BMW's new flat logo is everything that's wrong with modern logo design - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/4/21163766/bmw-new-flat-logo-design-bad-transparent-background-cars <comment><USER3> BMW builds _cars_, not Apps. They pride themselves in craftsmanship. The Logo badge on the actual car is a three dimensional, physical thing.

Instead of embracing that, they made it flat like an App icon. It will look shit on cars and it does not communicate that BMW builds _real machines_.

Everybody is going crazy about going digital and they forget what they are good at and what the customer likes them for.

<comment><USER4> Additionally it isn't well composed. I learned graphics design from a guy who actually learned it by using his hands to pit down the letters. He had us move one black square around on a white page for 3 hours and explain why we put it where we did. Then we were allowed two squares of arbitrary size, later colors etc.

If you are learning it from that basic level you cannot unsee badly unbalanced design. You cannot just remove a black background with a white one and keep everything unchanged (which is why dark themes sometimes suck as they don't get the extra love they need.

This thing looks like it has been made by the CEOs daugther in Powerpoint.

<comment><USER5> Okay, help someone who never learned anything about graphic design from anyone. _why_ isn't it well composed?

<comment><USER6> Compare the lettering on the two versions. The use of 3D-ish black and fake embossing on the original makes the letters pop.

The lack of both on the new version makes the letters look like they've been crammed into a tiny space at the top of a big empty ring.

This might have worked with new lettering with different proportions. But it's literally just a flat copy of the original letter shapes, without any of the original context.

The 3D effect on the original print/blueprint/engineering marker/quadrant feels dynamic. The impression changes as you move your eye over it. It conveys movement and substance. It works with the black to suggest a car tire, but also a sophisticated (black...) crafted object.

The new version looks like a printer reference mark. It's just... there. It doesn't do anything.

The grey is meaningless and neutral. Again, it's just there. It fills a space, and that's all. The transparent version doesn't even do that. There's literally nothing there.

Removing the 3D creates a uniform space inside the ring, which is why the letters now look as if they're squashed up at the top for no reason. There's poor alignment, and no metaphorical or literal highlight.

Overall it suggests that management don't care about engineering _or_ about appearances.

<comment><USER7> > print/blueprint/engineering marker/quadrant

I believe the logo was originally intended to represent a propeller.

<comment><USER8> BMW has refuted this idea.

[https://www.logodesignlove.com/bmw-logo- evolution](https://www.logodesignlove.com/bmw-logo-evolution)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Sure, it looks nice on BMW's bronze-hued electric i4 sedan concept, but what > about on a white BMW? Or a letterhead? Or on a sign for a BMW dealership on > a highway?

Is the author _really_ concerned that BMW's design team didn't think about how this logo would be used in such fundamental ways? I can guarantee you that they did.

You can personally like or not like it, fine. But if you're going to write a judgey article about it, at least take some basic steps to try to understand why the choices were made. Companies don't just have some intern change their logo up for no reason at all.

And that headline is obnoxious.

<comment><USER10> > Companies don't just have some intern change their logo up for no reason at > all.

Companies redesign their brand (websites, logos, etc.) all the time and it often correlates with a new hire who wants a "fresh start" with the brand.

Jens Thiemer who is the SVP of Customer and Brand and spearheaded this effort has been at BMW a little over 1 year.

It's a way of staking your claim at a company and putting your literal mark on a project. Unfortunately, it's not always the best move.

I help VPs of Marketing redesign brands and more often than not, about 6-12 months into their new gig I get a call.

<comment><USER11> The new guy can _suggest_ a rebranding, but I'm sure the CEO and board will have something to say about it/final approval.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but if a VP goes all out on a push to rebrand and is rebuffed they'll probably leave. Basically, the pitch is "you hired me to improve the brand and that means improving our logo".

So CEOs and the board might not push back as hard as you'd imagine, especially if they don't come from a product/design/brand background.

<comment><USER12> I wonder if he will get fired for this?

These story makes me appreciate Steve Jobs even more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm no designer.. but the new logo looks horrendous. From the few design principles I do know, it appears they took all of them and did the exact opposite. If they wanted to stick with flat design, they could have easily repurposed their existing logo without beveling/lighting to achieve what would likely be a much better result.

<comment><USER14> Their old old logo was literally their old one without the bad 3D effect. Everything old is new again. Except this weird monstrosity.

<comment><USER15> New Coke [https://www.everything80spodcast.com/new- coke/](https://www.everything80spodcast.com/new-coke/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> According to BMW[1], it looks like this is only designed for brand communication. I wouldn't expect to see this pushed to non-concept cars, at least not for a long time.

[1] [https://www.bmw.com/content/dam/bmw/marketBMWCOM/bmw_com/cat...](https://www.bmw.com/content/dam/bmw/marketBMWCOM/bmw_com/categories/automotive- life/ex-logo/exl-15-media-hd-en7.jpg?imwidth=1024) from here: [https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/bmw-logo-meaning- hist...](https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/bmw-logo-meaning- history1.html)

<comment><USER17> Those article quotas aren't going to reach themselves...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The new logo looks more top heavy somehow. When there was a dark ring the logo looked balanced, now it looks like the center of gravity is off and the logo wouldn't stay upright if placed on a table.

<comment><USER19> My take on this is the airplane propellers in the center--that's what the white and blue signifies, for those who don't know--draw your eye toward the center-point of the logo, but the "BMW" draws your eye back up, causing a sort of "oscillation." If they insist on this design then eliminating the outer ring would likely cause a more balanced reaction.

<comment><USER20> The white & blue checkering is actually a nod to the Bavarian colors/flag. The propeller metaphor came later.

[https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/bmw-logo-meaning- hist...](https://www.bmw.com/en/automotive-life/bmw-logo-meaning- history1.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's occurred to me for some time now that design has suffered from globalization in that while surely there is some good in the more rapid exchange of ideas, there has also been this hyper convergence in design where it all just kind of looks the same. Consider that in this particular domain, automobiles, you used to be able to clearly delineate design along national lines. There was a clear distinction in Italian design vs American, German, British, Swedish etc. But now?

The thing that bothers me the most about this minimalist trend is how pervasive it is. I quite like minimalism myself, but I feel like 40 years ago even within minimalism you would have expected to see some difference in execution across the globe.

Which brings me to how trendy the design field is in general. I don't think I've seen a field so uniformly go from one trend to the other and then defend it with such dogged bullshit. Who in God's name is fooled by the poetry? You're using the same design language and aesthetic as everyone else, the only thing creative is the nonsense you're writing to defend it. Why is a field full of 'creatives' so uniform in thought and expression? How many trends have we witnessed so far in web/graphic design? We've built all these powerful creative tools just so they can end up all making logos that look exactly the fucking same. Surely machine learning models can create a good percentage of the design we see today.

</comment><comment><USER22> What the hell... Yeah its flat but that's obviously not the problem, why would you eliminate the color black from your very famous blue black and white logo.

<comment><USER23> I agree. It seems like the obvious solution would have been to just remove the light gradient—and maybe the bevels.

<comment><USER24> Maybe they should have gone with a slight tweak of the 1963 version [https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/03/BMW_logo_...](https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/03/BMW_logo_evolution.jpeg) and scored retro-nostalgia points with the older crowd, too.

<comment><USER25> Yikes. Putting it on the same page as the past logos just emphasizes how chintzy it looks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It looks as though the designers wanted to be bold and drop the "BMW" text but were overruled.

<comment><USER27> As a designer, I think this theory is reasonable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I don't understand why people spend a bajillion dollars on a logo re-do. My first company did it and it was generic, shitty, and did us no good (Electric Imp). We had a wonderful little imp, we called him the imp dude or similar:

[https://cdn.instructables.com/F31/9EZA/HJKC29JK/F319EZAHJKC2...](https://cdn.instructables.com/F31/9EZA/HJKC29JK/F319EZAHJKC29JK.LARGE.jpg?auto=webp&fit=bounds)

Captured the brand, such as it was, perfectly. A small hacker company started by a man that had hacking coded into his DNA. The founder had started out phreaking at somewhere around age 8. He made a cool bit of money as a teen by custom-programming firmware for lasertag guns and upgrading guns around his hometown. The company was started because he was annoyed at how hard it was to simply get an IFFT style IOT light set up in his bathroom, securely. And so the logo: a cocky little imp creature, imo agendered, with a plug pitchfork and a goofy (optional, not always displayed) tail. Our costume-crazed QA guy even threw together a cardboard and paper-mache version of it for a halloween party once. Possible, because it was a _character_. It could be anthropomorphized. It represented the company identity.

Then we paid, I don't even know how much, but it didn't matter in the end anyway, for this:

[https://3psnnz1ja4lg3qllb62xd6yg-wpengine.netdna- ssl.com/wp-...](https://3psnnz1ja4lg3qllb62xd6yg-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp- content/themes/electricimp/assets/images/logo-electric-imp.png)

It was supposed to be simple, I guess, and the little line was supposed to represent I guess a single connection on a silicone board? But what is that? What does it mean, what does it represent? How can we form an identity around that, how could it have represented us? We got rid of Imp Dude for no reason. Stupid.

</comment><comment><USER29> Usually I think these "modern design" complaints are whiny, but man that new BMW logo looks so flat and lifeless. It needs something to make it pop. Also the lack of outline and white lettering seem a hassle to use on anything.

I always thought the Red Hat breakdown of what/why changes of their logo was really well done:

[https://www.redhat.com/en/about/brand/new- brand](https://www.redhat.com/en/about/brand/new-brand)

[https://www.redhat.com/en/about/brand/new- brand/details](https://www.redhat.com/en/about/brand/new-brand/details)

<comment><USER30> that was a fantastic reading, and it makes way more sense than most re- branding discussions I've seen.

</comment></comment><comment> mark-r My favorite observation on the changing of corporate logos: [https://flowingdata.com/2009/08/13/pepsi-and-coca-cola- logo-...](https://flowingdata.com/2009/08/13/pepsi-and-coca-cola-logo-design- over-the-past-hundred-years/)

<comment><USER31> Pepsi is such an archetype of the eternal identity crisis it's almost a classic identity in itself. On a shitty day, I buy Pepsi.

<comment><USER32> They should just make "Is Pepsi OK?" their new slogan and be done with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The flat aesthetic: making the world uglier one icon at a time.

<comment><USER34> This has absolutely nothing to do with "flat" design. BMW historically had a flat shaded logo [1]. The current logo is just supposed to be the flat shaded badge that goes on the cars, but rendered as if it's actually being lit.

The problem is just that they removed the black ring that is key to the logo and the brand. Add that back, and it's virtually identical to the logo they had for whole second half of the 20th century.

The removal of the black ring is unequivocally not a consequence of flat design.

[1] [https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/https- _s3...](https://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/https-_s3-us- west-2.amazonaws.com_the-drive-cms-content-staging_message- editor2F1565584999619-evolutionofbmwlogo-830x553.jpg)

<comment><USER33> > This has absolutely nothing to do with "flat" design.

I don't know the design history of the logo or the intent of the redesign, but I do know that it fits well into the current "flat" design aesthetic, so I lump it in with that. If it walks like a duck...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> From a utilitarian maintenance perspective, I think the open design of it makes it such a pain to keep looking good on a car. All those interior edges inside the logo catch debris and are difficult to clean to the edge of the design elements. I prefer car logos with closed smooth badges.

<comment> J-dawg This is a great point! Bits of fluff from car wash cloths would get caught under all those edges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> > sacrifices the company's well-known identity

I challenge author, or anyone, to find any person who is unable to correctly attribute new logo to BMW but can do so with the old logo.

</comment><comment><USER37> The BMW logo is iconic and has become the brand, with that this is what would be classed as a "New Coke" moment.

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

</comment><comment><USER38> The author has a point, but they seem to have missed the fact that BMW already announced that they won't be using it on cars (well, probably other cars than the concept car featured in the article). It is only for marketing material:

[https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T030630...](https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0306305EN/introducing- bmw%E2%80%99s-new-brand-design-for-online-and-offline-communication)

> The new logo is a new media branding and will be used in addition to the > existing logo. It won't be use (sic) on the vehicles or in the exterior and > interior labeling our dealerships, the existing logo remains in use there.

</comment><comment><USER39> Putting the "BMW" lettering on whatever color happens to be behind it creates a strenge dependency that didn't exist before. I'd say that part of the criticism is valid. But the rest of the logo adheres to BMW logo heritage, as the article admits. "Flattening" the central part of the logo, meant to evoke a whirling propeller, is an improvement.

My bet is the logo does not make it past concept car use. It has to be terribly finicky to get a logo with so many separate parts right. Or there's a clear plastic part that won't age as well as the metal parts.

<comment> J-dawg Yeah, they'd have to decide which colour of lettering to use with every paint colour. I think you're right that it won't make it to production, at least in its current form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Not sure about the logo, but I do know this two paragraph "article" is everything that's wrong with modern journalism.

</comment><comment><USER41> Aside from being ugly and making no sense at all, the part that gets me about these things is that it wasn't broken.

Seriously, did someone at the top of the organization wake up one day thinking "We are not selling more cars because of our logo"?

Of all the things they could have decided to work on that might actually deliver real value to customers, the logo was deemed to be important?

After owning a number of BMW's we decided we had enough, turned in our last leased car and walked away. They are horribly expensive to maintain and, even if you are willing to do some of it yourself, the parts are just ridiculously expensive.

One of the key decision drivers is that we have a Toyota vehicle with nearly 250K miles on it (400K km). We bought it new and maintained it at about 1/3 of the prescribed maintenance schedule. In other words, oil changes every 10K miles rather than the recommended 3K. The car runs very well, fuel efficiency is still good and it cost us almost nothing to maintain after the warranty ran out. With one of our prior BMW's we had to spend $3K to fix it (I forget what it was) a few months after the warranty expired. I know this is a single data point, and yet, when I talk to long-term (out of warranty) BMW owners it is amazing how often these kinds of sentiments surface.

So, yeah, I don't understand the focus on a logo. A logo isn't going to get my family back into a BMW dealership, ever. You have to question someone's priorities and understanding of their customers when they feel messing with the logo is of actual importance to them at all.

<comment><USER42> Rebranding is a thing. It allows corporations to get rid of past negative associations with the brand, be more attractive to younger audience by not looking too differently from brands they are exposed to, even just remind everyone they still exist and should be considered as a choice, things like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've never made the association with a crash-test dummy locator marking before, but the abstracted rotor by itself is reminiscent of that for me.

<comment><USER44> Same here. First thought upon seeing that: crash test dummy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> It's amazing how companies make such stupid decisions on their branding. The new logo looks terrible.

The old logo was timeless and iconic. It stood for something and that's what people wanted from BMW. They don't need to be hip and modern they need to be BMW. Many companies clearly never learned the lessons of "New Coke." If it ain't broke don't fix it!

</comment><comment><USER46> Typical Germany, copy US fads 5 years later...

</comment><comment><USER47> I thought the logo was a airplane propeller. Its actually just the bavarvian flag.. (B standing for "Bavaria" a region of Germany, "MW" Motor Werk.

It has evlovlved slightly over the years, but its kinda still the same. If it looks bad with a transparent background they'll fill it in.

Some "historical" BMW logos.

[https://www.motor1.com/news/365668/bmw-logo-isnt- propeller/](https://www.motor1.com/news/365668/bmw-logo-isnt-propeller/)

Ad with the (not) BMW "Propeller Logo"

[https://www.autoblog.com/2010/01/10/report-as-it-turns- out-b...](https://www.autoblog.com/2010/01/10/report-as-it-turns-out-bmws- roundel-logo-isnt-born-from-jets/)

<comment><USER48> BMW stands for (the literal translation) Bavarian Motor Works. Not surprising they would use that flag in their logo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The BMW logo always looked like a wheel to me: a blue-white rim, and a black tire.

Although I would understand if they depict a low-profile tire in their logo, instead removing the tire altogether appears bit off to me.

Hence, it seems like they really found a logo for prototype cars that can't run.

</comment><comment><USER50> Whenever I see anything from The verge all I can think off is that terrible build your own PC video.

</comment><comment><USER51> Off topic: The giant double kidney grills on their new models look as horrible as their new logo.

</comment><comment><USER52> This reminds me of when Instagram moved to their new logo and everyone mocked it for the same reasons. Someone made a parody video implying that some kid hacked it together in a few seconds in Photoshop, but I can't find that video anymore, all the links that point to it are dead and won't come up on web.archive.org. They used this kid though:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3PbpPR6DY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3PbpPR6DY)

Edit: Here's something close, which is someone showing how to make the logo in Photoshop:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU9zpCZFPJQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU9zpCZFPJQ)

<comment><USER53> And the Instagram logo is still bland and unmemorable, hard to apply and a target of mockery. It's just not in the news anymore.

<comment><USER52> Oh right, I didn't mean to suggest that the criticisms became less valid over time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> BMW is transgressing from the petrol-carbon era and made away with the rubbery oily tire in the emblem. This is in line with the airy designs of their hybrid cars.

The new logo isn't that far from the very earliest. It would have been nice to see it in gold tones though. I think they should have held on to the heraldic feel already present with the checkerboard flag. The global market likes that exotic traditional stuff which is unique to European cars. Volvo for instance are pushing a lot on the Scandinavian heritage (only after they were acquired by the Chinese though) with minimalistic wood designs in the panel and Swedish flags on the seats.

</comment><comment><USER54> The old logo looks bold, solid and heavy - like a diesel engine, whereas the new one - light, skinny, instant, almost like an electric motor. Not a big fan of it, but thats my impresion after a quick glance.

</comment><comment><USER55> We definitely need a return to a more baroque design aesthetic. Something 3d and skeuomorphic, like early iOS or windows aero. The current flat design trend is getting so awful

</comment><comment><USER56> I think a logo should express uniqueness, the soul of a company and their product.

In this particular case, it is the opposite: BMW's logo change is an unoriginal move to copy the latest trend. Lack of courage and imagination.

I see it often recently that our German companies avoid risks of being pioneers, just copy-paste proven ideas, and act fussily and chaotically when see threats from emerging innovators.

</comment><comment><USER57> I do a little bit of everything, including design, and what appeals to me about ultra-minimalism is that it takes very little effort or talent. To do it well takes some real creativity, but if you're just jumping on the bandwagon it's very easy to imitate and half the work of a more detailed design. You get to be lazy while acting like you're trendy and cutting-edge.

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm not convinced it is a "new logo". It appears to be the old logo, with some new styling. To my eyes, a line drawing of the new version would be no different that that of the old one.

As much as I value my design education, stuff like this really rubs me the wrong way. Not the new appearance, but just the idea that this variation counts for even a day's work.

</comment><comment><USER59> "Graphic design is my passion"

</comment><comment><USER60> Lots of definitive-sounding opinions from people who clearly don't have design experience. It's fun to be equipped to see through comments that sound good but are total bullshit to someone who knows what they're talking about - <USER2> don't often get that on here :)

</comment><comment><USER61> I wonder how much they spent on this. To me it looks like something you could get for 50 bucks on one of these logo design sites. I don't understand why companies want to go from very distinct easily recognizable logos to something that looks just like every other logo.

</comment><comment><USER62> I wonder how long before they change it back or modify it because all the negative press.

</comment><comment><USER63> I tried to improve it with an enlarged blue/white area and overlaying the transparency over that with black text.

[https://imgur.com/a/stGip5E](https://imgur.com/a/stGip5E)

</comment><comment><USER64> It looks like a Secchi disk, used for measuring water turbidity and as a fiducial marker.

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

</comment><comment><USER65> The issue with this logo isn't that it's flat, it's that it's badly proportioned

</comment><comment><USER66> I really love flat designs and I'm a huge fan of this trend, but this logo looks so awful.

I'm really bad at design and this looks like a sketch made by me when I have an idea and I want it to show it to a designer.

</comment><comment><USER67> Well, there's a big difference between minimalism and something that just doesn't even remotely looks finished. I'm cringing at the idea of what this "redesign" must have cost ...

</comment><comment><USER68> This new logo design gives me the same boring vibe as the redesigns of a bunch of fashion brands like Burberry and Céline. It's monochrome, all looking too similar

</comment><comment><USER69> I think the point of the design is to make logo harder to see and lose it to the background.

The current trend is to subdue logos or even remove them completely. Younger people in the upper class or upper middle class don't want to advertise products they use or wear. The stronger the brand, more subdued the logo can be.

I suspect that at the some point the design didn't have the letters but they were added in the same white as background as a compromise. In my opinion removing the outer circle and letters and keeping just tiny blue and white Bavarian color roundel would have been even better.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand the new VW logo, either. What benefit is there to have the characters touch the upper part of the circle, but not the lower part?

</comment><comment><USER70> I can live with this new badge more easily than I can the new grills/kidneys on the actual cars. BMW's new design atheistic is loosing me.

</comment><comment><USER71> It looks like a particularly hideous off brand sticker. This trend of making everything look drab and lifeless can't stop soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER72> I like it.

</comment><comment><USER73> New logo looks like shit. Being ironed is the least of its problems. What kind of potato-headed executive greenlit this BS?

<comment><USER74> Probably it's the same exec who decided BMW steering should become numb and lifeless, apparently to remind drivers that BMWs are luxury cars first and fun cars second.

And to anticipate the response, no, this wasn't inevitable as steering became more electrical. At the same time, several other carmakers produced far superior electric steering systems to BMW's (e.g. Audi, Porsche). About 2012 BMW made a design choice to dumb down the steering response of all their cars, IMO thereby dissing BMW's very identity as the ultimate driver's car. Now I'm not sure they'll ever be able to reclaim those 60+ years of proud history they so cluelessly dismissed.

<comment><USER75> As a car guy, I increasingly view BMW as I view Maserati - A car that is leased by people that want to display a certain level of wealth. BMW's decreasing reliability reputation backs up that thinking, along with the changes you mention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Looks like one of those in-house localizer patterns you put on your walls when creating a digital model of your place.

</comment><comment><USER77> I like BMW, but I've always hated their logo. It's ugly and looks terrible on a car. This new logo is even worse.

</comment><comment><USER78> better article showing logo changes throughout the last century+ [0]

[0] - [https://www.thedrive.com/news/32440/bmw-starts-the-decade- wi...](https://www.thedrive.com/news/32440/bmw-starts-the-decade-with-a-flat- new-logo)

</comment><comment><USER79> at least it's not "Neomorphism" or whatever you call that braindead trend

</comment><comment><USER80> Why would they replace their logo after more than one hundred years? It was iconic.

</comment><comment><USER81> Change the colour to red and we're getting close to the Umbrella Corp logo.

</comment><comment><USER82> I really want that space at the bottom half of the circle gone.

</comment><comment><USER83> So they are trashing their logo in the same way Instagram did

</comment><comment><USER53> I can picture the designer patting himself on the back for "fixing" the alignment of the B and W axis to the center of the circle... when optical alignment as seen in the original is the actual hard task.

</comment><comment><USER84> Meh. The new logo looks like it was made to go on toys.

</comment><comment><USER85> Reminds me of BMW's nonsensical cup holders

</comment><comment><USER86> Design by committee... Never works.

<comment> mark-r I wonder if there's any similarity at all between the way they designed this logo and the way they design their cars?

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> That's pretty terrible :/

</comment><comment><USER88> I like it

</comment><comment><USER89> fuckin tramp stamp

</comment><comment><USER90> Change for the sake of change is how good apps and brands are ruined.

>Jens Thiemer, senior vice president of customer and brand, says it was designed to "radiate more openness and clarity"

Clearly a decision made by a non-technical person thinking with his heart and not his brain. How these people get away with such buzzword bullshit at huge multinational corporations is beyond me. I wonder how much he makes. Reminds me of that infamous Pepsi PDF.

These people get high off their own farts.

<comment><USER91> >> Reminds me of that infamous Pepsi PDF

Holy shit, you weren't kidding, That was really something special [https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_grav...](https://jimedwardsnrx.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/pepsi_gravitational_field.pdf)

<comment><USER92> What... did I just read? It looks like something that was written by Einstein, under the influence of some incredibly potent drugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> Outrage!</comment>


Wikipedia: Swap "en" with "simple" in the URL - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2012/08/17/heres-simple-trick-help-understand-complex-wikipedia-articles/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=share+button&utm_content=Did+you+know+about+this+little+Wikipedia+trick%3F+Swap+%E2%80%9Cen%E2%80%9D+with+%E2%80%9Csimple%E2%80%9D+in+the+URL&utm_campaign=social+media

<comment><USER2> Or, of course, you could work to raise your English reading level. (For instance, after reading simple.wikipedia.com, go read the same article on en.wikipedia.com now that you know what it means.) Ultimately, a larger vocabulary is _better_ \-- it allows one to convey information in _significantly_ more compact form including subtle shades of meaning that would otherwise not be conveyed at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see how this is a "trick". Moreover it won't work most of the time. Simple English is just another Wikipedia lang, just like French or Spanish. There can be articles existing in Simple English but not in English and vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER4> An old trick but a neat one, especially on the more technical articles where you want to explain something to friends but the article is jargonized to the point of being useless outside of that specific domain.

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel an anti-intellectualism tinge when I read this. _This_ is what hyperlinking was invented for. _This_ is why we have search engines. Don't understand something? Digress with a new tab, open the extra links, use your favorite search engine ... get some answers and learn something. Finally, return to the original equipped with your newfound powers of understanding.

I've had these habits from the moment I had access to the Internet. It lets me _quickly_ learn new things. I think the people around me see this and want the same thing. Well, you can't have it-- you can't read and understand that quickly unless you're willing to put in the time to learn to operate like this.

It's going to take time, so stop being lazy and invest the time.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not just go to the sidebar and click on 'Simplified English'?

</comment><comment><USER7> My kids apparently use this all the time. They thought I was simple for even bringing it up!

</comment><comment><USER8> Obligatory <http://xkcd.com/547/>

</comment><comment><USER9> I've seen forum participants give matter-of-fact, state-the-obvious replies which I'm pretty sure must have come from simple.wiki. I don't think it's a bot, just someone copying and pasting, however the simplified language could be very useful for genuine AI development.

</comment><comment><USER10> A link to the Simple English version of an article will appear, if available, in the "Languages" menu on the left margin of the article.

(True for any language.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool, but old news.

</comment><comment><USER12> One thing I just don't understand, is how "show any page" is a better than "show random page". Other than that I love it.

<comment><USER13> The Simple English Wikipedia has a preference (not a rule) that words be chosen from the Basic English lexicon where possible. See [http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_English_Wi...](http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simple_English_Wikipedia#Simple_English).

It may come as a surprise that the word "random" does not show up in even the quite inclusive Basic English combined wordlist, [http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Basic_English_com...](http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Basic_English_combined_wordlist).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wish my girlfriend had a simple flag, I seldom understand why she's mad, and when she explains it, I just get more confused.

<comment><USER15> aha, I second that</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you do when the bar is full? - <AUTHOR> How do you deal with scarcity in social situations?<p>- When you goto a bar and literally every seat is taken, what do you do? Do you goto another bar, and if so, how do you know that bar also isn't full?<p>- When you goto the grocery store and there are literally no empty parking spots (and several others are driving around the parking lot), what do you do? How do you know other grocery stores are not also literally full?<p>- What if you went to the coffee shop to work, but every table was taken? Do you take your coffee and return to your office or home? <comment><USER2> "there are literally no empty parking spots (and several others are driving around the parking lot"

Apparently, it's more efficient to stop and wait for a space. If the place is as busy as that, there will be somebody leaving in a few minutes. And that space is yours to take.

Me? I usually drive around, looking. <grin>

</comment><comment><USER3> Google maps, at least in the US, is pretty accurate about how busy an establishment is. I always end up checking it before going to a bar or coffee shop. If I don't find place to sit, I usually leave and try another spot.

I have honestly never come across a grocery store being too full</comment>


Open-Source Bitstream Generation (2013) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.isi.edu/sites/default/files/users/nsteiner/soni-2013-bitstream-fccm13.pdf <comment><USER2> Interesting, the article mentions an earlier project called debit that was removed from the web in 2010:

"The most concerted and successful published bitstream reverse-engineering effort came from a tool named debit by Note and Rannaud [10]. Debit provided substantial capabilities for Virtex2, Virtex4, Virtex5, and Spartan3, with anticipated extension to Altera architectures, but seems to have attracted too much unfavorable attention. The host site [http://www.ulogic.org/trac](http://www.ulogic.org/trac) was permanently removed from service in summer of 2010."

[http://web.archive.org/web/20100829010809/http://www.ulogic....](http://web.archive.org/web/20100829010809/http://www.ulogic.org/trac)

A more recent effort for open source bitstream generation:

[https://symbiflow.github.io/](https://symbiflow.github.io/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Did anything come of the work since 2013? Any code actually released?

<comment><USER4> You can check the active project instead. For example, documenting Lattice ECP5 [1] bitstream format or Xiling 7 one [2]. Everyone can help by documenting other formats too.

[1] [https://github.com/SymbiFlow/prjtrellis](https://github.com/SymbiFlow/prjtrellis)

[2] [https://github.com/SymbiFlow/prjxray](https://github.com/SymbiFlow/prjxray)</comment></comment>


Calligra 2.7 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.calligra.org/news/calligra-2-7-released/ <comment><USER2> [http://www.calligra.org/get-calligra/](http://www.calligra.org/get-calligra/) says there was preliminary support for OS X. But the anchor, [http://userbase.kde.org/Calligra/Download#Mac_OS_X](http://userbase.kde.org/Calligra/Download#Mac_OS_X), is dead and the link given in "We also provide experimental installer on OS X, current version can be downloaded here." ([http://download.kde.org/stable/calligra-2.6.0/osx/Calligra-2...](http://download.kde.org/stable/calligra-2.6.0/osx/Calligra-2.6.0-Installer.pkg.mirrorlist)) does not exist.

Pretty lame.</comment>


Who cares about Chrome. IE6 Has 25% Market Share - <AUTHOR> http://whydoeseverythingsuck.com/2008/09/who-cares-about-chrome-ie6-has-25.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A good point that we all have to take on board but (for some of us) perhaps a little too pessimistic.

If you are targeting the public at large with your new web site/start up then the IE6 issue looms large. However if you market is the "movers and shakers" then you are going to care a lot more about FireFox, Safari and IE8 right now - and will be looking to Google's Chrome to join in and take a share.

<comment><USER2> Of course the point stands that developers _probably_ still need to look out for IE6 users.

However, what the hell is Hank trying to say here? Is there a point to this blog post?

Is he suggesting that innovation should be halted simply because a large minority is still using outdated technology?

<comment><USER3> Exactly. All I could find in the article was vague naysaying. (Which, actually, seems to be the general tone of most of his posts.) Having a new decent browser that does a few innovative things is good. It won't solve the Internet's problems overnight, but it is clearly going to be beneficial on the long term.

<comment><USER4> His blog is called whydoeseverythingsuck seems like you should go in expecting whine over substance.

Oh, and according to W3C IE only has about 50% of market share, which is a lot different than the 75% he claims. is there a more accurate source he's going off of, or is it hyperbole?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All it takes is one killer app that only runs well in Chrome, and it'll have an installed base faster than you can believe.

Chrome itself will be the first attempt at that killer app.

<comment><USER6> Doesn't the very nature of Google Chrome prevent such an app from emerging? They seem to be sticking to the standards as far as possible. If you add google gears to any other (decent) browser the added benefits of Chrome will be lost for any single app.

<comment><USER5> I haven't used it so I have no idea. And all I've read is one comic about the architecture -- and while that comic is amazing, it still doesn't have _every_ detail.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the multi-process architecture and the new JS engine turn out to make a surprising qualitiative difference in the performance of certain classes of JS apps.

Maybe so, maybe not. But even though I'm not writing anything particularly complex -- like, say, Gmail -- I've already had the thrill of working around situations where my one-lung JS interpreter is holding up the whole browser.

Heck, perhaps Gmail itself will be significantly smoother. Given the market penetration of Gmail, that would be a pretty good marketing hook for Chrome, all by itself.

<comment><USER7> An efficient javascript engine would enable, finally, awesome javascript graphics (via canvas).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All this hand wringing over old browser compatibility puzzles me. Aren't marketers always trying to segment the market? Don't we go through great lengths to track and id, who's young, who's rich, who's what ever?

So isn't IE6 a dead give away with who you're dealing with? And how could advanced features and functionality also be targeted at the same demographic?

If you detect IE6 bring out the flashing "click here to win a prize" shit.

If you see Firefox 3.0 go nuts with web 2.0 "Learn Erlang now!!!!"

<comment><USER9> Absolutely not. I expect only a tiny segment of IE6 users are doing it because they don't want to upgrade, the rest are because they cannot upgrade (i.e. in a corporate environment).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So we should stop developing browsers because

"Stop using IE6! Use this browser, which is marginally better."

is more convincing.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is definitely an interesting time in the browser market. Currently, everybody is in love with Firefox. But, Firefox will quickly take a back seat to IE8 (which is "good enough" and will have huge market share) and Google Chrome (which will be technologically superior). This time next year, I wouldn't be surprised to see IE6/IE7/IE8 market share at 10/5/60%, leaving 25% of the market to be split approximately evenly between Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari.

</comment><comment><USER12> Chrome is a "thing." A "thing" is a subset of "everything." According to this blogger, "Everything sucks." Ergo, according to this blogger, Chrome sucks.

</comment><comment><USER13> You're all missing the point. IE6 only has 25% _left_. Yes, it's horrid and we waste a massive amount of time supporting it, but the market share is dropping. It was 90% of the market 2 years ago. Once it drops below 15% we can stop supporting it and move into .. 2006 (which is when IE7 was released)!

</comment><comment><USER14> Chrome has all the potential to be huge. Google is a brand — everyone knows Google, even all those people still using IE6. They may not have heard of Firefox or Safari, but they sure will hear about Chrome (I hope Google really pushes it out there).

</comment><comment><USER15> IE6 users will only be motivated to upgrade when a significant part of the web no longer supports IE6. Unfortunately, most of the web will only consider dropping support for IE6 when its market share is considerably lower.

<comment><USER16> I work in an environment where most enterprises still cling to IE6. These enterprises do so, because they've built up an internal expertise in keeping IE6 secure (kinda) and stable (kinda). At some point in the future, it seems like that internal expertise will be too expensive or will fail to maintain that secure and stable (kinda) environment. At that point, it seems, there will be a fairly quick migration to newer technologies. I don't think it'll be the killer app that draws the enterprise market... it'll be the bottom line.

<comment><USER17> Completely agree here. I think that a good portion of IE6 use is tied to corporate environments that prevents users from running anything other than IE6.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Since Chrome is open source, its improvements will be immediately available to Firefox. A part of the point is to get some better technology out there. CHrome is worth the effort on this alone.

Why, in this age of great VMs and Generational Garbage collection is a User app like Firefox plagued by memory leaks and fragmentation? Couldn't we retarget the compilation of Firefox onto a VM and have all memory be allocated through a table of pointers? Is Firefox so bloated at this point that it couldn't take a 4X hit to its performance? (Maybe it is?)

<comment><USER11> Firefox will be able to share approximately 0% of the code of Google Chrome. WebKit is designed totally differently than Gecko, and the overall architecture of Google Chrome (multi-process) is totally different than that of Firefox (single process, single threaded).

<comment><USER18> You can usually use code from a multi-threaded code base in a single threaded program. I'm sure that all of Chrome won't be reusable. But to say that it will be 0% is a bit of a stretch.

Are you implying that _none_ of the code in Firefox or Chrome is going to be orthogonal to rendering web pages? Is this how you architect your programs?

<comment><USER19> As was pointed out earlier, for _rendering_ , Chrome uses WebKit (of Safari, Android, and S60 fame). Firefox uses Gecko. It's not as simple as picking random functions out of one codebase and dropping them into the other one. It just doesn't work that way.

However if you meant the spread of ideas can flow from Chrome to Firefox (or even Safari; WebKit is open source as well), then yes, you're right about that. But its highly likely that the underlying code for said feature will be the exact same in all three browsers.

<comment><USER18> Memory management is largely orthogonal to a whole lot of stuff. That's a big area where Firefox can improve.

<comment><USER19> All I said was that the _code_ can't be copied and pasted between browsers. (probably.) Doing so A. wont work (most likely), and B. lead to poor memory management on the application if it somehow does manage to work.

Instead, the _ideas_ will be taken and copied (and hopefully made better). But idea's aren't code. So unless you're talking about human memory (which seems highly unlikely given you said "…where Firefox can improve") I'm not quite sure what benefits in terms of memory usage Firefox (or Safari or even Opera) gets from this.

<comment><USER18> Entire subsystems like Google Gears can probably be put in place, with a lot of code used without modification.

Also, if someone implemented my original proposal in this thread, this would be entirely orthogonal to any code currently in Firefox.

<comment><USER20> Gears and WebKit were designed to be reusable, other features such as the process model would be much harder to integrate into Firefox.

I'd be interested to see Firefox embedded in a "wrapper" VM, but I think you'll find it harder to implement than you expect. Please post to HN if you give it a shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ironically Apple's me.com would probably run better in Chrome, than in Safari...

</comment><comment><USER22> The idea isn't pure market share -- it's the spur on a floundering browser market. Enough feature-twiddling, more innovation.</comment>


Judge rules 40 unvaccinated children can't go back to school - <AUTHOR> https://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_49d9b01639f53dfe2d1270d21a0cbe3d <comment><USER2> It is so sad that these kids need to be punished for the actions of their parents. They are now missing an important part of their education due to a backwards belief held by their parents. I seriously doubt any of these parents will take the time to home-school these kids in the correct fashion or at all. I am just in disbelief it needs to come to this.

<comment><USER3> Or even worse, they might use the time off to teach them about their beliefs about vaccines

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I agree with not letting these children go back to school. Putting these children's healths at risk is a serious case of bad parenting and I'm glad the courts have stepped in to look after these children where the parents won't

<comment><USER4> Surely what's the point of vaccination if it doesn't protect the children?

<comment><USER5> Vaccination isnt 100% effective. When people talk about herd immunity, the "free riders" it tolerates should be are those that were vaccinated yet it didn't take. If one of them gets sick, the disease wont be able to transmit to the others because of those that are immune. Adding other non-vaccinated people to the mix increases the odds that these vaccinated-but-vulnerable people will be at risk as the disease is able to find enough transmission to stay viable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's a point where if something becomes a public health risk, it must be legally regulated. Those people are getting there.</comment>


New Google Patents front end breaks Zotero import feature - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/zotero/translators/issues/922 <comment><AUTHOR> Apparently its not easy to fix. Any ideas from the HN community?</comment>


Nvidia RTX 3000 launch details leak – and AMD could be in big trouble - <AUTHOR> https://www.techradar.com/news/nvidia-rtx-3000-launch-details-leak-and-amd-could-be-in-big-trouble <comment><USER2> Clickbait article of no significance: if it is a huge success so what? Will knowing this cause you to "win" by getting in line to be the first to buy at huge gouging markup? Nope. So just wait for benchmarks like everyone else.

<comment><USER3> I thought this sounded like a wccftech headline, and sure enough, that's the source. I'm extra skeptical because nvidia has been limiting memory (and cooling) on consumer cards specifically so that researchers would have to buy the marked-up pro cards for machine learning.</comment></comment>


Heatwave unveils ancient settlements in Wales - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44746447 <comment><USER2> It is mindboggling to me that ancient humans could have had such an impact that it's still seen today without concrete, stones, or any lasting structure. Just digging a ditch, then forgetting about it for two thousand years, until one day you can see dark lines in the grass.

Absolutely staggering. I wish they knew that they'd have made such a long- lasting impression on the Earth.

<comment><USER3> From my house, in North Wales, I can see a vast landscape shaped hugely by ancient hands - Snowdonia. The hills were once heavily forested, and held springs and glades in which Mesolithic, Celtic and Roman peoples lived and farmed - but they are now all moorland, as the trees were felled thousands of years ago, for construction and grazing.

Much of what we think of as natural landscape was made by man.

Even that which is patently unnatural passes without much consideration- the neighbouring farm sits smack atop a Roman fort (situated on an inconvenient hilltop between a known fort on the conwy river and a known fort atop a mountain, which has a view to the sea on one side and our hill, but not the river, on the other) - and my garden atop a Roman road - and nobody knows. The dead giveaway was when we took the mouldering plaster (gypsum atop lime) off the internal walls of the house, to find dressed masonry, and one slab with part of a funerary inscription upon it - the cottage was built from spoilage from the road and tombs that lined it - 400 years ago they would have just been some handily squared off chunks of stone, ideal to build with.

<comment><USER4> I'm not a local or an expert in this area, but do spend a week or two at least once a year in the mountains, either the Lake District or Wales, so have had a few conversations about this in the past.

> _"as the trees were felled thousands of years ago"_

Might you have a source on this you could share? I was under the impression that at least the majority of the deforestation happened in recent centuries or even decades, rather than thousands of years.

I did a quick google and didn't immediately find much detail, although this [0] article from the Independant claims " _half of its ancient woodland lost since the 1930s_ " talking about Britain as a whole.

Maybe it happened much earlier in North Wales?

Anyway, wherever the line is between natural and man-made, I still really love Snowdonia - was there most recently two months ago (staying quite near you as it happens, a few miles inland from Conwy), it's such a nice place to get away from city life for a little.

There's a guy who has been campaigning / writing a lot about this subject (I think specifically about the Lake District but might be wrong) pushing for more tree planting, but I can't think of the name right now... Edit: George Monbiot. I don't have time right now to revisit his writing but just remember he's interesting on the topic.

[0] [https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/worrying- sl...](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/worrying-slump-in- tree-planting-prompts-fears-of-deforestation-1997344.html)

<comment><USER5> It's true about the trees being felled thousands of yours ago; it's believed to be the same in my local countryside, the Peak.

That claim about half of ancient woodland lost since the 1930s : that's true, but it's referring to what ancient woodland still remained in the 1930s compared to what remains now. Both are very small areas, compared to the amount of land which became forested after the last ice age.

A quick reference I've found; wikipedia ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanket_bog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blanket_bog)) has "In some areas of Europe, the spread of blanket bogs is traced to deforestation by prehistoric cultures.", cited to an article in Nature: Moore, P. D. (1973). The influence of prehistoric cultures upon the initiation and spread of blanket bog in upland Wales. Nature, 241, 350–353.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those interested in aerial archeology I recommend the work of French archeologist Roger Agache, who pioneered the domain in France in the '60s and '70s and based on whose work tens if not hundreds of Roman-era villas have been mapped in the plains located between the Loire valley and the Northern area of Paris. Just a couple of links: [http://www.archeologie- aerienne.culture.gouv.fr/en/discip5-p...](http://www.archeologie- aerienne.culture.gouv.fr/en/discip5-pg1.htm) (presenting his work in English) and especially this [http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/memoire_fr?ACTION...](http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/memoire_fr?ACTION=RETROUVER_TITLE&FIELD_6=REF&VALUE_6=ARR22%2b&GRP=5&SPEC=9&SYN=1&IMLY=&MAX1=1&MAX2=1&MAX3=50&REQ=%28%28ARR22%2b%29%20%3aREF%20%29&DOM=Tous&USRNAME=nobody&USRPWD=4%24%2534P) (with actual aerial photos taken by Agache and his team).

</comment><comment><USER7> Something similar is happening in Holland, where it's possible to see where the historical fields were within current field divisions.

[https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/nederland-zo-droog-dat-zelfs- hi...](https://www.ad.nl/binnenland/nederland-zo-droog-dat-zelfs-historische- akkers-weer-zijn-te-zien~af7ac467/)

<comment><USER8> Though thats only from 50 years ago.

What is nice is that the article mentions the rain shortage, which is a nice way to compare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not to be pedantic but does it really qualify as a heat wave? Essentially the whole planet (with a few exceptions) is 2-3 F hotter than the last 100 year avg and the 3-4 highest month ever measured. This is really just new normal temperatures in a continuing upward trend.

<comment><USER10> I live in the UK, and the weather over the last six weeks has been exceptionally dry and warm compared to our usual summer weather [1]. It might not be a heatwave in some technical sense, but here on the ground that's how people are describing it.

[1] _" Three fine days and a thunderstorm"_

<comment><USER11> We haven't had a hosepipe ban around here yet so it's not a proper heatwave :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if this explains crop circles in the USA

<comment><USER13> Interesting thought but crop circles are made by crops being pressed down in to complex patterns, so probably not?

[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=crop+circles&num=100&sourc...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=crop+circles&num=100&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjl9dzZ_ZPcAhUFTcAKHRZsCIYQ_AUICigB&biw=1440&bih=675)</comment></comment>


Apple Reportedly Going To Buy Audio Company Beats Electronics For $3.2 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-to-buy-beats-2014-5

<comment><USER2> Discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7717961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7717961)

Other submissions, some have up-votes, some have comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7718106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7718106)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7718020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7718020)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7717980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7717980)</comment>


Exploring a 'Deep Web' That Google Can't Grasp - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/technology/internet/23search.html?partner=rss&emc=rss <comment><USER2> _That haystack is infinitely large._

Gah. I really hate it when people misuse "infinite".

<comment><USER3> While it is not really infinite, I think that in this situation, the term is justified as it is semantically very close to it.

<comment><USER2> It really isn't ... the semantics of infinity are completely different than the semantics of 'really, really, big.'

An infinite data store would, by definition, contain my DNA, correct (and incorrect) predictions about the universe (down to the molecule) for all time, the true value of Pi, and every piece of knowledge that has ever or will ever exist. An actual infinite is just a ludicrous concept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Greg Linden's (MSFT) comments on a recent Google paper on this:

[http://glinden.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-google-crawls- deep-w...](http://glinden.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-google-crawls-deep- web.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> There's many startups attempting to do this including pipl.com, <http://cazoodle.com/> among others. Here's some research about it: <http://www-sal.cs.uiuc.edu/~kcchang/>

</comment><comment><USER6> I believe I've seen this type of crawling in action in request logs. For example, Yahoo might try to request "news.ycombinator.com/user?id=britney_spears", even though it's not linked to from anywhere.</comment>


Web 2.0 = Bubble 2.0? - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2008/05/at-tiecon-east-friday-may-30th-fred-wilson-and-i-will-be-debating-web-20-viable-business-model-or-bursting-bubble-david-cancel-lookery-will-be-moderating-and-we-will-be-joined-by-brian-balfour-viximo-and-nabeel-hyatt-conduit-la.html

<comment><USER2> i have started to think they might ultimately fail at generating revenue for what they first set out to do but they might transform into something else instead that can be profitable.

for example there has been some talk about facebook as a webOS and this is something i have been thinking about lately. having your own customizable OS that you could access anywhere from any device is interesting and handy.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Advertising Revenue Math - How much traffic is needed to generate $1M in ad revenue? It all depends on how well you can target your audience and how much you can charge for CPM rates. For social network sites let's assume an average CPM of $0.40. You would need 2.5 Billion page views per month to earn $1M in ad revenues. That is 2,500,000,000 page views...how many sites generate that traffic?_

1- $1 million per _what_?

2- 2.5 billion page views -- if Facebook isn't doing that, it's pretty close. Is Facebook's cost of operation > $1 million per month? It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be anywhere near that. Therefore: profit. Where's the problem?

 _All booms eventually go bust._

Little booms do, but big "booms" last longer, at least, if not forever. For example, that little boom they call telephony. Or the personal computer. Or this whole internet thing.

<comment><USER4> Facebook's definitely spending more than $1m a month. Way more. They have over 500 employees. Do the math, at $1m/mo and only factoring in staff costs everyone would have to be making 24k a year without any benefits.

I would say $10m/mo is a conservative estimate.</comment></comment>


Spanish Government Takedown Request Against Tsunami Democratic - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/Spain/2019/2019-10-23-GuardiaCivil.md <comment><USER2> EDIT: Just read the README of the gov-takedowns repo and GitHub takes a much saner approach than I thought they did, so kudos to them.

If the letter appears in the official "gov-takedowns" repo, does that mean the content was actually taken down?

I find this whole trend quite worrying, where private companies based in one country, comply with the court orders of another country. Sure, they are allowed to, but what motivates them? Do they genuinely think they are helping the world? Are they worried about bad press? The freedom of information and thought seems like an ideal that has been lost from most major sites nowadays and isn't coming back.</comment>


Dispelling common D myths - <AUTHOR> http://semitwist.com/articles/article/view/dispelling-common-d-myths

<comment><USER2> This is good, I had no idea that DMD was mostly open source as well, nor that LDC was under development.</comment>


Ask HN: Climbing Category Rank - <AUTHOR>

Hey Guys, So I'm currently working on an app which is scheduled to be submitted to Apple in August and am trying figure out whether or not it's worth it to invest in ASO, ad budget management, and product iteration through a third party. I've been researching various companies such as mobileaction.co, appclover.com, and appnique.com but am on the fence on whether or not they are worth it. Have/would any of you entrepreneurs/developers use any of these sites for your ASO, ad budget, and product iteration needs?? Thoughts?? <comment><USER2> The first thing you want to think about is your product iteration. If you have a crappy app, you will be throwing your money away with any ad budgets you have. If you don't know ASO that well, I would suggest going with someone like Mobile Action. (I don't know the other two, but if they are the same, they are worth taking a look at).</comment>


Let's evolve music | DarwinTunes - <AUTHOR> http://darwintunes.org/evolve-music <comment><USER3> Listened to about a dozen of loops, they all sound pretty much the same - <USER2> the "OK" category.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The music is pretty bad but I like the idea. I attempted something similar with poor results. Maybe it could be done with samples.

<comment><USER4> It might be better if you don't think of it as "music" but as "loops". These are micro-scale compositions, not final compositions. Arguably, a second or two of silence between the bits would make that more clear.

The standard I'm sort of using is "could I imagine this showing up in the middle of some other song?" and so far all ten loops I've heard so far actually meet that bar. Granted, that is certainly a reflection of my tastes and prior experiences, but it's not as bad as I feared.

That said, while I could imagine any of these loops showing up in the middle of a composition, hearing each of them in a row is immensely tedious and tiring; the lack of instrument diversity, lack of macro-scale structure, and near total similarity in intensity gives you almost nothing for your brain to work with. Really great idea generator here, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it needs to be a two step process, one GA to create loops and a second to create the arrangement from the winning loops. If done with well known samples it could really be listenable and interesting-so many good project ideas-not enough time:(</comment></comment></comment>


Flag-colors – A 600+ color collection available in sass, less, stylus and css - <AUTHOR> http://flag-colors.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, creator here. After the success of brand-colors.com, it felt natural to collect and process other set of colors as well. So here is my second collection, country flags!

I scrapped all info from crwflags.com and used ImageMagick to generate color palettes of each individual flag. For the tech-savvy, the script to collect this data can be seen here: [https://git.io/vzlsB](https://git.io/vzlsB)</comment>


Bittorrent Sync: A Look Into How Keys (Formerly Known as Secrets) Work - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bittorrent.com/2014/07/03/sync-dev-a-look-into-how-keys-formerly-known-as-secrets-work/

<comment><USER2> Bittorrent Sync has taken over for Dropbox for me.

1) Great speed on local network. It is blazing speed. 2) I can have everything on my server and I don't change anything on my server's file system. I just choose which folder I want for my mobile devices. 3) Mobile devices get to pick and choose which files are in sync. 4) It has been very consistent and stable for me. 5) . files on Linux work so well I no longer use git to handle them.

WISH LIST: Version Control for my programming files</comment>


Finally a free cookie consent solution that doesn't ruin your website - <AUTHOR> https://www.legalmonster.com/features/cookie-consent/ <comment><USER2> > By continuing, I agree to receive email marketing from Legal Monster ApS > about webinars, product updates and latest news.

Ironic how you advertise a solution for GDPR compliance but your company itself is not actually compliant. Your don't seem to be using your own cookie consent solution either, and the "necessary" cookies in their is superfluous (cookies that are strictly necessary and do not contain personal data nor are used for marketing do not need usually consent - the cookie used to remember that I closed the cookie consent banner does not need consent itself).

I feel like this is yet more FUD around cookies and the GDPR. The spirit of the law is to not stalk people regardless of technical solution (so caring about cookies alone won't do anything if you or your "partners" are also using local storage or browser fingerprinting), but that's an inconvenient truth that will kill the majority of scummy online businesses today so nobody wants to admit it.</comment>


Show HN: Satlite Space – Broadcast your message to the world using satellite - <AUTHOR> https://www.producthunt.com/posts/satlite-space <comment><USER2> I have absolutely no clue what this thing does.</comment>


Is Slow Steaming Good for the Supply Chain? (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/is-slow-steaming-good-for-the-supply-chain/ <comment><USER2> There's a valuable point made in that article, that in a lot of business reliability is more important than speed. That is, if you do something exactly as your customer expects, every time, that's better than being occasionally the fastest but unreliably so.

<comment><USER3> It's known as Lean Manufacturing. People bang on about how that's about reducing costs & wastes etc. but really the heart of lean is synchronised production to smooth out demand variation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This made a lot more sense in 2013. Now we're about to run out of crude oil storage in the USA. There's an incredible price war going on with oil right now.

<comment><USER5> I'd like to see a chart that shows the percentage of operating cost between fuel and crew salaries given oil prices. I wonder if labor is the more expensive component now and fast steaming is cheaper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is curious that this hasn't resulted in pricing differentiation, where you pay more for quicker delivery, or more reliable delivery. Or maybe that exists but the weights (penalties for lateness vs premium for reduced transit) are variable, and the resulting correction signal to hard to optimise for with a high lag system such as a supply chain. A classic OR and non-linear control problem.</comment>


The $179 Moto G hits the US early - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57613701-94/moto-g-launches-in-us-on-motorola-site-ahead-of-schedule <comment><USER2> $179 no contract android phone that doesn't suck is going to be very tempting, especially now that Straight Talk, Net 10, Virgin Mobile, etc. are starting to gain in popularity in the US.

<comment><USER3> > are starting to gain in popularity in the US.

You know this is a joke, right?

they all have to lease band from the 2 big ones. The government does not allow them to build a network even if they had the money.

The only reason they exist is to scrap the bottom end of the market. the moment the market shifts to them, the 2 big ones will raise their network use prices to the point it is cheaper to use them than the small ones.

<comment><USER4> The spectrum sales carried with them severe restrictions on the prices AT&T and Verizon could charge to MVNOs, precisely to prevent that situation.

<comment><USER3> they can't even protect us about overcharges on client accounts, what about overseeing that they are providing a decent service to those rented networks?

not to mention the good old lowering of their price until they've killed competition, again.

<comment><USER4> They do police overcharges and excess billing; both AT&T and Verizon have paid massive fines for this in the past decade.

The agency is not responsible for policing quality of service--that is a function left to the market. Nor does the agency simply get to decide that it will police quality of service--it must be granted that authority by Congress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're looking for an even cheaper backup phone, take a look at the Nokia Lumia 520 - recently cut in price from $99 to $69 _off-contract_ :

[http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-520-GoPhone- AT/dp/B00E4504...](http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-Lumia-520-GoPhone- AT/dp/B00E45043A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1385492519&sr=8-2&keywords=nokia+520)

Yes, I know it's Windows Phone but it's staggeringly cheap for a perfectly good phone.

<comment><USER6> >Windows Phone

>perfectly good phone

You've lost me here.

<comment><USER7> Have you used Windows Phone or do you just Microsoft bash?

<comment><USER6> I have. They're pretty lame. They don't work as well as a comparable iOS or Android device, and the app ecosystem is miserable. I don't know why anyone would buy one if they didn't work for Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Spec for US GSM model doesn't list 2100 band, which makes the 1700 band kind of useless. It's only needed for T-Mobile HSPA+ which is on 1700/2100 or 1900/2100 if you're in a re-farmed area.

I'm hoping that's an error, because otherwise this phone will be limited to 2G speeds on T-Mobile.

<comment><USER9> I thought T-Mobile was quickly moving LTE to AWS (1700/2100) and HSPA+ to PCS (1900)? That would mean that this phone would work as fast as possible in any "re-farmed" area, which I think is most of them at this point.

<comment><USER8> They are, and the international version of the Moto G will have HSPA+ in refarmed areas, and EDGE service elsewhere.

My Motorola Razr i has the same band support as the international Moto G, and I get HSPA+ in a lot of places in Boston but not all. Whereas my wife's penta- band Galaxy Nexus gets HSPA+ everywhere.

What's confusing is that the US GSM version has the 1700 band, but not the 2100 band, and T-Mobile to my knowledge requires 1700/2100 (everywhere) or 1900/2100 (areas that have been refarmed for iPhone support).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> God dammit, just _once_ I thought we Canadians won. When I first heard the news - Brazil, Canada, etc. not US? I was happy to hear we'd be getting it first.

Now?

Now it's $200 freaking dollars to get a _locked_ Moto G from Koodo while the Americans get the proper price _unlocked_.

Why do you hate Canada, Google?

</comment><comment><USER11> From the article: _" Neither the Moto G nor Moto X are sold in China, a result of the Chinese government's ban on Google services, which flow into its phones."_

I don't understand this statement. All Android phones can have Google services; just add your google account in the settings. Is this feature disabled on Chinese Android phones?

It seems like China would be a natural market for such an inexpensive handset from a well known maker.

<comment><USER12> Android phones in China use a fork of AOSP which doesn't have Google services.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good thing, look at 4.4, it's horrible with Google+ and Hangouts replacing SMS...

<comment><USER13> You're free to download whatever MMS app you want from Google Play.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you free to delete the Google apps? No, they're protected by the system. You have to be root to remove them.

<comment><USER14> You're perfectly free to disable them, which accomplishes the same thing as far as the user is concerned. The fact that the /system partition is mounted read-only for security and ease of system updates means you can't really delete them, but it also means you can't use that space anyway, so the ability to delete wouldn't be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Marketing & publicity plays a huge role. Google doesn't push Nexus brands that well outside US. Not sure how they'll handle Moto. At the price point, it simply blows away phones that cost upto $500.

But, Google/Motorola needs to do a better job in educating people that they are getting almost everything (especially in markets that lack 4G service). There's little reason to look at other brands even if you are willing to spend twice as much.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow, incredible price point. Well done, Motorola. I'm perfectly happy with my Nexus4, but I almost want to buy a Moto G just because.

</comment><comment><USER17> Finally, a flagship-worthy phone that lasts for a day!

I think there's a major discrepancy between performance and battery abilities in the current flagship market. Specs are being beefed up with little care for power consumption.

Moto G cuts the crap and gives us a full day experience on a quite capable hardware with great screen. I'll take two.

</comment><comment><USER18> Not necessarily a surprise: holiday shopping is days away, and anyone looking to upgrade ought to consider the Moto G.

<comment><USER6> Not too many people get pre-paid smart phones. The plan choices are pretty thin on the GSM side. You've basically got T-Mobile or Straight Talk, depending on the network coverage in your area.

<comment><USER19> AT&T also has an option, called AIO Wireless. There are many other smaller players that are either T-Mobile or ATT MVNOs.

<comment><USER6> The AIO Smart plan is $10 more per month than a better plan from Straight Talk (on the same network).

<comment><USER20> $5 in most places as tax is included in AIO.

Also, does Straight Talk offer LTE as well? I think AIO comes with LTE. I also liked AIO's $70 plan as Straight Talk is limited to 2.5GB of 4G data on the unlimited plan.

(I use Straight Talk but was thinking about getting Nexus 5 which comes with LTE)

<comment><USER21> Yes, people on r/nexus5 are saying they got LTE activated without much issue.

I'm planning to switch to ST when my AT&T contract expires.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd jump on this if it was LTE. I'm grandfathered into an unlimited plan on verizon. I'm going to have to buy a phone outright to keep that going, but I'm addicted to 4G. I've had it for 3 years and I can't go back. Hopefully a revised edition isn't too far out.

<comment><USER23> Check out the transfer upgrade trick. I used it to keep my grandfathered unlimited data plan on Verizon while getting a new phone at the subsidized price a month or two ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Huawei makes pretty good (Android) phones in that price range too, if you spend ~250 you get a "high end" (spec wise) one. From what I can tell, their build quality is good too.

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if Republic Wireless will get on this since they offer the Moto X for $300 which they subsidize a bit.

Seem that Moto G is better fit for them as they are going for the lower end of the market.

<comment><USER26> Agreed. Republic really raises the bar on _cheap_ plans. Though I'm kind of pissed that they went from a super low end phone (with a 3 year old OS) as their only offering, the Defy, to a moderately high end phone, the Moto X. Not to mention the the plans are cheaper for the expensive phone. I was an idiot and bought the cheap phone before I realized the Moto X was coming out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Good news for all the GSM based MVNOs. Being able to offer a phone sub $200 that is not quite cutting edge but near enough for most people give even more reason to skip contracts.

</comment><comment><USER27> Bought one just to have as a spare/beater/toy-around phone, even though I just went from a N4 to an N5. This price point is what the US has been needing.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've never owned a smartphone before and I'm currently on an AT&T plan with no data. Could I use a Moto G?

</comment><comment><USER29> I think they might be shooting themselves in the foot - I mean what's the consumer benefit of upgrading to Moto X?

<comment><USER30> LTE and better screen are two most obvious.

I cant imagine buying a non-LTE phone today. I currently have the HSPA N4 and after playin with a couple LTE phones, its almost night and day. It feel more like I'm on wifi than a cellular wan. HSPA in Chicago barely gets me 5mbps with lots of latency and this weird 2-5 second lag where the request is made but no data is sent.

LTE's responsiveness, even if its at the same 5mbps bandwidth, is something of game changer.

With the nexus 5 at $350 right now, not sure why I would bother with either.

<comment><USER31> > With the nexus 5 at $350 right now, not sure why I would bother with either.

The N5's apparently abysmal battery life?

<comment><USER32> I would have agreed about the abysmal battery life if I only have a day's worth of experience, playing around with it a lot more than I would usually, which is what a lot of anecdotes on the battery life are.

Read reports from N5 users now and you'll find the battery life is nowhere near abysmal when tested against the conditions one would put with a phone they use normally.

I was one of those that lambasted the battery life when I first got it. But now at the end of the day my battery life barely dips below 50% and I use mine a fair lot.

<comment><USER31> You don't have to read reports, you can look at real tests: [http://blog.gsmarena.com/nexus-5-grinds-through-our- battery-...](http://blog.gsmarena.com/nexus-5-grinds-through-our-battery-test- routine).

The nexus 5 gets 4:45 of LTE browsing. The Moto X is 8:17, and the Moto G is supposed to be even better (though GSM Arena hasn't tested it yet).

<comment><USER30> The G can't do LTE, so any comparison would make no sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I feel Moto G will look like an outdated phone in an year.

</comment><comment><USER34> $200 in Canada

<comment><USER10> And I assume it's locked to Koodo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hear Hear:

google just entered the subsided device game!

just like microsoft tried to kill competition by taking a loss on xbox. google via the acquired motorola mobility is probably taking a loss to sell you a 720p screen phone with NO SD CARD. the info site tells you in 7 different places that you get 50GB of free google drive.

google wants your data pretty bad.

<comment><AUTHOR> True but for any discerning techie, root it and you can have nandroid/titanium backups, pushed to the cloud, or pulled via wireless adb, or even bittorrent sync (in lieu of an open-source solution for now).

The Moto-G is nice except for the lack of LTE and micro-SD. Meanwhile the $150 Galaxy Light has both LTE and micro-SD but a low res screen. Trade-offs hmmm....

<comment><USER3> not having a SD card nowadays is crazy. Ask ANYONE who has the galaxy nexus S (maybe i have the wrong model... the only nexus without SD slot)

you can't install swype, firefox, google voice and skype on the same phone! and that is a 2 year old model.

<comment><USER35> You're referring to the Galaxy Nexus, the Galaxy S has an SD card slot. The Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 also lack SD card slots.

As a Galaxy Nexus owner (it was my first Android phone) it was never an issue, as it has 16 GB of internal storage. I could install plenty of apps (including the four you mentioned) and cached a decent amount of music from Spotify.

I now own a Moto X, which doesn't have an SD card slot either.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Singapore to Stop Adding Cars in February 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-23/singapore-to-stop-adding-cars-on-its-roads-from-february-2018 <comment><USER2> I think that many asian cities have the right approach here. Treat cars as a luxury good in a space-challenged context and tax them heavily, while making sure to provide a world class public transport system so as to guarantee no- one actually _needs_ a car.

While it doesn't have a COE, tokyo does basically the same thing. You will have to pay $50k upfront for a 10-year car permit in singapore. In Tokyo there's no upfront cost but good luck getting a car park for less than $500/m - and you'll have to prove you have one to register the car. Adds up to about the same amount.

I live 100m from a train station with 2 lines, automated trains come every 3-4 minutes, 8 minutes to my workplace. Bike share outside my door. 3 supermarkets and hundreds of shops within walking distance. If absolutely necessary, there's Uber or grab. You don't need a car here. It's a luxury for the rich, and that's pretty much as it should be IMO.

<comment><USER3> > a luxury for the rich

Parents of children under 12 should also be given a pass.

(Unless outsourcing the population is a deliberate tactic, of course.)

<comment><USER4> Kids can walk, when not young enough for a trolley. My 5-year old just cycled 4km with me this weekend.

<comment><USER5> Kids can not only walk, but walk alone too. I was going to elementary school on my own when I was 7. So did my classmates. I used to cycle all around by the age of 10.

It sucks that today youngsters are treated as dumb. Even though the world is getting safer and safer.

<comment><USER6> Relevant - [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-young-children-solo- co...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/japanese-young-children-solo-commute- subway-school/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lee Kuan Yew actually thought, almost a decade ago, that he didn't go far enough:

 _"I knew that once people in Singapore could have a car, they'd never give it up. So, before it got out of control, I said you need a Certificate Of Entitlement before a car is yours; and the permitted up-tick in number of cars depends on what the road capacity is. That was the first move. So, you bid for it. If you issue more entitlement certificates than is prudent, roads are jammed. Then a younger generation took over and says, well, why not have more cars and we charge them by the usage on the roads instead of just purchase? I told them, okay, okay, have a car, have more cars! But once you've got a car, you will never give it up." [...]_

 _"I was moved on policy-thinking about transit by psychology. They are moved by maximizing road space. Okay, then you would antagonize more motorists. I would rather have less cars and get everybody to use the public transport, but a younger generation thinks this is the way to go and you are in charge, then go for more cars."_

I remember being in LA in the 2000s, and not renting a car (the innocence of growing up in Europe...). I sampled the buses that took 1.5 hours to go from Beverly Hills to Downtown. I paid $200 for a return cab ride from Santa Monica to Hollywood at rush hour.

In comparison, if the MRT has a 30 minute delay in Singapore it is national news [2].

[1] Tom Plate, Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew - [https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew- Singapore/...](https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Lee-Kuan-Yew- Singapore/dp/9814677612)

[2] [http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/commuters- hi...](http://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/commuters-hit-by-train- delays-early-friday-morning)

<comment><USER8> Random anecdote: I commute by MRT. I guess my average wait time is around three to max five minutes on the platform.

I'm used to public transportation from Germany, but SG's transportation is so much better and very affordable on top. Cabs, Grab and (no clue, never used it myself) Uber are cheap when you need an alternative. I had a car for most of my life in Germany, don't miss it a single bit in SG.

<comment><USER9> I've used both MRT in Singapore and MTR in Hong Kong extensively and it's simply the future. Individually owned transit vehicles only makes sense in rural areas where there are no options. In larger cities, the only thing that makes sense is public transport. The externalities of individual car ownership creates so many negative factors in a cramped city environment that I'm convinced we'll look back at it and laugh in a hundred years. There won't be individual car ownership (except for collectors) because noone will want the liability when comparing it to the options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is important to note that Singapore/HongKong have world class, reliable and reachable public transport. The MTR is heavenly. The population is concentrated in big, tall buildings. Not quite the "lifestyle" but I can see why banning cars is important here.

Given that the standard of living is high, pretty much everyone will be able to afford cars if they cost the real market price. This will make movement impossible even if the populace owned cars just for leisure use.

<comment><USER11> limiting, not banning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Amazing! This more than anything else seems so sci-fi to me. Reminds me of the Diamond Age somehow. In the US we have so much space we take for granted building a new road a new subdivision a new 5acre parking lot. Imagine if there was no more space. Cars now become a whole lot more of a questionable use of space.

<comment><USER13> While the US may have physical space to put cars, most of our towns and cities nonetheless are slowly going bankrupt from catering to them.

</comment></comment><comment> King-Aaron This doesn't surprise me. Already they are trying to economically limit the number of cars there (as mentioned in the article). Singapore has an extremely efficient public transport system and a culture that already isn't highly dependant on cars so I don't see a massive social shift being in order to accomodate the plan.

</comment><comment><USER14> I spent a week in the South of France recently and the first Sunday morning I was sitting outside and this whisper of a train came by. No horns, whistles, smoke, noise. The service runs the coast every 30 mins. I thought about this joke service here in the Boston area and realized that we'll never have this in the USA; not this side of the Civil War 2 anyway.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think it's overall a good move, given 12% of their land is used up by transport networks and it's a tiny island.

That said, if space is a real constraint, I think they could make a deal with Malaysia, if they really needed to, but I think their independent streak is too strong to allow that thought --they once were part of it, pre- independence. On the other hand there are "autonomous" regions out there.

The question[1] has been considered in some circles, although more fantasy than anything else due to enormous, maybe insurmountable, cultural and ethnic differences. One is Sinetic the other Malay --and in the past lead to some terrible ethnic riots.

[1][https://www.quora.com/What-if-Singapore-combines-with- Malays...](https://www.quora.com/What-if-Singapore-combines-with-Malaysia- again)

<comment><USER11> its like a bad breakup. Singapore and Malaysia were married, got into a huge fight, separated, and after living happily as neighbors for 50 years you want them to make a deal to cohabitate again?

<comment><USER16> It's funny to look at the history. When Singapore separated from Malaysia, many people thought that Singapore wouldn't be able to survive as an independent nation island state, with no natural resources. Today Singapore has the last laugh; they're the regional economic superpower.

<comment><USER11> i dunno about superpower. indonesia probably has that title.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I never really understood why governments insist on restricting vehicles and not access to roads. It seems like the scarce resource is efficient road access, not space for cars (even in sg, where there's not a whole lot of that either).

<comment><USER8> Are you aware of the SG ERP [1] system?

It's a toll system, that taxes you for driving on key roads during rush hours. Say electronic "Drive on this road before 9.30 and you'll be taxed 2.5 dollar" signs. That feels like a decent idea to me?

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

<comment><USER16> It's a great system. The swiftness with which the singapore government installed electronic sensors _in every single car in singapore_ was also breathtaking. Bloomberg tried to do an ERP in NYC when he was mayor, but he couldn't get it through. I wish he had!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The headline is technically incorrect. Cars will still be added as long as an equal number of cars are removed.

Bloomberg has also updated its headline to read: "Singapore Will Stop Increasing Car Numbers From February 2018"

<comment><USER19> Well, technically technically it is correct. Replacing isn't adding. The total number will stay the same

<comment><USER18> I stand corrected. Let my modify my original statement by saying that 'adding' seems to imply that no new cars will be allowed in Singapore. Which, of course, isn't true.

My concern was that without reading the article, few people may know that in Singapore, most cars are usually removed (retired) from road use after 10 years.

In other words, I think 'stop increasing' sums up the situation better than 'stop adding'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For small cities with the privilege of topography, it's ok. For cities with population more than 1M+ and heavily complicated topography, it's delusional.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a complicated topic. Here is one example line of thought:

1\. Wow, all of these cars are annoying -- let's restrict them

2\. But, rich people own these cars, and many of them drive into the city to spend money, which pays the workers

3\. We all agree traffic is annoying, so those rich people sure must prefer to drive their cars

4\. Hmmm, what will happen if we punish/tax/regulate their cars? Possible they'll stop coming into the city?

5\. If that happens, what happens to the workers?

My primary point is that it's easy to say, "these cars suck, so let's tax them" without thinking through all of the ramifications.

<comment><USER22> I'm going to branch out from 3. here:

4) Why do they prefer driving these cars? Can we make public transport as good or even better than driving a car?

5) Let's put in place a plan to improve public infrastructure while restricting new cars on the road.

6) Once we satisfactorily accomplish 5, we can phase out cars.

My primary point being it's easy to create strawman lines of thought and have no meaningful conversation. ;)

<comment><USER21> I completely agree with you, and I think your branch is a good one. Also, personally, I look forward to the day when cities are essentially free of car traffic. I envision wide pedestrian boulevards.

Speaking by analogy, most of us rational thinkers accept that we cannot make conclusions such as "our government needs more money, therefore we must increase taxes." Maybe, but maybe not.

But I've noticed with cars (or, maybe insects) it seems to be easier to jump to "let's tax and regulate these bothersome machines away."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wait does this include electric cars? Was not clear from the article

<comment><USER5> Yes. Why would electric cars be exempt? The problem in SG is not pollution, it's congestion.</comment></comment>


What is the Disposable Employee Model? - <AUTHOR> http://peetsworkersgroup.blogspot.ca/2013/09/disposable-employee-model.html

<comment><USER2> It's when you aren't the boss.</comment>