Ask HN: What are your predictions for the next 10 years for our daily lives? - <AUTHOR> Basically how will life be different from now ? What elements of it will be significantly better/worse ? <comment><USER2> I have the feeling in the US, the rate of increase of partially meatless, vegetarian, and vegan households is going to increase. (i.e., meatless adoption acceleration)

The polling seems to be all over the map with Gallup saying that vegetarianism was just 6% in 1999 and 5% in 2018 showing no growth [1] while other publications say 6% of US consumers now claim to be vegan, up from just 1% in 2014 [2].

In my experience it is definitely the latter. In my part of the country, it used to be that grocery stores carried Boca burgers at best in specialty parts of the store. Now they carry several brands in dedicated sections typically labeled something like "Meatless Meals". Instead of just Boca, it is now routine to see Boca, Gardein, and Beyond Meat. The last of which is reportedly going to go public as a company[3]

1: [https://news.gallup.com/poll/238328/snapshot-few- americans-v...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/238328/snapshot-few-americans- vegetarian-vegan.aspx)

2: [https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4959853/top-trends-in- pr...](https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/4959853/top-trends-in-prepared- foods-2017-exploring-trends-in-meat-fish-and-seafood-pasta-noodles-and-rice- prepared-meals-savory-deli-food-soup-and-meat-substitutes.html)

3: [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/beyond-meat-is-going- publi...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/beyond-meat-is-going- public-5-things-to-know-about-the-plant-based-meat-maker-2018-11-23)

<comment><USER3> In 10 years it's likely that clean meat will also be widely available. I just listened to an interesting podcast episode about it: [https://youtu.be/rE93wKm0Ok8](https://youtu.be/rE93wKm0Ok8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I work in the fishing industry. Based on what I am seeing - fully autonomous fishing boats/cleaning/packing plants. You know how you have a single farmer handling hectares of farmland, its really looking like fisheries are going to go the same way easily in 10 years.

<comment><USER5> This is really concerning. The fishing industry is fairly manual but many fish populations are already pushed to the brink. I went to Antartica a few months ago and I was shocked at how many squid boats we could see at night on our way down. Hundreds and hundreds with huge bright lights to lure them to their machinery. Overfishing is a real problem to the point that the current situation is almost unsustainable. I worry automation will push it over the edge.

<comment><USER6> Overfishing is a regulatory, not technical, problem.

Though I do think many of the hardest problems today are regulatory (climate, health, digital political advertising), not necessarily technical.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. Regulations and technology go hand-in-hand. Often the technology comes first and regulations try to keep up.

<comment><USER7> I don't think technology is the issue here, it will just exacerbate an already existing problem of unsustainable fisheries management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> \- Another lost decade of growth, with Generation X realizing their 401k won't actually grow enough to let them retire before 70.

\- Autonomous cars will continue to be a tantalizing but unrealized dream for all but a few niche markets.

\- AI will fade back into science fiction. Automation will continue to be the boogeyman that isn't quite here yet.

\- I think public support of the health insurance status quo will collapse and Medicare for All will become an actual Thing.

\- Facebook and Google will face legitimate disruptors. Apple will try to pivot away from reliance on iPhone for growth and try to be another Alphabet instead.

<comment><USER6> > I think public support of the health insurance status quo will collapse and > Medicare for All will become an actual Thing.

I'm almost certain about the first part (collapse) but much less certain about the second.

The fundamental issue is affordability: we can't afford the health system we have. No matter who pays, the burden is going to be substantial. It's just a question of whether it's foisted onto shareholders (capital), households, or taxpayers.

I'm honestly 50/50 on whether we'll head toward more widespread government insurance or whether coverage will become harder to get, thereby forcing more people into the private markets, with healthcare orgs working more like auto repair shops -- mostly private with a lot of price competition, and broad affordability. Either outcome has its pros and cons.

I think a lot of the next 15-20 years is going to depend on what happens during the next 5. It's basically two outcomes.

Scenario A: Interest rates continue to climb, urban housing affordability improves through some level of deregulation/less aggressive zoning, tech fans out a bit. The sense that prosperity is too concentrated starts to dissipate. Ocasio-Cortez and co. lose steam and the US turns back toward a more moderate politics.

Scenario B: Things continue as they are now. More young people embrace socialism because growing student debt, unaffordability of housing, and rising/unavailable healthcare lead to a greater desire for government control of the economy. US takes a hard left turn, we get Bernie or someone of the far left for president. US is in the grip of populism (both left-populist Antifa and right-"blood and soil" nativism), things go backward.

If we get scenario B, we're going to get some form of national single-payer. If we get A, I'm less certain.

<comment><USER8> I think scenario A is plausible ... but I live in a bubble. I frequently lament the completely broken insurance system I'm participating in now, where I have a high deductible plan that expects me to pay for everything up to $6K, while at the same time completely depriving me of the price information I need for that to work out in my favor.

The bubble I live in is that I've actually got enough money to pay the out-of- pocket costs if the insurance company screws me. It won't bankrupt me, at least not in the near term. But looking outside my reality, there are a huge number of Americans without anything even approaching that luxury. Especially younger generations. When I look at the numbers, I think your scenario B looks a bunch more realistic. Right now I just have political ideology, but I see a lot of people who have real skin in the game and I wonder how long we can maintain the status quo before those folks collectively realize just how numerous they are and how much change they can effect if they try.

<comment><USER9> > how long we can maintain the status quo before those folks collectively > realize just how numerous they are and how much change they can effect if > they try.

My 2 Cents: America is FAR from Perfect, but do you bench Lebron because he only won 3 Championships? Change?.. Yeah, sure, some is worth a gamble--But fer christs sakes you gotta let James start!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a bit cliched but does anyone think there should be a set of end of year predictions made/voted on by everyone on HN ?

It would certainly be a bit more interesting and informed than the average celebrity blogger predictions that we are usually subjected to.

<comment><USER11> Check out [https://www.metaculus.com/](https://www.metaculus.com/)

<comment><USER12> Also [http://longbets.org/](http://longbets.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That there will only be clean energy because using anything else will cost more and be disadvantageous. The Countries that move to cheap/free clean energy will have an advantage of cost in manufacturing, etc.

Electric cars will be the norm, it will cost significantly more to drive an ICE car.

Air Travel will still be brutal.

Jobs will be more difficult to find and keep for the untrained and uneducated. Most services will be self serve or accessed remotely with little to no human help required.

Self Medical Diagnosis will be available to everyone who has a mobile phone like device. You will have access to all your vitals and through your camera be able to determine certain ailments reducing doctor visits.

Exoskeletons will replace wheel chairs for certain injuries and conditions.

Affordable Treatments (Stem Cell/Exosomes) will be available for curing, rejuvenation and general well being.

The rate that processor power/AI/Quantum Computing/Machine Learning/etc is progressing, will drive more change in the next 10 years than in the last 50.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not directly answering the question, but, one I've been thinking about: what skills/traits allow a person to make such predictions with high accuracy?

One thing is that I think you need a pretty wide set of priors--breadth. Stuff like history, anthropology, economics, the history of art. Lots of knowledge about human behavior, politics, culture, stuff like how emotions guide behavior, etc.

When I look at a typical STEM education, we deliberately don't prioritize this stuff. We know lots of things about how electrons behave and which sorts of functions grow the fastest and how cellular mitosis works. Not as much about why empires fall, the role of greed in political revolutions, or the changing role of women over the last 500 years. I think this puts HNers (I think STEM people are probably overrepresented here) at a significant disadvantage at making these kinds of broad predictions.

The thing we do have going for us is our ability to understand the course technology is going to take: what's possible, what will and won't work, and why.

I also wonder whether the people you're around influence your ability to predict what's next. On one hand, it's a well-established fact in social science that many social trends, at least in the US (things like marriage and divorce rates, educational trends, changing attitudes around dating, purchasing behaviors), start in the upper-middle classes, as they have the numbers (population) to make real differences in buying habits, politics, etc., whereas the rich have more money but much smaller population. On the other hand, the lower classes in the US vastly outnumber what I'd consider a typical HN reader. Something like 70% of US adults don't even have a bachelor's degree, and the US median income for an individual is around $40K. Keep that in mind as you think about this stuff.

One guy I'll point out who's studied this topic (predictions) a lot is Philip Tetlock ([https://www.sas.upenn.edu/tetlock/](https://www.sas.upenn.edu/tetlock/)). He's spent much of a long, fruitful academic career studying questions like whether it's possible for certain people to consistently do better than random at predicting things, and what sorts of traits make those people better. I won't try to summarize a 30+ year academic career here other than to say he does seem to believe it's possible to beat the odds. Good reading; check it out.

<comment><USER14> > Not directly answering the question, but, one I've been thinking about: what > skills/traits allow a person to make such predictions with high accuracy?

The same that make people succesfull at the stockmarket and investments. So mainly luck with a spot of knowledge and information and many small investments to get one good hit

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> \- AR: Handheld devices will make way for wearables with augmented reality displays. This will largely be led by usability advantages. Like Google Maps will see a shift towards glasses with augmented reality displays. Think navigation instructions from Google Maps overlaid on street view-like camera imagery on a wearable device.

\- Robots: Robot sidekicks, like Vector: [https://www.anki.com/en- us/vector](https://www.anki.com/en-us/vector), but bigger and more useful, will become common. Tbh Vector is currently at best a cute and expensive toy. With progress in AI, specifically at the intersection of language understanding, computer vision, and robotics, these robots will become easier to talk to and work with.

\- Self-driving cars: Self-driving cars will be common, with some business models getting to wider deployment faster than others, for e.g. Waymo, Uber, Lyft. New set of traffic protocols will likely emerge on 100% self-driven localities (humans' traffic rules are _extremely_ inefficient for robots) for faster + safer transport.

\- Space: Space tourism will start to emerge. There will emerge entire industries supporting this shift -- from ticketing aggregation services (like Kayak.com, etc. for space) to data services (equivalents of AT&T, TMobile, etc. for space) to cargo (faster earth-to-earth, earth-to-x), hotels, hospitals, etc.

<comment><USER16> [https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debr...](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/news/orbital_debris.html)

We have filled up our atmosphere with so much junk that space travel may become limited to our past rather than our future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well according to "The Birth & Death of JavaScript" prophecy, we will soon have war in 2020 all the way to 2025. So far everything in the prophecy has been true, so I am not sure if I am still alive in 10 years.

[] [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and- death...](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/talks/the-birth-and-death-of- javascript)

</comment><comment><USER18> This probably sounds crazy... I think in the next ten years there will be a cultural shift away from carrying any form of electronics on yourself. That's including mobile phones and media devices.

<comment><USER6> One of the things I find most striking when watching old movies is the general attitude of people toward tech.

If you look at movies from the 70s and 80s, conspicuous display of tech was common. Look at stereo systems of the time, and how people treated mobile phones (they were huge and conspicuously displayed). This partially echoes the "machine age" [1] of the early 20th century, a a time when tech was seen as "modern" and a force for progress.

Whereas these days, we want things to be light, invisible, and out of the way. That's a major change in attitude.

I actually feel we might see fewer "screens" in the next few years if the combination of voice and AI becomes powerful enough that most things can be done by voice or thought. I think more and more decision-making (things like which plane to book/flight to take/etc) will be made by automated systems that know our preferences and we'll be picking from fewer and fewer menus. Sort of like a human assistant, but available to the masses and more accurate. Google's Duplex is a big step in this direction. The key is ceding more decision-making authority to software.

In any case, I wouldn't be surprised if we all just have earphones, either over-the-ear, or implanted in our heads, in 15 years. The broader theme is that I think we'll want things to be invisible rather than visible.

I also think you're right that the rich will want less of this stuff. There's already a huge socioeconomic difference in how people use tech. Look at how a rich family eats in the US today vs. a poor family. Rich families put their phones away, poor families spend the entire dinner posting stuff on Snap. Just walk into a burger king vs. a fine dining restaurant to see that trend in action.

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

<comment><USER19> This reminds of an interesting story from Robert Caro's great biography of Robert Moses (The Power Broker). Very paraphrased from memory, but:

Robert Moses built large parts of New York City, including a lot of its roads/infrastructure. When Moses was growing up, cars were very new, and a luxury item. Driving through a scenic route was a very fun experience for most people. Therefore, Moses built the roads to emphasize these scenic routes.

This later became problematic, as he kept doing it well into the age when being in a car was considered a nuisance, rather than an attraction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just for reference...

Check out:

[http://tenyearsago.io/](http://tenyearsago.io/)

And see how little things have actually changed in the last ten years.

I have nothing to do with this site. I found out about it via a Show HN a while back.

</comment><comment><USER21> Robo-servants at home.

Imagine not doing any mundane tasks at home (cooking, cleaning etc)

On the worse side : if there are robos at home. There will be sure outside in streets too. So we will have to figure out new jobs for ourselves.

<comment><USER7> People have been predicting this for 50 years. It turns out it's a really hard problem - I'm comfortable saying it's still much more than ten years away. We could possibly get fusion power before we get this the way things are going.

<comment><USER22> Progress is exponential. Right now a lot is possible but maybe not commercially viable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There will be another monolithic internet company doing shady things with our data that we all complain about.

<comment><USER22> Seems like regulation is around the corner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> VR will replace monitors, AR will replace smartphones (at least somewhat), electric self driving cars become normal, Elon Musk's spaceship makes it to Mars, some huge AI breakthrough (that none of us did predict).

More Facebook/Google sized companies. Hopefully, a startup that makes medicine suck a lot less than it currently does.

</comment><comment><USER24> People will become even more absorbed in their electronics and our culture and social lives will continue to change because of it.

Right now we only unlock a tiny part of the potential of our electronics. This is because your system of input is very limited. The bottleneck is not your brain or the computer but the link between them. We will have very simple devices for input that allow you to communicate with your computers with incredible speed. This comment is taking like five minutes to type with my thumbs. You could make a device with today's technology that would allow it to be done in seconds. And it would be cheap. Better than a keyboard and totally mobile.

Imagine that and then include improvements in Image and sound delivery. Then throw in full internet access everywhere for everyone via starlink. It's going to make our phone habits look very quaint.

</comment><comment><USER25> Here are my wild guesses

Automation is not spreading the wealth, I think you will see even less of a middle class and more extreme divisions of wealth between the classes.

The corporation seems to be the new power structure like the church use to be. You will see more concentration of power and less accountability with this new power structure.

In the US you will see a transformation of the demographic shift accelerate. You may also see a change in politics with a move more towards policies you see in Europe. However they will still not work due to the change in the power structures.

National debts will accelerate to make up for short falls in pension funding and retirement plans like social security. How this ultimately plays out, I have no idea.

</comment><comment><USER26> Being from Europe: Many more tourists from Asia, beginning of touristic boom from Africa. Many Europeans (and Americans) will be priced out from vacations they can enjoy now.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's a stretch but urban farms: malls will be turned into farms. The produce will be on racks so you might have 20 layers. Right now like half of all produce spoils. This way you can also deliver fresh produce the day it will be consumed. You can deliver the perfect combination of water and nutrients for plant growth. No pests, transportation, weather damage etc. it's gonna be big.

<comment><USER27> Very interesting prediction. Anything in particular lead you to this apart from the discovery of grow towers?

<comment><USER22> Minimization and cheapness of sensors and small computers. Also malls going away. And willingness of investors to invest into non-traditional tech fields.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The stock market(s) will have crashed. And recovered nicely.

20 year olds will be extremely socially liberal. Today's 20 year olds (30-something then) will begin criticizing them and will be trending more conservative.

American Democrats will hold some extremely progressive planks, but will also have returned to center to broaden the base. Republicans will have less religious planks and will have made significant inroads with minority communities.

We'll have a mix of autonomous and traditional automobiles, but they will be owned only by those outside of big cities. The rural poor will have some nice rides (ICE machines), the rich will have self-driving luxury mobiles. Gasoline will be silly expensive.

There will be fewer wars and more international companies. Capitalism will become infused (in one form or other) into every economy. European-style socialism will also be omni-present.

Young folks will be engrossed in ever-more outrageous ultimate sports. Old folks will take great interest in geneology and the weather. Everyone will claim they know what's best to deal with the global climate.

</comment><comment><USER29> My predictions for the next 10 years of our daily lives are useless.

</comment><comment><USER30> You ask for prediction, not wishes. So here goes:

We will have a major recession, much bigger impact than the previous one. This will curtail development. It's possible climate effects will continue to become more severe. This could lead to human displacement in heavily populated Asian coastal towns. Will be compounded due to the recession.

Left wing and right wing polarization will grow and be compounded due to the above points. I don't think there will be civil wars, but could be a tough situation in some parts of the world, especially Europe.

Technologically? I don't think fully self driving cars will be a thing in 10 years. We could see regulations passed regarding social media companies. It could curtail the growth of a Facebook disruptor. We could see some changes in the financial industry due to the recession. But that still won't change much for the industry.

What I wish:

Self driving cars. A Facebook disruptor. Mainstream crypto currency.

<comment><USER24> What is going to cause the next recession?

<comment><USER31> Wishful thinking if you listen to Bill Maher: [https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/economy- bill-m...](https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/economy-bill-maher- recession-trump/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Based on where I'm living now (the UK):

Brexit will probably be pretty rough on society, though it won't be quite the disaster some people think it'll be. Think less 'mass starvation/riots/panic' and more 'bad tax deals and export limits when it comes to dealing with the EU' (plus maybe a few legal issues when UK and EU law inevitably differ).

Facebook may not weather the storm. Twitter and Reddit are probably gonna go the same way as Digg and Myspace too.

Lootboxes are going to cause all kinds of legal changes related to the gaming industry, and likely some large fines for companies involved. Certain games with them will probably be discontinued in many regions.

Social media sites will get even more crap for their privacy violations, and the lawsuits and fines are probably coming there too. Also, all those sites 'complying' with GDPR by offering a banner that says 'accept all cookies or get lost' are probably in for a nasty surprise.

I have no idea what web design/development trends will come about, but part of me thinks flat design could be here for a while now.

Authoritarianism and far right/far left politics will continue to rise, as existing parties obliviously ignore the issues that led to it. Chances of war are mixed though; don't suspect a World War 3 is anywhere on the horizon.

Trump will be outright moderate compared to some of the people elected in the next ten years.

Criminals and extremist nutcases will figure out that cyber security + the internet of things + other technology is a recipe for disaster, and exploit it to all hell. The results will probably mean far more government scrutinty over security holes in tech products.

Self driving cars will not take over. Human drivers will also not get replaced. No politician or political party would risk electoral suicide by doing anything there.

AI won't change much. It's coming, but it's just not there yet to lead to any Jetsons style sci-fi future or what not.

VR will get a bit less niche, but AR may catch on a bit more. The applications for that have been advertised a lot better with stuff like Pokemon GO, Snapchat/Instagram/whatever filters, the Nintendo 3DS, etc.

There's a decent chance the UK railways will be renationalised, since Labour keep crowing about the idea. If so, there's also a decent chance they may realise said chance has its downsides as well as upsides.

Wages for software engineering will probably decline a bit, as more people enter the field in hopes of Silicon Valley style lifestyles. Eventually, it could go from doctor/lawyer level salaries to something closer to office worker ones.

And that's about all I can think of right now.

Edit: Oh, and it's possible high costs of living will make marriages and relationships a necessity for many younger people now. Maybe we may even see the social status there flipped, with those who don't need to marry/live with someone else getting more respect than those who do.

</comment><comment><USER33> In ten years we will know one way or another if short term profits matter more to us than the long term prosperity of our civilization. And not just individuals, but how our overall system of collective government responds to individuals at a national and global level will be answered in the test.

<comment><USER27> What did you purchase today and from whom did you purchase it? << there is your answer.

"Never mind what they are selling, its what your buying" \--FUGAZI

<comment><USER31> Quoting Fugazi in HN officially wins the internet for today! Such an apt quote though!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Call me crazy, but I think H.G. Wells' prediction of the human race diverging into two is less than half as crazy as it was 10 years ago.

One race, indoors-oriented, tribal, authoritarian, amoral, warlike, domineering.

Another race, outdoors-oriented, disorganized, vain, self-obsessed, subjugated.

I bet you will have minimal difficulty envisioning every person you know and which track they're on.

That's more of a 1000-year prediction than a 10-year one.

 _The Time Machine_ predicted spinning "history rings" that produced sound (CD's), and Wells' other works were equally prescient considering they came from the 1800's. Morlocks and Eloi were dismissed as simply wrong, but perhaps they were merely further ahead than the critics could see.

<comment><USER35> > the human race diverging into two is less than half as crazy as it was 10 > years ago

Any thoughts on how that would happen? Genetic engineering? Divergent populations? Earthbound and formerly Earthbound?

<comment><USER34> It's not would happen, it's is happening.

The difference is preexisting, but only beginning to get expressed. Some people resist authority and don't believe what they're told, and some people crave authority and want to be told they're right. It's not an insult; it's actually probably an evolutionarily superior approach to tend toward the latter. Tribes have distinct advantages.

Increased CO2 levels, indoors and out, are giving rise to increased levels of Oxytocin in everybody's body. It's more a tribal hormone than a bonding hormone. This is where the increased expression is coming from, I believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I hope I'm not a crackpot, but I have a really pessimistic outlook.

The increase in wealth disparity coupled with centralization of corporate power will cause a proportionally large increase in poverty. You'll either be fortunate enough to have a job (where your hours will rise, due to heavier competition - those at the top will say to hell with the research claiming productivity has an optimum with respect to hours devoted, just like we say to hell with the research claiming we're destroying the planet) or be forced to forage or pillage for your meals.

On another note, marriage rates will continue to decline, divorce rates will continue to rise. The "nuclear family" will therefore become increasingly rare (Why settle when you can swipe?). Suicide rates will increase. Maybe this keeps overpopulation in check. Maybe there will just be more single-parent "households". At any rate, I predict that there will be a much higher incidence of "many unrelated members of the same sex uncomfortably sharing a living space."

Those are both kind of high level, but as far as daily life goes, I think a "social credit system" will either exist globally or see increased adoption outside of the current canonical example(s).

I honestly hope I'm wrong. I hope that the internet dating paradigm doesn't ruin our species. I hope that we can maintain steady employment rates and keep the population at a healthy rate. That's just not what my first guess would be.

<comment><USER37> I don't understand why comments like above get minuses.

If you don't agree with the idea, just put that in comment. But giving minuses because someone has different thoughts.

I understand minuses when somebody is just talking things completely not true like that there never was World War II or X-Rays are safe for you.

Future is by definition not deterministic so everybody may have own imagination. And by giving minuses you're discouraging the people with sharing their thoughts with you.

At least explain you're giving minus.</comment></comment>


DoT proposes to narrow the definition of service animal on planes - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2020/01/22/department-transportation-proposes-ban-emotional-support-animals-planes/ <comment><USER2> Misleading headline: [https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/emotional- support-pea...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/emotional-support- peacock-not-anymore-says-new-federal-airline-rule-117256)

> There is no federal ban. If Delta wants to allow a therapeutic wombat on > board, Uncle Sam will not get in the way.

> If some airlines crack down, others can market themselves as pet-friendly. > Rather than using the federal government to force airlines to allow these > animals on board, we should trust airlines and passengers to find what works > best through the marketplace.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. The current bullshit situation is due to a federal regulation that requires airlines allow emotional support animals. This proposal would simply eliminate that requirement.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad because people are abusing the system. I have a coworker that spent a lot of money getting her dog trained and certified so she could bring it into restaurants. All it does is tying up resources from people that actually need service dogs.

<comment><USER5> I wish we could persucute those who abuse the system. Hving my compassion gamed for your furbaby makes me seethe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any change to this rule is welcome in my book. What really gets me is the people who fly with dogs that are obviously terrified. Putting an animal that isn't trained to handle airports and planes in that situation so you don't have to be separated from fluffy is just cruel. Put your dog in boarding (or find a pet sitter, etc.) when you go out of town. If you can't afford to do the right thing for your dog when you travel, then you can't afford to travel.

</comment><comment><USER7> Where did the emotional support animal term come from? That's what a pet is, an animal you keep for emotional support.

<comment><USER5> Its acutally a good question. I understnd it as a mis-wording of 'service animal' in air-travel laws that a whole industry sprung up around to exploit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Relevant article from a few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122890](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22122890)

</comment><comment><USER9> My wife has severe anxiety flying. Having her dog is better than medicating. People whose emotional support animals are not chill are the issue. Chill dogs do not mean any breed or upbringing. It takes the right combination of proper genetics and upbringing to have a dog that fits the bill. And one with a strong bladder. We also are annoyed with those that abuse the system with obnoxious yelpers who themselves are scared or anxious. The human should not be the emotional support for the dog. And those people will ruin it for my wife and others like her.

Also. I need to make another point. On no less than a dozen flights, we've enlisted our dog to deal with small children who are losing their mind. Dog is deployed, wailing stops, other passengers have literally cheered. Flight attendants are so delighted we drink for free on the flight. End of flight dog returns a hero. So, before we get the pitchforks our, consider how emotional support dogs serve a purpose. Those with bullshit ESANS can stay away.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a strangely one-sided article. Surely there are people who want the definition of service animals to include more than just dogs - where's the quote from them?

<comment><USER5> Other than miniture horses, only dogs can be service animals. The other pets are the problem being addressed.</comment></comment>


Supporting older browsers - <AUTHOR> https://zellwk.com/blog/older-browsers <comment><USER2> TL;DR: don't sniff browsers, sniff features; check your stats to see where to make the cutoff.

</comment><comment><USER3> Useful only for very beginners. Very little actual data or code</comment>


Houellebecq borrows from Wikipedia, never cites - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2266737/

<comment><USER2> I like the tone of the article, it is not judgemental and very factual keeping in sync with the subject matter (Houellebecq). Him copying wikipedia does not surprise me at the least, as the article explains it's just the way he does things - I especially like the part where he describes that he altered the original entry just a little bit to suit his own style, somewhat echoing his book _The Possibility of an Island_.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess this is the literary equivalent of "sampling".

<comment><USER4> More or less, although literary sampling is hardly verbatim when it happens. When we get a search engine for music, I'm sure a lot of artists will get what's coming to them.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJPdVVOmbz4>.

Sometimes they secure the rights, sometimes they don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> On the one hand I think he should respect the CC BY-SA license and attribute the source of the passages, but at the same time I wouldn't want to contribute to copyright over-protectionism by arguing that he's violating copyright law in not doing so.

In the end I think people should do the moral thing and attribute their sources when they copy them wholesale (or more, when appropriate).

<comment><USER6> > I wouldn't want to contribute to copyright over-protectionism by arguing > that he's violating copyright law in not doing so.

He is. He totally is. He is enclosing a public commons for his private gain.

In fact, asking only for citation is the absolute bare minimum that human decency suggests; a reasonable reading of <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode> suggests that legally his whole novel ought to be under CC-BY-SA. (Look at the linked article: [http://www.slate.fr/story/26745/wikipedia-plagiat-michel- hou...](http://www.slate.fr/story/26745/wikipedia-plagiat-michel-houellebecq- carte-territoire) And this is only some of them.)

Personally, Houellebecq forfeited all my respect when he tried to cite Borges as a predecessor in plagiarism. Borges is one of my favorite authors and I have read everything he wrote time and again; Borges was _scrupulous_ about his citation and quoting, as one would expect from a librarian.

<comment><USER7> Unless you're doing the Hyperion/Satyr contrast thing, putting Borges and Houellebecq in the same context is always a problem, but:

1\. A cento is a poetical work wholly composed of verses or passages taken from other authors; only disposed in a new form or order.

2\. The above statement is an example of plagiarism on my part, although I cannot determine exactly who I'm plagiarizing. It appears in a few places. Wikipedia stitches the sentence together with a list of examples that it takes from another source, but it doesn't give any attribution for the actual definition.

3\. One of Flamarrion's points (cited in the French slate) was precisely that you cannot identify the author responsible for much of the text in Wiki.

4\. Citiing wikipedia as the source of something is like citing Dasani as the source of your drinking water (which of course doesn't mean you shouldn't do it).

5\. If you want another neat example look up French Wikipedia's discussion of the Hoellebecq affair, which repeats in brief, without scrupulous attribution, the basic argument of M. Glad's article, citing the latter only as the source of the last sentence of its paragraph.

6\. I meant to just make the point about the Cento, but got a bit carried away, so:

tl;dr: writers do this all the time and plagiarizing Wiki is like cheating on Tiger Woods.

<comment><USER6> > 3\. One of Flamarrion's points (cited in the French slate) was precisely > that you cannot identify the author responsible for much of the text in > Wiki.

 _Huh?_ You can identify the author for Wikipedia text in greater and finer detail than for pretty much any other text ever created, down to the character and second. The name of the author may not be familiar to you, but it is a name regardless; the name on the cover of a book isn't trustworthy either, and Wikipedia is actually superior in that there is no 'Anonymous' (every contribution is linked to a pseudonym or an IP address, the latter of which can convey remarkable amounts of information).

I feel as if someone had come up to me and asked me, 'What if Shakespeare's plays were not written by William Shakespeare but by another man of the same name?'

Also, when Tiger Woods deletes 10k articles just to be _sure_ that the content is clean from a copyright perspective ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_not...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents/CCI#Implementing_bot.3F)), then you may peddle your specious analogies.

<comment><USER7> Your inordinately thoughtful response to a few glib comments merits a better reply than this necessarily incomplete one. Intended to be constative, not interrogative, those comments arouse in you nonetheless the doubtless frustrating and noxious feeling of being asked a question both odd in the extreme and tangential to the intended tenor of my remarks, but I'm happy to take responsibility, and in case it weighs too heavily would add that if Shakespeare's plays really were discovered to have been written not by the man discussed in, among a thousand other places, an inspired, if not plagiarized, article by Wikipedia, but by another man of the same name, then of more interest and pertinence in the context of our discussion would not be what would happen (to endless pages of biographical criticism, or to truckloads of new grist for English doctoral mills, or to sad Stratford, or to inspired if unplagiarized Wikipedia articles) but what would not happen: crucially, there would be no change in the fact that the plays are full of plagiarized ideas, arguments, words, phrases and sentences, nor in the fact that the plays have in turn been plagiarized throughout the subsequent history of literature to such an extent that Shakespeare's phrases have now become part of the reservoir of everyday unattributed, if not plagiarized, cliches. It was surely wrong of me to stress that plagiarism can rise even to the level of a genre such as the Cento, when typically it is just the quotidian business of literary writers brazenly to steal (should I acknowledge here also that this claim might be taken to evoke Steve Jobs' invocation of Picasso's likely- borrowed idea that great artists brazenly steal from others all the time and that this is one of their defining traits?). And if I could muster, for the sake of decorum as much as argument, the ability to take the whole question seriously for a second, I would still be forced to say that Houellebecq's plagiarism is traditional not anomalous, and its identification as a species of theft would be downright banal even if trivially true, which fact M. Glad, though responsible in the first place for raising the whole business to the status of an "affair," has the good sense at least implicitly to acknowledge. I would probably want to add, maintaining this unlikely seriousness, that literary plagiarism has great literary value, that Shakespeare is better for having stolen from Montaigne, and that Montaigne's ideas are themselves enlivened, even improved, when uttered by Shakespearean characters whose motivations are more clear, and whose claims are subject to refutation by the deeds or words of other characters."I wake and feel the fell of night, not day," to take another example that would appear arbitrary only to those who don't know what I was up to last night, is a line with altogether different meanings and effects in Ashbery's cento "The Dong with the Luminous Nose" from its meanings and effects in the Hopkins poem from which it is lifted.

Now H. plagiarizes Wikipedia, and if I were a better person, more worthy of mouthing moralizing pieties, more self-righteously sure of my own unadulterated originality at every juncture, more appreciative at least of the less than (as you point out) anonymous horde's unacknowledged (doubtless original and impeccably documented, inspired if not plagiarized) explication of the fly's reproductive activities, and if I agree at the same time that H. is no Borges, just as Ashbery fails to breathe the rare and lofty poetic air where Hopkins dwells, I still wouldn't give much of a fly's arse. All of which, I hope, can be taken as grounds for forgiving the lack of energy and honor I bring to the task of defending an obvious if throwaway and in good part irrelevant claim that Wikipedia is full of plagiarism (I was silent on whether it infringes copyright). But presumably no defense or citation is needed for the weaker claim that the possibility of plagiarism, like the possibility of vandalism, is a condition of the possibility of Wikipedia, and is the obvious reason for what I am sure is its perpetual and heroic vigilance, of which you cite an admirable instance. I still don't know what exactly to infer from that 10k-page expurgation you mention, but here's an apparently meaningful quotation from the discussion to which you were kind enough to link: "As near as we can tell, everything this person [Darius] has written that is longer than a few sentences is a copyvio. This means that the well of articles he has created -- barring the ones that are simple lists of data -- are, quite simply, poisoned foundations upon which we're letting others build." On this evidence, it seems this was less a case of purging pages "just to be sure," as you say, that there were no copyright violations, than a case of purging because it looked like an egregious case. Your personal reasons for thinking this was all merely precautionary and therefore, apparently, if I read you correctly, evidence of a Wikipedia unsoiled by silently borrowed thoughts, rather than a case of dealing with an extreme example of a possibly pervasive problem, would be of some interest to me-- though I say that despite the fact that in general questions of whether Wikipedia plagiarizes (seriously, is that a question? do we need to look for examples?), or whether it is plagiarized, when measured against its undeniable and immeasurable value are as trivial (to me) as the infidelities of a person such as Woods when measured against his immeasurable talent. Finally, I cannot restrain my imagination from wandering down the path that leads to the fantasy of Mr. Woods frantically trying to shred ten thousand incriminating documents, so in the case of our reaching the end of that improbable path, can I rely on your being back in the market for my specious analogies, of which I have a practically inexhaustible supply in dire need of peddling?

tl;dr? Leave out the adjectives and adverbs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Contrast Nick Hornby, who in his recent book _Juliet, Naked_ actually includes a fictitious Wikipedia entry about one of the main characters.

</comment><comment><USER9> Can someone post Houellebecq's book on Wikipedia so I can see what we're talking about?

</comment><comment><USER10> wow i had no idea there were country-specific slates (slate.fr)... are there any others? (slate.de doesn't work, nor slate.co.uk)

<comment><USER11> Wikipedia only mentions the French version (apart from the original English version), and says it was launched about a year ago. It seems it's sort of a franchised version--- the Slate parent company only owns 15% of slate.fr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> [citation needed]</comment>


Ask HN: Time-series DB for event sourcing? - <AUTHOR> I am in the process of choosing data storage for my event-series DB. There are various opinions on using RDMS, NoSQL or Columnar. Was there any exploration done on using Time-series DB for event-sourcing other than TimeScaleDB(https://blog.timescale.com/time-series-data-why-and-how-to-use-a-relational-database-instead-of-nosql-d0cd6975e87c/)? Or is it even a good idea to use Time-Series DB for event sourcing? <comment><USER2> I think you need analyze your requirements first, and then let that you point you towards the databases that provide the functionality you need. Then evaluate and compare the databases.

I would start by asking if a RDMBS or MPP warehouse can work. If it can't, why not?

I run a company that captures billions of events a day (an event source pattern) and we use Snowflake. I chose snowflake because it separates compute from storage (effecively paying $.20/compressed TB/month for storage) and allows me to elastically expand the compute required for analysis or alteration of data.

I don't need need most the real time features of a time serieis DB (but I could easily split the data out of Kafka to a TSDB if I needed). I need the ability to alter the data and run sophisticated aggregations across the data.

Bottom line: if you're not certain you need a TSDB, or know what features you need yet, I wouldn't go chasing down a TSDB. Let your requirements push you to a database.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @brettgriffin. I started with Timeseries DB, which is optimized for Timeseries data, also it is built on top of Postgres(RDBMS). So simple and serves the purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've already look at [http://pumpkindb.org/](http://pumpkindb.org/) but finally use TrailDB. Else, there's also the leading InfluxDB for Time-Series DB. But if the volume isn't very high, a MySQL/PGSQL could satisfy no?

<comment><AUTHOR> Is volume the only thing that we go for Time-Series DB? I doubt if Time-Series DB really satisfies the need of "Event sourcing" such as single/multiple column(s) aggregation, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Try CitusDB</comment>


New, more powerful Google Translate app - <AUTHOR> https://googletranslate.blogspot.com/2015/01/hallo-hola-ola-to-new-more-powerful_14.html

<comment><USER2> The conversation feature is pretty phenomenal, and comes close to a true Babelfish device. I just tried it with English<->Mandarin with my wife (we both speak fluently), and works pretty accurately and is fast.

I will definitely use this when traveling.

<comment><USER3> I just tried English<->Mandarin with my wife...though not always grammatically correct, it gets the point across.

For those who would use it while travelling abroad, keep it mind this requires an Internet connection. In China, you would need VPN since Google services are blocked.

<comment><USER4> You can download the language for offline usage, at least in android

<comment><USER5> That only works for the (amazing) WordLens functionality. Live audio translation still requires Google's cloud for processing.

<comment><USER6> WordLens works offline without any additional downloads, at least for the languages I tried (Spanish, French, English).

Audio translation and TTS works offline if you have the proper languages downloaded, but being able to detect what language is being spoken seems to be an online-only feature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Word Lens was the first iPhone app that I saw that really felt like Magic, glad to see it was bought up and put infront of a mass audience (where I assume it will gather data and learn)

<comment><USER8> > (where I assume it will gather data and learn)

Yes, if you look in the settings the following option appears:

☑ Improve camera input (Allow Google to retain your images related to translation)

It is set on by default.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Congratulations to Otavio and the Word Lens team, I'm excited to see this in the Google Translate app.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I noticed they finally pulled in Otavio's Word Lens into google translate after they acquired him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really curious about the tech / arch. behind its ASR. Must have a lot of nodes and tricks in place to support high throughput and low latency.

If I'm not mistaken, this paper [1] is the last time Google published about the related architecture. We know very little about improvements over the last 7 years.

[1] [http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/D07-1090](http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/D07-1090)

<comment><USER12> AFAIK there are several new advancements for both ASR and Translation front. DBN and Special RNN called LSTM based systems surpassed classical approaches. A recent Translation mechanism based on LSTM from Google: [http://papers.nips.cc/paper/5346-sequence-to-sequence- learni...](http://papers.nips.cc/paper/5346-sequence-to-sequence-learning- with-neural-networks.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I speak English, Spanish and Italian. I've been talking to this app for the past hour in those languages and translating to whatever languages have speech output. This is so amazing.

</comment><comment><USER14> Works pretty well, but so does Microsoft's Translation app for Windows Phone. Having used Microsoft's app for 2 years now, I am really wondering what took Google so long. Google's app offers coloring of the translation and a way more languages. But in the end, it's as fast and reliable as Microsoft's solution on my devices..

<comment><USER15> For those wondering, the app is called "Translator". I've also found the translation to be pretty good, though it tends to trip when it comes to handwriting.

[https://www.windowsphone.com/en- us/store/app/translator/2cb7...](https://www.windowsphone.com/en- us/store/app/translator/2cb7cda1-17d8-df11-a844-00237de2db9e)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The word lens is impressive. Tried it out on my university ID against some bright light, and it was able to detect even the low-contrast regions. Even my Mac keyboard. It works on almost anything.

It doesn't work on Chinese quite yet.

</comment><comment><USER17> It would be really cool if they could recognise the font (or a close match) and display the translated words in almost the same style.

<comment><USER18> Cool, but pretty useless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Google has published a lot of work recently about using deep learning for language translation with really impressive results. Anyone know if Google Translate is now neural net based? Or would a many-layered net not scale to the amount of API calls that Google translate receives?

</comment><comment><USER20> Having just spent a month travelling through Japan, I can attest to the brilliance of the Translate app even before this update! That said, the Android version seems more feature rich than the iOS version (maybe I just don't know where to look for the features)

<comment><USER21> What are the differences between the versions ?

Also, is Google legally allowed to only release the app for android ?

<comment><USER22> > _Also, is Google legally allowed to only release the app for android ?_

Are they "legally allowed"? Why wouldn't it be legal?

Ask the same question with regards to Apple and iOS, and the answer is patently clear.

<comment><USER23> > Why wouldn't it be legal?

don't waste your brain capacity on stupid people

there are too many of them

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm just amazed this runs on my iPhone 4. Brilliant upgrade.

</comment><comment><USER25> If they haven't already started doing this, it seems it would be inevitable, to turn this into a full-fledged API for use in real-time communications, like WebRTC apps, etc...

I see that they have an API, but not sure how feasible it would be to use in real-time apps.

<comment><USER26> I work on software that, among other things, runs a call center and I've been getting requests to do something like this in real time so that we can communicate with our users that don't speak english (We have agents who speak other languages but they wanted a fallback for when they weren't there). I told them real-time was still a little bit out (even with this as an API it would take time to integrate). This is really exciting though and I look forward to the day that we can do this will little to no lag and talk to people who don't share a language in common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> English <-> Portuguese needs some work. I had an hilarious conversation with myself.

</comment><comment><USER28> Do we know the Word Lens (Quest Visual) acquisition price in the end ?

</comment><comment><USER29> I wonder when they'll integrate it with google glass to allow e.g. realtime subtitles for when people are talking to you in a foreign language.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is Amazing. Very helpful here in Japan. I'll be glad when the word lens feature supports Japanese.

</comment><comment><USER31> Before this they kept the Android app a lot more powerful. Are the iOS and Android apps finally on par now?

<comment><USER32> I doubt that was an intentional strategy. Google seems to not push worse apps to iOS in general. The new Maps UI launched on iOS first, for example.

<comment><USER33> Meanwhile on Windows Phone, we have YouTube blocked. Anyway, I have to admit Google Translate is phenomenal now, even though it's thanks to the guys behind Word Lens. Kudos to everyone involved. This is probably going to be one of my most used apps from now on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So what languages are actually supported in conversation mode?

Few months ago spoken Thai input was not supported.

Also, World Lens works nothing like in the animation. The app scans for words and provides translation in a traditional UI, it does not overlay translation over the image.

<comment><USER35> The Google Translate app (and Word Lens, I believe - it's been a few years since I played with it) do use augmented reality to overlay directly on the image.

<comment><USER34> Not on my phone. Shows square [align text] which does not disappear.

<comment><USER35> Mine: [https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- xfa1/v/t1.0-9/17...](https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos- xfa1/v/t1.0-9/1782134_10100531027259617_6962033440903244379_n.jpg?oh=a2b3dd6a7f42a0e2667cc0142339ef01&oe=5533BD86)

<comment><USER34> It could be it behaves differently on older iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Unfortunately crashes on my Nexus 5 when trying to take a picture :(

</comment><comment><USER37> The photo translation doesn't work offline for me. I downloaded the languages but when I take a photo it just says "no network". I can mark the text but nothing happens.

</comment><comment><USER38> Know what's funny? "This is fucking funny!"

(try it)

</comment><comment><USER39> OCR is really fast and accurate. Impressive.

</comment><comment><USER40> It doesn't translate to indian english and to japanese english...

</comment><comment><USER41> As cool as the new features are, the app is now difficult and slow to use the way I used to. Little things, like focusing the textbox when you tap clear, are just _missing_. I'm willing to take that for the automatic OCR features, but it's just worse for everything else (probably due to their new "Material Design" strategy which doesn't belong on iOS).

</comment><comment><USER42> Unfortunately, all of their text-recognition is still done on the cloud. So If you're traveling, you most likely won't have a data plan in the country you're visiting, and word lens won't work. This seems like a huge missing piece to me.

It's strange because they let you download language packs so that all the translation (and voice recognition) can be done locally. I have no knowledge in this area, but honestly: is there something fundamental about text recognition that it can't be done client-side?

<comment><USER43> > is there something fundamental about text recognition that it can't be done > client-side?

Since the blog post talks about how Google Translate now does client-side text recognition, I suspect the answer to this question is "no".

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Poor news for Word Lens [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.questvisua...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.questvisual.wordlens.demo&hl=en)

<comment><USER45> Why poor news? Google bought Quest Visual (the company behind Word Lens) some time ago.

<comment><USER46> In fact, the blog post subheading for that section is _" Instant translation with Word Lens"_

I'm curious if that part has improved with integration with Google's Translate. The video-based translated word substitution was amazing, but my understanding was that it was doing a very simple translation in the original app, essentially a word at a time.

<comment><USER47> Word-at-a-time use was perfect for me travelling around europe, as basically all I wanted it for was translating signs

<comment><USER46> Yeah, it works for most of the cases where you'd want to use something like Word Lens. I was more just wondering how deep the new integration goes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


House of keys: 9 Months later... 40% Worse - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sec-consult.com/2016/09/house-of-keys-9-months-later-40-worse.html <comment><AUTHOR> The initial report from last year has interesting, if sadly unsurprising, background on how/why so many of these embedded devices have wound up this way.

[http://blog.sec-consult.com/2015/11/house-of-keys- industry-w...](http://blog.sec-consult.com/2015/11/house-of-keys-industry- wide-https.html)</comment>


A unified front end development pipeline - <AUTHOR> https://pipez.io/blog/2-a-unified-frontend-pipeline.html <comment><AUTHOR> Op here.

Convenient setup and configuration (or DX in general) is what we are focusing on.

We realized we are wasting a lot of valuable time on just configuring tools. Every person does this for every project. We spend more time on fiddling with the tool chain than actually coding (ok that's perhaps a hyperbole).

The goal is to be able to clone a repo and start working on the code 10 seconds later, because everything is already installed in the cloud. You just can't do that with current solutions. Sure, npm goes a long way, but it won't install e.g. fontforge for you, and even if you stick to npm only tools you will have a hard time maintaining all the dependencies across your team or across projects.

On the other hand, we will probably always be a step behind the latest and greatest and that's ok with us. We prefer stability.

We are considering open sourcing the solution in some form (when stable enough), but not having to install any dependencies is at the core of our value proposition, so it would be kind of like open sourcing Heroku. Possible, but kind of beats the purpose.

Edit: I meant to post this as a reply. Sorry.

</comment><comment><USER2> Curious about the business model when it is released and whether it will be open source.

Also curious about the tradeoffs and benefits compared to existing tools.</comment>


You Can't Have Denmark Without Danes - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-23/you-can-t-have-denmark-without-danes <comment><USER2> Utah and Denmark might be more alike than he thinks when it comes to religion: Scandinavia _used to_ be firmly protestant and Denmark, Sweden and Norway all used to have a state church. Denmark still has it, while Sweden and Norway did away with it very recently (2011 for Norway). Religious adherence might well be lower today - I don't know - but but a lot of the views remains.

But more importantly, I think, a lot of what he points out as evidence of high trust in Denmark is evidence of the high cost of labour and overall high incomes:

It makes a lot less sense to e.g. put in effort ensuring people pay if those people have fewer economic reasons to risk taking something without paying, and when having people to check that they don't costs far more.

That's not to say that trust isn't present and real, but it's a whole lot easier to trust when the perceived risk of that trust being violated is lower, and when people are used to being trusted, you tend to try to live up to it, so these things self-reinforce.

In other words, personally I think anyone that wants to become more like Scandinavia might want to start by trying to reducing income disparity first.</comment>


Bitcoin near collapse - <AUTHOR> http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-79438960/ <comment><USER2> Really? It collapsed in April, and again in December, but it doesn't seem to be doing it now.

<comment><USER3> I'd speculate the price level is now being protected by 'insiders' with large existing positions.

By one estimation, 1000 people own 54% of all Bitcoin in existence. 10,000 people own 78%. The market could be easily manipulated by a relatively few number of people.

On the day the Mt Gox news box, the number of buy/sell transactions increased by ~300% from the day prior, but the currency was mostly stable. To defend the price level on that day, about $75 million was required. So it's a big bet. But also minuscule compared to the amount of capital that traders on Wall Street play typically work with.

I wonder who is buying it? I wonder if increasing the concentration of wealth into the hands of the few will eventually have adverse consequences for the value of Bitcoin?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It would be so great if there were a remotely-operated "punch" button aimed at reporters writing blatantly incorrect information about topics they can't be bothered to research or understand properly. I, for one, would be dishing out a fair amount of black eyes, particularly in the Bitcoin space. That is all.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope it does collapse, and when it's $50 I'm going to buy a whole bunch-- because it's a limited comodity, and this might slow down desire to grow bitcoin mining farms--and w/ less supply, demand goes up, and w/ more demand, price will inevitably rise again - especially w/ so many businesses now using it. -- This is obviously a rehash of garbage content from other fear-mongering reporters who obviously don't know shit about Bitcoin and currency in general --other than the article/articles that they are rephrasing in their own words to look sophisticated.

Even at $50 a coin--it would still NOT be considered a collapse--as long as anyone holds it or trades it, or any business accepts it--which thousands have based their WHOLE business on bitcoin, so yeah--not going anywhere...

Values will drop, but that's happed all the time, it's a very volatile currency--but that's also why there's so much profit potential--wait for $100, but up 10 bitcoins @ 1000, then watch it shoot to $2000/coin and rake in the profits...

Banks have failed before but that DOES not mean they took the USD, or GBP w/ it! Cause people STILL use it!

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a joke. If anything this incident demonstrates bitcoin's resiliency. The drop in value has _not_ been catastrophic, and other exchanges seem to have done a find job of picking up the slack. I think security is going to be a persistent issue for bitcoin, but once bitcoin services become more sophisticated will fade as an issue over time.

</comment><comment><USER7> I love the quote "Having Mt. Gox shut down is to bitcoin what having the New York Stock Exchange shut down is to our equity market," said James Angel, a professor of finance at Georgetown University.

If the NYSE was a lemonade stand.

</comment><comment><USER8> Food for thought for all those that praise Bitcoin's resilience. In the regulated stock exchanges around the world there are laws and steep penalties around doing things shady. In the Bitcoin world there are none. The fact that everything is anonymous only adds to the issue. The value of bitcoin is determined by what people are willing to purchase it for. I am no financial expert (not even close), but as a programmer I think to myself, "If I was a bitcoin exchange and wanted bitcoin to recover it's value, I would just write some code that made increasingly higher value trades between an anonymous wallet pool so that all the trades seem legitimate." Noone would know if these trades are real people or in fact simulated between exchanges. Considering how quickly oil companies were to do price fixing until it was made illegal, it doesn't take too much imagination to think that every exchange out there are working together in some way to control the price of bitcoins.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a nice response [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2014/02/15...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2014/02/15/bitcoins-largest-exchange-is-dying-heres-why-thats-not-a- problem-for-bitcoin/)

</comment><comment><USER10> bitcoin won't receive government backing any time soon, if ever. Cyber security risk is at an all time high and on the government's NSA agenda.

The next war won't be fought on the ground, it'll hacked out in the deep web. Until regulation /security concerns are shored up bitcoin isn't a viable long term currency option.

</comment><comment><USER9> What a load of FUD.

</comment><comment><USER11> Haha, no.</comment>


Dear Venmo: Update Your Privacy Settings - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/08/27/dear-venmo-update-your-privacy-settings/ <comment><USER2> I have never posted publicly to Venmo and I don't understand why this would be a feature anyone, anywhere actually wants. Who I give how much money to for what reason isn't anyone's business but mine and the IRS's. Maybe I'm not in tune with the kids these days but the public stream seems to exist only for people to mistakenly post to without realizing everyone can see their transactions.

<comment><USER3> I use Venmo weekly and my group of friends love that feature. It's a sort of "social network" feature.

It might not be for everyone, but there's plenty of people that are aware of the feature and aren't bothered by it.

<comment><USER4> Earnest question: Why do you love it? What about seeing people transact money do you love?

Like I get that this is another place to use cheeky emojis (Steve bought some weed and gave his dealer a tree emoji! Classic Steve!) but just...why?

<comment><USER3> _I_ don't love the feature, although I do sometimes look through my friends' transactions. I guess it's similar to sharing a photo on Facebook, or doing a "check in" when you're at a location: it's simply about broadcasting who you were with and what you guys were either doing or bought.

Most transactions between parties are simply "drinks", pizza emojis, or "rent" to a roommate. It's about showing who you are, what you do, and who you're with.

<comment><USER4> _shrug_ IDK, it seems like I have tons of ways to do that already if I'm so inclined and have never wanted it as part of my financial transactions. I've never understood the appeal personally, but I also don't understand the appeal of high-heeled shoes or cliff diving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Idea Man: Hey boss, I have an idea for a new personal payment app.

Boss: So what, those are a dime a dozen.

Idea Man: Yea boss, but this one has THE SOCIAL!

Boss: OOOH, we need THE SOCIAL!

\---

How I imagine the pitch for Venmo went.

<comment><USER6> It's funny because the real draw to Venmo is that it's the easiest payment app to use, transfers to your banker quick and painless, and you only need a phone number to sign up. It's just that people didn't even realize this was a problem they need to solve in an age of PayPal and credit cards.

<comment><USER7> Zelle is easier/more secure to use. You can use your regular bank app, it's much faster than Venmo, and doesn't involve giving a third party access to your bank account. And your money isn't held by the third party until you withdraw it.

Edit: I can't even figure out how to do 2FA with venmo.

Edit again: Apparently it's enabled for all accounts via SMS to the phone number, so that's better than nothing, but TOTP would be better.

<comment><USER8> Zelle requires you to know the right email address for the person you're sending money to. Venmo allows search by phone number, name, handle. It's far easier for quick transactions with people you only know a bit. I love Zelle, but Venmo solves a problem better than it.

<comment><USER9> Zelle also allows search by number in all major bank participant integrations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> People want to, and choose to, broadcast what they are doing and who they are doing it with. This shouldn't be news to people. Why do people have public Instagram and Twitter accounts? Some will see no appeal and are turned off by the thought of this, but for others it's their way of life. So instead of criticizing the app, maybe what you really want to do is criticize the people using the app? Lastly, clicking "private" on a post is dead simple; the company shouldn't be forced to change the default setting that differentiates them because somebody can't figure that out. Come on.

<comment><USER11> People make Instagram and Twitter accounts for the very purpose of sharing things socially. I don't know of anyone who uses Venmo specifically because they want to post their monetary transactions publicly. The fraction of my friends that still have their post visibility set to public either are unaware, or have a laissez-faire attitude about it. None of them "want to broadcast" their monetary transactions. We all use venmo because it has ubiquity in our friend groups/social networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Public By Default is an amazing investigation into one year of Venmo data available on the public API [http://publicbydefault.fyi/](http://publicbydefault.fyi/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Relevant parody video - Venmo CEO: We're Fun! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFLztKBrLY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWFLztKBrLY)

<comment><USER14> "What if you could comment on a work colleague's electricity bill?"

This was laugh out funny. Thank you for posting this. Cheers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> see also: [http://www.vicemo.com/](http://www.vicemo.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> This kind of useless feature set is why Cash App is starting to eclipse Venmo in usage. [0]

It's why I originally started using CA... simple interface, no useless social feature. Just send money, boom.

Now they've added Bitcoin purchases (the easiest and quickest way to buy and send to hardware wallet) and Boosts which (inexplicably) give you huge discounts like $1 off _every_ coffee you purchase at a coffee shop. [1]

No brainer to use CA over alternatives.

[0] [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/nomura-instinet-square- cash-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/16/nomura-instinet-square-cash-app-is- growing-faster-than-venmo.html)

[1] [https://www.cultofmac.com/532069/square-cash-coffee- reward-p...](https://www.cultofmac.com/532069/square-cash-coffee-reward- program/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I have not used Venmo. Can someone explain the user experience around this? Does it happen just by doing a transaction or is it like posting something on social media with an audience dropdown box or something?

<comment><USER18> There's an activity feed, just like Facebook. Whenever you pay someone on Venmo the app will make a public post on your behalf, and any of your friends can see all of your purchases on the feed ("Bottomless mimosas", "Sushi with Jessica", etc).

Also important to note that your transactions are "public" by default, which means everyone can see them, not just friends that you've added.

<comment><USER19> Do users really fill comment field? Why? Does it have embedded accounting module or people knowingly collect and share their payments? If it is accounting, then why free text and not categories?

I use local similar app and all transactions go with no comment, from everyone, since there is no point to make such comments (and they're private).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Publicly show the data on the CTO's, CFO's, board members' etc use of Venmo. That should prompt some haste.

<comment><USER21> cue the addition of opt-out settings, and Venmo representatives immediately opting out of the public feed.

<comment><USER6> You can opt out, the first thing I did when I installed the app was notice that people's transactions were public and hunt down the setting that made mine private.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Mozilla should make all of their Firefox telemetry, Pocket ads and sponsored content, sponsored Mr. Robot addons that automatically install, Cliqz spyware, etc. opt-in before they talk about the defaults of other companies. Mozilla have no shame.

<comment><USER23> You're succumbing to the allure of what-aboutism here. Yes, granted, Mozilla aren't perfect and have made some significant missteps (not all of which they've suitably amended), and deserve criticism for them. But just because they're vulnerable to criticism doesn't invalidate what they're saying here, and doesn't make another entity who regularly handles more sensitive data in less private ways less vulnerable to criticism.

Should this message be coming from another source? Yes, but 'as well as', not 'instead of'. Is it good for user advocacy that a highly recognised source is promoting this message, even if the source is flawed? Yes, it is.

<comment><USER22> You missed my point. To me, Mozilla is not a highly recognised source. They are politically aligned, they don't respect the privacy of their users, and what's even worse: they say they do and herald themselves as the saviours of the free web and privacy and blah blah, while they stab their users in the back. Mozilla is not only a "flawed source": they either don't know what privacy is, or they are simply malicious. They have no authority to tell me how to defend my privacy or to tell other corporations how to act.

<comment><USER24> No, they didn't miss your point. You missed their point. You're not criticizing the message, you're criticizing the messenger. Maybe Mozilla shouldn't be the one saying this. But are they wrong about Venmo?

<comment><USER22> Yes, I'm criticising the messenger. I didn't imply I was criticising the message in any of my posts. I personally don't care because I don't use Venmo. I just thought it was hilarious, if not infuriating, for Mozilla to say anything about user privacy.

<comment><USER25> By quoting a few high-profile stories and ignoring everything else Mozilla does for privacy. That really is infuriating.

<comment><USER22> What exactly has Mozilla done for my privacy? The effects of Mozilla on my privacy have only been detrimental, given that I use Firefox and they have screwed me over a few times already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A couple of decades ago I could not even imagine that in around 2020 people will create a petition for a _default setting_. Still looking for a better name for this phenomena, since what I have in mind seems too offensive.

<comment><USER26> Libertarian paternalism

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What is the business case for their making transactions public? Venmo can still mine and sell user data without it being public. I believe they can also use the FB social graph api without transactions being public as well. Am I missing something obvious?

<comment><USER27> Yes

The only public thing in venmo is the note you attach. You choose whether to publish it. It can contain anything you want. It doesnt have a dollar amount attached.

A significant chunk of the population finds this fun.

<comment><USER14> I see so it provides "engagement value."

But if I send you money we could both read that attached message without the entire internet having access to it. Or do I have this wrong and the the fun is really in reading strangers transaction messages? If the majority of people are unaware that these messages are public wouldn't this mean that the "significant chunk" are a minority of Venmo's total users?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Next to every transaction is a drop down menu. That menu allows you to select "Private." This doesn't seem like something Mozilla needs to involve themselves in, especially with all the privacy snafus of their own.</comment>


Know about Voyager - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-explain-to-an-8th-grader-who-knows-just-the-basics-of-physics-the-working-and-the-purpose-of-NASAs-Voyager-1-and-Voyager-2/answer/Robert-Frost-1?srid=JHvj&share=1 <comment><USER2> _" We human beings are still divided into nation states, but these states are rapidly becoming a single global civilization..."_

 _" We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope someday, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination, and our good will in a vast and awesome universe."_

.

Back then they were facing the imminent threat of nuclear war, but were still hopeful for the future.

Today it seems that we are less hopeful and now face the near-unstoppable threat of climate change.</comment>