U.S. drinking water widely contaminated with 'forever chemicals': report - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-water-foreverchemicals/u-s-drinking-water-widely-contaminated-with-forever-chemicals-report-idUSKBN1ZL0F8 <comment><USER2> Meanwhile, these same PFAS chemicals are sprayed liberally onto the surface of clothing that we all wear, and increasingly furniture as well, and this may account for far more human PFAS consumption than drinking water.

PFAS chemicals are widely used for waterproofing fabrics. The industry term is DWR -- Durable Water Repellent. The chemicals are sprayed onto the surface and simply left there to rub off on your hands and face every time you touch them. The chemicals are ubiquitous; nearly every garment marketed as "water resistant" will be covered with them. As of 2019, only one large outdoor clothing company has abandoned PFC-based DWR finishes. I've also noticed more and more furniture advertised with DWR recently.

All of this concern over parts-per-trillion levels in drinking water is like panicking over an untended candle when your house is already on fire.

EDIT:

Also note that the U.S. military regularly dumps tremendous quantities of PFAS chemicals on the ground around dozens of military bases around the country [1]. They use it in fire suppression foam, of which they spray thousands of gallons during regular fire fighting exercises.

There are low-cost and low-toxicity alternatives to PFAS that are fairly well proven to be just as effective in fire suppression foams, but the U.S. military continues to ignore them steadfastly.

1 - [https://theintercept.com/2018/02/10/firefighting-foam- afff-p...](https://theintercept.com/2018/02/10/firefighting-foam-afff-pfos- pfoa-epa/)

EDIT 2:

Don't forget carpeting! For decades, rugs and carpeting advertised as "stain repellent" have been coated with PFCs. One prominent brand is 3M's Scotchgard, which is also sold as a liquid for people to spray on all their shit. Until 2003, liquid Scotchgard contained PFOS, a C8-class PFC that is now banned. Even today, Scotchgard and other similar products still contain PFCs -- merely shorter-chain versions that have been surmised (but not proven) to be safer.

<comment><USER3> > As of 2019, only one large outdoor clothing company has abandoned PFC-based > DWR finishes.

Which one?

<comment><USER2> Paramo. There may a couple other smaller ones too. I haven't looked in a while.

<comment><USER4> Isn't Paramo unique in that their garments are intended to keep you comfortable (while damp) rather than a typical DWR costed shell that is intended to keep you _dry_?

<comment><USER2> That's their reputation for sure, and their marketing plays up the whole "vapor transport" thing, but make no mistake, Paramo is in pursuit of the same holy grail as everyone else: a fabric that's both breathable and completely waterproof in all conditions. Like a duck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > In 2018 a draft report from an office of the U.S. Department of Health and > Human Services said the risk level for exposure to the chemicals should be > up to 10 times lower than the 70 PPT threshold the EPA recommends. The White > House and the EPA had tried to stop the report from being published.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here is more detailed report on this problem in Europe [1] They seem to indicate levels many times higher are present in Europe than the EPAs suggested limited of 70 PPT. Although that limit also seems to be commonly exceeded in US. It is concerning that technical discussion over regulation is occurring while the picture of actual contamination levels is very incomplete [2]

[1] [https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/human/chemicals/emerging- ch...](https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/human/chemicals/emerging-chemical- risks-in-europe)

[2] [https://greensciencepolicy.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/An...](https://greensciencepolicy.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/Andy_Eaton_UCMR3_PFAS_data.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would be interested to know what is the current trust level of the residents on the gov and EPA in the different states.

Not far from my living area a new gas rig started operating where the gov, contractor company and EPA (EPA of my country that is) argue the chemical emissions doesn't pose health risks (same for sea water pollution risk), while self-funded environmental organizations argue otherwise and show inconsistencies and omissions of real-time data in air monitoring stations. They compare the owners' claims with their assertions.

The interesting story is about trust crisis in the system. The public reached a point where they started crowd-funding independent air monitoring system to put pressure on EPA to "do its job" and enforce the standards. EPA already announced a nice mobile app showing monitored air data on the map to provide public sense of security. I hope the data is genuine.

There are more and more examples of crowd-funded projects as alternatives to governmental components expressing decline of public trust.

It seem to happen globally on many levels. Is it possible the crowd-funded organizations will one day replace the government?

<comment><USER8> Air-quality safety (among other things) is assured by the EPA, and it's done a lot to undermine that trust in the last couple of decades.

Electronics safety is assured by UL, a private company. To date, they've maintained the public's trust in their services.

If Consumer Reports publishes an exposé of UL taking kickbacks to certify substandard equipment, I'd become very interested in buying gear certified by a competitor.

With the EPA, I mean... I can't vote out the leadership of the EPA. I can _very indirectly_ vote for a change there, and hope it happens, if that vote happens to align with my other interest, but there's no granularity, no way to hit them in their pocketbook, which I line once a year regardless of my feelings on the matter.

Now, there are some immediate differences between the two, which are obvious enough that I'm not going to bother elucidating them. But it's an instructive comparison. I'd say the UL model is underutilized.

<comment><USER9> Most people don't know what UL is or that they even exist. Of the few who do, many probably believe it's some government mandated thing.

Regardless, just because UL seems to be doing a decent job (I'm not really qualified to comment on that, just going on an assumption here), there have been other industry groups that were supposed to do the same thing and were basically utter failures. For example, the EnergyStar organization giving certification for a gasoline powered alarm clock[0].

[0] [https://gizmodo.com/a-fake-gas-powered-alarm-clock-once- got-...](https://gizmodo.com/a-fake-gas-powered-alarm-clock-once-got-energy- star-cer-1656128986)

<comment><USER8> > _Energy Star was started in 1992 by the EPA as a voluntary labeling program > to encourage the consumption of more energy-efficient appliances._

Huh! TIL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yeah PCB's are a big thing in North-East Wisconsin. Papermills just added a new chemical to papermaking and dumped in the river for like 50 years before the government even bothered saying you can't do that anymore.

Now the Fox River has a base layer of PCB's and all the papermills declared bankruptcy or dissolved so as not to foot the bill for cleanup.

<comment><USER11> Yeah it's kinda like the wood companies that gut the rain forests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This problem has been brewing for a long time, and is likely worse than any of us can grasp.

Here's an enlightening read: (warning: it's long)

[https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome- to-b...](https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful- parkersburg)

<comment><USER13> There's a movie, Dark Waters, about this as well. Great watch.

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9071322/)

EDIT: Spelling.

<comment><USER14> Saw this last night, completely agree. Everyone should watch it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A reminder that you can remove these and many other contaminants from your water with a simple undersink RO filter. They are quite inexpensive and start at about $160 on Amazon for a lifetime of clean drinking and cooking water.

[https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/list-of-household-filters- appr...](https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/list-of-household-filters-approved-for- certain-pfas-removal)

<comment><USER16> I've heard this also removes many essential minerals that we get from water?

<comment><USER17> Yes, googling "reverse osmosis demineralized water" provides many options to add minerals back in.

The WHO stated that demineralized water is unsuitable for long term drinking due to the lack of minerals.

Not sure how significant this is or how many minerals you can get from diet instead of water.

<comment><USER18> Here's the WHO report for folks who are interested: [https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientscha...](https://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/nutrientschap12.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > previous estimate [...] that 110 million Americans may be contaminated with > PFAS, could be far too low.

If that number is "far too low", everyone is probably affected. And probably not just in the US, they just tested for it.

Sounds like PCBs 2.0.

<comment><USER20> Netherlands also has an issue with it. The norms and standards have been made a bit less strict. It was forbidden to move dirt, sand etc around due to PFAS contamination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Of tap water samples taken by EWG from 44 sites in 31 states and Washington D.C., only one location, Meridian, Mississippi, which relies on 700 foot (215 m) deep wells, had no detectable PFAS. Only Seattle and Tuscaloosa, Alabama had levels below 1 part per trillion (PPT), the limit EWG recommends._

 _In 2018 a draft report from an office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the risk level for exposure to the chemicals should be up to 10 times lower than the 70 PPT threshold the EPA recommends._

The article is all over the place with various recommendations. Seems to boil down (no pun intended) to:

* EPA recommends less than 70 parts per trillion

* US Department of Health and Human Services recommends less than 7 parts per trillion.

* EWG recommends less than 1 part per trillion and states in their report that only 3 out of 44 sites they tested met that much more stringent standard.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've seen this issue trending on HN multiple times within the past year, search "PFAS contamination" for more info online.

I moved into a new house last year near 2 closed down USAF military bases (known to have been previously contaminated by firefighter foam) and did a ton of research on the issue since the house water comes from a well (free water!). I ended up getting a professional water filtration system installed in our basement (carbon tanks, UV light filter, reverse osmosis). Cost me $5k+ for install and ~$1500 year to swap out the tanks and service the system. It's pricey, but you can't put a price on clean water.

<comment><USER23> > _"...you can't put a price on clean water."_

Is that... is that not exactly what you just did? $5k capital expense and $1500/yr operational expense.

That system is almost certainly more than enough for your own household needs, so you could probably sell the excess capacity to your neighbors at near cost to cover some of the operational expenses.

<comment> munk-a And since it's priceable, doesn't it become an ethical question if the neighborhood should require such systems and possibly try and get federal subsidies to install them since they are required as a result of the military's actions? (And, specifically, completely non-essential actions - asking the military to clean up contamination caused by active national defense is a slightly different question)

<comment><USER23> That's a good point. The capital expenses should be recoverable via civil suit, with actual operating expenses so far, and possibly also projected future operating expenses over the expected lifespan of the installation.

But possibly not. Water rights in legal-land aren't always as fair or uncomplicated as ordinary non-lawyer folk--such as myself and most HN readers --might expect them to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Apparently there are now technologies available to remove PFAS from water: [https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent- pollutants/Foreve...](https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent- pollutants/Forever-chemicals-technologies-aim-destroy/97/i12) but it is going to be expensive to deploy everywhere that it is needed.

<comment><USER25> I think britAs and the like work somewhat at removing pfas. They're large organic molecules and they excel at removing those.

<comment> saiya-jin Based on internet it seems zerowater filters are much more effective than brita, but they cost a bit more to run (because, well, they filter out more stuff).

<comment><USER25> Hmm I got to the conclusion that zero water was way better at filtering out smaller chemicals like lead. I'm still think both types of filters are good for pfas. Zero water could be a little better though.

I could still be wrong. It was hard to find any good studies or tests last time I looked into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> These materials are used as coatings on "compostable" food packaging. I've seen this packaging being used as a replacement for plastic packaging at "green" grocery stores.

Of course, the coating does not decompose upon composting, it just sits there in the compost.

</comment><comment><USER27> Can anyone help me understand how _anything_ at a concentration of < 5PPT can be dangerous?

I'm not arguing, just trying to get my head around it.

(And yes I realize that in some of these areas the concentrations were orders of magnitude higher; the recommendation for allowable concentration is < 1PPT according to the article)

<comment><USER28> It doesn't degrade and accumulates in the body ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Human_d...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Human_data)), where it looks like it acts like a "biological handgrenade" (a nifty term I heard elsewhere).

" _PFOA is not rapidly eliminated from the human body, with a half-life of 3.8 years in human blood, thus raising the public concerns over the toxicological implications due to internal exposure._ " ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4817033/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4817033/))

That's elimination from retired "fluorochemical production workers" ([https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17805419/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17805419/)).

<comment><USER27> Got it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> So next time I go to the US I should bring a LifeStraw?

This is an actual question: How much do these filters help against the type of contamination that's in US drinking water?

<comment><USER30> Products like the LifeStraw/Sawyer/Katadyn won't filter most chemicals. To remove _some_ chemicals you need to use distillation and distillation is only good if the boiling point of a given chemical is higher than that of water.

LifeStraw even states

>Chemicals, salt water, heavy metals and viruses will not be removed.

[http://help.lifestraw.com/en/articles/2507813-does-the- lifes...](http://help.lifestraw.com/en/articles/2507813-does-the-lifestraw- filter-out-heavy-metals-and-viruses)

Sawyer states

>Taste

>The Sawyer filter removes taste that comes from bacteria, dirt, and green matter.

>Chemicals

>The Sawyer filter does NOT remove iron, sulfur, other chemicals, or simple compounds. Taste can be masked by using flavor additives like Gatorade or crystal light (filter needs to be cleaned immediately after using them).

>Heavy Metals

>The Sawyer filters are not made with charcoal. While other portable filters have charcoal, they lack in amount of media and adequate dwell time. Therefore, they only remove small amounts of heavy metals, pesticides, etc. (when used in real life applications). Try using better sources of water, if possible.

[https://sawyer.com/water-filtration/faqs/](https://sawyer.com/water- filtration/faqs/)

<comment><USER31> How would a reverse osmosis filter hooked up in the basement / under the sink compare to distillation? The good ones spit out water that is close to 0 PPM (in most municipal water systems tap water is closer to 60-200). Is PPM a good way of measuring the types of chemicals you mentioned?

<comment><USER32> Doesn't RO needs 3+ liters to get you 1L of purified water ? It doesn't look like this would be viable long term + it doesn't solve the root cause, just the symptoms.

<comment><USER33> Most people use it for just drinking water. When compared to other uses, you don't drink that much water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Use the EWG zip code search to find your water utility [1]. That shows which chemicals or toxins were found when testing your tap water, and scrolling down you see which filter system can remove those chemicals.

For ex: San Francisco's City Water has Chromium (hexavalent) at 0.0906 ppb, and Total Trihalomethanes (TTHMs) at 38.9 ppb [2]. The "Water Filters That Can Reduce Contaminant Levels" table says Activated Carbon and Ion Exchange filtration can't remove those particles, but Reverse Osmosis can.

[1]: [https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/](https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/)

[2]: [https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=CA3810011](https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/system.php?pws=CA3810011)

</comment><comment><USER35> > Results from a single sample form a snapshot of what was found in tap water > at a specific site.

This is a weak statistical methodology.

>They are likely representative of the water in the area where the sample was taken...

I don't agree with that.

Quotes from the source: [https://www.ewg.org/research/national-pfas- testing/](https://www.ewg.org/research/national-pfas-testing/)

That said, this is serious problem.

</comment><comment><USER36> If there was a magical way of convincing every single person in the U.S. to stop buying X, what would we have to stop buying to stop this pollution?

<comment><USER37> Industrial pollution like this is the lived reality of Capitalism and it's inability to meaningfully account for the environmental degradation and destruction it causes. The problem isn't "stop buying X" it's that we need to "stop buying."

<comment><USER38> I don't know why you get downvoted for this. The current assumption that GDP must always grow (and consumption must keep increasing) seem to be in direct contradiction to the idea that we must stop consuming so much if we want to save the environment.

Perhaps "capitalism" is a lazy proxy for this but I think it's more lazy to downvote you than engage with the discussion

<comment><USER39> Increasing GDP does not imply increasing consumption, and increasing consumption does not imply increasing pollution.

<comment><USER40> Can you provide any examples to support your statement?

I don't see how the production of materials and transportation of the materials and people could not increase pollution, given the current infrastructure which requires use of fossil fuels, and which will not change in the short term.

<comment><USER41> You're forgetting the #1 cheapest and most effective way to reduce our environmental impact: efficiency of energy use and efficiency of resource use.

In the case of GDP, energy and resources are both costs that businesses try to minimize in order to provide end products and services, which is what the GDP measures.

Therefore, the carbon intensity of a dollar of GDP is expected to decrease in time, as people discover more ways to save money and compete better, in order to increase profits. They probably aren't thinking about decreasing the amount of CO2 emitted, especially when they are making business decisions. But since CO2 indirectly has a cost, the amount of CO2 emitted per dollar GDP has been decreasing drastically:

[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PP.GD)

If we were to directly price in the costs of CO2 via a tax, the fall would be far faster. And as we come up with tech that doesn't emit, and is cheaper than fossil fuel extraction, we will stop using these damaging resources completely.

There has historically been great resistance from the right to the power of energy efficiency, because of their ties to high fossil fuel consumption, and their attachment to GDP rising at all costs to fuel gains for those at the top of the capitalistic hierarchy. However, this was a miscounted belief.

Lately, this misunderstanding has been picked up by the extreme left, who had assumed that global collapse was their time to finally overturn market-based systems, but now fear that we will try to address the coming disasters of climate change without overhauling market based systems, so now after the yellow jackets gave it to Macron over carbon taxes, a fundamentally market based system, the left has now decided that the enemy (rural conservatives) of their true enemy (neoliberals in urban centers), they can pick up the mantle.

But it's important to fully recognize where these narratives come from and what motivation is driving those who push narratives, and return to the data for our ultimate analysis.

Stopping pollution does not mean destroying GDP. It means eliminating the parts of the GDP that cause the pollution, but other activity will quickly replace the other.

<comment><USER40> >You're forgetting the #1 cheapest and most effective way to reduce our environmental impact: efficiency of energy use and efficiency of resource use.

How can that be cheaper and more effective than reducing consumption?

>If we were to directly price in the costs of CO2 via a tax, the fall would be far faster. And as we come up with tech that doesn't emit, and is cheaper than fossil fuel extraction, we will stop using these damaging resources completely.

I don't think this is politically feasible in the timeframe necessary. The hundreds of millions up and coming in China/India/Brazil/Nigeria/etc want a piece of that nice Western life with a home and car and vacations.

The only realistic solution in a short enough timeframe is to try to educate everyone to consume less. Consume less space (more dense living), consume less fuel (enabled by dense living as public transport is now feasible), consume less products (vastly fewer cheap plastic toys and whatnot), etc.

<comment><USER41> After reading your last paragraph, I'm convinced that we are in full agreement, except for nomenclature choices.

Efficiency is just that, consuming less. One can also consume less end services, too. But if you're saying that a carbon tax is infeasible, then far more in feasible is just taking away with no replacement.

I am 100% in agreement with your plans to educate people to consume less, and have gotten active in local politics to try to effect the changes you suggest. These are exactly the types of things that we need to be doing! I don't think they will decrease GDP, and will likely increase it, as well as increase the quality of life of those who choose to live closer to more people with more transit and amenities nearby. Walking to a small grocery store that takes up 1/8th or less of a super market, and doing that daily or every other day to get the freshest food, is something that will make tons of people far more happy and likely reduce food waste, etc. but I think this will likely increase GDP.

Locally, the biggest pushback is from those who oppose allowing dense walkable neighborhoods. They tend to oppose "growth," be it economic, or population, or incomes, or basically any change from their car-centric lives, and walkable neighborhoods and the construction that comes with buildings taller than 2 stories are the prime culprit, or so they say. They control the local Sierra Club chapter, even. So we get to hear about the "dangers" of 5G tech rather than concrete proposals to stop climate change through local political change. Sigh.

<comment><USER40> Yes, I was trying to highlight that all the Teslas in the world won't make up for the extra consumption caused by utilizing so much space by non-dense living, since everything has to be moved exponentially further requiring exponentially more materials and energy.

Hopefully we see the externalities of energy usage priced in via a carbon tax or similar, but at the same time, unless we can alter the lifestyle of many to allow for far more density, I don't believe it will be enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> You MUST watch the amazing film, "Dark Waters" .... it's about the origin of this problem. DuPont knowingly poisoned the public. And the effects will never go away. And then people wonder why cancer rates are so high? Duh!!!

<comment><USER43> The documentary is _The Devil We Know_. It is riveting and heartbreaking.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> It is insane. I've been looking at water quality over the past year. Look into EPA superfund sites. We only have so many permanent underground aquifers that are disconnected from each other. The industrial age of the 1950s with basically unchecked regulation really ruined our country's permanent aquifers.

<comment><USER45> | unchecked regulation

I think you mean "complete and utter lack of" regulation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> What happens is someone will point to anyone of these chems and say "that level is safe." Perhaps. But no one has an understanding of them and what happens when you combine trace amounts of Chem X, Chem Y and Med Z. At that point any judgement of safety breakdowns.

</comment><comment><USER47> Today's Edition of Fear Your Government > _The White House and the EPA had tried to stop the report from being published._

<comment><USER48> The Trump administration in effect.

<comment><USER49> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait to HN? You've been doing it a lot lately, and we ban accounts that do that.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Today I learned that California has at least one business that can be called a "water store".

Obviously, the chemical that's in the water that must promote such enterprises has to be reintroduced after any purification processes that may occur in the aforementioned store.

Someone please explain to me how such a business is viable in 5 gallon quantities, when the rest of the world either digs a well, buys the outflow from a metered pipe, or fills up a cistern from a tanker truck with at least 3000 gallons per delivery.

Do they not sell reverse osmosis filters or distillery pots there?

Also, if one person filters out the stable perfluorocarbons like PFOA and PFOS, and then dumps them back down the drain again, is that really helping to solve the problem?

</comment><comment><USER50> Lets thank dupont for that

<comment><USER51> I'm a little confused at how this happens. Dupont is just made up of people. Those people need to live somewhere, drink water, and do normal people things. Do they not realize what they are doing as they are doing it, and only become aware it's a problem after the fact? Because if they knew it was problematic from the start, they would almost seem suicidal.

<comment><USER52> People need to eat. Lack of money kills you this year. Some technical science- talk spread by ideologically opposed people about how you're going to get sick decades from now -- who knows if it's even true?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Why are these chemicals not being extensively studied and banned if adverse health effects are proven to affect human health? This stuff could be shortening our lifespan and we are just absorbing it all the time in clothing and water etc unbeknownst to us.

</comment><comment><USER54> Dark Waters (movie) was a real eye-opener for me. Also a way to ingest information that I otherwise probably wouldn't have been able to take in. It's no surprise that cancer is so prevalent.

</comment><comment><USER55> Are there any Home "Appliance" that make Distillation simple.

Instead of rather expensive filtering that requires you to buy filter every now and then in recurring cost.

</comment><comment><USER56> I live in one of the industrial "hot zones" for these chemicals. In the 1960's a local tannery was the main employer in the area, and commanded a great deal of local clout. As a result, they obtained permits to dump industrial waste in various (30+) small dump sites around the area. This waste contained a variety of industrial chemicals, not the least of which was the 3M product Scotchgard, which was used in large quantity to waterproof leather, contains PFAS, and was buried feet from the surface, generally in nondescript forest areas.

A few years ago, when our local water authority began testing for PFAS, they found unusually high numbers specifically around one well-head used to supply municipal water to the area. Instead of disclosing the issue, the authority chose to use that well head only when the demand was high, which excluded times in which the water was tested. If they timed their testing to times of low demand, the numbers were under the EPA recommendation.

With significant grass-roots pressure in the area, many pending lawsuits, and lots of reporting and investigation, the municipality is taking the issue somewhat seriously. GAC filters were installed on the municipal supply, the company considered largely at fault has agreed to pay for the extension of municipal water to some (not all) affected areas that are still served by well water, in which the danger is particularly high. Some cleanups are occurring, while other sites exist under what are now housing developments.

There's story after story here, of people (especially those located in areas served by well water) with a history of cancer after cancer after cancer affecting their entire families. These are folks who after having their water tested, confirmed some of the highest levels ever measured in a water supply.

In all, the whole ordeal has been a wake up call for me, regarding the level of cover-up that happened and in some cases continues to happen surrounding waste disposal, especially for large companies that are considered the "economic life blood" of a given area. Looking over records, people have found strong objections to the practice dating back to the time it happened (some of the warnings eerily prescient) multiple cleanups that were funded but never occurred in the decades that followed, and a continual failure to acknowledge any risk surrounding the practice and dump sites for decades. There was a constant drum beat of "very smart people say that everything is fine."

As for me, my (municipal) water is GAC and RO filtered. I pay close attention to things I would not have considered before, like air quality. It's made me reconsider the source of the foods that I eat. It takes little work to take these precautions, the potential upside is pretty big, and the downside small.

I wonder if in the years to come, we're going to find significant causal links between aspects of our environment and maladies we previously considered a mystery.

</comment><comment><USER57> My county water board does not have PFAS as one of their routine tests. Is this a standard in other counties?

</comment><comment><USER58> A recent movie, Dark Waters, covers this same subject. Which seems a little coincidental.

</comment><comment><USER59> Great. So the mind control fluoride crazies were (kind of) right all along.

<comment><USER60> Not to worry. All the fluoride they're intentionally doping the water supply with just fluoridates your insides to give you a forever body. Just kidding. It goes from the stomach into the bloodstream and straight up into your teeth to fortify them and give you forever teeth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> See also the documentary _The Devil We Know_

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

</comment><comment><USER61> Are there residential water filtration systems that would be effective at filtering these out?

I have a water filter in my fridge but no real idea how well it works.

</comment><comment><USER62> Can someone enlighten me on the legitimacy and scientific rigor of the Environment Working Group organization that published these findings?

</comment><comment><USER63> Not to ignore the democracy problem but solely on the localized health issue, if you can afford a Berkey Water Filter, get one.

<comment><USER64> I looked on the Berkey website but couldn't find specifics about the mechanism that these filters use; is it simply reverse osmosis?

<comment><USER65> I helped a relative assemble theirs, they appear to be gravity fed activated carbon blocks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Anyone know how hard it is filtering out PFAS?

</comment><comment><USER67> What's the state of cheap nano filters ?

<comment><USER68> I kind of like ceramic ones (from Doulton / Berkenfeld). Well proven technology, invented by Victorians, and does a remarkable job at filtering most stuff.

<comment><USER67> oh man apparently some ceramics are air porous .. I'd like to know the material/chemistry behind the process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> can anyone confirm whether consumer grade filters like Brita help filtering these things out?

<comment><USER70> Yes, activated charcoal filters them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> It is constantly amazing to me that "cover up the existence of poisonous chemicals in your drinking water" is a viable position for a democratically- elected officeholder to have. What a world we live in.

<comment><USER72> Democracy is mostly a facade anymore, unfortunately. Don't get me wrong, we haven't gone completely south to a dictatorship--there are many protections in place to keep things from falling apart but nonetheless I feel as though we're in the decline in the respect of being democratic.

The underlying failed assumption in our representative democracy was that representatives would represent their constituents' interests and people would elect people who would represent their interests, all of course with hopeful protections for minorities. Obviously, this doesn't work.

We need to really set expiration dates on how long people can run campaigns and how long they can stay in a given office. Politics should be about solving problems and seeking continuous improvement of well-being for citizens in a given society, not convincing people they're happy, constantly lying, and playing manipulative popularity contests but that's where we are.

<comment><USER73> >Democracy is mostly a facade

in the US anyway.

But I agree, the US government isn't functioning 1) as originally intended or 2) for the benefit of the majority of the people it 'represents.'

Although it's worth noting that 'as the forefathers intended' carries more weight than it typically should. Their intentions were mostly based on philosophical guess work, as they didn't have a whole lot of empirical data or existing republics/democracies to base their new government on.

It honestly seems like like they intended the US government to function a lot more similarly to the EU than what we currently have. Although the EU has its own sets of problems, but at the very least seems more representative of the people than the US government.

<comment><USER74> > the US government isn't functioning for the benefit of the majority of the > people it 'represents.'

American democracy was never meant to benefit just the majority. Which is why we have _undemocratic_ institutions (such as the Judiciary). Minorities (both long-standing and ephemeral -- e.g. a race of people versus the losing party in an election) exist and should be protected from the majority and should be represented in government. Only long-term, widely-held political thoughts can truly dominate minorities in this country.

The fact that power swings from Republicans, back to Democrats, back to Republicans, and so on, illustrates that there is a very weak majority in this country and no consensus opinion on how to move forward.

> Although the EU has its own sets of problems, but at the very least seems > more representative of the people than the US government.

From an outsiders perspective many aspects of the EU seem undemocratic and ad- hoc. Can you explain your view of the EU to me?

<comment><USER73> >The fact that power swings from Republicans, back to Democrats, back to Republicans, and so on, illustrates that there is a very weak majority in this country

That only holds true if you believe that the two political parties accurately represent the views of the people.

Political views are a spectrum of opinions. Boiling them down to one of two parties means you lose the majority of views. In the end you vote with the party that most closely resembles your opinions, but because the US has two choices, the party you choose doesn't end up representing your beliefs in a lot of cases. It just represents your beliefs more frequently than the other one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Have any effects of this been noticed? It feels like a lot of these things are "yet another thing that might shorten your life a little bit", although the total risk may be very small.

<comment><USER76> From the article:

> _The chemicals, resistant to breaking down in the environment, are known as > perfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Some have been linked to cancers, liver > damage, low birth weight and other health problems._

<comment><USER77> "linked to" is a weasel phrase. It means nothing. How big is the effect size? How robust is the evidence? What's the dose-response curve?

<comment><USER76> If you're really curious, these answers can be found by Googling.

<comment><USER77> The burden of proof rests on the party making the positive claim.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How does Tidelift pay maintainers? - <AUTHOR> https://tidelift.com/about/lifter <comment><USER2> I really like the sound of this, however when there is a lack of transparency on the site regarding costs, and breakdown of how the money is divided (payment handling, a cut for the company themselves etc.) - and you need to "request a demo" to find out enough to make a decision, no matter how genuine this proposition is, I feel it loses a lot of it's open source positive credentials.

As a side example, Elementary OS App Store is an example of more what I'd expect, they try to encourage payment for open source projects and handle the distribution of funds, but they have transparent costs and the project itself is open source.

Please can you include more information on your website.

Also in terms of vulnerability mitigation, NPM have started giving me warnings, so I am much better able to handle the upgrade / management / damage limitation of using packages with known vulnerabilities for JS at least. I'm sure that's coming more widely, so for me the Licence stuff is great, and some of the vulnerability info is handy, but if I was to use the service it would be to primarily pay out for packages I use professionally, so with the current info provide, that's an instant no. I'd have considered it genuinely if I knew what it was exactly you were proposing.

<comment><USER3> Tidelift co-founder here, thanks everyone for the interest.

I've added a discussion of Tidelift's share to the docs at [https://tidelift.com/docs/lifting/paying](https://tidelift.com/docs/lifting/paying) TLDR our commitment is to pay out at least 50%.

What we're doing at Tidelift is an enterprise software product (analogous to something like Red Hat Enterprise Linux), but a difference is that instead of hiring a bunch of people to repackage upstream projects, we're offering upstream maintainers the _option_ to participate directly by helping us do the work - for a revenue share, rather than a flat fee.

The app store analogy isn't quite right; an app store provides a catalog and some review services, but much of their 30% rake is profit as far as I know. The Tidelift share includes funding all the non-engineering parts of an enterprise software business, including a crucial one, a sales team.

The point of this is to make the pie larger. We want to pay the maintainers (at least) 50% of a lot of money, instead of 90% of a little money.

btw there are a number of options out there to make straight donations to projects and we support those! That isn't mutually exclusive with what we're doing here and in fact many of our participating maintainers also take donations.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for a bit of added clarity. I do understand it is more than an app store model, good luck with making open source projects more sustainable.

I actually do wonder if some of your revenue should go on bug bounties too, rather than project income only (even though I know some of that will probably be put towards bug bounties), but regardless I hope it changes the ecosystem for the better.

The main part of the Elementary OS app store analogy was that it is all free software, and their intention was to encourage people to pay for it regardless, which is the only crossover with you - I think the guys there would actually be interested in this model too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My personal (and possibly unpopular) hot-take on these types of schemes are that they should be against the law. It's the same concept with the Brave browser.

I don't feel like these organizations have a right to attempt to represent other entities without express consent.

I mean they take money on behalf of other individuals/organizations, advise those paying them that they will forward the money on and then attempt to coerce the target entity to sign their contract, accepting based on their terms/pay out ratio, usually based on some opaque "formula".

The more popular the service becomes, the more leverage they have.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I'm with you.

It seems like many of these types of projects are sometimes forcing themselves in the middle when none of the parties involved invited them. Your example with brave browser is a great example.

They're like some kind of weird Man-In-The-Middle Attack brought along a marketing team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > _In return, subscribers can be confident that those packages are well- > maintained._

1\. How can they be confident of that? (Hint: it seems like what you're saying is that you'll place some conditions on maintainers, presumably if you see enough adoption this could make you a powerful stakeholder)

2\. I see tidelift offers some value in managing your other dependency concerns, I assume they extract some money for this. What is the ratio of money paid to maintainers v.s. extracted by tidelift.

3\. How much are you charging for this service? Couldn't see a pricing page.

4\. Who is the intended audience? Large orgs? SME? Single developers?

<comment><USER7> Good questions - also how does Tidelift avoid people gaming the system?

E.g. my node_modules folder is full of thousands and thousands of packages, could I, as the maintainer of several of those packages, split them into 100 sub packages, all dependent on each other and claim 100x the money?

<comment><USER8> > how does Tidelift avoid people gaming the system?

From the website [0]:

"For each package, we compute a share of subscription fees. There are three main factors in this computation:

\- Subscriber usage. Packages receive a share of fees only from those subscribers using the package. More subscribers using the package means more money!

\- How much subscribers pay. If we charge subscribers more, there's more to divide up.

\- A weight. A package containing a large framework gets a larger share than one containing a 2-line function. Currently, the weight is based primarily on code size. Please do not try to game the system by putting extra junk in your package—we will penalize this, and more importantly your users and other maintainers will suffer. If we tweak our weightings in the future, we'll strive to do so in a way that avoids radically changing existing income levels. "

It seems they're aware of the possibility of gaming.

[0] [https://tidelift.com/docs/lifting/paying](https://tidelift.com/docs/lifting/paying)

Edit: formatting

<comment><USER9> The weight is a very difficult problem in my opinion.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. Amongst other issues this scheme appears to encourage making a large volume of moderately-useful changes to a lot of repositories, rather than a smaller number of difficult but essential changes.

<comment><USER11> The Facebook effect coming to OSS. Lots of activity and noise, little to negavitve value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > There is a floor, however: if the payment computation arrives at a trivial > total for a package, we reassign the money to other packages.

Not sure I like this. It's not very clear for a start. I read it as they do a calculation on each subscribers code use, if they deem its "not worth it" they give the money to someone else, they didn't say what that floor is or offer to "hold the money until it reaches a valid payout value".

From what I read it as if your code was valued at $0.05 for a sub they will give that 5c to someone else but what if 1000 subs was using that code? Would the maintainer get that $50.

Also seems they are weighing it on the code side of the project not the actual code used. What if I'm importing Newtonsoft's Json library but "only" using using the object serialization function The release zip for that is 6.something MB where I may feel that the websocket server/client I use which come in at 130KB~ provides me with "more value". But based of the size of the two repos Newtonsoft would be getting much more of my sub than the websocket lib.

Edit: > Each maintainer will have to sign the lifter agreement.

What happens if they haven't signed the agreement? (The link to the agreement 404's) lets say a sub signs up thinking "great all my repo maintainers will get paid...", you detect they are using Repo X that has not signed up to your service because they don't know about it (yeah sending a email / issue on GH saying "Hey, we have money for you, just give us your bank details" won't get the email immediately sent to spam :-p) What is happening to those funds? Are you letting the subs know their money is not being collected? What if I don't want to agree to your terms (I dunno, don't like your font choice or something) and I will never sign up, would the money I would be getting get split up to the other repos the subs are paying for? Do you tell them that Repo X isn't getting a cut of their money? (Remember the sub may think Repo X is really worth the money.)

What about if they are using a Microsoft Library in their DotNet Core project but have a paid account with Visual Studio / Microsoft?

<comment><USER13> Because a two-line package should not need money to maintain it.

The payment is intended to make up for some of the time the developer of the dep expended, it's not supposed to be proportional to the utility other developers get out of it.

That's what makes it still OSS and not commercial software.

<comment><USER12> > Because a two-line package should not need money to maintain it.

I didn't bring up "two line packages", the websocket package in question is more on the size of 20k of code lines.

> The payment is intended to make up for some of the time the developer of the > dep expended, it's not supposed to be proportional to the utility other > developers get out of it.

Repo size doesn't always mean time expended.

> That's what makes it still OSS and not commercial software.

OSS can still be commercial software. Code could be A/GPL and still offer commercial license's to remove restrictions.

And as others have said in this thread its often the smaller / less well "known" packages that don't get much "love" when it comes to financial support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Silly question perhaps, but can't package maintainers include a standard meta- tag or something in their package for Paypal or something?

And having some command like "npm donate" that essentially does the same algorithm as tidelift and prints a paypal address for each package.

I'd like that better than having yet another middleman siphoning a part of the cashflow.

<comment><USER15> Nice idea, and that isn't even mutually exclusive with an online version. Having this as a website definitely has advantages - you can easily set up a monthly payment, the receiver gets semi-reliable recurring income rather than sporadic one-off donations, you can pay by direct debit.

I think the real problem would be what is the meta-tag? There isn't really a standard for "send money to this URL". You could support Paypal I guess, but do they have an API for sending money? And then you're reliant on Paypal which is fairly notorious for just cutting off anything vaguely unusual (like this would be) and keeping the money.

<comment><USER16> I was going to start working on this, but yeah the issue is that the website would still act as a middleman to send the money around. There are a few problems with this:

\- some use paypal, some use patreon, some use neither so where do you send the money

\- even if it was either paypal or patreon, they would take their cut which is unfair.

\- even if organizations/foundations would give their bank account info, you could probably use stripe to send the money to the right place, but not sure.

I would be happy to discuss about this by email as I think it is an idea that could be further explored.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I searched around but couldn't find any information on what the company charges for their service, or how large their cut is.

When a company is not open about their fees, naturally I assume the worst. Why would they hide the information otherwise?

</comment><comment><USER18> > There's no ceiling on how much a package earns. There is a floor, however: > if the payment computation arrives at a trivial total for a package, we > reassign the money to other packages. It's impractical to pay very low > amounts, because there's some administrative overhead for us to pay and for > you to lift.

The less-known players are typically the ones that get nothing for their effort, regardless of the size of their codebase or the effort put in.

I didn't see any mention of what "trivial" is - presumably that's dependent on payment processor fees, etc?

I get that this is early days - very well known packages have 0 subscribers - what is the plan to springboard this? I'm guessing a couple of big names with big paychecks to spread around is part of the plan? Or just hoping for HN notoriety? ;)

</comment><comment><USER11> How do they calculate value to subscriber? Is it based solely on subscribe/not subscribe? Do I pay the same as an individual as my corp? Do I pay based on the number of my projects that use the subscribed package? Do I pay based on how much of the package I use (one tiny method vs one giant method vs every single method)? Or based on the number of time I use it as measured by static analysis? Or dynamic?

Will tidelift need access to my source or runtime to determine billing?

While it's a good idea to help maintainers, I'm not sure this will help. The cost of accurate payout seems more expensive to determine fairly than commercial licenses.

I think existing models of dual license and patronage (red hat) or just flat out patronage (microsoft, google, Apple projects).

Or just having a wallet address in repos and let users choose how much to donate. Maybe wash it through a common wallet or include a hashtag in transactions so you can gamify it. I get a badge on my Github profile for how much I've given and received. My organization can show what projects they support. But this shouldn't be a company. There's no infrastructure. Having a company take 30% (or whatever non-zero level) of donations just to distribute would turn this into the WoundedWarrior of OSS.

</comment><comment><USER19> I can't find any packages that have an estimate. Even some of the more popular NPM stuff:

[https://tidelift.com/lifter/search/npm/left- pad](https://tidelift.com/lifter/search/npm/left-pad)

<comment><USER20> Here is one example with an estimate: [https://tidelift.com/lifter/search/npm/eslint](https://tidelift.com/lifter/search/npm/eslint)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Looking forward to more info and transparency. This being non-OSS gives me a carpetbagger feel.

There are also maintainers who cannot or would not like to receive payments. What happens to their share? Redistributing it seems troubling. Could maintainers direct it to charities or something?

<comment><USER3> The payments are not a donation, they are earned by helping provide the Tidelift Subscription service (the set of tasks and responsibilities enumerated at [https://tidelift.com/docs/lifting/tasks- overview](https://tidelift.com/docs/lifting/tasks-overview) ). If someone earns the money it's theirs and they can send it anywhere they want, charities for sure are an option.

<comment><USER11> This makes sense. So if I cannot "earn" money for my contributions, I just wouldn't sign up to be a lifter and my project would not be included in your program.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'd like to see a Humble Bundle model where I can choose which split each package gets

<comment><USER19> That rewards packages that you know you're using, rather than the ones you're actually relying on.</comment></comment>


How to Build a Fallout Shelter - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/magazine/how-to-build-a-fallout-shelter.html?_r=1 <comment><USER2> Gosh for a moment there I thought we were talking in-game, as this article seems rather light on logistics, and heavy on clickbait.

</comment><comment><USER3> This "article" is 4 short paragraphs long.

<comment><USER4> The price is right though isn't it

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nine square feet per person seems... low?

<comment><USER6> Well, that's the minimum boundary recommended, and they cite what the Swiss Government guarantees in the shelters. I would assume you'd try to get more, but then your size requirements for such a shelter rapidly grow.

I think it would go without saying that people would have to get used to vasty different living arrangements should the need to relocate to a bomb-shelter arise. Creating a shelter that is fit for purpose in protecting people from the bomb blast and fallout and also providing a suitable living space is an expensive and resource consuming endeavor, the least of which is just getting enough space somewhere.</comment></comment>


Side-Effects of Elm in Production - <AUTHOR> http://nonullpointers.com/posts/2019-05-28-side-effects-of-elm-in-production.html <comment><USER2> This is very inspiring! I am passing the same problems in a React/Redux project, and I will certain consider Elm!</comment>


Coke computer vs. Pepsi computer - <AUTHOR> http://shadyacres.tumblr.com/post/12836330934/coke-computer-vs-pepsi-computer

<comment><USER2> The essential point about specs is bang on, but comparing computer purchasing to soft drinks over-trivializes it. Soft drinks have nearly zero feature differentiation.

Lots of consumer goods have meaningful features. One dishwasher might be quiet. Another might use very little energy. A third may heat its own water, sanitizing the dishes. You may want a model that can be fitted with a panel to match the cabinetry.

What dishwasher manufacturers have moved away from is specifications that do not strongly correlate with features. How many horsepower does a dishwasher motor have? How many chips are in its circuitry? What does it weigh? These things are rarely front and centre, because most buyers can't draw a connection between them and a benefit they will enjoy.

The trend is not towards brands being the only thing that matter, but rather towards features that probide benefits. RAM and Megahertz are specifications. Being powerful enough to do speech recognition in real time is a feature. Siri is a benefit.

<comment><USER3> Some specs matter; the problem is that they don't present their strengths clearly or they dilute it with meaningless ones. I could send a soccer mom to a store and tell her to prefer an SSD over 4200 RPM, i7 over Atom, 4GB RAM over 512MB. She doesn't know what these are, but she does know which one is better, the same way she'd know that a V6 is more jumpy than a 4-cylinder.

(edit, had RAM specs swapped)

<comment><USER4> Specs are an awful proxy.

Specs do matter insofar as they impact user experience. That relation, however, is not linear. Diminishing returns are very common and there are also discontinuities.

Also, there are tradeoffs to consider: noise, temperature, weight, size, speed, battery, price, software …

You can't have it all. That's just not an option.

Specs are an implementation detail. They matter, sure, but the average consumer shouldn't try and judge products based on them. That's destined to fail. They should look at user experience and tradeoffs.

Companies and reviewers should try to translate the specs that were used to implement tradeoffs into user experience. Who is this device good for? What tradeoffs does it try to pick? Does it do a good job at that?

That's what matters.

<comment><USER5> The problem with doing that is it would require very comprehensive reviews or for customers to very thoroughly try out all products before purchase.

For example if a new product is launched on the market and it appears to be cheap but you know that it has a Fast Quad Core CPU and decent video hardware , you already know in a relatively small amount of text that it will be good for video editing , gaming and various other tasks.

If it only has a 300Mhz CPU you already know that it will not be good for any of these tasks and you can confidently avoid it.

As another example I remember years ago seeing computer adverts which would attempt to simplying their specs with bylines such as "Family Computer" , "Small business computer" , "Games Computer" etc. What if you want a PC for use by all the family for homework/internet etc but the oldest child happens to be an avid WoW/COD Player and Dad plans to use it to prepare accounts for his small retail business?

<comment><USER4> It's not so hard, really. There are a very limited number of use cases, a limited number of tradeoffs. A long list of specs is much worse than just writing "This machine is great if you need a lot of power for video editing and rendering and other creative tasks. It is, however, correspondingly noisy, hot and big, not a very good fit for mobile use or for anyone who needs a quiet computer." That's so much more helpful. Specs are code in comparison.

Specs confuse, specs frighten, specs suck. They force consumers to figure out the tradeoffs that stand behind them. That's too much work.

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily , the specs do confuse but that is mainly because the computer market as it is at the moment is confusing.

Just to pick on the example you used, let's say I want to write a novel and create a flyer for a local charity event. These are "creative tasks" how do I know if this computer will be able to do that, do I really need a $2000 Mac Pro for these?

It is big, but how big? Will it fit into the cupboard next to my desk?

Computers have a _huge_ number of use cases that will continue to grow rather than decline, listing the suitability of a computer for each one of these would take far too much space in a brochure if it didn't computer manufacturers would have been marketing this way already.

(Edited for reply to next post)

I think my point is that it would be very difficult , almost impossible to write comprehensive reviews without any specifications to work from, especially brochure/advetising which needs to be very short.

Essentially a good spec is the normalization of a description of it's suitability for different use cases.

For example a computer which can run Angry Birds happily but not Call of Duty MW3 at all.. Would you describe this as a "poor games computer"?

If all I want to play is Angry Birds (and similar games) then it may be a fantastic games computer , if I want to run COD then it isn't a suitable games computer at all.. At least a spec listing allows me to look at the minimum requirements of the software I want to run and know whether it is suitable or not.

Video rigs would be overpowered for other work, but we only know that because we understand the requirements of video editing on a computers hardware. A layman will not necessarily know this but they will know that their computer meets the recommended requirements for Microsoft Word and Publisher but not for Final Cut Pro because it "doesn't contain enough ghz".

<comment><USER4> I'm a terrible review writer, really. Don't judge me.

When I say specs I'm mostly talking about internals. Size and weight do matter very much and those are also two things people actually understand†. CPUs, GPUs? Not so much.

Other than that you need only a better description. Video rigs are overpowered for other creative tasks, the review wouldn't read as I wrote it.

—

† And now you can argue whether it's better to actually write down numbers or to compare devices with aircraft carriers and football fields. I think both can be appropriate at times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't agree, this is a gross over-simplification and the comparison with Coke and Pepsi doesn't work.

Drinking a soft drink gives you an immediate, hard-wired response. Tasting something is, well, relying on your taste buds for one. How does this translate to something like working with a computer? It's just a dishonest and intellectually lazy comparison.

Mac or PC, Laptop or Desktop, Battlefield 3 or browsing the web. If your grandfather with arthritis and bad sight buys a 11.6" MacBook Air with a 1366×768 resolution and a pixel density of 135 good luck evading him at future family ceremonies if you're the head geek of the family.

Also, I don't know about you guys, but I certainly don't want to be held accountable for a guy ending up with Norton Antivirus just because I went "you want a pc, uhh, it doesn't matter, just go with anything".

<comment><AUTHOR> A computer is a tool, like a hammer. Have you used different hammers before? There are differences between different brands, and those differences are typically subtle. Computers are similar; they're mostly identical, and the differences between them (to the "consumer") is very subtle. If you buy your near-blind grandfather a 13" macbook for reading the news, yes, things will go badly. However, you don't need to look at the specs to know that.

I don't really know what your point is re: NAV.

<comment><USER7> How is '13 inch screen' not part of the specs?

Aren't hammers a counter example, yes the difference between brand is subtle, but the difference between spec-between what it's actually good for is- large and important.

<comment><USER8> You don't need to _look at the specs_ , because you see that when you're looking at a device. Just like you don't need to know the size of the hammer -- you see it. I guess that's what the grandparent tried to say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems like it's more like Audi computer vs. Honda computer:

1\. Price matters

2\. Key metrics like HP are used in sales brochures to most buyers

3\. Metrics like 0-60 time or torque will be available for advanced buyers

</comment><comment><USER10> I've seen several people who bought machines with 512Mb, not realising that was a small amount, who then complain that their computer is very slow, despite being brand new. It does make a difference, however, most people don't understand the specs and top brands insist on shipping machines with poor specs.

As a side note, I wish my iPad had more memory (it has 256Mb), because the browser crashes on web pages with a lot of data/javascript.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure I agree. I look at the nutrition facts on the food I purchase. I look at the specs. when I'm buying a car, and the specs. do inform my purchasing decision. When I'm buying a computer, I do look at specs. to decide which computer will run _my_ computational tasks most efficiently.

For me, a world without specs. would be bleak indeed.

<comment><USER12> While I agree with you, I think the article was talking about the nontechnical consumers, the ones who don't understand what mhz and gigabytes mean, they just want a computer that does what they want it to do (yes, I'm being intentionally vague here).

That said, I'd like to think that most people/kids under the age of 20 or so have much better grasps on a computers technical specs, at least comparable to how most people are familiar with the relevant specifications on a car (HP, torque, fuel efficiency, etc)

<comment><USER5> Most completely non technical people will ask the advise of a friend/family member in order to make a computer purchase even if they don't know anybody they will ask a shop attendant to advise, these people will then interpret the specs on their behalf.

The reason that specs don't seem to be so important in the tablet world so far is that there really aren't many to choose from and in many cases people simply want an ipad in which case there are really only 2 to choose from and they are basically the same anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The main reason that specs become so important in PC purchase is because with the IBM compatible PC there needed to be some way to differentiate between a bewildering amount of brands and models. There needed to be a clear reason as to why a $1000 PC was worth more money than a $500 one.

The problem was that there seemed to a spec war a few years ago (still continues to some extent) with computer companies trying to get as many high numbers into their ads as possible. For example allot of ads saying stuff like:

3Ghz CPU , 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD , 128MB Graphics Card for Only £300!!!!!

Of course this would actually mean you got a Celeron , lots of basic slow RAM , a low speed IDE HDD and a shared memory graphics card with minimal acceleration features but of course it would sound impressive to the less savvy buyer who had a basic notion of what the numbers meant but who didn't really understand performance overall.

I always compare this to people who compare the performance of 2 cars by quoting the engine displacement as the key figure for performance without considering induction method , valve configuration, fuel delivery etc etc. Of course cars at least have numbers like bhp and torque and bhp per ton which at least provide something to compare, I often have people show me 2 computers of similar price in a catalog and ask me "which one would be faster" and there is no way I can really answer that question with much confidence.

It was also important of course because many pieces of software , especially games would have a "minimum requirements" portion on the box.

Apple computers have always been less spec focused in their marketing , mainly because there are fewer models to choose between, so a simple Standard/Pro/Pro++ works just as well.

Of course specs are still important _really_ , this is evident in how much hype is given to the CPU etc of a new smartphone when it comes out. Even apple have a "tech specs" section for each of their computers on their website , and usually give options for faster CPU , Extra Memory etc. When lots of android tablets hit the market I can't really think of many others ways in which people will distinguish between them apart from obvious stuff like screen size and weight (which are really specs themselves anyway). You need some heuristic which can be used for answering questions like "If I buy this tablet , how likely will it be to still be able to run all the newest graphically intense games in 2 years time"

The only thing that I can think of that has _really_ changed recently is that more stuff can be offloaded to "the cloud" rather than computed locally, obviously in those cases local hardware specs become less important _but_ specs like latency and bandwidth (especially upload) of your ISP / telco provider suddenly become _more_ important.

</comment><comment><USER13> Far more important the the GHz, RAM or VRAM size or HDD size is the construction of the machine (especially for laptops). That's where I'd spend the time doing the research. Dell uses cheap plastic, HP has shiny screens, Lenovo has magical alloy stuff they make the backing from, Apple sometimes uses aluminum for its cases.

Picking out a laptop is not like buying a car, but it's not a soft drink either. It's more like picking out clothing. Yes, quality is important, but you also want it look and feel nice and feel that it's not going to let you down (think stain resistant cloth, wrinkle free shirts, ties that go with everything, etc).

<comment><USER5> I think the car analogy still holds quite well here for laptops. You are making a big assumption in saying that material/construction quality is more important than GHz/RAM etc, this may be true for a certain segment of the market (who are probably just buying apple everything anyway).

If I buy a laptop and it feels abit cheap then that's unpleasant and maybe I wish I had a better one but if it is too underpowered to be able to run the applications I need in order to do my work/play the games that I want to then that is a total deal breaker and having it made from aluminum really isn't going to matter.

People do this allot with car purchases and will buy cars that are ugly , unreliable and have cheap interiors simply because they provide enough space for their family + dog with lots of safety features and decent gas mileage. This is how Renault make their money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Specs are only ever irrelevant if there is only one product out there. The analogy with Coke and Pepsi don't really work (to me anyway) because you can try both out and can differentiate by taste. In addition, they both serve only one purpose - to quench your thirst.

Computers, on the other hand, are expensive (you can't just try them out) and used for a wide variety of tasks. For maximum benefit, you need to tailor it and for that you need to know the specs. Non-techies know that these things matter but they have no knowledge about it which is why they go to their tech friends for help.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've learned to _immediately_ divert those questions by asking what they want to do with their computer instead. And if they can't answer that immediately, I ask why their current computer isn't working for them (which usually nets an _extremely_ specific answer before the question even finishes).

Diablo 3? $++. Pong? $--. Non-work-related and no high-gpu gaming? Size--.

Non-techies tend to fall into one of these groups, and computer manufacturers (except Apple) overcomplicate the choices to such mind-blowing degrees that it's impossible to determine between HP36Q9X and A95i, and even if you _could_ you couldn't state your decision because it's impossible to remember or even pronounce. Buying computers is such a horrifying experience, I really can't blame people for remaining ignorant of the reasons behind things.

</comment><comment><USER16> Computers are to specs as wine is to specify gravity. Someone cares, but it probably isn't you.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think specs are important on products that are configurable. You measure the value of, say, a computer by the individual parts used to assemble the product. You remove and replace any of those parts, the value immediately changes.

Ipods, Ipads, Kindles, etc. have no (easily) configurable parts, so the price you see reflects all you get.

And plus, isn't software king nowadays anyway? Maybe companies like Amazon and Apple recognize hardware may be reaching some plateau with diminishing returns in speed, efficiency, etc. (or at least the differences between hardware competitors is becoming more negligible over time); therefore it's irrelevant to add a spec sheet.

</comment><comment><USER18> "We're finally getting close to customer-centric computer shopping, and hopefully more and more manufacturers will jump on the bandwagon."

This is an awful attitude to have. People do care about specs in hindsight. If they have a poor experience with a netbook, and it turns out that it's because of the dog-slow Atom under the hood, they're definitely going to care. Except, by the time the realize that they do care, they've already spent their money and they're probably without recourse.

For those of us that _do_ understand tech specs, we shouldn't celebrate being deprived of the ability to avoid making costly mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think this is a bit naive. It's like buying a car. Do people care if they buy a Toyota with a V-8 engine? Absolutely. They just don't know if that's good or bad, so they'll ask a car geek. After all, they want a car that is fast, gets good gas milage, and doesn't break all the time, and the engine affects all of those things. They just don't know if "Toyota with a V-8 engine" translates into those things.

Apple's biggest contribution is in making sure that the customer doesn't need to worry about the spec, not in making specs irrelevant.

</comment><comment><USER20> A lot of low-end Android tablets don't tell you what CPU they have. Not the most helpful thing in the world if you're trying to develop a game.

<comment><AUTHOR> A very good point; what's good for the goose may not be good for the gander, so to speak. I would love to hear an Android developer's take on the usefulness of specs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This may apply to phones but I disagree with "computers". A PC with better specs is going to perform better than a PC with worse specs. Just like a macbook pro with worse specs will perform worse than a pc laptop with better specs (running Win7 at least).

</comment><comment><USER22> Anyone else think of gaming consoles when they read this?

Gaming consoles, even today, don't need to share their specs. They do, but that's not why people by them. Very little in the way of hardware influences people. In fact, even the BluRay part of the PS3 isn't the reason people like the PS3. It's because they can play BluRays on it.

So, for certain people, Halo is important. For others, it's Mario. What does this have in common with things like iPad, iPhones, etc? The product enables you to use a specific ecosystem of features. If I buy an XBox, I can partake in XBox Live. PS3, I can watch BluRays and use PSN.

Kinect is the same thing: the hardware really isn't important. It's what it allows you to do.

That's what sells to people.

The problem is, when all the computers do basically the same thing, what's their to differentiate? What's does an HP do that a Dell does not?

So, how is this different then a Mac? Well, you basically have 4 macs right now: Mini, Air, MBP, and an iMac. The Pro is that machine for people that care about the hardware.

The Mini is clear in what it offers. The Air, MBP, and iMac are all specific, and the hardware features are fairly obvious, but they all enable access to the same ecosystem. The goal here is, when you go to buy a Mac, the only thing you need to decide is what you want to use it for (and, I firmly believe even that will slowly erode away).

<comment><USER10> The thing is that the Console companies control the supply of games so that only games that run fast (60fps+) are released. Basically you can't release a game that runs slow, so it's not an issue.

BluRay is that same, it's a standard and disc should work on all players.

Computers are not the same because the supply of software is not controlled, for example "Crysis" was released when it didn't work on most machines. In fact many machines were not even to fit to run the OS they came with, Vista, when they had 1GB or less of RAM - Microsoft does not stop even that.

<comment><USER22> But that's the point. Console companies control the supply of games, part in actual control, but also part in the known hardware part of things. The hardware is what it is, and developers develop for that. It's known. The issue with PC's is that it's unknown. Crysis wasn't bad if you had the machine for it.

But when you look at something like what Apple is doing, and what Microsoft is going to do with Windows 8 with the App Stores, you see things moving in that direction.

Basically:

> Computers are not the same because the supply of software is not controlled,

Yes, but that's something that's slowly going away. App stores are making that go away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Apple's decision not to release specs with the original iPod, and again with the iPhone and iPad, was them realizing that it just doesn't matter._

Yeah, actually it does. What an odd thing to say.

<comment><USER5> With the ipod there were only really 3 specs that mattered, storage , size and weight. As long as the CPU is fast enough to decode MP3 in real time then it is basically irrelevant.

The original iPhone was basically in a market of one when it was first released, however now with more android phones becoming available people are becoming more interested in the technical differences between them mainly because it helps answer other questions about what will be possible with the device.</comment></comment>


New Scrum-Based Project Management Tool. Start for Free Forever - <AUTHOR> https://scrumium.io <comment><USER2> What country was this developed in? Why is there no section "About" the company and its origins.

English spelling errors on the landing page do not inspire confidence, nor does the lack of information about the company. I wouldn't share any credit card information with them.

Product itself looks great :-)</comment>


TSA Wants To Monitor Employee Computer Activities - <AUTHOR> http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/security/240002665

<comment><USER2> Total information awareness will always be the goal of big brother.</comment>