Show HN: Memory Pill - <AUTHOR> https://www.hackster.io/nickbild/memory-pill-9f6b2e Memory Pill passively records the last time a medication bottle was opened to prevent over- and underdosing of medications when you cannot remember if you have already taken a scheduled dose.<p>https://www.hackster.io/nickbild/memory-pill-9f6b2e <comment><USER2> For what it's worth, I think this is a great idea! The execution could use some polish, though.

If I was going to buy/kickstart a project like this, I would want something that had a very long battery life (and that had a visible battery level indicator). The bottle form factor isn't particularly important to me, as long as it's an air-tight container that is fairly lightweight, and as long as it has a child-safe cap.

I would want the batteries to be easily replaceable (none of these little watch batteries that cost a small fortune and are hard to find).

I would want it to work anywhere in my house, but also still track things whenever if I'm taking the bottles with me on a trip or something. The most obvious solution for this is to have it log locally, but then report the log via bluetooth or WiFi whenever a connection (such as my phone) is within range.

I would want it to be relatively cheap (so I could buy a different bottle for each set of pills).

I would want to be able to set up medicine schedules on my iPhone or Android, and then receive notifications whenever I need to take a particular medicine (and escalating alerts if I continually fail to take them).

It would also be nice to have some sort of mechanism for tracking the number of pills put inside the bottle (and then subtracted per the schedule every time the bottle is opened), so I would know when I was getting low and needed to order more medicine/vitamins.

For added bonus: Implement a weight sensor that can detect when the contents of the bottle have changed.

<comment><USER3> For added bonus: Implement a weight sensor that can detect when the contents of the bottle have changed.

I've got a patent on that - Lol. I actually cofounded a company that is in this space, Medication Adherence. Its a very curious field. Everyone says they really really care about it but its really hard to build a business around. Theres been a lot of different attempts at solving the problem but very few have gained any kind of real traction. This one is a bit like the Pillsy bottle [https://www.pillsy.com](https://www.pillsy.com), but theres plenty more of dosette like solutions ([https://www.pilldrill.com](https://www.pilldrill.com)) through to dispensers ([https://www.lifeline.philips.com/business/medicationdispensi...](https://www.lifeline.philips.com/business/medicationdispensing)). We went for a weight based solution but have largely shelved it to focus on other area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, I was just thinking I couldn't remember if I took my ADHD meds today. Strange how I can remember exactly how long I ended up meditating yesterday but I can't remember something I did five minutes ago.

<comment><USER5> For me it's basically a question of whether it was something on "autopilot" or intentional. Same with meds I always struggle with whether I locked the front door. I always do but never can remember.

As a side note you can buy "pill timer" bottles on amazon with a clock counter since they were last opened if you want a quick solution to this instead of the hacking fun. But beware most of the brands and models aren't child safe.

<comment><AUTHOR> RE: the timers -- The information isn't always for the person taking the med (think assisted living or an elderly relative), so I think getting the data off the top of the bottle is an improvement.

Thanks for the comment!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good timing! -- I hate filling a pill keeper but keep forgetting to take my dose, or forget if I DID already take my dose. So I made a gadget.

I took a 1"x1"x6" piece of wood, put S M T W R F S on the side, drilled 7 holes on top, and I use a thumb screw that I move when I've taken my pills today. A golf tee or nail would also work.

<comment><USER7> That sounds like a pretty easy/fun daily routine!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I made something like this for my mom who had large B-cell lymphoma, amongst other disheartening diseases. At one point she was on 17 different medications — and no, you don't need to get me started on that.

I wanted to know that she was not only taking her medication but also the correct dosage, when she was opening the bottles, and when she was taking them. A minibar but for meds, basically. I did this not because I'm a control freak but because managing her care was difficult. I also wanted to be able to coordinate the issues she raised with her doctors with more precision than "well she took x last week." I also did it because I was irritated with how frequently she was taking her oxy. Yeah, I guess I was a little of a control freak. :)

From the day she was diagnosed up until the day before she died, I'd like to think being a hacker really benefited her. Two days after her diagnosis, between bouts of cries, I scraped for every article I could find about her disease, parsed out the authors, ran their names through a bunch of residential proxies with headless Chrome, searching for their name and if they were involved in any clinical trials ("+trials"). If they were, I sent them a blanket email asking for a second opinion.

Ultimately, she received very precise care from a resource that wasn't originally available. I like to think benefited her for the long haul, but I suppose we'll never know.

My mom doesn't have cancer anymore. She passed away late October of last year. I named a Ruby framework after her, as writing it was my mental vacation from being her full-time caretaker for the last 75 days of her life.

On second thought, she really hated when I would talk to strangers on the internet. Oh well!

ps. hi mom!

</comment><comment><USER9> I really do like this project, but have concerns if it were to scale out to regular use:

1) I don't want my medication habits online at all, even if it intended to help me. I'd be more open to a way to run this locally. I expect assisted living centers would, as well.

2) This puts technical points of failure into a process that is already reasonably solved by daily pill containers.

<comment><USER10> yeah i wouldn't want them saving my data about my medical history

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This looks like an interesting and fun project!

For anybody looking for lower-tech (no web service), pre-made solution, TimerCaps work well. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HJCYGX4/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HJCYGX4/)

<comment><USER12> Another similar product: [https://www.epill.com/timecap.html](https://www.epill.com/timecap.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazon pill pack has packets with the date on them. A nice low tech solution .

</comment><comment><USER14> Cool project, but the issue is rather that the US has pill bottles at all. Pretty scary, especially for overdoseable drugs. Other places have moved on blister packs a long time ago.

<comment><USER15> What are the benefits for blister packs except overdose protection? Are they recyclable like pill bottles? One of the reasons US uses pill bottles is pharmacies, where pharmacists fill in any amount of pills needed in a bottle, e.g. if you need just 3 pills of really strong pain killer, you get a bottle with three pills. As far as I remember blister packs packaged in a factory and not customizable.

Personally, I use habit tracking app to check in every night to mark I took my pills.

<comment><USER16> Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not even sure how blister packs help protect against accidental overdose beyond the protection you'd get from just counting the pills in the bottle. In either case, you could accidentally skip a day and double dose later on based on the number of pills remaining, especially if you aren't sure what day you started taking the medication. I can definitely see the benefit of a product that doesn't rely on user reporting to track doses.

<comment><USER17> The point as I understand/was taught it in school is that the time it would take you to pop out enough* e.g. paracetamol to do really serious lasting harm (vs. 'just' being quite sick or needing stomach pumped) gives a sort of 'cool- down' or re-evaluation period, or requires significant planning, whereas a bottle can be downed impulsively.

(* and that if you're taking them as you go, you'll probably be physically incapable/less inclined to continue far enough after a certain point)

<comment><USER16> Ah, I hadn't even thought of that, but it makes sense. It certainly can't hurt!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There was a company called pillsy[1] that used to make something similar, though it appears that they pivoted to do other connected medical devices[2].

[1] [https://www.pillsy.com/](https://www.pillsy.com/) [2] [https://www.optimize.health/](https://www.optimize.health/)

<comment><USER19> Shame, this would be very useful! I am not that handy with stuff, it would be cool to buy a complete solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was an effort called GlowCaps that attempted to productize this years ago. Have no context in this space but not sure if this is a better mechanism or pillpack style drug delivery (self contained packets of medicine)

</comment><comment><USER21> that's interesting but it's pretty rare that you only need to take one medication. (it's also interesting how this behaves if you can't remember and/or open the bottle multiple times)

what most people end up doing is using a pill organizer (per days or per days+ampm). this way you can by visually inspecting the organizer (most are transparent) if you took your pills.

i think this could be coupled with a smart pill organizer to send you reminders if time for a specific slot has passed and you didn't take your pills.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is a problem that can also be solved with a pill container, at least for longer term meds taken at regular intervals.

I could see this being handy for as-needed meds, however

</comment><comment><USER23> Or use a webcam which only records if there is movement (a lot of free software exists to do this).

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm surprised that pharmaceutical companies don't hawk IoT pill bottles. People would consume more medicine.

<comment><USER25> They're trying, especially for opioids

[https://adheretech.com/](https://adheretech.com/) [https://www.pillsy.com/](https://www.pillsy.com/) [https://www.elucid- mhealth.com/index.html](https://www.elucid-mhealth.com/index.html)

<comment><USER24> Time to take your opioids! You're on a 20 day streak. Keep living your best life :^) Your next bottle is on its way.

Remember, talk to your doctor if you're still in pain and they can discuss if a higher dose is right for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Post with text instead of an URL have a penalty here so it is more difficult that they reach the front page. It is better to submit the URL and add a comment in case you have to make an important remark.

In this case, I think it is not necessary to make a comment if you add the subtitle in the title. Something like " _Memory Pill: passively records the last time a medication bottle was opened_ "

The guidelines ask to use the original title, but you can use the subtitle in these kind of cases where the title is not very descriptive. I just cut it so it has less than 80 characters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I appreciate the advice--makes good sense.</comment></comment>


Java 4 Ever (Official Trailer) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLO1djacsfg <comment><USER2> Adding a (2010) notice in the title of this submission would be useful, as this is not exactly news.</comment>


YC's Markhor to build shoe/accessories making facility, hire craftsmen full time - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/08/markhor-leather-apple-cases/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, co-founder of Markhor here.

We work with some of the most skilled craftsmen in Pakistan to make handcrafted shoes and leather accessories.

(Original launch story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057973](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10057973))

In past, we were mainly working with craftsmen on contract basis. Now changing that by starting our own manufacturing facility, this would allow us to hire craftsmen full-time, improve quality of our existing products and launch new products faster.

We ran few small experiment and then hired three craftsmen full-time, first products to come out of this are our accessories for Apple. So far very happy with the decision, craftsmen get paid more as well as other benefits of full- time employee. we can invest more in their training and social benefits. Overall, we are very excited because this contributes to our mission of making the whole supply chain transparent.

Wondering, what are some good brands that run their own manufacturing facility (I know Harrys does in Germany)?

Happy to answer any question about our product/approach.

<comment><USER2> For shoes, don't look any further than american made boots. From construction to smoke jumpers guys who use these things swear by them and they remain an investment product (you care for and repair rather than replace)

Redwing:

[http://www.redwingshoes.com/Red-Wing-Video---The- Factory](http://www.redwingshoes.com/Red-Wing-Video---The-Factory)

Nicks Boots:

[http://nicksboots.com](http://nicksboots.com)

Adams boots:

[https://www.custommade.com/by/openroadboots/](https://www.custommade.com/by/openroadboots/)

Wesco Boots:

[https://www.wescoboots.com/builder/About.aspx](https://www.wescoboots.com/builder/About.aspx)

Lover your products, a shame they aren't in my size. Tall (with corresponding large feet) is a demographic and one that is often short changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> For those who don't know: Markhor is the national animal of Pakistan. It is a type of mountain goat.

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks great. Can you do custom designs as well

<comment><AUTHOR> We might be able to do in future, not doing at right now.

Though for startup/corporates we are offering to add their branding on our products.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are you doing to look after your posture? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Yoga practice, 3-5 times per week has done wonders for my posture and how I physically feel over the course of a day. Doesn't have to be hot or boot camp; I prefer restorative classes.</comment>


Ask HN: Technical director from 6 years, my boss recruited a CTO - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN, I'm technical director, one of the first employees (we were 10 people), since 6 years in a successful company (450 now and counting). After proving multiple times that I do not count my working hours and efforts for this company, building software that only a few people could have done (an adserver for example), my boss recruited a CTO after telling me that he would never recruit a manager for the tech. Yes there are other technical directors since the company bought multiple ones in the latest months.
What should I do ? Quit ?
Thank you for your advice and ideas. <comment><USER2> From your post you cite your contribution to the company primarily in terms of building software. Have you experience building and managing large teams of engineers? Have you experience working with finances, budgeting, forecasting? Have you planned out a solid structure that will enable teams to grow? Have you strong knowledge of technical architecture and infrastructure as well as software development? I could go on. Is this all part of your role as technical director?

Maybe you have all of these things, but the main thing you called out was that you have "built software that only a few people could have done". Being CTO of a 450 person company involves a lot more than just building software. Again I could be misreading your situation, please clarify if I am.

It sucks that your boss said he would never hire a manager for tech, but by the sounds of it the company dynamic is volatile with acquisitions. As for whether you should quit, no one here can tell you whether you should or not. Why not raise your grievance with your boss and make the case for getting what you want, and then make your decision from there. Just be sure you actually know what it is that you want - if you want to keep primarily building software a CTO role may not be for you.

</comment><comment><USER3> " _my boss recruited a CTO after telling me that he would never recruit a manager for the tech_ "

In these sorts of situations, _where your boss has lied to you_ , or echoing joelennon's comment, didn't first explain to you why this change needed to be made, it's hard to see an acceptable solution other than one of you leaving the company. Whatever respect you've thought you've earned doesn't see to be there, does it?

Another issue: you now have competition as a technical director, and if you are, as it sounds, great at tech and not so great at politics (you were, after all, blindsided by this), you may not like what's going to be happening at your company. E.g. one story of Netscape's decline and fall on the browser side is their acquiring an unsuccessful company and the people from that company somehow managing to wrest control of the development of the next generation browser, and abjectly failing.

I.e. Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Pournelle#Iron_Law_of_Bureaucracy)

</comment><comment><USER4> This can go one of two ways.

1) Let's be optimistic: this new CTO is an amazing person, super smart, will bring a lot of value to the company, and _you_ will grow a lot by working with that person. So it's good.

2) The pessimistic view: this move was purely political, this new CTO is no one special, it's just one extra layer of management and taking your responsibilities away. You were doing a great job before, and now your job is made more complicated and less efficient.

Swallow your ego for a second and give that person a chance. If they perform really well, then admit it was the right move. If they are just average, then think of your next step. It doesn't mean quitting necessarily. It could just be that after a few months, it becomes clear that the CTO is not that great and your influence may be restored. Or maybe it's an opportunity for you to offload some of your current tasks and take on new parts of the company (get more involved in sales, or whatever else you are curious about).

<comment><USER5> There's also option (2b) The new CTO is no-one special, but actually spends most of their time dealing with administrative bullshit related to the integration, leaving you more free to focus on managing your team and architecting ad-servers.

Given the only context we've got is that the new CTO has no background in design decisions related to your problem domain or affiliation with any of the acquired companies but is an ex-company leader with the trust of the CEO, I'd even speculate that's the most likely outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You have my sympathy - I found out I wasn't CTO of the start-up I co-founded anymore (~100 employees at that point) in a presentation to a customer. I was quite annoyed by that...

NB This was ~12 years ago so well over it by now and it was probably the right thing to do - but the _manner_ in which it was done wasn't handled very well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Successful startups go through a couple of phases as they grow. At each phase the skills needed from the team will change because the challenges to get to the next level are different. And the team will often turn over along the way. Not everyone who was there in the beginning will be there at the end. And that's okay. Now maybe you have the skills and experience to grow with the organization along the way or maybe you don't. Lots of people maybe can and maybe can't. Sometimes it depends upon where you are in your career. Was this your first time managing? Then maybe you need more experience and growth to be the CTO of such a large org. It can often feel like a demotion when you are passed over and senior positions are filled from the outside. I understand where you are coming from. I've been in your position.

Whether the CEO lied to you or not really depends upon context. When did he tell you this? Obviously things have changed as the company has grown. Perhaps he didn't foresee the need for a CTO at the time but now he does. Things change and the needs of the company change with them. And remember he himself is growing and learning as a manager. If he was inexperienced he probably just couldn't foresee the need. Also how realistic is it that a growing/successful technology company won't have a CTO? I find it unusual that it took until ~450 people to get one.

Where do you go from here? If you'd like to be CTO (of your current company or another) the first step is an honest self assessment of the skills and experience you'll need to attain and perform in the position. Second you'll want to talk to the CEO about where you fit in to the company and your room for growth. You'll need to convey your understanding of the need to bring in senior management but also convey that you feel that you can grow along with the org to accept more responsibility. See if you can lay out a plan to do that. If you don't like what you hear coming out of that process then its time to start looking around.

Ben Horowitz has a really good blog post that touches on a lot of this stuff. [http://www.bhorowitz.com/demoting_a_loyal_friend](http://www.bhorowitz.com/demoting_a_loyal_friend)

<comment><USER3> " _Whether the CEO lied to you or not really depends upon context...._ "

While you have a point here, I think the real issue is that the CEO never came back to lejeanvaljean and said "I made a mistake, we're going to have to...." Instead, without warning, he hired an old friend who's not apparently qualified for the position.

It's the latter act that tells lejeanvaljean exactly how bad his position in this company is. Heck, it wouldn't be in the least surprising for him to get fired no matter what his performance is going forward, that's a very common pattern in companies that turn political like this.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello again,

Thank you for your comments.

I did manage the growth of the technical team, projects, infrastructure and everything else that you talked about. I won't have asked if it was not the case but you're right to ask.

This CTO was leading a company that is not related in our core business at all. He is an old friend of the boss, so I suppose that I should have more CEO friends.

Anyway, I was hoping that when you enter a company as a tech leader, you don't get someone telling you what to do next except the founders. The example of arethuza proves that I'm not the only one in this case.

And yes I still have options so quitting would mean losing money, and yes it's up to me, I can see what will happen next but I think I lost 1) my motivation and 2) a lot of projects in this operation.

Thank you all for your replies.

</comment><comment><USER8> Learn to be a CTO. Experience has told me this has nothing to do with coding ability or technical knowledge, it's about being able to sell yourself and positioning yourself to get what you want.

Why did the CEO turn down your plan for increasing profit ()? My point is clearly he weighs the new guys plan over yours. Figure out how to change that perception. Read Seth Godin

Roles can get created out of thin air. Does your company already have a Chief Marketing/Revenue/Content/Product Officer?? You dont need to go head to head with the new guy, find your next path.

Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER9> There was a story like this elsewhere some while ago and I _think_ the consensus was that the CEO was trying to stiff the guy out of shares.

Do you have options which would be rescinded if you left in a huff?

</comment><comment><USER10> There's not enough information here to provide any meaningful advice.

Unrelated, but define "a few" w.r.t. building an "ad server".

</comment><comment><USER11> Teach me your adserver knowledge. Or some blogs/books/tutorial/video/whatever about adserver development. I don't have any advice, sorry.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think there may be a problem if counting your working hours is one of two benefits to the company you've shared with us.</comment>


Vacuum airship - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_airship <comment><USER2> The linked articles from the 1887 New York Times are wonderful:

"The means by which passengers will be landed en route is also in doubt. Some suggest that they will simply be dropped overboard and their luggage thrown after them, while others maintain that a coil of greased rope for the purposes of descent will be carried on each and every machine."

Truly the Hyperloop of its day.

[http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive- free/pdf?res=9904E7D815...](http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive- free/pdf?res=9904E7D81538E533A25757C1A9649C94669FD7CF)

<comment><USER3> This is a problem that every zeppelin faces too. They can't easily gain or lose height, because that would mean losing the gas they need to stay airborne.

A vacuum ship that actually has a vacuum pump aboard would have the great advantage that it can easily change it's buoyancy using, say, electrical power. It could use this to change height, or compensate for being loaded with materials.

Vacuum ships would actually be a solution to the zeppelin problem.

<comment><USER2> A zeppelin could use compressor tanks to control its buoyancy in an exactly analagous way. Lots of details on how the problem was handled in practice here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy_compensator_(aviation)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buoyancy_compensator_\(aviation\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> At atmospheric pressure, a given volume of hydrogen weighs approximately 7% (there is some variation with temperature) of an equivalent volume of air. All that is needed to contain hydrogen at atmospheric pressure is a membrane it can't pass through. The inwards force exerted on the membrane by the atmosphere is perfectly balanced by the outwards force exerted by the hydrogen gas. The only structural material required is for the purpose of harnessing the lifting power of the enclosed gas, providing an aerodynamic shape, etc..

Conversely, a vessel containing a vacuum must be built to withstand the 101,325 N/m^2 net inward force exerted upon it by the atmosphere that is not balanced by the outward pressure of the contents of the vessel. Consider, for a moment, what you would need to build a 1 m^2 coffee table out of if 20 elephants were to be able to stand on top of it at once.

For the sake of argument, let's say that we had a magical material that would let us build a replica of the Hindenburg that is of equal weight to the original, only with vacuum vessels replacing the hydrogen bags. The Hindenberg contained 200,000 m^3 of hydrogen lift gas, weighing 1,798 kg and displacing enough atmosphere to provide a total lift of 25,850 kg, 10,000 kg of which were considered it's cargo capacity beyond the passengers it carried. This new version of the Hindenberg, despite being built with materials and techniques that are probably well beyond our current level of technology, would carry the same number of passengers and just 18% more cargo.

For those of you who think that vacuum vessels are a lot safer than hydrogen, I'd like to remind you that the atmosphere surrounding 200,000 m^3 of vacuum provides a rather huge amount of potential energy waiting to be released. When vacuum vessels of a large size fail the resulting implosion can be both spectacular and devastating.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM)

</comment><comment><USER5> I have wondered if such a thing could be designed for use in the upper atmosphere and dropped in from space. That would avoid the need to keep out the full atmosphere. But then so would pumping out the air as it gained altitude...

<comment><USER6> But if dropped into the upper atmosphere where there is little air pressure, it would sink until it got to an altitude where it's weight equaled the mass of the atmosphere it was displacing.

<comment><USER7> That would be the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is an idea that seems interesting at first glance, but it's really not. What's important for lift isn't the absolute weight of the gas; it's the ratio of the weight of the lifting gas to the surrounding air. What that means is while hydrogen gives you about 1kg/m3 lift a perfect vacuum bottle only gives you about 1.3kg/m3. It probably wouldn't make sense even if we had the necessary exotic materials.

</comment><comment><USER9> The major weakness of a vacuum airship is that a breach of the pressure hull will compromise the vacuum and thus the buoyancy. So any truly useful solution will require a number of independent vacuum cells.

The strongest shape made of compressive members is a tetrahedron, if surfaced with an impermeable and inelastic membrane an evacuated aerostat could end up looking like [http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/01/a-gorgeous-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/01/a-gorgeous- floating-crystal-inspired-by-alexander-graham-bells-kites/251224/)

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if a modern materials would let us build lift cells in this vein - maybe thin-skinned vessels filled with aerogel for structural support.

<comment><USER11> > "This cannot even be achieved using diamond"

The whole concept totally absurd. Helium is ~15% the density of air, so even if you created a material 100x stronger than diamond, it would only outperform helium by a tiny amount.

<comment><USER12> The helium in a balloon/dirigible is under pressure, so its density would be somewhat greater than 15% that of air. But point taken.

<comment><USER13> No. It's always the same pressure as air. That's the point. It'll always be ~15%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Misses the point hydrogen is safer, easier, could be done today with existing tech for commercial travel (Already used a lot for scientific balloons) and pretty much has the same lifting power.

(Also Helium is obviously currently is used in airships commercially with no real problems on top of a theoretical vacuum ship other than perhaps cost of balloon contents, which I'd guess is not the limiting factor anyway)

<comment><USER15> A problem with Hydrogen is that it is very reactive -- that doesn't necessarily mean fire, but it does mean that any surface it comes into contact with will be affected. For example, you can't fill a latex balloon with hydrogen and expect it to last very long.

<comment><USER6> Hydrogen, at normal pressures, isn't that reactive at all if you ignore it's combination with oxygen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This rail-bound tank was probably not designed with weight savings as a prime considerations. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM)

Still, this is a fascinating idea and I would love to see someone make a serious attempt at it.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, but as the Wikipedia article states: not even diamond is strong enough. So don't hold your breath.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Its a cool idea but as the post suggests air pressure on the vacuum spheres is a major problem. The crush force on the sphere will scale 40x the lift factor. So 1 gram of lift, 40 grams of crush.

Once you reach scales of 10,000 kilograms you'll be dealing with keeping 400,000 kilograms of weight out of your vacuum.

<comment><USER2> The advantage over hydrogen at atmospheric pressure is really minor, too.

<comment><USER19> That's true for buoyancy but vacuum definitely has a major advantage in area of flammability.

<comment><USER20> What happens if a vacuum sphere that can lift 10t implodes?

<comment><USER21> You lose 10t of lift.

If a hydrogen envelope of 10t ruptures, you lose 10t of lift _and_ have a major fire hazard.

<comment><USER2> You lose 10t of lift in a horrifyingly destructive implosion: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz95_VvTxZM)

<comment><USER21> And here's what hydrogen does.

Note the comparison is of a pure H₂ vs. 2 χ H₂ + O₂ mix.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> m-i-l Reminds me of an idea I had for lighter than air packing material. It was going to be something like over-sized bubble wrap filled with helium, or balloons you'd insert into the spaces and inflate with a helium canister. Seems a great idea at first, but then you do the maths, and think about the materials. Unfortunately the weight savings are likely to be so minimal they're unlikely to save on postage costs, and even if they did reduce postage they're likely to be outweighed by the cost of materials. Plus you later find out that lots of other people have had the same idea and posted on the internet about it.

</comment><comment><USER22> This reminds me of Buckminster Fuller's cloud 9 concept. His idea was that since volume scales so much more strongly than surface area for a sphere, if you make a larger and larger sphere you will enclose cubed more air for only squared more structure. Build a large enough sphere and heat the enclosed air a couple degrees above ambient and the entire structure would be buoyant, like a soap bubble with human breath in it.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_%28tensegrity_sphere...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Nine_%28tensegrity_sphere%29)

<comment><USER23> "Geodesic spheres (structures of triangular components arranged to make a sphere) become stronger as they become bigger, due to how they distribute stress over their surfaces."

I happened upon some Bucky Fuller stuff recently, and wondered just how large geodesic spheres have been made... and it's not particularly large. Which makes me wonder: is this really the whole story? What is the flaw in geodesic spheres that keeps them from being the basis of huge enclosed structures?

<comment><USER24> The difficulties of construction for one, and such large structures are vulnerable to buckling I would imagine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> These are fun (also in Diamond Age I believe) and I like how they are both impossible to create and there is a patent application on them :-)

It is interesting to run the structure density vs the vacuum numbers. I always wondered if we would be able to make vacuum filled bucky balls out of carbon at some point.

</comment><comment><USER26> Does the vacuum have to be perfect? Maybe you can reduce the pressure on the surfaces, and therefore simplify the engineering, by leaving some air in there. I think it is an interesting idea that varying the internal pressure would change your lift. You only ever need "just enough" lift anyhow.

</comment><comment><USER27> 14% advantage over helium makes it seem like it's not worthwhile. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER28> Helium is a finite resource- escaped Helium eventually leaves our planet forever; nuclear fusion will probably never produce sufficient helium for current industrial use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "His patent application was eventually denied on the basis that it was 'wholly theoretical, everything being based upon calculation and nothing upon trial or demonstration.'"

He'd get that patent today. Little as it might avail him.</comment>


Android 2.4 confirmed for April release - <AUTHOR> http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/38311/android-2-4-april-release-date

<comment><USER2> Sound like a load of bull. A cloak and dagger update that isn't going to be officially called an update? To make sure apps made for dual core Honeycomb devices (which has already been refuted to be dual core only) work on single core? And Viewsonic gets it first?

If you are going to try and make something up, make it believable.

<comment><USER3> Its the release that brings all apps(ie google ones) to work on both single and dual core along with the all the UI Honeycomb changes so not a complete load of bull as you claim but big enough that Google told OEMS to hold off on updating to 2.3 and up-date to 2.4 instead. Its real dude..even my google contacts confirm

<comment><USER4> The single and dual core thing is technically ignorant. It is exactly the sort of "detail" that people add to fabricated stories to lend legitimacy to them, but when they reach beyond their abilities it just sounds dumb.

We all know that Google is working on the next version of Android. Making up some inside sources, though, should not be rewarded.

My inside sources say that they like grilled cheese.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Still waiting for all of the Samsung Galaxy S variants to get 2.2 officially.

</comment><comment><USER6> Still waiting for my N1 (T-Mobile) to get 2.3

My colleague actually still has 1.6 on his Motorola Clique (T-Mobile)

<comment><USER7> _My colleague actually still has 1.6 on his Motorola Clique (T-Mobile)_

And his phone is going to stay that way, last week Motorola gave up on rolling out a 2.1 update for that model.

<https://supportforums.motorola.com/message/246279#246279></comment></comment>


Dark Reader Malware Clones - <AUTHOR> https://darkreader.org/blog/attention/ <comment><USER2> wow does this affect Firefox only? (Dark Reader is available for Chrome too)</comment>


Why Angular made me quit web dev - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/why-angular-made-me-quit-web-dev-f63b83a157af <comment><USER2> I think Angular is the lest productive thing that's ever entered and left our store, but it's thrown at so many things enterprise these years, that it'll be a long while before we're rid of it.

I think SPAs are misused in general, but Angular is certainly the worst of the bunch. In the time it takes to configure and setup the right modules and make sure everything is updated and works together, even with a cli tool that really ought to make most of that redundant, you could've build and deployed a full Django app, DB migrations and all.

Ok, maybe that's a little much, but we did benchmarks and a basic web-app that takes 1 week to build in Django, took 3 weeks with Angular and Node. It takes 2-3 weeks with Vue and graphql Apollo, but you do get some advantages from the SPA frameworks and graphql that you don't do with old school mvc.

Over all though, web development hasn't really improved that much, and neither has the user experience. Just look at HN, it's one of the most efficient sites I use, and it's very old web.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand why angular and other javascript libraries make simple things difficult.</comment>


Shared Web Hosting: Who Is Good? - <AUTHOR> News.YC, all that I want is a simple LAMP stack with standard settings for my wordpress blogs that's fast, has excellent uptime, has SSH access, and will automatically adjust for traffic if I'm Dugg. I'm even happy to pay a premium (up to $50/mo) for a _good_ service that's not going to make me deal with administrivia.
I've been using Media Temple, and they suck.
Please help me. This must be useful information for others here, too. <comment><USER2> I use NearlyFreeSpeech.net <[https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/>](https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/>), which I heard about from BugMeNot. It's pay-per-use, so it can be very cheap (equivalent to a few cents / month, except it's not billed monthly). If you have a spike in traffic, they'll handle that just fine, since each site isn't bound to a single physical server. That also means your site isn't slowed down if some neighbor uses a lot of resources.

Some drawbacks are that there's no FastCGI, so no Django or Rails, and you can't get your own IP address, even for money, so no TLS. Also, it's Apache 1.3, if you care. If you just need to run some Wordpresses, they do a bang-up job or running mod_php 5.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't Amazon do something similar?

<comment><USER2> S3 is pay per use, but it's for static data hosting. EC2 is pay-per-use virtual machines, but it's at the granularity of machines. If you need a bunch of real, or real-looking servers, that's good, but it's too expensive if what you need is shared hosting.

S3 is cheaper than NFSN, so if you have lots of big files, you can host www.example.com on NFSN and point media.example.com to S3.

(Grain of salt: I haven't used EC2.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recommend Powweb to everyone. Reasons why I love them:

\- cheap: $7.77/month

\- reliable: i've never seen them go down

\- advanced developer features: cron, .htaccess, php.ini editing

\- really clean user interface (forget using godaddy)

\- amazing customer support: call them. they answer first ring. there's no waiting for hours after trying to navigate crappy phone tree systems.

i've used a dozen different shared web hosts over the years and the vast majority of them suck. Powweb really stands apart from the crowd, especially when it comes to advanced features and customer support. When I was doing web design consulting I moved every single one of my clients over to Powweb -- they're that much better.

<http://www.powweb.com/join/index.bml?AffID=563885>

</comment><comment><USER5> Here's a great site that pings and monitors shared hosting accounts. Price isn't really a correlating factor.

<http://www.realmetrics.com/r/shared-hosting>

<comment><USER6> cool, /upvote

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slicehosting is great, but you need to do all the dirty work, like choose the OS, setup apache, do the security, etc.

I'm using MT's Grid and have had good luck, but you have to be on Grid Cluster 1- it seems like Cluster 2 is down every week.

Someone actually recommended <http://asmallorange.com> to me recently, but I have no experience with them.

</comment><comment><USER8> Slicehost

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm pretty skeptical about most shared hosts, so I set up my own hosting environment. I host my own sites via a data center in Santa Clara, and a few other people's, as well. Feel free to get in touch.

</comment><comment><USER10> Think about whipping up a quick Facebook app and getting a free Facebook accelerator from Joyent. They are free for an year and you can host other stuff on it. Wicked fast and run on Solaris (which can be a bitch in the beginning if you are used to the Linux environment, but they have Webmin, PHP, Ruby, MySQL, Apache, LightHTTPd, etc. preinstalled).

<http://joyent.com/developers/facebook/>

</comment><comment><USER11> I personally like ASmallOrange; they're a small gig, but their customer service is AMAZING - I've been hacking, had a problem at 1 am in the morning, emailed them about it and got it fixed in half and hour - three times already.

www.asmallorange.com

Their prices are reasonable, too, and the shell access is great, but the speed isn't blazing, although very acceptable. You should be fine if you're not too graphics intensive.

</comment><comment><USER12> webfaction has served some of my friends well.

<comment><USER13> for shared hosting I highly recommend webfaction as well. I've used them until I needed to move to a VPS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> if you're willing to pay up to $50 why not upgrade to a mediatemple (dv) VPS?

<comment><USER15> Agreed. I currently have a VPS with Rimuhosting and it's just shy of $40-50/month. All servers come pre-configured with all the basics. If you ever need something installed/configured which is out your realm the support staff is great about guiding you how to do it or just doing it for you.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Overtalk – Raise to ear to send quick disappearing voice messages - <AUTHOR> https://overta.lk <comment><AUTHOR> App developer here.

Overtalk was born out of my frustration with text messaging. How many times did you want to share a spur-of-the-moment thought or idea, but then gave up while trying to type it up on the phone screen?

True, most messaging apps let you send voice messages. But the voice functionality is shoehorned into the old text chat paradigm with its message bubbles and chat history that's kept forever. And, by default, messages are played over the speakerphone so everyone around can hear them.

Overtalk is different. Raise phone to ear to listen to the incoming messages, and speak your reply after the beep. No buttons to press and no over-the- shoulder listening to worry about. To the uninitiated, it looks like you're on a phone call.

I started testing Overtalk with friends and family a few months ago, and it's now part of our daily lives. Give it a try - you might like it, too!

P.S. At the moment, the app is only available in the US App Store.

</comment><comment><USER2> How is this different from iMessage? You can simply raise your phone to record an audio message and same to play back a received one and they only last 2 minutes after being played (with the option to keep them manually).

<comment><AUTHOR> With iMessage, you have to raise to ear twice: first to listen, then to record a reply. And then you need to tap a button to send it. With Overtalk, all of this is done in a single raise-to-ear session.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the clarification, it makes sense now. While I wouldn't personally use this (not a fan of voice messages to begin with, as I'm always in an office environment where people can hear everything) I wish you the best of luck with your project!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WeWork in Talks to Hire T-Mobile CEO John Legere - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/wework-in-talks-to-hire-t-mobile-ceo-john-legere-11573494028?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> This would actually be a good hire for them. At least based on talks with T-mobile teams as part of vendor evaluations over the last couple years, a lot of T-mobilers credit Legere with significantly improving T-mobile's prospects, appeal to customers, and network investment. WeWork needs a similar level of turnaround to remain relevant.</comment>


Canecto - Automated Web Analytics - <AUTHOR> https://canecto.com <comment><AUTHOR> Automated Web Analytics. Canecto is the smart alternative to hiring a digital agency or doing analytics yourself.</comment>


Should I quit to go home? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys,
I'm from the west coast, and moved east to help an old coworker's startup. He is self funded and believes in slowly growing the company. However, in the past year that I've been with him he has not managed to find suitable talent to grow. I left behind friends, family, better living conditions, hobbies, activities in pursuit for risk and adventure. The only feeling I have now is of homesickness.
The only thing I'm gaining here is a paycheck and valuable experience. No stock options, no holiday bonus, no perks. It doesn't help to find out that the boss' personality and temperament is negative and demeaning towards other employees.
When I look at my resume, it looks like that of a typical gen y job hopper, with multiple 4-6 month gigs, some 1-2 year gigs.
Friends of HN, please advise and guide me to towards to right path.
Thank you. <comment><USER2> It sounds like this opportunity didn't work out for you. Moving home sounds like your best move.

I'd suggest trying to leave on the best possible terms with your current boss, to get a good reference down the road. Make sure you have something lined up back at home before resigning.

Don't worry too much about the job hopping, concentrate on improving your skills and building a portfolio of work you can show to new prospective employers.

Good luck!</comment>


Why does America lose its head over 'terror' but ignore its daily gun deaths? - <AUTHOR> http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/21/boston-marathon-bombs-us-gun-law

<comment><USER2> In the metropolitan Washington, DC, area, the typical gun death seems to happen at 2 or 3 in the morning, and often as not in a seedy end of town. There aren't a lot of news crews working there and then. The guys who set off the bombs in Boston did so where they would maximize media coverage.

</comment><comment><USER3> Equally, why does the press always lose its head over guns?

<comment><USER4> Equally? How so?</comment></comment>


Honda Joins Cruise and GM to Build New AV - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/kylevogt/honda-joins-the-party-25a945ea8805 <comment><USER2> In the spring it was reported that Waymo was in talks with Honda, which was something that has been rumoured for years, and I've been waiting for some kind of formal announcement from the two of them. So waking up this morning to news of GM's Cruise and Honda getting into bed together is a bomb. Who knows if the Waymo/Honda talks are still alive.</comment>


How to export a pure CSS logo as transparent SVG or PNG? - <AUTHOR> Made my brand's logo in pure CSS and it looks amazing. But want to use it on other platforms only supporting image files. How would it be converted?<p>See my comment below for links to examples (links aren't clickable in submission text.) <comment><AUTHOR> Here are some examples of pure CSS logo work:

/u/bchanx 's Show HN - Logos in Pure CSS: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5802043](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5802043)

Google Logo: [https://jsfiddle.net/11jrtysk/](https://jsfiddle.net/11jrtysk/)

Chrome Icons: [https://codepen.io/collection/njLyl/](https://codepen.io/collection/njLyl/)

</comment><comment><USER2> My first thought: I'd probably just take a screenshot and crop it as needed, although there's likely a better way to do it.</comment>


Apple iPhone 5S - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/iphone-5s/

<comment><USER2> I love my MBA because of the battery life. All day battery, not having to worry, is a great thing. My iPhone 5...not the same at all. It will definitely run out with heavy usage, and with iOS7 multitasking I'm quite concerned. The face that the 5S didn't boast improved battery life makes me think that in reality, running iOS7 on the new iPhone won't make it all day, and I will have to keep using a mophie case. I'd love to see battery life extended by 50% to truly make it "All day battery" (they could call it 2 day).

<comment><USER3> There are some improvements in iOS7 that should improve battery life, though it's hard to say by how much compared to decreases from introducing more multi-tasking. This includes batching LTE network access from multiple apps. Though we can't know the full impact of the new APIs until apps start taking advantage of them, many who used beta 4 and 5 claimed better battery life than on iOS 6.

For me being able to very quickly turn off wifi, bluetooth, and lower brightness via the control panel has probably made the biggest positive difference. I'm more likely to leave bluetooth off most of the time for instance since I know it takes less than a second to turn it back on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm somewhat dubious of the performance claims from the switch to a 64-bit architecture. That doesn't seem like it has been a bottleneck for a lot of processes and applications on mobile historically, but I could be wrong. Can any devs offer any insight on whether the 64-bit switch could make a real difference at anywhere but super high-throughput operations like, as Epic demonstrated, swapping a huge amount of data into RAM?

<comment><USER5> The performance claims are marketing speak: they say the new 64 bit CPU is now twice as fast as the old 32 bit CPU. But this isn't too strange, the previous 32 bit CPU was also about twice as fast as the predecessor to that one.

So what he's actually saying is (1) the CPU is now 64 bit and (2) the CPU is faster than the old one. Seems a lot clearer when you split it up like that, yeah? It's clever use of language. (1) is useful for future proofing the iOS architecture for >4GB of RAM in upcoming devices and lets developers start compiling their apps now for 64 bit. (2) is just the usual improvements and faster clock speed that is obvious for a new generation of devices.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I assumed that the big performance gains, comparable to previous proc updates, were due to just being a faster chip. The quotes were "up to 2x faster," which is of course not untrue but still a bit misleading. Hopefully a few benchmarks and real-world tests will bear out the actual differences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Any more info available on the "M7 Motion Coprocessor" chip? That's the most interesting addition IMO.

<comment><USER7> My guess it's a rebranded Cortex-M3, which would be low-power enough to run continuously. The fitbit flex uses a M3 and it claims 5 days of battery life. I'd guess it stores collected data on chip and iOS copies it over when it wakes up.

<comment><USER8> An alternative approach is that it acts essentially as an off chip interrupt. Every time an event occurs it wakes up the main CPU and sends the data over. The main CPU then goes back to sleep. In other words, instead of the CPU having to poll for environmental data, it can be pushed. It may have a small buffer to batch data or it might even be programmable (subscribe to motion events over X intensity). Or it could be just a simple data collector like you described.

<comment><USER7> My guess is that it would do both of those things. Moves App is something that seems it could make use of both, they've already said they think it is interesting: [https://twitter.com/movesapp/status/377507455489433600](https://twitter.com/movesapp/status/377507455489433600)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If it's $199 for a 16G with contract, how much would it be for a 16G without contract?

<comment><USER10> $649. Add $100 per storage bump. Basically, the 5C is an incredible rip-off. It's only $100 cheaper than the 5S, and you have a plastic case, much slower CPU, and no fingerprint sensor. Very disappointing pricing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ok, which phone company sells phone covers! Jobs, the real Apple fans are missing you!</comment>


The most depressing places on earth  - <AUTHOR> http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=7190 <comment><USER2> just about anywhere towards the end of January</comment>


Turks are smashing their iPhones to protest Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbsnews.com/news/turkey-anger-donald-trump-us-tariffs-turks-smash-iphones-burn-fake-dollars/ <comment> a-fried-egg And Tim Cook smiles with glee as they eventually will give in and buy new ones</comment>


HealthSherpa (YC S12) has processed more than 3% of healthcare.gov enrollments - <AUTHOR> http://blog.healthsherpa.com/3-percent <comment><USER2> That's pretty awesome growth from the _40_ signups NYT reported you had as of March last year! [1] Congratulations on the incredible break-out success.

If the broker's cut is average just $100 / year (WAG) on 110,000 signups, that's ARR of $11 million. Holy shit, nicely done on $1.1m of funding.

Their agent platform [2] nets just $10 per application and gives the agent the full commission, but even just $1m revenue is impressive for the funding level.

Also, can we now officially stop talking about trying to fix the problem from the _inside_? If this doesn't show that healthcare.gov (and every single other state-exchange) should never have been built in the first place, I don't know what does. It also makes you wonder, does the Fed get that annual broker's commission when you signup fully on healthcare.gov, or do they just give it away to the insurance company?

[1] - [http://www.nytimes.com/news/affordable-care- act/2014/03/06/m...](http://www.nytimes.com/news/affordable-care- act/2014/03/06/more-than-one-way-to-buy-a-plan/?_r=0)

[2] - [https://www.healthsherpa.com/agents/features](https://www.healthsherpa.com/agents/features)

<comment><USER3> It's actually a mix - we are agent of record on a sizable portion, and we process enrollments for insurance companies and agents for the remainder.

Our main goal is to making signing up as easy as possible. Our currently flow is getting individuals through in about 5 minutes, and families in around 10. The revenue will allow us to build many more useful features.

<comment><USER4> Just out of curiosity, did you drive this massive growth through tons of paid advertising, or some in some organic/viral way?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem, in NY at least, is that none of these sites account for the quality of the provider network, so you're fooled into thinking the quality of coverage just comes down to deductibles and coinsurance limits. Hopefully this works itself out over time, but right now network quality a serious problem affecting most of the plans offered on the NY state exchange.

Take MetroPlus for example: their plans looks good on paper, but their network consists of overcrowded municipal hospitals. Take a look at their yelp reviews for a more realistic picture: [http://www.yelp.com/biz/metroplus-health-plan- new-york](http://www.yelp.com/biz/metroplus-health-plan-new-york)

<comment><USER6> You addressed 1 of the 2 major issues I have with the ACA. I think the issue you raised could simply be called _transparency_ , but as you allude there is no reason when I click on a plan in any market place, that I should not be able to see an exhaustive list of the providers who accept the given plan and a list of providers who do not, aside from premiums I would imagine this is the single most important factor to the majority of consumers, and the most important for people who are not picking plans based on finances. There are other data points insurers should be made to disclose as well, such as: the total number of claims under a given plan, the number of claims that were paid/not paid out, and the average amount of time it took to approve/pay said claims.

The 2nd issue, none of these plans on the market place make healthcare affordable to those who were previously uninsured due to cost. Yes, there are subsidies for premiums, but once someone actually has to use the plan, most can not afford the out of pocket co-pay much less the deductible. Due to inability to truly afford their subsidized insurance plan, people avoid using their insurance and so all the mandate really seems to do is line the pockets of the insurers with subsidized premiums on behalf of people who knowingly will not use their plans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish I had heard about this site just a month ago. I used eHealthInsurance and a bunch of similar sites extensively to find my self-insured plan. Using the worst-case sort on healthsherpa, I just found a better plan than the one I'm on. Too late for me to change now but here's hoping next year I get on a better plan.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, just did this as well. eHealthInsurance was awesome but I just ran through the same at HealthSherpa and it is an impressively smooth and minimal site. Such a nice change from usual health insurance sites. Granted eHealthInsurance I have used for a few years and it was easy as well. I like that more sites are making it simple and clear.

What we also need is payment through these sites because once you are signed up, paying through Aetna / Blue Cross and others is a inception like web ring from the 90s and not consumer ready, they have been company focused for too long and reliant on mail/phone. The plan I had at Aetna a year ago, had no lie, 7 clicks to get to the payment system. It was all POST ing so you could not go direct. A few pages on others took 30-45 seconds to load. I feel like all insurance companies sites feel like they can waste everyone's time because you have to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hmm, maybe it's just me, but clicking on the HealthSherpa.com link on the sidebar leads me to [http://blog.healthsherpa.com/www.healthsherpa.com](http://blog.healthsherpa.com/www.healthsherpa.com) and I'm assuming that it should simply go to www.healthsherpa.com

<comment><USER10> Me too. It's an incorrectly written link, as it doesn't include a protocol.

<comment><USER3> Just fixed! Thanks for pointing it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I tried comparing some plans, but it always gives me 500 with the very familiar red "We're sorry, but something went wrong." message. At least I know you are using Rails.

And now I know in terms I can understand why healthcare is such a pain. :)

<comment><USER3> Sorry about that. Which zip code are you in? We are accepting enrollments in the 37 healthcare.gov states - FL, TX, NJ, etc. We are working on adding CA, NY and others soon. To see it all in action, try a FL zip code like 33604. Thank you for taking a look!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is the benefit to using your site instead of healthcare.gov? I just ran a search (I'm in Florida) and it looks like the same options I have on healthcare.gov.

<comment><USER13> I believe it is only the UX...As far as I can see.

<comment><USER14> Yes, just the UX, the plans should be the same. As someone who just spent many hours trying to navigate ACA plans, HealthSherpa helped me compare plans, even though ultimately I did not buy through them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What tech stack do you use? Did you use a business rules based solution for codifying those millions of rules, or is this DB table driven?

</comment><comment><USER13> Site looks nice and simple; needs more filtering, ex, by HSA plan availability.

</comment><comment><USER15> Wow! Way to go!

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats guys!

</comment><comment><USER17> Not to drop the pc bomb... but isn't the name kind of racist?

The Sherpa are an ethnic group, after all.

HealthNegro? HealthWhitey?

<comment><USER18> Haha, I got just as angry as you did, but the sentiment as you expressed is not correct. It would be more like HealthIrish, HealthPolish, HealthCatalan, etc. Having said that, the misuse of Sherpa, specially in the US, really, really really bugs me. Really really really. A lot of my friends are Sherpas, and when someone on TV misuses 'Sherpa' I just..want..to...throw things at the tv. Sigh. We gotta wait for the Sherpa-in-Chief. We got Prabal Gurung, now we need Ang Dorje Sherpa to start designing cloths.

<comment><USER19> At least when I was growing up in the '60s-'70s, the connotations of Sherpa were entirely positive; Wikipedia also doesn't indicate anything bad associated with the name: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherpa) (well, who knows about the quality of the "psychedelic power pop band from Auckland, New Zealand" :-). A nice, helpful expert who because of nature and nurture was better suited to the extreme environment of the Himalayas, who therefore carried more stuff than the "white" with whom the two formed a team, and got serious billing along with the latter. Moderately well read people from my era give equal billing to the team of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary who first officially conquered the summit of Mount Everest.

Of course, not really following mass media since the '70s I don't know if the term has degraded since then, but at least it started from a good base. It's like the American usage of Indian tribe names for naming sports teams and Army helicopters, that's _not_ done out of disrespect, although there are of course the inevitable malcontents.

<comment><USER20> > It's like the American usage of Indian tribe names for naming sports teams > and Army helicopters, that's not done out of disrespect

What does it mean to say that "it's not done out of disrespect", when it's done even despite the objections of the ethnic group in question?

In this particular case, I can assure you that many Sherpa people very strongly object to the use of the word "Sherpa" as a synonym for "guide", and they do indeed feel it is very disrespectful.

<comment><USER19> " _when it 's done even despite the objections of the ethnic group in question_"

I thought I addressed that with part you omitted quoting, " _although there are of course the inevitable malcontents._ "

Who speaks for these people? Have they ever submitted these sorts of questions to a vote?

As long as e.g. there's a reasonable number of Apache tribes-members who are proud our biggest, baddest, proven in combat attack helicopter is named after them, I don't give a [expletive deleted] about the malcontents, most especially including the SJW crowd.

And if Sherpa has mutated into simply "guide", that's also addressed, in my "I can't speak for post-70s" qualification. Given your closeness to that situation, are _all_ or even _most_ of the "Sherpas" upset with all the connotations the word had accumulated in English over the decades? If you claim the latter, how do you know?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Evolution of Application Data Caching: From RAM to SSD - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/netflix-techblog/evolution-of-application-data-caching-from-ram-to-ssd-a33d6fa7a690 <comment><AUTHOR> Summary: Memcached provides an external storage shim called extstore, that supports storing of data on SSD (I2) and NVMe (I3). extstore is efficient in terms of cost & storage device utilization without compromising the speed and throughput. All the metadata (key & other metadata) is stored in RAM whereas the actual data is stored on flash.</comment>


Decrypt.py: Act like a decrypting hacker on tv - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jtwaleson/decrypt/#decrypt

<comment><USER2> Using aircrack-ng to get onto a wifi network looks surprisingly like you'd expect from a movie: <http://www.aircrack-ng.org/screenshots/aircrack-ng.gif> (pretend those digits are constantly updating)

</comment><comment><USER3> Link for lazy Mac OS X users:

curl -O <https://raw.github.com/jtwaleson/decrypt/master/decrypt.py>; chmod +x decrypt.py; ls -la | ./decrypt.py

It's useless, but pretty nifty at 80x24.

<comment><USER4> So... uhh...

this one-liner will download and execute a python script.

would really suggest that you read the script before executing it.

<comment><USER5> Looks clean to me. Check out for yourself of course. Does bring up an interesting dilemma. We all download code, libraries etc. all the time without going through it with a fine comb...

<comment><USER6> Note that the URL in the one-liner references the master branch, which can be updated at will by jtwaleson. A much better idea would be to use a link to a specific version if you are going to make claims towards its cleanliness:

      curl -O https://raw.github.com/jtwaleson/decrypt/f004b7eab7b949a55ea3c784fb9bac244aa0296e/decrypt.py; chmod +x decrypt.py; ls -la | ./decrypt.py

<comment><USER7> Even that might not work if he has two versions with the same hash and sends github a forced update with push -f. though that's still a much more difficult proposition than just updating the master branch.

<comment><USER8> If he can generate two files with the same hash he can do much more interesting things than write a sketchy python script that a few people might run without reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also see Hacker Typer for a web browser version. :)

<http://hackertyper.net>

<comment><USER10> A web browser version _of something different_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "It's a cylon virus... I'm decrypting the firewalls and downloading to the server."

</comment><comment><USER12> Screenshots please!

<comment><USER13> Quick and dirty screencast <http://youtu.be/DoDoOtlomsM>

<comment><USER14> Thanks to you (and your terminal output), I'm now in the middle of reading "Street-Fighting Mathematics". :)

[http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/Street- Fighting_Math...](http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/Street- Fighting_Mathematics.pdf)

<comment><USER15> I like how you think--that name was the thing that stood out to me, too; and you saved me a quick web search =]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> lr--rw-rwx and here a virus in action ...

<http://pastebin.com/EZRWHKzn>

;)

<comment><USER16> After commenting out line 20, this is actually pretty awesome.

<comment><USER17> What does it do? (The whole thing, and line 20 specifically)

<comment><USER18> It prints colored 0s and 1s all over your terminal window. Nothing else. Line 20 (the 'trap sig_int_trap SIGINT') disables Ctrl-C. You want to comment this out.

<comment> lr--rw-rwx It does not disable it, it catches it and restores the terminal cursor's visibility (originally it reseted everything, but you can just work on, and the colors will scroll off the screen).

... but of course, maybe you enjoy random color font. :p

<comment><USER18> Thank you for the correction. Based on the previous comment, I assumed the trap function was doing something evil without completely reading the script.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is quite possibly one of the coolest Python scripts I have ever seen. I'm going all the way to Hollywood baby.

</comment><comment><USER20> Maybe I don't watch enough television but I don't think I've ever seen this effect in any TV show or movie. Anyone know of a show that did this?

<comment><USER21> Sneakers (1992)

<comment><USER22> Worked _slightly_ differently, IIRC -- in the movie, the computer screen was already full of gibberish characters, which then randomly shifted to the correct color/character when the MacGuffin was applied.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Fun with jp2a and the images from the Curiosity rover. You can act like you're intercepting the signal or something.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does it work with a over ssh?

<comment><USER16> Yes.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A "Pwn2Job" Platform - <AUTHOR> https://leonardcyber.com <comment><AUTHOR> Here are five invite codes, for anybody on HN who wants to try their hand:

Nw4gHJLhxCFK9Rhr

JfbA7MCRWva7VA4D

A25HDs4DncF3nFm9

gDmpCgkVDfxAuV8K

8eC4Mba8LPSrJJdP

If they all get used up, DM me here and I might create some more.

<comment><USER2> Hi.

The landing page looks decent.

All invite codes got used up (or there is an error when using above codes). Or is it a part of a challenge? ;)

I'd like to DM you but there is no such functionality on HN. I'd contact you via other means but there is nothing in your profile :)

<comment><AUTHOR> For like twenty minutes, I had to take the site offline, because it was broken ;_;

Differences between staging and production ;_;

You should be good to go now. I think you've already accepted your invite.

<comment><USER2> It works for me now. Thanks for a quick reply!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Silicon Valley Has Not Saved Us from a Productivity Slowdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/upshot/silicon-valley-has-not-saved-us-from-a-productivity-slowdown.html <comment><USER3> "they valued free Internet services at ... less than 1 percent of G.D.P."

So Pandora, Facebook, Hacker News, YouTube, Google, Wikipedia, gmail, google maps, Reddit... all of these together are worth less than $50/month? Would any of you give up all the free parts of the internet for $50/month?

And look back 30 years: everything has gotten so much better. Rotary dial landlines have been replaced with smartphones. Houses are better and bigger. Cars are better, more comfortable, safer. Children's toys, strollers, playgrounds are so much safer and more convenient. Music has changed from a few CDs to thousands of songs carried around in almost every pocket. The numbers don't seem to make any sense to me.

Marc Andreessen is onto something. The economic numbers don't make any sense when you compare them to reality.

<comment><USER3> And here's an idea to explain the mismatch. Not sure if it's right, but it might explain why the numbers make no sense:

newspaper -> hacker news, google news: GDP drops, but life is better.

stereo + CDs -> mp3 player: GDP drops, but life is better

GPS -> Google maps, GDP drops, but life is better.

snail mail -> gmail, text, GDP drops, but life is better.

<comment><USER4> >newspaper -> hacker news, google news

Um, what? Google News doesn't do reporting, it aggregates newspaper content. If the traditional media outlets die, there will be no content left for Google News to aggregate. Unless you are referring the part of the newspaper industry which actually puts ink on dead trees, which is pretty small compared to the newsrooms.

People write posts that go on HN to promote themselves and their business interests. Nothing wrong with a little of that, but it isn't a substitute for journalism.

<comment><USER5> Newspapers aggregate news as well. The point is you buy the newspaper for all or most of the content or you visit Google News or Hacker News. They are portals.

>it isn't a substitute for journalism.

 _No true journalist_ would ever impinge their profession by writing for such trash as a blog.

<comment><USER4> I am using "newspaper" in the sense of "organization which pays reporters and editors to produce a textual representation of the news of the day." So perhaps this is semantics. But Google News does not do that.

Google News is sort of similar to the business unit of a newspaper which takes finished copy in digital form from the newsroom and actually delivers dead trees to people's doors. Of course the internet should (and will) kill that entirely.

Journalism is a professional craft. Writing about current events for free because you are passionate about some issue, or for a salary because your benefactor has a vested interest in some issue, etc. is not journalism. Your income has to flow from the fact that _people want the news_ , and you/your bosses/your editors have to be properly incentivized to actually report the news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The Uber example is a great one. From 2009 to 2015, Uber didn't do much to increase the amount of value a driver could create per dollar spent. It did somewhat: Uber drivers can charge less than taxi drivers due to higher utilization and regulatory avoidance. But at the end of the day, drivers were still putting in the same amount of work to move a passenger.

UberPool and UberHop are actually productivity increases. A single driver can provide 2-4 trips worth of value with about 1 trip's worth of work. However, that's just going to drive the cost of trips down. If Uber and its drivers end up not increasing their revenue per driver trip, the productivity statistics would look the same even though drivers are moving four times as many people!

My layman's interpretation could be wrong, but it really just looks like we're using productivity wrong. It's useful to compare companies and countries at a particular point in time, but if you use it to compare the 2000 world to the 2016 world, it's probably not going to tell you useful things.

<comment><USER7> >UberPool and UberHop are actually productivity increases. A single driver can provide 2-4 trips worth of value with about 1 trip's worth of work. However, that's just going to drive the cost of trips down. If Uber and its drivers end up not increasing their revenue per driver trip, the productivity statistics would look the same even though drivers are moving four times as many people!

In this scenario, you need only 1/4 the drivers, and some fraction of those 3 newly unemployed people will eventually do other work. _That_ is the productivity growth.

<comment><USER8> You wouldn't necessarily need only 1/4 the drivers. The reduction in prices would increase demand for transportation by some amount. If that amount is less than 4x, you would see an industry employment decrease, but if it was more than 4x, you would see it increase, just like how auto industry employment increased as cars were able to be made for cheaper and cheaper prices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Silicon Valley can provide tools, or perhaps supplant some industries, but the bulk of productivity improvement is internal to companies. I think the productivity slowdown is a result of many companies not investing in internal improvement/development and instead using their capital in non-productivity enhancing financial moves such as stock buybacks.

<comment><USER10> Ding ding ding.

In fact, if anything, the increasing inequity between management, C-level executives, and employees makes companies even less able to handle the complex systems of the present world, which is only growing in complexity.

The real issues are human, and human problems require improvements in management, leadership, internal systems, and knowledge and understanding. When rifts form between management and employees, what happens instead is an individual competitive focus that brings productivity and innovation down significantly.

What we're seeing, effectively, is that the world is changing and becoming more complex, and management and internal systems are not keeping up, and instead in many cases going downhill.

There are small pockets of hope in the Lean movement, Kaizen/continuous improvement, and in those who know and understand Deming management philosophy. For a great modern take, read General Stanley McChrystal's "Team of Teams."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Non-paywall copy of paper, from author: [1]

[1] [http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chad.syverson/research/produ...](http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/chad.syverson/research/productivityslowdown.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> How much more productive does the middle need to be!? Good grief, nobody is allowed to "turn off" any more. We're ALWAYS working.

Edit: And please don't kill me with semantics of "working" vs "productivity".

<comment><USER13>
      > And please don't kill me with semantics of "working" vs "productivity".

Maybe if you understood the difference between working and productivity you wouldn't be ALWAYS working.

<comment><USER14> The OP specifically called out the semantic difference between working and productivity.

<comment><USER15> I'm not sure how that absolves OP of the actual semantic difference between the two. You can't just say "all doors are squares, and don't kill me with the semantic difference between 'square' and 'rectangle.'"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Start-ups rally around fashion signalling through open-plan offices, and create elaborate HR codewords to rationalize unhealthy cramming of people into intrinsically unproductive physical situations.

The cost effectiveness of providing private offices for knowledge workers, even in the most dense urban areas, has been well known for a long time, yet few organizations do it, and some organizations even _spend_ money to tear down productivity-enhancing privacy features in favor of wasteful open-plan fashion.

Why would anyone look to the start-up world when expecting productivity?

</comment><comment><USER11> Most big productivity increases have been in the manufacturing and agriculture areas. Those have been so successful that they now employ only 9.5% of the US workforce. The areas with strong productivity increases shrink, while the ones with low or no productivity increase come to dominate employment.

<comment><USER17> There's a formal statement of that, essentially an analogue of Amdahl's Law. As you optimise labour in certain parts of the economy, you're left with the bits that cannot have their productivity increased.

Unfortunately I cannot for the life of me remember what it's called or where I read it. Good odds it's in Robert Gordon's new book ( _The Rise and Fall of American Growth_ ) or related discussion. Or somewhere in William Ophuls' _Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity_ discussing technology, or Carlotta Perez's _Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital_.

Light reading.…

<comment><USER18> Baumol's cost disease.

      Baumol and Bowen pointed out that the same number of
      musicians is needed to play a Beethoven string quartet today
      as was needed in the 19th century; that is, the productivity
      of classical music performance has not increased. On the
      other hand, real wages of musicians (as well as in all other
      professions) have increased greatly since the 19th century.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease)

<comment><USER17> Thank you. I'd run across that elsewhere and was wondering where the hell I'd just recently mentioned it....

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I might be late the party for anyone to read what I have to say.

For the past 45 years, Canada has had limited growth in labour productivity and currently stands at $42/hour, contrasting against the US at $52/hour, measured in GDP/hour worked.

It turns out that it's very very difficult to understand productivity. It is against common understanding why Canada's more numerous bachelors degree holders seemingly doesn't contribute to a more productive labour force. If investments in education do not increase labour productivity (as predicted by nearly every model of labour economics), then what measures do affect productivity? It is increasingly unconvincing that countries become more productive by mere accident.

<comment><USER20> >It is against common understanding why Canada's more numerous bachelors degree holders seemingly doesn't contribute to a more productive labour force. If investments in education do not increase labour productivity (as predicted by nearly every model of labour economics), then what measures do affect productivity?

The "education system" is not an education system. It is a selection system used to choose who gets one of the at any one tine limited number of jobs. Increasing the number of people in that selection system makes it less effective, hence the lowered value of a degree, the need for internships, and increased stress on personal networks for finding jobs.

<comment><USER19> Your argument is absurd. You're implying the job market for university educated workers is perfectly inelastic and each successive degree holder produces _no_ extra value on the margin. Moreover, you make the baseless assumption that competition amongst more candidates for skilled work produces no further value-- in other words, every worker is just as skilled.

There are many more plausible reasons that don't have to invoke such strong assumptions on the education and skilled workforce markets.

Cultural, social and political differences, a lower population density et al.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Maybe I'm off base, but why would we necessarily expect great productivity gains? The late 90's to early 2000's was a time when computers become ubiquitous. Yes, there are smart phones and tablets now, but the difference between "by hand" and "by computer" is far larger than "by PC" and "by tablet".

</comment><comment><USER22> Well duh; most of what Silicon Valley builds are not productivity tools. If anything they build anti-productivity tools like social media and entertainment.

</comment><comment><USER23> Hang on. Correct me if I'm being terribly obtuse here, but it looks like making an end goal process with a saturated market more efficient would count as a productivity loss?

So say everyone needs to pay taxes. Let's say that everyone complies and pays a company $100 for software to do this. Now I make equivalent software which I'm able to sell for $50 (because I'm better at running my company, say). Now people are spending exactly half as much money, but the same job is being done. This looks like an economic productivity loss? If so, surely there are alternative models that capture the intuitive gain from things like this? Or maybe such gains are rare and negligible?

<comment><USER7> What happens in this situation is the people who used to make the obsolete things are now out of a job, and eventually get employment somewhere else. What they do _then_ counts for productivity. If they earn what they did before, you'd measure no change in productivity -- though we'd all be better off.

The studies in the article assert that the size of the productivity shortfall is so large that even if we place pretty generous values on all this free stuff we have now it doesn't fully cover the gap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Complex systems never got any simpler, only more complex.

Certain circles are beginning to realize that the main issues are human and not technological (Lean, Deming, Kaizen, Design thinking, etc).

So there's your answer. Increasing complexity of work, with unchanged or at best slowly increased ability to cope with it.

For a great overview and insight into this shift (and how to tackle it), check out Gen Stanley McChrystal's book, "Team of Teams."

<comment><USER20> Standard Work is an incredibly interesting concept that I've just started looking into for organizational design.

<comment><USER10> One of many concepts needed together to create a high-functioning organization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [off-topic] aren't mobile phones and tablets just sucking productivity out of mankind, if not slowing it down? was watching old movies from 90s with my lady and we both noticed how interactive ppl were in the background, on streets or in cafe, nowadays every one just dives into their mobile phones ...

<comment><USER15> Are you talking about economic productivity, or social interaction? Those are two questions with potentially very different answers. Also, I think the social interaction argument is pretty weak. The global connectedness that comes from the Internet and smartphones is, in my opinion, a huge improvement to social interaction in the world. I'm not that fussed if I'm at a restaurant with friends and some are using their phones.

<comment><USER24> yes i immediately realised what you meant after my reply, so I should mark my words as off topic. it did inspired me similar thinking today, before I saw this :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The article states that labor productivity has been growing less in the last decade, but how is that measured? Is the productivity number compensated for the number of hours worked? And is it measuring only labor performed by humans?

<comment><USER26> Yes, productivity is measured per hour of human labor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The middle class never got any money for being more productive in the 90s and aughts. Maybe they're wising up.

Also, virtually every market is dominated by cartel, duopoly, or monopoly conditions, and companies are often satisfied with that position, so investment is down.

<comment><USER28> While I agree with your statement, it's not terribly germane to Cowen's argument.

What he's saying is that all the fuss over Silicon Valley technology is not warranted when it comes to actual productivity gains.

This is a really important point because it suggests two different way of conceiving of technology: 1) how economists define technology, viz something that allows us to do more with less 2) what laymen consider technology: the latest gee whiz gizmo marketed by Silicon Valley

The economic definition is a lot stricter in some ways - and broader in other ways.

The takeaway is that in economic terms we really haven't experienced much technological evolution. I find that to be pretty believable.

<comment><USER29> No, the takeaway is that economic terms themselves haven't experienced much evolution.

What does productivity mean when your economy is increasingly powered by data, not money?

As a wild generalisation, there are two kinds of economic model - <USER2> political model, where the point is to use rhetoric to enhance power differentials between social castes, and the evolutionary model, which considers economic activity a proxy measure for collective intelligence and opportunity.

We're in a transition period where the former model is peaking and about to[1] crash, and the latter model is becoming more sharply defined.

In the former model an abundance of data is a bad thing, because the market value of any specific type of data crashes towards zero.

In the latter model an abundance of data is a good thing, because it increases the possibility of invention and innovation. And an abundance of data refinement tools is even better.

Which is a more accurate measure of productivity?

[1] For very poorly defined bounds of "about to". I'm guessing more than decade, less than a century.

<comment><USER30> Can I pay my rent in data? For humans like me who pay their rent in dollars, GDP is a perfectly reasonable way to measure productivity.

What kind of "evolution" are you talking about? I think all you're pointing out is that Silicon Valley is extraordinarily bad at attributing value to data.

It's not the roll of economics to fix that problem. Economics deals with real things like people buying food and having to pay rent and pay actual taxes.

If Silicon Valley can't figure out a way to get translate "data" in to "thing I trade to my landlord so he doesn't call the cops", well, then Silicon Valley is wasting everyone's time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It seems that trying to distill the activity of 7+ billion people into a line graph that you can extend naively to make predictions is a bankrupt exercise. Calling lower-than-predicted growth a slowdown is more than a bit disingenuous.

<comment><USER32> I didn't read it as less-than-predicted growth, but rather simply less than previous growth. Regardless, the wording of the article and headline is wrong, and makes me sad that evidently more people didn't learn / don't remember any calculus.

Derivative of productivity != productivity, NYT.

<comment><USER33> > Derivative of productivity != productivity, NYT.

See, this is what happens with decades of people tolerating media confusion between the GDP and the annualized rate of growth of the GDP.

Now its spreading to everything else.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Python Steam API interface - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GamingRobot/PySteam

<comment><USER2> It doesn't look like you spent much time with it.</comment>


Show HN: OzBonds, do-it-yourself inflation protected pension - <AUTHOR> https://ozbonds.info <comment><AUTHOR> OP here.

A couple of small known issues I haven't fixed up yet:

      * I'm not correctly taking into account the number of coupon payments in the current year and final year for each bond, just assuming it's 4 like every other year.
      * Prices are updated manually, I've got some code that scrapes the ASX to get new prices, just needs to be hooked up.

I'd be particularly interested in feedback on usability, or ease of understanding from non-finance experts. I've added a bunch of long-winded copy that tries to explain what this is for, but I'm not sure it gets the point across clearly.

Once this is a bit more polished, I'll publish a version that does the same calculations with US TIPS instead of Australian eTIBs.

Thanks!

<comment><USER2> On Safari 9.0.3 (11601.4.4), the ladder never actually displays. Instead, I this in the error console

TypeError: undefined is not an object (evaluating 'OzBonds.buildLadderButton') onclickozbonds.info:111

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like Safari doesn't provide the Intl object (ECMAScript Internationalization API), which I depend on in my module initialization.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Intl#Browser_compatibility)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> The US Treasury also offers a fairly similar product called TIPS--Treasury Inflation Protected Securities [http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tips.asp](http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tips.asp)

It's worth noting that the yield on these sorts of things are quite low. All of the eTIBs maturing before 2035 currently have negative yields, meaning that you'd actually be paying a small fee for the inflation protection. The US TIPS yields are also <0 until 2023.

</comment><comment><USER3> Despite all the things I consume getting radically more expensive (food gas shelter) and a huge expansion of the money supply the official inflation numbers are extremely low! I bought PHN650 inflation linked bond fund when QE started thinking that it must result in inflation; I was wrong. However inflation is calculated they are leaving the goods I consume out of their basket. The economist should get a new Big Mac index, maybe an organic meal index.

<comment><USER4> What do you expect when a government agency calculates inflation, while other government agencies has liabilities pegged to inflation (Social security, TIPS)?

Sure, they're different agencies, but that doesn't matter in the slightest. It's like two departments in one company.

According to Shadowstats, which calculates inflation using the 1990-based CPI methods, inflation currently is at 4.5% per year. [http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation- charts](http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts)</comment></comment>


Story Arcs: The Six Shapes of Stories - <AUTHOR> https://thewritepractice.com/story-arcs/ <comment><USER2> A more pithy version: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP3c1h8v2ZQ)</comment>


LimeSurvey 2: Withdrawn due to CodeIgniter licensing dispute - <AUTHOR> http://www.limesurvey.org/en/component/content/article/1-general-news/228-withdrawing-20a-and-the-reasons-behind-it

<comment><USER2> A more interesting headline would be "EllisLab adopts GPL incompatible licence for CodeIgniter 3.0+".</comment>


Soviet version of the Space Shuttle - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)

<comment><USER2> One interesting difference from the American program that had always intrigued me is that Buran was carried horizontally on a heavy launch pad with gear to erect the whole unit on the launch site, moving on pretty much ordinary railway tracks, hauled by off-the-shell diesel locomotives, while the Shuttle has to be moved in vertical position, very carefully and slowly, on a very special vehicle, that cannot be done in a stronger wind, and so on. For me, it was always like real version of the american space pen and Russian pencil urban legend. The Russian solution here is obviously superior in every its aspect.

<comment><USER3> The Buran was also capable of landing entirely by itself, something I don't believe the shuttle can do even now.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure what you mean, can you elaborate? Do you mean that Buran can land without computer assistance?

<comment><USER3> I mean that the Buran could (and did) land without _human_ assistance. It basically did what the air-forces new toy did earlier this year, but back in 1988.

<comment><USER4> You mean the pilots could jettison themselves into space, and the thing would auto-land? Or that they didn't need any support ground-side to set it down?

<comment><USER3> The Buran's single launch was completely unmanned, as in, there were no people in it. Supposedly the software for the UI inside the craft wasn't even installed or operational. The craft landed itself, NASA shuttle style, on a runway.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29#Flight_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29#Flight_into_space)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is one exposed in Germany at the "Technik Museum" in Speyer. The story behind that particular model is quite amazing.

Taken from : <http://speyer.technik-museum.de/node/647>

"After the end of the Russian space shuttle program, a long odyssey began for the BURAN OK-GLI. In 1999, after 10 years of storage, it was shipped to Sydney where it was exhibited as a tourist attraction during the Olympic Summer Games. Subsequently the shuttle was taken over by an investment group from Singapore who was planning a world-tour with the BURAN. However, the first and last station of the tour was Bahrain. Due to financial differences the shuttle was seized and put into storage in the harbor of Bahrain. In the summer of 2003 the BURAN was acquired by the museum but transport to Germany was delayed because of legal struggles for five years. In early March 2008 finally the time had come - The BURAN was loaded onto a cargo ship. The voyage to the Technik Museum Speyer could begin."

<comment><USER6> [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=buran%20speyer&#...
google images reveals some amazing pictures of the transport to the museum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's interesting to note that there was a recent story that went around in September about the Buran being "rediscovered" in a junkyard. This is interesting since the traditional history of the Buran states that it was destroyed when the hanger it was stored in collapsed. I don't read Russian so it was hard for me to follow the story so take this with a grain of salt.

source: [http://www.mk.ru/photo/social/1090-buran-prinesennyiy-v- zher...](http://www.mk.ru/photo/social/1090-buran-prinesennyiy-v-zhertvu.html)

<comment><USER4> Quick translation: "Even the impossible happens. You'd think that an abandoned spaceship laying on a Moscow street would be something out of science fiction. Alas, it's reality. Correspondent "MK" discovered the Soviet orbiter Buran laying, like garbage, on the outskirts of the capital. Nobody seems to care that at one point it was the symbol of our country's might in space."

(Disclaimer: haven't spoken Russian regularly since I was 10, but luckily, newspapers are written for that sort of literacy levels anyway.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the space/engineering/scientific point of view the cold war period was actually quite beneficial to both Soviet Union and the United States. Now, the budget of both US and Russian space programs is like a shadow of its former self. These days some folks in the US are shelling millions of dollars to build a wooden replica of Noahs Ark in Kentucky.... <http://arkencounter.com/> I want my cold war back!

<comment><USER9> I like how the organization behind this wants people to "donate" for their cause, while the ark itself will be owned by a private corporation.

Nice swindle eh?

If the project doesn't work out, they keep the cash donations, if the project works out, they charge people to see it.</comment></comment>


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