Physics usually waits for to make sure there are no controversies about who did what...

(I've heard they also do try to keep track of the health of expected recipients when they are old...)

</comment><comment><USER3> That's a _terrible_ title [1]. Generally, titles of the form "<name>, <age> <why the person is important>" are for stories about someone who has just died.

The title at the site is "The invisible device that powers everything you do". That's not very good either, but at least doesn't make it sound like he just died.

[1] current title is "John Goodenough, 93-year-old physicist regarded as father of lithium ion battery".

<comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, the title was changed on HN after I submitted it (using the title at the original site).

I resubmitted at the recommendation of HN. Might've been a change made at some point then?</comment></comment>


The Journalist-Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@matthew_daniels/the-journalist-engineer-c9c1a72b993f#.3rj6iwvgw <comment><USER2> What I find a bit jarring is the lack of journalistic intent in the verification of data. I know that all data visualisations start at the source - the data.

The data comes from somewhere, and I'd really like to see data-engineer- journalists be a bit more skeptical about where that data comes from and how it was collected / sampled / modified before going into visualisations.

I think that's the one part of the journalist's toolkit that hasn't made its way into the coding side yet - the ability to step back and say do we trust this data? How do we verify? Can we talk to the people who collected this? If it's collected by a government agency, under who's funding was this done? How do we fact check a graph that composes of an aggregate of population statistics, for example?

In old school narrative journalism, someone (usually an intern) calls up all the sources, looks into the government departments who gives the stats, tries to find third parties from universities or other non-related parties to cross reference ideas, statements, facts. How do we do that in a data driven world?

It's a good angle and someone ought look into it. Potential for more data- driven stories.

<comment><USER3> Author of the Medium post here...

This point comes up a lot...there's a tension in making the data say something interesting that will get traffic/spread, which might undermine the rigor that goes into real data-analysis/data science/academic work.

IMO, as long as we disclose the source and preface the biases/problems, I'm ok with data that isn't perfect (after all, there's no such thing as a perfect data set).

The lyrical analysis that I did for rappers would _never_ work in academia...the data set wasn't strong enough. But, it was good enough for the Internet as a side-project, and I think that most readers understood the integrity issues with the data (which I also highlighted in the narrative).

But yea, really good points about journalistic standards for coders who write journalism-esque content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's pretty incredible the impact Mike Bostock has had on journalism. Just five years ago print media was dying and traditional publications were in a panic, but once they embraced the web they've created articles more engaging and interactive than ever before.

<comment><USER3> Author of the article here – totally agree. D3 has totally changed the game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is basically an ad for the author's service. It also has several grandiose statements that do not stand the test of scrutiny.

<comment><USER6> It was well mixed in with references and analysis of some pretty amazing visualizations though. I agree it could have been more grounded, but I still found it a pretty great article. Which statements do you view as too grandiose?

<comment><USER3> author here...I don't have any services. what's so ad-driven about it? It was meant to be a statement about why I'm so passionate about the space right now :)

<comment><USER6> Cool! Out of curiosity, have you come up with ways to monetize this long term? I ask this because I hope there is a way to support and still see this type of content for years to come.

<comment><USER3> No monetization plan. I'm burning through savings :)

<comment><USER6> I admire that kind of passion for doing something. Not sure burning through savings belongs next to a smiley though :p

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a developer in a newsroom who had no intention of ending up here, it is amazing to see the transition in my industry and just how many companies are eager to hire developers who understand journalism or at least are willing to partner with reporters and editors.

I can't say it's what I expected to be doing but news organizations are in a period of massive change and it's an interesting space to be in.

<comment><USER6> Have you worked on visualizations such as those in the article, or do you have a different position? I am very interested in this industry, but I haven't met anyone with experience there yet.

<comment><USER8> We did, but on a much smaller scale: [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/erotic-fan-fiction- value...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/erotic-fan-fiction- value_561294efe4b0768127029355)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syrian-refugees- technolo...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syrian-refugees- technology_560c13e2e4b07681270024d9)

Useful to tell better stories and retain readers, these widgets are also a great engagement boost. :-)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I can definitely see how these widgets and visualizations make an article significantly more engaging. I am hoping to learn more so I can have some visualizations to present of data for my startup. Since we are improving people's productivity, it would provide significant value to better engage users in their data.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> author here, if anyone has q's

<comment><USER9> Have you open sourced any tools or written up your process? I looked at your Trello board and none of the cards (from a random sample) had any detail beyond the title or status...

<comment><USER3> Yea I didn't think anyone would read this Medium post and was lazy about the Trello board. Filling it out now :)</comment></comment></comment>


Where Does Moral Courage Come From? - <AUTHOR> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/where-does-moral-courage-come-from/ <comment><USER2> Cast-ism is rampant in India (my home). It's largely inertia and upbringing that keeps it flowing through the stream of time -- this interia is a billion strong. These recent years have seen higher levels of (visible) activism, with many "superstar" celebrities participating in on these causes.

If I had to guess how bad caste-ism is for an american audience -- it's appx equal to 40s-50s racism in the US. I hold hope that the internet-in-the-pocket revolution taking place here with truckloads of Android phones will hasten the dawn of a more tolerant, rational milieu.

Slightly tangential -- I've recently read Cialdini's "Influence: Science and Practice", and articles like these bring the ideas expressed in the book into foreground.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an extraordinary short article because it tells you (through the personal example of the recent Nobel Peace prize winner) that there is always something burning inside us that never goes away. Maybe, it gets tempered so as not to 'brand' unwilling participants but it is always there. Thanks for posting this.</comment>


Why Bernie Sanders should have kept talking about the Nordics - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenation.com/article/after-i-lived-in-norway-america-felt-backward-heres-why/ <comment><USER2> Very little concrete data about Scandinavia... A book packed with numbers and references which paints quite a different picture: [http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files...](http://www.iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/Sanandajinima- interactive.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> The author seems to have predicted an attack from liberalist Brits. However, what the article describes is real and the Nordics run circles around most countries when it comes to work/life balance and gender equality. In sum quality of life for the wast majority is way higher than the average Brit or American. But I guess you are in the top 5% and care less about the 95%?

<comment><USER2> You are presuming quite a lot from my short post :) And you've clearly didn't read that book if you think author claims quality of life in Scandinavia is low :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have skimmed the book and it presents a skewed picture and is selective about its 'facts'. And some of it is about how the economies are not 'sufficiently' libertarian, which is part of the point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Just Write Code: Improving Developer Experience for Cloudflare Workers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cloudflare.com/just-write-code-improving-developer-experience-for-cloudflare-workers/ <comment><USER2> _And yet, with many serverless offerings today, the first thing they do is the thing that they promised you they wouldn't_

A bit disingenuous , of all the cloud vendors, cloudflare is the least "serverless"; where's the serverless DB? the KV thing doesn't count.

<comment><USER3> You shouldn't underestimate the possibilities you can accomplish with a KV store. As an example the likes of Azure Storage Tables, AWS Dynamo, Cassandra, Couch and lots of others aren't much more than a distributed KV store and have a lot of people scaling huge with them.

Now, you don't get everything an RDBMS might give you, but there are always trade offs. You can always use another cloud provider's DBaaS with Cloudflare's workers.

Depending on your needs, the URL and KV is a good options for predictable records.</comment></comment>


The end of the Arab world's oil age is nigh - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2020/07/18/the-end-of-the-arab-worlds-oil-age-is-nigh <comment><USER2> _THE Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil._

Sheikh Zaki Yamani, a Saudi Arabian who served as his country's oil minister five decades ago, quoted by the Economist in 2003 ("The End of the Oil Age").

[0] [https://www.economist.com/leaders/2003/10/23/the-end-of- the-...](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2003/10/23/the-end-of-the-oil-age)

<comment><USER3> Yes, 17 years ago..

> Hydrogen fuel cells and other ways of storing and distributing energy are no > longer a distant dream but a foreseeable reality.

And that was said at least 20 years earlier still.

I really hope we'll reach the end of the Oil Age, but as one gets older it becomes hard not to be sceptical of these claims. Seeing is believing.. more evidence.

In this thread so far only one comment mentioned geo-politics surrounding oil - a building block of global power - that needs to be dealt with. Hampering the transition to clean energy.

<comment><USER4> _I really hope we 'll reach the end of the Oil Age, but as one gets older it becomes hard not to be sceptical of these claims. Seeing is believing.. more evidence._

Tesla keeps outperforming other car makers, even in a difficult environment: [https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/tech/tesla- sales/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/02/tech/tesla-sales/index.html).

VW's electrics are about to hit: [https://electrek.co/2020/07/13/volkswagen- vw-id-3-electric-c...](https://electrek.co/2020/07/13/volkswagen-vw- id-3-electric-car-july-20/).

Electric semis are moving towards production, by Tesla, Daimler, and others.

Even electric bikes and scooters are still seeing massive sales growth. If you've not tried you, you should.

The change is happening. Long-haul plane flights will remain on fossil fuels for the foreseeable future but the rest of the world is changing, fast.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand why companies like Toyota and Honda and Hyundai haven't moved on electric. Ford and GM I understand, I don't expect them to do anything anymore, but 10 years ago I thought the Japanese and/or Korean companies would be shipping multiple electric models by now.

Tesla, with so little marketshare and so many fewer dollars in revenue, seems to have made incredible progress.

<comment><USER6> I don't think there are batteries that meet Toyota's durability standards.

Toyota wants their cars to be able to last a million miles in extreme environments (-40 degrees Alaska, +120 degrees F deserts). You can't do that with today's off-the-shelf battery technology.

<comment><USER7> Gas cars can't go a million miles on one engine, either, and need endless maintenance. EVs already get past a few 100k miles with much less work. EVs will be first to 10^6 miles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >But don't be fooled. The world's economies are moving away from fossil fuels.

There is absolutely no evidence for this, and much to the contrary. Global CO2 production, which is a good proxy for overall fossil fuel use as steadily risen [0]. This comparison is limited only in that it fails to show that switching from coal to LNG does decrease emissions while doing nothing to change reliance on fossil fuels.

The dip in emissions and oil production that happen with the pandemic demonstrate very clearly that emissions and fossil fuel consumption are directly tied to our economic activity. Since our goal is to resume to "normal" as soon as possible global fossil fuel consumption will get back to "normal" as soon as our economies do (now what plays out there is an interesting question).

Bizarre that the Economist can make an assertion like that and people swallow it without question.

[0]. [https://www.iea.org/articles/global-co2-emissions- in-2019](https://www.iea.org/articles/global-co2-emissions-in-2019)

<comment><USER9> US fossil fuel consumption has been dropping for a while, with per person emissions peaked in the 70's. Population growth offset that, but total US CO2 emissions peaked in 2007. [https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united- states/carb...](https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united- states/carbon-co2-emissions)

Globally population and economic growth has hidden the trends, but kg per PPP $ of GDP shows very steady improvements. [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD)

This goes beyond simple efficiency gains, fossil fuels are inherently limited in what they can provide and we are moving past them.

<comment><USER10> The planet doesn't really care about the _per person_ data, nor is it reassuring since human populations continue to explode, and the fastest growing CO2 emitters are in the countries with the fastest growing populations.

Per unit of GDP _also_ should not reassure anyone since GDP is constantly growing even faster than CO2-pruduction-per-unit-of-GDP is dropping (according to the data you linked). Additionally, regional improvements in these metrics (prominently showcased for the US and EU) are driven by the fact that manufacturing has been relocated from the first world to developing countries - not because manufacturing is becoming significantly cleaner. In fact, the higher sulfuric acid levels in the Pacific are a direct consequence unfiltered coal burning in China - so we've actually made things worse by moving manufacturing to countries with poor environmental standards.

Net total CO2 emissions are all that matter. Moreover, even ZERO growth of CO2 is insufficient to stop increasing temperatures since CO2 accumulates.

The alternative to aggressive absolute level CO2 caps (something many countries openly refuse to agree to) some are quietly pursuing _planning for failure_. Planning for human migrations, sea level changes, and local precipitation changes, are things those with means are doing. ...and the more people with wealth and/or power begin to plan for failure, the fewer will work on preventing catastrophe. What emerges is an unfortunate game-theory dilemma without a solution where parties actually produce _more_ CO2 in order to prepare for higher CO2-driven global temperatures, and the regional challenges they bring.

<comment><USER11> There are things that families in the US can do to sequester CO2. They require changes to landscaping practices, but they do not require changes in laws or policies. They don't require collective action. They are small solutions that together, add up to a lot. Those same practices can also prepare families for some of these catastrophes. These practices are found in permaculture design.

You don't hear much from permaculturists because they don't need to act at a state or national level to affect changes in the local area. They are the ones quietly practicing permaculture principles in the backyard, in apartments, and some figured out how to include the homeless.

I see these extreme weathers and environmental threats to human civilizations as part of self-healing mechanism of the planet. If human civilization collapses, then the source of the protuberance disappears, and the planet can get back to restoring the ecology. The planet doesn't _need_ us humans to save it. That's a sort of arrogance that blinds us to the truth: we need to save our place in the ecology, and that is going to require giving up some of the conveniences we take for granted. It means becoming a part of the ecology rather than somehow pretending that we are apart from the ecology. It means caring for the earth, caring for the people, and taking no more than our fair share. It means decentralizing our food system, and finding ways to decentralize the remaining basic survival needs (water, shelter, warmth, clothing).

It means reframing what "wealth" means to us. Rather than "wealth" being the result of extracting resources and controlling access to it, it would better serve us to see "wealth" as being stewards of regenerative processes.

<comment><USER12> Sounds great, but you can't convince half the population of the US to just wear a piece of cloth over their faces and you think it's possible to convince the entire population of the world to radically change their way of life?

<comment><USER11> I'm not looking to convince people. I am implementing this right now in my household. I'm trying to find ways to reach family and neighbors. The low hanging fruit are people who already have an inkling for this stuff.

Writing on here helps me clarify my thoughts, and I get a lot of good feedback from it. But again: I came to the conclusion, I don't need to save the whole world. I just need to focus on what is within my circle of influence... and there is quite a bit I can do even if it does not cover the whole population. I do what I can with CO2 sequestering, food resiliency, regenerative and restorative agriculture. I'm taking steps towards a future where many people do this ... but I will also have a much greater chance of surviving if there is a collapse of civilization because people are not doing these things.

The question for _you_ though, is if _you_ are willing to change your way of life. I'm ok if you decide that you are, or if you decide you are not. If you do decide you are, there are a lot of resources out there to help you get started. And if you are not, then at least you now know what your options are. You're welcomed to try later if you ever change your mind. Or not. That's the beauty of this kind of permissionless, decentralized solutions. There are things you yourself can do, and you don't need to wait for half of the US population to do it with you. It really is in your hands and your choice, your freedom to pursue this or reject it. Or come up with something better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Saudi Arabia missed a huge opportunity in the 2010s. They could be one of the biggest solar players in the world, they are equatorial with a ton of cloudless desert land for utility scale. They waffled on their impulsive solar plans and they are years behind where smart policy could've put them.

Step back and just imagine: they are burning oil for electricity in one of the best solar markets possible. Burning oil for electricity is like using whale oil for lamps, it's harming your own society and planet due to myopic decision making.

<comment><USER14> Have you ever been there? Solar panels would be extremely useless because of the sand building up everywhere.

I mean, literally, people never open up their windows, because of the extreme amounts of sand in the air.

<comment><USER15> That's solvable though, there are setups for cleaning solar panels with robots on rails it'd be pretty easy to have a similar setup just dust off panels every few hours.

<comment><USER16> >robots on rails

That's a pretty fancy way to say motorized brushes on a timer.

<comment><USER17> Yep, but that's how you get press and get funded. I'm not being cynical or joking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does this mean Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations will go bankrupt after their state sponsored funding dries up?

I don't mean this in an inflammatory way.

All I can see from this is more instability in the Middle-East which means more bad news in the years to come...

Perhaps Turkey will take up a bigger role in the future for policing the Middle East as they have a more diversified economy?

<comment><USER19> Yeah I agree with your conclusion. Instability in the present is due to western interest maintaining their dictatorships. Instability in the future will be as the western policies shift and they cut and run for whatever reasons. I'd like to think that will come when we realize the immorality of our policies but it will probably just be when our interests shift.

Maybe that's why Israel is ramping up their annexations and colonization of the West Bank. If the west loses interest in the Middle East they may lose interest in maintaining Israeli geo-political supremacy.

<comment><USER20> >Maybe that's why Israel is ramping up their annexations and colonization of the West Bank.

This is probably because they don't expect Trump to be reelected. Now is their chance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > So the end of this era need not be disastrous if it prompts reforms that > create more dynamic economies and representative governments.

There is no scenario where it won't be disastrous.

The most important number in the Middle East is barrels of oil (produced) per capita. That figure has been falling for decades and is reaching critical low levels (as represented by their budget situations).

What the Middle East producers have to try to do economically, is like trying to replace the landing gear on a 747 while you're hurtling down the runway. They don't just have to plot for replacing oil vs their economy today (a nearly impossible task), they have to do it and come up with enough economy to manage another 100% increase in population in the next few decades. Realistically it's impossible, it will end in catastrophe; the conflicts (including civil) will be far larger, matching the size of the population increases. As the regimes melt under the pressure, wars will spiral out from it. Neither the House of Saud nor the Iranian theocracy will survive it intact.

Here is the population expansion for some prominent OPEC members since 1970:

Saudi Arabia: 5.8m -> 34m (486%)

(Saudi's oil production hasn't gone up much in 40 years, and their population has increased by 250% in that time; a lot more mouths to feed, dramatically fewer barrels per capita)

Iraq: 10m -> 40m (300%)

Iran: 28m -> 84m (200%)

Egypt: 34m -> 100m (194%)

Oman: 700k -> 5m (614%)

Kuwait: 750k -> 4m (433%)

Libya: 2m -> 6.6m (230%)

Sudan: 10m -> 42m (320%)

Algeria: 14m -> 44m (214%)

</comment><comment><USER22> It's not all bad. If your economy depends on simply taking money right out of the ground, the government will make sure that's done, but with zero accountability.

An economy with more diverse interests will also be one where no interest has total power and will need to explain itself.

Edit: yes, the transition is gonna be painful.

<comment><USER23> Historically the main problem with state control of oil hasn't so much been "a lack of accountability" as "The united states government and client states aggressively destabilize your country in order to facilitate access for private oil companies"

<comment><USER24> No, it has more to do with the fact that an authoritarian state can fund itself with oil. Elite politicians and oil companies employees live a modern westernized lifestyle but the rest of the population remains in deep poverty. Those politicians aren't lacking anything but since the oil trade is deeply connected with the government anything that doesn't involve oil will weaken the government's influence over the country. It is much easier to stay in power by oppressing your population.

There is also the opposite scenario. You have an economic sector that is so incredibly lucrative that you can just bribe your way to popularity by creating a welfare state. Anything that pushes the focus away from the main sector would also involve losing the welfare benefits even though it is better in the long run.

Here comes a terrible analogy. Oil is like an economic painkiller. The pain is gone but you are still injured.

<comment><USER25> Not so bad an analogy... Venezuela is suffering just so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A couple points to keep in mind, that make this a bit overblown:

(1) While COVID is a negative demand shock, but is likely rather temporary

(2) Non-COVID oil demand is declining, but is more of a melting glacier. Infrastructure-level energy operates on looooooong cycles due to immense cost. COVID doesn't change that.

(3) The recent misfortune of the fracking industry is likely less temporary. Demand is more likely to recover short term than supply.

2030 has perhaps become 2020, as the article suggests, but that doesn't mean 2022 will be what we thought 2032 will be. We can't just pretend we're all the sudden up the maturity curve with renewables just because demand dropped for a few months.

<comment><USER27> Many companies switching to work from home will definitely have an impact on gas usage: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-15/new- work-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-15/new-work-from- home-culture-will-cut-billions-of-miles-of-driving)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > No Arab oil producer, save tiny Qatar, can balance its books at the current > price, around $40 (see chart).

This is pretty much an open secret for anyone following the price of oil, but how can Aramco still brag about producing for less than $10 [1] a barrel while the kingdom is openly hurting from the current prices ?

[1] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2020/03/16/oi...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2020/03/16/oil- prices-fall-further-as-virus-kills-demand-ahead-of-saudi-flood/)

<comment><USER29> The cost of production and the price level required to balance the government's budget are two different things.

<comment><USER30> Correct, to further explain the difference. The budget is drawn with a certain assumption of the price of oil, which nets them an expected profit per barrel with which they can balance income and expenses. If the price of oil is lower than that they may still make a profit per barrel but the budget is not balanced anymore and they will run deficits.

<comment><USER10> This is why higher oil prices seem to correlate with military adventures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The Arab world failed to use the opportunity. They could have invested more in education and built in home research labs, etc. Instead they used the money to build more taller buildings and imported the tech while the culture never changed.

</comment><comment> ur-whale [http://archive.is/FMaId](http://archive.is/FMaId)

</comment><comment><USER32> Any article about oil profits declining should really make to to mention Russia because if their economy starts to tank from loss of too much income from this trade it could lead to more adventurism by their leadership.

<comment><USER10> I wonder who they'd invade next... Armenia? The rest of Ukraine? Turkey?

<comment><USER33> Whatever they (Vlad) are going to do, they have a closing window to do it in.

Russia's population is expected to fall to ~130 million by 2050 [0]. The dual upcoming hits of reduced fuel purchasing and climate change are not going to affect Russia well. Their petrorubles are not likely to maintain a punch in a solar/wind/etc world. And as the temperate zones move towards the poles, with the grain belts tagging along, all of Russia's neighbors are likely to look at that unmanned land in a more hungry way. Their southernly neighbors of India and China are still growing in population to ~3B combined in 2050, let alone all the other countries. Whatever balance there is now will change with a hungrier and hotter populace.

In some ways, these issues with Donny and Boris are amazing feats of engineering. But they are only delaying the inevitable. Whatever they (Vlad) are planning on doing, I don't see how they get out of this hole. Sure, they bought time and space to move, but that time is limited. The next election in the US is likely to reveal more of their (Vlad's) hand.

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

<comment><USER10> On one hand, you're saying their land is going to be more valuable - and then on the other you're saying their land is going to suffer under climate change.

Your analysis seems very politically motivated, rather than objectively looking at probable outcomes.

If anything, more fertile land will drive immigration, not invasion, and help solve their demographic problems.

<comment><USER33> My apologies for being unclear.

No, the land may become more valuable as the grain belts and people migrate poleward. Land to the south will become less valuable and hotter. The southern neighbors are gaining greatly in population, while Russia is loosing population.

The current Russian actions (Vlad's) do not seem to indicate welcoming immigrants or other diverse people (Chechnya, hyper complicated, yes, but still). Russia does have a long history of multi-ethnic tension and release though. I'd hope that they (Vlad) welcome the climate refugees, but such integration is likely to be very difficult, as is usual.

A 'Roman' approach may be good to alleviate the strife, where in the pre- Gothic invasions, the Roman M.O. was to take the younger immigrant men into the legions, separate the clans/tribes across the empire to tie allegiance to their neighbors and Rome, and then in about three generations the grandchildren would run the empire. Unfortunately for Russia, that takes ~60-80 years, so about 2080-2100, well past the issues of 2050.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> >But don't be fooled. The world's economies are moving away from fossil fuels.

To what?!? If your geography does not allow for large scale hydro or geothermal development, then your only alternative is Nuclear or Fossil Fuels. Solar and wind need base load provided by Fossil Fuels to be remotely viable and clearly are not capable of replacing fossil fuels.

<comment><USER35> Solar and wind and storage can supply 100% of the grid more cheaply than a CO2-free solution also using newly constructed nuclear. Many nuclear advocates still don't understand this new reality.

<comment><USER36> The problem is, currently there is not enough economic activity spent on storage (or any CO2-neutral thing really). You probably know the numbers. To switch off CO2 emissions we would need to build CO2-free power plants about 10 per day for 10 years.

Total US electricity generated by nuclear power plants was about 807 TWh (~92GW), but just in 2010 the world used 41 354 TWh generated by coal. That's a factor of 50. The US has about 95 commercial plants. So to replace just coal we'd need about 4750 new power stations.

Basically at this point everything that's not fossil based is great. Build all of them. More wind, solar, storage, nuclear, geo, etc.

<comment><USER37> The problem is huge, but not quite as grim as this. I think that you may be confusing primary (thermal) energy in coal with electricity supplied by coal. In 2018, coal was used to generate about 10,000 TWh of electricity:

[https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy- outlook-2019/electr...](https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy- outlook-2019/electricity)

Renewable generators only need to displace the electrical output of combustion based power plants, not the greater thermal energy contained in source fuels. A highly electrified, renewables-dominated world would consume less primary energy at the same level of energy service consumption. There's a lot less energy going toward production of useless waste heat when renewable electricity displaces fossil combustion electricity.

The average American coal plant turns only 37.4% of coal's thermal energy into electrical energy:

[https://processbarron.com/u-s-coal-power-plant-efficiency- st...](https://processbarron.com/u-s-coal-power-plant-efficiency-stack/)

In 2019 the United States lost 2/3 of all primary energy as waste heat:

[https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene...](https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2019_United- States.png)

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the correction, alas the edit period has closed for that comment.

(I used the number from this wiki page: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Fossi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption#Fossil_fuels) )

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think the price will recover a fair bit more.

As low as it is, it will keep pushing out other energy sources until demand goes up.

But for the sake of mankind and planet, I hope shale never becomes profitable again.

</comment><comment><USER39> Hopefully they will be able to transition to a more sustainable economy based on development of manufacturing and export of higher quality goods. As others have noted, they have some of the best solar resource in the world, but that's not as easily exported. More like farming than oil production. To take advantage of it, they'll need local industry.

[https://www.alternativeenergyhq.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/...](https://www.alternativeenergyhq.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/10/SolarGIS-Solar-map-World-map-en.png)

<comment><USER40> This is unlikely as they have the advantage of neither cheap labor, nor a highly intelligent workforce: [https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by- country.php](https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php)

They are limited by an ideology/culture which discourages women from participating in the workforce or receiving an education, and also encourages cousin marriage (60-70% of marriages in Saudi Arabia) which lowers IQ and leads to birth defects [https://english.alarabiya.net/en/life-style/art-and- culture/...](https://english.alarabiya.net/en/life-style/art-and- culture/2015/04/04/Health-fears-question-Arab-tradition-of-cousin-marriages-)

I think its more likely that Arab leaders will siphon off as much wealth as possible then flee to London and other tax havens. The survivors will be left to fight over the scraps and places like Saudi Arabia will come to resemble Yemen (which is a country which simply exhausted its oil reserves faster than the rest).

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> What other sources have written about how this will affect other oil producers with 'interesting' political situations, such as Russia, Venezuela, and Iran? Looking for recommendations of similar articles.

</comment><comment><USER42> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_bin_Saeed_Al_Maktoum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashid_bin_Saeed_Al_Maktoum)

>A quote commonly attributed to Sheikh Rashid, "My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel", reflected his concern that Dubai's oil, which was discovered in 1966 and which began production in 1969, would run out within a few generations.

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm trying to go more into investing in green energy/renewable/alternative of some sort. If the world is going to end in 50 years due to fossil fuels then might as well put my money in the alternatives.

I have some things in mind but maybe HN readers can give me a few suggestions on what to read/look.

<comment><USER44> I bought this ETF [https://www.ishares.com/nl/particuliere- belegger/nl/producte...](https://www.ishares.com/nl/particuliere- belegger/nl/producten/251911/ishares-global-clean-energy-ucits-etf) , if you're not familiar with the concept of ETF it's best you read about it but basically it's a basket of stocks that follow a certain index, in this instance its the global clean energy index

<comment><USER43> I looked at that. What do you think of that vs the QCLN for example. Why global?

<comment><USER44> I think going global in these uncertain times is a pro!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Yay, maybe the West can stop invading countries and propping up dictators once there's no valuable natural resources there. I just read that back, and I really wish I was kidding.

</comment><comment><USER46> As demand for oil falls, it will get cheaper, making it more attractive and alternative energy less competitive. It's a weird dynamic. We literally need to run out of the stuff or pass laws that make it much more expensive (by taking into account its real environmental cost).

</comment><comment><USER47> ... and with it hopefully Wahabi Islam with other more peaceful sects raking up more influence.

</comment><comment><USER48> Just because we eliminate oil as a source of energy doesn't mean we end its dominance. The stone, bronze, iron age were not about using them as fuel. Plastics are still everywhere and not about to change any time soon.

<comment><USER49> Google: Percent of oil used for plastics?

Answer: 4%

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's far more profitable to mine the spice on Arrakis then to use solar energy.

</comment><comment><USER51> In spite of its flaws -- twitter is probably best place for finding top-shelf analysts and their opinion for free.

For Oil follow: @anasalhajji

[https://twitter.com/anasalhajji/status/1284132912850522115](https://twitter.com/anasalhajji/status/1284132912850522115)

Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER52> They've been saying this for the past 20 years and even though it's inevitable it's still nowhere near our lifetimes.

<comment><USER53> We have mainstream electric vehicles now and more are on the way. A very large part (40-60%) of petroleum is used for gasoline. That will wreak havoc on oil producing places, although who gets hit how hard and what consequences it has is impossible to say.

<comment><USER54> The developing world, a group very cost sensitive and unlikely to switch for environmental reasons, is putting gasoline vehicles on the road much faster than the developed road is taking them off.

For electric vehicles to eat the world they have to be cheaper than gasoline counterparts. Not only for luxury electric vehicles to be cheaper than luxury gasoline vehicles, but for the cheapest gasoline motorcycle/scooter/car to be more expensive than the cheapest electric motorcycle/scooter/car. Given the current cost materials inside a battery/electric engine compared to the current cost of materials inside a combustion engine it's unlikely to happen with our current approach.

<comment><USER55> The developing world can't pay much for ICE technology, and more importantly can't sustain it on its own. It will ultimately follow the lead of the developed world with a slight delay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> "If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. And if it stops moving subsidize it" \--Reagan

</comment><comment><USER57> oil is used for so much more than gas...

</comment><comment><USER58> Prior to the oil embargo of 1973, the cost of a barrel of oil in today's dollars was about $23.

In 1973, OPEC created an artificial scarcity, "economic rents", in oil transferring and over the past five decades "robbed consumers" of trillions of dollars of wealth transferred to oil rich nations such as those in the Middle East.

These "economic rents" not only harmed consumers but they helped certain oil rich nations such as Russia and Iran to invade other nations.

The hope is that with US fracking and oil export, the days of more than $50 per barrel oil is over.

It is estimated that the Arabs spent $1 trillion of wealth to combat Israel. Imagine, if instead of attempting to destroy Israel they had partnered with it investing in the "Startup Nation?" Had that happened, the Middle East may have been a very wealthy region for all of it's citizens.

Historian Paul Johnson wrote an article in Commentary in 2005 called "The Anti-Semitic Disease" along these lines. [1]

[1] [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Anti-Semitic- Disea...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Anti-Semitic-Disease- Johnson/65c0aa0fddb84641518c22aef8f409e95b4c3942)

</comment><comment><USER59> Fossil fuels are only part of the usage. Oil and hydrocarbons are used in a lot industrial production, housing, foams, chemical plants etc. Even if you somehow replaced all fossil fuels with some other energy alternative (nuclear container ships, electric cars, trucks, trains and planes) you would still use a massive amount of hydrocarbons from oil and gas to power the worlds economy.

And before you say use plant based hydrocarbons. It's kind of perverse to use trees and food crops to create fuel and industrial products.

</comment><comment><USER60> This seems like a huge issue and a major social/economic trend going forward...

As a startup how do I take advantage of this?

</comment><comment><USER61> Archive link please? Also, won't the price bounce back after COVID? We are nowhere near sustainable on renewables.

<comment><USER62> Fracking producers in the US act as a cap or brake on prices. When prices hit $50/barrel, some oil shale becomes profitable and comes online. When it hits $60, more does, and at $100, even more, etc etc.

<comment><USER39> Not only that, but the costs for frakking have become much lower in the US as oil companies have gotten better at cost control. The US's generous bankruptcy system also makes it fairly straightforward for companies to shed debt and continue operating.

And unlike the Middle East, Low fossil fuel prices are a boon to the rest of the economy, so you don't experience broad societal decay and upheaval due to low fossil fuel prices but instead higher stability.... This is why a diversified economy is so important because it reduces hysteresis losses in the case of sectoral interruptions.</comment></comment></comment>


Parse launches web hosting - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/2013/05/07/goodbye-web-servers-hello-parse-hosting/

<comment><USER2> Can someone explain why this is important or interesting?

<comment><USER3> It may be relevant in the context of their recent and controversial acquisition by Facebook, which many took to mean that Parse's future was at odds, or at least would be taken in questionable directions (e.g. making data available to Facebook.) This move to simple web hosting might mean that Facebook is branching out into infrastructure (like, say, Amazon) with the acquisition of Parse, rather than shutting it down or milking it for it's main product.

<comment><USER4> Parse uses aws right? Wouldn't the comparison be more apt if made to heroku?</comment></comment></comment>


Walking Dream – single-player adventure game for the Oculus Quest - <AUTHOR> http://walkingdre.am/ <comment><USER2> The most interesting thing here for me is the use of redirected walking ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redirected_walking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redirected_walking)). I saw the video accompanying the paper but this would be the first game I've seen try to use it.

<comment><USER3> I will be very curious what the minimum area requirement for the game is. I can't imagine redirected walking being very convincing in the Quest's minimum 6.5 x 6.5 ft square.

<comment><USER4> I've played around in Tea For God ([https://sidequestvr.com/app/65/tea-for- god-under-development](https://sidequestvr.com/app/65/tea-for-god-under- development)) which does this on the quest, and it works really well, and I didn't even use the full 6.5'x6.5' (in my case ~6'x4') possible. Within a minute I lost all sense of where I was in the real world.

<comment><USER5> Tea For God does not use redirected walking. It procedurally adopts game space to available room space, and uses clever mechanisms like non-euclidian geometry and various elevators to allow for huge worlds. Still, movement is 1:1 mapped between room and game.

Redirected walking means distorting the mapping when moving or rotating, to fit any game world into limited playing space. In research it's always applied in larger spaces, x5 times bigger than living rooms. If you distort moving or turning too much, users lose balance or become nauseous.

Here's a decent intro paper. 15 Years of Research on Redirected Walking in Immersive Virtual Environments [https://illusioneering.cs.umn.edu/papers/nilsson- cga2018.pdf](https://illusioneering.cs.umn.edu/papers/nilsson-cga2018.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Conrad was ... the author of several technical books, including the classic > "Land of Lisp".

That book has very interesting art. I hope he brings that style to the game. I hope he does something strange like implement the game in Lisp and use some sort of self-modifying game engine.

> Walking Dream, on the other hand, is built on a brand new combat engine with > a rich weapons crafting system. This system is shared by both the player as > well as the many enemies, and turns each battle into a completely novel > experience, requiring completely novel strategies at every encounter!

<comment><USER7> I immediately recognised the Land of Lisp art style - looking forward to trying this. On a side note, this is one of the few things where I would _like_ to be able to sign up for a newsletter.

<comment><USER8> > On a side note, this is one of the few things where I would like to be able > to sign up for a newsletter.

How does one solve the "tell me about this in a few weeks/months when you launch" without email notification?

There's no reliable way to notify someone via Twitter or Facebook. Timelines are too noisy and there's no mass private messaging APIs.

I love my email but I've noticed that projects and products are beginning to appear that shun email communication totally.

I nagged a few projects into starting a simple list via Google Forms because I knew I wouldn't notice when they launched any other way. But "Me nagging" doesn't seem very scalable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The developer posted more information on Reddit and goes into details in redirected walking.

[https://pay.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/hlyp0o/walking...](https://pay.reddit.com/r/OculusQuest/comments/hlyp0o/walking_dream_an_rpg_for_the_oculus_quest_with/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I can't wait. Conrad is into so many interesting things. A few years ago he gave a video talk to my local blockchain meetup.

The Quest is my favorite toy/leisure activity device. Can't wait!

</comment><comment><USER11> Not directly related, but I just finished "Half Life: Alyx" yesterday. It is exceptional. I can't believe it is running on the same Rift hardware I bought years ago. They have just figured out how to do so many things correctly in that game. Sorry about the tangent, just can't recommend it enough.

</comment><comment><USER12> Would love to see a newsletter signup form. Sounds great but I'm not sure I'll remember it. And I can't trust The Great Algorithms to plop this at the top of any feed..

</comment><comment><USER9> Redirected walking is what I'm most excited about. You get another whole level of realism when you can just walk endlessly through VR.

I tried tea for god on the quest and I was sold on it. It's the future of VR IMO.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't see anywhere where it says _where_ it will be released. I assume SideQuest?</comment>


What do you want from a gay dating platform? - <AUTHOR> I'm frankly tired of the current options and want to build something new. I'm gay, middle aged and want to make something better. If you have any ideas I'd love to hear them. I think this should go without saying, but, i want to build something inclusive of all people who identify as male but still be centered on the specific needs of men seeking men. I don't want to build a tinder or grinder clone, but nothing has ever worked for me finding the "one". Obviously, this is selfishly motivated but i Think that is a good motivator. <comment><USER2> Primarily, if you want to build a proper dating platform it needs to steer clear of the pitfalls of short meetups.

As someone who is gay, and hates the current ecosystem, I could see great value in a location (and/or) interest forums. Somewhere thats gay-focused but community based, with the intention of meeting other like minded people.</comment>