Giant plastic catcher heads for Pacific Ocean clean-up - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-45438736 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17899395](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17899395)

</comment><comment><USER3> To preempt the discussions that happen every single time this project comes up:

* Being able to clean up environmental messes is more important than preventing them in the future, and they are not mutually exclusive.

* The quality of the recovered plastics is lower than conventional recycled plastics, but they are sold at a premium to brands who want environmental responsibility credit.

* Yes, we should prevent plastics from reaching the ocean by cleaning at the mouth of the contributing rivers - but the only reason we have identified these primary sources contributing to the ocean garbage problem is because of the research published by this same group.

<comment><USER4> Can you provide some supporting statements for your point 1(a)?

<comment><USER5> If your goal is to not have a mess, you can get there by cleaning up all your messes. You can't get there by not adding to the existing mess.

<comment><USER4> There are messes that cannot be cleaned up. We have the leverage to destroy everything. Therefore it is better to focus on preventing the mess, than in futilely pretending we can clean it.

<comment><USER5> Obviously it doesn't make sense to clean up messes that can't be cleaned. There are also messes that can be cleaned, and it can make sense to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good.

It seems like science needs more experiments and fewer naysayers. No one really knows if this will work, but it's relatively cheap ($23M--a rounding error on the scale most governments work at.)

I get tired of the folks who bash experimental solutions like this (a couple of whom are quoted in this article.) Yes, there is a possibility this will harm marine life. But, unquestionably, the plastic that is already in our oceans is _already_ harming marine life. So we need to try.

This experiment will, if nothing else, provide additional data about what plastic is out there and what methods we can use to clean it up.

I hope the scientific community encourages and funds more of these experiments.

<comment><USER7> 100% agreed. Cynicism abounds, but at least they're doing _something_ even if it fails. Embracing failure, moving fast, learning, and pivoting needs not be limited to early-stage tech companies.

<comment><USER8> Solutions to ocean trash are well known, we just need to do them.

This absolutely will fail. There is no question about that.

edit: [https://www.kcet.org/redefine/6-reasons-that-floating- ocean-...](https://www.kcet.org/redefine/6-reasons-that-floating-ocean- plastic-cleanup-gizmo-is-a-horrible-idea)

[https://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres- of-p...](https://inhabitat.com/the-fallacy-of-cleaning-the-gyres-of-plastic- with-a-floating-ocean-cleanup-array/)

Folks, I do quantitative work in ocean conservation. I know what I am talking about here. Everyone in ocean conservation, including marine engineers, ecologists, etc, consider the Ocean Cleanup project to be misguided at best.

<comment><USER9> Haters gonna hate? I don't get it. What's wrong with preventing _and_ cleaning? We're enough people and there should be enough money around. Let's just try

<comment><USER8> The thing is that this won't clean up anything. It is terrible for ecology, because it acts like a big net. It will kill plankton and other life. The long booms will (and have in testing) fail in storms. It also doesn't go deep enough to even collect most of the plastic.

I get that magical silver hammer solutions are attractive, but this is a global problem that will take actual work to solve.

<comment><USER9> Ok thanks for clarifying and editing your original post. It sure helps to state your credentials/knowledge in the field upfront.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The actual solution is to stop manufacturing infinite plastic, and stop wrapping every single thing that is sold in throwaway plastic.

The idea that we can "clean it up" is the sort of foolish impossibility that the packaging industry / recycling industry / garbage manufacturing industry will latch on to to distract us from the real problem which is the never ending infinite unstoppable flow of garbage that they pour out every single day.

We need to stop making garbage, not try to clean up the flow that we make.

If you want to solve the "garbage world" that we now live in, start putting the blame on the packaging industry / the garbage makers.

<comment><USER11> Well, okay, but "make the entire world stop making plastic" is not something that an individual can actually _do_ , while "build a big ocean plastic harvester" evidently is.

<comment><USER12> Putting a tax on plastic would be a great start.

<comment><USER13> After swimming (or attempting to swim, in those cases like Bacolod Philippines where the ocean was completely choked with floating trash) in the waters off various Pacific nations, I doubt that the nations who could possibly institute such a tax are the same as those who are causing this problem.

<comment><USER12> Taxing plastic would make it cost effective for manufacturers to switch to cardboard packaging.

I.e. how things were packaged before 1960.

<comment><USER13> A switch to cardboard packaging would be fine in nations with lots of forests like USA. It would be a calamity in e.g. India, however.

<comment><USER12> Why? The US can't find uses for all the recycled paper after China stopped taking it.

<comment><USER13> Are you suggesting that India and similarly deforested nations will decide they need paper so badly that they'll pay to ship it from USA? Rather than just cutting down the last trees they have, or (more likely) continuing to use plastic? They can't afford virtue-signaling frivolities like we can. If recycled cardboard packaging makes so much sense why are we shipping paper waste to China and anywhere else that will take it? Answer: landfills overseas aren't as embarrassing for "recycling" programs as landfills in the same county.

Personally I have nothing against paper/cardboard packaging. However, I note that people in USA have chosen plastic packaging for many applications. We can assume that the same reasons that motivate us, also motivate others. They also have other issues, like poverty. More regressive taxes on these populations will lead to more children dying of starvation.

As another comment noted, the way to actually fix the plastic pollution problem (distinct from the plastic cleanup problem that TFA targets) is to identify the watersheds that produce 95% of the plastic, and then help them set up modern garbage handling at price points that those people can actually afford to use. They are very poor, which is why they're polluting in the first place. Also many of these watersheds are islands with few suitable landfill locations. Instead of talking about silly things like laws that should be passed in other nations, let's talk about how much aid will be required to actually fix this problem.

<comment><USER12> The US has to pay to deal with the recycled paper, and I'm pretty sure it was cheaper to pay to ship it to China. So why not ship it to India? Container ships are very cheap.

> I note that people in USA have chosen plastic packaging for many > applications.

Because it's cheaper. Taxing it fixes that.

> more children dying of starvation.

Geez, use the taxes to subsidize the paper packaging. This isn't all that difficult to figure out.

<comment><USER13> You seem to think this will be easy, this taxing-and-cross-subsidization. It has been proposed often enough to imagine that might be the case. Where has it been implemented? How did it work there? Might there be reason to suspect that it would be easier in a place where complicated tax laws already exist and most residents already pay taxes? Please note, the watersheds producing the bulk of this pollution are not such places. If you can't convince Americans to implement this scheme, why do you expect it will be easy to convince people in Southeast Asia?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This project is a borderline scam, as anyone in ocean conservation will tell you. It is completely unpractical and impossible for numerous reasons. It would also devastate ocean ecosystems.

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/critics-say-plan- drif...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/critics-say-plan-drifting- ocean-trash-collectors-unmoored)

<comment><USER14> Emphasis, mine:

>Slat replies that there is not an either-or solution. _"We need to do both,"_ he says. _"We need to intercept plastic before it becomes ocean plastic. And we need to clean up what is out there."_ Eriksen says that plastic on the high seas is mostly lost or discarded fishing gear. Fishermen could be paid or encouraged to collect it, which he says has worked reasonably well in the North Sea. _The rest will eventually break down._

From your link. The last part is why we should get rid of it now, because it breaks down into the micro-plastics that marine life inevitably ends up consuming.

<comment><USER8> By the time it gets into these "garbage patches" it is already microscopic and distributed over the water column. What does make sense is to get fishermen to avoid losing gear. Also, trash collectors in bays and estuaries work very, very well. For example the Baltimore trash wheel. The difference is that near- shore trash collectors get it where it is highly concentrated, and before it breaks down into microplastics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Video on local news: [https://abc7news.com/technology/first-of-its-kind-ocean- clea...](https://abc7news.com/technology/first-of-its-kind-ocean-clean-up- system-to-launch-from-sf-bay-saturday/4168070/)

Saturday it launches from Alameda. It will pass under the Bay Bridge at 1pm and then pass infront of the SF water front. Finally, at 2pm it will pass under the Golden Gate to leave out to sea.

If anyone has a drone it'd be so cool if they could take a video of it sailing out.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm sure someone here would be happy to explain to me why this won't work, but what if we built a recycling center in the middle of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

<comment><USER17> The ocean patch is hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, think 2x the size of Texas and the plastics are dispersed through the top 100m of the water column. This is an extremely thin 'cloud' of small plastic bits, not a floating island of plastic bottles.

The problem with any collection-based solution such as this or the one being discussed in the article, is that the scale of the infrastructure and associated transport, maintenance, and support systems, required to actually collect a meaningful amount of waste would be far more damaging to the environment then the plastic waste itself, and would very likely introduce more waste and pollution into the environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Here is the animation explaining how it works. Its amazing how self sufficient the system is. [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EAeNdTFHU](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EAeNdTFHU)

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder how the economics of this project will work considering that China has really turned down the recyclables they accept for processing.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/28/6239729...](https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/06/28/623972937/china- has-refused-to-recycle-the-wests-plastics-what-now)

<comment><USER13> If this effort continues, eventually the only reasonable sink for this material will be to melt everything into slugs that may be dropped to the bottom.

<comment><USER20> But, is there a way to keep the slugs from one day degrading into microparticles which then reenter the food chain?

<comment><USER13> It's a good question. Perhaps the answer is that we don't care about the benthic food chain? Perhaps the answer is that it will take a really long time? There's not much energy at the bottom to cause this degradation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ideal scalable solution to the problem: Engineering a bacteria that feeds off of plastic and can only survive in saline water. The proposed solution in this article only touches the surface of the problem, literally. Even if it pans out, the surface of the ocean will be clean and may lead to the wrong conclusion that the ocean is rid of plastic.

</comment><comment><USER22> Want to really "solve" plastics? Warm up the crispr kits and build bacteria capable of digesting the offending plastic. There is plenty of usable emery in there for the taking. The fisher community will want your blood for destroying all the fishing nets, followed by the plastics industry as a whole. But the ocean would be cleaner.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if an automated solar device that concentrates the plastic and warms the water to a few degrees above ambient would be a good way to culture and selectively enrich for bacteria capable of breaking down the plastic.

</comment><comment><USER24> Link to Boyan's recent appearance on the JRE: [https://youtu.be/J145vnEZX6w](https://youtu.be/J145vnEZX6w)

</comment><comment><USER25> It's 5 year mission...

<checks size of Pacific ocean>

It's 50 year mission...

</comment><comment><USER26> Funny that we laugh at a flat-Earther who tries to shoot himself into orbit _, but applaud this effort, when both are on equal scientific footing.

_ [https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/03/27/flat- eart...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2018/03/27/flat-earth-rocket- man-finally-blasts-off-in-homemade-rocket-to-prove-earth-is- flat/#38fdce599b6f)

<comment><USER8> I work in ocean conservation, and this thread makes me sad. Anyone in ocean conservation can tell you this is BS, but sadly people in the tech industry have a tendency to discount the knowledge and opinion of experts in other fields.

<comment><USER27> I don't work in ocean conservation, but I spent my childhood in Southeast Asia, and saw very clearly how the plastic waste issue is more of a society wide garbage collection one. And having a proper waste management infrastructure would immediately improve the surrounding communities' health in addition to lessening the load on the world's oceans.

Yet I find that whenever I mention this in Tech circles, it's like people don't even hear what I said, and just go back to beating the 'plastic is bad' drum. It's bizarre.

<comment><USER8> There's always this bizarre obsession with moonshot technological solutions to problems that are social in origin.

<comment><USER17> People so fall in love of the idea of the lone young genius who did something nobody else could, and will save the world so they don't have to change any part of their life.

If you bring up the logistical, scientific and technical issues with the approach this project is taking, the response is "Well at least someone is doing something." It is so incredibly disrespectful to the countless people who have devoted their lives to studying and understanding these issues, ignoring that they have been trumpeting that this problem exists for decades and proposing changes that would help.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kitchen sponges are festering germ dens–and sanitizing them doesn't help - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/kitchen-sponges-are-festering-germ-dens-and-sanitizing-them-doesnt-help/ <comment><USER2> A third of those bacteria are the same ones that live on human skin; that doesn't seem too scary.</comment>


The Geek Talk with Derek Sivers - <AUTHOR> http://thegeektalk.com/interviews/derek-sivers/ <comment><USER2> I'm not impressed. It's nothing personal against Derek, I just find that site and format blasé, I guess.

Also nothing personal against Derek, because I enjoy his blog more than others, but I am sick of seeing the same people over and over again on everything that comes up on this site. I think that there's a lot of hero worship and a lot of sycophanting that goes on on HN. I think that a lot of their writings are overrated; it's not that any of them are bad, or even not good; it's just that people seem to gush over them unjustifiably.

I think I am going to start a website where I interview normal people. Hopefully mostly people with cool things to say. And then that web site will get very little notice here because it won't be full of the angel-investor all-star cast.

<comment><USER3> Try actually executing on that rhetorical flourish at the end. You might be surprised how much traction you get with it, even outside of the "angel- investor all-star caste."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I do want to point out that Ruby isn't the only language that allows a function to redefine itself. Try this in your firebug console:

      var foo = function() {
        console.log('foo');
        foo = function() {
            console.log('bar');
        };
      };
      foo();
      foo();

</comment><comment><USER5> Couldn't they at least change the questions that were in no way relevant to Derek?

</comment><comment> cool-RR I think that the word "retired" is losing its meaning. If you're your own boss and you spend most of your time working on interesting things, you can't call yourself "retired", even if you don't make money or have an official job.

What I'm saying is that "retired" should mean "stopped doing interesting things" and not "stopped receiving a salary". By that definition, Derek is not retired.

<comment><USER6> I think it means Derek no longer has to worry about earning money - he can afford to do what he wants with this time. Sounds like retirement to me!

<comment> cool-RR I agree that Derek is in this position where he doesn't have to worry about money. This is the common definition of "retired". What I'm saying is that I find this definition bad.

Derek himself said _"I used to think "retired" just meant "only plays golf", but now I see it means doing anything interesting and/or useful to others, but not having to worry whether it makes money or not."_

There's a reason he used to think that "retired" meant "only plays golf". The true, deeper meaning of "retired" is "someone who doesn't matter anymore". The fact that we say "retired" on someone who doesn't get a paycheck anymore is because in recent history, people made important things only in their official job. Since this fact is changing now, and people make important things outside their jobs, the meaning of "retired" should stay closer to its original, deep meaning: Someone who doesn't do important things anymore.

And, as I said, according to this definition Derek is not retired.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that "no longer has to worry about money" is the common definition at all. If it was, every CEO of a mid-level or higher company would probably qualify.

Perhaps something more along the lines of, "doesn't need money, and wants to settle down and move to Florida" ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Never heard of this site before but it reminds me of _The Setup_ [1].

1: <http://usesthis.com/></comment>


Ask HN: Is a self-hosted email client with SaaS backend compelling? - <AUTHOR> Host your own web-based email client but you use a SaaS provider (Mailgun, Rackspace, Amazon, etc) for the actual sending and receiving. Basically treat them as a "dumb" IMAP endpoint; a middle ground between using Gmail and hosting your own mail server with DKIF/SPF/spam/etc. If your provider starts doing sketchy stuff, you can "hot-swap" to another and keep the same client.<p>Is this a compelling idea? <comment><USER2> @swanson Can we exchange E-Mails? I was planning to do something like that, but with going a step further, by eliminating the E-Mail client and replacing it with the required transport-protocols for xmpp and building a smart architecture around it with a QML UI.

I am really really frustrated about E-Mail!

I have multiple E-Mail addresses, lots of HAM, zero SPAM (no spam filter). The UX is bad, not touch friendly, slow, repetitive. Ugh.. I don't know where to start complaining, but I have tried many many E-Mail clients, they all suck more or less. Only Sparrow was ok, but it's a) for MacOnly b) Google will probably close it.

I have hundreds of RSS Feeds in Thunderbird letting it become a real resource hog. I use thunderbird for that because of better tagging and search support. I symlinked my Windows and Linux thunderbird profiles so that they are synced. (Need Windows for some CUDA and other 3D dependant stuff only :/ )

 __ _Caveat: I can 't start before August due to my thesis._ __

</comment><comment><USER3> Potentially. I've been thinking recently about what keeps my company on Google Apps (roughly a dozen people) despite the appallingly bad customer support and several major nagging and unresolved bugs.

The single biggest factors are gmail filters and priority inbox. I get an extraordinary amount of ham, and rely on both of these to give me a fighting chance of keeping up. I'm confident I could probably find a replacement for filters, but am much less confident re priority inbox. If a standalone solution offered robust equivalents for both, I would seriously consider migrating, and would probably be willing to pay a 50% premium over what we currently pay Google.

One shop's opinion, FWIW.

<comment><USER4> Filters are pretty easily replaced with Sieve and Sieve-Manage. At least anecdotally they have adequately replaced them for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd be interested in knowing about people doing that too :) I am bit tired of Google these days...

<comment><USER6> Just use anyone else. Start tonight.

You solution does not have to be The Solution for Life. Perfection is the enemy of done.

If you don't like Google, use anyone else.

If you have your own domain (and you should), then no one will notice as you slink from provider to provider in search of something better.

pairnic.com for domains, or anyone but godaddy. You can change later if you don't like whoever you end up with.

fastmail.fm for mail, or anyone else. You can change instantly if you have your own domain.

Do it now.</comment></comment>


Millions of Facebook users have no idea they're using the internet - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-idea-theyre-using-the-internet/

<comment><USER2> Is this surprising? Facebook has a billion users. So this article is saying that <1% of users on Facebook don't understand they are using the Internet.</comment>


Patorjk: Thoughts on Marak Squires / Asciimo Controversy  - <AUTHOR> http://patorjk.com/blog/2010/06/22/thoughts-on-marak/ <comment><USER2> The Internet is full of less than stellar people. Don't let them get to you. It is just not worth your time or energy.

You really don't need to defend yourself here.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's okay.

<http://github.com/scottgonzalez/figlet-js></comment>


Find the right cable on Amazon, wast no time - <AUTHOR> http://www.kble.io <comment><USER2> Cool idea also nice execution. One suggestion tho, when i read the article i instantly thought that i could need a colorful RJ45 and a audio jack to red/white audio. I was honestly a little disappointed that is only about USB of which i have thousands laying around anyway.</comment>


Show HN: SMALL COS. – Companies with less than 50 people that are hiring now - <AUTHOR> http://smallcos.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everybody,

This is my first time posting on HN, a little nervous but excited to be here!

I started Small Cos. because I was looking for a job at a small company and thought it was harder to find them than it should be.

Working at a company of 5 is totally different from working at a company of 500. This is a place where people who love that environment can find small companies doing cool things and learn about the challenges that they're facing.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!</comment>


Next hurricane incoming. Looks like New Orleans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/032354.shtml?gm_track <comment><AUTHOR> Still on target for New Orleans. Mandatory evacuations of low-lying areas have started. State of emergency in New Orleans.[1] ETA still Saturday night.

[1] [http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2017/10/tropical_sto...](http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2017/10/tropical_storm_nate_new_orlean_1.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> When NOAA's site gets hit with heavy traffic, the static image cone projection tends to hold up a little better: [http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT16/refresh/AL162017...](http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT16/refresh/AL162017_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind+png/152602_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> ETA in New Orleans area Saturday night.</comment>


Ask HN: TDD: What are your thoughts on it? Do you use it? - <AUTHOR> At my previous job, I fought hard to introduce TDD. Neither me or my team was experienced, so I thought "let's introduce TDD, because it will reduce the possibilities of deploying buggy code".
Unfortunatley, it did not catch that much interest in my colleagues.
Now, I don't expect TDD to save us code completely, but I think that the fact that it forces you to think before doing and provides a test bed that you constantly use to make sure what you do doesn't break what you are sure worked before is a great thing.
Fast forward to today. I was talking to a potential employer (start up) and he told me they don't use TDD becase they don't find it efficient for the team at the moment, although he mentioned he'd like to bring it in the company the future.
Is TDD usually a practice is bigger, more structured companies? Do you use TDD? What are your thoughts on it? Do you work in a startup or a big company?
Last: what is the alternative? <comment><USER2> There are a huge number of comments on TDD in the HN archives if you search for it.

My own comments include [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15004258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15004258) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18670445#18671642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18670445#18671642) and [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19222743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19222743) .

I do not find TDD useful, for reasons I explained in the above links.

I think one of the reasons TDD is effective is that it a way that developers are able to negotiate with management about getting the needed time to do proper development. "Proper development" includes testing - before, during, and after - but there's a lot of push to reduce development costs, and developers usually have worse negotiation skills and experience than managers.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that by 'efficient' he meant that they didn't test much...</comment>


Show HN: sus – static site based URL shortener - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nkantar/sus <comment><USER2> URL shortening is just one use case for generating redirects. I wrote a similar module for Hakyll ('Hakyll.Web.Redirect' [https://hackage.haskell.org/package/hakyll-184.108.40.206/docs/Hak...](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/hakyll-126.96.36.199/docs/Hakyll- Web-Redirect.html)) but my intent was to allow renaming pages without breaking links and fixing the (truly innumerable) number of user errors in linking/writing URLs.

Because every original URL must be a valid file name, it does limit you compared to the full rewrite capabilities of Apache or Nginx, but that's the price you pay for a fully-static site. (I thought vaguely about writing some JS you could put in a 404.html to snoop the intended URL and do a lookup in a table to redirect to, but never got around to figuring out the details.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I like the simpleness of the idea here, but don't like HTML-redirects (v/s 302s).. Wondering if you could just do this via Netlify redirects?

I've found using txtd.io as a URL-shortener a much simpler approach.

Or lightsaber, which does the exact same thing, but with Ruby (and allows some wildcards): [https://github.com/captn3m0/lightsaber](https://github.com/captn3m0/lightsaber)

<comment><AUTHOR> Netlify redirects would work, but I wanted more portability. Hard to beat good ol' static HTML!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think it's a big deal, but I was confused for a minute, because sus in English slang is short for suspect/suspicious.

<comment><AUTHOR> I consider that a feature, not a bug!

Others may disagree, though. :D

</comment></comment><comment> stp-ip We went the direction of DNS based redirects using a set of TXT records to get portability and delegation of subpaths with txtdirect.org (FOSS based on Caddy) Currently working on a new iteration and feedback is always appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool. I made one similar [https://github.com/djyde/genlink](https://github.com/djyde/genlink)

</comment><comment><USER6> Your project looks like my last one: very useful, but nobody understood the purpose.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, thank you! I imagine a fair few people _get_ it, but don't share the needs that motivated me to make and publish it.</comment></comment>


Building a data center in a nuclear fallout shelter - <AUTHOR> https://blog.online.net/2016/08/23/c14-story-part-1-meet-our-nuclear-fallout-shelter/ <comment><USER2> I work in telecom and this is fun to look at, but I bet I could take their facility off the net with 4 guys and two rented backhoes.

Awesome physical security is cool for customer tours (SwitchNAP Las Vegas, anyone?) but the real measure of redundancy is to what extreme you have 1+1 or N+1 everything for your support gear (cooling, generators, UPS, giant -48VDC battery plant, rectifiers, etc), and the layer 1 diversity of your fiber routes in and out of the facilities. And the diversity of the upstream carriers from your east/west/north/south fiber routes, the topology of how your dark fiber link out of the facility reaches the nearest major IX points.

Diversity of power feeds: Do they have redundant parallel A and B side high voltage electrical feeds coming from the local grid utility, fed from two separate geographically distinct substations? Really important datacenters in the US and Canada do.

On a facility side, something like this which is arched vaults underground will be a cooling system nightmare, driving up costs considerably vs. an aboveground structure where you can easily locate heat exhangers/cooling towers and free air cooling systems on concrete pads next to a box shaped building. There's ways to achieve up to 10kW/cabinet cooling density in that old buried bunker but it will be a lot costlier to do than in, for example, a retrofitted warehouse-like structure that was formerly a newspaper printing plant.

<comment><USER3> While this is true for a high availability data center whose customers expect their website to be up 100% of the time, this article talks about storage infrastructure for their archiving service (C14). Restoring data from C14 will take multiple hours anyways, so networking downtime (or even power downtime, assuming they have enough backup power to safely power down their disks) will be of much lesser concern in the given use case than physical protection from natural or man-made disasters, which would destroy the archived data, or theft.

The main argument I would agree with is that it would maybe be cheaper (and definitely more secure) to keep data redundantly in two data centers sufficiently spread out to not be affected by a singular disaster than in a single hyper-secure data center.

<comment><USER2> If you're building a relatively slow/cold storage archive datacenter I can think of a lot cheaper, less labor intensive ways to do it than retrofitting an underground bunker... I am assuming they either acquired the bunker for "free" or it has some purpose other than technical (marketing/sales/look how secure your data is!!!).

<comment><USER4> Not to mention, a bunker in _Paris_. If it's not speed-critical, it should be off in some mountain or field not an urban center.

<comment><USER2> And isn't electricity in Paris something like 18 euro cents per kWh? Now your datacenter is eating expensive electricity and requires special expensive cooling systems all year round, because even in the middle of winter there's no easy way to do free-air cooling of an underground bunker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An ISP in Sweden has something similar [https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bahnhof- da...](https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/bahnhof-data-center- isp-in-former-nuclear-bunker-from-cold-war-stockholm-sweden-6.jpg?w=800&h=586)

<comment><USER6> If you're interested in a few more images of this place, the site I run has a few (sorry for the self-promotion): [https://officesnapshots.com/2010/10/06/bahnhof- office/](https://officesnapshots.com/2010/10/06/bahnhof-office/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is something of a nitpick, but they really ought to refer to it as a nuclear bunker, not a fallout shelter. A fallout shelter is just something that can shield people from fallout radiation. You need thickish walls but nothing too special. Some places in the US you can still see the "fallout shelter" sign on schools and such. However, it doesn't offer much protection from a nuclear _blast_. The intent is that the survivors of a near miss would stay in fallout shelters for a few days after the explosion to wait out the worst of the radiation.

It sounds like this thing is a purpose-built bunker built to withstand a nuclear explosion, so much more robust than the title would imply, at least to me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think OWSAP needs to update its DDoS vectors to include "HN front page listing".

<comment><USER9> Pretty disappointing for a web host offering secure and reliable storage to have their blog taken down so easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > the racks we use for C14 ... weigh more than one ton on less than one square > foot

> Each C14 rack weights more than one ton on less than one square meter.

I think the 1st of these was "translated" from metric; the latter sounds much more reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER11> The location on Google Maps is [https://goo.gl/maps/1YNoyQPAKmy](https://goo.gl/maps/1YNoyQPAKmy)

Roughly 58 Boulevards des Maréchaux, 75015 Paris, France

</comment><comment><USER12> google cache: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:YJOLQe...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:YJOLQeKNPYcJ:https://blog.online.net/2016/08/23/c14-story- part-1-meet-our-nuclear-fallout-shelter/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER13> Ok, everybody knows that the IT department should be located at the basement, but they went a bit too far. :p

</comment><comment><USER14> The SABRE reservation system is located in Tulsa in a nuclear-hardened bunker (on a former AF base). The joke is in the event of a nuclear war you could still get a airline reservation.

</comment><comment><USER15> Site appears to be struggling to serve images at 13:16 UTC

</comment><comment><USER16> It's down or super slow :(

<comment><AUTHOR> It's up again ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The title of the post is not really clear.. Maybe it should state that they are building a datacenter in a Nuclear Fallout Shelter in the middle of Paris?

<comment><USER18> Ok, we've edited the title.

<comment><AUTHOR> THX</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: ClassPass x Instagram for fitness built with no-code via Glide (YC W19) - <AUTHOR> https://pemvee.glideapp.io/ <comment><USER2> love glide apps.

Workflow is broken if

1) created a user 2) add to home screen 3) cannot login with previously created user :(

didnt know that glide now has an authentication feature, cool for them :)

<comment><AUTHOR> hey! you're saying that you created a user on web and when you try to sign in on mobile with the same email it's not working?

I think that's happened to me before and I had to request another pin to my email.

And I'm a big fan of the "public with email" sign-in option: [https://docs.glideapps.com/all/etc/updates/may-1-2019#public...](https://docs.glideapps.com/all/etc/updates/may-1-2019#public- apps-with-email-sign-in)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, maker of the app here.

I've been pretty intrigued by this idea: what would happen if all exercise was public before it was happened and centralized in one place? I've also been interested in ways that technology can better motivate people to exercise in the first place and/or more consistently sustain exercise. I didn't originally intend to build a version of this app using a no-code tool but Glide ([https://www.glideapps.com](https://www.glideapps.com)) allowed me to build and iterate very quickly.

For those into motivation theory / habit formation, I tried to leverage the power of implementation intentions ([https://jamesclear.com/implementation- intentions](https://jamesclear.com/implementation-intentions)) and habit contracts ([https://s3.amazonaws.com/jamesclear/Atomic+Habits/Habit+Cont...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/jamesclear/Atomic+Habits/Habit+Contract.pdf)) when building the app. Additionally, a concept I learned from Atomic Habits ([https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits](https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits)) that really resonated with me was the idea of "keystone habits." James Clear discusses them in more depth here ([https://jamesclear.com/keystone- habits](https://jamesclear.com/keystone-habits)) but a quick definition is: We have habits everywhere in our lives, but certain routines — keystone habits — lead to a cascade of other actions because of them. I think of health and fitness as a combination of exercise, diet, and recovery (sleep) and exercise is my keystone habit in that flywheel.

Lastly, if you're interested in learning more, I did a write-up on why and how I built the app here and included some thoughts on the current state + future of social fitness networks. Tl;dr I think a gargantuan social fitness network might start out looking like Superhuman x Dropbox for coordinating and tracking workouts: [https://medium.com/@arjunmahadevan/why-and-how-i-built- class...](https://medium.com/@arjunmahadevan/why-and-how-i-built-classpass-x- instagram-for-fitness-with-friends-without-writing-a-line-of-c6d971ed3eb4)</comment>


The Fragmentation Of Online Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/the-fragmentation-of-online-marketing.html

<comment><USER2> nice summary of online marketing "fragmentation" by fred wilson. robads standard aims to unite ads and make them shareable and searchable; which is exactly against this fragmentation. see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3022998></comment>


The worst thing about Silicon Valley techno-libertarianism - <AUTHOR> http://www.ginandtacos.com/2014/04/27/problem-solving-skills/

<comment><USER2> "Whitey obsession."</comment>


Ask HN: What is the most productive browser extension that you use daily? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Sessionbuddy

      To search, save, export your tabs/windows

Thegreatsuspender

       Suspend old tabs automatically or manually to free ram. I literally open +300 tabs this way</comment>


Why Every Language Needs Its Underscore - <AUTHOR> http://hackflow.com/blog/2014/06/22/why-every-language-needs-its-underscore/ <comment><USER2> The visualizations help a lot and allude to some kind of automated refactoring capability.</comment>


9 Things Stanford B-School Won't Teach You - <AUTHOR> http://foundread.com/2008/01/17/9-things-stanford-b-school-wont-teach-you/ <comment><USER2> This article has forced me to confront an ugly truth. I'm 27, and that's _old_.

Is that English he's speaking?</comment>