Trader Made Billions on Subprime - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120036645057290423.html?mod=blog

<comment><USER2> The article about his estranged friend Jeff Greene (who heard his pitch and made the same trades on his own) is good for color:

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120036270913390155.html?mod=...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120036270913390155.html?mod=hps_us_pageone)

"He bought three jets, most recently a Gulfstream. Though he paid just $2 million for an older model, "I certainly could afford" a $50 million one, he says. He adds, in a telephone interview from his 145-foot yacht: "I tend to be pretty conservative in the way I spend money.""

</comment><comment><USER3> _"Also key: Mr. Paulson didn't turn bearish too early. Some close students of the housing market did just that, investing for a downturn years ago -- only to suffer such painful losses waiting for a collapse that they finally unwound their bearish bets. Mr. Paulson, whose investment specialty lay elsewhere, turned his attention to the housing market more recently, and got bearish at just about the right time."_

Interesting that this article was posted by "blackswan" -- this could be a case study in _Fooled by Randomness_.

Six months earlier or later, and this guy might well have busted; I don't think we would be reading about him.

<comment><USER4> That's a good point. He broke one of the cardinal rules of trading:

 _Housing remained strong, and the fund lost money. A concerned friend called, asking Mr. Paulson if he was going to cut his losses. No, "I'm adding" to the bet, he responded..._

By comparison, as Ed Seykota put it in the book Market Wizards, "The elements of good trading are cutting losses, cutting losses, and cutting losses."

<comment><USER5> Cutting a loss is _synonymous_ with "selling low".

<comment><USER4> I must not have understood you... let me try again. You object to Seykota on the grounds that cutting a loss entails _taking_ a loss. That's objectionable because losses are objectionable. Did I get it?

Of course, a big loss is more objectionable than a small one.

<comment><USER6> Sure. But you can never know before which way the prices go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"He faced skepticism from other big investors. At the same time, fearing imitators, he used software that blocked fund investors from forwarding his emails."_

I'm curious as to what software can prevent people from forwarding your emails...

<comment><USER8> It may be a misunderstanding from reporter. But can it be pgp? If he encrypted his emails and only receiver with the key can decrypt it. It basically prevent forwarded messages to be read.

<comment><USER9> Save for the copy and paste hack

<comment><USER6> Luckily for him, not all guys in finance are such uber-hackers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is easy to look at this guy as the bad guy, but really he just observed that the housing markets were in a massive bubble and bet against it.

<comment><USER2> It is quite hard to imagine how he's a 'bad guy'. Housing was _too expensive_. If you bought a house because of the hype, you _overpaid_. He sold short, which depressed prices, which means that people who bought after his trade are better off than if he hadn't made it.

<comment><USER6> I agree with the point you are proving. But I do not think your argument valid - for you could just use your technique to prove the opposite: People who _sold_ after his trade were worse off.

I think we need a more complex line of reasoning to justify him being the good guy.

<comment><USER2> But people who sold after his trades made a stupid decision -- to buy overpriced mortgages. We'll live in a better world when rational financial decisions are more rewarding, and that won't happen without making folks like Paulson pretty rich. The thing is, you could make the case that a mortgage boom that went on another year would cost the country 1% of GDP in badly- allocated capital (spent on houses nobody wanted to live in and everyone bought to flip). From that perspective, he's earning a commission of less than 1%.

<comment><USER6> Ok, that sounds like a more convincing argument than the original one.

Speculators are risking their own money re-aligning badly-allocated capital in the economy and correct prices. If they are right they earn a nice commission.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> He better not believe he can do it again, like this guy did: [http://hedgefund.blogspot.com/2006/09/amaranth-and-brian- hun...](http://hedgefund.blogspot.com/2006/09/amaranth-and-brian-hunter.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Did any one notice that he hired Greenspan? The guy who fueled the housing bubble by lowering interest rates down to 1% the foolishness that made it possible for Paulson to make his billions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Lots of people short, lots of people long. Nothing special about it. I made a pile of money on Countrywide a few days ago. Am I a genius?

The only distinction of a fund manager is that they slimed their way into using other people's money.

</comment><comment><USER13> All the hard-earned money people pay on mortgage interest rates ultimately goes to people like him.

<comment><USER14> Really? What path does the money take from them to him?

<comment><USER15> Arguably the bets this guy made resulted in the banks' losses on each of their sub-prime mortgage loans being greater; ultimately this will raise the cost of mortgage borrowing as banks price risk higher.

On the other hand, this guy probably helped to make the bubble burst sooner -- and thus before the banks could make even more sub-prime mortgage loans -- and that would have the effect of reducing the banks' ultimate losses (and resulting in them applying less of a risk premium to mortgages).

Trying to figure out which of these effects is larger would be pure speculation.

<comment><USER16> No, shorting mortgage-backed securities doesn't cause losses for mortage lenders. And it was not just banks that were issuing mortgages.

<comment><USER15> According to the article,

 _One concern was that even if Mr. Paulson bet right, he would find it hard to cash out his bets because many were in markets with limited trading. This hasn't been a problem, however, thanks to the wrong bet of some big banks and Wall Street firms. To hedge their holdings of mortgage securities, they've scrambled to buy debt protection, which sometimes means buying what Mr. Paulson already held._

In other words, Paulson was buying mortgage insurance contracts, driving their prices up, and now banks are buying those contracts from him (at higher prices than they would have if he hadn't been involved in the market).

<comment><USER17> He didn't drive the prices up (at least not by much). The fact that more and more people started defaulting on their mortgage drove up the price of insurance. That's what he was betting on (and he was right). So if he didn't make the money someone else would have (whoever was holding on to those insurance contracts).

<comment><USER15> You can't buy a financial instrument without driving its price up. This applies even more if you're buying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of a financial instrument.

<comment><USER18> True in general, but when he bought them, they were priced very low. Even after he bought millions (presumably) of the swaps, other investors thought he was an idiot and didn't follow suit, so the price of the swaps probably didn't go up much. It was only after the sub-prime fiasco got into third gear that other investors began clamouring for the swaps.

By all rights, his initial foray into buying the swaps most likely had minimal effect on the price. Ultimately he felt they were incorrectly priced by the market and made a bet on them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's the etiquette for greetings on video calls? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ifost.org.au/2020/05/whats-etiquette-for-greetings-on.html <comment><USER2> "Ahoy-hoy"</comment>


Programming in Standard ML (2011) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/smlbook/book.pdf <comment><USER2> If you are interested in Standard ML, take a look at [http://mlton.org/](http://mlton.org/)

Mlton is one of the few whole-program optimizing compilers. One time I wrote a DSL in Standard ML to analyze 100GB+ of memory-mapped data.

Thanks to Mlton, the result was very performant. Thanks to SML, I felt very productive and the result was pretty much bug-free. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER3> I picked up a used copy of Jeff Ullman's _Elements of ML Programming_ a couple of months ago for less than five bucks. It strikes me as compact and readable in the K&R style, in that it doesn't get bogged down in the tedium of regurgitated technical details or over emphasis on syntax.

It probably helps that ML [Ullman uses SML/NJ] isn't much on ceremony to begin with. Yet somehow, I never feel like it needs more curly braces and semicolons.

<comment><USER4> _Elements of ML Programming_ stands out as one of my favorite programming books. It's the best introduction to the ML style of languages (OCaml, Haskell, SML, F#) that I've seen.

<comment><USER5> How does it compare to _ML for the Working Programmer_?

<comment><USER6> It's a muddled mess in comparison and I would not advise it to anyone over Ullman's _Elements of ML Programming_ or Harper's _Programming in Standard ML_. It's actually bad enough that it bothers me there's not more Standard ML books out there so people would stop mentioning it.

I'd consider Ullman's ML book to be up there with K&R C and Wirth's books in conciseness and clarity. I suggest it to beginners specifically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I took a liking to SML when working on a subversion-resistant development process and software configuration management system. The security requirements for tools was that verification of safe/secure usage is easy for humans and the executable matches the source. SML, with restricted coding style, is quite easy for humans to verify (vs C++) because of its syntax and high-level style. For source-to-binary verification, I found that the FLINT [1] team had a certifying compiler for SML along with verification of all sorts of stuff. The probability of it being backdoored was extremely slim and source was available. So, there you have it: SML & FLINT as solution to bootstrapping a subversion-resistant toolchain for use by mutually suspicious parties.

[1] [http://flint.cs.yale.edu/flint/software.html](http://flint.cs.yale.edu/flint/software.html)

EDIT: Btw, thanks for the book!

</comment><comment><USER8> I just started looking at Standard ML so I could understand the examples in Purely Functional Data Structures. There's something very pleasing in the simplicity of its syntax.

Anybody have experience in applying it to larger problems?

<comment><USER9> That is a fantastic book, also 'ML for the working programmer' is really good [1]. I always wanted to use SML in anger, but the lack of third party libraries is a major hindrance. Today I think one is better served using OCaml, F#, or Clojure (this is not intended to be an exhaustive list) if a highly productive functional language is desired.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/ML-Working-Programmer-2nd- Edition/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/ML-Working-Programmer-2nd- Edition/dp/052156543X)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember 15-212 at CMU. That was a killer course...

</comment><comment><USER11> A bit of context would be nice. Is this the go-to book to learn SML, or just a random source?

SML has been on the higher ranks of my to-learn stack, because apparently it has some nice features Haskell does not, most notably I've heard great things about the module system.

<comment><USER12> I am working through this coursea course via YouTube and I also found some github repos that have the course's homework material. [https://www.coursera.org/course/proglang](https://www.coursera.org/course/proglang)

The first language is ML and than moves to Racket. Really learned a ton just doing the first weeks. It is more of a CS 202 Programming Languages course which was perfect for me since I really wanted to learn more about functional programming.

<comment><USER3> I took the second live offering of Dan Grossman's class on Coursera in fall 2013. There was another in the last year, so if the pattern holds, there would be another in the next few months or so.

[https://www.coursera.org/course/proglang](https://www.coursera.org/course/proglang)

<comment><USER12> I sure hope so I really liked his style. At first I was like oh no another syntax is 75% of material, but it ended up being described and explained clearly.

<comment><USER3> The best part of the course for me was that it gave me an excuse to learn Emacs and a framework in which to do it. Painful no doubt, but now I have become spoiled.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> interested in sml ppl can find stuff here, i think these are the new cmu courses noob - 15-150 intermediate - 15-210 advanced - 15-411 might have to email somebody at cmu to get the lecture notes dump</comment>


Bootstrapped Startups Risk a Lack of Connections - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/bootstrapped-startups-risk-lack-of-connections-1423096620

<comment><USER2> _"The startup world puts a lot of value on raising money," she said. "People believe that if you're not raising capital, you're not growing."_

Raising capital is a measure of a _desire_ to grow, not a measure of growth. And if there's one thing that'll stop your business growing, it's the distraction of raising.

</comment><comment><USER3> Such an important article.</comment>


Lobste.rs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters <comment><USER2> I like the code that plays a little lottery to assign a user a rare lobster color as the theme of the site: [https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/blob/6553de202e36757047...](https://github.com/lobsters/lobsters/blob/6553de202e36757047e776f8b47cd8e69e1dedf7/app/controllers/application_controller.rb#L87-L108)

</comment><comment><USER3> Kind of an interesting story:

I spent three years writing code for a bank and Lobsters is a tech site that I visit occasionally.

The corporate firewall as well as the Bluecoat proxy banned it (Bluecoat also banned basically everything while I wasn't on VPN).

When I inquired about this ban, an incredibly bureaucratic person responded that they had reports that ".rs domains perpetrated lots attacks" on the company's security systems so therefore they were unwilling to whitelist the site.

<comment><USER4> This reads like a grievance. I can't tell.

Would you prefer a different TLD or do you think your work should be more flexible?

<comment><USER5> We have blue coat as well. It's a tool for tyrants.

Every blog is blocked on ours and the reasons listed is "anyone can publish and content." Yeah welcome to the Internet.

<comment><USER6> lobste.rs sysadmin here. Would you be willing to email me a screenshot or the error message you get accessing lobste.rs and having it blocked by Blue Coat?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For folks that are curious, lurk on the site a bit and swing through the #lobsters IRC channel.

Be prepared to demonstrate some kind of technical competence (online code, writing, whatever), and please don't join to shill your products, projects, or spam news articles, content marketing, or political stuff.

</comment><comment><USER8> Love lobsters. :) I run and manage a tool similar to Lobsters (not open source).

[https://www.hellobox.co](https://www.hellobox.co)

Originally started as "Build your own HN-clone".

<comment><USER9> Just thought I would let you know your site is broken. It can't load Vue Analytics.

<comment><USER8> Arrggg! Sorry about that. It's up now. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Arrrgh. They have a link to this thread, so now I'm in an infinite recursive loop..

<comment><USER11> More like a deadlock than recursion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What I like about forums like Lobster.rs and HN is they are easier to understand and replicate without too much front-end over-complication.

I'm one of those people that would rather start from a simpler base and iterate on it than start with a ton of components and get confused trying to figure out how they all fit together.

</comment><comment><USER13> There might be people wondering what differentiates Lobsters from Hacker News. We are a diverse crowd with different preferences. We also did a mass invite not long ago that changed things up a bit. That said, I think friendlysock's post on What Lobsters Is and Isn't was the best summary of what the site is really about. Since it was in a debate, I've snipped the parts that matter here into a Pastebin for yall:

[https://pastebin.com/mLfFRUG4](https://pastebin.com/mLfFRUG4)

The last part disses on HN and Reddit. Some of the Lobsters don't like HN. It was actually started after a dispute between its founder Joshua Stein and Paul Graham over moderation. It's not really anti-HN, though, given many of us are active on both sites. There's also a new admin, Peter "pushcx" Harkins, who runs the bootstrapping site Barnacl.es. We have lots of new members and new admin. We're doing new things. I think I speak for Lobsters that are neutral to or like HN (hell, I love it!) in saying they're just _different_ styles of link aggregators and communities. We even cross-post stories and comments on occasion, esp if same article. I love looking at Hacker News and Lobsters comments for same article. I'll sometimes find something golden on one that's not on other and vice versa. And as a differentiator, you'll find the Lobsters comments to be hands-on building stuff more often. And we do lots of CompSci papers or deep dives with many of mine on potentially-useful stuff in formal methods since they get little attention. Some submitters there also do those kinds of things for a living.

I should say something on moderation. Since I have showdead on, I know HN moderation does a good job mostly. Almost all of them are trollish or garbage comments. I've also seen comments disappear in political arguments that weren't mean or anything but unpopular to... majority, vocal minority, or what? I don't know since I lack the data. People on the other side were sometimes more vicious or low-info with their posts without removal by moderators. So, I'm personally convinced there's a filter bubble reflecting the bias of the community, more active downvoters, the moderators, or some combination. That might have started in community's votes with mods going with them to keep them happy, making their own decision... I don't know. It's a black box that predictably favors some stuff, penalizes others, sometimes adapts to new patterns on those, and is sometimes random.

Although political scuffles happen periodically, I rarely ask these questions on Lobsters since we don't censor political or technical disagreement _if it 's civil_. I have good understanding of about everyone's position. The moderators will sometimes ask people to back out of an argument that became a cesspool or just cool off. They do that here, too, with warnings and temporary rate limits. On Lobsters, we go further to support transparent moderation with a moderation log that tracks what happened. The votes on stories and comments were also visible to everyone. Downvotes require an explanation which shows up in divisive situations: +4 up -3 disagree -1 troll -1 spam is an example. All that gives a more accurate picture of what's going on. They did make votes invisible on comments for a few days to hypothetically reduce their influence on arguments. I don't know if it's effective. Only a few unrelenting trolls and spam rings have been banned that I can recall. It's also an invite-only system which helped early on. I think that has less effect these days since many people are happy to offer invites. Probably reduces spam and moderator workload, though. Having showdead on is why I know that's _work_ for mods on a popular, open-to-join site like HN. The community, too, for those flagging the stuff.

So, there it is. It's a site with a strong focus on deep content, building more often than usual, low noise, and transparent moderation. It is mostly programming related vs the huge variety of topics on HN. Front page changes more slowly with less comments per article than HN. Sometimes none even on a story they like (surprises new submitters). You will see people on there drop deep or just useful comments you won't see somewhere else since they only do them there. They have high ratio of CompSci or deep dives since it's a focus area. These are all the things people on HN may like or dislike about Lobsters depending on their preferences. Just watch it for a few weeks to decide for yourself if you want to add it to your list of sites to enjoy. Again, it's not either/or: I love the good things in both sites and communities. :)

Note: I'm not currently doing invites. You don't need them to read the site. Many members have contact info in profile, too. If you want to post or comment, get on #lobsters in Freenode and ask for an invite.

EDIT: I didn't realize Peter had an account here. He's the "Harkins" in this thread. He's "pushcx" on Lobsters.

<comment><USER14> > We also did a mass invite not long ago that changed things up a bit.

How did that work? I do wonder what the geographical distribution is of Lobsters since it grew through invites.

<comment><USER13> It's hard to tell. It was chaos at first but stabilized a bit. We have Americans in many areas, Canadians, a bunch in Europe, at least one in Peurto Rico, Asians... fairly diverse. The programmers include people doing web tech like what's posted here, people doing simplified or hardcore stuff in C, people in CompSci working on theory, some in companies sharing technical aspects of their work, some cultural, and occasionally just whatever's going around in tech news.

The strange thing for me was people rarely commented. Some didn't even vote on articles they liked but emailed me. Aside from stories inviting frivilous debates, the comments were often useful in some way. The mass invite increased low-content comments but it's usually new people learning the norms of the community. Noise drops again sometime after that. I try to message them describing the site a bit to smooth that process over a bit.

It's been pretty fascinating to observe those patterns. It was a strange site with a slow, but steady, stream of interesting submissions, comments, and people but hardly any comments. I just kept sharing and learning more overtime. It became part of my daily routine like Hacker News.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been watching lobste.rs for a couple of years and the content is generally excellent.

I've never gotten around to getting an account though, just following the links is usually enlightening.

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://lobste.rs](https://lobste.rs)

Lobsters is a nice community to follow. It has interesting content for software engineers open to learning new things.

</comment><comment><USER17> anyone want to give me an invite :)

<comment><USER18> Yeah I can invite you. You can reach me here under the same nick: [http://dailyprog.org/chat/](http://dailyprog.org/chat/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As the site has grown it seems like the barrier to get an account has grown too. I've never been able to comb through the list of users and find someone who I knew. I should do a search for "hack lobste.rs" and see if there is a better way.

<comment><USER20> Drop by irc and don't be a huge jerk immediately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been thinking how to make an HN killer for several years. (I'm not sure why — I love this place — but I also love a good challenge.)

The key might be to out-compete HN in Show HNs. It's difficult to get your own projects onto the front page, and once there, most people tend to focus on business aspects rather than raw hacker / tinkerer aspects.

If you mix in some intellectually gratifying stories to fill the downtime, then you'd end up catching the interest of makers. And that seems like a recipe for a competitor.

<comment><USER22> _> The key might be to out compete HN in Show HNs._

That would basically become ProductHunt. And if you emphasize Ask HN, you end up with early Quora.

The real killer, imho, would be to give automatic prominence to actual experts and "players" in their fields. The best side of HN for me is (or was) watching the interaction of "nerd-celebs" and makers, but they are now discouraged by the volume of noise (which includes yours truly). Moderation can only do so much.

<comment><USER23> To be honest, Twitter has been pretty eye opening about the value of "expert opinions" on a lot of stuff. It has become the perfect platform for self-owns (granted, the format doesn't help)

I've found that HN tends to upvote "good" comments, so most threads end up bringing the important stuff on top. Usually the insightful stuff comes from experts, since being an expert helps! And people like patio11 end up consistently on the top of comment threads because it's Good Content(TM). But sometimes someone relatively unknown will simply be making a good point. That's what I'm here for, the good information. And at least in our industry, either the experts are on here, or they're not but their followers will post a link to their blog/G+ and the information shows up on here anyways.

If we had Twitter-style "voice proportional to follower count/retweet potential" stuff, then a lot of things would fall through the cracks. Sometime's I'm curious about what person X thinks about a thing, but I've found it's a feeling too similar to wanting to hear gossip/validation of my own thoughts, rather than the Quest For Knowledge.

<comment><USER24> That's an interesting (and valid, imo) point. My guess is that on Twitter the prominent experts are less interesting because:

1\. They're already speaking from a position of superiority in a certain sense, whereas on HN you're just in a conversation with everybody. You might be pretty important, but then maybe Alan Kay will jump in or something.

2\. There isn't the same kind of prompting on Twitter that we get from the stories here which commenters are replying to. Instead, it's just the expert talking about whatever they want: maybe interesting to them, but not so much to everybody else.

3\. The Twitter format doesn't encourage the same depth of discussion as HN, stemming from the initial character limit, but perhaps now just a vestigial consequence.

It could be interesting to have a site somewhere between HN and Twitter though—something that filters out more newbs/trolls, but doesn't exclude capable unknowns. Maybe you need an invite from someone involved in order to join, or maybe there are some questions you'd be required to answer which might establish you're on the right side of some threshold of intelligence, creativity, decentness, ability to communicate, etc.

Then again, I also agree HN is doing a pretty good job of ensuring good comments become visible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For a moment I thought it is something to do with Jordan Peterson

<comment><USER26> That has become a common misconception. See [https://lobste.rs/about#michaelbolton](https://lobste.rs/about#michaelbolton)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Lobste.rs is basically Hacker News without intransparent moderating based on whims, liberofascist social justice warriors, stalinists and feminazis. I like browsing it, but it doesn't have as much activity as Hacker News.

<comment><USER28> You are very, very confused. Some datapoints on HN:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitHNSays/top/?sort=top&t=month](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitHNSays/top/?sort=top&t=month)</comment></comment>


Copper enables the ARM server ecosystem - <AUTHOR> http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/project-copper <comment><USER2> I think x86/amd64 virtualization has made ARM a much less compelling option for servers than what it would have been a few years ago.

I'm looking forward to benchmarks of new ARM server CPU (esp. AMDs), but in the past comparing scale out ARM boxes and tradtional servers in the same space has:

      1. Been much more more in favor x86/amd64 under low load (much lower latency for users)
      2. Been pretty similar under very high concurrent loads
      3. Not had compelling differentiation in power consumption

In short 48 1.6 GHz ARM cores doesn't farewell against even a lower end x86/amd64 server with dual quad core CPUs with SMT (hyperthreading), that is 32 logical cores at 3.0 GHz. And the x86/amd64 is much cheaper.

In reality I could fill a rack with these arm blades or have two quad socket x86/amd64 servers be equivalent or better...

I hope this changes for the sake of consumer options, but I need to see benchmarks + power usage stats to believe it.

<comment><USER3> > _In reality I could fill a rack with these arm blades or have two quad > socket x86 /amd64 servers be equivalent or better_

Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive, but in the price per performance assessment you might be right (at least if you do not consider the expensive high-end x86 CPUs). The ARM blades look interesting for bare metal clouds though.

<comment><USER4> > _Quad socket x86 is still prohibitively expensive_

Is there an engineering reason for this, or is there just not enough volume for those boards to be economical?

<comment><USER3> I'd vouch for the 3rd possibility: the prices are artificially high because the customers who buy these configurations can afford to pay the premium.

<comment><USER5> This. Purchasers of the highest-end and/or costly experimental architectures tend to be research institutions or national labs that are using grant money.

<comment><USER6> In the case of quad-socket, it's actually enterprises running SQL databases and VMware consolidation where the cost of the software license exceeds the cost of the server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I suppose this is one of the things you can do when you take DELL private, no institutional shareholders to sue you because you 'threatened their value' with a radical product idea.

As a systems guy I love the concept, but I'm a bit sad at the implementation. I would have loved to see the back plane of these things connect to a 'switch module' and take the connectors off the front. Basically a 48 port GBE switch with quad 10GbE uplinks out the "end" of the case would have been much nicer. Installing a nice SDN stack in the switch hardware such that one could virtualize the switch topology on the fly and you've got a box that you can configure in lots of ways and still get some economies of scale in both the CPU and switch infrastructure. Install a 24 port 10GbE switch on the top of the rack, and you've to 6 "copper" (18U), 24 port switch (1U), for a rack with 288 hosts, 2.3T of RAM, 288T of storage, and assuming a non-blocking 24 port switch 1. 883Mbits between any two hosts. Add a 1U boot/config management server into the rack and that is a heck of a gizmo.

<comment><USER8> This is is almost proof of concept technology. If it takes off I'm sure that DELL will invest a lot more R&D in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> They left out two most critical bits of info: power consumption and price. You can already get ridiculous amounts of x86 cores in a rack if you want, but those can get pricy to buy and to keep running.

<comment><USER10> This type of infrastructure is not insta win for many(most.. ?) of businesses. Even if the price will be low and the power consumption will make a difference, still there will be HUGE cost of rewriting software.

Not all businesses need to write scalable software, because their current technology stack is just good enough and will always fit to one beefy machine, but on the other hand it will never fit on one ARM server module.

ps. hardware is cheap, while engineering work isn't

<comment><USER11> That really depends on what kind of software you're running. There's a wide range of portable C/C++ Unix stuff that compiles fine on ARM. If you run a distro like Debian or ubuntu, you can just install the armhf port and have all that stuff.

Where it gets tricky is if it's something written for an environment that itself has no ARM port yet, such as the JVM.

<comment><USER12> OpenJDK Hotspot has a relatively mature ARM port. Due to "embedded" licensing it's not been supported from Oracle, but you can use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Take a look at the HP Moonshot servers for comparison: [http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/...](http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/products/moonshot/index.aspx#.UpHyoqWO5G8)

These boxes have internal slots for 45 blades. The current generation blades are Atoms and run a variety of Linux OS offerings. Future blades will be geared towards memcache, GPU, and other types of clusters. I got a couple of these at work for eval a little while back, and it's a pretty interesting package.

<comment><USER14> Actually the closest comparison seems to be Viridis.

[http://www.boston.co.uk/solutions/viridis/default.aspx](http://www.boston.co.uk/solutions/viridis/default.aspx)

Both have 12 cards per shelf, each card containing four quad-core ARM processors. The Dell Copper cards are a bit beefier, at 1.6GHz and 8GB and 1.4GHz vs. 4GB for the BL Viridis, OTOH, the Viridis processors are 64-bit and the shelf is 2U instead of 3U, which might more than make up for the other differences.

At that density, the big differentiator is likely to be power (and therefore heat). Viridis claims 5W per server, which is even better than the SiCortex boxes I worked on. I don't see a number for Copper, so my gut tells me it's probably more. The question is _how much_ more.

<comment><USER15> I don't know where you're getting the 64-bit thing from, but beyond that, comparing clock speeds between a Marvell Armada XP and the EnergyCore in the Boston machine is essentially meaningless.

<comment><USER14> Yes, you're right, the EnergyCore isn't 64-bit, and of course there are other differences between the architectures. Perhaps you could actually provide some information on how those differences might affect the two systems' capabilities. Or are you just here to snipe at others?

<comment><USER15> My role here is to prevent people going away with misguided information presented as fact and propagating it elsewhere. Or maybe I should just keep my great big trap shut and sit here feeling smug instead.

There is too little information provided on the two examples to be more precise, otherwise I would have gone into it. All we know is the Boston machine is EnergyCore-based - now that could be a 1000 which is Cortex A9 based, or 2000 based which is A15 based - a 3 minute look didn't make it clear which one you were talking about and which servers are based on what. The Dell system just says it's using a Marvell Armada XP. No more information. The Armada XP is (I think) based on a modified A15 core, but of course they won't say this anywhere. I'm guessing this because the XP range claims "64bit memory" which I suppose is their way of saying it has a 64bit physical address space - a feature of the A15 range. Though of course Marvell have an ARM license that would allow them to do something crazy like add PAE to an A9 based core. But I think that's unlikely.

Enough research for you? I would say the only real way to gauge the performance difference between the two is to try your particular application on it.

<comment><USER14> In other words, you don't really know enough to say there's a difference. What we do know is that they're the same basic architecture and instruction set, at very similar process levels, so it's not at all unreasonable to estimate that the performance difference is proportional to the clock-rate difference. That clock-rate difference is probably dwarfed both by Viridis's 50% nodes-per-rack advantage and Copper's 2x memory-per-node advantage, so the quibble just wasn't worth it. Thanks for adding so much to the discussion.

<comment><USER15> No - I did not at all say they were very similar. The truth is we have very little to go on to know how much like a Marvell Armada XP is like an A15. In the past, Marvells have been known to be quite different from their stock counterparts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't think these are ARMv8 (64-bit). Applied Micro should be the first one to the ARM server market with such chips, and I think they will be available soon:

[http://www.apm.com/news/appliedmicro-announces-general- avail...](http://www.apm.com/news/appliedmicro-announces-general-availability- of-x-gene-system-development-ki/)

[http://www.apm.com/products/data-center/x-gene- family/x-gene...](http://www.apm.com/products/data-center/x-gene- family/x-gene/)

</comment><comment><USER17> This is similar offering to SuperMicro 's MicroCloud. Except with ARM instead of x86. As much as i love ARM and want them to succeed. I dont think there are any advantage of using ARM in Server apart from Cost. And Since ARM is still vastly under power for many Web Server Operation its time just isn't here. May be two - three years later when 64Bit ARM with EightCore Chip costing less then $50 dollars. But even so Intel's Atom would have a similar performance with similar price. According to some new test on the Soon to be available 8 Core Atom for Server it is surprisingly performance / watt.

To simply put, the server market has longed for a low power part for certain type of usage scenario. And Intel will soon has that covered.

<comment><USER18> I don't know about servers (only use/used Xeon x86) and i'm not sure it's different software or if it's Win vs Lin, but I have never touched anything saying Atom on the package being remotely useful for anything while I have a lot of very useful ARM devices. When people coming up to me saying 'I have a new laptop' and then it has an Atom sticker on the front, I know what's going to happen; they'll bring it back after a few days. So Atom in my servers make me cringe. Probably that's not justified?

I do know that in the datacenter we are colo'd, the vast majority of stuff hosted on the dedicated servers there could just as well be hosted on a $5 ARM board. A lot of companies hire complete servers for hosting a website which gets 2 visitors/month. This is also my experience as a long term devop (used to be fulltime, now parttime); servers I maintain, even clusters I maintain, can be hosted on a few $ ARM boards. They want dedicated because it gives them a sense of security and not being 'disturbed' by other sites so an ARM 'server' would suit well in that case. With the power consumption difference and bare metal costs, it's many $100s vs a few $10 per month for the client.

Edit: somewhere in my brain i thought I saw very cheap Atom servers and I did; [http://www.ovh.nl/dedicated_servers/isgenoeg_2g.xml](http://www.ovh.nl/dedicated_servers/isgenoeg_2g.xml) . Currently in the OVH sold out mode, but when they are back i'll try one to see how it holds up with one of those minimal sites.

<comment><USER17> Well for one I dont see any price advantage of ARM compared to Intel. ( In this area ) 8 Core Atoms are Cheap enough. The Atom you are referring to are First Gen Netbook Atoms. Which are indeed very bad without any serious software optimization. The Atom i am referring to is the newest Avoton C2750. Which will soon be available in the OVH new brand SYS range. Assuming every thing else stays the same, Memory, SSD/HDD, Network etc, the cost difference between a Atom Server and a ARM server are in the range of early double digit figure. And there isn't a $5 ARM broad. The ARM SoC provided by Marvell Amanda would have been double of that already. So the cost difference for a rented dedicated server between ARM and Intel Atom would be at most a few dollars difference per month. Not to mention Atom is still a lot of more powerful. Website usage have spikes, no one wants a server that could barely handle the load it is getting at today.

ARM has the advantage in Smartphone and Tablet where there are no software compatibility concern, and it is working at 100s mW range. In Servers these two advantage disappeared.

<comment><USER18> Yes, that makes sense. And first gen; the current ones for sale in shops are still the first gen? The laptops I see brand new in shops, and they are not netbooks, are unusable to me. Whatever you do beyond opening 1 single window breaks it completely (under Windows anyway). Maybe those are older, I don't know, but I think they are not first gen?

I hope that'll change as you say because I love the price ;)

<comment><USER17> As far as I know, (@everyone, Do correct me if i am wrong ) most of those are stocks left overs or 1st gen design with smaller node. Which basically means they still sucks. And without an SSD ( I/O bottleneck ) those laptop will suck even more. Since the PC industry has absolutely zero care on user experience they dont want to put a costly SSD into a Atom Notebook.

And Why would anyone want one when a Celeron or Pentium is only $20 bucks more expensive but perform a lot faster still?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe I'm not opened minded enough, but I just don't believe the future is ARM on the desktop/server. I believe the future is x86 on the phone. I feel like it's less time until Intel gets the power correct as opposed to ARM getting the speed.

<comment><USER20> Per Geekbench, an iPhone 5S / iPad Air is comparable to a MacBook Pro from 2009, and fully half as fast as some of the very latest laptops.

ARM is already extremely good for mobile applications. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but they certainly seem to be catching up faster than Intel has been able to cut down on power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm honestly not interested in all the reasons you won't use these servers.

I doubt Dell designed these speculatively. One or more Dell customers likely requested them.

Who are these customers, and what is their use case? That's what's likely interesting.

<comment><USER6> But that's equally damning. Dell, SeaMicro, Viridis, and Moonshot _combined_ have almost no microserver case studies after 1-2 years. At what point do we end the experiment?

<comment><USER22> Look here for some ideas on workloads: [http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fawnproj/](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~fawnproj/)

It will be interesting, I think around the 5 year mark, to see the industry case studies. Just because these projects were _announced_ does not mean they were in _heavy usage_ over the entire 1-2 year timeframe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Intel astroturfing contact is out in force today

</comment><comment><USER24> Are these really better per watt at serving content?

I'm all for x86/intel competition but I don't see this as real savings yet?

<comment><USER14> Looks like they'd be _a lot_ better per watt.

[http://armservers.com/2012/06/18/apache-benchmarks-for- calxe...](http://armservers.com/2012/06/18/apache-benchmarks-for- calxedas-5-watt-web-server/)

This is hardly surprising to me. I worked on similar low-power high-density systems at SiCortex for a couple of years. High clock rates and big caches do improve performance, but they increase power consumption even more, so for a parallelizable workload a larger number of "wimpier" processors can do more work per watt.

<comment><USER25> Those figures are pretty close to being lies. A quad-core 3.3GHz Xeon that's only serving 6950 requests per second isn't going to be at anywhere near 100% utilisation, which means there's no way it's running at anywhere near its TDP. Same for the RAM. The x86 isn't going to be anywhere near 5W, but it's going to be significantly lower than 102W. They're also ignoring the fixed disk and PSU overheads, shifting the power side of the ratio in favour of the Calxeda, and using a benchmark that's going to end up network limited is a solid way of reducing the performance advantage of the Xeon.

I don't doubt that ARM _does_ have a better power/performance ratio, but it's nowhere near 15x. Using such obviously misleading statistics leaves me suspecting it's way closer than that.

<comment><USER14> While what you say is true, it's also true that a lot of x86 servers sit idle _precisely because_ they're network-limited. Wasting power that way is no different than wasting power any other way. That effect far outweighs any quibbling about whether the x86 really uses its full TDP (it won't) or needs more support chips that more than make up for it (it will), or what kinds of memory are involved, etc.

Just so happens that I have both an x86 box and an ARM box in my office. Maybe on my next day off (that I'm not stuffing my face with turkey) I'll run some benchmarks myself.

<comment><USER25> Well sure, but you could replace those servers with a low-power x86 and get most of the same benefit that Calxeda are touting. Massively overprovisioning is going to waste power. An 8051 is probably going to give a better power/performance ratio than a quad-core ARM for an embedded controller, which tells me nothing about which I should choose to run my database.

<comment><USER14> Where is that low-power x86 and its fleet of low-power support chips to do what something like an Armada or EnergyCore can do on its own? They have yet to come up with one.

As for your 8051 example, it's bogus because that chip simply can't do the work. It can't run a real OS, and even if it could do that it couldn't keep even a single Ethernet or SATA port busy. Therefore you'd need a lot more nodes, each with their own network/storage/memory that don't come for free, rapidly wiping out any savings on the CPU alone before you even get to the high-node-count coordination problems that would make the whole thing fall flat on its face.

The whole issue here is not just absolute minimum power but _balance_. In a server environment, where the processor's job is about keeping ports full more than about pure number-crunching, you have to start with what kinds of ports you have. What processor and memory most exactly matches a commodity I/O profile, neither running over nor falling short, while consuming the fewest watts? Modern ARM chips are often a better answer to that question than anything Intel makes. It's a shame that some people who've invested many years in x86-specific expertise might find the market for those skills eroding as a result, but that's the harsh reality.

<comment><USER25> A quad-core Xeon is overkill for a static content webserver. An ARM is overkill for an embedded controller. If you specify inappropriate hardware then you'll end up with an inappropriate power/performance ratio.

As for low-power x86 - HP's Moonshot is in the ballpark of ARM blade devices, and Baytrail pushes Intel even closer. ARM probably still wins, but the figures are nothing like 15x. And once you take fixed costs like disk and RAM into account, the difference ends up being even smaller.

ARM have done a great job of improving the performance of their cores. Intel have done a great job of cutting the x86 power budget. Given that nobody's really shipping ARM servers yet, it's still not clear who's going to come up with the better product. The problem that ARM face is that they not only have to be better, they have to be sufficiently better that it's worth the cost of porting in-house applications to a new architecture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not being an expert on servers, I can see a possible use-case for low-power servers like this: strongly disk-bound tasks (e.g. infrequently accessible storage area).

Although, a cost analysis might be required- I suspect that a more powerful CPU with a lot more disks may end up costing less (per unit of disk space vs total power consumption).

</comment><comment><USER4> Are there any ARM servers currently available to Normal People?

I got excited when I first saw the headline because the last time I looked I didn't see anything available in the hobbyist/small business price range.

<comment><USER27> No. Also there is no 64 bit ARM hardware available to anyone (if you ignore the extremely locked-down iPhone 5S). I have used a bunch of ARM servers, but unfortunately I'm under NDA.

However there is interesting hackable ARM hardware around. I would recommend looking at the CubieTruck, Mele A1000G Quad (make sure it's the "Quad" variant), and possibly the ODROID-XU. I write about these and others on my blog ([https://rwmj.wordpress.com/](https://rwmj.wordpress.com/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I couldn't find anything on pricing and availability, but, despite my enthusiasm for Windows-proof servers, I am not sure if having a lot of discrete servers in a 3U enclosure is better than having a lot of containers running on, say, 3 1U servers. Containers (or even VMs) are much more manageable than 48 physically distinct machines (to say nothing of having 4 on each board, meaning an upgrade or defect on one means needles downtime for three others).

If we could turn it into a NUMA machine with 48 CPUs, that would be a totally different story.

<comment><USER29> _If we could turn it into a NUMA machine with 48 CPUs, that would be a totally different story._

This particular version seems to only support 1Gbit Ethernet, so I don't know how well that will work.

Still, we're talking about 192 cores with 384 Gbytes of RAM, that's got to be useful for some kind of workloads. Can you get that kind of density with Intel or AMD?

<comment><USER15> > Still, we're talking about 192 cores with 384 Gbytes of RAM

Seeing as you're going to be keeping 48 copies of the same OS in that memory whether you want to or not, you're going to need those 384G.

<comment><USER30> I just checked a random server: OS and all process images are using 119MB, *48 = 5.5GB. I think I'll do just fine with the remaining 378G.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Given ARM reigns the mobile space, and if it gains traction in the server market, it will put tremendous pressure on the PC market which lies in between.

<comment><USER32> It won't - it may evolve or change the PC market but it won't pressure it. People will need computing powerhouses and big monitors.

My predictions are that we will hit cloud disillusionment soon and people are going to rediscover the benefits of home storage and GPU power.

<comment><USER33> While there's a certain class of PCs that won't be much affected anytime soon (high-end gaming, workstations), ARM is already inching into the HTPC/home server space.

There are a bunch of i.MX6-based boards w/ GigE, SATA, and a surprisingly strong GPU/VPU that, being very lower power consumption, are very well suited for always-on use. They also work well enough media playback, web browsing, etc.

You can see both AMD (APUs) and Intel (NUCs) aiming into that same target, but they'll face stiff competition - the ARM systems are much cheaper, about $100 for fully functional boards.

<comment><USER32> But that is exactly what I was saying - I don't care about which instruction set delivers my performance if it delivers it. So it won't put pressure on PCs - it will put pressure on x86 vendors. But the overall home server (and even workstation) market could increase. There is nothing that prevents high end GPU card working with arm CPU.

<comment><USER33> Err, ok, I think it's a given that the number of computing devices in a given home will increase over time. The GP, however, (and most of the threads here) are discussing how evolving ARM will impact/encroach on the existing x86 market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "Hitting The Market" != "there is no general availability of the Dell "Copper" servers at this time."

</comment><comment><USER35> ARM was meant to provide low cost servers, however with the prices of cloud servers coming down I am not sure how successful will these be.

</comment><comment><USER36> I want to rent one of those as a cheap dedicated server. Get moving, hosters :)

</comment><comment><USER37> exciting days ahead, if each node costs 2digits. The cpu is 64or 32bits?

<comment><USER9> With 8GB of ram, I'd assume that they are 64bit.

<comment><USER38> If I'm not mistaking, ARMv7 supports PAE, which will allow you over 4 GB of memory. Perhaps not all in the same process, but still...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is there a JVM for these?

<comment><USER4> Apparently Oracle has an "early access" version of Java SE for ARM. I'm pretty sure that there are a few open source VMs floating around with ARM support, but I wouldn't count on any of them being full drop-in replacements for Oracle Java.

(Obviously there's a bunch of J2ME and other embedded implementations, but I assume that's not what you're looking for.)

<comment><USER39> Nope. We're going to build a small compute cluster for java 7 code. It's for a few dozen cores so nothing huge. I love these embarrassingly parallelizable problems so the idea of using cheap servers has some appeal to me. Though the individual job run time matters too so we need something somewhere in the middle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40>
      > What is ARM?
      > An advanced RISC machine (ARM) server employs small,
      > low-power ARM processors, typically deployed as
      > systems on a chip (SoC) to reduce space, power consumption
      > and cost.

This looks like a perfect example of the kind of violation a trademark owner is required to pursue to protect the trademark: Dell uses "ARM server" here to mean "a server that is RISC-based and advanced" rather than "a server [based on tech] of the brand ARM from ARM Ltd."

<comment><USER4> ARM stands for "Advanced RISC Machine". I believe the copy is correct, although I would have expected "advanced RISC machine" to be capitalized as "Advanced RISC Machine" as it refers to a proper name.

<comment><USER40> That is exactly what I meant. The abbreviation that is the company name used to stand for "Advanced RISC Machines", but "an advanced RISC machine" is clearly a generic description of something that could come from any manufacturer.

As Wikipedia says[1]:

"A trademark which is popularly used to describe a product or service (rather than to distinguish the product or services from those of third parties) is sometimes known as a genericized trademark[2]. If such a mark becomes synonymous with that product or service to the extent that the trademark owner can no longer enforce its proprietary rights, the mark becomes generic.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark) [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark)

The point is that "ARM" as it is used in the text doesn't refer specifically to the products of the trademark owner. If such usage becomes acceptable, anyone could sell "ARM servers" and the trademark becomes useless.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Not Kill a Cyclist - <AUTHOR> http://www.themorningnews.org/article/how-to-not-kill-a-cyclist <comment><USER3> I want to co-exist with bikers, I really do. I wish our cities on the east coast would be more bike friendly.

But bikers need to make up their minds. Who are they, vehicles or pedestrians? Each comes with it's own rights and obligations.

I see bikers all the time blow through red lights, stop signs, and pedestrian crosswalks. When I'm a driver I always need to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting them as such intersections when I have the right-of-way or a green light. And in dense cities a biker can cause a tremendous backup, with gridlock followng him as he makes his way through the city.

Likewise, when I'm a pedestrian, I constantly need to watch not for cars, but for high speed bikers blowing perpendicularly through pedestrian crosswalks when the pedestrians have the crossing light. Why do they get to blow through pedestrian crosswalks _and_ red lights and stop signs?

EDIT: And bikers who listen to their iPod and wear headphones while blowing through red lights - F __you!

<comment><USER4> I drive a Prius. I have been hit _by cyclists_ t-boning me 3 times because they follow the "listen, don't look" school of cycling.

(I have never hit one)

<comment><USER5> Oh my! A Prius driver complaining about other road users :-)

I have a problem with Prius drivers, they always seem more interested in improving their gas mileage personal best than driving a reasonable speed on the freeway.

<comment><USER4> Not me, I drive it like any other car. I turn off the crash screen while driving.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A regional note for San Francisco: the bikers here aren't helping things. We seem to have a disproportionate number of asshole bikers who seem to think they are entitled to fly through stop-signs as 10/15 mph. As a person who both bikes and drives a lot in the city I see both sides of this coin. I understand that coming to a full stop is an expensive operation for cyclists... but approaching a 4 way stop with cars already at the intersection and then suddenly deciding that you're a magical cyclist that doesn't need to obey traffic laws is both dangerous and pisses of motorists which only increase tension for all people involved.

<comment><USER7> I believe this is universal -- it also happens in Vancouver, BC.

Cyclists complain about motorists, motorists complain about cyclists. A certain percentage of each group are jerks who don't play nicely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Bicycle riders on public roads have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists, and are subject to the same rules and regulations."

Imagine a car, coming to a red light in the right lane. It then turns right on red, but rather than driving on in the new road, it makes a sudden u-turn, coming back to the intersection. Then makes a right on green, and continues on in the original direction.

If you're a rider, discourage your colleagues from this practice. It's a violation of the responsibilities listed in the quote above, but worse, it promotes contempt for cyclists among us drivers.

It's easier to promote cross-community cooperation when you're not cherry picking your responsibilities.

<comment><USER9> Without further information, I have no reason to think that the scenario you described is illegal. In fact, I've seen any number of motorists, motorcyclists, and cyclists do exactly that.

Incidentally, the whole notion of cyclists being subject to the same laws as cars is rather ridiculous. Bicycles are _not_ cars, just as cars are not "road train" semis.

<comment><USER8> "Without further information, I have no reason to think that the scenario you described is illegal."

It depends on where and when you are. Traffic laws vary from place to place, and change over time.

According to wikipedia, u-turns are generally legal in Indiana and generally illegal in Oregon. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-turn>

In Colorado, u-turns are subjectively legal under safe conditions. [http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/Revenue- MV/RMV/12126578...](http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite/Revenue- MV/RMV/1212657832969)

In Colorado, you will be fined and assessed costs and points for a subjectively illegal u-turn: [http://www.denvertrafficlawyer.com/index.php/legal- services2...](http://www.denvertrafficlawyer.com/index.php/legal- services2/traffic-tickets-a-driving-charges/illegal-u-turn)

I don't know what "points" means to a bicyclist, or one who has or doesn't have a driver license.

<comment><USER10> Yes, Oregon's U-turn law is a constant source of annoyance in the pacific northwest. Meanwhile, if U-turns were made illegal in California, navigating the bay area would have a twilight zone quality to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can we shortcut through the usual discussions?

As a cyclist, I'm hyper aware of the fact that I'm not a 4 ton steel SUV. If you see me do something dangerous, comfort your rage with the simple fact that it will likely kill or severely injure me if it comes to that.

If you see me break the law, know that per law I'll be fined like a normal vehicle, even though these are based off the danger radiating from a SUV going 40mph.

<comment><USER12> As a cyclist and a motorist, that's bullshit.

As a cyclist, you're making motorists angry, and that makes it less safe for me.

As a motorist, there's a chance you'll pull some stupid shit and _I'll_ be the one that hits you. And then I have to live the rest of my life with your death on my conscience, even though it wasn't really my fault.

Stop doing dangerous shit on the roads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I live in Seattle, and there are a lot of cyclists. I don't bike any more because it's too dangerous. But I have a question for the cyclists:

What's with wearing the tour de france outfit? 9/10 cyclists are wearing racing outfits covered with logos. They aren't racing, they're just biking to work or biking because it's a nice day out.

1/10 is wearing shorts and a t-shirt, what I wore when biking.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was taught to always open the driver's-side door (left-hand drive) with my RIGHT hand, which forces you to turn your body (and head) to look for potential dooring victims.

<comment><USER15> Good idea, like it. If everyone was taught that I could have been saved a fair amount of pain in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Cars aren't just rough on cyclists. Being a pedestrian is dangerous enough. In NYC it's not so bad since there are so many pedestrians that drivers are somewhat used to it (and are often pedestrians themselves). But even here you have to watch out:

\- In NYC it is illegal to turn right at a red light. Seriously, I wish people would learn this. Actually I wish cops would enforce this;

\- As a whole you can't trust cars to indicate in the US in my experience. Not indicating and turning is common enough but you sometimes see indicating and not turning. I guess people change their mind;

\- Running red lights, particularly at night, seems to be common in NYC. I certainly see garbage trucks do this but I see taxis, delivery trucks and normal cars do it as well. Most slow down to make sure there's no oncoming traffic from the side street but you can't rely on being noticed as a pedestrian.

\- In Australia, when cars turn left (remember, other side of the road there), pedestrians have right of way when crossing the street (if it's not at a traffic light). You're playing with your life as a pedestrian if you rely on that however.

I think I would go ballistic if I ever got a ticket for jaywalking in NYC. Fact is, it's most dangerous as a pedestrian (and probably a cyclist) when you believe you have right of way. When you know you don't you're much more careful.

In California I feel like I'm taking my life in my hands anytime I walk anywhere (in SV although SF is fine). The whole turning right at red lights being OK thing is a recipe for killing pedestrians and I really wish it didn't exist.

I really look forward to the day when all cars are self-driving. If the number of people killed in car accidents were killed by disease it would be epidemic. It's hard to fathom just how blase people can be about injury and death on such a massive scale.

Of course how this will play out will be fairly predictable. You will have probably a large segment of the population who sticks to their guns regarding driving themselves as a personal liberty, lives be damned.

</comment><comment><USER17> And yet there are strange projects going on like allowing bicycles to run red lights: [http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3311...](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cyclesafety/article3311182.ece) Apparently the change was discussed in UK too for some test periods and I'm really afraid of it.

The greatest danger in my mind is not that the collision may happen. The worst part is that if I collide with another car at 10mph, the worst that can happen is that both cars will need some new paint, even if I don't hit the break. At the same speed, it's possible I'm going to kill a cyclist - pretty much actually run over him before I start breaking if he suddenly appears in front of me.

</comment><comment><USER18> Preaching to the choir. The chances of a driver reading this and actually doing anything are nil.

<comment><USER8> Maybe. I'm a driver. I read it. I learned.

<comment><USER19> This is incredibly off-topic for HN.

However, I will add one more piece of advice for drivers: Take a motorcycle safety course. You don't /have/ to ride, of course, but it will probably be a lot of fun and it will teach you a LOT about your level of awareness on the road.

(For instance: The MSF courses teach you to look ahead about twelve seconds. I'm guessing that most drivers only have a couple seconds of planning, if that. Similarly, always having contingencies -- "where do I go if that truck changes lanes?" -- and noticing little things -- "that rear-view mirror is canted, so that driver isn't even bothering to look.")

Okay, back to r/HN :-)

<comment><USER8> "This is incredibly off-topic for HN."

You're almost completely correct, except for the "interesting to hackers" caveat in the guidelines.

Even with the caveat, this is probably still off-topic. Except that a lot of readers probably ride.

But _still_ it's probably off-topic.

Except ... I've noticed a lot of weekend posts that are both off-topic and interesting, and I tend to see weekends on HN as a brief relaxing of the rules. Which I like.

<comment><USER20> It was Bike to Work day, so it's topical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been riding bikes to work every day in a few parts of Europe for about 10 years, including big cities traffic, suburbs and rural areas.

I've been doing the same in San Francisco for some month recently.

In Europe, everyone treat the bike as a vehicule, no question asked. Everyone knows the hand sign. People get doored, and the like but it's rare. You gotta be more careful in heavy traffic, but basically, when riding, it feels safe in most areas. Cars will wait behind you when they can't pass super-safely- with-5-meter-distance-from-your-side almost every time. Nearly everyone of them used a bike and knows how it is, at least, that's the feeling.

Now, fast forward to SF. I was surprised, to say the least.

If there is no bike lane, something like 90% of the cars simply do not give a single shit about bikes. That is, if you're on the rightmost part of the road, they will pass, no matter what (you can choose here: get even more right and risk being doored, the risk is rather high here. slow down to a near halt and go right [that's what I do]. go straight and hear the honk + generally get hit by the rear view mirror.)

Knowing that you can avoid streets without a bike lane, and when forced, take the full lane (you'll hear the honk but you'll live).

Here's one that happened to me recently: some streets in SF have a tram lane and a car lane. No bike lane. car pushed me on the tram lane thinking 'thats where cyclists go'. Tram was coming behind of course. Got to feel the friction of both car and tram. No injuries. Unfortunately I don't have a good alternative route.

Here's another thing that happens everyday:

Car park in the bike lane, so you gotta pass it. Look behind you, car is coming, so you slow down, and let them pass (they will never let you pass). If there is a continuous flow of cars, and it happens, none will let you pass. Most cyclists just pass and assume the driver will slow down (and get angry but hey, you gotta pass some day). Personally, I just wait as long as it takes or walk it on the side walk if its more than a minute.

Pedestrians are no better. They don't cross at red if cars are coming. But they do for bikes. Why the hell? I understand crossing at red when it's safe, don't get me wrong, but don't cross in front of bikes that's extremely dumb.

Cyclists are no better either. 50% (?) ignore the signs and traffic entirely. That being said I noticed that in some parts of the city this is actually _safer_ to cross at the red light while cars are waiting, than waiting with the cars (in line or slightly in front, although I always go slightly i front to be sure they see me). Sad but true. If you start with the cars, they wont let you start first and thus you may get hit if the bike lane is not wide enough or simply not there. Even if there is a bike lane, its gone when there's a crossing and drivers naturally push you on the right side for some reason. I still stop at all traffic lights but this is disturbing me a lot lately. Whats the point of respecting the red light in all situations in the US, being killed? and I bet that's why so many ignore them.

Finally, after a few month I personally got "right turned", and broke some bones, hence my super-safe behavior assuming the driver is going to be doing the wrong thing in every situation. Before I would expect that some situations were safe, such as the right turn if you're in front of the cars. But no. They just turn into you even thus they've seen you, because, you're a bike, you'll probably brake in time, plus you should be on the sidewalk, etc. So yeah, I never cross a street without slowing down a lot if a car is less than 10 meters behind me (and obviously if its next to me or slightly ahead, even thus I'm on a bike lane, although they're supposed to switch lane)

As a last anecdotal story of this very long post, I was also surprised by rainy days. About, let's say, 15% of the cars take the opportunity to splash you when they can. Seriously. My last rainy day in SF, that happened 3 times over my 20min ride back home. The last one the guy stopped and laughed. I was 100% soaked. It means to me that a high enough number of drivers absolutely hate cyclists with passion. WTF is wrong with people?

<comment><USER22> Yeah. In Europe, cars treat bikes like vehicles, and bikes treat cars like vehicles.

In America, bikers simply do not follow the laws they are supposed to - <USER2> neither do cars. It's not really a "bike is victim" paradigm - it's more like nobody pays any attention to the god damn laws, at all. Because the fucking cops don't enforce the rules!

They give tickets to speeders and red light runners but NOT - NEVER, in fact, to people who don't signal when turning or changing lanes, people who drive too slowly in the fast lane, people who pass on the right, people who stop in the middle of the street to wait for a parking spot, people who do not use turn lanes appropriately, people who stop at yellow lights, people who drive too slowly, people who do not yield to pedestrians, people who block driveways, people who turn left or U-turn illegally, people who ... the list goes on for miles.

Bicycle riders make all these same mistakes as well.

<comment><USER23> sorry to break in on the generalizations, but -

When I lived in Spain they killed so many cyclists every year, it was the source of macabre jokes. I found that to be true in several other countries.

Probably should leave out the "Europe vs US" bit of your argument, and just stick to what you think the causes are.

<comment><USER21> Your reply is not directly to me but you're probably right. I used Europe as well as a generalization but there are some exceptions and I didn't bike in every single EU country (for instance, I've never done that in urban areas/traffic in Spain).

In general the more south you go the more horrible the driving in EU (yeah another generalization but this one seems pretty good).

I've been honk'd heavily in Italy (Naples) once because I was waiting for the traffic light to go green. I thought it must be I missed something but nope.. they just were "never stopping at this one and its bad practice to do so", one guy said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> To the cyclists among us, how do you overcome the fear of riding in the middle of heavy trafficked roads during rush hour? This is very common in the Seattle area and almost as common in Dallas.

<comment><USER6> For me, the realization that it is actually SAFER to claim the lane rather than be meek and risk getting doored or risk being in a position where cars assume they should pass you. Better to piss people off than risk your life. Plus, in most of those heavily trafficked roads the cars that are getting pissed off are delusional and don't realize that you're basically moving at the same speed as traffic anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Invalid assertion. I didn't notice more cyclists on my commute, and it is absolutely not a cause for concern - there were none. That's right. None. Zero. Zip. Nada.

The entire list of vehicles encountered during my commute on the 18th was: the same guy I often see around town on his goldwing, a maroon 70s or very early 80s firebird or camaro, three pickups, a dump truck, the county sheriff in his personal car (he lives a few houses down from me), and a rather large John Deere tractor being moved from one field to another on the other side of the railroad tracks. Oh, and a train, on those tracks, carrying, amongst other things, 737 bodies on their way to final assembly. And while it's not a vehicle - one skunk, freshly killed.

My commute is 12 miles (one direction) of 2 lane roads across farmland. It's flat, boring, and the roads are in pretty poor condition with no shoulders. The cyclists in this area stick to other routes for their long-distance rides, where the pavement is in much better shape, and they have a shoulder that they can use if they have to dodge an idiot, instead of finding an overgrown ditch and a barbed-wire fence.

<comment><USER26> Common reason is comfort but I think the loud colors are purely for show. Just like having a flashy car. They make cycling kits that look like every day wear, especially for mountain biking where having a bit if extra material is extremely helpful when you run out of talent and crash ;).

Personally, I just wear cargo shorts with gussets and a brightly colored exercise shirt (like the kind worn for running). Visibility and comfort without looking like a billboard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A good article, thanks for writing it.

I'm not convinced that a majority of cyclists understand that they have to follow the same rules as motorized vehicles. It's unusual to see the driver of a car blast through a stop sign without slowing down at all. It happens, but not that often. On the other hand, it's unusual for me to see a cyclist who _doesn't_ run stop signs.

I can see why: because you're going slower and have a full view around you. But that's still not an excuse if you're going to play the "cars and bikes are both vehicles" card.

<comment><USER28> There are different laws for bikes, it isn't just bike == vehicle.

Example: [http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2009/07/28/a-stop- sign...](http://bicycling.com/blogs/roadrights/2009/07/28/a-stop-sign- solution/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> "If, for instance, you are behind a cyclist and approaching a stop, passing the cyclist likely will gain you nothing. In fact, you may end up passing the cyclist twice: once before the intersection, a second time after. Which, let's face it, is going to annoy you."

Speaking as a cyclist, I hope not -- that means the cyclist has advanced past a car in front of him in the lane, which is a stupid thing to do. Either own the lane and be a vehicle, or get off the bike and on the sidewalk.

<comment><USER21> Actually that doesn't work that way. In many states sharing the lane is legitimate, and biking no the sidewalk as well.

But that means, you're fine with all bikes claiming the complete lane right? That means you can't pass them at the stop, and you can't pass them as long as the left lane is not 100% free (just like passing a car).

When I do claim the lane when I bike (it happens that I need to, if there's no bike lane and it's a dangerous part of the road), I don't pass cars at the stop. But again, most of the time, I don't, and can't, claim the lane. This means I'd rather be in front of the cars at the stop (= they see me) than next to the cars 3 cars behind the stop (= whoever turn right, won't see me, and since they rarely use the signalization lights, or perform another stop before turning right, it means its horribly dangerous)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> In Chicago I've almost never seen a cyclist stop at a red light or stop sign. Cyclists here feel free to ride on the wrong side of the road, weave in and out of traffic, and cut off drivers. I'm no lawyer, but I fear that if I hit one of these clowns then I'll be completely at-fault. It sucks.

Worst of all, I've never, ever seen a cyclist get pulled over. If cyclists were held to the same responsibilities as drivers, that would be one thing. But they're not, hence the resentment.

<comment><USER31> > _In Chicago I've almost never seen a cyclist stop at a red light or stop > sign._

Then you're not paying enough attention to cyclists. Stop and take a deep breath before you kill someone.

<comment><USER32> That's really unnecessary. In fact, cyclists here rarely if ever stop at stop signs. It's a very dangerous situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> >Lay Off the Horn

If you're cycling on the road, even though there is a perfectly good bike lane right next to it, I will honk at you. Every single time.

<comment><USER34> Is this common where you live? I do quite a bit of cycling and am very aware of cyclists when driving. I often see what the author describes as "pedestrians on bicycles" using the sidewalk when a bike lane is available, but cyclists outside of a bike lane on the road are quite rare most places unless they're preparing to turn toward the inside (i.e. a left turn in places where it's customary to drive on the right).

When learning to drive (and before), I was taught that that the horn is for alerting other people to dangerous situations and preventing collisions. It is not for expressing anger or frustration at other people. I've noticed that people tend to become angry or frustrated much more quickly when driving and when interacting with someone who is driving (e.g. as a pedestrian). You might want to consider whether you're acting under the influence of a disinhibition effect and ask yourself whether you want to yell "CHANGE WHAT YOU'RE DOING OR I'LL HIT YOU WITH MY CAR" at a cyclist for forcing you to drive slower for 30 seconds. That's what honking a horn conveys.

</comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit I hear a lot of complaining about not being enough bike lanes. I get that. we need more. But I absolutely do not understand why cyclists that do have a bike lane still choose to ride right on the white line that separates their lane from mine. You have a good 3-4 feet all to your self... use it! Oh... and stop at traffic lights and stop signs like everyone else.

<comment><USER35> Because many of those bike lanes are 90% door zone or have other hazards, leaving almost on top of the white line the safest part of the lane.

<comment> jack-r-abbit Not the ones I'm talking about. I see many more bike lanes that have no road side hazards and bikers still ride on the white line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Honest question for cyclists - why do you continue biking?

It sounds like cycling is far more dangerous and potentially deadly than driving. As others mentioned you'll never "educate away" the problem. The road system is clearly not designed for cycling so both drivers and cyclists are annoyed.

What is it that you get out of cycling to make it worth the risk?

<comment><USER37> Two things that may be worth taking into account:

1\. Most people have a value system that doesn't refer only to themselves. Driving has staggering negative externalities. Every time somebody forgoes a car for some - any - other method of transport, everyone on the planet becomes a little better off.

2\. Daily exercise is one of the few things really demonstrated to significantly improve your health, productivity and lifespan. If you have the temperament or willpower to go to the gym everyday, that's fine. If not, being able to make your mode of transport double as exercise is arguably worth significantly increased risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I would _love_ to road bike, but northern Utah doesn't have a year-round cycle culture, which means people never quite learn how to ride with cyclists. Scares me to death (and this coming from a motorcyclist, so my tolerance isn't super low).

</comment><comment><USER39> In Japan, where many people cycle, they ride on the footpath. It seems to work out fine.

<comment><USER40> The trade off being that it takes twice as long to get anywhere because you can't go very fast. At least that was my experience commuting on a bike in Japan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> If you want to become a superb cyclist, three months of riding around Shanghai is an excellent training course.

</comment><comment><USER42> "If there is no bike lane, something like 90% of the cars simply do not give a single shit about bikes."

You have to respect the culture in which you are immersed. It seems insane to me that cyclists would even consider riding on a road that has no bike lane.

Right or wrong, the existence of bike lanes sets up a dichotomy in people's minds. Either there is a bike lane and bikes belong there (and I have to be aware of them), or there is no bike lane and bikes do not belong (I won't be expecting them - I may even resent their presence).

Pedestrians have their place, and cars have their place. Bikes have their place, but unfortunately only on a few select roadways.

<comment><USER40> Except that, as is mentioned in the OP, in the US cyclists are legally allowed use most all roadways and are treated legally like an automobile in cases where a bike lane does not exist.

<comment><USER42> That may be the case, legally. But as the OP indicates, that is not always the case, culturally.

But if bicycles are treated like motor vehicles, why is it that you often find them creating a lane where there is none? You don't often see motorcycles riding alongside cars, in the same lane, grazing parked vehicles.

<comment><USER40> _But if bicycles are treated like motor vehicles, why is it that you often find them creating a lane where there is none? You don't often see motorcycles riding alongside cars, in the same lane, grazing parked vehicles._

I'm not 100% sure what you're describing, but it sounds like you are talking about a situation where a cyclist is riding on the far right side of the lane next to the parked cars and is being passed _in the same lane_ by other cars. What sounds dangerous to me about this situation is not that the cyclist is creating his own lane (because he's not, he's in the proper right most lane), but rather that cars are trying to pass him (a vehicle that is legally allowed to be there) without leaving enough room.

Also, kind of off topic, but where I'm from (California), motorcycles are legally allowed to weave between lanes and do it all the time. Not that I think this is a particularly smart think to do :)

<comment><USER42> If the cyclist was in the center of the lane it wouldn't look like he's trying to "create a lane". And cars wouldn't try to pass in the same lane in that case because it wouldn't be possible. They would wait until it is safe to pass properly. Or get really pissed off and try to intimidate the cyclist to move over, but that goes back to my point about culture and not belonging.

Being legally allowed to weave between lanes doesn't seem right.

<comment><USER40> _Being legally allowed to weave between lanes doesn't seem right._

Yeah, I'm not really sure why it's legal, but I've also never ridden a motorcycle. A quick glance at Wikipedia suggests that it's legal in most of Europe and Japan though, although not in most places in the US.

Anyway, FWIW, I commute by bike and ride in the center of the lane when there is no bike lane for the exact reason that you describe. However, I don't really get what you are saying about "not belonging". Cars and bikes are both legally allowed on the same roads. Just because this inconveniences some drivers doesn't mean that bikes are "culturally unacceptable". In other words, the opinion of said drivers (legally, and I'd argue culturally) is no more important than that of the bikers who think that it's a totally acceptable thing for them to be there so long as they follow traffic laws.

<comment><USER42> I'm not trying to imply that the inconvenience makes them unacceptable. That they are culturally unacceptable is a fact - stated by the OP as : "cars simply do not give a single shit about bikes". I'm simply trying to provide an explanation for why that may be.

I suppose people downvote because they dislike my explanations. I think it is reasonable to think that many motorists don't feel that cyclists belong on the same road space. As a cyclist, I wouldn't feel that I belong on the same road space as cars. That's why I haven't ridden a bike since moving to a city where the sidewalks are busy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Maybe it isn't China: Declining US manufacturing employment - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/08/manufacturing

<comment><USER2> It's interesting to think what will happen to us when we've automated the production of everything we really need.

I think the reality is we don't _need_ to work so much anymore. In fact we need to work less and less.

Especially if you combine this fact with slowed population growth.

If you imagine a large scale automated system that builds homes, grows and processes food and takes care of our other basic needs (which is where this world is going to) then do we really need to work?

The problem is, is that the world and the economy are set up so that you need to _earn_ your place. But if no apocalypse stops us, there is going to come a day where there is no need to do anything, because everything is provided for.

However, that future will heavily favor the owners of the system and it will cost those who are without property.

That army of robots fulfilling your every single want may never come, but we are certainly partially there. Thus the economic effect is already partially here.

</comment><comment><USER3> I suspect that's a misleading graph. They are trying to show a loss of manufacturing jobs and in order to make the graph more dramatic, they are graphing the percentage of jobs that are manufacturing. But if they graphed the total number of manufacturing jobs, it wouldn't be nearly so dramatic because of the huge increase in total employment over the years.

Quick Google search and look at the graphs here: [http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020825/no- virginia-u...](http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2010020825/no-virginia-us- manufacturing-isnt-dead)

Comparing the charts based on what the two articles are trying to prove reminds me of "lies, damn lies, and statistics".

</comment><comment><USER4> It was the post-war political atmosphere of egalitarianism and the fact that Europe and Asia were in ruins that made factory jobs well-paying in 50s America. Once other countries reverted to the mean and neoliberals captured government, so ended the conditions for strong wage growth.</comment>


Show HN: Tracking the Impact of COVID19 - <AUTHOR> Hi HN
As the impacts of COVID19 continue to be felt around the world and layoffs and business closures start to happen more and more,
I thought it would be worthwhile to compile this data somewhere.
https://impact-oss.github.io
The raw data is at
https://github.com/impact-oss/impact-data
I've created a very basic setup to compile business statistics around size of company, number of employees, Administration vs Layoffs and number of jobs lost.
I'm slowly adding more data as I find it, but it is a small set at present.
Hoping that by making this open-source lots of people are able to contribute and this data will be useful to see what sectors and job types are predominantly affected.
Happy to receive feedback and I know the site itself is quite rough around the edges.
Cheers <comment><USER2> The number of layoffs(?) chart doesn't have a title or labeled axises

<comment><AUTHOR> I've added a basic version with axis labels for now, Will have to revisit it when I have a bit more time to clean it up.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Subtle web accessibility shakedown or cunning SEO? - <AUTHOR> I received a friendly email from an "Accessibility Intern" at http://www.accessibleunited.org, complaining that one of my blog posts linked to Wikipedia, which (the intern claimed) is not accessible to disabled people.
The email suggested that I instead link to a different website that has a page on the same topic.
The site -- accessibilityunited.org -- was registered on GoDaddy in mid-June, 2017.  It's new.  As you might guess, WHOIS information is opaque.
My paranoid mind :-) sees two possible reasons for the email I received:
* A subtle way to generate backlinks for the site that the Accessibility Intern recommended.  Maybe an SEO firm is hiding behind the facade of a do-good organization that they created for this purpose.  (This happens in politics all the time).
* A subtle way to set me up for an ADA lawsuit, claiming my website is not accessible to the disabled.  Unfortunately I have seen bottom-feeding law firms (I do not judge, and I am not bitter that they are besmirching the reputation of a profession of which I am a member) make a killing this way.
Web searches revealed nothing about accessibilityunited.org except that it appears to live on shared hosting at Hurricane Electric.
So.  Has anyone else seen these emails?  Does anyone else have insight into what might be happening here? <comment><USER2> I had someone get a very similar email trying to get someone to change a link from me to a competitor. It sounds almost identical with a different domain. They linked to some accessibility checker. The problem, the site they tried to convince didn't pass this checker either. But the person who emailed wasn't concerned about that, they just wanted a link to me changed to my competitor (who was obviously their client).

If it's the same pattern, it's just a malicious negative SEO campaign. I'm planning on writing about it soon.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe someone is just pointing out that your website is inaccessible.

For what it is worth, the Americans with Disabilities Act does not attract "bottom feeding law firms." It provides no monetary damages. It provides no attorney's fees. It only provides injunctive relief (and mediation). In other words all of the costs under ADA are borne by the plaintiff except for what the defendant chooses to spend on their defense. Thus lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act are rare.

The lawsuits about which one reads outrageous reports are inevitably filed under state law and typically California's statute which does provide for attorney fees and damages. A few other states have similar laws, but in most of the country ADA compliance is spotty...and on the web it is pretty much the exception.

If it really matters, hire an attorney familiar with the case. If it sorta' matters read the law yourself. If it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply. I am California-based so the outrageous reports I hear are caused by California law. Hence, I am at risk from Lawyers of Ill Repute.

Actions Will Be Taken.

While it would be nice to assume this is a Good Samaritan pointing out a problem with a page I link to, my suspicion is otherwise. A Good Samaritan would not hide behind a cloak of invisibility.

Anyway. This post is now accessible to search engines and hopefully will help the next person who gets a cryptic email from a bland facade.

<comment><USER4> _While it would be nice to assume this is a Good Samaritan pointing out a problem with a page I link to, my suspicion is otherwise. A Good Samaritan would not hide behind a cloak of invisibility._

Former naïve Good Samaritan here who has learned to be a lot more circumspect. I have Baggage on this topic. I have deleted a multiple paragraph rant about all my Baggage. (You are welcome.)

Good Samaritans who have been burned enough learn to pack a cloak of invisibility for survival purposes.

That doesn't prove they aren't nefarious actors, but their cloak of invisibility is also not evidence of nefariousness. It might just be evidence that they have been around the block a time or two and have gotten a clue about a few things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for this insight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds suspect to me, very vague, looks like it's looking for referrals to sign people up for some service.

official stuff would be from ada.gov, or some more popular, well documented site, not some one-off.

The wording could be some propaganda site, heh, with phrases like:

\- We identify highly accessible websites with vital information. \- We reach out to webmasters to notify them of an opportunity. \- We offer free resources to webmasters who want to go accessible. \- Most importantly, we do all our work with love. We Care.

ADA and accessibility sites actually provide much of the free info without having to contact anyone...</comment>