Mercurial 2.0 has added largefiles extension (older r. are downloaded on demand) - <AUTHOR> http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/LargefilesExtension <comment><USER3> This could actually give Mercurial a big edge over Git for development environments where large binary files are a core part of your workflow - <USER2> game development. Products like Perforce are a big hit in games precisely because they are really good at handling this specific class of file.

It's a shame, because I hate using Mercurial, but this would give me a very strong reason to use it for my game projects instead of Git.

<comment><USER4> Why do you hate using mercurial? You like to type things like this:

      git fetch <project-to-union-merge>
      GIT_INDEX_FILE=.git/tmp-index git-read-tree FETCH_HEAD
      GIT_INDEX_FILE=.git/tmp-index git-checkout-cache -a -u
      git-update-cache --add -- (GIT_INDEX_FILE=.git/tmp-index git-ls-files)
      cp .git/FETCH_HEAD .git/MERGE_HEAD
      git commit

instead of this:

      hg pull --force <project-to-union-merge>
      hg merge
      hg commit

Mercurial "just works", and its commands are less arcane.

To be fair, git is now much easier to use. But also to be fair, mercurial has become much more powerful. In mercurial, doing straightforward things is simple, and doing complicated things is more complex, which is the way it should be IMHO

It even has rebase, although one might argue that is not a great differentiating feature for a REPOSITORY

<comment><USER5> > You like to type things like this:

Why would I have to type that? I have been using git for 4 years and never had to type git-update-cache --add or copying .git/FETCH_HEAD. Are you spreading FUD?

<comment><USER6> It's an edge case, but still true... Not something you'd do more than once a year probably ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm the developer of [git-annex](<http://git-annex.branchable.com/>) which is AFAIK the closest eqivalant for git. I only learned about the mercurial bfiles extension (which became the large files extension) after designing git-annex.

The designs are obviously similar at a high level, but one important difference is that git-annex tracks, in a fully distributed manner, which git repositories currently contain the content of a particular large file. The mercurial extension is, AFAIK, rather more centralized; while it can transfer large file content from multiple stores it can't, for example, transfer a large file from a nearby client that happens to currently have a copy, which git-annex can do (if a remote is set up). This location tracking also allows me to have offline archival disks whose content is tracked with git-annex. If I ask for an archived file, git-annex knows which disks I can put online to retrieve it.

Another difference is that the mercurial extension always makes available _all_ the large files for the currently checked out tree. git-annex allows a tree to be checked out with large files not present (they appear as broken symlinks); you can ask it to populate the tree and it retrieves the files as a separate step. This is both more complex and more flexible. For example, I have a git repository containing a few terabytes of data. It's checked out on my laptop's 30 gb SSD. Only the files I'm currently using are present on my laptop, but I can still _manage_ all the other files, reorganizing them, requesting ones I need, etc.

git-annex also has support for special remotes, which are not git repositories, but in which large files are stored. So large files can be stored in Amazon S3 (or the Internet Archive S3), in a bup repository, or downloaded from arbitrary urls on the web.

Content in special remotes are tracked the same as other remotes. This lets me do things like this (the first file is one of my Grandfather's engineering drawings of Panama Canal locks):

      joey@gnu:~/lib/big/raw/eckberg_panama>git annex whereis img-0124.png
      whereis img-0124.png (5 copies)
        	5863d8c0-d9a9-11df-adb2-af51e6559a49 -- turtle (turtle internal drive)
         	7e55d8d0-81ab-11e0-acc9-bfb671110037 -- archive-panama (internet archive http://www.archive.org/details/panama-canal-lock-design-papers)
         	905a3a64-4149-11e0-8b3f-97b9501cdcd3 -- passport (passport usb drive 1 terabyte)
         	9b22e786-dff4-11df-8b4c-731a6178061c -- archive-leech (archive-6 sata drive)
         	f4c185e2-da3e-11df-a198-e70f2c123f40 -- archive (archive-5 sata drive)
      ok
      joey@gnu:~/lib/big/raw/eckberg_panama>git annex get img-0124.png --from archive-panama
      get img-0124.png (from archive-panama...) ok

I'm hopeful that git will grow some internal hooks for managing large files that will improve git-annex and also allow others to develop extensions that, perhaps, behave more like the mercurial largefiles extension. I recently attended the GitTogether and this stuff was a major topic of discussion.

<comment><USER8> does git-annex work on windows? if not, do you have plans to port it? it's an important problem and it'd suck to have a solution which doesn't work on all major platforms.

<comment><USER7> Not so far. Discussion is here: [http://git- annex.branchable.com/install/#comment-4637ce9b32a...](http://git- annex.branchable.com/install/#comment-4637ce9b32abecf6ebf94c75f907f351)

It's fine on OSX though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Another option available since Mercurial 1.5 is to put the large files in a subversion repository and reference it as a subrepository.

[http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/Subrepository#SVN_subrepos...](http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/Subrepository#SVN_subrepositories)

<comment><USER10> That options work fine, _provided_ that all of your binary assets sit at one location in the tree, _and_ that you just happen to have a Subversion server lying around at the time. largefiles allows you to put your assets where you want, and allows you to avoid setting up a Subversion server.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't get what it does. Does this extension make large binary files "diffable," as it states that's the problem it solves?

<comment><USER10> Binary files are already diffable, both in how they're stored (in fact, the _only_ thing that Mercurial stores internally are binary diffs), and in terms of sending around patches (that's what the Git patch format is for).

There are two problems that largefiles tries to solve: first, that while binary files are technically diffable, most of the popular ones store large amounts of compressed data, which means that their diffs are insanely poor. Combine that with the second problem, which is that distributed version control systems tend to include the entire history in every repo, and you've got a recipe for disaster: those 200 MB worth of textures that you just color- corrected are now going to be another 200 MB of data that every last developer needs to get whenever they attempt to fetch your repository.

largefiles solves this by saying that certain, user-designated files, are _not_ actually stored in the repository. Instead, stand-ins, which are one- line text files with the SHA-1 hash of the file they represent, are stored instead. Whenever you update (checkout, in Git parlance) to a given revision, largefiles fetches your missing files on-demand, either from the central store, or (if available) from a per-user cache.

The benefit of this approach is that, if just want the newest revision, you don't have to also fetch all the historical versions of all the assets. The downside of this approach is that a clone doesn't, by default, have the full, reconstructable history of the entire repository. Whether this trade-off works for you will largely depend on who you are and what your workflow is, but we've found many Kiln customers who find it to be an excellent trade-off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder whether Kiln will end up using this.

<comment><USER10> Of course! largefiles is a direct descendant of kbfiles (our initial, Kiln- specific version of this functionality). We are really happy to see it integrated into the official Mercurial release, and will be supporting it within the next couple of weeks. We're just working on making sure that the switch is painless and transparent for everyone who's currently using kbfiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> /me wonders when Mercurial will ever do anything other than copy BitKeeper. We've been doing this for years, my photos are in a ~100GB BK/BAM repo.

Release notes for BitKeeper version 4.1 (released 12-Oct-2007)

Major features

BAM support. BAM stands for "Binary Asset Management" and it adds support to BK for versioning large binaries. It solves two problems: a) one or more binary files that are frequently changed. b) collections of many large binaries where you only need a subset. The way it solves this is to introduce the concept of BAM server[s]. A BAM server manages a collection of binaries for one or more BAM clients. BAM clients may have no data present; when it is needed the data is fetched from the BAM server.

In the first case above, only the tip will be fetched. Imagine that you have 100 deltas, each 10MB in size. The history is 1GB but you only need 10MB in your clone.

In the second case, imagine that you have thousands of game assets distributed across multiple directories. You typically work only in one directory at a time. You will only need to fetch the subset of files that you need, the rest of the repository will have the history of what changed but no data (so bk log will work but bk cat will have to go fetch the data).

<comment><USER14> To really copy BitKeeper Mercurial would need to start charging for use and come out in Basic, Pro and Enterprise editions, with things like BAM support disabled at the lowest level. Fortunately they don't do this.

<comment><USER13> It's easier to copy than it is to invent stuff, sad but true. hg has a long history of doing illegal copies of BK tech, we could have sued them out of existence years ago. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess we should be flattered :)

Legalities aside, the point I've made for about a decade now is that it would be interesting to see a release announcement from hg where I went "That's cool! Why didn't we think of that?"

As for the 3 levels of product, um, when you build commercial products with commercial support, you don't do that? You really want only one offering? That doesn't play well in the commercial world, we tried that. If you are just taking a dig at commercial software, sorry about that, but we have to pay for dev somehow. I'd love a way to open source the thing and make money, haven't found it.

<comment><USER5> > we could have sued them out of existence years ago

really? but you didn't, from the goodness of your heart, right?

<comment><USER13> We didn't see the upside of sueing and we could sure as heck see the PR down side.

What would you have done? You got a well known hacker who all of the open source guys will side with, so you lose the PR battle, but the guy is ripping off your technology, his employer basically admitted that in front of your lawyer. What would you do?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, not sure, not an easy problem. Maybe go public? In open source world reputation is almost everything. Honesty figures in that well. If you have good proof, their reputation would be ruined.

I personally don't care if this was RMS himself or Torvalds, if they are copying code from others as their own, I lose respect for them and will refuse to use or promote their projects.

Maybe present it in an exploratory kind of blog post -- "So yeah we found this out and we don't know what to do, what does the community think?" Just make it public.

<comment><USER15> This is either him reminding everyone of the hissy-fit Bitkeeper threw when Tridgell telnet'd into a bitkeeper server and typed HELP, or the hissy-fit Bitkeeper threw when Bryan O'Sullivan dared to contribute to Mercurial while his employer held a license for Bitkeeper.

Either way, the reminder that Bitkeeper's licensing terms are so utterly ridiculous that either of the above cases were considered in any way, shape, or form "nefarious" only strikes me as a good way to scare away even more potential customers from their product.

<comment><USER13> Tridge is not exactly telling the whole story. That telnet thing is quite but the part he left out is when Linus was at his house running BK commands and Tridge was snooping the network to figure out the protocol. There isn't any chance that Tridge figured out what to do by telneting to bkbits and I'll back that up with a $10K challenge for anyone to write the same code Tridge wrote, in the same time frame, with the only resource being telnet to bkbits.net.

Go talk to Linus and see what he says about all this, don't take my word for it.

<comment><USER16> People don't take your word for it though, so it's much ado about nothing. The burden of proof is on you, not anyone else ("Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence") hence no need to "go talk to Linus," because your claims are so highly suspect.

Because, really, nobody thinks BK contains some kind of rocket science for anyone to rip off in the first place. If there is, IMNSHO I don't see it in the mercurial or git sources, which is readily available to anyone. Hence why nobody takes seriously what you, or even a supposed "employer" or "lawyer" says either (and what your lawyer would say is even more highly suspect :)).

And if all this supposed restraint is due to some kind of self-interested, game theoretic calculation as you imply, why does that same thinking not restrain you from touting unverifiable claims? It's only generating "bad PR" for you which you wish to avoid, makes you look bad, and by extension your claims ever more doubtful. That can't be good for business.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


$15 Minimum Wage Would Leave 1.3M Jobless, Lift as Many Out of Poverty - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/15-minimum-wage-would-leave-1-3-million-american-jobless-lift-as-many-out-of-poverty-11562611503?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> "Potential job-loss outcomes range from between about zero and 3.7 million workers."

Here's the publication: [https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55410](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55410) Here's the report: [https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-07/CBO-55410-MinimumWa...](https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-07/CBO-55410-MinimumWage2019.pdf)

From the report: "In an average week in 2025, the $15 option would boost the wages of 17 million workers who would otherwise earn less than $15 per hour. Another 10 million workers otherwise earning slightly more than $15 per hour might see their wages rise as well. But 1.3 million other workers would become jobless, according to CBO's median estimate. There is a two- thirds chance that the change in employment would be between about zero and a decrease of 3.7 million workers. The number of people with annual income below the poverty threshold in 2025 would fall by 1.3 million."

By 2025, automation should be way ahead than we have here. I wonder how that would help or not help these numbers. Maybe the overdue recession will increase the jobless number. Or the economy will keep trucking on and the number would be close to zero. So many questions, so little answers.

<comment><USER3> Better automation tools would almost certainly increase the chance of large- scale job loss in the event of a minimum wage hike. From a business perspective, it's a cost-benefit calculation - when the cost of automating a job is lower than the cost of paying a human to do it, automation will eventually win. If automation cost goes down and human labor cost goes up, the threshold shifts in favor of fewer human workers (although the profits get redistributed to the remaining workers/owners, so you get a continuation of today's inequality push).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Doesn't strike me as particularly balanced (from the economic not political angle), it takes a strictly negative view of the effect of minimum wage on employment. This is the view the theory would support but is actually in empirical dispute as dueling studies continue to come out. They don't account for a single positive effect on employment from raising the minimum wage, even in just the estimated ranges of the effect, yet just two years ago we had 600 economists sign a letter in support of a $10 min wage which included this statement:

"Research suggests that a minimum-wage increase could have a small stimulative effect on the economy as low-wage workers spend their additional earnings, raising demand and job growth, and providing some help on the jobs front."

[https://www.epi.org/minimum-wage-statement/](https://www.epi.org/minimum- wage-statement/)

Even within the document when they talk about the uncertainty of effect the minimum wage has on employment they're talking about uncertainty of magnitude (negative) and not uncertainty around the direction of that change.

Take a look at:

"By boosting the income of low-wage workers who keep their jobs, a higher minimum wage raises their families' real income, lifting some of those families out of poverty. However, real income falls for some families because other workers lose their jobs, business owners lose income, and prices increase for consumers. For those reasons, the net effect of a minimum-wage increase is to reduce average real family income."

I think if you read that quote to different economists who study the minimum wage you would find very, very different opinions on how true it is.

</comment><comment><USER5> Link to CBO report:

[https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55410](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55410)

There's some subtlety worth quoting in contrast to the headline:

"CBO estimates that there is about a two-thirds chance that the change in employment would lie between about zero and a reduction of 3.7 million workers."

"There is considerable uncertainty about the responsiveness of employment to an increase in the minimum wage. If employment is more responsive than CBO expects, then increases in the minimum wage would lead to larger declines in employment. By contrast, if employment is less responsive than CBO expects, then such increases would lead to smaller declines in employment. Findings in the research literature about how changes in the federal minimum wage affect employment vary widely. Many studies have found little or no effect of minimum wages on employment, but many others have found substantial reductions in employment."

<comment><USER6> Direct PDF link: [https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-07/CBO-55410-MinimumWa...](https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2019-07/CBO-55410-MinimumWage2019.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Potential job-loss outcomes range from between about zero and 3.7 million workers."

So, between nothing to a small re-training program. Go for it!

</comment><comment><USER8> Is there any good economic theory on how to set minimum wages? I thought it's still a bit of an open question.

<comment><USER9> Minimum wages have some power to make an industry favor higher-skilled work and automation(and therefore, more valuable work). When wages are low, the whole industry is obliged to use cheap and unskilled labor to stay cost- competitive. When that floor goes up, the businesses that shift their investment from labor and towards capital will survive by gaining the benefits of using automation. The resulting set of products are essentially a new marketplace: sometimes you produce more at lower cost, or less at higher cost but higher quality, but the consumer benefits from this introduction of technology either way.

Therefore the consumer-friendly policy interpretation is to gradually raise minimum wages as new methods of using capital are introduced, and allow the labor to transition from the unskilled to the skilled jobs.

However, what's left out is the skills gap in recruiting for the new jobs; it's hard to find qualified people, and it's hard to find a job right for you when the field is always changing. The market is not great at coordinating this transition on its own.

<comment><USER8> So raising the minimum wage without worker training is similarly bad to low- skill jobs lost from free trade? Are free trade and raising the minimum wage almost complementary?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> An organic farmer friend of mine, who works a leased plot single-handed, told me he figures he's making $12/hour at it. The plot is big enough to scale up, but at $15/hour here in California, he doesn't see a way to make it work.

Highly-automated agribusinesses, especially those located elsewhere, don't have this problem. Neither do farmers willing to break the employment law. But my friend for some reason doesn't seem to want to become a professional criminal.

</comment><comment><USER11> It'd be very interesting to see if people on the fight for 15 campaign would support starting off by setting a $15/h floor for temporary labour (H2 class) visas.

</comment><comment><USER12> If the government wants someone to have something (more money, healthcare, etc.) then the government should provide that something to someone.

All of these programs that shift costs onto employers are fundamentally flawed for many reasons. The most obvious reason is that lots of people aren't employed.

<comment><USER13> This is also why universal basic income is a fantastic policy.

<comment><USER14> I still haven't seen that math work but am intrigued by the idea as too many people are being left behind today let alone as automation continues to proliferate.

<comment> super-serial Watch some videos of Andrew Yang explain his plan for UBI and how it could work in America.

He's the only Presidential candidate that is providing pragmatic solutions to handle a rapidly changing economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _That was a reversal from an earlier comment he made in a debate, saying the current wage level was too high_

That line is about the president. Current wage level is "too high"??!! How out of touch are the people running for (and holding) office?

<comment><USER16> > How out of touch are the people running for (and holding) office?

"I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of a million dollars..."

<comment><USER17> > "I started off in Brooklyn, my father gave me a small loan of a million > dollars..."

To be fair, that loan was small compared to the $400+ million his father funneled to him later in tax-evading fake business.

But, yeah, thinking that getting a "small" million-dollar loan would make him look like a everyman turned self-made success is pretty out-of-touch.

<comment><USER16> >But, yeah, thinking that getting a "small" million-dollar loan would make him look like a everyman turned self-made success is pretty out-of-touch.

The weird thing is, it still worked. And you could probably fill a book with things he's said that would have killed anyone else's political career. He should get out of real estate and politics altogether and sell DuPont whatever it is that keeps shit from ever sticking to him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm just wondering why we seem so fixated on 15$. Have we considered if 9$, 12$ or any other value might be more optimal from a utilitarian perspective?

<comment><USER19> I don't understand why the federal minimum wage isn't pegged to regional costs of living. I'm sure a $15 minimum makes sense in San Francisco, but should we force small, rural towns to also pay $15?

<comment><USER8> It really should be, and policies like this make progressives come across as coastal elites to people making $20 per hour in small towns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "There is considerable uncertainty about how the employment of either teens or adults responds to changes in the federal minimum wage."

</comment><comment><USER21> Very predictable article from the WSJ.

They hammer these 2 points relentlessly year after year: Tax cuts for the rich are good for the economy. A minimum wage for the poor is bad for the economy.

Of course they are only interested in what's good for all, and not what is good for their wealthy readership.

Please.

</comment><comment><USER22> Raising the minimum wage is only a band-aid. Within a few short years, inflation picks up and your $15/hour won't really go as far anymore.

Australia and Scandinavian countries are good examples of this in action: high minimum age, but everything is ridiculously expensive.

It's much better if we provide education, so people better themselves and increase their value in the workplace.

I feel like this is only used by the politicians, who don't really care about people getting out of poverty, and want people to not only vote for them (for getting a government-enforced raise), but be dependent on them for life.

<comment><USER23> UK's experience since introducing a minimum wage doesn't bear this out. All the warnings of inflation, fewer jobs and so on were given. They haven't come to pass.

Even those you might expect to stand against a minimum wage, like some of those bodies and the Tory party who argued hard against its introduction, have called for increases beyond inflation.

<comment><USER22> The minimum wage was set only to $4.71/hour in 1999. The reason there was no inflation is because most companies were probably paying somewhere around this wage already. Just because there was no minimum wage set, doesn't mean there wasn't a minimum wage dictated by the free market.

Let's try doubling it, like having a $15 minimum wage and see what the actual changes would be.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some 'startup lingo' you didn't know before? - <AUTHOR> I was inspired by this little discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5732602
I'm a native English speaker myself, but I didn't know what a 'deck' was when [a management consultant] mentioned it to me at one of my first few startup events. (Normal, non-corporate people call it a PowerPoint presentation, I think.)
I'm hoping to compile a jargon/lingo cheat sheet for people new to the startup scene, so contributions and shares will be most welcome! <comment><USER2> One of the most notable terms of the current start-up scenario is the variation of the term 'hacker'.

The best example I can give you is 'Growth Hacker' (basically a marketing guy/girl who does some extra work). So many start-ups and marketing teams abuse this term so much that the value of a true hacker has become so vague.

It was confusing at first. But later on, you get used to it..

<comment> k-mcgrady I always thought Growth Hacker was an engineer who specialised in scaling a product (making sure the servers didn't fall down under load etc.) I guess the OP's cheat sheet could come in handy! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> \- Vest (realized options)

\- Cliff (point in time where your options start vesting)

I still have to wrap my head around the different types of shares there are.

As an aside, InvestoPedia is, by far, the best online resource on financial definitions and explanations. Use it often: <http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cliffvesting.asp>.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Hockey stick" is a term for exponential growth that's just starting to explode, named after the shape of its graph. As in, "Our user count just hit two million, and it's a total hockey stick!"

The canonical kind looks like the stick in this orientation:

        ______/

Sometimes people jokingly use the term to refer to a graph that looks like a hockey stick in this orientation:

         ______
        /

An example of that would be a product that's launched with great hype and sees huge initial growth solely because of that, and then it quickly tapers off because the product turns out to be a flop.

</comment><comment><USER5> The first time I heard the word monetize (years ago) I thought it was was silly and pointless. Of course I got used to it over time and now use it myself.

Ideate on the other hand I'm not sure I'll ever be able to fully embrace.

</comment><comment><USER6> I compiled a jargon list when I did a summer internship in finance. They're less frequently used in startups (thank god) but I still hear them used by business types:

\- Human capital: "People", often referring to your employees.

\- Reach out: call or email.

\- Leverage: Basically equivalent to "use". "We will leverage our human capital to generate exciting new products in this space." You should leverage this word as frequently as possible when talking to finance people.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm fine with most of the terms and have come to accept them. The one that bugs the ever-lovin' $#!+ out of me is convo instead of conversation. I don't know if it wide spread and beyond start-ups, but it is the only place I've heard it.

<comment><USER8> I'm with you... add to it preso/prezo. Hate it so much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There are two main types of liquidation preferences. First Participating vs. Non-Participating. Best for us (VCs) (worse for founders): Participating Preferred (i.e. VCs get our liquidation preferences PLUS we "double dip" and share pro-rate in anything above). Non-participating means basically that we take our pick: either the Liquidation Preference (usually amount VCs invested, sometimes though 2x or 3x etc.) or share pro-rate as if we had converted to common. So we take our pick of the higher amount

Participating Preferred: We get best of both worlds.

<comment><USER10> Of course, for a VC investing in an early round, it's actually often more in the VC's long-term interests to take entrepreneur friendly terms, since later rounds are never _less_ favorable to entrepreneurs and previous investors than previous rounds.

So, if you go in at 2-3x PP in the A, you're basically dooming yourself to even higher multiples in future financings. I guess you could pro-rata, but still, the A tends to be significant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> YOLO

<comment><USER12> You only launch once?

You often lose owners?

Y'all ogle ladies often?

You optimize Linux operations?

<comment><USER13> You Only Libre Office.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Saw this one earlier by Fogcreek guy - TOMA where his phrase was that they'd use their blogging to "achieve TOMA" -- still have no idea what it is

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5732024>

<comment><USER15> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOMA>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My pet peeve is "resources". It is usually used to mean people (and not having enough of them), but somehow abstracts away the messy nature of humans by implying they are a commodity no different than other resources like iron or coal.

</comment><comment><USER17> I read some comments around here, and I don't get 50% of what you guys are saying. So maybe, it's a good idea for someone to create a quick dictionary- like webapp to explain the startup lingo and/or HN lingo?

</comment><comment><USER18> Bootstrap is a word that irks me. A language that can compile itself. Or a startup that is self sufficient? Ok. But then some javascript framework. And a hundred other uses. What's up with that?

<comment><USER19> The original meaning came from one of the stories of Baron Münchhausen where he supposedly fell into a bog but escaped by pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. So the basic concept of self-sufficiency gives you the meaning of bootstrapping a compiler, or your OS's bootstrap loader, or a bootstrapped startup. Stuff like Twitter Bootstrap does stretch the meaning somewhat (I guess the idea is that's it's an easy way to get started on your website).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> MVP, POC, Series A, Seed, Incubator, VC, SaaS, PaaS, RFP, NDA

<comment><USER21> To add on to what you said: Angel, lean startup, startup, YC, pivot, exit, zombie startup

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Pivot, soft-launch, lipstick on a pig, circle back, 'noodle on it' (older?), ideate, high and to the right, CCA, channel model, freemium, cap table, term sheet

</comment><comment><USER23> Series A - when you first take money from venture capitalists (even if technically it's "Series B" because a previous round was called your Series A)

</comment><comment><USER24> Adding one to the list: MRR - monthly recurring revenue

</comment><comment><USER12> I'll cheerfully parade my ignorance.

~

pre-money, post-money, pivot, vertical, terms sheet, angel, dilution

~

It'd be fun to do both a useful and a funny version.

</comment><comment><USER25> Prefs (liquidation preferences)

</comment><comment><USER26> Lifestyle business sent us to Google the term when we first encountered it.

</comment><comment><USER27> churn - for a recurring service the number of people who leave in a given time period. Also represented as a percentage of total customers at the beginning of the time period. related: leaky bucket.

</comment><comment><USER28> Marchitecture and Marketeering are my newest two "favourites."

</comment><comment><USER29> grin fucker

[http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/03/28/dont-be-a- grin...](http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/03/28/dont-be-a-grin-fucker/)

<comment><USER30> That is such an apt phrase to describe certain people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> talent acquisition or acquihire. Even if I did know what that meant I didn't know how to spot one initially.

</comment><comment><USER32> SAS 70/SSAE 16, runway, ARPU

<comment><USER33> ARPU, ARPPU, MAU, DAU, MAUDAU, MUU, ping me

You should hear these jokers have actual conversations with each other.

<comment><USER34> For anyone wondering:

      ARPU: Average Revenue Per User
      ARPPU: Average Revenue Per Paying User
      MAU: Monthly Active Users
      DAU: Daily Active Users
      MUU: Monthly Unique Users

<comment><USER35> The abbreviations take just as long to say out loud as their meaning.

<comment><USER36> Not in German they don't :-) I actually use the company with the longest name in the world as a test for validating web input forms.

Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerk- bauunterbeamtengesellschaft

which is "association of subordinate officials of the head office management of the Danube steamboat electrical services"

It also tests that you handle the high ascci characters properly

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Disrupt.

</comment><comment><USER38> Blocking rights

</comment><comment> wes-k B2B, B2C, B2B2C

</comment><comment><USER39> Tranche.</comment>


Grails 2.2 and Groovy / Grails Tool Suite - <AUTHOR> http://www.grailsexample.net/ <comment><USER2> > Why does Grails use Groovy for its core programming language? Why not just > use Java? In this episode of Grails Example, we present a brief slide show > that talks about the shortcomings of Java and why Grails needed a groovier > language for building web applications.

Didn't see the slideshow, but...

The main use case for grOOvy seems to be Grails (and its build tool Gradle). It also has some legacy use (grOOvy 1.x) testing Java classes, not much uptake since the gr++vy debacle.</comment>


Chinese New Year Is World's Biggest Human Migration - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-28/china-readies-for-world-s-biggest-human-migration-quicktake <comment><USER2> I highly recommend the documentary Last Train Home. It follows a Chinese family - the parents leave their children in their rural village to go off in search of work. They make the annual trip back to see them for Chinese New Year.

The film captures the awesome scale of the migration and its cultural importance, as well as the social impact of China's urbanization. It's really devastating.

<comment><USER3> I have seen this documentary a few years ago and still think about it on a monthly basis or whenever someone refers about Chinese workers. Really impactful.

<comment><USER4> There is definitely a lot of misunderstanding between Chinese and American peoples. They are a lot more similar than most understand. And when people say something could "only" be done in one country or the other, they are usually grossly mistaken.

The governments are different though. And China's problem of keeping everyone employed and having bright enough futures that they won't revolt is far greater and more urgent than the US's, it doesn't mean the US doesn't have the problem. A lot of the reason for wage stagnation in the US is because profits were diverted and invested in China to help growth there. The profits from those ventures ended up staying in China where it fueled a boom, but even then it was only a fraction of what is needed to get everyone employed in jobs with future growth potential. If it slows enougb to start failing, it has the potential, with so many people, to be pretty nasty.

I think China is a pretty fascinating place, with definite problems, but still pretty fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In other news, protests in Hong Kong over Chinese tourists.

"We don't want your money: Chinese shoppers told to spend cash elsewhere by frustrated Hongkongers who just want some peace and quiet" [https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong- economy/articl...](https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong- economy/article/2184891/we-dont-want-your-money-chinese-shoppers-told-spend)

Also, Bloomberg is really the worst with clickbait titles.

<comment><USER6> peace and quiet... HK? Well, haters take their own shares. However HK cannot make money from peace and quiet to make it sustainable.

According to Wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Hong_Kong#GDP[45]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Hong_Kong#GDP\[45\])), Tourism is 5% of the GDP and I believe a big chunk of that is contributed by people from mainland.

<comment><USER7> I highly doubt if it's only 5%. A mainlander goes to HK, buys Rolex and new iPhone. Wears the Rolex and switches to the new iPhone. Goes back to mainland without declaring anything. How do these numbers end up in official statistics for tourism? Or it could be the other way round: HK resident buys Rolex and iPhone, sells in mainland thus making money.

<comment><USER8> Unless the Rolex and iPhone are made in Hong Kong, only the wholesale and retail margin would show up in GDP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Prior to working where I am now, I worked at a fabless semiconductor manufacturer, with a development office in Shenzhen. It was actually kindof nice: As long as everything was coordinated properly back in November, China would continue working during US Christmastime, and we would keep working during China New Year.

</comment><comment><USER10> I still remember there was an article about the largest human made DDoS attack on the China Railway Ticket System. When you literally have few hundred million people all trying to access the system at midnight. The ticket system was at one point built on Ruby Rails, but I think it quickly moved to something else before moving to Go.

<comment><USER8> The online booking site had the hardest captchas I've ever seen. One time I was having difficulty and asked a couple of colleagues to help. Even they (well-educated native Chinese) got it wrong one time.

This article has some examples: [https://www.techinasia.com/chinas-train- ticket-site-image-ca...](https://www.techinasia.com/chinas-train-ticket-site- image-captcha-hard-92-guess-wrong)

Other than the captcha, the site works well, although it's not pretty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This Wendover Productions video "Why China Is so Good at Building Railways" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JDoll8OEFE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JDoll8OEFE) also explains a lot about how things have changed recently to make this migration even more possible in China. They've built so much high speed rail in the last decade that they now have more than the rest of the world, combined. Hong Kong to Beijing is under 9 hours, while comparable distances in other parts of the world are over 40 hours.

</comment><comment><USER12> > The government expects 2.99 billion journeys to take place over the holiday, > an increase of 0.6 percent from the previous year [...]

So assuming most are taking a trip somewhere and a trip back, that's about 1.5 billion people involved in this phenomenon, somehow or another- roughly 1 out of every 5 humans on the planet!

<comment><USER13> Which can't be right, as China 'only' has a population of 1.4 billion, of which a significant portion will probably not travel since most of their family is local.

This has to somehow include multiple trips per person. Maybe train to airpot + flight + train to destination + the same for return.

<comment><USER14> The metric is _journeys_ , not people. There are lots of small villages not directly connected to the rail network or an airport.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow this must be tough on the climate

<comment><USER16> Actually, I would think everyone travelling during one period of the year is better for the climate than the alternative which is people going back to their hometowns uniformly throughout the year. Going back together would mean that trains/buses/etc are all at full capacity so it's way more efficient CO2/energy wise per person mile travelled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> 3 billion trips in 15 days. Hats off to whoever make this transportation infrastructure possible.

</comment><comment><USER18> That's amazing. I always assumed that the Hajj to Mecca was the largest.

<comment><USER19> Checkout Kumbh Mela, India ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbh_Mela](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumbh_Mela)) going on right now. It happens every 6/12 years. In 2013, 120 million pilgrims attended it over period of 30-40 days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> See the reactions to this post and those from PH Internet usage. I just cannot ignore the stark stereotype contrast...

<comment><USER21> > See the reactions to this post and those from PH Internet usage. I just > cannot ignore the stark stereotype contrast...

Could you explain? I don't get what's stark, nor the stereotypes about reactions.</comment></comment>


Facebook's Libra Blasted in Congress - <AUTHOR> https://decrypt.co/7910/uncle-sam-weighs-libra <comment><USER2> Great summary. "700 old white men, and roughly three women, gathered in Congress to ask David Marcus, the man behind Facebook's Libra Project, why we should trust the company and how we can be sure its incipient digital currency/alternative financial system/systemic risk won't, say, lead to the downfall of Western civilization." LOL

</comment><comment><USER3> Fairly hilarious.</comment>


Lessons from California: The perils of extreme democracy - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/18586520?story_id=18586520 <comment><USER2> I'm not a fan of direct democracy but this article isn't factually based. Notice they only give one specific example. That one example is Prop 13 which limited the amount of taxes that could be put on property and required a two- thirds majority to pass any tax increases.

Now let me ask this: If Prop 13 is such a hindrance why is California in the top 5 highest taxing states across the board?

Beyond that most of the initiatives are either social issues (Gay Marriage) or done by Percentage (Prop 98 that requires 40% of general fund spending be spent on Education).

So California's problems are not because of direct democracy. The reason the Economist is writing about this now is because they are (by their own admission) a left-leaning publication and Democrats in California believe the solution to California's problems is a tax hike. But they can't get it done without a couple Republicans because of the 2/3rd rule (imposed by Prop 13, again the only named example in the article). So the problem from their immediate perspective is "Direct Democracy".

But mark my words, some day down the line Republicans will get power in California and they will want to cut money to public schools. When that happens I'd bet all the money in my Bank Account the Democrats are going to be holding Direct Democracy up as their savior.

<comment><USER3> 1) I believe your "top 5 highest taxing states" is inaccurate. In 2000, at least, California ranked 19th in combined state + local tax burden according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which is decidedly middle of the pack. Pretending like we're the most highly taxed state in the country is deceptive and gives the impression that good governance (well, bad in our case) comes for free.

Note that though the ranking of 19th does factor in our larger economy, it doesn't account for the reality that more highly advanced economies require a better trained and more specialized bureaucracy. So just as we shouldn't be surprised when Sweden has a better compensated civil service than Namibia, all things being equal we should expect for California government to account for a larger portion of the economy than Mississippi's or Oklahoma's, instead of being in the middle of the pack.

2) The Economist is left-leaning? Heh.

3) Most technocrats, be they left or right, absolutely hate the 40% rule as well. As a Democrat, I'd gladly trade a repeal of Prop 98 for a repeal of Prop 13. Hell, I'd repeal Prop 98 just on its own.

Government by ballot box is terrible.

<comment><USER4> > In 2000, at least, California ranked 19th in combined state + local tax > burden according to the U.S. Census Bureau

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States)

says that CA is 11th on a per-capita basis. However, Alaska (which is number 1) gets almost all of its tax revenue from folks who buy oil, most of whom are in other states/countries. IIRC, Wyoming, #4, is similar. I don't recall whether CT and DE, #5 and #7, get a lot of their revenue from corporate francise fees, which are also (effectively) paid by folks in other places.

<comment><USER3> In state level taxation. State and local taxation and spending, however, are highly coupled, and looking at state level taxation in isolation can be misleading. Especially in the case of California, where local property tax rates were made artificially low, and as a result state income tax and sales tax artificially high.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury." - Someone, probably with a T in their name. [1]

Having one or two layers of bureaucracy can provide a powerful buffer to voters doing things for immediate gains, or based on popular trends. Certainly some of how modern governments are set up is based on the time information took to travel and the distances involved hundreds (or thousands) of years ago, but I don't think that this point was lost on the early founders of democratic systems.

People (especially Americans) often forget that a bureaucracy that slows things down can provide the occasional benefit, right along with all its costs.

[1]: <http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html>

<comment><USER6> _People (especially Americans) often forget that a bureaucracy that slows things down can provide the occasional benefit, right along with all its costs._

Americans should be especially loath to forget this. Our government was engineered with the goal of making it _very difficult_ to get anything done through government.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'll preface this by saying I'm largely a supporter of the referendum process in my state of California, and I would be hesitant to give up the power it has given me. That's not to say I don't see some of the big problems caused by this system, though I'm not persuaded that the author has offered very practical or substantial solutions.

"Initiatives should be far harder to introduce. They should be shorter and simpler, so that voters can actually understand them. They should state what they cost, and where that money is to come from. And, if successful, initiatives must be subject to amendment by the legislature."

I disagree that initiatives should be harder to introduce. In the last election, I had friends volunteering to collect petition signatures for the legalization of marijuana initiative, and it was a struggle to coordinate an effort large enough to collect the required signatures, testing the limits of grassroots mobilization. If such a controversial topic as marijuana legalization, with its army of local proponents in California, struggled to motivate enough people to support a ballot initiative, then I must ask how difficult it would be to organize an effort focusing on more mundane topics which may be just as critical to our fiscal situation.

I don't see how a limit on complexity could be determined or enforced, but I will agree that there is a lack of clear information on the likely ramifications of a given ballot initiative. A better solution here would be to have trusted 3rd parties providing assessments of various initiatives, perhaps a state-level equivalent to the Congressional Budget Office offering credible fiscal assessments.

One major improvement might be for initiatives to go through a process of competitive runoff selection, where petition signatories could sign on to an overarching policy goal (which is pretty much the only information they're given before signing the petition in any case), such as the legalization of marijuana, and then would be able to select from a variety of different implementations of that policy goal, with the winning implementation getting all the petition signatures.

One place I will agree with the author would be to allow our legislators a greater ability to amend these initiatives, and if we're unhappy with the way they exercise this power, we can always show them the door next election cycle (or just recall them if they really pissed us off).

I wouldn't give up my initiative power without a fight, and I am strongly encouraged that an unpopular law is only a petition and referendum away from redress. It's not for nothing that California is the R&D center of this laboratory of democracy we lovingly call the US states, with the California initiative process leading the way on many social issues, which then spread to the rest of the country. We should be careful not to throw out the baby with the bath water.

<comment><USER8> The problem is precisely that it's too difficult for grassroots volunteer groups to put measures on the ballot, while at the same time being too easy for well-funded private interests to get things on the ballot, which has resulted in the current distorted use of the initiative system.

Most initiative signatures are not collected by volunteers, they're collected by paid signature gathering organizations. And that's the problem the article was getting at: that anyone with enough money can get an initiative on the ballot by paying people to collect signatures, and once something's on the ballot, they can spend enough money to try to persuade people to vote for it. As a result, rich people and organizations can effectively buy legislation, or even constitutional amendments. That's not how the initiative process was intended to be used, but that's what we've got.

I'd also challenge you, if you're a fan of California's initiative system, to take a look at all the initiatives that have passed over the last 10 years or so. Now, remove the ones put on there by the state legislature (which is a lot of them), and of the remaining ones, ask yourself: how many of these represent a positive, populist change versus how many of them represent some corporate special interest or populist outrage attempting to do something that is more properly the responsibility of the legislature (like, in my opinion, the three-strikes law or sex-offender laws) or even just out-right discriminatory laws (like the various illegal immigration ones that have passed)? My personal calculus has been that the initiative process has, on balance, done more harm than good.

<comment><USER7> If laws are truly discriminatory, then they should be challenged in court.

I must agree with you that there is likely more harmful legislation coming out of this process than beneficial, but I think that is largely a result of a lack of honest communication, as well as a lack of follow-through on the part of participating citizens.

I believe my proposed solution of having citizens sign petitions for an overarching policy goal, and then having them choose from a list of implementations under that goal, would do much to limit some of the more egregious manipulation of those signing petitions. People could sign a policy goal petition, providing a mailing address and email address, and once sufficient signatures are collected to get on the ballot, signatories would be sent a packet of competing initiatives to select from. The variant with the most votes gets all the petition signatures and gets on the ballot. This would give participating voters an opportunity to review what they're signing up for, and perhaps become more informed of various alternative proposals which would address the same putative issue. This will ultimately force special interests to fight on a more level playing field with competing interests.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, they're really going to argue that this is about costs? :|

I think the real problem is that there's still a state government. The people who know how to balance the budget best and know what needs/wants they need to fulfill are the people in local communities and counties. Give them more power to deal with the budget and make the state government a council of delegates from each of those counties and you won't have much of a problem anymore.

 _Indeed, in their guise of "Publius" in the "Federalist Papers", Madison and Hamilton warn against the dangerous "passions" of the mob and the threat of "minority factions" (ie, special interests) seizing the democratic process._

They wanted a republic where representatives were accountable to their constitutients. That doesn't happen anymore. Too often do representatives ignore the ideas and opinions of their constituents. A representative should be asking his constiuents wtf to do instead of being completely autonomous (except on election day). The minority factions are the representatives themselves which is why it's very important to keep any and all direct democracy actions.

 _Initiatives should be far harder to introduce. They should be shorter and simpler, so that voters can actually understand them. They should state what they cost, and where that money is to come from. And, if successful, initiatives must be subject to amendment by the legislature._

So give less voice to the people who actually make up the state. Shorter and simpler because people are dumb? Why not make them longer with more arguments to support them, or have them written in 2-3 different ways as a counter to any biased/emotionally-heavy language?

The initiatives are voted on on a state-level. It's difficult to estimate costs on something like that and it's difficult to say where the money will come from. I guess it's a good idea though because then the marijuana legalization initiative could say "this will cost $0, and will earn us $X".

They shouldn't be subject to amendment by the legislature. They should be subject to amendment by the citizens. That might curb any special interest group bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER10> Unlike California (37 million), <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_democracy> is more suitable for smaller nations like Switzerland (7 million)

<comment><USER3> Imagine a world where California were 4 or 5 separate states. Mendocino to Santa Cruz, including the Bay Area, as one; LA and Ventura as another; San Diego and the Inland Empire as a third; Central Valley, Shasta, etc. as the 4th.

Probably would improve governance, as the Republican Party we deal with in the Bay Area would offer people like Tom Campbell instead of Prop 8 NOMers.

<comment><USER11> I've always thought that the problem with America is too _many_ states, which allows effective one-party states to develop.

In Australia there's only six states, and they're all large and demographically diverse enough to be (in the American terminology) purple. That means that there's a regular cycle of kicking the bums out and installing the other set of bums every few election cycles, keeping things relatively healthy.

In the US, though, problems seem to develop when one party controls the legislature more or less indefinitely. In blue states this leads to slowly- collapsing economies where public-sector unions slowly suck increasing amounts of money out of the economy, and in perma-red states this leads to zany places where sodomy is theoretically illegal and you can't even buy a vibrator.

So what we really need to do is join California up with Nevada, Arizona, Idaho... maybe even as far as West Texas.

<comment><USER9> What you've pointed out are problems with large governments in general.

Australia still has a lot of problems and when you have larger states that means the law applies to more people. Even if the majority of people are in favour of a law, they're still forcing the minority to abide by their choices and that's pretty much mob rule. On the flip side, if there's fewer people voting in elections, a minority of voters can force the rest of the people in the state to be represented by some jerkoff politician.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> News at 11: Pure democracy is unstable and should be avoided.

/read your histories of Athens to see why

<comment><USER13> You're not wrong, but note that there are _lots_ of histories of Athens. The same cannot be said for most contemporary states, which were almost all ruled by a king/dictator or oligarchy.

Athens at least burned brightly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pass a bill requiring the budget to be balanced. It's that simple.</comment>


Renaming the Bro project - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bro.org/2018/10/renaming-bro-project_11.html <comment><USER2> > On the Leadership Team of the Bro Project, we heard clear concerns from the > Bro community that the name "Bro" has taken on strongly negative > connotations, such as "Bro culture".

My understanding is that the negative connotations of the word "bro" come wholly from outsiders who co-opted it to use as a pejorative to attack a community. It originated and remains an in-group term of endearment and familiarity in that community.

It's interesting to note that seems like an inversion of what I understand happened to certain forms of the n-word. It started out as a pejorative slur used by outsiders to attack a community, but then forms of it were "reclaimed" by that community to be used as an in-group term of endearment and familiarity.</comment>


The end of Iridium flares? - <AUTHOR> https://www.heavens-above.com/IridiumDemise.aspx <comment><USER2> An interesting fact is why the name Iridium?

When they were in the planning stages for this set of satellites, they estimated that they would need 77 of them to completely cover the Earth (including the poles), evoking an image of 77 electrons circling the nucleus of an atom. The atomic number for the element Iridium is 77. The number of satellites needed was paired down to 66, so the satellites should actually be named Dysprosium.

<comment><USER3> I pointed this out when I interviewed for a job at Iridium.

I didn't get an offer.

<comment><USER4> You may not have gotten an offer, but you do get something else of incalculable value: my upvote!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to have a cron job that ran a little perl script that screen scraped heavens-above once a day and then set up 'at' jobs to send me an SMS when a visible pass of the ISS or an Iridium flare was going to show up over me in the next 5 minutes. Was a great party trick at times and I got to see some great flares and also saw the ISS and a space shuttle a few miles from each other.

<comment><USER6> trying to envision said parties

<comment><USER7> Rooftop parties in the city, drinking beer from bottles, strings of vintage lightbulbs, people wearing plaid, taking out your phone to say "Hey look at this!" and pointing out a spot in the sky where an iridium flare streaks across while everyone gasps "Wwwooww!!" High fives

<comment><USER8> The University of Sydney Physics Society (physoc) used to have some great rooftop parties (in the late 80s). Invariably someone would raid the dry ice freezer and put it in the empty bottles and screw the lids on to make "depth charges". These would get dropped over the edge and go off with a resounding boom sometime later, scaring the wits out of anyone at ground level. University Security would invariably arrive to find everything peaceful at ground level and so sign of the party above.

<comment><USER9> That's one of those things that wouldn't fly at universities these days.

At least in NZ, all the traditional student events and activities have been slowly neutered over the past decade or so, to ensure that nobody gets hurt, and that everything is tame and hurts nobody's sensibilities.

<comment><USER10> I was about to prove you wrong by demonstrating that couch fires are still a fun student tradition in NZ, but googling shows the very opposite. [https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/heat-out-couch- burning](https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/heat-out-couch-burning).

Only 11 fires in the first three months of last year, a massive 65% drop on the previous low of 31 for the period.

<comment><USER9> Every time I saw a couch fire at Canterbury, the fire brigade arrived shortly to put it out.

They were definitely frowned upon. Especially when the couches were stolen from the halls of residence and burned on Ilam fields.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If, like me, you need context on what an Iridium flare is: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare#Iridium_flares](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare#Iridium_flares)

</comment><comment><USER12> I used to keep close tabs on the brightest upcoming Iridium flares–it has long been a great party trick of mine to point up at a section of the night sky and tell a group of people sitting around a campfire to watch carefully just as a bright flare lights up. It'll usually spark a bit of a sense of wonder and some great conversations. Too bad they're going away!

</comment><comment><USER13> I captured a series of still images of one passing through Orion with an old dSLR a few years ago.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd288ct92pk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zd288ct92pk)

</comment><comment><USER14> I didn't know these were a thing until reading this, and now wonder if I'll ever get to see one.

Ohai, wistfulness.

Thank you, HN, for expanding my world yet again.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, I'm wondering how I would have discovered these. I don't have a TV, so I miss a lot of cultural events, but this is something that should have crossed my radar before it was too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Crazy.. I've never seen a satellite flare until a couple of weeks ago. Camping in New Mexico and I decided to sleep out in the open. As I kept waking up in the night worrying about critters, I was watching the stars make their way through the sky. I was surprised at the number of satellites I saw, including one glint which I've never seen before. I had to look up if that was actually a thing.

<comment><USER17> You should seek out a flare if you can, it's much much brighter than seeing a satellite or the ISS, as impressive as those are.

<comment><USER18> Hmm, so an Iridium satellite is much brighter than a satellite or the ISS (a satellite). Got it!

<comment><USER19> An Iridium _flare_ can be much brighter than any other satellite including the ISS.

The Iridium satellites are not very bright most of the time - you would be lucky to see one with the naked eye. But when they flare, they can be the brightest thing in the night sky for a few seconds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The launch of more Iridium Next sats is actually in progress over at Spacex.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_0GgKfwCSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_0GgKfwCSk)

<comment><USER21> Which will not flare.

<comment><USER22> Whats the reason for this? What is it about a satellite that causes it to produce flares that the new ones don't have.

(I always thought flares were sunlight reflections off solar panels. Is it that the new ones have less panels? Or is it about positioning?)

<comment><USER23> Iridium flares are reflections from the antennas, not solar panels. The new satellites have a different antenna arrangement which doesn't flare.

<comment><USER24> Having a solar panel that flares seems like an easy way to get an inefficient solar panel…

<comment><USER21> Not sure why you're down voted. That's a critical part of the answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cup-of-tea I've been telling people for a while that this year might be their last chance to see an Iridium flare. Just today I had a predicted daytime flare but it did not show up. Seems like maybe the chance has already gone.

You can still see other satellites and the ISS, but the Iridium flares were special. I'm glad I showed my wife a good one last year.

<comment><USER25> They might still be there for a while, just not predictable. Which might make them a bit more special.

<comment> cup-of-tea Apparently they will all be taken down by the end of the year. It was posted on HN a while back. I'm not sure why this current article seems unaware of these plans.

<comment><USER25> According to Wikipedia there are a few in uncontrolled orbits, so they might be around for a while yet. As for the ones still under control, it looks like they'll drop 15-20km below their replacements as a contingency for a little while, before finally being de-orbited (I can't find any details on the timing for this)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Thats a shame. Seeing Iridium flares was one of the highlights of my amateur astronomy experience. The best one I remember was seeing one just randomly when I was leaving a friend's house after a saturday night party. Just decided to look up at the sky and there it was.

</comment><comment><USER27> In fact most of the Iridium block 1 sats are being de-boosted so as to not create space junk. Iridium actually has a Twitter campaign to mark the occasion.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/IridiumBoss/status/99610389859420...](https://mobile.twitter.com/IridiumBoss/status/996103898594205696)

</comment><comment><USER28> Oh no! I've loved watching them. This calls for a petition to leave one in place as a memorial.

<comment><USER29> Or, we can crowdfund a very large Mylar mirror. I'd pay at least $5 for this.

<comment><USER30> Humanity star was an attempt. We might be able to keep one in orbit for a few years. I doubt astronomers would be happy about it, however. But I'd also contribute money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Anyone know the Iridiums that have been deorbited? Or, more specifically, anyone know the status of 61, 10, 14, and 32? 32 is the most important to me as it'll be giving a bright flare near where I am soon...

[edit] and 84, my girlfriend and I will be staying in a dark spot where we should be able to see 84, hopefully it's still doing OK...

[edit 2] Decayed so far:

25, 72, 14 may

13, 29 april

94, 18 april

19, 7 april

Started to decay:

68, 10 may

21, 3 may

72, 27 april

25, 19 april

All decayed: 25, 72, 13, 94, 19, 23, 49, 43, 3, 34, 6, 8, 30, 77, 74.

It appears to take between two to four weeks for an Iridium satellite to decay from the start of the deorbiting process.

I got all my information from this excellent page here: [http://www.rod.sladen.org.uk/iridium.htm](http://www.rod.sladen.org.uk/iridium.htm)

</comment><comment><USER32> Does the tracker actually model the directed reflections or just the relative angle of the viewer, the satellite and the sun and let chance take care of the rest?

<comment><USER33> IIRC it is a fairly precise model. They know which antennas, and the directed reflection. The width ground track is not all that wide, but if you're right in the middle of it they're very bright. Years ago I drove to be in the center of the path and could easily see the flare in broad daylight.

<comment><USER32> Thanks for the reply, that's pretty amazing!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is there a heat dissipation reason why satellites are painted white instead of black? And if so, why are they white instead of a completely reflective surface?

<comment><USER35> Satellites are not painted white. Satellite bodies are are typically covered with reflective thermal blankets made of materials like Mylar or Kapton [1][2][3]. However, what makes satellites reflect enough sunlight to be visible in the sky is not the blankets but solar panels or antennas.

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

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapton)</comment></comment>