What to do After Making a Billion dollars - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/11/what-do-you-do-after-you-make-a-zillion-dollars/

<comment><USER3> Some thoughts on this.

First, thought certainly not a Billion dollars, I came into a substantial (relative to my normal circumstances) bit of cash soem time ago. His #1 point is dead on, it was a mistake I made and regret a lot (see: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1511200> )

In fact all of the advice looks good.

Except: "The No-Friends Rule"

The premise is sensible, do not donate to your mates, and definitely not to new mates, or old ones you forgot you had. But I don't buy that loaning to friends is a generally bad idea.

I lent a fairly substantial amount to a friend because they had run into financial hardship. We called it a loan because they refused to take it as a gift, but I'm not going to ask for it back.

One of my other mates has a fairly mad idea for a business that he always (for years) wanted to try. I funded that about 18 months ago and it is currently in the balance between outright failure and setting him up with a business for the next 20 years. Again, not expecting the money back.

It is only fucking money. You can enrich other peoples lives with it, so why not. No one _needs_ a Billion dollars, but I know most of my friends could have awesome life changing experiences with a tiny portion of that.

So, yeh, don't become a charity... but always give to your friends.

<comment><USER4> You don't mention the amount you got, but I suspect it's much more than I ever got or currently earn (which is a lot for me (19, always been unemployed)) but I feel this line relates to me:

"there was no sense of ownership on the expensive items"

This is something that I absolutely hate. I have money I don't feel I _deserve_ because it wasn't through hard work and because of this when it comes to buying something I don't think "I have to work x hours for this, is it going to return enough value to me that I am willing to work x hours for this?" as I do when I _earn_ money, I think "I have money why not?" and this really causes problems. I bought an iPhone a few days ago because they seem cool, I already own a nexus one that works perfectly fine, but because I didn't invest any time into buying it I don't really care for it.

Humans are weird...

<comment><USER3> Oh, there's no secret, it was a couple of hundred thousand. I never gave the figure because it still feels like bragging. Enough to make me not worry if I lose my job, not enough to live the high life.

You're right about the ownership - and the earning of money. I made a sum total of about £25 from a single book sale this month, but it feels worth more than the money I got from my job. I'm damn well spending that money on something specific.

I could have got a decorator in to paint my spare room (turning it into an office) but I did it myself, it looks a bit crappy in places, but it feels awesome :) To me the cost of a decorator is ultimately valueless, even though he could do a much better job.

On the other hand I hate washing my car so I pay to get it done.

"Value" and "Worth" are strange concepts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> OT: Followed the books link. The author seems like a pretty shady character. Got his wife to write a glowing Amazon review of his book, under a misleading name.

[http://www.amazon.com/review/R2PELDZ9QQX0C3/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt...](http://www.amazon.com/review/R2PELDZ9QQX0C3/ref=cm_cr_dp_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0062001329&nodeID=283155)

Makes me wonder how he came into that money he mentioned at the start of the Billion Dollars post...

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha. Maybe my wife just loves me. Notice she went through my last book and found out how each stock performed. I'm grateful she did that since I never asked her to do it. I was afraid to look at how the stocks had done.

Check out my blog: jamesaltucher.com. then you can see how shady I am

<comment><USER6> While not shady, the repeated links to follow you on twitter detracted from the article. It also made me trust your writing a little less. Just sayin.

<comment><AUTHOR> Travis, thats a constructive criticism. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's actually odd. I've had pretty decent windfalls come my way a few times and after it happens, all the crap I'd wanted so desperately while I was broke, suddenly wasn't that important. Case in point: I found a blue '69 Chevrolet nova at a pawn shop for $3,000. If I was broke, I'd have stayed awake at night dreaming about that car and "saving up" for it. Yet I had more than enough at the time to buy it outright, and prepay all the fees it'd need for the next year. But I looked at it and had no desire at all to get it. Same thing happened with a luxury watch I was looking at. REALLY wanted it when I couldn't get and once I could my attitude was "I don't need to spend $8,000 on a watch." I guess when my big one comes, I'll be ok. Just my $0.02 on the subject.

<comment><USER8> That has been my experience too. Sometimes the chase is better than the catch..

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd like to add two more:

\- Think about the idea you would have tried if someone had lent you $1M and you wanted to change the world. Lend yourself $1M (only) and do it.

\- Resist the urge to become a professional philanthropist. Have the gumption to dream even bigger than before and risk utter failure. It's only money.

<comment><USER3> I was in a discussion group onceand the tutor asked us "what would you do if your company was sold and tomorrow you found yourself with a million pounds".

Of course, most of us came up with various philanthropic ideas and ways to save the world/do good etc. Except one mate who said "I'd take it and go make £10 Million, then I'd give you all a £1 Million each. Then I'd do it all over again".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like the part about waiting one year before making any major life changes. It makes sense that you would be more risky with new found wealth immediately after acquiring it. Giving yourself time to "get to know" your money should help put things in perspective.

<comment><USER11> I like that part too but it might be simply too strict. The point is to keep lifestyle changes reasonably small during that first year. Replace your old car worth $10k with a new $40k one (but not $200k) and don't buy many cars. Move from a $0.5M apartment to a $3M home (but not $15M) and preferably rent it for now, you will have better idea what you really like to buy after that year. There's no reason you couldn't get some reward for your hard work - <USER2> you need to make it small to don't fall into spending spree.

<comment><USER12> Imagine an Amazon delta dweller who suddenly got a $50K estate and moved to Miami. The choices of goods and services are nothing like he seen before, and their cost is nothing he can relate to. He might overpay a lot, tip too excessively, get things he doesn't need and do not invest into services that are truly necessary.

Which I think was the point of the advice, take a time out to figure out the value of things in your new price range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd suggest just learning how to say No to friends. Why put up bogus reasons? Just say no.. they ask why? "Because I said so. Ask me in a year."

</comment><comment><USER14> i'm confused as to why the title of the piece on his website is "what to do after making a ZILLION dollars" whereas it was posted here on ycombinator news (apparently by the author) under "what to do after making a billion dollars".

to me, "zillion" implies a certain amount of snarkieness, which is more fitting for the article. "billion" implies a more straightforward analysis, perhaps more befitting of the HN crowd.

just an observation.

</comment><comment><USER15> Two chicks at the same time

<comment><USER16> That doesn't take a billion dollars. Hookers are cheap (even if you go for the higher quality ones) and if you have more time than money, there are URLs that can help you <http://themysterymethod.net/>, <http://realsocialdynamics.com/> etc.

Or the real shortcut: be a cocky, funny and extremely self confident asshole. For more details see roissy.wordpress.com.

Finally, a warning: plenty of plenty of people who venture down this route end up loosing any and all respect they ever had for women. The benefit is (potentially) at lot of sex.

<comment><USER17> As someone who has been down this route, IMO taking the lead, being good- humoured and having sex with a shitload of women is _entirely_ mutually exclusive with not respecting them. It's exactly this kind of thinking that a) makes women feel ashamed about their sexuality (thus making it harder for everyone involved to get laid, especially women) and b) casts the 'seduction community' in an overwhelmingly negative light.

And paying for it is bad for your soul dude.

<comment><USER16> As an atheist, I don't need a soul anyway.

But I don't plan on going down that route myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've never heard that chess saying before. That's one to remember.

"Only good players get lucky."

<comment><USER19> Yeah, I think that was the best line in the whole post.

Bummed I can't find any other reference to that saying on the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think American's need to read this article, scale it down, and apply it to their own lives. I love how people think just because you earned a bunch of money you are entitled to spend it on a bunch of crap, whether today or in a year...

<comment><USER21> On exactly what grounds do you suggest that people who earned a bunch of money aren't entitled to spend it on whatever crap they want?

<comment><USER20> On the grounds that you don't have to run out and buy anything just because you can.

<comment><USER21> I'm not really sure I understand the attitude, except to guess that you're just trolling.

Regardless, I suppose they have considerably more right to waste their money how they wish than you do in telling them what to do with it.

<comment><USER22> Other people disagree: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2311274>

I find that post to be extremely scary and reading it gives me a feeling of visceral revulsion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That was disappointing. This doesn't tell me what to do with a billion dollars at all, it tells me what not to do for one year. Okay I wait a year... then what? Beyond typical "invest wisely" advice, there might be things you can do with a billion dollars that I can't even conceive of.

Buy an island and populate it with beautiful naked women? Fund a nuclear fusion project? Build a high speed Mag-Lev train system between Washington DC and New York? Or do you invest in longevity, brain-scan and cryogenics research in attempt to be the first human to live forever?

<comment><USER24> You look at what the people who actually _have_ a billion dollars are doing. Gates, Soros, and Buffet are heavily involved in philanthropy. Zuck, Jobs, Larry, and Sergey are mostly sitting tight. Ellison is living the high life, and Trump is being Trump. Branson's doing the closest to what you're talking about, but mostly in money-making ways.

The point is, none of them are being stupid, and all of them are doing, for the most part, what they'd be doing if they _weren't_ billionaires.

Don't operate under the delusion that fabulous wealth will change who you are as a person. If you aren't happy as a thousandaire, you won't be happy as a billionaire. The one gift that money like that gives you is the time and opportunity to pursue what's important to you, but you've done something wrong if you're not doing that already.

<comment><USER25> zuck donated 100MM to newark school district. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/education/23newark.html>

also he has signed the "Giving Pledge" started by Gates and Buffet to donate most of his wealth. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870349350457600...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703493504576007982500939482.html)

that's certainly not sitting tight.

<comment><USER24> That was just recently, though. Also, there's a huge difference between writing a check and being heavily involved in philanthropy. Gates et al pursue philanthropy as they pursued their careers, but Zuck's is more of a fire and forget style of charity. I'm not blaming him for it; he's a busy guy and it'd be stupid for him to adopt the Gates model while facebook places the demands on his time that it does. Were it not for TSN, he likely would have never done either, not because he's Scrooge but because it's just not a big deal to him.

Which kind of goes back to my point. He's doing essentially the same thing as a billionaire that he was when he was running facebook from his dorm room.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is one of the author's better posts. Some of it seems reminiscent of Paul & Moynihan's "What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars", particularly the point of confusing rapid success in one area (stocks or poker) with the necessary expertise to invest in a new area (hotels in the blog post, thoroughbred horses in the book).

I will echo another comment, however. Three "Follow me on Twitter" links in a single article came across as desperate begging rather than offering extra value to the reader.

</comment><comment><USER27> Buy/create a nation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917></comment>


"What color is the Sun?" An example of science education pathology (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.clarifyscience.info/part/Jw6yo <comment><USER4> > So why do astronomy graduate students not know what color the Sun is?

Without any proof, I will offer a guess: Because it is the wrong question!

If you ask "What is the wavelengths of the light than the sun emits?", you are setting an expectation of an accurate answer. "What color is the sun?" seems a casual question that expects a casual answer.

> White is unambiguously the correct answer.

Obviously false without knowing at what relative speed and in which direction the Sun moves relative to the observer. There are always different degrees of accuracy and expectations need to be set to get the correct answer.

<comment><USER5> White is often defined to be the color of sunlight that reaches the earth's surface (go look at lightbulb specs to see what I mean).

That accounts for any relativistic and atmospheric issues.

<comment><USER6> Lightbulb specs often describe their white color in terms of color temperature, in Kelvin.

This refers to perceptually matching the color of an ideal black body glowing at the specified temperature.

The documented color temperatures of different lights vary considerably. Rarely do they match sunlight. Daytime, overhead sunlight at the Earth's surface has a bluer spectrum than most lightbulbs, but sunlight doesn't look bluish-white because color perception adjusts rapidly for ambient light, and sunlight is so bright it dominates even when it's seen indoors through a window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I just asked my 6 year-old this question.

— What color is the sun?

— White. _(pauses...)_ But some people color it yellow.

— Why is that?

— I don't know, because it's a bright color. _(shrugs and runs off to play)_

It dawned on my that when drawing on a white piece of paper, it's not exactly easy to draw a white object without resorting to inverse video (coloring the blue sky in such a way as to leave a spot that represents the sun).

<comment><USER8> In the blue sky, the sun will be perceived as yellow, not white. Painting it as white would be just as wrong as painting grass hot pink. [https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/what-color- sun](https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/what-color-sun)

<comment><USER9> From the nasa link:

> * it emits most of its energy around 500 nm, which is close to blue-green > light. So one might say that the sun is blue-green! *

Fantastic!

<comment><USER10> [https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/NLPIP/tutorials/photosensor...](https://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/NLPIP/tutorials/photosensors/img/spectralgraph.jpg)

So human eye is more sensitive to the same wavelengths the Sun emits more! So it all evens out and the Sun only appears white! That's why we define white as white as this is "lit by the Sun / reflects all sunlight" \- our only source of light for many years. So if e.g. dog's eye is sensitive to different wavelengths it should see the Sun in different color? But then again, a dog should call it "white" as this is what you would call "lit by sun" as opposed as e.g. "lit by fire".

Fascinating!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This subject isn't really related to physics or astronomy except in a kind of shallow sense.

It has way more to do with the biology and psychology of how we perceive and interpret color (which is an incredibly in-depth and complicated subject!)

Overall the post gives off huge crank vibes, and browsing around the rest of their site does nothing to disabuse me of this impression.

</comment><comment><USER12> Or perhaps the best way of answering questions from five year olds isn't causing these people who know about spectra and wavelength-response to go into pedantic and excessive detail?

If you answer "white" then the next question is "why does it look yellow". This article seems to presuppose that there is a "correct" way to answer a five-year-old that will prevent further questions.

<comment><USER13> A bit embarrassed to ask this, but could someone ELI5 - why _does_ it look yellow? Or rather, why is this a common perception? Why is this the colour kids reach for to draw the sun?

<comment><USER14> Sunlight shifts reddish as the sun sets and its blue light is Raleigh- scattered away by a thicker slice of atmosphere. This also makes it dim enough to look at directly. At its zenith, when the sun is whitest, it can't be naked eye observed, so the balance of subjective impressions is formed by late-day observations when its color is shifted toward yellow/orange/red.

<comment><USER15> Very fancy way of saying "because people only look at it at sunset".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It definitely doesn't help that astronomy students are taught that the sun and sun-like stars are called yellow dwarfs, and almost all visualizations of stellar types associate spectral class G with yellow as well…

<comment><USER17> Sapi-Whorf strikes again!

Seems like a name change is in order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The way I think of it is that our vision system has evolved to work in sunlight.

Therefore the sun looks "neutral" to us. Which is "white".

Or at least sunlight does. The sun itself looks like "pain" :)

<comment><USER19> Thank you! This is the response I came to find/make. The sun's color, when observed by our eyeballs, is "pain" or "ow" or "I can't tell" or something like that, exactly. The sun's color is a recursively unknowable concept which demonstrates the permanent disconnect between us the observers and reality.

This is a Carnap-level kind of interpretation, but it's so very important if we're going to be scientific to be understanding of the limitations of our builtin sensors and the resulting limitations of our modelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The only pathology I see here is the claim that a vaguely specified question has a single unambiguous correct answer.

</comment><comment><USER21> This seems like an ambiguous question deriving from the fact that "color" is a bad representation of light outside of a small window of power and frequency.

What color are x-rays?

<comment><USER22> #FFFFFF00

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It _emits_ white light, but that's only one definition of color. Normally when we talk about color, we talk about reflection and absorption. If we shined a super sun on our sun and wore super sunglasses that block out all of out sun's relatively dim light, what would we see _reflected_ back by the hydrogen- helium ball?

<comment><USER24> Not much. The sun is a blackbody. (But if you discount blackbody radiation, instead of just trying to out-shine it, that's an interesting question.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "White is unambiguously the correct answer."

Hmm, isn't sun wavelength actually closer to very very bright green?

<comment><USER26> The spectral peak is blue-green but the emission is relatively even along the visible light range, so if any color is perceptible it's only a very slight tint. The atmosphere scatters blue light more than other colors so direct sunlight viewed from Earth at noon is even more balanced and pure white.

[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_spectrum_en.sv...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_spectrum_en.svg#/media/File:Solar_spectrum_en.svg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The color of the Sun can be white, yellow or orange. Out in space, it will always be white. Down on Earth, Sun's light is scattered in the atmosphere. The short waves (blue) more so than the long waves [1]. The end result is that the sky looks blue and the Sun looks like the complement of the sky. At midday, the light from the Sun comes in the most direct way, so there is little scattering, and we perceive the sky as less blue and the Sun a very bright yellow. At sunset, the rays go through a much thicker layer of atmosphere, there's a lot of scattering going on, and you end up with a dark color of the sky (blue-purple) and an orange tending to red Sun.

Whoever says the color of the Sun is always white has no idea what they are talking about.

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

</comment><comment><USER28> Well the other thing is that color is kind of a human concept, so we are also looking at the Sun with a specific set of equipment that is different from that of an insect, for example. Even questions like "what color is that flower" look very different in different wavelengths.

Even the lumen is calibrated to the receptivity of the human eye over various wavelengths.

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

I think a much better example of this idea is shown in one of my favorite 80s videos, "A Private Universe" which asks Stanford alumni (in their robes no less) why the moon has phases. Then they show how their misconceptions go all the way back to primary school and were never challenged.

[https://vimeo.com/113349804](https://vimeo.com/113349804)

</comment><comment><USER29> Go outside look at the non-sunset sun, it's white.

Look at photo's on the internet, it's clearly white.

Being clever about scattering blue is wrong. If it did change the color of the sun to yellow during the day, the clouds would be yellow around it like sunset clouds.

The only 'clever' answer why it's not white might be, that small part of the day when people see it without pain, it is yellow.

If you had never seen a sunset or sunrise or a NASA false color sun image or a crayon drawing as a kid, you'd be adamant it is white.

This is what the article is about, people here while trying to be smart still don't seem to get it is actually white most of they day. There is no trick, no optical illusion, it's just a simple question about a thing we are told not to look at.

[http://solar- center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/GreenSun.htm...](http://solar- center.stanford.edu/SID/activities/GreenSun.html)

</comment><comment><USER30> What a strange article. I'm a physics grad student and I entirely disagree with his rather smug answer. From astronomy grad students, he seems to expect a plot of the black body spectrum when asking a casual question over lunch, yet he asks the same question to five year olds? If he wanted an "unambiguously correct" answer then he should ask an unambiguous question. The only pathology demonstrated here is his own.

</comment><comment><USER31> I guess I'm that guy. My answer would be "principally Ultraviolet C." Only if you asked "What color is the sun after filtering through our atmosphere?" am I going to say "white."

Similarly the correct answer to "Why is the sky blue?" is: "It isn't - <USER3> particles reflect ultraviolet even better than blue. We just can't (consciously _) see those colors. "

_ipRGCs do detect UV, and our brains do get this message, and we can report it under at least some conditions.

<comment><USER32> > Similarly the correct answer to "Why is the sky blue?" is: "It isn't - <USER3> > particles reflect ultraviolet even better than blue. We just can't > (consciously) see those colors."

Cliff Stoll gives a great anecdote about this. He's asked "Why is the sky blue", and to every answer he gives the interviewer asks "Why?" Turns out it's a bit complicated.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfm3MFj6LLU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfm3MFj6LLU)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I looked directly at the Sun for 20 seconds without blinking. My brain could not settle on any particular color - it kept shifting hues.

</comment><comment><USER34> In defense of the writer of this article notice that almost all pictures of the sun released by NASA are false colored in shades of yellow/orange. There is almost no sense in which this is close to correct.

</comment><comment><USER35> Because it is a stupid question.

Somebody asks what colour is the sun, the follow up should be why? Are they going to draw the sun on a piece of paper? Then expect a traditional red sun. Or yellow. Nobody draws the the sun as white.

Note that the sun _is_ red, at dusk.

<comment><USER36> Video game designers often draw the sun as white (except when the scene is intended to be near sunrise or sunset). I just doublechecked all the skybox textures I have.

<comment><USER35> The original question was posed by a 5 year old. How many 5 year old videos game designers do you know?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_index](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_index) Looks like 5700k white is pretty close, 5756.59 is more exact.

</comment><comment><USER38> I love this line: "Ah, deadlines. So this is online, but still needs work. Hopefully before any viral attention."

</comment><comment><USER39> If you're a film student, the answer is obviously "blue."

</comment><comment><USER40> "What color is the sun?" "Bright."

</comment><comment><USER41> The word everybody here is looking for is, "pedantry".

</comment><comment><USER42> What a bad article.

Color is hard because of broad spectrum sources, atmospheric scattering effects, biology effects (2-4 wavelength receptors in human eyes), and human psychology ("auto white-balance"). This leads to ambiguous language.

The article does nothing to shed light on those issues.

</comment><comment><USER43> > White is unambiguously the correct answer.

OMFG. It most certainly is not. "White" is a very good explanation for the sum of all visible light that reaches the environment on the ground.

But if you look at (or really towards) the actual bright thing in the sky, you see it as yellow. Preschool kids and amateurs aren't wrong on this. It's yellow. Go look.

I mean, even that's not correct. The disk of the sun itself is too bright for your retina to actually sense, saturates the cells, and leaves weird artifacts (and no small amount of permanent damage, of course) that look like all sorts of colors.

But the glare around the sun that you see before you look away is, for sure, yellow. The shorter wavelengths have been preferentially scattered away on the direct path to your eye. They are the "blue" that someone else sees when they look to that path in the "sky". What's left... is yellow (relative to the general color balance of the non-direct light, that is).

Sure sure, "solar irradiance" is as good a definition for "white" as you'll find. But "the sun" is yellow.

<comment><USER44> Note the question in the article is not the question in the HN title. It's « I'm told the Sun is a big hot ball! Awesome! I love balls! What color is the ball? ».

Under « Methods - Question design » in the article:

« The "ball" helps clarify intent - 'object, viewed from space', not 'eyeball observation made through atmosphere'. »

<comment><USER43> The title is from the article, not the HN submitter. Clearly "What color is the Sun?" reflects the question they want the reader to have in mind, not the specifics of the question they bury down at the end.

So... I don't get it. Your point is that the article's interpretation is "right" because they purposefully designed the question to be confusing? Would you react the same way if you were reading an opinion poll that played the same trickery?

I mean, if they wanted a "correct" answer, why didn't they just ask "what color is sunlight?"</comment></comment></comment>


Las Vegas Slot Machines vs Electronic Voting Machines - <AUTHOR> http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2006/03/16/GR2006031600213.gif

<comment><USER2> Scary stuff, but this is from 2006 and not all of these things are still true in all places. (States like CA require access to all software used on machines, for example.)

That said, these comparisons between voting machines and ATMs or slot machines are always a bit unfair. Slot machines and ATMs carefully log and track every action that every user does on them. In a voting machine, it must be _impossible_ to tie a vote to a specific person. This is makes it a much trickier problem to solve.

<comment><USER3> The problem may be tricky, but surely it's worth solving and doing so publicly. Shouldn't this be doable?

Of all the things i would like to see well-intentioned billionaires do, funding a permanent mission to perfect voting is very high on the list. what greater gift to democracy than provable integrity of its atom?

<comment><USER2> Here's the other thing, though: voter fraud is _incredibly_ rare. Yes, we could do better. But this is not the most pressing issue of our time.

Really, we may be better off launching a PR campaign to remind people that voting mostly works.

<comment><USER4> It's not jut about whether vote fraud is happening though - its also about the _perception_ of whether vote fraud _can_ happen.

I think it would be worth expending a considerable amount of resources not in the expectation of catching any fraud, but to be able to demonstrate that if there _were_ any vote fraud, there are appropriate means in place to find it.

<comment><USER2> Actually, we already kinda did that. Attorney General Ashcroft made voter fraud a top priority for the Department of Justice. Yet there were very few convictions nationwide, and nearly all of them were for honest mistakes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am sooooo glad I don't have to vote electronically. Folks here who flip bits for a living know only too well how easy this is to do. Changing a thousand paper ballots? Hard, time comsuming, messy. Changing a thousand electronic ballots? Invisible, silent, quick, untracable...

<comment><USER6> How exactly do you think those paper ballots are being counted?

<comment><USER7> In civilised democracies they are counted in public by lots of little old ladies while inspectors from each party, and any member of the public can watch them.

Of course this does rather reduce the drama and excitement so it might not be suitable for you chaps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think its worth mentioning that winner-take-all elections prevent you from getting your interests represented. So this whole debate is like fiddling with the alignment of your wheels when the car's no longer on the road.

<comment><USER9> I voted today. A few of the issues I had to vote on had only 1 choice. (I fill-in the bubble, or, not. WTF.) Several had 2 choices, the RP candidate or the DP candidate. A few had 3-5 choices. A few had a blank line for "write in" choice. This is "democracy" in action today in the USA, folks.

<comment><USER8> We need proportional representation. I'm pretty sure I'd have better choices with PR. Right now its a choice between people that don't understand economics or real life and people that don't understand economics or real life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All you need in a voting machine is something that can properly punch the cards. That's what the problem in 2000. You don't need to send the votes over the Internet or store anything on the machine. It doesn't need to be secure.

But you will need a PC that costs a couple hundred bucks. And a card punch machine that has been around for decades. In other words, commodity hardware.

Once you've made your choices and your ballot's punched, you should be able to walk it over to a completely different PC that has a punch card reader. And maybe its got software from a completely different organization. Did it record your choices properly? Confirmed. Now, drop it in the box.

Simple. No possibility for fraud and you got a paper trail.

<comment><USER10> Nit: You don't even need anachronistic punch card machines, color-in-the- bubble voting forms work just fine. Those are used in even more places than hole punch forms these days, from voting to SAT grading machines. They're even more commodity, more familiar to the public.

Otherwise, agreed.

<comment><USER8> yeah but using a PC lets the user see their choices clearly and encodes their vote with a single click, instead of having to relate a letter or number to their choice and find the question on the form and then confirm the letter or number before finally filling it in. Grandmothers with shaky hands will have a much easier time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Alas, the game is rigged in DC and the state legislatures. Regulation as strong as the slot machines is likely to be applied...never, at the current rate of change. So goes the gamble of democracy.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is probably just a function of slot machines having been around for much longer.

Of course all these same requirements make perfect sense to implement for voting machines.

<comment><USER13> Actually I believe it's a function that older machines were specifically designed to be either unwinnable (I've seen some old slots, certain ones don't have BAR or _7_ on all wheels) or for the odds to be exponentially against you.

When the laws changed and gaming was regulated casinos wanted to make sure _they_ weren't the ones now being cheated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I never thought I'd say this, but the US government definitely needs to take a cue from Las Vegas..

<comment><USER15> In Las Vegas gamblers get no bailouts.</comment></comment>


Building an Impossible Clock - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/pendulum-clock-john-harrison/424614/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Previous discussion (april 2015): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9402297)

</comment><comment><USER3> > As the name suggests, the language is dense and convoluted. The contemporary > British clockmaker George Daniels has called the text "rubbish"; Rupert > Gould, the author of the biography Burgess read, described it as > "gibberish."

This is the mark of a strong "right-brainer": completely inspired but struggling to communicate it.

</comment><comment><USER4> See also: a film about Harrison, and his designs for a sea-voyage-proof clock.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192263/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192263/)

(I enjoyed the film many years ago, and I can't recall what, if anything, it has in the way of technical details.)

</comment><comment><USER5> But for the work of 1 man - Martin Burgess, this is yet another marvel of old technology that may have been lost forever, along with Greek Fire, Roman Concrete, Damascus Steel and many others.</comment>


Hundreds of unsecured Elasticsearch servers wiped, similarly to MongoDB attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/article/first-came-mass-mongodb-ransacking-now-copycat-ransoms-hit-elasticsearch/ <comment><USER2> Hey kids,

If you run any sort of database, now's the time to put it behind a firewall.

Hugs and kisses, Common Sense

<comment><USER3> ES is not really a database :) most databases have some authentication features out of the box ... but true: for those kids who don't know how to block a port, configure nginx proxies etc.: [https://sematext.com/blog/2017/01/18/elasticsearch- security-...](https://sematext.com/blog/2017/01/18/elasticsearch-security- authentication-encryption-backup/)

The most valuable part is about backups for ES indices - this could save you some bitcoins ;)</comment></comment>


New ways to make vertical farming stack up - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/08/29/new-ways-to-make-vertical-farming-stack-up <comment><USER2> >The biggest drawback of vertical farming is the high cost of the electricity required to run the large number of LEDS...One way of saving electricity is to use LED s that generate only the colours that plants require, instead of the full spectrum of plain white light.

This is a big issue and I've been unable to get good data on it. Opponents of vertical farms say that the high electrical consumption doesn't justify the reduction in energy related to travel. Proponents say that it's possible to optimize LEDs and have continuous fake "seasons" which justify the cost of transportation & refrigeration for certain species of food.

Does anyone have any good references that go into the details and provides numbers? Most of the pro-vertical farming information I've found is from companies who are investing in it so they consider the energy numbers to be a trade secret. But there must be some research group or open source team willing to publish all their data so that people can draw their own independent conclusions.

<comment> bjelkeman-again There isn't much to be secret about really. When you ask any of the big LED suppliers, like Philips or Hortilux, for a quotation, they ask what you are planning to grow and they give you a lighting plan. The energy usage is relatively predictable, if you know how the building you are in is insulated and you know your ventilation requirements. It isn't trivial, but it is possible to do the numbers.

We will be publishing some data from our pilot installation next year (approx 250 m2 building, 100 m2 active growing area, 30 m3 water). It isn't a vertical installation, but a Deep Water Culture (DWC) aquaponics installation. We are in the final stages of building it right now. Spent all day working on the decking around the fish tanks.

<comment><USER3> anything you share will be much appreciated.

<comment> bjelkeman-again It will be shared over here (not much content yet and ugly, but release early etc.) Translations to come. [http://cirkularodling.se/](http://cirkularodling.se/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a skeptic but vertical farming in the ocean might have more promise like the 3-D ocean farm project. [0]

[0] [https://www.bfi.org/ideaindex/projects/2015/greenwave](https://www.bfi.org/ideaindex/projects/2015/greenwave)

</comment><comment><USER5> Energy isn't vertical farmings only issue. The fact that you cannot grow staple crops like wheat, soy, or rice indoors is the major issue. Most of what these farms are best suited to grow can be considered "crunchy water" and not nutritious enough to feed a planet.

<comment><USER6> What about potatoes? Seems like those are a fairly good staple crop.

<comment><USER7> Not sure, but I don't think root vegetables are good for growing indoors. They need a lot of soil depth. I can't imagine it'd be efficient, but not sure...

<comment><USER8> you can grow root vegetables (at least some) hydroponically

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it possible to use fiber optics, conducting the light (and UVs, maybe even screening out unwanted ones) obtained from some dome-shaped collectors installed outside (probably on the roof) to the culture?

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

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://archive.is/YwnHT](http://archive.is/YwnHT)

</comment><comment><USER11> Yeah that's a tricky one. First of all it has been settled that white light is the way to go in order to enhance taste and other characteristics. The game is in making led more efficient and plant factories or vertical farms more automated. It also has to do with location, check Japan and China.

What you are looking for is research from luuk graamans. He has made some slight errors on the light intensity needed but still. In any case vertical farming now is not there yet in Europe and the US but it will get there.

We also did some research on photovoltaic use with some good results :/

</comment><comment><USER12> dx7tnt responded with a most informative link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905033)

The "food miles" thing is insignificant nonsense; see notes/strawberry- miles.html in [http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190831.tar.gz](http://canonical.org/~kragen/dercuano-20190831.tar.gz).

I'm dubious about the economics of the thing.

Let's assume that the power source is solar. The 84% energy loss of solar panels, followed by the 80% energy loss of LED lighting, works out to about 3% of the sunlight harvested getting to the plants. That's a high price to pay for wavelength-shifting and time-shifting; it's hard to see when this would be a better solution than skylights, lightpipes, and colored filters, maybe supplemented by LEDs or low-pressure sodium at night. (Except, I suppose, to avoid violent reprisals for cultivation somebody doesn't like.)

If the power source is fossil fuels or nuclear energy, it makes even less economic sense, except at extreme latitudes like those of northern Scotland or Norway, because those energy sources are even more expensive.

In moderate latitudes with adequate civil rights, it would seem that the only reason for indoor cultivation with only or primarily artificial light would be an aesthetic taste for the artificial, like tailfins on 1950s cars or the bright blue LEDs on current shitty consumer electronics.

<comment><USER13> Scotland exports more energy than that it uses. Most of that energy is wind based; not solar. You are right that using nuclear of fossil fuels for this would not be economically viable. Luckily, clean energy is cheaper and Norway and Scotland export a lot of it. Especially Norway is rather dark and the only way to grow stuff there most of the year is indoors.

Regarding solar, even if your percentages were correct (and I'm pretty sure they are not); the point of sun light is that it has a very attractive cost of exactly 0$. It costs absolutely nothing. So it doesn't matter that solar panels are not very efficient. They actually are getting better and certainly 16% efficiency is nowhere near the best there is. However, the only thing that matters is the cost of these panels and the amount of space they take up. Which is why places like Scotland and Norway still find uses for solar panels even though conditions are obviously less than ideal for operating them. As mentioned, both have alternate sources of clean energy that are cheap and plentiful (i.e. wind and hydro). And if you look at Iceland, it uses geothermal to power it's greenhouses.

The whole point of LEDs is that they are supposedly very efficient; around 40-50%. Also heat is not actually energy loss in a vertical farm. Temperatures in Scotland are below ideal temperatures for growing things. Meaning most of the energy use in a vertical farm is probably used for temperature control (mostly heating and occasionally cooling).

Luckily, you can produce both heat and light using energy. Meaning that the reason vertical farming is getting a lot of attention is that the cost of energy has been dropping by rather a lot and is projected to continue to drop. Effectively this dominates variable cost in a vertical farm. The economics of growing vegetables in a vertical farm is a simple function of kilos of produce / kwh.

You seem to be arguing this cost is too high. That seems to be countered by the many people actually growing stuff in greenhouses for decades this and making plenty of money. E.g. the Netherlands is the largest exporter of tomatoes world wide. This is a billion dollar industry. These tomatoes are grown in green houses. Those used to be powered using cheap natural gas and in recent years are being powered by cheap wind energy. Square meters are expensive in the Netherlands and most of those tomatoes are grown in an area that has very high population density. I'd say vertical farms consume similar amounts of energy (or less) but have a much higher space efficiency.

<comment><USER12> > _the point of sun light is that it has a very attractive cost of exactly 0$. > It costs absolutely nothing. So it doesn 't matter that solar panels are not > very efficient. They actually are getting better and certainly 16% > efficiency is nowhere near the best there is._

For most purposes I agree with you! However, in this case, the alternatives I am considering are:

1\. Build a 10000 m² greenhouse full of, say, lettuce, perhaps on multiple shelves ("vertical farming").

2\. Build a 10000 m² solar park full of solar cells, then use the energy produced by the solar cells to illuminate lettuce being grown inside an opaque concrete box, of some arbitrarily variable size.

In this comparison, the efficiency of solar cells and of LEDs matters very much indeed! Because of their inefficiency, you get 30 times as much lettuce in case #1. That's the reason I think this scheme is uneconomic except in unusual cases. In another part of the comment thread, I agreed that abundant wind energy is a case where it might make sense.

It's true that there are solar cells in commercial production that are 30+% efficient instead of 16%. However, those are specialty solar cells designed for use in things like spacecraft (we used them on our satellites at Satellogic, for example.) Consequently, they are eye-wateringly expensive and not getting cheaper, and so nobody is building solar parks with them, particularly since non-arable land is abundant and will remain so for a couple of decades, while the prices of low-cost 16%-efficient solar cells are dropping like a hafnium pellet.

> _The whole point of LEDs is that they are supposedly very efficient; around > 40-50%._

No, LEDs are nowhere close to 50% efficient. LEDs have many wonderful attributes, including tunable color spectra, directionality, the possibility of being scaled down to submillimeter scales (hard to do with an incandescent bulb!) and, indeed, very good efficiency --- _compared to other light sources_ , that is. The problem is, all light sources are shitty when it comes to efficiency; LEDs are just less shitty. That's why we charge our cellphones wirelessly with induction coils, not LEDs and expensive multijunction photovoltaic cells.

It's hard to get your hands on good efficiency numbers, because LED vendors don't quote any kind of absolute energy efficiency number in the datasheets, because they only publish luminous efficacy (because that's what people normally care about). In theory, we can derive the absolute energy efficiency using a luminous-efficiency curve: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminosity_function](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminosity_function). I'll see if I can do that in a separate comment.

> _heat is not actually energy loss in a vertical farm._

This argument turns out to be wrong; I've explained why in detail in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20906210](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20906210), but in brief, 87% of the energy we're talking about gets lost in the solar park, not the hothouse, and artificial illumination to crop-growing levels produces so much heat that you need to air-condition the hothouse rather than heating it. Moreover, produced heat is _always_ energy loss, because you can always reduce it further even by adequate insulation.

> _Meaning that the reason vertical farming is getting a lot of attention is > that the cost of energy has been dropping by rather a lot and is projected > to continue to drop. Effectively this dominates variable cost in a vertical > farm._

It's true that the cost of energy dropping, and to levels that would make people in the Space Age gasp. I still don't see how that justifies building a 30-hectare solar park to grow the same lettuce you could grow in a one-hectare greenhouse. I mean, how big is your armored vault hothouse going to be?

> _You seem to be arguing this cost is too high. That seems to be countered by > the many people actually growing stuff in greenhouses for decades this and > making plenty of money._

No, man, that's not what I'm _saying_ , man. I'm saying that if you're going to build a hothouse, make it a greenhouse. Daylight it, with skylights and/or lightpipes. Maybe supplement with artificial lighting some of the time. Lighting it with a solar farm that's thirty times as big is going to be more expensive, unless solar cells are thirty times cheaper than glass per square meter, and lighting it with fossil fuels is more expensive still. Fuck, thirty times cheaper than plexiglass. Thirty times cheaper than the shitty transparent plastic wrap we used to make greenhouses in Ecovillage Velatropa. If you're right and, against all odds, LEDs are now 50% efficient, exceeding the theoretical ideal luminous efficacy maximum Wikipedia gives, the threshold becomes fifteen times cheaper instead of thirty --- still improbable!

While I'm calculating the efficiency of LEDs for you, would you mind undoing your downvote, please, now that you know you entirely misread the main thrust of the comment you were downvoting?

<comment><USER13> Well there are a lot of confused arguments being made. One of the reasons for my downvote was that you are being rather assertive and dismissive. You speak with an authority that is simply not there and citing numbers to make a point that doesn't survive a lot of scrutiny.

Anyway, you seem to like numbers: \- [https://ecotality.com/most-efficient- solar-panels/](https://ecotality.com/most-efficient-solar-panels/), So, 20-22% for commercial solar panels; not 16%. That seems consistent with numbers that I've heard elsewhere.

\- [https://www.dial.de/en/blog/article/efficiency-of-ledsthe- hi...](https://www.dial.de/en/blog/article/efficiency-of-ledsthe-highest- luminous-efficacy-of-a-white-led/) So, 40-50%; with the rest being produced as heat because physics. You need both light and heat in a vertical farm or a greenhouse (which use lots of LEDs because the sun does not always shine). That seems consistent with the notion that I can touch an LED lamp and not burn myself. They are not producing a lot of heat and plenty of light.

Vertical farms are possible, economical, and possibly very lucrative because energy is cheap. Your argument is basically that because of inefficiencies in solar plants (real or imagined) vertical farms cannot possibly be economical.

Well that's a simple thing to calculate: kilo watt hours go in, kilos of produce come out. Either that adds up or it doesn't. For reference, the Netherlands is feeding most of Europe from a hundred square kilometers of wind powered green houses. Billion dollar business. Including in the middle of the winter when the sun is largely missing in action and it is cloudy, dark, and cold. It's been economical and highly profitable to do that for decades. To the point where Italy imports Dutch tomatoes.

Vertical farms are simply more efficient ways of doing the same things using largely the same kinds of technologies. The revolutionary thing is the level of automation and the ability to farm in, on top, or close to where the produce is used/sold. That seems to start making a lot of sense economically in a lot of places already doing this. The cheaper the energy, the more sense it makes.

<comment><USER12> > _Well there are a lot of confused arguments being made._

There certainly are! If you think more carefully and pay more attention to what I'm saying, you can stop making them.

Again, I'm well aware greenhouses can be economical; that's my whole point --- greenhouses are more economical than indoor cultivation! It's unfortunate that your annoyance with my tone is leading you to put so much effort into rebutting things I'm not saying in the first place.

The part where the economics aren't going to work out is where we switch from gathering sunlight with glass or plastic windows to gathering sunlight with solar panels and reproducing it through LEDs, losing 97% of it in the process. (That's assuming 20%-efficient LEDs.) Even at the 48.7% LED efficiency in the article you cite, you're still losing 92% of the sunlight in this process. The only way that can work out is if 13 square meters of solar panel come out to be cheaper than _one_ square meter of glass or plastic skylight in the greenhouse, or if the artificial lighting is used as a supplementary source of light (as you say has been done for decades), or if the power for the LEDs comes from something even cheaper than low-cost solar panels. That last is definitely a possibility in places like Scotland, Norway, or Iceland, where sunlight is scarce and other power sources are available.

This is analogous to discussions about desalinated water. With modern reverse- osmosis plants, desalinated water is astoundingly cheap: US$0.58/kℓ as of 2016 at Israel's new Sorek plant, for example, so you can fulfill the drinking, cooking, and bathing needs of a household for about US$7 a year. But it's no longer cheap when you consider water use on an agricultural scale, where (in medieval units) that's US$715 per acre foot, two or three times the price farmers in the US commonly pay.

So, yes, energy is very cheap, and will get cheaper. But energy on an agricultural scale is still not cheap, and solar panels will never make energy on an agricultural scale cheap. You need a cheaper source of power.

As for the high-efficiency solar panels, yes, there have been 21%-efficient solar panels for a long time, since the 1970s in fact. The multijunction solar cells we used on our satellites were 30% efficient, if memory serves, and multijunction cells in the lab have exceeded 40%. As the article you linked explains, the 22%-efficient panels are monocrystalline solar panels marketed as "high efficiency"; you can see in [https://www.solarserver.de/service- tools/photovoltaik-preisi...](https://www.solarserver.de/service- tools/photovoltaik-preisindex.html) that they consistently cost about 60% more per watt, and therefore 120% more per square meter, than the 16%-efficient "low-cost" polycrystalline solar panels that are universally used in new solar power stations. So high-efficiency solar panels don't turn out to be a cheaper source of power than low-cost solar panels, any more than diesel fuel is, except, say, in Antarctica. High-efficiency solar panels are what you use when paying twice as much per square meter is okay as long as you get 60% more energy out of your very limited roof.

I understand how, since you lack that deeper knowledge about the context, it sounds to you like I'm being unreasonably assertive and dismissive. But in fact my assertivity and dismissal are based on understanding aspects of the situation you just weren't aware of.

The article on super-efficient white LEDs [https://www.dial.de/en/blog/article/efficiency-of-ledsthe- hi...](https://www.dial.de/en/blog/article/efficiency-of-ledsthe-highest- luminous-efficacy-of-a-white-led/) is very promising! I very much appreciate you bringing it to my attention. The calculation method they outline is solid. Unfortunately, their results are not reproducible or falsifiable, because they don't say _which_ LEDs have these remarkably high efficiencies. (They do say that most illumination LEDs are less efficient, but of course that's no bar to LED-illuminated subterranean hothouses --- you could just not use the inefficient LEDs.) Lacking information on the particular brand and part numbers as well as testing conditions (temperature and current, mostly), it's impossible to say whether their astonishing results indicate that these near-50% efficiencies are reliably achievable, whether they are achievable but only under conditions that are otherwise unfavorable in some way (water- cooling the LEDs, for example), or whether they simply amount to some kind of measurement or calculation error. The results I've seen on manufacturer datasheets and other reproducible, falsifiable sources unfortunately do not reach this level of performance.

Nevertheless, even if those surprising claims about LEDs do pan out, it doesn't undermine my core claim, which is that a square meter of skylight is going to grow more vegetables than a square meter of solar panels, and that the solar panels are not, in the foreseeable future, going to be sufficiently cheaper than glass or clear plastic to make this an economic win. Low-cost solar panels currently cost about €30/m² wholesale, plastic wrap on Amazon costs about €0.001/m², and the solar panels provide one-sixth the energy, one- thirteenth after going through a 50%-efficient LED, or one-thirtieth after going through a 20%-efficient LED. If the LEDs were 100% efficient and there were no transmission and storage losses, the cost of energy would still need to fall by a factor of a hundred and eighty thousand for the costs to become equal. That's 17 to 18 doublings; expect it around 2050 to 2060.

Beating durable plexiglass should come sooner: [https://www.amazon.com/Cast- FS-Plexi-Glass-size/dp/B01LYK5RD...](https://www.amazon.com/Cast-FS-Plexi- Glass- size/dp/B01LYK5RDW/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=plexiglass+48+96&qid=1567924820&s=gateway&sr=8-5) is US$300 (€270) for 14.9 m² of 3.2-mm-thick acrylic, which is US$20/m² (€18/m²). That's only a factor of 10.4 cheaper than (wholesale) low-cost solar panels, or a factor of 50 cheaper than low-cost solar panels powering 20%-efficient LEDs; solar panels are on track to beat that in a decade or two. It'll be interesting to see what they find to protect the solar panels from hail, though. Maybe it'll work for greenhouses too.

<comment><USER14> I don't see anywhere any mention of spectral efficiency. Can't find any reference number, but it seems plants grow the same under sunlight (say, 1000W/m2) as under LED lights that use only 250W/m2 or even less.

When typical solar panel gets 160 W/m2 output then the comparison isn't so lopsided as you describe.

<comment><USER12> I'd be very interested! I agree, this would change the situation enormously.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did the sun start charging by kwh now?

If not then I doubt this is a commercially competitive strategy.

Much like coal vs solar it'll get there eventually but I'm highly skeptical of this working out right now.

<comment><USER12> I don't think it'll get there eventually, unless I misinterpreted you? See my top-level comment for the reasoning.

<comment><USER15> >I don't think it'll get there eventually, unless I misinterpreted you?

Controlled farming has advantages on pesticide use, water use, location, automation etc.

So to my totally untrained eye...that seems like yes eventually that'll eat into the whole LED isn't free like sun advantage.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but as pointed out both in the article and my comment, you can get those same advantages with a greenhouse, except maybe for "location".

<comment><USER15> Honestly the whole...this discussion but also something I said somewhere else is a very irritating style.

If you want to tell me something...do so.

I have better things to do that dig through your post history to figure out what you reckon you might have referenced that is important in your eyes.

<comment><USER12> Oh, sorry about that! I meant [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905366](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20905366) \--- I was writing on my hand computer where copying and pasting links is a pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can you do vertical farming with light pipes?

</comment><comment><USER17> Link for those without the Economist:

[https://www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com/the-economist- gro...](https://www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com/the-economist-growing- higher-new-ways-to-make-vertical-farming-stack-up/)</comment>


Raytraced Venice in Wikipedia - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2010/03/raytraced-venice-in-wikipedia.html

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one who, watching that video, feels a powerful urge to start speaking with an Italian accent, climbing up walls, throwing guards off rooftops, and stabbing unsuspecting people in various gory ways, with a blade hidden in my sleeve?

Umm, yes, I probably am. But those of you who know what I'm talking about, know what I'm talking about.

</comment><comment><USER3> VRML's corpse preserved by scientists, resurrected 15 years later to haunt Wikipedia?</comment>


Tesla Owner Uses 'Summon' to Remotely Move His Car to Avoid Parking Tickets - <AUTHOR> https://jalopnik.com/tesla-owner-uses-summon-to-remotely-move-his-car-to-avo-1830177570 <comment><USER2> Tesla already fixed parking tickets in April of 2015: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=bn1uzAJk-6o](https://youtube.com/watch?v=bn1uzAJk-6o)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't generally work in Seattle, where you need to move at least a block.

Also, it's a liability nightmare if something bad happens. Seems like a poor mechanism to avoid a few minutes work...

<comment><USER4> Most places I know of are like that. I don't see what the ability to move your car ~40 feet into another parking spot is good for in this case. Actually, I'm having trouble seeing what it's good for at all.

<comment><USER5> it's explained in the feature description. it helps you get into or out of the car in a tight spot. lets you park like an asshole into a tight compact spot.

<comment><USER6> Alternatively, it let's you park like an asshole next to a Tesla and not worry about it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _I'm not even sure it's illegal, really._

I don't think that will take long to patch.

<comment><USER8> I don't know, the patch release schedule of governments tends to be extremely slow.

<comment><USER7> Only for low-priority items. Anything that involves votes or money goes to the top of the pile.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Do you ever go to StackOverflow twice for the same problem? - <AUTHOR> I find myself googling to solve a problem, finding a piece of code and months later when I need to do it again when I have long forgotten it, I repeat the same thing.<p>Is this common? <comment><USER2> It may be worth keeping a notepad, journal, or even a blog that you can document snippets and things you've learned if you're finding that you're using Google or StackOverflow often to try and solve the same problems.

I personally just keep around a handful of markdown files split up into different categories for things I use every few months, but can never remember the exact command or series of commands to accomplish it.

I've also had a few coworkers and friends who have hosted blogs (some public, some private) for the same purposes.

Documenting them in your own words will also likely help with the knowledge retention so you may even find that you won't need to look it up next time it happens.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah that makes sense. Do you keep these files using a tool or just in organised folders right now? Could you link a public blog for reference? Would love to take a look. I have been taking notes sometimes like yourself but I find it hard to look them up later.

<comment><USER2> I have a single folders I call "Notes" with a handful of files that make up the arbitrary groupings and I keep a "notes.md" file in project folders for project specific notes I want to keep about.

For example, in the "Notes" folder, "wkhtmltopdf.md" contains some notes around issues I was experiencing in getting wkhtmltopdf setup in a new environment and the steps I took to resolve them. Whereas "general.md" just contains some Docker commands I do infrequently but can never remember the arguments I need each time and don't want to spend the time reading the docs and crafting the command again.

Periodically I'll spot something in my notes I haven't used in many months and I'll just delete them from my notes. Usually this is because I just remember the command/what to do after a while _or_ because it's just never cropped up again.

As for a public blog reference, here's an example of one that has a handful of blog posts with notes and they've used tags for grouping and looking up later on: [https://jwigley.com/](https://jwigley.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks this is useful :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think so. I find myself sometimes doing a search, where the top-level link(s) are colored visited, so I must have seen them before.

One of the most common reasons is Python's argparse. I find it easier to consult the documentation when I need it than remember how it works.

Every once in a while the page which gives me the answer is something that I wrote.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have you tried bookmarking it or keeping notes ? I bookmark stuff which I think would be useful but then I dont remember I have the bookmark of it.

"Every once in a while the page which gives me the answer is something that I wrote" \-- Wow.

<comment><USER3> If it's code, I make notes in the code as to where the answers came from.

If it's build/configuration, I keep a log of the changes I made. Which has proved very handy.

But just because it's in my notes, doesn't mean I remember it. I have to know where to look.

Yeah, I had a friend of mine point to some code I wrote in a StackOverflow comment. I had no memory of writing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> "I have to know where to look." -> For me personally this is the hard part.

<comment><USER3> Inscribed on the wall over the entrance of what was the first library building at my undergrad: "The half of knowledge is knowing where to find it".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> All the time. StackOverflow questions are there to stay.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you keep notes?

<comment><USER5> No. I have a good memory of how to find it again.

<comment><USER6> hehehe, lol , me too</comment></comment></comment></comment>


YUI3 and a Quiet Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://andrewwooldridge.com/blog/2010/03/27/yui3-and-a-quiet-revolution/ YUI3 is developing an 'apt-get' for extensions and web services. <comment><USER2> Can't see much revolution there.

So they now have a plugin-repository and allow you to directly reference those scripts from your pages. That's great and all, except I don't _want_ to embed external code that may change silently (or not so silently..) at any time.

Here's a tip: People flock to jQuery not because of some bells & whistles like a plugin-repo, but rather because it makes one hell of a lot of sense at the very core. It just feels right™ and allows for very short and elegant code. YUI? Not so much.

YUI feels more like someone took the "Java" in _Java_ script way too seriously.

<comment><USER3> "So they now have a plugin-repository and allow you to directly reference those scripts from your pages. That's great and all, except I don't want to embed external code that may change silently (or not so silently..) at any time."

YUI 3 gallery modules are hosted on Yahoo!'s CDN, and are versioned. Once a particular version of a module is on the CDN at a particular location, it will never ever change, and URLs pointing to it will always point at that exact version.

"YUI feels more like someone took the "Java" in Javascript way too seriously."

This is a common criticism of YUI 2, but have you tried YUI 3? Carlos Bueno's jQuery - YUI 3 Rosetta Stone is an excellent source for comparing common jQuery syntax and idioms with YUI 3. If you haven't looked at YUI 3 before, you may be surprised: <http://carlos.bueno.org/jq-yui.html>

<comment><USER2> _Once a particular version of a module is on the CDN at a particular location, it will never ever change, and URLs pointing to it will always point at that exact version._

Well, I still don't see the revolution. Javascript hosting is not exactly rocket science. So, okay, they have a shiny plugin store now. Great. Pig + lipstick?

 _you may be surprised:<http://carlos.bueno.org/jq-yui.html> _

Thanks for that link, interesting comparison.

I'm sorry to say that I was not surprised, though. There is not a single snippet where YUI is less verbose. In every non-trivial snippet YUI is more verbose, often significantly so.

The difference may seem small in these trivial snippets but it hints at what happens in real-world codebases: YUI complexity _does_ pile up exponentially, not so with jQuery.

<comment><USER3> _"Javascript hosting is not exactly rocket science. So, okay, they have a shiny plugin store now. Great. Pig + lipstick?"_

The "revolution" is not that third-party modules are hosted on the Yahoo! CDN. That's been the case for a while now. The cool part is that in YUI 3.1.0, using third-party gallery modules is as easy as adding the module name to your YUI.use() call:

      YUI().use('gallery-history-lite', function (Y) {
        // Boom, I'm using the History Lite gallery module.
      });

The real power here is not just that it's easy to use third-party modules, it's that it's easy to use third-party modules in conjunction with official modules, and YUI intelligently concatenates and loads them using combo-handled requests for optimal performance. And you don't need to worry about any of it.

 _"There is not a single snippet where YUI is less verbose. In every non- trivial snippet YUI is more verbose, often significantly so. The difference may seem small in these trivial snippets but it hints at what happens in real- world codebases: YUI complexity does pile up exponentially, not so with jQuery."_

You seem to be asserting that verbosity === complexity. This is untrue.

Where YUI 3 really shines is in large applications with many loosely-coupled components -- exactly the kinds of "real-world codebases" you mentioned. In these environments, YUI 3's modular architecture, flexibility, and consistency make it possible to keep your codebase maintainable while also ensuring optimal performance by allowing you to easily tailor the components loaded for a given page to suit the specific needs of that page, rather than having to load huge monolithic chunks of code that will never be executed.

<comment><USER2> _And you don't need to worry about any of it._

Well, call me a cynic but I'll believe it when I see it.

The concept is definitely neat tech-wise, but even if it works as advertised; for me it's solving a non-issue. I wouldn't like to depend on the YUI servers like that and I don't see how adding a <script>-tag to load a plugin is too much work.

I can see this being a handy helper during testing ("let's check this one out, quickly"). But revolutionary is too big a word for that...

 _You seem to be asserting that verbosity === complexity. This is untrue._

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree there. Different mindsets I suppose. YUI clashes fundamentally with my all-time favorite programming quote:

        Good code should be like a miniskirt:
        long enough to cover the subject,
        short enough to maintain interest.

Shoehorning javascript (a prototype based language) into a class model might have seemed like a good idea _before_ jQuery came around. But now jQuery exists and I don't see why I should settle for less. Modularity and consistency are strong in jQuery land, too. JS code doesn't have to look like java to obtain these properties.

Now as this has turned into a framework rant (sorry) let me do YUI some justice, too. As said, I don't see why _I_ should settle for less but I do see at least one reason why others do. YUI does indeed have a strong (perhaps the strongest) library of unobtrusive modules and widgets. I'm absolutely looking forward to see whether they can sustain that edge. In my biased eye it seems like jquery UI is catching up fast, but time will tell.

 _ensuring optimal performance by [...] rather than having to load huge monolithic chunks of code that will never be executed._

That's wrong. Normally you _want_ that one monolithic chunk because it will be fetched once and then be cached. You don't want each page to fetch various bits of javascript for the same reasons why performance-obsessed sites combine their images into a single sprite-file.

<comment><USER3> _"Shoehorning javascript (a prototype based language) into a class model might have seemed like a good idea before jQuery came around. But now jQuery exists and I don't see why I should settle for less. Modularity and consistency are strong in jQuery land, too. JS code doesn't have to look like java to obtain these properties."_

YUI doesn't shoehorn JavaScript into a classical model. I'm curious why you think it does. Is it just because the namespacing makes it _look_ like a classical model at a glance?

 _"That's wrong. Normally you want that one monolithic chunk because it will be fetched once and then be cached. You don't want each page to fetch various bits of javascript for the same reasons why performance-obsessed sites combine their images into a single sprite-file."_

There are very few absolutes in the web performance world. In some cases, using a single monolithic JS file will be beneficial. In other cases, it will not.

I speak from experience, having worked on Yahoo! Search for the last 3 years (using YUI, no less) where we have a single page (the search results page) which has millions of possible feature combinations that depend entirely on the results for a specific query, and which can even vary for different users searching for the same query. If we loaded a single monolithic JS file, it would be many many megabytes huge, and even when cached, parsing and execution would be painful. Worse: changing a single character in a single component would require pushing a new version of the file and invalidating every cached copy (and we push changes _very_ frequently).

<comment><USER2> _YUI doesn't shoehorn JavaScript into a classical model. I'm curious why you think it does. Is it just because the namespacing makes it look like a classical model at a glance?_

Well, yes. Not only at a glance. You seem to call them modules and components, but overall it's a plain old Class hierarchy.

Again, that's a completely valid way to use javascript - I just think the jquery-way is the more natural route.

 _There are very few absolutes in the web performance world. In some cases, using a single monolithic JS file will be beneficial. In other cases, it will not._

Well, having the flexibility to dynamically load js-snippets is a good thing. I'm just saying that 99,9% of sites don't need that and would even harm their performance by implementing it that way.

 _where we have a single page (the search results page) which has millions of possible feature combinations that depend entirely on the results for a specific query, and which can even vary for different users searching for the same query. [...] many megabytes_

As said, how many sites have that?

My most javascript-heavy site makes excessive use of jquery.ui, 65 jquery plugins and ejscharts. The minified js-blob is 410kb + 100kb for ejscharts (ironically: minified using yui compressor).

Yes, that's pretty damn heavy, but we see no performance issues at all and I can only wonder what kind of javascript monster weighs in with multiple megabytes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to mention YUI 3.1 is released this week, 3/30/2010. On top of some new functionality, the development team is porting a lot of YUI2 widgets, fixing memory bugs, and cleaning up some of the abstraction.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am patiently waiting for YUI3 to finally reach the feature level of YUI2. I've used version 2 on a few projects and it was a pleasant experience all-in- all.

The only downsides were it was too heavy and too verbose.

I often resort to JQuery when i need DOM manipulation because its nowhere near as verbose as YUI2.

As for the too-heavy thing, it was a compromise because it provides one of the richest widgets in all JS libs out there.(plus YUI3's module system is supposed to help)

</comment><comment><USER6> Lots of people that have been using YUI2 will appreciate the new YUI3 modular concept. While using YUI2 if you wanted to use a basic version of a YUI widget/component you would have to include the all of that widget library. Now that has that behavior has changed and most of the widgets/components/modules have been divided in several smaller chunks that make sense. For example, YUI3 IO has io-base, io-xhr, io-form, io-queue etc. You could load any one of them depending you needs. No need to load all of IO.

YUI3 has chaining similar the jquery (not as clean, I think) which makes is less verbose and pleasant to write JS.

</comment><comment><USER7> YUI3 is much better than YUI2, and they learned a lot from jquery in making it expressive / terse. I even spent the better part of a week learning about YUI3 thinking I might use it instead of jquery. But then I found, and it's hard to explain exactly why, that I was much less productive with YUI3. I think that jquery is just so damn intuitive to use, I usually can guess how something will work. With YUI3 I was often left looking up something in the docs, or looking for an example (which wasn't so bad given YUI's excellent docs, but still, it's a hit when you can't just guess how something is going to work)

</comment><comment><USER8> YUI 3 has a very cool module system. I'm really looking forward to when jQuery provides $.require() so that it can do something similar.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Imagine for instance someone writes a little snippet of code that lets you use jquery plugins in YUI3."

Is that even really feasible?</comment>


Ask HN: What should I know before letting a domain lapse? - jake-low I have a domain I bought for a project which never got off the ground that expires soon. There's no website, email addresses, or services of any kind associated with it. Is there anything I should know before I let it expire? <comment><AUTHOR> A domain squatter will probably snag it immediately on the chance that the lapse was in error. At that point it will be expensive to get back, so make sure you won't change your mind.</comment>


Chrome extension to disable Newsfeed - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/derwiki/NoNewsIsGoodNews

<comment><USER2> Why?

<comment><AUTHOR> Facebook is useful for communication, but Newsfeed is often a big waste of time that makes people feel worse ([http://www.economist.com/news/science-and- technology/2158359...](http://www.economist.com/news/science-and- technology/21583593-using-social-network-seems-make-people-more-miserable-get- life)). This is a compromise in the middle.</comment></comment>


This is your brain on pumpkin pie - <AUTHOR> http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2016/11/this-is-your-brain-on-pumpkin-pie.html <comment><USER2> Growing up in the US, I regularly ran a 4 mile race on Thanksgiving morning called the _Turkey Trot_ and I usually ate at least two or three pieces of pumpkin pie. To these days, the rare times I can find it, it's an incredible treat. I even grew my own pumpkins for a few years.

This is _my_ brain on pumpkin pie: (/^▽^)/

And to directly address the article, I was much thinner then than I have been in my post-pumpkin pie-eating days. There's a natural rhythm to life—both the fasting and the feasting. My great-grandparents never joined in on the turkey trot before dinner, they always had pie and they stayed rail-thin. They just had other weeks where they didn't eat so much the rest of the time and it was usually bland stuff like oatmeal or mashed potatoes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Notable comment at the article - perhaps it would help to add a fast to go with the feast? The problem in that idea is mainly that fasts generally go with some religious purpose, dropped easily from common practice if the religion falls out of favor, while people are generally up for a feast without needing much meaning.</comment>


'Lost' 70-minute interview with Steve Jobs coming to select theaters in November - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/11/05/lost_70_minute_interview_with_steve_jobs_coming_to_select_theaters_in_november_.html <comment><USER2> Isn't this taking the Steve worship just a wee bit too far?

<comment><USER3> Too far. People think that by watching Jobs interviews their gonna learn the secrets of a master guru. Geez, for that matter better watch documentaries on the Dalai Lama.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Sony is reportedly looking into producing a film based on the book. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the script for Academy Award-winning "The Social Network," is said to have been approached regarding the project._

I was waiting for a "Social Network"-esque movie announcement. This is the first hint. When I said that people would be reacting to Steve's death for weeks and weeks when the news broke my classmates didn't believe me.

This movie would be extremely hard to execute accurately, at least much more so than a movie about Facebook, which is barely historical. Granted it can't be worse than "Pirates of Silicon Valley." I wish people would just settle down with the tributes.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am a self confessed Apple fanboy, but I have no desire at all to pay to watch this in a theater. Hideous visual quality aside(remember it is restored from a VHS) it seems all but certain there's nothing in this I didn't already learn in the book. I might Netflix it if and when it's available but I'm not going to spend money for this.

</comment><comment><USER6> As much interest as there is in Steve and as interesting as his interviews typically are, I don't think there is a market for showing this in theaters for a fee. It's not really clear which crass business person is behind this. If it was truly PBS, I doubt this would be the way it would be brought to the public.

<comment><USER7> It's Cringely:

 _After Jobs died, Sen went looking for the interview because he thought it would be interesting to watch. He dropped Cringely a line telling him of his find and suggested that perhaps Cringely could put it on his technology blog I Cringely as a "gift to the world."

"He didn't see any commercial value in it," Cringely said. "I have three kids I have to put through college, so I thought maybe we could sell it."_

[http://www.latimes.com/news/la-mobile-steve-jobs-lost- interv...](http://www.latimes.com/news/la-mobile-steve-jobs-lost- interviews,0,5205468.story)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are you kidding? They're airing an hour-long VHS tape in theaters? Even animated movies are longer than that.

<comment><USER9> And when they don't make any money, they'll blame the pirates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> wow, who in their right mind would pay to go to that?

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's 50 mins of it: [http://9to5mac.com/2011/11/04/a-incredible-50-minute- steve-j...](http://9to5mac.com/2011/11/04/a-incredible-50-minute-steve-jobs- interview-you-probably-havent-seen-including-out-takes/)

<comment><USER12> That's an earlier interview. Parts of the 1995 interview that is planned to be shown in theaters, can seen here [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221185/Video_Steve_J...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9221185/Video_Steve_Jobs_one_on_one_the_95_interview?pageNumber=2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this the video? [http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/01/steve-jobs-interview- from-199...](http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/01/steve-jobs-interview-from-1995/) it's complete there.

</comment><comment><USER14> Anybody know which theaters this will be released in?

<comment><USER15> There's a list of theaters in the linked source article:

[http://moviecitynews.com/2011/11/steve-jobs-the-lost- intervi...](http://moviecitynews.com/2011/11/steve-jobs-the-lost-interview/)

The Landmark site also has specific showtimes per-theater:

[http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=...](http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=112547)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is the full interview video: [http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/11/02/watch-steve-jobs- disc...](http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/11/02/watch-steve-jobs-discuss- apple-technology-and-his-life-in-this-1995-interview/)

edit:

It was watchable a week ago, but now you have to register I guess?

<comment><USER17> I don't think that's the same video that Cringely is releasing.

<comment><USER16> Why do you say that? They're both from the same year and nearly the same length.</comment></comment></comment>