Show HN: Get notified when grocery pickup slots are available - <AUTHOR> https://curb.run <comment><USER2> This looks like a neat bit of tech but it doesn't sit quite right with me. In particular it doesn't feel very fair to our fellow shoppers.

We wait in line for the ATM or the checkout or anything else because a scrabble is unfair. Using a tool like this when others almost certainly are not doesn't really feel fair on those other people.

Having to check manually for a slot sucks, but so does waiting in line, and that's the lowest common denominator of behavior that still counts as fair which we can all adhere to right now.

I get that the grocery companies should make the slot selection better. But laying the blame on them feels a bit like the FAQ for those padlocks that stop the airline passenger in front of you from being able to recline, where the manufacturer tried to claim we are all in this together their product is just part of a campaign for better airline seating for us all. It was no such thing: it was kind of selfish.

In any other climate I'd happily be told to quit my social justice moralism, but things seem quite serious at the moment, and I wouldn't encourage using this tool, but maybe I'm taking it too far.

<comment><USER3> Ideally, the grocery stores or Instacart will add this functionality so it's baked in to the pickup experience. I honestly wouldn't mind if they did that and effectively forced us to shut down the app. This is a feature they should already have! And there are a lot of examples of people making something that's effectively a feature for an existing product, and that existing product building it.

The selfish route would have been to keep this to ourselves. We talked through the ethical implications of this and decided it was better to make it easier for everyone rather than just us. If everyone uses it and is able to grocery shop less often because they feel less food stress, things are improved.

We also purposefully don't support delivery slot since we think those should be only for people who can't drive or don't have a car, and delivery is more risky health-wise for delivery workers (who may have to visit 10+ different stores in a day).

There are definitely equity issues though. We've considered adding a prompt for people to donate to World Central Kitchen while waiting for a slot, for example.

<comment><USER4> > If everyone uses it and is able to grocery shop less often because they feel > less food stress, things are improved.

But that is exactly the issue that gorgoiler points out with the queue example. Everybody _won 't_ use your website. Even if you are wildly successful, a huge fraction of people won't use it. Therefore it is unfair. It is like a digital line-cutting tool. The unfairness is the ethical problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fundamental problem here is grocery stores and others needlessly limiting when they make pickups available. Lots of people are sitting at home with extreme schedule flexibility, and would be happy to choose a slot 10 days out or whatever. Instead there is the silliness (and third-party app workarounds like this) of only releasing slots much closer.

In other conversation I have seen the following explanation: those systems were designed for a much different supply demand balance than we see today, they just haven't had time to adjust things yet.

<comment><USER6> > those systems were designed for a much different supply demand balance than > we see today, they just haven't had time to adjust things yet.

I feel like as much as this app is well intentioned, it will only make this problem worse.

The bottle neck isn't on the technology side. It's on the operations side.

Extending the order window ahead would work, but they'd have to do a "check in" before hand to actually pick your order, otherwise you wouldn't be able to know if things will be in stock 10 days ahead of time.

<comment><USER7> Yes - I bought a microphone that was in-stock for pick-up and a week later sent a "hey, what's up?" email and got a "order ready for pickup" email an hour later. There was no one in the store but they had 10x the number of pickup orders to process. Its a operational capacity problem, not a scheduling one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

We realized that curbside pickups is a great compromise for everybody's health and safety right now.

We built Curb Run because we found it very difficult to get a curbside pickup slot at our local Wegmans. Willing to drive a bit further away to another location, I hacked together a little script that would check for pickup slots across multiple stores in a radius.

Fast forward, friends and family started hearing about this and asked if we could help them too. We ended up turning this into a web app for everybody to use -- and with many more stores and chains across the US.

We hope that this can help you as well!

<comment><USER8> How do you assure that this tool isn't used by the lazy techno-elite to snatch up all the delivery slots? Rather than say the older and technically less literate, whom are probably more at risk and more in need of those delivery slots?

Yes, I totally get the concept and could use it myself. But I'm also reasonably young and healthy and would rather shop at the store and let the "at risk" population use these grocery store features to be safe.

<comment><USER9> You're welcome to not use it.

The whole reason this exists is because "these grocery store features" don't exist.

Sites should be implementing their own waiting list, but that hasn't happened, so here we are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> a number of commenters are relying on a misperception that we all need to avoid everyone else as much as possible. that's incorrect, and leads to this rush to overload curbside pickup options and crowd out people who particularly need to avoid the risk of infection: those with co-morbidities.

what most of us need to do is avoid coughing and breathing into each others' noses/mouths, and that's what the (better) guidelines are meant to prevent. keeping distance doesn't need to be perfect, but best effort, as long as we generally avoid standing face-to-face and talking (especially for prolonged periods, closely, and/or loudly).

it's really fine to go to the grocery store if you don't live with someone sick or immuno-compromised and can mostly avoid other people's spit in your face.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hey, this is cool! I tried to setup a curbside pickup for my elderly parents with a local store through instacart, but after getting to the end I discovered it was for next week. Couple thoughts:

1\. Could I just provide a zipcode instead of sharing my browser location?

2\. Could I check stores in aggregate? I'd rather discover which local business has the MOST openings and then register an account there, rather than getting to the end of the shopping experience and waiting.

Lastly, you have a typo "seend" in your third step.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a ton for the feedback! Hope this could be helpful for your parents.

1\. We decided to use geolocation because it removes one more form field. It also makes it easier to expand to additional countries ([https://github.com/MiniCodeMonkey/curbside/issues](https://github.com/MiniCodeMonkey/curbside/issues)) we may reconsider in the future.

2\. Happy to explore adding additional ways to tackle the problem. For now, we just have a simple map of stores to visualize coverage: [https://curb.run/stores](https://curb.run/stores)

Fixed the typo. Thanks!

<comment><USER12> Please reconsider #1.

<comment><USER13> Agreed. Not opening up location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> After 5 days in a row of not being able to get a delivery slot for another grocer, I used a similar tool. Even with the help of the tool polling the website every minute, the slot filled before I was able to complete the order the first few times. So at this point, it's clear that only coders are able to get online grocery delivery from the store I use.

If there was a way to reserve delivery slots for the elderly and at-risk, that would be great, but otherwise I see no problem with technically savvy people having an advantage here, if the alternative is requiring people to do manual polling and waste time. Those slots are going to go to somebody. Perhaps some limit to one delivery per week per account to encourage people to order more efficiently. Eventually, delivery capacity will ramp up to satisfy demand regardless.

<comment><USER15> Some grocery stores have implemented anti bot mechanisms as a result of earlier articles in the news about people using bots to claim delivery slots. In a nutshell, more than x number of requests over an unknown period and you get flagged (wherever you are using a bot or just an over eager human).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I appreciate this effort ... when we thought things were going to get bad in late February, we put about 3 months of food in our larder (like a root cellar but reachable from the basement of our house). We've been ordering about every 2 weeks just to keep it replenished just in case things get significantly worse. I've got three at risk people in my house so we can't really afford for any of (the five of) us to catch this.

<comment><USER17> We did the same, but only about a month of food, and I ordered TP on Amazon when I started seeing shortages in other countries. (I have a respiratory condition)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Has anyone started scalping pickup slots yet? "If you want toilet paper, you'll have to buy our pickup slot for $50".

<comment><USER17> Our grocer (HEB in Texas) requires you to have paid for your order to book the slot. My wife went to the store 2 days ago and was able to buy TP without any issues, but until recently, even a pickup slot wouldn't guarantee you any of the products you reserved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is really great! I've sent it to a couple of my friends who are immunocompromised and have been having trouble getting slots. Thank you for making this!

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! That's great to hear. Hope this can help them out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Such a great idea!

Do you have any plans on open-sourcing this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes indeed! Feel free to check it out here [https://github.com/MiniCodeMonkey/curbside](https://github.com/MiniCodeMonkey/curbside)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Asks browser for location permission without an option for entering a zip code or street address #FAIL

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this US-specific or does it also work in other countries? I scanned the landing page, could not find an answer to this question.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is so unethical. I'm reaching out to the IT departments of some of these stores to ask them to block your IP address.

</comment><comment><USER23> Have you stopped to think about the ethical implications of this?

Could you put a warning to be mindful and only consider the service if you're high-risk or in a situation where curbside is the only safe option?

I love the fact that my high-risk parents are using curbside pickup, but I find myself better fitted to wear a mask and do the groceries myself during off-peak hours. The last thing I think the world wants is (presumably younger) people in tech taking up curbside slots before other people in the community.

<comment><USER24> I don't get your question.

Curb-side pickup is better as having a ton of people inside small grocery stores considering all of them are not meant to handle large amounts of people attempting to keep a set distance from each-other.

If curb-side pickup becomes more popular they would increase available slots by allocating more resources. What is happening right now is you have one or two managing curb-side and a ton inside managing everyone else.

What should happen is grocery stores should be closed except for employees and your groceries should be delivered to you, or you pick them up curb side.

It would eliminate a whole realm of issues with people not following rules, coughing on produce, not washing hands, moeny exchange, long lines, etc.

And if you implemented a strict health check on employees it would be way easier for everyone.

<comment><USER25> How does curbside pickup reduce the number of people in the stores?

Does it involve something other than swapping out customers picking their groceries off the shelves for employees doing the same?

<comment><USER26> It's not just about reducing the absolute number, it's about reducing the number of possible interactions.

Let's say there are 20 employees in the store fulfilling orders, and they work in two shifts during the day. So that's 40 people in the store that have the potential to interact with each other (though it's really more like two separate groups of 20). If they do the curbside dropoff in a safe manner (that is, without physically interacting with the customer), then it's mostly those 40 people risking transmitting the disease to each other, and that's it.

If you instead allow 20 random people into the supermarket at a time (in reality it's going to be more, which is even worse), and they spend an average of 45 minutes in the store, and their entry and exist times are randomized throughout the day, you have hundreds of people who could potentially interact with and infect each other.

Employees will just naturally be much faster and efficient at gathering groceries than customers will be. They know the layout of the store and where everything is better, and they may also know that certain things are not available, so they won't waste time looking for them. They can even multitask and take care of more than one person's order at a time. They won't be wandering around making impulse purchases, but will be sticking to a fixed list of items the customer ordered. Checkout and bagging will go much faster. This bit is optional, but they could even optimize things further by grouping the most common items in one place, and not stocking shelves like they usually do[0]. I imagine you can serve the same number of customers with much less than half as many people in the store.

There's also the matter of discipline when it comes to distancing. I imagine the supermarket employees are pushed hard to maintain social distancing with each other while working. When I went to the supermarket a week ago, probably a good 20% of the customers I encountered were failing at distancing, further increasing risk.

[0] Consider that placement of items in a supermarket designed for customers wandering around is intentionally not set up for efficiency! They want you to walk through the entire store when making typical shopping run, in the hope that you'll make a bunch of other impulse purchases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I got all excited when I saw the landing page graphic has groceries from an Australian grocery store: Woolworths.

Alas...

<comment><USER3> sorry :( does Woolworth's have curbside? Maybe we could add it!

edit: just checked and they're only doing it for people who are confirmed as high risk (which is good!) Are there any grocery stores in AU that are doing pickup open to the general public?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What I've found with Whole Foods delivery is that if you wait for a notification you've lost the slot. I use a bot that plays a loud sound when a slot is available and foregrounds the Firefox window. I then have to click the checkout flow immediately. If I'm even a foot away from my machine when it happens I lose the slot. I only get deliveries when I'm active on my PC.

<comment><USER29> Are you using Amazon Prime Now for Whole Foods delivery? In SF I wasn't able to get a delivery window for several days (admittedly I wasn't checking more than a couple of times per day), but on night on a whim I decided to check right after midnight and was able to schedule a delivery for 2 days in the future. Obviously a tiny sample size, but it appears they only ever schedule for 2 days in advance, and they must open up new windows at midnight (and perhaps at other scheduled times throughout the day).

Several days before that, I had a very annoying problem, which was that I checked the Prime Now app and saw that there were delivery windows, so I added all the items I wanted, and then there were no longer any windows. Also, every time you refresh, it apparently just silently removes from your cart any items which are no longer in stock, which means you better keep your shopping list written down somewhere if you don't have it down by heart!

<comment><USER30> It's incredibly frustrating. They encourage you to fill a cart with items that you can't actually buy unless you get extremely lucky. Amazon Fresh has exactly the same problem.

Imagine the collective amount of time wasted by this appalling UX that they have zero incentive to fix.

<comment><USER28> The flip side is that in the UK where you book a slot and then fill up your cart, there are a lot of people cancelling their carts at the last minute and wasting delivery bandwidth. Of course that has its own fixes but basically this system worked fine until a few weeks ago so everyone is playing catch up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I opened a few issues on GitHub. Once I sign up, how do I stop notifications?

How do I add stores to my sub?

<comment><USER3> You can stop notifications by replying DONE to the text message.

You can add stores by going to the website again and selecting different stores. It resets for each monitor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Request: Peapod support.

<comment><USER3> It's next on the list!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Please please please make this work for the UK!

<comment><USER3> We've got Tesco and Waitrose on the list to add! (Sainsbury's is out because they're verifying against NHS lists of high risk people)

[https://github.com/MiniCodeMonkey/curbside/issues](https://github.com/MiniCodeMonkey/curbside/issues)

<comment><USER33> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> US only</comment>


Nearly 400 restaurants close for good in San Francisco metro area - <AUTHOR> https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/nearly-400-restaurants-close-for-good-in-san-francisco-metro-area-report/ <comment><USER2> "Cloud kitchens" produce dishes for delivery services (and in some cases dine- in or food truck) in shared facilities -- independents who rent the space collectively, as well as on-staff chefs. Platform products like Reef vertically integrate "restaurant concept" marketing to consumers and implementation (producing and delivering dishes for your concept).

> California's bill (AB 626) which allows for "microenterprise home kitchen > operations" was passed on September 18th, 2018 and went into effect on > January 1st, 2019. This is a much more liberal law than CA's previous home > cooking law — it allows residents to market almost any kind of food they > cook at home, and at lower setup costs.

</comment><comment><USER3> "it's one of several economic casualties caused by the coronavirus."

Better to say that it s a casualty of the lockdown. It was killed by the government, not the virus.</comment>


iOS 5 will have private browsing (a.k.a. "porn mode") - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/vMHHf

<comment><USER2> I'm sure they'll need to figure out a better way to implement it.

"Hmm.. I want to load this link... but... Home > Settings > Safari > Private Browsing: On > Home > Safari > Tap the link to shop for a gift for my wife."

I am hoping to see new and weird gestures. Like, flip the phone up-side down (home button at the top of the device) to enter private browsing.

</comment><comment><USER3> ... the data from which Apple will meticulously store in plain-text somewhere on the file system.</comment>


Interview Travel Expenses, Who Pays? - <AUTHOR> I was asked for an onsite interview (already passed two rounds), but they want me to advance the travel expenses (Flight + hotel, it's about $1K). There is a staffing agency in the middle and I don't trust them. I talked to the agency about this making me uncomfortable, and they still want me to book it. In the past, companies always took care of the logistics. I'm worried that they could decide to ghost me and leave me with the bill.<p>I'm thinking about declining because of that. Thoughts? <comment><USER2> > I don't trust them

Go with your gut</comment>


An African Startup Using Phones to Spot Counterfeit Drugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-31/the-african-startup-using-phones-to-spot-counterfeit-drugs <comment><USER2> Bright and Ashifi both launched the company together in 2007 or so. Ashifi was at Dartmouth, Bright was maybe in London at the time. Bright was the promoter, Ashifi the technical genius.

They parted ways, and Ashifi went on to found Sproxil with the same technology; he's a good guy and solid engineer. Of course, promotion skills matter -- but, I'd rather see stories about Sproxil!

<comment><USER3> The mention of the other player Pharmasecure being based in Lebanon, NH (just down the road from Gogo's alma mater Dartmouth) caught my attention. It appears the founders were also involved with Gogo near the beginning.

[1] [http://thedartmouth.com/2011/10/28/pharmasecure- receives-39-...](http://thedartmouth.com/2011/10/28/pharmasecure- receives-39-million/)

[2] [http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/winter09/html/vs_drugs.php](http://dartmed.dartmouth.edu/winter09/html/vs_drugs.php)

<comment><USER2> That's interesting! It was Bright and Ashifi and a former colleague of mine on the initial patent filing, but much of the tech transfer help came from Dartmouth folks, whether formally or informally, I don't recall. I hadn't heard of these folks. It's such a simple and useful idea, I'm not surprised that there are multiple attempts to deploy it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The final issue to overcome (after adoption - getting everyone to put codes on their products and getting folks to know to verify) is fake authentication systems. Nothing stops an attacker from printing up codes and writing "Verify online at e-pedigree.com" or "Text <number> to verify". It almost needs to be a country or world-wide single authority so people know one single number/app/site to trust.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is clever. Hopefully they expand to Asia soon.

<comment><USER6> >This is clever

not really. I've seen systems like this years ago. off the top of my head I can think of xiaomi, which uses a similar system to authenticate its products.

<comment><USER5> hmmm has anyone else done this with drugs in Asia yet? Personally I haven't seen it and this is really needed</comment></comment></comment>


Why Dilbert Is Doomed - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/feature/2009/11/02/healthcare_employment/print.html <comment><USER3> My rather incoherent take on this is that wealth is really not generated by people as much anymore. The things we use/want are really produced by machines plus a few workers. It is not really that worker producing the products, it is a combination of historical capital leading up to that machine and then some time the worker is putting in. Basically, we are moving towards a system where wealth is generated by machines but distributed by a weird combination of factors that is heavily historical (who spent the capital on this production to have it happen?). If you work in the stock market you get a certain share of that distribution, if your dad owns a hotel chain you get a certain share, if you collect aluminum cans on the streets of SF you get a certain share. It is all a heavily artificial system of distribution that is very historically based (more so than incentive based i think). Yes, being a successful entrepreneur will get you are larger share percent, but for the same effort/luck 1000 years ago (even if the political system was same as now and favorable to startups) the same share percent would be tiny compared to today. (kinda like bill gates added a lot of value but he got way more cuz its amplified by all the machines in the world) But my point is it is no longer about how much you produce directly but how much of that distribution goes to you.

Traditionally, a humongous proportion came here to the US and its workers, again due to historical reasons (and personally i feel deservedly so or atleast close enough). But it basically went like the US increase the whole pie so much that it got more of it. But as globalization happens it is apparent that unless you are a capitalist, your share of the distribution simply has no reason to grow but a lot of pressure to shrink so that it equalizes more globally.

so i think short of the US coming up with more things that just dramatically increases the whole pie again, theres only two choices to maintain your standard of living, have capital so you have the power to get your share, or support some form of socialism that hopefully doesn't reduce incentive to the point of reducing the whole pie.

<comment><USER4> The reality is that technology is making capital less relevant to capitalism. The world today is far more favorable to startups/good ideas than ever before.

If you have a great idea, it takes less money and effort to develop it and spread it around. Capital actively looks for you. Take any of the support services to business as examples (from printing to telecommunication - <USER2> distance fees anyone? mobile phones? to computing power to manufacturing). Who cares what percentage of the pie you have? It's your living standards that matter - and that's what's risen dramatically for almost every socio economic and demographic group with the exception of a few in places like Africa who live under horrific despots. I can't remember who first made the comment that the average 12 year old today gets more intellectual stimulation than Queen Victoria might have in her day.

You can lament the fact that even if you're extraordinarily successful you might not control as much resources as Bill Gates does as a percentage of the pie, but look a little further back in history to those like Rockefeller, JP Morgan, who controlled even more and wielded considerably more power. Is Bill Gates' life better than theirs? I would suggest that with the exception of the ability to use their power (which has declined considerably) nearly all other metrics would suggest this is the case. This, at least for the rest of us, seems like a good thing to me.

This idea that short term unemployment is relevant to anything at all is somewhat silly since it doesn't even begin to explain US unemployment versus Europe's chronically high unemployment rates. Further, while I can accept that industries change, this fear that technology results in less employment just doesn't track with history.

The pie grows with better ideas. With the average person increasingly being able to contribute directly to the development ideas, I suspect we will have a considerably brighter future than some of these pundits suggest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Unemployment is going to increase even more in the future. There just isn't enough work to be done anymore. Increasingly sophisticated robots are going to render even more workers irrelevant. Exactly what happens to these unemployed humans is going to determine whether we are living in a dystopia or a utopia. If the corporations have their say, it will be a dystopia.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your comment reminds me of the early 19th century. There was this group called the "Luddites" that believed the same thing. It didn't turn out as they predicted.

<comment><USER6> There's an important difference between the 19th century and today. We are nearing the point when computers will be mentally equal, if not superior, to humans. They are already physically superior in many regards. Even before that point, there are tons of jobs that can be done by machines with minimal intelligence. If a machine can do everything that many humans can, but for less money, those humans will be unemployable. If machines are stronger than you and smarter than you, then there's nothing for you to shift to that they aren't already doing.

<comment><USER7> > We are nearing the point when computers will be mentally equal, if not > superior, to humans.

No we aren't. We are no closer now than we were 50 years ago. The hardware is faster, but the software has not changed. (And hardware is not getting faster anymore either.)

<comment><USER6> Seriously? We have cars that _drive themselves_. The realm of tasks that only humans can do shrinks every year. We're not _close_ to computers equaling humans, but we are _nearing_ it.

<comment><USER8> I agree. The interesting question is not when robots will be equal or even superior to humans. The interesting question is when they will be advanced enough to take over a significant portion of labor for cheaper than even a chinese slave worker could.

Looking at what Asimo can do _today_ it seems to me we're not far away from the latter; <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9ByGQGiVMg>

The physical, mechanics part seems to be mostly sorted out. Robots can walk, run, climb stairs, avoid obstacles, get up when they fall, lift heavy things or operate at incredible precision. It won't be long until they exceed us humans in most physical regards (with a few notable exceptions like smelling or touch-sensitive skin, but imho even that is only a matter of time).

In my opinion the really interesting research is now going into the stuff you see in the video above. Making robots discover and interact intelligently with their environment. This is still a far cry from real intelligence but try to imagine the impact when robots become able to execute simple instructions like "Make me a coffee", "Drag the couch from A to B" or even "Repair the plumbing" without further handholding.

That will be the tipping point for a huge shift in society, akin to the invention of bookprinting or the internet, likely even bigger.

Looking at what we have today I would say _that_ specific vision is just a matter of time. Whatever follows then is in the pudding.

<comment><USER9> Last week, I heard a talk from one of the engineers doing this. He claimed that the main thing holding back robotics is liability concerns. If someone builds a machine that causes widespread death and destruction, the usual cop- out is to blame the operator for losing control of it. But if a fully autonomous robot goes postal, the manufacturer can't pass the buck to anyone.

Perhaps this will be a real issue, or perhaps robot engineers are a bit too fond of _Terminator_ and _2001_. Fear of it is apparently causing real effects. It would be sad if the ultimate reason to employ humans is that it feels good to kick their arses when things go wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Out of curiosity, what constitutes the fifth (I refuse to use an even more obscure -ary word) sector?

<comment><USER11> Mortuary services.

More seriously, I think there are a couple of possible meanings to the '-ary' progression: if more abstract, making use of the lower levels, the quintary must be finance. If the progression is 'less directly crucial to life', then it probably is the whole service sector. Entertainment would be pretty far out there.

A 'mixed feeling' aspect to this is, that free software is greatly helping this along.

<comment><USER10> I ask primarily because I'm curious where programming lies. Programming seems inescapably _meta_. Also, thank you for an excellent answer to a rather vague question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _The most numerous and stable jobs of tomorrow will be those that cannot be offshored, because they must be performed on U.S. soil, and also cannot be automated, either because they require a high degree of creativity or because they rely on the human touch in face-to-face interactions. The latter are sometimes called "proximity services" and they include the fastest-growing occupations, healthcare and education._

I don't think that jobs that can't be automated will in demand unless they also add to US competitiveness on the world market. If healthcare or education is just about bloat, it's not going to grow forever...

</comment><comment><USER13> The pundits are poor at predicting future jobs. When I was a freshman in college I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be an electrical engineer or a journalist.

I was counseled that there would be few opportunities in electrical engineering, four graudates to every job. But in journalism there would be four jobs for every student.

So I chose Journalism and in four years it was exactly the reverse. You have as much chance of these guys being right as knowing what the weather would be like in a month.

</comment><comment><USER14> Obligatory link to Robotic Nation:

<http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm>

<comment><USER15> I always sigh in frustration when I read things like _"The problem is that these systems will also eliminate jobs in massive numbers."_.

Honestly! If these jobs are eliminated, that's a wonderful thing! It increases the average work that the average worker is doing. This increases their average salary. This is not a problem!

The only real problem is getting these temporarily unemployed people an education and a new job. That's not a very big problem, as markets tend to make work when work is available. For instance, where did all the factory workers come from at the start of the industrial revolution? Everyone was working before then, presumably, as there was no such thing as welfare from the government. The workers came from industries that were torn down by the industrial revolution. We don't have cotton pickers anymore. We don't plow by hand. We don't have many of the menial labour jobs we had a hundred years ago, yet unemployment is less than 10% in Canada. The market equalized itself.

Where can these cashiers go? Perhaps preparing food. I wonder if we could start seeing more healthy restaurants that are more closely approaching the true cost of food at a grocery store. Since it costs less to have the store open, since the cash is automated, one could easily see that there would be more money available for food preparation.

The market _will_ find a place for these workers, and everyone on average _will_ see a net benefit from getting rid of non-producing jobs.

<comment><USER8> _The market will find a place for these workers, and everyone on average will see a net benefit from getting rid of non-producing jobs._

You're being optimistic and I hope you'll be right.

The big question is if we will be able to adapt fast enough, without erasing ourselves in a nuclear war or such.

Robots are just a different ballgame than the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution was mostly confined to the production-sector. A modern machine could replace a hundred workers with one. Robots on the other hand could very well erase entire industries, reaching far into the service-sector.

What do you do with hundreds of millions of humans who suddenly are not needed for productive work anymore?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Peter Drucker wrote a while back that jobs in high demand in the 21st century will be those that combine both knowledge and manual skills.

From the article, it seems that he was as prescient as in most other cases.</comment>


The Time a 14-Year-Old Invested $50k in My Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/dana-severson/the-time-a-14-year-old-invested-50k-in-my-startup.html

<comment><USER2> Good Read</comment>


IOS 8 Concept for Interactive Notifications - <AUTHOR> http://www.ihash.eu/2013/12/ios-8-concept-interactive-notifications/ <comment><USER2> This has nothing to do with iOS or iOS8 - somebody's just using Apple's brand (presumably unauthorized) and design language to push traffic to a UI concept they threw together.

Also, his "action button" idea already exists and is implemented (although if he's having trouble knowing that perhaps they need to work on discoverability) - it's the whole notification banner. Click anywhere on it to reply to an iMessage/SMS.

I want my 100 seconds back.

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "This has nothing to do with iOS or iOS8 - somebody's just using Apple's brand (presumably unauthorized) and design language to push traffic to a UI concept they threw together."

It's their concept of iOS 8 hence the word 'concept' in the title. They aren't trying to trick you into believing this is iOS 8.

<comment><USER2> Why use the iOS name or version number at all, then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love the "physical" back button on my Galaxy S and find Android's overall back button concept really useful, regardless of the os version. I feel disoriented whenever I try to go back to where I left on an ios device, it's always app specific and non-standard.

Opening another app from a notification and returning back would be quite difficult, not all apps have a specific action marking the end of an interaction, as in "sending the email" in this concept. How will I go back from editing a spreadsheet or some notification putting me right in to the middle of a game?

<comment><USER4> Double tap the home button and touch the card for the app you were in previously. It's not terribly discoverable without being told that's what you need to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The majority of users will still feel like they are switching apps, because the messages app is shown here as taking over the entire screen.

A better solution would be to have something like the existing Facebook or Twitter dialogs for posting (basically a big UIAlertView/modal dialog with a text field as its primary view) for entering your reply because you can still remain within your current app.

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems a somewhat low barrier for entry, if a 'design concept' consists of putting an action button on a notification.

<comment><USER7> Especially since that's literally the only thing the video shows. It does not even elaborate on the concept and shows only one example.

<comment><USER8> And it fails to solve the biggest problem with iOS notifications; they cover up action buttons at the top of apps. People who get lots of notifications complain about this the most.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> iOS7 revolves around the concept of panes. The app, home screen, background, and notifications are all on separate panes to give a user a sense of context of where they are. This defeats that completely by muddying the waters and mixing panes. Like others have said, link bait, no design concept, there was really no thinking involved, someone just threw a video together of iOS8 with an added button.

</comment><comment><USER10> Someone show this to Apple! I bet they could even use it in their desktop operating sy- [1]

[1] [http://cdn.tips-and-tricks-in- mavericks.com/images/2013/07/R...](http://cdn.tips-and-tricks-in- mavericks.com/images/2013/07/Reply-to-iMessage-Notifications-in-OS-X- Mavericks.png)

</comment><comment><USER11> It looks nice, I like the appeal of quickly replying to a notification and it dismissing automatically afterwards.

However, I don't think this will go into iOS8, in fact I think it's going to look different again. I like iOS7, it's smooth for me and I feel like I know where everything is.

</comment><comment><USER12> Instead, Apple should include another button in the next iPhone allowing for quickly switching back and forth between the two most recent applications (just like cmd-tab). The four-finger sliding gesture is just too heavy-handed.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady I'd like to see something like this in iOS. The ability to perform actions on notifications on Android (archive emails without opening the email app for example) is one of my favourite Android features.

</comment><comment><USER13> What's not clear is how do user dismiss the notification after performing the action?

<comment><USER11> It seemed to automatically dismiss after tapping "Send".

<comment><USER5> Although nothing was actually shown in the video - it dismissed several seconds after 'Send' was tapped. With this design, where the whole message thread is shown, I think it would be better to have a 'Done' button up at the top, in case you want to reread messages or send a second reply.

<comment><USER14> I think that defeats the simplicity of this design. If you plan to view the thread / spend some time deliberating a response you just tap the notification to be taken to the Messages app. The reply action gives you a chance to respond and kill the notification in a single action — useful.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


8 Enormous Things That Are Smaller Than Apple, Inc.  - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/11/23/smaller-than-apple-infographic/ <comment><USER2> Lots of these are misleading. It doesn't do any good to compare annual sales to market cap.

<comment><USER3> That was my thought when I saw the sales/tax comparisons. Comparing Apples with Oranges, if you'll pardon the pun :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, this is just some silly fanboyism.

Comparing revenues to the inflated market cap of Apple is silly and meaningless. Apple's revenues aren't $370B. It's a completely different metric.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hopefully facts like this will encourage the rest of america to realize they should be voting tech guys into office and not jackass lawyers.</comment>


Show HN: A simple chess game with multiplayer - <AUTHOR> https://cardgames.io/chess/ <comment><AUTHOR> The single player mode is just for beginners, but I do think we have a pretty nice multiplayer feature, where you can easily challenge others and start a new game without creating an account (we don't have accounts).</comment>


An Introduction to Condition Handling for Non-Lispers - <AUTHOR> http://lubutu.com/soso/condition-handling-for-non-lispers <comment><USER2> > why don't more languages have them?

My guess would be that they are not needed. Exceptions for anything other than program death are something of an anti-pattern, potentially spreading the internal details of some piece of code all the way up the stack.

My choice of implementation would be to pass a discriminator function which takes an error and returns true if the error is recoverable. Then you have the choice of either returning all the errors at the end or reporting each earlier when the discriminator is called.

Edit: That's not to say that exceptions can't be used effectively, they just mostly aren't.

<comment><USER3> > My choice of implementation would be to pass a discriminator function which > takes an error and returns true if the error is recoverable.

Conditions are close to exactly that + syntactic sugar.

`handler-bind` lets you establish a dynamic scope, inside of which specific functions are called when specific conditions are signaled. Signaling a condition = call the first handler function in the list that handles the signaled condition. The handler is called _before the stack is unwound_ , which allows it to elect to either `throw`, invoke a restart, or ignore the condition entirely.

This is in contrast to exceptions in (say) Java. `throw new FooException()` does a lot of potentially destructive work before control gets transfered to the exception handler: It allocates an exception object, which fully captures the current thread's stack. (It's not too common, but this can be bypassed, if you don't throw a _new_ exception object...) It unwinds the stack to the frame that has a matching `catch`.

Only after those two things have happened does the exception handler get a chance to decide how to proceed, and at that point, it's too late for many recovery strategies. Conditions help this by making it easier to intercept the process earlier.

Where they hurt is that they add another level of complexity to API design. With Java style exceptions, if the function fails, it fails completely. There's a convenient simplicity to that. With Lisp style conditions and restarts, A function will let you know how things are going as it does its work and then give you the opportunity to change its behavior midstream. It's a lot more work to design that kind of API, and it's probably well past the point of diminishing returns for most kinds of development.

<comment><USER2> Great answer. I'm left wondering if the solution is more complex than the problem.

<comment><USER4> There might be two different perspectives on this:

* automated error handling, mostly invisible to the user. In this case the condition system may give an attractive architecture, but it is not widely explored and it is not clear how it would integrate into a language like Java. There could be a benefit, but it is not explored by software architects. Apple's Dylan probably had something to it, but it was not widely used.

* error handling in interactive systems. That's where the Lisp community used/uses it mostly. The largest effort to use the condition system were in the OS of the MIT Lisp machine descendants - especially the one from Symbolics. It was used both in the development environment - which is tightly integrated in the OS. Most of the development tools were using it. But things like the networking code or the file system were also using it. The user interface is generally slightly more complex than current graphical user interfaces and it was expected that the user used this kind of power. When you get a dialog of restarts presented, the user needs more thinking about how to proceed than with a simple cancel/abort dialog box. There were also applications written using it and for that slightly simpler interfaces were used. For example the restarts were presented in dialogs and not in a debugger context.

It takes a bit of re-orientation to imagine a user interface, where the user has the option to repair/retry a failed operation, instead of the usual abort/redo. These benefits are easier to get in an integrated system (-> Lisp, Smalltalk) - a model where several non-integrated tools interact in a condition system is more difficult to imagine.

Today, most of the better Common Lisp systems are using the condition system in their environment. There the power can be used, but at the same time it is also easy to ignore and just use a default mode of using the abort restart - without getting the benefits of thinking a bit more and investing the time to use a more complex restart.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Peter Seibel's explanation in the online version of _Practical Common Lisp_ Chapter 19:

[http://gigamonkeys.com/book/beyond-exception-handling- condit...](http://gigamonkeys.com/book/beyond-exception-handling-conditions- and-restarts.html)

 _Practical Common Lisp_ Table of Contents: <http://gigamonkeys.com/book/>

</comment><comment><USER6> For anyone that had trouble learning the condition system, or just wants another example, this helped me:

<http://symbo1ics.com/blog/?p=1405>

<comment><USER7> That task here is: A 'compute-slopes' function gets a list of points and returns a list of slops between consecutive points.

The problem: What if points have the same x-value, hence the slope is undefined.

Solution 1 Exceptions: throw new DivisionByZero()

Solution 2 Condition Handling: provide the restarts point to (a) return nil, (b) return 0, and (c) return a user-specified value.

Solution 3 Return Error: return Error("division by zero")

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What I do not like about this: You expose implementation details to the outside with those recover points. In the same sense exceptions in Java expose implementation details, though.

For this specific example, the better behavior (imho) would be that parseEntry always returns. So it returns ParseError instead of throwing it.

Basically, I want a more convincing example for condition handling.

<comment><AUTHOR> Suppose we were attempting to write parseLogInteractively by just returning errors (as in idiomatic Go).

If parseLog just returned an error upon failure we would have to same problem as exceptions do, as explained in section 1. So we have to make parseLog return two lists: one of entries, and one of errors. We would then have to search through the error list fixing and reparsing each error. In Python this would be something like,

      def parseLogInteractively(file):
          return parseLinesInteractively(file.readLines())

      def parseLinesInteractively(lines):
          entries, errors = parseLines(lines)
          if errors:
              entries += parseLinesInteractively(askToFixEntry(e.text) for e in errors)
          return entries

Again we lose the ability to abstract the function 'parseLog'. And I don't know about you, but this looks far worse to me than "resume FixEntry" in terms of exposing implementation details.

<comment><USER8> In python, I usually deal with this with generators. It's not as elegant as conditions, but it works well enough. I've never tried to permit custom restart-like behavior, but now that generators are coroutines, it should be doable.

e.g.

        def parseEntry(line):
            try:
                parsed = foo(line)
                yield parsed
            except SomethingBad:
                yield None

Common lisp could really use some better coroutine support (and some way to specify generic sequences). Sure, you can do it with macros, but it gets horrible fast. Have you looked at SERIES, for example?

<comment><USER9> > I've never tried to permit custom restart-like behavior, but now that > generators are coroutines, it should be doable.

It would be extremely awkward, you'd need a big dispatch table handling the generator's result and send()ing restarts up to the generator, and of course you lose condition's ability to work _through_ stacks of blissfully unaware code, and to have default behaviors (in Smalltalk, the default behavior — in an interactive image — is to pop up a dialog asking the user if he wants to unwind the stack [as in an exception], to open a debugger at condition point or to try resuming the condition [under the assumption that the user fixed some incorrect method, or checked his network access])

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the pointer; I've been learning some Smalltalk lately, but I haven't yet looked into the condition system.

And, yes, I'm not saying that manually implementing pseudo-restarts is something I'd ever want to do, but some vague skeleton of the possibility is there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If I understand correctly, the idea is that `parseLog` is a library function, while `parseLogSilently` and `parseLogInteractively` are examples of callers to that library.

If so, then the complexity of documentation and understanding of `parseLog` is pretty high. The caller needs to not only know the different conditions (e.g., `ParseError`), but also the available recovery strategies for those conditions (e.g., `SkipEntry`, `FixEntry`), and further that some of those strategies require an additional caller-provided function (e.g., `askToFixEntry`) with its own separate requirements (e.g., it takes an exception and returns a line).

Why would it not be better, since there are a finite number of provided recovery strategies, to simply hide that complexity within library-provided functions? E.g.:

        (defn parse-log [file] ...) ; aborts on ParseError
        (defn parse-log-skip [file] ...) ; skips bad lines
        (defn parse-log-fix [file fix-fn] ...) ; emits (fix-fn line) for bad lines

<comment><AUTHOR> Notice 'parseLogLoudly'. You could not implement that using your set of functions: you are not allowing for other code besides 'resume' inside the 'handle' blocks.

Also, I don't believe the mass duplication of code necessary for your approach is acceptable, even within a library.

<comment><USER10> >Notice 'parseLogLoudly'. You could not implement that

Fair point, and that's due to my failure in not providing an optional side- effect function arg to `parse-log-skip`. And this brings up a related point, namely that the author of the lib is still responsible for crafting the API. For example, if the author of `parseLog` had not included `recover FixEntry`, would it be possible for the caller to implement it via a condition system? Would that even be a good idea? Using the pseudo-python, the only approach I can think of would be:

        def parseLogInteractively(file):
          do:
            return parseLog(file)
          handle ParseError, e:
            line = askToFixEntry(e.text)
            retry

That reference to `line` is pretty horrific.

Perhaps this is one of those cases where a simplified example helps convey the concept, but is too simple to show where other approaches would fall short.

>mass duplication of code

I'm not clear on what you mean. Multiple functions with different behaviour seems not to altogether different from one function with implicit switches that change its behaviour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Seems like useful feature to have.

Is it supposed to be only used for error handling (like exceptions) or can you use it for unconventional control flow, too?

<comment><USER12> Dan Weinreb (one of the Multics users who brought the Multics condition system to Lisp) wrote about why "error" is not a great term: [http://danweinreb.org/blog/what-conditions-exceptions-are- re...](http://danweinreb.org/blog/what-conditions-exceptions-are-really-about)

Personally, I've not seen it used for arbitrary control flow. If you control the syntax of things inside your block, then macros are probably good enough. If you're passing values outside of your own block, then you probably need continuations.

OTOH, Lisp programmers have a tendency to not care what something is "supposed to be used for". Using Lisp at all is said to be "the most intelligent way to misuse a computer". :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think you are looking for the "with" statement! The feature you describe is already there. And it works with objects, so it's reusable, extendable and exchangeable if needed.

<http://effbot.org/zone/python-with-statement.htm>

<comment><USER9> No, context management is only a small subset of what you can do with condition (and does not involve restart), and also implies stack unwinding (as do exceptions) amongst other things.

To TFAA: to talk about conditions but not use lisp syntax, you could have used Smalltalk (the other language with conditions and restarts)

<comment><USER13> We are not talking "condition" from Lisp here, but the blog post that is linked to this thread. And what the author is doing is asking for a "with" statement without knowing that the feature is already there. "condition" might be a powerful feature and I might even like it myself, but the post doesn't show the power of "condition" to Pythoners, because the feature used in the example already exists in the core language.

<comment><USER9> > We are not talking "condition" from Lisp here

Of course we are.

> And what the author is doing is asking for a "with" statement

No, he most definitely is not, a with statement (or Common Lisp's version, `unwind-protect`) does _not_ provide resuming, only restoring a previously- stored context.

> the post doesn't show the power of "condition" to Pythoners, because the > feature used in the example already exists in the core language.

You should try reading the post again rather than stop at the first paragraph, because you're wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A code snippet that detects non-recycled UI elements in UITableViewCells - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/diwu/DWURecyclingAlert

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this. Looks v useful and nice Github page as well. I'm about to get back into iOS development and this will definitely come in handy.

Creating super-silky UITableViews is a surprisingly nuanced task. Definitely recycling images is one of the top performance enhancers.</comment>


Declassified footage shows 1st ever nuclear explosion in space - <AUTHOR> http://www.blastr.com/2012/09/declassified_footage_show.php

<comment><USER2> This was neither first, nor highest nuclear explosion in space[0]. There was a good reason they stopped detonating nuclear weapons at high-attitudes.

[0] See Argus III. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- altitude_nuclear_explosion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- altitude_nuclear_explosion)</comment>


Random SCP - <AUTHOR> http://www.scp-wiki.net/random:random-scp <comment><USER2> Folks here who are interested in SCPs might enjoy [http://www.scp- wiki.net/antimemetics-division-hub](http://www.scp-wiki.net/antimemetics- division-hub) specifically -- it's a really cool series that plays around with knowledge and memory. In particular I really love the "There Is No Antimemetics Division (2015)" and "Five Five Five Five Five (2017–)" series.

An antimeme is an idea with self-censoring properties; an idea which, by its intrinsic nature, discourages or prevents people from spreading it.

Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you tried: complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams…

But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war?

Welcome to the Antimemetics Division.

No, this is not your first day.

<comment><USER3> I wish I could give you more than +1. Im obsessed with these. I wish there was more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For those of you who have you never come across SCP before (like me), from their FAQ:

"Is SCP real?

No. We are a creative writing website. All the SCPs are fictional. The Foundation is fictional"

<comment><USER4> Sounds like something The Foundation would say... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This guy has been annoying me at stores for years now. I'm glad someone is finally taking responsibility for his containment. [http://www.scp- wiki.net/scp-1933](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1933)

</comment><comment><USER6> Didn't read thia for years, the new ones are really good.

[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4991](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4991)

<comment><USER2> I like that one a lot, thanks for the link. Agree that the new stuff is pretty solid, I've been enjoying a lot of the recent work there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A couple of the classics that I have strong memories of, both have been adapted into playable games/experiences:

[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-087](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-087) Object Class: Euclid

[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-173](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-173) Object Class: Euclid

<comment><USER8> This reminds me a lot of House of Leaves ([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24800.House_of_Leaves](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24800.House_of_Leaves))</comment></comment>


Activists meet to defend Internet from state control - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/27/us-overnighter-internet-governance-updat-idUSTRE78Q34K20110927 <comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

      In a study published this year, consultancy McKinsey found the
      Internet accounted for 21 percent of GDP growth in mature
      countries

Here's the study they are referring to: [http://www.mckinsey.com/features/sizing_the_internet_economy...](http://www.mckinsey.com/features/sizing_the_internet_economy.aspx)

It states that, between 2004 and 2009, the internet was responsible for 21% of total GDP growth. If this is broadly accepted, given the state of the economy, why isn't there more of a push to make better broadband an election campaign issue?

Are there any politicians that have embraced this as a core principle or is the carrier lobby too influential?</comment>


Is Google Voice bad news for Android? - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/is-google-voice-bad-news-for-google-android-2009-3

<comment><USER2> US-centric articles on cell phones are sort of like European-centric discussions of baseball. Well, not quite that much, but still...</comment>


China Says 'Stay Tuned' for Retaliation over U.S. Tech Blacklist - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-08/china-says-stay-tuned-for-retaliation-over-u-s-tech-blacklist <comment><USER2> On HN, when there's a major story unfolding over time, we apply the "significant new information" test: [https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

The idea is to have a new thread for each development that adds significant new information, and to downweight follow-ups and copycat stories that don't. In this way we prevent the front page from being flooded with repetitive stories and discussions (often low-quality ragey discussions, the internet being what it is), while making space for substantive new content when it arises. We came up with this after the Snowden deluge of 2013, when HN's front page was inundated with a lot of articles that didn't make this distinction, and many users—even ones who found the underlying story interesting—complained.

If we apply this test here, it's clear that "China says 'stay tuned'" does not count as significant new information. On HN there's no harm in waiting until the next important thing happens, and in the meantime we can turn our attention to other interesting things.

</comment><comment><USER3> Since everybody should be free to choose what to think and what to believe - why the European Union is watching and not doing the same as US? They should also to place top Chinese companies "on a blacklist over alleged human rights violations against Muslim minorities"...

<comment><USER4> No Western government really cares about human rights unless it's opportune. Why doesn't anyone put Saudi Arabia on a blacklist for human rights violations?

<comment><USER5> > Why doesn't anyone put Saudi Arabia on a blacklist for human rights > violations

Canada has basically cut diplomatic ties with KSA (more like they cut ties with us after we criticized their human rights record). Good riddance and I was proud to see it.

<comment><USER6> But despite pretty good domestic production of your own, you guys still use the oil though. That's kind of the point.

Not only do you still use the Kingdom's oil, but even Kazakhstan, and Algeria's as well.

<comment><USER5> I see it the other way; it's telling that KSA didn't cut the oil off along with their other threats and actions because they realized it would only hurt them more than us. Just a pointless temper tantrum while they remain utterly dependent on foreign exports of their oil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's little doubt that the future paths of the democracies and China will resemble the cold war of the 60's and 70's. Can't we just spare the drama, cut to the chase, swap corporate prisoners and get on with stockpiling weapons already?

<comment><USER8> There's a pretty significant difference: China has way more untapped human capital than the Soviet Union. There's a good chance they end up with a level of economic development closer to South Korea or Japan than Eastern Europe. If that's the case, then it's like the Cold War, except it doesn't end in the economic collapse of the other side.

<comment><USER9> Due to the one-child policy, china is headed for extreme economic issues -- even without interference. Those issues are already starting to become apparent and will skyrocket over the next decade or two. Extra economic pressure on top could definitely have a significant effect on the country.

<comment><USER10> Yet Nigeria, Yemen, Pakistan, etc. with practically uncontrolled population growth are on the cusp of a golden age?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's surprising to think that in retrospect, relatively speaking, Hu, Jintao, was actually a good guy.

He's of course one of a string of CCP strongmen, but nowhere near the likes of mr Xi. It's too bad some within the party saw him as too soft maybe leaning western, so Xi manoeuvered and became the next mr Mao... to the detriment of China _and_ the world.

<comment><USER12> I dont think who the person in charge is matters that much. The conglomerate of powerfull people in china have allowed Xi to rise into power because he would serve their interests. Same when Hu was in power. In a mature political system, transition of interests and percieved optimal policy changes who the man in power is, not the other way around.

<comment><USER13> Your comment, but applied to all countries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This has already caused irreparable damage to China. Companies are not going to depend on their services in the future and definitely be moving out. The impact will manifest over time.

</comment><comment><USER15> I really don't get Bloomberg. They post articles with wild conspiratorial nonsense as fact, absolutely destroying their credibility, but then they make sure to tow the line with China on human rights violations being "alleged".

Shows you who their masters are.

</comment><comment><USER16> They've blacklisted our companies from working with them without a "Chinese partner" — of course, that just ends up being a vessel company for state- sponsored Chinese espionage.

If you want an idea of what China has been up to, check out this recent interview with a former CIA official [1 it's right-wing OAN, get over it].

They "somehow" managed to learn the identities of _every single_ CIA informant in their country their country. Some of them murdered as they left their homes.

1\. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mqX_EESAdRY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mqX_EESAdRY)

</comment><comment><USER14> What would happen if the US and EU are not made available to Chinese consumers at all? That is not an option now as most of the manufacturing happens there but if we assume this can be done and Chinese consumers don't get anything made or owned by US and EU companies how big of a problem will it be for the Chinese government?

<comment><USER17> It's a messy breakup and both sides will be worse off. But these are both huge and advanced economies. Substitutes will be found or built.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My only hope is that we can extend this to biotech as well. The amount of IP theft and insane Chinese government subsidization of biotech that USA-based companies live off of is disturbing. They are so addicted to BS money and are so entrenched that these companies fear they can't back out. I say - Rip The Bandaid Off.

</comment><comment><USER19> Which American tech has the most to lose? FB and Goog completely unaffected. Microsoft could take a hit but would be fine since they're ubiquitous. Apple? What's their hardware situation look like?

</comment><comment><USER20> Should the trade war escalate a bit too much, it will impact the cost of energy too. China has a rare earth minerals (think neodymium magnets used in motors and generators) yearly extraction rate 8 times higher than the US, and their extimated reserves are about 30 times bigger. They're #1 in the world in one of the most important elements industry, period. If this idiocy continues, it won't need to get to the military level to produce some serious damage.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can somebody help me out here. I think the biggest issue on my mind for the coming election is the U.S. and China relations.

I don't see any candidate who seems to have an interest whatsoever in being tough on China, and more terrifying, could lead us during a time that something bad did happen.

Trump isn't the greatest, but he is the ONLY one I can see who I would trust would at least have the gall to stand up to China.

<comment><USER22> Then it is working. Fear is the best thing to force people to adopt authoritarianism. This comment just illustrated fearmongering is working beautifully in the United States as well.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps this is true, but I would be terribly naive not to be afraid of what China is capable of doing, and the future of humanity if we don't take this issue seriously.

<comment><USER23> Given Trump's antics with Syria and his unwillingness to listen to military experts, I absolutely do not want Trump involved in the decision making process if the situation deteriorates with China. Regardless of what you think of his policies on immigration, trade and regulation, there is no way to see Trump as a competent commander in chief.

<comment><USER13> However, Trump is a good negotiator, as we've seen with North Korea. Yes, he strongarms, but that's the US for you. I'm skeptical--but not in denial--about the possibility that this is phase 1 of the subdue-China plan.

<comment><USER23> what was accomplished with N Korea?

<comment><USER13> He walked across the fucking border.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Lol. Bring it on.

</comment><comment><USER25> Oh no! They might block US tech companies from doing business in China unless they comply with draconian authoritarianism. Everyone in tech knows China has been completely outrageous in its treatment of US companies for decades.

<comment><USER26> If they removed US access to Chinese supply chains, it'd be a pretty big deal for the US... that might even start a war.

<comment><USER27> You have to analyze the costs & benefits to all relevant parties when thinking about that sort of thing. I think you've only analyzed the costs to one party in that analysis.

"Cutting off all US supply chain in China" is on the table, but definitely way down the list of what China wants to do. The US decoupling from their economy isn't their big winning play, it's a nightmare scenario for them. If it was a big winning play right now for them, they'd already have done it.

<comment><USER28> Bringing (automated) manufacturing back to the US and ensuring the security of our supply chains while also doing economic harm to an authoritarian government while they're in a precariously unstable economic situation? As a US citizen, I'm fully onboard. Call China's bluff. Monetary policy (cheap money) is in a phenomenal place to support the necessary infrastructure investments (roads, rail, energy, etc), and that spending will keep the US economy humming while further decoupling us from China's.

What good are values as a nation if we're willing to trade them for profits and cheap goods from China?

<comment><USER29> Are you kidding? US foreign policy regularly ignores "values" for other interests.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Communiqu%C3%A9s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Communiqu%C3%A9s)

<comment><USER27> That's begging the question in an important sense though; what is under discussion is precisely a history of ignoring "values" for our other interests in China, the result that has created which did not match the stated goal of the previous policy, and the question of whether we should continue with that previous policy.

It would be a particularly perverse deployment of "whataboutism" if one argues that honoring our values over profit is not something we should do now, because whatabout the fact up until quite recently we weren't?

<comment><USER30> > It would be a particularly perverse deployment of "whataboutism" if one > argues that honoring our values over profit is not something we should do > now, because whatabout the fact up until quite recently we weren't?

You don't even have to go until "quite recently," we can demonstratively saying we're--today, tomorrow, and for the foreseeable future-- aiding the yemeni genocide. "Whataboutism," is a complete spook that, oddly enough, details conversations because OP is likely not pointing out that we should ignore our values, but rather that the USA has no values to honor in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Does YC have any links to Chinese businesses they might want to disclose?

<comment><USER2> All I know comes from public reports, which is that YC was planning something in China at some point. I don't know what its status is.

Your question may to be coming from a mistaken place, though. Nothing like that would affect Hacker News moderation. HN has had editorial independence from YC for years [1, 2] and we don't think about such things while moderating. What we think about is how to keep the site in line with its values [3], and how the community feels about things.

1 [https://venturebeat.com/2015/09/29/y-combinator-spins-out- ha...](https://venturebeat.com/2015/09/29/y-combinator-spins-out-hacker-news- to-give-it-full-editorial-independence/)

2\. [https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn- announcements/](https://blog.ycombinator.com/two-hn-announcements/)

3\. [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey dang, hopefully you're already aware of this, but if not, I just wanted to let you know that a common tactic I've noticed that's increasingly being utilized is to mass flag a submission in order to quickly have it removed from the top of the page.

Since the algorithm automatically lowers the priority of highly flagged posts, and it requires some level of manual intervention in order to unflag a flagged post, it works quite well for selectively bringing down unwanted submissions.

One way of resolving this I think would be to additionally add a weight for the existing prioritization weight associated with the number of flags on a submission such that a post with an increasing amount of upvotes requires a proportionally higher number of flags to be deprioritized.

[e.g. maybe something like (number_of_flags / number_of_upvotes) * (time_decay_between_avg_interval_of_flags_per_unit_time_versus_upvotes_respectively)]

<comment><USER2> It's best if you email email@example.com with specific links if you think submissions are being flagged inappropriately.

Since this subthread has turned into "ask the mods arbitrary things", I detached it from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21208169](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21208169) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Forgot about talking with North Korea, as a new "West Korea" is forming under the leadership of Xi, who is painting himself as Mao.</comment>


The Color of Money - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/24/color/

<comment><USER2> Article summary: Color is an app. It might be successful, it might not. Sequoia believes, the internet doesn't.

<comment><USER3> Slight nitpick. The article is clear that the real "win" for Color is as a new type of social _platform_ (likely with a multitude of different "apps" leveraging it). I'm as skeptical as anyone on this, but I can at least buy that point. There may be a really compelling platform... if enough people use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great idea, terrible execution.

<comment><USER5> Looks like on HN we finally found out the value of ideas:

        42

(million dollars)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One flaw I see in this big idea that nobody seems to see is the total anonymity of the process of sharing and the inability to select/delete the content you see (or at least, I tried and I could not find one).

This sounds to me like Chatroulette: there was much hype about it at the beginning and then it started filling with guys showing their genitals.

How long will it take before people start uploading questionable content? Even if not done on purpose, just think about using the app in a 100 ft. radius from a swingers club/gay bar. Something probably you don't want to have on your phone.

</comment><comment><USER7> _Shouldn't we be rooting for it to succeed? Ultimately, wouldn't that be better for everyone across the board? The startups, the investors, and the users?

Of course._

I suppose this is good for the community as long as _every_ one of these gambles works, but the reality is that not every one does, and I would imagine investors would become increasingly skittish because of it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can someone summarize the vision here? Everything I've seen has made this look like a weekend project (except for the $41MM thing).

<comment><USER5> The app: take pictures with your phone, instantly/automatically upload them to the cloud, meanwhile see what other pics other people nearby are taking.

The experience: a frenzy of sharing entertaining photos and having fun anytime, anywhere, with anyone.

The reality: a classier, more respectable and 'innocent' rival to Grindr.

The money: push advert pics into the localized photo streams, even making them _geographically contextual_ , exposing them to an already captive audience, who may even react and start talking about it (the advertised product/service) on the spot.

Actually, have to admit, I really like the idea.

<comment><USER9> Still not sure I understood: I assume the point is to share (currently only photos) with people near you in both space and time. Why would you do that? You're right there. You can directly see them right?

Or is it something where you go somewhere and you can see photos taken at this location 3 months ago or something? (ie, they use space but not time for proximity)

<comment><USER5> Having actually looked at the thing on App Store, I realized that it also solves very nicely a classic problem of social photography: bunch of friends/family at a gathering, all taking pictures, 'you take one with me in it' etc., but then everyone goes home with a separate set of photos.

Sure, Facebook, Bebo etc. alievate that problem somewhat by having people upload their photos and sharing with their friends list, so you might eventually get to see everyone's photos. Assuming they bothered to upload and tag. But Color _guarantees_ that everyone walks home with The Definitive Album for that event, with no extra effort required.

From a user perspective, that's a pretty big win. Just put Color on your grand-dad's phone and suddenly he gets to join the fun, without the whole registering/tagging/uploading/friending/browsing rigmarole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10>
      "If you had more capital, could you get to the future faster?"
      "Will $25M help you get five years into one?"
      -- @Sequoia_Capital invest in Time Machine

<http://twitter.com/#!/nivertech/status/51047798413606912>

</comment><comment><USER11> I really want to know why they didn't launch at SXSW....it would have been the perfect place to launch this

<comment><USER12> Perhaps they purposely did not launch a SXSW to redirect the limelight from all the great apps that did to themselves, a mere week afterward. If this blogging, tweeting, posting frenzy continues then they are going to be nearing $41 million worth of marketing in a matter of days, making it potentially money very well spent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Surely this is a tech investment that can either succeed in its own right or be bought by a major player. How long is it till Facebook will need to start propping its platform with startups to keep improving their tech.

<comment><USER14> I think that is where the real money lay for Color. The technology behind it doesn't seem like something to stand on its own, rather something that plenty of other companies would really like to get their hands on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Maybe I'm naive, doesn't $41M for two years of runway seem like a lot of cash to be burning through? How many people are they planning on hiring/what other costs do they have while they explore this space?

</comment><comment><USER16> _This is a company working on a big idea that got a large amount of funding to work on that big idea uninterrupted for a couple of years._

Given the reminder of why Duke Nukem failed making its way up the board this is actually quite funny. Not having constraints can often be a bad thing, not a good one.

And regardless of this, what is the 'big' idea? There's nothing big about it. It's a pathetically small idea.

This is why the bubble thing is making the rounds, there's nothing big about social apps, they're notoriously hard to make any return on.

</comment><comment><USER17> Many may disagree with me here. I'm not going to comment on the money, because that's what everyone else is doing.

I downloaded the Color app. I like it. I'm in downtown San Francisco. A number of other people apparently are using it right now, so I'm able to see some local content.

I think the setup experience is very nicely done. Its simple. Ask for a name, then it takes a photo of you using the front facing camera.

The interface is minimal and well designed. I'm not buried in tons of options I don't need. I played with everything for a few minutes and it didn't take long to get the hang of it.

Its insanely easy to upvote and leave a comment on someone's photo. I was actually surprised that my comment went through as soon as I hit Done, instead of showing me what the comment looks like and another button to post it.

The only thing that threw me off a little was the layout of images. The feeling I get from the interface is its reminiscent of Windows Phone OS. I personally kind of like that non-iOS kind of interface, in that its something new and interesting, but not bad. If that's where they indeed took their inspiration from, its not a bad source.

So money or not, I've had fun using it today.

<comment><USER16> _I was actually surprised that my comment went through as soon as I hit Done, instead of showing me what the comment looks like and another button to post it_

Seriously? Because that's pretty much how all forum and comment software works. I'm just boggled that you find this so surprising, it's the path of least effort.

<comment><USER17> Yes, it seems obvious to any of us. Its how you and I would design it. But add in some product managers, a separate non-communicating design team, and top it off with 3 layers of ineffective management on top of that and these simple kinds of thing quickly either get overlooked, or purposely designated not to function that way.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: CheckAnyVIN – Free Automotive Recall Database - <AUTHOR> http://www.checkanyvin.com?ref=hn <comment><USER2> I like the idea and fact that you can get info without being asked for CC on every page, but why the name/email requirement for getting a full report?</comment>