In Pursuit of PPE - <AUTHOR> https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2010025 <comment><USER2> This is insane. 5x markup and federal seizure of privately procured masks that will then get given to private companies to give to hospitals. Instead, the government could institute price controls and distribute directly to those in need or allow all private purchases to go through while controlling part of the market. Absolutely crazy. Not to mention having to hope your governor praises the federal government to get their masks back.

You could not have invented a worse scheme for this, but somehow they have, AND they're using federal manpower (in N95s, naturally) to intercept these shipments.

<comment><USER3> Whats even more nuts is that N95's have taken this level of importance in healthcare at all instead of reusable P100 masks. I read a post on medium the other day about a hospital in Texas that does that and it was being treated as some kind of amazing discovery as if this was some unknown miracle device.

[0] [https://elemental.medium.com/a-tiny-hospital-in-texas- might-...](https://elemental.medium.com/a-tiny-hospital-in-texas-might-help- solve-the-mask-shortage-9ad3c0a7a861)

<comment><USER4> I've found that the P100s tend to make me feel lightheaded pretty quickly. I tried to wear one on a very smoky drive from LA to SF during the fire season last year, but had to take it off after ~45 minutes because I felt my ability to concentrate on the road was being weakened too much. That would definitely be an issue for healthcare workers. I haven't experienced anything similar with an N95.

<comment><USER3> You might not have been wearing it right. You might also want to get your lungs checked with a spirometry machine a standard test that is done to make sure peoples lungs are healthy before letting the wear a respirator.

[https://www.healthline.com/health/spirometry](https://www.healthline.com/health/spirometry)

<comment><USER4> I run 3-5 miles most days, so I don't think it was a lungs issue. I was wearing it very tightly—maybe I made a mistake, but I'm pretty sure it was on right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I read this kind of thing I am happy we live in a society that allows the free discussion of information. It is no exaggeration to say this kind of honest description of events by a senior health official could have lead to imprisonment or worse in many historical and some modern contexts.

Given how many people are currently unemployed - how is it that we can fail to ramp up our own ability to produce this needed equipment? There is no shortage of labor. Forget about the failures to prepare in January, February and March - what are we doing right now to prepare for the next 6 months?

I'm looking around for a leader who has that vision. Governors are blaming the federal government. The federal government is blaming China and the WHO. Who is organizing the effort to fill the gaps?

<comment><USER6> >Given how many people are currently unemployed - how is it that we can fail to ramp up our own ability to produce this needed equipment? There is no shortage of labor.

Labor isn't the limiting factor. You need machines, raw materials, supply chains.

There isn't an AWS for N95 mask manufacturing.

<comment><USER7> There are some surprisingly resourceful groups doing local manufacturing in incredibly inefficient, seemingly-unscalable ways and actually producing masks and eye-shields by the thousands.

[https://www.facebook.com/groups/pdx3dplab/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/pdx3dplab/) [https://team2471.org/](https://team2471.org/) [https://pdxhackerspace.org/](https://pdxhackerspace.org/)

This is just in the Portland area. I assume there are similar efforts around the country and around the world.

Ideally this stuff should be made in factories rather than hundreds of bespoke 3d printers operated by volunteers, but if the need and motivation is there, a lot can be accomplished. Maybe it's not enough, but it's a lot more than nothing. And the longer this goes on, the more efficient the organization and manufacturing gets.

Normally the regular supply chain would handle all this, but if the supply chain is broken by hoarding behavior or the wrong kinds of active government intervention, the alternative is to bypass the usual market and use whatever local workforce volunteers or can be hired to make what's needed directly for the institutions in need.

<comment><USER8> N95 masks don't require 3D printers, they require melt-blown fabric. My girlfriend and I are chemical engineers, and took a look at the process that turns bulk, cheap, and widely available plastic (PE, PP, PC, etc) into melt blown fabric. She noted that it looked pretty nasty to her, and she wouldn't want to be involved with the startup for a new plant, and we regularly work with pretty nasty chemicals in large quantities. I was less hesitant, thinking it doesn't look that awful but I tend to be far less risk-averse. With proper safety precautions I think I'd be fine with it, but both of us feel that companies are extremely likely to fail at fully protecting the workers near the equipment from hazards. Here's an example of the machinery required: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=897yTI6wXWY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=897yTI6wXWY)

You need a lot of capital for a melt-blown fabric facility, and some specialized engineers. China and Taiwan managed to build new facilities of huge size very quickly - it can be done, but apparently much harder for the large American conglomerates to get off the ground as quickly. [https://www.wfuv.org/content/covid-19-has-caused-shortage- fa...](https://www.wfuv.org/content/covid-19-has-caused-shortage-face-masks- theyre-surprisingly-hard-make)

If you can get >$10 million together, and a very dedicated and specialized team of engineers, plant operators, machinists, and businesspeople - you might be able to finish your factory before 3M's Rhode Island and Arizona plants, if you start right now. But you won't do it in a distributed way with a bunch of people with 3D printers.

However, it seems there's evidence that non N95 masks have some efficacy. Just regular old cotton clothing cloth. You could start an MLM/Amway/Mary- Kay/Avon/Vemma/Younique style thing to get out-of-work people to make these at home and sell them to friends and family.

Sinopec decided on Feb 24 to built a melt-blown fabric plant [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9lchhBE7cE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9lchhBE7cE). It was operating on March 6. It took them 10-12 days to build, from scratch, a facility to produce 1.2 million N95 masks per day. One of my links above shows another facility built in 11+ days making 200,000 N95 masks per day.

At the start of the outbreak, Taiwan could product 100,000 N95 masks per day, but have built over 60 production lines, and now make enough melt blown fabric to product over 20 million N95 masks per day. Notably, Taiwan had a HUGE stockpile of masks, so even though making 100,000 masks per day wasn't enough for their population, they had enough in storage to last them while they built up their capacity. Now they make enough to send tons of masks the the USA every week.

USA (3M) decided to build melt-blown fabric facilities around March 23: [https://www.powderbulksolids.com/news/Honeywell- Expands-N95-...](https://www.powderbulksolids.com/news/Honeywell- Expands-N95-Respirator-Production-at-RI-Plant-03-26-2020) and to a much smaller capacity. And none of the new lines in the USA are up and running yet. "Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 3M was manufacturing about 50 million masks per month" ... "In its continuing effort to help meet demand, 3M says it is working to double its global N95 mask production numbers once again to 200 million units monthly." But they think that will take another YEAR to accomplish. Only 35 million N95 masks are currently made in the USA, by 3M or others. [https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/n95-mask-production-wont- mee...](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/n95-mask-production-wont-meet-demand- for-another-year-3m-predicts-2020-04-02)

Ideally, each citizen would have a new N95 mask for every day. We'll get to 1 mask per citizen per month, sometime around a year from now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm actively on the hunt for PPE on behalf of hospitals and I can tell you the mark up comes from several places:

\- First, manufacturers have marked up prices. What used to cost 5c from a Chinese manufacturer now costs 30c or more. \- Aside from supply being keen on the shortage, demanders are also willing to push prices even higher. I have even had people /outbid/ my place in line for product. \- Airfreight costs $14.50 a kilo. It's typically around $2-3 a kilo. \- Financing is hard. In many cases, no one wants to pay up front at all or make deposits because of all the scams and counterfeit products. Suppliers similarly want money up front, often 100%. The transaction itself becomes a more risky proposition. I can't find anyone willing to finance part of a 30 day transaction for 5% returns.

The Federal seizures have made everything even more risky. Price controls will not fix this. A manufacturer in China has enough demand from the rest of the world to charge. (I was out bid from someone from France.)

The only thing we can do is ramp up supply.

<comment><USER10> > I was out bid from someone from France.

This is quite interesting to read. Most of the media coverage in France has been very hostile against the US with little evidence to back it. We've seen claims of Americans waiting on the tarmac to buy our masks and redirect planes, cash in hand ready to be given. And in major newspapers [1, 2].

[1] [https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/coronavirus-les- reg...](https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/coronavirus-les-regions- redoutent-le-vol-de-masques-par-les-americains-20200402) [2] [https://www.liberation.fr/france/2020/04/01/une-commande- fra...](https://www.liberation.fr/france/2020/04/01/une-commande-francaise-de- masques-detournee-vers-les-etats-unis-sur-un-tarmac-chinois_1783805)

<comment><USER11> It doesn't help that the US tried to make some shady deals with a German company for exclusive access to the vaccine, and allegedly rerouted PPE paid for and headed to Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We should give US doctors lots of PPE for no cost.

Then a few months later, mail the hospitals bills for every person involved in making those masks. Also separate bills for the "specialists" who packed them into cardboard boxes. Then a month later we should send them another bill explaining that we decided the original mask shipment actually wasn't covered under their donation plan.

If they have trouble paying we should let them know we have payment plans available.

<comment><USER13> Yeah it is rather ironic all this talk about price gouging in a state of emergency when hospitals do it all the time, especially for emergencies where the person has no choice.

Oh masks cost 5x as much now? What a tragedy, they are charging 1-3 orders of magnitude markup on everything, all the time. But now people want to talk about "ethics"?

I hope when this is all over that is sparks a serious conversation about the healthcare mafia. A lot more needs to change before throwing tens of trillions of dollars at them for Medicare for all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I can only speak for Europe, more particularly for Germany, I learned quite a lot about masks in the last couple if weeks when I tried to leverage my logistics contacts to get masks and stuff from China.

IMHO we see what a complete brake down of an established supply chain looks like. As end users in Germany are unable to source directly from Chinese suppliers, and these suppliers are unable to import, the high demand, combined with production shutdowns, resulted in a near global stock out.

While this is bad enough, the multi-tiered distribution chain (producer, importer, wholeseller, local distributor) is by definition not capable or fast enough to recover in any reasonable amount of time. And that is under ideal conditions, and not during a global shortage and run on the product in question.

One would be tempted to assume some central entity would be able to step in. But in Germany, that fell to the armed forces and other government entities. And those have not the slightest clue about international trade. So the insisted on suppliers to import. Remember why the supply chain is the way it is? So the only thing working is donations, because there logistics pros are running things.

It is not a question of availability of masks nor transportation capacity or lead times, just price.

Now it seems the import part is solved. I give the government 2 weeks tops to realize distribution is not that easy neither. Just having masks in some warehouse is only the first step of supplying the front line people.

<comment><USER15> Sounds duly familiar to what I read about Wuhan back in late January and February. Only donations work. Had massive trouble distributing things. Fortunately at least you don't have to deal with another distraction named "government redirected your donation shipment to Red Cross (ran by government in China) and they sat on their stockpile doing nothing or malicious".

<comment><USER14> So far, no. I guess we have to be happy about the little things, don't we?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's absolutely insane that PPE isn't something that's being procured on a national level. Why are hospitals and clinicians having to deal individually? If there were a monopsony buyer (i.e. the Feds), suppliers could be bullied into providing reasonable terms.

Well, I suppose the real answer is: Because that's not how healthcare works in America...

<comment><USER17> I'm going to repeat your question: why isn't ppe being procured on a national level, and instead why is dhs seizing supplies, and why is not a war supplies act being declared when the national government is clearly needing them and not able to procure them.

It is insane on multiple levels.

<comment><USER18> Is a war supplies act different from the Defense Production Act that has been invoked?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was certain by this point in the crisis we'd be seeing video akin to WWII/"Rosie the Riveter" stuff of PPE flowing out of factories around the country.

Is the U.S.A. simply not capable of this level of production any longer? What the heck is going on? It's sobering.

<comment><USER20> Because retooling is expensive and time consuming. And there is no guarantee how long this level of demand will sustain. And no guarantees on cheap chinese goods flooding the market and taking all your customers in a few months.

<comment><USER21> > And no guarantees on cheap chinese goods flooding the market and taking all > your customers in a few months.

You might could fix that with strong tariffs. There was a guy recently, can't remember his name, who was very much in favor of domestic manufacturing and tariffs against China. Seemed to catch a lot of flak for those policies! Wish I could remember who that was...

<comment><USER22> Bingo. It's amazing, this could have been _the shining moment_ for his platform. Give domestic mask manufacturers immediate long-term federal contracts and a promise of significant tariffs when the dust settles. Instead he denied the problem even existed, encouraged people to get infected, and delayed our response by six weeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What I fail to understand - where was the emergency planning? A global pandemic is surely one thing that is a) foreseeable and b) possible to plan for. PPE could have been stockpiled, essential industry identified, testing infrastructure established, quarantine protocols put in place. We even had a dry run with SARS!

I'm sure there are (or were) civil defence / continuity of government plans in case of nuclear war, this must have been number 2 on the list of possible national emergencies?

<comment><USER24> Sure they were!

Some titles to Google:

National Security Council: National Biodefense Strategy 2018

H.R. 269 (116th): Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2019

H.R. 6378 (115th): Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness and Advancing Innovation Act of 2018

United States Government Accountability Office — Report on national bio defence strategy

Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense Report 2019

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Serious question: If the FBI and DHS are seizing PPE, where is it going? Why can't this hospital be a beneficiary of seized PPE, rather than an (almost) victim?

<comment><USER26> Blue Flame Medical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [https://www.businessinsider.com/fema-paid-bankrupt- company-n...](https://www.businessinsider.com/fema-paid-bankrupt-company-no- employees-55-million-n95-masks-2020-4)

No corruption here...

<comment><USER28> Yeah, they should have spent a month or two vetting every single company out of tens of thousands involved in the effort. This armchair quarterbacking is tiresome.

<comment><USER29> Come on. There's a middle ground. Of course the government can't be expected to vet every company in absolute depth right now, but it can very easily check a few criteria:

\- does this company have any experience making the product in question?

\- what size workforce does this company have to deploy once they receive funds?

This is basic stuff. Very basic stuff. And the government is failing at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wrote up instructions on how to buy KN95 Masks from China for $1.67 delivered. Please share it to anybody in need of KN95 masks. If you need samples of the masks, I can send them to you for free, just shoot me a message.

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BKUmZgwrvPG47VMR8SFvvSVh...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BKUmZgwrvPG47VMR8SFvvSVh7lrUiMv0dvrnzmrs1Is/)

<comment><USER31> The price premium comes from shipping and the cost of time.

MOST suppliers and even stateside vendors are trying to use Fedex, UPS, DHL. Many profiteers/altruists have _already seen_ the possibilities here, and it is crowded but has irreconcilable limitations. You need your own cargo planes, shutting out most of the market. Plenty of other pitfalls too. With the risk involved, the "public health" ethical debate around pricing now falls flat, there is fortune involved in overcoming these hurdles.

People IN THE US want supplies IN THE US, not 10-15 days later with threat of seizure by CCP, by Customs in China, by Customs in US, by Federal Government and questionable product validity. So there is still actual, irreconcilable scarcity, because even the fastest trendiest entreprenuers just really cannot tell and operate on assurances, whereas the people that can have a limited supply that is bought instantly in a constant bidding war.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> If this sort of seizure is being conducted under the Defense Production Act Section I, there should be greater transparency of what PPE materials are currently subjection to allocation control. Otherwise, we might as well have the National Guard protect shipments from seizure within the states.

</comment><comment><USER33> Fixing our PPE supply chain was/is a solvable problem that our governments have utterly failed to address properly. It is shameful that our federal and state governments haven't better organized and incentivized solutions to fix this. I understand that it's hard. I understand that they're working hard to address this problem. But it's unacceptable that we haven't just gotten this done -- that we've instead put the burden on our medical workers to solve this life-or-death problem. As if they didn't already have enough to worry about.

I feel much closer to this issue than I expected to be. Because I worked for weeks with a volunteer group called helpfulengineering.org to help figure out how to make face shields through local partnerships. I was helping organize efforts for the city of Chicago. Our group made dozens of 3D printed face shields, then hundreds. Each face shield was given to a medical worker who sent back stories about how desperately important each one was to them.

[https://twitter.com/syllablehq/status/1247891099324051462](https://twitter.com/syllablehq/status/1247891099324051462)

In an effort to scale up faster, we got price quotes from local manufacturers who could manufacture NIH vetted face shields in bulk using injection molding or die cutting. These local manufacturers were very eager to help and work with us. We were prepared to get our own investment to kick-start the manufacturing as long as we had some confidence that we could get the products to market and not lose tens of thousands of dollars. We were prepared to sell them AT COST - not even for a profit. Next step: we just needed help to connect these manufacturers with an organized supply chain.

We talked to government offices and offered to help them get this plan in motion. But no one could do anything except direct us to generic websites and phone numbers. We filled out forms and called numbers. Never heard back. One government office told us they were working as hard as they could, and there were numerous projects in the works... but they couldn't give us any more information. No transparency.

Weeks later, the hospitals are still in desperate need. There is still no plan to solve this problem. Corporations have stepped up to donate a million here and a million there. This is great. But it's not a replacement for the war- time effort we need to save thousands of lives.

Thank you to so many leaders who are working hard -- including those from Chicago. But we've got to do better than this. If our medical workers were soldiers, we would not send them to war expecting them to find their own community donated helmets.

</comment><comment><USER8> > As a chief physician executive, I rarely get involved in my health system's > supply-chain activities.

This seems crazy to me. Maybe it's because I came from manufacturing, where even front-line managers are heavily involved in supply-chain activities. We constantly have discussions about how this-or-that global/regional/local event might affect x or y commodity and the tortuous potential paths that may have to affecting our business niches. However, high functioning bars and restaurants also generally seem to have an excellent grasp of their extended supply chain and market forces.

It blows my mind that hospital executives didn't understand much at all about where their necessary supplies came from.

</comment><comment><USER17> Where is the ppe going? And why is dhs stepping in when hospitals are ordering them? Why cannot health care workers order ppe directly? Hospitals are having a difficult time time giving them out to workers because it is low.

</comment><comment><USER34> Time to start manufacturing in country which now means that, in North America, we need to provide financial incentives to all manufacturing because you can't start building one product without the local supply chain to accomplish that.

The time of cheap Chinese made goods must come to an end.

</comment><comment><USER35> My fiancee is an ER doctor and her hospital is now getting considerably more N95s than they were a few weeks ago. It looks like the supply chain is finally ramping up.

</comment><comment><USER36> It's easy to test the fit of the mask. I wonder what made him confident that the filter material actually worked.

</comment><comment><USER37> so many comments asking "how could this be?" and "what the heck is going on?" and so forth.

the answer is obvious, but i guess it's too "political" for people to accept.

<comment><USER38> Or it conflicts with their worldview that what we have now is the best thing possible and life cannot be better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Good approach!

</comment><comment><USER31> so they still buying or what

</comment><comment><USER31> > Having acquired the requisite funds — more than five times the amount we > would normally pay for a similar shipment, but still less than what was > being requested by other brokers

Pay attention people, this IS the market price. Even most state's "price gouging" laws are limited to 30 days after the State of Emergency because if the emergency has lasted that long, it is probably external forces outside of the state. Just like is happening here.

This equipment has to be provided to the whole population, eventually, and each person needs a whole pack. So since this does not exist, the prices go up as every state and organization has its needs and tries to prioritize health care workers.

To those noticing you can wash N95 masks in certain procedures:

It is also possible to boil water from a stream to remove some impurities. Or you could just have more clean water, maybe even bottled. I wonder what people will choose?

We are still at the healthcare workers first, phase. The inventory does.not.exist, the inventory is not re-usable, there is a market that has no relation to what prices were before the state of emergency. Insatiable quantity and people just catching on can't effectively be in this market quickly. China limits factories and more.</comment>


A Baccarat Binge Helped Launder the Bangladesh Cyberheist - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-03/a-baccarat-binge-helped-launder-the-world-s-biggest-cyberheist <comment><USER2> $81 million seems small potatoes to call it the worlds biggest Cyberheist.

By comparison: £650 million [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11414191/Hacker...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11414191/Hackers- steal-650-million-in-worlds-biggest-bank-raid.html)

<comment><USER3> You could arguably call the 2008 meltdown the largest cyberheist. I can't find that article again but gosh was it great, an interview with a programmer who said about CDS something like we fed offal into a grinder and got steak out.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Minimalist (Brutalist?) Real Estate Web Design - <AUTHOR> https://danearthur.com <comment><USER2> I sort of like it. Basically a slightly nicer version of craigslist.

To be honest though... With my experience in this particular niche...I don't "get it".

The pages are printer friendly (a lot of realtors gripe about that). Pages load fast. Gallery/map view. It's challenging to integrate with that many MLS' as well...Some good stuff in there. It's obviously you put a lot of work into it.

Great job on doing something against the grain.

If the purpose is to make money...probably not the greatest site. Other than a very tiny sliver of the population who appreciates this sort of approach (ie. hackernews readers), most people are going to bounce right off the site.

The single biggest missing piece is any sort of search functionality. It's REALLY annoying to use the site for anything other than a bit of browsing.

That said - great work...I hope you got paid!

 __EDIT __* The more time I spend trying to hate this website, the more I end up liking it. Mission accomplished :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the great feedback. Current average visit is about 9 minutes...so it seems pretty sticky compared to our more polished/shiny real estate sites (7 min avg).

We will most likely add an advanced search down the road, but as someone who has made their living with real estate websites for a dozen years, I love this one the most (as is).

<comment><USER2> How about bounce rate comparison?

From a user perspective - I spent more time on the site than I do any other real estate site...because I was trying to figure out where to find things, and it took significantly longer to look at multiple areas than any other site.

I'm not sure time on site is a reasonable measure of success - but I also think 9 minutes is impressive regardless :)

You definitely have me thinking about doing some experimentation in minimalism (we, apparently, service a very similar niche).

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, we don't service the real estate industry, we're in the real estate industry. It's a long story[1] but we stumbled into the business. The main idea behind Dane Arthur is that we need to stand out from everyone else. We built a niche real estate company/brokerage to $200M/year in sales on the back of a website and want to expand our offerings, but not our geography.

And you're 100% correct about time on site. The only measure we're really interested in is converting unique users into happy clients.

[1] [http://davegooden.com/2013/08/our-story-10-years-of- bootstra...](http://davegooden.com/2013/08/our-story-10-years-of- bootstrapping/)

<comment><USER3> Just wanted to say I love the site. Very refreshing to see a strong utilitarian design like this. Congratulations on your success by the way, I hope it continues

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://danearthur.com/mn/akeley/residential](https://danearthur.com/mn/akeley/residential)

On Chrome, if you expand the listing, the description's text-overflow isn't working. You need overflow:hidden for the ellipsis to work, but I'd rather see the nowrap gone.

Otherwise I love it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great catch. We just made a change 20 minutes ago that must have broken this. Thank you very much!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like it and did something similar a few years ago with a villa rental site.

I used to add the number of available properties after the place name in the list view e.g. Tenerife (12).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone, we just launched Dane Arthur, a minimalist (brutalist?) real estate website that covers all areas of Minnesota & Wisconsin (19 MLS boards). The idea was to run in the opposite direction of everyone else. Mobile version will be up next week (currently looks terrible on mobile, fine on desktop/tablet). Feedback is welcome - thanks!

<comment><USER6> Best thing I've seen in years. Risking an oxymoron I think you could achieve a prettier brutalist design with a little more care around the typography. I like it a lot.

<comment><USER7> I was going to say, Brutalism aside, this site is about 10 CSS rules away from being gorgeous on top.

<comment><AUTHOR> You know how it goes...when you work on something intensely, you can lose some perspective. I'm very open to suggestions. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> With my over 30+ almost 40 eyes and glasses and a 1920x1200 24" monitor fonts are simply too small.

Otherwise it looks good and I like the simplicity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. We plan on fixing that. Thanks for taking the time to review!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> good luck! did you tried to make the font even more smaller so you don't have to scroll that much ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We went with a "scroll and click" UI. Keyboard not necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is beautiful. Great work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.</comment></comment>


Reddit Announces RedditNotes, a Way to Share Equity with Readers - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/19/reddit-announces-redditnotes-a-way-to-share-equity-with-readers/?ncid=rss <comment><AUTHOR> Previous conversation thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8390136)</comment>


A Star in a Bottle – The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/03/a-star-in-a-bottle <comment><USER2> When I read this article, I was blown away by this passage:

> Typically, outsiders cannot comprehend how the massive expenditures never > manage to yield energy. Typically, insiders cannot comprehend how little is > being invested in a project that presents such immense technical obstacles > and also such potential. A graph commonly passed around among the > insiders—an enduring scrap of twentieth-century budgetary ephemera—depicts > the 1976 federal plan to build a working thermonuclear reactor. The graph > tracks various scenarios for attaining fusion energy. The "maximum" effort, > the most expensive up front, with initial spending as high as nine billion > dollars a year, was projected to yield a reactor by 1990. The "moderate" > effort, with spending never exceeding four billion dollars in a year, would > take fifteen more years. The fusion community might be easy to criticize for > its many unmet milestones, but for decades the United States has never come > close to even the moderate effort. In 1977, when the American fusion budget > was at its peak, government investment in the research, adjusted for > inflation, was seven hundred million dollars; by 1991, this had fallen by > more than half. It is now half a billion, not appreciably more than the > Korean budget.

The chart was produced by Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which was later subsumed into the Department of Energy and presumably represented the expert wisdom at the time. (Please correct me if you have info that most experts were in fact more optimistic.) It can be found, in 1976 dollars, as figure 1 here:

[http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/Winter_2...](http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/Winter_2009/Who_Killed_Fusion.pdf)

I am having a hard time getting over the importance of this. For all the discussion of global warming, energy prices, population crunches, etc., etc., fusion is always ignored as a solution for the simple reason that people think it's unfeasibly costly. And they think that _only because they think it 's had a history of being grossly more expensive than promised_. But if we've really known how much it would cost to get commercial fusion power since 1976, then this reasoning is completely faulty. So then if we just haven't spent the modest amount of money on it...isn't this insane? Someone please tell me what I'm missing.

<comment><USER3> Not everyone thinks the problem is the R&D cost. I mean if that was the only problem, then yes, I would agree, give them a blank check.

It's my opinion fusion just isn't a good way to generate power on the scale at which 21st-century civilization operates (i.e. a fusion reactor wants to be very much larger than a gigawatt) so we would be better off to forget about it and spend the money on either fission (which can actually do everything fusion promises except have emotional appeal - and I suspect the real source of the emotional appeal of fusion power is that it exists only in people's imagination) or if people won't politically accept fission, just keep working on solar, wind and biofuels.

<comment><USER2> Are you arguing that we shouldn't pursue fission because we won't need as much power in one place as is provided by efficient large-scale fusion designs? Because that seems very weird to me. Power is _great_. Our civilization thrives on power. The costs of making things energy efficient are large.

Now, the current thinking is that available power sources either cause harm (fossil fuels) or are expensive and intermittent (renewables). And that thinking is prudent. But if we can solve all this with fusion...that would be fantastic! Think of all the things you could do if you had cheap power, and all the regulations you could dispose of. Is your argument really that we won't find a way to make use of cheap, clean power?

<comment><USER3> Okay, so let's build a petawatt-scale fusion power plant. I can actually think of practical ways to build one if it can be that large.

But that's not going to happen. A petawatt-scale fusion power plant is not going to be economically or politically feasible this century, no matter what progress we make on plasma physics and no matter how cheap it would be _per watt_.

Every power source has a preferred scale. A fuel cell can be the size of a mitochondrion, but a combustion engine, in order to be efficient, really wants to be at least big enough for a lawnmower, and an efficient fission reactor wants to be at least a good few megawatts.

My conjecture is that a fusion reactor wants to be at least a petawatt, and even if we solve the plasma physics problems, a gigawatt fusion reactor will cost _more_ per watt than the equivalent in solar plus appropriate attached storage - which makes it pointless to work on fusion at this time.

<comment><USER2> Fair enough, I guess I just question your two premises. Can you link me to anything that would support the Petawatt number? If China can make use of a 20 GW plant (the Three Gorges Dam) and the Congo can make use of a 40 GW plant (the proposed Grand Inga Dam) at locations determined by nature, don't you think that many countries on earth could make use of 100-1,000 GW plants with significantly more freedom for location?

Thanks for your thoughts.

<comment><USER4> I don't know whether the limit for economical fusion power is 1GW or 1TW or 1PW either. But if it turns out to be the higher side of that, then I'd be leaning against it. Sure, we could use the power, but right now, our power needs are low enough that we might build only one or two of them to run whole countries or even continents off of. I don't really like the idea of having One Huge Power Plant for most of a continent Seems too vulnerable to all sorts of failure modes to me. Imagine if some important part deep in the machine breaks because of some mistake somewhere, or even sabotage. The whole continent's power could be down, and it might take weeks or months or longer to make a new widget and get it installed, given that there's so little demand for them with only a couple of plants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tying two threads together

"So far, the vast machine exists only as 1.8 terabytes of digital information..."

A 512GB SD card was on the front page here today, 4 of those would hold all the plans for powering the planet for the next 30 million years. That's basically the size of half a playing card.

After reading the article, I wonder if the real issue to building something like this is as much a managerial science problem as it is a hard science problem. Complex endeavors like this should be hotbeds of social science research.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very rarely do I read every word in an article posted here, but this was one of those times and I'm glad I did. The article itself was very well written. You could feel the tension engineers must feel and the mind-numbing scale of the project. I think it captured the atmosphere at ITER very well; a mix of impending doom and unescapable existential claustrophobia counterpoised by a sense of mission.

</comment><comment><USER7> Neat in-vessel assembly video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt70mO2nQac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt70mO2nQac)

<comment><USER8> wow, that's some hugely complex build mechanism. A lot of the cost of building it is going to go into the design, and manufacture of scaffolds, and custom struts etc, just for the conveyor belt.

Would it have been cheaper to not have the assembly done in such a fashion?

<comment><USER9> From what I remember, they need absolutely crazy tight tolerances in every single join and gap. Something like <0.1mm for _every_ component involved in the reaction chamber. And it's huge too. Otherwise the whole thing will start falling apart as soon as they turn it on. I imagine that's what's requiring the unusual build mechanisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There has been a previous discussion, if interested, at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7291008](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7291008)

</comment><comment><USER11> Excellent article. I worked in fusion years ago and I even learned a few things about the politics of the ITER team that I did not know.

The comparison with Apollo or the Manhattan Project always comes up when discussing ITER. I truly hope that when it all comes together, that it is more of a Manhattan than an Apollo. The difference being, that once we built one atomic bomb, we kept building more and more and now it seems we may never be rid of them. Whereas with Apollo, we harnessed the political will to land on the Moon (multiple times even!) but once the political will dropped away, so did the path to the Moon, because Saturn Vs don't come cheap. If ITER ignites, but does not result in a path to cheaper, commercial use of fusion energy, then the next few generations may be in the same position with regards to fusion energy as my generation has been to space exploration.

This is why I tend to fall in Bob Hirsch's camp with regards to the faster, cheaper, smaller development of multiple fusion reactor concepts. Imagine if instead of developing the Saturn V for Apollo, that NASA had gone for many concepts from big rockets (e.g. Saturn V) to air launches (e.g. Pegasus) to suborbital balloons (e.g. JP aerospace) to space guns (e.g. HARP). Sure, the Russians would probably have beaten us to the Moon, but if a cheaper alternative to space launch had been found back when it was a national priority, we might have a Moonbase today.

The thing about gathering political will is that you have to have a clear target. The dangerous thing in the case of ITER, is that once that target (ignition) is achieved, the political will to do more beyond that goal may not be there. And ITER ignition alone does not answer our energy issues.

<comment><USER12> Is that Robert Hirsch of SAIC? References?

<comment><USER11> Yes, that is correct. Long before he was known for his views on Peak Oil (which I'm not really in agreement with), he was known for his work in fusion. I find it interesting that his wikipedia page shows little detail about his early career.

Here are some references: [http://www.aero.umd.edu/html/sedwick/presentations/S9P1_Robe...](http://www.aero.umd.edu/html/sedwick/presentations/S9P1_Robert_Hirsch_Talk.pdf)

[http://www.issues.org/13.4/hirsch.htm](http://www.issues.org/13.4/hirsch.htm)

[http://fire.pppl.gov/fusion_critic_response_stacey.pdf](http://fire.pppl.gov/fusion_critic_response_stacey.pdf) (section V)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Found a current picture of the reactor:

[https://www.iter.org/doc/all/content/com/img_galleries/final...](https://www.iter.org/doc/all/content/com/img_galleries/final_pour_b2_270814_15_small.jpg)

The project's main website looks pretty cool too:

[https://www.iter.org/](https://www.iter.org/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome article. But I gotta wonder - given the sheer size and cost of the ITER reactor, it's hard to see how we'll ever be able to build a commercial version of the reactor that's competitive with anything conventional. I don't suppose anyone here has any insight on that?

<comment><USER13> Besides the whole prototype status, ITER itself also has many problems which conflate the cost (and time) required to build. Every country involved wants to make a "significant" contribution, so you get many parts built in different countries, which may need to tool themselves to build these parts, and that need to later fit together. I even think one part had to be rejected because it didn't fit the rest.

The scale is also crazy, inside the tokamak the magnets can push against each other with forces twice that which the space shuttle's launch creates [http://www.iter.org/newsline/269/1593](http://www.iter.org/newsline/269/1593)

Once ITER is built though, and if it works, then we'll have the knowledge, and tooling required to make more of the parts to build a second (and that knowledge and tooling is spread amongst many countries). The cost will decrease a lot for the first few, and much more after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >Thirty-five countries, representing more than half the world's population, are invested in the project, which is so complex to finance that it requires its own currency: the ITER Unit of Account.

Oh lord. This is a perfect example of a bike-shed problem. They couldn't agree to use one country's currency or another, so now they're doing it in a totally custom currency.

<comment><USER15> > > so complex to finance that it requires its own currency

> This is a perfect example of a bike-shed problem.

I disagree, I think your post is a perfect example of the "anything I don't understand outside my field must be easy" problem.

[http://xkcd.com/793/](http://xkcd.com/793/)</comment></comment>


Paypal closes its customer service - <AUTHOR> https://www.paypal.com/dm/smarthelp/contact-us <comment><USER2> Well, it's not like they had customer service before, so I'm not sure what's changed.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) emergency, our phone lines are currently > closed.

Never realized they were contactable by phone until now but in any case why are the phone lines closed because of the virus? Does it spread by phone too?

<comment><USER4> Call centers are a most excellent environment for spreading coronaplague. The work takes place indoors, in a crowded enviromnent, with people talking. Of course health authorities would close them down.

<comment><USER5> Who said anything about call "centers" ?

<comment><USER6> If they aren't staffing/closing call centres, then the upthread question "why are the phone lines closed because of the virus?" is even more inexplicable...

<comment><USER5> People can take phone calls from home just like they handle email tickets

<comment> skookum-skuad Exactly. It seems like corporations are using the pandemic to ostensibly "protect workers" as an excuse in order to save money on paying workers. If customers blindly accept this sort of BS when there is no risk, then they're fools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not defending PayPal (they suck), but consider this: It would be difficult to run a business in the financial sector from home. The security requirements probably could not be met by telecommuters. What other choices do they have?

<comment><USER8> _> The security requirements probably could not be met by telecommuters._

I don't see why not. VPN plus appropriate admin lockdowns on the computers being used by the telecommuters should work. That's how other security- conscious businesses do it.

<comment><USER6> That assumes the call centre isn't entirely filled with 12 year old ex- governemnt auction underpowered desktop computers running pirated copies of Win7, instead issuing staff with modern remotely managed laptops...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think you mean to say PayPal temporarily stops phone support because of covid. They still accept support messages. Their phone support in the past has been aweful so I always prefer their message support.</comment>


The Real Toll of Patent Trolls - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/201202/kris-frieswick/patent-troll-toll-on-businesses.html

<comment><USER2> > _"Friedland isn't sure how word of the settlement leaked to Troll Town, but > he says that after he paid the fee, he was inundated with infringement > letters from trolls."_

NPE's are, almost by definition, shell companies for larger interests. [1] If you paid one of those off, it's quite obvious and inevitable that any of the other NPEs in that 'family' that have half a case would not even have to wait for word to 'leak out', but would be explicitly notified and ordered to come after you.

[1] Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures has been reported to have a network of over a _thousand_ such shell companies for this kind of thing. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml>

</comment><comment><USER3> Reading stories like this literally makes my blood boil. I know it's been discussed at length, but still. This is pure economic leakage -- it's an unintended consequence of well-intentioned legislation and it's absolute BS that companies have to put up with the trolls.

Good on the guys for putting up a fight, as expensive as it is.

I feel particularly frustrated about this whole mess because I don't see an end in sight. I'm not convinced the new patent reform legislation is going to help (Or is it?) and it feels like an uphill battle for small businesses.

What to do?

<comment><USER4> > unintended consequence of well-intentioned legislation

I'd question both of your adjectives there. This seems like an _intended_ consequence of heavily lobbied legislation, as evidenced by the reactions to any attempts to change this system.

<comment><USER5> I think parent was referring to the inception of the patent system, which was well-intentioned. This is different from the trolls lobbying to keep the status quo, which is definitely not well-intentioned.

<comment><USER6> I still disagree. Since inception patent law is heavily lobbied (except that in some cases lobby didn't have a name yet), and legislators refuse to fix its very visible flaws.

About the same patter repeated on every country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the interesting themes in the article is "we can't afford to go to court". Not to detract from the main issue of patent reform but perhaps America should look into making it's legal system a bit more user friendly.

It should be completely viable for a smaller entity to take on one of these "bogus" claims in court and not go bankrupt doing it. Smacking these claims down in court might go a long way towards preventing future shakedowns.

<comment><USER8> Nothing prevents you from representing yourself. Maybe this is an easy way to disrupt patent trolling: a "how to" guide for taking an obviously stupid claim out in summary judgment.

<comment><USER9> > _Nothing prevents you from representing yourself._

...other than good sense.

<comment><USER10> That's the part that needs fixing. A greedy amoral entity can threaten your entire livelihood for no cost to them and you are powerless to defend yourself or even understand the process by which to do so.

That sounds like institutionalized injustice to me.

<comment><USER8> How are you "powerless to defend yourself or even understand the process?" There is nothing magic about the legal system. You can pick up the crucial aspects of the patent law probably in less time than it'd take you to pick up a new scripting language. And since it's federal law, the rules of civil procedure and evidence are written in very easy to understand English.

<comment><USER11> You WON'T "pick up crucial aspects" because there all aspects are crucial. Law practice costs so much money mainly because it's totally entangled and messed up, and ordinary person just physically can't follow all these legal procedures correctly.

<comment><USER8> This is not true at all. There is nothing complex about basic legal practice. Legal services get expensive because companies hire expensive people to work on very complicated problems (e.g. multi billion business deal gone wrong). The process itself, for simple problems, is not complex or "messed up."

<comment><USER9> We're not talking about small-claims court here. Your profile says that you're an attorney; I would be absolutely stunned if any trial attorney would suggest that a pro se defendant could prevail in a patent lawsuit against a much more resourceful organization without any more experience than reading a book or two (let alone a "how to").

You would know as well as anyone that legal actions are more a game than an effort to determine who actually is right or wrong. The entity with the greater amount of money in the bank can afford attorneys who are better at playing the game; while everybody loves a good story of the self-taught layman winning a case, in reality most laymen would get absolutely screwed.

 _Certainly_ if it's a fight worth fighting -- if the patent dispute is that important to the victim's business -- then they should fight it as well as they can, especially since they would have so much riding on the outcome: potential grievous damages awarded to the plaintiff, for one.

And, this all presupposes that the layman is lucky enough to get a judge presiding over the case that has some competence in the area of expertise covered by the patent. If the suit is held in the East District Court of Texas, well, the defendant already has the odds stacked against them.

Even if the lawsuit doesn't go to trial, and gets settled like 96% of other such suits [1], the layman's ignorance of process could likely end up costing them far more in the settlement than they would spend on letters from a patent attorney's desk. The layman would be attempting to negotiate from a much weaker position, _and the attorneys for the patent troll would know it._

[1]: [http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2011/06/02/what-to-do-sued-for- pat...](http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2011/06/02/what-to-do-sued-for-patent- infringement/id=17538/)

<comment><USER8> I'm talking about "legal procedures" here, and the claim that ordinary people couldn't hope to follow them. They are pretty streamlined and easy to follow for a framework that must scale from small controversies to enormous ones. I think it's totally possible for an ordinary intelligent person (say an engineer) to pick up a couple of books and navigate that process. The judiciary goes to great lengths to ensure that, because it is very sensitive to the fact that a lawyer should not be necessary to defend yourself in court.

Now, would I recommend taking on a patent troll yourself? No, but that doesn't mean you couldn't do it, and even have a good chance if winning if the case is indeed totally meritless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article gives me an idea. Theoretically, problem with trolls is that they can't be counter-sued because they're non-practicing entities, ie. they're not technology companies. But build.com isn't a technology company either, they just happen to use it in their operations.

From the article: "There was one for transferring data through a network, another for using images on a website, another for having a computer that connects to a database." Quick check... yup, intellectualventures.com has a web site with images. I bet they have a database of patents, too. Let's see... lodsys.com bingo.

So the real problem is just that "defensive" patents are optimized for counter-suing other technology companies, not trolls. (Well, no, the real problem is that the patent system is broken. But given the system we have...) What's needed is a pool of patents that could be used to counter-sue trolls. And hey, there are "business method" patents as well as technology patents. Could we get a patent on sending threatening letters? How about a patent on shell companies?

Now I'm off to work on my new invention: "method and apparatus for travelling to a courthouse by means of a motorized vehicle."

<comment><USER13> Having them rely on an industry group to take pity on their case and come to their defense is not a good long term solution. The only way this will change is if large companies (Google/Apple/MS/Amazon) decide it's in their best interest to put lobby money behind patent reform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Patents are completely broken in the software world - if your web/ecommerce company reaches ~$10m in revenue at any point, the corresponding rise in media attention will likely also bring you trolls demanding settlements. This is most certainly not what the patent system was intended to be used for. These people are legal criminals exploiting the law. The Acacia CEO's rationale is rubbish in my opinion. Protecting inventors, my foot.

ps. I'm curious about the patent that was used to extract hundreds of millions from defendants, including $565m from Microsoft, and was subsequently invalidated. Will that money now have to be refunded, along with the defendants legal fees, interest charges, etc.?

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the trolls are making a strategic error by piling on (when more trolls sue a victim that has demonstrated a willingness to settle).

Once it becomes clear that settling is as risky as going to court -- because if you settle, you'll be faced with more suits from other trolls -- the calculation changes. Business owners may as well take their chances in court.

I would love to see some business owners defending themselves _pro se_ , on a shoestring budget, and winning.

Maybe I'm just a dreamer.

<comment><USER15> Here, alas, is why that probably won't work: [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appea...](http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2012/09/how-a-rogue-appeals-court-wrecked-the-patent-system/2/)

Previous discussion on HN: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4594122>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone have a reference for how much trolls tend to pay inventors for their patents?

Trolls get a bad rap, and I'm opposed to trolling as opposed to licensing to manufacturers, but they're one possible form of middleman between inventors and infringers.

One major point of a patent is to compensate the inventor for doing something smart. If the trolls are "non-practicing", then they must have acquired their patent from an inventor. How much are inventors getting paid?

<comment><USER17> First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage?

Second: both the times an entity I was part of was on the receiving end of a patent troll, there was at least circumstantial evidence that the troll hadn't invented anything. The first time was when one of the students at my dorm came up with the idea of hooking up our laundry machines to the Internet for a senior project. Shortly after they got Slashdoted someone filed for a patent on the idea. The second time was when the place I worked went to some outside contractors, and they tried to file patents based on the designs we gave them.

<comment><USER8> > First: if an inventor comes up with some idea but decides that instead of > producing products based on their invention waits for other people to come > up with the same idea and get money from them (or has someone do it by > proxity), then is that actually something we want to encourage?

The idea is that the original inventor publishes the secret sauce via the required public disclosures and people either license the technology from him, he sues people who copy the technology without licensing, or he just cashes out and sells his whole interest to some other entity that does any of the above.

If someone else independently comes up with the same idea within a relatively short time frame, well in that case I don't think the patent should be granted. I think the legally sensible thing to do is to move patents in the direction of being an unfair competition type claim (unfair because you simply copy someone else's technology instead of developing your own).

<comment><USER18> I find it extremely unlikely that someone can conceive of and take the time patent something so novel that someone, somewhere, hasn't already tried it at least once.

In those rare cases, it should be a requirement to produce a detailed description of the _method_ by which the desired result is achieved, and that the patent would cover that _specific_ method.

"Attaching a computer to a database" is not a method. A very specific driver format employing particular protocols is.

<comment><USER8> That's exactly what a patent is! You don't patent "communicating wirelessly between two devices." That's a result. Instead, you patent something like OFDM, a particular, novel, way of achieving that result. Infringement is only found if someone else not only achieves the same result, but does so in substantially the same way. Even further, the scope of that way is cabined by prior art--you only get to claim protection over the parts of that mechanism that are actually novel.

<comment><USER19> ...in theory...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is probably the biggest barrier preventing me from starting a business.

I know that if I ended up getting hit with NPE patent infringement claims, I'd probably just buy a gun and go shoot up their office.

<comment><USER21> I hope you're not serious. Not about the second part, that sounds like a great idea.

About the first part. You need for your business to be successful in order to have any chance of attracting a patent troll. Most businesses don't get successful enough to warrant a shake-down.</comment></comment>


Casetop - Finally, a universal accessory. Turns any Smartphone into a laptop. - <AUTHOR> http://livi-design.com/?attachment_id=405

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN, I'm a long time lurker, and I thought you guys would like to see what I've made.

I invented this to make upgrading your phone less painful and to allow for less laptops to be manufactured, meaning less e-waste.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

John Andrus Founder, Livi Design</comment>


Python C API, PyPy and the road into the future - <AUTHOR> http://lostinjit.blogspot.com/2015/11/python-c-api-pypy-and-road-into-future.html <comment><USER2> I strongly disagree with the author's assertions that the need for better C API support is strictly a need for integrating with "legacy applications".

The fact of the matter is that a vast array of systems-level software and high-performance software is only available via a C API interface. New or old, that's still true today.

I've used ctypes and I've used cffi; I'm glad they exist, but authors of popular packages often don't have the luxury of supporting both of them and the CPython API.

If by legacy, they're attempting to paint the CPython API as the legacy one, I also find that a misleading argument at best. PyPy is not yet the official future of Python, and attempting to paint themselves as the successor without any clear indicator of support for that future from the Python leadership seems odd.

I'm all for them getting financial support they need to do the work, but attempting to justify that work by claiming only "legacy" applications need it seems uninformed at best.

<comment><USER3> _" PyPy is not yet the official future of Python."_

We're past that point. PyPy is the future. CPython is the past. The PyPy team succeeded in making an optimizing compiler for a language that fought them every step of the way with gratuitous hidden dynamism. That's a considerable achievement. It extends the life of Python by making it competitive on speed.

Go exists mostly because Python was too slow. Google used to use Python quite a bit internally, but their effort to speed it up, Unladen Swallow, was a disaster. That provided some of the motivation for Go.

<comment><USER4> > We're past that point. PyPy is the future. CPython is the past.

CPython is the past and is the present, and the future you can't predict. However, if you try to extrapolate, you should perhaps consider as much historical context as possible. For instance, why is Python what it is? Is it speed? I think it is the accessibility of language syntax, design and features. CPython is the base of this language evolution, and PyPy is improving just speed. So I would extrapolate CPython to always be more popular.

Go exists because someone at Google wanted to make better C and C++, a statically typed language. It doesn't have much to do with Python. Google always preferred C++ and Java to python because of static typing, not just because of speed.

Overall, I think it's a mistake to fixate so much on speed of execution, when often times speed of development is considered more important. This niche is never going away, despite of how hard some people hammer square pegs in round holes.

<comment><USER5> >Overall, I think it's a mistake to fixate so much on speed of execution, when often times speed of development is considered more important. This niche is never going away, despite of how hard some people hammer square pegs in round holes.

That's the point to PyPy. You get fast speed of development and fast CPU performance. Best of every world. That's why we use it and not CPython. It's already bigger than you think.

<comment><USER4> >That's the point to PyPy. You get fast speed of development and fast CPU performance. Best of every world. That's why we use it and not CPython. It's already bigger than you think.

What you use it for, where you need the speed and don't have a C based module to rely on? I don't mind having a bit more speed for 'free', but every time I tried, pypy hasn't been hassle free due to some module compatibility, and yet pure python code has _never_ been a bottle neck. I have been using Python for +10 years.

Anyway, the above question is for curiosity sake, it doesn't change the point that CPython is where new language features are added. If Guido adopts pypy tomorrow, I would be happy, but otherwise, it will always try to catch up, so I don't see how it can be the future.

<comment><USER5> >the above question is for curiosity sake, it doesn't change the point that CPython is where new language features are added.

So far. Everything changes the moment the PyPy team announces they're an official continuation of Python2. They can easily integrate more 3rd party backported features from 3->2 into PyPy4. Guido doesn't really matter there.

That said, it doesn't take that to get me to use PyPy. The speed improvement is a dream come true. Writing pure Python is much more preferable to me than writing a C extension thus PyPy is the present and future for most of us.

<comment><USER4> Well, that would be kind of hostile of PyPy, I really don't see that happening.

I'm still quite curious what is your use case for PyPy where it is such a god send? I don't enjoy C, but it's just been so rare that I had to Cython or C anything, things are quite well optimized in the ecosystem.

<comment><USER5> Why would it be hostile? There's tons of Python2 users out there like me that need support and a secure path forward with Python, and my code.

PyPy didn't create that situation, CPython did. They're just filling a market need. It may be opportunistic, but it's hardly hostile. If anything was hostile it was CPython3, but I'd say neither would be "hostile" moves.

Everyone should always act in their own best interests. Especially users like myself. The CPython team did what they felt was in theirs. I do what I feel is mine. PyPy should do the same, not be fearful of some toxic, "hostile" accusation.

The godsend is that I don't have to worry about CPU performance being a limiting factor at all. That's a big deal and reduces my hardware needs to do the same amount of work. My VPS is hardly overpowered, and I like it that way because it's cheap for my projects. :) CPython only exacerbates hardware issues.

It's very nice to have a simple interpreter to fall back on, but at this point in time I think most dynamic languages need to be on a JIT like PyPy. It's just too good and I can't wait for the STM branch to be merged into PyPy4. No more GIL for those of us using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have nothing but good things to say about the pypy/cffi team. I have been maintaining a project using it for about a year and a half, and we've had great experiences reporting bugs to and getting help from Armin (the maintainer of cffi, a pypy guy).

Distributing cffi libraries that depend on each other can still be somewhat of a snarl, but last I looked there are a lot of remedies for this being discussed.

Chapeau to the team!

</comment><comment><USER5> I've been using PyPy as my main development platform for quite some time now. So for me if I were to move to Python3, it would have to be Python 3.2 since that's all PyPy3 supports. I've also been told that PyPy3 is not production- ready. While PyPy4 is, so it's a no brainer for me to develop for PyPy4 then fallback to CPython2.7 if I run into problems.

Fingers crossed, but so far my home business is running off pure PyPy4. No C-extensions, no interpreters. :)

</comment><comment><USER7> This post highlights an interesting dichotomy in the Python scientific computing community. Everyone knows that PyPy runs faster than CPython for many common tasks [1].

[1] PyPy is on average 7x faster than CPython: [http://speed.pypy.org/](http://speed.pypy.org/)

But those in the Python community who are serious about scientific computing (or image processing, like my startup) are already using Numpy & Scipy, which provide hand-coded C implementations of most matrix-related operations. Everyone knows that Python for-loops are "slow" [2], and storing a large 2-D matrix as a list-of-list-of-Python-int-object would require a huge amount of memory & indirection. So, Numpy offers an N-dimensional array type, implemented in C: C arrays of densely-packed C primitive types, with for-loops in C to iterate over the matrix elements. Then Scipy builds a lot of Matlab- like functionality as modules on top of this fundamental Numpy array type.

[2] Python for-loops are slow: [https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/05/09/why- python-is-slow...](https://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2014/05/09/why-python-is- slow/)

So the most expensive operations in a Python number-crunching program are likely already implemented using Numpy & Scipy operations, which run in compiled C (and additionally, often make use of Blas/Atlas/LAPACK/etc, for even greater speedups in sustained number-crunching).

But unfortunately, Numpy & PyPy do not naturally work together. Being written in C, Numpy makes substantial use of the CPython C-API -- and in fact, Numpy provides its _own_ C-API [3]! The official Numpy package doesn't work with PyPy; the PyPy project very thoughtfully provides its own PyPy-compatible Numpy package [4].

[3] Numpy C-API: [http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-1.10.0/reference/c-api.html](http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy-1.10.0/reference/c-api.html)

[4] PyPy-compatible Numpy package: [http://pypy.org/download.html#installing- numpy](http://pypy.org/download.html#installing-numpy)

Furthermore, Numpy is fantastic, but it can't offer all possible permutations of matrix operations. In particular, there are certain image-processing operations that are awkward (and thus, computationally-inefficient) to express using Numpy operations. So you might ultimately need to go to the Numpy C-API anyway.

This is why we created (and, just a few days ago, open-sourced) Pymod: [https://github.com/jboy/nim-pymod](https://github.com/jboy/nim-pymod)

Pymod is a Nim+Python project that auto-generates all the Python C-API boilerplate & auto-compiles a Python C extension module that wraps the functions in a Nim module. Pymod enables us to write our Numpy array- processing code in Nim, then compile it (for C++-like speeds) as a well- behaved Python module. Nim made this very easy, because it compiles to C.

After considering our Python-integration options (CPython C-API, `ctypes` and `cffi`), we decided to go with the CPython C-API & Numpy C-API. We explained this decision in greater detail in the "Implementation details" section of the Pymod README [5]; the executive summary is that `ctypes` seems better suited to wrapping C types in Python, rather than exposing existing Python types in C, while the CPython C-API code could be generated & compiled with the C code that Nim was going to produce anyway.

[5] Pymod implementation details: [https://github.com/jboy/nim- pymod#implementation-details](https://github.com/jboy/nim- pymod#implementation-details)

That said, we would be delighted for Pymod-produced Python modules to be able to run under PyPy. We've been strongly considering implementing a `cffi` back- end for Pymod, but this won't necessarily solve the Numpy issue. It would be even better if PyPy could support all the CPython C-API extension modules in the world in one fell swoop.

<comment><USER8> Can you comment on the difference between Pymod and Cython? Cython's pretty mature now and it's straight up amazing how easy it is to generate cross- platform extension modules. It even exposes a lot of C++ too.

Cython is a separate programming language that allows you to write C code with a special Python-like syntax, or write Python with Python syntax (including NumPy), and has a few extra type annotation bits here and there (like array syntax or pointer syntax). At the end, it creates the equivalent C code (with all needed CPython API boilerplate) and compiles it into an importable shared object file.

Just from the description above, it sounds superficially the same as Pymod; is it fair to say Pymod is to Nim what Cython is to C/C++? I'd be very interested to know more about how the two tools compare and contrast.

<comment><USER7> Sure, this is a question that people ask quite frequently. I most recently answered it here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10569768](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10569768)

"""Actually, Pymod was designed to be almost an anti-Cython. :)

My issue with Cython is that it's a limited sub-language within Python, where you add Cython elements incrementally & iteratively (diverging from Python in the process) until the code runs "fast enough". I'd rather work directly in a full-featured, internally-self-consistent language from the start. Nim has a clean Pythonic syntax, with all the best parts of C++ (including its runtime speed).

Hence, Pymod takes the form of an `exportpy` annotation (a user-defined Nim pragma) onto existing Nim functions, which are then auto-compiled into a Python extension module. So there's no gradual divergence of my Python code (as it becomes more "Cythonized"); rather, the high-performance code is written directly in pure Nim. :)

"""

There are a few more details in that thread comparing the wrapping of existing C libraries in Cython vs Pymod. (It doesn't seem right to copy-paste an entire thread...)

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure I appreciate that criticism of Cython. A general strategy in Cython is to use the annotation feature (cython -a) and visually inspect the degree of CPython API necessary for the lines of Cython source code. I've generally found this process to be really enlightening. Of course you can use that information to select portions of the code that don't need to be involving the CPython API, add typed contructs to those parts of the Cython source, and iterate. But you can also learn a lot about how CPython works ... for example how using the 'and' keyword can invoke a long chain of Python special functions with lots of type checking overhead.

What this lets me do is to be extremely fine-grained about my optimizations, or conversely, to also see when some optimizations are not worth it because they don't help much but they do hurt the readability, or cause too much Python-to-Cython divergence as you put it.

In a lot of cases, I prefer that this is left up to me to do, rather than if Cython had already made hand-mapped choices about which Python things compile to which C or machine code things. If taken to the limit, a Cython that did that would just become what PyPy is, except it would be ahead of time compiled instead of JIT compiled.

But I do see the benefit of both approaches. Sometimes you don't want the burden of choosing your annotations to induce the desired compilation effect, and you don't want to allow for similar but not identical Cython source files to result in dramatically different C code, as can often happen currently.

<comment><USER7> The preferred workflow that you've described seems to be a (more considered) form of the standard Cython workflow that I see described:

(1) Write Python. (2) Compile with Cython. (3) Run compiled Cython, profile & review. (4) Consider what Cython annotations to make to code; make code changes. (5) Goto 2.

The emphasis is always on iteration & incremental additions.

Of course I practice iterative & incremental development, and of course I'll prototype a quick proof-of-concept implementation first (often in Python+Numpy) before profiling & algorithmic optimization. But the Cython workflow seems to me to add more iteration (of incremental Cython syntax additions) than is really necessary. When I'm working to implement some algorithm, I don't really want to iteratively learn how Cython or CPython implement various Python functions; I'd rather write my "proper version" code just once, properly the first time.

So why not take it to the logical extreme and write it all in Cython-lang from the start? If we're writing for-keeps code in a language with Pythonic syntax & static types, I find Nim-lang a more expressive, more full-featured language (with features such as generics & type-safe Lisp-like macros, in particular; I note that Cython _does_ support pointers & operator overloading) than Cython- lang in general-purpose uses, without being very different at all in simple uses.

For example, there is an example `primes` function in the Cython tutorial: [http://docs.cython.org/src/tutorial/cython_tutorial.html#pri...](http://docs.cython.org/src/tutorial/cython_tutorial.html#primes)

Here is an equivalent implementation in Nim. As you can see, it's really almost identical in syntax:

      proc primes(kmax: int): seq[int] =
        var kmax = kmax
        var n, k, i: int
        var p: array[1000, int]
        result = @[]
        if kmax > 1000:
          kmax = 1000
        k = 0
        n = 2
        while k < kmax:
          i = 0
          while i < k and n mod p[i] != 0:
            i = i + 1
          if i == k:
            p[k] = n
            k = k + 1
            result.add(n)
          n = n + 1
        return result

All of this said, I understand that a great deal of this decision comes down to personal preference: Would you rather start with Python & then iteratively diverge? Would you rather start & stay in Nim? And I can also see the benefit of both approaches in different circumstances. :)

<comment><USER9> > The emphasis is always on iteration & incremental additions. > All of this > said, I understand that a great deal of this decision comes down to personal > preference: Would you rather start with Python & then iteratively diverge?

When doing scientific research, I'd prefer to start with Python and then iteratively diverge. The aim is to get my task done as quickly as possible (so I can go write those 15 journal articles due last Monday) and go just as far as is needed. It's the scientist/engineer vs programmer mindset difference.

However, if the code was done and I knew I'd need to use it again, I like the idea of rewriting it from scratch in Nim - not that I or any scientific colleagues know Nim (only one has heard of it).

Anyway, I look forward to keeping an eye on your work and maybe using it in the future :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the great things about Python is the C API and how well documented it is.

<comment><USER11> APIs like that are both good and bad because they let you do almost anything so make many optimisations either hard or impossible, and have a nasty habit of exposing implementation details which constrain future changes to the language implementation.

Even APIs such as JNI that do their best to abstract over such details tend to block a JIT's view of what is going on and end up being a real pain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally I'd be in favor of a more general solution... Some kind of cffi/CPython bridge.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm afraid I'm not up to speed on pypy. What is the benefit here?

<comment><USER14> Speed. In many common cases, pypy is significantly faster than the python C runtime. Unfortunately, the python C api was not designed with a jit in mind.

<comment><USER8> But as Numba has shown, it's achievable to write a CPython-to-LLVM-IR compiler for subsets of the language, then add NumPy-awareness, and add multiple targets like GPUs, and achieve better-than-PyPy speed ups jitting pure Python (CPython) code.

I think it's an interesting question as to whether PyPy "is the future" or rather something more like Numba, or even a whole ecosystem of specialized variants of Numba that may be tweaked or tuned to take advantage of different hardware optimizations, work better for different domain problems (e.g. image processing vs. network programming).

In a lot of cases where PyPy improves over some standard CPython code, it's exactly the sort of code you really wouldn't care about optimizing in the context of a larger application. In any sort of scientific application, the pure CPython parts of it are usually small and insignificant compared to what's written in NumPy/SciPy/pandas and science libraries written on top of those, and Numba can be seen as the first "specializing compiler" for this sort of application -- with a lot of room for people to write other kinds of specializing compilers that compile different genres of Python code for domain-specific purposes, the way that Numba compiles generally scientific Python for numerical computing purposes.

<comment><USER15> > But as Numba has shown, it's achievable to write a CPython-to-LLVM-IR > compiler for subsets of the language, then add NumPy-awareness, and add > multiple targets like GPUs, and achieve better-than-PyPy speed ups jitting > pure Python (CPython) code.

Other than "to-LLVM" and "targets like GPUs", jitpy does exactly that for PyPy-in-CPython.

[http://jitpy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](http://jitpy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/)

It's not quite as fast for numeric code (though it's close _and_ conformant) but it's also not a language subset nor does it degrade to CPython performance on dynamic parts of the language. It should be a terrific option if you're able to section out discrete workloads that CPython's struggling with, even in non-numeric code.

Few people know of it though.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the link to JitPy. I will definitely read more about it. Just from the first parts of the docs, though, it looks very limited compared with Numba. In Numba, there is a distinction between 'python mode' and 'nopython mode' \-- meaning that even at the final LLVM IR emission, if Numba is forced to punt on type inference (e.g. because an untyped Python list object is an argument or something), Numba can still fall back directly to the CPython API, and in general even this has speed benefits as a lot of intermediate calls or intermediate variables _can_ be lowered or typed.

So even though JitPy won't "degrade to CPython performance", it's slightly moot since you can only handle a limited set of types in JitPy. I guess one area where JitPy should win in theory is if there is a dynamic Python object inside of the function, like a dynamic list. Then JitPy is OK since it's not part of the signature, and when it can't optimize due to indeterminate type inside the function, the fallback will be PyPy instead of CPython, and hence should be faster.

But Numba offers a lot on the array computing side, which is what it is specialized for. For example, from the Numba docs < [http://numba.pydata.org/numba- doc/0.21.0/developer/architect...](http://numba.pydata.org/numba- doc/0.21.0/developer/architecture.html#stage-5-rewrite-typed-ir) >:

> Numba implements a user-extensible rewriting pass that reads and possibly > rewrites Numba IR. This pass's purpose is to perform any high-level > optimizations that still require, or could at least benefit from, Numba IR > type information.

> One example of a problem domain that isn't as easily optimized once lowered > is the domain of multidimensional array operations. When Numba lowers an > array operation, Numba treats the operation like a full ufunc kernel. During > lowering a single array operation, Numba generates an inline broadcasting > loop that creates a new result array. Then Numba generates an application > loop that applies the operator over the array inputs. Recognizing and > rewriting these loops once they are lowered into LLVM is hard, if not > impossible.

> An example pair of optimizations in the domain of array operators is loop > fusion and shortcut deforestation. When the optimizer recognizes that the > output of one array operator is being fed into another array operator, and > only to that array operator, it can fuse the two loops into a single loop. > The optimizer can further eliminate the temporary array allocated for the > initial operation by directly feeding the result of the first operation into > the second, skipping the store and load to the intermediate array. This > elimination is known as shortcut deforestation. Numba currently uses the > rewrite pass to implement these array optimizations. For more information, > please consult the "Case study: Array Expressions" subsection, later in this > document.

One reason why I see the Numba route as more effective than the PyPy route is that these kinds of highly-specific optimizations seem likely to occur all over the place, and to be very related to the genre of computing you are doing. One person may not want Numba to perform these optimizations, because loop fusion isn't important to their codebase which doesn't do a lot of array computing. Instead, they might want some kind of domain-specific optimization that assists with a kernel bypass for some low-latency algorithm.

This could all be exposed in Numba, but as separate domain-specific sub- modules or via user-defined IR optimization passes or something. Or it could exist as totally separate JIT compiler projects, of which JitPy/PyPy's JIT compiler and Numba's JIT compiler would each just be genre-specific examples.

I tend to see this as the more likely future, and that apart from cases where someone is really just taking a bunch of pure Python code and running it with PyPy interpreter instead of CPython interpreter (which I forecast would be a rare case), the difference between PyPy and CPython won't matter nearly as much as the difference between domain-specific JIT compilers.

<comment><USER15> I agree with everything you've said. jitpy is not so much competing in the numeric space (although it's not far from it), since Numba is as you say really good there.

You do need to be able to build an abstraction boundary, such that complex classes never cross it, but nothing prevents you from instantiating a PyPy class and communicating to it though function calls.

You'll probably want some way to share references across them, but that should be as simple as having a global mapping and a `Ref` class that cleans it up on destruction. Should be a few dozen lines of code.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Polaroid wants to print your Instagrams - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/01/05/polaroid_fotobars_retail_stores_will_print_out_instagrams_facebook_photos.html

<comment><USER2> Anyone else think this was an Onion article when they read the headline?

<comment><USER3> The onion did an article very similar to this: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook- im-t...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-apple-ceo-tim-cook-im-thinking- printers,21207/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article headline is deceiving.

This is not actually Polaroid, but rather a already-existing photo printing company which is licensing the use of the Polaroid brand for their new expansion stores. The people involved with this have nothing to do with the "Polaroid" camera team of way back (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Corporation#Use_of_Pol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaroid_Corporation#Use_of_Polaroid_brand_following_bankruptcy) for more info)

</comment><comment><USER5> the team i was on at myspace in 2009 did an integration w polaroid. it never really took off.

hopefully instagram has better success.

<comment><USER6> > hopefully instagram has better success.

Instagram isn't involved here, besides being a potential source of imagery.

This is all Polaroid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is not really a service suitable for a full retail store.

This is a service ideal for a tiny panel in a wall at some major high-street retailer. Except many people have done that before, the only difference would be this one is Polaroid branded.

</comment><comment><USER8> Do stores in the US not have instant photo-printing machines? In the UK the Boots pharmacy (and other shops) have machines with a range of inputs (which may include bluetooth?) which can print 6x4s instantly. It costs far less than $15 a print.

<comment><USER9> Most Drug stores I've been to in the US do photo printing. At CVS I think it's around 20 cents for a 4x6.

<comment><USER10> I've never seen one that will do it over wifi or bluetooth, however; every one I've seen requires a physical mediumn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My local photographic equipment store already offers printing photos from a usb connection to a mobile phone, so what polaroid is offering here is guidance for editing those photos.

</comment><comment><USER12> i don't see how this will make polaroid relevant again, as there are already loads of services which do exactly that online.

i also doubt the business model. you need to sell boatloads of printouts every month to operate 2000 square feet retail shops in top locations. i just don't see how this can ever break even.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems more interesting to me to do this via web vs. retail. We're driving for the web at Instacanvas (<http://instacanv.as>).

Thoughts on web vs. retail for physical photo products?

</comment><comment><USER14> There are already plenty of sites that do this exclusively online for the same/cheaper price point. It'll be interesting to see if a store-front will be a good investment considering the high overhead cost.

<comment><USER15> I imagine they hope people will go to these stores for the same reason they go to Apple's retail stores instead of just shopping for Apple products online:

1) Immediate gratification. Sure it takes less time to order prints (or Apple computers) online and then get them out of the mailbox, but if you want a print (or computer) fast without waiting for shipping you can just drive to your local store and 5-10 mins later walk out with a purchase. There is a lot of value to that. 2) "Genius bar" The article states that there will be people who can provide photo editing help and advice in the store. 3) The "cool effect". If you post on Path, or FourSquare, or Facebook that you are at an Apple store you get a lot of "likes". (At least in my peer group) It's a status symbol to go to an Apple store (and Starbucks is the same way) If Polaroid can pull off this same image with their stores which will have a similar clientele they have a guaranteed money fountain.

<comment><USER16> I'm not so sure that there's an analogous Genius Bar for photo editing because the audience* doesn't care about real editing.

It seems like modern consumer photography has deteriorated to the "filter = art" style and most of my friends (20-35 demographic) don't seem to spend time doing things like contrast & lighting adjustments. I still do, but only for photos which will make it out of my Lightroom or iPhoto library which accounts for maybe 5-15% of what I actually shoot and keep.

*Perhaps the audience is predominantly outside my own 20-35 demographic and I've made a bad assumption; it's early to tell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A service that scans your Polaroids and puts them on Instagram might be more promising.</comment>


YC Startups' Tech Stacks - <AUTHOR> http://themacro.com/articles/2016/08/yc-tech-stacks/ <comment><USER2> Can you hyperlink to higher-resolution versions of the charts? They are unreadable at that size.

<comment><AUTHOR> done

<comment><USER2> Thanks!

On a related note, this chart ([http://themacro.com/images/articles/YC_Stacks_5-6e24d6f7.png](http://themacro.com/images/articles/YC_Stacks_5-6e24d6f7.png)) is a good example on why people should always label their X and Y axes, even with context above.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's a good point. Added an explanation for axes above the graphs. Essentially, the x-axis represents the number of YC websites that tech was found on and the y-axis represents that tech's market share relative to the tech category.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Problem with Mechanical Switch Reviews - <AUTHOR> https://deskthority.net/photos-f62/the-problem-with-mechanical-switch-reviews-t15133.html <comment><USER2> My grandfather worked for IBM starting in 1979 till the mid 2000's. Towards the finale of his career, he worked from home, so a lot of IBM hardware ended up accumulating in his home office. One day, years after he retired, I was going through the closet and I saw a bit of beautiful beige sticking out from under a pile of other useless keyboards. A 1987 IBM Model M. I nearly had a heart attack. It was in perfect condition and only needed a bit of dusting. It has been my primary keyboard ever since, no modern mechanical has come anywhere close to matching it for me. The noise drives my coworkers absolutely bonkers though.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow! This was way more involved than I expected, and a super interesting read.

I did get confused near the end, when the author began speaking about "total force". The author states:

> Total Force (gfmm) is the area under the press force curve from 0 mm to > bottom out

And

> The term Actuation Force is often incorrectly used for Force at Actuation > (63 gf below). As Actuation Force really means how much force did it require > in order to activate the switch (gfmm). So, just like Total Force we take > the area under the force curve, but from 0 mm to actuation point

It seems to me that the author is measuring _work_ (i.e. the integral of force over distance). Seems like it would be easier to understand if terms like "total work" and "actuation work" or "actuation energy" were used instead. To define "actuation force" in a way where actuation force != force at actuation strikes me as bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER4> There is nothing like a Model M.

I still have two Model M's. (they were three but one died in an accident).

Not an advertisement or an endorsement but these guys here still manage to provide them (at a dear price, but hey, they are original refurbished Model M's): [http://clickykeyboards.com/](http://clickykeyboards.com/)

They used to have a really convincing logo (just for the record): [https://web.archive.org/web/20160222165754/http://www.shoppa...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160222165754/http://www.shoppalstores.com/ibmmodelm/image//logos/logo3.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER5> If you liked the original IBM "clickey" Buckling spring keyboard, you can still get something very similar from Unicomp [1]. I have one and I love it because it has such a gradual force increase as you press the key. My fingers don't "bottom out" like they do on cheap keyboards. After many years of writing a lot of code I started to develop some minor pain in my fingers from using cheap keyboards every day. When I switched to this keyboard my problems gradually subsided.

[1] [https://www.pckeyboard.com/](https://www.pckeyboard.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Model M for life!</comment>


Quantum and Tech Startups - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@manumish/tech-startups-and-quantum-f132711d5d35 <comment><AUTHOR> How our reality is formed depends on so many factors; It is amazing how Quantum world works</comment>


You've been cutting cakes wrong your entire life - <AUTHOR> http://digg.com/video/youve-been-cutting-cakes-wrong-your-entire-life

<comment><USER2> Wrong? no. Differently? yes. Because sheetcake. :)

<comment><USER3> You could just shave layers off the bottom and have no problem at all, or, you know, math.</comment></comment>


'Why Is This Airplane Still Flying?' The FAA Missteps That Kept Boeing Max Aloft - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-this-airplane-still-flying-the-faa-missteps-that-kept-boeings-max-aloft-11572308196?mod=rsswn <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/in-depth/why-is-this- airplane...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/in-depth/why-is-this-airplane- still-flying-the-faa-missteps-that-kept-boeings-max-aloft/ar-AAJvMWH)

</comment><comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/fCRtW](http://archive.is/fCRtW)</comment>


Paypal Freezes Much Needed Funds For Charity/Emergency Work - <AUTHOR> http://tonyocruz.com/?p=2438

<comment><AUTHOR> Disclosure: I know these guys and I know they were really trying to help. There were people dying everyday and rescue funds were needed badly in the wake of the calamity. All monies were to be turned over to the Philippine Red Cross and they even had an endorsement from them.

</comment><comment><USER2> The amount of red-tape they had to go through was amazing. Way to go Paypal!</comment>