Legal options for hiring a psychiatrist for an uncooperative business partner? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Very interesting question. Obviously a different situation, but I was also interested in this HN story today:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1926289>

There is a never-ending flow of startup advice dealing with all sorts of business and technical hurdles we face. But some of these interpersonal issues are just as (if not more) impactful to the success of a good company.

I've seen situations like this one deteriorate into ousting and proxy battles and public opinion campaigns. And we all see it in the news from time to time.

Maybe this post is way lagged and it's from either M. Arrington or J. Calacanis?!

Is there a need for a startup support network for dealing with more personal issues?

There are a few articles touching on this, but they're more about individuals coming forward in these situations: <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/nyregion/24bigcity.html> [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4182/is_20010319/ai_...](http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4182/is_20010319/ai_n10143153/) [http://www.ajc.com/business/entrepreneur-group-fights- loneli...](http://www.ajc.com/business/entrepreneur-group-fights- loneliness-526412.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Have professional experience with dissolving 1\. failed (general) partnerships 2\. with profitable businesses where 3\. the other guy is clearly nuts?

</comment><comment><USER3> Ahhhhh... I wish I could answer this.</comment>


Show HN: An interest-free credit card for millennials - <AUTHOR> http://www.withfea.com <comment><USER2> So you only pay the subscription fee if you carry a balance and the fee is your credit limit / 100? Also, does the card provide any cash back?

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, and no (cash back).</comment></comment>


Can Circuit Breakers Be Used to Store Memory? - <AUTHOR>

There is a character limit of 2000, so please see my comment below. <comment><USER2> A circuit-breaker is basically a type of relay. Many early computers used relays.

Anything that can be set in two states, and the state of it can be read back, can be used as binary memory.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Recently my Kitchen Lights have been finicky, in that they won't immediately Flip On. To turn the lights on, one needs to flip the switch On, Off, On, Off, etc. several times in order to get the Kitchen Lights to physically light up and turn on. The Kitchen Lights were like this for some time, and I didn't really think much of it. It seems like the circuit is "Stuck" in an "Off" state.

Similarly my Bathroom Lights displayed the exact opposite, in that the light stayed On (i.e., lit up) after hitting all the switches to off. Again, I had to begin flipping the switches On, Off, On, Off to finally get the Bathroom Lights to physically stop and turn off. As if the circuit were "Stuck" in an "On" state.

So we know that Transistors in a computer typically hold a voltage, and by the variance of this voltage we can develop two distinct states; e.g., High and Low voltage. We translate this physical voltage signal into a digital signal; representing a One or Zero. That is, a "Bit" of information. Follow me so far?

Now I am wondering, not being a hardware engineer, electrician, or an expert in computer information theory, and a relatively rudimentary (compared to many people in this forum) understanding of how a digital computer works; but, is it possible to use a circuit breaker, the electric grid, appliances, or any other ordinary household item as a store of information via High and Low voltage?

In other words, is it theoretically possible that with a Nest-like device (a computer connected to the electric-grid of a house) one could pulsate, change voltages, or somehow induce other appliances on the same circuit to store a bit of information? Could, an algorithm or program, be running throughout the electric grid, using [1] a circuit breaker, [2] appliance, or [3] any voltage carrier as a store of information? Could voltage running through a circuit be used as a Bit of information?

For example, my home has 24 circuit breakers, or potentially 3 Bytes of information. Let's say I have an Xbox connected to the Internet, and it has an IP address. My Xbox changes the standard voltage from of 120V to 119V on its circuit and thus stores a Bit of information. Similarly, my Apple TV is upstairs, on a completely different circuit breaker, and manages to change the voltage to 121V, storing another Bit of information that is again, outside of any known data store, computer, etc. If these IP connected devices could manage to store these two bits of information on their respective electric circuits…

My question is, ignoring the inefficiency of this method of information storage, could an algorithm or program be run across a set of circuits like this? Could my Internet Connected devices, each on their own respective circuits, be harboring some unknown "Bit of Information" in a much larger scheme?

Apologize if this is a stupid question. But now my mind is running on about how AI might evade the detection of humanity and already be existent or running throughout our electricity.

Thanks for your attention.</comment>


High-level advice and guidelines for writing sane, manageable, scalable CSS - <AUTHOR> http://cssguidelin.es/ <comment><USER2> "Nesting in Sass should be avoided"

concurrently with

"By doing this, a developer can see at a glance that .foo__baz {} lives inside .foo__bar {} lives inside .foo {}."

It's like reinventing descendant selectors, but with more typing. In fact, if descendant selectors weren't supported by browsers, _this_ would be the workaround.

And for the punchline, the authors suggest that "descendant" selectors (.foo__bar, etc) in plain CSS files should be indented additional spaces. Y'know, so they like the nesting in Sass that you're not supposed to do. (facepalm)

OOCSS seems to combine all the ridiculous trends in computing into one bundle of sad: OO-fetishization, "don't do that because it takes a microsecond longer sometimes" premature optimization, and "hypothetical reusability trumps actual usability"...

<comment><USER3> I supposed the idea is to limit specificity. It's the same reason you should use class instead of id.

I find the BEM syntax to look horrible though, with the double hyphens and underscores. Why not e.g. capitalize blocks and elements, keep modifiers lower case, and just use single hyphens?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've seen way worse CSS recommendations, but this still comes across not as a way to write sane, manageable, scalable CSS, but as rules to make working with insane, unmanageable CSS a little easier. Verbose comments and consistent naming and formatting do not address the underlying causes of CSS hell.

The worst CSS practice today that developers insist on shooting themselves in the foot with is the monolithic CSS file. Whether this is one 15,000 line file or 20 smaller ones that are combined at compile time, if you are going to ignore the tools CSS has for limiting the scope of styles and include all styles on all pages you are going to have trouble.

The rules I use that work well to manage style sheets are:

1\. A primary style sheet should be included on every page, but it should only contain styles for structural elements (header, navigation, footer) and common default content styles. It should only be changed after extensive deliberation and testing. If you have sections of your site that use a completely different template, they should use a different primary file (main_sales.css or something.)

2\. If a section of the site uses the same overall template but needs custom content styles, use a secondary style sheet and only include it on the pages that need it. I know that having more HTTP requests hurts performance but 2 includes is not unreasonable for the benefit of controlling the scope of styles. If content styles in a secondary style sheet appear to be useful for all pages, move them to the global style sheet only after proper consideration.

3\. Use embedded style sheets. I know you were told this is "bad" and never do it, but have you ever stopped to question why? Coding CSS directly in the HTML is the correct technique if the styles are meant only for the page they are on. If this is the case, embedding styles improve maintainability (no need to hunt for the external style sheet, it's right there next to the HTML) and performance (no extra HTTP requests.) If embedded styles are judged to be valuable to other pages, move them to a secondary sheet after proper consideration.

Including all styles on all pages (what I call the "monolithic style sheet") is a maintenance nightmare because no matter how you comment or name selectors, you cannot predict the side effects of even small changes. Because each page's layout could be affected differently, every single page must be checked by a person who knows what layout was intended. This is a Herculean task that is not inherently caused by the CSS specification, but by poor architectural choices. Please, for your own benefit, start thoughtfully using secondary and embedded style sheets.

edit:

I forgot to mention that monolithic styles sheets also significantly hurt performance due to loading and parsing large amounts of unnecessary code.

</comment><comment><USER5> My approach to writing manageable scalable CSS ( I am a programmer) is to never write CSS files on my own. Use a framework like Zurb Foundation etc. and modify the underlying SASS files but never ever write actual CSS files. And scan my HTML for style tags to ensure that I never violate my own rule.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not using CamelCase makes this CSS very hard to read. For example:

So I don't get the advice of using hyphens only. To me this is more readable:

<comment><USER7> Is there a chance you mostly program in languages where camelCase is common? For me as a C programmer / Javascript programmer both are readable.

I think hyphens are useful in css to keep the namespace non-confusable with the javascript.

<comment><USER8> That's actually where I mix the two uses. CSS class names, I use hyphens, because what CSS calls a class is not the same thing as what Javascript calls a class. DOM element IDs, I use camel case, because it's likely to also be the variable name I use on the Javascript side to hold the reference to the DOM element.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Nesting in Sass should be avoided"

Aren't you missing the best feature of using SASS in the first place? It's a joy to create highly targeted styles with proper SASS nesting... why is it to be avoided?

<comment><USER10> If you do in SASS

      .Foo {
        a {
          /* stuff */
        }
      }

It translates into:

      .Foo a { /* stuff */ }

CSS is evaluated right to left, so this means every time an  is encountered in the page it has to at its parent chain to see if any has class Foo. This can cause performance issues especially for really large pages.

That said, for most pages it won't make a noticeable difference so it's kind of up to you to decide if you care.

<comment><USER9> What's the more performant/"proper" way to narrowly target CSS in that situation? Just tacking classes directly on the links (e.g. `<a href="#" class="foo-link">` starts to get very cluttered very fast if you want the benefits of deeper nesting, targeting and namespacing (e.g. `<a href="#" class="foo-bar-baz-link">`. Is it best to simply try to avoid nesting of styles altogether and keep namespaces as flat as possible?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Crashes feedly

</comment><comment><USER12> Stopped reading at spaces instead of tabs. It may be a silly argument, but it's one that I'm willing to fight in the streets over. Bring it on.

<comment><USER13> You are not a good developer, and if this is really your attitude, I would never hire you. Learn to pick your battles better.</comment></comment>


Pre-Touch Sensing for Mobile Interaction [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiZkEYLXctE <comment><USER2> > Microsoft had been planning to use a number of sensors on the sides of a > device to detect how a phone is held by grip, allowing 3D Touch-enabled > phones to block an orientation switch when you're lying down in bed.

This is a highly underrated feature.

<comment><USER3> WOOOOOOOOW!

They seriously do that? This alone could get me to switch. Switching from the iPad 2 to the iPad Air 2 was painful because they removed the physical switch that could be used to lock orientation. I used to use it for this. Now I have to swipe up (sometimes twice depending on the app) toggle rotation and then swipe down. First world problems. I know. But it's really annoying. To just detect the situation with no interaction is absolutely amazing. It's the sort of subtle solution I would expect from Apple specifically in contrast to Microsoft.

<comment><USER4> My Z3 Compact has a feature where it will automatically reorient the screen unless you rotate the phone _slowly_ , in which case it keeps the orientation fixed. Sony calls it "Smart Rotation".

It works great except when it doesn't. Pretty frequently I'll lie down, use the phone for a couple of minutes, and then while holding the phone perfectly still it'll go "HEY THE PHONE IS IN LANDSCAPE I'D BETTER ROTATE" all of a sudden.

Which is to say, this kind of thing is _great_ if it's 100% reliable, but if you only get to 95% it's a nuisance. More often than not I just manually lock it because I expect the Smart Rotation feature to flake out, and fixing it afterward is more work than locking at the start (rotate back to the right orientation according to gravity, lock the rotation, then rotate back to my viewing position).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think on the whole you'd obviously rather have this capability than not, and in the hands of developers interesting stuff will happen.

But I chuckled a little thinking back to all the Fitts's Law discussions that used to go on about the Mac versus Windows menus - on the Mac, the hit area is higher because you can just hit the top of the screen with your mouse. On Windows, it was always lower, because you had to aim below the title bar. This reminded me a bit of that - full fledged touches are dead easy to get right, hovering slightly less so. So I'd hope if this makes it into the final platform (or inevitably gets copied) that there's a lot of guidance to developers to use it only for enhancing existing gestures, instead of making it a primary mode of interaction.

</comment><comment><USER6> Microsoft has this habit of being first in a market, technology and then either ignoring it or releasing a shitty solution. I'm not an Apple guy. Use both windows PC and phone.

So I'm not being biased against Microsoft when I say that the best bet we've got to seeing this tech in an actual product is for Apple to (invent it) release it first.

<comment><USER7> Or you look at the Samsung S4 with air view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I want this simply to have :hover states in mobile web sites. The pre- anticipation mode makes a lot of sense and makes tapping to show controls seem archaic

<comment><USER9> Fingers already don't have much precision when tapping. It's even worse when hovering, so hover states on your DOM elements are likely not to work in a useful way. And then just imagine a menu that opens on hover suddenly obscuring the whole site. I'd rather take just the highlight of links in the browser as shown in the video than trying to adapt touch screens back to interfaces that were meant to be used with much higher-precision pointing devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am a frustrated mobile phone touchscreen user, feeling like the phone never quite knows what I want to do. This is the first time I've felt a touchscreen might actually be able to help me be more productive, rather than a roadblock.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is freaking awesome.

If anyone from MS is reading this, though, please have the following feature: I'd like to be able to select hover-touch behaviour for various modes: if the phone is locked and the screen is off, hovering with one finger will show me the time, hovering with two might show me mail/text notifications, or maybe a certain hover gesture will open the camera immediately so I can quickly take that pic. etc.

I'd like to define certain hover patterns and responses.

Overall though, super cool.

</comment><comment><USER12> Finally we'll get back :hover for websites.

<comment><USER7> On Samsung S4 with its air view on and a plugin app for Chrome on Samsung devices, you did have real literal hover support

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Galaxy S4 had something like this, except no one (other than the Samsung apps) implemented the functionality to make use of it.

In the end, all I can remember of it was that you could wave over the top of the screen to change home screens, and see a little light ball would move around on the lock screen when you moved your finger over it.

<comment> nevi-me Google Chrome, WhatsApp have implemented it. It still exists on S5, not sure about S6 and S7.

There's also the awesome touch sensitivity feature which when enabled allows you to use the touchscreen with gloves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> while the demo is amazing with all the possibilities presented, isn't moving interface elements around quite disorienting for the user?

<comment><USER9> Theoretically maybe. Practically likely no. First of all, this is (assuming perfect sensor accuracy) fairly predictable in that identical interactions yield identical results. It's not very random. Then there is the whole point that the UI presented is context-aware in that it knows where your finger is. Thus is has the potential to be much _better_ to use than a static UI.

You can probably compare it to the clipboard copy button appearing near your selection instead of in a static place on the screen. While it's not in the same location every time, it's in a _sensible_ and usable location.

Of course, this all presumes that you never make mistakes, such as mistakenly assuming that a thumb from the left is used while it's actually the opposite. Then the experience is much worse. However, considering how often my phone thinks it should go to landscape mode while in portrait (never), I guess that's not going to happen often either. If things go wrong, it's your touch- screen. You probably wouldn't worry much about UI popping up in strange places when you simply cannot use your phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Isn't " _are_ magnificent" (as opposed to " _would be_ magnificent") a bit of a stretch? I can't watch the video right now, but it sounds like it is a concept video for something that was never actually implemented. As such, it is wonderful to dream big and to reward big dreams; but that should not, I think, be confused with delivering on those big dreams.

EDIT: Thanks to dang for changing this. Just to be clear, my post referred to the original title, taken from The Verge article which was originally linked.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would update the title to your suggestion, as I agree with you — but I want to be true to _The Verge_ — I imagine it's classic PR spin on their part...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is amazing! I so want it right now!

That said, there's one "feature" I'd like to see implemented first on the modern smartphones - make them stop lagging and hanging! Seriously, this is ridiculous. Any UI improvement like this will be more annoying than helpful on today's smartphones, because the phone will randomly refuse to detect or react to "hover".

</comment><comment><USER17> I saw an internal demo of this technology 4 years ago at Windows Phone. Nice to see it finally making it's way into daylight.

</comment><comment><USER18> looks like apple's force touch with negative numbers

<comment><USER19> Kinda like how a car looked like a horse without legs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> People still use Windows phone?

<comment><USER21> I liked my Windows Phone a lot. It was the most responsive phone I'd used in years, and I could resize the tiles to the shape and position that I wanted, so my most common apps were more accessible.

But then they laid off 7400 division employees and had no product roadmap, and it was obvious they were going to write-off their investment in Nokia. So I left not because I didn't like it, or liked something else more, but because of a lack of confidence in their commitment to it.

Microsoft, you need to do a better job of announcing your direction.

<comment><USER22> Agreed – I had a Lumia that I really loved, but there was a lack of direction for the platform and severely lacking app ecosystem that ultimately brought me back to an iPhone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Url changed from [http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11595564/microsoft-3d-touch...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/5/11595564/microsoft-3d-touch- kinect-gestures-windows-phones), which points to this.</comment>


The Art of Computer Programming, Volume 4A has been published - <AUTHOR> http://www-cs-staff.stanford.edu/~uno/news.html

<comment><USER2> First of all, dupe.

Second: the headline is incorrect. The (hardcover edition of) Volume 4A won't be shipping for another week (January 22th.)

Finally: Volume 4A has been available in part for quite some time now (the first fascicles were published in 2005), and in whole for over a year (if you put all the paperback fascicles together.) Still, the publication in hardcover is certainly a milestone.

<comment><USER3> Putting all of your paperback fascicles together won't quite get you Volume 4A. They were beta versions and don't contain corrections that have happened since their release.

<comment><USER4> So a better title: "AoCP goes 1.0 later this week"?

<comment><USER5> How about, "Knuth submits!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A link to a pre-order page at informit.com (cheaper than Amazon) was already posted here: <http://apps.ycombinator.com/item?id=2104796>

</comment><comment><USER7> "Then I will publish a ``reader's digest'' edition of Volumes 1--5, condensing the most important material into a single book. "

\-- After he finishes vol 4, and re-revises 1-3 again, then 5, and ... perfectionism is nice and all but, he's mortal - I hope he takes that into account.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, it would be great for most of us (his interested readers) if he just supervised a few post-docs to grind it all out. He could easily get the funding, but it's not his style.

I'm re-reading Volume 2, section 3 on Trees. On p.320 he makes the off-hand remark _General methods for doing this are discussed in Chapter 8_. What a sense of humor!

<comment><USER9> "Yeah, it would be great for most of us (his interested readers) if he just supervised a few post-docs to grind it all out. He could easily get the funding, but it's not his style."

Why should he let them have all the fun?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The table of contents is: [http://www.amazon.ca/Art-Computer-Programming- Combinatorial-...](http://www.amazon.ca/Art-Computer-Programming- Combinatorial-Algorithms/dp/toc/0201038048)

        Chapter 7: Combinatorial Searching 1
        7.1: Zeros and Ones 47
        7.2: Generating All Possibilities 281

There are 23 more headings in the outline for the remainder of volume 4...

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know if The Art of Computer Programming will be released as an eBook soon?

</comment><comment><USER12> And the link:

[http://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming- Combinatorial...](http://www.amazon.com/Art-Computer-Programming- Combinatorial-Information/dp/0201038048/)

<comment><USER13> And the affiliate marketing:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2109543>

<comment><USER14> Clyfe is pointing out the blatant money spinner by the parent poster .. in case you didn't see that already.

<comment><USER15> Is there something other than just "bad form" as to why people would not want to go through an affiliate link if the ultimate purchase price for them is the same?

<comment><USER16> Yes. Doing so makes it more profitable to post worthless affiliate links in places like this, which encourages people to do so, which makes the web a noisier place.

(Note that this is not a justification for avoiding _all_ affiliate links.)

<comment><USER17> Also it's not adding anything, very easy for us to go through to amazon and search for the book. Might be different if the posted recommended a great book that many hadn't heard of before that really added to the discussion, still though it would be better just to keep them off HN.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Where New Yorkers Moved to Escape Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/16/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-moving-leaving.html <comment><USER2> Kinda weird that they're moving from NY to places that are almost as hard hit as NYC, or soon will be. Boston, Chicago, Miami? I mean, wouldn't it make more sense to go to Wyoming or Idaho?</comment>


What people in tech had to say about JavaScript when it debuted in 1995 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dailyjs/heres-what-people-in-tech-had-to-say-about-javascript-when-it-debuted-in-1995-a4b81dc05b71 <comment><USER2> Life in the trenches did not match the fancy vision and inspiration of the marketing quotes gathered in the article. Most users resorted to four-letter explicatives of Anglo-Saxon origin to capture how they felt about the language.

I remember the "joy" of trying to get a program to work consistently across multiple browsers and vendors. It was frustrating and obnoxious. The arrival of the ECMAscript standard in 1997 helped, but for years I always tried to code as little JavaScript as possible and code as simply as possible just to avoid possible and/or known problems in the implementations.

Incidentally, for a good read, look at Doug Crockford's _JavaScript: the good parts_ which reveals the lovely little language hidden inside JavaScript.</comment>


Show HN: TK Checker – A WordPress plugin that helps you edit your posts - <AUTHOR> http://www.tkchecker.com

<comment><USER2> I wonder if you can add automated researching of the specific topic, using some NLP and maybe wolframalpha, you can perhaps get a crude version of basic topics such as 'the height of the Eiffel tower'... You can just paraphrase that into a question and ask WA.

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be great to do that as part of the editing stage! So you go to fix your markers and it's already partially researched or a search is 1 click away.

<comment><USER3> If you're using Python, check out my new NLP library: [http://honnibal.github.io/spaCy](http://honnibal.github.io/spaCy)

I think this feature is very viable!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > TK Checker only works on Posts currently, although you can copy into a Draft > Post and have it check for missing info. It can then be copied over to a > page or other document ready for publishing.

What is the technical limitation for this? I wouldn't think there would be much work getting a plugin to work on both pages and posts (or any custom post type for that matter), but most of my wordpress work is done on theme level so I'm not really sure. Is there something specific to posts that make it work?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's certainly an option for an update. I think for the first version I just wanted to get it out there, see if it helped people's writing & work flow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have spoken to some professional writers who didn't know what TK was. What a fantastico way to keep the pace in fiction!

I'm also quite delighted by the use of wordpress as a popular fiction platform. New chapter releases for Worm got me pretty excited, no way to beat that level of reader engagement.

Important note: if facts are irrelevant in your nonfiction, discard them. The explanation will be clearer without all those facts that can possibly be deleted.

<comment><AUTHOR> In fiction this method is mostly used to mark places where a more descriptive word is needed. Helps to avoid repetition of vocabulary.

Also even with non-fiction most people have their own version of TK and don't realise it.

I've seen plenty of posts published with <> and ???? still in them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Kinda like "FIXME" parsing in code. I like it.</comment>


A well done scientific hoax called "water marbles" - <AUTHOR> http://www.chemspider.com/blog/a-well-done-scientific-hoax-called-water-marbles.html

<comment><USER2> "A well done scientific hoax"?

Yeah... lemme go find some "Ionized" Salt and give this one a shot.

<comment><USER3> Okay, off topic, but true story...

My wife was at this direct sales party for kitchen stuff. Fancy spices, stuff like that.

The sales lady was pitching 'Low sodium salt'. My wife and a few of other other science geeks in the crowd almost managed not to laugh.

So what is it then? KCL? NiCL2? Mercury sulfide?</comment></comment>


The Path of No-Seeking - <AUTHOR> https://sites.google.com/site/intimatemeanderings/the-path-of-no-seeking <comment><USER2> "Alan Watts similarly in the late 50's experienced LSD; when asked about LSD, Alan said: "When you've got the message, hang up the phone."</comment>


"The Issues" - a Demo Realtime Application in AngularJS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/seanhess/the-issues-angularjs-demo

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this for a local user's group. It demonstrates how to do some "custom" stuff in Angular. It includes two custom directives, one of them is bound to a jQuery plugin. I also made it poll the server for realtime updates.

I'm hoping it can help show how Angular helps you dive below the hood when you need to, while giving you a great place to put the under-the-hood stuff without cluttering your code or breaking the abstraction.

It's live here: <http://the-issues.herokuapp.com/>

</comment><comment><USER2> This is really cool. Was it difficult to deploy on Heroku?</comment>


Netflix shakes off weak subscriber growth and its stock is skyrocketing - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/17/netflix-shakes-off-weak-subscriber-growth-and-its-stock-is-skyrocketing/ <comment><USER2> Relevant is Martin Shkreli's finance lesson series which includes an analysis of netflix as an investment:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTM05cVOEDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTM05cVOEDY)</comment>


How to make in Windows, a virtual webcam source of live desktop stream? - <AUTHOR> In Windows, i need to have a virtual webcam source of live Desktop/screen. So that captured screen can be used in Google Chrome, Opera, Firefox using WebRTC to screen share in a friendly way. Please advise. <comment><USER2> My advice is to ask on a relevant StackExchange site.

</comment><comment><USER3> You are obviously _not_ trying. Entered your title into that G-search engine thing, and guess what it found: [http://superuser.com/questions/78515/is- there-any-software-t...](http://superuser.com/questions/78515/is-there-any- software-that-can-capture-the-screen-and-turn-it-into-a-fake-webcam)</comment>


Even the door on Google's self-driving car has its own patent - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/7/11876426/google-self-driving-car-door-design-patent <comment><USER2> It least it doesn't seem functional, so it looks like it can indeed be defended as a design patent in court.

To be completely nonfunctional it shouldn't have a handle though. :-)</comment>


Nasa Astrobee Robot Software - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nasa/astrobee <comment><AUTHOR> NASA Launching Astrobee Robots to Space Station

[https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/space- robots/na...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/space-robots/nasa- launching-astrobee-robots-to-iss-tomorrow)

Astrobees are the robots that will soon float around the ISS. Each Astrobee is a cube with 30 cm (12 inch) side and is equipped with 6 cameras, touchscreen, speaker, microphone, signal lights, laser pointer and a built-in gripper. Among other things the robots will monitor radiation and air quality onboard the space station. The robots are controlled by pushing air through 12 adjustable nozzles and their software has been developed using ROS .</comment>


In El Chapo's Trial, Extraordinary Steps to Keep Witnesses Alive - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/nyregion/el-chapo-trial-witnesses.html <comment><USER2> From the article [about how isolated he is now and how unable to threaten or kill witnesses]:

"(...) unless the government is suggesting that the defense team will disseminate hit orders from Mr. Guzmán, there is no realistic way for him to do anything" to the witnesses at all."

Assuming that the leader of Sinaola cartel who had people murdered in thousands has lawyers that would deny him the means to order hits on witnesses is childishly naive.

<comment><USER3> Also, it's not like other people in the cartel are incapable of taking initiative to support their boss...

<comment><USER4> Exactly.

One can assume that literally anyone who succeeds in getting him out of jail will be given lavish rewards and protection.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, the submitted article links to two more in-depth articles from 2017 about the NYC prison in which Guzman currently resides, in the graf that reads: "10 South, the maximum-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York City's most impenetrable jail"

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/nyregion/el-chapo- complai...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/nyregion/el-chapo-complains- about-conditions-at-manhattan-jail.html)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/nyregion/el-chapo- guzman-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/nyregion/el-chapo-guzman- manhattan-jail.html)

Google Maps/Earth view: [https://goo.gl/maps/2Qp8Xt7D5Fw](https://goo.gl/maps/2Qp8Xt7D5Fw)

I worked downtown Manhattan for several years and had no idea a high-security prison "tougher than Guantánamo Bay" was sandwiched right in there.

<comment><USER5> I'm no prison security specialist but right in downtown Manhattan, of all places, sounds like the least secure spot to host this powerful escape artist of a drug lord of anywhere in the country.

<comment> murph-almighty I was curious and decided to map possible escape routes.

He's pretty close to a 4/5/6, an R/W, a J/Z, and maybe a 1 train. That puts him at about 25 minutes from NY Penn, which allows him access to Amtrak or the LIRR.

He's about an hour by public transport from LGA, but that would require a bus. The fastest route to JFK would be 1h11m if he took the A (which isn't all that close) followed by an airtrain. If he chose Newark Airport it'd be something like 25 minutes to NY Penn station + 25 minutes to Newark Penn station and maybe another 10 minutes to Newark Airport via NJ Transit, so about an hour. In other words, from escape to the front door of the airport he's looking at at least an hour of commute, by which point I'd hope someone noticed he's missing.

This all, of course, assumes he takes public transport.

<comment><USER4> I think he'd have a helicopter pick him up, and take him a couple of miles to be transferred to a supersonic jet.

That jet would take him 100 miles into the atlantic and he and an accomplice parachute out with a liferaft and little engine.

The plane carries on to mexico as a decoy.

Radars aren't good enough to see small craft far from the shore in the ocean, so he can stay at sea as long as he likes and land anywhere. The search area would be huge - if we can't find MH370, we can't find him!

<comment><USER6> >That jet would take him 100 miles into the atlantic and he and an accomplice parachute out with a liferaft and little engine.

Why not a small submarine?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I always wonder, when they catch this kind of criminals, why not shoot them on sight like they did Pablo Escobar or Osama? Special forces officer: "it was low light operation and we thought that he had a weapon so we shot him." and thats that.

<comment><USER8> Due process and presumption of innocence.

As far as US judicial system is concerned Osama and Pablo are innocent.

It is always better to try people in court then kill them, because it limits the chances that someone innocent can be killed.

<comment><USER9> > presumption of innocence.

I know this is the cornerstone of all law in western countries but its a really difficult thing to argue for in this case.

<comment><USER8> It is the best system invented.

Like maybe someone learned mind control and made El Chapo do it. But when he is not under mind control he is 100% law abiding citizen.

It will be a crazy defense, but it will be up to jury determine if that is the case.

Or another scenario is that El Chappo had no choice because rogue officials in the US demanded him smuggle drugs to the US or his family will be killed.

<comment><USER10> except you can't have a fair trial in the US anyway. so presumption of innocence is just a mythical phrase (same as freedom of speech). money wins trials in the US. in this case the defense has to outspend the US gov. plus all high profile trials become media circuses that influence the outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Whilst the benefit to the safety of the jury and prosecution's witnesses is obvious, this also seems incompatible with the defence's discovery rights. Although I'm not sure how the two could be reconciled, such that a fair trial could be held.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is why the cartels should be treated like a military, not a legal problem.

Drone strikes, thermobaric bombs and an acceptable level of collateral damage.

There's plenty of El Chapos ready to take his spot, every decade or so you are able to actually arrest one of them.

<comment><USER13> No, the cartels are an economic problem.

Make drugs legal, and the problem will fade away with time.

Of course, not immediately. But when the lucrative funding of drug trade is cut off, it will slowly diminish their might.

<comment><USER14> I used to believe that, but there was a recent article on here a few days ago about cartels diversifying their sources of profit by dealing stolen fuel, so although I support legalising drugs, I no longer think this will put an end to the cartels.

<comment><USER15> While I understand your point, I don't think there's that much more money to be made from stolen fuel compared to the goldmine of drugs. A kilo of cocaine goes for around $26k in California. How much fuel would you need to sell in order to make that much? In Mexico a liter of fuel goes for about $1.

<comment><USER16> Drugs are also dense: $1mm in fuel is a huge quantity and hard to distribute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If this were a movie we could just attach a bomb to him that's set off if any witnesses die.

But seriously at some point I find myself asking why we must have a trial with witnesses. If you have so much accrued evidence that you know these steps are necessary to protect witnesses that should be sufficient to give you life in prison/death penalty.

Which is kind of gross, but if someone has clearly so much disregard for the law, why should they get to abuse it?

<comment><USER18> I think this a fair, populist point. I have the same struggles surrounding policing and justice. There are categories of society that act so clearly outside the societal norm that clear and present danger is easily established (say terrorists actively plotting). Still we hold to our procedural law. The killing squads of Duterte are an obvious example why you wouldn't want 00-style justice. But I do wonder if there is a middle ground. I presume not. So that would be my current answer: we hold to procedural law for anyone and everyone because any deviance from that is on a very short, slippery slope to fascism and dictatorship. (I use the term fascism loosely, but the Latin origin is appropriate.)

<comment><USER19> We are clearly living outside the norm right now. Any cursory examination of history shows that slope to be insanely slippery. Even the subject of this article is the product state-run tyranny on its own people.

Probably best to fight for those civil liberties we take for granted.

<comment><USER20> > Even the subject of this article is the product state-run tyranny on its own > people

Oh yeah, poor him, oppressed by the government.

That kind of attitude only makes a huge mockery of those who obey the law.

<comment><USER19> You misinterpreted my comment.

My intended meaning is that if you end the War on Drugs, powerful, murderous cartel bosses would no longer exist.

So even now, in times where we don't think of ourselves as living in tyranny, our state is creating it. The War on Drugd has always been a war on people, not a pro-humanity experiment.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Car Cost per Year - New vs Used - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/a/fKU8z#pUXtWq0 <comment><USER2> This is really cool to see visually. I buy 15 to 20 year old Toyotas and keep them for 10 years or until they really break-down. If you can find one that's been serviced regularly (engine oil, coolant and lub), it'll last a good bit.

I've only had one real lemon using this approach. The previous owner told me it had over-heated once, but I took a chance anyway. Part of the engine was warped due to the over-heating. I had to replace the engine after it kept breaking timing chains. Otherwise, I've been fortunate.

<comment><USER3> +1 This is the way to do it. This method is generally safe with other reliable brands like honda and some nissan's.

<comment><USER4> Stuff that breaks on cars this old regardless of brand (speaking as a Honda owner):

\- timing chain should be replaced at 100K. Should do the water pump at the same time. $800-$1000.

\- starter motor (typically the brushes wear out). $300.

\- engine mounts.

\- CV joints.

\- suspension bushings, possibly shock absorbers, wheel bearings too.

\- pneumatic door lifts.

Then you just start to run into random problems: dashboard lights go out and are too expensive to replace, electric windows or door locks start to fail, steering develops a strange wobble that comes and goes and 3 different mechanics can't figure out. Etc.

I just sold my 2003 Odyssey (that I had bought new and maintained it well) with 230K on it. I'm glad to not be dealing with it anymore.

I still own a 98 Cherokee XJ which is built like a tank but still has its weaknesses. An electric door lock is failing but a replacement part is no longer made, so I have to find a used replacement or adapt a part from a newer vehicle. That sort of stuff.

If you're willing to deal with it great, but there's definitely a large tradeoff there.

There's also safety issues. My new cars have collision detection, lane keep assist, air bags all the way around, etc. I'm happier having my family in vehicles with these options.

<comment><USER5> I drive a 1992 Toyota LandCruiser that has 349,000 miles on it. I do my own repairs.

It's expensive on gas (12-13mpg), but cheap to insure.

Not even an airbag.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We have 4 kids and only one vehicle, so a potential breakdown is a huge inconvenience. Also my wife is the one doing over 90% of the driving. So here what has been our strategy:

Buy a brand that is fully guaranteed for 5 years. We sell them at 4 to 5 years old. This completely kills the repair budget.

Buy vehicles 6 months to 1 year old. That one brand we buy (like most but not all brands) doesn't depreciate linearly, and depreciate the most the first year. So this reduce the depreciation budget significantly.

The only difference in the consumable budget, compared to a 10 year old car is that we pay a lot for insurance (full vs 3rd party only).

The plus of our strategy is that an accident does not change our budgets, which it would in OP's case, as they might have to increase repair (assuming 3rd p ins) or force them to buy their next vehicle early, throwing out some of their calculations.

<comment><USER7> What's the one brand you buy?

<comment><USER8> Look at the car, not the brand. My 2003 Honda Pilot costs about $500/year in repair on average. My wife's 2005 Odyessy is about 3x that, despite being mostly the same car.

Why? The sliding door roller system is garbage and breaks semi-annually. (@$900/per incident) Biggest issue the Pilot is a poor quality key cylinder system that was a recall in several 1999-2004 models, but not the Pilot.

<comment><USER9> You can fix the sliding door rollers with about $5 in parts from the local hardware store. I did mine and it's lasted for years.

<comment><USER8> My car seems to eat the little motors too. Also taking off the door sucks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Ignoring identical costs (GAS/TIRES)"

Well, gas consumption surely are not identical between a 10 year old and a new car. Depending on your usage buying a newer and more expensive car might be justifiable due to savings in gas prices (you folks in the US might not agree since gas is so cheap for you).

<comment><USER11> Could you give an example? Not saying there isn't one, but I haven't noticed a major trend of increasing fuel efficiency for a given model over the past 10 years. It looks like the difference would have to offset 2000$/year (so, what about 20-40 full tanks/yr in the EU?).

Or do you mean there are just more hybrids and electrics available now than there were 10 years ago?

<comment><USER12> Average consumption of a new car in Germany has gone down ~30% in the last ten years:

[https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/185831/umfrag...](https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/185831/umfrage/kraftstoffverbrauch- von-neuzugelassenen-pkw-in-deutschland/)

But it might be more interesting to look for, say, the lower 30 percentile. I have the feeling that the improvement at the lower end is not as great, but I don't have numbers to back that up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Should note this seems to be for an F-150 (truck) and the data tied to it. In my experience, F-150s are very reliable although extrapolating that out to all "cars" may be a bit of a stretch and renders this graph really only useful for that model.

<comment><USER14> You can probably extrapolate this to any work truck made between 1995 and 1997. You'd be lucky to find a tape deck, power windows, or A/C in any truck from that period. They're also very simple to work on. My old C1500 from that period had an engine bay that I could lay down in.

This sort of implies that they wouldn't generate a lot of repairs. Crate transmissions for m that truck ran about $2000 for a remanufactured one. For my current truck it's more like $4000.

<comment><USER15> I have a 98 C2500 and it has all three. I recently replaced the tape deck and AC. AC compressor replacement took less than an hour to replace on that truck vs. my 2010 sedan that took several hours for the same job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I did this math when I was buying my last car. The things I did different

I kept the end point constant at 10 years. So it was:

* Option 1: Buy a new car, keep 10, and sell

* Option 2: Buy a 3 year old car, keep 7, and sell

* Option 3: Buy a 5 year old car, keep 5, and sell

* Option 4: Buy a 7 year old car, keep 3, and sell

At the time I was shopping, the car I wanted had really high resale. So option 1 was coming out CHEAPER per year than option 2. (new price / 10 compared to used_price / 7). Options 3 and 4 were cheaper, but not by a ton. But then the thing I thought about was:

* With option 1, the car I am driving is an average of 5 years old

* with option 3, the car I am driving is an average of 7.5 years old

* With option 4, the car I am driving is an average of 8.5 years old

So that pushed me to go for option 1. No regrets so far, my car just passed his 7th birthday. Not 100% sure I will sell at 10, but a strong possibility.

I think the simple math of "new car = always bad unless you are rich" is wrong. "new car every 3 years trading in = always bad", sure. But throw in dealer incentives and financing, and the new vs used debate can be less black and white.

<comment><USER17> I bet it's a different story if you calculated opportunity cost and risk. Are you paying cash for the car in all cases? Or are you getting a loan? Increased positive cash flow has a real economic value. A loan has real economic risk. Are you investing the cost difference between option 3 and option 1 to get a return on that money?

<comment><USER16> The funny thing is, options 1 I got 0 APR loan. Option 2 was 5% APR loan. Options 3 and 4 were cash.

So cash in my pocket, option 1 was the "best". I had no initial outlay, the car dealer loaned me the money for free.

So yes that is even 1 more reason why option 1 worked out best for MY case. But who knows when I next get a car what will be true.

<comment><USER17> Car dealers do not loan you money for free. Interest rates _are_ low, but it costs them money to service that loan. What they did, since the dealership owns the bank, is they shoved their profit into the principle instead of getting it back in interest. In other words, they simply charged you more for the car. And even a 0% loan is a risk from a personal finance standpoint. Options 3 and 4 carried no risk, lower cash in hand, but higher positive monthly cash flow (because no monthly bill). This freed up your additional monthly cash flow which would have been spent on a car payment to be invested and earn a return.,

<comment><USER18> From the point of view of these calculations it doesn't matter that the principle included loan servicing or sales commissions or what have you.

The cash flow calculations vs the cash on hand - risk costs are where the math happens but it is perfectly possible to walk away with the decision to buy new to work out better on certain models of car.

<comment><USER17> What model of car?

<comment><USER16> In my case above it was for the wife, so it was a Honda CRV.

Small Japanese SUVs had a very very high value retention for the first 4-5 years.

Something like maybe the sticker price new is 25k, but what you really pay is closer to 21k new. A 3 year old would be going for 17-18k. After the maths above, it ended up costing more per year to buy used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Now adjust for frustration of sudden issues of an old car. Adjust for the fact that your car is not an average - pretty high probability of getting a piece of shit repaired by electric tape and bubble gum.

<comment><USER20> Or just but a Honda.

The main problem with used Hondas is that their reliability is priced in so they cost more than other brands' used cars. Though this helps you a bit when you try to sell, balancing it out somewhat.

<comment><USER21> According to Consumer Reports, Honda quality has dropped off to middle-of-the pack recently.

<comment><USER22> The CR reliability score I saw recently lumped together the power train reliability with the entertainment system jankiness. I think this makes it not as useful The JD powers rating still rates Honda highly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Data says: Buy no car, keep nothing - repeat.

<comment><USER24> Surprisingly it's really worth doing (if possible in your case): [https://medium.com/personal-finance-series-by-richard- reis/t...](https://medium.com/personal-finance-series-by-richard-reis/the- ultimate-money-saving-device-a-bike-eee98ab09ca3)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This doesn't really fit with my own experience. I've bought 2 brand new Fords and kept them for about 6 years each. In sum total I had about $100 of unscheduled maintenance for both. However older cars always have expensive maintenance: timing belt, suspension, brakes, and other things all start to wear out somewhere around the 7-10 year mark (timing belt will depend on distance).

It also doesn't factor in the 0% financing that Ford has offered for the last 10 years, which is a significant benefit...Ford is essentially paying you about 5% of the value of the car each year (as you can avoid getting a 5% loan, or if you have the cash you can invest it in the stock market for a 5%+ return).

<comment><USER26> >This doesn't really fit with my own experience. I've bought 2 brand new Fords and kept them for about 6 years each. In sum total I had about $100 of unscheduled maintenance for both. However older cars always have expensive maintenance: timing belt, suspension, brakes, and other things all start to wear out somewhere around the 7-10 year mark (timing belt will depend on distance).

So, which option is cheaper?

Isn't that the ultimate question?

In another comment, I showed how a good 8 year old car had depreciated in 6 years (including repairs) as much as a new Forester did in 2 years (no repairs). Even for the 8 year old car, most of the loss was in depreciation, not in repairs. Yes, this included:

1\. Change in timing belt + water pump (most expensive)

2\. Changing brakes.

3\. Changing tires.

Everyone seems to want to avoid $200-500 repairs on their car, but few seem to be concerned about avoiding $10K on the price of the car to begin with.

<comment><USER25> I agree an older car is still cheaper than a new one overall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sounds like an absolute reasonable approach. I would have thought driving them into the ground would be most effective.

In My experience though, a lot of the car selling business is focused on producing unreasonable buying decisions.

Cars keep getting more expensive despite most other inflation-basket goods aren't.

One way of achieving this is by adhering to emotions. See Tesla fans doing basically "anti-leasing" for the newest model, or the whole genre of SUVs or better yet even more erratic: SAVs. My favorite in this is the new Range Rover evoque mini-SUV/convertible: 2 cars in one, each deminishing the usefulness of the other one. Yet already a success.

<comment><USER28> Out of curiosity, would it be possible to explain what a Tesla "anti-lease" is?

<comment><USER27> Of course: IMO Tesla making you pay a deposit in order to being able to pre order a unreleased car.

This is AFAIK the exact opposite of what the car industry is doing. At least in the high price range. There, the newest models most of the time are being sold via lease.

<comment><USER28> Interesting perspective on unconventional financing. Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The biggest difference is how much car you buy rather than new vs used. Commonly I see people buying used to 'save money'. But the car they buy to commute to work is a three row luxury SUV. Much higher cost than a new hatchback. Still signing 60 month paper at much worse interest rates than new. Constantly eating up gas, tires and brakes.

'Buying used to save money' in this case is like getting the diet soda to go with your big mac and fries.

</comment><comment><USER30> Author notes that depreciation has the greatest impact, in which case the F-150 is in a whole different ballpark than most luxury cars; trucks have a much gentler depreciation curve than luxury cars.

A truck may retain 80% value after 3 years, where a luxury car may retain 50% or less.

Edit: I should also note that variation between depreciation curves on luxury cars is also much greater.

</comment><comment><USER31> How about purchasing a car that's only say 1 or 2 years old? I read that cars drop massively in value as soon as you drive out of the showroom because it's no longer "brand new". Googled it and found this quote: "On average, a new car will lose as much as 19 percent of its value in its first year of ownership. That means that your $20,000 new car will be worth about $16,200 after just one year."

</comment><comment><USER32> I lease high end German cars. Zero maintenance and zero of my time dealing with repairs or random "won't start" surprise. What's value or your time and frustration?

Whether this analysis makes sense depends on your perspective. Also assumes you are not a car lover. And even in this, the three year lease is not substantially more than the other options.

It has never made sense to me to keep cars until I can't trust them anymore.

<comment><USER21> I'd buy your argument twenty years ago. These days, almost any American or Japanese car can be reliable for over 10 years

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I grew up in a family that did the "buy used cars keep until the repairs got too expensive" thing. We spent a tremendous amount of time at mechanics, paying lots of money for repairs that may not have even been needed, and then selling or trading in the piles of junk to repeat. I remember many times waiting for tow trucks by the side of a highway or out in the middle of nowhere to come tow one of our cars. I made a list one time and I believe my family has owned at least 20 different vehicles this way.

Thus conditioned, the idea to me of buying a used anything and keeping it for 10 years sounds like a recipe for answering the Ship of Theseus thought experiment.

When I first struck out on my own, I had a used, but good condition Toyota that a year later had $3500 worth of engine trouble that ended up costing me a job. I finally swore never again.

After that Toyota, I bought a brand new, small, car for $12k with the highest reliability I could find and kept it for over a decade. It required exactly one repair to an O2 sensor after 10 years. Being small and commodity, maintenance was cheap (a set of four new tires ran under $350). One day, 12 years in, the engine conked out and the repair was estimated at $500. The car was still worth $5k. I made a deal with the mechanic and he bought it for $4k.

Considering that the cost to "buy" the car was about $8k, maintenance was cheap, and fuel efficiency was high, the car cost pennies per mile to drive over its life with me.

I've since bought another reasonably priced new car that I fully expect to drive for another 10-12 years. And my family, after seeing my experience with proper cars has also cried uncle and now only buys new, reliable, cars. My father can't believe that he doesn't even know a mechanic anymore, whereas he used to spend significant time cultivating relationships with "good" mechanics to deal with repairs. Hundreds of dollars a year used to go into towing fees, and thousands were lost to lost work or other opportunities when a vehicle was down and being worked on or to rental fees so we could still get around.

I know that its possible to get a highly reliable used vehicle, but honestly, its impossible to know what a used car has gone through before it ends up in your hands.

</comment><comment><USER34> Interesting idea,and I'd love to see this work, but this particular chart isn't helpful in practice due to huge differences in vehicle depreciation, repair and insurance costs (e.g. S Class vs Land Cruiser)

Another thing that this chart neglects and which I feel is a very important consideration, is safety. The difference in safety of a current vehicle with one from even just 10 years ago is striking (never mind 15 years).

</comment><comment><USER35> Why do the 5/10 year new car graphs start at 6 and 11 years respectively? Why does the new 20 year new car graph start at year 1 but with a cost of less than $10k (for a $35k car)? I'm not sure how to read this graph or what it says. Are the dots overlapping and hiding one another? Even if so, how am I not paying at least $35k the first year for a brand new $35k car?

</comment><comment><USER36> Is it just me or are some of the formulas in the spreadsheet used to generate this wrong? I don't see the cost of purchasing / financing the used vehicle in there. Also, in the leasing cost column, the re-lease is not 3 years every time. Additionally, in the my area, the registration would be much lower but wouldn't decrease along with the vehicle age.

</comment><comment><USER37> Only if you're not concerned about safety, otherwise buy new to three years old and replace three years later.

<comment><USER38> Are cars considerably more safe now than they are ten years ago? And will they be considerably more safe in another ten?

<comment><USER39> Yeah, absolutely. 5th Gear covered this extremely well using Volvo, who are world famous for their safety emphasis.

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

10 years from now all new car's will probably self driving.

<comment><USER40> I will bet against you here and now. In July 2027, I bet at least 5% of new cars sold in the US will not have full self-driving capability. Meaning they will be unable to drive between two arbitrary street addresses in the US without a licensed human operator.

<comment><USER41> If you're betting against driving between two arbitrary street addresses, I'll bet that there won't be a single capable car.

<comment><USER42> Using towns in northern Alaska not connected to the main graph is cheating! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> If you're going to drive a lot, buying a new prius and driving it for 15 years is something you should look at. With really low maintenance and gas costs combined with really long service life (>500k is possible) the cost per driven mile can be really low.

</comment><comment><USER44> I understand there's something of a bell-curve effect on insurance (in the UK, at least), whereby the cost of insuring cars of 10+ years of age increases. I'm curious to know how much of a difference that would make to the total cost of ownership.

<comment><USER26> >whereby the cost of insuring cars of 10+ years of age increases.

Have not seen this. Keep in mind that insurers only care about the cost to replace the car. If the car's value is so low (which it will be after 10+ years), the cost to insure would be low too.

<comment><USER44> Insurers also care about passenger risk. I assumed it was related to the safety and reliability profile of the car, as well as the profile of claims involving older cars (i.e., older cars possibly being involved in more claims).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> So you pay a little more than 2x as much to have a car that is 5 years old at most, vs forever having a 15 years old car. Sounds alright if you have the income for that.

</comment><comment><USER46> The used cars section in Consumer Reports is invaluable to avoid white elephants. Also, take a candidate vehicle to your mechanic before finalizing a deal.

</comment><comment><USER47> Leasing?

<comment><USER17> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NaDucAXIg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NaDucAXIg)

Leasing is generally the most expensive option. You're basically getting a loan for the depreciation + profit. Since it's not technically a loan you don't get the interest rate disclosed to you. And market research shows the interest rate you are paying is 14%.

<comment><USER48> I've gotten several leases over the past 10 years, usually at rates 0.9% to 1.9%, maybe I'm lucky?

<comment><USER17> It's a fantasy that you're going to pull one over on the ginormous mega-bank that does this for a living. I recall a time when many manufacturers were offering 0% interest on car loans. Obviously they just shoved all their profit into the principle.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dear Intrapreneur - You are Nothing Like An Entrepreneur; Stop Fooling Yourself - <AUTHOR> http://www.chubbybrain.com/blog/intrapreneur-entrepreneur-no-similarity/

<comment><USER2> This article is just plain delusional. I've written up a longer argument here. <http://bit.ly/pNTDPA>

<comment><USER3> Agreed, and I've piled on here: <http://bit.ly/plxCb1>. Or have we both been trolled?</comment></comment>


The Wheels Come Off Uber - <AUTHOR> http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/06/wheels-come-off-uber.html <comment><USER2> The most worrisome aspect of this essay is that it questions whether Uber has a viable business model.

The OP argues that Uber will never be able to charge prices in excess of the level required by a traditional taxi/limo operator to be profitable for long enough to recoup the billions of dollars the company has burned by subsidizing the price of rides. Put another way, even if Uber drives every competing taxi/limo operator out of business, as soon as the company raises prices to cover costs -- vehicle, insurance, maintenance, fuel, credit card processing, license fees, and (at least for now) labor -- new entrants (and revived old entrants) would quickly come into the market, preventing Uber from keeping prices up.

If the OP is right, Uber is truly in a precarious situation, because, as Brad Feld recently wrote: _" the markets reward growth until they don't. Then they reward profitability. The trick is to be in a position to make the switch when you need to. Lots of CEOs and boards fantasize about this, but don't actually have a plan in place to do this as they expect the future – where the switch from growth to profitability – will never come. Or, they hope the exit will happen before this moment."_[1]

Uber doesn't seem to have a plan to make the switch. If the markets start demanding profitability (or at least a convincing plan for reaching profitability), Uber's wheels could indeed come off very quickly.

[1] [https://www.feld.com/archives/2017/06/lessons-internet- bubbl...](https://www.feld.com/archives/2017/06/lessons-internet-bubble- growth-vs-profitability.html)

<comment><USER3> the article is frustratingly light on actual reasoning about why uber can't become profitable. the tl;dr is basically "it looks bad so they're going to fail". it does look very bad but that in itself (even with the various details mentioned) doesn't shine a light on the path that uber will take to failure. it only shows that any path they could take is treacherous.

it's an opinion piece with a bunch of facts thrown around but no reasoning to thread it together. i wouldn't bother putting any weight on it's conclusions (or wasting your time reading it, if you haven't).

<comment><USER2> FYI, the OP links to a 10-part series of posts about Uber's economics by someone with decades of experience in the transportation industry. Here's a link to part one: [http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever- deliver...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part- one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html)

<comment><USER4> From that series:

 _Uber's real problem is that it is a staggeringly unprofitable company with fundamentally uncompetitive economics. It lost $2 billion in 2015, $3 billion in 2016, and another billion in China. It is a higher cost, less efficient producer of taxi service than traditional operators; all of its growth is explained by these multi-billion dollar subsidies as it has flooded markets with additional capacity offering unprofitably low fares._

 _It has none of the scale or network economies that allowed other startups to quickly grow into profitability. In its fifth year of operation Facebook had achieved 25% profit margins; in Uber's fifth year its profit margins were negative 149%. Absolute Uber losses have continued to worsen with recent growth. Margins improved somewhat in 2016, but only because Uber unilaterally reduced driver compensation by $1 billion, leading to news reports of drivers sleeping in the cars in order to make ends meet. Uber never had any hope of profitability in a competitive market, even at its present scale._

That's Uber's big problem.

<comment><USER5> The response to that has always been that if they can stay afloat until autonomous vehicles arrive, they can cut costs to the point where they're profitable. Beyond that, with the driver costs out of the picture, the cost of an autonomous ride would actually be below the per-mile cost of driving your own vehicle to the point where Uber would ride a wave of decreased individual ownership and reliance on car-hailing services.

The WayMo lawsuit, in which Google appears to have a pretty airtight case, has destroyed that hope. It's the Carpathia radioing that they're 4 hours away. There's no help coming and the Titanic is going down.

Now all these shifts are likely still going to happen. A seemingly cogent analysis I came across recently [1] breaks down the costs and strongly argues for a future where individual vehicle ownership is the departure from the norm rather than the default that it is today. But it just won't be Uber that cashes in on it. Or, more accurately, it won't be the current Uber. If Uber goes down in flames, their carcass will be plucked and someone, perhaps Google in the lawsuit settlement, will come away with Uber's brand and logistics platform that can be paired with self-driving technology to achieve Uber's vision.

[1] [https://shift.newco.co/this-is-how-big-oil-will- die-38b843bd...](https://shift.newco.co/this-is-how-big-oil-will- die-38b843bd4fe0)

<comment><USER6> Even if they could survive until they can switch to autonomous cars, that would remove the barrier to entry for competitors because they wouldn't have to convince drivers to use them. There's more on this comment from last year:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13079767](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13079767)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a question if uber can race to self driving cars fast enough.

That's really the only way their financial model can make sense.

They should really be seeing this as essential to their survival, like nuclear bombs in WWII.

Nazi Germany had maybe 1000 people working on their version. USA had 180,000(!).

I suspect in this analogy, uber is not USA. Someone else will get this rolled out first. But I'm not 100% sure.

<comment><USER8> > It's a question if uber can race to self driving cars fast enough.

I'm not sure that's true though; I don't get the oft-repeated logic that self- driving cars will save Uber. OK, they save on labor costs, but right one now of Uber's (slimy, IMO, but significant nonetheless) major savings is pushing vehicle maintenance and deprecation costs onto their drivers. They won't be able to do that with self-driving cars: they'll have to pay operate a fleet, in direct competition with automakers.

<comment><USER9> > Uber's (slimy, IMO, but significant nonetheless) major savings is pushing > vehicle maintenance and deprecation costs onto their drivers.

This is fallacious. The end-user pays for vehicle maintenance and depreciation. There cannot be any savings by pushing around which party writes the cheque as the only source of income to pay that cheque can be the end- user.

<comment><USER10> Oh really? So drivers are sending their maintenance bills into Uber and getting reimbursed for them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If this is true if uber, that it has no path to profitability, isn't it also true of ubers competitors? Their price points are fairly similar and they all, at some point, offer incentives to ensure you keep using their service.

<comment><USER12> Yes. The argument is that there simply isn't $80 billion to be made in the taxi industry; it's inherently a comodity business where boring companies should be able to make a steady 2% return rather than the kind of industry where a company that manages to sieze the market can make it back in monopoly rents.

<comment><USER13> What would be interesting would be to see how far all the ridesharing revenues would have gone in actually really good public and municipal transportation and many other lifestyle changes (i.e. what if every company reduced to a 4-day work week, or at least a mandatory 1-day work from home in applicable industries.)

it would be interesting to see where ridesharing investment money and the revenues the companies made could have ad a differing/better/other impact, just as a matter of looking at all possible outcomes as opposed to simply taken the state of things as a given.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is it just me or is this author overlaying a very strong political bias over the story of Uber?

<comment><USER15> You can hold political bias and still present a strong analysis.

<comment><USER16> You can also hold political bias and fake a "strong" analysis, especially if your audience already agrees with or desires the outcome in your conclusion.

<comment><USER17> True. Do you have reason to suspect that's the case in this instance?

<comment><USER16> Many reasons, but I can't/won't elaborate.

What I will say is that the author's bias has given him/her some major blinders and that s/he's become incapable of seeing ways in which s/he is wrong. My suggestion is that the author engage in a forecasting technique developed at Royal Dutch Shell known as scenario planning. One of the key features of scenario planning is that whenever you finish arriving at a conclusion, you then ask yourself the question, "the future that I predicted turned out to be wildly incorrect and X happened instead of Y. Which of my assumptions or expectations turned out to be incorrect that could lead to X happening instead of Y?" These days, this is actually a hallmark feature I look for in anyone forecasting or making predictions of any sort. If someone making a prediction has not given sufficient thought to being their own devil's advocate, it's a telltale sign of poor analysis. If you don't spend enough time doing this, you quickly get sucked into believing your own bullshit. Given the tone of this blog, do you think this author has spent enough time time poking holes in their own arguments? Have you seen many or any lines like "I believe X will happen leading to A, but it's possible that Y could happen leading to B instead and this is how it would change my predictions...". If someone's predictions don't present any possibilities for branching, they aren't being critical in their analysis, if you can even call it that.

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

The list of cognitive biases the author falls victim too are numerous. Over several posts I've definitely seen lots of examples of anchoring for example.

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

<comment><USER18> It's not the source's responsibility to be 100% unbiased. It's your responsibility as a reader to detect and adjust for the bias.

Consider applying your advice to your own meta-analysis. If you can't elaborate on your judgement, perhaps it's you who have blinders on?

<comment><USER16> > It's not the source's responsibility to be 100% unbiased.

100% no bias isn't possible. However, are you suggesting that that they shouldn't even try to mitigate their biases? Not every reader is as informed as authors who have taken time to research a topic. Society commonly defers to experts. If it becomes common and accepted for experts to allow or even embrace their biases unabashedly, then there is no reason to defer to experts any more because we will never know if we're being subject to an endless stream of lies of omission.

> If you can't elaborate on your judgement, perhaps it's you who have blinders > on?

That's totally possible. However I know for my own sake that I have certainly considered many of the assumptions and predictions the OP presented. That doesn't help you any, but it doesn't hurt you either because I haven't provided any of my own analysis (with my own biases) in the other direction either. I merely provided you with some new tools to better evaluate the predictions made by the OP. If you choose not to use those tools, that's your prerogative.

<comment><USER19> If you go through their 10-part series, they go over counter-arguments that invalidate their analysis.

More importantly, if you're going to dismiss their arguments, it would be nice to offer counter-analysis for why you think they're wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> People misunderstand Uber's motives. They are not slimy. Quite the opposite: they are a public good. The company is the front end for a giant charitable effort by venture capitalists. They are pouring money into uber, to help it drive down the costs of urban transportation, enabling people in cities to have more money available for necessities like rent, diapers, and food.

<comment><USER21> Is this satire or what?

<comment><USER18> It's the same reason for why "investor class" let Amazon run on negative to slim profits for so long (allowing them to compete with others that could not do this).

Some (I think it was Gruber) said it's like a subsidy from Wall Street to Amazon customers.

I feel that reasoning is short-sighted and dangerous.

<comment><USER20> Of course capitalists want to make money. Their primary goal is very far from charity. They don't want to improve the common weal (although publicly they say they want to help, and some even convince themselves they mean to help society, to rationalize their selfish motives).

I'm a bit disturbed that people took my satire seriously. Are rich people different now? Is that what people think?

<comment><USER21> Frankly you could find lots of posts like this on HN which are entirely earnest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Uber will live on.

Just talk to the drivers - you will get it.

Uber can continue churning their workforce for at least 15+ years as automation continues to whittle down the blue collar workforce.

<comment><USER23> This is incorrect. Ask anyone who has had an insider peek of any on-demand company's finances. The largest cost to all of these companies is employee acquisition, which continues to rise.

Take your own advice and do the unscientific thing of talking to the drivers. How many of them are new? How many are old? Surprising how many of those fall into the first category.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> By some measures Uber has been fabulously successful, coming from nowhere to the largest privately held company in seven years, and now a $70 billion g/publicly traded/private/ company.

Uber has done a stunning job of disrupting a crony-capitalist, monopolistic system. If they are still searching for a way to make a profit, surely they'll figure it out before long.

 __* updated to remove publicly traded

<comment><USER25> It's easy to disrupt a crony-capitalist, monopolistic system by selling your product at a loss, but you can't make a profit that way.

<comment><USER26> Uber loses money, but it doesn't sell rides at a loss. Up to 2015 at least (the date of the best finance leak I've seen), Uber's cut of fares was ~18%; and furthermore, that 18% cut more than covered Uber's costs of sales.

Source: [http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever- deliver...](http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part- one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html)

Uber actually makes money on each ride - it's just that the gross profit from those rides is short of covering its operating expenses. 12,000 employees are not inexpensive.

Based on these financials, if Uber halted most software development and halted subsidies into underdeveloped markets, it seems quite plausible the company would become profitable. Investors might not recoup their whole investments, but the company in zombie could earn back some profits.

<comment><USER27> Maybe I don't understand the charts and the article you linked to but it says that:

"Uber passengers were paying only 41% of the actual cost of their trips; Uber was using these massive subsidies to undercut the fares and provide more capacity than the competitors who had to cover 100% of their costs out of passenger fares."

To me that sounds like selling rides at a loss.

<comment><USER26> On an average cost basis that includes fixed costs, yes, Uber was losing money on each ride. But on a variable cost basis, Uber was making money. Each additional ride served was bringing them closer, not further, from profitability.

Gross margins were positive even if overall margins were negative.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Would Real Brain-To-Brain Communication Look Like? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2015/10/17/what-would-real-brain-to-brain-communication-look-like/ <comment><USER2> I use this form of brain-to-brain communication that involves using other parts of my body to make sounds that I assume other people can interpret using their ears, and map onto ideas. It takes a lot of training during childhood to get this down but once you do it's pretty efficient and you can transmit fairly complex ideas fairly quickly, especially if you can assume knowledge and context on the receiver end.

</comment><comment><USER3> Brain communication very much interests me, because it comes down to the essence of how we encode knowledge in biological signals. Like Google Deepdream, understanding how concepts of what a dog looks like and how it is related to other things, _encoded as a series of bits_ , is just absolutely fascinating.

I know we still don't understand beyond a very probabilistic level how the brain encodes this information biologically, but I've heard lots about prosthetics. Can anyone answer me how they control robotic arms using just the brain [1]?

[1] [http://www.instructables.com/id/Mind-Controlled-Robotic- Arm/](http://www.instructables.com/id/Mind-Controlled-Robotic-Arm/)

<comment><USER4> I'm sceptical the school kid project shown in your link actually works significantly. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory made a real one, I think by surgically moving 'spare' nerves to various points at the inside surface of the patients chest and then putting electrodes on the exterior surface.

There's an interesting video explaining a bit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NOncx2jU0Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NOncx2jU0Q)

from

[http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2014/141216.a...](http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pressreleases/2014/141216.asp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> While not based on much real science/technology, Ramez Naam wrote a cool sci- fi book (trilogy actually) on this topic called _Nexus_.

<comment><USER6> Another book that explores this (pretty in-depth) is The Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman. It won a couple of awards for sci-fi writing, and I found it enjoyable.

In it there are remote-controlled humanoid killing machines that are piloted by soilders from a bunker through an electronic hole in their head. They can communicate sub-lingually, hear eachother's thoughs, and feel eachothers feelings to such an extent that the men in the platoon (it's 5 men, 5 women) start getting PMS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a different type of brain-to-brain interface: I remember reading something about neurofeedback(eeg biofeedback) , when they trained to users to increase a certain brainwave pattern(their alpha wave) in some synchronized fashion and that created a strong feeling of contentedness between them .

I'm not sure this is true though, because the field of neurofeedback has plenty of bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps it could reduce the latency of speech.

<comment><USER9> If we're going to compare human conversation to network performance, I think the limiting factor with speech is throughput, not latency. If I have a complex idea I can start explaining it pretty quickly, and whoever I'm talking to will understand the individual words I use easily enough, but it still might take a while to communicate the whole idea.</comment></comment>


Archery company sues LARPer over patents, then files gag motion to silence him - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/archery-company-sues-larper-over-patents-then-files-gag-motion-to-silence-him/ <comment><USER2> _" The earlier of Global's two patents on arrows, numbered 8,449,413 and 8,932,159, has a filing date of 2011—well after German arrow-maker iDV, Gwyther's supplier, started manufacturing its product."_

</comment><comment><USER3> He's selling items on his site that the Archery company contends they hold the patent for. This doesn't _seem_ to be a spurious claim.</comment>


Bushi.do is now Cloudfuji.com, launches Kandan - beautiful open source chat - <AUTHOR> http://cloudfuji.com/blog/2012/05/07/launching_cloudfuji.html <comment><USER2> Please don't require credit card information when you advertise a link on that page as "Launch and use Kandan now". And especially not when that credit card information is required as the second step in an initially single-step seeming sign-up process -- and also, please don't hide all of this behind a big "Launch" button.

<comment><USER3> If it's an open source app... where can I download the source to run it on my own server? Don't tell me it's open source, then ask me for a credit card number.

<comment><USER4> <https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan>

<http://kandan.me/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The beautiful part of Kandan is courtesy of the design by Sacha Greif. He wrote an ebook about how he went about designing it, and it was discussed here: <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3731135>

The amazing implementation is from a lot of hard work on Kevin Zettler's (my cofounder) part, who's amazing at polishing apps.

Let us know your thoughts, and switch to using Kandan on Cloudfuji today :)

<comment><USER5> Purely impersonal criticism, but I'm getting 'beautiful' fatigue from Show HN submissions.

'Beautiful' and 'amazing' in the same paragraph once sounded impressive, but now it's kind of tiresome.

Like I said, this is nothing against you, it's more a general trend that I'm tired of seeing. Not everything on the web needs to be 'beautiful'.

<comment><USER6> Agree. It's especially obnoxious if it comes from the author himself. It's the equivalent of having a tagline saying "I'm a smart developer who works hard" - it might be true but it's not your call, it's just a counter-signal.

On second thought, I guess my criticism is more personal than yours, but I really think it's a kind of pollution that has no place in a somewhat clean community such as HN.

EDIT: I do like the look of it, but I think everyone would be better of if you (you as in Cloudfuji, not the specific designer in question) used a neutral language. If someone goes on to say in the comments "That's beautiful." it's worth so much more for everyone involved.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't design Kandan, but I do think it's beautiful. And as I said, that's because of Sacha Greif's amazing work.

Design in open source is - in general - sorely lacking. We want to correct that, and help herald in a new era of apps that are not only powerful, but easy to use and a joy to look at.

<comment><USER7> Thanks! I personally reserve words like "beautiful" for things like sunsets or mountains, but in any case I'm glad you find the design aesthetically pleasing :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think Chat is one of those core services, like Email that has standardized around one common standard. People use a wide variety of clients, and very different uses from basic to power user needs. The reason most chat services fail is that even if they have fantastic mobile and web clients, they cannot provide the sheer range of clients needed for the entire range of use cases.

At Chartboost, we've tried pretty much every protocol there is, but we still stick to IRC. It's the only protocol that has clients that suit all of us, from hardcore `irssi` to newbie Adium integration. There's also bouncers and solid local histories and it's easy to hop onto tech channels for some help and it's widely supported with chatbots and libraries for building your own chatbot. (eg. Ruby-IRC)

<comment><USER6> I agree that IRC is still the chat protocol to use. Though in choosing a chat solutions there are some questions that often arise:

1) persistency (BNCs are still a techie solution, servers)

2) good web interface and

3) file support (other than DCC, unless a bot is present)

Here is where for example Campfire managed to take quite a big chunk out of the startup chat market.

Are there any clients that integrates well with IRC with those 3 qualities? (file support could be solved by a custom file repo with imgur-like links, or a DCC bot for those on irssi)

<comment><USER9> Quassel solves (1) in a user friendly way. It does not address your other points, though (there's a Linux, Windows, Mac desktop version and an Android app, but not a web interface AFAIK).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The source code is a treasure trove for those looking for an example of a larger Backbone.js application with a Rails backend and Faye for push notifications to the browser.

Backbone code - [https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/tree/master/app/assets/j...](https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/tree/master/app/assets/javascripts/backbone)

Faye (on the Backbone side) - [https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/assets/j...](https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/assets/javascripts/backbone/broadcasters/faye.js.coffee)

Faye (on the Ruby side) - [https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/models/a...](https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/blob/master/app/models/activity_observer.rb)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - Akash Manhor (<https://twitter.com/hashnuke>) made both of those decisions early on in Kandan's life. There have been challenges around both, but overall it's worked out very well - in fact, the faye interface opens up some really interesting possibilities. We'll have some examples of this soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We will be talking about Kandan and other exciting open source projects at our meetup

[http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-New-Wave-Open-Source- App...](http://www.meetup.com/San-Francisco-New-Wave-Open-Source-Apps/)

I'd like to thank our friends at singly.com for generously offering to host. Come join us for a drink and meet some friends.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is great, I admit the design is pleasing, but I gotta ask the obvious question here which is... what is wrong with Campfire or HipChat or the multitude other group chat apps that have sprung up in recent years? (not counting that Kandan is opensource, which is pretty cool)

<comment><AUTHOR> The fact that it's open source is very important to us, and that (along with it having a wonderful design) will serve as the kernel that'll move Kandan in an amazing direction. With things like WebRTC and javascript audio/video decoders and the open source design, I think we'll see Kandan turn into a really amazing tool.

I wanted some of these features in Campfire for years, but I couldn't just fork Campfire and give the features back. Now I , and others, can.

Most people don't want to run their own services, but they want to _be able to_ fix bugs and add features when they feel like it. Cloudfuji's model lets everyone do that, and app authors to make sustainable revenue.

And thanks for bringing that up, it's an important question!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just a note: the name comes from the Japanese word 「歓談」(also pronounced "kandan"), meaning "chat."

<comment><USER14> it carries a thoroughly positive connotation with it, though, as suggested by the 「歓」。

<comment><USER13> Yes, it can also be translated as "pleasant talk."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would love to see Etherpad integrated into this or the other way around! Awesome :)

<comment><AUTHOR> An etherpad running on on Cloudfuji, or integrated into Kandan?

We're dying for a Sharejs-based etherpad app on Cloudfuji, but all things in due time :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> From the source of the app (<https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan>), it seems that it doesn't check for authorization -for now-, so be aware that anyone can signup to your own private instance if they know your url and do nasty things like deleting channels.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point - we wanted to keep it as open as possible, and as easy to get started as possible. Hence the (literally) copy/paste instructions to get running on somewhere like Heroku, with no need to provision other services.

But obscurity isn't security. We'd love to hear what people think about how this should be handled - <https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Quite nice.

But you should seriously improve your registration field, I could register with an one character long password.

<comment><USER17> even an empty password is possible!

<comment><AUTHOR> Talk about a nice user experience! :)

In all seriousness, fixed. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This app does have a really great design, especially when a lot of open source apps are lacking in this department. I'm really impressed with Sacha's work, and have really enjoyed his "Step by Step UI Design" ebook, which details his design process for Kandan.

Look forward to contributing sometime!

</comment><comment><USER19> What's going on with the design of <http://cloudfuji.com/apps/new?app=kandan> ?

Left aligned slideshow of different sized compressed images and no text. You took the time to make the client look pretty, 10 more minutes won't hurt.

</comment><comment><USER20> Really dig the design on Kandan but I wish it could be used as a front for XMPP/Jabber also.

<comment><AUTHOR> I personally would love to see it be a self-contained irc/xmpp/jabber/faye server, but all in good time. We want to make open-source beautiful, easy to access, and easily extensible. So we're releasing what we have now, with plenty of momentum towards things like providing an XMPP backend!

<comment><USER21> I am happy to see IRC here. Way underused communication method! Certainly are things that can be improved with the protocol and services, but few people understand how useful it can be for business aswell as personal chat-needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Congratulations Sean! This looks great, and I'm looking forward to trying it out.

</comment><comment><USER23> I tried to change url of my application, but it doesnt seem to be working. There is just no button to submit the form with application settings, I tried to sumbit it in other way, but it made no visible effect

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll take a look at it right away - can you give me the app name, or just email me at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'll get it sorted.

<comment><USER23> <http://concise-winner-5927.cloudfujiapp.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Use promo-code hn-preview on <http://cloudfuji.com/promo> for a 50% discount on the team package - 3 apps and 6 teammates.

But make sure to give us your awesome feedback :)

</comment><comment><USER24> Congratulations Sean and team. Sacha, nice work on the design!

<comment><USER7> Thanks, glad you like it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is drag&drop the only way to upload things? Would be nice to have a <input type="file"> because I have no place to drag stuff from.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently yes. I've added a ticket <https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan/issues/20> to see how we'll fix that up.

Is there a reason you don't have a place to drag from?

<comment><USER26> ChromeOS, possibly?

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah very interesting possibility. I have no idea how Chrome OS works, or if it's something we should worry much about right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So you have to "install" this app to chat? How is this better than IRC? Personally, I think grove.io has much more features.

</comment><comment><USER28> looks great, can't wait to try it

small nitpik: the github link links to creating the app on cloudfuji

<comment><USER29> The github link is broken for me as well. Here is the direct link to the github project for anyone else looking for it <https://github.com/cloudfuji/kandan>

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Love it, however I wish it wasn't AGPL as I really can't use that in my startup.</comment>


MXFusion: A Modular Deep Probabilistic Programming Library - <AUTHOR> https://openreview.net/pdf?id=SyevOObYcm <comment><AUTHOR> Code and tutorials:

[https://github.com/amzn/MXFusion](https://github.com/amzn/MXFusion)</comment>