The Story of the Ping Program - <AUTHOR> http://ftp.arl.army.mil/~mike/ping.html

<comment><USER2> This story was my favorite part:

: : : : :

The best ping story I've ever heard was told to me at a USENIX conference, where a network administrator with an intermittent Ethernet had linked the ping program to his vocoder program, in essence writing:

ping goodhost | sed -e 's/.*/ping/' | vocoder

He wired the vocoder's output into his office stereo and turned up the volume as loud as he could stand. The computer sat there shouting "Ping, ping, ping..." once a second, and he wandered through the building wiggling Ethernet connectors until the sound stopped. And that's how he found the intermittent failure.

<comment><USER3> :::::

^ I thought you were starting the story with an ipv6 address to ping...!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting story, I loved the vocoder idea!

Sadly Mike passed away in 2000:

        Sadly, Mike Muuss was killed in an automobile accident on November 20, 2000.
        His work lives on in testament to his intellect and indomitable spirit
        -- Lee A. Butler

</comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting that ICMP ECHO_REQUEST and ECHO_REPLY predate the ping program. But indeed they are defined by <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc792> from Sep 1981. I guess that Unix hosts were already replying to ECHO_REQUESTs even though this isn't prescribed till <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1122#page-42> from 1989. But I wonder what was sending ECHO_REQUEST before ping? The only other standard use of these packets I know of today is DHCP servers before handing out a lease to ensure a host isn't already using a given IP.

 _Phil Dykstra added ICMP Record Route support to PING, but in those early days few routers processed them_

It must have been a narrow window in time when routers respected this option. My Internet career goes back to 1995 and I've never known a router to do so.

 _I was insanely jealous when Van Jacobson of LBL used my kernel ICMP support to write TRACEROUTE, by realizing that he could get ICMP Time-to-Live Exceeded messages when pinging by modulating the IP time to life (TTL) field. I wish I had thought of that! :-)_

Asking a candidate to figure out how traceroute works is one of my interview questions, but if the author of ping didn't think of it, maybe I should drop the question. :)

 _The real traceroute uses UDP datagrams because routers aren't supposed to generate ICMP error messages for ICMP messages._

The Windows version I believe uses ICMP by default, and the Unix version, these days, can be asked to. I had always heard that routers do reply to ICMP, but at a lower priority.

</comment><comment><USER6> A shell script like the vocoder one in the article, this works:

      ping google.com | while read line; do
         echo $line | sed -n 's/^.*time=\(.*$\).*$/\1/p' | xargs say
      done

Says the ping time to google out loud on a Mac.

<comment><USER7> I know Perl is no longer fashionable, but it's still the simplest way to do this sort of ad hoc processing I think.

      ping google.com | perl -ne '/time=(.*)/ && system("say", $1)'

Of course it's only a little more awkward in Ruby:

      ping google.com | ruby -ne '$_ =~ /time=(.*)/ && system("say", $1)'

(No criticism is intended of your perfectly fine code. I enjoy comparing different ways to do things like this, and perhaps others do too.)

<comment><USER8> For the sake of comparison, here's the corresponding Python one-liner:

       ping google.com | python -c 'import os,re,sys; [os.system("say %s" % j[0]) for j in  (re.findall("time=(.*)", i) for i in sys.stdin) if j]'

I'm sure someone can come up with a shorter one-liner, but in general I think Python is simply too verbose for this kind of stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Best part is the source is in a SHAR..

Wow that brought back memories.

I doubt most people here even know what a SHAR is.

The other day in a group of engineers at my work I made a joke about SHAR and NOBODY even knew what a SHAR was.

It's like making a joke at a party that "Dates you".. :)

<comment><USER10> I had that happen a few years ago. Nobody had heard of uucp either. Someone once asked me what the first browser I ever used was and when I said Lynx, they thought it was fork of Firefox.

<comment><USER11> lynx, gopher, irc... Now I feel old, despite being only 34...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know HN is not reddit (and the link is relatively old), but check this alternative take on the history of Ping:

[http://www.amazon.com/Story-about-Reading-Railroad- Books/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Story-about-Reading-Railroad- Books/dp/0448421658#customerReviews)

BTW, someone has to write a long form article or a thesis on the Amazon Customer Reviews scene…

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting read. Was sad to click through to his homepage and find out that he had already passed away in 2000 due to an automobile accident.

</comment><comment><USER14> I would like to know how they could maintain this webserver all the years... Rock solid :-) "This Web server was one of the first 50 Web servers on the InterNet"

</comment><comment><USER15> This is pretty hilarious from the amazon review quoted in the article:

But even with these problems, The Story About Ping has earned a place on my bookshelf, right between Stevens' Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment, and my dog-eared copy of Dante's seminal work on MS Windows, Inferno. Who can read that passage on the Windows API ("Obscure, profound it was, and nebulous, So that by fixing on its depths my sight -- Nothing whatever I discerned therein."), without shaking their head with deep understanding. But I digress.

</comment><comment><USER16> On the latest release of Linux Mint, I did the following (it should also work for Debian, Ubuntu and other Debian-like systems):

      sudo apt-get install espeak
      HOST=127.0.0.1
      ping $HOST | sed -u -e 's/.*/ping/' | espeak -v en

The -u (unbuffered) option to sed was required to get it to work. Apparently, the problem is that Mint's version of sed (GNU sed version 4.2.1) will buffer too aggressively for this usage when the output is not a terminal. It was a little confusing to troubleshoot since the output looked OK without the last pipe, the espeak command seemed to work when you just run it and type stuff in directly, but putting them together yielded silence without the -u switch.

</comment><comment><USER17> A great snippet posted by the author in the OP.

"The book describes networking in terms even a child could understand, choosing to anthropomorphize the underlying packet structure. The ping packet is described as a duck, who, with other packets (more ducks), spends a certain period of time on the host machine (the wise-eyed boat). At the same time each day (I suspect this is scheduled under cron), the little packets (ducks) exit the host (boat) by way of a bridge (a bridge). From the bridge, the packets travel onto the internet (here embodied by the Yangtze River)."

</comment><comment><USER18> This seems like a lovely wry way of expressing YAGNI/MVP/shipping:

        If I'd known then that it would be my most famous accomplishment in life, I might have worked on it another day or two and added some more options.

</comment><comment><USER19> From the home page of the late Michael John Muuss : "Unlike every other document on the Web, this page is in final form and completely finished. _grin_ "

</comment><comment><USER20> Not entirely sure what the last comment is talking about…

<comment><USER21> It's a quote from the server's homepage <http://ftp.arl.army.mil/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I agree,That is a great story of using ping!

</comment><comment><USER23> Wonderful. The vocoder idea is fantastic</comment>


Show HN: I built a Chrome extension to make recipe websites less terrible - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/recipe-cart-viewer-grocer/ninjhiamekocpfhnaidinipdocmbiikp?hl=en <comment><AUTHOR> Recipe Cart is a chrome extension I built to skip through ads and walls of text on recipe websites and blogs. At the corner of any recipe site, it displays just-the-recipe along with buttons to print, send to phone, or order ingredients. The "Add to Cart" button exports a recipe's ingredients to Amazon Fresh.

<comment><USER2> _The "Add to Cart" button exports a recipe's ingredients to Amazon Fresh._

Ok that's actually rather smart. Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. we just got approval to start working with instacart next.</comment></comment></comment>


Asciiflow - ASCII Flow Diagram Tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.asciiflow.com/ <comment><USER2> Previous discussions: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2651745>, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2847177>

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate to do this, but it has already been posted 6 months ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2847177>

</comment><comment><USER4> What is the best way to approach this obfuscated code:

<http://www.asciiflow.com/asciiflow/asciiflow.nocache.js>

I feel like there are better deobfuscation tactics than those mentioned here:

<http://handlers.sans.org/dwesemann/decode/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> Would pay real $$$ to have this as an add on to Visual Studio. It doesnt seem like we will get embeddable pictures or diagrams for source code so I might as well embrace source crafted from only the finest ASCII...

Technically, this is most impressive...

</comment><comment><USER6> vim: <http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=40> emacs (linked in a different comment): <http://www.cinsk.org/emacs/emacs-artist.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> This also <http://www.jave.de/>

</comment><comment><USER8> I love it!

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm in love.

</comment><comment><USER10> I hate to do this, but "Emacs had it first"

Cf. <http://www.cinsk.org/emacs/emacs-artist.html></comment>


'Minecraft' and 'Kerbal Space Program' Finally Accept Girls Can Do Science - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/minecraft-and-kerbal-space-program-finally-accept-girls-can-do-science

<comment><USER2> > For the first time ever, you can play as a girl character in Minecraft.

Player skins have been in the game since ages and it has been possible (no more tricky than installing a mod) to change the default player skin so it's surprising for them to say "for the first time ever"

</comment><comment><USER3> The Alex skin has been on the PC version since 1.8, which was last August I think.

</comment><comment><USER4> Funny how gender free games are getting harassed by SJW to get more genders in them for sake of gender equality...

<comment><USER2> The Steve skin is clearly unambiguously male. The fall damage noise used to be clearly unambiguously male.

That's not "gender free".

<comment><USER4> What tells you it is a human in the first place ? It is a fictionnal world, it could be a monogender race, you don't know that. I don't recall Bioware making 'male' asaris in Mass Effect where they are clearly unambiguously female. Why forcing anthropocentrism in fictionnal worlds where lore and characters may be secondary or where you don't need to associate with its characters ?

<comment><USER2> Notch talks about the human character.

I realise all the mobs have a single gender - I asked about it in Aug 2013 - but the player character was male human for a while.

[http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/78098/how-to- refe...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/78098/how-to-refer-to- sexuality-in-a-fictional-universe-of-one-sex)

<comment><USER4> Though you are right about the character in Minecraft, the characters in ksp are never refered to as human</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Inspiration to your desktop background – Powered by RubyMotion - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/app/id838419930

<comment><USER2> Hey Jonas: interesting app. I can't use a white desktop background, though.

As probably most of the people here at HN, I often spend 12+ hours per day around screens, so anything that contributes to my eyes getting more tired is a bad idea. White really isn't the way to go.

Perhaps adding the possibility to choose a hex color for the background, or making the app add the quotes to the user's existing background is where you should go next. Best of luck with sales.

<comment><USER3> I agree, you definitely need to be able to change colors. Even better if you could overlay an image.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks guys, that's great feedback! I'll add choice of colour in the next version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can do this better with Geektool/Nerdtool, that way it'll be an overlay of your actual desktop background (so you can have things other than plain white) and you can of course supply your own quotes.

      $ /usr/local/plan9/bin/fortune
      Don't look back -- something may be gaining on you.  -Satchel Paige.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> it could be a little nice free app. Doesn't look like something I can pay $2.99 for. (don't tell me that I already pay $5 for coffee)

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting, just this morning I wrote a python script using [https://github.com/alloy/terminal- notifier](https://github.com/alloy/terminal-notifier) and [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pync](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pync) to do something similar, except by sending OS X notifications to myself. I made some resolutions recently and I needed to remind myself of them regularly so I'd stick to them. So my 'app' chooses one from a list (randomly) and every 1-3 hours (randomly) sends a notification.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice idea. How's it working for you?

<comment><USER6> Pretty good but it's only been one day.

I started by copying these out by hand every morning. It sounds cheesy, but it does give me the chance to reflect on them which may work better in the long run.

Or I could keep both strategies. It's stuff like "Get up if you don't feel like working. Don't guilt yourself into trying to work." so it does help if I can see it in the middle of the workday.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, wouldn't it be possible to make a web app to trigger that? [https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push- notifi...](https://developer.apple.com/notifications/safari-push- notifications/)

<comment><USER6> Possibly. It might depend on users registering to receive notifications via Safari, though I'm not sure about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No thanks, I'll stick to those crappy posters that say "Achievement" or "Creativity". Or maybe the cat hanging off the branch.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've never before seen someone try and monetise a MOTD feature.

<comment><USER9> Before any flame war starts, I'd like to say that my comment below is not meant to be offensive.

This type of thing would only happen in the OSX app store. It's interesting what a market will pay for depending on where/who you're selling to.

<comment><USER8> I was just thinking that given osx desktop background already has a feature to cycle through a directory of images, if you have imagemagick and curl then to do something that generates backgrounds from online MOTD services could be done in one line of bash.

<comment><USER10> How would you solve choosing the right font size though? It should be such that the longest line perfectly fits the width.

<comment><USER8> generate an imagemagick text label at a certain font size, then pipe it to identify -size , pull the width out of that and then use the result to calculate the required font size which you then use in a second textlabel

edit - or just generate a large text label to start with, then scale it to whatever is required</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Rebuilt My CSS Grid Generator with Vue.js - <AUTHOR> https://www.layoutit.com/grid# <comment><USER2> I discovered this a few days ago, and have already used it a few times. Seems to be a lot easier to use than other generators. The only problem I've had is when you add prefixes to the grid names, and then create a CodePen, the prefixes don't show up in the CodePen.

</comment><comment><USER3> Edge fails in the below code on TrimEnd with this message

Microsoft Edge 44.17763.1.0

Object doesn't support property or method 'trimEnd'

: function createTemplateArr(number) { return '1fr ' .repeat(number) .trimEnd() .split(' ') }

MDN's compat chart doesn't make clear if Edge supports this or not but manual experimentation suggests not although trimRight is supported so a possible polyfill. I filed a bug against Edge just now.

</comment><comment><USER4> Chrome iPhone, just seeing purple nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER5> On Safari 11.1.1 TypeError: "1fr ".repeat(e).trimEnd is not a function.

</comment><comment><USER6> > TypeError: "1fr ".repeat(...).trimEnd is not a function

Firefox 60 ESR

<comment><USER7> That function was added in Firefox 61: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1434007](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1434007)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Firefox on UBUNTU , there is nothing to see.

</comment><comment><USER9> Seems to break if the names have spaces

</comment><comment><USER10> Chrome Android, cannot add text</comment>


Doubling Down on Open (Elasticsearch) - <AUTHOR> https://www.elastic.co/blog/doubling-down-on-open <comment><USER2> > But driving these products forward as quickly as we do requires significant > investment, and that's why we formed a company around this technology. > Figuring out how to balance being open source while making enough money to > keep developing has got to be a difficult task. I've been happy to see > companies like Elastic and GitLab succeeding. Even when I'm disappointed in > the features they choose to place behind a pay wall.

I think their move to a package with free, non-open source, options enabled, plus non-free options disabled by default all in one package is smart. I know I've been very confused with what options were free and how to enable them.

I also like that they will have a fully open source package as well.

Now, if only they'd open source the security and authentication code. That's one feature I've never liked that they kept it closed.</comment>


Drone Maker DJI Adds Technology to Limit Where Its Machines Can Fly - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/drone-maker-dji-adds-technology-to-limit-where-its-machines-can-fly/ <comment><USER2> Savvy move on DJI's part. They probably know that the DRM will be cracked out pretty soon, and I bet they don't care. The point is that they can still claim compliance/friendliness, making sure that 1) the drone market keeps on growing, and that 2) their PR image becomes one of a 'responsible professional drone company '.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's so much hysteria over toy flying helicopters which I hesitate to call drones, I don't get it. If an airplane did hit a drone would it really be worse than say a goose? Except for the very large professional ones, they're very light and mostly plastic.

Mythbusters more or less proved the consumer models are basically harmless to humans and couldn't break the skin.

As always something new comes along and people are terrified. It's our stupid nature.

<comment><USER4> The propellers can absolutely break skin.

A commercial quadcopter motor typically runs at 1000KV, meaning that it spins at 1000 RPM per Volt. Most batteries are 12-14 volts.

Even for little plastic bits, if they're spinning at 12,000RPM, theres a lot of kinetic energy behind them.

<comment><USER5> There was, ironically, a MythBusters episode[0] on last night in which they were flying quadcopter drones into dummy torsos (complete with major neck arteries) to see what happened.

I'll admit I was surprised to see that, indeed, they were able to puncture through that poor soul's ballistic gel neck and sever the "aorta."

0: [http://www.discovery.com/tv- shows/mythbusters/videos/drone-d...](http://www.discovery.com/tv- shows/mythbusters/videos/drone-decapitation-high-speed/)

<comment><USER6> Yes, with carbon fiber blades and a custom octocopter designed to carry 20lb payloads. Neither of which applies to the commonly available multirotors on the market.

<comment><USER3> Yep, the non-carbon fiber one just bent in the episode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great, more DRM is always so nice.

There was a talk at defcon this year by a Chinese researcher (I forget her name) where she A) spoofed the GPS signal so that a GPS-restricted copter (which I guess already exists in China) could fly in a no-fly zone and B) convinced a bunch of copters flying in a park that they were, in fact, suddenly in a no-fly zone, and so they promptly crashed.

It is not the job of my machines to police my behaviour on behalf of the government. If a machine is physically capable of doing something, there should always be a way for me to do it. A warning (e.g. A restricted airspace alert) is fine, but the technology should not presume to override my commands based on its (easily confused) interpretation of the law. Users should control machines, not the other way around.

</comment><comment><USER8> This would be a great thing to have "open" so that any flight software can consume the feed of no-fly areas and adhere to them. It could either be self- imposed or required by law but either way it would go a long way to improving the image that "drones" currently have.

</comment><comment><USER4> I applaud this.

My opinion is that the _vast_ majority of the issues are caused by people who buy a drone off the shelf and take it up as high as it can go on their first flight.

This move will help stop general folks who have no idea about the rules and regulations from flying where they should not.

It's not going to stop the folks that (arguably) should know better, but it's an exellent start.

<comment><USER9> There's a problem though - most off-the-shelf drones don't have a GPS.

But generally, I agree. An _easy to circumvent_ lock seems like a good idea. Enough of an obstacle to block general population from doing their stupid things, while still allowing those who know what they're doing to exercise the full capabilities of the machine (taking the responsibility for eventual damage).

<comment><USER4> > Enough of an obstacle to block general population from doing their stupid > things, while still allowing those who know what they're doing to exercise > the full capabilities of the machine (taking the responsibility for eventual > damage).

This is exactly it. I'm 1000% okay with this. I hope that the eventual DOT regulations are following this line of thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The drone regulations will be used to control robots in the future. All uses of robots with advanced AI will be limited by such rules. Self driving cars are next, especially since a self-driving car could easily be programmed to commit a criminal act.

Robots will put everyone out of a job because only a certain few will be allowed to program robots that could hypothetically commit criminal acts. Writing a program for a drone or a self-driving car will require the same level of scrutiny as developing a medical device or aviation flight control systems.

That's the problem with our robotic future: the technology will be controlled by a priesthood of highly regulated experts that work for large corporations because the technologies are considered too dangerous to be left in the hands of average people.

</comment><comment><USER11> Phil Greenspun's comments: [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/11/13/drones-in- cont...](http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2015/11/13/drones-in-controlled- airspace/)

<comment><USER12> His experience, that DJI drones are allowed to fly near airports, is the exact opposite of my experience.

I was in the San Juan islands doing some aerial photography with a DJI Phantom III. On Orcas island I unknowingly setup next to an airport. It was a very small airport behind a treed hill, so I didn't realize where it was. The drone considered it a no-fly zone and refused to take off.

So I consider it unlikely that gigantic Logan airport isn't in the system, while tiny Orcas Island airport is in the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would be interested to know how on-demand the No Fly zones can be updated -- interesting tool to, say, ensure there aren't any amateur camera-copters floating around accident scenes, public demonstrations an the like.

<comment> at-fates-hands This also raises the question of who's making these decisions and why. It makes you think if these decisions could be open to influence somehow.

Say a rich tenet in a NYC penthouse doesn't want any drones flying around his building. How do you enact a geofence around his building and then enforce that?

<comment><USER13> Get the drone's ID (assuming there's such a thing) and report it to the police.

<comment> at-fates-hands Apparently this is in the works:

[http://www.dailydot.com/technology/lightcense-drone- identifi...](http://www.dailydot.com/technology/lightcense-drone- identification-system/)

 _Instead of the standard alphanumerical plates that are affixed to cars, drones would be equipped with a set of bright, multicolored LED lights. The lights would flash in a unique sequence that would correlate to the owner. A smartphone app would identify the pattern and search the database for the operator the vehicle is registered to._

pretty ingenious if you ask me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great, DRM on drones. This'll be fun to crack at least.

Out of curiosity, what does it do if GPS is unavailable? From what I've heard, jamming GPS is pretty easy.

<comment><USER15> > _DRM on drones. This 'll be fun to crack at least._

You'd lose manufacturer recourse in case something goes wrong.

<comment><USER14> They said that about rooting my phone but I still returned it just fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> >Self-Driving Car Maker XXXX Adds Technology To Limit Where Its Machines Can Drive

<comment><USER17> The intent is usually to keep them on the road.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but what stops US Gov to ask car manufacturers to automatically stop engine ( electric or ICE ) if you come too close to, let's say, White House? Or follow a certain road which may lead to some secret facility.

This is doable even now.

<comment><USER9> Why should you want to stop them? US Gov should have a perfect right to do that (in the US, that is), that's the point of having a government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _marks that drone off his list_

</comment><comment><USER20> if it can be coded in it can be coded out.

<comment><USER21> So? It's still useful for most drone users - I would guess that many of the problem drone flights are caused by people being unaware of the flight regulations. These geofences will stop them from accidentally causing problems.

<comment><USER20> of course, if this is its aim then it will work just fine but it would be trivial to override by someone that wanted to.</comment></comment></comment>


Tens of thousands of images stolen in US border hack - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-48595591 <comment> java-man What is NSA doing right now? Surely, they have all the information to catch the perpetrator.</comment>


Low acceptance rates, commercial publishing... scholarly communication [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.accessecon.com/includes/CountdownloadPDF.aspx?PaperID=EB-12-00810

<comment><AUTHOR> tl;dr: "most journals are sold under "big deal" contracts in which publishers in effect give libraries all or nothing offers to subscribe to their whole catalog in a given field rather than allowing librarians or consortia to chose their subscriptions journal by journal. See the work of Ted Bergstrom and Preston McAfee[1] on this for more details. What the exact incentives of the publishers are here is not entirely clear. They seem to care weakly about the over-all quality of the bundle, but they get little or no extra revenue from increasing page counts. Thus, the decision to starve journals for pages in light of strongly increasing submission rates is driven by the commercial interests of the publisher and is entirely contrary to the mission of fostering scholarly communication. This is a new, and I think compelling, reason to try to reclaim scholarly communication back from commercial publishers and into the community of scholars, and is the main point I would like to be taken from this letter."

edit: additional summary

The letter starts with the position that journals have become irrelevant for scholarly communication, which has been my experience in Economics, although I get the impression from other people here that that's not universal across fields. But (again from TFA), despite being irrelevant for communication, journals are important for promotion, hiring, etc., and that their low acceptance rates are causing serious problems. It then argues (and this is the quotation I pulled out) that commercial publishers are a big reason for those low acceptance rates, so they've got to go.

[1] <http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Journals/BundleContracts.html></comment>


The Shock of Sweden's Housing Market Is Hitting the Country's Currency - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-14/sweden-s-housing-shock-hits-krona-leaving-riksbank-few-choices <comment><USER2> When will we learn that a "strong" housing market is not necessarily a good thing? High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses but terrible for everyone else (e.g. the entire generations born after prices became inflated). Not to mention people are greedy and will over leverage themselves when interest rates are good. No country should let the "landed gentry" hold them hostage over interest rates or tax policy so that their assets - many of which they do not even actually own - can appreciate.

<comment><USER3> > High housing prices are great for those who already owned houses

Not really. _Rising_ prices (not _high_ prices) are great for people holding houses _as investments_. But for owner-occupied houses, rising prices are as bad for the owners as they are for everyone else.

my wife and I own a house in Northern California, which we bought during the sub-prime crash. Since then it has nearly doubled in price. It is also too big for us, so we'd like to sell it and move to a smaller house. But we can't. Why? Because by the time you factor in:

1\. Capital gains tax

2\. Real estate agent fees

3\. Higher property taxes (even a smaller house costs much more than the prop-13 basis in our current house)

we can't afford to move!

<comment><USER2> Capital gains is only applicable when you sell the house and it's _not_ your primary residence, or if you made a ton of money on it. And it's only a tax on the appreciation of the house, not its market value.

Real estate agent fees are only applicable on x% of the value of the house you sell.

Higher property taxes do stink but are _not_ applicable after you sell the house.

I'm not sure why you can't afford to move. Have you talked to a tax specialist or a financial advisor? If you bought a house at X and sold it at 2x, even if you haven't paid any of the principal of your mortgage(if you have one), you would likely pay a maximum of ~25% of X between capital gains (if you own multiple homes) and real estate agent fees. So you still made 75% of X from appreciation. I don't really understand what you think your problem is.

<comment><USER3> Suppose I bought my house for $1M and prices are stable. I can sell my $1M house and buy a different $1M house and the net cost to me is 6% agent fees.

But if prices have doubled now the net cost to me is much higher. The agent fees are double what they were, and I have to pay cap gains on $500k. All that is money I have to come up with somehow in order to complete the transaction. I either have to write a check, or take on more debt. The higher prices go, the more expensive a lateral move becomes.

Yes, I have more home equity if prices go up, but that only helps me if I cash out and move out of the area.

<comment><USER4> Not understanding your complaint. You would have to sell your house for more than $1.5M to have any taxable capital gains. You would have to sell your house for more than $2.5m to have an effective tax rate of more than 10% on the sale. (For example, if you sold your house for $2m, your effective tax rate on the sale would be 5%, ignoring AMT and assuming no other significant sources of income.) Boo hoo.

On the second point: the only cash you need to come up with is the down payment for the new house, which you would get out of the proceeds from selling your old house. If you sold your house for 2x the purchase price, you have more than enough cash to pay the down payment. Boo hoo.

Complaints like yours are why people outside of the Bay Area really hate Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER5> > For example, if you sold your house for $2m, your effective tax rate on the > sale would be 5%

The tax on capital gains in this case would be 20% federal, ~10% state (in California), 3.8% ACA investment tax. That's an ~34% rate, not the 20% you seem to think applies.

> the only cash you need to come up with is the down payment for the new house

Let's take the simple case where the old house was paid off, no mortgage. Are you suggesting that it's unreasonable to want to downsize and still not have a mortgage?

If you do have a significant mortgage, and are hence highly leveraged, an increase in property prices is pretty good. If your mortgage is more or less paid off, you can in fact end up in a situation where you can't buy any house at all in the same general market after selling your existing one and paying the property taxes. See a worked-out example at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15706565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15706565)

<comment><USER4> The 3.8% net investment income tax doesn't apply to real property, it applies to investment property. The NIIT specifically excludes gains from the sale of primary residences. The IRS provides a helpful FAQ on this: [https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/net-investment-income-tax- faqs](https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/net-investment-income-tax-faqs).

Second, the 25% rate is an approximate rate that combines the federal and state rates while taking into account the deduction for state and local taxes. 25% is a nice round number. I'm not going to prepare a detailed tax model for an anonymous internet comment.

My point stands either way: he's whining about having to pay an effective tax rate of 10-15% on his profits from selling his million dollar house while people in other parts of the country are struggling to even afford rent. He's acting like an entitled child and quivering about the exact tax rate he pays doesn't change that.

<comment><USER5> > The 3.8% net investment income tax doesn't apply to real property

Ah, I didn't realize that, thank you!

> he's whining about having to pay an effective tax rate of 10-15% on his > profits

No, the key part of the complaint is that the combination of price rise and tax structure mean that a lateral move requires liquidity he does not have.

It's a first-world problem for sure, but it's still a problem caused by the fact that we have various fairly dumb tax policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are tons of things inflating house prices. The most important for Sweden are

\- Deduction of interest expenses from income tax.

\- Too long mortgages (100 years or more) means nominal prices are high which add to the risk

\- Historically big mortgages (90, 100 or even 110% of the cost could be financed - yes negativev down payments existed in the early 2000's).

\- Rent control of almost all flats, meaning no one will build places to rent, only to buy.

\- Extremely low interest rates as the central bank refuses to look at housing costs and interest rates when aiming for the inflation target.

This is the recipe for disaster. Now, it's not ALL doom and gloom, a lot has actually improved. Down payments have been 15-25% for some time now, mortgages are no longer infinite, and banks are using max-multiple-of-household-income caps (typically 4-5x) to limit lending. I think the situation now is a bit brighter than it would have been if we had been hit by a big correction in 2008 (which we were not). Many would welcome a controlled price correction (say 10-15%), and it IS expected since all the above changes have yet NOT changed the prices downward, even though the pool of prospective buyers gets smaller and smaller the more restrictive lenders are. It would be very welcome to see the correction _now_ that both domestic and global economy is decent, interest rates are low etc.

<comment><USER7> Also to add to that, an extreme number of new people immigrating to Sweden, especially under 2014-2016 [1] (which is my personal belief that is the leading cause to the biggest increases in prices). Many municipalities also letting up to 25% of these new people jump ahead the queues leaving Swedes to be even more forced to buy an apartment instead of renting [2].

Also in Sweden for apartments, you don't own it. Most apartments for sale is so called "Bostadsrätter" which means you own a percentage of the association that owns the apartment building(s). If the association/organization has a bad economy and can't pay the debt they could be forced to sell the entire apartment building(s) and you'd loose your apartment while still having a loan to the bank.

Of course you would get that % of the profit, but since it selling in a time of crisis, that would mean you would most likely get significantly less than you otherwise would do.

It doesn't even matter if you have a good economy, the association must have it as well. Lots of those associations or organizations have a really shitty economy and are sensitive to market changes. Especially in Gothenburg and Stockholm.

[1] [https://www.migrationsverket.se/images/18.5bc6881815e14db675...](https://www.migrationsverket.se/images/18.5bc6881815e14db67502366/1510566869185/Total_s%C3%B6k.png)

[2] [http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=98&artik...](http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=98&artikel=6457520)

EDIT: If you downvote / disagree, please explain why? What I stated is pure fact a with a touch of stated opinion which is backed by the numbers.

EDIT 2: I've added sources for the stuff regarding to immigration.

<comment><USER8> > Also in Sweden for apartments, you don't own it. Most apartments for sale is > so called "Bostadsrätter" which means you own a percentage of the > association that owns the apartment building(s). If the > association/organization has a bad economy and can't pay the debt they could > be forced to sell the entire apartment building(s) and you'd loose your > apartment while still having a loan to the bank.

In the US we call these co-ops and they are mostly an NYC phenomenon. Fun fact, some co-ops don't own the land they sit on, they rent it. And those rents get renegotiated every 30 years, potentially making a bunch of co-op owners suddenly unable to afford their monthly maintenance payments.

<comment><USER9> The Swedish system sounds closer to a strata system [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strata_title](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strata_title)

<comment><USER10> It's not actually. Unlike strata, in a Swedish "Brf" you don't actually hold title to any real estate.

As the GP says, you own a share in a co-op that itself owns the real estate, and that gives you the right to use the apartment that corresponds to your share.

Something similar to strata title has been discussed for many years in Sweden: ägarlägenheter. I don't know whether anything has ever come of it, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The combination of removing the wealth tax and the introduction of a 30% rebate on all interest costs for individuals have really combined to clusterfuck the Swedish housing market.

Now, the interest rebate seems politically impossible to touch, even long term and through minor transitioning. Home ownership is so important to the economy and affects so many voters, that the property owning class always must be looked after.

People have been talking about the bubble bursting for years now, but it's only in the past year or so that the decline truly has been expected. Only a few weeks ago, there was an article in a major paper about a couple who quinnied about not being able to sell their house with the expected 1000% profit (over 30+ years). How ever would they manage, once they'd sold the house, bought an apartment, and didn't have the cool million SEK to splurge on whatever people in their 70s enjoy?

<comment><USER12> I absolutely hate speaking to Swedish people who invest all of their retirement savings in their home. It just breaks my heart to know that they are taking on a very high risk by putting all of their eggs into one, figurative basket when other types of investing are not only less risky but also often present more of a reward too.

And, add the fact that investing in your house is one of the least helpful investments for creating new jobs and wealth for future generations. The people who had this idea have my pity but I won't refrain from using their story as a cautionary tale.

<comment><USER13> How do they "invest" in their home? Renovate it to the max, keep buying a more expensive one or paying off your loan?

<comment><USER12> They buy more expensive homes than they need (or stay in the one that housed a family of four way after their kids have moved out) and pay off the mortgage. That's "saving" for retirement; they expect to get the money they've payed on their mortgage back when they sell it. Some practically only pay off the interest because we can do generous deductions off it and we have low demands of paying off the principal (or at least we used to have, now the Department of Finance is advising the government to require that banks make higher demands of paying back the principal) and why should I pay off the mortgage in full if the property prices always go up? At least that's the reasoning.

I have nothing against paying off your loan, but seeing it as your one and only retirement investment is something I have serious problems with. You should live where you are most comfortable living, I don't want people speculating in their homes on a casual basis "knowing" it always pays off. If you're going to really invest in your home, renovate a floor and rent it out. That way, you're contributing to the economy, you're not just speculating you're value investing and you know what the revenue stream of your investment really is. I had the privilege of growing up in a wealthy household with 7 bedrooms and after me and my brother moved out my parents decided three rooms was enough and converted the house into three apartments, living in one and renting out the other two.

Many of the neighboring families however don't like the idea since it means work, but they also don't want to move into something that won't grow as much over time. They're staying put even after the kids have moved out in hopes of cashing in right before retirement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's not just Sweden, it's almost everywhere (in the western world at least).

It's almost entirely down to the effects of unprecedented quantitative easing over the past decade or so.

When you print more money than you've ever printed before, it's only natural that the prices of things will rise as more people can afford to buy things. And even if more people _can 't_ afford to buy things, the money goes somewhere so it probably means the rich people get richer. And they'll go out and buy things they know poorer people will always need i.e. property.

It all works well until property gets so expensive that the only people that can afford to buy it are other wealthy people. Eventually someone gets forced in to selling at a loss and the whole house of cards collapses as the wealthy who _can_ afford to buy more property sit on the sidelines and wait / hope for a catastrophic collapse.

Rinse, wash, repeat and yet we still question why the rich get richer... the only way to prevent property getting out of control is by regulating it so that it remains affordable and that speculators are discouraged from entering the market and encouraged to sell. But that won't happen either because most politicians own large amounts of property and they've a vested interest in seeing the price of property rise...

<comment><USER15> It's less about printing money and more about falling long-term interest rates (and thus, discount rates). Fundamentally, a house is worth the net present value of its use value. Lower discount rates means that more of that value gets pulled forward into its present valuation.

An equivalent way of thinking of it is that house prices are fixed by mortgages to rents - when mortgage payments are lower than rents, people buy houses and rent them out, pushing house prices up. Falling mortgage interest rates push mortgage payments lower at the same principle amount, which convinces people to buy and push up housing prices.

<comment><USER6> In Sweden though, pretty much no one rents a house. This may or may not be relevant to the above observation.

It's also generally not allowed to buy flats to rent them out which limits speculation in that market.

<comment><USER15> The analysis generally works for the value of owner-captured imputed rents, too. If shaving 10 minutes off your commute is worth $100/mo to you, that's going to cause homes closer to jobs to rise in price with interest-rate sensitivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While a drop in house prices might, in theory, negatively effect the economy in the short term as homeowners, in theory, have less disposable income, in the long term land prices/speculation (and when people talk about house prices, they really mean land prices) are a huge rentier suck on the economy, and should be taxed to the point that speculation or 'investment' in land itself (not the development of it) reaps zero gains.

After all, why should anyone profit merely by owning land, when the value of that land really reflects other people's economic activity and development in the surrounding area.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't get it. When prices are high, it's a housing crisis. When prices are going down, it's a housing crisis. It's almost as if news articles just need to be written regardless of the reason.

<comment><USER18> Maybe housing shouldn't be a market system. Instead, housing should be free and landlords should be abolished.

<comment><USER19> Your mindset completely boggles my mind.

<comment><USER20> Alternate economic views are incomprehensible?

<comment><USER19> No, not at all. Other economic views are definitely comprehensible to me, however this particular one is mind boggling because me and OP seem to have genuinely incompatible principals and values. "housing should be free" \- according to who? What entity is coercing the 'should' in that sentence? What law of nature says that housing should be free? It implies in a society that you have a right to someone else's time and labor. That's amazing! It makes me wonder why the OP thinks that way and what circumstances led them to think that way.

<comment><USER20> I mean, in every modern country you have the right to someone elses time and labor. Most places have socialized medicine, literal usage of someones elses time for free and compensated by society as a whole, you use roads you didn't directly pay for, etc.

In a lot of places you can (or used to) get free water. Literally other peoples work for free.

Almost all the structural parts of modern society are built on providing people with services _for free_ that come from the tax pool. You can even, depending on country, get _free_ housing through poverty programs!

But in general, modern states exist in part to forcibly take from some to give to others by the whims of the majority. They all do it. "Public" housing is just another proposition in that spectrum of policies.

But specifically:

> according to who?

Currently them, but if it were according to most in most democracies that would mean it would eventually become law.

> What entity is coercing the 'should' in that sentence?

States, as with all other legal uses of force.

> What law of nature says that housing should be free?

No law of nature says property rights exist (especially intellectual property), but we make those up to establish civilization.

You can definitely be ideologically opposed to those ideas! But their existence shouldn't be a surprise, humans have been establishing radically different rules of society for millennia from one another, and seeing someone on the Internet propose something you find far out should be expected!

<comment><USER19> > I mean, in every modern country you have the right to someone elses time and > labor.

I notice you qualified this with 'every modern country'. Is this a coincidence or do you believe that a 'right' to other people's time and labor is necessary for being a 'modern country'?

> Most places have socialized medicine, literal usage of someones elses time > for free and compensated by society as a whole, you use roads you didn't > directly pay for, etc.

Usages of socialized medicine, roads and anything else that is compensated by "society" are not rights. They are privileges paid for by taxes.

> In a lot of places you can (or used to) get free water. Literally other > peoples work for free.

Getting something for no cost because it's given to you at no cost does not constitute a 'right' to that thing. If I gave you a bottle of water, that does not mean you have a right to my bottled water, or bottled water in general.

> But in general, modern states exist in part to forcibly take from some to > give to others by the whims of the majority.

Now this statement is utterly fascinating! What are the other parts that they exist for, in your opinion?

> Currently them, but if it were according to most in most democracies that > would mean it would eventually become law.

Let's be clear, your statement about "housing _should_ be free" means "housing should be free because the people that want housing decide it _should_ be free". It's totally fine if you want free housing - 100% fine for you to want it. That's your right. It's not your right however to get free housing.

> States, as with all other legal uses of force.

Not quite, or at least not yet. We're still just talking about "people that think housing should be free". If you want to promote that responsibility to the State you have to make it a law, which means you'd have to draft a law (in the US at least) that did not violate the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. Even if it's a law, it would still not be a right.

> No law of nature says property rights exist (especially intellectual > property), but we make those up to establish civilization.

I would argue that nature says I have a right to whatever land I can take and defend. If I can't defend it (by paying taxes, or whatever other modern agreements there are between me and everyone else) it will likely be repossessed. Society tends to support that natural right by acknowledging things (at least in the US) like private property laws, trespass laws and castle doctrines. Of course ultimately the state could just take my land by force - that's nature's law in action!

The root of my objection is that no one has a right to my time and labor (or yours or anyone else's). You can buy my time and labor, or we can barter for my time and labor, or I can choose to give you my time and labor. People can take it by force[1], but not by right.

[1] [http://www.endslaverynow.org/act/educate/human-rights-and- sl...](http://www.endslaverynow.org/act/educate/human-rights-and-slavery)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The relentlessly negative reporting here would be funny if it wasn't so pernicious. "risk ... backfire ... risks sinking ... worrying".

And yet they're explicitly talking about a _correction_. Making something that isn't correct, correct. You might think that was a _good_ thing.

If you don't want a correction, stop pumping up bubbles. You can keep 'em inflated a long time, longer than many people can remain solvent, but if you shut out the younger generations then eventually the political calculation _will_ change, and that change will not be in your favour. As Mark Blyth is fond of observing, the Hamptons are not a defensible position.

<comment><USER22> Entropically speaking, life on earth is also a bubble that will, at least over the really long term, correct.

<comment><USER23> A correction devoutly to be wished

<comment><USER24> Why?

<comment><USER23> Just feeling misanthropic

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If falling house prices are so problematic, then _why_ do governments allow house prices to rise so sharply?

If house price stability was explicitly a part of our central banks' mandate, we wouldn't have such ridiculously low interest rates, people wouldn't be borrowing vast multiples of their salary to buy a house, and we wouldn't have the sword of damocles hanging over us in the form of another property slump.

<comment><USER7> The housing market in Sweden has been like borrowing money to buy stock and while everyone earns a profit, no one complains and it would be unpopular to make a change politically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I wonder why this article is upvoted so highly. The article is not very interesting and almost devoid of real content.

</comment><comment><USER27> Some historical context:

[https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tonEuOE0IXE/WfpBpIzy8rI/AAAAAAAAF...](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tonEuOE0IXE/WfpBpIzy8rI/AAAAAAAAFBk/PvhThXo1MaYG_BtcN9BkBWgR4bmQC_SzgCLcBGAs/s1600/realaBostadspriser1952-2017k3.png)

The interesting lines are apartment prices (yellow/orange) and salary (green). Note that the small bump in the early 90s was the last economic crisis...

</comment><comment><USER28> Contrarian position: low inflation seems like a good problem to have. You can always increase inflation much more easily than decrease it -- such as printing more money and giving it to people or businesses to spend on things, which spurs the economy.

What is interesting to me is that, even though it seems to take less Kronor now to buy something, somehow it slumped against the Euro so it takes even less Euro to buy that same thing? Yet the thing remained the same?

</comment><comment><USER29> A successful real estate agent once told me: the market price is driven by the threee "D"s: Death, Divorce, Debt.

<comment><USER30> I'd add a fourth, Delivery. As in new kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> As someone just bought an apartment in Stockholm two years ago I was shocked seeing that I made 50 or more percent on how much I paid for my apartment but when I checked the data there I saw not all the areas in Stockholm raised in the same time and rate. I think there were many areas got hyped and there are many old buildings which raised and if you check the data you will see the start of falling in prices is not happening everywhere. I would guess prices will continue falling for two or more years but to the point, before the scare and excitement started which raised the prices too high in a year, and then it will stabilize. There is a talk also to loosen the restriction on companies which renting apartments. I really do not think this is like US's 2008 era inflation.

<comment><USER11> I mean, buyers aren't going to be able to loan money at 1.5% interest (1% effective) forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> As a foreigner here in Sweden I've heard about this mystical bubble which will burst sometime soon causing morgage rates to skyrocket. If I was going to buy something, say in North Stockholm, how long would you recommend waiting?

<comment><USER33> I recently sold my appartment in central Stockholm, I am reinvesting my money in stocks and renting for 1-2 years before hopefully entering a more healthy housing market. Of course it is all a gamble, but most people I talk to recommend waiting +1,5 years, if you can.

<comment><USER34> Couldn't agree more. The current market situation here looks downright bizarre at times, I'm having trouble seeing how any substantial investment in this makes sense.

Who did you talk to for advice in Stockholm?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> What are the major tech hubs with the "weakest" housing markets? This would be an interesting list of options for techies that do not want to pay so much for land and housing.

</comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone have a good resource (book or site) that explains the interactions between central banks and the economies they influence? My macro-economic knowledge is lacking...

</comment><comment><USER37> Are the regulations blocking the development? Considering the demand is so high wouldn't the supply follow by e.g. scaling vertically?

<comment><USER38> Sweden has rent controls, which has caused long queues to apartments (we're talking wait times of 20 years) as well as a significant grey/black market in second, third and even fourth hand contracts, because the regulated first contract is so valuable that people keep them and rent them onwards.

It has also created situations where e.g. trade unions and other organisations (who own rental apartments) arrange nicely-located apartments to friendly politicians (and their relatives) ahead of the queue at very advantageous rents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It's getting harder and harder to keep inflation on target. Universal income may become attractive from a monetary policy position at some point on top of the other reasons that have already been discussed.

<comment><USER40> personally I like "quantitative easing for the people" \- it doesn't provide guarantees like ubi, but it does a very similar thing, and, I think it would be a more powerful tool to combat inflation that the qe we know today, (which just swaps long term gov bonds for cash... two almost equivalent asset classes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> As a Swede owning an expensive apartment this sucks. Currently we only need to pay mortgage down to 75%, so a lot of young swedes will loose a great deal of money.

</comment><comment><USER42> Fractional reserve banking creating new debt of almost nothing. Hoping for a block chain future.

</comment><comment><USER43> Crytocurrencies and blockchain based solutions like Bitcoin have a built-in deflationary element from the start right?

Could that be a way to counteract the deflationary tendencies of this market?

<comment><USER44> Don't conflate cryptocurrencies with blockchains. Blockchains are merely a decentralized way to prove stake in something.

Cryptocurrencies with a fixed supply like Bitcoin are deflationary, especially since mining costs increase over time.

Cryptocurrencies need not have a fixed supply, and in fact a "currency" with a fixed supply is indeed not a currency but an asset. Currencies must slowly and predictably inflate to be useful, otherwise people don't spend today since the "currency" is worth more tomorrow.

Currencies facilitate commerce and should grow in supply with the economy. They should not be a speculative tool to benefit first movers.

tl;dr: inflation is necessary, deflation is bad, hyperinflation is the worst.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> its a signal that the capital markets are out of balance as far as other assets to invest in

</comment><comment><USER13> Some of my thoughts regarding the housing market, they come from both observing the market and from first hand experience by selling in Sept 2017.

\- A widespread mindset of people living in Stockholm has been that the housing prices will continue upwards because they have been doing so for 15+ years. A change to this mindset was starting to be noticed in the spring of 2017 and recently rapidly changed. 66% believed in rising prices in September 2017 compared to 43% in October[1].

\- The time it takes to sell an apartment in Stockholm is up from ~3-4 days to weeks.

\- It was previously possible to earn $10k - $50k by flipping a newly produced apartment. This was done by commiting to buy the apartment when it is finished by paying a deposit and then sell it when you get the keys. This opportunity ceased to exist around the end of 2016.

\- Trusted sources such as Svensk Mäklarstatistik[2] and Valueguard[3] indicate that the fall in prices is around 3% - 5% this far. Untrusted sources[4] indicate that the fall is above 10%. Trusted sources uses formulas to give better stability to their indexes, but they also react slower than the untrusted sources due to that. I suspect that untrusted sources also use data points that are removed even though they failed to close the deal.

\- The difference between renting and cost of ownership is still huge, would estimate a 400% increase in interest rate would make the costs about even.

\- About 56 250 (24.96% of total) people aged 20 - 27 in Stockholm are still living with their parents even though they would like to move to their own place. In the central parts of the city this share is above 60%. [5]

\- Rising prices, difference between renting and cost of ownership and flipping of newly produced apartments has attracted a lot of people that invest/speculate in buying and renting out. They have probably not realized until now when the prices start to dip that they are sitting with a huge leverage on their investment/speculation and what risk that comes with. So they are probably the first ones to panic.

\- Production of new apartments has exploded in Sweden the last 2 years, most of these are quite expensive which might have saturated the higher end of the market.

\- The increase of prices has acted as jet fuel for different industries since a lot of people feel rich, increase their mortgage and consume the money. Companies that work with home makeover will be the first to get hit, but new car sales will also dip.

With this said I cannot be other than uncertain about the direction of the market, there are still a lot of things that indicate that the prices will increase (cost of ownership vs rent, demand for housing, interest rate prognosis). But if the market keep going down I am quite certain that it will drag a lot of other stuff with it and become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Edit: Sorry for a lot of typos and language that could be improved, just did a brain dump in a rush.

[1] [http://www.privataaffarer.se/bostad/seb-hushallens- boprisfor...](http://www.privataaffarer.se/bostad/seb-hushallens- boprisforvantningar-rasar-941969)

[2] [https://www.maklarstatistik.se/omrade/riket/stockholms- lan/s...](https://www.maklarstatistik.se/omrade/riket/stockholms- lan/stockholm/)

[3] [http://www.valueguard.se/stockholmbr](http://www.valueguard.se/stockholmbr)

[4] [https://husmask.se/kommun/stockholm/](https://husmask.se/kommun/stockholm/)

[5] [https://www.svd.se/en-tredjedel-av-stockholms-unga- tvingas-b...](https://www.svd.se/en-tredjedel-av-stockholms-unga-tvingas-bo- kvar-hemma)</comment>


End of an American tradition: Amtrak kills the traditional dining car - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/the-end-of-an-american-tradition-the-amtrak-dining-car/2019/09/21/d63cca3a-d888-11e9-bfb1-849887369476_story.html <comment><USER2> Amtrak and the American Rail experience is dying because the current CEO of Amtrak is a former airline executive, and he's been filling the leadership ranks of Amtrak with other former airline executives.

There's certainly a broader discussion of rail finances in the US to be had compared to elsewhere in Asia and in Europe, given the vast size of the US and alternate means of transport. But the bottom line is that riding in trains in the US will likely start to have many of the same unpleasant experiences people have with airline travel, and that's a bad development.

<comment><USER3> Yup. Amtrak continues to spiral to its doom by simply not offering services that people want. Ridership is not an issue. The Northeast corridor is full of people who want to ride on Amtrak, but it's so wasteful much of the time and so inconvenient that there's hardly a reason to do it.

I want to go with my bike to new places, but I can't. Amtrak won't allow bikes on most trains unless they're boxed.

I want reasonable food for a day trip. All we get is a horrible boxed lunch.

I want a late train so I can have a reasonable day trip.

I want to know that the train will get me home on time. The delays on Amtrak are insane.

It's more expensive than flying.

What's the point? They offer an uncertain service, at a bad price, with poor hours.

Compare that to Europe, where trains are on time, the hours are good, there are many destinations, I can take my bike, etc. The Northeast is more than dense enough. Amtrak just doesn't care.

<comment><USER4> > The delays on Amtrak are insane.

The is because Amtrak must share lines with much slower cargo trains.

Amtrak will file for "track windows" where they have exclusive access to the track for higher speed travel - but if they miss the window (for example a passenger had luggage trouble and delayed the train by a few minutes) then they are stuck behind cargo trains.

And once that happens they have no way to recover their original time table. The train will be late _all the way_ to the final destination! And not just a little late, travel time will double.

I'm not aware of any good solution for this.

<comment><USER5> In Europe passenger trains never wait for cargo to pass. Different priorities.

<comment><USER6> The US has this type of prioritization enshrined in the same piece of legislation that created Amtrak in the first place.

Actual use of this almost never happens, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "Some people really like (the dining car) and view it as sort of a nostalgic > train experience," Wilander said. "Some people, especially our new > millennial customers, don't like it so much. They want more privacy, they > don't want to feel uncomfortable sitting next to people" they don't know.

Is this really true? Do millenials or younger people in general have an aversion to meeting strangers in public? Perhaps teaching kids not to talk to strangers has gone too far; I fear that if society has default_distrust_strangers=True, that could be pretty harmful.

Personally I love meeting new people in real life. It's quite refreshing compared to the highly curated experience of "discovering" people online, if that's even the right word for it.

<comment><USER8> Anecdata: I recently read a thread in /r/NYC about using the subway. A comment there really rang true that many people would rather use google to figure out which direction a station's trains are heading than simply ask the people coming out of the station. If you assume people who would be savvy enough to do this would skew younger than yes, I can see it as true.

Second anecdata: I manage a fairly large team of millenials, and to the person they generally describe themselves as highly introverted, to the point that it seems radical that when I'm in meetings with customers simple things like asking customers questions for clarification seem crazy to them.

<comment><USER9> _many people would rather use google to figure out which direction a station 's trains are heading than simply ask the people coming out of the station_

I don't think this is a Millennial quirk, I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation, and I do the same, I just got back from a trip to Europe and used my phone the whole time to navigate the London underground and Paris Metro.

<comment><USER10> My perception of that story was that people that are actively in need of additional assistance are taking a possibly less direct route to that information (unlocking phone, opening google, inputting query, waiting for results) simply to avoid interacting with a stranger.

<comment><USER9> Why do you think it's to avoid interacting with a stranger? I have fast, accurate information at my fingertips (and it literally only takes a few seconds to take out my phone, unlock with my finger, squeeze to activate Google Assistant and say "directions to Westminster Abbey").

My phone will tell me which train to take (and which destination sign to look for), how many stops to travel, the names of the stops, as well as how long until the next train.

<comment><USER11> The OP question isn't about explaining complicated directions, just literally which way the train is heading, by the people who just hopped off that same train. "Hey does this side head towards x?" "Yep." Faster than Siri.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> High speed rail in China is also killing the traditional dining car. In my experience, Chinese dining cars on non-high speed rail are amazing. Food is cooked freshly on the car and you can meet random interesting travelers sharing your table.

You used to even be able to get freshly made meat and vegetable dishes on the Guangzhou to Hong Kong (Hung Hom) intercity route.

High speed rail has for the most part either totally ditched the dining car or switched to pre-packaged boxed meals that aren't particularly interesting.

On my most recent long-haul slow train trip from Hong Kong to Beijing in 2016, a university professor from Beijing decided to sit across from and repeat government propaganda to me as if she was the first person to ever tell this foreigner who speaks fluent Chinese these things. "Did you know China has 56 ethnic minorities?" "Did you know China has 5000 years of history?"

I made a point to visit a dining car on an east coast Amtrak route several years ago after my amazing China dining car experiences hoping to get some of that traditional dining car experience and found to my disappointment that even then they were only serving pre-made meals.

I guess it's hard to justify pulling and staffing a full kitchen and stocking it with fresh ingredients.

<comment><USER13> Newest HSR trains have buffets, 1 per 8 cars.

Configurations for short routes don't have them.

Do you really need a dining car when the longest route in the country is only 8 hours long?

Packaged meals on HSR do worth their price. Whatever meal I had in the past 7 years on the rail was cooked fresh.

<comment><USER12> I agree dining cars aren't needed on high speed rail because of the short amount of time passengers are on the train. That doesn't mean I can't miss the old 24+ hour trains with dining cars.

I wasn't aware of the HSR buffet. Look forward to trying out!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _" Officials, learned, for example, that the public's perception of food boxes wasn't as favorable as it hoped, and that passengers wanted more hot food options."_

You know what has hot food options and no food boxes? Cooked-onboard meals at a table in the dining car. Seriously, did anyone focus-group this move at least?

<comment><USER14> And just to continue the theme, is there room for a kitchen on an airplane? Is there room for a kitchen on an intercity bus? No, that happens to be one of Amtrak's few and desperately-needed "unique business propositions." That's their moat, if they have one. It's not like they can be fast like a plane, or cheap like a bus. All that's left is "good." They can serve you a steak cooked to order. Some sense of luxury, of which hot meals are a part, is one of the few things that makes the passenger feel like Okay I'm not a total loser or hopeless aviophobe[0] for choosing this way of traveling. I can tell my incredulous friends and they'll see my point. I can brag that I woke up with Glacier National Park rolling by the windows and went down to the dining car and had French toast and met a guy who runs a tractor shop in a farming town thousands of miles removed from my life.

It's so counter-intuitive to cut that service out, I just can't help but suspect that it isn't meant as a business move at all, but rather as just another cynical salvo in the longstanding (since Reagan I guess) political effort to choke Amtrak out.

[0] There is also 'aviatophobe' but that sounds too much like 'the fear of Erlich Bachmann.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is nuts. I am a millennial. And I love the dining car. Not just the food is good (the steak really is good!), but the experience of actually talking to people who you would never really talk to in real life. Social media has made it easier than ever to connect with my friends, but that has taken away opportunities to talk to strangers.

Also on long distance trains if you are in a sleeper car your meal is free. I get it, the price is really just included in your ticket, but psychologically it nevertheless feels amazing to order steaks or mussels for free. Getting rid of the dining car would also greatly diminish the value of sleeper tickets.

</comment><comment><USER16> I adore dining cars. There is something SO COOL about a self-contained restaurant which takes in power, water, and ingredients in one side and delivers fed people out the other. For people who don't know the first floor of these cars is generally a kitchen, the second a dining room where folks order (ordered) off a menu and were served food by a waiter. They've been a part of American trains since at least the mid-1880s, but no longer...

<comment><USER17> If you assume they're correct about the dining car being less popular, I wonder what would happen if they rebranded it to draw on "food truck" imagery. :-)

<comment><USER18> Hell, don't just evoke food trucks, make a business opportunity for food truck operators. Lease the diner car, or hook in privately owned diner cars. They could create a whole new sector of food trucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> dcurtis and I did the California Zephyr back in 2008 (or 2009) and the dining car was interesting as a fairly representative example of the Amtrak experience. You could tell there was still some magic there, but the china was replaced with flimsy plastic, the food was of poorer quality than what you'd get on a United international flight in Economy class, and - yes - you did have to sit next to people you didn't know.

But you could easily imagine it as a rollicking good time, not unlike a cruise ship: fine tableware and china, well appointed interior, with cocktails and wine, next to other fascinating characters. The observation car is OK and all, but it's not the same.

Millenials don't like it because the experience isn't authentic enough.

<comment><USER20> > United international flight in Economy class

I never took a United flight in 2008, but I took both one and a Amtrak in 2016, and the food in the train was 100 times better than the disgusting stuff United serves you. They are the worst airline in economy for this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Last time I've been to a dining car was on a Budapest—Vienna train a few years back.

My personal opinion on this, having a dedicated dining car (A) reduces the probability of fellow passengers eating in their seats around me and (B) provides an optional location to escape to if desired.

It's not eating itself that bothers me, just the place-appropriateness of it—I can block the noises but not the smell.

<comment><USER22> I've traveled on that train a significant amount of times; there's multiple models. The old one has the nice dining car - the newer trains have like 4 tables.

Most food eaten on that train is actually eaten by people in their seats, and this is true across most European train routes.

I should note, that I love the dining car and nothing is better than a good coffee and watching the scenery go by.

<comment><USER21> The one I took seemed like a somewhat new(ish) model both from inside and outside, but I'm hazy on details and wouldn't be able to find a photo of it now. It was an enjoyable ride! (EDIT: Four tables sounds about right[0], but it was still okay.)

Yes, it's allowed to eat in regular cars and I wouldn't say anything to anyone if they do it—but if at some point it starts to bother me, I like to be able to voluntarily put myself in a café-like environment of the dining car where I naturally become more tolerant to smells and noises. The change of context makes a big difference.

[0] The dining car looked the same as in this article: [http://don.at/references/don-denrailjets-der- oebb/](http://don.at/references/don-denrailjets-der-oebb/)

<comment><USER22> Ahh, yeah that's the modern ones. The old school ones are even better -- they have one that leaves ~ 7am I think. It's a not as nice as this, older less fancy, [http://www.mavnosztalgia.hu/en/galeria/241](http://www.mavnosztalgia.hu/en/galeria/241) but it's honestly my favorite.

It's so much nicer than the new ones -- but the new ones normally are only half the car and there's normally business class or something taking up the rest of the car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm so glad I got to experience a cross-country trip on Amtrak last year, before this change. The dining car was a sort of Grand Budapest Hotel experience, a reference to another time that I'm not even sure ever existed. A sacred piece of Americana. Sad to see it go.

</comment><comment><USER24> The menus:

[https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...](https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/menus/routes/Flexible- Dining-Menu.pdf) [https://web.archive.org/web/20190324104909/https://www.amtra...](https://web.archive.org/web/20190324104909/https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/menus/routes/Cardinal- Dining-Car-Menu-1017.pdf) [https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...](https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/menus/routes/Cardinal- Cafe-Car-Menu-0617.pdf)

So indeed there's the loss of the steaks, eggs, french toast, etc. in favor of stuff that can be cooked in a microwave oven. On the other hand there weren't many choices to begin with compared to a restaurant.

</comment><comment><USER25> The dining car has been full with a waitlist on every train I've taken that had one.

</comment><comment><USER26> Amtrak with its dining car and special services, rules and atmosphere is unique and many people will miss it. But it is as well a very old fashioned way to travel that does not really fit nowadays to get from point A to B. It is so increadible slow since the railway are so old, the trains have to wait to let pass goods traffic... If the US given its vast size wants to profide an ecological alternative to cars and airplanes they would be the need to own the rails, make them fast, build a real network to get everywhere... So everything once has an end, as coal mining has.

</comment><comment><USER27> That's so weird, part of the reason I liked taking the train is that they had cars with tables where you could put your laptop.

As a millennial I feel like I'm bothering people all the time and I really like having an "excuse" to be around strangers.

</comment><comment><USER28> This is sad, some friends of mine recently booked a cross country train trip for their honeymoon, the spoke specifically about being excited to experience the dining car.

</comment><comment><USER29> I met my wife on the Amtrak dining car! Political conversation with 3 other strangers turned into the most important relationship in my life. Shame its going away - to be honest tho it was in the same state most things are these days - the status quo is pretty substandard and lousy, and it seems instead of improving things, the conversation is simply about axing it entirely...

</comment><comment><USER30> MSN has a copy of this article and doesn't prevent ad blockers: [https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-end-of-an-american- tra...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-end-of-an-american-tradition- the-amtrak-dining-car/ar- AAHE3Xs?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark)

</comment><comment><USER31> What a Bull shit answer, blaming millennials as it cuts back on dining-car meals. He keeps cutting services, as station agents, you have one person looking over 2-3 cars. Keep reading all the articles about Richard Anderson, he is an airline person, and I read that he still has a large amount of stock in airlines, I believe that is a conflict of interest. 90% of the people who eat in the diner are sleeping car passengers, very rarely do you see coach passengers eating in the diner. I hope he goes before he destroys all of the Railway clubs who rely on Amtrak for excursions that keep railway history alive for future generations. Pitifull !!! He needs to go!!!

</comment><comment><USER32> I just did some calculations: If every person on earth flies only once a year (to and from), we would increase daily air passengers from 2.7 million to 44 million (1481% increase), we would also increase the number of daily flights from 44.000 to 650.000.

Meaning, if you fly only once a year, you should consider your self privilege. If you fly more often then that, you should consider your self a carbon hog.

We really can't afford to loose the train network in America. If we are going to be serious about preventing climate catastrophe (or at least minimize it) people have to stop flying for anything other then emergencies and inter- continental travels. People are going to have to ride the trains as long as Boston to L.A. if they have to get there regularly.

</comment><comment><USER33> America continuous its never ending search for more profits at the expense of being human.

<comment><USER34> Is Amtrak even profitable now?

<comment><USER35> The NEC is profitable.

Let me ask you this: are highways profitable?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> _millennial customers, don't like it so much. They want more privacy, they don't want to feel uncomfortable sitting next to people_

The post-millennials are going to grow up wondering why there's absolutely nothing to do but sit at home watching streaming video and endlessly scrolling through social media. I feel privileged to have lived before millennials destroyed everything worthwhile.

<comment><USER37> As a millennial, I'd argue that this, like many "millennials are destroying X" things are more signs of questionable economic developments and acute problems in society - and nothing millennials specifically "want".

Also, a person who is completely dependent on online services for any kind of decision or activity in life is probably the wet dream of many business leaders and politicians - so I think there are a lot of forces right now moving people in that direction.

Whatever the reason though, I think post-milennials are already getting fed up with it _right now_ (or at least certain groups of them): Studies show that "Gen-Z-ers" are, taken as a group, more miserable than generations before them, with smartphones appearing to be a deciding factor. They also seem to become more politically active as well.

So I think we're _currently_ on the trajectory to a Black Mirror/Brave New World kind of future, but it's not clear at all if we'll arrive there. We're living in interesting times.

<comment><USER38> Millennials are just the excuse to cut corners, costs and /or absolve executives of blame for bad business decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I had good experience of dining car in Amtrak. Took the train route from Virginia to Florida (Auto Train). Instead of sitting in the seats for long time, this was a good break for kids. Absolute fun as a family. Hope they will continue this tradition along with the needed changes.

</comment><comment><USER40> Previous discussion about Amtrak's dining car (around the first time the dining cars end was announced in 2018) here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16882231](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16882231)

</comment><comment><USER41> When's the last time you saw an advertisement to ride a train? Maybe trains are dying because they link up locations that are less convenient for people and nobody knows that trains still exist outside of metro lines?

</comment><comment><USER42> This is disappointing, there are quite a few train tours in the US I wanted to take my kids(0,2) to when they are a little older. I hope they don't ruin these great family adventure options!

</comment><comment><USER43> This is a nice PR twist in what's effectively a simpler story: mismanagement, absolutely horrific train systems, downright fraudulent monopoly with no updates to any technology. Well what could go wrong?

I remember just a few years ago, sitting in an Amtrak admiring the view... Well the train tracks for three hours really while waiting out on a BNSF rail to pass through. Yep, oil and shipment are more important than human beings.

And the dining car was an outright joke, they microwaved some shitty prepackaged food even then. This was on multiple long hauls, mind you, not one of those short day trip feel good trips (which I admittedly took as well).

</comment><comment><USER44> Oh one of the best parts of Amtrak is great food and meeting other people.

Makes no sense to attempt to follow airline fare. It's unique in American modes of transportation.

</comment><comment><USER45> Super sad. I really enjoyed talking with people in the dining car. The idea that I'm sharing a real dinner with other people, not just tucking into a sandwich at my assigned seat, was part of the romance of long distance rail travel.

This reminds me of how bizarre it is when you're in a coffee shop with little tables that can fit 2-4, but because there's one person at it, nobody shares. Our personal bubbles have grown bigger. Is there a way to hang a sign that says "open to socialization - I don't bite" ?

<comment><USER46> Coffee shops that wish to encourage socialization can provide large tables which seat 6-12 rather than two-tops.

I was a regular at a coffee shop for 7 years, and this was one of the reasons. (RIP Rebecca's Coffee House.) I met lots of people by striking up conversations with someone seated at the same large table.

(Some people don't want to talk, but if you have the social skills to read the signs, it's no big deal.)

<comment><USER47> I think you would need a "no devices" rule there or else a 12 top would just become the home of 5 people on laptops.

<comment><USER46> Even without such a rule, it's still a social win over 5 two-tops with one patron each, as far as I'm concerned — and it's probably a wash for per- square-foot revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Simple question: why aren't trains a big thing in the US? They are in Asia and Europe.

Any readings on the topic much appreciated.

<comment><USER49> [https://youtu.be/mbEfzuCLoAQ](https://youtu.be/mbEfzuCLoAQ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> One more stop in the quest of USA to degrade its infrastructure everywhere, as other countries improve theirs...

</comment><comment><USER51> Last time I took Amtrak, all the dining car had were stale plain bagels. That was twenty years ago.

<comment><USER52> Last time I rode Amtrak (2016) the food was fairly good. Not exactly a five- star restaurant, but much better than airline food.

<comment><USER53> Definitely. I rode the California Zephyr earlier this year and really liked the dining car. The staff was great and the food was decent. It wasn't the best meal ever, but it was definitely my best meal in a moving vehicle. And I liked the structure the fixed dining hours gave to the day. This change seems like a loss to me.

<comment><USER54> I always hoped to ride this train some day and try out the dining car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> So, airplane food then.

This article is completely disingenuous. First, the reason American millennials don't take trains is that Amtrak scheduling is ridiculous except on the east coast. It ain't about the dining car.

Second, the guy Trump put in charge of Amtrak has said his mission was to kill it. This is obviously just the first step. It won't bring millennials onto trains because that's not the goal. The goal is to reduce ridership of people like me who enjoy using Amtrak. Mission accomplished.

Edit: I may be repeating a railfan conspiracy theory above. I can't find a link that confirms Richard Anderson ever said he wanted to kill Amtrak and Trump didn't put him in charge. Hanlon's Razor applies.

</comment><comment><USER56> tl;dr: "The railroad anticipates the change will save it about $2 million a year."

<comment><USER57> But cost 5 million in lost sales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> We call this process shittifying

<comment><USER59> Or as the Fed would call, "Hedonic quality adjustments".

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> As if a dining car was a specifically _American_ tradition.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm trying to remember the last time I was on a train (a real intercity train, not a commuter train or light rail). It's been at least a decade.</comment>


Anyone wanna do a package manager for Windows? - <AUTHOR>

Imagine if you could sit down to a clean install of Windows and get all of your favorite programs installed as easily as if it were Ubuntu or OpenSUSE?
I'm thinking that you could easily tie it into an app-store where some money could be made by reselling commercial apps.
Thoughts? If you're interested, email me at wb.stow at the gmail.com
Thanks. <comment><USER2> See 'YCombinator Startup Creates A Better Download App Store For Windows (BaseShield)': [http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/25/ycombinator-startup- cre...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/25/ycombinator-startup-creates-a- better-download-app-store-for-windows-baseshield/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I don't like the way that one works though.

"The apps run on a virtualization layer on top of the OS..."</comment></comment>