Node.js is Backwards - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ankurgoyal.com/post/6433642218/node-js-is-backwards <comment><USER3> Speaking of concurrent programming and parallelism. If you're not into functional programming, check out Apple's Grand Central Dispatch[1] and Objective-C Blocks[2].

Unless you write your own Objective-C http server and run it on Mac OS X Server (it's not that hard, I've done it), this isn't very useful for Web programming. However, if you're comparing the languages / frameworks themselves (you can use all three to code command line tools, for example), GCD becomes a very seductive option.

GCD works by throwing code blocks (obj-c closures) into queues, and letting the runtime do its magic. You can have it execute code synchronously, asynchronously, or in parallel.

GCD will optimize and distribute your blocks the the available CPU cores. You can even enumerate using blocks, and instead of doing loop iterations one by one, it'll distribute them to the cores in parallel.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Central_Dispatch> [2]: [http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/cocoa/...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/cocoa/Conceptual/Blocks/Articles/bxGettingStarted.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40007502-CH7-SW1)

<comment><USER4> I've been hacking away on Obj-C and more specifically MacRuby and did some basic stuff with GCD already, using the async queueing system.

The distributed enumeration sounds interesting, could you point me in the direction of where I can find some more info about that?

<comment><USER3> You might wanna take a look at dispatch_apply with striding:

[http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin...](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man3/dispatch_apply.3.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What a bunch of gobbledygook.

People tend to lump Node and Erlang together because they both avoid shared- state concurrency. But they're completely opposite approaches: Erlang has concurrency but no shared state. Node has shared state but no concurrency.

Not that you'd get this from the article.

<comment><USER6> Node _does_ have concurrency. It does not have parallelism. This is an important distinction: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1050222/concurrency-vs- pa...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1050222/concurrency-vs-parallelism- what-is-the-difference)

<comment><USER7> The article is not "gobbledygook". A well known limitation of NodeJS is its lack of support for parallelism. You have to try to take advantage of parallelism of the OS itself by pre-forking the Node server.

NodeJS is great for applications with a lot of clients, but not for CPU intensive apps. That's why I predict similar technologies built on Erlang, Scala, and Go will have more longevity than NodeJS.

<comment><USER8> _NodeJS is great for applications with a lot of clients, but not for CPU intensive apps._

Well, you do with node what you do with anything: if you have 4 CPU cores, run 4 copies of your app. Problem solved.

<comment><USER9> Imagine your app has 16GiB of precomputed tables in memory...

<comment><USER10> Node.js has a heap size limit. One of the biggest weaknesses IMO well before people complain about CPU cores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK fine, Duncan might not have chosen the best words when comparing Node to Erlang.

But how's Node.js "backwards"?

It seems to me that the author has picked on one statement by one individual, and turned that into a link-bait.

<comment><USER12> Having to manage callback control flow _by hand_.

There's a lot of research surrounding CPS-transformed code (look at Orbit (<http://people.csail.mit.edu/riastradh/t/adams86orbit.pdf>), for example), but nobody ever needed to manage it by hand.

For a more meaningful comparison between Node and Erlang, look at how they handle errors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Article is quite refreshing, given booming Node.js popularity.

This is what I thinking when reading all the discussions about Node.js (mainly here, at HN).

Disclaimer: I don't program in JS, and I won't touch it without six feet pole (read: code generator from some higher-level strongly-typed language).

</comment><comment><USER13> My node.js project spreads all node.js i/o across multiple node processes ( in machine, network, or browser ) and creates a distributed EventEmitter across all nodes.

<https://github.com/Marak/hook.io>

<comment><USER14> Where were you 4 months ago?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be pretty simple conceptually (maybe not practically) to make node.js work in an actor-like way, here's a piece of toy code I wrote that does it for JS (not node, but no reason the same couldn't be done for node): [http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/28/a-sequential-actor-like- ap...](http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/28/a-sequential-actor-like-api-for- server-side-javascript/)

By "actor-like way" here I just mean a code module ("actor") sees one thread (at a time), and the runtime takes care of the details of scheduling threads when a module has an event/message/request to process. Also I guess avoiding callbacks. But you could be more Erlang-ish/Akka-ish in more details if you wanted.

node.js punts this to the app developer to instead run a herd of processes. In most cases that's probably fine, but in theory with one process and many threads, the runtime can do a better job saturating the CPU cores because it can move actors among the threads rather than waiting for the single-threaded process an actor happens to be in to become free. The practical situations where this comes up, I admit, are probably not that numerous as long as you never use blocking IO and are basically IO-bound. (Only CPU-intensive stuff would cause a problem.)

btw this has been hashed out to death on the node.js list: [http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/c...](http://groups.google.com/group/nodejs/browse_thread/thread/c334947643c80968/564816670e56cdab)

</comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know how well Scala can handle the requirements of a typical Node.js project? IE, thousands of network connections and rather light CPU load overall? Can Scala be a Node.js or Erlang replacement?

<comment><USER17> look at some of the Akka deploys

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4493001/good-use-case- for...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4493001/good-use-case-for-akka)

[http://fornax-sculptor.blogspot.com/2010/08/eda-akka-as- even...](http://fornax-sculptor.blogspot.com/2010/08/eda-akka-as- eventbus.html)

(minimal code example)

[http://groups.google.com/group/akka- user/browse_thread/threa...](http://groups.google.com/group/akka- user/browse_thread/thread/6e10174ac8bd9c4f?pli=1)

There's probably similar cookbook examples and benchmark/ overhead per process measurements for F# MailboxProcessors, if you're curious

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sure, it's the reverse of goroutines, which allow you to do easy asynchronous programming using synchronous code.

<comment><USER19> .. or erlang processes. Or python greenlets. Or Haskell forkIO threads. Or libcoroutines.. Etc.

See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1549023>

<comment><USER20> Erlang has a slightly different but largely equivalent model, but the other alternatives you mention lack Go's channels and/or the select construct which is one of the greatest things about the language.

When I found that Stackless Python didn't have a way to read/write on multiple channels at once I was quite shocked.

<comment><USER9> How's that Haskell lacks channels?

[http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/stm/22.214.171.124/doc/...](http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/stm/126.96.36.199/doc/html/Control- Concurrent-STM-TChan.html)

[http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.0.2/html/libraries/base-4....](http://www.haskell.org/ghc/docs/7.0.2/html/libraries/base-188.8.131.52/Control- Concurrent-Chan.html)

It also looks that "select" statement could be done in a combinator library way.

The power of Haskell (or of any proper modern language) isn't in the language itself, it's in the number of things you can express as a library, on top of the language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Edit_ : looks as if Erlang does indeed have its own, separate definition for lightweight process. See the disambiguation page on <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-weight_process>. How very poor of whoever started misusing an existing concurrency term to refer to something else - <USER2> if discussing these matters isn't already difficult enough.

Could someone familiar with Erlang please clarify:

"To understand why this is misleading, we need to go over some background information. Erlang popularized the concept of lightweight processes (Actors) and provides a runtime that beautifully abstracts the concurrency details away from the programmer. You can spawn as many Erlang processes as you need and focus on the code that functionally declares their communication. Behind the scenes, the VM launches enough kernel threads to match your system (usually one per CPU) "

In common Unix tools like 'ps' and 'top' the term 'Lightweight Process' is used as a synonym for OS thread, eg, the LWP column in 'ps -eLf' shows the thread ID.

In this article, LWPs seem to be different from threads? Is this correct? If they're not threads, what are they?

</comment><comment><USER22> > _Node.js's concurrency mechanisms are simply an approximation of Erlang's._

Lulz? Here's a much simpler explanation: it's a polling server. It's not an intentional approximation of this or that (Erlang), this is just how event loops using select\poll\epoll\kqueue have always worked. Unless you want to do a bunch of extra work and throw in per-core preforking\threading and scrap the libev dependency Node built upon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Erlang, and other similar efforts like Haskell's forkIO and Python's eventlet/gevent, are also built upon the same fundamentals as libev (and some actually just use libev). But using libev in the way that Node.js does boils down to user-space threads with cooperative scheduling (you yield control every time you make a blocking I/O call). The abstractions that Erlang/Haskell/Python provide let you program in the familiar synchronous, threaded style while retaining the performance advantages of an explicit (e)polling server.

Ted Dziuba explained this well for Python [http://teddziuba.com/2010/02/eventlet-asynchronous-io- for-g....](http://teddziuba.com/2010/02/eventlet-asynchronous-io-for-g.html)

<comment><USER22> > _(you yield control every time you make a blocking I/O call)_

You're referring to is coroutine vs. continuation passing (callback). This is unrelated to whether you also are also forking into a small number of processes for each core. You can do both. Node simply doesn't yet. Nginx with workers is an example of an asynchronous server that does.

In regards to your link and the coroutine yielding approach: Being able to write psuedoblocking and monkeypatching code is not necessarily a good thing! It encourages you to keep making subrequests sequentially in serial, rather than in parallel as comes natural with using callbacks. It also discourages one from using custom continuation logic such as quorums. Examples of when the yielding approach fails:

\- You want to both send and read independently on the same connection without creating multiple coroutines\greenthreads\userthreads per connection.

\- You want to continue once 2 of 3 data services have calledback that information was successfully stored

I've written a fast single-core asynchronous server here in Lua without using user space thread yielding that you may be interested in: <https://github.com/davidhollander/ox>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think the opinions expressed in this article are valid.

However, I don't think the inability of current JavaScript to do async I/O without callbacks is Node's biggest problem. As others have said, it works for smaller projects (and even has some geek appeal). And as Havoc Pennington and Dave Herman have explained, generators (which are coming with ECMAScript Harmony) and promises will eventually provide a very nice solution. So Node has a path to grow out of the callback model without giving up its single threaded paradigm.

[http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/28/a-sequential-actor-like- ap...](http://blog.ometer.com/2010/11/28/a-sequential-actor-like-api-for- server-side-javascript/)

[http://blog.mozilla.com/dherman/2011/03/11/who-says- javascri...](http://blog.mozilla.com/dherman/2011/03/11/who-says-javascript- io-has-to-be-ugly/)

The bigger problem (which I don't see getting solved anywhere down the road) is the lack of preemptive scheduling, which is available in Erlang or on the JVM. What you see under high load with Node is that latency is spread almost linearly over a very wide spectrum, from very fast to very slow, whereas response times on a preemptively scheduled platform are much more uniform.

[http://jlouisramblings.blogspot.com/2010/12/differences- betw...](http://jlouisramblings.blogspot.com/2010/12/differences-between- nodejs-and-erlang_14.html)

And no, this is something that can't be solved by distributing load over multiple CPU cores. This is problem really manifests itself _within_ each core, and it is a direct consequence of Node's single threaded execution model. If anybody knows how to solve this without resorting to some kind of preemptive threading I'd be very curious to hear about it.

</comment><comment><USER24> It seems like most people are using nodejs for the web, and nodejs includes a library for HTTP.

What are some good web libraries for Erlang?

<comment><USER25> Nitrogen is well equipped web framework <http://nitrogenproject.com/>

You have mochiweb ( <https://github.com/mochi/mochiweb> ) and misultin ( <https://github.com/ostinelli/misultin> ) if you want something a bit more like node

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Very well written article summarizing some discussions that are apparently common in the erlang community.

</comment><comment><USER6> Suggesting Node and Erlang have the same concurrency model is a complete pigeonholing. CPS != Actors.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've read a lot about Node and watched Ryan Dahl's introduction to Node and maybe the author of this post should have done that too. At no moment does Ryan talks about Erlang and having anything to do with Erlang's way of thinking. Node was built to use javascript's awesome V8 engine and its event loop that many people already know and love to provide evented IO. I love Node and I think it is a great project, which has nothing to envy about Erlang.

This is like saying "This Honda Civic clearly sucks compared to my helicopter. Let me write you an article about everything that my helicopter does betting that your Civic". Clearly the Civic was build for another purpose and so the comparison is void.

</comment><comment><USER28> It looks to me like all this debate has no observable consequence on the respective programming communities. Node folks will program the Node way and love it and Erlang folks will program the Erlang way and love it. The creators of neither are trying to woo the other and they perfectly well understand _operationally_ where each system stands.

</comment><comment><USER29> > Node.js appeals to people who already know Javascript and don't want to > learn a new language

This is a blanket statement that perhaps displays the author's opinion on Javascript as a language itself.

<comment><USER30> I don't see how it does. Making note of the entrenchment bonus granted by a language already known by much of the target audience isn't necessarily making a value statement about the bonus or secondary effects thereof.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Fair catch, I could have chosen more precise words.

</comment><comment><USER32> Uh oh. Cue flame war.

</comment><comment><USER33> I've been saying this about Erlang and Node for awhile, and I don't know anybody who knows both Erlang and JS that takes Node seriously.

<comment><USER6> I know both and I take Node seriously. Using the same language at both the client and server end has some serious benefits. And web servers are mostly shared-none, so not having first-class support for communication between Node processes is not that big of a deal. Node has its niche.

<comment><USER34> > _Using the same language at both the client and server end has some serious > benefits._

What are these benefits? Are they really exclusive to Node? (or if not exclusive, then vastly simpler with Node)

<comment><USER6> Here's a case study: an open source project I made with node.js; <https://github.com/node-bus/node-bus>

It's a distributed pub-sub engine, so one client can publish an event, and the others on the server will receive it. Probably about half the code is shared between the server and client. That means less bugs and easier maintenance.

Technically there are tools that will convert, say, Haskell to Javascript so that you can have shared code between a client and server. In practice, I don't know anyone who does that. I'm sure for most it feels like a bit of a hack. So for practical purposes, the only way to share code between the client and server is by using javascript (or coffeescript) on the server-side as well. Node.js IMO is the best server-side javascript engine.

<comment><USER34> I looked through your shared/util.js and, while I don't want to take anything away from your project, it doesn't seem to me that there is much of a case for _significant and useful_ code sharing in Node. When I think of code sharing, I expect something like Luna, from Asana <http://asana.com/luna/>

Instead, the examples of shared code in Node are always simple utility functions, validators and the like. While it helps not to have to rewrite those, it's not groundbreaking. Facilitating the sharing of state between client and server -- hopefully irrespective of the server-side language -- would be a much better goal, IMO.

<comment><USER35> have a look at dnode: <https://github.com/substack/dnode> bidirectional remote method invocation. Oh, and a complimentary robot free of charge: <http://substack.net/browse/2010-11-08%2022:16:39> :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Scientists debate risks of accelerated testing due to vaccine enhancement - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccines-insight/as-pressure-for-coronavirus-vaccine-mounts-scientists-debate-risks-of-accelerated-testing-idUSKBN20Y1GZ <comment><USER2> Remember what happened with the 1976 swine flu outbreak and the rushed vaccine that killed an elevated numbers of people from GBS (death or permanent paralysis).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak)</comment>


French court finds Monsanto guilty of poisoning farmer - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/11/french-court-finds-monsanto-guilty-of-poisoning-farmer <comment><USER2> I happen to be staying at a b&b at a organic French vineyard right now. We stayed here because the owner has written three books about the experience [1] and it was in an area we wanted to visit (between Bordeaux and Bergerac) rather than because it was organic. As we have walked around this area, I've been horrified by the contrast between organic vineyards and those which are not. The non-organic vineyards have scorched dead brown grass a foot either side of every row of vines, from insecticide which is applied every 6 weeks. The organic vines are surrounded by green grass and wildflowers. 94% of Bordeaux wine is not organic. There is a lot of scorched dead grass.

Before this "organic" to me meant: expensive, nice idea, faddish and definitely not something I sought out.

This trip has been life-changing. I've become an organic convert overnight. I do not want to eat fruit or plant byproducts from roots which are constantly exposed to weedkiller or insecticide so strong that it kills all around it (except the root itself).

[1]- [https://www.amazon.com/s?k=caro+feely&ref=nb_sb_noss_2](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=caro+feely&ref=nb_sb_noss_2)

<comment><USER3> Why do you think that dead grass surrounding a vineyard is harmful? The only conditions under which this would be a bad thing are: a) there is a wider environmental impact; b) there is a risk to consumers. Neither of which you could see by casually strolling by.

This type of anecdotal feelings based decision making is how we ended up with widespread anti-vaccine, anti-gluten, anti-GMO sentiment, etc.

<comment><USER4> Why would you think dead grass is harmful? It's not dead grass that is harmful. The poison that kills the grass is harmful.

<comment><USER3> Chocolate is toxic to dogs, but that doesn't mean it's dangerous to us. Again, you can't just rely on your gut feeling for this kind of stuff.

<comment><USER4> Roundup is toxic to humans as are most if not all herbicides. I think it would be better to assume anything that can kill grass is toxic to humans unless there is significant research proving this to not be true. I would rather see people err on the side of caution in this area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if they'll also change ways, or just names.

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/04/monsanto- to...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/04/monsanto-to-ditch-its- infamous-name-after-sale-to-bayer)

<comment><USER6> They won't change anything while they spend the next 10 years in legal maneuvers to draw out the case, then, probably after they've made another billion euros on other shitty, dangerous products, they will settle out of court for a pittance compared to the profit they made off of this and other discontinued and dangerous chemicals.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What was your latest rabbit hole? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> Mine started after watching [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_(TV_series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terror_\(TV_series\)). I spent half of the night reading about the Northwest Passage, the Arctic Ocean, the exploration of the Arctic, the expeditions, the icebreaker boats, the diseases and human behaviors in hostile environment… Not gonna lie, I had never heard about icebreakers, nuclear-powered boats or even the Northwest Passage. Also I recommend The Terror, it mixes historical events and fantastic. The first part of the series (on the boat) is a bit slow but the second part is wtf and captivating.

<comment><USER2> The book is very good, and spends a bit more time on similar research to yours. There's a lot more about shoddy food production in the book.</comment></comment>


Oldie but Goodie: The Physics of Passion - <AUTHOR> http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/08/physics_of_pass.html

<comment><AUTHOR> i wish kathy sierra was still blogging.</comment>


What's Holding Augmented Reality Back? - <AUTHOR> https://modus.medium.com/whats-holding-augmented-reality-back-fb80b21b2f40 <comment><USER2> The answer is patents. Any answer that doesn't mention patents is completely invalid.</comment>


Cython 0.20 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cython/cython/blob/master/CHANGES.rst#020-2014-01-18

<comment><USER2> It was version 0.11.1 & 5yrs back, and I was in undergrad college. We used to hack on the cython code all night. :)

I got very Poor Grades that whole term.

And I can't forget those days, we used to hack all night on cython code but missing very important college lectures!

I did not even know how to commit!

But, It was pure thrill. Those were the days, I badly miss today!

And surprisingly I also fixed a very critical bug __, that was the very first bug I had fixed in my Life. I started to realize, valuate & appreciate Open source & the reach of OSS!

cython changed my perception about software!

That marked my entry into OSS, and I was writing & optimizing for good code with standards and all the documentation. Until then I couldn't appreciate anything much of OSS.

* I literally danced around after I submitted that bug, and incidentally it got approved and committed too! :D

And it was the very early days of Cython Project <ver 0.11>

__[http://trac.cython.org/cython_trac/ticket/203](http://trac.cython.org/cython_trac/ticket/203)

And today when I checked Cython Project, I feel awesome within, all around my body; esp the way Cython has grown & is being consumed across!

Power of OSS!

We should be honoring and celebrating every project out there that has done so much to Humanity!

<comment><USER3> Hi again, fun to see our conversation from 5 years back pop up here! Thanks for sharing your story :-)

(For my part, my PhD already derailed most of my Cython efforts, and now I've started in a startup too, so chances are I won't be involved again for the foreseeable future. But Robert and Stefan are still at it as they were back then, and there's been some new ones coming too.)

<comment><USER2> Hey Hi and nice to see you in here! :)

And this makes my day!

What a nice moment, isn't it? And checking you back in HN after 5 long years! Robert and Stefan, the guys behind Cython; admired them a lot for this day & for the places Cython has reached.

Also will never never forget the fact that - you reviewed my first Patch, that was 5yrs back! Cython 0.1 version :-) <Big smile>

And this makes my day! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> History: Back in 2008 I read the book [http://producingoss.com/](http://producingoss.com/) and was at the same time dealing with several forks of [http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/](http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/greg.ewing/python/Pyrex/) for use in my project [http://sagemath.org](http://sagemath.org). Inspired by producingoss, I came up with the name "Cython" during a brainstorming session with Tom Boothby, then made a website (cython.org), listed the three leaders of the various Pyrex forks as project leaders (one was my Ph.D. student), and crossed my fingers. It worked.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been playing with Cython recently and I'm really impressed with its compatibility with arbitrary Python code. It's possible to compile all of Tornado with only minor changes (for a ~25% speedup without any type annotations). [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/python- tornado/Kele7...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/python- tornado/Kele72rCUaE)

<comment><USER6> And you can usually get significantly larger speedups if you profile to find hotspots and then declare the types of a few variables in them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> From [https://github.com/cython/cython/blob/master/README.txt](https://github.com/cython/cython/blob/master/README.txt):

Cython ([http://cython.org](http://cython.org)) is a language that makes writing C extensions for the Python language as easy as Python itself. Cython is based on the well-known Pyrex, but supports more cutting edge functionality and optimizations.

The Cython language is very close to the Python language, but Cython additionally supports calling C functions and declaring C types on variables and class attributes. This allows the compiler to generate very efficient C code from Cython code.

This makes Cython the ideal language for wrapping external C libraries, and for fast C modules that speed up the execution of Python code.

</comment><comment><USER8> I love this project. Fantastic way to write Python bindings for native libs or speed up computationally intensive code without having to write C yourself.

</comment><comment><USER9> For anyone confused by all the Python nomenclature (hint: Cython != CPython!) this article: [http://www.toptal.com/python/why-are-there-so-many- pythons](http://www.toptal.com/python/why-are-there-so-many-pythons) was on HN a few days back, and is worth a read.

</comment><comment><USER10> You had me at:

> Support for calling C++ template functions.

</comment><comment><USER11> I love this, thanks to projects like this, is why great libraries as Kivy exists.

</comment><comment><USER12> i remember cython from the time it was called pyrex. it was already very good then. iirc it was around the time when firefox was called phoenix...

guys, you're way past version 1.0 in most users' minds, might as well consider dropping the 0.

</comment><comment><USER13> thank you guys!

i use a lot of pyrex/cython to bind to libraries - it's so much faster to code in python. it's been a huge boon. having used swig, hand writing wrappers, and pyrex before i can say i much prefer cython.

thank you for the hard work.</comment>


COVID19 reinfection by a phylogenetically distinct coronavirus strain confirmed - <AUTHOR> https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciaa1275/5897019 <comment><USER2> This is neither surprising nor concerning. It is exactly what you would expect from a coronavirus, remembering that a lot of what we now call the common cold is caused by various coronavirus strains. It would be shocking if we did _not_ see re-infection.

The important questions are as follows:

1\. What is the _severity_ of reinfection?

2\. What is the average immune response of re-infections?

3\. If the infection is less severe, what is the shedding rate? How infectious are the re-infected?

4\. Does re-infection occur in those who receive mRNA vaccinations (this is not really testable yet)

The pearl clutching with everything COVID related is quite concerning, moreso than the disease itself. The science is interesting, but the medias obsession with exaggerating and fear-mongering this disease is incredible. With that said, I appreciate that the link is to the paper, and not a media report on the paper. However I do await the stories that this proves we are all doomed :(

<comment><USER3> > pearl clutching with everything COVID related is quite concerning, moreso > than the disease itself.

At the high points of the peak in the US, COVID 19 was killing more people per week than cancer or heart disease in the US. If everybody was just going on with business as usual, there's no reason to believe that the curve would have been turned.

If you're in an at-risk group, COVID is really dangerous. The case fatality rate is around 3% in the US, and it's extremely contagious, so it's plausible to imagine a world where everybody got it.

I think with these numbers in mind, a little bit of 'pearl clutching' is warranted.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm)

There was only ever a few weeks there that excess death count was above average (see above). We have been at or below average for several weeks now. When you factor that in with the fact that vast majority of Covid deaths (over 90%) had comorbidities, we can safely conclude this virus is not as deadly as it has been hyped up to be. Case fatality rate is nowhere near 3%. Most estimates have been 0.25% or lower. Vast majority of the population has natural immunity and remains asymptomatic even upon infection.

EDIT REPLY: No average excess deaths is never zero, as you can see in the chart down the page listed above on the CDC site. We have been down in the range of a bad flu season for a couple months now. Why is excess death count important? Because it disentangles the people who died from Covid from the people who died with Covid. If a 90 year old dies with Covid, and that same person would have statistically likely died from any disease including pneumonia or the flu, it's worth noting. It has substantial implications for society. That's why excess death count is worth looking at.

<comment><USER5> > there was only ever a few weeks there that excess death count was above > average (see above).

What is this supposed to mean? Excess death count is the amount above the expected, so average excess deaths is 0.

And every week from March 28 on has positive excess deaths, except the last week on the chart, which is unreliable becuase...

> We have been at or below average for several weeks now.

from the popup in your source when you highlight any datapoint on the chart: "Data in recent weeks are incomplete."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> just-juan-post As a layman I have to ask: Isn't this what happens with "the flu" (our annual flu waves) every year? It infects us, we fight it back, it mutates, infects us again, we fight it off again, and the cycle repeats.

Same thing happening here?

<comment><USER6> Yes but this is deadlier

<comment><USER7> Is it?

It may be twice, possibly three times as deadly at the older end of the population, but it is nowhere near as deadly at the younger end - where flu is a much bigger killer.

It certainly isn't ten times as deadly overall.

Moving from blasé to hysterical helps nobody. We need to be rational.</comment></comment></comment>


Clojure Protocols & Datatypes — A sneak peek - <AUTHOR> http://freegeek.in/blog/2010/05/clojure-protocols-datatypes-a-sneak-peek/

<comment><USER2> So does this make Clojure a hybrid functional / object oriented language like Scala? Or how do these features compare to the object oriented features of Scala? Which approach do you prefer?

<comment><USER3> On a low level, Clojure exposes the underlying JVM, so you can instantiate and bang on Java objects all you want. It's "hybrid" in that sense, and always has been. That isn't changing. But dipping into Java in Clojure is used mostly for interop with Java libraries or to get better performance for critical sections of code.

On a higher level, in Clojure itself, there's not much OO going on (depending how you define OO), and that's not changing much either. In the new defrecords: 1) Everything is immutable, 2) There's no encapsulation of methods inside objects, 3) There's no inheritance of method implementations from "parent classes", 4) There's no data-hiding, and all fields are public. Uncontrolled thread-unsafe mutation of "objects" is still not kosher. Defrecords are kind-of-OO in the sense that there are named types that you can instantiate, the resulting things have named fields, and there's some polymorphism going on when you use protocols. But it's not really very OO in my opinion.

<http://clojure.org/datatypes> and <http://clojure.org/protocols> are the official docs, if you want to know exactly what you're getting.

"Object oriented" and "functional" are so loosely-defined that it's almost best to avoid using the terms entirely, in my opinion. See <http://clojure- log.n01se.net/date/2010-04-21.html> for some of Rich Hickey's opinions on how OO Clojure is nowadays. Rich uses the term "abstraction-oriented" to describe Clojure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Protocols in Clojure are similar to Java Interfaces, though not quite. > Basically a protocol is a contract, a set of functionalities without any > implementation

how is this different from Go's implementation of an 'interface' type <http://golang.org/doc/go_for_cpp_programmers.html#Interfaces>

<comment><USER5> I asked Rich Hickey and this is what he had to say - "they differ from Go interfaces in that Go just uses method conformance to determine interface support (vs explicit declaration of 'I implement this protocol'), and Go's interfaces, last time I checked, were only 'open' within a module."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For someone who knows neither particularly well but is intrigued by the parallels, how closely does this map to Haskell's type classes? To the uninitiated it almost looks like a direct reimplementation.

<comment><USER5> I asked Rich Hickey, and this is what he had to say - "they differ from Haskell's type classes (from which they draw partial inspiration) in that the dispatch map isn't an independent entity passed around by the type system, and thus can't do return-type based method selection, and generally in that they are not static-type-system-based."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Clojure continues making everyday programming easier, while ensuring type and time and thread correctness. Outstanding.</comment>


Ask HN: Was your first crazy startup idea anything like your current one? - <AUTHOR>

Background: I'm only six weeks away from the last day at my "day" job and we're only about one customer shy of making my full time salary on September 1st.  I'm really optimistic about our future, and thinking a little bit about how we got here.
We offer a couple services to newspapers -- especially small, weekly newspapers -- to help them get their advertisement management out of a filing cabinet on onto the computer.  Our first effort seems like it was pretty far removed; we wanted to build a community for artists to share and trade supplies and materials on a super-local scale.  It probably would've been a lot of fun to make, but a lot of trouble to drum up interest and make money off of.
However, as we dig deeper into the newspaper industry, it seems like we have to answer a lot of the same questions, especially regarding the nature of local advertising and the incentive for small, local businesses to advertise on the web.
Are you, as an entrepreneur, attracted to the same problems over and over again?  Was your first idea anything like your most recent on the surface or deeper down? <comment><USER2> Yes. Although through the years I have often grown tired of bashing my head against the wall and diverged from the core of my entrepreneurial interests, I have always returned to the same problems in one way or another. As an example, what was an idea for a TV channel 10 years ago has morphed into a mobile phone and web app that will literally cost millions less . . . and which I can ultimately bootstrap. Good Luck!</comment>


Fluid curves with Smooth.js and HTML5 canvas - <AUTHOR> http://osuushi.github.com/plotdemo016.html

<comment><USER2> And if you're interested in that, check out Paper.js, it can do path simplification amongst other things: <http://paperjs.org/></comment>


Edgee: a new medium that transcends tweeting, blogging and pinning - <AUTHOR> https://www.edgee.com/landing

<comment><AUTHOR> Just found out that this launched today: "playground for the curious" I think it has potential if it finds the right user base. There is definitely a need for some new way to organise all the great stuff we find online. What do we think?

</comment><comment><USER2> Holy smoke, nice video on their landing page! Want an invite nooow :)

<comment><USER3> My buddy just got off their waiting list. Looks sick! Kind of like Medium meets Pinterest

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice video! Waiting for my invite.

</comment><comment><USER5> So... Pinterest?</comment>


Ask HN: What do you like to see in a web app quickstarter? - <AUTHOR> Hi there, I've noticed that when I work on a new idea, creating a MVP or prototype, I tend to spend way to much time on setting up a new project, building out things that are important, but far from urgent to get an idea validated. To save myself time, I created a basic web app starter project (call it a blueprint / bootstrap). See: https://github.com/jelmerdejong/flask-app-blueprint
Currently it sets up a basic Flask project, on PostgreSQL, and is optimised to be deployed to Heroku. Features are: - user registration, including email validation (with Mandrill for transactional email) - basic examples of how to create something in the database, read it and update it. - some basic test coverage
So far I've been adding features / things I like to see myself. But more importantly, to make this useful to a bigger audience: what would you like to see added? Where to you spend time what you rather use to create something unique? <comment><USER2> Maybe I want to see something that allows me to tick boxes for the boilerplate I want?

So I could pick and choose which of those features I wanted, plus stuff like SSO... maybe add a front-end, and support multiple providers for stuff like transactional email - and then the tool goes away and generates a custom starter project for me.

Of course the complexity comes in the interaction of all the optional pieces. But if it was easy someone would have done it already!

<comment><USER3> >Maybe I want to see something that allows me to tick boxes for the boilerplate I want?

Something like this perhaps? [http://megaboilerplate.com/](http://megaboilerplate.com/)

<comment><USER2> Amazing! Thank you :)</comment></comment></comment>


Computer Vision for autonomous navigation(1988) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.ri.cmu.edu/pub_files/pub3/hebert_martial_1988_3/hebert_martial_1988_3.pdf <comment><USER2> Context: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navlab](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navlab)

>Research on computer controlled vehicles began at Carnegie Mellon in 1984 as part of the DARPA Strategic Computing Initiative and production of the first vehicle, Navlab 1, began in 1986.

>Navlab 1 was built in 1986 using a Chevrolet panel van. The van had 5 racks of computer hardware, including 3 Sun workstations, video hardware and GPS receiver, and a Warp supercomputer. The vehicle suffered from software limitations and was not fully functional until the late 80s, when it achieved its top speed of 20 mph (32 km/h).

I remember watching Navlab 1 crawling slowly through Schenley Park sometime in the 80's.</comment>


Apple Threatens to Remove App 'Hey' from App Store over No In-App Subscriptions - <AUTHOR> https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/16/apple-threatens-to-remove-hey-from-app-store/ <comment><USER3> Previous:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23542937](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23542937)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's baffling to me. I can buy a USD1k+ device and still not be able to install on it the apps I want because the manufacturer doesn't want me to, and this is legal? Such horsecrap.

People get annoyed when folks on the internet repeatedly bring up Libre/Free software and software freedoms, but just look at this shit.

There's essentially _no_ way for me to install an app on my iPhone if Apple doesn't want me to, even though I paid over $1000 for it.

<comment><USER5> Your outrage would've made a bit more sense a decade ago when the App Store first came out. But since then it's now the standard for platforms to restrict what apps can be installed.

For example you can't install any apps you want on a Tesla, Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, Samsung TV, Sony Camera.

<comment><USER6> The fact the problem is getting worse is cause for concern not dismissal of the argument

Do you find this trend acceptable and desirable

<comment><USER7> We're at a minimum for individual rights and liberties at the gain of corporate interests.

<comment><USER8> But Apple enforcing this rule also creates a better experience for their customers (they can sign up without having to leave the app). This really an argument between two companies about who gets paid for originating the sale.

<comment><USER6> Then the apps should be able to add a line item called "convenience fee" that si equal to the amount apple is charging them.

The reality is though apple wants to hide their extortion of their customers, if every in-app purchase had a 30% apple tax applied to it the customers would be very upset with apple

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > It's not entirely clear why Apple is requiring Hey to provide an in-app > subscription option when it allows Netflix and Spotify to decline to offer > in-app purchase options while still having their apps in the App Store .

I realize this was a rhetorical gesture, but it really highlights the power of leverage and how few can wield it against the Apples of the world.

<comment><USER10> There are few who can. Thanks, European Union

<comment><USER11> Even more great news ahead of my move to Spain

<comment><USER12> Hmm, Spain lost Google News entirely and all similar sites because they tried to wring money out of Google (sorry, make them pay a 'link tax') and Google walked away. Not sure Spain is a great example of your point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think it's not that complicated, it's the Fight Club argument. Apple's carve-outs for certain companies are likely calibrated such that those companies have some revenue X that they would lose if they paid the tax, some legal cost Y to mount a challenge, and there's some likelihood of wining on the merits P.

If Apple dropped the exception, the expected value of winning a lawsuit is P * X, so as long as P * X << Y, it's unlikely they'll be sued.

For companies like Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify, and others, the amount they would lose in revenue to Apple's tax is likely much more than the cost of mounting a formidable legal challenge to Apple's practices. Apple would like to protect those practices, so its in their best interest to carve out exceptions - no matter how absurd - to companies that are large enough and could make a claim of anticompetitive practices. Apple's tax applies to me, but not for thee (richest companies in the world).

</comment><comment><USER14> Apple can't innovate anymore so they have this rent seeking behavior. I'm going to move away from the iPhone, and make my parents do the same. I hope you die a swift death of Yahoo, Apple, if you continue this behavior.

Also what the hell is the United States government doing? Are they blind? Cmon' if someone important is reading this, you know its time to punish Apple for this. This should be unacceptable behavior and needs to be investigated. Spotify, Hey, Netflix and other smaller companies need to band up and take Apple to court over this.

Apple is now a fat old rent seeker fart. This is a large indication that their shares are now overvalued.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Apple said that sign-in only apps are allowed for business services, but not > consumer products.

So... Netflix is now a business app and not a consumer app..? Whaaaaaat?

<comment><USER16> You _don 't_ spend your office hours on netflix and your evenings in your email client?!

<comment><USER17> That's probably more common now more than ever.

<comment><USER18> Only way to survive with a toddler running around

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hmm, so Netflix, Audible, Spotify are "reader apps" \- as a user you only consume content and don't create it.

What about Microsoft Outlook then? Microsoft charges for Exchange and Outlook is interface to Exchange to consume AND create content.

Any way, I look at this, its inconsistent applied rules by Apple.

<comment><USER20> It's completely inconsistent.

For example, I have a Fastmail account that I pay $50/year for, and that needs to be paid via Fastmail's website.

I also have the Fastmail email app on my iPhone that I don't need to pay anything for, and that I can use to sign in to my Fastmail account.

I'm a big fan of Fastmail, and don't expect to use Hey, but it seems an almost identical use case and an identical market.

<comment><USER21> it certainly looks like the fastmail app is pretty much identical to this. login screen to gate off any use of the app; quite inconsistent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Maybe they could add the option to buy within the app, but charge the user the 30% markup too. And let the user know they can purchase outside the app for a discount.

Kind of like paying cash instead of card at a restaurant.

Edit: Interesting replies. But selling physical goods is an exception to the Apple tax. Maybe they can sell you a magic coin for $1 and ship it to you and that magic coin also coincidentally authorizes you to use the app...

<comment><USER23> App Store Review Guidelines 3.1.1 In-App Purchase [1]:

"Apps and their metadata may not include buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms other than in- app purchase."

[1] [https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/#pay...](https://developer.apple.com/app- store/review/guidelines/#payments)

<comment><USER24> No surprise the EU has opened an anti trust investigation. Just because you put verbiage in a contract does not make it legal.

<comment><USER25> I would be curious to see legal opinions of past anti-trust cases most similar to what is before us with App stores.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If any company has a stranglehold on the media through its own PR, it's Apple. But still, I'm happy this story has simmered up — it's well-documented in the developer community, but I think the general public ought to know the hoops Apple makes developers jump through to offer their iOS apps to people.

Now, if only Apple would acknowledge this developer treatment next week, at their Worldwide Developer Conference. But I'm not holding my breath.

</comment><comment><USER27> I don't mind that Apple curates the app store. I find it a useful service for stopping malware and stuff like that.

I DO mind that Apple is forcing companies to give them a 30% revenue cut even when the companies fully comply with all their rules. The line about "consumer" vs "business" apps is obvious horseshit, otherwise they best be kicking out all those other consumer apps like Amazon, Netflix, Spotify, etc

</comment><comment><USER28> "I'm going to make one of those unpopular opinions, but alas, it must be said: It is far easier to just drop Apple support entirely."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23286883](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23286883)

<comment><USER29> Going by that logic, it's far easier to just not build an app in the first place

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> As someone who cherishes privacy (can't use Android with continuous Google tracking) and abhors walled gardens (Apple), I think the market is ripe for a new player.

Is it the natural course of things that every public company will eventually turn the screws on its customers to keep showing quarterly growth? If so, it is but natural to expect that they will be replaced by better competitors.

<comment><USER31> > can't use Android with continuous Google tracking

Google sure seems to offer a lot of privacy options to disable tracking. What is missing that you want?

<comment><USER30> Yeah, but it ends up hurting usability to a large extent. Also, I'm at a point where it's tough to take Google at it's word about location history etc.

With Apple I'm more comfortable letting them have my data, just because they have a better record with privacy, at least.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is great advertising by Hey.

<comment><USER33> media plan going very smoothly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Easily biggest US antitrust issue in tech.

<comment><USER35> I'd much rather we let capitalism destroy Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> 30% does seem a little bit high. What justification does Apple use for charging that much?

<comment><USER37> Because they have a monopoly on App Stores on iOS devices

Edit: clarification of Apple's monopolising

<comment><USER38> Is Wal-Mart a monopoly too, since I'm not allowed to walk in and set up my own shelf of goods to sell? Serious question

<comment><USER37> That's the wrong comparison. In this context your opportunity is to create an entirely new supermarket in the same country.

No one can create a new App Store on iOS devices.

<comment><USER39> The equivalent would be buying an Android phone, which many people do (in fact more than have an iPhone).

<comment><USER37> I see that as equivalent to opening your Wal-mart competitor in a different country... there's no competition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This is because the App Store is a monopsony

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22051915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22051915)

</comment><comment><USER41> This is the monopsony side of the app store equation.

"In the microeconomic theory of monopsony, a single entity is assumed to have market power over sellers as the only purchaser of a good or service, much in the same manner that a monopolist can influence the price for its buyers in a monopoly, in which only one seller faces many buyers."

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

<comment><USER42> Ehh not really. Technically speaking Apple isn't buying anything, the users are. Maybe if Apple was buying in app subscriptions on behalf of everyone, it would be a monopsony, but it isn't the case here

</comment></comment><comment> tekcyb-org Not sure why everyone is so surprised. This goes hand in hand with apples goals in creating a seamless ecosystem for the customer. It's part of their brand, mission and identity to have this tight/strict policy. It would actually hurt their brand if they derailed from this.

Apple is an end to end ecosystem. It has a straight line vision. I think they would be wrong to not do this.

And this is coming from a privacy / open source geek. I run my own mail servers.

</comment><comment><USER43> I usually come to Apple's defense about their in app purchase requirements because you can subscribe outside of the app and still use it. There are at least a dozen apps that I have used that I have paid for outside of the store.

But this goes too far.

I have never heard mention of a carve out for "reader apps". But I guess they meant apps that don't allow you to create content. But that still feels arbitrary.

It's politically stupid to go after DHH. He has a large following and has already been before congress for exactly this.

<comment><USER44> Why should you get an exemption because you have a cult following?

AppStore policies are extremely transparent and Apple has provided in-depth responses to him at every step of the way.

They even went so far as apologize for approving it and giving him the false impression that they didn't see him try to sneak past the rules.

He has gotten way more favorable treatment than anyone else.

<comment><USER43> There is nothing transparent about this. The rules have been for the longest that you can't provide a link to a web page for out of store payments But you have never been forced to allow in app purchases.

Speaking of favorable treatment, Amazon Prime Video gets special treatment. You can now purchase and rent video from Amazon directly in the app without Apple getting a cut.

Heck, since both Apple and Amazon participate in Movies Anywhere, if you buy an app from a participating studio from Amazon within the app, the video counts as being purchased on iTunes (and Google Play Video, Vudu, etc.)

<comment><USER44> You didn't respond to my statement that Apple has responded to him every step of the way.

They even apologized when they didn't realize he tried to sneak around the rules and approved the app.

Please show an instance where Apple has done this for any other app.

<comment><USER43> What's there to respond to? Apple has never not allowed an app to forgo in app purchases as long as you didn't provide an outside link. Saying Apple responded to them and apologized is about like saying an abusive spouse apologized after beating them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> > Apple allows these kinds of client apps -- where you can't sign up, only > sign in -- for business services but not consumer products.

Wondering out loud, what if they changed their home page copy to "business email".. "down to business email" etc even if it didn't work it could garner a new round of press and publicity.

</comment><comment><USER46> I predict they'll reach a backroom deal and that this abuse of power from Apple continues towards anyone who doesn't have the power to push back (unlike Spotify, Netflix, Uber, etc).

On a sidenote - I can't help but wonder who'll pay 100$/year for an email client. This product to me will be the decider between users no longer willing to pay for anything unless they absolutely have to, and people being rational and understanding that if the benefit outweighs the cost, the price doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER47> It is time to sue Apple. It is time for the DOJ to break them apart. They are a monopoly, and this is unjust. Plain and simple.

If technology had evolved in an open fashion, this form of taxation would never have developed. The web could have been a completely open platform with a fully native experience. Instead Apple and Google shit on the web and force us to use their competing standards.

Both of these companies are a hindrance.

There should be one native experience and SDK. WASM has a chance to get us back to that enlightened path.

<comment><USER48> > They are a monopoly, and this is unjust.

Over what market does Apple have a monopoly?

<comment><USER47> This is going to sound contrived, but they have a monopoly over the Apple App Store.

You might argue that this isn't the definition of a monopoly, but the DOJ gets to decide that, not you. And there is a case to be made that this is, in fact, anti-competitive.

Apple is forcing businesses that want to deploy paid software to pay their tax. You might say there are alternatives: Google.

Google does the same thing and should also be punished.

Before Apple started this extortion racket, there were ways to deploy paid software that could reach customers without having to go through a gatekeeper. Now there are very few ways to do so.

Both Apple and Google have undercut the web. You can't write streaming video software that isn't native. You can't have any sort of first class experience.

This is one of very few markets where there are no alternatives and the duopoly has actively done harm to the open alternative.

Is this Apple's responsibility or fault? Absolutely. And I remind my legislators of this.

If you're a developer that doesn't work for Apple or Google, you should feel a call to action to fight this asymmetric advantage they hold over us.

<comment><USER35> Stop buying Apple products.

Android can side load + web apps.

This is a non issue as an Android user.

<comment><USER47> It's not a non-issue! _You_ might not be an Apple user, but the rest of the market has quite a few of them.

You're also never going to teach the majority of Google users how to side-load as Google has done no work to make this a friendly, safe, and simple process. (Their interests are aligned against doing so.)

The services you subscribe to have to charge you as an individual more because their subscriber base is being taxed. That isn't fair as a business or as a consumer.

<comment><USER49> > Google has done no work to make this a friendly, safe, and simple process

It's very easy, when you try to install from a non-Play Store source you are presented with a security dialog which leads directly to a page where you can toggle installation from that source.

I can't see how it could be much easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I hope this uproar doesn't die down before WWDC because it's going to suck if Apple announces all the ARM Mac software must go through their app store.

<comment><USER51> They will once they can get away with it. They've been inching closer to this over the years with the MacOS GateKeeper settings and defaults.

<comment><USER52> Nah. [Quoting myself][0]:

> They can't do this unless they are okay with never selling machines again to > anyone who needs to write code. There's no feasible way for all programming > tools to be distributed through MAS. IPython isn't going to suddenly go > through the marathon of crap you need to get into the store.

> If absolutely nothing else, native developers: you can't have more than one > version of a MAS app installed. Nearly every iOS developer I know has at > least two versions of Xcode at any given time.

[0]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22721310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22721310)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> You have the choice to not pay to apple, and they have the choice to not publish your app.

Apple App Store is proprietary, and majority of iOS user aren't going to jailbreak. This is ~50% of world currently.

(It's is >50% of the market in my area, even worse)

One thing we should try, is to make some great app, exclusively for open platforms, then encourage the folk to move forward.

</comment><comment><USER54> When the gold standard for making money is inapp purchases and subscriptions, and Apple seeing almost all big apps circumventing that cash flow they gonna do something.

A lot of companies doesn't realize Apple did built a software and hardware platform with audiences that pay. They use the platform and cry foul when Apple wants a cut.

<comment><USER55> You are already paying your dues to Apple's platform for $100/year.

<comment><USER56> Yeah. How about Apple charge for app store review and distribution? $0.02 per GB transferred through the App Store, and/or $0.02 per MAU per month.

Exemptions for personal, non-monetised projects.

This way, they get to collect on advertising companies like Facebook too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I can understand dhh's frustrations. Apple should really only deserve the 30% if they referred users to HEY via the App Store. Outside of that is just unfair and predatory.

This is similar to what Wix requires when you develop for their platform. Wix requires developers to profit share 20% of your revenue for any customers that just so happen to use the part of your app that communicates with Wix. Why do platforms continue to think they're entitled to such a thing? And why would any developer want to integrate with Wix with such a clause?

<comment><USER8> > This is similar to what Wix requires when you develop for their platform. > Wix requires developers to profit share 20% of your revenue for any > customers that just so happen to use the part of your app that communicates > with Wix.

As you have described the Wix situation, it is not analogous. Apple only gets a share of revenue that they originate (user creates an account using in app purchase). Apple does not receive any revenue from users who sign up elsewhere and sign into their account in the app using their already extant account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Considering 37signals are, I believe, Mac lovers, this doesn't bode well for either camp.

</comment><comment><USER59> I've been waiting for an HN thread on the actual product.

Has anyone used it? Is it any good?

<comment><USER60> 100 dollars for an email address, that doesn't support IMAP or even POP. it doesn't seem to be worth it. for that money, you could register 3 domains and a year of migadu or similar.

<comment><USER61> the point of this app has completely sailed over your head. less space than a nomad.

<comment><USER60> the point of the app is to make money. to lock people into using it. the features don't seem good to me but i am a bit tempted by the vanity aspect of the cool domain name.

<comment><USER61> i should have said 'value proposition' instead of 'point'. i'd have assumed that was obvious, but i guess not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Can the app developer sell the app instead, for a dollar? And refund the dollar to the person upon sign in? I think that's a viable workaround.

</comment><comment><USER63> Here's a suggestion, if they _really_ want to stand their ground: provide a version of the app for jailbroken devices.

</comment><comment><USER64> EDIT (previous comment deleted): I was making the case that Apple seemed to be in line with stated policy, but karl11 made the correct point that Fastmail is allowed, free, but without in-app signups.

So regardless of policy, Apple clearly is being deeply inconsistent here and deserve to be called out. The only thing worse than bad policy is inconsistently bad policy. Thanks for the correction!

<comment><USER65> They aren't being consistent. Basecamp is monetized identically and is in the App Store. So is Fastmail. So is Slack. Etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Does apple prohibit them from charging $baseprice + 30% for iOS subscriptions?

<comment><USER67> I believe this is a viable path forward. If Hey were to charge an in-app- purchase of basically any amount they would be okay. As long as they aren't telling users to go to hey.com and pay there instead, they'd be able to. Google does this for YouTube Premium right now, for example.

The catch and the thing that Basecamp probably wants to avoid is that they would have to have a higher sticker price in iOS, and have to build support for it. The current price on their website is $99/yr, which would be an interesting iAP price too (so they'd probably want to go full monthly).

<comment><USER68> I wonder how Apple would react if Basecamp made the iOS IAP price something like $99/month.

<comment><USER69> IAP price must be same as advertised elsewhere.

<comment><USER68> How does that square with e.g. Spotify formerly charging iOS users more?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> So apple's reasoning is that this exemption only applies to 'business' or 'reader' apps. Would Basecamp/Hey's solution be to remarket Hey as a business offering? I imagine most people who pay for a premium email are using it for work.

</comment><comment><USER37> I genuinely love that DHH still has the guts to make a stand like this even though he mostly loves on Apple products and has even been given pre-release goodies to try out directly from Apple.

This is how you don't become a sell-out! Don't lower your standards just because someone gives you pretty things.

Great example for all of us

<comment><USER71> Umm... pretty sure he isn't lowering his standards because there is his money at stake here. If he had not been affected by this monetarily he most probably would have kept quiet like most humans to keep the good relations.

<comment><USER72> Except that he testified before the congress on this of monopoly way before this.

<comment><USER71> His app Basecamp has been on the App Store way before he testified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73>
      That is obscene, and it's criminal, and I will spend
      every dollar that we have or ever make to burn this down
      until we get to somewhere better.
      - <USER2>

Was this an intended reference to the Steve Jobs quote of a similar tune directed at Android?

</comment><comment><USER74> Twitter thread from founder for more info: [https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1272968382329942017](https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1272968382329942017)

</comment><comment><USER75> Slightly off topic. What is their need for an email app, which just works with their new domain? Is this remarkably better than the iOS Mail app?

<comment><USER76> It's not an email app (only). It's an email service (to replace e.g. Gmail).

<comment><USER77> Except this email service offers no IMAP, POP3, or other standards support so you can't read or send Hey.com email without doing so through their client app.

<comment><USER78> that's the whole point of Hey, they want to fundamentally alter how email works. adding all those would be just limiting what the point of it is.

<comment><USER49> It's a clever UX, with interesting features in the business logic. But at the data layer none of it prohibits IMAP integration; simply presenting IMAP folder emulation for the emails and attachments would suffice for export or off-platform access. The fact that they aren't willing to do so is suspicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > "There is never in a million years a way that I am paying Apple a third of > our revenues," Heinemeier Hansson told Protocol. That is obscene, and it's > criminal, and I will spend every dollar that we have or ever make to burn > this down until we get to somewhere better."

Hmm this makes me want to sign up for this service even though I really have no need for it. More companies need to stand up to both Apple and Googles obscene store policies and fees

</comment><comment><USER79> As much as DHH can be a bit angry on Twitter, I think he has the resources and fervor to go to bat and give Apple hell for this.

Interestingly, while Apple is constantly touting its own privacy and anti ad features, this huge fee drives App developers to monetize through less scrupulous means to avoid paying the Apple tax. Generally, this mean apps that harvest data or show ads.

I'm not sure what the correct % is in this case, but 30% and 15% is large for a mobile email client.

For those that don't know what Hey is, it's a new email service launching with the @hey.com domain. There's been a frenzy of invite swapping just to try to lock in the good 2, 3, and 4 character email prefixes. Also they are charging $999 a year for a 2 character email which is a good way to capture value.

<comment><USER80> $99

<comment><USER79> No it's certainly $999/yr. and $349 for a 3 character email. And $99 after that.

<comment><USER80> Interesting, don't see that listed on [https://hey.com/pricing/](https://hey.com/pricing/). Where are those policies listed?

<comment><USER81> If you select a 2 or 3 character email name when signing up, it pitches the up charge to you. Not a big deal to select longer, and personally if I use it I'll be using my own domain name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> See, the problem is you made an app for it. why?

doesnt ios have a mail app ?

why would you want to lock yourself inside an app store anyway

<comment><USER83> Notifications.

<comment><USER84> Who uses notifications anyway?

<comment><USER72> Are you serious though ?

<comment><USER84> Yes. I do not want apps to be proactive. If I need to check mail, I will do it. If I need to check it regularly, I'll set up a calendar event (OK, once in a while I need notifications), but these should be notifications I personally configure.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


If You Think Free Money Kills Work Ethic, Your Definition of "Work" Is Horrible - <AUTHOR> https://crossingenres.com/if-you-think-free-money-kills-work-ethic-your-definition-of-work-is-horrible-c2747300028d#.4iffjjani <comment><USER2> How many kids would slog through college and medical school out of purely altruistic reasons? I think 5% of those that enter the medical profession?

And that cook who makes a meal for a whole restauant? Who cleans his dishes and tables when he's done? And almost nobody would volunteer to be a shoe salesman.

This cherry-picked utopian view works for a 5% of the economy and workers out there. But not in reality that I've experienced.

<comment><USER3> In the context of a basic income, being a doctor will still convey wealth and status, in addition to altruistic satisfaction.

Perhaps no one would be a dishwasher for a price people are willing to pay, and restaurants have people bring or wash their own dishes. Would that be terrible? I would feel good about that, personally.

Or people would wash dishes because they wanted more money, as I did in high school, despite being provided with food, clothes, shelter, a computer, and access to a car by my parents.

And there are plenty of people out there that are very passionate about shoes, and would share that enthusiasm

Basic income wouldn't mean the end of work— just the end of people being forced to work by fear of homelessness. That just means people would clean septic tanks because they'd get paid a lot of money so they can buy motorcycles or take awesome vacations or whatever, and septic tank installers would have to compete to offer good working conditions so that an unpleasant but necessary task is palatable enough that people would be glad to do it in exchange for good enough money.

<comment><USER2> I guess I'm not talking about basic income as much as money not being a good motivator for work. Basic income might become necessary if there aren't enough jobs to go around to keep people alive. But until that point, where machines do all the work, it's not feasible.

>And there are plenty of people out there that are very passionate about shoes, and would share that enthusiasm

How many would sit in the mall for 40 hours per week? That's the fallacy -- that enough people like doing something so much that they would do it enough to make up for the hordes of people that would stop doing it if not paid.

> people bring or wash their own dishes

Who will make the dishes? And the dish washing detergent? And the bottles to hold the detergent? And the refinery to make the plastic for the bottles? And dig up the stuff to supply the refinery? And construct the refinery?

This is why so many -ism's are a seductive idea, but don't work in reality, because the narrative focuses on just the last step or so of a very long supply chain full of unpleasant work for someone else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Of course most people only work to make money. Why else would they spend 8-12 hours of their day doing something they don't want/like to do?

This article is arguing against the wrong point. If everyone had free money, yes, people would stop being garbage men. Some people would be lazy, because humans are inherently pretty lazy, but a lot of people would work on things they're passionate about.

Work sucks for most people:

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." -George Carlin

<comment><USER5> > If everyone had free money, yes, people would stop being garbage men.

If everyone had free money but garbage collection wasn't fully automated first, garbage collectors would have higher pay and/or better working conditions and opportunities for advancement, because people aren't going to want to sit around in their own garbage, they are going to want it picked up, and be willing to pay to have that done (and, if it stops getting done in the short term, there going to be willing to pay _more_ to have it done.)

Free money doesn't remove the motivation to work when you can get _more_ money for working. (Now, if you lose the free money when you work, then, sure, that kills motivation to work, which is actually one of the problems with means- tested welfare programs that UBI seeks to address.)

<comment><USER6> If garbage men made $50k, and everyone got $50k, the choice would be, do nothing for $50k or make $100k as a garbage man.

Would we get less garbage men? Not necessarily. I don't think people will be any less inclined to do unpleasant jobs per se - they still pay the same.

What we will see however, is a massive change in employment at >underpaid< jobs. "Picking lettuces for $2/hour? Fuck that, I won't starve if I don't, any more. Come back when you have a business model that doesn't involve abuse."

I don't see any problem with that. Industries that rely on making their employees choose between penury and destitution need to go the way of the slave plantations. It's our duty as humans to move forward.

<comment><USER2> But who does pick the lettuce? What does that do to the price of lettuce? If we apply that same thinking to every other food item, what does it do to food prices? I think you've hit on the problem -- UBI is not anything more than wage inflation, which will force people to work again to keep up with the spiraling prices.

<comment><USER5> > But who does pick the lettuce?

Realistically, in the short-run, basically the same people doing it now: even a "just out of poverty level" UBI isn't yet sustainable with the current level of productivity and automation. So, the people that can't get a better job than lettuce picking will still need to work, and will still be picking lettuce. They'll have slightly higher total income. (From the UBI itself; whether their wages will change and in which direction is less clear.)

> What does that do to the price of lettuce?

Not a lot in the short run, though maybe small increases.

> If we apply that same thinking to every other food item, what does it do to > food prices?

Likewise. A "mature" UBI that would be at a level that would substantially change this would also require levels of productivity and automation where you probably wouldn't have people picking lettuce (though you'd have a few maintaining the lettuce-picking bots) in the first place.

<comment><USER2> So UBI only makes sense where robots are doing all the work. I don't think a lot of socialists see that -- they seem to argue (like in the original article) that we should be able to move that way now.

Fundamentally, 'value' (goods, services) is produced by someone and consumed by another. We all trade our efforts. UBI is trying to enable consuming without producing at some level. But it only works if someone (or something - robots) are producing without consuming. Right now the working poor are filling the role of producing more than they can consume, which is not right. But someone/thing has to do the producing, and more cannot be consumed than is produced.

<comment><USER6> >So UBI only makes sense where robots are doing all the work.

No, that's you just making assumptions. It's not one thing or another.

<comment><USER2> OK, then who gets to receive less value for their efforts so that others can receive more? That's what it boils down to.

Goods and services are finite, and at the level of a society/world/country are being consumed at the level they are produced (notice we don't have warehouses continually filling decade after decade of anything). UBI means everyone would be able consume more than they are now -- it doesn't matter what they consume, but it would be more. And it might allow some that are producing to produce less (work less). That imbalance can't exist for very long at all until prices rise to get back to equilibrium. There's no way around it.

<comment><USER6> >OK, then who gets to receive less value for their efforts so that others can receive more? That's what it boils down to.

The administrators of the current welfare system, that currently costs us more that UBI would.

<comment><USER2> Really? Do you really mean _Universal_ Basic Income, which I understand to be everyone in a country? I admit I don't know the numbers but it's hard to believe the current system has enough for 330 million of us in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article author and their parents seem to think that there will be no income other than a UBI. Which is, well, bizarre.

Menial jobs will still be done. But you may not have full-time staff for it. Garbage collection will still be done, you'll just pay better. People will still go to med school, because they'll get prestige (major motivator today) and more money (major motivator today).

The main difference (assuming affordability of a UBI, I'm not addressing that), between a non-UBI and a UBI situation is that people have a guaranteed subsistence income. Not a guaranteed life of leisure. We can't promise $50k/year/person. We can't even reasonably promise $5k/year/person (in the US). I don't know whether a UBI makes any sense (fiscally) or what level to set it at, but dismissing it because "people won't work" or "people won't become doctors" is, frankly, moronic.

</comment><comment><USER8> tldr of this article to me screams, "If you don't hold the same opinion about this as me, you are horrible."

If you think someone who works for the sake of money is a "horrible" person, you have to step outside your bubble for a tiny bit and look at the world, you will notice so many important jobs in society no one would really want to do unless money was an intensive.

Don't get me wrong, I am one of those people who are lucky enough to work in an industry I am honestly excited to work in. But you can't say the same about many jobs, doubt you can find a janitor who loves cleaning piss and vomit, its an absolutely important job in our society, the only reason I could think of why someone would do it is because of their situation in life and how the money earned from it can give them a partial answer to their problems.

Seriously HN what hell are you guys up-voting to the front page these days.

<comment><USER7> I don't think this author has articulated their point well. If they have, then their point is poorly reasoned and considered.

BUT

      If you think someone who works for the sake of money is
      a "horrible" person

This is not, at all, in the article. The author's thesis is that "money is motivation for work" is a horrific definition of _work_. Not that the people who hold that view, or the people who are motivated to work for money, are horrible people.

<comment><USER8> You are right, I have made a mistake on my part.

But I still think when it comes to this article this should not be up-voted to the front, the main argument in this article is just fundamentally wrong. I feel the author is in a bubble and has no idea what so many people around the world have to go through, and that not everyone is lucky enough to work on things they love.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > If the only reason you work is to make money, I don't call that work ethic > at all. I call it a fear of being broke. It's like saying the only reason > you don't rape and murder is for fear of going to prison.

So free money doesn't kill a person's work ethic, it merely removes a person's motivation to work. I don't see how that alters the argument against free money (basic income).

If I could afford to retire from my job today, I would. I could stay busy the rest of my life, no problem.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had a change of heart about this recently - from realizing that overcoming challenges, is what's had the most positive impact on me, and those around me.

Really, the people advocating basic-income are those who think 'if only I had the money so that I had the time, to do what I really want to do!', but if they dug a little deeper, they'd realize that's just an excuse.

Anyone who wants to work their ass off, and sacrifice the near future for the long term payoff - USA/Canada are incredible incredible places to do it.

You can live in a basement, work night shift security where you get to do whatever you want, for the majority of your shift.

There are 100 other examples of making it work where you sacrifice in the short term for your long term goal but truth is - people who are wishing for basic income, are wishing they didn't have to struggle so much.

When you get over the hump and see how much more understanding you have of the world around you and of yourself as a result of the struggle, you'll feel differently.

Again, there's nothing wrong with wishing it were easier, but don't believe the fairytale of some outside factor making it or breaking it in you achieving success - it is all you. And it'll always be all you. Nobody else. Not the government, not your boss. You.

<comment><USER5> > Really, the people advocating basic-income are those who think 'if only I > had the money so that I had the time, to do what I really want to do!'

No, you're just wrong. There are lots of different reasons people support UBI, and "if only I had the money so that I had the time, to do what I really want to do" isn't particularly high on the list.

E.g., many proponents like UBI because they see it as more efficient than means- and behavior-tested benefit programs that consume lots of resources and make life miserable for potential beneficiaries with high-touch bureaucracies designed to apply the means- and behavior-testing.

<comment><USER2> I've been sort of in favor of UBI, but these discussions have made me realize it can never work. Let's say we give everyone $50K. Why not $50 billion? I'm being serious - the same effect ends up happening -- prices increase proportionately. I'm basing that on the idea that 90+% of work that happens today really does need to happen. That means that 90%+ of those working today will need to be enticed to keep working by giving them more money. Now almost everyone has more money, but the same limited supply of goods and services are available. Prices will rise -- simple supply and demand. Those on UBI will fall behind if they don't work.

<comment><USER5> > I've been sort of in favor of UBI, but these discussions have made me > realize it can never work.

I don't think you understand UBI, how it is intended to work, or the economics around it.

> Let's say we give everyone $50K.

$50K is ludicrously high for an early UBI implementation. The _ambitious_ advocates target a per-person level that would hit at or near the federal poverty line (the more cautious advocates see getting up even to that level as a longer-term goal.)

> Why not $50 billion? I'm being serious - the same effect ends up happening > -- prices increase proportionately

No, they don't. First, because all actual UBI proposals are redistributive (whether the money comes from existing social benefit programs including the government employees/contractors managing them being cut, or whether it comes from new taxes, or from some combination. So it doesn't change the supply of money, just where it is.)

Its true that goods disproportionately demanded by the portion of the population receiving a net benefit from the implementation of the UBI can be expected to increase, but under any reasonable expectations these increases will generally be less, proportionally, than the increase in income. So, there will be a net increase in utility for the net income gainers, though somewhat less than would be expected if you considered pre-UBI price levels.

But also because one purpose of UBI is to reduced the disincentive to work created by means-tested social benefit programs, where some portion of the income provided by work is lost in benefits. (In some proposals, UBI would also reduce the barrier to mutually-beneficial employment at low wages provided by minimum wage laws.)

<comment><USER2> > $50K is ludicrously high for an early UBI implementation.

Sure, I was just picking a number. Let's say it's $5K per person? $25K? (Not sure how it works with families with kids).

> actual UBI proposals are redistributive

Honest question: is there actually that much in the system without requiring massively raising taxes? A quick look at [http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/12/federal- spe...](http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2014/12/federal-spending-by- the-numbers-2014) seems to show the Federal Budget is maybe 75% social programs in a broad sense, so I assume that's the money that would ultimately get retargeted. Is that enough to give everyone in the US a living income? And I don't mean in the early implementation but 20 years in when it's humming along as envisioned.

> these increases will generally be less, proportionally, than the increase in > income.

How can that be when everyone would be making more money because UBI is added to their income as well. All labor costs would rise for everything. Everyone can't suddenly have more money and all want to go on a cruise without cruise prices increasing to the point that the same number of people that can afford it now will afford it then.

I just don't see anyway this works at scale. It only works temporarily but once things hit equilibrium, we're back when we started.

<comment><USER5> > is there actually that much in the system without requiring massively > raising taxes? [...] And I don't mean in the early implementation but 20 > years in when it's humming along as envisioned.

A UBI moving from a low level to a mature, robust level able to provide a living wage -- as a matter of basic economic necessity -- requires advances in productivity. There's not productivity in the economy now to support a robust UBI.

> > these increases [in the prices of goods and services] will generally be > less, proportionally, than the increase in income.

> How can that be when everyone would be making more money because UBI is > added to their income as well.

To start with, everyone will _not_ be making more (after tax and public benefits) money. The money for a UBI (under most actual proposals) will come from reducing existing means- and behavior-tested public benefits (and associated administration) and/or increased taxes on some people. Either of these will reduce the effective income of some portion of the population -- and necessarily decrease at least some people's income by an amount greater than the UBI. Before considering the effects the redistribution has on promoting or inhibiting economic growth (e.g., by increasing domestic velocity because of where money is distributed and how and what the people receiving spend it on vs. those losing it), the average net impact on incomes should be approximately $0.

> All labor costs would rise for everything.

No, they won't, and those that do rise won't rise equally. And, in any case, labor costs aren't the only costs of production, so even if labor costs in the domestic market rose as a result of UBI, prices of completed goods and services would rise by _less_ (proportionally) than the increase in labor costs. (In the long term, for goods provided in a competitive markets, where prices are driven by competition down to the cost of production.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > If the only reason you work is to make money, I don't call that work ethic > at all. I call it a fear of being broke.

The assumption the author is making is that there is only one extreme or the other. Either you work for some sense of meaning or you work for money out of fear but both cannot be true at the same time. Its the spectrum of these two things which allow for work ethic.

If a job allows for a range of differing amounts of effort and some employees decide to put forth more effort because or work ethic then regardless of the fact that everyone fears a lack of money there is still potential for work ethic.

>It's like saying the only reason you don't rape and murder is for fear of going to prison.

While most humans have empathy, to write off the importance of fear is extremely naive. Prison is in fact the only reason why some people would not do these things, or if they end up doing so we incur that penalty to hopefully create more fear.

</comment><comment><USER12> A refresher on [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EZG9NQQ/ref=dp-kindle- re...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01EZG9NQQ/ref=dp-kindle- redirect?ie=UTF8&btkr=1) is in order.

</comment><comment><USER13> Was hoping for good read on economics, found guy whining about his parents' views.

</comment><comment><USER14> "If we gave free money to everyone, no one would have any motivation to work."

Your definition of "money" is horrible. [ducks and covers]</comment>


A pragmatic look at the Copenhagen summit - <AUTHOR> http://government.zdnet.com/?p=6550

<comment><USER2> _Perhaps the biggest news coming out of Copenhagen: Presidents and Prime Ministers recognize that greenhouse gases are a problem they have to deal with._

Shouldn't that read "...an opportunity for more taxation and control"?

</comment><comment><USER3> "Is Global warming an economic or a enviromental issue?"

Neither, it's a political issue.

And from a commenter on ESR's latest:

# Some Guy Says: December 20th, 2009 at 6:57 am

I think that the main thing history will take note of from the copenhagen conference, is that _China_ saved the world from a global, communist government.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Perhaps the biggest news coming out of Copenhagen: Presidents and Prime Ministers recognize that greenhouse gases are a problem they have to deal with. The naysayers of global warming are finished."

I suspect its more likely that this is the last hurrah of the Global Warming believers' power struggle.

<comment><USER5> One would hope so, but many observe that AGW/CC is Too Big To Fail. 5 billion plus US$ annually is a lot of "research" money to give up and the potential for power and money is just too tempting for a number of governments and businesses. E.g. any bets on the U.K. or NZ repealing the laws they've passed on this?

<comment><USER6> This is a political comment, not a scientific one. And I know it sounds cynical.

Once you started framing the political discussion around the idea of giving money to dozens of corrupt third-world regimes the jig was up: the U.N. will push and push until _something_ happens, if for no other reason than it lines the pockets of hundreds of little petty bureaucrats and warlords all over the globe. We're already seeing some countries pay for and organize "protesters" at the summit. The west is like a big piggy-bank, and this is a lot of folks' chance to cash in. If it takes twenty years they're not going to give up on this. The idea of free money is extremely difficult to give up.

I don't think where the science goes has anything at all to do with the political discussion at this point.</comment></comment></comment>