In Berlin, a Grass-Roots Fight Against Gentrification as Rents Soar - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/world/europe/berlin-rent-fight-against-gentrification.html <comment><USER3> > After tenant outcry, the city also saved at least two apartment blocks in > Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg from being sold, using a legal tool known as the > "right of first refusal," which lets officials intervene if they can find > funding for the purchase. In another case, the city recently stepped in and > purchased a large disused freight station in the eastern district of > Köpenick, which it plans to convert into affordable housing.

People like me, living in cities like Munich, Frankfurt or Hamburg, whose rents are much higher than Berlin's and whose taxes fund this, are always happy to help you, Berlin. Just tell us, when your airport is finished, (maybe in 10-20 years?) so we can take a look at what we paid for over there.

Berlin is complaining at very high level. If you want to talk about gentrification in Germany, Munich and Frankfurt are the cities to talk about. Berlin has a much easier situation, with much more open space. But when a developer comes along and wants to build skyscrapers on abandoned land, they also complain, because they want to keep their open spaces. The people over there complain about the Swabians, who want to live in these apartments, all that while being financed by the taxes of said people from Southern Germany.

I am all for liberal cities and unique culture, but Berlin does not seem to realize, that this is made possible, because Frankfurt, the exact opposite of Berlin, pays for it.

<comment><USER4> I think the question is: How big of a difference in living standard is acceptable in one Country.

Go to a public school in berlin, look at the toilets. Chances are very high they might be defect, stink and malfunctioning. I worked as a special eds teacher in Neukölln. We're supposed to train our students how to use the toilet. Half of the time the toilets in the first floor were broken. That means me had to stand in line for restrooms instead of doing some work. When the toilets got repaired after half a year the toilets in the basement broke down. Our students became very good at waiting in line.

Now i work in a school in the southwest of germany. If a toilet breaks down, chances are it will be repaired on the same day. If they need an external contractor in will take one day.

All of the students live in germany. Yet one get clean, functioning toilets, the others not.

(Fun fact: Berlin paid for my education, now Baden-Württenberg gets a university-trained teacher for free...)

<comment><USER3> I think parts of it can be solved, by centralizing education. In my opinion Berlin (as well as Hamburg and Bremen) really does not need its own Kultusministerium, money saved there can directly be sent to schools. Maybe also the funding for schools could come from federal sources to a higher degree, but I do not know the exact situation.

Btw, the state you live in is called Baden-Württemberg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Berlin is a very large city. This article covers two districts, Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, which are experiencing a boom that is starting to raise the rents from insanely dirt-cheap to something people outside Berlin would consider "normal".

As it turns out, those two districts also happen to be the most trendy in Berlin. There are many other districts in Berlin that are not affected. For example, I haven't heard much about a rent crisis in Wedding, Alt-Moabit, or any place outside of the Ring-bahn.

To put the "crisis" in Bay Area terms, it would be like if it were impossible to find a place to live in the Mission, even though you could still get a place in the Panhandle, and therefore there was an article about a rent crisis in San Francisco, ignoring every other district in the city.

<comment><USER6> Rents are rising across the city and Wedding is gentrifying heavily at the moment, it has seen up to +78% increase in rent since 2009.

[http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/berlinmieten/](http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/berlinmieten/)

<comment><USER7> I assume Wedding gets hit by the price hike pretty badly because it's next to Mitte and the rents were particularly low despite the central location. As long as people don't get displaced, I don't see it as a bad thing, Wedding still looks kinda sketchy and will benefit from more affluent residents in the long run.

<comment><USER8> Not sure how many do this, but you're basically describing my situation, 8 min commute to Mitte, and relatively cheap. Due to the rent control, rents only jump after tenants change. An identical flat to mine, below me, was just now online available for rent for about 20% more than my rent is - and got rented out within a month, so there's demand.

I don't think there's a fear for displacement yet, there's quite a few plots to build up, or abandoned places that are torn down (e.g. Stattbad), and a bunch of new modern apt buildings coming up. But for now, it looks like Neukölln is the more desirable next-hip-thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> From the article it sounds like Berlin has tried everything they can think of, aside from actually creating supply to match the demand...

In Berlin's case, is it a question of "wanting to keep the cities character", or is it more like the Swedish variant where it's "gotta keep the housing bubble growing"?

<comment><USER10> Berlin has supply, the limited resource are vintage buildings (pre-war or rebuilt in the same layout) and no market force can create more of them. The abundant 1970ies style developments will never see gentrification.

<comment><USER11> >"Berlin has supply, the limited resource are vintage buildings (pre-war or rebuilt in the same layout)"

Is this the courtyard style apartment building you see in Berlin? Is there a name for those? I'm guessing these are the desirable ones?

<comment><USER12> It's called Altbau and is usually combined with Blockrandbebauung, which the other commenter mentioned. I don't understand why this style hasn't seen a comeback yet.

Its most charming qualities are high ceilings (3-4 meters), historicist ornamentals / stucco, natural ventilation (Fugenlüftung), wooden flooring and boy-type windows. All of these increase quality of living substantially and I wouldn't want to live in any other kind of building if given the choice.

<comment><USER11> Thanks! Indeed this is what I was asking about/referring to. I spent a few months in one and the ventilation and the light due to the windows facing into the courtyard made for a pleasant living experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Berlin goes through--I would say--a normal gentrification process. Before 2010 Berlin hadn't have any significant industry and just few jobs. Since then companies, jobs, everything is sky-rocketing and rents get obviously much more expensive. But Berlin is still far below London or Paris. I think we haven't even reached the level of Eastern European capitals price-wise, such as Warsaw.

But the actual problem is that the city is super slow in building skyscrapers and rather tries to avoid them 'because they aren't Berlin's DNA'. Skyscrapers offer a much higher density and now is the time to really plan for a couple of them. They are just two new small skyscrapers planned for the next 5-10 years. But it's a very tedious process: everybody is fighting with each other, the city wants guarantees that the real estate funds build and operate schools and other public facilities in those districts, the funds don't want of course. Then there is the subway operator BVG which is kind of blackmailing the funds: They say that the skyscrapers are so heavy and they need money to stabilize the subway tunnels underneath. BTW, they do this with every bigger real estate project (recently with a huge mall).

In general, the city's council has a very good feeling about how to plan and build the city, they are really good compared to other cities. Infrastructure is great and you have many small city centers while Berlin-Mitte where the government resides is the busiest and most expensive one (no surprise). They are just lacking one important skill and this is managing large scale projects. Just an example: our new airport which was planned to open 2010 hasn't been opened yet. The new airport seems to be ready but doesn't get the approvals and it seems that it will never get the approvals and has to be shut down again (news from last week). Germany's general overregulation might also play in here. The city currently operates just two small airports.

However, they really need to plan proper skyscraper districts which seamlessly integrate with the rest of the city, complement Berlin's DNA and which should have also a good mix of business, leisure and living. So you don't face dead districts at night. The Potsdamer Platz which was created 20 years ago is an ok place which pairs all of those + two tiny skyscrapers.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, but that makes no sense. Skyscrapers are a stopgap measure that shortly lowers prices, which only serves to get more people into town if demand stays the same (and creating more demand: everyone needs a hairdresser, a school, a supermarket). In that way, it only increases people density, which is the main fuel of gentrification.

Point in case: Look at the cities with the highest skyscraper density (New York, Tokio, ...) - are they the cheapest cities or the most expensive? Heck, even Frankfurt (nicknamed Mainhattan for its skyline) is more expensive than Berlin.

On top, infrastructure can't keep up with the vertical stacking of people, so you grind to a halt in public transport and on the streets.

Berlin gets it totally right. Prices will increase either way and lead to a nash equilibrium. If I'd want to live in a concrete hellhole, I'd move somewhere else.

<comment><USER15> Sorry, but that makes no sense.

You set up some weird strawman about skyscrapers, do you have anything to back up your claims?

Housing units, population, jobs, and desirability of the area is what drives housing unit prices. Increasing the supply will always ease affordability.

Restrictions on development, and NIMBYism is what destroys the cost of living and development in cities.

      But these cities still aren't building to the pace of
      their population growth. To achieve price reductions,
      these cities would need to implement an open market,
      deregulating land so that housing supply can meet demand.
      Assuming that urbanites view this as some crackpot
      right-wing solution--'Reaganomics', according to one San
      Francisco politician--they should look at Tokyo, where
      it's actually being tried.

        In Minato ward — a desirable 20 sq km slice of central
      Tokyo — the population is up 66 per cent over the past 20
      years, from 145,000 to 241,000, an increase of about
      100,000 residents. In the 121 sq km of San Francisco, the
      population grew by about the same number over 20 years,
      from 746,000 to 865,000 — a rise of 16 per cent. Yet
      whereas the price of a home in San Francisco and London
      has increased 231 per cent and 441 per cent respectively,
      Minato ward has absorbed its population boom with price
      rises of just 45 per cent.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/12/tokyos- af...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/12/tokyos-affordable- housing-strategy-build-build-build/#5064ef648d57)

<comment><USER16> > Housing units, population, jobs, and desirability of the area is what drives > housing unit prices. Increasing the supply will always ease affordability.

Within that price range. Skyscraper flats in many European cities are at such a high starting price that they might put a downwards pressure on really expensive flats but do nothing for the average person. The cost of building a flat in a Skyscraper are significantly higher than the cost of a flat in a 7 story building.

<comment><USER17> I used to live in Seattle in 20-something story building, paying $1250/month for 1 bedroom apt.

In San Francisco, a similar apt. is $3000+.

Clearly, the cost of building the skyscraper is such that the developer can earn their money at $1250/month. Not cheap but most standards but also not insanely expensive as SF.

The issue in SF is not that we're building 7 story buildings instead of 30 story buildings but that it's hard to get approval for 4 story building unless you promise to sell 125% of capacity for below-market rates and even if you do, there will be neighborhood organization bad mouthing every project at best and suing you under any pretext they can at worst. Even if they eventually loose the lawsuit, they'll successfully delay construction.

<comment><USER16> > Clearly, the cost of building the skyscraper is such that the developer can > earn their money at $1250/month.

I can't talk about your house obviously but the vast majority of Skyscraper in Europe have economics where the bulk of the investment cost is carried by expensive flats and not cheap ones. So yes, some people might have cheap flats but that does not mean that you can take the unit count of the Skyscraper and say "N cheap flats".

If you take the Triiiple in Vienna for instance the current quoted costs are 3500 euro per square meter purchasing price for the cheapest flats going up to 9000 euro per square meter for higher up floors. And the Triiiple is considered one of the more affordable projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The only way left to fight gentrification is, I am afraid to say, something between massive civil disobedience and outright violence.

The alternative to fighting - chilling in our sofas and doing nothing - <USER2> waking up one day in a city without teachers, cleaning/water/sewer personnel, supermarket staff and, funny enough, police. I just picked these examples as these people are already living near or below poverty line after paying rent and are vital to a healthy city.

And: it's not just Berlin that suffers from gentrification, e.g. Hamburg and Munich are falling victim to it. We as people can no longer trust the state (or the police) to serve our interest - both serve the interests of the ultra- rich investors only. Just look at London what awaits societies which do not fight with any means neccessary.

<comment><USER19> Fighting gentrification is stupid. Cities with growing populations need new housing supply and the market will put resources (to build) where it meets consumer demand. Unjustifiable barriers to new housing supply will only make prices go up even faster, and for crappier quality housing, too.

<comment><USER18> LOL. The "free market" always goes for building ever more luxury apartments for the rich.

Housing is a human right and needs to be regulated as hell, otherwise you end up like London.

<comment><USER20> Not saying the market is infallible, but it's often smarter than you and I.

When the Invisible Hand builds luxury apartments, it is indeed for the rich, because if the rich don't get the luxury apartments they want, they will settle for middle-class apartments at good locations.

Since they are rich, they can outbid all the middle-class people, and only rich people will be able to live at places that used to house middle-class folk.

That's what gentrification means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Have to wonder how much of this is occupant-driven vs how much is foreign speculation (like Chinese investment in the Canadian property market). That prices are getting so out-of-whack relative to local incomes in so many places suggests some sort of international aspect...

<comment><USER22> I keep wondering whether negative interest rates and QE have made real estate a very attractive purchase for international investors. I'm trying to track down evidence that asset managers have started moving "safe money" investment in that direction to get higher returns than they do from Treasury etc. Which is where that money used to park.

It's too widespread of a problem at this point. lisbon, porto, london and Berlin and many other cities like Vancouver are seeing prices explode.

<comment><USER17> Presumably those boogeyman foreign investors are rich enough to buy in cash so interest rates have no bearing on their decisions, especially US interest rates.

It's not like Chinese peasants get million dollar loans to buy a property in London or that Russian walks into Wells Fargo and gets million dollar loan for a house, even if he's rich in Russia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When nearly a whole city fights against the investor kind of world view why do people argue that scaring investors away is a bad thing? It's obviously what the people want and DO achieve. You may not be one of them, but they seem to be extremely successful and should be respected for that.

<comment><USER24> They want to scare the investors away, and instead they want to force others to pay for new housing for them. That doesn't sound entirely reasonable.

<comment><USER23> The whole thing is a romantic endeavour more than a logic one. But if you've spent some time in Berlin you can understand the desire to keep things as they are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Question: does there exist a place today that was like Berlin in the 1990s: civilized but still a bit uncharted, with a lot of opportunities for living thriftily?

<comment><USER6> Leipzig comes to mind

<comment><USER26> Also came to my mind. But Leipzig also attracts many young people because of its affordability. Many things that are true for Berlin now are also true for Leipzig; it is very hip, rents are rising and there's a lack of living space [1][2].

[1]: [http://www.taz.de/!5368403/](http://www.taz.de/!5368403/) (german)

[2]: [https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/535299/umfrag...](https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/535299/umfrage/mietpreise- auf-dem-wohnungsmarkt-in-leipzig/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Berlin is a great example of what happens if you have bad laws and regulations hit reality. The renter is king in his or her property. Friends wanted to buy a flat but ypu can realistically only rent a flat that comes with an occupant so you need to wait until they leave until you can move into your own property.

Then this gets paired with attempts to regulate the increase of the rent and people rent for a bloody long time in a city where there is more demand than housing.

The effects this causes in reality then are bizarre. All you have to do is build more stuff and none if this was necessary.

<comment><USER27> > so you need to wait until they leave until you can move into your own > property.

That's simply false. You can cancel a lease with a renter because of "Eigenbedarf" (personal need) if you want to move into your own property. There's some limitations around it when you buy a property with a renter in it but in general that's how it works.

In Germany, the "basic law" (rougly: constitution) says:

> (2) Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the public good.

The state protects your property but this obliges you to also use it for the public good. It's not an absolute right.

<comment><USER16> > You can cancel a lease with a renter because of "Eigenbedarf"

Which has a 10 year "Sperrfrist" (freeze period) and you need to go to court if the renter refuses to honor and make your claim. Even in that case you need to prove your personal need and "living in your own property" does not satisfy that requirement.

<comment><USER28> On the flip side, this means that there is absolutely no need to buy the flat you are living in, because your landlord can't easily throw you out anyway. If you are after the savings in rent, you can still buy a flat and rent it out to pay your own rent.

<comment><USER11> I am curious do people actually do this though in practice?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> _Housing prices have soared in fashionable Berlin neighborhoods like Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg._

Ah, the New York Times. Yes, there is a borough (or district) called Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, but no one would think of calling it a "neighborhood" (it's split by a river; and not too long ago, the pieces that comprise it were on different sides of The Wall).

</comment><comment><USER30> Gentrification aka "supply and demand". Sounds like they haven't even attempted increasing supply in these neighborhoods.

</comment><comment><USER31> Large areas of the city did the opposite of gentrify already. So what do you want, of course people in those areas want to move to nicer ones.

Stop crapping the whole place up, the few pockets that are still nice are of course going to see higher rent prices. If you don't like gentrification there are plenty of cheap areas in the city for you to live.

This article smacks of an agenda. They want the whole city to be bad, it's not enough yet.

</comment><comment><USER32> I am hoping to move to Berlin someday. Hopefully housing will be affordable.

</comment><comment><USER33> Niemand hat die Absicht einen Flughafen zu bauen.

</comment><comment><USER34> s/Berlin/San Francisco/g

Same shit, different place.

From a US perspective: The world is changing. The (American) ideal of a McMansion with a 2.5 kids and 3 cars is gone. People want to live in cities; in particular, tolerant, safe, cultured cities. Old timers in San Francisco (where I live) will blame the "tech boom" and "techies" for this phenomenon, but it's not limited to tech, and is not caused by tech. It's just the cycle we are in currently.

</comment><comment><USER35> _If_ there's a housing crisis in Germany, it's entirely the fault of politics.

There should be lots of investors in German housing construction projects, given Germany's comparatively low property quote, increasing urban population, and low general interest rates. What turns investors away is the asymetric legal situation unduely favouring the renter's over the owner's interests (I hear in Sweden it's even worse). That, plus excessive laws for energy efficiency that seem to be dictated by the construction industry to drive up initial and ongoing cost.

The SPD party's answer is new laws limiting rents (without also attempting to cut down on costs). They shure don't understand how to let the market work for you.

<comment><USER36> On the other hand that keeps the quality of life higher for people living in the cities. It's a balancing act between landlord profits and the promise of stability to the citizens.

Cities aren't only optimizing for profits of the investors (realtively few people), but also for making life in the city itself happy. And by responses of people moving to Berlin, they're doing something right.

<comment><USER35> It's not about profits for investors so much as it is about a self-sustainable housing economy. Comments like yours, and SPD policies always paint a juvenile "bad investors vs the working class" picture. In reality, investment in housing has always been attractive for smaller investors (eg. Grandma's rent). Especially since the ECB has been keeping interest rates low for the debt- ridden PIGS economies not to collapse. Look at the not-too-distant future, the demographics being what they are. What sustainable investment is there if you have a bit of money to spend for your old days? The problem the SPD is trying to solve with rent-limiting laws will come back massively in ten years time with the then-old generation not having enough to sustain themselves.

<comment><USER36> Noone is painting investors as bad, but it seems that like a lot of people in this thread you're looking at apartments (living space of citizens of a city) as an investment and not as a basic prerequirement for someone to actually live in a city.

<comment><USER35> _Of course_ it's an investment; always has been.

Living space doesn't grow on trees (in Europe at least), and is _extremely_ expensive to create and maintain. The quarters seeing "gentrification" (with their social status-indicating details such as stucko) were _always_ attracting a bourgoise elite (its why they exist in the first place).

It's all a question to make economy work for the people. Saying goodbye to reality does no one good.

<comment><USER36> But noone is saying you should say goodbye to reality. But precisely BECAUSE it doesn't grow on trees, the cities shouldn't optimize for maximum investment value of real estate, but they should optimize for maximum living space and quality of life potential for their citizens. Empty apartments in city center used as a dumping ground for money are of no use to anyone but a select rich few individuals.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Backbone.offline allows your Backbone.js app to work offline with localStorage - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Ask11/backbone.offline/blob/master/src/backbone_offline.coffee

<comment><USER2> How does this differ from backbone.localstorage.js?

<https://github.com/jeromegn/Backbone.localStorage>

[http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone- local...](http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone- localstorage.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> This library caches data in localStorage and sync them with server (when online). Main difference is sync-algorithm which works with server using REST API. You can read about it here: <https://github.com/Ask11/backbone.offline#how-it-works>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> You can see it in action here: <https://saveideanow.com/demo_app>

</comment><comment><USER3> Glad somebody did that. At some point this was a goal for Backbone.localStorage, but I ended up working with other technologies and not being willing to make time for this.

Good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you Jerome! Your library was a start point of inspiration for me and I glad to see your assessment of my job. <https://github.com/Ask11/backbone.offline#special-thanks></comment></comment>


Deutsche Bank: 'Underwater' Mortgages to Hit 48% - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=ac9y1xr7yNhQ

<comment><USER2> Phew for a second I thought it's in europe! But it seems the recession in the US is far from over - 14% decline in house prices and more defaults surely means more trouble ahead for both banks and their insurers</comment>


Roomi's fall from grace - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/09/roomis-fall-from-grace-major-layoffs-follow-allegations-of-frivolous-spending-and-nepotism/ <comment><AUTHOR> Goes to show you money doesn't solve money problems. I get that first time entrepreneurs spend lavishly on advertising but 80k trips to Thailand?

I think having too much money too early is not always a good thing. Focusing on unit economics is key if your startup is going to survive.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I enforce hard limits on my SaaS plans? - <AUTHOR> We recently launched our feature flag SaaS, https://bullet-train.io/
We have people signing up for trial accounts, which is great, but I've noticed a fairly large percentage of accounts are overflowing onto the paid tier but not paying. We charge based on the number of API requests our customers make, and currently have no hard limits in terms of preventing them from accessing the API, even if they go over their monthly plan limit.
Is there a best practise for this sort of thing? Should we start enforcing hard limits on the API? It seems kind of harsh, but I've been surprised at the number of people that just ignore my emails asking them to upgrade.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> If you don't enforce limits then people will 'abuse' the free tier and it'll increase your costs, which is bad for your burn rate.

If you do enforce limits then you'll lose most of the users who are 'abusing' them, which is bad for your traction metrics.

Which you optimize for is up to you. I'd prefer to get more users even if it costs a bit (assuming it's not crazy amounts of money per user), and then work out a way to convert them in to paid accounts if possible..

<comment><USER3> A middle ground: include a significant introductory bonus for X days or months (however long it currently takes for most new users to start actively using the product), in addition to the free plan. After a month or so, it becomes the standard free plan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would set a limit 10% above the publicised limit of the trial account.

When a user reaches the publicised limit you send an email informing them that they have reached the limit and should upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure about the technicality of it but I think it'd be useful to put a limit on after a few reminders that it'll happen if they ignore your emails.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not sure about the technicality of it but I think it'd be good to enforce some limitation after a few reminders.</comment>


Google Spent Years on a Plan Dominating $830B Industry and Nobody Noticed - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/google-spent-years-on-a-secret-plan-to-dominate-this-830-billion-industry-nobody-even-noticed.html <comment><USER2> Slightly click bait title. "It's the travel and hospitality industry."</comment>


Bitcoin Price Tops $1,000 in First Day of 2017 Trading - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-price-1000-january-1-2017/ <comment><USER2> Bitcoin is living up to it's reputation as digital gold.

The Chinese are running away from RMB and buying bitcoin, Venezuelans are running away from Bolivares into Bitcoin. And to a lesser extent some Indians are escaping the Rupee.

It'll be really interesting to see how governments try to deal with decentralized currencies if they really take off. Governments lose a lot of control when they can't control money.

<comment><USER3> It's hard to get reliable numbers of the number of Venezuelans having bitcoin. According to [1], surbitcoin.com had 85,000 users in November 2016 (on a population of 30 million). Quartz reported in November 2016 a weekly bitcoin volume below 400 bitcoin on localbitcoin.com. That is not bad, but I would not call it Venezuelans running away from Bolivares into Bitcoin.

One of the problems is that you would have to be crazy to want to sell bitcoin for Bolivares if you can't immediately spend them.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/venezuela...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/16/venezuela- bitcoin-economy-digital-currency-bolivars)

[2] [http://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei- eliminates...](http://qz.com/876067/the-chinese-principle-wu-wei-eliminates- the-need-for-lifehacks/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So is Bitcoin a currency or an investment vehicle? How can such volatility in a currency be considered desirable?

<comment><USER5> It's simply a highly speculative and volatile vehicle. It's not a currency or am investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't that a problem because it will mean also higher transaction costs (in dollar)?

<comment><USER7> No, as Bitcoin appreciates the transaction costs go down in Bitcoin terms and stay the same in fiat currency terms everything else being equal.

<comment><USER8> When the block rewards decrease, the transaction costs will necessarily have to increase. Right now, the block mining reward dwarfs the transaction cost (effectively subsidizing it). So what increase in transaction volume (relative to capacity) will have to happen in order to keep transaction rates so low? Right now, it looks like there needs to be an order of magnitude volume increase for mining interest to remain.

<comment><USER7> Miners costs are denominated in their local currency so you need to look at the USD or CNY value of the transaction fees over time not the BTC amount to understand the financial picture as seen by miners.

In USD terms transaction fees have increased more than 7x over the course of 2016. [0] The block reward only halves roughly every 4 years so total USD denominated fees are growing much faster than the coinbase reward is shrinking.

Long term either the block size will have to be raised or the average value transferred per transaction will have to go up to increase fees. Either way rising Bitcoin price isn't bad for the cost of transactions. If anything it makes the coinbase more valuable and causes miners to care less about transaction fees.

[0] [https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees- usd](https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees-usd)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Double top" Just like gold it will deflate.

</comment><comment><USER9> To the moon!!!

<comment><USER8> Dogecoin ironically seemed to capture the potential of everycoin: failure, hype, what have you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> OK, I'll be that guy.

Is this actually intellectually stimulating to hackers? Should I start posting stock tickers for karma?

<comment><USER11> Just the world's first digital, decentralized currency succeeding. Hackers can and will use it to create new and fascinating projects.

<comment><USER12> Is it succeeding or are people gambling on the value of it?

<comment><USER13> > or are people gambling on the value of it?

Welcome to investing. Adoption is success.

<comment><USER14> Does a skyrocketing penny stock imply a successful company?

<comment><USER15> A penny stock that skyrockets and holds value is no longer a penny stock. Bitcoin is 8 years old and has hit $1000 USD twice now over multiple years.

The "market cap" is currently over 16 billion dollars. It would place 68th when compared with 192 countries M1 money supply (2015) data: [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2214rank.html)

The hash rate securing the network is currently at 2.5 quintillion operations per second which is really 5 quintillion SHA256 operations every second: [http://bitcoin.sipa.be/](http://bitcoin.sipa.be/) Speaking of pennies... if every operation was a penny laid flat on earth, you could cover the surface of the earth, land and sea, twice over every second.

Bitcoin surpassed the penny stock phase a long time ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/08/bitco...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/06/08/bitcoin- isnt-the-future-of-money-its-either-a-ponzi-scheme-or-a-pyramid-scheme/)

<comment><AUTHOR> You'll find a lot of such dismissive articles about Bitcoin throughout its existence. Here's a collection of 'Bitcoin obituaries' if you want to reinforce that view: [https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/](https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoinobituaries/)

<comment><USER16> It's not an obituary, it's a fact. I am tired of rehearsing how a currency is enforced to be accepted in the issuing country, has a monetary authority etc. Otherwise while theoretically it could be called a currency, that's a thing for dictionary writers, it's just not usable in everyday life therefore anyone pushing for it has a not-entirely-straight agenda. There's no killer app for bitcoin yet and it's hard to even imagine a (legal) one.

It's possible future blockchains will be better but so far, this is not.

<comment><USER17> If you are in the US, what is your opinion on the common prison trope that smokes are money in prisons?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A browser-based neural network simulation - <AUTHOR> http://neurovis.dataphoric.com/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Neural networks are a beautiful concept. They are also beautiful to watch. I created an interactive neural network visualizer and tutorial. It's a fun way to develop some intuition about neural nets. It was created using vis.js, and a lot of love. Hope you enjoy!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The source code is now up on github. [https://github.com/mcrowe/neurovis](https://github.com/mcrowe/neurovis)

</comment><comment><USER2> Wow, this is an amazing intro to neural networks, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> really cool! is the source on github?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

Yes. I will be posting the source to github very soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> that is so cool and a really clear tutorial. does it use three?

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you enjoyed it! It uses a library called vis.js.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's fun, but the whole point of neural networks is to train them against data, not tweak the weights by hand. Hand-tuning a neural network is not done much - it's like setting raw filter parameters by hand.

<comment><USER6> True, but it's useful to get an intuitive understanding quickly. This doesn't go into the various loss functions or neuron types or matrices, just play- with-it level intuition. I bookmarked it under "Research/MachineLearning/Intro"

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said. That's exactly the point: to get "play-with-it level intuition". Even though its not rigorous, I still find it helps.

I _am_ planning on building a simulation of the back-prop algorithm though!</comment></comment></comment>


200-terawatt Laser Brings New Extremes in Heat, Pressure to X-ray Experiments - <AUTHOR> https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2015-10-05-200-terawatt-laser-brings-new-extremes-heat-pressure-x-ray-experiments.aspx <comment><USER3> They are building one of those betatrons in Petawatt in Czech Republic - <USER2> Beamlines project.

</comment><comment><USER4> Url changed from [http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a18009/inside...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a18009/inside- slacs-laser-that-can-burn-hotter-than-the-sun/), which points to this.</comment>


PouchDB Introduction (from the beginning) - <AUTHOR> http://briantoth.github.com/Tutorial/2013/03/19/pouchdb-introduction/

<comment><USER2> You can also watch Dale talking about PouchDB <http://vimeo.com/56632201>

(Hi Dale!)</comment>


Atlassian announces new logo - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/our-bold-new-brand <comment><USER2> "We need a gradient"

Very few logos use gradients to their benefit and this is not one of them.

Also, the wordmark ("ATLASSIAN") has too much going on. This L-A pairing has been used to death, including several high-profile logos. Customized bar in A is lost in smaller sizes and looks like a rendering artefact. _And_ it's not even kerned well, in the SIA part.

The font choice is going to bite them in the back very soon. Single-story "a" and overall playfulness is suitable for a lifestyle/cooking blog, but not for a tech company catering to technical people.

I'm going to guess it was an in-house rebranding job with little to no field validation. Looks like someone with a bit too much carte blanche got carried away with artsy-fartsy designy trends and forgot to actually check the results against their userbase.

EDIT - Ahhh... they got a rockstar designer to redo their logo. A guy who did a Twitter "rebrand" (tightened up their bird logo). This probably explains why the logo is so off the mark.

</comment><comment><USER3> Living with a graphic designer, I've heard all there is to hear about how important logos are and how many hours/days need to go into research for one. BUT, I'm yet to actually see any real evidence whatsoever that it's worth spending more than a couple hundred dollars on one. Can anyone find any actual evidence that it's worth investing a ton of your marketing budget into a logo vs just about any other marketing exercise?

Personally, I just can't wrap my head around it. Pick a colour palette that matches your business (blue = calming, red = aggressive etc etc), and make a mildly unique and attractive shape with those colours that is related to your businesses name. I've had it explained to me a million times but I still don't see how this could take more than a couple of hours, it just seems like a massive exercise in overthinking a very simple problem.

<comment><USER4> I also struggle to believe that if you have a well recognized logo, unless your company's image is really, really poor, then redesigning your logo is anything other than a net negative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This logo makes me feel very uncomfortable because it looks like an X-Acto knife slicing a thumb. <:o

</comment><comment><USER6> At least this is a little more creative than HP Enterprise's "new" logo:

[https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/dc/a4/bc/dca4...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/originals/dc/a4/bc/dca4bce8cf4ca71f987a141d70076f3a.jpg)

I wonder how many $Ms that cost.

<comment><USER2> That's a _superb_ logo actually.

It's a shape of a racked server + an usual, but fitting choice of color. It's instantly recognizable and versatile as hell.

<comment><USER7> I like it but will people know what a physical server looks like in the future, kids dont understand the save button (floppy disk) today.

<comment><USER8> This is HP Enterprise. Their target audience is people who have been to a datacenter at least once (or at least seen images of one on slides).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The only service logo, that >looks< unchanged is the Trello one.

One more time I would like to say how great is the Trello team of being able to deliver a logo that survived a redesign of it's new owner.

</comment><comment><USER7> What is fiverr's refund policy if not happy with the quality of the deliverable?

</comment><comment><USER4> Companies talking about their new logos are the most self absorbed thing possible.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do they really have to jazz it up with all this bluster? Can't they just say, somebody told us the logo must be the letter A, can you make it look pretty?

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks nice. The only thing I'd change is put a bit more space between the application logos and the wordmarks, esp. for Jira and Statuspage.

</comment><comment><USER11> That new logo looks like fingertips.

Does this mean they've also done away with all caps on JIRA? Or was that changed a while ago?

<comment><USER12> Yes, all product names are now consistently cased as part of this rebrand. Jira, Statuspage, Fisheye, Hipchat and Sourcetree (the latter 3 all being CamelCased before)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Mating sharks"

<comment><USER5> Or two sinking ships.

<comment><USER13> made me laugh</comment></comment></comment>


France backs away from Hadopi - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/06/hadopi_under_fire/

<comment><USER2> 12 million Euros for one million warning emails. They could have bought the infringed Dvds.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's pretty refreshing to see cases where a government doesn't stay the course when the facts contradict it. I wonder if it is in less of a thrall of France's IP lobby?

<comment><USER4> The left wing has always been against the repressive/agressive methods of hadopi, and were instead always favorable to better legal options.

What is refreshing is a government keeping its promises after the elections, especially on matters like this which the general public doesn't really care about while some huge corp are fighting for it (remember that vivendi/universal is french, for example, and our "culture producing" industry is quite huge).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Hadopi, the body charged with hunting down freetards under France's three- strikes law, has sent a million warning e-mails and 99,000 registered letters."

Did The Register really just say "freetards?"

<comment> mike-cardwell The Register uses terms like that all the time. It is part of it's charm, but it does appear quite childish to people who don't read it regularly. Especially people who aren't British.

<comment><USER6> The jargon seems to have gotten denser over time. I left off reading it a few year back, and now some of it is just incomprehensible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know much about this situation beyond what is in this article. Are they measuring success by the number of individuals being prosecuted? Was the goal to reduce piracy or to prosecute citizens? The article makes no mention of a lack of copyright infringement reduction, which is what I would (naively?) assume is a reasonable metric for inefficacy.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's a very good think. This law was against our vision of what Internet must be.

</comment><comment><USER9> "We thought we were endorsing Hadoop, our bad", says France.</comment>


iPhone may be vulnerable to sophisticated email hack - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-iphone-may-be-vulnerable-to-email-hack-11587556802 <comment><USER2> From Reuters [1]:

> _To execute the hack, Avraham said victims would be sent an apparently blank > email message through the Mail app forcing a crash and reset. The crash > opened the door for hackers to steal other data on the device, such as > photos and contact details._

Does this mean that if you've never had a blank email cause a crash, then you have not been compromised?

1: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-apple-cyber/flaw- in-i...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-apple-cyber/flaw-in-iphone- ipads-may-have-allowed-hackers-to-steal-data-for-years-idUSKCN2242IK)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.is/ZOQyv](https://archive.is/ZOQyv)</comment>


Show HN: WFH should not suck! A window to the outdoor always open on your screen - <AUTHOR> https://ow.deepnosis.com/?ref=hn <comment><USER2> this is great. I wish the gifs audio looped more eloquently though, it's distracting when it breaks to start again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. That is a problem that we noticed as well. The windows are in fact videos that are played in a loop in a picture-in-picture mode, but in the browser there is a short pause between loops. We are looking to find a workaround to see if we can make the pause less obvious or smooth it out. It was a weekend project we did last weekend while was shelterd-in-place. Definitely needs improvment.</comment></comment>


Finland plans to replace classic school subjects with broader "topics" (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/finlands-school-reforms-wont-scrap-subjects-altogether-39328 <comment><USER2> A 25-year-old Finn here.

Like kettu228 explained, those major changes took place a few months ago when the schools started again this fall.

Along with these changes, some teachers have started to try new techniques in teaching such as removing all the tables from the class and replacing them with couches and beanbags [0]. Instead of the traditional (and frankly boring) ways of teaching, they try to cheer up pupils and make learning more fun. Some of the pupils are even able to participate in class planning.

I wish these changes had been there when I was in elementary school. Personally, it really seems to be the right way to go, though only time shows how it will affect. I'd wanted to learn, discuss and debate more about current hot topics, learn (more) IT and be part of influencing what we are taught.

[0] [http://nyt.fi/a1305870531097](http://nyt.fi/a1305870531097) (Pardon me, the article is in Finnish but it proves the point)

<comment><USER3> I myself went to a high school which functioned this way. We started the week in our groups for a 30 min meeting where we set the goals for the week. After that we studied what we wanted. There were workshops all day with english, math etc that you could go to if you had any questions. But mainly you sat with your friends in small groups and studied.

And yes, you were alone responsible for when you took breaks etc. This way of studying were in my opinion much more effective. Sure I perhaps didn't put in as much time studying as people who went to traditional schools did. But once i studied I were much more focused and to be honest. When you sit in a class and the teacher ramps on about something that is of no interest to you, how much are you able to recollect?

Also another positive side of it were that if I had it easy for some topics I could focus others which I had a hard time for. I remember that I didn't study either swedish or math at all in 6th and 7th grade.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity, did any students from that school go to any of the top global universities? Like Oxbridge/Ivy League/Etc? I wonder how those students do in comparison.

Also, as a kid who learned much better through class interaction with a teacher, your school would have been a nightmare for me, instead of doing so well in school I likely would have failed. Undiagnosed ADHD is terrible for self-driven learning.

<comment><USER3> I live in Sweden and it's less common for students to study in Ivy-league schools abroad.

And yes, it's a very special way of learning - puts a lot of responsibility on the student. But on the first day of the weeks in the group meetings your mentor checks up that you managed to hit your goals last week etc - and if they notice that you keep up failing your targets they will take this up with the parents and possibly make up a study plan for you and see to it that your in the workshops of those subjects between the agreed times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's the future of education, we need to get rid of this centuries-old model where students are passively learning. Schools are acting as the gateway to knowledge like in the old days when you had to travel to libraries and amphitheater to listen to lectures because that was the only way to access knowledge!

In the meantime, the Internet came up and anyone can access an infinite amount of information and knowledge. Workers need to be able to learn by themselves, be able to retrain and retool. Any good Software Engineer is already doing this, constantly learning new stuff to stay on top of their game, that will be true for any type of worker.

<comment><USER6> People have for at least 100+ years had access to "an infinite amount of information and knowledge"

No one has finished reading a whole library.

This sort of attitude is the problem. Trinkets like giving students things don't help.

Students need to do work to get ahead.

The best way 'so far' is boring repetition.

<comment><USER7> There is an element of tech company led social engineering going on here: everyone and their dog want to be able to sell their kit as educational if they can. So we get told about the wonders of the internet constantly and schools end up buying iPads instead of books. Your point about libraries stands admirably in light of this. Using different ways to find out information is a skill in itself.

That said, nobody is disputing the need to work, only the manner in which that work is carried out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am i the only one that sees the massive problems with this ?

>But with the new basic school reform all children will also learn via periods looking at broader topics, such as the European Union, community and climate change, or 100 years of Finland's independence ...

>The concept of "phenomenon-based" teaching – a move away from "subjects" and towards inter-disciplinary topics – will have a central place in the new NCF.

>The answer is that educators in Finland think, quite correctly, that schools should teach what young people need in their lives rather than try to bring national test scores back to where they were.

I'm all for teaching with current-time examples, but making them the central point ? Teaching children "what they need in their lives" (the what) instead of the _how_ ?

Well they have money so i guess a general education is not _that_ important for them.

<comment><USER9> Real life consists of interdisciplinary subjects and requires interdisciplinary learning. What's the value of picking things apart and studying "science" and "math" and "literature" in isolation?

In the world around us, these subjects are intricately tangled together. Awareness of the relationships between these subjects makes the world interesting and is one mark of a well-educated person. Isn't it impressive and fascinating when someone can speak on the co-evolution of math and science, or the impact of literature on history?

In my experience, interdisciplinary study offers an abundance of opportunities to get at "the how," whereas single-subject study prioritizes "the what."

<comment><USER8> Literature has not much to do with science, but a bit with history (depends though on if you count social sciences as science, but even then art is art). Math is a _pure_.. topic, although it is very much used in all other education.

Note that in my country there is no "science" topic, but physics, biology, geology, etc.

> Isn't it impressive and fascinating when someone can speak on the co- > evolution of math and science, or the impact of literature on history?

Most certainly, but that is _not_ what the linked article suggests will happen. The article is a bit more on the pragmatic side (the current world state). I, myself, would very much love for a physics teacher to talk about how completely new mathematics was invented when Newton or Maxwell were faced with the problem of expressing physics in mathematics (we did for Newton in my school, as i'm sure many other schools do the same for many other similar examples). Physics and math _are_ very much related, but do you abolish pure mathematics in favor of only biased topics (towards spacial and forces in the context of physics, statistics in the context of some social topic, and such)?

When you look at it, how many things are actually interdisciplinary ? Sure many things are (arguably everything), but how many do you think need their own.. class ?

Climate change is covered by geology. Community (whatever that means) i didn't cover much in school because i went to a technical school, but i'm sure my sister did (although i remember that there was, but i don't remember what topic it was under).

Things were never pure to begin with, but why go into the other extreme ?

I'm sorry. But even though i think that some things in education should be changed, this change is, to me, just moronic. (if it is as the article says, that is)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a theory Finland got to the top with the simple three Rs (Which is was doing more recently than many western systems) and is currently just screwing it up.

Guess we'll see.

</comment><comment><USER10> We changed the URL from [https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/finland- will-become...](https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/finland-will-become- the-first-country-in-the-world-to-get-rid-of-all-school-subjects-259910/) to what appears to be a more substantive (and properly dated) article on the subject.

</comment><comment><USER11> The problem here is in the first two words.

The idea sounds interesting and maybe it will work. But why should it be tried at national level? Real progress would mean letting individual schools innovate.

Imagine if the headline read "Finland plans to replace PCs with modern tablets". That would be crazy, right? Computer purchasing decisions should not be enforced at national level. Why is education different?

<comment><USER9> They are letting schools innovate. That was one of the main points of the article, that in Finland, local districts enjoy plenty of autonomy in curriculum decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure. Subjects give you an ability to concentrate and achieve more (better grades) in subjects you like and spend less time on another set of subjects you're not interested (for the expense of grades).

</comment><comment><USER13> I like [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland- home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Changing curriculums is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, I'm afraid. Future generations will wonder how we could be so heartless as to coop children up in classrooms and require them to study random subjects.

The correct approach to maximising learning is as follows. Help children to do more of what they like and try to find things they'll like even better. This includes all video games, btw.

</comment><comment><USER15> This article gets all its information on from this article from the Independent: [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland- schoo...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/finland-schools- subjects-are-out-and-topics-are-in-as-country-reforms-its-education- system-10123911.html)

I suggest changing the link to point to the Independent article (and also changing the exaggerated title to the more informative Independent headline).

</comment><comment><USER16> This article is simply not true.

<comment><USER17> This article is partly true. The headline is not. The changes came into effect few months ago (planned since 2012). Major changes include:

1) Some topics are introduced earlier (like Swedish, our second language)

2) More topic based learning. Learn multiple subjects for example during a project. (So subjects still remain)

3) Change of roles. Teacher should be seen more of a guide and the student should be more active in how the learning should take place.

4) More IT. For example programming is introduced in first grade.

5) "Extensive learning". Learn about learning, thinking, communications, taking care of yourself, working, entrepreneurship, sustainable future etc.

Source: I'm Finnish and checked from the official "Board of Education" site (in Finnish) [http://www.oph.fi/saadokset_ja_ohjeet/opetussuunnitelmien_ja...](http://www.oph.fi/saadokset_ja_ohjeet/opetussuunnitelmien_ja_tutkintojen_perusteet/perusopetus)

Edit: Subjects are not completely gone but there will be more topic based projects that combine multiple subjects

<comment><USER18> Ah thanks for the link and analysis. Also found these:

[http://www.oph.fi/english/current_issues/101/0/statistics_of...](http://www.oph.fi/english/current_issues/101/0/statistics_of_the_month_compulsory_instruction_time_in_finland_among_the_lowest_in_europe)

[https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_kindergarten](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_kindergarten)</comment></comment></comment>


Why I sold my Social Gaming Startup to RealNetworks - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/why-i-sold-backstage-to-realnetworks

<comment><USER2> Great article.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best chair for a programmer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> At the moment, I'd think about a 360/3-axis simulator, so I could rotate it into any position gravity made my body the happiest.

Combined with a large curved 4K screen and a split keyboard at each arm with a trackball/touchpad for cursor/gestures.

It's fun to think which seatbelts would be more appropriate for a programmers chair, but, in this case, I'd think they'd be a hard requirement.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a good question.

I have a day chair, a chair for home, and a couch at home.

I'm a big fan of flipping between multiple chairs and taking breaks.

Very good question, I've been foam rolling my back per my Dr. of physical therapy which helps a ton with back pain.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is my dream chair...

[https://gravitonus.com/gravitonus/products/iclubby/](https://gravitonus.com/gravitonus/products/iclubby/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Wouldn't this depend on your particular configuration of muscle, bone, and fat?

Personal preference, activity level, desk type, and (dis)ability status would all be important factors, as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> A squat rack.</comment>


A new book on the lack of rigor in biomedical science - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/04/how-sloppy-science-creates-worthless-cures-and-wastes-billions/ <comment><USER2> From this description I wouldn't buy this book. It is focusing on a bunch of minor issues rather than the main problem. Biomed researchers only come up with vague "A makes B go up/down" hypotheses. This is not because biology is more complicated than physics. It is 100% a culture and training issue.

[https://bml.bioe.uic.edu/BML/Stuff/Stuff_files/biologist%20f...](https://bml.bioe.uic.edu/BML/Stuff/Stuff_files/biologist%20fix%20radio.pdf)

[https://meehl.dl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/074theoryte...](https://meehl.dl.umn.edu/sites/g/files/pua1696/f/074theorytestingparadox.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Agree with that. The problem is not just the inaccurate answers, but the questions are often ill-thought as well. Life scientists often make correlations from molecules to behavior or phenotype, an inference that spans many many orders of spatial magnitude and a gazillion of complex processes. There is just not enough of incentive for systematic bottom-up approaches, as the average grant size is made to fit this kind of hypotheses. It's more culture than training, or rather, training is a consequence of the culture of the field.

<comment><USER4> It's more like: if you lost your keys on your way home, you go and look for them under the lamp post because you're drunk and you can only see where the light is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a biomedical scientist at a solid US university, I'm getting pretty fed up with all the attacks on my field's credibility. It's similar to education where everyone moans about poor quality. While i cant speak to the average teacher I can honestly say the average researcher tries very hard to get it right. Remember most people don't become biomedical scientists unless they worked hard for many, many years in school and beyond for often quite terrible wages. So you can hate the game (drug companies, academic journals), but please think through any hate you might have on the player.

<comment><USER6> I don't think the blame can all be pinned on drug companies and academic journals, or whatever other third parties we can identify. They all have a role, but many problems with biomedical science come down to individual researchers making poor decisions about their experimental design, statistical methods, and computational tools.

I'm a statistician, and when I wrote my own book about bad statistics in science (see [https://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/](https://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/)), I made sure to reference studies which quantify how often errors occur in real published research. The rate is stunningly high. The average biomedical experiment is conducted with (a) a sample size which is far too small to detect an effect of the expected size, (b) a vague analysis plan which leads to exploratory analyses with high false positive rates, (c) frequent copy-and- paste errors and math mistakes in presenting important results, and (d) an overreliance on statistical methods to make up for poor experimental design.

This means the average published paper is likely a false positive, likely an overestimate of the true effect if not, and is barely reproducible.

Is this the fault of individual scientists? Partly, yes -- these problems have been pointed out for years in leading journals, but nobody takes action to do better research. It's also the fault of the grant funding systems which incentivize salami-slicing of results instead of doing one big, rigorous, well-designed study, and of journals which prefer dramatic but unreliable results over mundane but well-executed results. (Of course, the journal editors and reviewers are usually active scientists themselves.) I think the average researcher would like to "get it right", but has to focus on getting a career instead.

Just a few papers on the problem of poor sample sizes in biomedicine: [http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jour...](http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2000797) [http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/2/160254](http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/2/160254) [http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v14/n5/full/nrn3475.html](http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v14/n5/full/nrn3475.html)

<comment><USER5> I appreciate your comments but as the biologist hopefully you can understand that it's not like we are trying to keep our sample sizes small. We understand statistical power. It's simply not feasible logistically and financially to have the ideal numbers a lot of the time. Real life intervenes, so we do our best. For math/computer people which is probably many here in HN, I think they have a hard time with real-world messiness that is biomedical research. It's the same mentality of "oh I'll just apply my algorithms to this..." which works for them but not so much for us.

<comment><USER6> Given how infrequently we see power calculations in published papers, and the results of typical surveys of scientists, I don't think the typical scientist _does_ understand statistical power or other statistical concepts. There are plenty of surveys (e.g. [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470218.2014.885...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17470218.2014.885986)) showing that scientists just pick sample sizes based on what's usually done in their field, rather than working out what's necessary. There are plenty of other surveys showing practicing scientists don't understand the concepts of significance and power. Some of the authors of those studies don't understand them either -- I've seen at least one study with questions with no correct answer...

I know large sample sizes are often impractical, and you have to make do. But given that, results must be presented with all sorts of disclaimers, since results from underpowered studies are frequently wrong or exaggerated ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18633328](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18633328)). That's not what happens -- scientists who should be aware that their studies have very little value as evidence instead present them as groundbreaking definitive results.

I would much rather see slow, difficult, tentative studies instead of the high-speed spray of nearly meaningless results we see every day. But that will take a dramatic change in career and funding incentives.

<comment><USER7> >I would much rather see slow, difficult, tentative studies instead of the high-speed spray of nearly meaningless results we see every day.

A major hurdle is the experiments _do_ keep getting slower and slower. As a recently graduated biomedical grad student I spent literally 6.5 years of my life trying to get an experiment to work enough times to glean useful data out of it. I knew exactly how much power my data had (I had literally years to think and rethink about it). The number of stars that had to align to get equipment, protocols, controls, materials, animals, sleep-schedules, etc. all aligned to get data out of an incredibly complicated system meant that there is no fast data. Useful biological data is hard-won. And it's getting harder and harder (read, more expensive and labor-intensive).

You could say, well, then just don't expect every scientist to do their own (independent) research (see the author lists on CERN publications...). That indeed would change incentives a lot in the biomedical fields - and I actually do think for the better.

The last point is I think there's a big difference between how a practicing scientist sees a 'published paper' in their field, and how everyone else sees it. A published paper really is just a mark of what you did, and what happened, and maybe a basic interpretation. It really does not claim to be 'true' in a strong sense. And there are entirely reasonable situations where different papers come to opposite (justifiable) conclusions. This is itself weighted data to be used in the next motions of the field precisely because sample size and (more often than not) experimental complexity makes clarity hard to come by for a single paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The basic research isn't what costs billions, of course.

If we've got "worthless cures" and a "waste [of] billions", it's because we've got:

1\. pharmaceutical corporations incentivized to take any random chemical they might be able to make money off of by _telling_ people it has a certain effect (and that isn't _so_ useless that the FDA will literally tell them to stop selling it for being useless) and get them on the market; and

2\. an FDA body incentivized to put billion-dollar requirements on corporations to research a chemical's _safety_ by putting it through a gauntlet of trials, and to research said chemical's _efficacy_ (i.e. whether it has some "statistically visible" effect on people), but without that efficacy test translating into anything like a chemical's _marketable usefulness_ (i.e. it being the answer to any problem anyone actually has, such that a doctor would be _independently_ motivated to prescribe it without the pharmacorp's encouragement.)

In other words, our system assumes that pharmacorps will only _bother_ putting drugs on the market when they're useful. But that makes no sense: if peddling snake oil—snake oil the FDA has rubber-stamped as having "[statistically] noticeable effect" on some disease—is just as profitable as peddling cures, why would pharmacorps _care_ about curing anything?

It's common knowledge that most nutritional supplements—especially the kind that are marketed as containing some named plant, rather than some named active ingredient—are useless, and often don't even contain what they claim to contain. We know exactly why the corporations who produce them produce them anyway: people are dumb enough to buy them, and the rules for things marketed as "nutritional supplements" don't prevent them from making a pill with literally _no_ active ingredient.

Well, the logic for pharmacorps isn't any different. If the rules for things marketed as "drugs" allow them to get away with selling pills containing a chemical that just caused people to "show 1% improvement" along some symptom axis in studies, and doctors are dumb enough to [be nudged into] prescribing that pill—why wouldn't they sell them?

The research scientists who found out that the chemical might be beneficial in some way didn't cause any of this, any more than the people who first discovered coal in the ground caused coal power plant pollution. Corporate greed, and a government body with weak "efficacy" standards, are at fault here. The basic research—sloppy or not–is just (unintentional!) grist for their mill.

\---

That being said: if you _are_ a research scientist, and you want to do what _you_ can to be a check on this system, making your basic research as rigorous as possible, so that they can make conclusions of _no_ effect that the FDA can cite as reasons to _reject_ a pharmacorp's pill—would be useful.

But, very likely, the pharmacorp has more money than your lab does, and so will be able to pay for a higher-powered study than you can afford, that _will_ be sloppy, such that it could prove the opposite conclusion. Your voice, however clear and strong, might just be drowned out anyway.

Really, if we want to fix this problem, the fix needs to come from a different direction. Possibly FDA drug-approval reform, toward something more like a peer-review model (i.e. the pharmacorp gives the FDA money; the FDA uses that money to pay independent labs to rigorously replicate the efficacy study; and then the FDA trusts their independent labs over the pharmacorp's results.)

<comment><USER9> Would you provide some non-supplement examples of FDA approved drugs in this category where they are "safe" but do nothing?

<comment><USER8> Most newer anti-depressants, for example: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/)

\---

A tangent: interestingly, with anti-depressants in particular, doctors prescribe many of these "basically a placebo" drugs fully aware that they're basically-placebos, and indeed do so independently of any pharmacorp wining- and-dining. This is because the first-line treatment for depression is effectively "let's see if we can give you a placebo to get you to trick yourself out of being depressed." Which often works!

There are _effective_ treatments for depression, mind you, but they have _side-effects_ , while placebos are—unsurprisingly—very well-tolerated. So the "actually a drug" drugs get pushed back to the second-line or beyond.

Basically, doctors are treating depression the an ISP's phone support treats user complaints: they have a first-tier response that's effectively just there to help people who are temporarily confused and will resolve the problem themselves if you can talk to them long enough. You only get the "actual support" support once the phone-tree algorithm has verified that "placebo support" wasn't enough for you.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Reddit and blockchain and webrtc - <AUTHOR>

My attempt to create a decentralised reddit using a merkle-dag and webrtc. Advice would be much appreciated. https://memesfortheparanoid.com <comment><USER2> how are you interacting with the blockchain?

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't directly interact with the blockchain but it uses its own implementation which is synced between peers.</comment></comment>


Next Year's 3-D Printers Promise Big Things — Really Big Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/big-3d-printers-euromold-2012/

<comment><USER2> I expect ski boots to be the first consumer breakthrough 3d printed product. Personalized fit matters immensely, so much so that it is common to pay someone to grind and stretch an existing shell and/or to use exotic heat moldable or vacuum fit liners.

Further they are fairly expensive and one of the main cost of producing a new model is the cost of producing molds in each shell size. The market is also large enough to justify significant investment but also very receptive too new boutique products.

(Any one with a 3d printer feel free to use this business idea so I can buy a pair and stop my feet from hurting.)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's fun to imagine the type of replicator a Type I civilization might be able to produce. Imagine a machine that takes hydrogen and energy (or just energy) and builds, from the subatomic particles up, all the elements needed for production (just as stars do). Then, using a combination of scaffolding, precise placement, and self-replicating nano-structures, creates any object, organic or otherwise. Who knows, we may ultimately figure out how to manipulate a more fundamental physical substrate than just "packets of energy orbiting each other" and so create exotic but stable condensates and states of matter we can now only imagine. This would be something akin to using the hypothetical "quantum foam" as a sculpting material.

Granted, this all requires physics that aren't currently understood and may not even exist, and the amount of energy required would be staggering, but a true "anything replicator" would surpass the Star Trek vision into something that needed no "raw materials" at all except energy.

<comment><USER4> Might not even need energy, require information only.

<comment><USER5> Well, there's work to be done (quite literally), so unless we discover the laws of thermodynamics don't work, energy will always be expended.

<comment><USER6> Not if you can set up a framework where physical objects are equivalent to reversible computations (and hence energyless).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Last night at dinner, a friend was telling me about how Jay Leno (an avid classic car collector) was restoring old vehicles through 3d printing. Found the clip on YouTube:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzA_7tkKmM0&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzA_7tkKmM0&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

</comment><comment><USER8> All on one page: [http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/big-3d-printers- euromold...](http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/big-3d-printers- euromold-2012/?pid=1387&viewall=true)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm still sceptical of 3D printing. They're hyped so much with little to show for it - when did you last use something printed on a 3D printer?

This is a technology designed to bring affordable, easy manufacturing to your bedroom, it's been around for years now, supposedly widely deployed. Yet hardly anyone alive today has handled or used a product printed on one of these machines?

From what i've read, the plastics suitable for printing do not easily make viable "hard wearing" products - although i understand various techniques can be used to improve this to some degree.

The raw materials used are not cheap and there doesn't appear to be much scope for future cost reduction. Perhaps more worrying is the limited option to reuse existing materials.

Until i start seeing and using products of 3D printing, colour me unconvinced. I'm sitting this revolution out.

<comment><USER10> It's being used right now by manufacturers to make custom parts in things like jet engines.

While "bedroom make anything" might be a ways off, it's being used now and will be used a lot in the not so distant future.

[http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/GE-to-Print-Fuel- Injecto...](http://news.softpedia.com/newsImage/GE-to-Print-Fuel-Injectors- for-Jet-Engines-2.jpg/)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/ge-buys-3d-printing- company-t...](http://www.businessinsider.com/ge-buys-3d-printing-company-to- make-parts-for-jet-engines-2012-11)

<comment><USER9> >> It's being used right now by manufacturers to make custom parts in things like jet engines.

That doesn't appear to be true? They've announced they're intending to do it, they've bought a company specialised in it which suggests they're serious.

I can't order a 3d printed fuel injector for my jet engine today?

My point still stands. This is all just hype right now with nothing to show for it.

Another poster made a good point that it's a cheaper, more versatile, home- sized equiv of a CNC router / lathe. Looking at it like that makes a lot of sense to me.

It drastically limits the scope of such devices though from the current hype.

<comment><USER10> Did you go to the link? The caption says "Image comment: This is a GE jet engine component created exclusively through 3D printing"

Also, the leading company, 3 d systems, did 90 million in revenue last quarter. Not Apple numbers, but not exactly "nothing to show for it."

<comment><USER9> But it's just a prototype, a demonstration. It's not in use anywhere, it's not certified, there's nothing to say it even works yet. Searching doesn't turn up anything to corroborate that it's in use right now.

As for the numbers, only to be expected in a hype game. To my mind in 10 years we'll look back and say 'do you remember 3D printers? How they were going to take over the world' sure there will likely be some design companies knocking out prototypes on them but Joe Punter won't have a 3D printer purchase on his shopping list this decade.

<comment><USER10> >As for the numbers, only to be expected in a hype game. What does that even mean? This is real money that people paid for a product that is being used. If you are hoping for a "replicator" in your bedroom, you're completely right. That doesn't mean it isn't game changing technology in a lot of ways.

Think about something like the parts market for appliances and cars. Something out of date and broken? We don't necessarily have to just throw it in the trash. We can print a one off part to fix that old washer. Or car. Don't have that part in stock? No worries, we'll print one and have it ready this afternoon. Think about how amazing this could be for a company like autozone.

You don't have to have a replicator in your bedroom for this to be game changing. Sure there's plenty of hype, but the technology is getting to the point where it's warranted.

<comment><USER9> >> As for the numbers, only to be expected in a hype game.

> What does that even mean?

Think dot com bubble, think real estate pre-2008, or more currently think zinga, Facebook, instagram. These things were MASSIVE before they died (or are about to die) a death. Most people didn't want to think they would fall as much or as badly as they did (or are about to) in the end.

They all share one thing, they're massively over hyped for the actual value they give. NB: that's not the same as saying they give no value. Each of the above have considerable merit, but nothing approaching their hype. History tells us the safest bet here is to cash out.

>> Think about something like the parts market for appliances and cars.

Let's say i'm an appliance manufacturer, or i'm a 3rd party parts manufacturer. Where is the benefit to me in any of this?

Will a 3D printer ever be cheaper or able to crank out volumes akin to my sub contracted production lines in China? I think we can safely say no.

3D printers are a niche, that's their value proposition. I can have an amateur knock out a part that's no longer made. The same way i can take a trip to a local metal worker with both parts of a rusted-in-half fender and say "hey, can you knock me up one of these for my 1963 jaguar e-type?"

3D printers will continue to be as relevant to Joe Punter as my local metal worker's English Wheeling Machine.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Michael Bloomberg pledges $500M to fight climate change - <AUTHOR> https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/06/08/world/science-health-world/u-s-billionaire-michael-bloomberg-pledges-500-million-fight-climate-change/ <comment><USER2> This is a voluntary, selfless act that will have more impact than most of us achieve in our lifetimes. Michael Bloomberg could have spent this money selfishly on yachts, jets, or islands, but instead he choose to spend it correcting a market failure in which negative externalities from coal pollution were underpriced. Thank you Michael Bloomberg.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, if we needed to have a rich New Yorker as our president I would have preferred Bloomberg.</comment></comment>


Twitter's business model is to sell the company - <AUTHOR> http://flaptor.com/blog/twitters-business-model-is-to-sell-the-company_19/ <comment><USER2> _In short, building a product to sell to one company is a valid business model._

It's a valid _strategy,_ but it's not a business model.

It's not that great a strategy either...

<comment><USER3> Not a single YC company that I know of has made any remarkable amount of money without being sold. But, in fact, many YC companies have made considerable amounts of money by selling themselves.

Why is having the goal of being sold while making things people want not that great of a strategy?

<comment><USER4> But do you think any YC combinator wouldn't have eventually made a lot of money if they hadn't sold? Selling your startup doesn't cause it to have value; that's backwards. YC startups were sold for money because presumably the purchaser thought they would be worth at least that much money in the future.

If you can build something people want, it seems relatively easy to convince some fraction of those users to pay for it. Convincing a big company to buy you is a long shot; convincing a big company to do _anything_ (even if you work there) is tough.

Look at Dinosaur Comics -- that guy can't even draw, but he's making a living at it. Now imagine trying to sell such a crazy idea to an existing company.

If you can make something people want, it almost seems irrelevant to think about big companies. They'll only consider buying you once you look like a solid business proposition already. It's a reward, not a bailout.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are plenty of companies that get acquired before having a solid business proposition. Jaiku (along the lines of Twitter) is a recent example, but there are many others. A company can be acquired for a variety of reasons. Maybe the team is a good fit for the parent (talent acquisition). Maybe the product is hard to monetize on its own but it's a good feature that will increase the value of something else (could have been Xobni).

Perhaps it's a loss leader, a service that you plan to give away in order to attract customers to your main business (a contrived example, Godaddy could buy some game that somehow encouraged you to buy domain names).

<comment><USER5> "There are plenty of companies that get acquired before having a solid business proposition."

That doesn't make it a good idea. The answer to "Who is your target market?" should not be "Uhhh... Google?" There are many more companies that built a "cool" product that was useful and used, couldn't monetize it, and died because of lack of capital. Somehow I doubt YC has ever invested in a company that flat out had no exit strategy outside of being acquired by a big company. You've got to have _something_ because if none of the big fish bite you're screwed otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A business model that focuses on selling the company is risky. This applies even more so in twitter's case because they don't generate significant revenue at all, but they continually remain overvalued due to lots of hype. Classic web 2.0 tactics at work basically.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think Twitter should put out a personally hosted version of their service, maybe sell it to people for a nominal fee ($10-25). That way the uptime is improved (spread over a lot more computers and decentralized) and they start to have a revenue stream. Providing both better service and making some money seems like a step in the right direction...

</comment><comment><USER8> Well, if it works it's a great model...

A "sell the company" business model is like becoming an actor with a mind of becoming rich like Tom Cruise. No doubt _some_ people who do it will find some success, but by definition this is something that (a) works only for a small number of people (the world needs a limited number of movie stars, Google & Co acquire a limited number of companies) and (b) contains a large element of luck - many actors have comparable talent & looks, many companies can (and a few already have) build a Twitter-like product.

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a great book about the randomness in our lives: [http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly- Improbable/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly- Improbable/dp/1400063515)

<comment><USER9> Selling the company: that's not a rare event. An IPO: that's like becoming an actor with the intent of being the next Tom Cruise. There are many, many buyers out there, hardly just Google. If you make something that people need (not merely what they think they want, but what they _need_ ) then you will be able to sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone honestly surprised by this?

</comment><comment><USER11> Um, exit via acquisition is not a business model. By very definition. Link bait trash.</comment>


Ask HN: Tools for a startup / digital agency - <AUTHOR> Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to hear thoughts/opinions/discussions around what tools people use to manage their business, from lead to project, through to retainers and more, with a particular emphasis on professional services / IT services.
We would love to be able to do proper resource planning for projects, see sales/CRM activity and everything else all in one place. At the moment though we are stuck using all of these tools seperately:
- Harvest (time management) - Slack (internal and client comms) - Zendesk (support) - Pipedrive (CRM) - Breeze.pm (PM) - Receipt Bank (expense tracking) - Xero (invoicing) - Autopilot (marketing automation) - Proposify (proposals) - Sidekick (email response tracking) - Zapier (connecting some of the above)
There must be a better way? Thinking about how to get an integrated system that covers all these areas gives me a headache.
What do you use? <comment><USER2> We use a combination that works well for us:

Rippling (hr+payroll) and it connects to most of the following services:

      - Atlassian (jira + wiki + bitbucket + HipChat)

      - GMail (domains and emails)

      - Zendesk (support)

      - IQBoxy (bookkeeping)

      - QuickBooks (accounting + invoicing)

</comment><comment><USER3> ?</comment>


Gmail closes door on NSA; all email now encrypted - <AUTHOR> http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/gmail_closes_door_on_nsa_all_email_now_encrypted.html

<comment><USER2> What is with this constant stream of bullshit pro-Google articles, each of which is successively less clearly worded and makes a stronger anti-NSA claim which was non-existent in the in the original Google announcement? Nothing about the announcement makes me think GMail is any safer than it was before. Bruce Schneier has talked extensively about how the surveillance state is robust, politically, legally and technically:

[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/01/how_the_nsa_t...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/01/how_the_nsa_thr.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> But the emails are still not encrypted as they reside on the servers, no? In other words they are still just a quick FISA 70[234] away for NSA.</comment>


Show HN: Fastblr – Running Shoes Marketplace - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastblr.com/

<comment><USER2> Going to repeat the success of [http://www.runnics.com/](http://www.runnics.com/) (Spain market) in USA...

</comment><comment><USER3> It's against the rules to solicit votes for your HN posts.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, dang - I just took a look at FAQ now. It appears that the submission could have been penalized because we shared it among our friends and specifically asked for upvotes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're still adding catalogue: more brands and shops. It's been quite challenging to "normalize" shoe colors from 13 retailers, part of the work is manual. You can read how the backend works here: [http://www.fastblr.com/blog/how-works-a-price-comparison- eng...](http://www.fastblr.com/blog/how-works-a-price-comparison-engine/)</comment></comment>